How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints) by Kathy Lette (7 ebook reader .TXT) 📕

and time crawled by, one hour . . . two . . . it crossed my mind that I’d been looking out for Jazz’s welfare for so long I really required a clipboard and a white coat. Four crossword puzzles, three Mozart CDs and two packets of chocolate biscuits later, Jazz staggered onto the street, her clothes dishevelled, all wide-eyed and wild-haired. She looked like a haircare magazine reject.

‘Are you okay?’ I jumped out of the car, ready to pick up the pieces. ‘Shall I call the police?’

‘Only to tell them I’ve invented a new game: “Pin the Tongue on the Clit”.’ She suddenly leaped about as though auditioning for Riverdance. ‘Wow! OhmyGod. Wow! Wow! WOW!!’

‘Really? How were his teeth? Did he have a nice bum?’ Words tumbled out of me. ‘Do you feel guilty? Is the guilt eating you alive?’

‘Guilty? I feel euphoric!’ she said jauntily. What I’d taken for dismay was in actual fact a state of pure elation. The woman had the thrilled sense of achievement of a bungee jumper.

‘Christ. All those years at Catholic school taught me fuck all. The sin of omission is passing up sin! Do you know that I once sat next to George Clooney at a fundraiser? And he asked for my number?’

‘Men are like books. So many out there, so little time!’ Jazz grinned coyly. ‘Look, if the Good Lord hadn’t meant us to have affairs, She wouldn’t have given us lingerie.’ She twanged her stocking top as she got into the car. ‘Women are the new men! Oestrogen is the new testosterone!’ She punched the air.

‘Yeah. And bullshit is just the same old bullshit.’

‘Look,’ she justified, ‘it’s not a perfect set-up, but life isn’t perfect, is it? Will you cover for me tonight, if Studz asks . . .’

‘I dunno, Jazz. I hate lying. I—’

‘Otherwise,’ she grabbed my arm in a ferocious vice, ‘I’m going to turn into the kind of deranged woman who hatches abandoned bird eggs in her bra.’

‘Well, when you put it like that . . .’ Starting the engine, I kicked off my shoes and drove in my stockinged feet.

‘You know he shares the flat with a mate. Music student. Sooo cute. We could double date!’ she enthused as we crossed the inky Thames.

‘A student? I’m forty-bloody-four! I’m so old I’ve put Doctor Kevorkian’s number on my speed dial. Besides which, I’m married.’

‘You know, you really can’t blame Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina for wearying of their wearisome husbands. The only reason to get married is so that you can have furtive affairs . . . otherwise life would be so boring you’d have to get married!’ Jazz laughed mirthlessly.

For a moment I was partially persuaded by her nimble rationalizations. All those unhappy wives, rows and rows of battery hens, cooped up, hatching eggs in our terraced hutches, our bad-tempered, arrogant roosters strutting around on their matching, identically mown lawns. The predictability of it was so claustrophobic. I wanted to be free-range! To roam from home! To be taken in the wild . . . or perhaps backwards over the dustbins by Russell Crowe.

‘Hannah says that I should try to rekindle my passion with Rory. You know – afternoon liaisons . . .’

‘Ha! You can’t rekindle passion. I’m a chef and believe me, soufflés don’t rise twice. Besides, life, like cooking, is much more palatable when you deviate from the recipe. Come on a double date with me instead. Get in touch with your Inner Vixen!’

‘You’re really going to see him again?’

‘Good God, yes.’ Jazz beamed, humming gaily to herself. ‘Some mistakes are just too much fun to only make once. So forget rekindling passions, okay?’

‘Okay?’

‘Just remember, All Men Are Bastards And Evermore Shall Be So Unless They Are Orlando Bloom Who Is Crumpet. Got that?’

‘Got that.’

I thought of the way Rory had looked at me when we’d first got married. Of course, now he only looked at his pets like that. Maybe if I got fleas or foot rot he’d be more attentive. For the first six years, oh, how happy we’d been. But then, after the babies were born, he’d compartmentalized me. That was the trouble. Women love all day, all night; it garnishes the whole pizza of life. For men, it’s just one slice. Work, friends and sport comprise the other slices. But Jazz was right. Rekindling passion was a ridiculous idea. It was pointless trying to get back on my husband’s menu . . . Wasn’t it?

10. The Reason I Don’t Tell You When I’m Having an Orgasm Is Because You’re Never There

I was sitting astride my husband, pitching precariously like a retired rodeo rider. It was Saturday afternoon, the kids were at the cinema, the surgery had closed at one and we were ‘liaising’ to ‘rekindle our passion’.

I attempted another halfhearted kiss, avoiding Rory’s beery breath and quite possibly the food he had stuck between his teeth. I remembered fondly when we were drunk on nothing but excitement. The Annie Oakley routine was chafing so I dismounted, positioning myself robotically first this way, then that. It was not fore but boreplay; a total waste of leg waxing. I snorted with tedium – a noise Rory evidently mistook for a groan of passion as he then began tweaking this and twanging that. His touch felt as erotic as a wet shower curtain sticking to my body. My responses were automatic, like the reflexes of a knee when hit by a hammer. God. What had I become? A clam? Did all married couples go through this routine of pawing each other uselessly until one or other passed out? He persevered for another, oh, two seconds tops, then licked his finger to manufacture some moistness. It was then it struck me that I was truly miserable.

To bring about a rapid conclusion, I wet my own finger and tickled his prostate – a sexual shorthand learned by most bored and busy wives. Rory ejaculated with all the exhilaration of a burp.

As he showered, I lay in a bed which smelled of nothing but the meaninglessness