“You’re missing the point.” Liv tottered back to the sofa and threw herself down, a lot closer to Rosaline than she had to be. “The point is, if you were with a woman, you’d want the same things. You’d feel the same things. You’d be like . . . like two orchids. Growing on the same vine.”
“I think,” said Rosaline carefully, “you might be romanticising things ever so slightly. Bad sex is just bad sex, and I’ve had plenty of bad sex with women.”
“Well.” Alain reappeared, holding an even bigger tray. “I have missed an interesting conversation.”
“You really haven’t,” replied Rosaline, trying to once again communicate with her eyes, although in this case she was trying to communicate Your friend is being very strange and drunk. “Um, is there any water? Liv, do you want some water?”
Alain settled his tray on the coffee table and began unloading dishes. “So what we’ve got here is a field greens salad with peaches and prosciutto and a fig balsamic vinaigrette, chicken wings with mango-habanero glaze—I know it’s a little American, but I thought it might be fun to get sticky; do be careful, though, they’ve got a kick to them—sugar snap peas with handpicked mint, and stuffed mushrooms with walnut, Gorgonzola dolce, and black pepper.”
“Darling”—Liv leaned forward to pluck a mushroom—“you do know how to spoil us.”
Rosaline was feeling less spoiled and more sort of underfed. Also, Alain had not been exaggerating when he’d said there was a kick to the chicken wings—one bite and she was reaching for her wine.
“Anyway,”Alain began as he lowered himself into an armchair, “what was that about bad sex?”
It was a conversation Rosaline definitely wanted out of. “Just girl talk.”
He gave her what she thought was meant to be a playful look. “Keeping secrets from me already, are you?”
“No,” said Rosaline at the same time as Liv said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Alain held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of coming between you.”
“I was telling Rosaline,” went on Liv, regardless, “that I think, and we’ve had this conversation a hundred times, Alain, that being with a woman makes a lot more sense to me than being with a man.”
“And I was telling her,” interrupted Rosaline, “that there’s nothing special about women. I mean, not in a bad way. Just in a . . . they’re just people, and they can be great or shitty or the best you’ve ever had or the worst you’ve ever had. And usually, in my actually quite limited experience, they’re kind of in the middle like everyone else.”
“Rosaline”—Alain adopted a tone of mostly mock outrage—“is this your way of telling me I’m mediocre in bed?”
“What? No. I’m saying sex is what you make it.”
“Oh, Alain.” Liv licked chicken glaze from her fingertips. “You’ve got no cause for concern in that regard. You’re easily in my top ten. Probably in my top five. Don’t you think, Rosaline?”
Was she the only person who didn’t keep a score sheet on her clitoris? “Well”—she was about to explain that she’d only actually had sex with six people but decided it wasn’t worth the conversation—“yes, he’s definitely in my top ten.”
He smirked. “And her list has twice the competition.”
“I’m not sure it works like that.”
“Don’t take this away from me,” he told her, laughing. “You’re so much more adventurous than I am, I have to take what I can get.”
She put her wineglass down with a clink. “Please stop saying that. If I was as cool as all that, do you think I’d have told you I lived in Malawi?”
“This is the thing about Rosaline,” Alain explained to Liv, “she pretends she’s this terribly demure, terribly dull, terribly diffident little wallflower. But she’s got a secret wicked streak, and when she wants something she goes for it.”
“What I’m going for at the moment”—Rosaline really needed this evening to start heading in a radically different direction—“is winning a baking competition on the BBC.”
“You see?” Alain and Liv seemed to be exchanging a significant look. “You should show Liv your butterflies.”
Okay. This had gone from weird to worrying. Two old friends getting drunk and indiscreet, and wanting to talk about sex like teenagers, she could understand—even if it wasn’t what she’d signed up for. And honestly, she liked her tattoos and was usually happy to show them to people if she felt comfortable enough to talk about them. But there was a difference between I’ve got tattoos / Can I see them / Yes and Take your top off in front of my drunk friend.
“Do you mind if I don’t?” she asked. “We’re trying to have dinner.”
Liv looked up from her wineglass. “Oh, I don’t mind. Alain’s told me all about them—he says they’re beautiful. And you know I’ve never had the courage to do anything like that myself.”
“Maybe another time?”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” Alain said soothingly. “Nobody’s judging. We’re all friends here.”
“I don’t feel judged.” Rosaline edged along the sofa away from Liv. “I just don’t feel like taking my clothes off.”
At which point Liv rose, with what was probably supposed to be graceful fluidity but was more a lurch. “We don’t want to do anything to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“Oh good.”
“I’ll go first.”
“Wait. What—”
Liv’s immaculate black dress was already on the floor, revealing her equally immaculate, equally black lingerie, and everything that went with it. Rosaline glanced wildly at Alain to see how he was taking this. “In his stride” seemed to be the answer. Which was not comforting.
“Err, Liv,” said Rosaline, feeling at once too drunk and too sober. “I think you should probably get dressed.”
“Just when we’re getting to know each other?”
This was what Rosaline imagined defusing a bomb must be like: she didn’t want to be here, she had no idea what she was doing, and there was a really good chance it was going to blow up in her face. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve given the wrong impression, but I’d be way happier if this stayed a drinking-wine-and-chatting type evening. Rather than a, y’know, getting-naked type evening.”
“Oh come on.” Alain also stood up, making Rosaline suddenly aware of how difficult it would be to get out of the room. “You must admit she’s a beautiful woman. Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Rosaline?”
“I mean, obviously. But—”
All at once, her lap was full of Liv. And Liv was kissing her. And Alain was watching Liv kiss her and not in an Oh dear, my drunk friend is embarrassing herself way. Since she couldn’t remove Liv without throwing her on the floor or putting her hands places that could well be interpreted as encouraging, Rosaline was reduced to turning her face away in a vain attempt to signal she wasn’t into this.