Chapter 7 - Conservatory Shenanigans pt.1

Thursday

“Jim, you know how what I do is kind of weird?” Lia asked as we sat in her living room, a Chekhovian box on the coffee table as we sipped iced flavoured tonic waters. I know, they sound an odd thing to drink, but when it’s hot and you don’t want to drink, they are really quite refreshing, especially when served with ice, slices of lemon and orange and, in Lia’s case, no bra, only her bikini panties.

“Weird? Which part?” I teased as a dewdrop of condensation fell from her glass, just missing Rightie. Next time, I thought.

“Not this, not me sitting her topless. This is normal for you and me,” she grinned as she gave a little shimmy, the droplet now trying to make it down her belly before it was no more. “No I mean the weird as in the whole plushie’n’furry photo business.”

“You think that weird?”

Lia smiled. “Not a normal job, is it?”

“And sitting in an office in front of a computer, that’s ‘normal’?” I asked, that being what I do for a living, a minor wheel in the outsourced creation of minor assets for sometimes no so minor computer games.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, but maybe ‘weird’ should be ‘unconventional’ or simply ‘uncommon’?”

Lia shrugged. “You’re probably right, but that wasn’t what I was asking. That was just me warming up a bit before I get to the real question.”

“Which is?”

“Well, now we’ve established how ‘uncommon’ what I do is? Well, what’s in that box took ‘uncommon’ and jammed it in a blender with a bottle of absinthe.”

“You drink absinthe?”

Lia shuddered. “No thanks? Mad poets and brains of mush. If I want my brain mushing, you’re the guy I call for. No, what I mean is, take my ‘unconventional’ cottage industry and then swizzle it in a lot of alcohol, and only then does it sort of even start to make sense.”

“Did you pay extra for all the heavy lifting that metaphor is doing right now?”

“Dumbass.”

“Okay, so whatever you’re thinking is weird is something in the box? Another gift from an admirer?”

Lia nodded. “They subbed Patreon, bought my Miss Puzzle Stone Wall photo, and then this arrived in the post this morning.”

“And you’re sure it’s the same person?”

“Oh it’s them all right. No doubts there. Go ahead, see what they sent me,” she said, sitting back a little and giving me space.

Guessing whatever was in the box was somehow catgirl related, I opened the lid and sure enough, there amongst the plastic peanuts was a set of ears and a tail, all in a tabby pattern but dark green, like British Racing Green of all things. A very English catgirl, then. The ears were longer and more narrow than Miss Puzzle’s and had black hair inside and black tufts coming up from the tops, making them less feline and more animal, a little like an elegant lynx, maybe. The tail was shorter and fluffier than Miss Puzzle’s, a fox’s tail compared to that of a panther, say, and it was slightly articulated, making it poseable in ways Miss Puzzle’s tail could only dream of.

I couldn’t see how that was weird enough for Lia to call it out as such. Variation on a slightly established theme, certainly, but not so different to qualify as weird, at least no as far as I could see unless Lia meant the tail of course.

Ah catgirl tails. All of them, seemingly, attached to some form or another of buttplug. Fitting Miss P’s tail had been difficult enough for Lia who really didn’t go for anything going there, but this would be a lot worse, I could see. Rather than a simple stretched lozenge shape, this new tail was attached to a buttplug that looked like a fused set of three anal beads. Thank God it, too, wasn’t green in colour or it would have looked like a gooseberry kebab.

“Very well made. Nice quality,” I said, the fur being such good faux I wondered how much rabbit it might actually have been.

“It is,” Lia chuckled as she took the tail from me, stroking it against her cheek a moment before popping it back in the box; the ears, too.

“So you’ve decided that being sent catgirl sets and asked to dress up and get photographed in them, that the weird thing?” I asked, eliminating possibilities as they didn’t feel right at all.

“Sort of. I mean yes, that is kind of weird, but OnlyFans girls and Patreon girls getting gifts’n’shit? Even asking for them? And I mean serious money stuff? Nope, that’s not the weird. It’s the who, not the what,” she explained, smiling in that ‘I know something’ way that is infuriating in someone who isn’t as cute as Lia.

“So you know who it’s from?”

Lia nodded. “Oh yeah. None other than a certain Mr. Remmington Capell.”

I didn’t get it. “Capell? As in Miss Eulàlia Capell? So the weird is their surname is the same as yours?” I asked, floundering around with not enough information to get what Lia was going for.

“Sort of. He’s one of my oldest subs. In fact he’s been a toptier for as long as I’ve been doing this.”

“I’m sensing there’s an ‘and’... ?”

“I usually call him ‘Pop’,” Lia grinned, dropping her conversational hand-grenade.

“You call... oh!”

“Yeah. He’s Remy, you know, like how your grandfather was Sid, but usually he’s Pop. Remember we were joking about it, about him being a toptier and what I do? Well now he’s gone and sent me ears and a tail, and there was a letter, too. I don’t know if he’s role-playing the whole ‘kinky anonymous subscriber’ thing or what but he asked me to, and this is a direct quote here, that I should ‘have fun making more photos, please’. Jim, he wants me to have fun sticking that up my arse and being his catgirl!”

“You’re sure that’s what he meant? You did look like you were having fun as Miss Puzzle.”

“I was. I did,” Lia agreed. “But you’ve seen it! I, I just can’t,” she said, actually shuddering.

“Can’t you change that part?”

“I guess I can try. Maybe they screw off or something? But why does Pop want me sticking that up my arsehole, and then you taking nudes of me with that up my arsehole so everyone will see me as a green tabby catgirl with that jammed up my arsehole?” Lia asked, making clear where her objection lay. Or went. “I mean yeah, they’d be for sale on Patreon but still. That?”

“You asked him?”

“Not yet.”

“So you’re planning on asking him?”

Lia smiled. “We could, and very soon.”

It took me a moment to get it. “We? Who we?”

“We we, dumbass. You don’t want to meet my Pop?” Lia asked, eyebrow arched, smirk firmly in place.

“I, er, I hadn’t given it any thought, and now? This? Won’t that make it more...”

“Fun? Exactly!” Lia smiled, much too pleased with herself about something else, I was sure.

And I was right.

“So if that’s ‘we’, what’s ‘soon’?” I asked as I walked up to the gallows.

Lia grinned. “Pop’s also sent me another email, you know, one of the normal dad’n’daughter kind, inviting us down to his place for a long weekend over the Bank Holiday.”

“Sounds nice,” I said cautiously.

“Oh it is. He lives in a converted farmhouse.”

“A converted farmhouse. Isn’t that just a farmhouse?”

Lia shook her head. “Not really. When he retired and after there was just him’n’me, we moved out to the country, he found an old farmhouse, sold most of the land, and had the farmhouse done up. Don’t look like that, he’s not rich or anything like that, he just got a good deal, invested some in the house, and since he’s out in the sticks but the home counties, dahling, it wasn’t so expensive. It’s not like he’s got a pool or anything.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Though he does have a sauna and a jacuzzi in the detached conservatory he had built...” Lia grinned. “So, you okay to drive us down on Friday?”

“This Friday? Tomorrow, Friday?” I asked, Lia spinning me like a plate on a stick, certainly quicker than I could keep up with.

Lia nodded. “Well Bank Holiday’s Monday so...”

“You want to go this weekend?” I checked, still trying to assimilate daughter, nude model, catgirl tail.

Lia grinned. “If we go tomorrow after you’re done at work we can make a really long weekend of it.”

I thought about it for a moment. I’d nothing planned, we’d nothing planned, and it did sound like Remy had a nice little thing going on. Plus there was the obvious. “Okay, I mean it had to happen sometime, so sure, let’s go ‘meet Pop’. Is there anything I should know? Do? Ask? Not ask? Bring?”

“Relax, it’s not a ‘meet the anything’, just a weekend down in the country with Remy. Seriously, stop panicking, remember to breathe regularly, and you’ll be fine,” she teased. “Plus I might appreciate a little moral support.”

“Oh?”

Lia grinned as she gently shook the box of ears’n’tail. “Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? You know that land he sold off? We’re talking like farmer’s fields. Anyway, someone planted trees there so, y’know, bring the DSLR and your Leica...”

Friday

“Lia?” I said as we got out of town and onto quieter roads requiring less concentration from me and less interruptions from the SatNav.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something, but first I need to tell you something?”

“Ooh, sounds ominous.”

“Sorry, wasn’t meant to.”

“Okay, go ahead, and even if it is onimous,” she sic’d. “I promise I’ll be brave. Can’t promise I won’t scream, but if I do I’ll try to make sure it’s only just a little.”

“Can’t ask better than that. Okay, so you know I’ve been going through the negatives Sid left to me?”

“You found some new kinky shit?” Lia asked excitedly.

I chuckled. “That kind of depends on how you look at it, but no, I don’t think it’s ‘kinky shit’, but I think it might be some kind of weird shit.”

“Ooh, not kinky but still weird? Okay, I’ll take it. Whatcha got, mister?”

“That’s it. I’m not sure, but I am sure I need a second opinion about what I’ve found. I might be wrong about this and the photos might not be in the order I think they’re in even though I’ve found that every now and then Sid had slipped a note with dates in between some of the strips, but I think I’ve found the last photo Sid took of Deke.”

“And that’s not a kinky shit shot? You mean he’s dressed?” Lia asked, disappointed that he might be.

I smiled. “Dressed? No, he’s not dressed, but don’t think kinky, think more of a puzzle. At least I think it might be.”

“Nude Deke puzzle. Okay, you’ve got my attention’n’shit, so what’s the photo?”

“It’s a photo of Fenna and Deke, both nude, Fenna’s suckling my Dad, and Deke’s cradling her in his arms.”

“Sounds very... oh,” Lia said as the penny dropped.

I nodded. “Yeah, ‘oh’ is a word for it. It’s a really tender photo, so much so it took me a long minute to notice they were nude, they were both nude. I’ve never thought Sid was not my Dad’s dad, but the way Deke is holding them...”

“Made you wonder?” Lia asked softly.

“A bit. Actually, it’s made me wonder a lot. I know it might be posed and they might be staging the whole thing and I don’t know either of them anywhere near enough to know if they were any kind of actors, but we know there was a lot of affection between the three of them, we’ve seen it especially between Fenna’n’Deke and not just the boning photos, actually it’s more obvious in the non boning photos. Here’s the thing, but if it’s what I think it might be, then it would explain a lot about how Dad was never all that close to Sid.”

“He wasn’t?”

I shook my head.

“Oh wow. You thinking there’s a reason for that and you think that’s the reason?” Lia asked.

I nodded.

“Er, Jim? I’ve not met your Dad and I’ve not seen a photo. Er, how do I ask this?” she asked, anxious what to say.

“No need. I know what you’re tiptoeing around. No, if Deke is his father, there’s nothing obvious to give it away.”

“Oh.”

“But, I also did a little looking into things. It’s not that common, but if Deke was my grandfather, my Dad might not show it. Or me. And we don’t.”

“Really? That’s a thing?”

I nodded. “I used Google Scholar, read some reports, and it’s not that rare and certainly not impossible.”

“Wow. So you might be Deke’s grandson?”

I nodded again. “Yeah. I mean Sid’n’Dad? I always thought it was just personalities not meshing, but now? Lia, what if Sid wasn’t my grandfather?”

Lia shook her head. “Sorry, but you’re wrong there. Okay I get what you’re saying Mister Science of Genetics, but nope, Sid was definitely your grandfather.”

“You sound very sure of that?”

“I am. Okay, so maybe your genetics might not be how you thought they were, but from everything you’ve told me, Sid did everything a grandfather’s meant to do. So even if he’s not your grandfather - and you’ve only that photo plus your Dad clashing with him - but even if he isn’t, he also is.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“Welcome. Why thanks?”

“I don’t want to not be Sid’s grandson.”

“Don’t worry. You are. When we get back? Show me the photo?”

“Of course. Thinking you might see it differently?”

Lia nodded. “They’re not family to me, so I might see something you’re not seeing. Plus ... he did have a really impressive cock. So I’d need to check all of those too. For, er, science”

I chuckled. “You can’t see it in this photo.”

“You said, but I really should be thorough. I mean, what’s a girlfriend supposed to do to support her boyfriend?” Lia teased.

“Other than look through photos of his possible grandfather, even photos of said possible grandfather boning his grandmother?”

“Exactly!” Lia chuckled.

“There’s a bit more to all of this.”

“More? So there are more cock photos? Goody. Girl likes to look even if she’d never go there. I still don’t know how Fenna did. I thought Sid took that ‘too much’ joke shot showing she couldn’t?”

“I don’t think it was really what it looked like,” I said. “You remember that photo?”

Lia nodded enthusiastically. “Seared into my brain. That was a lot of cock.”

I chuckled. “It was. Okay, so I had another look, and if you weren’t looking at his cock–” Lia interrupted me with a raspberry “–and if you were looking at how he was sitting, you could see Deke was sitting way up over her fanny, much higher up than in their boning shots...”

“Ooh, so if he was in the ‘proper’ place, you could see it was still a mightily impressive cock, but it would go?”

“Those other photos showed it did.”

“I know. I thought it was a lens’n’angles thing.”

I smiled. “Might not have been the only trick they pulled.”

“Hmm. Jury’s out on that but doesn’t matter. Just one thing, though. Deke? How was he around your Dad?”

“And now we get back to the interesting stuff. Even though I was a kid, he still sent a card to Dad for Christmas and his birthday. He also never missed sending me a card. And gifts. And we’re not talking little gifts, either. Couple of CDs, a game for my console, that kind of... oh shit.“

“Jim?”

“Funny how you don’t think about things that happened to you when you were a kid, isn’t it, as though it was all natural’n’normal? So the thing was I was eight I got my first proper bike for my birthday. Not adult sized of course, but it looked like an adult’s bike and wasn’t painted with Transformers or whatever. Anyway, the bike was from Mum’n’Dad, and Sid’n’Fenna got me all the rest of the stuff, you know, helmet, lights, even some kid’s proper cycling shorts. The thing is, Deke also chipped in too. And they were nice things too, not Halford’s tat.”

“Ah,” Lia said quietly.

“Yeah. Ah. Never put the pieces together until now.”

Lia nodded. “You’re sure you’re not putting the jigsaw together from the wrong photo?”

I sighed. “I wish I knew, and I don’t see who I can ask. Dad’s never said anything to me, and he was pretty cut up when Sid died, so either I’m wrong or he doesn’t know.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, but I think you’re right. Sid was my grandfather in every way except maybe one, and I’m not sure that one was the one that mattered the most.”

Lia smiled as she put her hand softly on my thigh, careful not to distract me as I drove. “Jim, I promise you, you’re Sid’s grandson, and you’re absolutely Fenna’s grandson. Those eyebrows? You can only inherit those you lucky bugger. So you’re Sid’s grandson and Fenna’s grandson and maybe you’re Deke’s grandson, too. So what? Pretty sure you’re not the first or the last this kind of thing has ever happened to, you just happen to have two grandfathers on your father’s side.”

“Maybe so, but there is one thing that’s different in my case.”

“What’s that?”

“I might be the first who’s got photos of it happening,” I joked, both of us laughing as any tensions there might have been went right out the window.

“Dumbass,” Lia chided. “But anyway, I think it’s kind of sweet, and whatever and wherever the truth of it is, it’s a hell of a story you’ve got there.”

“That it is.”

“But seriously, when we get back, now I really want another look at those photos. Who would have thought that looking at photos of a big black cock would count as genetic research?” she asked, making us chuckle again as we headed off to Remy’s.

It was a little after 7pm when we pulled up outside the front door of the farmhouse where Remy lived and where Lia had grown up. Enid Blyton would have envied their set up. A modest three storey structure built of brick’n’moss, there was a small lawn to the front of the house and what looked like a generous walled garden to the rear, the sides of which were quite a lot wider than the farmhouse itself. To the sides and surrounding the gravel-packed path up from the B road there were, indeed, trees. Many trees. Many sizes, many ages, and offering many opportunities for Lia to go ‘full dryad’ at some point over the weekend, maybe even more than once. It may have begun as a farmhouse, but there was now also something of the ‘house in the woods’ to it. Not spooky, simply hidden away and keeping to itself. It was secluded, characterful, and charming, and I couldn’t imagine a better place for Lia to have grown up in.

I’d only just pulled the car to a halt when the door of the farmhouse opened and Remy walked out, waving cheerily with one hand, and leaning slightly on a cane with the other. He was quite tall, with a mop of thick blond hair and the same pale colouration as Lia, making me wonder if there was something Scandinavian in their ancestry. He was also brightly dressed in slate green trousers, a darker green shirt, and what looked like a bright red tee-shirt underneath, all of it smart looking.

“Eulàlia!” he called as Lia was getting out of the car.

“Pop!” Lia screamed as she dashed into his arms, hugging him like she’d not seen him in far too long a time, and with a wink in my direction, kissing him far more affectionately than I’d anticipated. It wasn’t exactly ‘with tongues’ but it was absolutely on the lips and unhurried. No mistaking Lia as anything other than a daddy’s girl.

“And you must be Jim,” Remy smiled as Lia put him down. A little. For now.

Jim not James? So Remy, not Remington, then, I decided. “Remy,” I said, giving the clichéd man-to-man nod as I headed for the boot for our overnight cases and neatly sidestepping a potential faux pas. None of that forced formality for Mister Capell.

“Jim? Let me help,” Lia said as she skipped over and carefully picked up the camera case, the Leica and the DSLR now room-mates.

“I think you’ve had another growth spurt,” Remy teased as I closed the boot and we headed up to the door.

“Have not!” she ‘corrected’ as she bobbed her tongue out at him, much to his amusement. “How’s the ankle?” she asked softly, serious.

“Oh, you know how it is. Sometimes it’s cranky. And right now it’s cranky, hence this bloody thing,” he said regretfully, lightly stamping his cane for emphasis. “Ask me again in a couple of days.”

“Er, where should I take these?” I asked as I wheeled our overnights up to where Lia had gone on a little ahead as was standing, lighting swinging Remy’s hand in hers as though she was a little afraid to let go of him for any period of time.

“Lia? You can show him your old room?”

“You mean the ‘guestroom’?”

“I do, but when you’re here, it’s your old room again, and when did I last have guests?”

“The Wicker Man Society meeting somewhere else?” Lia teased.

Remy smiled. “Lia, I told you, we meet at the pub every third Friday.”

“Isn’t today a third Friday?”

“Is it? I suppose they’ll just have to find someone else to take the minutes then. When you’re done, cider’n’sandwiches in the garden? Jim?”

“Sounds lovely,” I said. We’d had a quick dinner before setting off, but I hadn’t eaten much as I had the driving to do, so something extra would be very welcome.

“Splendid but please, don’t take too long. This heat’s enough to give a man a thirst,” Remy joked as Lia let go, allowing him to head off into the kitchen, I presumed, to make the necessary preparations.

“Top floor?” I suggested.

“Of course, top floor and on the left” Lia nodded as we stepped inside and she led us up the dogleg stairs, past a couple of doors, one clearly marked ‘bathroom’ and the other unmarked, before we arrived at ‘Lia’s Room’.

“In here?” I asked as Lia opened the door for me and we stepped inside. “Wow, this is nice.”

“Thanks,” Lia smiled as I looked around her old room. Think French rural chic and you’re pretty much there, lots of old stripped painted wood, some nice cottons on the bed, and waxed bare boards. “I used to pretend I was in an old French film,” she explained. “We used to watch them a lot, Pop’n’me. We couldn’t move to France, but this was the next best thing. Remy asked me how I wanted my room, and I went a bit Truffaut.”

“Truffaut was a rural film maker?” I asked as we parked the overnights in a handy spot and Lia put the camera bag down on the dressing table’s chair.

“No, just the first name that came to mind,” she grinned. “Actually I was going for Milou en Mai,” she sighed. “Wow, I’ve not watched that in a long time.

“Good?”

Lia chuckled. “Very French and not very #MeToo.”

“Maybe when we get back... ?”

Lia smiled. “I’d like that. Now come on, let’s go drink cider and get fat on Pop’s sandwiches,” she said as she led us out to the garden behind the farmhouse.

“That’s a garden, all right,” I said as we stood there for a moment, shielding our eyes as I took it all in. Wider than the farmhouse by a bigger margin than I’d realised, and maybe two cricket pitches in length or more, not only was this the most lawn I’d seen that wasn’t a football pitch, but it had the stripes, too. Abutting the far wall and with a door in between them leading were a pair of greenhouses which looked to be full of vegetables of various kinds. The wall to the left was pretty extensively obscured by ranks of flowers in all colours, though their heights were much more managed, starting small and ending with sunflowers. And on the wall to the right was the famous conservatory, larger than I’d pictured, doors closed and roller blinds down.

“Ah! There you are. Join me in the shade?” Remy said as he sat at one of the four chairs around a wooden garden table, unlabelled bottles of cider stuck into a small planter that had been filled with ice, and the whole overshadowed by a large dark umbrella coming up through the centre of the table. “Forgive me not getting up,” he said as he lightly tapped his cane where it was tucked down the side of his chair.

“Don’t be silly, Pop,” Lia said as we sat down and she passed me a glass and a bottle.

“Local cider?” I guessed as I unstoppered the bottle and poured it carefully into the glass, handing it to Lia as she passed me mine.

“About five miles from here,” Remy said. “This is the first of the summer so it might be a little sharp, but that just adds to the refreshment. I was fortunate enough and managed to snag a couple of cases to tide me over until autumn’s crop.”

I took a sip. “That’s ... quite something.”

“Like drinking a slap in the face,” Remy chuckled as we silently toasted each other and took a further drink. Like most things, the second mouthful was much easier on the palate. “I would caution to sip your drinks, however.”

“Strong?” I asked.

Remy smiled. “They don’t admit how strong it really is, I hear they go through a lot of hydrometers, but it can certainly give you a headache in the afternoon.”

“The afternoon?”

Remy nodded. “You are incapable of getting out of bed the next morning.”

“Ouch! I’ll keep it in mind,” I smiled.

“So, are you ready for the ‘what are your intentions’ conversation?” Remy asked.

“No. I was told this wasn’t that kind of a weekend,” I said as I looked sidelong at Lia, who was grinning reassuringly.

“Good answer. It isn’t. Don’t believe in them because you wouldn’t be here if Lia had any kind of a problem with you. So then, Lia, ready for me to embarrass you over your childhood misdemeanours?”

“I was a good girl!” Lia protested.

“Shouldn’t your father be the judge of that?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No way. You love me far too much to be objective, you know that.”

Remy chuckled. “She does have a point.”

“So allowing how this is all going to be highly subjective, what are the highlights of her misbegotten childhood?” I asked.

“Hey!” Lia gasped. “You’re meant to be on my side.”

“And so I am, but don’t you think my knowing more about you would help me love you more?”

“Grr, damn that slippery tongue of yours,” she ‘complained’, thankfully realising as I did that making eye contact on that comment would not end well, both of us looking about as far away from the other as we could reasonably manage.

Remy smiled at our interaction, letting it all slide by, asking, “Lia? You think Jim is made of strong enough material to endure the story of the tampon?”

“God no!”

“Perfect,” Remy chuckled. “With there just being the two of us here, that meant that I had to ‘deputise’ for some aspects of Lia’ upbringing. I sat her down for The Talk as soon as she was old enough to understand, and also The Return Of The Talk when she was old enough and mature enough to understand more than she had when she was younger. I also had to have The Period with her, warning her ahead of time and preparing her for it. This meant we went shopping together for ‘women’s things’ and returned home with both pads and tampons, so she could see which she was most comfortable with. The pads Lia was able to understand easily of course, but when she took a tampon out to examine it, in all seriousness she turned and asked me, ‘Pop, what do I tie it to?’”

“I was joking!” Lia protested as I tried to only laugh politely. I didn’t feel any shin kicking, so I guess I was successful.

Remy shook his head. “And do you know the worst part, Jim?”

“What’s that?”

“To this day I still have no idea what she thought she could tie it to.”

“I could think of a place or two now,” Lia muttered darkly.

“Such naughty child at times too,” Remy said, lifting his glass in salute, Lia following a moment later.

“Maybe I should tell a story back?” Lia suggested.

“I have been nothing but a paragon of fatherhood,” Remy insisted.

“Oh? What about that time I found–”

“Lia. Do you think that is quite the thing which Jim, who has known me mere minutes, should learn?” Remy hastily interrupted.

“Sorry, Pop.”

Remy smiled. “Jim? I take it you are not easily surprised by the peccadilloes of others?”

“Depends on the peccadillo.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, this one is quite harmless I assure you. Lia, I think you can continue with your revenge story.”

“Pop! It’s not a revenge thing.”

“No?”

“Okay, maybe a little, but it’s just a funny story, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps we might ask James that, after?”

“So I can tell it?” Lia checked. Remy nodded, so she began. “Thing is, growing up under the thumb of patriarchy, this meant that when I wanted any clothes, it was always a trip with Pop. That was okay when I was a kid, but then I wasn’t a kid any more and I was getting old enough to not want to keep on wearing ‘school knickers’ any more. Pop agreed I was ‘of an age to move on’, and I guess he thought he was being all progressive’n’shit when he told me it was okay if I wanted to get some thongs. I said no. He asks why not, aren’t they all the rage dahling, things like that, and so there I am sitting at the kitchen table and explaining to my Pop that I never have and never intend ever shaving my fanny, and that’s why I can’t wear a thong - because I don’t want to have a hairy fringe.”