Fenny woke as she felt Brad slip into bed beside her. His warm skin brushed against hers and she rolled over to face him. She noted the clock behind him was glowing in luminous green – 2am.

“Hi stranger,” she mumbled.

“Sorry I woke you,” Brad whispered.

“I’m sure I’ll survive,” Fenny breathed and pressed her body against his and placed several soft kisses on his shoulder.

“Sweetie, I’m tired,” Brad grumbled and turned over.

“You’re always bloody tired,” Fenny huffed.

“I’ve had a long day,” Brad mumbled.

“I’ve had three pretentious actors whining at me, a director that informed me an entire backdrop was the wrong shade of mauve, and all I’ve wanted is to be with you,” Fenny cooed, snuggling into Brad’s back, her arms wrapping around his waist.

“Go to sleep, sweetie,” Brad sighed.

Fenny felt her whole body recoil. How could he be so cold and reject her like that? She’d done everything to be with him, apart from handcuffing him to the bed, although at that moment she was beginning to think maybe Ritza had had the right idea. A grin spread across Fenny’s face in the dark. Perhaps the only way to get through to Brad was to use force. She pushed him onto his back and straddled him beneath the sheets.

“Fen, what are you doing?” Brad gasped before Fenny engulfed him in a kiss. “Fen, sweetie, I’m trying to sleep,” he gasped as Fenny’s lips moved from his mouth to his neck, then down his chest. She trailed kisses to the band of his boxer shorts and then stopped. In one quick movement she removed his boxers and chucked them across the room. They landed precariously on top of a jade Buddha. Then Fenny brought her lips back to his. She felt Brad’s hands slide up her body and under her T-shirt. She didn’t bother waiting for him and removed it herself.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Brad panted as his hands went back to exploring her body. “But I like it,” he added, rolling over and pinning her to the bed.

“I miss you,” Fenny breathed as she ran her fingers down his back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his forehead against hers, before he lustfully brought his lips to hers again.

Gina looked at the clock. It was 5am, and she’d been awake since four. Her body soaked in the warmth of Greg’s. She gently slid out from his arms and out of bed, then grabbed a few clothes before sneaking into the bathroom. She showered quickly and pulled on her jeans and a jumper and ran a brush through her hair. She caught herself in the mirror and could see the guilt in her eyes.

Not hungry enough for breakfast, she grabbed a writing pad and a pen from the coffee table and wrote two letters: one for Paul in case he should come looking for her, and one for Greg. She placed Paul’s in an envelope and left it by the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. She dropped Greg’s on the pillow beside him and brushed her lips against his forehead.

She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, stopped only by Lewis who looked at her dejectedly. She bent down and picked him up. He roughly licked her eye and she had to muffle a giggle. “You idiot,” she breathed and gave him a final hug before she left.

“It’s 8:15, you’re listening to Triple M, and we’re asking people what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done with sauce…We’ve got Brenton on the line…”

“No we fucking don’t,” Greg grumbled and blindly fiddled with the switches on the radio and eventually managed to turn it off. He reached for his glasses and then remembered he didn’t actually know where they were. He slid out of bed and grabbed his underwear from across the room, and then found his glasses outside the door. He put them on and wandered back to the bed. It was the first time he noticed she wasn’t there. He saw the envelope, grabbed it and unfolded the letter.

Greg refolded the letter, feeling slightly annoyed that Paul had a key to Gina’s place and he didn’t. He slid back off the bed and grabbed his clothes, pulling them on wearily. Just as Greg did up the last of his shoelaces he heard the key in the lock. Could Gina be back? Was Moonstar picking up the cat herself?

“GENIE YOU HOME?”

Fuck, it was Paul. Greg looked for somewhere to hide and eventually chose the closet. He’d just managed to close the door when Paul wandered into the bedroom.

“Unmade bed?” Paul mused. “Must have been running late…that woman is more anal than…something really anal.”

Paul walked across the room and stopped in front of the closet. He turned to face it and Greg closed his eyes and prayed, the words ‘please fuck off’ going rapidly through his head. Paul’s footsteps soon disappeared out of the room and Greg let out a sigh of relief.

Paul sauntered into the kitchen and caught sight of the note of the table. “Oh crap…white envelopes are never good,” he sighed and took the letter into the living room, where he slumped on the lounge and unfolded it.

Fenny woke to the now familiar feeling of the empty bed beside her and felt instantly annoyed. After all her raunchy techniques to get close to Brad, and after what seemed like such a wonderful beginning, all in all, their love making had lasted no more than three and a half minutes. They hadn’t even cuddled after. He’d started snoring almost immediately. So, not only was Fenny feeling unsatisfied, unloved, confused and angry, she felt so dejected that she was actually thinking about the great sex she’d had with Greg. To be fair, that felt like eons ago, but the memories still made her tingle a little. She’d do just about anything for that kind of loving right now, well, apart from anything involving animals or corpses.

She slid out of bed and grabbed her T-shirt from the floor. As she pulled it on she noticed Brad’s shirt was still where he’d left it the night before. She picked it up from the floor and could smell his sickly sweet aftershave emanating from it. She really missed him, in every way possible – it wasn’t just sex. Fenny couldn’t even remember the last time that they’d spent the night on the couch watching d-grade movies, or even when they’d shared dinner.

There was another smell mixed in with the aftershave, one she couldn’t place. It was sort of musky, a soft smell. She had smelt it before, she just couldn’t place it.

The phone rang and Fenny was caught by surprise. She hurried into the living room and picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” she perked. There was nothing but the click of plastic and the dial tone. “That is really, really starting to annoy me,” Fenny huffed before realizing she was still holding Brad’s shirt. She slid the shirt on over her T-shirt and headed into the kitchen for breakfast.

On the table Brad had set out a plate with a rose across it, along with a glass and a butter knife. Fenny picked the rose up and gently touched the petals and smelt the flower’s sweet perfume. Maybe she was just being paranoid, she thought as the placed the rose back on the table and wandered to over to the fridge. She stopped when she noticed, scrawled on the “memo board” on the door, Brad had written:

I love you my little chicken

Fenny couldn’t help but giggle; yeah, she was just being paranoid.

It was nearly an hour before Greg found it quiet enough to move from the closet. He warily opened the doors and peered out. Paul wasn’t around so he quietly stepped out and closed them behind him. Greg tiptoed from the bedroom into the hallway and then through the living room. Paul had fallen asleep on the couch with the letter in one had, Gina’s favourite fluffy blue cushion in his arms, and Lewis was snuggled into him.

“Oh, that makes life easier,” Greg thought. There was nothing he could do but hope Paul looked after Lewis, besides which the cat was glaring at him and there was no way he was going near it.

Greg quietly unlocked the door and left the apartment, he was heading straight back to the hotel he’d booked into, but never stayed at the previous night.

Paul opened one eye. “Later Proops,” he mused and stroked Lewis.