The vicious pounding of techno music stopped and nearly sent Gina reeling; she was exhausted and it was only the thump of bass through her body that kept her upright anymore, and its sudden absence shocked her body. She glanced up at Paul with a smile. He was still dancing to no music, most likely for fear if he stopped he’d not be able to start again. “Where on earth do you get all that energy from?” she chuckled over the noise of their fellow club goers.

“Dunno,” he shrugged. “Just do.” He grabbed her hands in his and tried to get her to dance with him some more. A slow song came over the speakers and Gina smiled. Paul seemed disappointed until she wrapped her arms around him and they began moving together. She leaned her head against his chest and tried to stifle a yawn. “Not tired are you?” he asked.

“It’s nearly 5 am, Paul. That’s in the morning. And while it’s been a blast recreating our first date and all—”

“With the added fun of faked up body mutilations,” he reminded her, gently squeezing her rear for added emphasis.

“Especially that,” she smiled up at him. “In spite of the fun, I think we’re getting too old for this.”

“Don’t be stupid, we’re not,” he paused a moment and Gina could tell from the strange squeak he gave that he was trying valiantly not to yawn, “too old.”

“No, just too tired. I mean the sun’ll be coming up soon.”

“After this song, hey?” Gina smiled at him and rested her cheek against his shoulder as she shuffled on the dance floor with him. “Does this mean you’re not up to letting me—”

“No,” she giggled.

“But I thought we’d agreed that since your arse is mine now I could do whatever I—”

“No.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Idiot.”

“I’m too tired to be witty,” he declared, kissing the top of her head.

“Told you so.” Gina smiled against his shirt.

“You really surprised me when you showed up in my class last night,” Fenny mused as she placed another sleepy kiss on his chest. They’d enjoyed their first sleep in since Lilly had moved in, and Fenny wasn’t planning on getting out of bed until it came time to go to work, while Brad was considering getting up soon for some breakfast, or an early lunch, depending on one’s perspective.

“I wanted to prove that I do care about what you do and I think your job is important,” he answered, rubbing a hand gently over her back.

“It was sweet.”

“What’s on the agenda for the next lesson?”

Fenny looked up at him curiously. “You’re not planning on coming to class again, are you?” she smiled.

“Why, don’t you want me to?”

“You’ve proven your point, you don’t really need to.”

“No, it was fun. Freaky ‘cause I was staring at a naked man, and frustrating ‘cause I’m not any good, but fun.”

“Aw, it’s not that you’re no good, you just haven’t had the practice.”

“Can I practice on you?” he asked in a sultry voice.

“Nope,” she said firmly, giggling at his pout. “I know you, Brad, and if you got a drawing of me in the nude you’d show it off to all your friends, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” he said innocently. “Well, maybe Greg but he doesn’t count ‘cause he’s seen it already. Maybe my mom, she could stick it up on her fridge.”

“Yuck,” she chuckled, swatting his shoulder. “You can practice on my books.”

“You’ve got books with naked people in them? Why didn’t I know this? Could’ve saved on Playbo—what did you say your next lesson is going to be about?” He smiled cheekily down at her as she started kissing his neck.

“Bony landmarks,” Fenny murmured into his shoulder. “Like the clavicle.” She ran her tongue lightly over his right collar bone, smiling as he swallowed hard. “And the sternum.” She pressed a line of kisses down the center of his chest, pushing down the bedclothes as she went. “The iliac crest of the pelvis,” she cooed as she pushed the blankets past his hips.

A knock sounded at the door and Fenny flumped, defeated, onto Brad’s stomach as he let out a groan of disappointment. “You should probably get that,” she sighed.

“Why me?”

“Dunno. Cause I said so and you love me and would do anything for me even if it means risking being accosted by Jehovah’s Witnesses? They’ve been going around.”

He reluctantly slipped out from under her and out of bed, pulling on a discarded pair of shorts and wrinkled jeans. “You owe me,” he grumbled, and Fenny blew him a kiss as he grabbed a shirt and headed for the door, making a face as whoever was waiting gave another impatient knock.

Gina got out of the car preparing a list of ways to kill Freya that wouldn’t catch the attention of the mass media. So far her best idea was luring Freya into a closet and strangling her with her “morning fog” blouse and replacing her with a blowup doll mounted on a radio controlled car. No one would ever notice the difference.

“Hey Genie!” She turned to see Paul waving a bit frantically from the neighbor’s yard. She headed over to him, a bit disappointed that she couldn’t snuggle back in bed with him as she had wanted to all evening. She was still exhausted from her late night and getting home at dawn. Paul all but jumped on her, hugging her tightly as he whined in her ear, “Scott’s invited me down to the pub to watch sport with some of the other neighbourhood blokes.”

“So go,” Gina smiled. “Wouldn’t hurt to socialize with the locals.”

“Yes it would, they’ll talk about football and plumbing and office politics and I’ll be forced to smack my head against the table and get shitfaced to cope with the horror.”

“Doesn’t sound too different from when you go out with your friends,” she shrugged as she pulled away. “You never know, you could have fun.”

“And you could have fun at Vicki’s girl’s night,” he perked.

“What?” she demanded.

Vicki strolled over from where she and Scott were chatting with a few people she didn’t recognize. “Hi Gina,” she beamed. “We were just wondering if you’d like to join us tonight for our little get together, some of my old friends and a few of the neighbours. I’m sure you’d fit right in, it’s always a hoot.”

“A hoot,” Gina nodded.

“She’d love to,” Paul cooed. “I’m just going to run and tell Scott I’m ready when he is. We’re gonna have so much fun.” Gina sneered subtly at his mock enthusiasm as he gave her a light goodbye kiss. “See you later tonight, hon.”

“Yeah, bye,” she sighed, watching wistfully as he all but skipped over to Scott and his friends. She noticed that as soon as he was away from her and Vicki his demeanor slumped a bit towards the apathy he’d shown earlier.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to the girls,” Vicki perked, dragging Gina into the house.

Brad threw the door open and scowled at Greg. “This had better be important, you’re interrupting an anatomy lesson.”

“I don’t wanna know,” Greg declared as he wandered into the living room.

“Who is it,” Fenny called from the bedroom, “and more importantly is it someone I can tell to piss off without getting into trouble?”

“Just Greg,” Brad called back.

“Oh great, ‘just Greg,’ love you too, buddy. I come all the way across town to see if you’re okay and it’s ‘just Greg.’ The least you could do is put on your shirt, for Christ’s sake.”

Rolling his eyes, Brad complied and pulled his t-shirt on. “So what’s up, Proops?”

“Got worried when you switched with Chip. It’s not like you to miss a taping, especially when Fenny wants your testicles in a blender.”

“No, she’s come up with other uses for them,” Brad said smugly.

Greg scrunched up his face in distaste. “More than I needed to know. Guess that means you’re not banished to the munchkin’s room anymore?”

“Nope, I get full bed privileges again.”

“How’d you pull that off?”

“Oh, you know spineless Fenny, once she’d calmed down a little, all I had to do was shoot her the classic puppy dog eyes and crawl into bed with my red boxers on and she was all over me, she totally crumbled,” Brad declared triumphantly. “The woman can’t resist me, it was only a matter of time.”

“You’re so full of yourself Bradley,” Fenny’s voice chastised from the hallway.

“Shit,” he hissed under his breath.

“If you must know what happened,” she continued chipperly as she perched on the arm of the couch next to her husband and grinned at Greg, “he came to my class groveling for my forgiveness basically, I told him I’ve been messing with his head for the last few days just so I could watch him suffer, and he pouted because I made him crawl.”

Greg chuckled as Brad frowned, obviously embarrassed to have been found out. “And let me guess,” Greg said, “you locked yourselves in your room for a few hours of makeup sex.”

“She put on her Amsterdam whore outfit for me,” Brad declared, perking up.

“Shush,” Fenny commanded, thwacking the back of his head. “What about you, Greg, you made your way back into your wife’s good graces yet?” Brad rubbed his head with a scowl.

“Yup,” Greg grinned. “She dragged me to couples’ counseling and in the midst of a tirade at Stuart the Hippie, turns out I had a breakthrough. Jen and I talked things through and we’re actually doing quite brilliantly.”

“And you didn’t have to kill her aunt either,” Fenny added.

“Would’ve been fun though,” Greg shrugged. “I hate to actually admit how much the therapy and the counseling and everything has helped. I’d recommend you guys to Stu, but you never stay angry with each other long enough, and your problems are less to do with lack of communication and more about genetic defects and being generally stupid. Actually who knows, Stu might have some herbal salve that’ll grow Fen a spine and some healing charm to make you less of an idiot,” he suggested, patting Brad on the shoulder.

“Remind me again why Greg was invited in?” Fenny sighed.

“You’re the one that told me to put on my pants and answer the door,” Brad countered.

“So sorry I was concerned,” Greg grumbled. “You could’ve gotten kidnapped again, or drowned in the tub, or gotten clawed to death by your vicious cat or something, but no, next time, when you really have finally screwed each other’s brains out, I won’t come round to help.”

Brad squinted at him. “Just what are you going to do to help when Fen and I have screwed our brains out?”

Greg rolled his eyes and let out a huff as he stood to leave. “I can’t cope with you two anymore, you seriously need counseling or medication or rubber walls or something. I’ll see you at the next taping, yeah?”

“Yup,” Brad smiled, and Greg shut the door behind him. He turned to Fenny. “So, do we strip and jump back in bed or fix ourselves something to eat?”

“Hmm. Both?” she suggested.

“Deal,” Brad readily agreed and sprinted to the kitchen to grab some food, stripping off his shirt on the way as Fenny giggled at him.

Paul let out a sigh and took another swig of beer before dropping his cheek heavily on his fist again, gazing vacantly at the television screen as the men around him bellowed and cheered. There was no way he could conceivably care any less about rugby than he did at that very instant. He didn’t even have the absurd commentators for him to ridicule, as the TV was muted. That or the crowd of the pub and the unending screaming of poker machines was just drowning out the volume.

“Go Macca, you legend,” the man next to him who was named either Olli or Nick, he’d forgotten, screamed loudly, while Scott cheered the player on.

“Woohoo, go team,” Paul murmured into his glass with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which wasn’t very much at all. He began to seriously regret having gone out to check the mail, where he’d gotten accosted by Scott as he’d come home from work. If only Gina had allowed him to be nasty to the neighbours like he’d wanted to, none of this would have happened and he would have probably been back in bed with her instead of feigning interest in some brutal sport.

Something happened which Paul assumed was a good thing for the Rabbitohs because the pub erupted into thunderous whoops and cries of joy and calls for more drinks before settling a bit when the game relented to commercials, prompting another rush to the bar.

At least the advertisements were something Paul could relate to, so he watched them with just enough interest to prevent Scott or any of his friends from trying to engage him in conversation about the game. It hadn’t worked for the last three ad breaks, but he was giving it another go.

“Hey Paul mate, what’d you think of that last play, wasn’t it brilliant!” Olli/Nick gushed, obviously a drink or two past his prime.

“Yeah, great how that one big guy slammed into that other big guy. Brilliant,” he agreed.

“Ooh, lookit that,” one of the others laughed, pointing to the screen.

“Makes watching the news almost fun, doesn’t it?”

Paul glanced up to find Gina on screen, probably doing a promo for the news or something, but he smiled for the first time since he’d arrived at the pub.

“I wouldn’t mind being her co-anchor, if you know what I mean,” someone chuckled.

“Makes you really wonder if newsreaders wear pants.”

“I’d turn her autocue anytime.” Another burst of lecherous laughter.

“Hey fellas, come on,” Paul grumbled, “that’s the wife.” It seemed like half the building seemed to stop and stare at him at his admission.

“Well lucky Pauly, he gets to see her news briefs all the time,” someone cackled before the screen flickered back to the game and the attention drifted back to rugby with a couple half-hearted sorrys in the general direction of Paul.

He leaned his chin on his hand again and just hoped that Gina was having as much fun as he was.

“Hey Fen,” Brad called back towards the kitchen where she was heating up the last of the previous night’s pizza for a quick early dinner. “There’s a documentary on Post Impressionism in four minutes.”

“Really? I thought you wanted to watch the baseball game.”

“Nah, I’ll hear all about it from Greg, it’s Giants versus the Dodgers, we’re gonna get creamed and Proops’ll laugh in my face. I’d rather hear about this George’s Sewer Rat guy.”

“It’s Georges Seurat,” Fenny said, smiling in spite of herself as she settled down next to him and he skimmed through the program summary on the digital cable guide. “That print in the study of the people at the park made up of ten billion dots? That’s Seurat.”

“Aah, right. Sounds good,” he nodded, biting into his pizza. “Van Gogh, I know who he is.”

“I’m proud,” she mused. “Y’know, that’s one of my regrets about Amsterdam, I never got to the Van Gogh Museum. Well, that and being pimped and everyone nearly getting killed.”

“Next time we’re kidnapped I’ll make an effort to take you to the local art exhibits.”

“Thanks hon,” she perked, rubbing his thigh as he polished off his first slice of pizza in about four bites.

“Maybe I’ll take you to one anyway. There’s art museums in LA, right?”

“Yes Brad, about twenty. But we tried that once and it didn’t really work, did it?”

“Well now I know not to laugh at the naked men. I’m an artist now, and I can appreciate the nude human form. Even if his naughty bits have been broken off.”

Fenny shook her head with a smile but decided not to encourage him further. They settled into the couch as the program started with a brief discussion of turn of the century French politics and Claude Monet before turning to a montage of Post Impressionist pieces. Seurat’s Grande Jatte appeared and she nudged him. “See, that’s the one in…” As Fenny turned to face him, Brad twitched a bit in his sleep, his breathing already deep and face already pleasantly serene in slumber. Whether it was because he was so bored with the documentary or he was still worn out, she didn’t know, but she knew he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. “Well hey, at least you tried,” she smiled as she leaned into him and finished watching the program.

Gina began pondering the bottle of wine, wondering if these women knew how annoying they were getting as they slowly got drunk. What had started out as pleasant enough conversation over snacks about Gina and Paul’s move, the newest neighborhood gossip and stories of stupidity from husbands and children had rapidly descended into the pitfalls of their marriages.

Janet was upset because her husband spent more time at work than with their family. Meg felt she wasn’t being pampered like she had been when she’d first gotten married. Denise suspected her husband of cheating. Rae just lacked any sort of excitement in her relationship. And Gina wasn’t the least bit surprised. All the stories they’d shared about romance had revolved around champagne dinners and flowers and occasional nights out without the kids and coaxing their husbands into five minutes of groping. Gina was almost afraid to share any of her stories for fear that any mention of clubbing, fake tattoos, mongooses, alleyways, hotel bathtubs, oral sex or public nudity would cause any number of them to have an aneurysm and just drop dead from shock. At least Vicki had, with a bit of encouragement, taken things into her own hands, but these women seemed content with their whining. These women made Fenny look like the cover girl for Amazon Dominance Monthly and they were making Gina’s brain bleed.

“My Sam falls asleep in front of the telly most nights,” Rae sighed miserably as she sloshed the wine in her glass sloppily. “I think he’s gone off me.”

“Nick, he’s just so bloody boring,” Meg groaned between gulps of wine as she scowled at the table. “I practically have to bribe him with breakfast just to get a good morning kiss out of him, like he’s afraid to touch me anymore or something. It just makes me so…so angry.”

“At least your husband can be bribed,” Janet pouted. “I don’t see mine anymore, if he’s not at the office late he’s out in the garage working on the car. He won’t talk to me, sometimes I just feel like smashing his head in with the damned spanner when he’s asleep.” She paused and giggled. “Not that I would. Course not.” She poured herself another glass of the red liquid as Vicki got up to fetch another bottle.

“Oliver is a big, selfish, moronic oaf,” Denise declared firmly, “and I should have never broken up with John when I was at uni or this never would have happened. The oaf.”

“Sorry, I have to ask,” Gina piped up, no longer to take the self-victimized whinging anymore. “Do any of you actually like your husbands? I mean is there any attraction there at all? Because I’m getting the impression you’d all be better of divorced.”

“Oh and I suppose your husband is perfect,” Denis countered.

“No, but, and this might surprise you strange, bitter women, we love and respect each other. It’s really useful in a relationship, makes things easier.”

“And you pleasure each other as often as possible,” Vicki giggled.

“Yeah thanks Vicki, no more wine for you methinks,” Gina declared, nudging the bottle away from her.

“It’s cos she talks to her Pauly,” Vicki said. “She told me so. and now Scott and I have sex in the shower.” She got up and fetched another bottle of red from the kitchen with a dreamy smile on her face.

Janet cocked her head at Gina with a blank look on her face. “What do you mean pleasure?”

“Oh dear god, help me,” Gina moaned.