Ben was once again woken by the sound of Marcie’s alarm. She was still tangled in his arms, even as she now jerked into motion, groping ineffectually to turn it off. He felt deeply contented, as if he’d slept solidly through the whole night. He had happily found himself still cuddled up against Marcie’s back, and he wondered idly if that was because neither of them had moved at all, or because they had both naturally kept returning to that position with each other.

Marcie sighed, then as she pushed herself out of bed to find her clothes, she told Ben that he could lie in. He considered it for a moment, relaxing as he lay back in their shared nest, inhaling the comforting lived-in smell of the sheets, feeling the pleasant swelling of his morning arousal. But he was eager to get up with her too, and said as much, pushing the duvet back to expose his soft erection. She muttered something about satyrs as he quickly slipped off to the bathroom to empty his bladder, wrapping himself in a clean towel he found there. Marcie walked in on him as she came through for her shower, agreeing to leave the door ajar again while he went to the kitchen to make mugs of tea for them both.

When she emerged wrapped in her own towels, around her chest and head as usual, she gratefully took her tea back to the bedroom to get dressed, leaving Ben to set up the table for breakfast. It was a while before she joined him, dressed in her dark work trousers and a pastel patterned blouse, her damp hair already pinned back in its neat bun. As she sat down, her appearance so smart and formal, Ben felt a little self-conscious, still just wrapped in a towel. She just wanted a simple bowl of cereal, sadly admitting that she wouldn’t have time to share a pot of coffee, whilst he was already onto a second round of toast and jam.

Still, even though they spoke only about mundane things, she seemed very happy to be sharing her time with him. He said that he could change the bedsheets and try to get them washed while the weather still looked good. She told him in turn that clean bedding was in the drawer under the bed, and clothes pegs were in a bag in the hallway cupboard.

Marcie was also enthusiastic about their evening out. Ben assured her that he’d be able to book an early table for two at a good value pizza restaurant he knew just off Bigg Market, to line their stomachs as he put it, before they hit the bars and pubs in the centre. He suggested he contact some of his friends to see if they wanted to meet up for a drink too, and she agreed to that, so long as they could keep the party under six or so. She said that she didn’t want them to get too carried away, and Ben had the strong impression that she might want to slip back home quite early.

As she was finishing her bowl, she confirmed that even though she was walking into work, she’d be back before half one. She said that he should go ahead with his lunch without her anyway so they could make his doctor’s appointment easily. Then she asked him if he might read a bit more while she was out, “I wonder if you’ll reach for Terry Pratchett or Tracy Cox first?” she pondered, then remembered with a private smile, “Oh, I mentioned The Chronicles of Narnia last night, didn’t I?”

She went to the bookcase to pull down an old box set of paperbacks, but she cautioned him, “If you want to try reading my copies, you must promise to look after them. I’ve had these since I was a girl, and they’re precious to me. Don’t go bending the spines back or reading them with dirty hands!”

Ben agreed to treat them with respect, then she slipped one out of the box. As she held it out, he saw that it had a picture of a huge lion and three children on the front. He took it and turned it over in his hands to see the rich colours of the illustration continuing on the back, showing an anxious fourth child and a frosty queen. “I recommend you start with this one,” Marcie explained, “Even though it says number two there, it was the first one published. As I said, it’s a bit stuffy by modern standards, but the story moves along quickly and I still think CS Lewis captured something quite magical for those of all ages.”

Ben thanked her and carefully set it aside before starting to tidy their breakfast things up as she went to brush her teeth. He collected some clean clothes from the spare room, wondering if he should move these to Marcie’s bedroom now, then joined her in the bathroom. He asked if she’d mind him having his shower, but she was already finishing, about to go to the bedroom to put on her modest makeup.

She came back, already with her jacket and satchel, while Ben was still drying himself with his new towel. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time for a cuddle this morning,” she said, glancing down at his body before stepping forwards to stroking his cheek, “I’ve got my work head on. I’m too aware of the clock.”

“We’ll make it up, I’m sure,” Ben said, almost frozen to the spot as he stood nude, gripping his towel in one hand, not wanting to get his wet hands or any other part of him on her clean clothes. Even Marcie’s gentle touch had triggered the tingle of something stirring in his penis and scrotum.

“I am very sure we will!” she agreed with a cheeky twinkle in her eye. She stood on tiptoes to push her lips playfully towards his cheek. Ben followed the kiss on each cheek routine easily, then she planted the lightest peck on his lips too. “Look after yourself. I’ll be home soon,” she said as she parted, then turned in the kitchen doorway to give him a soulful look under her serious glasses, saying, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ben replied, standing like the first man in his primal state even as she strode away.

He heard the door click closed behind her as he finished drying himself, applied his deodorant, then started getting dressed. He hung his towel, cleaned his own teeth, before going through to the bedroom to strip the bed, finding that Marcie had already drawn the curtains. He gathered the dirty bedclothes, bundling them up with last night’s dirty towel to put in the kitchen’s washing machine. Then he went to the bathroom to sort through the laundry, looking for more whites and things to put with his own clothes for a second dark wash.

Of course he found Marcie’s dirty underwear as he went. He felt guilty for handling it and noticing its details, but he could not help himself from being a little excited by the satin briefs with broad lace trim that she seemed to favour. He found it very easy to imagine them up against the divine Vixen that he’d been so close to just hours earlier. He sorted them into the appropriate piles along with her blouses and her socks. He was less sure of washing the thick skirt and trousers that he found though, just in case they were hand wash or dry clean only. He also hesitated about putting the bras and tights that he found in, having a vague understanding that it was somehow risky to be careless with them. That did not stop him from admiring the details of Marcie’s used bras though, daydreaming about their loose satin and lace cups being filled by her soft breasts.

He tried to find a more practical business-like frame of mind as he worked out how to use the washing machine, then ran a bowl of soapy water to wash the breakfast pots too. But when he’d done this and gone back through to the bedroom to open the windows and make the bed up again, he had a surprise that brought his mind right back to that most intimate and personal part of Marcie’s body.

As he pulled out the drawer underneath the bed to find the clean sheets, he saw an open box of colourful objects resting next to the white bedclothes. He immediately saw that some of these were sex toys, and he guessed the other gadgets that he did not recognise must be too. He remembered Marcie getting a tube of intimate gel from this drawer on the night before last, and now he realised exactly how she might have been using it.

With careful respect and a hint of guilty trepidation, he raised one vivid purple dildo up from the box, noting the soft gel texture of its ribbed surface and its ear-like protuberances. He knew this was an example of the classic rabbit vibrator, and his mind was eagerly visualising Marcie using this. He could picture her inserting its lubricated shaft into her vagina while she guided those ears to her clitoris. He guessed that she’d find it easy to reach her orgasm in this way, just like another girlfriend he’d know who’d used one somewhat like this.

He realised that he wanted to see her use it too, that he wanted to help her to do so if he could, and that he wanted to show her how the length of its long synthetic shaft compared to his own natural manhood when he was stiff. He wanted to confirm that this simple device could bring her the ecstasy of orgasm, to learn if she could come multiple times with it, and to know if it made her leak in her moment of release, all as she’d described last night. He also sincerely hoped that she would not mind that he’d found this and her other toys, but he thought that unlikely. They had already been very open with each other, in their conversation and their modest sexual adventures so far. Also, she had directed him to this drawer without hesitation earlier that morning, and he felt sure, in her librarian’s mind, she would not have forgotten what else she kept here.

With a hint of regret that he could do nothing about these thoughts now, he put the vibrator back carefully and diligently started to make the bed, closing the window again before he left the room. The washing machine still had some time to go, and he felt it was too early to try setting things up for this evening, so he settled down on the sofa to read Marcie’s precious book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

He opened the book carefully, but was still surprised when something fell out of it. It was an old postcard showing a cartoon illustration of what Ben guessed was a beaver under an oversized daisy, with the caption, “Thinking of you.” Ben turned it over to see the careful looping handwriting that he remembered being so typical of girls at school, back when they stuck to giggling gangs and didn’t speak to the boys. Without thinking, he went ahead and read it.

“Dear Marcie, I am in Scotland. We went to Fort William and I bought this card. Thank you for being my friend at MGS. I wish you were here. Yours sincerely, Amber.” A rounded heart with a simple smiling cartoon face had been drawn beside the last line, as if to contradict its formality. Alongside was a carefully laid out Manchester address beneath the old stamp and postmark.

He was touched by the simple honesty of this message, echoing the kitsch slogan on the picture. He remembered Marcie mentioning her special relationship with Amber, and he guessed that this card might date back to the very start of their friendship, soon after they’d both started at senior school. He felt slightly ashamed that he’d read it now, but Marcie had obviously left this here as her bookmark, so he began using it in the same way, holding both it and the book carefully as he started reading.

As he began the first chapter, he realised it was written as if it were being read aloud. He found it very easy to imagine Marcie’s voice delivering the words calmly and steadily, just as she had when she’d read from Mort to him on his first night in the flat. As she had forewarned, the voices of the children seemed very stilted and old-fashioned, but he found that he liked them more for it. To Ben, it seemed as if they were the kind of children who would get picked on and bullied at school for no fault of their own, but they muddled along well enough as siblings. It was easy to think of them at ease in each others’ company, getting a kind of comfort from being together, even whilst being anxious evacuees in a strange house. They certainly seemed closer than he had ever felt with his brother.

He could clearly visualise the old grandfatherly professor and his house too. The man sounded nothing like Richard, the real professor who had made such a poor impression on both the times that Ben had met him. Rather, he seemed something like a clever and slightly serious Father Christmas. Ben could also easily imagine the house as Cragside, but perhaps with less fine art and more clutter, like those suits of armour and all the books that Marcie must have enjoyed reading about.

He’d picked up on other details that the author seemed to have emphasised in his own excitement, about the nearby mountains and the wild animals that the children hoped to see. At first Ben had imagined the mountains might imply that the house was in Scotland, perhaps as he’d just read Amber’s card. But then when he heard the rain described, his mind went to the Lake District instead.

His mind latched on one other thing that the author probably hadn’t intended though. Given what he and Marcie had got up to and what they’d talked about the night before, he saw something very smutty in the line, “There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur.” However, when it turned out that she was pushing through this fur to reach a strange and magical place, Ben began to seriously wonder if the wardrobe of the book’s title was genuinely a symbol for the vagina.

The way that the story was being told had hooked him though, so that when the washing machine beeped and clunked at the end of its cycle, he ignored it, reading on to learn more about the dark snowy wood, and then the faun too. This character seemed a strange mixture to Ben. On the one hand, it was that horny ancient creature from those violent rapacious myths that Marcie had given him an insight into yesterday. On the other hand however, he seemed totally unthreatening, like a mundane old-fashioned Englishman with his umbrella and Christmas parcels.

Ben recognised that the end of the book’s first chapter was a good place to leave it though. He carefully set it aside with its precious bookmark in place, leaving it to go and sort out the washing. He’d found a wash basket with the pegs, and used it to empty the machine, which he then reloaded, before slipping his shoes on and unbolting the back door to investigate the line. It was loose, but Ben found it wasn’t too awkward to unknot its end and resecure it with good tension.

As he was hanging the washing, he heard the door to Shona’s kitchen open behind him. He turned, expecting to see her standing at the top of the steps with the boys around her feet again. Instead he saw a stocky man with short thin black hair.

“You must be Ben,” he called down in a friendly way, “Shona told me that you were stopping over with Marcie now. I’m your neighbour, Ali. Come up and say hi when you’re done.”

Ben felt a bit anxious about visiting Ali and family without Marcie there, but once he’d pegged all the washing out, he climbed the steps to knock gently on their back door.

Ali opened the door and greeted him eagerly with a vigorous handshake. He immediately offered Ben a tea or coffee, which Ben felt obliged to accept. He was genuinely thankful for the offer, but he still felt as if he were taking advantage of Ali’s kindness. The smiling man eagerly ushered Ben into their living room anyway, so Ben slipped off his shoes and went through. He saw the room’s plan matched Marcie’s, with a dining table and soft chairs too, but it seemed considerably more heavily used, with toys scattered on the floor next to a baby bouncer and piles of stacked plastic boxes. Shona was sitting on the floor, dividing her attention between little Zain and the grouchy Fiona. She seemed a bit surprised to see Ben when she looked up, but greeted him politely.

“We’ve got a houseful again with Cal still out on Easter holiday. They’re climbing the walls a bit,” Ali explained, his enthusiastic tone offsetting what might have been a complaint. “Cal! Where are you? Ben’s here,” he shouted into the hallway, before continuing more conversationally “I’ve been banking my hours so I can help out a bit more until he goes back. I’m taking time off this morning. Did Shona say that I was a social worker?”

Cal arrived at that moment with a thunder of feet, clutching another Lego model. “I built it better!” he shouted at Ben by way of greeting, proudly holding up what must have still been an aeroplane in his mind. Ben took it respectfully and made a show of admiring it.

“He’s been telling us all about your Lego skills,” Ali explained with a chuckle. “We might have to co-opt you into regular service, if it helps to distract him from needling his brother!”

When Ali returned to the kitchen, calling out to ask Ben how he took his tea, Ben got down onto to floor himself as he answered. He’d handed Cal’s model back and now listened to him explain how it worked in his imagination, also giving attention to Zain when he tried to interrupt. Meanwhile the baby seemed to be getting more agitated in her bouncing chair despite Shona’s cooing.

“Does she need a change?” Ali asked as he came back with a mug, putting it on a shelf for Ben, away from small hands, before taking a seat at the table.

“No,” Shona confirmed as she lifted the tiny girl from her bouncer to sniff her nappy.

“Is she ready for her elevenses already then?”

“Maybe. I’ll go to the bedroom to feed her.”

“Why? I’m sure Ben wouldn’t mind. You don’t avoid cafes with those breastfeeding-friendly stickers, do you?” Ali asked him directly with a calmly reassuring smile.

Ben had been keeping out of their conversation, already feeling that he might have been intruding, but he confirmed that he certainly didn’t mind.

“Well maybe I mind. Maybe Marcie would mind,” Shona shot back at Ali in a slightly snippy way.

“Don’t be daft,” he rebutted, “You must have fed these three in front of thousands over the years, and in front of Marcie too.”

Ben felt Shona may have been carrying some residual suspicion of him that Ali was perhaps wilfully ignoring, but she evidently conceded his argument as she settled into a soft chair with the baby cradled to her. “Pass me that muslin then,” she ordered Ali as she began unbuttoning her blouse.

“Fifi’s milk again!” Zain said in an exaggerated way that Ben guessed was part of a regular act. Cal told him to shut up, clearly frustrated by the routine himself, then Ali told them both to behave and be polite for their guest. Meanwhile Ben looked away demurely, reaching up to take his mug and sip his tea before carefully placing it back. But he automatically looked straight back at Shona when she asked him directly, “So what’s the story, Ben? Are you just Marcie’s friend, or are you her new boyfriend?”

He saw Shona’s sturdy utilitarian bra exposed where she’d shrugged her blouse off one shoulder, and then inadvertently her naked breast too. She had unhooked some catch on her bra’s strap to pull down one of its plain white cups without hesitation. He could not help himself from noticing the full mass of Shona’s breast, pale skinned with a clear web of blue veins, its wide round curve hanging down heavily. He saw its big nipple standing proud from the pale pink circle of her puffy areola, and both seemed somehow greasy. He glanced away immediately, before Shona had even started lifting the mewling Fiona to herself, but the visual impression had stuck vividly in his mind.

“Aye, I’m her boyfriend,” he admitted shyly, “Erm, that’s kind of hot off the press, actually. We sort of agreed that on Tuesday night.”

“Just after I heard her kick Richard out?” Shona queried, but her assertive tone implied that she was just confirming what she’d already assumed. Ben was keeping his eyes low, watching Cal’s little hands on his Lego model, but then thought that too may seem impolite, so he raised them to look Shona directly in the eye to say yes.

“She doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet!” Ali said with a light laugh, and Ben gratefully turned toward him as he went on, “Good for her. Good for both of you,” he added, raising his own mug of tea as if making a toast. As Zain was pestering and whining at Shona’s knee, he told him to come over to sit on his lap, then asked Ben, “But did Shona say you’ve not been well?”

Ben explained about his collapse at the gym and how Marcie had taken him to hospital, neglecting to mention that she was a stranger to him at that time. Even whilst he was aware of the slurping sounds of Fiona’s suckling going on just behind him, he briefly summarised what he knew of his condition for Ali, explaining the pneumoconiosis and how the dust from his work had caused it. He added that he hoped the doctor might be able to tell him more at his appointment that afternoon. “Well make sure you ask your doctor lots of questions,” Ali advised, “It sounds serious, and I’m sorry, the bad news must have been a shock to you.”

“Well, yes, I guess it’s still sinking in. I’m not sure what happens next,” Ben admitted, adding sincerely, “But Marcie has been such a bit help. She’s made it all so much more hopeful, somehow,” he found himself confessing.

“It sounds like you’re making a good team,” Ali observed, “I’ll admit I was a bit worried for Marcie when Shona explained what had happened with Richard.”

“Is that part of your work then, as a social worker I mean, looking out for, well, aggravation in relationships?” Ben asked.

“Well, sometimes. I specialise in mental health cases really, people in a very sorry state who’ve often been that way for years. But yes, abusive partners can be part of the story. If Marcie does get any trouble from Richard at all though, if she feels threatened by him, you should tell her to not hesitate in contacting the police. They might not do anything about it immediately, but it can become important that the incident is logged.”

“I don’t think Marcie needs Ben to tell her that!” Ben heard Shona scoff.

“No,” Ali answered, with what Ben thought might be an apologetic smile for him, “But I want our neighbours to know there’s support out there.”

“I think what Ali might be trying to say, Ben, is don’t try taking things into your own hands if Richard turns up again,” Shona judged provocatively, though Ben did not turn toward her. Then added as if making an aside to Ali over Ben’s head, “I’ll just see if she wants any from the other side.”

“No, that’s not really what I meant,” Ali explained patiently, then adding in response to the protests from Zain whom he was still trying to manage, “No, it’s not milk time for you. You’re the big boy now. Fifi’s the baby.” He turned back to Ben, “Though having seen you for myself now Ben, and from my memory of Richard, I’m pretty sure who I’d put my money on if it came to a scrap!”

“I’m sure it won’t,” Ben reassured him, doing his best to ignore the cooing sounds from Shona behind him, presumably encouraging Fiona to take her other breast with her quiet baby-talk, “He’s been pretty cool with me, well, rude even, both times that I’ve met with him, but he seemed rational, like he wouldn’t give in to a jealous impulse.”

“Maybe, but if I were you, I’d be cautious of turning my back on him,” Ali said, though still in a light-hearted way, “He might yet try to do something stupid. You know what they say, ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ and I don’t imagine he’s delighted about losing his brilliant young girlfriend to a chippy, if you don’t mind me saying it as he’d see it.”

“No problem,” Ben replied, feeling growing rapport with Ali, “Though it’s really just tree surgery I do, and timber processing too. I guess I’m above a basic DIY level for carpentry and joinery, but I’m no professional. And I don’t know what I am now, if I’ve got to avoid wood dust. Anyway, I think Richard is history now. Marcie and I are thinking of the future, though I don’t really know what that will bring for myself.”

“It sounds like you’ve both got a positive outlook though, which is great,” Ali said enthusiastically, “And you seem to be good with kids too,” he added. He’d obviously noticed that Ben had simultaneously been managing to keep Cal busy with adding extra Lego pieces to his model during their conversation. “I’m not implying you’re planning that far ahead with Marcie yet!” Ali rushed to clarify, with a laugh, “Rather I was selfishly thinking that you could go back to college and train as a social worker, or something, to work with children.”

Again Shona scoffed, “It took you five years of university study to get approved. Ben doesn’t want to start all that, do you Ben?”

Ben turned in response to Shona’s direct question to confirm that he didn’t, but once again unintentionally caught sight of her breast. She had moved Fiona onto her other side and held her reclining body in one arm now. Ben could see her bra’s detachable white panel once again covered the first breast that he’d seen, but the other was exposed now. Ben saw the same thin pale skin and bulging pink areola, but the proud nipple seeming even bigger now that she’d nursed Fiona, perhaps as large as the tip of Ben’s little finger. All this glistened with what he guessed was the slick mixture of leaking milk and the baby’s saliva. His brief glimpse had caught Shona in the act of wiping herself dry though, it seemed. Her hand was under her breast, wrapped in the muslin cloth, pushing herself up in a way that made the heavy volume of her breast abundantly clear.

Ben could not help himself from having the absurd thought that she was offering up that milky teat to him. It was as if she was raising her full and bounteous breast directly towards him, pointing her engorged life-sustaining nipple at his own mouth. He had the briefest idea that he was the child supplicant himself, squatting on the domestic temple floor, bowing below the throne of the fertile mother goddess, just like the frustrated Zain.

But he instantly turned back to Ali after he’d said no to Shona, feeling heat rising to his cheeks. “Shona’s right,” picking up his tea to finish it as he spoke, looking at his mug to cover his embarrassment, “I couldn’t study at university. I don’t have any A-Levels, and I was never much good at exams.”

“I’m not going to put any pressure on you to go into social work, don’t worry!” Ali said with a light chuckle. If he was offended or annoyed by Ben looking at his wife’s naked breast, he gave no sign of it. He went on, “Though there are other routes into the profession, like apprenticeships. No, I reckon there must be hundreds of other jobs out there that you would do well in and enjoy that don’t involve working in clouds of sawdust. How we did at school becomes less and less important as we get older. Being able to show that we’ve got a good attitude to work, and to working well with other people, matters so much more, and as I said, you seem to have that positive friendly outlook.”

“Well, thank you,” Ben said, grateful for Ali’s encouragement, even whilst he still helped Cal to fiddle with his Lego.

“When you’ve finished giving your life coaching positive affirmation crap,” Ben heard Shona say, “Perhaps you’d like to take your daughter while I get myself some clean pads?”

Ali made a movement to get up, but Zain clung to him, protesting. “Perhaps Ben would like to hold her?” he suggested instead. “Have you winded a baby before?”

“I remember doing it when my cousins were tiny. I’d put them on my shoulder and pat their backs, or sort of rub them,” Ben confirmed.

“There you are then. Do you want to pass her over to Ben, love? Sorry Cal, you’ll have to spare your excellent build buddy for a little while.”

Ben turned with a somewhat forced smile to take Fiona from Shona. He tried to keep his eyes on hers and on the baby, but he inevitably noticed that her blouse was still open. Though her bra covered both her full breasts now, he could still see all her wide deep cleavage. She carelessly passed him the same cloth that she’d been using, which he slung over his shoulder, before taking Fiona in both hands. He held her securely against his chest as he rose to his feet, Shona now standing up too as she finally began buttoning her blouse. He made some cooing noises, checked that the warm and slightly damp muslin cloth was covering his shoulder, and began gently patting the contented heavy baby.

As Shona left the room for the bathroom, he turned back towards the window, carefully picking his feet over the Lego. Ali must have noticed this, saying, “You’re right to be careful there. I stood on a brick, when was it, the night before last? It was just after we’d got the kids to bed, but I came down so hard on it, I stumbled and knocked over a chair! We were worried the bang would wake the kids up all over again, but I guess we might have disturbed you two downstairs as well.”

“Aye, I think we heard it,” Ben confirmed, thinking of the sound that had interrupted his first true moment of intimacy with Marcie, “But it was no problem.” As he held Fiona tight against him, he could feel the warmth of her chubby body and the tickle of her thin hair against his cheek. He noticed her baby-smell too, of fresh laundry, clean skin, her slightly fusty scalp and of course a rich milkiness. Then he was aware that she’d given a kind of hiccup of a burp, and there was a sensation of wet warmth against the skin of his neck.

“Whoops! There’s a bit of leakage there,” Ali joked as he noticed Ben dabbing at the posset with a corner of the muslin. “At least it’s all natural. I wouldn’t leave it lying around for too long though, or else it’ll go manky. Just rinse it out once you get home.”

Ben thought Ali’s words were familiar, then he remembered that Marcie had said something very similar about the bodily fluids of love-making. He again felt embarrassed, by recalling that whilst acting as the guest inside his neighbour’s flat, and by his unconscious association of that memory to the sensation of the wet warmth that was now soaking his t-shirt. He was suddenly acutely aware that Fiona had regurgitated a bit of the creamy milk that she’d only just drawn from Shona’s breast, and that it was therefore Shona’s own intimate bodily fluid that was making his shoulder damp.

“Aye, again, no problem,” Ben said, trying to reassure Ali, then adding, perhaps because of his embarrassment, “I’m sorry if I’ve been intruding on you and Shona.”

“Don’t be daft! It’s been great to meet you. We’ve only just started to get to know Marcie, but I’m sure we can all be good neighbours for each other,” he lowered his voice as he glanced towards the bathroom, “And don’t mind Shona if she’s come over a bit grouchy. Having three is a bit of a handful, and it was a restless night.” He spoke up again as he heard the bathroom door opening, “So another early night in for us, but have you two got something more interesting lined up for this evening yourselves?”

“We’re going down town for a pizza, actually,” Ben confirmed, still gently rubbing the drowsy Fiona.

“Ahh, these carefree young things, eh love? Going out for a meal together on a Thursday night!” Ali joked with Shona as she came back into the room. She curtly acknowledged him, then held her hands out for Ben to hand Fiona back, which he did. He bundled up the wet muslin cloth a little guiltily, but Ali stuck his hand out to take it, “I’ll put that in the wash. Ben’s been very good with her, love. We’d better be careful or we’ll make him come over all broody, and Marcie wouldn’t thank us for that!”

Ben felt embarrassed once again, but thinking of Ali’s earlier comment about being neighbourly, he said, “But seriously, Marcie and I could maybe babysit sometime, give you a chance to get out for a meal together too.”

“Thank you Ben, that’s very kind of you to say, but I wouldn’t want you to commit on Marcie’s behalf too,” Ali replied, “It would be a big ask, and we like being with the kids anyway. Let’s leave it as something to think about for later, maybe, but we’d better let you get off now. Maybe Shona might appreciate your company another time though, with Marcie or just yourself if you’re home alone, right love?”

“Aye,” Shona admitted perhaps a little sheepishly, “You pop up for a cup of tea anytime, so long you don’t mind finding us in a bit of a state.”

Ben thanked them both sincerely as he made a move towards the back door. He felt that despite his shame at his inadvertent lechery of Shona’s breastfeeding, the couple were genuinely welcoming him into their lives. He also felt sympathy for Shona’s possible loneliness, if she were stuck at home with two demanding boys and a baby that was utterly dependent on her. He resolved to himself that he would speak to Marcie about it. He still felt a little awkward at the thought of visiting Shona on his own, even though Ali had suggested it. A part of him felt he ought to ensure that he had Marcie’s permission too, lest she felt at all jealous at his meeting another woman alone. Yet he was also sure that romantic thoughts were a million miles from Shona’s mind, as a strung-out young mother with an evidently kind and supportive husband.

He raised his hand as he said goodbye to Shona, who was now checking again if Fiona had filled her nappy, then waved an enthusiastic farewell to the boys too, before thanking Ali. “Any time, seriously,” he replied, rising to his feet with Zain in his arms, walking the few steps to the back door with Ben, “And good luck with the doctor. Remember to ask lots of questions. And enjoy your meal out!”