Sex with the Ex by Tyne O’Connell

it’s all getting a bit out of hand, this Richard business?”
    I felt my hackles rise. “By this Richard business,” I replied tartly, “I presume you mean my business?”
    He smiled at me in a sad sort of way. “You can tell me I’m speaking out of turn here, but in my experience sex with the ex is like having the same car crash twice.”
    â€œYou’re speaking out of turn,” I agreed, brushing an invisible piece of lint off my jeans, not wanting to meet his eyes. “Thank you for looking after Jean,” I added in my most businesslike tone. “I’ll get out of your hair and see you Tuesday afternoon.”
    He grabbed my hand. Not my wrist! My hand; interlocking his fingers into mine just as Richard had the night before, and then he pulled me into his lime-scented chest and stroked my hair.
    â€œOh darling, I’m sorry if I’ve been insensitive, poor you. First Jean and now me, we’re not being very helpful, are we?”
    â€œAt least you’re not humping me,” I joked.
    It was so lovely having Charlie to talk to and make me feel better about my absurd behavior that I was actually really disappointed when he announced, “I’m sorry, old thing, but I’m going to have to get going soon. Well, nowish, actually. But if you like, I can call up a car to take you home.”
    I didn’t want to be alone. Being Saturday, Josie would be playing happy house with Emmanuel, and Elizabeth and Clemmie both had dates, so I told him I’d quite like to visit my parents in Richmond, and as I said it I realized it was true. Kitty and Martin were perhaps the only two people in the world who would understand and even sympathize with how I was feeling about Richard.
    I arrived to find Kitty watching Kitty’s favorite film, Sunset Boulevard, on DVD. She didn’t find any similarity between herself and the character played by Gloria Swanson; you had to love her. Martin was fiddling with his clocks, but everyone stopped everything when I explained what had been happening that week between Richard and me.
    â€œHow obscenely rude, to walk in while you were making love to your own husband!” A typically insane Kitty remark but just the sort of thing I needed to hear.
    â€œWell, technically, he’s my ex,” I reminded her.
    She patted her platinum sweep of hair, and raised one eyebrow from the chaise where she was stretched out like a cat. “There’s nothing technical about love, Lola. If you want technical, get a clock.” Then she looked darkly at Martin who was fiddling with a clock face on the table. He took the hint and joined us—although still with his clock face—flopping onto a cushion at Kitty’s feet.
    â€œPerhaps he gave her a key or something. There had been talk before I saw him of her wanting to move in.”
    â€œNo doubt she talked him into giving her one, what a sly minx. You must bring her down, Lola! Bring her down, cast her out of his life. Sherry?”
    â€œThanks, I will actually.”
    â€œMartin!”
    â€œMy darling?” He smiled up at my mother’s beautiful face vaguely. She traced a line along his jaw and blew him a kiss.
    â€œYou might offer my daughter a sherry after all she’s endured.”
    I cringed. It was always a bad sign when Kitty started referring to me as “her” daughter. When I was young it usually meant I was about to be shoved off to Aunt Camilla’s so they could really get the knives out and go for one another’s throats. Martin shuffled about the drinks cabinet while Kitty continued her tirade against Leggy Blonde. It was quite empowering all in all. I found that by the time Kitty finally left me to join Martin in bed, I was feeling quite incensed myself about Leggy Blonde.
    As Kitty had so neatly and reasonably put it, “Presumably Richard had already dumped her, called you, realizing what you meant to him, was in the