The Fair Folk Pt. 03

Ah! how hard it is for a quick-witted and somewhat vain woman to be discreet and accurate.

-Beatrice Webb, Diary, 1906 (she was referring to herself)

The Fair Folk

Chapter 3: The Faery

So I did an edit of TCB's video, and sent it to her, and she took a few days over it, and then sent it back with dozens of minute instructions about small cuts, and exposure, and colour grading and so on, which I obeyed, because I care, and I sent it back to her, and she sent me a thumbs up and put it up on her profile, titled 'Naked and Fucked in the Mud'.

And, well.

Literally overnight, Total CoverageBitch's profile on the site went from a fringe oddball to an emerging star.

The appreciation was vocal.

-Finally get to see TCB is a hottie

-Fucking sexy ass bitch

-This is awesome!!! so much better than your other stuff

-Holy shit, TCB has a GREAT fucking bod

-TCB got assfucked, didn't see that coming, not that I'm complaining

-Great to see some Middle Eastern hole on this site for a change

I cringed at what she must be thinking about this.

Her followers trebled. Then she had 40.

Then MudFaery weighed in:

-Wow TotalCoverageBitch just wow. I am humbled and inspired by your bravery and awesomeness. This is SUPER fucking hot. I can't stop watching it. I soo want to meet you and MuddyBi679 and make something with you guys... please? Message me! MF x x x

'Bravery?' TCB said, as we met for coffee, as part of our self-mandated Peggy and Cal Spend Ordinary People Time Together Not Making A Video So They Can Work Through Any Trust Issue sessions.

'Well, you got naked on camera and got ass-fucked,' I said. 'Which, from your previous videos, it looked like you'd never do.'

'I did, didn't I,' she said, scowling.

'How do you feel?'

'So weird.'

'I thought you lived in weird.'

'This is a new kind of weird. Not sure yet.'

'You wanted to be more popular.'

'Mmm.'

'MudFaery sounds like she's a fan.'

'I feel like now, if we don't meet her and do something with her, we're the boring-ass old people,' she said.

'Then let's meet her, and see if we can't do something with her.'

'Huh,' she said thoughtfully.

'Well, she is the MudFaery. So she's all magical and shit.'

'Do you fancy her,' she said, giving me side-eye.

'Look, she's hot, but she's young enough to be my...'

I mentally calculated.

'... Niece.'

'Do you have a niece?'

'No, but I have a nephew. I've got an older sister. If she'd had a baby at 18, the baby would be MudFaery's age now.'

'You never mention her.'

'She's in Australia.'

'Convenient,' she said.

I pulled out my phone and showed her a photo of my sister Eileen and my ten-year-old nephew Conor and myself, sitting in an Adelaide restaurant.

'Fair enough,' TCB said. 'But do you fancy MudFaery?'

'What does it matter? You and I aren't a couple.'

'Just, if we're going to meet her,' TCB said, 'it has to be professional.'

'Oh, strictly professional,' I said.

*** 

So TCB messaged MudFaery, with me sitting beside her. Not for me to exercise editorial control, just because she wanted me to know what she was saying.

From: TotalCoverageBitch

To: MudFaery

Hey MudFaery,

Thanks so much for your kind comments on the videos MuddyBi679 and I have made. It's very nice to have encouragement like this.

He and I have talked and we would be interested in talking about collaborating with you on a video. What kind of thing are you thinking of?

Best,

TotalCoverageBitch

Twenty-four hours later:

From: MudFaery

To: Total CoverageBitch

Hi TotalCoverageBitch,

I'm so so flattered that you would want to collaborate with me. I mean I'm totally new on the site and you guys have been making videos for years.

I love the way your videos are completely unique to you, the way you're so still and silent in them. It's amazing. It makes me want to be more honest in my own videos. It's truly inspiring.

Obviously you're in contact with MuddyBi679 so what I would want to say to him is that I think it's fantastic to see a queer guy so open to being vulnerable on screen. So many messy videos by guys can be kinda stolid and boring, but MuddyBi679 is always a bit more emotional. I love that about his stuff.

Basically I think you guys are like brilliant and original and I would love to make something with you!!

I am lucky enough to have access to a property that has plenty of space for making the kind of videos we don't normally get to make in this country and I would love to have you come down and be my guests for a weekend, if you can be free? If you can pay for your train tickets I would love to put you up, just for an initial meeting and to talk ideas! And who knows, if we feel like it, maybe make something together!

If you are up for this, please let me know of any special dietary requirements you have. I'm allergic to peanuts so I'm very conscious of that kind of thing.

Please consider my offer and let me know what you guys think! I would so love to talk with you and see what we could do together. See my address below.

Lots of love x x x

Gwen aka MudFaery

*** 

We read this at the same time, in my flat, on TCB's phone, one Saturday afternoon.

'Fuck me,' I mused.

'I mean,' TCB said, 'she's a lot.'

I nodded.

'Does seem nice, though, no?' I said.

'Nobody's this nice,' she said gloomily.

'Also, who the fuck is called "Gwen"?'

'Gwen John.'

'Apart from semi-obscure women artists of the early 20th century who are only now being properly appreciated.'

'Her,' TCB said, pointing at the photo of the radiant, beaming young thing who was apparently so keen to get to know us muggles.

'How much does it cost to get a return ticket from here to where she lives,' I said.

TCB did a brief search and then, expressionless, she showed me the price of the train tickets.

I sighed.

'Curse our reasonably-priced rail network,' I said.

*** 

Fairly early on a Saturday morning slightly later, TCB and I met at the Big Train Station and boarded a train for the south.

We unpacked our Marks & Spencer sandwiches, and our respective, faithful, battered, double-walled water bottles, and sat opposite each other at the little table, and plugged our phones into the charging sockets underneath it.

TCB was fine with facing the rear of the train, which suited me, as I feel vaguely nauseated when travelling backwards.

I didn't really think that anything would come of this. I had the strong suspicion that MudFaery was hypnotised by the fact that we'd made two rather brilliant videos, and was expecting TCB and myself to be as brilliant as the videos.

Not that TCB wasn't interesting, but I was sure that I wasn't, and I thought MudFaery was that age when you think that everyone slightly older than you who does something that impresses you must therefore be incredibly cool in person, and then you meet them, and they aren't, and...

And then, another thought came into my head, which was Free weekend in a country house!

It had become clear that MudFaery came from some serious money, and that her access to all this marshland was because her family owned it, and was seemingly either oblivious or indifferent to her activity as a messy fetish content creator.

So, I thought, at the very worst, we go down and meet her, and she realises we're boring, and then it's just embarrassment until we can get the next train home.

Next best; we meet her, and it's okay, and we try and find some common ground, but it doesn't work, so, amicable separation, and TCB and I go back to leading our muggle lives.

Bizarrely great outcome: we meet her, and sparks fly, and we make amazing stuff together, and forge friendships for life, who knows?

... Try as I might, my sense of the gravitational pull of the earth kept dragging me back to the first of these outcomes.

I glanced up at TCB, who was deep in Judith Butler. She seemed to sense my gaze, for she looked back.

'Off on the road with dwarves,' I said.

She frowned.

'What?'

'It's a line from The Hobbit.'

'Never read it,' she said.

I shrugged and went back to trying to read Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

'Which one of us is the dwarves?' she said.

'Well, me.'

She considered this.

'I saw those movies,' she said. 'They were shit.'

'The book's better.'

'It'd want to be,' she said.

We read on in silence.

*** 

It was quite a journey to MudFaery's part of the shires, and by mid-morning TCB and I had both dozed a bit.

But as we went further south it got hotter and hotter, and the fields got more and more industrially-tended, and eventually we got off at Medium-Sized University Town and waited for a less high-powered train to take us to St. Fuck Knows Where, which wasn't the sort of station that the inter-city train could be bothered to stop at.

It was a pleasant summer lunchtime in middle England. If you're into that kind of thing.

TCB was on her phone.

'Oh,' she said in a tone of mild interest. 'More men have expressed interest in fucking me while I'm face-down in mud.'

I looked at her, and she looked at me and nodded a little sadly.

'Yes, I know. I wanted to be more popular.'

'I'm just gonna say this once,' I said.

'Don't,' she said, looking pained, and holding up a finger. 'Please. Don't say I don't have to do this. I know I don't have to do this. I want to do this.'

'Okay.'

'I just want it to be different.'

I watched her.

'Surely,' she said, 'there's got to be something we could do that would make them look at it differently. Like, not "I want to fuck the hell out of you" but "I get what you are doing and I feel it."'

'Isn't that what you were doing before? I mean, I got that from your other stuff. But most people don't, because you're putting it on a site where people want stuff to... have fun to. I'm fine with people jerking off to my stuff.'

'I think what I want,' she said, 'is to make jerking off mean something other than just jerking off.'

'So basically, you want to change the entire psychosexual structure of contemporary society.'

'I really don't see why that's so fucking unreasonable.'

I was still watching her, and I could not figure out if she was joking or not.

I decided to gamble.

'Well, if that's what you really want to do... you need a hand with that?'

She looked up at me, at first suspicious that I was taking the piss, and then her face slowly relaxed, and she smiled a little.

'Yeah,' she said casually. 'Cheers.'

*** 

Something like two hours later, a stuttering little local train deposited us at some half-assed rural halt that I couldn't believe was still open, except that some local rich folk had probably lobbied against its closure, i. e. bribed senior government ministers to keep it.

It was, by now, four in the afternoon, and we were hot, hungry and thirsty. The station was no more than a couple of platforms, a bridge and a car park, dumped in the middle of deep country. No chance of getting a refreshing snack or beverage. Anyone using this station would have brought such things with them. Probably in a hamper.

We wandered out into the car park and I attempted to obtain an Uber to get us the last five miles to our destination.

Forty-five minutes later, it was clear that Uber's promises that it was looking for a driver were not going to be fulfilled. TCB was sitting on her suitcase, fanning herself.

I was about to tell her that it looked like we were going to have to walk, when a vintage Land Rover pulled into the car park and halted.

The driver door swung open and a fresh-faced young woman in t-shirt and shorts descended to the earth, and beamed at us.

'Hello!' she said, in one of those English accents that can give you a paper cut. 'Sorry I didn't get here sooner. My neighbour's had a fall and I was making sure she was all right.'

She sprang over to us and looked us both in the face.

'Just to be sure I'm not making a twat of myself,' she said, 'do "TCB" and "679" mean anything to you?'

TCB stood up.

'Yeah,' she said, 'that's us.'

MudFaery's beam grew wider.

'Come on,' she said, 'let's get you somewhere nicer.'

*** 

It would not be fair to say that MudFaery drove like a maniac. She drove like a maniac who happened to be an expert driver.

TCB and I huddled in the back, white-faced and terrified, as we rocketed down single-lane country roads that MudFaery clearly knew as well as she knew her own teeth.

'I'm so glad you made it down,' she shouted over the roar of the engine. 'I can't wait to get you home and get you settled in and just have a chat. Are you starving? You must be starving. There are some snacks in the bag in front of you, and there's water in the door pockets.'

Sure enough, there were indeed snacks hanging from a bag hanging from the driver's seat, and the pockets inside the rear doors held chilled water bottles. We grabbed these and ate and drank.

'So anyway,' she said, glancing at us in the rear view mirror, 'I'm Gwen?'

I glanced at TCB, whose mouth was crammed full of hummus chips.

'Cal,' I said.

'Cal,' MudFaery said, nodding. 'Is it short for something?'

'No, just plain old Cal.'

'Like the Bernard McLaverty novel,' she said.

I blinked.

'The what now?'

'The novel by Bernard McLaverty? Well, it's more of a novella. You're Irish, aren't you?'

'Yeah.'

'Oh, well I mean it's from the eighties,' she said, as if she was a bit embarrassed to bring up something from long before both our times. 'There's a movie of it with Helen Mirren and who was it, Liam Neeson? No, that was Lamb, different movie, also based on something by Bernard McLaverty. It'll come to me. Anyway, never mind, fuck that shit. Good book though. Good movie, too. But, anyway.'

'I've never read Bernard McLaverty,' I said.

'Oh well I mean I've hardly read him,' she said. 'But my mum went to uni in Ireland and we just had a lot of Irish books lying around. Anyway.'

This was done with such a combination of manic

geekery, self-effacing humility at being so much better-read than me, and eagerness to get away from any awkwardness around the matter, that it was impossible to be offended.

She looked at TCB in the rear-view mirror.

'Um,' TCB said, 'Peggy.'

'Peggy,' MudFaery said, nodding, clearly keen to not go off on such a riff as she had on my name.

'Well,' TCB said, 'that's my middle name.'

'Okay,' MudFaery said, her eyes on the road, and she executed an appallingly deft negotiation of a mini-roundabout, then looked back at TCB.

'My first name's Crocifissa,' TCB said, and I thought I detected a gleam of malice as she said it.

I looked at MudFaery's reaction, and her eyes widened.

'Oh. My. God,' she said. 'That is the fucking awesomest name ever.'

I glanced at TCB, who looked slightly stunned.

'Well,' she said, 'it's not a great one to grow up with.'

'I can only imagine,' MudFaery said, shaking her head sympathetically. 'God. I mean, it's amazing, but it's like being called Apollo or Hitler or something. Shit. How did you manage?'

TCB was slighly lost for words.

'Mostly used Peggy,' she said.

'Sensible woman,' MudFaery said, and then the Land Rover braked to a smooth stop in the middle of the road.

Nothing happened for a moment, and then a very Bambi-like deer ambled across the road twenty feet ahead of us.

'They're always doing that here,' she said, as she watched it go. 'You just get used to looking out for their antlers on the other side of the hedge.'

TCB looked at me, expressionless.

Then the Land Rover sprang back into life.

*** 

About fifteen minutes later, we slowed down and came to a pair of large wooden gates to the left of the road.

MudFaery hauled the Land Rover to a halt, got out and opened the gates, then got back in and drove us into what I couldn't help noticing was an actual farmyard. She parked the Land Rover, got out and went back to close the gates.

Sensing that our journey was, for the moment, at an end, TCB and I got out and stood on slightly wobbly legs amid some seriously old buildings. The occasional goose wandered about, seemingly without purpose or aim in life. There was a smell of animal crap.

'Here we are,' said MudFaery, coming back to us. 'Let's get you up to the house.'

She led us across the farmyard, through a little copse of trees, over a bridge that crossed what appeared to be a goddamn moat, and up to a clearly very old building. The front door was open.

We went inside and found ourselves literally in the kitchen, which was also apparently the dining room. People somewhat younger than us were scattered about the room, some on laptops, some deep in conversation, one or two actually cooking.

'Guys,' MudFaery announced, 'this is Peggy and Cal.'

There was a small chorus of Hellos from most of the young folk.

A short young woman materialised at MudFaery's elbow. She had black hair, olive skin, thick black eyebrows, glasses and a very pretty face that looked like it smiled only when certain specific circumstances converged. She gave us a nod.

'Guys,' MudFaery said to us, 'this is T. J.' She turned to T. J.

'Yes, darling.'

'We need your approval on the edit of episode 14,' T. J. said. Her voice was abnormally flat and emotionless. MudFaery nodded.

'I watched it this morning,' she said, her face entirely neutral. 'What did you think?'

T. J. paused for a moment.

'I thought it was excellent,' she said. 'I think Chris did a great job.'

'Fully agree,' MudFaery said, nodding. 'Big props to him. If he's happy, put it in the queue.'

'Great,' T. J. said, still expressionless.

'Okay,' MudFaery said. 'I'm going to sit down with Peggy and Cal, and we're just going to say hi and chill for a bit, because they've been travelling all day.'

'Absolutely,' said T. J., still with the same deadpan seriousness. 'D'you want some drinks?'

'I can sort that,' MudFaery said. 'You just finish up here and we'll all get together at seven as usual.'

'Perfect,' T. J. said, and they air-kissed, and then T. J. turned and seemed to vanish.

'That's T. J.,' MudFaery said fondly. 'Nothing would get done around here without her. She's a bloody wizard. Come on.'

She beckoned us down a corridor and we ended up in a room with a large window, looking out on the rather overgrown back garden. The walls were hung with framed certificates, evidence of various kinds of pursuit of excellence of some sort.

The afternoon sun was coming in, and the furniture consisted of ancient chairs and bean-bags. MudFaery flopped into a bean-bag and smiled at us.

It seemed a bit stuffy to sit in a chair, so I sat in a bean-bag too, even though I don't like them. TCB sat on an ancient-looking wing chair and smiled at us.

'Ohhh god,' MudFaery sighed. 'Finally got you here. It's great to have you guys.'

'Quite an operation,' TCB said.

'Well, we don't just make messy videos,' MudFaery said. 'We feel like we have a wider responsibility. So there's quite a lot of stuff going on. But, yeah, once I started doing this, and realised I had friends who were into doing it too, seemed a bit silly not to involve people.'

'What do you do?' TCB asked.

'Well,' MudFaery said, 'there's the estate to run, cause my mum can't really do it all herself anymore, and land agents... I mean, they charge a lot. So, we do it ourselves, collecting rents and doing upkeep, and so on. If you look after your tenants, and you treat them like people, and you don't keep hiking up the rent, and fix things when they're broken and replace things when they wear out, turns out you can keep tenants for years.

'Also, um, there's an ongoing thing about preserving wetlands for soil diversity, which is why we have access to all the mud...'

She rolled her eyes and laughed slightly.

'What else. We, um, we campaign for more NHS funding for mental health, that's a thing I personally, um, well, anyway, it matters to me, and we also recycle clothing and toys and tech for the immigrant hostel. So, yeah, we keep busy.'

'How do you do all that from making videos,' TCB said.

'Oh, we don't,' MudFaery said, smiling. 'We make videos because we like to. We fund all the rest of it out of, well, the profits from the estate. And, all the other investments my family has.'

'Wow,' I said.

'I know,' she said, smiling rather ruefully. 'You're wondering how I earn a living.'

She scrunched up her face.

'I don't need to earn a living,' she said. 'I've got so many income sources, it's stupid. That's why I try to put as much of it back as I can. It's like Bill Gates. I don't want to be rich and a dick. What's the point. Put the money back to work.'

Up until that point, I had not realised just how wealthy MudFaery was.

I don't think TCB had either.

'So,' TCB said, 'how come you do the videos, where...'

'Because I love it,' MudFaery said, grinning. 'How come you do it?'

TCB was silent.

'I mean,' MudFaery said, 'it's just... it's so primal, right? I mean, we're completely exposed, we're being robbed of all our normal sort of bullshit dignity, we're being plunged into muck, it's classic stuff, it's like Beckett, have you read How It Is? I read that when I was like whatever and it was practically like a wank thing for me, because I wanted someone to drag me naked through the mud.'

Her eyes gleamed.

'When you're naked and muddy and helpless, it's like the perfect metaphor, isn't it? It's like, this is what it's like when things are as bad as they can be. But you go on, yeah? You live as well as you can, and you don't let it defeat you.'

She was sitting, leaning forward, her hands thrust between her knees, looking at us, hopefully, as if she wanted us to agree.

'And so,' she said, 'when I saw you guys making your videos, where you fuck each other, and it was so raw and so direct, it was like: oh my god, these guys get it more than I do. Because, when you're down there, and cold and muddy and naked, and you get fucked into the bargain, and you still have the courage to show that, that's... fucking amazing. I mean, I was crying, watching them.'

She smiled at us, helplessly, her eyes moist.

'What can I say? It made me want to do better. Just seeing you two, making that out of your relationship. It's so amazing.'

I glanced at TCB, who was already glancing at me.

She paused for enough of a microsecond to let me know what she was going to say.

'Uh, we're not in a relationship,' she said, indicating me.

MudFaery looked blank, then stunned. I nodded in agreement.

'You're not?'

'No,' TCB said. 'I mean, we know each other, obviously, but we met doing this. We're not like, boyfriend, girlfriend.'

MudFaery stared at us for a long moment. At first she looked stricken, and I felt bad for her.

Then her expression changed to something more ironic.

Finally, she smiled at us and said:

'Are you sure?'

TCB and I looked at each other.

'We're really not,' I said.

'No,' TCB said. 'It's just about the videos. We're not a...'

'Oh god,' MudFaery said, and she looked embarrassed and put her hands to her face. 'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to... it's just, there's so much trust in those videos, I just assumed, and...'

'It's fine,' TCB said.

'Here I am talking about not being a dick,' MudFaery said, 'and I go and be a dick. Fuck, of course, I mean, write your own script, obviously. I'm really sorry.'

'It's okay,' I said.

'Well it's a bit embarrassing now, because we've put you in a room with a double bed,' she said. 'Hmm. Let me think what to do. I'll talk to T. J. and we'll work something out.'

'Oh...' TCB said and looked at me. I looked at her. She made a face and shrugged slightly.

'You don't have to...' I said.

'It's fine,' TCB said. 'We can share a bed.'

'You're sure? Because we can sort something out.'

'It'll be fine,' I said.

'Okay. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Actually,' she said, 'tbh, if the weather turns, you might be glad to be sharing a bed because it can get bloody cold, and the heating in this place is not the best.'

'When was this house built?' TCB said.

'Um,' MudFaery said, thinking, '1555, we think, but it got a bit knocked down in the civil war, so some of it's later. Oh god, my manners. Tea? Or would you like something cold?'

'Could I get a glass of water,' TCB said. I shook my head.

'Of course,' MudFaery said, springing to her feet, and she went back to the kitchen.

TCB got up and strolled over to the certificates on the wall and inspected them, then sat down again.

'Learn anything interesting?' I said.

'Of course she's Grade seven oboe,' TCB said, scowling.

'Is that good?'

'It's fucking amazing. It's just,' TCB said. She was balling her hands into fists and shaking her head.

'... She's too good. There's something bullshit about all this.'

'You really think she faked an oboe examination certificate just to impress us?'

'Don't you feel it?'

'Not really.'

'I'm just not buying it,' TCB said. 'There's something wrong.'

'Did you play the oboe?'

'No. Clarinet. Oboe's too hard.'

'Do you still?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'I was shit at it.'

'Oh.'

'I don't actually like clarinet music,' she admitted, 'so that didn't exactly help.'

'I can see how that would put you off practising.'

MudFaery returned with a glass of iced water which she placed in TCB's hand, then she resumed her position on the bean-bag, semi-recumbent and with her legs spread wide apart.

'So tell me,' she said, 'if you don't mind my asking, how did you two meet, if you weren't friends before doing this?'

TCB and I looked at each other.

'You want to tell it?' I said.

'No, you,' she said.

'No, you tell it,' I said.

'Why do I have to tell it.'

'I think you should tell it. I mean, we've never told anyone and I think you should start.'

She looked at me levelly, rather irritated, I thought (I could tell, by now, when TCB was actively irritated as opposed to just her default condition of basically displeased), and then she stared at the floor.

'Well,' she said haltingly, 'um, you've seen my, um, my videos, and for me, it's sort of, a way of centring myself and calming down, and the video kind of makes it a Thing, as opposed to just some self-indulgent self-therapy bollocks. Like, a thing I can give to someone else, and maybe they'll find it calming or, something. Um, and this one day, I'd had a really, really shit day, work had been crazy, and I came home, and my flatmates were going to have a party. And, I don't love parties, with all the noise, and the music, and the people, and the. Um, so I decided I was going to do a shoot.

'And I had this place near my place, which was really good because there was enough mud that I could get totally covered, cause I like to, as you've. And the first thing I do, after I've undressed, is I cover myself, and I don't turn on the camera, I just lie there, and get used to how cold it is, because I want to be cold and, and sort of uncomfortable. So I did, and I was lying there, and this night, it wasn't even really that cold and I think, with the day, I'd been so stressed that I was very tired, and I sort of dozed off a bit. Because the next thing I know, there's something moving next to me, and I open my eyes, and there's this like naked bloke face down in the mud, right beside me. And it's...'

She pointed to me.

MudFaery's mouth was hanging open and a look of pure delight was on her face.

'Ohhhhhh fuuuuuuuuuuck,' she squeaked.

'Yeah,' TCB drawled, 'because he'd moved from his usual spot and he couldn't see me because I was covered over and my lights were off.'

MudFaery toppled over onto one side, holding her stomach, laughing helplessly and silently.

'Yeah,' TCB said tartly, 'well it was really fucking annoying.'

'But,' MudFaery gasped, 'but, but, how did you...'

TCB looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

'Well,' I said, 'she asked me what the fuck I was doing, and for a second there, I thought she was just someone walking her dog, who I hadn't seen, or whatever, but then she sat up, and I saw she was bare-arse naked, and I said, well I'm trying to make a video, what the fuck are you doing.'

This set MudFaery off again. She was choking with laughter.

'Yeah, you laugh,' TCB said, 'but it fucking ruined my evening.'

'I'm so sorry,' MudFaery managed to gasp, pushing herself upright. 'I'm so sorry. I totally get why it would've. So what did you do?'

She sat with one hand covering her huge grin.

'Well, we had a conversation,' TCB said, 'and we agreed we weren't in the mood to do a shoot, and then he invited me to use his shower, so that's what we, um. Did.'

'And it was really late, so I gave her my bed and I slept on the sofa.'

'And that's how you became friends,' MudFaery said.

TCB thought about this and jiggled her head non-committally.

'Well, I mean,' she said, 'let's not go nuts.'

'We're sort-of friends,' I said.

MudFaery looked from TCB to me and back, her huge brown eyes wide open, still grinning behind her hand.

'Right,' she said, 'you're not really friends.'

'Well, we get on, more or less,' I said. 'But it's all about the videos.'

'We write our own script,' TCB said. MudFaery looked at her for a moment, and nodded as if accepting defeat.

'Yup, you write your own script,' she said. 'I mean, just for me, I've never made a video with someone I haven't at least kissed. Even just messing around.'

TCB shrugged, but said nothing.

I got the impression that MudFaery was waiting for one of us to say or do something, but I had no idea what.

'I mean,' she said, 'I still really want to make a video with you guys, and I don't want to make it a deal-breaker that we have to, you know...'

'Good,' TCB said.

MudFaery blinked.

'Cause like, you've come all the way out here, and I need to push myself too, I think I need to come towards you, and meet you where you feel safe.'

Safe, I thought. Hah.

'So... do you still want to make something?' she said to us. 'Because it's absolutely fine if you don't, we can just hang out, you could make your own things if you want, take a walk, just chill.'

'Oh, I'd like to make something with you, yeah,' said TCB, very serious. MudFaery nodded, clearly grateful for this micro-crumb of encouragement, and looked at me.

'Sure, yeah, absolutely,' I said.

It was awkward, because while I really liked MudFaery's puppyish enthusiasm and just, her, generally, I sensed that if I showed it too much, TCB would get resentful and withdraw, and then I'd be pissed off and I'd withdraw too, and it would just be fucking miserable.

And, my first loyalty had to be to TCB, not to the perky, rich, philanthropic faery girl who could do perfectly well without us. Whatever TCB and I were doing with each other, we'd only just started doing it, and I didn't want to jeapordise it.

'Okay,' MudFaery said, decisively. 'Anything you wanna do, I mean I don't do scat or harming or anything illegal, but we can do this however you feel most comfortable doing it. Let's just...'

She waved her hands between the three of us.

'Keep the lines of communication open,' she said. 'I'm really glad you've come, and I think we're gonna have a lot of fun.'

She beamed at us. I smiled back. TCB did a thing with her mouth that looked like she'd read about smiles and thought she'd give them a go.

'Right,' she said, glancing at her phone, 'well, it's six o'clock. I have to do some dinner prep. I'll take you up to your room and you can get settled in, and then it's a tradition that we all get together for drinks at seven. Okay?'

There was a pause, in which I got the sense that normally, at this point in the conversation, there would be hugging involved, but that it definitely wasn't going to happen on this occasion.

'Mm,' said TCB, and nodded exactly once.

*** 

In the privacy of our room, we planted our bags on opposite sides of the enormous bed (very little chance of accidentally touching each other) and began to unpack.

'You think I'm being rude,' TCB said.

'I think you're being you,' I said cautiously.

'Which is rude.'

'I'm not telling you what to do,' I said.

'Good,' she said. 'But seriously, what the fuck? Nobody is this nice, unless they want something from you. I just haven't figured out what it is yet.'

'Maybe she'd just like you to be slightly nicer to her.'

'She's not nice,' TCB said, 'she's friendly. There's a difference.'

'What would it take to convince you that she's actually nice?'

'I don't know,' TCB said and sat on the bed, chewing her thumbnail.

'Well, let me know when you've figured it out,' I said. 'I'm prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.'

'That's cause she's grade seven oboe. You think she must give amazing blowjobs.'

'What grade did you get on clarinet?'

'Two.'

'Do you give good blowjobs?'

'You'll never know.'

'I don't want to know. I don't like blowjobs.'

'Oh come on. All men like blowjobs.'

'You know what,' I said, and I was annoyed, 'we really all don't.'

We stared at each other for a moment, and I had the unfamiliar sensation of having surprised her.

'You don't?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'I don't like looking down at someone sucking my cock,' I said. 'It doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't make me feel manly or aroused or any shit like that. I just don't get the point.'

'You really don't like them,' she said. She seemed fascinated.

'Really don't.'

'Huh,' she said, staring at me thoughtfully.

'I don't mind giving them,' I said, 'but I don't love it.'

'Interesting,' she said. 'Spit or swallow?'

'Neither,' I said. 'Cum in my face.'

She nodded as if this were yet another absorbing piece of new information about me.

I went back to unpacking my stuff.

'Maybe,' she said, 'we should have a threesome with her.'

I boggled at her.

'A threesome? You don't even like her.'

'You can find out a lot about people from having sex with them.'

'How the fuck are you gonna pivot from monosyllabic and sulky to, "Hey Gwen, I've decided you're hot, let's have a threesome?"'

She frowned.

'Yeah, there is that,' she said.

I stared at her.

*

I was getting a bit fed up with Cal's ongoing inability to see what I was getting at.

Um. Sorry. That's maybe a me problem.

This is me, Crocifissa Peggy Travaglio. Or, TCB, as Cal calls me. In his narrative.

Funny. I didn't know he thought of me as TCB. I thought he thought of me as Peggy. I mean, it's simpler. But I suppose it makes sense, given...

Enough of that. Later.

Anyway, I will say that his narrative is accurate about where we were at this point. It was our first day in the house, and I was a bit pissed off.

You see, people just aren't, in my general experience, endlessly nice and cool philanthropists who want to spend their money on good causes and have no dark sides. I know some history.

MudFaery mentioned Bill Gates. Before 2000 or so, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established, Bill Gates was famous for being a rampant capitalist bastard who imposed a monopoly on computer operating systems by getting all manufacturers except Apple to install his crappy one and...

... Sorry. I know you came here for the sexy stuff, not lectures from me about monopoly capital. Bill Gates has ended up not too bad.

I just didn't like MudFaery. I didn't believe in her. Everyone else in the house obviously did. And I felt like the wanker for not doing so. And that made me resent her more.

Because I already think I'm a bit of...

Agh. Sorry. Doing it again. I need to tell the story, not bloody go on about myself.

So that first time we were in the house, Cal and I were there for three nights. We'd taken the Monday and Tuesday off our respective jobs, so we wouldn't have, like, only an evening and a morning in MudFaery's fucking eco-friendly charitable sextopia film studio.

Before I get going on the rest of this bit, let me just say something.

It wasn't like MudFaery wasn't gorgeous.

It wasn't like I wasn't curious to know what it'd be like to have sex with her.

And it wasn't like, with Cal...

Oh look, no, that's too complicated.

Let's get to the drinks part.

*** 

So Cal went off somewhere, I think to read or write or something, and I lay on the bed reading, and then at seven he came back and we went down to the kitchen.

It was about half full of people. But I was quite surprised to notice that it was really kind of chill, with the music quite down low, and people just chatting, spread out.

MudFaery shimmered in front of us, and did her beaming-smile thing.

'Hi,' she tinkled. 'Can I get you guys a drink?'

'Just a beer would be great,' I said.

'Beer sounds good,' Cal said.

'Cool,' she said. 'If you want to go somewhere more quiet, there's a chill-out zone in the back room.' And she went off to the fridge.

And then I realised that she'd remembered what I'd said before, about not liking big loud noisy parties, and she'd specifically constructed this one so as to suit me.

I hated that.

It made me feel like I was being catered for. I don't like to feel like people are making allowances for me. I'm a big girl, I can handle stuff.

It was MudFaery patronising us.

I stood there, seething, and Cal was saying something next to me but I couldn't hear him, and then she came back and handed us our beers and I blinked and I sort of saw her properly.

And, fuck, she was gorgeous.

I mean, she was patronising and all those things mer mer mer but she was also so fucking lovely. Physically.

I liked Cal, too, he really does have a lovely arse, and he has a kind of nice face too, sort of sweet, but as I drank my beer I began to get the feeling that actually, even though I kind of hated MudFaery, I was also so into her.

I couldn't handle it after a while, so while she and Cal were chatting, I sort of sloped off to the back room, where I found T. J. and about four other people sitting around and chatting. There was some sort of very mellow jazz playing when I came in.

They all looked up.

'Oh, sorry,' I said, and started to back out.

'No,' T. J. said, and I mean I know I can be pretty deadpan but T. J. was like she had one temperature, and it was ten degrees Celsius.

'Come in,' she said, and gestured to a bean-bag.

I don't like bean-bags but it seemed like it'd be a dick thing to not sit in one, so I sat in one.

'Guys,' T. J. said, 'this is Peggy? From up north. A fellow film-maker. She and her friend Cal are Gwen's guests this weekend.'

I'm not a total savage. I waved hello to everyone and was introduced: Gav, who was a very handsome black guy; Jill, who was hot and seriously buff and had blue hair; Harper, who was small and obviously genderqueer and very smiley; Paul, who was just some bloke.

'Are you settling in okay,' T. J. said. 'Is there anything you need.'

I found T. J.'s monotonous voice strangely calming.

'We're fine, I think, thanks,' I said.

'Fucking love your videos,' Harper said, leaning over and offering a hand. Harper was American; couldn't place the accent, though.

'Thanks,' I said, and shook their hand.

'Fucking old school hot. Like fucking MudPuddle Visuals hot. But way more queer.'

'... Thanks?' I said.

'Harper is our messy video archivist,' T. J. said. 'They have a fantastic knowledge of the history of the form.'

'Really?'

'Oh, god, it's so rich at this point,' Harper said. 'But it's so buried, too. It's so hard to find the really pioneering stuff. It's like the state of film studies in the late 60s right now, before they started restoring nitrate.'

'Right,' I said, feeling more and more inadequate by the moment. But Harper was very cute, and warm and enthusiastic, and I liked them.

'I mean,' Harper said, 'the anecdotal stuff we have about the early messy videos? There's so much, but the videos themselves are gone, because the sites that hosted them are gone. So, like, we have tantalising evidence of ClownJulie, for example, or Imogen, but the actual footage is almost completely gone.'

'... Who?' I said.

'Exactly,' Harper said. 'ClownJulie was this English woman who did a bunch of messy videos in the early days of public internet, in the early 90s, but we have so little footage of any of it. It's almost like she was never there. But so many Gen Xers today talk about her in chat, like she was the fucking Beatles of messy videos. She turned so many people on to getting messy.'

'Never heard of her,' I said.

'I've barely seen her stuff,' Harper said, shrugging. 'But, apparently, she was fearless. But then, the whole scene gets co-opted by US pay sites like MudPuddle Visuals, and it becomes about straight white guys getting professional fetish models to hit each other with pies.'

'Oh yeah,' I said. 'I've seen those.'

'Right?' Harper said. 'Basic shit. Hot women in mud and whipped cream, and that's basically it.'

Harper shook their head.

'And it got more diverse again in the late 00s and 10s, but it goes with the market. This is for straight men, this is for gay men, the market's squeezing out everyone else. My generation wants what it wants.'

I realised something.

'I've seen you in one of MudFaery's videos,' I said.

Harper twinkled.

'If you've seen all her videos, you've seen me in more than one of them,' they said.

'Oh yeah,' I said, and realised that I had. 'I have, haven't I.'

Harper grinned at me.

'You want another drink?' they said.

*

I (Cal, that is) was standing in the kitchen when MudFaery came up to me, a cocktail in her hand, and smiled.

'How are you doing,' she said.

'I'm good. I think I'm sort of... detoxing from the world where I normally live.'

'It is a lovely house, isn't it.'

'It's not the house so much as the people. It's weird.'

'Are you having a good time, though?' she asked earnestly.

'Oh, sure. It's just not like what I'm used to.'

'In what way?'

'It's just so... positive. Like, it makes me feel like more things are... doable, than I normally feel like.'

'That's a very nice thing to hear,' she said. 'Thank you.'

'Well, thanks for having us.'

She smiled and nodded, and we stood there, and it was actually kind of nice to feel like MudFaery was feeling the awkwardness too.

'Peggy's great,' she said.

'Yes,' I said.

'She's quite, um.'

'She's quite private,' I said.

'Yeah,' MudFaery said. 'I respect that, because I'm rubbish at it. I just sort of splurge everything out there.'

'She does open up,' I said. 'It just takes her a while.'

'Oh, totally.'

We were silent for a moment.

'Have you guys had any ideas at all about anything you'd like to shoot,' she said.

'We haven't really talked about it, to be honest.'

'Okay,' she said. 'I think tomorrow might be a really good day to try something, if you think of anything, because it's gonna rain in the small hours, but then it'll be sunny all morning, so...'

'Okay,' I said. 'Good to know.'

'I'm totally willing to be led by you,' she said, smiling. 'I'm sure you'll come up with some fantastic way to completely destroy me.'

'I think we'll be more than willing to be led by you,' I said. 'You're way more prolific than we are.'

'Oh,' she said, and her smile heightened a few notches. 'Okay. Brilliant. I mean, I've love to, if you're into it.'

I wanted to say I don't even know if we won't be going home tomorrow morning on the first train because my partner hates you so much, but it was probably just as well that I couldn't figure out a nice way to say it.

At that point, a small and very cute person with a mop of curly hair and very tight jeans shorts edged past MudFaery, smiling.

'Sorry,' they said, 'just getting more beers.'

'Harper!' MudFaery cried. 'This is Cal. You have to meet Cal. Harper is our messy video historian.'

Harper shone enormous charm in my direction.

'Hi,' they said. 'I'm just chatting to Peggy. She's amazing. Getting us more beers.'

I nodded, wondering if Harper too thought that TCB and I were an item.

'Darling,' MudFaery said, 'can you check with Paul and see how far along we are with dinner?'

'Will do,' Harper said, and they both air-kissed, and then Harper went on their way to the fridge.

'Have I seen them in...' I said.

'Yes,' MudFaery said, nodding. 'I swear, you haven't been dommed in mud until you've been dommed in mud by Harper. They're savage.'

She looked over her shoulder and watched Harper go with a fond look on her face, and then looked back at me.

I thought: We're not supposed to be here.

This is a mistake.

These people are too cool for us.

*

So, a while later (it's Peggy again), I was in the back room with Harper, and we were looking at these clips from their archive of messy videos.

I had had a couple more beers and I was feeling fairly happy. It was quite quiet in the room and nobody was expecting me to dance. I hate it when someone's expecting me to dance.

'The abiding characteristic of British porn,' Harper said, 'is that it tends to be giggly.'

'I fucking hate that,' I said.

'I think it's got something to do with pantomime. Maybe you can enlighten me.'

'Yeah, it's like we can't take sex seriously, and when we do, we make it about something other than sex. It's so fucked up.'

'Just, on that subject,' Harper said, thumbing through several pages of a site, 'I really like the weird energy these two have. One of them's definitely English and I think the other one might be Dutch or something, but they do a lot of the giggly stuff, but they also have these scenes where it's usually about the Dutch one tormenting the English one... yeah, here.'

It was a video in which the tall, brassy, confident, heavily made-up English one got pied and messed up and had her clothes cut off, piece by piece, by the other one, who did indeed have this weird accent that went all over the place, and instead of having the little knowing wink to the audience it was like some strange psychodrama being enacted in front of us: I knew that the tall one was acting, but she was so good at being increasingly hurt and humiliated that it made me very hot.

'Fuck, that's awesome,' I murmured as she bitterly denounced her friend for being a fucking bitch, as the friend poured cream over her face.

'It's so riddled with class,' Harper said, grinning. 'Like, Cat thinks Alice is kind of a chav and a slut who's got ideas above herself, and Alice thinks Cat is just this ugly schlub who works in reception and can't dress properly, so Cat gets revenge by completely trashing Alice. The basic structure of 21st century British society is all there.'

I looked at Harper, who was really very sexy, and I felt the need for more drink to take my mind off the fact that I found Harper so sexy.

'But that's what I miss in porn,' I said. 'I hate it when it's too happy. I need struggle and humiliation.'

'Well, hence your videos.'

'Yeah. I didn't want to just show me having a great time. I wanted to show me having kind of a terrible time.'

'But it's understood that you're not really dying of humiliation,' Harper pointed out. 'I mean, you made the video, you chose to put it up.'

'Yeah,' I said.

'And in that last one, it looks an awful lot like you came for real.'

'Can you keep a secret?'

'Bitch, please,' Harper said.

'Is that a yes?'

'Yes, I can keep a secret.'

'I did,' I said, blushing. 'I couldn't help it. And now I feel like I've sort of sold out by doing it.'

'Well, you don't have to do it again if you don't want to.'

'But I want more people to see my stuff.'

'Then you kind of have to give people what they want,' Harper said, and looked over my shoulder. 'I think dinner is served, but let's talk and eat.'

We went into the kitchen. Everyone was sitting at this big table and there was some kind of stew. Cal was on my right, Harper on my left, and MudFaery was sitting at the head of the table.

I was glad that there was food because I was very hungry and four beers had gone right to my head. I concentrated on getting some food into myself.

*

Next to me, TCB was eating the vegetable tagine like she was afraid someone was going to take it away from her. It was very good.

Wine was passed around and poured, and MudFaery raised her glass to us all.

'I'd just like to say,' she said, 'first off, great job, Chris, on editing Part 14, which will be posted tonight.'

There were cheers.

'And a very warm welcome to Cal and Peggy, whose stuff is awesome and who will be staying a couple of days.'

I glanced at TCB, who looked up from her food in a sort of hunted way, and nodded at the hellos we were getting. I feel uncomfortable enough in social situations but I could tell that TCB was feeling like a bit of a trapped animal.

Then Harper poured her some wine and started talking to her quietly, and she stopped eating quite so fast and relaxed a bit. I was relieved; I dunno why, really, but I'd started to feel a bit like I had sort of parental responsibility for TCB. But Harper, who was very pretty and had a ton of facial piercings and a soft voice, seemed to hit it off with her.

Still, I'd had a beer and two stiff cocktails and I was still feeling the stress of just being among all these beautiful, talented, charming people, when I was a drab little schlub. I mean, even the ones who weren't beautiful were beautiful, if you know what I mean; they looked like they felt beautiful, and that gave them warmth and confidence.

I decided to focus on the food. It was definitely some sort of tagine, I was pretty sure of that, not that I really know what tagine is, or where it comes from, but it had chickpeas and aubergines and cauliflower, and it was spicy and smelt nice and tasted good.

How nice it must be, I thought, to live in a house with your friends, at least one of whom can cook like this, and get to make videos with them, and do good things around the area.

Instead of living by yourself, and having no friends, instead of maybe one weird sort-of friend, who you've one thing in common with, and working every day, in a job you find boring, and making videos just of yourself. And occasionally your one weird sort-of friend.

But, I thought, I'm making new friends, amn't I? I mean, this is the perfect opportunity to, if I'm ever gonna, and we all have one thing in common, which is we like getting messy and making videos of ourselves.

'Cal, Peggy,' said a voice opposite me, and I looked up. I was sitting opposite T. J., who was methodically eating her tagine, or whatever the fuck it was.

'Yes.'

'I've got forms for you guys to sign,' T. J. said to us in her weird flat voice. 'Just standard release forms affirming that you're over 18. I'll give them to you after dinner, if that's okay.'

'Sure,' I said nodding, and TCB nodded.

'T. J.,' TCB said, 'how come you're never in the videos?'

'Oh,' T. J. said, 'I don't do videos. It's against my religion.'

'Your religion?'

'I'm a Muslim,' T. J. said. 'I mean, I'm not terribly strict about it, but I couldn't take my clothes off in front of anyone who isn't part of my family.'

'But you help make these videos,' TCB said.

'Yes,' T. J. said, still in the same hypnotic monotone. 'It's very hypocritical of me. I don't mind other people getting their clothes off, but I can't do it.'

I stared at her. The faintest hint of a smile was on T. J.'s face.

'Are you joking,' I said.

'You are,' TCB said.

T. J. stared at us for a moment, and then smiled properly.

'No, it's true,' she said in her impregnable drawl. 'I'm really not very devout, but there's no fucking way I could take my clothes off to make a video that would be shown in public. I'm kind of in awe of anyone who does.'

'But,' TCB said, 'isn't it, like, sharia, that you shouldn't make it possible for other people to do it?'

'Yeah, it is,' T. J. said. 'But, I don't really care. You see, I don't want to take my clothes off, so it's fine with me that I shouldn't. But I do want to help my friends do good work for the community, which is also sharia, and which is what we do here, so I don't really care that porn is haram. I'm not personally participating, so I'm not being personally immodest.'

TCB stared at her.

'D'you mind me asking, Peggy,' Harper said, 'are you a Muslim?'

'No, I'm lapsed Catholic.'

'Ah. Cause, arguably, you shouldn't make videos either, then.'

'I just,' TCB said, and fell silent, staring into space, thinking, her meal apparently forgotten.

'We try to be ethical,' MudFaery said. 'Our principal rule is not to do anyone else harm, so if T. J. would feel pressured into being in a video, that would be harmful. So she does other stuff, and that's how she brings light into all our lives.'

She beamed at T. J., apparently non-ironically, and T. J. inclined her head politely back.

'But sex is harmful,' TCB said.

The table fell silent.

Everyone looked at TCB. She'd said it loud enough that it was impossible to ignore.

MudFaery looked startled, and then her face settled into a slightly puzzled but sympathetic smile.

'Is it?' she said gently.

'Well,' said TCB, looking as if she'd given too much away, 'okay, not harmful, but it can be painful, it can involve blood and sweat and tears, and that's what I like in porn, when there's pain in it, the pain you get in real life.'

'Sex can be joyful, too, no?' said a young woman with blue hair and muscles and a very deep voice.

'Yes, but I'm not interested in watching that,' TCB said, and drank some wine. 'I've, really, I've had it up to here with porn that's just about people having a lovely time and it's all wonderful, and everyone's having their bliss. Life's not like that. It's embarrassing and it's grim, and it's a slog, and I think you have to see that.'

'Well,' said MudFaery, smiling, 'we can talk about the relationship of life and art.'

'Yeah!' said TCB, animated. 'Let's talk about that! Because if art doesn't have any of the flavour of real life, if it doesn't show the struggle and the pain, what fucking use is it? I mean you said yourself, when you were talking to us, you mentioned Samuel Beckett, fucking How It Is, a book about two people fighting in the mud and the dark. That is what gets me excited. Struggling in the mud and the dark.'

'Which you do so amazingly well in your videos,' MudFaery said with earnest admiration.

TCB looked briefly annoyed.

'But I've seen your videos,' TCB said, 'and it's like this holiday from life. I mean, you're all so hot, and it looks beautiful, and you're all enjoying yourselves... and I'm like, where's the dirt and the pain? Where's the tension?'

'You think we should be making porn in which we don't enjoy ourselves,' said blue hair, looking at TCB with an air of increasing impatience.

'Actually, Jill, I think Peggy's making a great point,' said MudFaery, looking around at us with great seriousness. 'I do think we need to step it up a little bit, or maybe just I need to, for sure. You know, get a bit more intensity. I'm usually just having so much fun, but I would like to get better at getting pushed around and punished, a bit more. If anyone's up for that.'

I looked at TCB, and I saw in her face her exasperation that MudFaery was agreeing with her, instead of playing the role of the offended lightweight that TCB wanted to cast her as.

'But the thing about us which I love,' Jill said, shooting a glance at TCB, 'is that we're sex-positive. I mean, you can make porn that's not sex-positive, but you pretty much have to be Russian.'

MudFaery laughed and Jill smirked slightly. TCB blinked.

'For someone like me,' Jill went on, staring at the table, 'I grew up feeling really confused about who I was and who I was into, and being told one thing and knowing another, and being told no, you're deluded, you don't... and just felt absolutely shit and useless, and like sex was something that I wasn't allowed to have, and it was only when I started to sort myself out and see that I was not being allowed to be me, and that not only could I be me but it was fine for me also to like only women, and I started to enjoy it... that's what I want to see. That's what I want to do, on screen. Pleasure. Playing. Not suffering and humiliation.'

'And that's completely valid,' MudFaery said, beaming affirmation and agreement in Jill's general direction. 'I still think Peggy makes a great point about how there can be other sides to it.'

'Is that why you got us down here,' TCB said. 'To be your intensity consultants.'

I drank some wine. This was going to get worse before it got better. TCB drank some too. For about half a second I considered trying to get her to drink less, and then thought better of it.

I looked at MudFaery, who was, incredibly, still unfazed by TCB's attempts to annoy her.

'Really?' Jill said to TCB, in such a dangerous tone that I was starting to worry that fists might fly. Then she looked at MudFaery, who gave her a little It's okay sort of look, and Jill looked kind of embarrassed, as if caught out.

'You know what, though,' MudFaery said, with such lovely and diplomatic reasonableness that I was sort of in awe of her, 'that's actually not a bad way to think of it. I wanted you guys to come here because I thought we could help each other, and I still think so. We've got all these fantastic resources and I'd love for you to come and see them, and see what you can do with them. Which is the plan for tomorrow. If you'd like to do that.'

She sat back and sipped her wine and smiled at Jill and at TCB.

*

I sat there, feeling frustrated and pissed off and also... something else.

I didn't really know what I was trying to do.

I sort of wanted to see MudFaery get angry, for once, because I didn't believe she could, unless I poked her hard enough, and no matter what I did, she just smiled and agreed with me.

It was fucking infuriating. MudFaery was so serene and so cheerful and so happy and it drove me up the fucking wall. Because it was the kind of happy you are when nothing bad's ever happened to you. So it's easy to be happy.

I drained my wine glass.

I looked at Jill, who gave me a look of not liking me very much, and that actually suited me because it meant that there really was a bit of friction in this fucking hippy paradise.

God, Jill was fit as well. They were all fit. I wondered if I couldn't get Jill to beat the crap out of me in the mud tomorrow, and fuck my brains out. Probably not, if she liked everything to be so sex-positive.

'Okay?' Cal said quietly.

I nodded.

'Peggy,' Harper said, the other side of me, 'have some more.'

Oh yeah. The food. I'd forgotten about the food, my brain just goes off, I decide I want something and I focus completely on it and I forget everything else and I get really stressed about it and the next thing you know it's an hour later and my coffee's stone cold and I haven't had a sip.

Harper ladled some more of the spicy stew thing into my bowl and poured me some more wine.

'Sorry,' I muttered, 'I get a bit caught up in myself.'

'It's cool,' they said. 'We're all about mental health around here.'

And smiled. Enchantingly.

*

TCB went back to eating and I felt like another 10lbs of stress was relieved of me. I drank some wine and looked up.

T. J. was watching TCB with an unreadable expression, and then went back to her food.

'T. J.,' I said. She looked up.

'No bullshit,' I said. 'Are you really a Muslim?'

She smiled thinly.

'Enjoy your meal, Cal.'

'Sláinte,' I said, and raised my wine glass.

T. J. raised her water glass.

*

We got to the end of dinner, and then the mood got a bit more party-ish, and music started playing, and I thought I ought to do something to be a bit less of the arsehole that I'd been being, if that makes sense, so I helped clear the table, and Cal was chatting to someone and MudFaery was doing most of the table-clearing, and I went to see if any help was needed washing up, but they had this big eco dishwasher thing, so I sort of found my way back to the back room and sat down in one of the bean bags.

I heard footsteps and looked up. Jill came in, with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

She stopped in front of me.

'Hey,' she said. 'You.'

I looked up.

'C'mon,' she said, smiling slightly. 'Peace.'

'I'm not fighting.'

'Bullshit you're not. Let's have a chat.'

She sat down and poured us wine and handed me a glass.

'I really fucking like your videos, by the way,' she said. 'Not just the ones you did with him. Yours, too.'

'Oh yeah.'

'Why's that so hard to believe? I fucking do. So they're different from what Gwen does. Doesn't make hers bad.'

I looked at her, in her majesty, with her sky-blue hair and her strong arms, and her tattoos, and her obvious desire to build, as they say, bridges.

'You're lovely,' I said, and then said to myself, Fuck's sake, bitch, what is wrong with you.

Jill looked startled and laughed slightly.

'Thank you,' she said. 'So are you.'

'I'm not.'

She looked at me for a moment, then sighed.

'I don't want to have some big fight with you,' she said. 'I'm fucked-up enough as it is, without thinking I know how to talk to you. But, if you want to just hang out, fine.'

'Okay.'

'Just one thing,' she said, and leaned forward. I waited.

'Don't be an arsehole to Gwen, okay? Ideally, don't be an arsehole to anyone, but I'm asking you, not to her? Okay?'

'She's a big girl,' I said.

'Yes, but when I was totally in the shit, she was there for me, and I don't forget that. I used to be so angry, all the time.'

She held out her hands. Her knuckles had what looked like scar tissue on them. She took them back and folded them in her lap.

'It'll kill you,' she said simply, shaking her head. 'It'll kill you. I wouldn't have learned that if it weren't for her.'

I thought, how the fuck did you learn that from her, of all people?

'All right. I'm going to go back in the kitchen now,' she said.

'Okay.'

She gave me an odd look that I couldn't figure out. Then she stood up.

'You can have a bloody great time here,' she said, 'if you just let it in a bit.'

'Let what in?'

'The place,' she said. 'The vibe.'

I picked up my wine glass. I noticed that she'd left the bottle. I appreciated that.

'I'll try,' I said, not meaning it. Not really.

'Okay,' she said, and nodded, and left the room.

*

I (Cal) went into the back room and passed Jill coming out. She barely glanced at me.

I found TCB by herself, with most of a bottle of wine.

'Hey.'

'Hey.'

I sat down next to her.

'So I made a fucking fool of myself,' she said.

I said nothing.

'I see you don't disagree.'

'You were you.'

'Meaning, I was a cunt.'

'Why do you think I think you're a cunt.'

'Because that's what my brain does,' she said.

She paused, and looked around, and looked up at me.

'It runs off by itself, and it makes decisions, and I'm not always able to stop it, and it usually decides things that make me feel bad, and I have to live with the result, but, trouble is, most of the time, I don't disagree. I just wish...'

She stared in the direction of my feet, but not actually at them.

'It would be great if it decided nice things, but, it doesn't, so...'

I reached out my hand and she passed me the wine bottle. I refilled her glass and drank from the bottle.

'I don't think you're a cunt,' I said.

'What do you think I am.'

'I don't have a word for it,' I said. 'I swear. I don't. I'm not that smart.'

She looked up at me.

'I think I fancy Harper,' she said.

'Get in the queue.'

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'I think I fancy MudFaery as well. Even though I kind of, fucking hate her.'

'Same. Though I like her.'

'Also I think I fancy Jill, even though I think she thinks I'm a cunt.'

'Oh, I also think she thinks you're a cunt, but I totally get why you'd fancy her.'

'And you put up with me,' she said, 'because I'm your fucking pity party, and you could do sooo much better.'

'Yeah,' I said, 'that's totally what's going on here. I don't care for you at all. Everything about you and me comes from me feeling superior to you in every way, and getting off on how pathetic you are. That explains our entire relationship. That's why I came down here with you and that's why I'm talking to you now. So I can feel better than you. It's such fucking fun.'

She looked at me. I think my industrial-grade sarcasm managed to pierce the hardened shell of her low self-esteem. Maybe.

'We don't have a relationship,' she said.

'I don't know what the fuck I'm doing either.'

We stared at each other.

'I'm going to bed,' she said.

'So am I,' I said.

We went upstairs, taking the wine with us, although somehow I had the presence of mind to grab some water, and we went to our room, and we shut the door.

And then we looked at each other.

And then we deployed the wine and water sensibly around the room, and we turned our backs on each other, and we undressed, and got into our t-shirts and pyjama trousers, and got into bed, the room gently spinning about us.

I was facing away from her and I rolled the other way. She was facing me.

'Well,' she said, 'night, Cal.'

'Night, Peggy.'

We looked at each other.

She looked thoroughly lost and scared.

'I really want you to kiss me,' she said quietly. 'Is that wrong.'

'I don't know.'

'Would you mind if I kissed you.'

'No.'

'Do you think you'd enjoy it.'

'Dunno. Maybe.'

'Is it okay if I just do it?'

'Yeah, go on.'

She leaned forward and kissed me, and her tongue went in my mouth. We closed our eyes.

TCB's body slid up against mine and I put my hands on her. She squirmed and whimpered into my mouth and she grabbed me and started to lift up the bottom of my t-shirt. I disengaged from the kiss and we locked eyes as I pulled my shirt off. She was kicking her pyjama trousers down her legs and I pulled mine off too and then I was naked and she was in just a ratty t-shirt and we kissed again.

'Oh shit,' she gasped, pulling away from me and looking at me. I lifted her t-shirt and she raised her arms and I pulled it up to her armpits and when it was covering her face she gasped 'Leave it there' and rolled onto her stomach and stuck her arse up.

I got around behind her and put my face to her arse, kissing her taint and nuzzling her. She moaned and I got that this was what she wanted, and I buried my face in her and started working with my tongue.

I love giving oral to a woman, and it's probably the only thing about sex that I'm actually good at. I held TCB's hips with my hands and pressed my eyes into her bum and felt around with my tongue until I found the thing to touch that made her shiver and whimper and gasp.

TCB pulled her arms out of her t-shirt and lay face down on the bed with the shirt wrapped around her head, making stifled moans as I tongued and tongued and tongued her. I don't know why she wanted the shirt wrapped around her head but, who was I to ask.

We kept going and she was pushing her hips back against me and my tongue was inside her and I was loving that I could do this, even though my neck was getting kind of stiff, but just being able to taste her, and feel her pussy against my lips, and that sexy, salty, tangy smell of her, and the thought of her body stretched out on the sheet and her being willing to trust me with her most private bits was making my heart pound, and she was making these muffled cries that were making me very hard, and we were in a rhythm, the two of us naked on the bed moving back and forth, and it went on, and it went on, and we were locked together and in sync and all I wanted to do was make her cum, and then as her cries got louder and louder, she let out a long moan and stopped moving, and then she whimpered 'Oh, fuck,' and her body collapsed onto the sheet, and she rolled over, pulling her shirt off her head, and pushed me onto my back, with my face all moist and sticky with her juices, and she sat up and grabbed my cock and pulled on it, bending over it, and I was just about to remind her that I don't like being given blowjobs when she looked up at me, her eyes glittering, her face fierce, her fist pumping my cock, and then she looked down at it, and I then I came helplessly all over her face.

And she shut her eyes and clenched her teeth as I did so, and then, as I stopped, she came up my body and rubbed her cum-covered face all over my own wet face, making little gasps, and licking up my cum and her juices and they were all flowing together with our saliva and sweat as we rubbed our faces together and kissed each other and drank each other up, then we lay there, her half on top of me, her face hanging over mine, our mingled fluids forming little threads between us, as we breathed heavily. My eyes stung and I closed them. I smelt our combined smells, sweat and wine breath and semen and vaginal fluid. Our breath was mingled. TCB was clutching my arms tightly, and I had one hand on her back and the other on her bare arse, holding her to me.

Then TCB heaved in a breath and rolled and flopped onto her back beside me.

After a long moment, I wiped the cum out of my eyes and looked at her.

She looked quite peaceful, her eyes closed, breathing through her mouth, her face still smeared with globs of semen.

I rolled over. I like to have paper handkerchiefs next to the bed, because I hate waking up to find that my nose has got blocked in the night, so I took two and wiped my face with one, and touched her shoulder.

She tentatively opened her eyes and saw the handkerchief and wiped her own face.

Then we lay there, barely touching, I think just our feet, her head slightly turned towards mine, her eyes closed, still coming down from it

Some time after that we fell asleep, because I woke up after a bit and we were still lying there, naked with the duvet down around our knees, and the light was still on, and she was asleep and I was cold. I heard the rain falling outside.

I pulled the covers up over us and turned the light off.

She made a small noise like Mn and sort of skooshed slightly backwards, so we were close enough to warm each other.

I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.