Personal Relations

PERSONAL RELATIONS

A series of short stories by

Anna Butler

© June 2017

ISBN: 9781370963164

Personal Relations © 2017Anna Butler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, situations and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.

This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the author.

Contents

Shopping List

Gossip Queen

All Because of Him

Candlelight

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss, But A Good Blow Job Is, Well, A Good Blow Job

Happy Holidays

Author’s Note

SHOPPING LIST

March 2012, London

Tall.

Tall? Aiden wriggles around in his seat for a minute or two, frowning. Sure?

I’m sure. John Hogarth raises his hand to catch the waitress’s attention, and when he has that, taps his glass to get a refill. He’s stuck with his nephew for at least the next three or four hours while his sister fritters away her money on some serious shoe shopping. He’ll need the alcohol to get through it, sanity intact.

Mmnn. Aiden leans his chin on his hands in a deep-in-thought pose.

Whoa. Far too reminiscent of John’s father, from the tilt of the head to the thinness of nostrils, bright eyes hooded with eyelids drooping at the corners, and the thin-lipped, downturned mouth. The image of rectitude and solemnity that only a man of the Church can wear to perfection when faced with his offspring’s childhood transgressions. John takes a healthy swig at his drink. How does Aiden manage it? He’s only seven. Genetics has to be the science of the devil.

Why? Aiden asks, and his tone is his grandfather’s too. Not the booming declamations from the pulpit or the fruity tenor unashamedly leading the hymn singing, but the pained tone of a man tried by the antics of the sinners around him.

John can only shake his head in rueful wonder at his own lack of a nice, shiny spine. Here he is, a successful PR professional with his own business—all right, in partnership with two old friends from university, but still. His own business and one that’s increasingly making a name for itself. Lewis-Hogarth-Richards are good. Bloody good. So bloody good they have a nice juicy contract handling some of the Olympics work and are handling it well. So how is it Sal only has to comment that her fatherless boy needs time with his favourite uncle ("To bond, John. To teach him things other than the name of every trout fly ever tied by mankind.") and that little dig at their father has turned John’s spine to the finest jelly. Sal knows too many of his pressable buttons. There’s no reason she couldn’t have taken her blasted offspring shopping with her.

It’s the kissing thing, John explains, already regretting the game they’d devised to while away the time waiting for his partners, Kit Lewis and George Richards, to join him for what has been planned as a business-focused lunch. Sal’s desire for new shoes is screwing with more people than just John. I don’t want to get a crick in the neck.

Aiden grimaces. Ugh! Do you have to do that?

Afraid so. It’s expected.

Do what? Kit Lewis asks from behind him.

John glowers in Kit’s direction. You’re late.

Hi, Uncle Kit! Aiden instantly sheds his pose of grandfatherly seriousness for Kit’s spontaneity, glittering and consciously charming.

John winces. Aiden is altogether too adept at soaking up other people’s mannerisms, his talent for mimicry encouraged by Kit despite John’s protests. If truth be told, it amuses John as much as anyone else, until Aiden decides he’s going to be Kit for a while. Then it stops being funny. Then it’s almost unbearable.

Hi there, Tiger. Kit ruffles Aiden’s hair and slides into a seat. He turns his usual alluring smile onto John. And hello to you too, grouch. What’s bitten you in the arse?

You’re late for lunch, of course. Aiden switches back to seriousness.

I’m always late. Kit glances at John. George says he’s sorry, but he’s stuck in a meeting with the finance people at Mascetti’s, working on their final figures for the Olympic TV ads. He won’t get away for hours, so you just have me. Kit turns back to Aiden and pokes a disrespectful finger into his midriff. I wasn’t expecting you, though. I thought I could have a nice tête-a-tête lunch with your uncle. You’re one hell of a gooseberry. A second’s pause for consideration. Maybe not as green.

Oh, my mum’s gone shopping, so I’m to stay with Uncle John until she gets back.

That explains the snarl I got, then.

I think Uncle John’s hungry.

Well, we’d better take care of that, Kit says, and signals the waitress with a smile that probably has her rocking back on her heels. It certainly has her hurrying to their table, and her answering smile seems far friendlier than the professional one she’d used on John.

John spends the next few minutes watching the two self-absorbed creatures in front of him, the original and its miniature copy, as they have all the fun of ordering lunch between them. He agrees to every suggestion they make. Not worth arguing.

What were you two talking about when I got here? Kit asks, sipping delicately at a glass of wine.

Aiden sips just as delicately at the Coke he’s insisted on having served in an identical wine glass. The list.

What list?

The list about someone for Uncle John.

Someone for your Uncle John?

Aiden nods. Grandad was talking to Mum and Grannie today. He said it was high time Uncle John found someone and got married.

Did he now? Kit says, all his attention seemingly on putting his glass down in one exact spot.

Aiden has a very good memory, with all the mimic’s ability to repeat conversations. He has his family’s intonations down pat. Grandad said that Uncle John was wasting his life, and the sooner they got him sorted out the better for everybody. Grannie said she’d like more grandchildren and then she looked at Mum and went all scowly-frowny like this— Aiden’s face scrunches into a passable impression of a sixty-something vicar’s wife trying not to cry. Why does she want more, Uncle Kit? They’ve got me. Mum was on her phone, so she just said ‘mmmmnnn’ and ‘uh-huh’, and ‘bad-word it, Adam’s seeing that Cathy Dawson woman, I thought I had him in the bag’. Anyhow, I asked Grandad who he thought we should get. Grannie stopped looking frowny but she went pink and said that I was quite the little pitcher. What does that mean, Uncle Kit? Mum said ‘uh-huh’ again. Then Grandad told me I wasn't to say anything to anybody about other people’s private conversations. He used his sermon voice. You know, Uncle John.

John does indeed