The meanest Flood

hoping, the story will be a good one. But teenage sex? Y’know, it doesn’t hold a lot of dramatic possibilities. Not much chance of a slow build and an unexpected, even enlightening, resolution. But I’m listening.’
    ‘It’s not a story, it’s an anecdote. Something I remember from being sixteen, seventeen, when my whole body was tuned to sex. My brain, too. I’d wake up in the morning and I’d be thinking about sex, and I’d go to bed at night and the last thing I thought about, that’d be sex, too. And in between, all day long, there’d be sex everywhere: in my mind, in my fingers, my eyes, my ears. I could be turned on by the sun shining on my arms, or if there was no sun, then just by the thought of sun on my arms. You know what I mean?’
    ‘Where are you going with this?’
    ‘Nowhere special. I’d look at girls on the street and I’d imagine having them in bed or having them right there on the street. It was safe because I wasn’t gonna do it, but inside my head I could watch this girl, any girl really, walk along the street and within a couple of seconds I’d have her clothes off and we’d be going at it, back door, front door, you name it, she’d have me in her mouth and I’d have her in my mouth and there’d be juices and sweat everywhere. It was a whole orgy. And then the girl would’ve walked around the corner and I’d look up and here comes another one. I couldn’t stop it, it was like that for months, seemed like years, I couldn’t think of anything else.’
    ‘Sounds more or less normal,’ Sam said. ‘That’s why people hate teenagers, because they’re like that.’
    ‘And then I’d get the guilts,’ Geordie said. ‘Like I’d wonder if they could see what I was thinking, the girls I was having these fantasies about. Because I’d know that it was written all over my face. Staring eyes, tongue hanging out, bits of drool on my chin. And I’d think if they could see my brain working away on them, they’d call the police and have me arrested. I was always surprised I got away with it.
    The outer door opened and two middle-aged women came into the room. They looked around, from table to table. Sam got to his feet and took a step forward. ‘Holly,’ he said. ‘Hi.’ He was smiling, happy to see her.
    Holly Andersen smiled back, not quite as broadly as Sam. They stood in front of each other and stared. Geordie could see they hadn’t finished with each other. They’d given up and gone in different directions, made separate lives for themselves. But they hadn’t finished with each other, there was still something living there between them, something neither of them had been able to kill. It was important to note it, Geordie thought, to know it was possible. He didn’t think either of them would want to restart their relationship, and if they did restart it there would be no guarantee that it would work. But there was something there nevertheless. It was obvious that both of them knew it. And Geordie picked it up in the space of a few seconds, tangible as the cups on the table and perhaps just as fragile.
    Sam held out his hand and she took it and for a moment they came together in a dry embrace. Their lips grazed each other’s cheeks. When they stood back Sam said, ‘Twenty years?’
    ‘Nearly,’ Holly said. ‘Nineteen. You’ve grown a beard.’
    ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said.
    But she laughed him away. ‘You’ve stayed young, Sam, while I’ve grown old.’
    He shook his head but Geordie could see she was right. Her face was on the point of collapse. The crow’s feet around her eyes had trampled the flesh, giving her a tight, skull-like appearance. You could see she had been beautiful a long time ago but the years had eaten their fill of her.
    ‘This is Inge Berit,’ Holly said, indicating her friend, a woman the same age as herself. Small and blonde with a tummy like a football.
    ‘Yes.’ Sam gave his hand to the other woman. ‘We met before, briefly.’
    ‘Pleased to meet you again,’ Inge Berit said with her Norwegian accent.
    ‘And Geordie you’ve met,’ Sam said.
    ‘Yes, hello again,’ Holly said. Inge Berit smiled at him and offered her hand. Geordie took it and gave it a shake. ‘Come and sit down,’ Sam said. ‘D’you want coffee?’ When they were settled Holly said, ‘Geordie told us you think someone wants to kill me.’ She said it lightly, in the same tone of voice she might have used to pass the time of