Free The Sex Was Great But... by Tyne O’Connell

street to take showers in your home is losing it. Big-time losing it. I’m coming over.”
    â€œThere’s really no need. Joseph’s here. And Conchita will be back soon.”
    Nancy started laughing. That’s typical of Nancy. First she instills an unhealthy degree of fear and terror in me and then changes tack entirely. Well, I wasn’t going to put up with that. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” I told her primly.
    â€œI just can’t believe I’m missing all this. I’ll see you in five.”
    â€œFine. I’ll tell Leo to sharpen his chainsaw and tell him to expect an extra victim, shall I?”
    After putting the phone down I returned to my Zen zinc kitchen to find Leo had vanished. I called out his name but there was no reply. All that remained was his scarf and hat, strewn across the table. It was as if he’d been tele-transported out of my life.
    That was one possibility. The other was that Nancy was right. Maybe this was where my Knight in Shining Armor turned into my Crazed Buzz-Saw-Wielding Serial Killer? I mentally planned my defense. I was still holding the cell phone. I could press redial and call Nancy back so she could hear Leo bludgeoning me or chopping me into bits. But I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. She’d only say, “See, I was right!”
    I could go in search of my mace. It was by my bed…or was it? No, maybe Conchita took it with her to give to her sister’s daughter for her prom night. A knife from the kitchen was another option, although my self-defense classhad taught me about the dangers of having your own weapon of self-defense turned against you.
    I was still wondering how I could save my own life when I spotted Leo, harmlessly munching away on his cereal in the dining room. Phew. It was only after I breathed out, though, that I saw how potentially irritating it all was. The thing was…he was sitting on my new granite table. The one I’d just had imported from Berlin. Sitting on the actual table. His trainers were on the granite chairs that I’d bought to go with it—in a totally eclectic nonmatching way.
    Secretly, and please don’t tell the Star, I’m nowhere near as unattached to my possessions as my Buddhist guide would have it.

CHAPTER 6
    LEO
    â€œNever explain. Deny!”
    C hange is overrated. Personally, I like knowing where I stand with people from one day to the next. But change is part of the human makeup. My mum always says it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, which is cool, but a lot of girls seem to think it’s also their prerogative to change their entire personality.
    Take Holly. Five minutes after handing me a bowl of cereal all the shared conspiracy of our exchanged smiles and pleasant banter on the car journey to her house in the hills was gone. Swept away and replaced by a weird psychoneurosis that brought back memories of Auntie Lucy’s “change.” I’m not exaggerating. Pit bulls used tocross to the other side of the road when they saw my auntie Lucy heading their way.
    She claims a woman’s mood swings are part of the complex mystery that makes the opposite sex attractive to men. Personally, I can’t see what part mystery plays in the way Auntie Lucy carries on sometimes—like when she threw her television and fridge out of her council flat window after her last bloke did a runner.
    I had imagined Auntie Lucy and Holly to be as different as chalk and cheese, so I was surprised and disappointed when I found out that Holly could also be mysterious.
    We’d arrived at her Hollywood Hills mansion and met the gardener—smiles, Ventolin inhalers and handshakes all round.
    I told her I couldn’t speak Spanish, but that’s only partly true. I mean, you don’t spend as much time clubbing on Ibiza as I do and not pick up a bit. I wouldn’t say I’m fluent or anything, but I know enough to