Free Not What They Were Expecting by Neal Doran

The blighter’s big enough to look after itself now. Isn’t it?’
    ‘I was going to say pissed.’
    She turned around to face him, slipping her hand into the elastic of his underpants.
    ‘So all it takes for you to get over being a bit squeamish is four pints and a bit of male bonding?’ she said with a smile. ‘Wish I’d known earlier.’
    ‘Five pints actually. And some crisps. And Maryland Chicken from outside the station.’
    He leant in and they kissed. He thought that he couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a proper snog. He couldn’t understand why they’d left it so long as he manoeuvred his hand around her pajama buttons.
    Then he jerked his hips slightly as she snapped the waistband of his briefs back in place.
    ‘Go brush your teeth first,’ she said, and smiled as he hopped out of bed and across the cold floor to the bathroom, tail wagging ahead of him.

Chapter 9
    ‘Gay men are being prosecuted in a way that’s almost Victorian – no, worse than that, it’s positively Thatcherite,’ said Margaret.
    ‘I think the point is rather it’s not gay men, it’s just men,’ Howard replied. ‘Ordinary decent men. And it’s this post-New Labour Tory party that are kowtowing to the arse-backwards political correctness, which is getting us caught up in it.’
    ‘Funny you should mention the word Victorian,’ said Ben. ‘Of course it was the architecture of the public lavatory system they built, with typically twee facilities that looked like traditional countryside homes, that gives us the term cottages for public toilets. This evolved into the term still used today, although the internet is making it somewhat obsolete.’.
    ‘Kids were flashed all the time when you were at school, Becky,’ said Howard. ‘I didn’t see it doing you any harm. You had a shriek and a giggle and ran away from the funny little men. They’d be on the comedy shows all the time, being chased around the park.’
    ‘Not that your father is a flasher of course, Becky. He’s not a flasher, James,’ Penny chipped in.
    ‘I was wearing my mac on the night mind you. Maybe that’s it, they were prejudiced against my coat!’
    ‘With all this emphasis on family values that this throwback Prime Minister throws about to justify his raping of the social security system, ridiculous prosecutions such as this were just waiting to happen,’ said Margaret.
    ‘My Burberry is a victim of society!’
    ‘I think I’d like to make a really powerful sculpture piece on this,’ said Margaret.
    ‘It’s those Lib Dems probably, bit of power and they turn into complete Nazis. See it a lot at work. Never let your secretary take on the title of Office Manager is my advice, this sort of thing happens every time.’
    ‘“Tea rooms” was another term used by the gay community in the United States, meaning roughly the same thing. It’s interesting that they share a similar somewhat genteel quality.’
    ‘Would anyone like a cup of tea? Or a sandwich?’
    Rebecca and James sat leaning into each other in the middle of the overstuffed sofa in her parents’ living room, watching the grown-ups talk at them; Howard, in one of the big leather armchairs with Penny perched anxiously on the arm rest, Margaret sat across from him on the matching one, and Ben by the window gazing through the net curtains.
    ‘We’ve just finished dinner, Mum,’ said Rebecca.
    ‘A piece of cake then? A biscuit?’
    ‘Don’t think I could even manage that, Penny,’ said James. ‘Overdone it on the Wellington again. It was delicious.’
    ‘Not generally believed to be named after the warmongering duke, despite public perceptions,’ murmured Ben from the window. ‘It’s a name that really only appeared in the sixties, and was obviously embraced by the social-climbing middle classes for their dinner parties where they wouldn’t want to serve anything too “continental”.’
    If James could have reached his dad to kick him in the shins, he would