Free Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins Page B

nymphomaniac.’
    Mark started to laugh. He lay down flat on his back and laughed harder than I had ever seen anyone laugh before, and after a while I climbed into bed beside him and pulled the covers up under my chin, so as not to freeze while waiting for him to finish.
    At last he pulled himself together and rolled over to put his arms around me. ‘I don’t think you’re a crazed nymphomaniac,’ he said. ‘I think you’re the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met.’

    I was woken in the morning by the persistent shriek of a blackbird in the copper beech outside my bedroom window, and lay for a few minutes with my eyes shut. Bed, which is one of my favourite places in any case, always becomes exponentially warmer and more comfortable as the time to leave it approaches. I rolled drowsily onto my back, encountered a large warm shoulder and went from barely conscious to fully alert in about half a nanosecond.
    I turned my head cautiously and looked at Mark, lying asleep on his stomach with one muscular brown arm curled around his head. Wow , I thought, then, Dear Lord, what have I done?
    With extreme stealth I inched my way out from under the duvet, collected an armful of clothes and tiptoed down the hall to the shower.
    I was making my lunch when he appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed and with his hair sticking up in damp spikes.
    ‘Hi,’ he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
    When I was fourteen, or thereabouts, Dad sat me down and talked to me about sex. He started by saying it was a lot of fun, and I almost combusted in horrified embarrassment. He then went on to say that, in his opinion, it was a shame to get too hung up about the whole thing, and as long as people took the right precautions he couldn’t see any particular virtue in abstaining. This was unexpected, since television had led me to believe that fathers all over the world were united in their quest for daughterly celibacy.
    ‘Although,’ he’d added, ‘it’s not really a great idea to sleep with someone you don’t know. Sex is –’ he paused, and I waited apprehensively to hear what my father thought sex was ‘– pretty intimate.’ I breathed again; that could have been a lot worse. ‘It’s worth taking the time to get to know the other person first. Tends to save a lot of unhappiness and regret later on.’
    It occurred to me now that I really should have taken my father’s advice. When you’ve gone to sleep in someone’s arms, waking up all the way back at awkward acquaintances is truly awful.
    ‘Hi,’ I said nervously. ‘Coffee?’
    ‘God, yes.’
    ‘How d’you have it?’ I asked, spreading Vegemite to the very edges of the bread with unprecedented care and precision.
    ‘Just milk, please.’
    I put down my knife and turned to open the fridge door. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’ I asked. ‘Muesli? Or toast, or eggs . . .’ Or of course the poor bloke might want nothing more than to escape, thus avoiding half an hour of excruciating morning-after conversation across the breakfast table. ‘Or you might rather just get going.’
    ‘Can I have chocolate cake?’ he asked.
    I managed to look at him then, and he smiled at me. ‘Of course you can,’ I said, smiling back.
    Mark crossed the kitchen and began to unwrap the cake on the bench. ‘You’re allowed cake for breakfast on special occasions,’ he said.
    The sun was coming up, warming a handful of little wispy clouds on the horizon to pink, and in the conifer outside the kitchen window a few hundred sparrows shouted joyfully. I knew just how they felt.
    ‘What are you doing tonight?’ he asked.
    ‘Nothing, I – oh. Crap. I’m on call. And at this time of year I’ll probably have to go out and calve a cow. What about tomorrow?’
    Mark shook his head. ‘I have to speak at a charity dinner thing.’
    ‘Impressive,’ I said.
    He made a face and, reaching out, hooked a finger through a belt loop on my jeans and pulled me towards