Romance
by Pil Lee
A cold wind was blowing over the pier as Mulcahy waited for Christa to arrive. The chopping of the waves announced her long before the skimmer moved into view. She brought it up to the mooring at full speed and cut the power dead at his feet.
He watched her expressionlessly as she threw back her helmet and cocked a curvy hip at him.
“Well,” she said after a moment, “I guess you’re not impressed.”
He made himself smile at her, letting his lean face soften for a moment. “You must be Christa. Welcome to the club.”
The others were already waiting inside the house as their latest member was ushered in. She smiled around brightly at six other faces. They glanced at her quickly then looked away again.
Mulcahy cleared his throat. “Welcome to the club,” he said again. “This is the eighth meeting of the Romance Writers’ group”.
He turned to Christa. “The first thing we do is kiss each other.”
Christa looked startled but nodded. “Okay,̵ she said. “Um, super.”
Mulcahy watched as the slim, dark man closest to Christa took her head in his hands and pressed his lips hard to hers. His body pressed against the full length of hers as his tongue thrust between her teeth and filled her mouth. She struggled violently, half falling over as she pushed him away and Mulcahy stepped forward to steady her.
She turned to him in fury, his hand still on her arm. “What is going on?” she cried.
“We kiss each other to start the meeting,” he replied.
“That is not kissing,” she said.
“Yes it is,” he said. “It’s romance kissing.”
Christa gaped at him and he saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “How do you know?” she asked.
“Because we’ve read it,” said the man who’d tried to kiss her.
“This is Hal,” Mulcahy introduced him. “And yes, we’ve all read it and this is what they do. Among other things.”
He watched as Christa silently mouthed the words “among other things” to herself.
“Are you still interested in being in the club?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, her chin up but staring in shock at two men at on her right who were tightly wrapped around each other. Mulcahy waited till she started to look faint then took her chin and turned her around to face him. She flinched back in fear and he smiled tightly and let her go.
“We’ve all read romances,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean you understand what’s going on. We found the only way was to practise it for ourselves.”
The men embracing had finally stopped and were seated back on their chairs. “You’re supposed to write what you know,” said one of them. “And we don’t know.”
“Well, actually we do now,” said a woman at the end of the room.
“This is Maree,” said Mulcahy. “She was the last to join before you.”
“It’ll take a while to get the hang of it,” said Maree, “but after a while it’s not so bad, and a while after that you even understand why romance is full of it.”
“Full of what?” said Christa. “What else do you do?”
Maree opened her mouth to answer but Mulcahy waved her to silence. “It’s best to take it slowly,” he said to Christa, pushing her gently back into her seat.