A Villain for Christmas (The Holyoake Christmas Series, Book 2)

Previously on...

Bondarenko announced, in no uncertain terms, that they were now going to the kitchen and that Eric was making 'his caffè.' Apparently, no one was inclined to protest. Billie had submitted to her fate of the director's thrall, Dair seemed too chuffed to argue.

Unlike in the Crow's Vespers, the kitchen that Billie found herself in, was all chrome and black marble. She remembered that it had been mentioned that the space was designated for the use of family guests, and Dair and the director seemed utterly comfortable in it. Billie always thought that her Aunts were overdoing it with the whole witchy aesthetics - bunches of dried herbs, hanging off the ceiling; copper pots and kettles; jars and bottles and vials on shelves - but at the moment she missed the cosiness of the clutter and the familiar smells of mauve and sage.

Dair excused himself for a moment, with a short mumble and a wave of his mobile in the air, and left. Bondarenko dropped her backside on a tall stool near the bar island and threw the fag pack and her lighter on the countertop. Billie climbed on another chair and tucked her feet onto the stretcher.

"So, is the whole thing of you sleeping with Eric going to be a problem?" Bondarenko asked and spun her lighter on the counter.

The first sound burst out of Billie before she'd even decided how she was going to dispute the notion.

"Bu– What?! No! It won't! Not because it would've been, but because it won't. Because it can't!" she bleated. "Because I'm not! We aren't! And... I don't!"

Bondarenko stared at her, in an uncharacteristically attentive manner - and then burst into a series of snorting giggles. Billie couldn't have imagined the director could make such sounds!

"Oh my god, you're like a grammar school book! What are they called? All those 'can' and 'would' and the likes? Modal verbs, I think." Bondarenko shook her head. "And OK, I get it. It won't be a problem."

"I'm not sleeping with him," Billie hissed, finally regaining control over her syntax. "And if I did, that wouldn't be anyone's business but mine. And his, I suppose. But I'm not! Because I'm... well, I'm asexual."

Bondarenko shrugged, and they both grew silent. Billie fumed, Bondarenko twirled her fags in her hand.

"Does it count as asexual if you play tonsil hockey with a man in his car?" the director finally spoke up and placed an unlit cigarette in the corner of her mouth. "I'm not saying it's not, just putting it out there. I guess there are different degrees of it. And, I mean, the man is a sex on legs. No one's going to judge you if you– What's the local word for it? Knob him. Considering what a beast he is, I guess he'll do the knobbing, though. Don't let his woke hipster mannerisms deceive you. He's definitely a lift-and-slam man."

What on Earth is 'lift-and-slam?' Billie was utterly incapable of coming up with a single appropriate response, so she simply focused on supplying her brain with oxygen via mindful breathing.

"So I reckon you knew him before his accident, heh?" Bondarenko asked.

"What accident?" Billie asked absent-mindedly, overwhelmed by the images that her suddenly awakening imagination supplied her with.

Lift... A 'juicy' image of large hands supporting one's bottom popped up in her head. And slam! The mechanics of it were truly easy to figure out. And didn't he say he lifted twice her weight in the gym? Oh dear. 

"I thought you were childhood sweethearts or something," Bondarenko scoffed. "The accident when five boys beat him up and pushed him out of a window of their school, smashing the glass, after bullying him for several months? That accident."

There were several seconds when it felt like Billie's mind was resisting hearing what had just been said - and then it all rushed in.

'Beat.' 'Push.' 'Window.' 'Smashing the glass.'