‘SMUT!’ by James Arkell
“Val, what’s a schlong?”
Sarah glanced up from her pile of well-thumbed papers, expecting an informed response.
Val’s eyes widened, confusing her bifocals. She carried on erecting her music stand. Nothing shocked her on a Tuesday night, but this was a new one for her.
“Well, it’s longer than a willy but not as girthy as a hog.”
Her breath quickened as Val remembered her younger days.
“Thanks Val, you always explain things so well. It must be all your experience.”
The door blasted wide open in a confident confusion of cello case, music stand and Old Spice. A large man bedecked in his trademark red Pringle gilet came crashing through. Colin immediately started three conversations to cover his tardiness.
“Bloody A834. People can’t drive any more. Almost killed a badger, swerved into a bush. Did you hear last night’s Prom? Very modern. Where’s Brian?”
Sarah piped up, “He’s in the loo, he’s a bit anxious after the… kerfuffle. Better to not mention the kerfuffle.”
The door silently opened. The only sound was the pings and pongs of the table tennis from the other room. Their second violinist sneaked in.
Colin boomed, “Ah, the fabled Brian is amongst us. We have a quartet! What’s all this about a kerfuffle, Brian?”
Brian’s weak frame quickly found his seat and shrunk into the corner, thinking that there wouldn’t be kerfuffle-talk until much later in the evening. The thousand imaginary daggers he had launched in Sarah’s direction were deflected as she fixed her hair.
Val was always happy to play scandalmonger and bravely took the opportunity to spread a little titillation.
“Well, Colin. Didn’t you see the Frowsham Friends page on Facebook? There was a rather interesting anonymous post. Some delicious smut called Simple Pleasures. The story was the talk of the post office this morning. There was chit-chat that it might even endanger our ‘Village of the Year’ status. I’m sure you’ve seen it, Brian?”.
Brian didn’t notice Val’s coarse wink as he had found a sudden passion for counting the tiles on the floor.
“You’ll never guess who the main person is.”
“It’s called a protagonist and he’s clearly not based on me. I’m sure there are lots of violinists called Brian in Frowsham. It says he’s of below average height and I’m 5’9”. As they say, never draw a crooked bow on a clean fiddle. We’re here for the music so let’s play some.”
All this talk of fiddling reminded Sarah of her second favourite passage in Simple Pleasures. Standing proudly, she flicked to page five in her copy and started to recite an underlined section.
“Brian’s fiddling fingers caused her to her hum erotically, like a thrilling Paganini caprice surrendering to his solid Stradivarius.”
Basking in the awestruck silence after her impromptu performance, she decided to treat them to an encore. This time with actions. As she began to vibrate, Colin saved the day.
“The Mozart, let’s play the bloody Mozart, and pronto. 1, 2, 3, 4…”
Beautiful harmonies floated from their skilled hands, blocking out the shouted scores and grunts from the other room. Just for a sweet moment, calm reigned, then the sweetness abruptly soured in a dissonant clash. Colin rose grandly, his noisy Hush Puppies joined the conversation. His bow levelled with Val’s already rolling eyes. “J’accuse!”.
“You wrote Simple Pleasures, didn’t you? Madame Poisoned Pen! It all makes sense now. It’s very much up your street. We were all shocked by the scandal in The Courier last year. Local democracy will never be the same again.”
“Don’t believe everything you read. It was all very consensual, he was only the deputy mayor, and his chain was fine after a deep clean.”
Colin puffed out his barrel chest. “You have brought our wonderful quartet into further disrepute. I will not stand for it.”
“Disrepute? When did we ever have repute? It can’t be me. No woman would use the term chest pillows. It must have been a man. Maybe it’s the man currently trying to accuse me!”
Val brought her bow to level Colin’s, demanding satisfaction.
Sarah saw another opportunity to be helpful. She was killing it today.
“Brian used his experience as a dairy farmer to caress her firm chest pillows with his rough hands. She melted into his arms like warm camembert.”
Brian laughed to cover his blushes. “Shall we play. 1, 2, 3, 4…”
Val slammed down her bow as quickly as she had readied herself.
“I can’t do this any longer. As deputy chair of Frowsham String Quartet I formally call for our dissolution.”
Colin agreed. “I second that. And it was my idea. Minute that, Sarah.”
Sarah nodded and drew a smiley face in the margin. She wasn’t going to stop reading. She was in her happy place.
Colin and Val packed up fast and raced for the entrance. Colin considered chivalry to be one of his finest qualities, so gave way to Val. He regretted it immediately as Val stormed ahead into the night.
Still engrossed in Brian’s romantic adventures, Sarah struggled to her car. Viola case in one hand and manuscript in the other. She called out into the night, “Val, why would they be using rusty trombones?”
Last to leave, Brian locked up the room and returned to his Honda to avoid suspicion. He waited for the others to go, then snuck back into the village hall. The rhythm of bats touching balls echoed the beating of his heart.
“Hey guys, I can’t believe that worked!” Brian ran around the table tennis table with a massive grin, high fiving all the players. “I’m free every Tuesday going forward. I can’t wait to play with you all.”
James Arkell wrote this story in response to the prompt Simple Pleasures, as part of August’s Just Write! short story competition.
