Picture this. Teenage girl, cherry lip gloss, posters on the wall, sick of being bossed around.
Plugs in her stereo and bang!
This first time lifts her clean off her feet, throws her sideways, landing dazed in a heap.
Her Dad said, ‘That could have been worse’ and gets in a mate to fix up the plug.

The next time, a lesson. Electric fences aren’t the best places for first kisses.
Yells loud when her wet hand grabs hold and her legs, electrified, buckle.
Felt the tingle in her elbow for weeks.

‘Fuck me,’ she said. ‘Fuck me.’

Then, knees against belly, pads on lower back, asks, through an intake of breath, ‘How’s this meant to feel?’
Her husband, one hand on hers, one on the manual says ‘TENS is a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Device, designed to give pain relief during labour. It works by…’
-‘Gas and air?’
-‘Yes.’
The glow of completion; child on her breast.

Later, she busies herself, thinking, Why am I cooking the chicken? And places bowls full of crisps, chills the prosecco, puts cakes and banners into place.
Her son grounds her, with his arms around her. ‘Happy Birthday Mum.’
She hugs him back, wonders if one was enough and doesn’t look annoyed when her husband arrives late, to hand over a box engraved 40 and she hears the ‘love you’ – just – over the chatter of friends in the lounge, but she’s already seen the receipt, so she places the box next to the chicken legs on the kitchen table.

Catches as she turns, soft static from a balloon.

And retiring, firing advice to the twenty-somethings, with their fabulous hair and lip gloss, bursting with opportunity over bottles of Champagne in the tightly packed bar, telling them about that first time, about the time she was lifted clean off her feet, thrown sideways, high in the air.
Says ‘I miss it, I miss it, I miss it.’

First Published Lunate Fiction February 2020