Pleasant Vices by Judy Astley Page B

mobile are you?’ she then asked, wondering if he intended to travel to her house and would need a ramp for a wheelchair to get over the front doorstep. There was probably something in the shed that Alan could rig up.
    â€˜Oh, pretty mobile. It’s just the new feet, well you’ll see.’
    Jenny rather hoped she wouldn’t, not seeing their relevance to music. ‘Have you got your own instrument?’ she then asked, and the cheery man laughed again.
    â€˜Certainly have, love. Never go anywhere without it!’
    â€˜You got him from an advert? Flute lessons in a shop window? Are you mad? You might as well have put “Friendly fellatio, thirty quid a blast”!’ This wasn’t the response Jenny had expected, when she went to see Sue to show off about her new pupil. Sue was in her kitchen, stirring their lunch – Waitrose lentil soup from a carton – and looking over her shoulder at Jenny with an expression of complete astonishment. ‘Are you the only person on the planet who doesn’t know what ‘flute lessons’ means when it’s on a sleazy postcard?’
    â€˜It wasn’t a sleazy postcard! And no, I may be ridiculously naïve but I didn’t know. There’s obviously a gap in my education,’ Jenny retorted from Sue’s kitchen table, where she was slicing the Waitrose garlic bread (also from a carton). ‘I put an ad, as I told you, in a perfectly ordinary newsagent’s window. I didn’t notice any French lessons, Swedish massage or lists of Miss Whiplashes, anything like that!’ Then she stopped slicing abruptly, and, knife poised, stared horrified at Sue. ‘Oh God what have I done?’
    â€˜Why, what
have
you done? Given him your credit card number as well?’
    â€˜Apart from booking him in for a lesson next Thursday at two, I asked if he’d got his own instrument. No wonder he laughed.’
    â€˜Not surprised.’ Sue took the soup to the table and giggled happily. ‘I expect he said he was incredibly attached to it!’ She gave a delighted snort, relishing the joke.
    Jenny thought she could feel her face going pale. ‘Don’t laugh, he actually did say something like that. Whatever is he going to expect?’
    â€˜A blow job of course, and a good one. What will you charge him?’
    Jenny still looked pale, and also determinedly prim. ‘For a flute lesson I charge £16 per hour, £9 for half an hour. I wouldn’t do
that
to a stranger for any amount,’ she told Sue archly. Sue’s eyes twinkled, disbelieving. Not these days, anyway, Jenny added to herself. It had been different back in the days when she’d once found it the only way to keep herself in food and music papers. For a couple of weeks, well into an end-of-term overdraft, it had been that or give up college altogether. In terms of payment she’d have been happy, if the clients only knew it, with just the sumptuous meals they’d provided. But that had all stopped when she met Alan and he’d taken pity on her empty fridge. She’d never told him. Whatever would have been the point?
    Jenny made a decisive start on her soup, but Sue was waving her spoon about and had a hard-thinking expression. ‘You could charge a lot more than that, and it would only take a few minutes . . .’ she calculated.
    Jenny’s spoon splashed into her soup. ‘No I couldn’t not for any price!’
    â€˜Bet you would! Bet you’d do it for £50.’ Jenny stared back coolly at her, but Sue didn’t give up. ‘OK, but you’d do it for a thousand.’
    Jenny laughed. ‘Oh well, for a thousand, I suppose most people would, unless they were filthy rich already. Yes, OK, I’d do it for that. But I’m not being offered a thousand, I shouldn’t think anyone would be. And I’m not doing it, I’m not a tart.’
    Sue had a triumphant grin on her face as she