The Good Parents by Joan London

was for some practical reason, usually to do with his own needs. He was the man of the house and a
     master at getting out of things.
    ‘I’ve put the potatoes on, Jake. You’ve got to do the chops.’
    Jacob stood blinking at her beneath the swinging light bulb. Overnight, it seemed, Kitty’s jaw had deepened and her eyebrows
     thickened. He could see where Arlene had let out the seams of her gym tunic which was straining across the erupting islets
     of her breasts. Woman-sized pink legs filled the space beneath the table. Kitty was bursting out of herself. There was a glass
     of milk beside her books, filled with unmixed chunks of Milo. She had a chocolate smear on her downy upper lip. He saw that
     it was too late for his sister now, it had been decided. She was never going to be pretty.
    ‘You’re acting funny, Jake.’
    Smiling mysteriously, avoiding her eyes, he navigated his way past her to the sleep-out.
    There was only one bedroom in the flat, which Kitty shared with Arlene. His sleepout was another part of the enclosed verandah,
     next to the kitchen. It had a similar low-silled window into the workroom. He stood watching in the dark, as he always did
     if the curtains were open.
    The client was standing at the workroom door with her back to him, putting on her coat. She reached her hands upunder her brown hair and flicked it out over her collar, a female gesture which Jacob always found alluring. He heard the
     chorus of thanks and promises as Arlene escorted her down the inside stairs. She was nicer to her clients than to her children.
     How encouraging women were to one another! His mother’s voice became louder when she was tired. How many hours had he spent
     watching the women in that room, with his light turned off, through any chance gap in the curtains?
    Once when he was younger – not all that much younger, if he were honest – he’d let Beech watch a wedding party fitting. Before
     the appointment, he sneaked into the workroom and carefully pre-arranged the curtains. For hours Beech stayed glued, floridly
     describing body shapes and mouthing marks out of ten. Jacob felt glutted, soiled, somehow disloyal, which he never felt when
     he watched alone. He couldn’t wait for Beech to go home and leave him to his private pleasures. What after all was there to
     see? Just a succession of female bodies in not very radical states of undress, the young and old, the misshapen, the well-formed.
     The soft bulks, almost comical, turning and turning on his platform, like dolls in a music box. Rarely perfect, rarely even
     an eight, never as yet a ten, though his and Beech’s standards were exacting. An occasional bending down to reveal an entire
     cleavage, a bare back with the bra undone, a length of thigh, though Beech swore he’d spotted pubic hair.
    Beech missed the point. His own appreciation was subtler, more specialised. It was their hands, the gentle curl, the smallness
     yet strength, adjusting a stocking or a fallen strap. The intimacy of their bare feet. The smoothness and tautness of their
     skin, over the shoulders and back, the sheen of collarbones. The hints and glimpses, a nipple outlined, a puckered little
     belly button. All the versions of their underclothes, full and half-slips, bras, suspender belts, from the worn and homelyto slithery shell-coloured lace and silk. Seeing who skimped and who was prepared to love herself, even with what was concealed.
     Their vulnerable necks, turning this way and that to examine themselves, and the private face each had when she looked at
     herself in Arlene’s mirror. The remoteness and grace of the special ones. There was always one who was his favourite, even
     amongst the older women. They all had their role in his fantasies, roles that would surprise them if they knew. He felt the
     pain of not being able to reach them, of letting them go, again and again.
    He lay down on his bed. The rain had stopped and he could hear his name – Kitty was