“No! Please! Stop!”
I gently removed my daughter’s assisting hands. “It’s okay! I’ll clean myself off, but thank you. Thank you.”
The age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Most jurisdictions set the age of consent at fourteen to eighteen.
In some jurisdictions—the Mexican state of Nayarit, as well as in Bolivia—there is no fixed age of consent. Instead, sex is allowed between people who are pubescent or post-pubescent. The same applies in Yemen, but only between married partners.
The age of consent in Kiribati is fifteen. In Vatican City, it is twelve, although some claim it to be fourteen.
Fiona gave me an uncertain look. “Raymond, your daughter’s name is Emma, and your son is named Kyle.”
All I could do was stare. The pair of them were radiant with health and resembled nothing so much as Nazi catalogue models from the 1930s. How was this even possible? My own DNA is about as viable and sturdy as a strip of dead cassette tape tossed into the brambles alongside a motorway. And Fiona’s DNA must be like something extracted with tongs from the Pacific Trash Vortex.
Mother was in tears. “My own blood! Grandkids! Fi, you are a miracle worker, you are.” She grabbed Kyle in one arm, Emma in the other, and pulled them towards her chest like Nautilus equipment. She gave them each teary, fruity, mucusy kisses that left yellow nicotine moons on their foreheads. I hope they both checked to make sure they had their wallets afterward.
“Fiona, what the fucking hell? You can’t be serious.”
“Raymond, remember that abortion holiday I went on back in 1997?”
“The one where you told me you’d gone lesbian and didn’t come home for a year?” The penny dropped. “You didn’t go lesbian after all! You were too busy not aborting Kyle and Emma!”
“It would appear so. I was hoping they’d never have to meet you. But the nuclear crisis was upon us, and I didn’t want them vaporized if England gets nuked.”
My mother butted in. “Kyle’s the spitting image of you at this age, Raymond! That is, if you had a chin, a manly jawline, curly golden locks and a ripped musculature.”
Emma stared at me with radiant daughterly pride. “Mother’s told us so much about you, Father. Oh! I want to hug you to pieces like a teddy bear!”
She hurled herself onto me where I lay, and she certainly smelled terrific and—Christ, I mean, how do people manage not to shag their own kids? The temptation … well, best not to venture down that road. I extricated myself from Emma’s slender, supple, lightly tanned arms from around me. Her skin was heavenly. She was Tabs without any mileage at all. None.
Meanwhile, Kyle was documenting our meeting on his phone, saving a cherished memory. Then I heard him say to Fiona, “If the crew likes it, they said they’d put it up on the island’s website. Apparently, they’re lacking in the heartwarming department, and this footage could be download magic. My first big break. I wonder if I can digitally remove the Pringles in the background.”
Emma was now hugging Fiona. “Isn’t Dad dreamy, Mum?”
Fiona looked at me and mouthed, “She’s still a virgin,” followed by, “Don’t even think about it.”
Neal, long silent, cried out rather tearily, “A celebration is called for! Back to the house for a feast!”
48
Dear Reader,
I suppose you’re a respectable person who tries to act like children are a miracle whenever the subject comes up, but let’s be honest: ugh. All they do is waste your money and suck up your time, and when they get a bit older, they go off and start fucking utterly inappropriate human beings and mocking you behind your back—all the while draining your bank account. Hmmm. Seems like a description of my marriage to Fiona.
So, you ask me how I felt upon discovering I had sired offspring? At least I never had to deal with shitty nappies, or waking up early, or outdoor football practice, or helping them cheat on homework, or instructing them on how to torch a car. Thank fucking Christ. As for Kyle and Emma, they seemed so different from me that I might as well have sired aliens from Betelgeuse—which, in turn, made me feel weird about myself. You know, big picture questions like Why am I here? What is life about? What is it to be part of the chain of life? And really, I mean, who the fuck needs any of that?
Questions like that just lead to misery. You’d get a lot more value out of being alive if you put your spiritual energy into doing the daily jumble puzzle or speculating on the size, colour and texture of the nipples of the women on the Oscar red carpet.