My brother, my sister and I have been going to Melbourne about once a year to visit our grandparents for as long as I can remember. Their house is like a time capsule from the 70s: a television with no remote control, shag carpet, Corduroy upholstery and a cupboard full of vinyls. Every year it's the same: I fly down there, Grandpa wants to shake my hand but I hug him, Grandma stares up at me and says, "either you're still growing or I've started shrinking!" We talk and talk for about two days, and soon after that Grandpa gets sick of having guests, so he is argumentative for a few days, and then we go home. In the year that I was about 14 or 15 I went on my own, and one evening we were watching The Shipping News on their tiny old TV.
I don't remember much of the film, but I remember the sex scene vividly. Kevin Spacey had just met his soon-to-be-wife, and she was viciously riding him as he laid there looking frightened. She suddenly finished and from her handbag pulled out a little cake, like a lamington. She took a bite, said that she was always hungry after sex, and shoved the other half of it into his face, saying, "nibble nibble, little mouse." He nibbled, like a mouse.
I was still doing my best to look uninterested and show absolutely no signs of arousal, waiting for it to be over so we could all get on with our lives. The tension was like holding my hand in the fire, and my grandma said in her tiny old voice, as if she were talking about an injured child, "Oh, that poor, poor man."
For BrevityQuest10, 299 words, excluding this. And this. And this.