Rocking the Second Act - Chapter Twelve

Firestarter

Rocking the Second Act is still very much a work-in-progress — I’m going back, polishing, and shifting things around as I go — so thank you for reading along in real time. If you’re new, you can find all the chapters here: Chapter index.

I you prefer to listen along, here is an audio version, read by me.

Veronica

It was 1:43 a.m.
I should’ve been asleep or at least pretending to be. Instead, I was flat on my back, headphones in, sipping lukewarm tea like it was whiskey, and listening to a woman on Whispr breathily reconnect with her high school ex behind a barn.

So far, so good.

He’d just pinned her against the hay bales with the confidence of someone whose knees had never met middle age, and I was enjoying myself until I caught myself whispering, “Nope. That angle would throw her SI joint out faster than you can say ‘pelvic physio.’”

I paused the audio, sat up, and grabbed the pen I’d left on the kitchen table earlier – the one I’d been using to make notes on ideas for Second Verse.

Scene:
Kat runs into her high school boyfriend Kevin at a wedding. They get drunk. They dance. She laughs so hard her Spanx roll down like window blinds. They sneak off together, too giddy and wine-loose to pretend they don’t both want this.

And then it hit me: this wasn’t just about Kat getting laid. It was about letting her be fully seen. Wrinkly bits, dodgy knees, enthusiastic oral and all.

I scratched out the next line on my notes and wrote, in all caps:

MAKE THIS HOT BUT REAL. LIKE, ACTUAL REAL. NOT “OH, HER SHIRT FELL OFF IN A BREEZE”. REAL.

Then underlined it four times. (Five felt needy.)

My pen scratched on, possessed by a life of its own.

Kat doesn’t have the kind of sex scene that fades to black after a lingering look and the sound of a zipper. No. Kat gets the kind where you see her fumble with the lube and laugh about it. The kind where she reaches for a condom, because she’s smart and still has a sex drive, thank you very much. The kind where Kevin — still broad-shouldered and handsome in that dad-who-gets-sunburned-doing-DIY way — looks her dead in the eye and says:

“I’ve thought about this for thirty years.
Not the sex.
This. Going down on you.
I didn’t know how, back then.
But I’ve regretted not doing it ever since.”

And Kat, God bless her, doesn’t get shy or make a self-deprecating joke. She just leans back and says, “Better late than never, Kev.”

I sat back and stared at the page, a slow, wicked grin spreading across my face. This? This was it.

I was done writing characters who came just from penetration and a few vague thrusts and a whispered “you’re so wet.” (Babe, that’s sweat. We’re both in our fifties and someone turned the heating up.)

This scene would have:

• A sexy-as-hell oral moment, where Kevin takes his time and doesn’t narrate it like a podcast episode.

• A pause so Kat can stretch her hip without cramping.

• Some nostalgic laughter over how absolutely shit they were the first time.

• And— screw it— a double climax, but only because they actually communicate like two people who’ve both done therapy.

I scribbled more notes:

Kat’s boobs are real. Kevin’s hands are reverent.
There’s a pillow under her hips, a bra hanging from a lamp, and a lot of “are you okay like that?”
She comes hard, twinges something.
He says, “I want to do it again in the morning.”
She grins and says, “Only if we both take ibuprofen first.”

God, I was on fire. This wasn’t just writing — this was a fuck-you to every sex scene that had made me feel like I’d aged out of desire.

My phone buzzed. 2:07 a.m.
Without thinking, I snapped a picture of the page and sent it to Rachael.

Me:
Is this too much? Or just enough? Also I may have accidentally written the best sex scene in the southern hemisphere.

She didn’t reply, she was probably asleep like a normal person, but I could already hear her laugh in my head. Low, delighted, full of mischief.

I took one last look at the page, then whispered to myself, “Kat, you glorious bitch. You’re getting laid right.”

And finally, finally, I went to bed.

Grinning.

By morning, the grin hadn’t worn off. My notes looked like the aftermath of a feminist exorcism — and Bronwyn wanted wine.

---

The place smelled like varnish, hops, and ancient carpet glue. We found a corner table under a sagging string of fairy lights, the kind of place where varnish came free with every pint. Bronwyn ordered us both wine, then leaned back, stretching her legs like she owned the joint.

“Christ,” she said, shaking her head. “One more kid pointing a Fresnel at their own face and I’m invoicing double.”

“You were brilliant,” I told her. “They love having you around.”

She grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Ninety percent charm, ten percent fire-safety briefings.”

We laughed, clinked glasses, and for a minute it felt like nothing more than the usual post-show decompression. Then she got quiet. That sharp, deliberate kind of quiet that makes you look up.

“I’ve been reading your Substack.”

My stomach dropped. I made a noise halfway between a laugh and a groan. “God. Sorry. That’s just me brain-dumping into the void.”

“I think it’s brilliant.” Bronwyn didn’t blink. “I think this has legs as a TV show.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“I’m serious.” She leaned in, eyes bright. “You’ve got characters. Voice. Rage. It’s funny and raw and it’s ours. Right now the market’s hungry for that. Even the nostalgia stuff — women in their forties and fifties are tuning in, and half the time all they get is reheated housewife tropes. This?” She tapped the table with one finger. “This could push further.”

Before I could answer, movement caught her eye. A band was setting up on the little stage in the corner. Middle-aged blokes, all greying ponytails and faded jeans, joking with the sound guy as they tuned their guitars. One swung his bass around like he thought he was twenty-five again.

Bronwyn swirled her wine, eyes still on the stage where the blokes were fumbling with their amps.
“You’ve already asked the question,” she said. “What if women our age stopped shrinking? What if they got loud again? You’re writing it. You’re living it. I’ve read the posts, V… the bones are all there.”

I shifted in my seat, embarrassed. “Yeah, but it’s just words. Stories. A dumb little project.”

She turned back to me, sharp and certain. “Words are where it starts. But I’m saying — this doesn’t have to stay on the page. On TV right now? People are hungry for this. Look at Fleabag. Look at Yellowjackets. Look at what Robyn Malcom did with After the Party. Shows that bend reality, exaggerate the edges, ask the big questions. What you’re doing could push that further. A ‘what if’ that makes people sit up, laugh, rage, recognise themselves.”

Her gaze flicked to the stage again, to the men with their ponytails and dad bods. “They get to do this without question. No one blinks. Imagine if we put women like us — no botox, real bodies — in their place, and the audience had to look. Really look.”

I stared at her, the words thudding through me. Speculative fiction. Television. It sounded absurd. And yet… watching those men shuffle into position, guitars slung low, pints balanced on an amp, it also sounded inevitable.