Read by Rich Keeble
Emily wasn’t sure what first attracted her to him: perhaps it was the secure, well-paid job as an architect: perhaps his gentle, slightly pompous sense of humour. It could’ve been the way he was always getting into funny scrapes: nothing major, just falling into a bush or something, putting up a shelf wrong; the sort of thing that could happen to anyone, but which only endeared him to her more.
Was it his obvious love of the children, how effortlessly good he was with them, even when they were clearly driving him mad? She’d found it wincingly poignant when the kids baked him a cake because he had to go to work on his birthday. She’d sat there with actual tears in her eyes, worrying a discarded Heinz baby-biscuit between trembling fingers like a rosary. Nobody’d ever made her a cake when she had to work on her birthday, which was pretty much every year, and now Mark had finally pissed off back to his ex-wife, probably nobody would.
At least, not until Rosa was old enough to be trusted near an oven, but not so old she hated her mother with the white-hot teen fierceness Emily remembered so clearly. She sighed and fast-forwarded through the endless adverts for glittery pink-and-purple princess tat, impatient for her next hit. There was still twenty minutes until she had to pick Rosa up: time for another few episodes.
Used to be, she’d watch Peppa Pig with Rosa. It had started six months ago, just after Mark left, when for many dark weeks only TV had made things better: Peppa for Rosa, Game of Thrones for her. Eventually, bored, despite herself, Emily had started paying attention to Rosa’s programme: fascinated, amused, sometimes appalled. The fatphobia and sexism alone would be enough to get you shut down on Twitter, but children’s TV, it seemed, was invisible, exempt: perhaps the last bastion of free speech in Britain.
And then, slowly, he’d bumbled and pratfallen his way into her heart: the crush that dared not speak its name. Thinking back, it was his voice; deep and resonant, comforting and weirdly posh, which finally ensnared her. She’d had a brief, unwise flirtation with Doctor Brown Bear (who was voiced by a Shakespearean actor she’d fancied in As You Like It at the Globe, back when she used to leave the house in the evenings to do adult things with other adult humans) – but he didn’t really have the same depth of character. There was only one male worth fantasising about in Peppa as far as Emily was concerned, and she was certain that if she ever went totally insane and confessed her fetish on Mumsnet, everyone would agree.
The glockenspiel theme-tune binky-bonked, and she felt the flittering, stomach-turning thrill of anticipation she used to get on date-nights with Mark. Rosa had now, at the grand old age of three, graduated to abysmal antifeminist genies Shimmer & Shine, and of course the heroic puppy action of Paw Patrol, and mostly grown out of Peppa. But now Emily was hooked. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, glanced across the living-room, and tugged the curtain shut. This was a favourite episode. Her breathing tightened as her hand strayed downwards, playing with the stud on her jeans. The warmth in her crotch began to build as she heard his voice, spread all the way up into her stomach towards her chest. It didn’t matter what he was saying, just the sound of it: that sexy, reliable, smooth, warm, faithful, dirty baritone. Emily closed her eyes and thought of Daddy Pig.
*
This is mental, she told herself three weeks later, after an especially empty weekend when Rosa, kicking and shrieking, had been packed off for her statutory visit to Mark and the ex-ex-now-current, Suzanne or Susan or Susannah: Emily had made a point of failing to remember. What had finally rung alarm-bells was not her growing sexual obsession with a children’s TV character (and not even a human one, a cartoon pig for Christ’s sake) but the fact that when she’d discovered the Emily Elephant episode, in which the eponymous pachyderm joined Peppa’s playgroup, she’d watched it fourteen straight times, pausing and rewinding it at the exact moment Daddy Pig said Emily’s name. Eventually, when this became tedious, she’d spent ages on her phone recording him saying “Emily”, looping it, then finally mixing it into a ringtone on GarageBand.
“Emily,” boomed Daddy Pig tinnily now, from somewhere in her coat pocket. “Emily, Emily, Emily”. She grinned. Ninety minutes well spent. Only problem was, the caller ID said Mark. She considered ignoring it, but it might be something important to do with Rosa, God forbid. She decided instead to assign him a special ringtone from now on: Creep by Radiohead, or something equally apt. Daddy was ten times the man Mark would ever be, she thought bitterly, and a hundred times the father, even if he was an animated pig. Mark wasn’t fit to lick Daddy Pig’s muddy-puddle-jumping boots.
“Yes!” she barked into the phone, halfway to furious as usual before Mark had said a word. She hoped Rosa hadn’t caught that vomiting bug which was going round the toddler group: the last thing she needed was yet another week off work mostly spent crawling to the bathroom.
“Er, yes, sorry to call so late, I know it’s Game of Thrones tonight –”
Emily frowned. Was it? Whatever. The hot one had died at the end of last season, and since then … well, Daddy Pig had more than taken his place. His slow, gentle laugh: he actually said “ho ho ho”, like a sexy Father Christmas. She shook herself.
“It’s fine. What’s up?”
“Well, obviously it’s Rosa’s birthday coming up …”
She rolled her eyes, not that he could see. “Good of you to remember.”
“Emily.” She shuddered. Mark using her name felt horribly intimate and wrong, after only hearing it spoken by Daddy Pig all weekend.
“What?”
“Of course I remember, she’s my daughter. Plus she’s spent the last 48 hours reminding me. Anyway, I saw there was a live kids’ show in town: it’s touring, going to some big West End theatre. It’s one of her favourite programmes, so I booked it for next Saturday.”
Emily felt panic rising in her, the mercury shooting up the thermometer. “But that’s not your weekend!”
“I know. I got tickets for her and you. And her friend, whatsername …”
“Livvy?”
“Yes. Olivia. And her mum.”
“Oh,” said Emily, nonplussed by Mark’s unexpected generosity. Was Susan-Suzanne-Susannah a positive influence after all, despite being a homewrecking bitch? Stranger things had happened. Like falling in love with a cartoon farm animal. “Which show is it then? Shimmer & Shine?” She winced at the prospect of 60 minutes of saccharine sub-Disney musical numbers celebrating friendship or kittens or whatever the hell the episodes were usually about.
“No, the other one.”
“Paw Patrol?” Not amazing, but not so bad. Probably quite exciting to watch, especially if they used real puppies.
Mark sighed, weary of her obtuseness. “With the piglet in a dress.”
“Peppa?!”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Oh my God,” said Emily, hands sweating, heart fading in and out like a bad TV signal, “that’s amazing! We’ll love it! I mean she will, Rosa … Shit, I’d better tell Livvy’s Mum … Thanks Mark. Wow!”
“No problem,” Mark said, his voice faintly puzzled.
Emily put the phone down. She could hardly breathe. This was madness, but … Daddy Pig. In the – well, not flesh, exactly, the actors probably wore big velour costumes with foam heads or something – but in the voice, at least, for sure. At last, in person, that voice.
*
Rosa was initially underwhelmed by Daddy’s treat, considering herself too sophisticated by far to watch a kids’ show like Peppa on stage, until her best friend Olivia nearly passed out at the news: then she couldn’t get enough of it. Emily, along with Olivia’s long-suffering mother Penelope, a rangy redhead who worked in charity PR and looked like she hadn’t slept for several months, watched in amusement and then alarm as their daughters worked each other up into a vibrating froth of anticipation on the tube to Piccadilly Circus. By the time they’d found their seats, bought mini ice creams and got the girls settled between them, the children’s shrieks of excitement had climbed into the range where only dogs could hear them.
And then came the show. Bumptious, ridiculous, lovable and hugely, eye-poppingly pink – just like Daddy Pig, in fact – it was really quite enjoyable, even if you weren’t erotically invested in one of the major characters on stage. For all his admitted obesity, Daddy Pig could really tapdance, and his singing voice – a vibrant bass reminiscent of Paul Robeson crooning Old Man River – was, if possible, even more smoking hot than his speaking voice. Emily wriggled in her brand new silk-jersey wrap dress, bought specially for the occasion. She couldn’t wait to meet him.
*
The stage door was a dozen deep with signature hunters and rabid toddlers bouncing madly for a glimpse of Peppa and her family and friends: Emily took one look and told Penelope to take Livvy and Rosa straight to the restaurant – she’d get Peppa’s autograph (pawprint? Trotter mark?) and join them as soon as she could. Penelope, visibly relieved to drag the girls away from the squawking mob, agreed at once. Emily adjusted her bra, reapplied her lip gloss, and walked straight past the giant, nodding Peppa into a vinyl-floored, grey-painted corridor of flickering fluorescents: Daddy Pig’s dressing room must be in here somewhere.
It was. The name of the voice actor from the series was printed in large black letters underneath a discoloured brass star. She knocked twice, breathed in and out, and opened the door as soon as he said “Yes?”
But then Emily stopped. He was in there, but was he decent? Was he naked? Was he … was he even out of costume? Through the half-open door she could see a sliver of mirror rimmed with bright bulbs, just like in the films, the back of a red plush chair … and not much else. No oversized papier-mache head sat on the shelf; no blue-suited, red-booted costume hung flaccid and empty on the wall. Which meant he must still be – he couldn’t yet have –
“Hello? Would you like to come in?”
That voice! Daddy Pig’s voice! Speaking to her, not as a ringtone, but to her, here and now! Emily stopped. She fanned her face with her £7 programme, took a scared, shallow breath and stepped forward. Now she could see the back of Daddy Pig’s huge pink head, balanced atop the half-naked and really quite impressively ripped body of a man at whose feet lay a sweat-darkened, pig-shaped fatsuit.
“Sorry about the state of me,” the actor said quickly, pulling a white dressing gown over his broad shoulders. In the mirror, Daddy Pig’s lips stayed sealed. Their little secret. “That suit’s a real bit- bother to wear. Right, someone wanting an autograph, was it? Where’s the kiddo? Ho ho ho.”
It was the laugh that did it. She hardly knew she was moving until she’d stepped forward, tugged once at the belt of her dress and let it fall away to reveal her brand new black and nude lace uplift bra and shaping knickers, bought online in the M&S sale while slightly drunk.
“No kids,” she said, relishing the rare sound of the words. “Just me.”
“Oh,” said Daddy Pig, and got up and closed the door. “Well, this is interesting.” He looked her up and down, shrugged off his dressing gown, and started to remove his head.
“Leave it on,” Emily commanded in a husky tone. He stopped, and if a carved styrofoam head covered in pink velour could grin suggestively, that’s exactly what it did.
“That’s what they all say,” said Daddy Pig.
(c) J. A. Hopper
J.A. Hopper’s previous stories for Liars’ League (Mothers’ Milk and We/She) featured a vampire cannibal baby and thousands of sentient dolls. This one is marginally less weird. She lives in Cambridge with her three year old daughter, from whom she steals all her best ideas.
Rich Keeble’s recent career highlights include being assaulted by Simon Callow in sitcom The Rebel, by Paddy McGuinness in The Delivery Man & by Mr Blobby on The Last Leg. (That's not counting being shouted at in the street for being the guy sat on the hippo in the Topcashback adverts of course). richkeeble.com
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