It’s finger-lickin’ good.
Across the hall, the token elderly couple are enjoying an early dinner when Rebecca pulls out the sexy librarian outfit she bought for her Ultimate Fantasy Night. Steve’s veneers snap shut.
“Huh. Yeah … it’s … huh …” he mutters.
Rebecca flicks her hair and offers a suggestion. “If you want me to put it on …”
Steve winces.
“Ah … yeah … look, I’d rather not. Because it’s not something that I … it’s just, not for me,” he brushes her off.
It’s not what she wants to hear. She has been trying her hardest to get Steve to show her even a split-second of attraction, but he refuses.
In anticipation of Sex Week, producers even installed non-slip rubber mats and grab rails in the elderly couple’s Trash Tower suite, to prevent any falls. But for now, they go unused.
All we can say is tonight’s rejection is probably a silver lining. Sexy lingerie costumes seem fun, but the reality is there’s so many straps and strings and by the time you manage to yank it off your body, it’s all tangled up in a ball like a pair of headphones at the bottom of your handbag.
Meanwhile, Julia has taken the challenge of Ultimate Fantasy Night and turned it into a task that suits her personal agenda. It’s important to remember that, before she embarked on a career as a professional Confidence and Charisma Coach, she was working as a journalist. And, with the way she presents herself whenever the camera’s on her, we can’t help but get the feeling she’s using this opportunity as an audition to convince Channel 9 executives to give her a regular spot presenting some kind of wackjob segment on Today Extra.
If Alissa has “infomercial voice”, then Julia has “newsreader voice”.
“I want to be authentic. I’m wanting to honour and respect myself. And also lean in. And I want to continue the emotional depth. And expand the organic natural free-flowing energy that I probably need to romantically connect,” she drones on knowingly, recycling buzz words from Instagram spirituality memes.
She sits her husband Grayson down at a table and proceeds to interview him. She has even made cue cards like she’s a talk-show host.
Then come the questions …
“At school, were you bullied?
“What’s the most healing experience you’ve had in friendship?
“Has a stranger ever changed your life?
“What’s your favourite quality about your ex?”
She thinks she’s going to get a standing ovation from the experts for this odd interpretation of Sex Week and intimacy-building. But it’s all very contrived.
Grayson closes his eyes and dreams of a wife who’ll dress in lingerie and hand-feed him KFC drumsticks.
Elsewhere in Trash Tower, Rachel has just returned from Officeworks. Hedonistic! It’s hard not to get aroused when you’re surrounded by all those pens.
She’s armed with an A3 notepad and Textas. The plan is simple: execute a grand gesture that sends a clear message to husband Steve about what he needs to do to make her feel desired.
For this Sex Week stunt, Rachel has drawn inspiration from that Love Actually scene where some guy ambushes Keira Knightley at her house and silently professes his love for her on a series of giant handwritten cue cards.
When Steve enters the room, he sees his wife blindfolded, holding really big cue cards.
He reads aloud the message: “Will you kiss me now? In this moment? The kind of kiss that makes me feel something?”
Rachel then shuffles the papers around to reveal another cue card. This time, it issues a demand: KISS ME.
Steve gulps.
“I can kiss you, Rachel. I can kiss you,” he whispers. “ … But … I’m not too sure if it’s going to make you feel something.”
Rachel drops the A3 notepad – narrowly avoiding a paper cut to the foot – and rips off her blindfold. Tears are already streaming down her face.
Steve takes a deep breath and begins to explain. It only makes the situation worse.
“The way I stand in this relationship right now, I feel like it’s roommates and I feel like it’s friendly,” he says. “For me to kiss you and make you feel something, I need to feel that romantic connection and unfortunately I haven’t felt that romantic connection as of yet.”
Rachel has spent the past four weeks giving Steve nothing but patience and space and acceptance in the hope he’ll eventually want to take things further. Now, she feels like a fool. And this rejection prompts an avalanche of emotion that can’t be summed up on an A3 notepad.
“I like you Steven. I’m attracted to you. I’m having lucid dreams about you finally kissing me and it makes me excited,” she yells.
“And to sit here and say you feel no spark for me – what a slap in the face. All I wanted was a kiss – something more than a peck you’d give ya mum. That’s all I wanted. I actually think you don’t want to kiss me at all. And I think you don’t want to tell me directly that you’re not into me and that you’re not physically attracted to me. Direct question: do you have any physical attraction to me at all? Don’t dance around it and give me a politically correct answer. Yes or no: are you physically attracted to me.”
Steven refuses to give an answer.
Rachel might not be getting the Sex Week she dreamt of. But she gave us a searing monologue that could’ve been ripped from the script of Love Actually.
Married at First Sight screens Sundays to Wednesdays on Three and Three Now
