Trouble By Numbers Series

by Alam, Donna

  I take care of the day-to-day running of our hotel business. I’m the face of the operation, and it’s for that reason I like to keep my private life just that. Until I’m behind the doors of the Den.

  As a business, we attract some attention, but it’s mostly low-grade stuff. As men, we’re often featured in the social and business pages. We get pap’d occasionally. It’s because we’re not only successful and rich but also because we’re twins.

  Because we look so alike.

  Once not so long ago, Rory revelled in the pussy that seemed to be available because of these facts. Because we’re rich, handsome, and move in the right circles. It didn’t help with his decision making for a while.

  Thankfully, he’s done with all that now.

  And me? I’m a vault.

  Sure, I get hit on plenty, but I try not to fuck where I earn my keep. Not that I’m an angel, and though I try to keep it at the club, sometimes it just isn’t feasible. Or what I want. Sometimes you want an elaborate, drawn-out meal with courses that continue for hours, including delicacies you wouldn’t ordinarily try. And other times, you just want to grab something that’s potentially bad for you.

  Usually in a dark alley and following a few drinks.

  The analogy works for sex, too.

  Not that I’m blaming my debauching of Bea on drinking because when I’d led her to the end of that hallway in the club, the only thing I was drunk on was her perfume. I don’t regret it. Only now I can’t get her out of my fucking head.

  She’s like an itch I can’t reach—a craving I can’t satisfy. An itch I can’t reach. Not that I won’t try.

  I’ve never had any issues getting women into my bed, and yesterday at dinner, I thought I’d had her eating out of my palm. In addition to coming on my hand in the club. She was turned on, that was clear enough. Flushed chest, huge dilated pupils stealing the golden flecks in her gaze. As her fingers strangled the life out of a paper napkin, her knuckles were as pale as the full bottom lip she’d trapped between her teeth.

  She was up for it.

  She might even be kinky underneath those scrubs.

  I fucking crave her.

  And I want more than ever to know her real name.

  Chapter Nine

  BEA

  I work the rest of the week, from Sunday through, because if I’m busy, I don’t have to think.

  If I’m busy, I don’t have time to get angry.

  If I’m busy, I don’t have time to dwell.

  While I’m working, I don’t hear Jon’s whispers and sighs on repeat.

  It means I’m also not home for the deliveries of his apology flowers. Like that would work on any woman. And the ones delivered to work get recycled into the wards.

  I wait a few days before checking my phone. Unfortunately, my plan of putting him off from leaving a voicemail hadn’t worked.

  ‘This is Bea,’ my voicemail message begins. ‘Please leave your number after the tone. Oh, unless you happened to be named Jon, and then you can take your pathetic excuse and shove it so far up your own backside it comes out of your throat! Ciao!’

  I chose not to go through the reams of voicemails and texts. Instead, I listen to the first few recordings. They’re not especially apologetic.

  Seems it was just sex.

  Seems he thinks it’d be a good idea for me to think of what I heard in those terms.

  Just sex. Ya, thanks, but I caught the audio already.

  He also seems to suggest I should have wild monkey sex to exact my revenge . . . before going back to him.

  Because yes, things are apparently that simple.

  Tit for tat? My response is to send him another text reminding him we’re through. That what I do no longer concerns him.

  But I should never have touched my phone because his attitude has left me so angry and so ill-tempered that I feel unfit for company. I’ve barely been home; I’ve either creeped home in the wee hours or else slept in one of the on-call rooms.

  Go home, Bea, you’ll wear yourself out, my colleagues have said, and when I have, I’m out of the flat before Fin even wakes.

  Trauma clinics. Scrubbing in wherever I can. I’d sweep the floors if it meant I didn’t have to think about it.

  As the week passes, I become angrier. So angry, I can’t even begin to contemplate repeating that I heard my ex-boyfriend cheating on me, never mind discuss it with him. In my mind, I’ve worded a million conversations—from sarcasm and indifference to rage and tears. Who was it and why? From calm dialogue to bouts of rage to silent arguments with him—all inside my head. And I still haven’t picked up the phone, sent him an email, or even posted a hateful rant on his Facebook page.

  Because I just don’t know where to go from here. How do I tell people what he did to me?

  I don’t know what to think.

  I don’t know what to feel, other than angry.

  My unfaithful boyfriend. The man I thought I’d marry someday.

  The sack of shit.

  Then add to my confusion the dreams I’ve been having.

  I’ve dreamt of Jon screwing a hundred girls—a harem in the throes of ecstasy at his touch—which is bizarre as, lately, he hasn’t been that good.

  And I’ve dreamt of Kit and all his fingering glory. Those dreams have made more sense, but they haven’t always been relegated to night. Images of him touching me and echoes of the things he said send my insides a flutter and my pussy pulsing.

  And from the sublime to the ridiculous, I’ve also dreamt about Mr Becker, the consultant—and the boss of the multidisciplinary team I work in—pushing me to my knees as those long fingers that I’ve watched so intently during surgery slide down the zip of his pants.

  And it didn’t stop there.

  In my dream, he pulled out a monstrous dick—monstrous as in huge, not ugly—and pushed me to my knees, murmuring, ‘Suck it, Dr Honey Bea.’

  As I’d opened my mouth to comply, he’d murmured what a good girl I was, and when I looked up, he’d turned into Kit.

  And that’s some sick and confusing shit right there.

  I fought my way out of a home full of testosterone; a house where women were home and baby makers. I want more than that—I deserve more than that. I didn’t get to where I am today on the strength of my cock sucking skills.

  To make matters worse, during Mr Becker’s rounds on Wednesday, I’d been totally off my game, remembering the elegance of his fingers on his zip and the feel of his pants against my cheek. It didn’t matter that I’d been invited to scrub in on a reconstructive surgery just days before—which was a bit of a coup for someone in my position of the food chain. Or that I’d earned my boss’s approval because I’d washed it all away by behaving like a stammering foundation year med student, a bloody F1, when he’d asked me a simple question at the bedside.

  I both abhorred and enjoyed the sting of shame, the redness creeping up my neck and chest as he’d delivered his rebuke.

  I don’t know what to blame more.

  Jon for screwing someone else.

  Jon for not screwing me properly for months.

  Myself for not demanding more from him.

  More for myself!

  Or fucking Kit Tremaine for having his hands in my pants after dinner last week.

  Maybe Kit morphed into Mr Becker in my dream because of the similarity between the two. The Saville Row suiting. The manner. The way it seems both men can see right through you as if they’ve pierced your skin.

  ‘You’ve been here eighteen hours. Go home, Zante.’ I look up from the chart I’m holding—the chart I’m looking at but not seeing—to Dr Burgess, the on-call consultant this morning, and her frown.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’ve been staring at that obs chart like it insulted your parentage.’

  ‘No, I was just thinking.’

  ‘Far too hard,’ she says, taking my elbow and steering me farther away from the bedside and the nurses’ station with their inquisitive looks.r />
  ‘I was just trying to . . .’ What was I planning on doing? Ever speaking to Jon again? Propositioning my boss for kicks? ‘I was about to speak to the nurse for—’

  ‘Not with that chart, you don’t,’ she says, snatching it out of my hands. ‘Don’t make me pull the whole I’m superior thing. I’m not sure what’s going on with you.’ I open my mouth to protest when she cuts my words off. ‘And frankly, I don’t really care. I’m sick of the sight of you. You’re frightening the patients.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I reply, straightening my spine and attempting to project a little professional calm.

  ‘Then my second suggestion is to go find a bloody mirror and look. Zombie chic doesn’t suit you. A couple of the oldies think they’ve been visited by Death and gotten a reprieve. Go home. Go eat a sandwich or something.’ She waves her hand like it’ll make me disappear. ‘That’s an order. Come back when you’re supposed to and not an hour before.’

  My shoulders slump, the fight draining out of me, because I realise there’s no response to that.

  Chapter Ten

  BEA

  Outside, an early grey gloom hangs over the city—a city that’s mostly asleep. At least the sensible people are still wrapped up in bed. The lucky ones are probably curled around the warm body of their other half; a thought that makes me maudlin. Makes me resentful and sad—emotions I’ve avoided all week by hanging around the hospital and keeping myself busy. I worry that the fallout of our breakup is like an acquaintance you see coming towards you on the street, one you’re not ready to face. You’re fully aware of them—standing there on the pavement, facing you—but you avoid making eye contact at all costs, so you don’t have to deal.

  That has been my week. Weird, randy dreams and a whole gamut of emotions from anger and self-pity to sad.

  So I still don’t want to go home—not yet, at least. If I can avoid the flat for a few more hours, I’ll probably avoid seeing Rory, who would’ve slept over last night. It’s happening more and more since the remodelling in his penthouse apartment began. It’s not that I don’t want to see him, but he’ll make me think of Kit when I’m trying not to.

  I’m not envious of Fin and Rory’s relationship. But I still feel sorry for myself. And I just can’t face Fin because when I do, I know I’ll come apart at the seams and tell her everything that’s happened, including what happened with Kit.

  And that would be disastrous.

  As I plot a course of action for my morning, I pull my phone out of my pocket and read Jon’s last text message.

  When are we going to talk?

  The twelfth of never, preferably.

  When will he get the hint?

  I hit delete because if I respond, the numbness I’m currently fostering will be gone. I know I’ll need to talk to him at some point, but it’ll be on my terms, not his. And while that day might not be as far away as the same day hell freezes over, it sure as shit isn’t yet.

  I’m about to slot away my phone again when I notice a couple of missed calls from Fin.

  Shit. What day is it? Saturday. Did I miss last night’s dinner? Did I say I’d be there?

  I’m such a poor friend. It’s a good thing she asks so little of me because I deliver so much less. Not that Fin accepts this. If I was supposed to be there, she’ll put it down to my study load, my work hours, and my dedication to the job.

  Unless I tell her the truth.

  Not yet.

  A coffee place appears in front of me—it’s not a Starbucks or another chain, but one of those places that offers the basics of a full belly. Bacon and eggs. I realise I’m not entirely sure where I am, having walked out of the hospital without direction or a solid plan. Unless you count avoiding going home. The street I find myself on is quiet and genteel. Lots of grey and sage painted shopfronts with accents in shades of white. There are a few boutiques and a bathroom showroom, a florist, and then this . . . a very incongruous looking café-cum-greasy spoon. The signage is faded and worn, the door’s once white paintwork peeling. I know from experience of living here in London that this kind of establishment offers exactly two types of coffee, white or black, in addition to very strong cups of tea. And the background music is likely to be the sound of frying bacon and eggs.

  I decide this is as good a place as any to hide in for a while.

  I order black coffee and a fry-up from a man with as much grease on his apron as in his hair. I’m not hungry, and even less so after ordering, but I figure it’ll allow me a little longer to loiter here. I carry my mug to a window setting, the tiny table covered with a wipe clean cloth and decorated by a glass sugar bowl and ketchup bottle masquerading as a red tomato.

  I didn’t think they made these anymore.

  I place my phone on the sticky plastic and scald my tongue with hot instant coffee as I watch the street begin to awaken. It’s not long after six a.m., and I decide I’ll likely be here for an hour—maybe a little more if I appropriate the second-hand newspaper I spot on the table in front. But then, through the steamed-up window, and through the early morning gloom, I notice a very stylishly dressed couple coming out of the building across the street. At first glance, the building appears to be a house. Old but immaculate and very much in keeping with the rest of that side of the street. Georgian merchant homes turned into tasteful offices and the like, retaining their genteel façades.

  My eyes slide over the building where they’re standing outside. The uniformed sash windows. A brass letterbox. Elegant bay trees keep sentry on either side of an imposing black painted door. Ordinarily, I think I’d smile because they’re dressed more for some kind of formal evening event than a Saturday early morning. An early morning walk of shame, most probably. I pick a lump of white sugar from the silver coloured bowl when my attention snags on something horrific.

  What catches my attention is Rory, looking almost dapper in a dinner suit, his bow-tie lying open, half on his shirt and half on his shiny lapel.

  What catches my attention further is the elegantly dressed woman with her arm around my friend’s man.

  Down the marble steps, she hops without letting him go. One, two, three. Dark hair, red evening dress, and a satisfied smile. She turns her face to Rory as he slides his hands into her hair and tilts her head.

  I see red—as red as the gown she’s wearing—physically and emotionally because how the fuck dare he do this to my friend? After she has invested her heart fully in him. When she dotes on his every word. How can he be so callous—such a snake of a man—to make her believe in his love?

  The chair scrapes across the floor as I push it back, the bell chiming above the door as I pull violently on the handle.

  ‘ ‘Ere, love. Your fry-up’s done!’

  I don’t turn in answer because all men are scum. I’m barely aware of the traffic, finding myself on the other side of the road almost immediately. And they’re kissing now. Kissing passionately. Fucking indiscreet! My eyelashes bead with the sudden drizzling of rain as I power forward. Rory pulls away, though her arm is still around his waist . . . and there’s another man with them. Tall and fair. Fit but nowhere as big as Rory is—Rory, who slides his hand around the other man’s back, leaning in.

  The image is jarring as if I feel I should know what this means. But then I’m there, in front of the three of them. The rain is falling in earnest now, and Rory holds a large black umbrella over himself as the woman presses herself up against his side, eager to avoid the downpour.

  Trauma happens in slow motion. I’ve heard this often before. Life flashes before your eyes, I’ve heard people say. It’s a common phenomenon, and more often than not, it’s those who live to tell the tales of smashing through car windows or hurtling through the air as they watch the metal of their motorbike skidding across the road. These people will often tell of their traumatic circumstances or horrific accident as it flashes by them in slow motion, frame after frame.

  On this cold, wet Saturday morning, I find for the first
time I understand. It’s not the events of your life that fill your mind, but the present, the now. But I’m not run over by a car as I cross the road or coming off a bike or flying through a windshield. I experience none of those things, though I am perhaps becoming unhinged.

  Frame 1: ‘Rory!’ The growl sounds ripped from the depths of my gut.

  Frame 2: His slight smile grows, lifting the corners of his mouth. His eyes are aglow.

  Frame 3: I’m aware of the scruff of his bristled chin.

  Frame 4: His brow furrowing at the rise of my arm.

  Frame 5: Words fall from my mouth—curses in English and Afrikaans.

  Frame 6: The feel of his fingers gripping my forearm, pulling me underneath the shelter. Or maybe into him.

  Frame 7: The scent of a man I suddenly realise to be . . . Kit.

  What the fuck?

  Chapter Eleven

  KIT

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ In the periphery of my vision, Greg pulls Simone from my side, under his own umbrella. ‘Bea, answer me.’ I grate the command through gritted teeth as I shake her by the arm, making her wince. ‘What are you doing here?’ An array of half-formed thoughts begins to spin through my mind.

  Is this about last week? Does she know about the club—about me? Who else knows how I spend my weekends?

  I should’ve stayed at home. I hadn’t even planned to go out last night, but after enduring dinner with my brother again—yes, enduring because she wasn’t there—I knew I needed to get laid.

  Or risk finding out exactly where she worked.

  Fucking was a way to push away the obsessing. The need to know if she tastes as good as she smells.

  ‘You know this nutcase?’ Greg almost screeches. I suddenly realise Greg should only be allowed to use his mouth to suck dick. Or to answer, ‘Yes, sir.’ I don’t particularly like it when he speaks at the best of times. But this? This shrieking makes me want to punch him and lay him out flat.