A Brand New Me

by Shari Low

  Alternative action.

  I readjusted my body position so that his cock was caught between my breasts, squeezed between them, while my tongue flicked at the tip. Up and down, up and down, faster and faster, and…

  ‘Leni, stop, I’m going to come and I want to be inside you.’

  Stu’s voice calmly and officially recited statistics in my ear. ‘Cases of chlamydia have risen in the UK by thirty-three per cent in the last…’

  Noooooo! It was like having sex with a disapproving audience.

  Ben squeezed my shoulders, trying to gently pull me up so that we would be face to face, chest to chest and nethers to nethers, but I resisted.

  Only one way out of this. I clenched my breasts even tighter around his dick, and started undulating faster and faster, and–holy crap, my thigh muscles were about to snap–faster and faster until he roared my name as he came.

  With other guys it would be over, but not with Ben.

  ‘Stand up,’ he whispered.

  I did what he said. I saw his eyes dart to the end of the couch, where the sky-high platforms that I’d worn on my date with Colin the lawyer were lying. He grabbed them and, one by one, slipped them on my feet, their thin straps mercifully slipping right over my swollen toes. I was standing in the middle of my living room, legs apart, mortifyingly naked except for gravity-defying footwear, and the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen was kneeling in front of me.

  I thought it probably wasn’t the time to ask how or when he’d learned his new moves, especially while embarrassment, lust, vulnerability and sheer bloody horniness were fighting for supremacy in my head.

  He took my hands, one by one, and reached up and placed them on my breasts.

  ‘Rub them,’ he whispered.

  Outside: just the sound of my shallow breaths.

  Inside: voices in my brain screeching a randomly confused, astonished, ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk!!!’

  An involuntary gasp escaped me as I clenched my eyes shut, trying to block out everything but the tongue that was now probing in the gynaecological area.

  His hands were squeezing my buttocks, his face burrowed in front, his back glistening with sweat, the tongue strokes getting deeper and deeper and more persistent and deeper and more…

  I came with such a shudder that I almost fell off my platforms. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.

  I sank to my knees, into the folds of his arms, my cheek pressed against his chest, my mouth gently throbbing. After a few minutes, still intertwined, we sank to the floor and lay there, naked, in silence for what seemed like hours.

  Eventually, he spoke. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Leni.’

  I put my hand to his mouth and shushed him, desperate to delay the inevitable discussions and recriminations and reality for as long as possible. Only when the goose-bumps turned to shivering did I move. He was dozing as I leaned over and kissed him gently on each eye. Once upon a time I would have given everything to this man…but now?

  ‘C’mon, Ben,’ I whispered, rousing him and gently tugging him upright and taking him through to bed. We climbed under the duvet, snuggled into each other, needing the heat and, in my case, the reassurance that he was really there and this wasn’t all an orgasmic dream brought on by undetected concussion from the sauna episode.

  My mind tried to process the situation in short, succinct bullet-points. He was back. He loved me. I’d missed him. We could be together. It felt so good. He was fan-fucking-tastic in bed, and I’d never met anyone I wanted to be with more than him.

  So that must mean…

  The hand stopped the gentle strokes on the side of my face and moved down under the cover. It was back on my overworked, tender boob now, teasing and caressing it, while my hip bone felt the pressure of a hard, demanding cock press against it.

  I swatted his hand away playfully. ‘Sorry, stud, no condoms so put that away.’

  He was burrowed into my neck, nibbling my ear and kissing my temple, so I missed his reply.

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked him, my voice thick with pleasure and giddiness.

  ‘I said don’t worry…I brought some with me.’

  ‘Marry me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Marry me. Look, I brought you this.’ My mouth stopped chewing, my right cheek bulging with un-masticated toast.

  He leaned out of bed, reached down, and from the pocket of the combats that were folded neatly on the floor, he pulled out a small, red leather box.

  The breakfast tray that was balanced on my knees, the one he’d woken me with as soon as the sun had forced its way through the curtains, began to tremble. The orange juice was almost splashing out of the glass, the single-bud vase about to tip over, the toast and bacon clearly vibrating.

  Just in time I realised that my jaw had dropped and hastily closed my mouth, fearful that the sight of my half-consumed breakfast might deter him from doing what I was sure he was about to do.

  He turned to face me, his face full of fear, his halting voice a sweet, poignant reflection of his nervousness. As his anxious eyes met mine, I realised that he had never, ever looked more beautiful.

  ‘Leni, I almost lost you once and I’m so, so sorry for hurting you, but I promise, on my life, that I will never hurt you again. Marry me, Leni. Please. And I’ll make sure that for the rest of our lives you will never regret giving me another chance.’

  A huge tear dropped from my face. I loved him. I could try to pretend I was over him, that I’d be happy with someone else, that another guy could make me feel the way he did, but I’d be kidding myself, because the simple truth was that he was the only man I’d ever wanted.

  My head was already nodding, powered completely by invisible cords that led straight to my heart. He opened the box and there was the most dazzling solitaire diamond ring, a flawless stone ornately crafted to a simple gold band.

  He eased it out from its pillow and pushed it onto my finger, both of us watching as it slid effortlessly to its resting place, a perfect fit. The tears were flowing now as I threw my arms around him and…CRASH!!!

  For a few seconds I wasn’t sure what was going on. The breakfast tray! It must have fallen to the ground and…but hang on, it was still dark.

  Suddenly, a light snapped on, and through my disorientated, unfocused fog, I struggled to make sense of what was going on. Ben was there, but it was still night-time, or maybe early morning. My bedside cabinet was on its side. There was no breakfast tray. There was no ring. So did that mean I’d…

  ‘Sorry, babe, I didn’t mean to wake you. But I knocked over the…’

  My eyes flicked to the up-ended cabinet. ‘I see that.’

  I’d dreamed the whole thing. No, not again! Why was this happening? How come all the best bits of my life in the last few months had been figments of my imagination?

  ‘I have to go. We’re shipping out today and I need to be on the train back to barracks in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Where are you shipping to?’

  ‘Kosovo. Peacekeeping.’

  I squinted in what I was sure was a decidedly unattractive manner, especially when added to the fat lip, which, contrary to my dream, actually felt like it was the size of your average baked potato.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Fifteen weeks.’

  That old familiar feeling of dread and fear came rushing back. Afghanistan. Iraq. Belize. Kosovo. We’d been through them all already but the anxiety never left.

  He was almost dressed now, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his boots. In a minute he’d be gone, with no discussions, no resolution as to where we stood in our relationship.

  Boots on, there was one last kiss before he stood up again. ‘I’ll call you,’ he promised. ‘Later today, before we leave.’

  Wasn’t that how so much of our relationship had been conducted? The letters, the phone calls, the packages, the wife…The wife.

  His hand was on the doorknob now and he was twisting it. In a fraction of a second he’d
be gone again, but with the promise of a return and the renewal of our relationship. Maybe it was just that I was half-sleeping, or that this whole thing was straight from Bizarre Central, but I was hearing a narration of everything that was happening in the voice of the bloke who did the voice-over for Extreme Makeover. I definitely needed to switch off the telly more.

  The door opened, he stepped forward, he was almost gone, when Leni, 27, who’d always been self-conscious about her large nose, her low brow and her drooping breasts, blurted, ‘When did your wife leave?’

  He stopped in his tracks, but didn’t answer.

  ‘When did she leave, Ben? And tell me the truth, because if we’re going to be together then I’ll find out anyway. When did she leave?’

  There was a long, tense silence, before he finally coughed up the three most painful words of all.

  ‘A year ago.’

  A. Year. Ago.

  Cue sudden, blinding, nauseating clarity.

  He wasn’t back because he couldn’t live without me. If that were the case he’d have been on my doorstep within a day of discovering that his wife was gone.

  The real, unavoidable, tortuous truth was that Sergeant Ben Mathers had been here because he couldn’t get his wife back, or he was bored with playing the field, or he just fancied a quickie before he went off to work. Shit, he’d even brought condoms! How bloody presumptuous was that? The selfish, self-indulgent, cocky tosser!

  ‘But Leni…’

  ‘Go!’

  He checked his watch and obviously realised that staying to argue wasn’t an option.

  ‘I’ll…erm…call you tonight.’

  As the door closed behind him, I sank back on the pillow, mouth sore, foot aching, heart breaking and seething rage rising with every passing second.

  A year ago.

  Well, bollocks to him. I’d learned my lesson and I knew that I deserved better than him. I would not let him hurt me again. Absolutely not. No. Fucking. Way. I was stronger, much stronger than that.

  ‘Stuuuuuuuu,’ I sobbed down the phone thirty seconds later.

  ‘I’m on my way, honey,’ he replied.

  27

  Superstar

  ‘Holy crap, you look like you’ve been in a war,’ Millie blurted with her usual tact and diplomacy, although, to her credit, she did follow it up with, ‘Are you okay, sweetie? Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Do you have a gun under that desk?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then no, nothing you can do.’

  I’d absolutely snapped out of my post-traumatic Ben disorder–but only for about five minutes the afternoon before, when Trish threatened to hunt him down and do illegal things involving bulldog clips to his balls. Now I was right back in the mourn-zone, a raging fire of depression stoked by the dual fuels of self-pity and confusion.

  I took the mail and trudged up the stairs, with Millie’s reassurances trailing behind me.

  ‘It’s going to get better, you know. It might take a little while, but things will shake up and you’ll be better than ever.’

  God bless the powers of optimism.

  ‘Oh, and Zara is in her office, but Conn’s not in yet. Salmon bagel and cream cheese.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ I replied, not even having the spirit to challenge her. Pathetic, yes, but I just wanted to get this day over with so that I could get back to some seriously high-grade self-doubt and oral-sex-regret.

  To my relief and surprise, apart from the fish in the aquarium and the thirty-two pot plants (all of which had names–Fred the fern, Sammy the spider plant, Bob the bamboo–I’ll stop in case you’re feeling the urge to hurl), the office was empty when I got there. Zara must be in the loo. Bliss! I could squeeze in five more minutes of self-hatred while I opened the mail. Invitations to swanky events in a pile to the left. Fan mail to the right. Requests for postal readings in the corner pile. Requests for one-to-one consultations in the other corner. All correspondence from celebrity clients in the VIP pile. And bills in a large mound for the accountant.

  Still no Zara. I pulled up her schedule–in half an hour’s time she had a one-to-one with Stephen Knight, bad boy, cocaine fan, lover of high-class call girls and the A-list movie star du jour.

  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

  Maybe she was preparing by meditating in a cupboard somewhere.

  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

  Or pacing a corridor, fraught with nervous sexual tension.

  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

  Or…what the hell was that noise? It sounded like some kind of native war cry. Or someone with a serious phlegm problem. And it was definitely coming from somewhere nearby.

  I got up from my desk and checked the cupboards. Nope, nothing. I shuffled the pillows around on the floor–a dying animal burrowed under the soft furnishings? Nope.

  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

  The window. It was coming from the open window. I squeezed past Zara’s desk and wild foliage, leaned out of the huge sash and yes, there indeed was my boss, grabbing a bit of fresh air–an act that in itself wouldn’t be too unusual if it weren’t for the fact that she was strapped into a leather harness punctuated with huge padlocks, attached to a steel peg on the wall, and dangling–otherwise unsupported–fifty feet in the air.

  Her arms were out at her sides in the crucifix position, her eyes were shut, her mouth wide open and…‘Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.’

  ‘Zara!’

  Her eyes snapped open and the surprised jerk of her body caused her to sway. Terrified, I instinctively reached out to grab her with the intention of steadying her, only a large windowsill and good fortune stopping me from tumbling out.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I exclaimed, in a voice three octaves higher than normal.

  ‘New therapy–I’m absorbing the energy from the air,’ she answered, completely matter of fact, conveying her utter certainty that it was absolutely normal to dangle from your office window.

  ‘Couldn’t you just have stood outside the front door?’

  ‘The air is purer up here–I’m being absorbed by the elements.’

  To be honest, I thought she’d been absorbing elements of an altogether different kind. I made a mental note to check her schedule for anyone with a name that sounded like a Colombian drug baron.

  ‘It’s time for me to come in–give me your hand.’

  With all the agility of a gymnast, one that had no regard whatsoever for my personal safety, she used me as leverage to swing around and then clamber back in the window.

  ‘Can you hand me the keys to all these padlocks; they’re in a bunch on my desk.’

  I reached over and lifted the large ring, in the process nudging her computer and flicking it from the screen-saver back to the program that was running. Google. And I needed only a smidgen of a second to spot the words ‘Stephen Knight’ in the search box. Mmm, so Zara was doing her research. Perhaps the Gods of Psychic Powers and Spiritual Connection needed a little bit of back-up every now and again.

  Her long brown wavy hair brushed, deep maroon lippy applied, T-shirt and leggings whipped off, silver kaftan shrugged on, and she was ready to go just as Millie buzzed to say that Stephen Knight’s driver had called ahead to say that he would be here in five minutes.

  ‘Shall I go down and collect him?’ I asked, unable to contain my enthusiasm. Stephen Knight was a physical god. Sure, he was so sexually depraved that you wouldn’t touch him without double-thickness rubber gloves and a dose of penicillin, but meeting him would be one to tell the grandchildren. If I ever had grandchildren. Or children. Or a husband. Or…A massive cloud of post-Ben depression burst over my head again and I was caught in another downpour of grief. Still, at least I’d get to meet Stephe—

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Zara snapped. ‘A celebrity of his stature must be greeted personally by moi. You know, Leni, sometimes you really lack the extra edge of professionalism that this job requires.’

  On any other day I’d have kept schtum, qu
estioned my performance and perhaps even cried, but not today. Today I was Cheating Bastard Action Man’s superhero ex-girlfriend, Lethal Leni.

  ‘What? What the hell are you talking about???’

  Her mouth dropped wide open, clearly astonished at my uncharacteristic outburst. The secretary formerly known as Leni had been possessed by the forces of rage, rejection and sheer bloody indignation. Think nice things? Forget it! Months of humiliation, frustration and sacrifices in the line of duty bubbled over and poured forth.

  ‘Well, I mean…erm, I…’ she stuttered, eyeing me with a face mapped in confusion.

  ‘Unprofessional? I have conducted myself in a manner that has been completely fucking professional.’

  The uncontrollable rant was out of the box and a dozen rangers armed with cattle prods wouldn’t have been able to get it back in.

  ‘The indignities that I’ve suffered in this role are completely over and above anything that the Department of Employment would classify as normal, yet I’ve put my head down and got on with the job…in a purely PROFESSIONAL MANNER!’

  Her shoulders shifted from a position of defence to attack and she spat back like a viper. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Leni, stop being so dramatic. So you had a few mishaps on a few dates–at least you’re seeing some action, which is undoubtedly more than was happening before you came to work for me.’

  Why, the conniving, nasty bi—

  ‘And let’s face it, you haven’t exactly been a model of efficiency. It’s been months now and you’re nowhere near finished with the project. Time is money, Leni, time is money, and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you might have a chance of actually achieving something in your life…Like finishing the task that was assigned to you!!!!’

  Her flushed face was only inches from mine now, and I used my sleeve to remove the saliva that the last sentence had transferred from her gob to my face.

  When I had come to work for Zara, I had known that she was volatile, irrational and prone to manic outbursts, but this was on a different level altogether. This was the premier league of bollockings–and being on the receiving end immediately burst my bubble of aggression and sent me skidding back to my default setting of defensive and nervous.