Unsuitable

by Ainslie Paton

“Now.”

  “Is it morning?” She shook her head. “Goodnight, Mia.”

  She rolled to her side, curled up. He watched her a moment then left her room for his own. They’d cut that too fine. He shouldn’t be carrying on like this, too risky. He’d left his door ajar. He half expected Audrey to be angry with him. She was sitting on his bed, the robe keeping her warm.

  “Sorry that—”

  “Was just... Good God, Reece.” She closed her eyes and smiled.

  “You’re not mad?”

  She looked up at him. “Not about Sky, not about what we just did. I’m only mad my kid can’t stay in bed and my lover didn’t get to finish with me.”

  “Oh.” He raked his hand though his hair. “Oh. Hah.” He liked that.

  “Are you finished with me?”

  “Not tonight. Not ever.”

  “I want you inside me.” She held out her arm. “I want to be inside you.”

  He crooked his head, only one of those messages making sense. She swept by him and closed the door. He turned his head to follow her. She ditched the robe, dropped it on the floor and walked over it. She wore just the bra, beautifully obscene, prowling back towards him. He held out his hand, but she avoided him.

  “Tell me your secrets because you know every one of mine. What makes you lose control, Reece? What makes you fall apart? You can put me there so easily. How do I learn to do that to you?”

  He dropped his arm, let her trail her fingers across his stomach and his gut tightened, his erection came roaring back to punish him. She circled around him, dragging her hand over his skin, leaving a trail of feeling he wanted to lean into. He turned his head to follow her.

  “You do it. You already do it. In your work clothes, in that underwear, in that fucking ugly dressing gown.” She stood in front of him again. “I don’t care what you wear, it’s you.”

  He went to his knees. She smelled of sex and he was ravenously hungry for her. She put her hand to his hair and pulled so his chin came up.

  “That can’t be true.” Her expression faltered, doubt replacing that near aggression. “You’re so careful, always. You never raise your voice, you never lose it with Mia, even when it’s unclear if she’s possessed by evil. Only that once, with the whiskey, were you on the edge and still you think of me first.”

  He had no idea what she wanted from him. There was nothing left of him she didn’t already own. He pulled out of her grip and sat back on his heels. “I think of you first always. There isn’t anything else I’d rather do.”

  “Dear God.” She stood a foot either side of his knees and gripped his chin in her hands. “I never even dreamed the idea of you.”

  He palmed her behind the knees and she collapsed forward into his lap. He kissed her hard, holding her head in place. He’d never dreamed her either but he wouldn’t be satisfied until she was more reality than vision. He’d never asked, but now he needed to know like he needed exercise to be himself, because he didn’t know everything about her and it wasn’t enough.

  “Mia’s father, Barrett. What is he to you?”

  Audrey draped her arms over his shoulders. “He was a friend, a brilliant, irritating, friend. We met a uni. He was destined to be amazing.”

  He had no right to be jealous, but resentment flamed in his chest like a petrol fire, dangerous, unquenchable. “You slept with him?”

  She brushed her nose against his. Her breath was on his mouth. “We were friends. He’s not the marriage and forever type. He likes men and women and we didn’t want each other. We have the same colouring. He’s a good-looking man. He’s crazy intelligent. I asked if he’d father a child. He said, yes, then no, then he agreed to a no strings contract, then nearly backed out at the last moment. It was a big deal for him because he didn’t want the responsibility and he had trouble accepting I wouldn’t change my mind and want him involved.”

  “You never did.”

  “I never will.”

  She didn’t answer the question. . “You slept together.”

  She smoothed his brows. “No. We used a clinic. He’s never seen me naked.”

  He had no right to know. “He’s never been inside you.”

  “Look at me, Reece. There’ve been other men, but only you got inside me.”

  He picked her up with an incoherent roar that was the blanket over jealous licks of heat. He’d love her hard enough to extinguish any memory, any new desire for anyone but him.

  He had no more patience, it was all burned through. He barely got her on the bed, his pants down, a rubber on, before he was inside her, before his rhythm went ragged and he lost his air in the wonder of her clenching, sliding warmth. He was rough, he was gentle, he was fast, he was aching and straining and losing the idea of anything but the sensation of her, the sound of her, the knowledge she was his as surely as he was hers.

  He slept like the world had ended, woke like he had a new life. Audrey complained of being sore, but she did it without being able to keep the smile off her face, the amusement out of her voice. He’d done something right.

  He got Mia’s breakfast, got her ready for a swimming lesson. Later Audrey was taking her for a haircut. She waved them off, wearing that dressing gown. Under it she was showered, he figured naked.

  He strapped Mia in her car seat. She strained to look into the front of the car. “Where’s Snapper?” She checked beside her and on the floor.

  “Who’s Snapper?”

  “My fish. I need my fish.” She tried to push him out of her way and wriggle free.

  He frowned, bent awkwardly half in, half out of the car. Mia wasn’t going anywhere. “Which one is Snapper?” He’d never heard of Snapper before.

  “I need him now. Now. I need him.”

  There were tears already. “Okay, which one is Snapper?”

  “My fish. My fish.”

  “Mia, tell me which one is Snapper and I’ll get him.”

  “The orange one with the blue tail. I need him badly for swimming.”

  Blue tail. He’d bring everything orange with a blue tail. “You sing Let it Go and I’ll get him.”

  He left the door open, went around to the other side of the car and opened that door too. The tears disappeared. He turned stereo on, found the track. He had approximately three minutes to find Snapper, or one minute to find Snapper and two minutes to work out if Audrey was naked under the robe. That felt like an inappropriate allocation of limited time. Fuck it.

  He barrelled into the house. He had no memory of a fish toy. Audrey came out of her bedroom and met him by the front door. “What did you forget?”

  “A fish called Snapper.”

  She shrugged. He grinned and reached for her. They could hear Mia singing from the car in the driveway. Not every sound coming out of her was an actual word. “Can you orgasm in two minutes?”

  “What?”

  He steered her back into the wall, pulling the cord on the robe, sweeping it open. God, yes, she was all bare skin beauty and lavender soap smell.

  “Reece.”

  He ran his nose over up the side of her neck. “I need a fish with a blue tail and I need you to come.” He straightened up, tucked his hand between her legs and she grabbed his wrist, her eyes going wide, but her head went back against the wall as his thumb went to work.

  “Oh God.”

  She closed her eyes and parted her legs for him. He rubbed and rolled and pinched and she went from surprised to wet and shaking in double quick time.

  He put his thigh to her hip to hold her. He put his other hand to the back of her head so she didn’t brain herself on the wall.

  “Give it up, baby. I still have to find the fucking fish.”

  She bore down on his hand and grabbed his shoulders for support. In the driveway Mia hit the chorus again. Audrey came with a breathless shout, her head smacking into his hand. She was flushed a fantastic shade of pink. He stole her unwinding sigh with a deep kiss, and he’d have stayed there all day but for the kid in the car and
the fish and the swimming lesson. He left her propped there, pit stopped in the bathroom to wash his hands, blinking at himself in the bathroom mirror. Fuck yeah, he’d just done that and it felt amazing.

  Nothing resembling a fish in Mia’s room. He found a plastic orange blob with what might be a tail, it was at least blue, in the toy box. He had hope. Audrey was where he left her. She looked dazed. He had more than hope. He had love. He kissed her with the fish blob in one hand and her butt in the other.

  When he got back to the car, Mia was still singing. He looked at the stereo unit and laughed. He’d somehow punched the button to make the song repeat and it was on its second go around. She held her hand out to take the blob, said “Snapper,” as if this toy was her most favourite thing in the whole world and kept singing.

  When they got to the pool, Mia wouldn’t get in and no amount of cajoling would make her. He stood in the hip high water and she stood on the deck. Whatever genes Barrett had donated to the process, Mia was all Audrey in terms of looks and stubborn determination.

  “She’s usually so good.”

  He turned to a woman in racer style swimmers. They knew each other by sight. Her little boy was kicking his legs as she held him on his back, her hands under his armpits.

  “Can’t win them all.”

  “Won’t you come in for Daddy?” the mum said to Mia.

  Mia shook her head and gave the woman a curl up and die look. It might’ve been the daddy reference or the coming in thing.

  He had the same dark colouring as Mia did which was the reason he was mistaken for her father so often. This morning that didn’t bother him. He’d entirely lost the need to correct the impression. This morning nothing would bother him. He closed his eyes a second and saw Audrey trembling in the aftermath her orgasm. He had to wait until the woman moved away to get out of the pool without someone complaining about his inappropriate behaviour.

  Back home, he exchanged Mia for a sudden afternoon off. Audrey had given the house a spruce and the fridge was full. She took Mia to get a haircut. He had the place to himself, and no clue what to do with the free time. He changed into running gear, he’d go for an extra long run and slam a workout on top.

  Audrey had left her laptop running on the counter. He should shut it down and put it somewhere Mia couldn’t get to it. He should look up the number of the new restaurant complex at the beach or see if he could book online. He’d get Etta to come sit Mia so he could take Audrey out for a night. A proper date like people who met and fell for each other the ordinary way.

  He tapped the keyboard and hit the password screen. Hmm. He tried MarvellousMia and laughed as it worked. He scanned for the web browser and then he saw it. Nanny Monitor. He’d clicked it before he stopped to think about it being Audrey’s business.

  He got a home page that gave him Audrey’s details, camera locations and recording dates. From where he stood at the kitchen counter he was in the eye of a camera fitted to the fire alarm. A fucking nanny cam. The other camera was fitted to the television. It was motion activated and recorded to files stored on the laptop. He opened the first file at the top of the list.

  Shit. There he was barefoot dancing to the fucking Wiggles with Mia. Waving his arms around like a lunatic. He clenched his jaw so hard it made a cracking sound. And Audrey had watched this, there was a mark against the file to show she’d watched it multiple times. She’d watched lots of the files, some simultaneous to recording, some after the fact. They were ranked by number of views and then date recorded.

  He pulled a chair under the fire sensor and stood on it. The casing was a fake. He popped the cover and ripped the camera workings out, making an alarm on the laptop beep. He went to the lounge room and stood in front of the TV. It would be recording.

  She’d done this, recorded him without telling him. Yeah, maybe that first month while she was uncertain, but it’d gone on and on and she’d been watching him over and over again. Watching him and judging him like his old friends had done in his old life. Cheering him on while he viciously pulverised someone, broke their health, altered them forever. Fuck. Fuck.

  His hands were shaking. He needed to calm the fuck down. It was hateful. It was reasonable. It was fucked up and he wanted to put his fist though the screen and rip the TV apart, go back to the other room and smash the laptop. If he looked for this camera he wouldn’t stop till he found it even if that meant tearing the TV electronics apart. He tried to settle his breathing. The housing on the tiny camera he gripped splintered inside his fist.

  “This.” He lifted his hand, the camera cords dangling like squid legs. Wherever the sensor was it would record him. “You could’ve told me about this. About why you needed it. About not trusting me. You could’ve stopped it.”

  He left the room. He went back to the laptop and turned the beeping off. Put the cover back on the fake fire alarm, put the chair back under the table. He left the mangled camera on the counter, left the laptop open to the nanny cam home page. He went to his room and shoved clothes in his bag. He had to get out. He was clearing the bathroom when he heard Audrey’s car in the drive.

  He got to the driveway before Audrey’d unstrapped Mia. She looked around when she heard his footsteps, her smile collapsing the minute they made eye contact.

  “I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “What happened?” she said, surprised.

  “I need to be somewhere else.”

  She stepped in front of him, her hand up. He backed up went around the nose of the car to avoid her. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. He caught Mia watching him, her mouth open as he ploughed past.

  “Reece.”

  He palmed his car keys. The Monaro was parked at the kerb in front of the house. He popped the boot and slung his bag in. Audrey had Mia out of her car.

  “Reece, what the hell?”

  He couldn’t talk to her. He couldn’t look at her. What would make her hire him if she didn’t trust him? What would make her leave Mia with him if she thought he was a perverted monster who would hurt her? What would watching him do it achieve? It couldn’t undo the harm. He opened the car door. Audrey had let Mia run inside the house.

  “Reece. Talk to me.”

  “Why did you hire me?”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “Answer the question?”

  Audrey took a step back. He’d shocked her even though there was a car between them. He didn’t give a fuck. She didn’t love him. She was using him. For child care above and beyond, for sex when it suited her.

  Her chin shot up. “Because you were the best candidate.”

  “So you had to watch me, record my actions. That must’ve been amusing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Go inside, Audrey. I need to clear my head.”

  “Don’t get in that car and drive angry.”

  He laughed, it was a strained sound, bitter like rancid fruit on his tongue. She had no idea what angry looked like on him. “You don’t need me to stay over any more. You haven’t for a while. I should’ve moved out ages ago.”

  “You’re moving out?”

  “I’ll be back in the morning to do my job.”

  “Reece.”

  He got in the Monaro and started it. She stepped off the kerb and stood in front of the car. He pounded the steering wheel with his fist and shouted at her through the windscreen to stand aside. He could pull around her, and if he edged forward she’d move. He squeezed his eyes closed and put his head down on the wheel. He needed space. He needed—

  She opened the heavy car door and he sat upright. “You found the cameras. Oh, Reece. I forgot about them.”

  “You forgot.”

  “With the nearly dying, with the falling in love. I forgot.”

  “But you set them up to monitor me. Not Cameron, right?”

  She nodded. He looked away from her, out the front windscreen. She reached in and turned the ignition off. The quiet was deafening, like after you
’d stopped using a jackhammer, but the anger still vibrated inside him and he still wanted to punch concrete.

  “You were a puzzle. A giant of a man, who gave up traditional male roles to take on a traditional female one. I doubted my own decision to hire you and I hated myself for it. You were only doing what I’ve done in my own career, but I second guessed myself.”

  “Why the fuck did you hire me then?”

  “You were the best. You deserved the job. And I never for one moment thought you’d hurt Mia.”

  He kept his face turned away from her. He didn’t want her to see the fierceness in him, till he could get it under control.

  “I started to fall in love with you when I watched those files. You danced with Mia like it was the most important thing you could be doing, and I should’ve realised then that’s how you do everything. All I knew at the time was you were proud and shameless and, oh God, Reece I wanted you then, but I wouldn’t let myself think that. I watched the files of you and Mia and fell more and more under your spell.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and his instinct was to flinch, knock her hand away.

  “Please don’t be angry with me. Please don’t leave like this. I’m sorry, not because of the cameras, but because I forgot to turn them off, forgot to tell you. I understand you need space. But don’t drive away in anger.”

  He put his hand over hers, pulled her across his lap, and shoved his face in the curve of her neck. He’d lost it and he was ashamed. He breathed her in. She was hairdressing chemicals and underneath she was lavender soap and underneath she was the woman he loved. He needed to get a grip. It was such an old trigger and he’d let it affect this new life. She held on to him, sitting side-saddle, the steering wheel at her back. He held her still till he trusted himself to speak without anger ripping his voice up.

  He filled his hand with her glossy straightened hair and brought their foreheads together. “Being recorded, it’s a thing I hate. Years ago I did something stupid, hurtful. A so-called friend filmed it and I didn’t know he had. He loaded it to a website, thumb drives, passed it around. It wasn’t something I wanted anyone to see. Too many people saw it. It made me a Z grade celebrity for a while.”