by Jo Kessel
“I love this bit of you,” she said, still kissing his back and then sliding her hands slowly round to his tight buttocks, “and this bit of you.”
Jonah whipped around, the sharpness of his movement causing his temporary turban to join his other towel in a heap on the floor. He placed his hands on Claire’s long dress, lifting it in one swift movement until she compliantly raised her arms so he could remove it entirely.
“As usual,” he kissed her neck as he unclasped and took off her bra, “you’re overdressed.”
He pushed her playfully backwards until she fell on the bed.
“Take your panties off,” he commanded as he picked up the champagne bottle. She did as she was told and as she lay naked she watched him pour champagne over the strawberries in the bowl. She couldn’t believe how far she’d come. A fortnight ago she’d been utterly embarrassed by her body and now she felt so free and easy within her skin. He’d done a wonderful job of making every single tiny inch of her feel beautiful. Jonah poured so much champagne onto the strawberries that it was almost sloshing out of the bowl as he climbed onto the bed lying on his side like a Roman and balancing the bowl of strawberries and champagne on her stomach.
“That’s going to spill everywhere,” Claire objected.
“Only if you don’t stay still,” Jonah laughed.
“If you could choose between Kate Middleton and me, who would you pick?” she asked, trying to ignore the strawberry Jonah was teasing her with and most definitely trying to ignore his hand moving across to her breast and the urge she had to pull him on top of her and feel his hardness between her legs. He dipped the strawberry back in the bowl again, leaving a trail of champagne dropping onto her stomach as he brought it back to her lips and finally allowed her to eat it. He carelessly served himself a strawberry, spilling yet more champagne onto Claire’s stomach.
“You ask a lot of stupid questions,” he replied, feeding Claire another strawberry. “I’ve only got room for one Duchess in my life and that, my love, is you. And by the way, this is your punishment for your stupid question.”
Jonah started tickling Claire’s stomach gently with two hands. At first she was able to stay still, but then it became too much and her giggles made the bowl topple a generous helping of champagne onto her, trickling in all directions. She squealed for him to stop and he finally removed the bowl and set it on the bedside table. He then set to licking Claire’s skin clean, his hands never losing contact with her breasts as his mouth lapped at the champagne trailing down towards her belly button and beyond. As his mouth found her mound which was moist from desire and champagne, he slipped a finger inside of her. Claire moaned loudly.
“Duchess,” Jonah whispered, “By the time I’ve finished with you, our neighbours are going to be bashing on the walls to get you to turn down the volume.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ANTHONY
“Bye, sweetie,” Anthony kissed the top of Miriam’s head as he pulled her close for a hug. Her hair smelled so good, like a piece of sugary candy sprayed with cologne. This was the part he hated, the farewell. He never wanted to let her go and time always dragged horribly between his access days. This new reality was somewhat ironic. Back when he’d been together with Miriam’s mother, he’d worked so hard that an entire week could pass and he’d barely see his daughter. He left the house before she woke and, by the time he returned, she was fast asleep. Claire criticised him for being an absentee father but since their divorce – or perhaps because of their divorce - things had changed. The holidays, weekends and occasional weekday nights spent with Miriam meant everything to him and he always ensured he spent proper, quality time with her. Family now meant everything to him. More than work, that was for sure, and he’d managed to engineer a better balance between the two. Since his son Jasper had been born he’d been thinking about returning to court to see if there was any way the current arrangement between himself and Claire could be altered, allowing him access to spend more time with Miriam. But now Claire had dropped this bloody bombshell. He didn’t let Miriam or Claire see it as he left, but on the inside he was positively fuming as he got back into his white BMW four-wheel drive and slammed the door shut.
Claire had shooed Miriam into the garden so that she and Daddy could have ‘a quiet word.’ That’s how she’d put it. And only when she could see that Miriam was actively engaged whacking the swing ball with a plastic racket did she start speaking. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to spend the next two months in California,” she said. “And of course Miriam will be with me for the first half of that time.” She was holding a red leather key fob case in her hand and kept nervously opening and shutting its popper clasp. She probably didn’t realise she was doing it, but this very action irritated Anthony, an irritation which was exacerbated by the conversation she’d started. “With him?” he asked, not even able to say the name out loud. “Yes, with Jonah,” she confirmed.
Claire had always refused to watch Jonah Kennedy when he was shown on T.V playing tennis, but Anthony had done just that, on the sly, out of curiosity. He’d wanted to observe more closely the man his wife had been with before him. He’d been her significant past, her significant ex, and Anthony had always wondered whether, for Claire, Jonah had been ‘the one that got away’. Perhaps the reason she found it hard to watch him on the television, or even to talk about him for that matter, was because she was in denial. Whenever he asked Claire why they’d broken up she changed the subject. He knew there must have been a reason but her rambling, non sequitur explanations never really amounted to much. What he did know was that, much as Claire denied it, he wasn’t convinced she’d ever truly moved on. He’d felt it. Not so much in her actions or in things she’d said and done but by reading between the lines. When Anthony and Claire first got together she had photos of her with Jonah mounted in artisan silver frames arranged on her bedside table. If they were truly ‘over’ then why keep the pictures up? And whilst the pictures had finally been stowed away, a little Buddha statue she used to keep by her bed was never removed. Anthony hadn’t appreciated the full significance of that Buddha until one day when Miriam was about four years old. She grabbed that Buddha in her tiny fist and raised her arm. “Look Mummy,” she cried, but then she’d become distracted and the chubby fingers gripping the statue slackened open. The Buddha landed with an ungodly thud on the wooden floor, the drop decapitating its delicate ceramic head. The two pieces had lain motionless on the ground. Claire kept silent, staring at the broken fragments, and Anthony noticed her eyes filling with tears. She wiped them away, and were it not for Anthony overhearing a conversation Claire had with Miriam later as she diligently stuck the head back onto its torso with superglue, he’d have been none the wiser. He heard Miriam apologising and Claire promising it didn’t matter. But then Miriam asked why was she crying then and her mother said it was because the Buddha was a present from someone special. “Was it a boyfriend?” Miriam asked. “Yes,” Claire replied. “What was his name?” “He was a tennis player called Jonah, but that’s all a long time ago now. It really doesn’t matter darling.”
Well, it mattered to Anthony. It all suddenly made sense. He’d never been able to make Claire really happy. He hadn’t tried hard enough perhaps, but then again he’d always felt her pulling away and at some point in time he stopped trying to bridge the gap. He never attempted to compete with Jonah Kennedy because he knew that he couldn’t. For Christ’s sake, Jonah Kennedy wasn’t only a successful tennis player but he was glossy magazine front cover hot male eye candy.
Two weeks ago, when he saw Jonah walking up the garden path towards Claire’s home, it was as if time had stood still and someone had pressed freeze-frame on the image. In that moment, Anthony had a sense of foreboding that nothing in the nice new life he’d recently carved for himself would ever be quite the same again. Jonah Kennedy was a major threat. For starters, although it shouldn’t because they weren’t together any more, it felt odd to think that Jonah an
d his ex-wife might be an item again. It made Anthony feel that he had never been anything more than a stepping stone. But, far more importantly, if this was the case then there would be an impact on Miriam. Anthony wasn’t stupid. He knew that Claire was an attractive woman and that eventually she would find herself another partner. But this wasn’t any man, this was Jonah Kennedy. And worse than that, Jonah lived a whopping six thousand miles away. How could that ever spell good news?
Anthony drove himself stir crazy for a week, stewing over a whole host of hypothetical scenarios. His wandering thoughts even brought about the rarest of occurrences. He lost a trial! He was defending a client on a robbery charge and whilst in his heart he believed the defendant wasn’t guilty, the jury disagreed. Anthony just wasn’t sufficiently on the ball. Instead he’d been pondering a whole host of “what ifs”. What if Miriam liked Jonah more than Anthony? What if he tried to take Miriam away from him? What if he hurt her? What if he tried to turn her against him? He knew it was wrong, but the next time he had Miriam to stay he cross-examined her as if she was a witness in the dock.
“Oh, so you met Jonah at Mummy’s,” he tried to keep his tone light and casual. “Was he nice?”
“Oh yes, he was really nice. He played Twister with me and Connect 4 and he let me win.”
This hurt. Anthony never let Miriam win, at least not on purpose. As a top criminal Barrister he had a hungry desire for victory, but he liked to achieve this legitimately. He also liked to teach Miriam that conquests tasted sweeter when they were earned, not when they were handed to you.
“Did he stay the night?”
“Yes.”
Ouch.
Anthony’s annoyance at this was irrational. Not only was he already engaged to somebody else, they even had a son together, and he’d only been divorced for a year. Claire was entitled to a boyfriend and for all Anthony knew she’d had several since their separation. Moreover, they could all have stayed the night in Claire’s bed and it would be none of Anthony’s business. Except that it felt like it was because Miriam was there too. Anthony had been desperate to ask which room Jonah stayed in but didn’t dare steep that low. Luckily he didn’t have to. Miriam offered the information.
“He stayed two nights actually,” she continued. And then, with a maturity that belied her years and made Anthony think she understood the situation better than he expected, she added, “in the spare room.”
“What did you do all weekend then?”
“We celebrated Mummy’s new job.”
“Mummy’s got a new job?”
“Yes, she’s going to be a TV superstar.”
Anthony guffawed. Really, Claire was going to be a television superstar? Miriam’s last word was spoken with great relish, and even though it wasn’t intended, to Anthony it felt like a snub. It was as if Miriam believed her mother’s fictional TV superstar status was far superior to any legal coups her father might achieve. Jealousy was building in Anthony’s gut like venom but then he recognised he was being ridiculous. Miriam had a vivid imagination. She couldn’t be right. Claire didn’t even have a proper career.
“And Jonah’s got a daughter my age called Martha. She’s American too. Daddy, can I ask you something?”
“Yes, darling, anything.”
“If Mummy marries Jonah like you’re going to marry Ali, would that make Martha my sister like Jasper is my brother?”
Anthony tried to keep his face composed, an act he’d perfected for his job, but on this occasion he wasn’t sure he completely succeeded. The next question he asked felt like thick molasses on his tongue as he struggled to articulate.
“Why, do you think Mummy might marry Jonah?”
Miriam beamed and then puckered up her lips, as if mimicking some teenage kiss she’d seen on Hannah Montana.
“I think I saw them smooching,” she said.
----------------------
Anthony lived fairly close to Claire, in a grand avenue of huge, whitewashed terraced Georgian houses in Maida Vale, a bohemian pocket of Central London. Both Claire and Anthony had downsized, choosing properties that were within easy reach of Miriam’s school so as not to upset her any more than their break-up already had. His two-bedroom apartment had been bought with his role as a single parent foremost in mind and not really looking at the future. But, much as he loved his pad - a stylish, minimalist affair packed with African carvings and tribal painted canvasses - unexpected changes in his circumstances meant that he and Ali were already growing out of it. The second bedroom was a frilly pink paradise designed by Miriam and slept in by Miriam when she was there. Jasper still shared his parents’ room, but Anthony didn’t really want that set-up to continue indefinitely. No, another move was definitely on the cards, a tedious prospect which made him sigh as he opened the front door.
It felt good to be back and he could smell something nice cooking. His fiancé Ali wasn’t just a stunning beauty but she was also a gifted barrister, a fabulous mother and a keen amateur chef. And, unlike Claire, she wasn’t constantly thinking of the health benefits of food. Ali used copious amounts of double cream and sugar in her cuisine. Sure, their cholesterol levels might be a touch suspect but, if they died from a heart attack then at least they’d die enjoying themselves. Ali didn’t need to watch her weight. Perhaps it was genes or metabolic rate or stress but she somehow appeared to be one of those lucky women who, no matter how much garbage they eat, remain resolutely skinny. Even having a baby hadn’t altered her shape. Her green eyes and straight black hair lent her a feline quality and Anthony was particularly partial to her long, graceful legs.
“Ali?” he called.
“Hi,” she called back, “we’re in the bathroom.”
He made his way to the bathroom where the vision of mother bent over the baby tub washing his son calmed his rising levels of anxiety. This right here was precious. This right here was what made his heart sing, what made getting up in the morning worthwhile. He already had so much, why was he letting this America business unsettle him so? He was normally so calm and calculating that this rush of emotions felt alien and unnerving. He leaned over Ali, planting a hand on her back for balance as he held the little finger of his other hand out to Jasper hoping he’d grasp it. He did, straight away, with an iron grip.
“Hello tiger,” he beamed at Jasper. “You’re so strong.”
Jasper gurgled merrily and performed his new party trick.
“Da……dee,” he chirped. “Da…..dee.”
Jasper had only recently started saying the word ‘daddy’ and every time he did, it was like melodious music filling the air with pure innocence and love.
“Aren’t you a clever boy, saying my name so beautifully?”
Jasper opened his arms wide and Anthony took his cue, lifting his son out of the bath and wrapping him in a fluffy blue towel. With Jasper secured in the crook of his elbow, Anthony drew Ali into a communal hug with his other arm. He wanted to keep them both close forever. Indeed, he wanted to keep all his family close forever. If only Miriam could be part of this hug too.
“You’re back later than I expected,” she said, kissing him on the lips.
“I know. Sorry, but Claire had something she wanted to discuss.”
Ali had always been remarkably understanding about the baggage he brought into their relationship. It can’t be easy having an ex-wife in your life, let alone a stepchild. It made everything so much more complicated.
“Is everything ok?” she asked.
“It’s fine or if it’s not, I’m sure it will be.”
This was Anthony’s problem, nobody else’s, so he tried to brush it off. Clearly he didn’t do a good enough job of it because Ali could sense something was wrong.
“Your problem is my problem. If there’s something wrong, please tell me.”
Anthony nodded. He’d already told Ali about Jonah’s reappearance in Claire’s life.
“Ok, then. Claire is taking Miriam with her when she goes with Jonah to the States th
is summer. And because she’s planning to stay on in America afterwards, she’s arranged for Jonah’s mother to chaperone Miriam back here in August when it’s my turn to have her.”
“Right,” Ali raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t like that?”
No, Anthony did not like the concept of a stranger bringing his precious daughter back on a transatlantic flight. He didn’t know anything about Jonah’s mother. She might be a psychopath for all he knew.
“No, I don’t.”
Ali raised her other eyebrow.
“But there’s nothing you can do about it?”
Anthony stepped away from the group embrace, gently bouncing Jasper up and down.