Well, she thought, as a fire welled inside her, he didn’t know what she had done today and he wouldn’t ever get to know. No-one would.
But one thing she was sure of: she would never do it again. Ever.
Jude heard the front door open and rushed down the long walkway towards the front of the house. As she did her floaty black dress swooshed around her knees and a single satin strap fell off her right shoulder.
Clive took off his jacket and loosened his silk tie, undoing his top button. He looked like a rebellious schoolboy and Jude grinned at how youthfully handsome he was.
“Something smells gorgeous. I’m starving.” Clive reached out to grab the picturesque sight in front of him. He nuzzled into her neck, kissing it passionately. “It’s you – you smell gorgeous,” he told his wife with sincerity. “How come you’re so dressed up, Jude?”
Smiling, she swung around and walked away, without answering. He followed her into the open-plan kitchen through the extensive hallway where the walls were covered with framed photographs, mainly of Tom and Anna, from birth upwards. The montage told a story in chronological order giving a visual history of their elite lives.
As Clive caught up on his wife’s determined stride, he took in her perfect back, arched and tanned. Her waist was tiny, her hips narrow and Jude had legs which went on to infinity. Clive felt a horniness arise in him. This girl was so perfect and she was all his. His trophy wife.
“I’m cooking a romantic dinner,” Jude beamed, keen to play it down until the time was right to break the news, but she had to take deep breaths to avoid blurting it out. “We’ve got the house to ourselves for once and we hardly ever get to talk without interruption of ‘Mum, have you seen my tennis racquet?’ or ‘Mum, where are my riding boots?’!” She chuckled although the chuckle dispersed into an immediate sadness as she thought of the empty beds upstairs. She suddenly felt the quietness of the house wrap itself around her slender frame, chilling her skin until she remembered. She remembered that her life was about to begin all over again just as it had been before the twins came along and yes, her heart ached that she might not be able to indulge her children with the same devotion as before, but she knew they would understand. She had given up her life as she knew it for them and to please Clive and her mother, but now it was her turn and even though it pained her to admit it, she was taking something for herself. She was so almost back in the game and Jude had never felt so alive and so injected with euphoria that she could not only help one of her closest friends but, in doing so, that she could and would be awakened and restored.
At least she hoped that would be the case. Somewhere deep down, Jude couldn’t help wondering whether she still had it. Whatever the it was. Had she lost her ability and capability over the past fifteen years? Better still, did she have the confidence to go out to work after years of domesticity and motherhood? But her worst fear of all was whether she had the ability to deliver.
She had never been arrogant in her work and she was her own worst critic – disregarding completely the skill it had taken to produce her own opulent home which was a designer prototype – but for her there was always something she could have done better. She had always felt that way, such was her unassuming nature.
Jude bit her lip hard as she tried to eradicate the doubts which were eating away at her. Surely it must be like riding a bike? She was only forty for heaven’s sake – not even that – but fifteen years away from an ever-changing industry was a long time.
“How was sailing?”
“Great, thanks, darling. We didn’t take the boat out though. She still needs a bit of work but we’re lifting her out of the water this Sunday to clean her up. She’s in desperate need of a good anti-foul treatment.”
Clive opened the stainless-steel fridge and pulled out a wine bottle. His face lit up when he saw Jude’s choice and he held it up to her. “Muscat? Do you know this is nearly thirty quid a bottle, Jude?”
Jude’s heart thumped through her chest. The wine matched the occasion and she could wait no longer. She was about to deliver a single line of news which she had hoped to deliver years before.
“We’re celebrating!”
“We are indeed celebrating, my little princess.”
“You’ve heard?” Jude was puzzled.
“I have. I heard today!” Clive burst out.
“You don’t mind then?”
Clive picked up his wife and swung her around the kitchen. “Mind, darling, how could I mind? I’ve been made partner, Jude, the youngest ever partner of Staines & Greer!” He set her firmly on the floor and threw his fist towards the ceiling. “What is there to mind about being the youngest ever partner of the oldest and most established law firm in Northern England?”
Clive was ecstatic. Elation seeped from his every pore but, wrapped up in his own delight, he failed to notice that a light had died in his wife’s eyes right before him.
He pushed his hair back from his face before opening the wine with a Lever Model Corkscrew which was firmly attached to the edge of the granite work surface. Another celebratory pop. He poured the wine into the crystal glasses Jude had left so perfectly arranged next to the fridge. He took a large gulp and sloshed it around his mouth before swallowing it with obvious gratification.
“It means I’m going to have to put in a few more hours here and there but you can hold the fort here, can’t you, darling?”
Clive stood still in his own wonderment for a moment before setting his glass on the speckled worktop. He moved closer to Jude, put his arms around her neat waist and kissed her hard on the lips. “Sorry, darling,” he went on. “That was patronising of me. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. Of course you can hold the fort – that’s what you do best, isn’t it?” He took her hand and kissed it. “You know, Jude. I don’t know how I would cope if I didn’t have you. You’re my rock. You hold this place together, you are the life and soul of our beautiful house – home, I should say – and I for one wouldn’t have it any other way, my lovely.”
Sophie waved her hands at the smoke wafting towards her as she stood outside the popular wine bar, trying to get a signal on her mobile phone. Damn those smokers. She moved away from the carcinogenic fumes as she fought to get reception. She was desperate to hear from Jude to see how Clive had taken the news. Jude often said they were alike, herself and Clive, but Sophie couldn’t see it. To her it was no compliment.
She wobbled in her zebra-skin heels as she tried Jude again.
At five-foot-four she was in need of a little elevation but she had been drinking since five o’clock and was definitely a little worse for wear, and the four inches stuck to the end of each foot certainly weren’t helping her balance.
Sophie gave in and sent Jude a text. She didn’t want to interrupt her in case she was still celebrating – in the kitchen or the bedroom. If she wasn’t answering, it meant she was otherwise occupied.
Can’t wait 2 hear from u. Fone me ltr. Sofi X
Sophie shuddered in the cold air. The blackened sky had brought with it a tinge of frost and the warmer climate of the past week had fast dispersed. Still, at least the torrential downpour of the other day had passed. She regretted not bringing her jacket outside as she stood shivering.
Sophie looked on as one of the smokers flicked his cigarette-butt on the floor without a care, puffing out the last of the smoke from deep within his polluted lungs. She hated littering but she hated smokers more. Them and their anti-social habits. It was better now that they were banned from smoking in public places but did they have to stand at the exit and entrance of every public building just to make their point? Sophie was adamant that this was a political stance, in rebellion against being outcasts.
“You know there’s a cigarette bin on that wall behind you!” she snapped at the culprit in disgust as she flipped her phone shut.
No older than his early twenties, the young man bent down to retrieve his litter and threw it in the walled bin close to the entrance of the
bar. He turned to Sophie, grinning.
“Anyone else and I’d have told them to fuck off.” He scanned her from head to foot. “But you, you can tell me what to do any day, gorgeous.”
Sophie smiled sweetly at him, a full-on flirtatious smile. “Come back when you’re twenty-one, kid.”
A belt of raucous laughter filled the starlit sky as his friends jeered at him. “Loser! Loser!” they yelled in unison through chilled breaths which floated away like ghostly apparitions.
Sophie felt the warmth of his scarlet face as she brushed past him and the taunting gang, fully aware that they were watching her confident swagger. She was glad she had tanned and oiled her legs. The fake-fur black-and-white animal-print skirt rode up further with each pace and Sophie made no attempt to pull it down. She knew full well that there wasn’t a guy amongst them who wouldn’t have bedded her there and then – if they had the chance.
She smiled a knowing smile before re-entering the affluent wine bar to join the salon employees as they celebrated Mandy’s twenty-first birthday and her graduation from the Academy.
Jude sat alone in the kitchen sipping slowly on a gin and tonic. She had no school run to do in the morning and she needed a little time to gather her thoughts and to digest the full-on occurrences of the evening.
Through closed lips, a tiny sound escaped and she delivered a half laugh as she reminisced on the collision of events. It was like the buses, she thought – everything had come at once.
Jude was delighted for Clive. She knew how long he had wanted to be a partner at the firm and she knew how hard he had worked to achieve it. Of course, she was by his side every step of the way, supporting him and entertaining the senior partners with elegant cooking and faultless hostessing. She was the strong woman behind the successful man. He knew that.
Jude knew the coming months would be tough for them and that the twins would have to learn to become more independent, and this worried her in itself but it was a worry she would have to contend with because her life was about to begin – on the right side of forty.
Grabbing her iPhone, she replied to Sophie’s earlier text, knowing full well that Sophie’s impatience would be getting the better of her.
All gr8 here thx Sofi. Clive delighted. Loads 2 tell u 2m. Jude. PS I can nevr thnk u enuf. PPS whoever HE is stay safe won’t u!
The dimly lit hallway was awash with shoes messily placed and a pile of coats had been thrown on top of each other, hanging clumsily over the white glossed bannisters. The worn carpet was green with an eighties paisley design and it was long overdue a replacement by the looks of things. In fact, the entire place was in need of a good tidy and a damn good clean.
Sophie didn’t fail to notice the basic surroundings as she continued with her tongue bath, attacking her latest victim with a soft, pink lashing.
A dog barked from behind one of the cheap wooden doors with their scratched brass handles and Sophie broke free from her oral embrace.
“I hate dogs.” She looked around anxiously to see which door the sound came through.
Her victim ignored her, pulling her protectively close where he kissed her open neck with heavy and lustful kisses.
“Me too,” he continued breathlessly, “but I love pussies!”
Sophie half laughed, half groaned as he yanked at the zip on the side of her black bustier. Losing patience, his hands plunged down its front and returned with her breasts which he left to sit high, spilling out of her top, but held firmly in place by the strong bones of the bustier design.
Sophie looked down to see her breasts so close to her. She tried to reach down with her mouth but couldn’t, instead she flicked out her tongue with an impressive aim and it landed centrally on her hard brown nipple. She circled it around the areola before pressing the tip hard into its centre.
Her one-night stand watched in awe, yanking at the belt of his jeans. He thrust them down past his knees, allowing his manly erection to break free and, grabbing Sophie’s hand, placed it around its base with its impressive width. Sophie’s hand slipped lower and felt his rock-hard balls.
She fell to her knees, her mouth wide open, and took them in her mouth, sucking at them with lascivious desire before reaching up and taking the whole of his cock deep within her oral grasp. He groaned loudly, drowing out the barking dog and all other sounds until he climaxed with a thunderous shudder which shushed the dog into silent retreat.
Sophie wiped her mouth and pulled up her skirt. She sat on the bottom stair, hitching it up further until her neatly shaven pussy was displayed and accessible – her legs slightly parted.
“My turn now, kid.”
She watched the smoker’s eyes light up before he plunged down on her as though it were his last supper.
Donna Summer belted out her song through the bedroom speakers.
“Hot stuff, talkin’ ’bout hot stuff.”
“Yeah!” Roni yelled out in time to the music.
She loved Donna Summer and knew every word to each and every one of her songs. It whiled away the hours as she immersed herself in the clear-out of the century.
Roni sat, singing away, amongst piles of clothing, alone and performing to an imaginary audience. She belted out the words with remarkable cheer as she flung items this way and that way forming two deep, messy piles.
“Charity shop,” she muttered as she hurled a floral Laura Ashley number into the corner of the walk-in closet. The item still had its label on.
“Dry cleaning,” she cursed as she spotted a red-wine stain on her cream woollen A-line skirt.
She stood up, stretching, arching her back with discomfort, and headed back towards the rails. She pulled apart the hanging clothes with conviction, ignoring the screech of the metal hangers as they scraped angrily across the steel bar. They hadn’t been disturbed in years and they made no attempt to hide their dissatisfaction. She handled them roughly.
Roni continued with her quest to cleanse her soul. She yanked garments from their hangers, pulling at their necklines until they fell reluctantly – either that or by dragging them off their hangers by their hems – they didn’t stand a chance against the force of her determined strength. However she did it, Roni knew exactly where each item was headed for. Charity shop, dry cleaning or recycling. Out with the old, in with the new.
That went for herself too.
Her white towelling dressing-gown gaped open, exposing her white flesh and large sagging breasts. Her full white calfs were in desperate need of shaving and Roni had yet to experience the pleasure of bikini-waxing. Veronica Smyth had always liked the French way, au naturel, and Peter had never complained.
Bored with the railed garments, Roni turned her focus towards the floor-to-ceiling solid walnut shelves where she chose a single shelf at random, sweeping its entire contents to the floor with a graceful swipe. She watched as they fell with a soft thud at her feet. Once again, she flung items every which way, whistling to the tune of ‘Bad Girls’.
Sophie Kane was definitely a bad girl.
Roni stopped dead as she saw the swimsuit – the recent gift Peter had purchased for her – but this time around she ignored the exorbitant price tag. She had other things on her mind. She held its lycra against her round torso with one hand, pulling down the gusset with the other hand. It was going to be tight but it should fit. Just about. She had yet to try it on.
Roni stood back for further inspection, holding the exquisite garment by its thin diamante straps, taking in its splendour with its ruched bustier decorated in the centre with a large diamante brooch. She marvelled at the high-legged cut and held it against herself once more. The legs were so highly cut that Roni wondered why bother with the infinitesimal slice of crotch-material which appeared to be sewn in at the last minute, offering a little piece of decency, but only just.
Slowly, she dropped the bathing suit to the floor and dared to go where neither she nor Peter had been for a long time. She pulled open the tapes to her dressing-gown exposing her naked body a
nd bent down to study the mass of hair on her pubic region.
Roni bolted upright. That would never do. One of them had to go. It was a toss-up between the mass of dark overgrown hairs which had spread right across her curved thighs, thick and untamed, or the swimsuit. There was no room for both of them in her life.
Roni laughed loudly at the ridiculousness of her thoughts. Then she laughed at herself for laughing. How uncharacteristic that she should even be considering change of any description, from clearing out her clothes to considering the possibility of hair removal. She had loved her organic look, but she knew that if she wanted that sexy black number wrapped around her body, the hair had to go.
She cast her mind back to the last encounter with Peter, groaning with lust as she relived the moment she had allowed herself to be animalistic and unleashed. She smiled to herself. She loved Peter with all her heart and she only ever wanted to be with him but there was something about that encounter she’d had with Darren Ford, something which had lifted her from the lazy state she had been in for too long now. Roni knew at that moment, when she had climaxed, it was because she was thinking about him when it was Peter that was inside her. She also knew that since that powerful orgasm, she walked with a spring in her step and she felt a newness towards life. Roni made a firm decision there and then that faking it was firmly in the past.
Before, she had always thought that sex was hyped-up, overrated. She felt very differently now and for a split second she envied the pleasure she knew Sophie must be experiencing with regularity.
A ‘bad girl’ indeed.
Something had stirred within Roni and while she was unable to define it exactly, she knew that she liked it and that she wanted more of the same. Her problem was that she’d been an antisocial, ill-tempered prude for as long as she could remember and she wasn’t sure she knew how to be anything else.
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