by Donna Alam
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.
‘I thought you weren’t dating anyone.’ This from Simone, using what I assume is her barrister’s voice over the noise of the rain. She then demands her husband to call the police.
And all the while, Bea hasn’t uttered a word. She looks shocked, as well as fucking shocking. Red-rimmed eyes, a little gaunt, and her wild hair now wet and bedraggled, rain running down her light coat in rivulets. But so beautiful still.
‘No. No police,’ I growl as Greg reaches for his phone. ‘There’s no fucking need.’
‘No need?’ Simone repeats. ‘She almost punched me!’
‘I’m almost certain she was aiming for me,’ I reply sardonically. Bea’s brow furrows briefly, so maybe she wasn’t after walloping me, after all. She didn’t call my name as she approached me, just sort of growled.
‘I’ll take care of this.’ Take care of her or deliver Rory to her for his beating, if that’s what this turns out to be. The way she’s still trembling, I sincerely hope not. I just need to get to the bottom of this first. At least, it doesn’t appear to be about me. ‘I’ll be in contact, right?’
‘There’s nothing to take care of,’ Bea says suddenly. ‘I-I made a mistake.’
‘A mistake?’ Simone replies imperiously. ‘Try attempted assault.’
Bea straightens her spine, possibly realising the consequences of her actions. ‘A case of mistaken identity,’ she responds defensively. ‘And I didn’t strike anyone.’
So it is Rory she’d intended to punch? What has the fucker done wrong now? Unless . . . of course. She thought she saw Rory kissing someone other than Fin.
And more to the point, she can know nothing about the club.
‘The intent was there,’ Greg begins as Bea cuts him off with an incredulous look in my direction.
‘What are you laughing about?’
‘I’m not laughing,’ I protest even though I find myself chuckling. Relief, probably. I clear my throat. ‘I said I'd take care of this, and I will.’ I turn from Bea, though I don’t let go of her arm. I’m not sure I could catch her if she ran, not after last night, the glow of which is cooling rapidly. Especially as Si’s current expression could sour milk.
After a beat, Simone appears to change tack, offering me her cheek. There’s a lingering hint of pussy on her face which causes a wisp of memory to rise from last night.
Her, naked and kneeling on one side of the bed, me standing on the other side, a girl stretched out between us. Simone’s face buried deep in her pussy, the shape of my cock visible through the thin membranes of the girl’s throat.
‘Take care, darling,’ she purrs. ‘Don’t forget to call about next weekend.’
I nod but don’t answer before Greg offers a similar goodbye as his wife, without the kiss. To anyone looking in, the interaction seems purely platonic. To anyone leaning in, they certainly wouldn’t smell pussy on his face.
Maybe just the salt of my cum.
The sound of Simone’s heels against the wet pavement fades as the pair makes their way back to . . . wherever it is they go Saturday mornings. Hotel? Home? Our relationship doesn’t extend to those details, but all the while, Bea and I are mute. Though I’m almost sure I can see the questions feeding through her gaze. I’m not currently asking, and while she’s not offering . . . she will.
‘Are you going to let go of my arm?’ she asks softly.
‘That depends. Are you going to run away?’
/>
‘I’m wasn’t planning on it,’ she says, her cheeks turning pink.
‘That’s not very convincing.’
‘You’d stop me?’ Her tone drips with scorn and rebellion. I let my small smile answer while trying not to reveal what the thought of her running does to me because I do like a little fight in a girl. It makes the chase so much more fun.
Especially after I thought of pursuing her last week.
Pursing her lips, Bea glances over her shoulder to a grotty looking café. ‘My breakfast is getting cold.’
Chapter Twelve
BEA
‘That looks . . . ’
Seated across from me on the other side of the tiny Formica table, I’d thought Kit might draw some funny looks in the shabby café, but not so, it seems. Either the man behind the counter is used to dashing men in dinner suits sipping coffee while camped on his rickety wooden chairs, or he really doesn’t care.
Don’t ask, don’t tell what goes on behind closed doors. Especially those right across the street.
‘You’re not really going to eat that, are you?’
‘What?’ I realise he’s still talking about my breakfast. The congealed eggs and improbably coloured baked beans. Beans the colour of mandarins.
‘No. Probably not.’ I line up my silverware, refusing to look at his pristine self. Do men like him always come off best? He isn’t even wet. Meanwhile, my jacket is causing puddles from where it hangs on the back of my chair. ‘It’s probably cold.’
‘It’s probably a heart attack on the plate. And you a doctor.’ He tsks, a disparaging click of tongue and teeth.
‘Haters hate. Though you do look more like a chia seed, granola, and kale smoothie sort of man yourself.’ The soft sound of his rumbling laughter draws my head up to his smouldering gaze.
‘It’s a pity breakfast isn’t what we came here to discuss.’
‘I wasn’t aware there was to be a discussion,’ I demur, looking away again.
‘Then why else are we here?’
‘Well, I’m here because I was frogmarched here from across the street.’
‘And you don’t care for the company?’ he almost taunts.
‘I don’t care to be manhandled,’ I retort, sitting straighter in my chair.
‘Maybe you just haven’t been handled by the right man.’
‘Oh, for the love of God, wipe the smile from your face. So you’re a good lay. Well done, you!’
‘Thank you. Not that you’d know. How’s that boyfriend of yours?’ His taunting smile boils the blood in my veins, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of my ire.
‘Still dumped,’ I respond coolly. Do I imagine his smug satisfaction? Why would he care?
‘You know, for someone who might well now be sitting in the local police station’s custody suite, you don’t appear very grateful.’
‘Oh, I am. Eternally,’ I deadpan.
‘I’m sure they’d have been very interested in the contents of that bag.’ His gaze flicks to my large tote, the same one I’d been forced to take to dinner—the one I’d abandoned when I’d stormed across the street to accost him. ‘You’re sure you’re not smuggling small children out of the hospital in there?’
‘Are you just nosy or do you have a purse fetish?’
‘Come on,’ he says, ignoring my ridiculous question. ‘Exactly who were you planning to punch this morning?’ He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his broad chest and cocking one taunting brow. ‘And more to the point, why.’
‘I wasn’t planning to punch anyone.’ I was probably going to slap his face. A surgeon’s hands are her tools, and busted knuckles are less than ideal.
‘I don’t think that’d wash in a court of law.’
I sigh as if bored, though more realistically what I am feeling is annoyed. Annoyed at myself and at his smug bloody face.
‘Look, I’ve had a trying week.’
‘I could’ve helped with that.’
‘How? Telepathically,’ I snipe.
‘You could’ve gotten my number. I believe I’ve proved the methods of my stress relief.’
‘I’m not interested,’ I snap, embarrassed and feeling all sorts of uncomfortable.
‘Okay.’ Kit sits forward, rubbing his index finger down his nose. ‘Noted. But it doesn’t explain why you almost punched me.’
‘Because my boyfriend of eight years, the man I followed from the other side of the world, happened to roll on his phone last week and dial mine. Unfortunately, he happened to be fucking someone else at the time!’
My final words seem to echo through the café, the place suddenly so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the noise of frying eggs seems to come back as though through a vacuum.
‘So there you have it. My momentary loss of sanity.’ I can’t look at him, choosing to look out the window to the rain-streaked street instead.
‘And you thought I was Rory.’
‘Yes. My judgment was clearly off, both picking the wrong brother and thinking he’d do such a thing to Fin. You are, however, lucky I didn’t go for your dick.’
He smiles, sort of wryly. ‘I had hoped, at least for a moment, you were coming for just that. Until I got a look at your expression. It was murderous.’ His eyes were wide open and clear—a feigned innocence.
‘You do that on purpose.’
‘Do what?’
‘That rolling thing with your r’s.’ For some reason, my index finger makes a circular motion, his eyes flicking down to watch. And just like that, I’m back in that dark hallway with his long fingers between my legs.
‘Maybe it’s just my tongue.’
‘It’s definitely something,’ I reply, feeling a little short of breath. Sliding the loose tendrils of hair behind my ears, my gaze slides to the window again. ‘Is that a hotel? The place you were coming out of?’
‘The building?’ The hesitant nature of his answer draws my attention to him again, but he looks back at me with a challenge in his eyes.
‘Yeah, you were coming out of it, I thought.’
‘Dr Honey Bea,’ he drawls then he smiles wolfishly. ‘That building is something you really don’t want to know about.’
Resisting the urge to fold my arms and snort, I match his smile wattage. ‘Not my monkeys, not my circus, I suppose?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Only, you seem to be unfamiliar with how this goes. I asked, ergo, I want to know. Polite convention and all that.’
He nods once slowly as though considering my words. ‘Once you know, there’s no going back. Monkeys roaming free and the circus? Over as you know it.’
‘So dramatic. I never liked the circus, anyway.’
‘There’s no unknowing. Consider this a warning because there’s nothing polite about that place.’
‘Oh, stop with the cloak and dagger stuff. It’s not as if you’re going to tell me it’s a sex club or anything!’ Again, the café seems to fall quiet, ears nearby straining to hear.
Kit begins to laugh, rich and deep and clear.
‘I didn’t tell you behind that unassuming door there’s an elite club for persons of particular sexual tastes. Because if I had, I’d have had to swear you to secrecy first.’
‘What?’ My eyes slid to the exterior of the building. The white painted sash windows, the topiaries standing sentry, the brass letterbox. ‘No. You’re pulling my leg.’ The place looks far too ordinary. Expensive, but not kinky by any stretch of the imagination.
He shrugs and folds his arms. ‘I didn’t tell you anything. I could get blackballed for doing that. And then where would I take my . . . quirks?’ He looks far too at ease to be telling me he has . . . quirks. Oh, come off it. The man has deliciously kinky written all over him.
‘I have a hard time believing you’d have issues getting anyone to accommodate your p-peccadillos.’ Good save because I was totally thinking penis. Big, thick penis. He inclines his head—a motion of insincere thanks. ‘
Sometimes just anyone won’t do.’
‘Well, I’m not suggesting you’d need to—’ The emphasis he places on one snags. I know he’s not trying to tell me I’m his one true love or anything, but there was a certain emphasis that makes me think. ‘Anyone?’ I repeat the word using his exact intonation. ‘You mean you like to sleep with both’—like I don’t already know this—‘at the same time?’ He nods, smiling like the cat that ate the cream. The cat that ate all the cream and drank the milk. ‘The couple on the steps?’ She did seem very possessive, come to think of it. Where have I heard this before? Didn’t Fin say something about seeing Kit with a couple at lunch?
‘Acquaintances,’ he answers void of intonation though his eyes positively gleam.
Meanwhile, my own eyes are wide, and if I’m not mistaken, my mouth resembles that of a fish.
‘Acquaintances?’
‘Acquaintances I fuck.’
‘You’re not serious.’ I sound scandalized. For the record, I’m also more than a little turned on.
‘I am serious. As serious as I am about wanting to taste you. You remember that?’
In the absence of words, I nod. And cross my legs. He looks disreputable sitting there in his dinner jacket in this grubby café, the dark scruff of his stubble covering his jaw and his freshly fucked hair. He looks more fuckable and more alluring than a Saturday morning should see. How can I find it sexy that he’s come from another’s bed? Several others’ beds, maybe? Obviously, I don’t understand the dynamics of such things.
‘I think you’ll taste delicious,’ he murmurs, tilting his head.