by PJ Adams
I tugged at Porter’s arm, leaned in, and kissed him on the jaw. I knew it was a needy thing to do, possessive and defensive. But all of a sudden I felt vulnerable. Porter was a solid, reassuring lump of man, and I needed that just then.
“So how’s she taking it?” Simon asked Porter.
“You should know better than me,” said Porter. “She’s still talking to you.”
There was something in his tone that made me pull away, study him more closely.
“I’m just being the nice guy,” said Simon. “It’s what I do.”
Porter hadn’t responded to my kiss. If anything, his body had tensed at my touch.
“I reckon she needs a good seeing to,” said Simon. “Take her mind off things. Know what I mean?”
The muscles in Porter’s arms tightened, and I could see the tendons and veins in his neck standing proud.
Oblivious, Simon went on: “How long is it since she’s had anyone apart from you, Porter? As far as you know, that is. I mean, just as a mate I’d–”
“Will you just cut it?” snapped Porter, his voice low, tightly controlled.
I let go of his arm.
“Hmm?” said Simon.
“Just leave her alone, okay?”
§
I turned away. Suddenly all this was too much for me to handle.
We were supposed to be fun, me and Porter. Nothing serious. A bit of a laugh, and a lot of downright dirty sex.
So why should I care that he was defending the woman he’d finished with?
Why should it matter that there might still be a spark there? An ember, glowing, just waiting to re-ignite.
Why?
§
There was a small beer garden at the back of the pub. The smokers were out there, puffing away. I pushed past them, suddenly wishing, irrationally, that I smoked, that I could be part of the crowd instead of the lone woman out there for no obvious reason.
There was a gate in the wall at the end of the garden. I could just leave, quietly.
But why? This wasn’t like me at all.
I should go back inside. Get my act together.
“She’s vulnerable and Simon’s a manipulative bastard, and underneath my charming, playful, very sexy exterior I’m actually quite a sensitive, caring kind of guy.”
He was standing behind me. Close to me. Not touching, but I could feel his presence.
“I was with her for four years. I don’t love her any more, but I care. Would you rather I didn’t?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, turning to face him. In the light from the floodlights attached to the pub wall his features looked even more chiseled than usual, a cartoon superhero face drawn in black and white.
“I’m talking about you almost running away in response to me showing that I still give a toss. Or at least a bit of a toss.”
“You’re allowed to care.”
“And you’re allowed to have complicated, emotional responses to things when you’re in a relationship like this.”
“A relationship like what?”
He stepped closer, and put a hand on my upper arm. He’d always had such a sensitive touch for a man who could be so direct.
“Like us.”
Silence.
My head should have been rushing with thoughts but it wasn’t. It was blank, empty. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to react.
“You’ve revealed something new in me,” he finally said. “A side of me I never knew was there. I didn’t even know what it was until – bang – it was there, inside me, something I had to acknowledge.”
My mind: still empty.
“Ellie... I’ve never felt like this before. I–”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say that word.” Nothing good ever came of that word. Too much complication. Too many layers.
It had happened before. Men saying these things. It only ever ended in pain and heartache.
“We were supposed to be fun,” I said. “That was always clear, right from the start, wasn’t it? We’d have fun. We’d play. Keep things simple.”
“I–”
“I don’t do that thing.” That sounded much sharper than I’d intended. Porter looked like a wounded puppy, cut through by my words, by my tone.
“I’m sorry, Porter, but you know that’s true. I don’t do it. I don’t get it. I don’t fall. You mustn’t fall either. Do you understand that?”
He shook his head. “I’m not on the rebound, Ellie. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing. We’ve been building up to this point. It’s just taken a while for me to understand what’s happening. It’s new for me, too. I don’t do love. That’s never worked for me before. But now, with you–”
There: he’d said it. That word.
“No, Porter.” I started to back away. “Just no.”
I turned, found that gate, pushed through, and I didn’t look back. Not once.
§
That word. Love.
It didn’t work for me. It never had.
My relationships had been all about fun, about sex, about indulgence. I’d always been the other woman. Even when there had been no other partner, I somehow managed to feel like the other woman, the mistress. I’d kept men distant, while letting them get close.
Was I heartbreaker? An emotionally stunted slut?
I stood, alone in the dark, equal distance between two street lights.
My heart was racing, thumping like a pile driver in my chest.
I hugged myself, suddenly feeling the night chill.
Why did I feel so wretched? I wasn’t the one who had changed the rules.
I wasn’t the one who had used that word.
Love.
§
It seemed like I stood in that side-street forever, leaning back against that car, waiting for that man.
He stopped short when he spotted me, his fists buried in his jacket pockets.
“I don’t do that thing,” I said. “I don’t let anyone get that close to me. Do you understand?”
Silence.
“That’s not me, Porter. It’s not how I am.”
Still, he said nothing.
I held out a hand. “Will you come here and fucking hold me? I’m scared. I don’t know why, but I’m scared.”
He came to me, finally; he wrapped me in his arms, and it was as if my body melted into his hard contours.
“I don’t do this,” I said, once more. “I don’t fall in love. I don’t find myself with a head full of those kinds of thoughts, all through the day, every day. So many thoughts that I have to blot them out, that I have to deny them and what they mean. Thoughts of one person. Thoughts I just can’t shake, no matter how hard I try. That doesn’t happen to me, okay? Do you understand?”
“That’s me too,” he said. “I don’t do that either. But Ellie, I–”
That word. He was going to use it.
I cut him off before he could.
“Will you just shut up and hold me?” I said.
And that is exactly what he did.
A Woman Scorned
Rebecca, again
They say revenge is best served up cold.
Maybe.
In my experience it’s best served up in a public place with a large glass of Pinot Gris.
§
I prepared thoroughly.
A pamper session with Stephanie at Moore’s. Leg wax, Brazilian, eyebrows; a long, soothing facial; a full-body seaweed wrap and body polish. Between treatments I texted him the details.
I’m going to be so smooth!
He replied instantly:
Can’t wait
§
I want you. Now.
I bet he did.
I’m still at the spa. Stef’s just about to rub my naked body in aromatic oils.
§
My new favorite Aubade lingerie in a deep black and charcoal patterned tulle and lace, with black lace hold-ups. Jeweled, black velvet Kurt Geiger stilettos that I kne
w he loved. If he had his way, the evening would end up with me stripped down to that lingerie and the Kurts. It had been such a revelation to me, such a turn-on, to have a man like Simon Darby look at me in that way, react to my body in the way that he did. Such a surprise, after the last year or so of my stale marriage to Porter.
I’d felt reborn, under Simon’s appreciative, lustful gaze.
To finish, a simple black dress and a little Karen Millen clutch.
All new. I’ve just put the Aubade on, just about to pull up my stockings over my long smooth legs. Feels horny, just dressing like this.
I hoped he was hard. Hell, I knew he would be hard. One thing he had given me was some of my old confidence.
Send pics!!
No, no pictures.
Patience, darling. Patience.
§
He was a patient and skilful lover.
He had a way of holding himself deep inside you, gazing deep into your eyes, and – barely moving – taking you to the edge, right out of nowhere.
He had a way of keeping you there, at the edge. The subtle movements, the slight shifts in pressure, the pulse of his cock deep inside you. An incredible physical tease. A pressure building inside you so that when he finally took you over that crest your orgasm was so incredibly, magically intense.
No one would ever say that Simon Darby was not an incredibly skilled lover.
And no one who really knew him would ever say that he was not also an utter, lying bastard.
§
I hadn’t expected to be so turned on.
No one had ever told me that revenge could have that effect.
Exhilarating. An adrenalin rush. A sense of power, of liberation.
I hadn’t expected to get so damned horny.
§
He was there at the table when I arrived. I ignored him and went to the bar, just as I’d said I would. He was under strict instructions to sit there and wait.
“Pinot Gris,” I said, in answer to the barman’s raised eyebrow. “Large.”
The place was busy tonight. It was just as well that I’d booked the table.
My phone buzzed. I took a long drink of wine, and then opened the message.
You look beautiful
I did, I knew. Like I say, at least I have my confidence back.
Are you picturing me in that lingerie?
He was staring. I crossed my legs and toyed with my drink.
Hell yes
I left it a minute or two before answering.
Good. Because you’re not going to see it.
He didn’t get it. From where I was sitting it was hard to make out the details of his expression. Confused, I think; a brief flash of angry frustration at my games, too.
??
I ignored his message, and took another long swallow of wine.
I spoke to Ellie Jordan.
§
Or rather, Ellie Jordan had spoken to me.
I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t even want to acknowledge her existence.
Ellie Jordan was my estranged husband’s lover. She was slim and blonde, with perfect model-girl looks and I’m sure she had been seeing him long before that awful day when Porter had looked at me blankly and said, “I can’t do this any more.”
She’d been waiting across the street from my office. Six in the evening, and the rush hour press was just starting to ease, but it was still busy enough that I didn’t spot her until she was striding decisively across the street towards me.
“Rebecca Swaine?”
“You know who I am,” I said. “I’m sure Porter’s told you all about me. Have you come to gloat?”
Of course she hadn’t. She didn’t need to. She held all the cards; she had the man; and Hell but she had the looks!
“I don’t expect you to want to talk,” she said. “And I’m sure you don’t want to hear what I’m going to say. But I really don’t think you deserve to be screwed over like this, not after what you’ve been through.”
“‘Screwed over’? So what’s he planning to do?”
She shook her head. “It’s not Porter,” she said. “He doesn’t want to make things any worse. It’s Simon. Simon Darby.”
“Simon?” Simon was Porter’s longest and closest friend. They’d been to university together, they’d shared a house, they were business partners... “What’s Simon got to do with anything?”
Simon had always been someone to turn to. And then, after Porter and I split, he had become something more than that.
“He’s a selfish bastard and he’s using you. You’re just another conquest. He’s going to hurt you before long.”
“And just how do you know all this?”
“Because he said so. He said you just needed a good seeing to, to take your mind off things.”
I should have had a sharp retort, a clever put-down. I should have had at least something to say, but I didn’t. She’d taken Porter and now, for some reason of her own, she was butting in between Simon and me.
I turned and I walked away from her, and when I looked back she was just standing there like a lost little girl.
§
The look on his face as he sat alone at that table said it all. Final confirmation, as if I’d needed any. Just the mention of Ellie Jordan’s name was enough for him to realize the game was up.
I hadn’t believed her. She was the bitch who had taken my man, after all.
My old friend Maggie Nolan had called me that evening, after my husband’s mistress had confronted me in the street. “I’ve been talking to Ellie,” she said. She didn’t use the bitch’s surname, and I was struck by the irony that we appeared to be on first-name terms now.
“And I should care?”
“It can’t have been easy for her.”
“So why did she bother?”
“Because she gives a shit,” said Maggie. “And because Simon Darby really is a shit.”
§
He clearly didn’t know what to do.
Should he just sit there, alone at the table in that crowded restaurant, or should he leave now?
Why?
His answer to that simple question showed that he was going to try to brazen things out.
Why what?
Why seduce me and then brag to anyone who’d listen about how easy it was? Why pretend that you care when all you’re after is another notch on the bedpost? Why?
I was more angry with Simon than I’d ever been with Porter.
As far as my marriage was concerned I knew I would have to share the responsibility with Porter. Things had gone stale, flat. I’d stopped trying at just the time I should have tried harder. I’d let him drift. Yes, Porter had shown himself to be a bastard, but I had helped steer him in that direction.
But Simon... Simon Darby was a bastard through and through. He’d used me. He’d taken advantage of me when I was at my weakest.
Can we talk?
I didn’t answer his text, but still he made as if to get up. Then he thought better of it and reached for his drink.
“Sitting alone at the bar looking like that, I can’t believe you’ve been stood up.” It was a man’s voice, a gravelly American drawl. Texan, perhaps. I turned, and there was a man with dark hair flecked with silver, fortyish, perhaps; he was smiling, holding out a hand for me to shake. “Brandon Tyne,” he said. “We met at Maggie’s book launch.”
I glanced back at Simon, and then at this man again. I vaguely recognized him, yes. The name was familiar, too. The guy was a writer. He’d had a thing with Maggie a few years back.
“Can I get you another drink while you’re waiting?” he asked.
I looked down. I’d drained my glass and hadn’t even noticed. “I...”
“Look. Sorry if I’m interrupting something.” He nodded at my phone, its screen flashing with another message from Simon.
Who’s he?
This time Brandon followed my glance, and when I looked back his expression had changed.
“Ah,” he said. “You know him? You’re texting Simon Darby across a restaurant? Tell me to mind my own business, but I’m intrigued. This some kind of lovers’ game? You texting dirties to each other?”
“I... I don’t know,” I said. “Yes. Yes, I know him. I’m texting him. I...” And it all came tumbling out: that I’d got him here to embarrass him; that in my head I had some vague idea of some kind of confrontation where Simon would be humiliated and I’d feel like I’d extracted my revenge.
“So what were you going to do, apart from build up his expectations and then dump on him?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know where to go from here. I hadn’t expected Simon to take it all sitting down, hadn’t expected him to simply want to talk.
“You want a little help?”
I looked at him. There was a twinkle in his eyes.
“I... I guess. What do you mean?”
“You just do exactly what I say, okay?” And then he laughed, leaned towards me, put a hand on mine and added, “Text him again. Remind him what you’re wearing again. Aubade, was it? Tell him that. He’ll wonder what you’re thinking. He’ll wonder if this is actually all some kind of a sex game after all.”
I did exactly what Brandon said, and Simon texted back almost immediately.
God you look good in designer lingerie babe!!
“That’s good,” said Brandon. “Now let him know that you’ve just told me about that lingerie he likes so much. Tell him you’ve described it in slow, lingering detail.”
I hesitated, but there was something incredibly infectious about this man’s smile. I thumbed the message and pressed ‘send’.
“Now tell him I’m hard, that you can see the bulge in my pants.”
He wanted me to look down, I know. It was an automatic reaction. I fought it, and he laughed. “Go on, do it,” he said.
Simon was starting to look agitated.
what do you mean? what are you doing