‘Why aren’t you answering your phone, you wanker?’ he asked.
My hand moved down to my back pocket.
‘Shit, sorry, I left it in my room on charge. You’d think they could create a mobile phone battery that lasts for more than five minutes. Come back Nokia, we love you really!’
Normally, he’d have laughed at that, but he was very businesslike. Distracted even.
‘Okay, look I can’t make it to Newcastle, something has come up.’
Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘It’s Sally and the kids, it’s a bloody mess.’
I knew better than to ask. Besides, I’d just caught Ellie’s eye and she’d leant over to pick up her wine. I got a full view of her cleavage nestling below the third button on her white blouse. I was less interested in Jem’s latest crap-fest and more motivated by Ellie’s quite obvious attempts to turn me on. She’d succeeded. It wasn’t difficult.
‘Have you told Diane yet?’ I asked, not even attempting to conceal from Ellie where my real attention was focused. She smiled at me, a lovely sparkle when she did so. God, she was sexy. I’d need to lay off the beer soon or I’d be an embarrassment in bed. I was certain we’d be spending the night together by then, and Jem was getting in the way.
‘No, can you let her know, make it sound like I had no choice? No need to give her any details, just mention the family and the kids and she’ll get the gist.’
‘Will you be able to get here at all, or is it off for the entire weekend?’ I asked, tearing my eyes off Ellie’s breasts for a moment to attend to my friend.
‘Probably not. If I can, I will,’ came Jem’s reply, he seemed distracted again.
‘Okay, see you whenever.’ I signed off. The line went dead. Unusual that. Jem had a thing about saying goodbye. He’d always rant about how Americans on the TV just finish a call without a ‘cheerio’ or ‘see you’. Yet there he was, just ending the call. If I hadn’t been so excited by Ellie and the pink bra that was peeking over the top of her white blouse, I might have paid a little more attention to what was going on with Jem.
But Ellie had a surprise waiting for me before we finally tumbled into my room to seal my final betrayal of Meg.
Talk about nearly killing the mood. I made the foolish mistake of asking Ellie about her heated conversation in the corridor just before we’d met at the bar. What a dickhead!
She didn’t want to tell me, and as soon as she started explaining, I realised that I really should have kept my big, stupid mouth shut. What an obstacle to place in the path of a sexual liaison which was, by that stage, almost a done deal.
Ignoring Ellie’s quite obvious signals not to force the issue, I made her tell me about her possessive, prone-to-violence boyfriend called Dave. I was so pleased that I had asked. Ellie was quick to add that Dave had never been violent with her. He’d been threatening, but never violent. What a relief.
She’d been with Dave for a little under two years. She’d known that he had to be ditched after a month, but it had never happened. Her only consolation was that he was good looking and muscular, so although she knew she had to get out at some point, the wait wasn’t all bad.
‘It’s only a feeling,’ Ellie had tried to explain. ‘He’s never done anything to hurt me, not even physically threatened me in any way. It just feels like he might do, it’s the way he talks sometimes and how he is with other people. He hates me looking at other men, he doesn’t even like me talking to them. He knew what I do for a living, it’s hardly a surprise that I get to talk to lots of blokes.’
A possessive, jealous boyfriend, perhaps prone to violence. Not the aphrodisiac I had in mind.
‘Why don’t you leave him?’ I asked, wishing I’d kept my eyes firmly on Ellie’s pink bra and my mouth firmly shut.
‘I will, I really will. He’s not that bad, honestly. I just know he’s not the man I’ll be spending the rest of my life with.’
I thought back to the episode with Daniel when I’d first met Meg. If I’d have known about Daniel before I slept with Meg, I’m not sure it would have made any difference. It helped that when he found out what we’d done, he wasn’t violent. But Dave seemed to be a different prospect altogether, and I knew about him this time. Here was a real test of my moral fibre. I’d never knowingly cheated on anybody, yet here I was considering the double. Cheating on Meg and cheating on Dave. Prone-to-violence Dave.
Just like Meg, Ellie was planning on ending it. Meg and I had never looked back, it had given Daniel and her the push they needed. They’d run into each other a year or so later and Daniel had even admitted as much. He’d been furious at the time, but in the long term, it had worked out well. He had a new girlfriend, they were very happy, it had turned out for the best.
I couldn’t believe that I was trying to reframe my intended infidelity as a social service. It was only Ellie’s assurance that the relationship was definitely over after their phone row that made me feel better about what we both intended to do.
It was a row over nothing, as most relationship rows are. That day Ellie had filmed a TV insert with a bunch of rugby players. She’d had a bit of fun with it, been creative with the report and flirted with the guys. We all have to do it, it goes with the job, we have to make people look and sound good and try to tell an interesting story in the process.
Dave had seen the report on the TV, well after Ellie had left for her weekend away in Newcastle, and he wasn’t happy. Did she have to be so obvious about wanting to shag those guys? Her tongue had been hanging out, according to Dave – he didn’t know how she’d managed to keep her drool off the camera. Ridiculous nonsense of course, but that’s what Dave had seen when he saw the report.
‘I’d decided it was over before I met you at the bar,’ Ellie said, making me feel better about things. I told him it was over on the phone, but I’m going to have to go through the whole face-to-face, did-you-mean-what-you-said shit to put the final nail in the coffin. I told him to clear out his stuff, it’s my house, I pay the mortgage, so it should all be nice and clean cut. I’ll have to see him again, I guess, tell him to his face. He wasn’t happy. I’m glad he had a go at me, it gave me the chance to end it at last.’
Then the conversation turned and with Dave nicely dispatched and the morality of the situation a little clearer, Ellie made her intentions known once again. Just in case I’d forgotten.
‘Besides, I didn’t want to shag those bloody rugby players, they’re not my type. I’m hoping that if you stop talking about Dave and his worrying paranoia for more than five minutes, it’ll be me and you who are rolling in the sheets by the end of the evening.’
The noises coming from the room next door hadn’t particularly bothered me. After all, Ellie and I were making noises of our own. We were in a hotel, the OverNight Inn no less, there were constantly people walking up and down the corridors. If we’d known what was going on in there, right through the wall from us, we’d have been horrified.
Needless to say, my attempts at completely sabotaging the evening with Ellie came to nothing in the end, and having seen off interruptions from Jem and Dave, we were back on course. Without actually saying anything, I think that we both accepted that we’d have to be the last people at the table if we were going to be able to sneak off without anybody else knowing. I certainly wasn’t going to be brazen about my infidelity. I hadn’t really thought it through, but I knew that if Meg never found out it would just be between me and Ellie. She was a grown woman, she could make up her own mind. So long as we were both consenting adults, it didn’t need to go any further. She was on the TV, I assumed it was important to her to be discreet about things, not that I asked, but I felt as if she could be trusted.
We weren’t going to see each other again, our paths wouldn’t cross at work, this would be a one-time thing that would stay between us. Ellie was sure to work her way up the broadcasting food chain really fast, she’d be more anxious for me to keep my mouth shut than I was for her to do the same.
I thought it was safe, I’d been working through it all night in my head, in between being reeled in slowly but surely by touching legs, pink bras and flashes of cleavage. I was desperate to have sex with Ellie. It wasn’t the same as it had been with Meg, nothing like it. This was good old-fashioned carnal lust. There would be no relationship there, no expectation of one on either side. I wanted to have sex with Ellie and conclude a great night of IVF-free flirtation and suggestiveness.
There was no emotional tab to pick up, no question of ‘Do you think I’ll get pregnant this time?’ Just a bloody good shag with a woman who was incredibly sexy and great company. And who wanted to do the same thing with me.
I know it’s the flimsiest justification ever, but sod it, I was ready for that night with Ellie, even though everything ended the way it did.
It was just before midnight when the last boring drunk finally went and left us to make our way to my room. Neither of us knew this guy, he was from another station. Fergus Ogilvy I think his name was. I guess he must have been an engineer, but he certainly wasn’t reading our vibes very well: ‘Time to head off to bed! Time to head off to bed!’
It took ages for him to go. He was getting excited about the next day’s agenda.
‘This is way overdue, I can’t wait to share my ideas on our current social media strategy ...’
Ellie and I had exchanged a smile. Before he started to outline his fascinating ideas, the barman told us to drink up. We were being thrown out. Thank heavens for pubs that still close by midnight.
We made a fuss of gathering bags and making sure we’d got our belongings, taking enough time to allow Mr Bean to make his way out of the pub and give himself a good head start back to the hotel.
‘I thought he’d never go!’ Ellie laughed, touching my arm.
The electricity of sexual excitement surged through my body. This was it. Either I had to back out now or go through with it. Ellie had made it perfectly clear that she was up for this. My loosening moral code had got around her recent break-up with Dave, all I had to reconcile in my mind was what I was about to do to Meg.
If she never knew, it would never hurt her. I would have to keep the secret forever. Could I do that? I was not going to be one of those morons who confessed all, expecting my true love to forgive me. There’s no coming back from a betrayal. Either you take it to the grave or your relationship perishes. Nobody can deal with betrayal, it poisons the soil and forever damages the crops.
There would be no telling Jem either. He might have been a mate, but I didn’t trust anybody to keep their mouth shut, and certainly not him. As we made our way out of the pub and thanked the barman, who was locking the door behind us, I decided that I could keep the secret. I wasn’t sure if Meg and I were going to last anyway if something didn’t force the issue soon, so I resolved to stop arguing with myself and see it through to the bitter end. I would keep it to myself, absorb the guilt. Meg would never know.
Ellie put her arm around my waist and pulled me to the side of the pub’s entrance, out of sight. Her lips touched mine, gently at first, tentatively, then more urgently. It was a long, deep, passionate kiss. Her tongue moved towards mine as she slipped her hand down towards my crotch. I was hard. She held me firmly as her kiss became more sexually charged.
‘Come,’ she said, taking my hand, ‘let’s go back to your room.’
‘You sure you’re okay with this?’ I asked.
It was a long time since I’d slept with a woman other than Meg, I wanted to be absolutely certain that I hadn’t misread the signals.
‘I’m sure,’ she replied, ‘I want this, I want you.’
I was pleased that lovely Jenny wasn’t on reception when we pushed our way through the doors. I liked her and didn’t want her to see what I was doing. I’d have felt ashamed somehow, and if I could keep it between Ellie and me it would be easier to hide it from Meg. There was a notice on reception which read: Please ring the bell for attention. Members of staff may be dealing with customers elsewhere in the building.
‘Let’s not go to my room,’ Ellie urged. ‘There’re lots of people from work on my floor, yours sounds more private.’
We made our way as quietly as we could along the long corridor, taking care not to let the fire doors bang. My room seemed miles away, Ellie’s soft hands touching mine only fuelled my desperation to take her there and then.
The last thing I noticed as I fumbled for the key card outside my room was that the door next to mine was still slightly open, only now there was a dim light escaping through it. None of my business. Who cared? For all I knew, they were doing some maintenance in there.
Finally we were through the door.
‘Do you have condoms?’ I asked, risking a mood kill once again. I felt that I owed Meg that much.
‘I’m safe, are you?’ Ellie replied.
I’d been with Meg and no one else for almost a decade, I couldn’t risk catching anything nasty. Ellie sensed my doubt.
‘I’m on the pill and me and Dave haven’t done it for ages.’
I always hated condoms. They’re for teenagers. I took Ellie’s word for it, I knew I was safe, there was no reason for her to take any risks.
‘One moment,’ she said, slipping into the bathroom. As she did so, she turned off the main lights so that all that was left for illumination was the sexy blue lamp that I’d observed earlier. She pushed the door of the bathroom so that I couldn’t see inside, and I noticed a light come on through the gap under the door. Not the bathroom light, she’d put the torch on her phone on.
It reminded me about my own phone. I could see it flashing on the other side of the room. Had Meg called? Jem’s frustrated messages would be there too. Would I have enough time to check them before Ellie came out?
Too late. For the phone and for me. Her phone torch was shining up towards the bathroom ceiling. Along with the blue light in the main room, it had the effect of creating a more romantic environment. She was standing there in just her underwear. It was matching underwear too. Christ, it had been so long since Meg had worn matching underwear, it was one more sign to me that she’d given up thinking of sex as recreational or fun.
Now here was Ellie in a lacy set of pink undies with matching bra, looking like it was straight off the shelf of a lingerie store. She turned her back to me, indicating that I should unhook her bra. She stepped out of her undies, opened the shower door and invited me to join her. As the water began to run warm, she stepped underneath the spray wetting her hair so that it lay in strands across her breasts.
It was what I’d imagined doing with Meg. If the devil had been sent to tempt me, he couldn’t have come up with a better trap. I started to undress, standing for a moment in my boxers, watching the water drip over Ellie’s gorgeous body, then eased my underwear over my erection and joined her.
As I stepped towards Ellie, she cupped my balls, handling them gently, expertly. She caressed the shaft of my penis, moving up and down, teasing, a promise of what was to come. I took her breasts in my hands, nuzzling her nipples, gently sucking and circling them with my tongue. I was on fire. For an instant, in that light, I mistook her for Meg. But it was Ellie that I wanted at that moment, even though I imagined Meg’s face before I betrayed her. I pictured her crying, asking me ‘Why would you do this?’
It was too late. Ellie had pushed her lips against mine once again, one hand cradling my balls, the other clutching my buttock. I closed my eyes and returned her kisses, our tongues caressing, my right hand gently squeezing her nipple.
‘Come,’ she said, taking my hand with her own. Such a small, smooth, gentle hand. How can hands be so sexy?
Still wet from the shower, we fell onto the bed, pushing our bodies together in a frenzy of passion. I wanted it to last forever and I couldn’t wait for it to happen. I moved my mouth from hers, down her neck, gently kissing the skin above her breasts. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel of my touch. I kissed her beautiful soft breasts, moved down her stomach the
n began to take her in my mouth. Gently licking, gliding my tongue the way that Meg had always loved it. Ellie was partially shaved, I liked that, it turned me on even more.
I wanted to make sure that she came, there was no way I could hold on once I was inside her. She began to groan quietly. As her cries became more urgent, so my tongue worked faster until she came, clutching the sheets, moaning loudly.
It must have been this which covered up the noises in the room next door. I’m certain that I never heard them.
As her body relaxed, she turned herself over, pushed out her curvaceous arse and gently parted her legs. I entered her from behind, kissing her long smooth back and cupping her left breast in my hand. I came almost immediately, it was an explosion of joy, relief, passion – and escape from my life at home. At that moment I forgot all the shit that was going on elsewhere and for a few seconds, in that hotel room in Newcastle, I felt a freedom and elation that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Ellie and I made love two more times that night. Neither was as urgent as the first time. As she slipped away from me the final time, sweating, hot and damp from our encounter, we both knew that it was over. We’d both done whatever we needed to do that night.
I’d needed to get something out of my system with Meg, and Ellie had shit to deal with after her break-up with Dave. We had both wanted it, but while we held each others’ hands as we lay in bed, our thoughts returned to our separate lives and the partners we would now have to face.
Lying there, we both thought it was over. But it was only just beginning.
Chapter Five
I thought that psychic powers were a load of nonsense until I had a chance encounter with Steven Terry, clairvoyant to the stars.
It was a few months before the working weekend in Newcastle. I’d almost forgotten it, but Steven Terry’s warning came back to haunt me. He couldn’t have been more correct with his predictions than if he’d been able to travel into the future and see things for himself.
Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set Page 5