So why, did he fuck me?
Why did he cheat?
Because he did. They can reason it away as much as they want and I’ll admit, it’s peculiar that he keeps on calling me, but they’re still together.
I can feel it in my bones.
No matter how much I wish my friends were right, and wish I do, I know, instinctively, that they’re wrong.
I’ve wasted too much time thinking about a guy, who was only a one-night stand. Sure, that connection that buzzed between us had been unique, but I’ve made mistakes before and I’ll make them again.
If anything, I can be relied upon to make a fool of myself.
And picking up a gay, married guy is just something else to add to the ‘most embarrassing moments of my life’ segment of my biography. Zane will fit right in with all the other bungled catastrophes that have been the sum total of my love life.
Maybe, it’s time to get a cat. A cat wouldn’t destroy my self-esteem or make me doubt myself and hey, I could work my way up to being the old, spinster lady with the house full of kitties. That’s something to really look forward to.
Not.
* * *
Working as a housekeeper has few perks, the money’s pathetic, the job itself is degrading, and the people I work for are jerks.
Okay, the latter isn’t fair. The majority of people I work for are jerks. Not all of them. I have a few old dears, who like to chat about their families as I work, and then I have the city slickers that leave their pieds a terre in a complete mess with unmentionables strewn about the place.
The amount of used condoms I have to clear up, is astonishing.
Especially considering the way my employers look. How they get laid at all is a wonder. All I’ll say is that money really does talk.
Today, I’m cleaning for a new client, so as yet, I’m unable to judge whether or not he’s a bastard and/or ugly with the manners of a pig.
My conversation with Marina and Eddie didn’t exactly go downhill thereafter, but it kind of fizzled out altogether when my boss called and sent me on to this job. At nine o’clock at night, no less.
I’m the only one on the team without a kid so, I get the shitty hours.
Even though I understand why, it doesn’t make me any happier to be called in the middle of the night to clean some guy’s bachelor pad. Because this place is most definitely that.
All sleek black leather couches and minimal furniture in the lounge, a kitchen that looks as though it’s never touched, a slate washroom with no female cosmetic products in the vanity, glass units displaying a serious entertainment system, and a chunky recliner in what I’d term a ‘man-cave’.
In point of fact, that’s the only room that looks as though it’s been used. Although, obviously, the bedroom must have its fair share of usage but the man cave is quite definitely this guy’s main room.
Psycho-analyzing my employers is the only fun part of my job. Trying to ascertain what sort of person he or she is, what they do for a living… those kinds of things. Mopping, dusting and ironing aren’t exactly stimulating tasks, I need to do something to occupy my brain. And while I don’t consider it something to brag about, I need more stimulation than most.
If I’d had the money, I could have gone to any college, my SAT scores would have enabled me to do whatever I wanted, I could have studied and made a success of my life. Instead, poverty means I clean for a living.
So, if psycho-analyzing my clients is the only way to keep me sane, I do it. Every day.
My boss told me that I’m to wait for this new client to return, and the nerve of it, if he wants something cooking, then I have to prepare it for him.
Trying to tell my boss that I clean, not cook, was like trying to bash my head against a wall and not bleed.
Impossible.
That jackass hears what he wants to hear.
On top of that, I had two hours’ deadline to get this place spic and span, something which was only possible because the rooms are minimally decorated to the point of emptiness.
At this point of the night, at half-past-ten, when I should be tucked in bed ready for my six a.m. start, I’m sitting in a kitchen that would make a restaurant look under-stocked with gadgets, and I’m sipping a cup of chamomile and honey tea, because bizarrely enough, they were in the cupboard.
The stainless steel work surfaces, units and utensils gleam brightly in the overhead light. I feel like I’m in a spaceship and the engines are vibrating and ready to go.
As am I.
But I want to go home, not to the mother ship.
Sighing, I’m on the cusp of taking another sip, when I hear the door hinge in the hallway work. My eyes glance at the clock and I take in the time, ten-forty, and hope to God that I won’t have to start cooking in this monstrosity of a room.
I’m dressed in my cleaning gear, a neat, light blue pinafore that makes me look like I’m a full-sized Mona homemaker doll. I hate my uniform, but it’s smart and easy to clean. Straightening myself up, I cross the kitchen and step into the hallway.
The same part of me that had questioned Eddie’s sanity earlier and prodded me to wonder if I’d entered a parallel universe, kicks into life. Because standing not twenty feet from me is Zane and that parallel universe is looking like a pretty fine destination.
It’s a testament to how far gone I was on this man that my first reaction isn’t anger at being duped, because that’s exactly what happened, or rage at being used by a cheating louse.
It’s embarrassment that I’m wearing a shitty uniform that makes my butt look enormous, and sensible sneakers that fashionable great-grandmothers wouldn’t be seen dead in.
My cheeks flush, burning hotly as I stare him down. I then turn on my heel and retreat to the kitchen. Not the best place to hide, but still, it beats just standing there and blushing.
I could have stormed out, that was an option, but considering the man is a wall of muscle and that wall is currently blocking the only exit, storming out was an option I quickly identified as being impossible.
Sometimes, the best offense is defense and at this moment in time, I’m feeling very defensive. As well as pissed.
Taking a seat at the kitchen counter in front of my steeped and tepid tea, I wait for Zane to make his appearance. Lost for words isn’t my current predicament. A whole torrent of bubbling fury is seething within me and as I’m going to be face to face with him, I see no reason to withhold my justifiable anger.
The instant he steps inside the kitchen, I mimic one of his messages, “I know you’ll have seen some things on the internet. But it isn’t what you think.” As calmly as I’m able, I rest my elbows on the counter and tilt my head to the side in a questioning pose. “Firstly, a husband is much more than a thing, and there’s no other way to think about your marriage or the fact that you’re supposedly a gay man. The only thing I’ll say is that obviously, you were messing around with me and my affections, but what can I expect? I shouldn’t have engaged in a one-night stand, I guess it’s my just desserts.
“What I don’t understand are all the messages and why you’ve gone to these lengths to orchestrate all this?”
There’s a pained look on his face. His lips have twisted into a scowl of what can only be self-derision. “I never intended to hurt you or for you to feel humiliated.”
“Well, you did a good job of doing just that.”
“And I’m sorry. Like I said, it was never my intention.”
“Okay, what was your intention?”
“To give you a false name and to fuck you and to never call you again.”
Stunned, for a moment, my mind is completely blank and then I croak out, “What went wrong?”
“You did.”
“Don’t you dare try and blame this on me.”
“I’m not blaming anything on anybody. I’m just saying I saw you and my plan changed.”
“What?” I mock. “You took one look at me and fell instantly in love?”
“I wouldn’t go tha
t far,” he says with painful honesty. “Lust’s a crazy little thing, Mona. Hits you in ways you can’t understand, just as powerful as love in its own way. I saw you, wanted you and had to have you. And even though I knew just the once wouldn’t be enough, I still told you my real name. I caused myself a lot of shit, when I told you that.”
“Why did you, then?”
“It was an accident. But I didn’t want to lie to you, and when I told you that what happened between us wasn’t something I did often, I wasn’t lying. It’s the truth. I hook up. The women don’t spend the night, and we don’t wake up together. They sure as hell don’t learn more about me than how I look naked. But those beautiful green eyes of yours called to me and I had to speak the truth.”
What the hell am I supposed to say about all of this? How am I supposed to respond?
Not one part of what he’s said makes what he did any better or in any way right. So what does that mean? Basically, that we’re back at square one.
“Where does he fit into all of this? By the sound of it, this isn’t an uncommon practice of yours. Whenever you’re on the PR trail you hook up with some easy lay and cheat on your husband?”
Sucking in a breath, Zane steps forwards and edges his way nearer to the counter. I tense, not wanting him to come closer and he pauses directly opposite me. The breadth of the work surface separates us and his proximity is enough to remind me of what turned me to mush a week ago.
There are pretty-boy men and then, there are men’s men. That’s Zane. There was a picture of him in his dress uniform. Short cropped hair, unlike the longer length that curls about his ears now. At his back, the Stars and Stripes hung in drapes and on his chest, medals adorned his jacket. In the picture, he was frowning. So stern and serious. Those wide shoulders of his had felt the weight of his responsibility and left their mark.
And here he was today, from my calculations four years later, and he was still stern and serious. The frown didn’t look like a permanent fixture, but I can tell it still puckers his brow more often than it should.
Everything about him appeals to me.
Everything.
I want to slap him, rail at him for doing this to me. Making me want him, when he isn’t free to be wanted by anyone, never mind a woman.
“Are you gay or not?” I ask, breaking into the silence that’s a leftover from my earlier and still-unanswered questions.
“I love my husband, Mona. It might not seem like it, but I do. I sacrificed a lot to marry him, I lost my family, any and all contact with my sisters, because if I’m gay, I have to be a pervert or a child molester too. I have no contact with my nieces and nephews. The only one still talking to me is my great-grandmother. And that’s only on the phone. I’m not complaining, I’m just telling you how it is.
“If I didn’t and had never loved Jake, then I wouldn’t have put myself through all that. My family was close, once. We were all living in and out of each other’s pockets. That all changed the day I met Jake. But no, I’m not gay. I’m not even bi. I love Jake. And I love women.”
“That makes no sense. You’re just making it up to mess with my head.”
He shrugs, the move has his shoulder muscles rippling and his shirt pulling taut against his ripped pecs and bulging biceps. Despite myself, my mouth begins to water.
“I’m not messing with your head. That isn’t my intention at all, but nothing is ever as black or white as it seems. Mona, from an early age, I’ve been what society wanted but I’ve never been typical. I was a jock with one of the best grade averages in my school. I followed my daddy’s footsteps into the army and soared through the ranks. I fought for my country and for freedom. And then I almost died and I met Jake. He’s bisexual. I’m me. I love him and I want women.”
“So he knows what you do? And he isn’t hurt?” I ask, astounded by this odd relationship. “It sounds a bloody funny kind of marriage to me.”
“He knows and of course, it hurts him. That’s why I do it when I’m out of state.”
“If it hurts him and you love him, then why do you do it at all?”
“Because it isn’t enough. He isn’t enough.”
Faced with Zane’s pained honesty, I feel slightly off-kilter as well as feeling sorry for this Jake. Whatever Zane’s reasoning for doing what he did, I hadn’t expected this. Eddie and Marina were right, when he said he had an explanation. I’m just not sure if I trust it.
Why would he love a man if he isn’t gay?
“People have tried to pigeonhole me all my life and I’ve always resisted,” he comments easily, obviously understanding my perplexity at his sexual status.
“Why are you still with him if he isn’t enough for you?”
“I’ve told you. I love him and he loves me. We’re good together, just not your typical partnership.”
Absorbing that, I clutch my chilled cup of chamomile tea and take a sip. It’s bitter, horrible and over-stewed, but it’s wet. And at this moment, my mouth is drier than the Sahara.
“Why am I here, Zane? Why have you been calling me and leaving messages? Are you worried I’ll go to the press about this? Because believe me, the last thing I want is to be humiliated in the eyes of the world.”
“No.” he barks and at that very moment, I can see the Marine in him. A man who would have six hundred men under his control and each one of them loyal to their leader.
“Then, what? I’m confused, Zane. What the hell do you want with me?”
He sighs and his shoulders slump. He takes a seat directly opposite me and the stool creaks as it accepts his weight. “I just want you. In my bed. Against the wall. Even on this counter.”
It’s my turn to frown. “But you’re married. If I’d have known, then I would never have slept with you. You’re cheating on your husband and it causes him pain, you admitted that yourself.”
“We have an understanding,” Zane argues.
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“You think I don’t know that? Do you think I want to feel this way? I can’t help it.”
“There’s no such word as can’t. If you love somebody, you dedicate yourselves to them. You don’t fuck around behind their back.” Before he could argue, I hold up a hand. “He might know about it, so you can gloss over your conscience, but whenever you come here, he’ll know you’re sneaking around and he’ll be thinking about who you’re with and what you’re doing behind his back—it will torture him.”
Zane, to his credit, looks discomforted and I start to feel uneasy. Who am I to judge the relationship between him and his husband? I didn’t exactly do a bang up job with Dan, and the only experiences I have with marriage are all negative. My parents’ marriage is a sham, my maternal grandmother was ashamed of my Marine grandfather… and the divorce rate is edging forever upwards for a reason.
If it works for them, then I’m not my parents. I can’t and won’t judge him. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that jazz.
Ironic how my father was a wife-beater and all he ever did was judge everybody. From the paper-boy to the attendant at the local gas pump.
I won’t be like him.
“Why did you bring me here, Zane? What did you hope to achieve?”
“I wanted to clarify the situation to you, in the hope that you’d understand.”
“Oh, you’ve clarified it all right, but I understand even less than I did before. You claim to love your husband and what? You want to sleep with me again? Want to pick up where we left off?”
His mouth tightens and he releases the tightly pursed muscle with a sigh. “It’s an unorthodox situation. I know that, I really do. But I was hoping you’d be open-minded.”
“I’ll tell you how open-minded I am, Zane. Last weekend was the first time I’ve had sex since my divorce four years ago. You’re the second man I’ve slept with and I’m just about to hit my twenty-ninth birthday. If you wanted someone who thought outside the box, you couldn’t have made a worse choice.”
&
nbsp; “You have no reason to trust what I’m saying, I’ve lied by omission and I can only imagine what you think of me, knowing that I’m married, not only to a man, but that I cheated on my spouse with you. But what we had that night was pretty unique. When I said that nights like that didn’t happen often, I wasn’t lying.”
If Zane had had an ounce of easy charm in him, I’d have immediately suspected him and his motives. Instead, I can do no such thing, because he isn’t a silver-tongued lothario. He’s a Marine to his very bones, straightforward and no bullshitting.
Just talking about that night is enough to have me overheating. My crappy uniform is sticking to my back and I’d pull it away, if I thought I could do so with any ounce of decorum. And not like a sex-starved woman who gets hot and sweaty at the mere memory of a night of intense passion.
“You want to pick up where we left off, I guess?” He nods briskly, and I appreciate that more than I would do if he tried to coerce me with flirtation. “And you know I'm going to say no, right?”
Another brisk nod.
“It’s time for me to go home.”
“I’m sorry for having requested you work this late at night, it was the earliest time I could vacate my tenant.”
“You evicted your tenant? Why?” I ask, perplexed. “You’re not staying at the Kensington Park anymore?”
“Yes, I vacated him. I thought you’d appreciate the privacy.”
“You cannot be serious. You lost a tenant on the off chance that I’d agree to another night with you?”
He shook his head. “I was hoping for a more permanent situation.”
Chapter Five
Kept woman.
Even now, twenty minutes later and in the middle of a traffic jam–where else in the world could there be a traffic jam past midnight on a Monday night?–the phrase is ricocheting around my brain.
I’m not sure whether to burst out laughing or to slap the man at my side.
My eyes drift down over my pinafore and at the minute, I’ll admit to being on the brink of laughing. Who in their right mind could look at me and see mistress material?
Sinfully Theirs: Naughty Nookie Part I Page 7