He thought about telephoning but knew it was too late for such a feeble gesture and a bottle of perfume from the duty free shop would surely just smack of desperation and anyway he had no idea what brand of perfume Rachel used.
Then just as the lounge attendant made the second call for the London flight, the obvious solution hit him like a bolt of lightning. Of course, it was ingenious and if he played his cards right, she might even believe that it had all been lovingly planned.
~~~~~
Rachel hadn’t see the note until she’d returned home sometime around Saturday lunchtime and by then she couldn’t give a fig what he was doing or where he’d gone to do it. Of course it wasn’t all about him forgetting her birthday, although that was going to take some explaining. No, the way she felt… her whole demeanour, as she walked in through the front door had more to do with the previous night’s impromptu birthday party, the copious amounts of some fluorescent green cocktail that surely must have had the word ‘Death’ in its name and especially the fact that she’d woken up in Anita’s flat with some stranger sprawled buck naked next to her… than anything Tom might have done or left unsaid.
As she’d opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, her memory of Friday night was like a black hole in space and time.
She certainly remembered Thursday and some of their night at the Ulysses Greek Taverna… she’d even remembered waking up sometime around lunchtime on the Friday with a hangover commensurate with the amount of Ouzo and some weird sounding Greek cocktail made from Metaxa they’d been drinking.
Worst still, as she’d nursed her pounding head, was the overwhelming feeling of guilt that only added to the throbbing headache. Guilt at not phoning Tom on the Thursday to apologise for throwing his dinner in the sink and then abandoning him like she had without telling him about the stash of his favourite meals, which she’d prepared in advance and put in the freezer. But, as the aching pain rose and fell, she’d realised that she’d never actually shown him how to use the microwave, which would have rendered any message about frozen meals as useful as a spaghetti Bolognese lollipop.
Obviously she’d known cooking wasn’t his ‘thing’ from the moment they’d first met, but she’d often wondered since that first date if his domestic incompetence might have had more to do with the fact that as an only child he’d been spoilt by his mother and that his impression of a circus juggler whenever he got anywhere near the kitchen sink, was just another clever rouse, which had always resulted in her meekly admonishing him for dropping another piece of her late parent’s bone china dinner service, followed by her telling him to go and watch the television or get himself down the Dog and Duck for a pint, whilst she washed up and cleared away.
But any sympathy and simmering guilt she may have felt at leaving Tom to his own devices for two nights, had boiled over into disappointment and anger on the Saturday morning, when by ten o’clock he hadn’t phoned to wish her happy birthday. Oh she wasn’t expecting some earth shattering announcement of undying love or a bouquet of expensive flowers. She’d even stopped expecting the usual small box of Dairy Milk that he always used to bring home from the garage the night before… that particular act of love and fidelity had stopped years ago… but a call, just a minute of his lazy Saturday morning to say ‘Happy Birthday’… that she’d expected.
She’d blamed herself for the row, Tom’s subsequent rant and then his dinner ending up in the sink with the washing up, but she’d tried to explain that she’d only be gone two nights at the most and anyway she’d implored, as the argument had risen to its plate crashing crescendo, she never went on girl-only nights but Anita had been so insistent that the two of them should celebrate her big event together and they had been such close friends for so long…
“You’re not thirty every day girl. That’s it, life’s almost over. You’re married, no kids, you spend most of your day washing, cleaning and running around after Mr Wonderful. Your tits are starting to sag and very soon just when you think it can’t get any worse, like a battery hen that’s ready for the pot… you’ll stop producing eggs. Face it, the glory days are gone… you’re no longer young!”
It had been Anita’s friendly but succinct summation of her dreary life that had convinced Rachel to live dangerously and spend two days at her friend’s house, after all it wasn’t some drug-fuelled orgy Anita was suggesting, merely some girlie time and a quiet meal… maybe they’d have a couple of drinks to celebrate but it had been all about the girls getting together and chatting like they used to. But oh no, Tom hadn’t like that idea…
“Hang on a minute, who’s going to do the cooking or do you expect me to eat down the pub or get fish and chips again?” He’d ranted on when she’d broken the devastating news that he’d have to survive without her for a couple of nights. She’d been tempted to add, ‘In time for my birthday’ but didn’t want to rub him up the wrong way by insinuating that he might need a reminder that Saturday was her big day.
“It’s only for a couple of nights love and what do you mean… again! I can’t remember the last time we had fish and chips. You’re always telling me that they’re no good for us, that they’ll make me fat and you know how much I love fish and chips but we never have them… so when do you…” She answered her own unfinished question… “I bet you gorge yourself on a Friday night don’t you? When you’ve had your night down the Dog and Duck, you buy them on the way home… come on admit it.”
“Well I have to eat something that’s got some taste and let’s face it you’re cooking has got worse recently.”
“They’re called salads Tom and you don’t cook them. I prepare them because you said we needed to look after ourselves. Remember Alicante and the incident round the pool or have you forgotten that?” The temperature in the kitchen rose appropriately in line with the volume of their argument. “You told me that if I ever got to look like that loud fat woman that you seemed to find so friendly… then you’d look for a younger model… remember!”
“Exactly! I don’t need to eat rabbit food all week and so naturally I get fish and chips on a Friday or make the most of a business lunch… and it’s a good job I do, otherwise there’d be nothing left of me.”
After that it had all spiralled out of control and ended up with both of them throwing insults at each other, followed closely by a vase, three plates and finally Tom’s dinner, which had missed his head and ended up floating in the sink… and that was the last thing that she could clearly remember.
Maybe it had been a case of selective amnesia brought on by Tom’s insensitivity or maybe it had been the two bottles of wine that Anita and herself had drunk the following lunchtime, followed by more cocktails and then more wine in the evening… whatever the cause though, the result was that she’d lost nearly two days and no matter how hard she tried, the exact details eluded her.
Then it was Saturday morning and the naked bronzed hunk was lying next to her on the spare bed.
On reflection, she couldn’t remember feeling guilty or even a little shocked at the sight of the stranger, it was more a feeling of wonder and bewilderment that they’d ended up naked together in Anita’s spare bed.
But if the events of the previous night had been a blur, the state of the sheets and the way she felt inside… both told her that whatever else might have happened, they’d done more than read each other a bedtime story.
Gingerly, she lifted herself up onto her elbow and stared down at the enigma… he was certainly better looking than Tom and she guessed taller. More importantly though, she hoped that if the size of his feet, which were sticking out from underneath the sheets, were an indication of anything, it must have been that he was bigger than Tom in every sense.
“Who are you my friend?” She whispered delicately into his ear. “And what I wonder does the rest of you look like.” With no concern for sobriety or consequence, she gently lifted the single white sheet, which covered the man’s lower torso and peeled it back, as if she was unwrapping a present…
her birthday present.
“Wow!” She said a little more loudly than intended, when she saw the size of the man. Even at rest and whilst sleeping, he was larger in every way to a fully aroused Tom. How she wondered excitedly, had such a beast fitted inside her? Feeling slightly woozy at the thought, Rachel had leant across and gently started to stroke and caress the man. What had seemed big whilst quietly snoozing, gradually began to grow in size and hardness under the delicate guidance of Rachel’s hands, until finally it stood tall and straight, like some fleshy giant redwood. Unsure what to do next, but sure it had to involve getting the stranger back inside her, she knelt on the bed and straddled him until with a little moving and manipulation she felt herself drop slowly down onto his full and pumped up erection.
“Oh my God!” She said out loud, as reason and any lasting inhibitions flew out of the window. Without waiting for her partner to wake up or be a willing participant, Rachel rode the man, just like she used to ride the horse that her parents had bought her for her sixteenth birthday, but unlike in the innocent days of her adolescence, this man was more Arabian stallion than Shetland pony.
An hour and a half later, Rachel finally managed to drag herself away from her Adonis and into the shower. As the soothing beads of cold water doused her libido and cooled the burning sensation that was spreading upwards from between her legs, with her eyes closed tight shut, she took time to relive the multiple orgasms, which she’d just experienced. Whoever her unconscious lover was, he’d unknowingly confirmed what she’d always known … Tom was both a selfish and an inconsiderate lover… Tom wanted only to please himself, Tom…!
With the soothing water cascading over her body, her eyes burst open in a look of horrific realisation… TOM!
‘Oh Christ!’ She thought, Tom had probably been trying to call her and all she’d been doing was repeatedly pleasuring herself with some huge inanimate dildo.
“My phone!” Rachel screamed excitedly, as she ran naked and soaking from the shower to find her mobile, the numerous missed calls from Tom and the messages of love congratulations for being thirty years old and the love of his life.
“Why the hell did I stick it on silent!” She asked herself accusingly, as she searched her bag and then her pockets for the annoying piece of technology, which finally showed its guilty face on the bedside cabinet. There it had sat, like some noisy neighbour, all the time watching and admiring her sexual cavorting.
“Oh my God!” She screamed out, as she snatched the mobile from the cabinet and checked to see whether in some moment of paralytic drunkenness, she’d left a caller connected. The thought momentarily crossing her mind that perhaps she’d phoned someone last night, maybe she’d called Tom and then the call hadn’t been disconnected or maybe she’d accidentally pressed speed dial in a mad moment of arm-stretching ecstasy and someone had been listening in to every scream and murmur…
Reality though finally took a check on her imagination and the truth dawned that no one, except her own guilty conscious, had been listening to her moaning and groaning.
Relieved, wet and still naked, she turned on the mobile and waited for the flood of messages and missed calls to be heralded on the display. But there was nothing. She’d not missed a single message or call. Momentarily she even wondered if she’d forgotten what day it was… perhaps her birthday was next week. No, she’d got the date right, only Tom and his intentions she’d got wrong. Wet and forming puddles on the floor from where she’d been stood, she felt like crying… why hadn’t he phoned her or texted her. She’d had nothing yesterday from him but this… this was worse. She was thirty today for chrissakes! She never forgot his birthday and it was only two nights when all said and done.
“Good morning” The sultry voice said invitingly. Without turning round Rachel guessed Greek maybe Spanish, but certainly Mediterranean. Her second thought was that she was completely naked and had nothing to hand to cover up her embarrassment except her mobile phone. What the hell, she thought, I’ve just screwed the man three times without him knowing anything about it… the least I can do is face him.
“I’m not sure we were introduced properly last night.” The man said politely, as Rachel slowly turned around, to reveal what he’d hoped hadn’t been just some fantastic dream. “My name is Ronaldo. I’m from Brazil.” He added, as he knelt on the edge of the bed, and stroked himself to attention. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
Oh what the hell Rachel thought, I’ll never be twenty again and being thirty won’t last forever and the bastard did forget my birthday…
“Only a snack… so perhaps I could eat just a little more.” She replied gleefully with a little shrug of her shoulders.
The note that she’d found on the kitchen table hadn’t said much. In fact, had Tom said much less, the paper would have been blank. He’d not even said ‘oh and by the way happy birthday for Saturday’… the pig.
As the anger inside her welled like the lava plug of a simmering volcano, she remembered seeing the small white envelope that was no bigger than a packet of cigarettes protruding from the letterbox, as she’d rushed into the house with a grovelling apology poised ready on her lips…
She’d already forgiven Tom, as she’d made her excuses and left Anita’s in an embarrassing rush, which had seen Ronaldo and her girlfriend waving their fond farewells from the relative privacy of the front door, before they’d slammed it shut and disappeared back inside.
Her feeling of jealously and loathing for her friend though, had lasted only a minute before it was swamped by her own guilt and the emotional remorse for how she had betrayed Tom. Once might have been forgivable as nothing more than a drunken fumble gone too far, but four times finishing with a hearty birthday breakfast, well that she’d thought, was just self-indulgent, rampant adulterous sex…
Her heart missed a beat in guilty anticipation as she rushed back to the front door like some excited schoolgirl. Her fervent hope was that Tom hadn’t forgotten her birthday after all. Although if she’d not felt as jealous and as envious as she did at leaving Ronaldo in Anita’s clawing grasp, common sense might have prevailed sooner and she might have wondered where Tom was the moment she’d found the house empty… normally on a Saturday morning he wouldn’t move out of his chair until he’d eaten his bacon and eggs and read his paper from cover to cover… but the newspaper had still been on the hall carpet when she’d pushed open the front door and rushed inside.
Normally, after a leisurely Saturday morning, he would leave the house and pop along to the Dog and Dog for a lunchtime pint with the lads and the early kick off, which was shown live every Saturday… even when there wasn’t a game!
But if his obvious absence hadn’t struck her as odd, then taking a moment to wonder why he’d left her a note in the letterbox might have tweaked some part of her of jealous psyche to wonder what the hell was happening.
Instead of a loving note or birthday card though, the piece of paper sticking through the front door was just a ‘sorry we missed you card’ from a shop she’d never heard of. Whatever had been delivered, had been left next door and the last thing Rachel had felt like doing just at that moment, had been going round to visit Mrs Wilberforce to collect whatever had been left for her.
The old lady was sad and lonely and Rachel knew any visit would never be as simple or quick as… “Hello can I have my package?” It would entail a prolonged visit and at least two cups of tea… but she also knew that if she procrastinated, it would mean delaying the inevitable and she wanted to know what Tom had sent her… for she was certain it could only be Tom who was responsible for the parcel.
But still she didn’t worry over his whereabouts or why he hadn’t taken delivery of the post himself.
Mrs Wilberforce took a second to recognise Rachel before her face broke into a beaming smile.
“Come in Rachel, its lovely to see you. Do you know, you’re the second visitor I’ve had today? The first was a very smart young man who brought me a huge bunch of flowers
and a wonderful box of chocolates. I can’t remember the last time I had Belgian chocolates, would you like one. I’m afraid I’ve already eaten half the top layer but you can pick one from the second tray if you want… and the flowers, oh my they’re so gorgeous.” Rachel’s guilt continued to mount as the old lady babbled on. Tom hadn’t forgotten and she’d cheated on him with Ronaldo… how could she face him now?
“Are you alright my dear?” Mrs Wilberforce asked, stroking Rachel’s arm.
“I’m fine Mrs Wilberforce, thank you. Was there a note with the flowers or chocolates?” Rachel asked hopefully.
“Yes dear and this.” Mrs Wilberforce handed Rachel the folded paper. “It was tucked inside the bouquet.”
Rachel opened the paper and read the invoice, which had been mistakenly included by the shop. Her eyes widened with incredulity, as she saw the total amount that Tom had splashed out on her surprise birthday present. He’d never spent that much before… not even on their first wedding anniversary when she’d been convinced that he’d want to push the boat out to make amends for their honeymoon fiasco. But as waves of delight and angst washed over her with equal ferocity, she read the rest of the invoice and saw the one name that she hadn’t expected or wanted to see.
At the end of the brief description, it simply stated that the order had been placed and paid for by Janet Strong.
“Janet ‘Bloody’ Strong!” Rachel screamed. “I’ll give him, Janet ‘Bloody’ Strong.”
~~~~~
Reminiscing from the comfort of the leather chair in the lounge and dangerously ignoring the call to board his flight, Tom’s mind, fearful of the potential repercussions, drifted back to their previous visit to Cornwall…
Stranger at the Wedding Page 4