Laughing softly, I saunter on over towards where he sits on the chair.
“Why don’t you let me show you?”
“Oh yeah, baby,” he says in obvious approval when I swing one long, jean-clad leg over his thighs and hover there, not quite sitting in his lap, not quite touching him.
I’m just kind of squatting there, in only the way I can. As arrogant as that sounds, I could never look ungainly or uncouth. What can I say? I am a sexy, classy-looking woman. Again, I have no time for that false modestly lark – it is what it is. I’m hot, and Shane wants me. Every man wants me, just as I am every woman’s worst nightmare. Us girls, we believe what we want to about ourselves. In my case, I am a sex goddess, and I can have any man I want. It is my personal truth, and no one can take that away from me.
“Close your eyes,” I say.
Jack chuckles throatily. “But I want to look at you.”
“And I want to surprise you.”
“Okay, fine,” Jack says, shutting his eyes. “Do what you want with me, I’m all yours.”
I dismount his lap and roll the tea towel I am still holding into a loose sausage shape, covering his eyes with it and securing it at the back of his head in a small knot.
“No peeking,” I tell him, heading towards the kitchen counter on the far wall.
“Where are you going?” Jack asks.
“I told you, it’s a surprise.” I glance over at him – he is still blindfolded, oblivious to my true plans. I smile at him, even though he cannot see me. “And it’s a good surprise.”
For me, anyway.
Silently, I slide out a knife from the rustic, wooden knife block, and turn around to face him with my hand behind my back. He is still playing along with me, and what an idiot that makes him.
He is also still slowly masturbating, and he looks a complete fool.
“What are you doing?” he asks me, his voice thick with lust.
“You’ll find out soon enough. Patience, my sweet man.”
I stand before him, lightly tracing a finger over his stupid, excited, parted lips.
“Don’t look,” I murmur, “otherwise we won’t play anymore.”
No part of my body touches him, apart from the featherlight caress of my fingertip against his mouth. The hand holding the knife behind my back tingles in anticipation.
I haven’t killed anyone in such a long time, not since I was thirteen-years-old, and one set of particularly hands-on foster parents met their unfortunate, untimely demise. Any evidence of their murder was obliterated by the ensuing, tragic house fire. How lucky that I wasn’t there that night, seeing as I had a rock-solid alibi from my disenfranchised, adolescent friends who used to hang around the local park of a night.
My gaze slithers to his phone on the table, and I stretch out to retrieve it, momentarily breaking our physical contact to do so. Silently, I slide the phone into a pocket of my hoodie. He flinches when I place my hand on his shoulder. I can feel the anticipation coursing through his system, the way in which he shivers with need.
It really is quite pathetic.
“Baby, what are you going –”
Removing my hand from his shoulder, my other hand strikes, the blade of the thick-handled knife slicing smoothly through the soft flesh of his throat, ear lobe to ear lobe.
For a second, the long gash is white and bloodless, like the gill of a fish.
And then comes the blood. Glistening red wells in the gap, followed by pulsing waves of shiny red sheets. It flows down his throat, instantly soaking his black shirt.
I jump backwards, my heart slamming hard against my sternum, my blood rushing on a tide of adrenalin. Jack’s hands flutter up to the wound, an ineffective barrier against the sea of red.
I take a further step back. His blood is pumping in hard jets, and I don’t want it on my clothes, even if I do intend to destroy them after tonight. I am indifferent to his death throes, my only emotion that of satisfaction and a sense of self-righteousness.
Jack was no good. Jack deserves to die. Yet I have no guilt; I have killed worse than him and didn’t bat an eyelid.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” I say, not feeling sorry at all. “No one could ever find out about us, I’m sure you understand. And, worse than that, if you ever told anyone about my suggestion that you kill Shane…” I shudder at the mere thought of it, my voice momentarily trailing off. “But, hey, if a job’s worth doing, then you’re better off doing it yourself, right?”
Jack gurgles in response, and I tilt my head to one side, regarding him thoughtfully. I don’t think he can hear me anymore. I don’t think he cares what I have to say.
Smiling, I watch the last, miserable vestiges of his life seep out of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TESS
I awake with a start, lurching bolt upright in the bed, the silent scream of terror lodged in my throat, not emerging past my parted lips.
As always, when I awake from a nightmare I am disorientated and confused, unsure where I am – even who I am. And right now is no exception.
Frantically, I look around the darkened room, trying to get my bearings. I am in the spare bedroom, but I have no idea how long I have been asleep. I don’t know what time it is, yet alone if it is day or night.
With a shaking hand, I reach for the phone on the bedside table. The screen glows in the gloom, informing me that it is seven thirty-five, Thursday the sixteenth of December.
The stag night was last night, I think groggily.
I didn’t hear Shane come in, but then, I have been comatose for hours.
These thoughts are quickly followed by, I have a piano lesson at nine o’clock… Which will be my first one for over a week. I really should be looking for ways to drum up more business, but I’ve just been so preoccupied lately. I don’t even know who this child is who’s coming today. I have been in email communication with this Johnny’s mother, who is, apparently, a friend of another mother whose ten-year-old child used to take lessons with me.
But it’s all good. I have plenty of time to get ready, and hoover in the living-room in preparation for the lesson. I welcome the sense of normality these plans bring.
Swinging my bare legs over the side of the bed, pleased to note that there is not even a hint of a headache prickling my brain, I am glad to set the cogs of my day in motion.
Yet still I do not feel entirely right. I can’t remember the details of the nightmare I awoke from, but the unpleasant residue of it clings to me, nothing more than abstract fragments of pain and death.
And blood. There was so much blood.
*
By the time nine o’clock rocks around – and me and the living-room have been given the once-over – Shane still hasn’t arisen. Not even the distant drone of the hoover has stirred him.
And now, as I peek my head around the bedroom door at his sleeping form, I find myself wondering what he got up to last night.
Did you go to the strip club, Shane? I silently transmit to him, glaring at his face. He is naked, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his head as if in wild abandon, one leg bent, making a partially collapsed tent with the twisted duvet.
I stare at him for a second longer, then I back away from the dingy room that smells faintly of stale beer, pulling the door to behind myself.
*
The doorbell goes at nine on the dot, making me jump. I have been in a trance of sorts, staring at the present under the tree. It is the same size as a large, near-square shoebox, and it is wrapped in shiny, red and gold Christmas paper. It is the only present under the tree, and it wasn’t there yesterday.
Staring at this box is giving me the creeps. When had Shane put it there? Because I certainly haven’t.
The more I stare at it, the more inexplicably troubled I am. The worst feeling settles over me – a dull horror coupled with the most curious and entirely unwelcome sense of déjà vu. I am so sure that I have seen this red-and-gold-wrapped present before.
There is
no label on it, which only adds to its mystery.
I jump to my feet from the long leather sofa, pleased to have my attention diverted from that damn present. Placing my half-empty mug on the glass coffee table before me, I smooth down my white, fitted shirt, which I wear untucked over blue, skinny jeans.
Then I pad barefoot out into the hallway, towards the front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TESS AND ALICE
I am most taken aback to see Alice on my doorstep, and not a strange woman with a twelve-year-old boy in tow.
Alice grins at me, her smile as dazzling as the low, winter sun that streams into my eyes, sitting close to the horizon behind her.
“Hello, Tess. How are you this morning?”
Instinctively, I block the entrance, preventing her from entering my home without barging past me.
“Why are you here? What do you want?” I manage to get out, my voice as shaky as the rest of me.
My gaze sweeps down her body, involuntarily taking in her beauty. She is wearing a fitted red dress with a deep, scoop neckline and short sleeves. I remember seeing one just like it in Vogue magazine, and thinking how lovely it was. It strikes me as strange that she isn’t wearing a coat as it is cold out. I notice how she isn’t even wearing any kind of hosiery, that her long legs are bare from the knees down. The black high heels she wears offer little in the way of protection against the cold. Personally, I couldn’t even stand upright in those shoes, yet alone walk in them.
“We need to talk, Tess,” she says, that dazzling, red-painted smile with the brilliant, white teeth not wavering for a second.
Fleetingly, I wonder if she is wearing a wig, for her black hair seems that much longer today, falling past her shoulders in a deep side part, set in immaculate, barrel curls.
“I have nothing that I wish to say to you,” I say primly, still body-blocking her, my gaze flickering over her shoulders to the road, and the churning, grey ocean beyond.
Cars swoosh past every five seconds or so at a steady thirty miles per hour, but none of them show any sign of stopping.
“Oh, Tess, there is no Janet Coombes whom you were emailing, and her delightful little twelve-year-old son, Johnny. That was me. But then, you knew this deep down, didn’t you?”
I look at her blankly, not understanding her bizarre accusation in the slightest. “What? I don’t know what you mean. And you can’t come in.”
She rolls her eyes, her smile wolflike and knowing. “I think you’ll find that I can.”
With that, she barges past me into the hallway, her shoulder ramming mine, sending me staggering to one side. Incredulously, I watch her saunter down the hallway as if she owns the place, her slender, but heavily-curved hips and rump swaying dramatically.
“Please,” I call after her, clutching my heart through my shirt like some dramatic, swooning heroine from a bygone era. “My husband… He’s upstairs.”
Alice has reached the living-room door and she stops, spinning gracefully on the spot to face me. I shiver in the freezing draft coming from the open door and I shut it, yet again wondering how Alice hasn’t turned blue walking around outside half naked like that.
“Oh, Tess, I know that. And you know that I know that. Just like I know everything else that there is to know about you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
But I’m talking to an empty space, because she has entered the living room. Not having much choice in the matter, I hurry after her, only pausing for the briefest of moments to gaze up the stairs. If my husband is awake, he shows no sign.
I can’t believe this is happening.
But clearly, it is. I have no choice but to finally confront Alice, once and for all.
“You can’t just barge into my home like this,” I say as I burst into the living room.
Alice is seated on the piano stool, fingers lovingly sweeping over the keys. Her eyes are half-closed in something that may be described as rapturous bliss, her smile beatific. She is so beautiful in her form-hugging, red dress, it snatches my breath away. Her beauty is otherworldly – I think how it has no business existing in the real world. How improbable it is.
She lets out a small sigh, twisting her head to face me.
“Once upon a time, the piano gave us such pleasure, such comfort, didn’t it? Back when we were still living under the shadow of our past. Back when we didn’t know how we would ever function as normal members of society. Yes, learning to play saved us.”
I can only look at her blankly. I am trembling, and I can feel the way my mouth is hanging open.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say in a voice that is small and lost.
Horrible memories wash over me, carried on a cold sweat, and I am transported back to my traumatic childhood, to the endless cycle of abuse I suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to care for me.
“Yes, you do,” comes her reply. “We are survivors.”
Yes. That much of what she says resonates within me. But surviving didn’t build character; it destroyed me. For anyone to romanticise what I’ve been through is insulting. This is why I never talk about it, why I keep it tucked away deep in the secret core of me. It is my personal pain, no one else’s.
Mine and Alice’s personal pain.
The fog is lifting from my brain. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I am no longer sleepwalking through my life.
“Tess? Who are you talking to?”
I gasp and spin around on the spot, confronted by the sight of my sleepy, hungover husband, standing there in the doorway. He yawns loudly and rasps his hand over his dark-stubbled jaw, regarding me through bleary, bloodshot eyes. His dark hair sticks out at ridiculous angles, and he is wearing baggy undershorts, teamed with a Sex Pistol’s t-shirt that has Sid Vicious’ face plastered across his chest.
“Shane,” I moan, my heart hammering.
I look from Shane, to Alice perched on the piano stool, back to Shane again.
“Tess? What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Everything around me suddenly takes on a hyper-real quality – textures, colours, the air itself, entering my lungs.
I look over at Alice, and she smiles reassuringly at me. And then I look at Shane.
“Not a ghost, exactly.”
My gaze is diverted to Alice once more, watching her rise gracefully from the piano stool. She comes over to join me in the middle of the room and we stand shoulder to shoulder, facing my dazed husband.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shane asks. “You know what, hold that thought; I need coffee.”
He turns to leave through the living-room doorway, and Alice says loudly next to me, “Tell him to stay. Tell him that the present under the tree is for him, and that he must open it now.”
I frown at Alice in some confusion. “What’s in it?”
“What’s in what?” Shane replies, stopping dead in his tracks a metre or so into the living room, and turning around to face me. “Like, what’s in the coffee?”
“You know what’s under the tree,” Alice says at the same time as Shane. “If you just allow yourself to remember. If you stop compartmentalising me, and just let yourself be the real you.”
“It’s too much,” I say to Alice.
I close my eyes as the onslaught of Alice’s memories, of my memories, hit me.
Alice first came back to me after my third, failed attempt at IVF. After the miscarriage. I had been distraught, and had gone round to cry on Kirsty’s shoulder. Except Kirsty had been called away on a medical emergency and it was Jack’s shoulder upon which I sought solace.
I had done more than just cry on him. All my grief, my pent-up anger, the entirety of my considerable emotional baggage and feelings of unworthiness came pouring out of me, culminating in the hottest, angriest, dirtiest sex of my life.
“That’s right,” Alive whispers next to me, for my thoughts are her thoughts, and she is sharing this moment of understanding with me.
“Let yourself remember. It’s better that you do.”
And so I remember it all. The molten affair with Jack, my need to deny that it was happening. My mixed feelings towards Shane, specifically my paranoia that he was – and is – cheating on me. I don’t want to be married to a cheater, and more than that, I don’t want to be married to someone borderline infertile with lazy sperm.
I want to start a family, and Shane can no longer provide that for me. Three failed attempts at IVF? Who’s to say that a fourth round will be more successful? And I’m not getting any younger…
“That’s right,” Alice coos in my ear. “I’m sure that stripper did get him to fuck her. And if she did, it just proves what a lying, useless, unworthy bastard he really is.”
I open my eyes when the memory hits of me getting the bar job at Pink Flamingos, with the sole aim of finding a suitable girl to seduce my husband.
All these memories rage through my mind in a matter of seconds.
“Tess?” Shane is saying to me. “What do you mean, it’s too much? What’s too much?”
He is looking at me strangely now, concern creasing his brow. He walks towards me, and I turn around to gaze at my reflection in the mirror above the stone mantelpiece of the open fireplace.
Alice is standing next to me, she too looking at me. At us.
“I don’t want to be like you,” I say to the reflection of Alice.
But Shane is directly behind me now, and he too is staring in the mirror, standing behind me and Alice, in the middle of us. We are a love triangle straight from Hell.
“What are you saying, Tess? What do you mean, you don’t want to be like me? What have I done?”
Alice says at the exact same time, “But you are me. And I am you. We are two sides of the same coin.”
“No.” I turn to glare directly at the woman standing next to me, rather than her reflection. “I am nothing like you.”
“Baby, you’re scaring me,” Shane is saying, both of his hands on my shoulders, but I shrug him off.
In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming Page 15