Dirty Bad Wrong (22 page)

“This is considerably more than Rebecca wears,” she said. “My nudity habit hasn’t scaled her heights quite yet.” She bit her lip, nervous. “Really, James, why are you here?”

“You didn’t hear me finish.” I fixed her in the calmest stare I could muster.

“I heard enough,” she sighed. “It’s my own fault, anyway, I shouldn’t even care.”

“If you’d have stayed around even a minute longer you’d have heard the rest. You
were
a mistake, Lydia, but I’m not sorry I made it. I told Rachel as much, I told Rachel a lot of things.”

The tremble of her lip stirred the beast, and I wanted her all over again. “You don’t need to say that.”

“I know I don’t.”

“Our thing is Explicit-only, casual. I know that, I was happy with that.”

I pulled her feet across my lap, resting my hand on her knee. “Things change. They spiral, that was always the danger.”

“I’ll get over it,” she said. “I can cope with casual, I know I can. I
wanted
casual.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t want you to
cope
with casual.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, but again she forced them away. “So, this is it? It’s over?”

I smiled. “That would be the wisest move, I’m sure, but I don’t want that. I never did, not from the moment I barged into your hotel room.”

“Neither do I.” She reached out her hand and I folded her dainty little fingers in mine. “So, what now?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “This isn’t a position I’m used to occupying. I can’t say it’s entirely comfortable.”

“We could carry on…” she said. “As we were.”

I shunted my way toward her, craving her body more than ever. “I don’t know if I can be the man who can offer you more, Lydia, I’m not sure that’s me.”

“So don’t.” Her smile was soft. “Just be the man you
are
.” She leant her head into my shoulder. “I don’t want to lose what we have, James. You make me feel so alive.”

My stomach churned in rapport with her words. “I can’t offer you a relationship, Cat, it would never work. I’m too private, too closed, too set in my ways. And I can’t lose my career, I’ve worked too fucking hard. Order is my only constant, my routine is my salvation, my road through any storm.”

Her eyes glittered like moondust, pale as the kiss of a ghost. “Please talk to me. What happened to you? Was it Rachel? Was it bad?”

I sighed. “It wasn’t a good time.”

“You came here for a reason,” she whispered. “Because you care. At least try and let me in.”

“I need a drink,” I grunted, brushing her legs aside. She didn’t follow me, just sat and watched, eyes haunting my every move. I opted for a coffee, and made Lydia one too, brooding around my own resolve as the kettle boiled. This time I positioned myself away from her, my elbows on my knees.

“Rachel was already married when I met her,” I began. “We worked together a long time before anything happened. She was married to our boss’s best friend, it’s how she got the job initially. Her husband worked long hours and she was bored, he figured she could do with a hobby and along she came, to join me as a junior even though she wasn’t such a junior.”

“Go on,” she encouraged, eyes wide and so fucking compelling.

“Rachel’s first husband was a lot older than her,
boring
, she called him, but I suspect he worshipped the ground she walked on. She was spoiled, but frustrated, claiming the passion had all dried up. For about six months it was all she’d talk about, how much she wanted to leave him. She told me she’d moved into a separate bedroom at first, that they weren’t having sex. She’d say too much, bemoaning the fact she was a red-blooded woman without a man, and me, well I was a red-blooded man without a steady woman. She came back to work after a long Christmas holiday that year and told me they’d agreed to separate. I believed her, I mean, why wouldn’t I? It’d been a long time coming. I guess it was around that time she decided she wanted me for real, and hell did I know it. She’d message me on my personal email, listing off fantasies she’d never fulfilled, and some of them made my mouth water, Lydia, some of them were so fucking filthy.”

“So, you fucked her?”

I smiled, despite myself. “Many times, and she was as filthy as her fantasies. She lapped up every single crazy thing I had to give her, and back then I was stupid, I thought we could hide it, I thought it wouldn’t matter. But Rachel craves attention more than she craves sex, only I didn’t know her well enough to realise that. She’d photograph every mark I ever made on her, emailing me a copy so I could take pride in my work outside of office hours. I figured she’d delete them, figured she’d be careful, but Rachel isn’t careful, she doesn’t think through her actions.”

I watched Lydia watching me, and she was biting her lip in the way that I love, the way that makes my dick twitch. “Go on...” she prompted.

“I’d been in that company since university, Cat, it was like a home to me, my whole fucking life was there, years and years of work. I’d worked my way up to the top, and it meant the world to me.”

“What did she do?”

“Rachel didn’t
do
anything, it’s what she
didn’t
do. She didn’t delete her photographs and she didn’t delete her emails. Every single photograph and sordid conversation was right there for the taking, and her husband did the taking, he read the whole fucking lot of it, copied every single picture on her phone, and then he went insane, called me a wife-beater, a psychopath, every fucking name under the sun. He even called the police, and when Rachel wouldn’t press any kind of charges, he emailed the all-staff email group on our company email and attached every single photo she’d ever taken of us. My boss went berserk, reeling for his friend. Life caved in, and the rest is a lot of painful history.”

“He fired you?!” Lydia asked, mouth open.

“No. It would have been easier if he had,” I sighed. “He didn’t fire me, but he made it clear every fucking day how disappointed he was in me. He railed me for unprofessional conduct, started micro-managing every single thing I did, claiming he couldn’t trust me anymore, but worse than any of that was the way he looked at me. He looked at me like I was a monster, and the rest of the company followed suit. If you’ve never experienced that, Lydia, I hope you never will. People you’ve known for years whispering in the corridors, looking at you with suspicion and mistrust, like you’re some kind of savage animal who needs locking up. Women in the office didn’t want to be alone with me, women I’d known for years unwilling to meet my eyes, and some of the men, well, they made it pretty clear what they thought of me.”

“Shit, James, I’m so sorry.” Lydia was pale, her eyes wide in sympathy. I had to look away to continue, staring at nothing but the floor.

“I wasn’t a monster, Cat, I never did anything to her she didn’t ask me to, and I never would. I’m not a rapist or a wife-beater, I’m no thug.”

“I know you’re not,” she smiled. “You’re nothing like that.”

I couldn’t help but smile back, the absurdity tickling me. “I like hurting women, Lydia, but only if they want me to. I understand why that may be difficult for some people to comprehend.”

“Did you leave, then, leave your job?”

“I had to, in the end. I just couldn’t take it anymore. Rachel left first, moved in with me and got a job in a beauty salon.
It’ll blow over
, she said,
just give it time
. But it didn’t blow over, people don’t let that kind of shit go, Cat, I would have always been the monster.”

“What did you do?”

“We moved, here, to London, and eventually I got the job at Trial Run. I worked hard, kept my head down, and worked my way back up to CTO. I’d lost everything last time around, my friends, my job, my respect. Rachel was all I had, and for a while it was ok, I loved her, I really did. Her divorce came through and we got married, started rebuilding a life together, but this time around I was wary. I compartmentalised my life, splitting myself into two different people; the side at home, and the side at work. Rachel didn’t understand it at first, it frustrated her, but she met back up with Bex, a friend she’d known since school, and our lovely Rebecca just
got
it, she got
me
. Along came Explicit, to expand our horizons, and I found the liberation of the mask. It worked for me, Lydia, it worked so well. In the mask I could be the beast inside, the beast who craves tears and pain and hot, wet cunt. The other James Clarke went to work, and kept himself private. I never even introduced Rachel to my new colleagues, she never came to a single work party. She hated me for it, I know, but it was the only way I knew to be safe.”

Lydia moved closer, just close enough to rest her hand on my knee. “I had no idea, James, no idea at all.”

“That’s always been the plan, Cat, to keep it all separate. The chimera is my embodiment of my lifestyle choice; one body, two creatures. I was comfortable like that, it was a way to make it work.”

“I get that,” she said. “I get it, James.”

“Anyway, the relationship didn’t work out. I got busy at work, and Rachel didn’t understand. She craves attention, like I said, and my attention was no longer enough for her. We had a healthy open relationship within the bounds of Explicit, so I thought, but she must have disagreed. She fucked around, Lydia, so much it was embarrassing. I forgave her, told myself it didn’t matter, that it was part of who we were, but it’s a fine line, trust, and over time we fell apart. She never kept her promises, and I stopped expecting her to. We gave it one final shot: no other partners, no more lies.” I finished my coffee. “It was Rebecca who finally pulled the plug, she told me Rachel had been cheating all along.”

“Jaz told me that,” she whispered.

“Jaz didn’t agree with Rebecca’s decision, but I’m glad she told me. I walked in on Rachel with another man, a man I’d come to know quite well within Explicit. He was more mortified than she was, I felt strangely sorry for him if truth be told.” I looked at Lydia, at the soft pools of her eyes, the sloping interest in her brow line. “And you know what he said?”

She shook her head.

“He turned to Rachel, full of rage, and he said,
I thought you said you were fucking estranged?
” I laughed bitterly, just like I had at the time. “I guess I had that one coming, since I inadvertently did the same thing, no doubt, to husband number one.”

“You didn’t know!” she said, squeezing my knee. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, it’s all old news now, history. I was devastated after Rachel, it took me a long time to pick myself up. I figured I’d focus on work-James, keep my life stable, and keep Masque private, weekends only. It was working well, until one day I stepped into the office kitchen and found myself staring into the green eyes of heartbreak personified. You snared me then, Lydia, you were so fucking beautiful, so raw.”

She smiled. “You got under my skin too, Mr Clarke. So much, before I’d even seen Masque, before I knew anything about him.”

“Rebecca claims I wanted you at Explicit the whole time, maybe she’s right, maybe I always wanted that.”

“Well, you got it,” Lydia said gently. “And I got Masque.”

“I can’t risk my life falling apart again, Lydia, I can’t open myself up for that shit. I know what it feels like to watch everything you’ve built up crumble into nothing. I don’t want to do that all over again.”

“I don’t expect you to,” she sighed, resting her forehead against mine. “I’ll never do that to you, James, I swear. I’ll never leave you so exposed, and I’ll never risk your job. I’d leave myself before you suffered, I promise.”

I kissed her nose, breathing in the soft hint of Amber. “I don’t want you to leave your job, Lydia, and I don’t want to leave mine, that’s one of the problems.”

“This is a conversation for a long time away,” she sighed, yawning. “It’s not for now, now is just us, Cat and Masque. James and Lydia can sort that shit out one day far away, if they ever get that far.”

“And you’re happy with that, Lydia? Seriously? You can live without sandwiches at lunchtime and a public declaration of adoration.”

She grinned, eyes sparkling. “I can live without those things, I just can’t live without Masque.” She breathed deeply, her mouth just a fraction away from mine. “I would like more, though, nothing much, just a little more than Explicit. I want some real time with you, when you’re not wearing a mask and we’re not at the office. Like in Brighton, I love it there.”

“I can’t promise anything, Lydia, but I’ll try. I can’t let go of this wall I’ve built up, I don’t know where
it
finishes and
I
begin.”

“I can relate to that,” she laughed. “I’m the one who can’t cry, remember?”

“I guess we’ll both try our best and see what happens.”

“That’s good enough for me,” she said. Her sweet little mouth pressed onto mine and I pulled her right the way onto my lap. “It’s late, James, I’m really tired.”

“Bed time for tired little girls,” I said, rising from the sofa and taking her with me. I walked through to her room, laying her out on her bed.

She smiled up at me through sleepy eyes. “Goodnight, James,” she said. “I’ll see you on Monday.”