Love Rules (26 page)

‘Honestly,’ she says, but unconvincingly because he knows she's trying to inhibit further probing, ‘I'm done in. Sometimes, giving massage can invigorate me – sometimes it utterly depletes me. I think I'll go to bed.’

‘OK,’ Saul says, placing his hand tenderly across her fore-head, then tapping the tip of her nose with his finger. ‘If you look in my bag, I bought you the new issue of
Grand Designs
.’

‘Thanks,’ Thea says and she takes the magazine off to bed, grateful for distraction. That's what she'll think of – sinks and fabrics and flooring and ways with light. Not Alice, she won't think of Alice. Or Mark. She'll think about setting up home with Saul. And she smiles at the knowledge that absolutely no one, from Brad Pitt to this Paul Brusseque, could tempt her from Saul.

txt sex

It's peculiar – I almost feel like writing an anonymous piece for
Adam
on the merits of infidelity. I want to evangelize the effect that a one-night stand has had on my life. I want to stand up and defend what our society denounces as morally reprehensible. It's not. I was miserable before – doubting the point of marriage, questioning my choice of husband, negative about my lot, pessimistic about my future. And it all came down to sex! Just sex. That instinctive, carnal inter-change. Simple sex – that's all. I'm sure of it. One dose of pure sex and I'm cured! Now I'm happy with my husband, my energy and optimism have returned at both work and play and best of all, I feel happier and more centred in myself than I have done for months.

When Alice felt buoyant, everyone in contact with her was dusted with her jauntiness and vigour. Her team produced work worthy of awards and Mark reaped the benefits of his wife's excellent mood. She was spirited yet affectionate, effervescent but considerate. She didn't glower when he said he'd have to go to Singapore and Tokyo the following week, instead she came home with potions and tonics from the
naturopath to alleviate all primary and secondary symptoms of jet lag. Their lovemaking was back up to twice a week and Mark noted with some pride how she wanted to prolong each session, how her eyes were closed throughout as if in utter appreciation of their coupling.

It lasted a week. Then the first text message arrived. And by replying to it (initially she justified it would be impolite not to at least answer, but if she was honest, she fired back her reply in anticipation of another response) Alice somersaulted down into the murky depths of secrecy, lies and betrayal.

‘Is that your phone?’ Mark said, while ripping something out of the
Financial Times
and tucking it in his suit jacket. ‘Bloody hell, it's almost midnight – who's texting you at this time as if I couldn't guess?’

‘It's just Thea – fretting about her house sale and stuff,’ said Alice, not knowing quite how she was controlling herself, having seen that the number was overseas. ‘I'd better reply – I know how stressful the process is.’

‘Why don't you just ring her? Your thumb will get RSI!’

‘Saul's probably asleep – that'll be why she's texting,’ Alice said with a mock yawn. ‘I'll go and have a bath and reply.’

‘Tell her we thoroughly recommend our conveyancing lawyer.’

‘I'll do just that.’

With enormous restraint, Alice resisted running to the bathroom, sauntering away instead with credible nonchalance. As the bath ran, she sat on the edge of the tub and read the message, her stomach flipping with a swarm of manic butterflies, her heart galloping in her throat.

it's late. lying here thinking of u and ur wet pussy. PB x

Alice wanted to squeal and squeak and run around whooping ‘It's from Paul, it's from Paul!’ What should she
say? How should she reply? Should she reply? Or ignore? Should she text Thea and send her four or five possible responses to choose from? Shit – the bath is almost over-flowing.

Alice sat in the bath and read Paul's message over and over. Giggling, her thumb set to work.

pussy wet thnkng of u

Did she dare? Did she dare say that? Did she dare send it?

She did.

Come on, come on – reply, damn you!

Come

     on!

Replyreplyreply.

Yes!

rock hard – where r u?

She gave a joyous shriek.

‘Alice?’ Mark called through the door. ‘Are you OK?’

‘What? I'm fine – I'm fine. It's just Thea being daft.’

in bath – v soapy

She waited a decorous few minutes before sending it.

‘Alice?’

Oh for fuck's sake, Mark – what?

‘Yes?’

‘I wouldn't mind coming in and doing my teeth and stuff.’

Shit, the next message had just buzzed through and she was desperate to read it.

‘But the door's locked,’ Mark continued.

‘God, can't I have a bath in peace,’ Alice protested. ‘Look, I'll be out in two minutes – all right?’

She heard Mark pad away. She felt relieved rather than guilty. She looked at her phone.

u horny bitch

Paul was right. She was. She was horny. Very excited and
extremely horny. Just then she was horny enough not to care that she was a bitch.

Five pence was the cost of it. It occurred to Alice that a 5p text message had bought her an affair. But she didn't stop to think that it might be at the price of her marriage. It was just harmless texting, after all. Virtual sex. Not real. No one need know.

But it wasn't long before Alice was living from text message to text message, becoming decidedly fractious in between. Her moods, a pendulum swinging erratically between high spirits and furtive anticipation; her spiky frustration affecting everyone in spitting distance. She could be impatient and surly at work and short-tempered and snappish with Mark, or inspiring and energetic with her team and affectionate and vivacious at home. It all depended on whether she was owed a text from Paul or not. No one around her could figure out what the problem was and whether or not it lay with them. Because they did not know where they stood, so they tiptoed around her and tried their best to please her.

Thea was dismayed when Alice handed over her mobile and told her to scroll through. ‘You said it was just a one-night stand.’

‘It was,’ Alice frowned, snatching back her phone and gazing at the screen as if a photo was lodged there. ‘God, stop taking everything so seriously, Thea,’ she said, ‘they're just silly, sexy, harmless texts – but Christ they make my day.’

Once more, Thea felt compromised between her own personal morality and Alice's infectious energy.

‘They must be costing you a fortune,’ Thea remarked.

‘I've started buying those text bundles the phone companies market at teenagers!’ Alice exclaimed, her face one lascivious expansive grin.

‘Let me see that last one again,’ Thea requested because
she felt it was expected of her. Though she didn't want to encourage Alice, she knew her duty as the adulteress's best friend was not to alienate her either.

And when Mark flew off to Singapore and Tokyo on business, then the phone sex began. In the house alone, with no intention of asking Thea's approval, permission or advice, Alice phoned Paul. And the outright dirtiness of the text messaging was replaced with naughty giggles and coy referencing and then, surprisingly, five minutes of chit-chat. On a nightly basis.

‘He's just a friend,’ Alice justified to Thea, having thrust her mobile phone at her friend's ear so she could hear his voice. ‘We're just mates.’

‘“Mate” being the operative word,’ Thea couldn't resist saying. ‘You fucked, remember.’

Alice physically swiped the air dismissively. ‘He lives in Fucksville France!’ Alice breezed, as if Thea's insinuation was ludicrous.

u awake? can u spk? u alone?

Yes, Alice was awake but no she couldn't speak because Mark and she were just about to sit down to supper.

‘I'm just going to the loo,’ Alice told Mark, surreptitiously slipping her phone into her back pocket. ‘Can you stir the sauce and switch the rice off in a couple of minutes?’

‘Wine? White?’ Mark asked, starting the interminable search for the sodding corkscrew.

Alice locks the toilet door.

not alone – hows u, big boy?

coming the reply announces.

Alice laughs as she sends her reply: u dirty boy – u'll go blind!

coming over he sends back.

Before Alice has the chance to absorb the information let alone formulate a response, a barrage of messages arrives on her phone.

to london
    next tues
        3 nights
            get ready, baby – gonna make u sore

Oh
        My
            God

Sitting on the closed toilet seat, Alice is utterly stuck for text words.

She switches off her phone without replying and leaves it on top of the cistern in irrational fear of Paul suddenly materializing from it like a genie from the lamp.

Oh
        My
            God

Table for Four

‘I can't remember it being this much hassle when I bought my flat five years ago,’ Thea declared with a sorry pout around the table.

‘You were a first-time buyer,’ Mark said soothingly, asking the wine waiter to bring whichever red he'd recommend.

‘But it's not like I'm in a chain,’ Thea protested, ‘my problem is that my buyer is a bloody lawyer and he's being exasperatingly finicky. We could be on the verge of exchanging contracts but he's not going to unless a structural surveyor has checked some minor detail or other.’

‘Has your offer been accepted on the place you like?’ Mark asked Saul.

‘No – we've upped it but they're sitting on it,’ Saul told him, squeezing Thea's wrist supportively.

‘It's Sod's Law – and it's down to the bloody postcode fiasco. Thea's trying to sell in a buyer's market and yet you're trying to buy in a seller's market. All in the same city,’ Mark observed. ‘Thea darling, if you sell before you buy, you can always store your stuff at ours.’

‘Thanks,’ said Thea glumly because it was of little consolation just then. ‘They say that moving house is the most
stressful thing we encounter after death and divorce.’

‘Better not die then – and keep cohabiting, rather than marrying,’ Mark laughed. He looked over at Alice who was gazing at her lap. ‘Are you OK, darling?’

‘What?’ She looked up and around the table as if she was startled to find herself there with them. ‘I'm fine. I'm fine. Just hassles at work – just had to text one of my editors.’ She brandished her mobile phone and then dropped it into her bag. Thea looked away from Alice's fleeting smirk. ‘Have you exchanged yet?’ Alice asked her. ‘Wasn't it meant to be this week?’

Thea groaned, put her head in her hands, looked up and glugged gratefully at the glass of wine. ‘Don't ask!’ she said hoarsely, and then proceeded to repeat in great detail the stress and minutiae.

‘Did you get my text?’ Alice asked her, as if she'd not heard a word of Thea's rant.

‘What text?’

‘About my client?’ Alice said.

Thea checked her phone. ‘Oh, it's here – I hadn't seen it.’

lover boy's coming 2 UK nxt wk! ! ! ! ! ! !

Thea read it and read it again. What on earth was she meant to say? Right then? Right there? In an upmarket restaurant with her best friend's husband in eyeshot of her mobile phone. ‘Right,’ she faltered, ‘right.’

‘He'd like to see you,’ Alice carried on blithely while Thea prayed that Alice's expression of triumphant glee was legible to her alone.

‘OK,’ Thea nodded slowly, ‘OK.’

‘Who's this?’ Mark asked.

‘Paul,’ Alice announced lightly, as if jogging Mark's memory that he knew him too. ‘I think Thea should assess him.’

‘Paul Who?’ Saul asked.

‘He's not part of the
Adam
team,’ Alice replied dismissively, ‘different department.’

‘What's his problem?’ Mark asked politely.

Thea couldn't believe it was she who was starting to redden. Surely it should be Alice. But Alice was having great fun with her hidden meanings. ‘I've told him to be careful. I've told him he'll be flat on his back by next week – so I really think he'd benefit from Thea's evaluation.’

Thea's appetite slumped. Luckily for Alice, Mark and Saul presumed Thea had lost it under the pile of faxes and hassle swamping her from the sale of her property.

‘Alice was in high spirits,’ Saul remarks, peeling off his clothes and slinging them onto the floor.

‘Manic, I'd say,’ Thea asserts, picking up Saul's clothes and adding them to a pile she's sorted to be washed.

‘Are things OK with her and Mark?’ Saul asks cautiously.

Thea pretends not to have heard as she heads off with the laundry to the kitchen to load the washing machine, hoping to buy herself some time in which Saul might forget his question. He's in bed, when she returns, reading
FHM
.

‘New issue?’ Thea asks.

‘Do they?’ Saul looks up.

‘Pardon?’

‘Issues – you said Alice and Mark had issues.’

Thea laughs unnecessarily. ‘No, no! I asked if that
FHM
was a new issue!’

Saul looks at the front cover and nods. Thea climbs into bed, faces away from him and yawns exaggeratedly at how tired she is. Saul puts down
FHM
and spoons up against her back. ‘Don't tell me you're turned on by some soft-porn pics in a bloody lads' mag!’ Thea exclaims, feeling Saul's hard-on nudging hopefully at the small of her back.

‘Don't be daft,’ he murmurs, nuzzling her neck, ‘it was
the sight of you doing the laundry in the buff. Your gorgeous peach of an arse.’ And he is burrowing under the duvet to the object of his desire, kissing her buttocks and unexpectedly spreading her cheeks for a long lick downwards. Thea is pleased to close her eyes and swim into the physical sensations Saul is crafting; to propel herself away from the stress of selling her flat and the disquiet over her best friend's behaviour.

Sometimes, Thea likes to be dominant during sex with Saul; she'll initiate it and call the pace and the positions. At other times, she craves utter synchronicity – that he desires her as much as she does him, that he wants to take her from behind at the exact moment she flips herself over, that she wants to suck his cock without needing to be asked, that their orgasms occur within milliseconds of each other. But there are also times, and just now is one of them, when what she needs is to be made love to. She wants to consciously detect that Saul loves and desires her absolutely, venerates her, to the exclusion of all other thoughts and all other people. And so Thea lies in his arms, being licked and kissed and adored and wanted.