Love Rules (35 page)

‘Yes!’ Paul called out, as Alice sucked his cock and caressed his balls.

Paul pulled Alice up, positioned so she could grab hold of the sink, facing into the mirror. He bent her over slightly, yanked down her knickers and penetrated her. She watched herself being humped, watched his face contorted with intense pleasure. This was precisely what she wanted – to be desired sexually to such a degree that the act itself was greedy, carnal, basic and verging on rough. She observed Paul – his teeth clenched, his eyes screwed shut. He pumped and thrust and came explosively.

‘Did you come, baby?’ he asked. Alice thought about climaxes and anti-climaxes and decided not to answer directly. She put her finger over her lips and mouthed ‘hush’ as she switched off the taps. Silence. As she watched Paul pull up his trousers, she felt his semen dribble out of her. They hadn't used a condom. How could she have been so stupid and reckless? What on earth was she thinking? What the fuck was she playing at? Alice detested herself.

‘What shall we do now?’ Paul asked, thinking along the lines of Bucking-Ham Palace, perhaps. Or Carnaby Street.

‘I need to make some work calls,’ Alice replied.

‘You wouldn't know anyone whose floor I can crash on?’ Paul asked. Alice looked confused. ‘Clapham's not available – my mate's away and I forgot to ask him for keys.’

‘Sorry,’ Alice said, ‘I don't think I can help.’

‘Your mate up in that Crouch place?’

‘No! I mean, she's moving soon – so we can't ask her.’

Paul looked at Alice. Alice looked back at him. ‘Two nights, right? I'll book you a hotel.’

‘Alice, I'm broke.’

‘I'll pay for it.’

Should I go to an STD clinic?

Should I take the morning-after pill?

I desperately need Thea, but no way can I burden her with this. Not only will it upset her but there's far more on her plate at the moment than I could stomach. I wanted my cake but now I'll just have to choke on it. I'll just have to suffer feeling wretched all on my own and accept it as my comeuppance.

Alice doesn't doubt that a slap of humiliation would be cathartic, so she goes to the chemist and forces herself to maintain eye contact as she asks for emergency contraception. She knows that a dose of guilt would be medicinal too. She is subsumed by it when Mark comes strolling home a couple of hours later, with his customary cheery kiss, a lovely bottle of wine and the fresh ingredients for his home-made pesto. She isn't hungry. Her remorse and self-loathing have filled her up.

It is only when she's trying to wash away her shame in a scalding hot bath later that evening that she realizes she forgot all about her Pilates class. She won't get a refund now. It means that lousy, pathetic shag with Paul cost her £45. Plus his hotel bill. Actually, the price she is paying is far higher and she's acutely aware of it. She's taking a bath in the guest bathroom because she just can't face going back into hers. And she's told Mark she's going to sleep in the spare room, fabricating a dose of Thea's phony flu as the reason though in truth she feels she does not deserve to sleep with him in their marital bed. She ought to give Thea a quick call to check she's OK. But Thea's mobile is off because she's currently engrossed in her conversation with Richard Stonehill.

Oh, Thea. Oh, Thea. How can we be in such a mess when we're only in our early thirties and our lives until recently were really so charmed? How did everything plummet from
our control so quickly? The major difference is that you're the victim in your situation and I'm the perpetrator in mine. You deserve only salvation and happiness – but privately I just can't see how you'll find this. Look at me with my faithful, adoring husband. What the hell was I doing? Please God don't let my comeuppance depend on Mark finding out. Please God, just don't let Mark find out – it will slaughter him. I don't want Mark to hurt. I never did it to hurt Mark. Please save him from pain. Please God, don't let Mark ever find out what I've done – I promise I'll never do it again. Please God, save Mark the torment – I swear it won't be me getting away with it; my shame and regret will ensure it. Honestly.

But do you know what? I don't actually believe in God.

I'm scared.

I feel sick.

Oh, Thea, I so need to talk all this through with you. But I can't, I can't. You have an unfathomable amount to cope with. My isolation and my remorse must somehow carry me through and teach me to live and love better than I have been.

Saul's Three O'Clock

can i c u?

no – pls undstnd

fuck u! come on! i go 2nite …

no Paul – not poss. pls, pls undstnd

i came all this way 4 u …

i didn't ask u 2

oh no?

cant – sorry. Ax ps: no more txts etc PLEASE

Etc.
? Paul reads reams into the word on his phone. Was Alice referring to sex as an ‘etc.’? Arrogant bitch. Paul decided it would be easier to simply hate her than to object, plead or protest. He didn't want to feel his trip was wasted. The fact that he'd ended up paying for his plane ticket slightly irked him – but ordering excessively from the room-service menu and raiding the mini-bar onto Alice's tab at the hotel gave him some satisfaction. There was more to London than Alice bloody Heggarty or St Clair or whoever she was. He'd damn
well go to Buckingham Palace and Carnaby Street. He'd put Alice down to experience; after all, he liked plenty of it in his life; it was his chosen mode of living. Toyboy, sex tool, rich bitch's bit on the side? Fine. Whatever. Been there, done that. Tick that one off the list now.

Saul was looking forward to his three-o'clock meeting with Alice. He loved brainstorming ideas so he prepared well and arrived at the offices early.

‘Hiya,’ he greeted her, kissing her twice.

‘Saul,’ Alice responded cordially, offering her cheeks but not kisses. She was tired and she felt on edge. She wanted Paul Brusseque out of the country. She wanted to want her life back yet despite making the decision to cut the contact with Paul, she didn't feel like returning to Mark's warm, simple embrace. And the emotion, or lack of it, bewildered and depressed her. And now she was confronted with the dissolute Saul Mundy.

‘Coffee?’ she offered, swiftly deciding to fully immerse herself into Alice Heggarty, publisher extraordinaire, and keep her alter egos of cuckolding wife and best friend's keeper firmly out of office hours.

‘Thanks,’ said Saul. ‘How are things?’

‘Fine,’ Alice declared, trying not to balk at the question or look remotely guilty, ‘and you?’

‘There's a delay on the purchase of the new place,’ Saul bemoaned. ‘I daren't tell Thea – she appears to be so over-whelmed by her flat sale next week. I've hardly spoken to her, let alone seen her – have you? Every time I phone she says she's too busy sorting her life out to chat. It's only packing – but Christ, is it taking all her time. She won't let me go over because she says it's all a mess – yet she claims she can't afford
the time to stay at mine!’ Saul laughed while Alice thought he should have read into Thea's chosen phrases. ‘She's a daft thing!’ he said affectionately. ‘When did you see her last? Pilates?’

‘No. Not since the weekend. I had to cancel my class the other day,’ Alice said, suddenly keen to swerve away from the subject. She tapped her desk. ‘Let's get cracking,’ she said. ‘How's
Adam
?’

‘How about
From Apple to Blackberry – technology gets fruity
– and not just because I'm hoping for a freebie,’ Saul smiled.

‘I like it,’ Alice said, making notes. ‘I met Nick Hornby's agent – but rather than a straight interview, I want to pitch for a piece on his experience as parent to an autistic child. I've suggested offering an increased fee as a donation to his TreeHouse Trust charity.’

Saul nodded thoughtfully. ‘I was musing over a Fatherhood issue – writers, celebs, Joe Public.’

‘I like it!’ Alice enthused.

‘Iconic father/child relationships,’ Saul rolled on, ‘from Homer and Bart Simpson, to George Bush Senior and George Dubya, Ringo Starr and Zac Starkey, Prince Charles and Wills, Beckham and Brooklyn.’

‘And what about daughters!’ Alice protested, raising an eyebrow to challenge Saul.

‘Paul and Stella McCartney,’ Saul laughed, ‘Terry and Gaby Yorath, Jimmy and Lisa Tarbuck, Nigel and Nigella Lawson, Mick and Jade and Lizzie Jagger.’

‘Homer and Lisa Simpson,’ Alice laughed. ‘We could integrate the Nick Hornby idea into such an issue. Good. What next?’

‘I love the title
Ripper Ripped Off
for an investigative piece on copycat crimes,’ Saul suggested.

‘I suppose that would necessitate suitably grisly pics, then?’ Alice said hopefully.

‘Unquestionably. And how about
Adult Adolescents
?’ Saul suggested, ‘thinking about that whole resurgence in BMX bikes and skateboards and the Beastie Boys who I reckon are probably older than me. Buy a bike and recapture your youth, kind of thing.’

‘Good,’ Alice mused, ‘good.’

She and Saul sat in affable silence, broken only by the occasional pensive murmur or thoughtful sucking of pens when inspiration alighted. Alice was trying to process a train of thought concerning a great title,
Back from the Brink
, because she'd heard an inspiring interview with a mountaineer who'd lost his limbs to frostbite but lived to climb another peak. Suddenly her mind's eye beamed up Paul, in his hiking boots, his muscled bronzed legs. She felt taunted and glanced away from the unwelcome intrusion to find her gaze, previously non-focused into the middle distance, fixed on her shelf. The framed first cover of
Adam
. Her award for Launch of the Year – that gravity-defying jag of perspex swooping into the wooden base. Without warning, she was bombarded with the perspex shop connection, next door to that Black Beauty and those Models! top. And out of nowhere, as clear as if he was speaking right then, she recalled verbatim Saul's comments at that very awards night almost two years ago. He'd proclaimed he liked to dip his finger into a ‘fair few pies’. He'd said dollars couldn't buy his desire for diversity – well, yes, they obviously could, albeit not in dollars but his pounds sterling bought him pounds of flesh. And though, in hindsight, Alice could find double meaning in the comments he'd made about his career, there was one thing he'd said which leapt from her memory and assaulted her.

He said how much he loved Thea. He said – and it didn't even strike me at the time – that he was faithful to her ‘in my mind and in my heart’. Why didn't he say ‘body and
soul’? Why did he even have to qualify fidelity? He specified his suspect mind, his half a heart while being careful to make no mention of the physical.

She blinked and halted a shudder as she slowly looked at Saul, sitting opposite her, tapping a Biro irritatingly against his lower teeth while he mused over more ideas for the magazine.

‘
Paying For It
,’ she announced calmly, her level stare belying her racing heart.

Saul was still formulating ‘
That's Not What I Call Music – our inevitable decline into our parents
’ and thus failed to grasp Alice's insinuation. ‘
Paying For It
,’ Saul repeated, as if she had alluded to first-class air travel or NHS prescriptions.

‘
Cash for Sex
,’ Alice continued. She scrutinized Saul for a reaction but there did not seem to be much of one as yet, he was just looking at her intently. Keep the eye contact, Alice. Keep the pressure. ‘
Hooked on Hookers
,’ she tried. Maintain the momentum. ‘
Jades and their Johns
.’ Saul was nodding slowly. Did she have him? She wasn't sure. ‘
Prostitutes and their Punters
.’ She thought she could detect a slight falter to his nodding. ‘
Paying For It
,’ she said again. Time to raise her eyebrow and then glower. Saul was now taking undue interest in his pen; putting his finger on the ball point. Had she struck a heart chord? Time to go for the jugular. This is for you, Thea. ‘
A Shag or A Sandwich? Buying sex in your lunch hour
.’ Alice paused to maximize the dramatic impact of her volley. ‘What do you think, Saul?’ She let her question hang, the steel in her voice slicing through. ‘This one is right up your street, isn't it? Right up your Soho side street.’

Slowly, Saul looked at Alice. She was shocked. There was no glimmer of guilt. No jump to self-defence. No arrogant denial which she could then batter back. No blithering wreck
for her to chastise to the hilt. No tears of remorse she could refuse to mop up. Saul simply looked horrifically ashen; far worse than if he'd seen a ghost – more as though he'd fore-seen his own death and it was imminent. ‘
You
could write this one, Saul, couldn't you?’ she continued spikily. ‘
I have a stunning, gorgeous girlfriend but I pay for sex on the side.
Put it on expenses! I'll go to petty cash right now! Or do you have an account, Saul?’

‘Alice,’ Saul said, but without protest, more just to request she be quiet.

They sat in the loudest silence; time ticked excruciatingly slowly, reality suspended in a caught moment, their thoughts rocketing far too fast to harness. Nothing could be done. Time couldn't be turned back; neither words nor actions could be taken back.

‘She knows,’ Alice said quietly, at length.

Saul whipped his head away from the unequivocal meaning of the sentence and stared at Alice's door while unseen tears lacerated his throat like thorns.

‘She saw you,’ Alice declared hoarsely, her ultimate shot striking the very heart of Saul.

The toxic silence continued to fill Alice's office like an asphyxiating fog. Alice wanted to fire a million questions. Why, you bastard? What were you thinking? How could you? Why on earth would you? How often do you? What's it like? How does it differ? How much do you pay? How much have you spent? When was the last time? Will there be a next time? Why would you want to when you have a girl like Thea? However, Alice's voice was hampered from materializing by her surprise that Saul should dare to look so broken. Her onslaught was somewhat dependent on the assumption that Saul would jump to his defensive, or accuse her of lying, or lie that Thea was mistaken or that they had
no proof. Over the last few days, in imagined confrontations, she'd prepared for these responses and had perfected her final self-righteous lunge. Instead, she was confronted by a Saul who was speechless, defenceless and in imminent need of tissues.