Second Chances (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

THIS, ALLEGRA DECIDED, had been a bad, bad, bad idea. Very, very bad. What she needed was one of those leather lash thingies which that fat monk had in The Name of the Rose, the one who subjected himself to a good dose of self-flagellation for committing the sin of lust. Not that she’d committed that particular sin. No, hers was much, much worse.

Actually,
maybe she wouldn’t need a lash after all, or have to flagellate herself. She was pretty sure Liz would take care of that verbally when she found out Allegra’s latest transgression.

Inch
by agonising inch, she tried to get out of the bed as quietly as possible, so as not to awaken the snoring, disturbingly hairy person in it next to her. One foot out from under the covers, then a knee, then the other foot; first foot on the floor, wriggle the arse to slide out the lower half of her body, both feet on the floor, head carefully off the pillow, one hand on the floor, slide oh-so-delicately all the way out and… there! Freedom.

Grabbing
her balled-up knickers, her bra turned inside out (shit, was that a rip in the fabric?), her blouse, her skirt (should never have worn that skirt… make mental note to self: never wear skirt again. In fact, burn every item as soon as safely home). Phone, phone, where was her phone? Clutching her clothes to her chest in a futile attempt to preserve her modesty, she tiptoed to the chest of drawers and yes! There it was, her phone.

Gingerly
picking it up, Allegra opened the bedroom door, slipped out, closed the door again as quietly as she could and dashed down the corridor into the bathroom.

Hurry
up, hurry up, hurry up, she willed herself, struggling to pull her underwear and clothes back on. Okay, dressed now; run fingers through hair, look in mirror — oh, ugh! — wipe off the worst of the smeared make-up… Tap on, water running, gargle and spit, gargle and spit… An involuntary shudder ran down her spine as the gargle-spit move brought back shades of an awful, awful memory from the night before… Didn’t the man keep Listerine in the house?! Never mind, never mind, just get OUT of there…

Open
the bathroom door quietly, so quietly, step out, now turn around and shut it again just as quietly and leave leave leave before he wakes up…

‘Hey there, sexy lady.’

Allegra
just about leapt out of her skin, hitting her head on the bathroom door as every fibre of her being instinctively made as if to run forward and away, as far away as she possibly could, maybe not stop running until there was at least a continent and, ideally, a couple of oceans between her and him.

‘Ow… my head,’ she groaned. ‘You idiot, you just about gave me a heart attack. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Clive
was pressing up against her as she faced the bathroom door, nuzzling the back of her neck and rubbing his morning erection into her buttocks and — Christ, was he trying to make a growly, purring sound?

‘I’ll kiss it better for you,’ he leered into her ear.

Ugh,
mister morning breath, no thank you! Allegra tried as politely as she could to edge past him, but Clive took this as a sign of enthusiasm — well, she was wriggling backwards into his throbbing cock after all; he wasn’t to know she was trying to escape — and ran one hand up from her knee to her thigh, moving under her skirt and forward to push his fingers between her thighs and into her —

‘Hey!’ Allegra grabbed the offending hand and tried to remove it from between her legs, but Clive wasn’t one to take “no” for an answer. Mind you, she reminded herself, she hadn’t said “no” last night, either.

‘Frisky, eh? Well, I’ll whip you into submission, young missy,’ he said, pressing harder against her and pulling her panties down at the same time. He was stronger than her, and fast. Allegra gasped as his fingers entered her, probing deeply, his thumb rubbing her clitoris… and oh God, traitorous body, she’d have to trade it in for a nun’s.

Against
her will, she felt herself responding, melting, less and less able to fight him off and… oh shit, her knickers were around her ankles, he was yanking them off with his toes, pushing his knees between hers to spread her legs, grabbing her hips and lifting her towards him and… he was inside her… oh… oh… oh shit, had he even put on a condom?

Unable
to think of anything else she could do, Allegra screamed right into his ear. A blood-curdling howl of a scream. Clive just about put his head through the ceiling in shock. Seizing her opportunity to escape, she sidestepped Clive and grabbed her underwear off the floor.

‘Look I have to go I’m sorry but I have a thing something I’m going to be late for so okay got my handbag I think I have everything I really must run so uh bye!’

Blowing
kisses at Clive and grinning like a slightly panicked chimpanzee, the words spilled out in one garbled breath as Allegra sprinted for the front door, struggled with the latches and silently cursed Clive for being one of those security-conscious blokes who had not one, not two, but three deadlocks which each required both hands to wrestle open.

‘What’s the rush? It’s Sunday.’ You just couldn’t keep a good man down. Or Clive.

He’d
strolled up to the door, still stark bollock naked, although his erection had thankfully deflated. Allegra very determinedly kept her eyes on a spot just past his right ear as he leaned against the doorframe, one hand stroking her breasts through her sweater, his finger idly tracing circles around her nipples. She really only had herself to blame for this predicament, she reminded herself. It wasn’t Clive’s fault that he believed she really did fancy him. He was so blissfully oblivious that it would never cross his mind that last night had been little more than an alcohol-fuelled error of judgement on Allegra’s part.

‘Yes, that’s right, it’s Sunday, I have to get to church. Confession. I’m Catholic, you know. So please, unless you want me to burn in hell for the rest of eternity, please open the bloody door and let me out.’

‘Right then… but I’ll be seeing you later… perhaps you could borrow one of the nun’s habits and we could play “confession booth” this evening, how’d you like that, you naughty girl?’

Allegra
jumped as he slapped her bottom, grinned through gritted teeth and said, yes, that sounded like a fantastic idea but she really, really had to go now. Clive finally relented and unbolted the door, but not before he slipped his hand up her top just for good measure and gave her nipples a good pinch through her bra.

‘Bye sexy lady… I’ll be thinking of you… all day…’

Allegra
didn’t look behind her as she fled; she knew Clive would be standing there, massaging his rising erection as he watched her leave. She practically fell into the lift, shoved her defiled panties into the bin outside the main door as she ran for a taxi, leapt in and dialled Liz’s number. Come on, come on, come on! Pick up, dammit!

‘Uhhhh… yeah?’ Liz’s voice was thick and heavy with sleep, which was odd, given that Liz usually went weeks without sleeping.

‘How can you be asleep? How dare you be asleep? You’re an insomniac, can’t you even get that right? Wake up for God’s sake, I’m coming over!’ Allegra yelled into the phone.

‘You SLEPT with him!’ Liz screamed. Well, at least she was awake now. But how the hell did the woman know, Allegra thought, infuriated. ‘Oh, Allegra, you great big stupid TIT! I can’t believe it! You slept with Clive? Have you lost your mind?’

‘Yes to all questions, shut up, make some coffee, shove a bottle of wine in the freezer and get dressed. I’ll be at yours in about 10 minutes so maybe you can even run me a bath and get a Brillo pad ready because I think I need to scrub my skin off,’ Allegra said, refusing to deal with Liz’s hysteria. ‘I’ll tell you everything once I’m there, but right now, I need you to just shut up and say you’ll be ready for me.’

There
was silence at the other end of the line. Wait — was that muffled laughter Allegra could hear? Unbelievable. The woman was just unbelievable.

‘And if you’re laughing at me, I will totally kill you when I get there. How dare you mock me in my moment of greatest shame?’ Allegra hung up. She only had herself to blame, after all.

It
felt like the longest taxi ride in the history of taxi rides, although if Allegra had bothered to check her watch, she would have seen that it had actually taken her just under nine minutes from fleeing the scene of her crime to arriving at Liz’s front door. She kept her finger on the doorbell until Liz opened it, then pushed past her, dropping everything on the floor and leaving a trail of clothes behind her as she headed straight for the bathroom where, she was relieved to see, Liz had run her a deep, hot bubblebath.

She
stepped in, winced slightly at the temperature — what the hell did Liz think she was, a lobster? — and sank in down to her chin, submerging her head for good measure and wondering how long she could hold her breath before she’d have to re-emerge to face Liz.

‘You’re going to have to breathe sometime,’ she heard Liz say. Allegra finally came up for air, covered in fragrant bubbles, feeling just a smidgeon less repulsed with herself now that the immediate contact of Clive was being washed off her skin. ‘So… how’s your weekend been?’

‘Oh, stop smirking, this is all your fault anyway,’ Allegra muttered sulkily, taking the proffered mug of steaming coffee from Liz. Gingerly, she took a sip and — ‘Good Lord, did you put whisky in this? It’s not even 11am, you raving alcoholic.’

‘Baileys. I figured you might need something stronger than just coffee. It’s not every Sunday that I get woken by a hysterical phone call from a sad Catholic bint who’s broken a four-year dry spell by shagging the one man she swore a blood oath she’d never, ever, shag, not even if he was the last man on the planet and she was in danger of drying up and dying a pruney old maid.’

Liz
smiled sweetly, perched on a stool she’d brought into the warm, foggy bathroom with her. ‘And if you want to blame anyone, blame your ex. He’s the one that decided to take the kids to Phuket for the weekend, otherwise they’d be with you and you’d never have mutated into a gross, hairy-man shagger. So, are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to draw a picture?’

Allegra
groaned. Dammit, even the bloody dog was in here as well, head cocked to one side, looking for all the world as if he, too, was bursting to know what had gone on from the time Liz staggered home last night, leaving Allegra alone with Clive, to the point where she had flung herself through his mistress’ front door and into the bathtub.

Allegra
carefully placed her coffee mug on the edge of the tub, thankful that Liz’s main indulgence had been the bathroom, where everything was big and wide and had plenty of shelf-space everywhere for precisely moments such as this.

‘There’s not much to tell. You went home, I got more drunk, he kept offering me steaming hot pizza, I kept declining, then they turned on all the lights in the bar and told us to go home and we… I…. It just seemed like it would be a good idea to push him up against the wall and snog him,’ Allegra said, her voice trailing off.

She
shuddered. She was never going to drink again. Well, not for the next hour or so, at least. Then she remembered the slug of Baileys Liz had put in her coffee and sighed. Oh well, the road to hell and all that.

‘Hmmmn, I see, and at what point after snogging him did you decide it would also be a good idea to go back to his place and shag him senseless?’ Liz had put on her “therapist” voice, trying to sound professional, cool, sympathetically enquiring while entirely objective and non-judgmental.

‘Oh, you don’t fool me with that voice, missy. I know you’re secretly pissing yourself. Go on then, point and laugh, I can take it. God knows I took enough last night, oh yuck, oh ew….’

Liz
actually fell off the stool, she was laughing that hard, narrowly missing landing on the dog, who responded by licking her face frantically. Allegra stared at her accusingly.

‘You don’t know what it’s like. Four years. Four years. It’s just not natural to go that long without a shag, and lack of sex seriously affects your judgment. You start thinking things are good ideas when they’re not. You start thinking some blokes are actually okay and what the hell, I’m not likely to get a shag from anyone I want to get a shag from so I might as well shag this guy who’s right here, right now, gagging for it. Why else do you think I ended up where I did last night? And I have to say, if you hadn’t gone home and left me to my own devices, it would never have happened, so it really is all your fault. You know I can’t be trusted when I’ve had a drink.’

Liz
picked herself up off the floor, uprighted the stool and sat down again.

‘So, tell me all the details then… and don’t leave a single thing out!’ she ordered.

‘Oh God, I can’t, please don’t make me re-live it,’ Allegra begged.

‘Sorry, no can do. You chose to call me, you chose to turn up here, you’re obviously dying to confess… So… was it any good? How big is he? Did he call you “beby”?’

Liz
fell off the stool once more, laughing so hard she had a huge coughing fit, going bright red in the face.

Allegra
glared at her, got to her feet and reached for a towel. Liz glanced up at her friend as she stood there, dripping wet and naked, and burst into fresh laughter.