***
I smoothed down my tie, smiling politely and resigning myself to another round of work talk, but Lydia Marsh surprised me. She toyed with her sundae, poking the thing like it was alive, over and over with pensive spoon gestures.
“It’ll melt if you’re not careful,” I said, forking up a liberal portion of creme brulee.
Her eyes latched onto mine as she took a mouthful of ice-cream. Unconscious obedience at its finest. “You got me thinking. I think it’s really the security I miss. Not him. I mean I do miss him, I love him, but it’s not the relationship I miss so much as having that part of my life all wrapped up. You know?”
“That’s what you want, is it? Security? The happy ever after of companionship and TV nights?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I thought that’s what I wanted, but a few weeks out of it and I’m not so sure anymore.”
“You’re a bit young to be settling for the nice steady guy, don’t you think? Those guys are normally friend-zoned until at least mid-thirties.”
Her eyes did smile this time. “Stuart clearly wasn’t as steady as I thought.”
“Why did he cheat? It’s never just the drink.”
“Ouch.” She placed a hand over her heart.
“It’s not an attack, Lydia, people cheat. I’m just curious why he cheated. Comfy slippers man doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d want to rock the boat for a casual fuck.”
“That’s a probing question.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“If I answer, it’s my turn next.”
“I don’t make deals unless I know all the terms,” I stated, bluntly. “I’d need to know the question first.”
She raised her eyebrows, gripping her ice-cream by the shaft of the glass to take another spoonful. Firm grip. Nice fingers. They’d look so fucking sweet around my cock. “Can’t you make an exception? We’re away, aren’t we? Can’t Mr Perfect CTO just be James Clarke for one evening?”
The no was on my tongue, so ready to slip out and end this silly game before it started, but her fucking eyes sucked me in again. Big and wide and slightly mischievous, twinned with her sweet little mouth clamped tight around her spoon, cheeks hollow as she sucked away the remnants of ice-cream. What the fuck was happening to me?
“James Clarke the man is as guarded as James Clarke CTO, I’m afraid. He doesn’t make deals unless he knows all the terms, either.”
She shrugged. “Ok, so I’ll get the first internal meetings scheduled for next week, maybe call Frank in for the initial brainstorm, what do you think?”
I leant forward, fixed her in my stare, the no on my tongue fizzing away into fucking nothing. “Why did Stuart cheat, Lydia? What made him fuck some little blonde bitch from the office?”
If she was taken aback by my crudeness, she didn’t show it. Her expression stayed constant, determined. She had steel.
“My go next.”
“Fine.” My temples pulsed, discomfort at my own sorry predicament threatening to boil over, and yet I knew I’d answer her. Just like I’d always followed Katreya into the bushes. “Talk, before I change my mind.”
“He felt things had fizzled. That our sex life had dried up, and I hadn’t wanted him since the Anderson project came in at work. He said he was weak and horny and she was hot for him, promising to put her sour little mouth around his dick and suck him good, only that’s not the only place he put it.”
“Had things dried up?”
“That’s another question.”
“It’s an extension of my earlier question,” I said, with a dismissive hand gesture.
“I was tired and busy, I thought he understood. He said he understood.” Her lips pursed in anger, the first real chink in her facade I’d seen since the kitchen. “Has that answered your question? Do you think he was justified now because I wasn’t putting out for his bi-weekly demands?”
“Not at all.”
“Good, because our sex life had fizzled, but it wasn’t a few months ago like he thinks it was. It wasn’t down to the bloody Anderson project and tiredness over a couple of lousy months. It fizzled years ago for me, when we moved in together and he substituted any effort with nights of missionary and the occasional blow job in the living room. It may have fizzled for him when I stopped rolling over for the obligatory late night shag, but he let it go to shit a hell of a lot earlier than that. It should have been me screwing some random in an alleyway on a work night out. Not him.”
I watched her ease down from the ceiling, regaining her composure in measured little paces. I soaked in the rise and fall of her breasts as she pulled back the rage, and the hurt and the injustice. She grabbed the wine bottle from the ice bucket and poured herself a refill, drinking it down with large gulps.