Page 161 of Easy
Frozen to the spot, my eyes seem glued to where her fingers touch. I come awake to my actions with a snap, taking one, deep breath before my knees made a dent in the mattress next to her.
‘A bit like those,’ Belle whispers, her gaze sliding to the cuffs dangling from the wrought-iron headboard. I imagine it’s not that she’s surprised to find them there, just that they aren’t, well, ours. Her eyes return to me as I straddle her legs. ‘You know, I cried when you destroyed our bed,’ she says more candidly than anything she’s said today.
She said she’d watched from next door, watched from an upstairs window as I’d taken an axe to the expensive wooden frame of our marital bed less than a week after she’d moved out. My anger she’d seen as a sign of hope, a sign that all wasn’t lost. She wasn’t close enough to see my expression. If she had, she wouldn’t have such delusions.
‘Darling, let’s start afresh.’Words spill from her lips, raw and hopeful.
I don’t answer, just leaned towards her, drawing a finger up between her legs, not quite touching where she needs it, though my touch does resonate as she shivers. With an ease borne of experience, I flick her dress loose against her chest. Tilting my head to one side, I examine her pale, pale skin.
Belle stretches languidly for my view, arms reaching above her head in a silent plea.I follow the invitation, supporting myself with one hand against the mattress, the other sliding along the side of her body, trailing the sensitive but exposed underside of her arm, drawing the tips of my fingers... to the phone she still holds in her hand.
Anger, betrayal, and shame wash through Belle’s face as the bed creaks when I stand. At the bedroom door, I pause but don’t look back.
‘Pull yourself together, Belle. Get out of my house and don’t come back, not without an invitation. Understand I think of you only as a fucking slut.’
I didn’t look back, her screamed response following me down the hall.
‘I used to be your fucking slut!’
I grab my jacket from the hallway and car keys from the bowl on the hallstand, leaving the door unlocked as I take off on the garden path at a jog. My need to get away from her malice is great. The need to clear the scent of her skin bigger still. Belle stirs up too many memories. The good along with the bad.
As I drive, I recall images of parties with like-minded couples, the air filled with a sense of need and superiority, bodies fuelled by egos and drugs. We were professionals, she and I. Tied together by marriage. A mortgage. A child. But like so many of our contemporaries, we’d decided society’s expectations wouldn’t define us. Such middle class lives we’d lead in other ways. We often spent Fridays in the office before hitting the club, waking Saturday morning with someone else’s wife’s juices plastered to one or both of our mouths.
Now we have only a history, one I’d gladly ignore. And Hal. Sweet, funny, and by the grace of God, a well-balanced child, despite our fucked-up parenting.
It isn’t long before I find myself on the banks of the Thames, phone in my hand.
‘I’m outside your building. You wanted me to come and bend you over your desk?’
Louise laughs, hanging up without speaking a word. I begin to worry she hadn’t believed me at all when the glass revolving door produced her. She beckons me inside with a wave of her hand.
‘You’re too late. It’s gone six. Everyone’s gone home.’
I turned, gesturing to the glass door I’d just walked through. ‘Come back tomorrow, shall I? Just be sure to clear the surface of your desk. Save us both some time.’
‘Wasn’t quite what I had in mind,’ she said smiling. ‘But I’m glad you’re here.’
I pause, my gaze on the space beyond her shoulder. She’s never mentioned this part of her life; no talk of colleagues during dinner, no mentions of the stress of her day. I only know where she works because of that fateful business card.
Now what? She’d thrown me a line, and I’d found myself taking the bait. Should it offend my dominant sensibilities? The ones I have on pause these days? The truth, though I don’t care to examine it at length, is probably Belle. I’m frightened by how easy it would’ve been. Rattled that she can still tempt me after all she has done. I wouldn’t have. Not really. I just hate that I loved her at one time.
‘Hey, you okay?’ Louise’s hand touches my arm, seeking to catch my attention.
‘It’s nothing. Just a ghost. Walking over my grave, you know?’ Thoughts snake down my spine, curling in my gut, and I shiver under Louise’s touch.
Turning, she waves at the security guard. I wonder if I look like a terrorist or just a little mad.
At the bank of elevators, pausing with a key card in her hand, she mentions it probably wasn’t strictly professional for me to be here. It seems like an admission; something she hasn’t done before. But then, she does prefer to think of herself as a good girl.
She seems distracted when she suddenly adds, ‘Hey, what says dyke about me today?’
I return her look, though confused. As the doors chime open, Louise seems to be examining her clothes.
‘I’m not sure I understand, love.’
‘Someone said...’ She shakes her head, stepping inside the glass box. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does,’ I reply, holding out my hands in not quite a shrug. ‘Because here I am.’ I make a slow perusal of her clothing—her body, fingers at my chin. My eyes flick over her, almost critically. ‘So, lesbian, you say? Butch or fem?’ She looks slightly dubious as I blunder on. ‘It’sa difficult one,’ I say, now cupping my chin. My eyes travel over her grey shirt dress and linger on her heels. ‘If you were gay, straight men everywhere would be devastated.’
