Tell Me

M JANE COLETTE

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.mischiefbooks.com

Copyright © M Jane Colette 2015

M Jane Colette asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EBook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008148737

Version: 2015–04–22

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Before

Day 1 – Maybe

Day 2 – Did she just?

Day 3 – Fuck Foreplay

Day 4 – Fatherhood

Day 5 – One night

Day 6 – Obsession

Interlude: She only belongs to those who take

Day 7 – I hate you

Day 8 – Too far

Day 9 – Jonesing

Day 10 – Thrice Broken Home

Day 11 – Unconditional

Day 12 – Depraved

Day 13 – Obligations

Day 14 – Do what you’re told

Day 15 – Spent

Day 16 – Perfect Trust

Day 17 – Interview for an affair

Interlude: Practice

Day 18 – I take good care of my possessions

Day 19 – Generous

Day 20 – Rage

Day 21 – Permission

Day 22 – Striptease

Interlude: I’ll let you play with her

Day 23 – Worst Christmas Ever

Day 24 – Six Hours

Day 25 – Evidence

Day 26 – Blame

Day 27 – Endurance

Day 28 – Utilitarian Sex

Day 29 – For you

Day 30 – Unresolutions

After

More from Mischief

About Mischief

About the Publisher

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jane: protagonist-narrator. 38. Married. Four children. Works from home erratically as a financial analyst. Analytical, realistic, rational, almost detached…until she gets that text from Matt.

Matt: hero/anti-hero in one. 41. Married. Childless. A lover from Jane’s past who re-enters her life and shakes its foundations.

Marie: Jane’s best friend. 39. Married. Two children. As emotional and volatile in her expressions and search for passion and romance as Jane is controlled and restrained. Actively and constantly searching for affairs; failing to consummate any of them.

Alex: Jane’s husband. 40. Lawyer. Workaholic. Good father. Affectionate but perhaps unexciting. Except to his young associate, whose texts he reads in the bathroom…

Lacey: Jane’s next-door neighbour. 53. Gorgeous, sexy, confident and loving. The only person Jane comes close to confiding in. In a twelve-year-long, on-again-off-again relationship with Clint.

Clint: Lacey’s lover and father of her ten-year-old son. Player. Engaged to Lacey, but still involved sexually with the mother of his other son, who becomes pregnant (by him? Or her other lover?) while Clint is wedding planning with Lacey.

Nicola: Marie and Jane’s friend. 40. Two children. In the middle of an acrimonious divorce from Paul, her husband of twelve years. Angry, resentful. But also…hungry.

Jesse: Jane and Nicola’s personal trainer. 26. Eye candy. Not very bright. Taken for granted by Jane. Coveted by Nicola.

Jane’s mother and father: In their 60s, spry and attractive. The tensions in their 43-year-old relationship, a defining feature of Jane’s childhood, reach a breaking point as Jane begins her mindfuck with Matt.

JP: Marie’s husband. 45. Lawyer. Works with Alex. ‘King of foreplay’, but otherwise thoroughly unsatisfactory.

Paul: Nicola’s husband. Referred to by Nicola and her friends as cheating rat-fuck bastard so often, Jane forgets what his name is…until he starts sexting with Marie.

Colleen: Nicola’s best friend. Long divorced. Appears intermittently in role of ‘Greek chorus’ to offer unconditional support to Nicola and vent against all cheating spouses.

Melanie-Susan-Shelley: Alex’s associate, whose name Jane refuses to remember. 28. Has a huge crush on Alex. Not sure how to deal with the fact he has a wife and children.

Craig: Married. 45. Attractive, restless. Minor character who enters Jane’s life and is passed on to Marie.

Alex’s mother, father and assorted stepmothers: Alex’s mother was ‘the first wife’, and she’s still not quite over the divorce. Neither is the second wife. The third wife wants to have a baby. His son desperately wishes he didn’t have any of his genes.

Before

2001

Recovered from the exertions of your wedding night, lover? And the honeymoon?

—Fuck off.

Of course. Tell me next time you’re in Montreal.

—I will.

Good.

2002

Jane, what the fuck happened? What did I do? Tell me.

—Nothing. It’s not you. I have to be done.

Clarify.

—I can’t do this. I can’t be – his. Yours. And now the other. I can’t. I have to be done.

I don’t understand. But you know I won’t chase. I’m gone.

—Go. I’ll miss you. But please go.

Gone.

2002

Congratulations.

2004

Lover. Are you all right?

—I’m alive. Don’t fucking call me that.

2008

More new baby pics have made it my way. Congratulations, lover. You look happy.

—A) Don’t call me that. B) I am. C) Still an evolutionary dead end?

Is that an indirect way of telling me to fuck off?

—Yes.

Gone. I am happy for you. Truly.

2010

Love the new look. Hot.

—Yup.

Knowing you’re hot – also hot.

—Not for you.

Ouch.

2011

—Happy birthday and all that.

Thank you. Lover. How are you?

—Fine.

Will you come see me next time you’re in Montreal?

—I have four children. I don’t jet-set very much these days. Are you ever in YYC?

Rarely. But sometimes. Is that an invitation?

2012

I have a new client who will have me flying into YYC now and then. If that happens – will you see me?

—Maybe.

Maybe. That’s how it begins.

Day 1 Maybe

Monday, December 3

5 a.m.

Fuck. I close my eyes. Turn this way, that. Open them. 5.01 a.m. Well. This is productive. I get up – give the alarm clock a resentful stare. Go downstairs. Ponder making coffee – making that first pot is a sign of surrender to the morning, an admission that I will not go back to bed.

I make the coffee. Sullenly at first, then with just the slightest tinge of happiness as the grinder whirrs the beans. I breathe in its scent. And I listen to the quiet of the house – everyone’s still sleeping upstairs. I am awake and I am alone. I let go of the ‘why did I get up so early when I didn’t have to?’ resentment and relish the feeling of being. Awake. Alone.

Eight minutes later, I’m on the couch, curled up with a cup of coffee and my laptop. Check email…Seven minutes later, when Alex comes down the stairs, I’m working.

‘What are you doing up so early?’ we say simultaneously. Laugh.

‘One of my idiot partners in Toronto scheduled a conference call for eight a.m.,’ Alex says, stretching. ‘Eastern. I’ve got to be in the office in forty-five minutes. You?’

‘Just couldn’t sleep,’ I say. ‘As it turns out, some idiot in Toronto is having a panic attack and desperately needs me to review this business study. For nine a.m. Eastern. So you know – the insomnia was fortunate.’

He laughs. Kisses my forehead, grabs a cup of coffee, heads back up to shower. I read, think, type. I have three – less than three, really – hours until the little people start making their way down the stairs and claiming my attention. Focused. Fast.

Alex is back down the stairs in twenty minutes. ‘Bye, love,’ he calls as he rounds past me to the front door.

‘Bye, love you,’ I call back, without a break in the typing. ‘Going to be home in time for dinner tonight?’

‘Unless some idiot in Toronto screws it up,’ he says as he slips into his coat. ‘Will text you.’

Of course.

By the time I’ve made my way through most of the second pot of coffee, the kids are coming down. Cassandra, my ten-year-old, first – shocked to see me up and awake before her. And then as appreciative of the silence around us as I am. She curls up on the couch beside me, with a bowl of cereal and a book.

The peace and silence end when the boys stampede down. Henry’s seven. Eddie’s six. Together, they sound like a platoon of baboons. Even at 7.15 in the morning. Cereal. Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. Annie, the four-year-old, bum-slides down the stairs at 7.45, and my day’s work is done – parenting begins as Annie starts her day by cuddling in my lap for half an hour.

You cannot be cuddled by a four-year-old and be as brutal as my clients need me to be. I hold her. Drink coffee. Check Facebook. New messages.

‘What are our plans for the day?’ Cassandra asks. ‘This is a weird school day, right?’

‘You’ve got that pioneer Christmas thing at the Farm, and then we’re watching Marie’s kids in the afternoon,’ I tell her. She whoops in delight and races upstairs to get dressed. Annie follows her. I have to holler at the boys to do likewise.

The first message is from Marie.

We still on for this afternoon? I’ll see you at the Farm, right?

The second.

Maybe. Never was a word so full of potential. I’m glad you wrote me back, I was worried there for a while.

For a decade.

My lips curl into an involuntary smile. I won’t write back. Not yet. I’ll just enjoy knowing he’s in my inbox.

‘Mom! Eddie’s wearing my favourite shirt!’

‘Am not!’

‘Mom! I have no socks!’

I climb the stairs slowly, cooling coffee cup still in hand. Mondays. Really, not that much different from Sundays.

‘And you’re of course welcome to participate if you like,’ the Laura Ingalls Wilder lookalike who checks us in at the Farm tells me. ‘Parents welcome!’ I look at her in horror. The thought of spending the morning churning butter, milking cows, making candles, splitting wood or whatever it is the pioneers did to prepare for Christmas is an experience I’m willing to forgo. Happily. If the four-year-old lets me…but she’s already gone, holding on to her sister’s hand. ‘We get to make candles!’ she calls out to me over her shoulder. I give her a thumbs-up. The boys have already found their friends. I beat a retreat to the cafeteria.

Marie’s already there, two coffee cups in hand.

‘I got your mocha for you,’ she says. ‘An advance thank you for this afternoon.’ I accept. ‘Thank God you’re here too – I was having an I’m-the-worst-mom-ever moment,’ she continues. ‘Look at all those women crowding around the gingerbread table. For Christ’s sake, don’t they do enough of that at home?’

‘Have you ever made gingerbread at home?’ I ask Marie.

‘No one likes gingerbread at my house, thank God,’ she says. ‘I’ve made chocolate chip cookies. You’ve even eaten them, bitch. Stop ragging me. Drink.’

That’s Marie-speak for ‘I need to talk’. I look at her and wait.

She makes an extravagant gesture with her hands, but before she says a word, she is interrupted. A chattering herd of women, mothers of our children’s friends and classmates, enters the cafeteria. We’re an incestuous community. They know us. We know them. Our kids go to the same alternative ‘private’ school. Too many of our husbands work together – for each other – against each other. For all its urban pretensions, this is a painfully small town. A subgroup of them meanders to our table. We exchange meaningless pleasantries.

The conversation flows down well-trodden tracks. Christmas. Field trips. Anyone doing the Christmas at Heritage Park day? No? Why not? Shopping. Someone’s got the flu. Someone else is just recovering. Someone else is getting divorced, have you heard? Another revealed affair. A sense of ennui, almost overpowering, envelops me. I’ve had this same conversation…last week. And the week before.

I pull out my phone. Email. Panicked client. Another emergency. Ah, not going to happen today. Maybe for tomorrow. Not acceptable. This is a real emergency. Please. Double my fee. Anything. Fine. Your inbox, tomorrow a.m. Ecstatic client. How I’m going to accomplish that, I’m not sure…

The women’s voices around me rise and fall. Marie and I exchange looks – ‘Later’, hers says – but she falls into the conversation enthusiastically. I haven’t the desire.

Ennui.

Maybe. Never was a word so full of potential.

I check Facebook. I’ll write back. Maybe.

There’s a new message. From him.

Breaking news. In town December 14/15. Would love to see you. Can we make that happen?

Oh.

The air around me vibrates and it has nothing to do with the speed at which my heart is beating. My pulse is not elevated and my breathing is not changed. Yes, I’m smiling. Fuck that, of course I am. Old friend. Oldest of friends. It’s been years. Pleasurable anticipation.

I lift my eyes from the face of the phone briefly, and realise that the mood of the conversation has now changed. Its topic is no longer kids, teachers, enrichment programmes and who’s reading what or buying what for whom. It is now Nicola’s rat-fuck bastard of a husband and their gong-show of a divorce. Or is it still a separation? Nicola’s talking in a slightly hysterical voice about their current fight over the line of credit, what to do with the mortgage, and his lack of co-operation on the co-parenting plan. ‘Step one is taking the Parenting After Divorce Seminar, how hard is it to just take a weekend and do it, God knows he doesn’t take the kids every weekend!’ she wails. Colleen, her own gong-show of a divorce story almost four years old now, is leading the offers of unconditional support. Everyone else is murmuring in assent, saying, ‘What an asshat’ or ‘Rat-fuck bastard’ every once in a while.

I take a moment to be, once again, astounded that Nicola’s rat-fuck bastard of a husband managed to be, first, attractive to Nicola, and then, attractive enough to his mildly skanky intern to get pursued, seduced, played. Proof there’s someone out there for everyone.

And I turn back to the phone. And type.

—Breaking news indeed. Message me when your schedule nails down. Coffee? Wine? Jägermeister?

There. Friendly, but not eager.

My pulse has not quickened. My lips are curling into that stupid smile, but that’s what he’s always done to me. But. There’s nothing wrong with smiling.

Ping. Fucking Facebook. Immediate response. He’s on.

I vote Jager shots.

I don’t have to respond. I look up from the phone at the women around me. ‘So there we are, on our first family holiday in two years, we’re about to go to Disneyland, fucking Disneyland! And he’s in the bathroom, sexting with the girlfriend!’ Nicola’s voice rises. ‘Sending her pictures of his erect cock, for fuck’s sake!’

‘What a bastard,’ Colleen says and shakes her head. The voices of the others rumble in the background, a continuing Greek chorus of indignation and support.

I’m perverse. And I’ve heard this story about six times in the last month.

I text Matt back immediately.

—Nice. I have almost two weeks to work up some level of resistance to Jager. Where? Are we bringing our significant others, or living dangerously?

I vote danger.

I let the lips do as they will. Type a smiley face. Delete it. Disclose the deletion. Type:

—(I’m looking for the right emoticon)

I’m looking for the elevated heart rate emoticon.

Fuck. Matt. No.

I should stop typing. Engaging. Turn off the fucking phone. Instead:

—I can’t find the right one. Jesus. How many years has it been? I hope we won’t be disappointed.

You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.

—I won’t try. See you on the 14th.

I very much look forward to it.

I wish this was the kind of phone you could snap shut. That’s what I want to do: I want to terminate the conversation with Matt, because where he draws me, where he’s always drawn me, I am reluctant to go. Reluctant sometimes, anyway. Reluctant for the past ten years and still reluctant now, today, in this precise moment.

I turn off the phone – not nearly as satisfying as the sound made by clicking it shut would be – and turn my attention to the continued crucifixion of Nicola’s rat-fuck bastard of a husband and his clichéd affair, conducted primarily via texts on an un-password-protected phone he’d just leave lying around the house. ‘Who does that? How does a man with a fucking Masters degree from MIT do that?’ Nicola asks, and I’m uncertain if she’s talking about the carelessness or the betrayal.

‘At least it was easy to track, and you found out about it as quickly as you did,’ Colleen counsels her. ‘My ex was screwing around on me for years.’

Marie looks at me and taps her phone. She starts texting.

Fine. He’ll be gone by now anyway. I turn the phone back on. Marie’s text is short and to the point. ‘OMFG pls tell me you this bores you as much as it does me.’ I look at her and bite my lips.

Ping.

Did you find the emoticon that captures your feelings?

I don’t have to respond. But. I do.

—No. Maybe there isn’t one. I’ll have to express my emotions live.

Or we could go old school. Use adjectives. I’ll start.

Hopeful.

‘Jane?’ It’s Nicola. ‘What do you think?’

I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about. It’s possible my pulse rate is elevated and my breathing jagged. Fuck. And my eyes glassy. Marie jumps in.

‘Don’t bother her,’ she says. ‘She’s dealing with some client emergency.’ Nicola feels slighted, but I am saved. And grateful for my bizarre work-from-home job, so esoteric and complicated that no one really understands what I do – and, in this circle of stay-at-home-moms and ladies-who-lunch at least, I’m treated with cautious respect as a result.

When they’re not thinking I neglect my children and my husband’s career, that is.

‘Clients,’ I say. ‘And with these phones, we’re always on call.’

Fucking liar.

I type.

—Nervous.

Really? Pulse pounding.

—Not an adjective.

Hard.

I have to cover my mouth with my hand. Oh, my fucking God, Matt. Really? From hopeful to hard in two adjectives? Some things never change, I think. And I type:

—Some things never change.

Like your effect on me.

—Things slow at work today, are they?

Not at all. Give me an adjective.

—Titillated.

Hungry.

—Anticipating. (Is that an adjective?)

I’ll allow it.

Throbbing.

What will you wear?

—Clothes.

Not for long.

—public place

Good.

—overselling?

Ha.

‘Jane?’ It’s Marie. ‘Cassandra, waving at you madly.’

I drop the phone into my purse and leave the cafeteria. Behind me, Nicola is passing around her iPhone, showing screenshots of the rat-fuck bastard’s texts…and naked photos of the girlfriend. I choose not to think about what was involved in transferring these from his phone to hers – oh, fuck, I thought it: did he forward them during their brief ‘we must be open and honest about this if we are to save our marriage’ phase? Did she forward them to herself during the following, and still ongoing, ‘I must gather evidence if I am to skin his hide’ period? Why am I thinking about this? – and go to find out what’s up with my children.

Nothing much, as it turns out, but the candle-making isn’t as horridly uninteresting as I thought it might be, and the metal-ornamenting is actually really cool, and Henry and Eddie really want me to go with them to see the cows, so I stay with them for the rest of pioneer Christmas. And then back into our minivan. And home, with Marie and her crew of two on our heels.

Marie’s anxious.

‘Are you sure this is OK?’ she asks for the umpteenth time as she follows her kids into the house.

‘Jeezus, woman, if it wasn’t, I’d have said so when you asked me,’ I chastise. ‘Besides, four kids, six kids, not much difference. How much louder or messier can they be? I’m going to run them up the hill, get them to sled, and if I decide I want to kill them, I’ll make them watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. It’s all good. Go.’

‘Let me just get their lunch things into the kitchen,’ she says. She follows me into the kitchen, puts down the bag on the table.

Sits down.

Marie is my first, and sometimes I think only, adult female friend. Those other women – the ones from the school, the neighbourhood, the ones from Alex’s work – I socialise with. Sometimes just endure. Alex says I don’t like women very much, and perhaps he’s right. Still. Motherhood has thrust me fully into a community of women. Playgroups, playdates, playschools. Mom’s nights out. Gymnastics classes, book clubs. Goddamned pioneer Christmas field trips.

They would all be, I think, barely tolerable without Marie. And I have come to love Marie in all her facets, even her most annoying ones. One of these facets, so very, I think, feminine, and the one I enjoy the least, is that she confides in me. Constantly. She tells me of the rough patches in her marriage, the on-again-off-again online flirtation with her old flames, her secret hope – or fear – that one day this flirtation, or another, might become something else, something bigger, her immense guilt over those feelings when her marriage survives its rough patches and moves into harmony.

Because she confides – constantly, constantly, constantly – I know more about the intimacies of her marriage than I really want to. I know that when JP ‘wants to get laid’ (that’s how Marie always puts it), he turns on the charm and has even been known to unload the dishwasher. I know that, in contrast to his rather unpleasant living-room demeanour, in the bedroom he is a considerate and gentle lover – ‘the king of foreplay’. I know that he prefers to be on top – or sideways – and thinks doggie-style’s undignified. I know he gets a great deal of satisfaction from taking Marie from orgasm to orgasm. I know he doesn’t really like to give oral, his overall love of foreplay notwithstanding. In fact, he fakes it – ‘with wet fingers and slurping noises,’ Marie reports. How he thinks any woman can’t tell the difference between a finger and a tongue, I don’t know. Marie, apparently, has never called him on it. He spends a great deal of time on her boobs, and wanted her to get a boob-tightening job after she weaned their youngest to ‘get them back the way they’re supposed to be’.

I also know he prefers straight missionary vaginal sex to the best blowjob, and long stretches of abstinence followed by mara-fuck-athons to seize-the-moment quickies.

I also know, although Marie’s never put it like this, that the major problem with JP and Marie’s marriage is that JP is a wanker and treats her like shit on a daily basis.

And I also know that Marie thinks they don’t fuck enough. Whether JP’s satisfied with the situation as it is, I don’t know – I go out of my way to not talk to him, or to be in the same physical space with him. But Marie…oh, Marie wants to fuck more.

She tells me this all the time.

I suppose that’s the other reason – surely, the first must be that JP is a wanker and treats her like shit – behind her obsession with and pursuit of faux affairs.

About which she tells me all as well.

I accept Marie’s confidences as a sign of our friendship; sometimes I even enjoy them, because she tells a good story. She does not look to me for advice or any kind of commentary. She just wants someone to listen to her.

I can do that.

And I can tell, right now, that she needs to tell me something.

‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m not going Christmas shopping,’ she says, after casting her eyes right and left to make sure the children are out of earshot. ‘I’m going for lunch, and I don’t know, maybe more, with, you know. Zoltan.’

Zoltan. Probably not his real name, but who’s being particular? Marie’s latest attempt at an affair. This one’s a stranger, someone she met online for the explicit purpose of having a hook-up. These days, I think of each of her flirtations as her latest attempt to sabotage the marriage she wants to end. But maybe not. Next week, maybe staying married, whatever the cost, may be the most important thing.

I arrange my face to look – supportive. I listen as Marie lambasts JP. Segues into lambasting the self-righteousness of ‘those women’ – Nicola, Colleen, the Greek chorus. ‘Do they not have feelings? Hormones? Desires? Are they all in denial? They’re all our age! Where the fuck are their hormones?’

She looks at me expectantly. Expecting what? Acquiescence, confirmation, confession?

Hard.

—Some things never change.

Like your effect on me.

I could. I could tell her. But I am a bad friend. I do not betray her confidences, never. But I never reciprocate either.

It’s not a conscious choice, exactly. It’s just…not me. I don’t tell. Plus, what do I have to reciprocate with? Sure, Alex annoys me from time to time. He has no sense of time, and will text me at 8.15 p.m. to tell me he should be home before 7 p.m. His relationship with his mother is co-dependent, and his relationship with his father and stepmothers is fucked up. I’ve given up trying to get him to put his shoes on the boot mat, and his idea of helping clean the house is to suggest the cleaners come in more often. But. He’s a great dad. And he’s been known to load the dishwasher. Well, supervise the kids as they load the dishwasher. More importantly: he gets hard the second he sees me naked. Now. And always. When I had a belly swollen with six-months’-worth of baby in it. When it was flabby and stretchy six months after the fourth baby.

Yeah, he gets cranky. Annoying. Distant. So do I. But at our worst, I do not wish to leave our marriage – nor do I secretly hope, as Marie sometimes does, that he leaves, so that I would be…what? Free but blameless. I’m…what am I? Perhaps less deluded? Alex and I, we are what we are, and it’s usually good, and it has downs, but it’s all about the long play. It’s about forever: not fairy-tale forever, just…nuclear-family forever.

A child of parents who will celebrate their forty-third wedding anniversary next year, I buy into that.

Marie calls us a fairy-tale marriage every once in a while, and pauses, and waits for me to say something. And I shrug. Five pregnancies, fourth births. Eleven, almost twelve years of solid monogamy. Of days too full of children and quotidian obligations to have much space for even audacious thought crime, much less real crime.

This thought intrudes: the last time I saw Matt, I had just found out I was pregnant with Cassandra.

And I did what I had to do, what had to be done.

This thought comes, too: a little more time and space for thought crime these days. My work ensures I get taken out to lunch and dinner by powerful and occasionally attractive men. Occasionally, after, I commit thought crime with them while fucking Alex.

But.

Why would I tell Marie that? To what end?

And – my fingers find the phone in my purse – she does not know anything about this part of me. This past part of me.

—See you…on the 14th.

I very much look forward to it.

‘What if he thinks I’m a skank?’ Marie asks me. ‘He knows I’m married. With children. And there I am…Do you think I’m a skank?’ She turns to me suddenly, sharply. I take a step back, creating space between us again.

‘Jesus, Marie, what do you think I am?’ I ask. ‘Your friend. Who’s looking after your kids so you can do whatever you need to do this afternoon. You don’t need to justify anything to me.’

‘I’d just feel better if you and Alex didn’t have this fairy-tale marriage,’ Marie says. There she goes again. ‘The prince and the princess. And I know JP’s more than ten years older than Alex. But Alex still looks so good, and young, and in shape – and the two of you together. You’re so…perfect.’

I love her and I do not want her to feel judged.

I could tell her.

‘I don’t want you to judge me,’ Marie says. ‘And I know you never say anything. But how can you not judge me when you’re so fucking happily married and faithful and…’

I could do this. I could. I could open the Facebook app on my phone, and go into messages. Hand the phone to Marie.

She would read. She would say, ‘Oh, my God,’ and I would I hear a thunk – me, falling off the pedestal.

‘Never think I’m judging you,’ I would say as she read.

‘Who is this?’ she would ask.

And this is where it ends. Where I know I won’t tell. I can’t tell. Because…because I don’t. Mine. Only mine to know and bear and carry.

So. I don’t show, I don’t share. Instead:

‘I never judge you,’ I say. ‘He won’t think you’re a skank. OK, well, he might. But he wants you to be a skank. Right? That’s what this whole thing is about.’

It’s almost the right thing to say. Marie smiles.

‘’K,’ she says. ‘’K. It will be OK. I’ll be fine. I look good, right?’ I nod. ‘See you in three or so hours.’

‘Be safe.’ I send her on her way. To her lunch. Or a parking-lot fuck.

I hope she’s packed a condom.

I spend a joyous but exhausting day with the kids. I don’t text. I don’t think about Matt. Really. I think about work – the bizarre financial case study I promised to review for a client for tomorrow morning, which clearly I’m not doing as I sled with the kids. Oh, fuck. What time will Alex be home? As Marie comes back – hair and makeup intact and overall mood light and neither angst-ridden nor post-coitally joyous, making me infer she only lunched and transgressed not much (we can’t talk with the kids around) – he texts to say he won’t be back until 8, maybe later – ‘fucking clients,’ he writes, the excuse for everything, always – and that won’t get him home in time to do bedtime…and, since I’ve been up since 5 a.m., I’ll be useless post-bedtime.

Marie’s kids and mine are starting to fight, tired of each other, so despite her half-hearted offer, I decline to send my brood home with her. Maybe I can sell them to my mom in the evening so I can work? I only need an hour, maybe two…

And that is why, a few hours later, I’m sitting in my parents’ kitchen eating liver and onions (ugh, how can they not know I hate liver and onions after all these years?), listening to four children vie for their grandparents’ attention…while the grandparents fight.

I have an odd sense of dissonance: I’m there but not there, and I hear my parents in freaky stereo. ‘They would have been better,’ my mother says of the mashed potatoes, ‘but your father insisted on using the new potato masher.’ ‘Insisted?’ my father asks. Voice low. But tired, tense. ‘I took what was in the drawer. I didn’t realise we had a right potato masher and a wrong potato masher.’ Stupid, stupid exchange. And not the first one I’ve heard like this – they are like this all the time now. Sometimes it’s funny. Often it’s sad. And always, after we leave, Alex and I promise ourselves that if we ever get like this, I’ll shoot him and then turn the gun on myself.

‘Put the pie in the oven to warm it up, Jerry,’ my mother says. Commands. ‘Gran bought you guys pie!’ she squeals at the kids, and they squeal back. ‘Where’s the pie?’ my father asks. ‘Where it always is!’ my mother screams and rolls her eyes. No, really. She screams. I stare at her in shock. Appalled. My father doesn’t even blink an eye. ‘Which is?’ he says with an excessive show of patience. My stomach turns and I suddenly very badly need to leave the room.

‘I’m going to go work,’ I say. ‘I don’t want any pie anyway. Be good for Gran and Gramps,’ I tell the progeny, handing out kisses. I look at Gran and Gramps. ‘Be good in front of the kids,’ I say. It could be taken as a joke. Or a warning. But it’s taken as neither; it’s not heard. The pie’s coming.

I exit stage right, camp out in one of the spare bedrooms, pull out the laptop.

Start typing. I turn on Facebook as I work. Cause that’s how the professionals do it, right? Having your Twitter feed and Facebook and LinkedIn on in the background increases your work efficiency. Well-proven fact. Not.

Confession: I use social media almost exclusively as a procrastination tool.

Still.

I have no ulterior motive.

I am not hoping to see a message from Matt.

No, really. And so I am not the least bit disappointed that there isn’t one.

I work. God, who crunched these numbers? Either an idiot or a liar. I identify all the red flags. I get into it. There is a sick kind of satisfaction to it; bringing order to chaos. I work. I am…tranquil.

Ping.

Answer the question.

—Working.

Waiting. I want you to dress for the occasion. The occasion being our reunion, after what, 10 years?

Almost eleven. But who’s counting? And how many years since we met? I think…twenty. Oh, my fucking God, twenty. When did that happen? The first time we met, I was…I think I was eighteen. Jesus-fucking-Christ. Grunge ruled. I wore distinctly unsexy jean overalls. I type.

—Overalls have a certain nostalgic value.

Oh, yes. Nostalgic.

And harder.

—Demure.

Sceptical.

Get nostalgic with me, lover. I remember the lingerie store changing room in Bankers Hall.

—Do you?

And you reading me erotica over the phone when I was up North. With John’s permission.

Two memories from hundreds.

—I remember stairwells. Too many stairwells.

—The recording booth at the studio.

—The roof of your apartment building…

The dark room.

Halloween party. The lawn. Do you remember?

—Oh yes. That might be my favourite…

Scandalised populace.

—We had no shame.

What’s your adjective right now?

—Disturbed.

Guess mine.

—You’ve been using one consistently.

The correct answer is lustful. Also acceptable: dirty (the good kind).

I pause. Shudder. I feel…yes, I feel. And I type:

—Lusciously pleased.

—god i miss you

—I really didn’t think I did.

And I you. Tell me what you want. Be blunt.

—your tongue in my ear, on my neck

—other places

Curse these tight jeans.

I miss your mind. And your mouth.

And the serious tone of voice you take when you talk dirty.

—oh god

—terrified

Eager.

Demanding.

—Are you.

Dominant.

—Oh really?

Determined.

—On top.

Challenged.

—tumbling

Pleased.

Hungrier and harder than ever.

—ecstatic

Sublimely motivated.

Aggressive.

—sublime

—lovely word

—luscious

—languorous

Throbbing

Pounding.

God. I want to fuck your mind.

Savage your vocabulary.

—Savage?

—I would prefer to be ravaged.

Or ruled? With a firm hand.

—Oh god.

Tell me you’re going to make yourself come. Tonight.

—I think I just did.

With a full report upon completion.

—Well that you might need to wait for.

No time like the present.

—making you wait and anticipate has always been my MO

Making you submit has always been mine. (Or attempt therein)

—almost disarmed

pleased

—// almost //

Determined. Now what are you going to wear for me?

—I do have these fuck-me heels that will be perfect.

—So long as I don’t have to walk anywhere in them.

Describe.

—just wait

—some things just have to be seen

Put them on.

—they’re hard to type in

—That’s how hot they are

Intrigued.

You won’t be on your feet for long.

—Nice. We’ll be arrested for indecent exposure.

Hopeful.

Fuck-me heels. Good start.

This has been…electrifying. Illuminating. Awoken thoughts I’m glad to be reminded of. I think I’m going to go…take care of myself right now.

—Enjoy.

Still at the office.

—very professional

—close the door first

Tell me where do you want this cum?

—running down to my belly button

Where do I aim?

—at black lace of the bra I’ll be wearing with the fuck-me shoes.

—go. See you in 12 days.

I count the hours.

xx

—oo

I finish the analysis in a stupor. And before hitting send, take it to my dad. Ask him to read it to make sure there are no odd adjectives or metaphors in the copy.

He doesn’t ask why. Points to ‘orgasmic’, ‘sublime’ and a completely extraneous ‘pounding’. I delete them. Send the file to the client. Take the kids home, put them to bed.

When Alex finally gets home, close to midnight, I’m still awake and give him the most adventurous night in bed he’s had in months. Possibly years.

‘Jesus,’ he says when it’s over. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Hormones,’ I say. ‘I think…yes, hormones.’

And we sleep.

Day 2 Did she just?

Tuesday, December 4

Alex brings me coffee up to bed before he leaves for the firm. I stumble out of bed and into the shower. The brood’s already up, the boys fighting over who gets to play Minecraft first, the girls curled up on the couch with books, one reading, the other carefully, seriously imitating her sister. I look at them intensely. Feel my love for them reverberate in waves, through me, throughout the room.

No one wants to do much of anything in the short hour or two of the morning before I have to bundle the kids into the car to drop them off at school. They just chill. I consider it an ultimate test of character not to check Facebook.

It causes me physical pain.

I drop the elder three at school and Annie at my mom’s for the morning, and then head off to the gym. If I was a woman nearing 40 somewhere sexy like New York City, say, I’d probably have a therapist. But I’m a skiing Calgarian so I have a personal trainer. Also a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. And a massage therapist. Winter sports kill the spine…and our tendency to drive SUVs and mega-trucks any distances over 0.6 kilometres when we’re not on the hills means we need fucking treadmills to get exercise.

There really is no hope for humanity, I think as I careen down one overpass, then another. It’s my usual think as I drive to the gym. That if I just went for a (free) bike ride, (free) run or did some real physical work – chopped wood, I don’t know, laid some bricks or something – I’d achieve the same result in a less self-centred, narcissistic environment.

I keep on getting distracted from my self-inflicted lecture by imagining Matt’s tongue between my thighs.

Fuck. Focus.

I park. Wave to Jesse as I run to the changing room. Jesse. My trainer. The very very very junior fourth partner, as he puts it, in a very clean, very bright, very Zen gym, filled with inspirational quotes and a dizzying array of equipment. The gym runs classes, sells memberships and all that other stuff, but its real draw is the personal training services – or just going to the gym to ogle the trainers. The personal trainers, male and female, look like Greek – in one case, Nubian – gods.

Mine is, not to put too much of a point on it, the prettiest. He was a gift from Alex for my birthday a couple of years ago.

‘So I saw Nicola yesterday,’ he says as he loads up weights for me. I stare at him blankly. What the fuck is he talking about. Nicola? Nicola! Who is Nicola?

Not important. What’s important is how you will look in those fuck-me heels when we meet.

—Go away. Not in my head. Not now.

I know Nicola. Jesse knows Nicola. I introduced Nicola to Jesse, actually. Before the gong-show of a divorce, when her own struggle with careening towards 40 resulted in a fitness-must-lose-weight-and-look-hotter craze. I don’t judge: I don’t come to Jesse because it’s fun or because I enjoy exercise. I too have no desire to be a fat, frumpy middle-aged woman who wears yoga pants because they’re more forgiving than jeans. Regardless. Jesus, what is happening in my head? Narcissistic bitch, snap out of it. He’s talking about Nicola. I need to listen. ‘She told me about, you know, her situation. She said you knew,’ Jesse says. He blushes slightly.

I nod. I’m fond of Jesse. He’s beautiful and has a nice voice, and is ridiculously young. Chronologically, he’s 26, and half the time – when he’s doing his job and telling me what to do – he’s older than his birth age, confident, in control, in charge. And the other half – when he moves on to any other ground – he’s so very, very young. And awkward. And so unaware of life.

Sometimes, I think he might be gay – the question’s never been asked and answered, because, when I’m with him, he makes me lift heavy shit and I scream and grunt and pant and so there is not much room for conversation. I infer his potential homosexuality purely from the fact that although he is built like an Adonis and eminently fuckable – when Alex introduced me to him, I cooed that other men buy their wives flowers and chocolate and my beloved got me a ripped boy toy – he comes across as very, very…safe. He gropes and prods and readjusts me – and his dozens-upon-dozens of other female clients – fairly thoroughly. It never feels inappropriate, or edgy. I sweat with him two or three times a week, and I’ve committed no thought crime with him, no matter how ardent my mood is otherwise. He’s that safe. So safe, I’ve pondered setting him up with my neighbour’s seventeen-year-old daughter…except for that he-might-be-gay thing. We’ve all got to go through our gay lovers – I’ve had two – but it really sucks if the gay boy’s your first one. A little disheartening.

‘I’m just so shocked,’ Jesse says. I nod and grunt. Lift up. Hold. Drop down. ‘Have you met her husband?’

‘Y…e…s,’ I exhale. ‘Total dork. Even before he became a cheating rat-fuck bastard.’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to be so…’ Jesse pauses.

‘Offensive?’ I offer as I gasp.

‘Blunt,’ Jesse says. ‘But yes. Not exactly a Don Juan. I wouldn’t have thought…have you seen the pictures of the girlfriend?’

‘The naked pictures?’ I get out between lifts. ‘No. I managed to avoid that. I guess you didn’t.’

‘Nicola showed me,’ Jesse says.

‘Skanky?’ I ask. Jesse is shocked. His Puritanism and youth come out at the most unexpected times. He’s shocked – that I said skank. He’s shocked that Nicola and her dorky husband are divorcing because of his torrid affair with a skanky but sufficiently attractive, to Nicola’s ex at least (‘If you like that type’ – that’s Nicola’s voice providing commentary in the background), intern. He’s shocked the dorky husband was fucking the attractive skank. He might be shocked people in their 30s and 40s, and those really old 50-year-olds sweating on the ellipticals over there, have sex. Dirty thoughts.

I’m not quite 40 yet. But it’s less than two years away. And Matt…is Matt 40 now? He’s got to be. Maybe even 41.

‘Hey, Jesse,’ I ask. ‘How old do you think I am?’

He pauses. Yes, it’s a test. I asked him how old he was a few months ago. I thought 28 – he was 26. My two-year misjudgement didn’t matter. But he really can’t win with me, I realise. If he says 40, I’ll throw the barbell at him. If he says 36, who gives a crap? What’s two years less? I catch the thought and stare it in the face. It’s never ever bothered me that I’m now 38. Four kids. Soft, loose breasts, stretched skin on the belly. That’s all part of me, of what I am. Am I anxious about my age? Am I having a mid-life crisis? A stupid fucking mid-life crisis that’s making me easy fodder for a manipulative fuck like Matt who clearly is having a mid-life crisis of his own, much like Nicola’s husband was having when he started fucking the skank? Except, instead of looking for something new, he comes looking for me, because he knows…

Fuck.

Selfish, evil bastard.

I am so not going to see him on December 14.

‘I’ve never thought about it,’ he says. And I think, clever boy, that’s the right answer. But he plods on. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I know your oldest girl is ten. So…you must be…you must be thirty-something, like at least thirty-two? Maybe even thirty-four?’

I stop listening. I don’t really hear. I’m away again. Teeth marks on my neck. My thighs. Oh, fuck. Where was I? What were we talking about?

‘But she seems to be coping OK.’ Jesse returns to Nicola. ‘I mean, she’s angry and all that. But I think she’ll be OK.’

She’d probably be a hell of a lot better if you sort of accidentally-on-purpose patted her ass after her workout session, I think. Don’t say out loud. Slap myself mentally. Feel Matt’s breath on the back of my neck…

‘She’s tough,’ I say. ‘And really…well. The only really shocking thing here is that he left her. Well, OK, not exactly left her. What he wanted to do was to fuck the skank and to stay married. And she didn’t. So she’s the one who asked for a divorce. But what I mean is – we all kind of expected her to lose her patience with him somewhere along the line without the illicit sex, you know? Cause he was – you know, a dork.’

Jesse gives me an odd look. My Puritan boy. He does not like it when I swear. I hope he chalks it up to my indignation on my friend’s behalf.

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘exercise helps.’

Oh, Jesse. So cute. So sweet. So dumb.

I like it better when he doesn’t talk.

I stay silent for the remainder of the session, and try hard not to think about Matt’s cock.

Fail.

My mom seems frazzled when I come to pick up Annie, so I don’t stay. Pack up Annie. We run errands – bank, big grocery shop – then pick up her siblings at school. ‘Gran was weird,’ Annie says at one point. ‘Sad.’ ‘Really?’ I murmur, indifferent. My mother’s always a bit weird. Groceries, kids in car…but I’m reluctant to go home. Restless. I take the kids to the Glenbow Museum’s Discovery Room instead. Middle of the week, so it’s quiet, empty. The two volunteers fight with each other for the privilege of assisting Annie with her craft.

So of course I sit on the couch. And pull out the phone.

Evil bastard.

Why am I doing this?

Because…ah. Yes. There is a message.

Enjoy your evening?

Well. This I can answer.

—So much. My husband thanks you.

Delighted.

I have a perhaps undeserved feeling of accomplishment and pride.

(Inspiring you and lucky Alex.)

—That’s you. Spreading sweetness and light wherever you go.

The Johnny Appleseed of Eros.

I can stop now. I should stop now. What the fuck am I doing? This:

—My mind was busy with you last night. And this morning en route to my personal trainer.

I am a fucking idiot who should know better.

I love to be kept busy. Tell me your thoughts. Paint me a picture.

—Electrifying.

—I was rehearsing our meeting.

I am charged.

—You’ve got a lot to live up to.

as do you

but I’m confident you will work hard to please me.

I’m seducing you subliminally (lick) is it working?

—not so very subliminally

Tell me what you want most.

—you

I like that answer.

—i’m wondering if your lips feel the way i remember them

I want you in all your darkest ways.

The things you would only ever tell me about.

I want you to scare me.

—how?

I’d like you to try.

—overwhelmed

—shivering

—11 days?

yes

demand something. scare me. right now.

—take off your tie, wrap it around my hands

—restrain me

that’s a promise

I will put you to work

—I see us at a table, someplace dark…and eyes on us, and someone wondering, ‘Did I just see that? Did they just…no…did they?’

‘I think she just stroked his cock through his jeans.’

—‘Where are his hands?’

‘I’m sure she just pulled her skirt up and her shirt down…’

—‘Was that her nipple between his fingers?’

‘I’m pretty positive she just handed him her panties.’

scandalous

I have to run to a client meeting now.

I request a picture of you in your fuck-me shoes.

—I think I just came without touching myself.

—Remember that during the boring parts of the meeting.

—xo

That is so unbelievably sexy

get on that photo

demanding, i know

11 days xx

‘Mom?’ I turn my head. ‘Look what I made!’

I am a really good mom.

Except I’m not sure really good moms exchange ‘Was that her nipple between his fingers?’ and ‘I’m pretty positive she just handed him her panties’ texts with their ex-lovers while their kids do crafts. In a fucking museum.

Well, Marie probably does.

And she’s a good mom.

Ex-lover. Returning lover. Oh, fucking hell. The point here is…what is the point? The point is this: am I genuinely planning to fuck Matt when he comes to town?

I drive like a maniac across the downtown, and it’s a minor miracle we get home without an accident.

‘Ja-ane!’

My neighbour Lacey is pulling into her driveway as I’m stepping out of the car. ‘Ja-ane! You have to see this! You won’t believe what I’ve just been dooo-ing!’

Lacey is…Lacey is perfection.

I think she’s 52 or 53, and I only think this because I’ve been to her fiftieth birthday party a couple of years ago. You would never say of Lacey, ‘Oh, my God, I hope I look like that when I’m fifty.’ You would say, ‘Fuck, I wish I was that when I was twenty.’ And then you’d try to get her into bed.

I’m not overselling. Carved out of ebony, voluptuous, curvy, perfect in every way – the centre of any room into which she saunters. (She doesn’t walk; she saunters.) She makes me want to climb into her lap and nibble on her ears.

And she makes me smile, always, when I see her. Not even Marie does that.

Lacey’s been my neighbour almost all of my mother-life. She has spent much of this time searching for a soulmate – and almost all of it fucking Clint.

Clint’s car pulls up behind Lacey’s. She waves at him as she runs over to me.

‘You will never believe what Clint and I have been doing!’ she whispers. She leans in closer to me, her lips almost touching my ear. (Does she do this on purpose? No. Of course not. It’s just me. I think about her ear lobes at the most inappropriate times.) ‘We’ve been ring shopping!’

As she reaches into her purse – to pull out a box? – I’m stunned. Yes, Clint allegedly proposed last summer, after he turned 50. Part of his mid-life crisis. And Lacey seemed to actually believe it. But ring shopping? Really? Clint?

Lacey whips out her phone. ‘Look,’ she says. ‘I like this one. And this one. And this one. Clint likes this one.’

Just pictures. Not yet the real thing.

That I can believe.

Clint has opened his car door. One long leg is hanging out. The rest of him will stay in the car until I’m gone. That’s his MO. Limit contact with women he’s not sleeping with – and keep contact with the women he’s sleeping with or wants to sleep with to the minimum necessary to sleep with them.

‘They’re beautiful, Lacey,’ I say sincerely.

Lacey smiles, and puts the phone away.

‘I think it’s actually going to happen,’ she says. ‘You know, the wedding.’

I flush. My scepticism about the ring, the wedding – the relationship – is justifiable. How many years? How many ‘Lacey is single’/‘Lacey is in a relationship’/‘It’s complicated’ switchbacks on her Facebook status? But I would not express that to Lacey for anything.

I arrange my lips into what is meant to be a supportive smile. Perhaps it comes out wrong, as Lacey takes a step back.

‘You look different,’ she says. ‘Have you cut your hair?’ I shake my head. ‘Lost weight?’ ‘Uhm-no.’ ‘New dress?’ ‘No.’

‘Well, there’s something about you.’ She gives me a critical look. ‘I like it,’ she pronounces. ‘Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!’ And she saunters into the house.

Lacey claims to be a little bit psychic. Perhaps she is.

As I unbuckle Annie, I see Clint get out of his car. As I lock the van, he’s reaching Lacey’s front door.

Jesus Christ, was he unbuckling his belt with one hand while reaching for the door knob with the other?

I need to get my mind out of the gutter.

‘Mom!’ Eddie wails. ‘Open the door! It’s so cold!’

The kids snack, then disappear into various corners of the house, except for Annie, who sits in my lap as I make pasta. Alex makes it home just as I’m slopping it into bowls on the table; the children squeal with delight, and then fight over who gets to sit next to him. He offers to do bedtime if they stop fighting, and they suppress it, a little.

I do a half-ass job cleaning the kitchen – good mother. A morally ambiguous wife. A horrid housekeeper. And then, to the sound of my husband running our children’s bath, I pop open the laptop. And this time I take the initiative.

Because I am clearly insane.

—I’ve rethought the visuals. I’ve never seen you in a tie. Use your belt. It’ll have to come off anyway.

And of course he’s there.

No, the only time I’ve ever used a tie on you, we borrowed it. Remember?

And leather is more fun.

—Indeed.

How long will I have you?

—I guess that depends on when you untie me.

I’ll try not to be greedy. // Try // I make no promises.

Now tell me. In detail. What you did last night.

—I don’t know how to start.

Begin at the beginning, insatiable you. And take me through every filthy detail.

—No. I think I’ll just tell you Alex had gouge marks all the way down his back at the end.

Lucky man. Unless he doesn’t enjoy the scratches.

—And you? Did you aim at the lace and watch it trickle down?

I had you tied up (thinking ahead…though your wrists were behind your back), working your mouth, laced breasts jutting forward from having your wrists bound. Then when I was ready, I stroked the last few moments, freeing your mouth. I wanted you to word-fuck me to the end.

Then I aimed.

A hot beautiful messy sight.

—You were always much better at this than I.

Love making you wet

(presumptive)

—(right)

hungry

—yes

ready to devour you

—trembling

are you ready to be put to work?

—no

no? wet and trembling sounds ready to me

—still need something

Tell me. What do you need?

—something to nudge me over the edge

—a hand in just the right place, a tongue on just the right spot

a firm handprint on your lovely skin

—perhaps

—just enough pressure

just enough to motivate

an encouraging spank

not being punished.

(yet)

—Fuck. Has it been 10 years since we’ve seen each other?

more, perhaps

a long interval

—I’m astounded you can still do this to me.

Amazing how fast to rekindle, yes.

—primeval

I’ve never stopped wanting you.

I always thought we were sexual equals.

—I like that.

We are a twisted pair.

—twisted?

In the best way – woven together in some primal way. We match.

Tell me you want me.

—So much. You?

I want to feel your hair in my hands as I take you from behind.

I want to unleash you, drive you mad. Fuck you until you lose your words, all your self-restraint.

—Fuck. So primal. I still remember the way you smell, you know. I didn’t think I did, but in this moment, it is all around me.

It’s what you need to nudge you over the edge.

Now get on your knees.

Open your mouth.

—oh

Thrust your tongue out so I can fuck your mouth deeper.

—yes…

further

—you’re bigger than I remember

I can feel the tip of your tongue on my balls each time I bury my cock in your face.

—you curve

—where are my hands?

rubbing your wet pussy

your moans transmit along the shaft of my cock

—vibrating

‘come for me while I use your pretty mouth’

I tighten my grip on your hair to raise the tension.

Raise the stakes. Nudge you over the edge.

—teeth on your cock

I like it

now come.

—teeth and mouth off your cock, my face just pressed against you while I writhe

I press your face against me, clutching you, almost smothering you, your hot wet breathing burning into me.

—I moan. You tell me…

‘Come for me. Show me how hard you can come.’

—My teeth are clenched and I hiss

—My hands can’t keep up any more. I press myself against your leg, I rub

fucking yourself with my leg like a bitch in heat

your pussy so scorching hot and slippery wet against me

just when you can’t take any more i turn you around, hard, and slide my spit-covered cock inside your pussy. one hand never leaving your neck.

your fuck-me heels have you at the perfect height. your pussy right where i want it.

so wet i can feel you dripping down your thighs, onto my legs

making the most delicious wet sounds echoing off the hotel walls.

—Someone pounds on the wall.

‘Tell them to fuck off. Loudly.’

SLAP on your ass. ‘SAY IT.’

— ‘Fuck off. We’re busy.’

yes, you are

I want to look at you

‘Go sit on the chair. Spread for me.’

—good, I can’t support my weight any more, knees giving out

—I’m shaved

—you like that

I do. I like the thought of you preparing yourself to get fucked.

gift-wrapping yourself for me

giving yourself to me utterly

—utterly

I take a long moment to admire and appreciate your gift of yourself.

I sit on the edge of the bed and drink in the sight of you. I stroke my curved cock. Is it as you remember it?

—yes

—I want to straddle it, will you let me

Play with yourself a bit longer. I’ve missed you.

I want to record this movie into my memory.

—but i want to be touching you

and i want to drive you even more mad

—…it’s working…

now come take this cock inside your pretty pussy

the view of your luscious breasts over me

—I sit on your thighs

—rest my head on your shoulder

—bite

mmmmmmM

—bite harder

—I slide over your cock, now that I’m sitting on you, it’s my turn to tease

bitch

—your hands on my ass

—not gentle

—you say…

‘Show me how you like to ride a cock.’

‘Fuck me. Show me how hard you can take it.’

I’m gripping your ass hard enough to mark you.

—I bite you again

—lower

oh you biting little tease

SLAP on your ass

you’re so going to get it for that.

—I let you in…

—just for a moment

—One stroke, two…I slide off

Get that pussy back here.

I grip your ass HARD

right now

you are fucking tight.

—reality obtrudes: I’ve had four babies, my lover. I don’t know about that.

You are truly erotic. beats merely tight any day

—my lover

—delicious

My lover. I like the sound of that. You wouldn’t say that to me for a long time…

Now I grab your legs. The sight of them on either side of my neck as I put them over my shoulders my cock reaching so fucking deep inside you, fuck yes…

your heels pointed straight to the hotel room above

—jeezus fucking christ

your clit pounded by the hard bone above my even harder cock

—you push every button

—i scream

you scream so loudly i shove your pretty lace panties in your mouth

—you will never be able to stay at this hotel again

you will never be able to wear that lace lingerie again

not without blushing at the things you did in it. Gladly.

—I am so wet there are rivulets streaming down the inside of my thighs.

I want to see that.

show me

—I slide off you. Stand up. Push you down on the bed.

my cock is yours

—I climb over you, up your torso. Slither up you. I am so wet, I leave slick along you where I touch you.

—I straddle your face. I’m up high – you can’t reach me yet. But you see me. And you feel me as I drip. Droplet by droplet.

mmmmm the sweet scent of you

I open my mouth to catch your sweet juice

on my chin, on my tongue, on my lips…dripping down the sides of my face

‘Play with your pussy. I want you to gush on me.’

—Christ.

Do as you’re told. Now.

—My hands: one on my clit, the other hugging my breasts.

—Yours – on my calves. Just holding them.

No, gripping them tight.

Feel the pressure of my hands?

—Yes…

— (can we match this in real life, my lover? Because this conversation is turning into the most erotic chapter of my life…And we’ve set the bar fucking high in the past.)

(yes, oh, yes, we will. In 11 days.)

—I drop a little lower, just graze you with my pussy

—oh god

—and again

my tongue just barely able to lap at your slit

‘squeeze your breasts fucking HARD. cum on me.’

my fingers dig into your legs HARD

—I’m not really there. I’m on that front lawn in…what neighbourhood was that? Do you remember? my skirt around my waist…

—and on your roof, your mouth on my pussy, my breasts

YES

—…and in a stairwell…which one? oh god

There were several. All of them fucking hot.

—I scream again, and oh my god, I’m coming all over your face, right now, and every moment in the past all at once

i can see your pussy clench and spasm as your juice pours down on me hot and sweet

—I collapse

you are delicious

—the world spins

And now you’re ready to be really fucked. Before you can recover. I’m far from through with you.

Though sadly I have to leave now. To the gym. With my wife. Reality does intrude. But you’ll know I’m sweating to look good for you.

And you have a photo to take for me.

—Reality is.

—But. Wow. Thank you, my lover.

Thank YOU. You know what I want to see, don’t you?

—yes

Good.

I’ll check later.

—xx

xo

I am not going to send him a picture of my pussy. What sort of skank does he think I am?

Day 3 Fuck Foreplay

Wednesday, December 5

I don’t sleep. I don’t think. I just…is feel even the right verb? I’m sick with desire. And generally sick. And resentful. And angry. And so filled with lust, sleep is impossible.

I go downstairs and try to find a make-work project. But it’s too early for even Toronto to panic and send me work and I’ve met all my other deadlines. I work to calm myself by organising family photos. Thanksgiving. Halloween. Random life shots – but all real life. Children. Mother. Not a psychotic skank whore orgasming on command to words on the computer screen.

Mmmm, orgasm.

Fuck. I slap my face. Then, stupid, thoughtless, log into Twitter and Facebook. And read this:

You kept me up all night, lover. I dreamed I was watching you fuck a man like an animal, your eyes locked on mine the whole time. Even when you came.

Ten days.

Oh, my fucking God. Real life. Children. Mother. Wife! It all recedes into the background. Instead:

—I walk around on edge of orgasm all day and I read this, and I come, instantly, immediately. Silently.

And he’s in Montréal, so of course, he is already awake, moving, online. And he writes back:

10 days. Nine, really.

Love the thought of you on a hair trigger.

—I’m still worried the reality will fall short of the build-up.

Reality has many things in its favour. Such as the feeling of you wrapped around my cock.

—Your tongue on my skin.

Enjoy your heightened state, my lover. And get on that photo. My inbox was empty this morning. Disappointed; verging on angry.

—Demanding.

You have no idea how demanding.

I slam the laptop lid down as Alex comes down the stairs. ‘Up early again? Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse?’ he jokes as he kisses me. Running joke in our household – me, the most un-morning of un-morning people. Alex, often up at 6 a.m. on weekends. Freak.

‘Possibly,’ I say. ‘Or peri-menopause. Am I old enough for peri-menopause?’

‘Jesus, I hope not,’ Alex says, shocked. ‘Working?’

‘Facebooking,’ I say. ‘I probably drank all the coffee already. You’ll have to make another pot.’

Alex sighs dramatically. I hear the whirr of the coffee grinder.

My fingers tickle the top of the laptop. I make myself think about Nicola’s rat-fuck bastard of a husband, whose two or three graduate degrees from MIT did not teach him to not sex-text with his intern on the un-password-protected family-plan phone. In the bathroom. At the dinner table. Apparently, in church. (‘You guys go to church?’ I remember asking Nicola in shock when I heard that story. ‘Aren’t you atheists?’ ‘Taoists,’ she corrects me. ‘But the grandparents…’ Her voice trails off. Grandparents. No need to say more. The things we do for grandparents.)

Alex tramps up past me, upstairs. I hear the shower. I open the laptop.

I’m hoping you disappeared to play with the camera. I am checking my email obsessively. Verging on compulsively. Where is my photo?

—The photo is not going to happen. Disobedient.

Insubordinate. Lucky for you, I feel understanding.

—More to look forward to.

Agreed. Mostly I just like picturing you being subversive.

—You are incorrigible. Corrupting.

And I believe you love it.

—Do you?

—So presumptive.

Wholeheartedly.

Deductive.

Fuck. Already want to cum. Jeans still done up. Hands only typing. Amazing.

—How was your sweat session? Focused on the task at hand?

I was. The task being to look good for you. You are inspiring. I imagined there was an email waiting for me back in my locker. I even imagined the subject line: come fuck me. I think that inspired 20 per cent heavier weights, minimum.

—I have a picture of you lying down on a bench. And I come in.

Yes.

Continue while I type with my left hand…

—Are you sure you want to do this again?

Very.

—And straddle you. You’re still holding the weight. But your attention is, um, divided. I say, ‘Fuck foreplay.’

I want to show you how hard you just made me.

—I just slide off your pants and slip you right in. You drop the bar – it just makes it into the safeties.

Shove my cock.

—I lean forward, feel that angle?

Mmm, yes, so deep. Your clit grinding into me now.

—My hands are on your hips and I hold you down as I lift up. You want to thrust, but I keep on pushing you down.

Hungry bitch. I love it.

(Give me a safe email address. I need to show you.)

—(Fuck. numberslie, at the usual domain)

—I move up and down your shaft. I hold myself up with my hands…

—And crush down on you

Check your email.

—Looking. Oh, god. Fuck.

—Jeezus. Flood of memory…

Glad you approve.

—you’re lovely

Appreciative. Inspired.

—Ashamed, excited, overwrought, distracted…I might need to slide off you and lick you a while…But first…

First?

—First…

—I bring my legs up onto the bench – they’re resting on your hips – the weight of me presses you into the bench, the pressure of your hip bones bruises me. I change angles a little, feel that? But this is about me, not you. My hands on your shoulders. My pussy slapping down on you.

Use my cock.

—You’re at my disposal.

—I arch.

Milk your pleasure from me.

—No, I will milk you later

—Now I just need…

—…a little more friction

—…a little more pressure…

—…and here I cum.

— (why is it so much dirtier as cum instead of come? what a difference a vowel makes)

—…and oh, you’re about to as well, so I slide off even as I writhe…

Cum on my cock.

—and I touch my lips to your head

—My tongue finds the hole

—Droplets

—I lick

—I caress you with one hand and myself with the other

Your skills impress. Just the sight of your hands working both of us is enough to make my balls tighten, my cock swells even harder…

You can taste the salty precum.

—I lap it up

Such a submissive sentence.

—Your effect on me: you turn me from mistress to slave with one taste. I forget that I meant to ride you and pleasure myself selfishly. I worship at your cock.

I want to hear you say you’re my fuckslave.

—I can’t. My mouth is full of your cock.

The words muffled by my cock. Say it.

—I’m your fuckslave, I whisper, as I take more and more of you down my throat.

Yesss

My hands gripping your hair as you choke on my cock.

Your spit dripping.

—Your hands in my hair, gripping, pulling

—it hurts

— (I look at your picture again)

Take it deep.

Forcing you down.

Thrust out your tongue.

I pull you up for air.

—I’m gasping breathless smeared

Slap your lips with my cock. They swell.

Then it’s right back to work.

Get on your hands and knees. On the bench.

Mouth at the perfect height.

—I crawl up…

Keep your hands where they are. I want to use your mouth like a pussy. My cock is crammed into your throat.

—I gag.

I reach over you and slap your ass, just to feel you moan against my shaft. Take it. SLAP.

—(moan)

Do you want this?

—So much.

Good.

Tell me you’re my fuckslave again. I like to see you type it.

—I whisper, I’m your fuckslave, my head bent down.

—Fuck.

—I can’t believe you can still…again…do this to me.

—No one else does.

—A part of me hates it.

—I. Hate. It.

That’s so fucking hot.

Angry hate fucking.

—It’s barely consensual what you do to me.

—But so wet…

So hard.

Knowing how forced you are.

—Take me.

—Push me onto the floor.

No. I will use your mouth even longer because I know you’d rather be fucked in your pussy.

—oh dear fucking god I am so wet

Rub your clit. I want to feel it in your throat when you cum

—My hands on my pussy, thumbs on clit, fingers stretching me, probing, rubbing

—so weak

I enjoy seeing you debase yourself for me.

My cock twitching.

—for you

For me. All for me.

—for you

—selfish bastard

Cum for me.

—Palm of hand on my clit, pressing

Your selfish master.

—I arch up on the floor as I cum

—Your cock slides deeper into my throat

—I couldn’t spit out your cum if I wanted to

—It sloshes into me

Drink it.

All of it.

—I have no choice all inside me

—a little dribble at the corner of my mouth

You please me so.

Lick it off. No spilling.

Alex walks into the room, and I raise my glazed eyes from the screen to look at him, but my fingers remain on the keyboard:

—Lick (not alone)

—tongue in corner of mouth

I should release you then

—yes

—then come fuck me

You please me.

—9 days xx

9 xo

Alex kisses my forehead on his way out the door, and it burns. I have one of those odd moments of gratitude for my faithlessness – my lack of faith in the Christian God or any other nasty vengeful cosmic being – because if I believed, I too would burn. The act of physical transgression totally unnecessary; all the sin sufficient in this act, this thought crime, cyberfuck, mindfuck.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

The kids’ school has one of its random days off today, so I drive over to meet Marie and her brood right after breakfast. We meet in the Confederation Park parking lot, and, between us, unload six kids and ten sleds out of our minivans. ‘Why do we have more sleds than kids?’ Cassandra asks. ‘Because we’re really clever moms,’ I tell her. ‘At some point, everyone will want to be on the saucers. And then someone will throw a hissy fit because what he really wants is the steering sleigh. Plus, Marie and I need something under our tooshies.’

‘Can I just sit and hang out with you when I get bored?’ Cassandra asks.

‘Of course,’ I say. But the snow is alluring, and in minutes she’s running up the hill at full speed along with the boys and Annie.

Marie hands me a mug of hot chocolate.

‘You rock,’ I say.

‘You look like shit,’ she says. ‘How do I look?’

I look at her. Much as usual. But she clearly wants a different type of answer.

‘Ambiguous,’ I say. It’s a good word. So many potential interpretations. And it pleases Marie.

‘That pretty much nails it,’ she says. And I know she wants to talk about the lunch, and probably resents me a little for not bringing it up yesterday.

‘So?’ I say. She shrugs eloquently.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘We ate lunch. We held hands. We necked, like high-school kids, in the parkade. And then I came back.’

I wait.

‘I sent him a text after, thanks for a great time,’ she says. ‘And he hasn’t written me back.’ She bites her lips. ‘I think it’s over.’

I wait.

‘Because if he had had a great time, he’d text me back, right? With plans to do it again? He was clearly disappointed in the whole experience.’

Oh, my Marie.

‘Should I text him to find out if he received my text?’ she asks, and I see her reaching for the phone.

‘Jesus-fucking-Christ, Marie, what are you, twelve?’ I snap. And she takes half a step back and stares at me, because I don’t snap. Out of character. ‘It’s what, half a day. Don’t fucking chase. Enjoy…enjoy the memory.’

‘But I’m just not sure I’m really enjoying the memory,’ she says wistfully. ‘It was, you know, OK. But a little awkward. And the chemistry in person…it wasn’t…it wasn’t quite the same as in the texts. And I think maybe he felt that too…’

I don’t understand women.

‘But if you felt that, then why are you so anxious for him to get back to you?’ I ask.

‘Because!’ Marie exclaims. ‘I don’t want him to be the one to leave! I want to be the one to make the decision that it’s over. Jesus, Jane, don’t you understand anything?’

Apparently not.

I give Marie a pat on the arm that she morphs into a hug.

Again, I think I could tell her. I should tell her. So she doesn’t feel alone. So I don’t feel alone. We could be the anti-Nicola-and-Colleen. Commiserating, instead of about their cheating husbands, about our fucking lovers.

But I can’t.

Because…

I just don’t.

‘You really, really don’t look well,’ Marie repeats.

Too much cyberfucking, not enough sleep, I’m tempted to say. Except it’s of course not just that. Secrets. They exhaust. Moral ambiguity, it exhausts.

And there’s a big crash halfway up the hill, and Marie and I race up to disentangle limbs and sleds and to kiss bruises and fix toques and mittens.

Use your mouth even longer because I know you’d rather be fucked in your pussy

—oh dear fucking god I am so wet

Cum for me.

Oh, Jesus. I really need to work on feeling badly about this. And I need to…I don’t know what I need. A smack upside my head. A reality check.

The phone rings as I’m unloading the kids at the front door. ‘Dad?’ I say with surprise. My mother calls me and texts me constantly. Annoying ‘What are you doing?’ texts, random ‘I love you guys!’ texts, to-the-point ‘Do the kids want anything special for lunch on Tuesday?’ texts, passive-aggressive ‘I know you don’t care about such things, but it really means a lot to Dad and me to have our anniversary acknowledged…’ My father calls only in real emergencies. As do I.

‘What’s wrong?’ I say. Anxiety mounting.

‘Why does something have to be wrong for me to call my only daughter?’ my father says. ‘I just called to see how you guys are doing. And to tell you I love you.’

Fucking twilight zone.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘We love you too. You sure everything’s OK?’

‘Fine, fine,’ he says. ‘You know, it’s that time of the year when there’s just not much to do at work. So an old man’s mind wanders. To the things he loves.’

This is not my father talking.

‘Dad?’ I ask. ‘Are you by any chance recovering from a Christmas lunch that involved too much wine?’

‘Jane!’ he’s appalled. ‘You know I never drink at work. With work colleagues. I guess it’s just the season to feel, you know, sentimental. And we’re having our lunch tomorrow, and I just…I wanted to tell you I love you. And how much I’m looking forward to seeing you.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Well, we’re just fine. And I love you too. You sure nothing’s wrong?’

‘Everything’s fine, fine,’ he says again. And rings off.

I’m a little weirded out.

When Alex comes home and I tell him about the phone call – he’s also weirded out.

‘Maybe he had a prostate exam or a colonoscopy or something and is suddenly aware of his own mortality again,’ Alex suggests. ‘Remember that time he had to have an MRI? He wouldn’t stop hugging me.’

‘Maybe,’ I agree. The phone blips to announce an ‘I love you xoxoxoxoxo love Mom’ text from my mother. I type back ‘xoxo’ without saying anything to Alex. Sigh.

‘Is it too much to ask of your parents to be predictable?’ I ask.

‘Yes!’ Cassandra and Henry call in unison from the living room.

‘Little ingrates,’ I shout back. ‘Supper in five!’

I make it through the evening, bedtime and beyond without starting up Facebook, or even picking up my phone.

But I still don’t sleep.

Day 4 Fatherhood

Thursday, December 6

This is how I start my mornings now. Waiting for you.

—I’m here. I guess playing coy and hard to get when you come won’t really cut it.

Not any more. Nor would I want that.

—What do you want?

You. Angry and wet. Dressed to please. A half-willing slave.

—oh my lover

—there is a special place in all hells for people like you

I know it.

What do you want?

—you

—on no terms

—so entwined with me we don’t end

—for a few hours

Then I send you home. Bruised and happy.

—not too bruised, not in any too obvious places

Of course.

Perhaps hating me just a little more.

—Of course. Inevitable.

Swear at me. Curse me when I’m fucking you.

Walk in my door. Say ‘fuck you.’ Then – submit.

—I want to meet you in a public place first.

—Will you let me?

If you demonstrate your submission in public. By how you dress

How you speak.

How you admit you’re my whore.

—I want your hands under my clothes, on my skin, in a place with eyes

My shameless exhibitionist whore.

— (suddenly all of our…previous…encounters seem so fucking tame)

(Practice.)

Will you do all that I ask?

—yes

Good answer.

—I’ve forgotten…

—I’ve forgotten how you fit into the crevices, indentations of my mind

I very much like reminding you of yourself

—Tell me, what do I do to you?

You feel like a counterpart. A woman me. You spark a fire deep in me. And you bring to mind how I was shaped, erotically. You affected me so. Of course we fit. You impressed me.

—impressed

—imprinted

I still have the bruises

—inside

Deep.

— [deleted]

— [and again – I can’t form the words]

Say it

—you’re like a disease

—I knew it then

—wanted you so badly, I needed to run away from you

—too much

—it’s a hard thing when you understand what someone is, perfectly.

Footsteps down the stairs and I slam the laptop lid down. I should really just do this on my phone. Less conspicuous. As the thought enters my head, I push it away. I don’t like it. I do not like to be…deceitful. I lift the laptop lid up.

—Reality calls. xx

xx

Alex piggybacks Annie down the stairs and into my lap. I enfold her, kiss her, smell her hair. He brushes his lips against my forehead, then hers. ‘Running late,’ he calls over his shoulder as he runs into the kitchen, grabs coffee, runs back upstairs. ‘Want me to get the boys out of bed before I shower?’

‘No, there’s lots of time for them,’ I say to his disappearing back. Stretch on the couch. Don’t look at the laptop. Pull my thoughts away from where they inevitably wend and think about what a fantastic, fantastic father Alex is. And how precious what I have here, in my arms at this moment, all around me in this house, in this family, in this life, is to me. And try to wrap myself in that thought. Protect myself with it.

I fail.

What do you want?

—You

—on no terms

—so entwined with me we don’t end

—for a few hours

Then I send you home. Bruised and happy.

Perhaps hating me just a little more

Breakfast. Shower. Clothes. Everyone has socks and pants; minor miracle. Into the minivan. I’m so rattled, I almost ram into Clint as he pulls into the driveway to pick up his son Clayton.

‘Jeezus, I’m so sorry,’ I say through the rolled-down window.

‘You OK, Jane?’ he asks, peering at me through his. One of the longest sentences he’s ever said to me. Of course, I did just almost kill him.

‘Fine,’ I lie. ‘Just late. Be safe.’

‘You be safe,’ he says, and I can see he’s pondering the logistics of driving all my four kids as well as Clayton wherever it is they have to go, because clearly I can’t be trusted behind the wheel of a car right now…and I smile. My head clears, briefly, and I have one of those sharp insights into why Lacey has loved him for the past nine, ten, eleven years – as he’s fucked other women and fathered at least one other child – and why women keep on falling into bed with him even though he makes no pretence of what he is and what he is not.

Cause he’s a really, really rockin’ dad. His always-pointing-to-the-hottest-target cock notwithstanding.

I’ve told this to Lacey before, not that she really needs to hear it, for she knows – that he’s a great dad. Because it’s not something hidden. This is not a new revelation for me either; Clint’s commitment to fatherhood has always been there. Not in being Clayton’s weekend dad – although he’s never, as far as I know, missed a weekend. Not in showering either Clayton or even Lacey with gifts, because he’s no Disney dad. In fact, he’s kind of…cheap, really. Lacey orders herself gifts from Clint and tells him what he got her. Sometimes he reimburses her. Sometimes he conveniently forgets. His presents to his son, birthday and Christmas alike, consist of on-sale clothes, the price tag of which is further driven down by Clint’s employee discount. I know this, because Lacey has no secrets, important or otherwise. She shows me Clayton’s clothes, tags still on – and she shows me the earrings ‘I bought myself from Clint.’

This is how, why Clint is a great father: most days, he stops at Lacey’s on the way to his home from work to say hi and bye to Clayton. He does this when he’s fucking Lacey, and he does this when she doesn’t want to look at him. He does this when they’re fighting (and, thanks to Facebook, I know when they’re fighting even before Lacey tells me) and he does this when they’re reconciled, as Lacey puts it, ‘again madly in love.’ When he can’t come – he calls. And he calls to say goodnight to his boy every single night.

Alex, who is also a great father, does not call to say goodnight when he’s not going to be home for bedtime.

Of course, he sleeps in the same house as his children every night. I don’t expect it.

I try to recall if I call to say goodnight on those nights when I’m out late. I used to, all the time. These days, now that they’re older? Maybe not.

I resolve to start doing so again.

Back to Clint. This must be part of his attraction, to Lacey and others. Can they tell, do they pick up this thread, this power – can they tell this man will make a great father? Not as a beautiful physical specimen only, but in those post-conception essentials? That he will rock your baby to sleep, and teach your toddler to throw a ball, and take your six-year-old to cheesy Disney movies he himself hates?

I think they can. I could – I knew Alex would be a fabulous dad, that was part of what I loved about him, always, love about him the most, still. I could see him holding my babies, not just making them.

Never part of the dynamic for Matt and me, never. Yet he, I have no doubt, would make a wonderful father to someone else’s child. His wife’s, perhaps. This I also know, even though the part of him that belongs to me, fits into me is not the man who will be a father.

But it does not surprise me that they are still childless.

—it’s a hard thing when you understand what someone is, perfectly.

I deliver the kids to school safely, drop Annie at my mom’s for the morning, run back home and pretend to be a housewife for two hours – laundry, fucking laundry, who finds joy and fulfilment in pairing socks? – then meet my dad for our sacrosanct father–daughter lunch. First Thursday of every month when we’re in the same city, third Thursday of the month too, when we can fit it in – our ritual since I was…twelve? Thirteen? It was at one of these lunches that I officially lost what little religion I had been brought up in. Confessed to my first kiss (but not my first fuck, although I did think of telling him…but that would have been too much, even for my dad). Told Dad I had to leave John, but couldn’t figure out how to do it. Laughed to him about – well, all of them. Scott. Raj. Pretentious Jason and overly ambitious Aldrin. That weird guy from Ghana who really wanted me to pierce my tongue and clit. Tried to explain to him why I was going to marry Alex.

Never told him a word about Matt.

We face each other across a wobbling round table in the basement of The Unicorn. Dad’s staring at a steak sandwich. I’m poking at an awful Caesar salad.

‘What the fuck was I thinking?’ I say. ‘Fish and chips. Fish and chips. The only thing we ever order here.’

‘Sometimes change is good,’ my father says. I give him a suspicious look.

‘But not when it comes to pub food,’ I retort. ‘You know what? I’m not eating this. I’m going to order fish and chips. You?’

He cuts into the steak.

‘Not so bad,’ he says.

My dad. Stellar dad, incredible – and incredibly patient – husband. But will never, ever admit he made any sort of mistake. As he masticates the sandwich, I’m filled with gratitude for his place in my life – for his awesomeness as father. As grandfather. And I wonder if this will be one of our very rare really honest conversations – or one of our companionable silent lunches when we just chew and enjoy each other’s company without talking – or one of the painful, shallow ones, in which one or the other of us has something profound to share but can’t figure out how to breach it, and so we talk at length about nothing.

I wish to share…nothing. I feel my angst and turmoil and mindfucked state retreating inwards where I can wall them off. And I tell him – that Lacey thinks she and Clint are ring shopping, but I think they’re just ring photographing. That I can now do four unassisted pull-ups (‘But then I want to die.’). That Henry’s got a loose tooth. That Alex is in a mad pre-Christmas rush – ‘Everyone wants to try to close before Christmas. But it means all these late nights.’ And how much I’m dreading the annual law firm Christmas party. ‘I swear, they get worse every year.’

Dad laughs and nods and sighs in all the right places. If he can tell that I’m withdrawn and not talking about anything real, he doesn’t betray it. And that’s why I can always be with him. My mother will also sense it, discern that I am in angst and turmoil. But she will poke, and poke, and poke until I run away screaming. Dad never will. I can stay with him even when I retreat.

Today, I realise I’m not the only one who retreated. He’s sitting across from me also full of something he can’t share.

I take one of his big, callused hands in mind. Kiss his knuckle.

‘What was that for?’ he says.

‘I love you,’ I say. ‘Always.’

And I see a glistening in the corner of his left eye. No. No fucking way is my dad about to cry. No.

It’s gone.

‘I’m going to have to retire next year,’ he says instead of crying. I let go of his hands, fold both of mine under my chin.

‘No, really? When did you get so old?’ I tease.

‘Sometime between my third and fourth grandchild,’ he teases me back. ‘You know how proud I am of you? How much I love you, all of you?’

This, again. So out of character.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ I close my eyes. Fuck. Fine. I’ll do it.

‘Everything OK?’ I ask. ‘At home? With you and Mom?’

I have had the nerve to ask this question…oh, three times in my life. Once when I was sixteen, and realised, after coming home from summer camp, that my parents hadn’t spoken to each other at all in the four days I had been back. Once when I was nine months pregnant with Cassandra and hyper-sensitive, and suddenly noticed, acutely, painfully, with a tinge of horror, that even when they were allegedly joyously anticipating the arrival of their first grandchild, my parents weren’t so much speaking to each other as shouting at each other. Or rather my mother was shouting. My father…hiding. And once, five years ago, when my dad started smoking again and my mother put herself on a ridiculously restrictive diet…

The answer, always: ‘Well, you know how it is, Jane. She’s not the easiest woman in the world to live with. She goes through her episodes. But I love her. And always will.’

No answer at all. And yet answer enough that I am always afraid to ask.

Dad is looking at his hands, his terrible steak sandwich. I wait for ‘You know how it is’. Instead:

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats quietly. ‘I know…I saw you. Noticing. Reacting. On Monday.’

I nod. My belly clenches.

‘It won’t happen again,’ he says. ‘If I can help it.’

And again. No answer at all. And yet answer enough that I wish I hadn’t asked.

We finish lunch in silence. He holds me a little longer and tighter than usual when I kiss him goodbye.

My phone buzzes as I get in the car. Text from Mom. ‘How was your lunch with Dad?’ ‘Great,’ I lie and type. And lean against the driver’s-seat headrest, my eyes closed. I need to go pick up my kids. Make supper. No text from Alex alerting me to clients sabotaging the evening tonight. No emails from my clients upsetting my schedule. No message from Matt.

And that’s good.

I need…equilibrium. I need…I need to spend a night enveloped in the cocoon of my family, my husband, my children, my real life. I need to anchor. I need…

…I need to not wish that there was a message. I need to get a fucking brain.

I’ve been here before. And I’ve stopped it. And I will stop it again. I have so much to lose. Everything. A family with four children. What does he have? Joy. I pause. I have always been unfair to Joy. Superior, mildly contemptuous – either for her blindness and oblivion or her willingness to endure a series of betrayals so she could wear the crown of Matt’s girlfriend, then Matt’s wife. Jesus. Is that what he thinks about Alex? Superior, mildly contemptuous? Dismissive?

I don’t want to think about any of this. Any of it. Ever.

I push the thoughts away. Hard.

Alex and I are fucking awesome parents. I chant this to myself silently as I make dinner. As we don’t yell at the children, much, while they show off for Daddy at the dinner table. As he cajoles the boys into clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. As he reads Captain Underpants to the boys. As he says, ‘I’ve missed too many bedtimes in the last little while’ to me while I mop up the flood that is our bathroom after four children bathe in it. I read Winnie the Pooh to Annie. Cassandra, too grown up at this moment for my comfort, is curled up in her bed reading Anne of Green Gables to herself.

We are fucking awesome parents. No longer chanting. Knowing. Believing. I slip into bed, not tranquil, no, definitely not tranquil, but…certain of this, at least. We are really great parents, Alex and I. And the children are all asleep, and he is going to come into the bedroom, and I will…

‘Jane?’ He pokes his head into the bedroom. ‘Boys are asleep. I’m going to pop down into the office for a bit before bed. Review the latest drafts of the documents so I’ve got a head start for tomorrow.’

‘Of course,’ I say.

And he’s barely gone when I pull out the laptop. And check Facebook.

Busy day?

—No.

—I’ve been…avoiding being available.

Ah. And why?

—Because. I am struggling, finally, suddenly, with reconciling this, what you do to me, with my real life. And my real obligations. Which I want and need to preserve. Do you understand? A husband. Four children. A really fucking great life.

Yes. I understand.

Jane.

Do you remember – the last time we saw each other. It was the only time you were ever in my condo in Montreal. On the balcony. Everyone else was in the kitchen.

—I remember. The last time.

I had you alone for only a few moments. I looked at your legs and asked if you were wearing stockings.

—You put your hands under my skirt.

You gave me the most withering, pitying look. Pulled away. Do you remember what you said?

—‘Get your fucking hands off me.’

Yes.

—I was pregnant with Cassandra.

I figured it out – a few months later. At the time, it was such a slap – your first real rejection of me. You would not look at me the rest of the night. And I never wanted you more. Of course. Perversely. I wanted you then. I wanted you always. I want you always. But I always want you…tied to someone else.

—Ah.

I believe this is what you want as well. It used to be. Is it still?

—I am struggling. See, I remember that moment, so very well. I remember how you looked at me. I remember how I felt with your hands on me. And I remember…I remember realising that if I was going to do this properly – if I was going to be Alex’s wife, and the mother of his children – I had to stay the fuck away from you.

—And this bothers me, this: you and Joy, you still have no children?

No. We’ve been trying to conceive, half-heartedly, the last year or so.

—Half-heartedly?

Utilitarian, reproductive sex is boring. You know I’d think that. But, Jane, and this is what you are asking: I am not looking for an out of my marriage. I am not looking to destroy yours. I am looking to fuck you senseless when I come. Use you. And leave.

Is that blunt and honest enough for you, my forever lover?

—Tell me you’re not having a mid-life crisis, are not frustrated with your marriage, aren’t…oh, fuck, I don’t even know what. What do I want you to tell me?

This: this is about us. Always. An opportunity. A gift. A chance to come together again.

And you want it as much as I do.

—You are always corrupting me.

We were always corrupting each other. I think, deep down, you’re more a harlot than even I.

—Bastard.

At least, that’s my fantasy.

—I want to run. That’s what I do with you, what I’ve always done with you. Enjoy a little, suffer a little, then leave. That’s my MO.

Yes. The running. Your MO, as you put it. Well. Have you enjoyed enough? Tell me to fuck off and go away. Maybe I will.

—Maybe?

No. Probably not. You’ve admitted already it’s too late for you to start playing coy.

—I am promised to you.

I don’t chase. It’s undignified. You are promised to me.

—And if it’s everything we’ve been imagining, we will repeat it in another 10 years.

With great pleasure.

Now quickly.

Tell me what you’ll be doing in eight days, my lover.

—I will be your fuckslave.

Again.

—I will be your fuckslave…

—my lover

Your master

—Presumptuous.

You will be on your fucking knees before me, my whore. Say it.

—Yes.

Good.

8. xo

—8. xx

I’m so fucked.

Day 5 One night

Friday, December 7

Four days ago, I was sane.

Today I am mad. This is how my day starts. Wanton as soon as I am awake, wanting, aching. No longer pretending. I turn on my laptop and email and Facebook only for one thing. Work? What work? Calgary is asleep, but Montréal is stirring. And, oh, my lover. Yes. There he is. And here we go. The countdown. And fuck. A client pings me on Google chat at the same time. Lovely.

7

—7

Instantly hard

—Fire in my belly

get my email?

—checking

—fuck

This was me. This morning, thinking of you.

—oh yes

—…

—I am distracted

—I have a client on Google chat right now

I like the thought of you being innocent and professional on one side lusting on the other

More corruption of you.

—by you

And me alone.

Confess your actions last night.

—I rehearsed what it would be like.

—Walking into the lobby

—Barely able to stand on my fuck-me heels

—Standing in the entry, looking for you

—Play by play

—Oh, lover, 7 days

I would let you stand there a good while. To enjoy the sight of you prepared for me. Let others enjoy it too.

—As soon as I walk in, they’re all looking at me. They know what I’m there for. I exude it.

Your long legs on show, cock-sucking lipstick and fuck-me heels leave no doubt.

—Are you requesting cock-sucking lipstick?

Demanding.

—demanding, of course

Lots of eye makeup. All the better when it runs, teary eyed.

Purposeful. Professional.

Ready to use.

—Tell me that all day, no matter what you do, part of your mind will be tormented by pictures of me.

No small part.

Pictures of you, at my feet. In debasement.

—Jesus, Matt.

I’m putting you to work as we speak. My hands on my cock, my mind turning them into your mouth, your pussy.

—There will be nothing left of you in 7 days.

Soon I’ll abstain. Right now my morning cock needs seeing to.

And that’s your fucking job. Do it.

With one hand you’re stroking me, innocently typing with the other.

—yes

—writing to a client

—very professional, formal

—he doesn’t know I’m naked, at your knees

Occasionally you lean over to spit on my cock to keep it slick. Professionally. Almost disdainfully.

—I’m distracted, multitasking you know

My multitasking slave

It’s easier to type when I bend you over the desk to fuck you. Now you can use both hands. Get more work done.

—efficient

—you got impatient

—Wait, I really need to go through this with my client…

Fucking hot

I tell you to read aloud what you’re typing

So I can hear your voice quaver

interspersed with grunts and moans

—I read to the rhythm of your cock’s movement

I tell you to type ‘I am matts fuckslave’ just to see it on screen.

The words hang there. Tantalising.

—We both stare.

—I start to delete.

—(I just really typed and deleted that in my Google chat. Fuck. What’s wrong with me? Flirting with danger.)

How did that feel?

—I almost came.

Do it again. All caps.

And cum.

—wait…

—typing

—…

—cumming…

Good

—now you

Mmmmmmm

Done

—I cum on command for you

As do I apparently

—There is power in submission…

Shot up to my neck

—I get up on my tippy-toes, lick it off

You are thorough. Diligent.

Dedicated.

—(how can I come this much in 24-48 hours and still be unsated?)

(Lucky me. Hopefully this mystery will never be solved.)

—We should go do stuff. Get dressed. Work.

—It’s like the languor of leaving a well-used bed…

Languor.

Your mind turns me on so.

—the idea of your tongue on my nipples makes my toes curl

And yes. Work. Clothes. Reality. Nipple.

—7 days.

Seven. But you’re mine. Already.

—utterly

Always.

In all ways.

Have a good day.

—It has a lot to live up to.

I have every faith. xx

—xo

I breathe. Shower. Dress. Race down the stairs after Alex, his phone in my hands, catch him at the door, ‘You left this in the bathroom again, love!’ Marshal kids out of bed. Breakfast. Clothes. School run for all four today, because it’s a preschool morning for the squirt. Everyday, ordinary things. Real life. At which I’m looking through a distorted lens, a curtain. Seven days. Seven days.

The phone buzzes and I swear my clit screams. My mouth parched. I stare, unseeing. Then crash, so disappointed. Nicola. Texting. Me? I raise my eyebrows, surprised, because Nicola does not really like me, never has. We’re ‘friends of friends’, frequently in the same physical space together, but hardly soulmates. Her text says it all: ‘Jane? Are you there? No one else is around. I. Am. Going. Mad. Need to talk to someone!’

My disappointment, my wetness anger me. And so I dial her number as an act of atonement.

And she spews. So much unhappiness and so much anger there. And it’s just; I cannot deny her this anger, her right to be angry. The rat-fuck bastard is acting like, well, a rat-fuck bastard. Refusing to take the co-parenting-after-separation seminar. Refusing to negotiate an interim financial agreement. Refusing, I realise suddenly, to accept that he is in the middle of a divorce.

‘He still hopes this is a separation,’ I say, but Nicola doesn’t hear me, she finishes the sentence differently:

‘…not to take the responsibility for anything!’ she cries. And she shouts and screams, and then, abruptly, switches gears and starts talking about the skank. Because none of this would have happened if it weren’t for her. If she hadn’t approached him, if she hadn’t chased him. If she had acted the way a woman should – if she had respected Nicola, another woman, a wife, the rights of a wife…

I hold the phone away from my ear, but I still hear. And every few seconds make a sympathetic noise. A perverse part of me imagines she is Joy. A masochistic, martyred facet of my psyche casts her as Alex, saying all of this in his head – because he is a man, and he is Alex, and he would never bare his soul like this, no more would I. In both scenarios, the calumnies are cast at me, not at Matt. Of course, at me. Just as Nicola, angry, angry though she is at the cheating rat-fuck bastard, is angrier still at the intern-skank, and sees her as the catalyst. He was weak and unable to say no, she was the instigator, the catalyst. If she hadn’t seduced, invited, aggressed…

Jezebel.

How very Christian of Nicola, I think, and then, I think this: flip it. So. For me – am I weak and unable to say no? If Matt hadn’t come – if he hadn’t seduced, invited, aggressed…would I have sought him out? Or another?

It is a very, very interesting question. So interesting, I hold the phone away from my ear and sit on the floor to ponder the answer.

What is happening here? Is it me? Him? Us?

I wanted you then. I wanted you always. I want you always. But I always want you…tied to someone else.

—Ah.

I believe this is what you want as well. It used to be. Is it still?

I rejected Matt, consciously, effectively, once. But fully. With Cassandra in my belly. My commitment and love for Alex and the family we were starting were the most important, the only things in my universe. And what followed? Ten years. Almost eleven. Five pregnancies. One near-death experience, four babies. Swollen belly, milk gushing from breasts. Extreme joy. Exhaustion. Love. Motherhood. Monogamy. Monogamy without much struggle, without much reflection, because there wasn’t much room for anything else. And yes, happiness, fulfilment. Other lovers, other desires? I barely had time and desire for Alex. It was all…babies. Toddlers. Obligations. Never enough sleep.

Nicola’s two kids are Cassandra and Henry’s age, I think, maybe older. Is she at this place? I suddenly wonder. Coming out of the cloud cast by reproduction…no, wait. It is her husband who strayed. I am mixing stories and metaphors.

I am looking for justification.

I am looking for an argument that ends like this: I deserve this night.

Fuck it. One night. Eleven years of pregnancy, and babies, and breastfeeding and faithfulness and monogamous sex and no real transgression or temptation, eleven years of duty. Fuck it. One night. I deserve this one night.

I’m going to do it. And I’m not going to feel an iota of guilt about it.

Done.

Shut the fuck up, brain.

‘And is that too much to ask, Jane?’ Nicola’s voice echoes in my ear.

‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s not too much to ask.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you. I know this – I just needed to hear someone else say it.’

‘It’s not too much to ask,’ I repeat. And then I add, ‘You’ll get through it.’

‘Of course I will,’ Nicola says. ‘I will. Because I am awesome. And not an immoral, cheating skank.’

She hangs off. I touch my forehead against the cold tile floor.

Fuck it. One night. I get one night. And I get flooded with relief. The dilemma, the angst, the search for the guilt, disappears, recedes. One night. The climax. In, what, eight days? Seven days. And one night. And then, it’s over, and real life takes over again.

One night.

It’s my mantra for the rest of the day. I field one more telephone call from Nicola, and listen to her patiently, guilt-free, without feeling the need to atone, judge or rush, as she repeats everything she said in the earlier conversation. I make all the right responses, all the right noises. One night.

I get one night.

I pick up Annie from preschool. I take her out for lunch, and then to the library for story time. We read books. Mem Fox. Robert Munsch. Mo Willems. She laughs so hard at Elephant and Piggie that she wets herself. While I’m changing her in the bathroom, she hiccups, hiccups and throws up lunch – sushi – all over herself. Me.

One night.

I get one night.

‘Why does the car smell like vomit?’ Henry asks, wrinkling his nose, as the kids load into the car. Annie bursts into tears.

‘Annie’s sick,’ I say. ‘Hush.’

‘Disgusting!’ Eddie says. ‘And she smells like pee, too!’ Annie cries louder.

‘You smell too, Mom,’ says Henry.

I sigh.

‘Sorry, Mom, but vomit does smell really, really bad,’ Cassandra offers. Annie’s now wailing at the top her lungs. I rest my forehead against the steering wheel.

‘If you’re really lucky, Annie will cry so hard she’ll puke again,’ I mumble through gritted teeth.

Eleven years of pregnancy, and babies, and breastfeeding and faithfulness and monogamous sex and no real transgression or temptation, eleven years of diapers, vomit, snot, sleepless nights, given to all of them freely, unresentfully, fully.

One night.

At home, I clean Annie up and proactively put her on the couch with a puke bucket beside her. Send the boys to Lacey’s to play with Clayton. Ask Cassandra – nose in book already – to keep an eye on Annie while I clean myself up. Then go to check how badly the car stinks. Disgusting. Ugh. So tired. But. Kind of at peace. Unconflicted. Not happy, exactly, but…OK. Thoroughly OK, and no longer covered in vomit.

The phone rings and I look at it, and it’s Nicola again, and I have done my duty by her today, and will not go through a third conversation with her. I let her go to voice mail. But the phone tingles while I am still holding it in my hand, and my clit tingles too, and it’s Facebook, and it’s Matt. My lips start to part in a smile, and I prepare to be caressed by a lover.

But then, the world ends, immediately:

Heart-breaking/soul-saving news. My Calgary trip is off. Fucking lawyers. Fucking clients. We’re pulling all the work – fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am truly sorry. And fucking pissed.

The adjective of the day is: livid.

I don’t write back. What is there to say? The world has ended. Everything is over. He’s not coming.

I am safe. I cannot transgress.

I can’t breathe.

Day 6 Obsession

Saturday, December 8

I can’t breathe. Or sleep. At 5.30 in the morning I give up. Get up. Go downstairs to pretend to work. And I write…

—oh lover i miss you already, and four days ago i didn’t even know there was anything to miss

And I go offline, and turn off the phone, because I don’t want to suffer.

I channel the insomnia into a mad explosion of work, then surprise Alex with pancakes for breakfast.

‘Is it wrong if I like the effects of your insomnia?’ he asks.

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Enjoy without guilt.’

Ha.

I try to get in touch with the guilt within me, but there is only heat and desire. And regret. Such woeful regret when I let myself feel it, I again lose my breath. I do not need to be any more in touch with those.

Because it’s Saturday and they can sleep in, the kids are of course up early. I feed them pancakes when they come down, then wrestle the younger two into snowsuits and chase everyone outside. The snow is fresh and clean. We make snow angels. Try to make snowballs. Run.

I run, throw. Breathe. Try not to think.

Alex is pulling out of the driveway as we come back. He stops, gets out. Kisses all around. ‘I hate working on Saturdays,’ he murmurs into my ear. ‘You know that, right?’ I shrug. Brush my lips against his neck. ‘Every December,’ I whisper. He helps me load the kids into the van, then gets back into the hatchback. Drives away.

I rest my head against the frame of the van. Cold. So cold.

‘Mom?’ Cassandra, ten years old and so tall and allowed to ride in the front seat when the roads are good, leans over. ‘You getting in?’

‘Yes. Let’s roll.’

We get to my parents’ house with enough time for Mom and me to share a coffee before I take off for the gym. There are cardboard boxes everywhere. ‘We’re going to decorate all-out today, sweeties – we’re in the second week of December already, really, and I’m so behind!’ she tells the kids. And suddenly, I realise, yes, she is behind, my Christmas-crazy mother who starts the process of Christmastifying her house on November 1, and is ‘finished’ by December 1. The tree is up – but it’s undecorated. The Christmas village: still in boxes. Cassandra and Henry start taking things out.

‘Wait for Gran!’ my mom trills.

‘Is something wrong?’ I ask. Look at the clock. Got to be in the car in two minutes. Gulp the coffee.

‘Why would anything be wrong?’ my mother says in an unnaturally pitched voice. Fuck. Something’s wrong. I look at the clock again. She catches my eyes straying.

‘Go,’ she says. ‘We are going to have a great time decorating the entire house. Don’t hurry back.’

Fine.

I make it to the gym without rear-ending or side-swiping anyone again, a miracle. Nicola’s not there, and I think I might be relieved she’s not. Or I might just be horny. Jesus-fucking-Christ. I’m absolutely soaking. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I mop. Change. Ponder having a shower before the session…walk out. The gym looks fuzzy.

‘Jane!’ Jesse’s voice. My head snaps. ‘You looked like you couldn’t find me,’ he says. ‘So. Any requests for today?’

He seems very, very far away. ‘Yes,’ I say finally. ‘Make me lift heavy shit and not think. Exhaust me.’

‘I can do that,’ he laughs. I hope he’s as dense as I think he is. Sweet and dumb, right? He cannot pick up on the unleashed storm that is me right now.

‘Jane!’

‘What?’

‘Stop now. Rest.’

‘OK. What next?’

‘On the bench.’

‘What?’ I fucking jump up two feet.

‘On the bench,’ he says. ‘Chest flies. You hate chest flies. And I’ll give you a heavier weight than normal to boot. You asked to be exhausted, remember?’

I sit at the edge of the bench and watch while he goes to get the weights. ‘Hey, Jesse,’ I say. ‘How long have you known me now? More than a year, right?’

‘Almost two, actually,’ he says.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘So – well, you don’t really know me very well, because it’s always just here, and we have limited conversation. Lift this. Rest. Et cetera. But – well, tell me this. Give me some adjectives that describe me.’

‘What?’ Jesse looks uncomfortable, and for a brief moment I wonder if perhaps he does not know what an adjective is.

I am unfair. Because he’s so pretty.

‘Well—’ He crouches down beside me. ‘Lie down so I can give you the weights.’ I lie down. On the bench. Fucking hell. ‘You’re very…disciplined. Committed. Dedicated.’ He places the weights in my hands.

‘Jeezus fucking Christ, how heavy are these?’ I yowl. Heave the weights upwards.

‘You’re a really, really good mother,’ Jesse continues. ‘The left arm is going too deep – pull it up sooner. The way you talk about your kids – it always makes me smile. Inspires me, really. Well – and it’s part of that dedicated thing. How many clients do I have who, at any excuse, don’t come? Too busy, too sick. No babysitter. When your babysitter falls through, you come with the kids. And they’re great kids. And you’re so patient with them.’

‘Fucking hell, Jesse, I am going to die here.’

‘Although you do swear too much. One more – you’ve got it.’

‘Ugh.’

He takes the weights from me and I curl into the fetal position on the bench.

‘You swear too much,’ he repeats.

‘Not an adjective,’ I mutter.

‘Was I only supposed to use adjectives? Well – yeah. Disciplined. Dedicated. Patient. Outspoken…but kind of reserved at the same time, which is an interesting combination. And…’ I stop listening. Other adjectives are going through my head.

Hard.

‘…one of the strongest women I know, actually, physically and mentally,’ Jesse says. And flashes me a lovely smile. I have no idea what he just said. My thoughts are in a hotel room in which I would have been a week from now – and in which I will now no longer be. And…feeling no relief. Just regret. Such overpowering, crippling regret. And lust and desire and…Oh, fuck. If I were ruler supreme of the universe, I would be in that hotel room right now.

‘Jane?’ Jesse asks. ‘Are you going to get off that bench?’

Eventually.

Fuck. One night. I wanted that one night. So very, very badly.

I finish the workout. Drive back to my parents’ house.

My mom can’t wait to get us out of the house, which happens sometimes, so I gather up the kids – Eddie doesn’t want to leave, of course – and drive straight home. The kids want to chill, so I let them find books, movies and computers. Throw in laundry. Ponder supper. Avoid work and the computer for a while. Scrub the bathroom. Promise to read books in a few minutes.

Check Facebook.

5.30 in the morning? Could you not sleep, my lover?

In the span of six days, I’ve become one of those people who check their Facebook mobile every 11 seconds. Obsessed.

Today’s obsession, made worse by the fact that I won’t get to feel it: the sensation of your hair between my gripping fingers.

Freshly shorn to serve me better. I’m developing a preparation fetish.

Instantly wet. Or, rather, wetter.

I am losing my mind.

Why is he writing me? Tormenting me? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. He’s not coming.

Read books to kids. Do stuff. Then it’s time for Cassandra and Henry’s piano lessons. I think, as I do every Saturday – what was I thinking? Piano lessons on Saturday? Why? But it’s the last one before Christmas break. Fine. Distraction. Good to have things to do, places to go. I won’t write back.

Load kids into car. Think about leaving the phone behind. Except that would be irresponsible. Winter. Icy roads. I could have an accident. I need the phone with me. Right.

‘Jane!’ Lacey dances out of her front door and around her Mini. Clayton is with her, smiling shyly at Cassandra. ‘Jane, look!’ and she thrusts a hand, huge flickering diamond on her finger, into my face.

Oh, my fucking God. A diamond. A ring. He did it. She did it.

‘Oh, Lacey!’ I hug her.

‘It’s not exactly me, is it?’ Lacey says, extending her hand in front of her and looking at the ring and finger critically. ‘A little too…white.’ She laughs. ‘But Clint insisted this was the one.’

‘It’s stunning,’ I say. ‘And the date?’

‘The day I nail that man down to a date,’ Lacey says. ‘How many years did it take me to get him to propose? And how many months to get the engagement ring?’ She’s not frustrated or bitter. She’s, if anything, ecstatic.

But that’s Lacey. Perfection. Happiness. No matter what.

And to her, in some way, Clint must be perfection too. I can see it, sometimes, physically anyway. He is built like a linebacker or a hockey enforcer. He fills doorways. Casts a large shadow. ‘I’m big, and so I need big men,’ Lacey likes to say. ‘You know, I don’t want to think they’re gonna break when I wrap my legs around them.’ The visual of Lacey with her legs wrapped around Clint, and him carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom, makes me smile; the one time I heard Lacey say this right in front of Clint, it made him hard. Instantly.

He moves like an athlete, dresses like a businessman. And, for whatever reason, is a retail store manager, of a Target-like big box store. And seems perfectly content with his lot in life. The work doesn’t go home with him, except in the form of an employee-discounted wardrobe. Lacey says that the guest bedroom in his two-bedroom condo is essentially a walk-in closet. ‘With beds for the boys in the middle.’

‘The boys’ are Lacey and Clint’s son Clayton, just a few months younger than my Cassandra, and Clint and Sofia’s five-year-old son Marcello. When Lacey’s happy with Clint, she calls Sofia ‘the other wife’. When she’s despairing of him, she calls her ‘that woman’. Clint has both boys every weekend, Friday night to Sunday evening, and the occasional weeknight as needed by the moms. He’s the most conscientious, involved part-time dad I know.

He’s also a star employee. His store has the lowest staff turnover in the chain, and consistently the highest sales, despite its less than stellar location in northeast Calgary. The low staff turnover is a no-brainer: all the adolescent girls, single moms and part-timer retired grandmothers stay to dream of being seduced by him; all the pubescent boys and plotting men stay to reap the benefits of working with so many horny females.

I don’t know that any of this is true. But that’s what Lacey says and it seems plausible.

‘Of course, he doesn’t sleep with any of the employees,’ Lacey tells me. With what I think is touching faith and innocence, given what she knows about and has gone through with Clint. Until she adds, ‘He just sleeps with the customers.’

Well. Yes.

That’s how Lacey and Clint met, at his store. Lacey was there with a girlfriend, sorting through dresses on the clearance rack, she says. ‘And then this incredible hottie, in the sexiest three-piece suit I’ve ever seen – and I’m allergic to suits, honey, never liked them before, not a bit – this hottie strolls by and looks at the dress I’m holding and says, “That would look absolutely wonderful on you.” And I press it against me, and I say, “Not too skimpy?” And he says, “No such thing as too skimpy for you.”’

The girlfriend considerately melts into the background. Jealous? Or resigned? Lacey doesn’t recall; the girlfriend disappears from her story the moment Clint enters. Lacey takes her haul, including the too skimpy dress, to the changing room. With the promise to show it to Clint. He suggests she use the wheelchair-accessible family changing room that’s just beside his office. He sees her in the dress. They disappear into the office.

Nine months later, Clayton is born.

‘You always get what you want,’ I tell her, the ring still in my face. Lacey smiles.

‘Eventually,’ she agrees. ‘I am a long-term player.’

‘Eventually.’ I smile. ‘But that’s all that matters, right? Endgame.’

‘Everything OK with you?’ she says. She looks at me carefully. ‘You’re losing weight,’ she pronounces. ‘But not in that “I work out with a hot trainer to melt the baby fat” way. In a sickly, peakish, “not eating enough” way.’

She stares at me some more. Disconcerts me.

‘Um, no, I don’t think so,’ I protest. ‘Probably just tired today. And not at my best.’

I drive away a little faster than necessary.

I will not cyberfuck on a Saturday afternoon during my kids’ piano lessons. Even though there will be nothing else to do in the waiting room but fiddle with my phone…

Fuck.

I have no self-control or will. Annie sucks on markers and colours, and Eddie fiddles with his Gameboy.

I take out the phone.

—Sleep was elusive.

what have you done today

—suffered

I am in withdrawal.

I tortured myself by rereading our missives.

—The extent of my desire for you is obscene.

I like that word

—Madness

I’m on a conference call. Because of the Friday disaster. Fuck. Can’t even concentrate on what I’m saying.

—I’m writing to you from my kids’ piano lesson…so fucking wrong

—I was with my trainer this morning. When he told me to lie down on the bench…

I wonder if he could sense your heightened state.

—I don’t know. I don’t think so. Possibly he just thought I was insane. I was not myself.

No. You were mine. Are mine.

Fuck. You bring out my dominant side to a nearly frightening degree.

—frightening

—appropriate word for this

my anger hasn’t abated. I thought it would by now.

—the build-up…

—so hard to let go

Especially when I don’t want to.

—I’m glad

—that you don’t want to.

I need to see you. Send me a photo.

Now.

—Now?

Of your face, Jane. Do it. Fucking now.

—sent

god you look good

—thank you

that mouth

will you keep your glasses on?

—do you want me to?

yes

brainy sexy hot

this isn’t helping my anger

—they might be hard to clean if you cover them with cum

—I guess that didn’t help either

I don’t care

—Tell me about your anger.

It’s a hot heavy feeling.

in my stomach. in my cock.

i want to fuck you so angrily

need to use you to release.

—i want you to use me

—i feel the bruises on my wrists from where you gripped me too hard

the marks on your thighs where i fucked you so hard

i can’t take this. i have to have you

send me more of you

—i can’t

—there are…considerable logistical difficulties in the taking and the sending

—did I mention I was in the kids’ piano class?

Later then.

Fucking reality calls me as well: another emergency meeting.

now go cum for me

—At my kids’ piano lessons?

Wherever the fuck you are. Now.

—Fuck you. Go to your meeting.

I’m going. Take more photos of you. I want to suffer more. And I want you to suffer with me. xx

—xo

Fuck. Mad. Mad. Clearly losing my mind. At home, I find myself moving from task to task without focus or concentration. Marie texts me. Still no word from Zoltan. What should she say? She’s texted him again. Should she text him to say it’s over? And more…I don’t respond. What can I say? Truly, I give not a fuck. Tepid little faux affair. Not real. Not real. She calls – I don’t pick up. I am a bad friend. I don’t care. The text from Alex telling me he’s going out for drinks with the deal team and won’t be home until late barely registers.

I suffer.

Sleepwalk.

I hear Alex come in late, as I’m reading Annie to sleep. Hear him moving around in the kitchen. Heating up food. Dishes clinking in the sink. Then his head pokes into the girls’ bedroom. He gives Cassandra – quietly reading a book – a kiss. Another one for Annie. A third for me.

By the time Annie’s asleep, so is Alex. And I, shaking, shaken, sit in bed beside him and do yet another unforgivable thing. One night. It would have been just one night. One night, and over. And now what?

I get up. Lock myself in the bathroom with the phone. And take photos.

Send.

It’s very, very late in Montréal. But he’s waiting.

Holy fucking hot.

The open mouth. Yes.

—the things i do for you

—slut

The things you’ll do for me. Slut.

—promises

Looking at you again. (Carefully)

Hold your fuck-me heels up to the camera.

—oh god done

And so well done

I WILL have those on your feet, pointed at the ceiling.

—My stomach is in knots

—I feel sick with desire for you

Did you like showing yourself to me?

—no

Good.

—this is so fucking sick

Yet we can’t stop.

Addicted.

—I don’t think that’s the right word even

—compulsion

The dark cousin of obsession.

Those heels are fucking hot. To be blunt.

—yes

—I get wet putting them on

put them on

—on

how do you feel

—slick

obedient

—angry

good

—resentful

even better

—Jeezus

I want you to get fucked in those heels tonight.

—do you

—what am i thinking while I’m getting fucked?

—in those heels, by someone else

Me. Watching you perform for me.

Making you work.

My shameless whore.

—Scripting me, directing me?

Letting you know when you can cum.

—stopping me when I really want to

‘Wait for it.’

—oh fuck

you can’t cum but he keeps pounding you

‘Fuck her harder.’

‘Harder.’

I stand up and take my cock out inches away from your face.

—out of reach

just barely

—I make that sound

I know which one.

‘Cum on her ass. Now.’

I shoot my cum onto your glasses.

You are covered at both ends.

‘Now you can cum.’

—can I use your limp cock

No. I want to see you cum by submission alone.

your face glazed and eyes wild

—without a touch

—just from the scene, on your command

Now.

—now

you are so beautifully, submissively obedient

—fucking hell

—this is unreal

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