Читать книгу Tell Me - M. Colette Jane - Страница 11

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.