Distractions (11 page)

She regretted her behaviour, leaving Jason without saying goodbye. Leaving at all in fact. Regrets were normally something foreign to her, but she knew she’d be a fool to allow the anger to overcome her.

Now that the husbands were here she was faced with the reality of her situation. One – her involvement with Jason was a selfish and harmful indulgence which she ought to have resisted. Two – she’d lifted Sally onto her back, again. And three – David’s desire for children.

She stood up and left the balcony. Upstairs, she lay down on her bed. No tears came. But she was feeling very low. When David came to find her, she pretended to be taking a nap.

FIFTEEN

By the time Emma woke, for she had finally fallen asleep after much circuitous introspection, it was nine o’clock. She was feeling much better, a little drowsy, but her heart was not so heavy, her mind felt clear. She wanted nothing. She lay quietly, happy to be part of the darkness for a while. She could hear David’s voice, at least the bass, reverberating downstairs, at one with the sound of the surf. She was slightly hungry. She made her way downstairs in the darkness in search of food and affection. No one had deemed it necessary to switch the lights on. Had she been
able to see herself she may have noticed how like a child woken from a mid-afternoon nap she appeared. She even moved in slow motion. Her eyes had a cute, dazed expression, her wide open pupils adding to the effect.

A sense of
déjà vu
overwhelmed her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Everything about the scene was familiar, almost as though, while she was sleeping, she’d come down and witnessed the scene – some kind of out of body experience.

Mark was stretched out on one couch, lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head, eyes closed, mouth open; he was evidently fast asleep. He was still in his board shorts, shirtless and a little sandy. Two empty glass bottles of beer stood on the coffee table beside him, one full one on the floor by the couch.

On the other couch sat David, who raised his eyes to her own the instant she appeared. He was massaging one of Sally’s beautiful feet, both of which lay in his lap, slightly apart, for Sally was stretched out on the couch in the opposite direction to David, facing away from Emma. She lay on her back, her head pressed into a large pillow and she still wore her sarong over her bikini.

There was no sign that the trio had eaten
dinner. Candles lit the scene, soft music played from the stereo (smarmy Perry Como), and a bottle of white wine rested on a bed of ice in a bucket on the coffee table. Sally held her half full glass by the stem with both hands, resting the base on her bare stomach. David’s glass stood precariously on the arm of the couch.

Emma’s mood of inane happiness was supplanted by a violent rush of doubts. Her body stiffened, her heart raced, her breath became short and hurried. She wanted so much to scream at them, but her will rebelled. David’s smile was a blanket on a spot fire. Everything is alright, the smile said.

Nothing is alright, replied Emma’s eyes.

Sally curved her torso and craned her neck to look where David was staring. She saw an upside-down Emma.

‘Hey, Em,’ she said. ‘I thought you were out for good.’

‘I bet,’ said Emma, regretting it immediately. Why should she reveal to them her suspicions? She felt like an idiot. She was being made to look a fool by two of her lovers at once. Had she brought this on herself?

Sally rolled off the couch and stood up.

‘We’ve done nothing wrong!’ she said, disingenuously. But then, she
was
Sally, always cool in a crisis, yet hopeless under the keen regard of her best friend. She felt clear denial the best policy, not fully realising that no accusation had yet been made.

David lounged, guiltless. He’d had no intention of allowing things to go any further. Sally’s foot had been soft and warm in his hand. He was enjoying the danger of the moment but knew it was nothing. Though, the longer he held her foot, the longer he stared at her pussy, for she was allowing him to look, the more aroused he had become and the less care he took of the consequences.

Two minutes before Emma’s arrival, Sally was in heaven. Her husband was a drunken wreck not three feet from her, her best friend was conveniently absent, while that friend’s husband massaged her feet, and occasionally kissed her toes and told her how beautiful they were. She was thrilled at each touch. The dangerous position she was in, the accidentally lifted sarong and the proximity of her exposed sex to his hand, so close to his mouth, had her aching pleasurably. All he had to do was bend a little and his warm mouth would be on her. That this could happen in front of her
husband was so naughty it disabled her reason. Naughtiness overload, as it were.

Had you suggested such a thing to Sally three weeks before she would have condemned the idea, and you, for thinking it possible. She would have explained that she could
never
find a friend’s husband attractive. Such desire wasn’t biologically possible. Once you’ve found your true love, as she had, no one else could possibly attract you.

And adultery? Such a thing was wrong and there were no circumstances in which she could conceive adultery being thought right. Adultery was horrid. She was quite clear on such things.

So when she jumped up to declare herself innocent, she did so on the strength of her habitual position, not on the strength of this unusual turn of events. She stood in front of the one person in the world who knew her best with the smoking gun in her hand.

Emma had nothing to say, because she had too much to say and knew her audience would not understand, or not listen, and she hated being misrepresented. In her mind ran the line ‘They know not what they do,’ and this abominable conceit quietened her momentarily. She could barely look at them. Sally’s eyes flashed with indignation,
David’s stared coolly with virtuousness. Thankfully these two people she loved were so hopelessly flawed she could see right through them to their core of goodness. For otherwise she might have been sick.

‘I don’t care,’ she said finally, and a whole world of troubles slipped off her shoulders.

‘Truly, Em, we were just talking,’ said David. He leant forward to lift the wine from the bucket. ‘Get a glass and join us.’

‘You looked cosy enough without me,’ she said, not even knowing where the words were coming from. She certainly didn’t feel as bitter as she must be sounding. She did go to the kitchen to get a glass.

Sally followed her a few steps, then faltered in her intention to give Emma a hug. She was unable to read Emma’s mood. Would she accept a hug? Emma returned, passing right by Sally without looking at her. Sally felt terrible. She wanted to do or say something to make amends but was completely at a loss.

David poured wine into Emma’s glass and she sat down in the middle of the empty couch. She didn’t know what to say. The moment was very uncomfortable. David was the only one, other than comatose Mark, who seemed fairly at his
ease. Had he been guilty of nothing more than flirting?

Emma had broken into a moment shared by her friend and her husband. David and Sally hadn’t spoken about what they were doing, neither knew how far the other was willing or unwilling to go. They were stuck in that breathless excitement of a first touch, first kiss and the heady rush of blood that follows. Emma saw it all.

Sally could not sit. She had nowhere to go. Her husband had used up one couch, Emma another and the third, the place she most wanted to sit, seemed to be smouldering with her shame. Her one hope was that Emma might do something to make all this go away. She had a knack, thought Sally, for fixing these difficulties.

‘I forgot to tell you about Jason,’ said David, happy to have found an uncontentious topic to discuss. Little did he know that the very mention of Jason’s name from his lips was enough to make Emma hot with shame. A fortunate reversal.

‘He tore up his mother’s study plan and told them both to go to hell. Simon was livid and said Anne was making excuses for him. That he was stressed and overworked. But Simon said Jason had changed overnight. He threatened to drop
out of school if they didn’t let him do what he wanted. Nothing they could do would make him change his mind. Everyone thought it was drugs. But Simon reckoned it was Jess.’

‘Why?’ asked Emma. A new disappointment lurked. That Jason would take up with Jess! This would serve to underscore the inappropriateness of their liaison. He used what he learnt to seduce the girl he always wanted.

Of course he would! What did you expect? You were a means to an end. You knew that. Are you jealous of Jess? Are you?

‘He had stayed out all night after pretending to go to bed then climbing out his window. They’d let it pass the first time it happened but it continued to happen. Night after night. Apparently Jason was surly when at home. Physical. Simon said he had become a handful. He was stubborn, aggressive and wilful. In a week! He’d been staying over at Jess’s place. Single mothers! Doesn’t anyone know how to lay down the law? Me adult – you child. Me right – you wrong. As Simon said, with his final exams looming what a time for him to go and lose his fucking virginity!’

Sally was still standing. David motioned for her to sit but she was waiting for Emma’s permission.

Emma was being intentionally mean. Though her heart beat wildly at Sally’s discomfiture she felt the need to punish her for her disloyalty, even though she knew this was unfair.

The story David was telling confirmed Emma’s suspicions. But then she had deserted Jason. She’d uncorked him then removed her glass. No one likes to waste good champagne so it was only natural that he’d fill someone else’s glass, wasn’t it?

She was so caught up in her jealousy she couldn’t see the damage she had done to the boy.

Emma drank down the glass of wine in one gulp. Her head flooded with that first rush of inebriation then emptied out, leaving her slightly shaky. She held out her glass and David refilled it. He hadn’t had a thought for Emma until that moment. Now he looked at her and wondered at her strange behaviour.

‘Thirsty?’

‘Yes, very.’

‘Are you alright?’

‘Sure.’

‘You can’t seriously think …?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, cutting him off. Quietly she stood up and sat in his lap.

‘Sit down, Sally. Don’t be silly,’ he said,
motioning with his hand for her to sit beside them, which Sally gladly did. Emma felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge when Sally rested her hand on her knee. She kept herself calm for David. She was amazed at herself, at how violently she hated her friend in this moment. She felt weak, and despised Sally for being weaker still. She hugged David around his neck.

Mark started to snore.

‘Sweetheart, wake up,’ said Sally.

‘No. Don’t,’ said Emma.

Sally stood up and shook her husband, reaching across the coffee table to do so. Emma saw that Sally was naked beneath the sarong. The lust she had felt only hours before was not lost. Mark stirred and looked at her with sleepy, drunk eyes.

‘Go up to bed, sweetheart,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘I’ll follow you up.’

‘No,’ he said.

She tugged at his shorts. ‘Go on,’ she said, walking around the table and shaking him. He stood up, reluctantly, swayed unsteadily, glanced around the room, hardly even taking in David and Emma, then went obediently off to bed. Sally followed him up.

SIXTEEN

When she came back David and Emma were kissing passionately. Emma had straddled him and he held her butt in both hands. Sally stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t want to leave. She was sure, absolutely sure, she’d have David tonight … Come what may.

But how long could she stand there? What had transpired between her and David, really? How sure was she that he would risk Emma’s wrath for a taste of her? As minutes ticked by and the lovers were growing more and more heated, Sally began to feel more and more foolish. She had time
to examine her behaviour over the last week and her behaviour that day. What did she want with David? Did she want to hurt Emma?

They both looked so sexy. The heavy breathing and the grinding of Emma’s hips against David’s was exciting her. She couldn’t move. She so wanted to stay, but had far more reasons to go.

She wanted to be Emma.

Emma broke from her kiss with David and looked around.

Sally felt so embarrassed under that gaze.

Emma slid off David and sat on the floor at his feet. She said nothing to Sally. David stared at her coolly as Emma reached up and undid David’s board shorts. She had been thinking filthy thoughts while kissing him. She had shaken her jealousy off. It had been lightly attached anyway. She’d been thinking about the week, about Jason, Paul, Sally and David. She’d been thinking of her life and the way she lived. She’d been thinking of marriage and the way she had fallen under the yoke and of David, his need for a child, and what that meant for her. The woman she would be expected to become. Well, fuck that! David should have Sally and Sally should have David and Emma should have everyone she damn well wanted to have.

How she hated jealousy! How she hated the bondage of love! Why should she distrust Sally? What had she to fear from that quarter? Kissing David, losing herself in his arms, with these thoughts flitting across her consciousness, she stripped herself naked again. How ashamed she was for being so angry and jealous. Emma was playful again. All could go to hell, she’d play her fiddle while Rome burned.

David’s long thick shaft felt hot in her hand. She saw David’s look of surprise and saw him glance towards Sally. But Emma wouldn’t be warned off. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. That was her motto – wasn’t it? You married a slut, David Benson, didn’t you know?

Emma lifted herself onto her knees and brought her mouth to his cock. She swallowed him. David moaned as Sally watched, helpless. Emma wanted him to come immediately, against his will. She wanted him to be paralysed. There was no time for delicacy, there was little time for art. She stroked his cock with her tight grip. She sucked him deep and sucked him hard.