Distractions (6 page)

The moment David entered the beach house Sally greeted him warmly and informed him that Emma was upstairs taking a shower. He glanced at the room, not yet registering his surroundings as he was still partly lost to the mechanics of the drive, and the thoughts he had been turning over in his head. Sally spoke of the light traffic, as Mark had had a good run, so David informed her of his frustrating crawl north.

He felt tired now and registered the dead weight of his overnight bag on his shoulder. Sally had been quick to assess his mood by the way he dumped the bag by the stairs, and sighed, and she had immediately stepped to the fridge. He looked up the dark stairway, shrugged his shoulders and decided to stay where he was. When he turned back to Sally he took the beer she was offering him and noticed how beautiful she seemed in such a simple dress. He also noticed that her feet were bare, clean and tanned. They represented the week his wife had been enjoying.

‘Have either of you gone swimming in the ocean?’ he asked, his attention having been turned inside-out by her feet. Sally described her swim and the temperature, neglecting to tell him it had been a skinny dip, and assured him that they’d all
go swimming together tomorrow while drawing him over to the dining table.

She had put out cheese, dips and crackers and had arranged the room the best she could in the limited time she had, having lingered so long at the mall. She had turned on a few of the lamps and switched off the overhead lights. The dining table was aglow with candles.

David looked around the room, answering Sally’s gentle questions and, warming to the interest she was paying him, told her of the sort of week he’d had. He complimented Sally on the house and she led him out onto the balcony.

The night sky seemed to have dropped upon their heads. A change in the direction of the wind had cleared the air of the salty mist that often obscured the bright brilliance of the stars in a deep black sky. If they had dared they might have reached out their hands and tickled one. The sound of the surf and the invigorating scent of ocean, coupled with Sally’s warm and interested presence, relaxed David. He had been anxious about seeing Emma, but Sally’s easy manner was an uncomplicated assurance that all was well. He felt certain now that Emma would welcome him, that she had missed him as much as he had
missed her. He suddenly felt the urge to pay Sally a compliment, and he told her frankly just how lovely she looked and that he hadn’t ever seen her so relaxed and happy.

‘You’re a remarkably beautiful woman,’ he added, spontaneously. He looked directly at her and felt better for having done so.

She nodded an acknowledgment.

For both parties this declaration was totally unexpected. His words certainly took Sally by surprise, for although she was often complimented she rarely felt a compliment to be sincere, more likely one applied generally to blondes. David was sincere and she was delighted. His words too, she was quick to note, were blissfully free of ulterior motives. The outcome being, none of her natural alarm bells rang. She could see that he had only just realised she was beautiful. He had seen her for the first time, as it were, which she felt was both awful and lovely at the same time.

The silence which followed his words and her acknowledgement of them quickly turned to embarrassment. They both hurried back inside as each had suddenly decided to run upstairs to their partners.

NINE

After Mark had absconded, Emma sat on the bed, in her underwear, brushing her hair. She was very excited both by David’s imminent arrival and by the delicious duplicity of the scene, just ended, with Sally’s husband.

At least five minutes had elapsed since Sally had called saying David had arrived. Now she began to think it strange that he had not come straight up to her.

Another five minutes later, when she was dressed and presentable, she realised she was harbouring a hurt. Why hadn’t he thought to come
up? Why hadn’t he wanted to come rushing up to her? A week was a long time. Hadn’t he missed her at all? She was certainly not going to go down to him. Not now, no way.

She went back into the en suite to check herself in the mirror. When she had thought about their reunion she’d imagined him running up to her, closing the door hurriedly, grabbing her roughly and in one great orgy of indulgence expending a week’s worth of pent up sexual energy in a matter of minutes.

But no, he did nothing of the sort. She wondered if he was downstairs sitting on a stool with a beer talking with Sally while she messed about in the kitchen. Did he feel encumbered by decency to forgo his baser desires in favour of his duties as a guest? How dreary married life was if after only a year all a wife could expect from a husband was adherence to social niceties!

Finally, Emma heard footsteps in the hall. The bedroom door opened and a relaxed looking David sauntered in.

‘You’re all dressed! Sally said you were in the shower. Did you enjoy your nap? It’s so good to see you, Em.’ He walked up to her and took her in his arms. She did not respond well to his hug – she smelt beer on his breath, but he did not let her go.
‘I missed you so much,’ he added. ‘My life is crap without you. Why did you run away from me?’

The tone of his voice was enough to cause a sob to escape from her.

‘I didn’t run from you, baby,’ she managed to say, disengaging from his grip and looking him in the eye. She held both his hands in hers. ‘I swear, I didn’t. I’ve had a lovely week with Sally and was feeling fine … But why didn’t you come straight up?’

‘Is that it?’ David asked, relieved. ‘Are you angry at me for taking my time?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I was frightened. I thought you might not want to see me. Sally was so lovely, she gave me a beer and put my mind to rest.’

‘You, frightened? Of me?’ she said, and laughed. ‘We’ve both been idiots.’

David lifted her and kissed her. Then he kissed her again, and again, till his kisses became one long kiss and he laid her down on the bed. Soon they were naked and entwined and Emma now found to her great pleasure she had underestimated just how much he’d missed her.

A short time later, husband and wife stood in the shower in a wet embrace, for initially what
David’s body had had to say was concentrated and to the point.

At first she had stood and watched him lather his body, quite happy to wait her turn, but the longer she watched him, the more she needed him. Now they clung together, unmoving, under the strong hot stream from the oversized showerhead.

After five wonderful minutes, Emma was the first to stir. It had suddenly occurred to her that if they stayed in their room too long, Sally and Mark might talk. She knew what was on Mark’s mind, he’d been quite clear about that! She worried that, provoked by Emma and David’s overlong absence, he might broach the subject of a foursome with Sally. Or worse, she suddenly thought, wife swapping. She certainly had no plans to involve herself sexually with that man. She smiled as she ran her hands across David’s broad chest. Why the hell would she?

Emma began to wash David. She ran the cake of soap across his chest while he looked on, with a gorgeous smile on his face. He never seemed larger to her than when they stood toe to toe, as now. He loomed over her and her hands, when washing him down, seemed so small and delicate up against his oversized body.

She loved his body. His muscles were from sport and good genes rather than from mindless and, inherently vainglorious, work in the gym. He had a swimmer’s body, though he was bulkier in the thigh from his rugby and tennis.

Emma was washing his stomach when she noticed that David was not quite done with her. She ran a soapy hand through his pubic hair and grabbed hold of his solid, erect penis.

‘What’s this then?’ she asked.

‘A present,’ he said.

‘You did miss me.’

‘I told you so,’ he said.

David was, of course, completely ignorant of Emma’s concerns about Mark downstairs. He turned his wife around, then pressed her against the tiled wall and fucked her hard and fast, gripping her hips and pummelling her like a devil.

Judging by his wife’s moans David was not long in finding a rhythm that suited them both. Slow deep strokes were to be preferred with the occasional thrust upwards to drag from Emma the much loved
Fuck!
which grew louder and louder, till she screamed the word out regardless of the consequences.

TEN

An hour passed by in the blink of an eye. They had been loud! Very, very loud! They lay on opposite sides of the bed. David was heaving deep breaths. His skin was wet and hot to touch, he was burning up, his muscles had been fried by the sweet demands of his girl. Emma lay, head thrown back over the opposite end of the bed, eyes closed, body still tense, legs clenched, the final wave of pleasure still with her. With release came a deep sigh. Emma relaxed so thoroughly she almost toppled off the bed. She was a slinky now, a breeze, a breath. Everything was still and silent.

She was not dead, for surely death never felt so good, but she
was
immobilised. She certainly had the look of the dead. She lay as she fell, sprawled out in the puddle of their lovemaking. She was momentarily complete.

Usually, in the aftermath, Emma would crave David’s touch, but today she truly needed nothing. All her thoughts were informed by one desire and that desire concerned three individuals. She had mingled the previous night, morning and afternoon with her delirious, very recent past. Sally and David were caught up in a whirlwind of desire that cut a swathe through her mind. All too soon she was incomplete again.

She opened her eyes. The sound of the surf, absent till now, filled the room. She expected the room to have been darker than it was. David had got up and was in the shower, she soon realised. She saw the small, barely perceptible vapours of steam carrying the brighter light of the en suite with them through the open door. They stopped as soon as she heard David turn off the shower.

David stepped back into the room. He was naked.

‘Oooh my, what a sight! Come here, you great hunk,’ she said, being funny.

‘Back, woman! We have to get downstairs. What will they think of us?’

‘Listen to yourself! You stand there like Hercules and prattle on like a tea lady.’

He laughed. ‘We were very noisy. Do you know if these walls are soundproof?’

‘We’ll soon find out. They’ll be sure to make a joke of it. I suppose we should go down.’

‘So you’ve had fun?’ asked David, having stepped into his boxer shorts. He pulled on his beige pants and shook a dark blue shirt before putting that on too.

‘I’ve had a ball. Sally and I have done absolutely nothing. That’s not true, I wrote you a story one day. But most of the time I read while Sally lay in the sun. In fact, we’ve become nudists. You’d have loved being a fly on the wall.’

‘Nudists. Great. My week was lousy without you, babe,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

‘Poor baby, that settles it then. Buy this house and the three of us will live up here.’

‘You, me and Sally?’ he asked, and stretched out on the bed.

‘Absolutely. You’ll be a god to us.’

‘This is sounding obscene. Will it be obscene?’ he asked, hopefully.

‘Yes.’

‘How obscene?’ He had completely forgotten the need to be downstairs.

‘Thy will be done, oh lord.’

‘I like this plan,’ he said, and closed his eyes. ‘You’re wicked,’ he mumbled, and within moments was asleep.

Emma picked up the sheet from the floor and wrapped that around her. She opened her door slowly and peered into the hallway. She could hear muffled noises but they were indeterminate and mixed with the sounds of the surf. The hallway looked dark and safe so she stepped out and crossed the carpeted floor to Sally’s bedroom door and listened. Nothing. She wondered whether Sally and Mark were downstairs waiting. She and David had been an awfully long time.

She opened the door carefully and quietly, just a fraction, hoped to find Sally alone but was immediately greeted with the sight of Sally on her knees on the bed, facing away, being fucked from behind by Mark.

Emma wanted to keep the door open but slowly closed it. She stood in the hallway, all jittery and unsure. They were being incredibly quiet about it, thought Emma, who opened the door slightly
and peered in again. She just couldn’t resist spying. The door was open just a sliver, but that was enough. She could see Sally with her arms outstretched before her, head down, butt raised and knees spread. She could see Mark’s tight butt clenched and pumping away at a frenetic pace. He had an extraordinarily fine arse she noticed. He was as tanned as his wife and very sculpted. Every muscle on his back and arms was clearly defined. His forearms were spectacular and she admired the way his hands gripped Sally’s hips. The whole scene was gorgeous, candle lit, but the soundtrack was off. They were silent.

With a shudder of embarrassed recognition she understood. She and David had been so loud. These two must have heard them and now knowing how thin the walls were, they were not prepared to fall into the same trap! Emma almost spoke, she almost said to them, scream, be loud, we don’t care. She hated to think a couple was subduing their natural expression for the sake of propriety. They already knew David and Emma were not fit to judge.

If Mark wasn’t such a prick, if he was someone she could trust to keep quiet, she’d have jumped in and demanded satisfaction. But he wasn’t. Vain men
lose out more often than they know. He had everything going for him except his personality. How easy would it have been for her to pass through the door and join them. David was dead to the world, she was wrapped only in a sheet, Sally and Emma had their understanding, she knew Mark wanted it. All was go. Except Mark was a dickhead.

She’d love to tell him at some later date, ‘Mark, you missed out because, well, you’re an arrogant prick.’ She wouldn’t tell him she thought him handsome, or that, as his butt pumped away at his wife, she had felt dizzy with delight. She wouldn’t tell him that.

Emma closed the door and shuffled back into her bedroom. She dressed quickly and ran downstairs.