Sex with the Ex (10 page)

“He's in the house tonight, you know,” he remarked as I lifted my shameful pet off him and held her above my nose so that I could give her a jolly good ticking off. “Now,
madam, that is not the way a lady treats a man.” I didn't want to discuss Richard anymore.

“Oh, I don't know,” laughed Charlie. “Depends on who the lady is.”

“Charlie,” I scolded. “You're sounding quite pervy.”

After that, we both seemed to relax and we talked generally, about the club and ideas he had for its expansion. He was thinking of buying the house next door and knocking through so we could have a pool. I suggested a few ways we could launch the idea and raise more funds. Soon we were toasting his dreams with our second glass of champagne and giggling stupidly at the maddest things, which was very naughty as I was still officially meant to be working.

“I'd better take Jean off for a last check of the launch,” I said as I stood to leave. “I'm meeting the girls at the Met. Josie's bringing her husband. Actually, why don't you join us,” I invited. “Emmanuel's joining us, so we'll need someone to amuse him.”

“Do you know, if that's a serious offer I just might. I feel like I never get to escape this place sometimes.”

“The girls would love it,” I told him truthfully. “Maybe you could pull Clemmie or Elizabeth?” I suggested. “They both fancy you like mad.” I know it was very unprofessional of me suggesting that my boss shag my girlfriends, but we both knew I was sort of joking.

“Best not to mix business with pleasure,” he told me sternly.

I giggled so hard I fell into him and it was definitely just the “cordial” that had gone straight to my head, but I actually thought Charlie was about to kiss me and I was almost ready to kiss him back. Poor Charlie, he must have been horrified, because he went bright red, and once we'd untangled ourselves he started fussing with a cigar box.

“Erm, so I'll see you there,” I told him, stroking Jean's ears, not wanting him to see me blushing.

“In about an hour, okay?”

“Right ho,” I replied and scurried off.

Talk about embarrassing! I slipped through the secret panel and rushed down the stairs, and bam, slammed straight into Richard.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, because it's very humiliating to slam into a man you've just slapped across the face a mere few hours previous.

I muffled an apology, but Richard just looked at me in a forlorn sort of way and then said, “Lolly?”

The last time he'd said Lolly I'd slugged him, but now I wanted to fall into his embrace and rest my fuzzy muddled head on his shoulder. Not that I did, of course; apart from anything else, Jean was wriggling about in my arms.

“Hey, Jean Harlot, my baby!” With that, he took her in his arms and scratched her ears as if he did it every day. He had beautiful long tapered fingers and I was reminded of the marvelous things he'd done to my body with them only last Friday.

Without thinking, the words just came out of my mouth. “Make her go away!”

“Sorry? I was just giving her a stroke.” He looked as if I'd just slapped him again.

“I'm not talking about Jean. Make
her
go away. Drop her off and come to mine.”

“But I can't, she's moved in, Lola. I've asked her to marry me,” he explained almost pleadingly. “Lolly, I'm sorry, but I do love you, I always will, but we can't…we can't go back.”

Now it was me being slapped across the face. A slap of reality. Richard, for all his flaws and mistakes, was right. I took Jean from his arms. “Well, make sure you never meet up with
me again,” I told him, holding back a sob. “I mean it, Richard. I can't deal with this bumping into you all the time.”

“Lolly, don't.”

Tears began to fall down my cheeks. “I mean it, Richard,” I repeated.

“Oh, Lolly,” he sighed, pulling me into his chest and stroking my hair. “Please, Lolly, you know we can't go back to what we had, not really.” He was right, we both had to turn around and walk away, go forward into the future and stop looking back, but I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear the familiar comfort of having Richard's arms around me. I couldn't walk away when all I could think of lately was him and all the good times we'd had. The vows we'd made seemed as real and binding now as they did then. I wanted what we had back. I didn't want to know about Sally, I didn't want to know about sensible or about right and wrong. I wanted Sally to go away, to cease to exist so that I could have Richard back.

“Why can't we go back?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Oh, Lolly,”

“Why, Richard. I want you back. Make her go away.”

If your life is to be a poem of love, you must not disrupt the verse with doubt or vacillations.

 

Whether making love, riding in a carriage, instructing a servant, organizing a party, greeting a guest or discussing politics, every movement, every action, every word, should be in homage to that love.

 

I cannot but feel the touch of my lover's lips on each word that comes from my mouth, whether my conversation be with a parlor maid or my very own true love…

 

Extract from
Hold Your Glass Like a Poem
by Lady Henrietta Posche

I
t was a bold gambit but I made a pact with my conscience. If Richard dumped Leggy Blonde and came to me, it meant we were meant to be together, like Anthony and Cleopatra, like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, like, well…like Kitty and Martin. If he didn't come then fine…all this madness of late could stop.

I knew, though, in the marrow of my bones, that he'd come.

I knew because underneath my mad obsession with Richard, I knew Richard…maybe even better than I knew myself. He would have to come, I'd thrown down a gauntlet and Richard had always been one to take on a challenge. I was so sure he'd come, I had even dressed Jean in her darling brown Hermés ribbon that really set off her eyes.

I slipped into my sexiest underwear, which was so cool the designer still didn't have a supplier. She was a member of Posh House and all her pieces were decorated with real
gemstones, like garnets and rose quartz, which meant it was almost impossible to wash them but they looked divine. Mostly I had them hanging on my bedroom wall with pegs—like an art installation. But tonight I dusted them off—I was to be the work of art.

I took a bottle of Dom champagne out of my mini-fridge, which doubled as my cosmetics cabinet, full as it was of nail varnish and moisturizers. Apart from champagne, I didn't keep food or drink in my flat, there simply wasn't the space. I'd even converted my kitchen cupboard into bookshelves, and I placed Jean's copy of
Secret Passage to the Past
on it, because she wasn't a great fan of biography really. I placed the copy dedicated to me beside my bed, along with the opened bottle of Dom. Then I lit a tuberose candle and inserted the latest Dido CD into my laptop. I was always meaning to buy a stereo, but when you live a nocturnal life, you never seem to find the time to do that sort of shopping.

The buzzer went and I hastily made my bed as I heard the lift come up. Richard. He looked drained when I opened the door, but as I wrapped my arms around him and led him through to my bedroom, he returned my kisses with equal fervor.

And in those kisses I knew the truth: Leggy Blonde had lost and I had won. She might have the legs and looks of a model, but they were the looks and legs of a loser. He had chosen me, a girl of ordinary height, attractive enough though definitely no model—the outsider perhaps, but the winner. The only disappointment was that my prize was slightly damaged from the battle. After sex, Richard rolled off me and groaned. Not a groan of ecstasy but a groan of pain, of problems pushed aside now back and demanding to be dealt with.

I turned away and pulled the sheet around me. Not even
the sweet little scratching sounds of Jean hopping into the room could make reality any less miserable in that postcoital moment.

He said he couldn't stay the night.

I said he could.

He kissed me before falling back down against the pillows. Then my phone rang.

“Lola! What happened to you?” It was Elizabeth.

“Oh shit, I forgot, I was
soooo
knackered after work I just came home and fell asleep,” I lied. “I'm sorry, I should have called.” I yawned. “How's it going anyway, what's the DJ like?” I climbed out of bed and took the phone into the living room.

“The DJ's fine, but listen, Charlie's here, he seemed rattled that you didn't come. Slip on your heels and run down now.”

“I don't know, Elizabeth, I don't really feel like going out, I think I need a night in.”

She laughed. “That'll be the day. But not tonight. Come on, we have to celebrate your afternoon of violent assault. We've ordered champagne, everyone's here. Wait there, Clemmie wants a word.”

“Lola, get down here now! Charlie's here.”

“Well, I'm sure you and the girls can entertain him. The truth is,” I lied, “I'm not sure I'm up for anything tonight, gem, I'm feeling a bit crap actually.”

“He's here with some gorgeous blond creature, as it happens,” she teased, whispering. “I always thought
you
should have a fling with Charlie.”

“Nice!” I replied. “Especially as it sounds like he's with someone.”

“You could make mincemeat of her, Lola, you know these thoroughbreds don't have the staying power. Besides, girl or no girl, he really wanted to see you tonight. Sashay on down, your glass awaits you, darling.”

As I hung up the phone, Richard walked out in his trousers.

“You're not leaving?” I was aware of the slight whine in my voice.

“I can't do this, Lola,” he stated simply, and I thought how he looked like a dog that's been beaten, not a man who had just been made love to. “We can't do this, Lola. You know that.”

So I said goodbye, at a loss for anything else to say.

“I do love you,” he told me as he was leaving. “I don't want to lose you in my life…I just can't…” His voice trailed off as I shut the door.

I didn't want to hear anything beyond the “I love you” part. The rest was just verbiage. So I ignored the doubts, the conflict, the nagging voices of doom in my head, the traces of a line of cocaine I later found left on the cistern of my loo, and clung to that. He loved me. I was like the proverbial child with her hands over her eyes, chanting, “If I can't see the monster, it's not there.”

All that mattered was he loved me.

 

By the time I joined the others, Charlie and his gorgeous blonde had already left. I felt bad but I justified my behavior by telling myself that it had only been a suggestion that he join us at the Met, a suggestion made so that he could feel flattered and flirt with the girls. I mean, Charlie and I spent enough time together without socializing outside of work.

The girls saw it differently. “You invited him down, you should have been here.”

There was no point hiding it, so I told them what had happened.

“You told him
what?
” Clemmie asked in disgust.

“To make her go away,” I repeated as if it was the most marvelously daring thing to say in the world.

Even Emmanuel looked appalled.

“But the point is, don't you see, he did!” Why were they being so obtuse. Couldn't they grasp the point here: Richard had chosen me over her.

Elizabeth looked into my eyes. “The point is, Lola, he did a line, shagged you and probably did another line and left…back to shag her.”

“Where he belongs,” Josie added, pompously smug married that she is.

An image of Richard, my Richard, making love to Leggy Blonde took form in my mind then. I felt sick. Elizabeth shook her head. “I can't believe you. Worst of all I can't believe I'm starting to feel sorry for Richard.”

“I feel sorry for his girlfriend,” Clemmie muttered.

“She's not his girlfriend,” I snapped, surprised by my own ferocity.

“Well, she lives with him now, doesn't she?” Clemmie pointed out.

I put my hands over my ears. “The point you're all missing is that he was
my
husband. We weren't just a fling, we didn't just date. He married
me,
we're still in love and she's just in the way.”

“Can you hear yourself?” Elizabeth asked, removing my hands from my ears. “You can't keep going back. Richard's moved on, sure you can dial him up for sex the way I used to dial Mike, but that's not going to end in happily-ever-after the way you seem to think, Lola.”

“That never stopped you dialing Mike,” I reminded her nastily.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Mike didn't have a live-in girlfriend,” Josie pointed out.

“You're wrong. I know it sounds bad, and I do feel sorry for Sally—” I wasn't sure I did really “—but if Richard and I are meant to be together it's better for her in the long run, too.”

“You're right, you're a veritable saint!” Elizabeth agreed sarcastically. “I only hope Sally appreciates your selflessness.”

“Anyone want more drinks?” Emmanuel asked, obviously keen to remove himself from the booth.

“Look, darling,” Elizabeth said, stroking my hair, “I know how easy and convenient sex with the ex can be, but that's all it is, convenient and easy. It's not love. Love is a celebration of all that's inconvenient and complicated.”

I shook my head. Love my friends as I do, I knew they were wrong, so I declared the subject closed and we all had a dance and Clemmie pulled a cute Swedish boy with lovely thick sandy-blond hair.

By the time I arrived back home to feed Jean, though, I was agitated again. I wanted Richard back and I was sure I could get him back, too, if I played my cards right. So I called him at six in the morning.

He picked up after the first ring, “I was just thinking about you,” he murmured sleepily. I wondered if she was asleep in the bed beside him, or perhaps pretending to be asleep, listening to him on the phone. I wondered if she was listening to his words and realizing that she wasn't as safe in his love as she imagined. “Sorry about last night, leaving like that. I was a prick,” he said.

“I think we've said enough sorrys, don't you?” I told him.

“Maybe. So what's new?”

“Jean was wondering if you wanted to drop by on your way to work and put me to bed.”

He laughed and told me to tell Jean he was on his way.

I answered the door naked, he picked me up and took me
to bed, made beautiful familiar love to me, and then kissed me all over and told me I was beautiful, and I knew that whatever else happened I would hold on to this moment forever. I was right. Richard and I were made for each other, but even in my rapture I took wicked pleasure in knowing he had chosen me over Sally, certain now that if it was what I wanted he always would. Our bodies were the perfect fit, we were meant to be together, there was an electricity with Richard that I'd never experienced with anyone else before. Even during all our time apart, Richard was always the man in all my sexual fantasies.

 

Before he left he made me a green tea with a cube of sugar, just how I like it. Then he kissed me tenderly. “I'm sorry I keep pushing you away, Lola,” he whispered. “This will all work out, though, won't it?” he asked, as if needing reassurance.

“Of course it will work out. It has to,” I replied simply.

“I love your nose,” he told me, running a finger down my cheekbone.

I wrinkled my nose, embarrassed by the compliment.

He laughed. “I especially love the way I can make it wrinkle up by saying stuff like that.”

As he stood in the doorway ready to leave he paused for a moment to tell me he loved me again. Then he left.

I hugged the pillow to my chest and muffled my squeal of triumph in case he heard me in the corridor. I'd won. I'd won! I'd won. Leggy Blonde had lost. Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!

The phone rang just as I was drifting off into a deep sleep. It was Kitty.

“Aunt Camilla died in her sleep last night,” she told me as I was still digging the earplugs out of my ears.

“Oh no! Oh no, poor Aunt Camilla.”

“Yes, well, she was excessively elderly and she died peacefully.”

The thought of Aunt Camilla doing anything that wasn't peaceful was impossible to conjure. Kitty started telling me about the funeral arrangements and how Aunt Camilla had left specific instructions that required cremation and her ashes being exploded in a large spray of fireworks over Surrey. “I can't even begin to imagine what the legalities of arranging a funeral such as this are going to be.”

“Well, let me know if there's anything I can do to help.”

“Joanna's going to be run off her feet with all the preparations,” Kitty sighed, ignoring my offer. “Still, it might be quite fun. Do you know Aunt Camilla has arranged for a funfair to be set with rides, a marquee, Morris dancers and a band. And then at night there will be fire-eaters and magicians and everyone from her local village has been invited. Wasn't she the dark horse?”

“Not to me,” I told my mother pointedly. As the sounds of central London going to work started up outside my window, I flicked through the book about Posche House, reading the letters of love Lady Posche had written to her lover, Edward.