The Adultery Club (20 page)

“What?
What?
Don’t mention his wife? Never ask him to stay the night?”

“Don’t
ever
forget to wax.”

Amy is a
professional mistress (I don’t mean she’s got an S&M dungeon in her basement or anything; just that she’s
been doing this for four years now, so she presumably knows what she’s talking about) and I therefore take her at her word. If she says wax, I’m saying how high.

I glance up at the clock. I’m supposed to be meeting Nick at Claridge’s in an hour. Buggery buggery fuck. A little notice for our much-postponed hot second date would’ve been nice. But I suppose he wasn’t to know that his new client would suddenly cancel and create a nice hotel-bedroom-shaped hole in his schedule. The kind a wife doesn’t notice.

I open my bathroom cabinet and dig around until I locate the cold wax kit Amy gave me two Christmases ago. (Now I think about it: an odd choice for a present.) No way am I putting hot wax on my bikini line, thank you very much. With this you just rub the strips together in your hand until they’re warm, peel them apart, and press them to your inner thigh (or wherever). No muss, no fuss. I’ve never done this myself before, I usually go to the salon, but how hard can it be?

I nip back into my bedroom and use the hair dryer instead of rubbing the strips together to save time. Would my new fuchsia silk dress be too much? It’s a bit tight, but it makes my cleavage look sensational. And I could always tone it down with a pair of kitten heels instead of my usual skyscrapers.

Back in the bathroom, I put my hair straighteners on to heat, get naked, and prop one foot on the toilet. I scan the instructions again, then apply the warmed wax strip to the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my girly bits down to my thigh. I brace myself for the pain. God, these strips are long—

Jesus H fucking Christ!
I’m blind! Blinded by pain!

Slowly the world stops spinning and my vision returns. I glance down, and realize I’ve only managed to pull half the
strip off. Another deep breath, and the bathroom disappears into a renewed swirl of lights and stars.

When consciousness returns, I peer at the wax strip for evidence of my endurance. It’s as blank as a newborn’s diary.

I look down. The hair—and the wax—is still there.
On me
. The most sensitive part of my body is now covered with congealing wax and matted hair. Oh, for God’s sake. I’m just going to use my razor and have done with it. With any luck, my shaver’s rash will blur with stubble rash if I play my cards right tonight.

I take my foot off the toilet, put it down, and instantly realize my mistake.

I am now—not to put too fine a point on it—
sealed shut
.

I penguin-walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do. Six twenty-five.
Oh shit, oh fuck
. Water! Hot water, melt the wax. Then shave, dress, run. I’ll get into the hottest water I can stand, the wax will melt, and I’ll just wipe it off with a sponge. Simple.

I run a bath hot enough to sterilize needles, and step into it.
Not
the fuchsia dress, I decide, as I start to steam. Nick won’t be able to see where it leaves off and I begin.

It’s at this point I discover there’s one thing worse than having your nether regions glued shut with wax: and that’s having your nether regions glued shut and then sealed to the bottom of a cast-iron bath of scalding water—which, by the way, may sear human flesh but does
not
melt cold wax. So I am now stuck to the bottom of the fucking bath.

When I call Amy for help on my mobile—thank God I brought it in here with me in case Nick called—it takes her a full two minutes to stop laughing long enough to take a
breath. “Have you tried calling the customer help number on the side of the box?” she suggests eventually.

“Great idea, Amy,” I say, leaning over the side of the bath and trying not to pass out from the heat. Steam billows around my shoulders and I nearly drop my phone into the water. “I could be the joke of someone else’s night.”

“What about emptying the bathtub and just yanking yourself free?”

Five minutes later, I am still glued to the bottom of an empty and rapidly cooling bath. I start to shiver. This could only happen to me. It makes forgetting to change out of your bedroom slippers look positively chic. “OK. Next bright idea?”

“Is there a lotion in the box?” Amy queries. “They usually give you one to get rid of excess wax. You could try rubbing that on—”

It takes a complicated bit of maneuvering with a loofah, but eventually I knock the bottle of lotion near enough for me to reach it from the bath. I take a sniff as I open the lid: It smells foul. I rub it on my bits doubtfully, hoping I haven’t just ruined my chances of multiple orgasms forever.

“It works!
It works!
Oh, thank God, thank God. Amy, you are a star. And if you ever,
ever
tell anyone about this, I will strangle you with your own intestines.”

“How
very
interesting,
” Nick says, raising his head from between my thighs an hour later. “I don’t think I’ve ever—isn’t there a name you girls have for this?”

I believe the technical term is Monumental Fuck-Up
. “It’s called a Brazilian wax.”

“Ah. After the girl from Ipanema and her thong, presumably. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Less than being superglued to a cast-iron bathtub,” I sigh. “Never mind. It’s a long story.”

Nick grins, and dips his head again. “Well, it looks very tender to me. Very much in need of some careful attention. Here. And perhaps
here
—”

“I think you missed a bit,” I say, arching my back against the pillows.

“You can always stay
here, if you want,” Nick offers; as he has done on each of our five previous visits to the hotel. He towels his hair dry, then drops it carelessly on the bathroom floor. “You don’t have to leave with me. I’ve paid for the night, you might as well enjoy it.”

“I’ve told you, we could just go to my place, this must be costing you a fortune.”

“Not your problem.” Naked, he sits on the side of the bed and picks up my hand, tracing patterns on my palm with his thumb. He doesn’t look up. “And it’s a bit safer here, Sara. More anonymous. I could be meeting any number of clients in a hotel restaurant, especially during the day. If I was spotted coming out of your flat again, it would be a lot harder to explain.”

We had another near miss a couple of weeks ago, when Joan, the office battle-ax, walked straight into Nick as he was leaving my building one evening. He managed to flam up some excuse about dropping off some paperwork, but I’m not sure she was convinced. She’s been giving me some very suspicious looks recently, especially when I’m working on my own with Nick.

I can’t believe how complicated having an affair is. I thought the big adultery dilemma was supposed to be about morals, not bloody logistics. Christ, his wife doesn’t even live in the same county as me. How on
earth
women manage to have affairs with their brothers-in-law two doors down without getting caught is beyond me. Homeland Security or MI5 or whatever they are now could do worse than start looking for double agents in the adulterous ’burbs, if you ask me.

Several times, we’ve come to Claridge’s for wickedly sexy afternoon romps when clients settled out of Court; I almost prefer those quick impromptu trysts to our carefully planned evening rendezvous. I always feel a bit flat when Nick has to leave in time to get the last train home.

He picks up his watch from the bedside table and fastens the leather strap around his wrist. As he gets up from the bed, I suddenly slither forward on the crumpled, damp sheets and take his semihard cock in my mouth, pulling his buttocks toward me. For a moment he resists, and then I feel him yield, his body shuddering against me as he grips my shoulders hard enough to leave handprints.

Just as I taste his salty pre-cum, he pulls himself free, pushing me back down on the bed. For a moment I think he’s about to walk away; and then, in a sudden, erotic change of pace, he flings himself down beside me and starts to trail kisses between my breasts, over my stomach, his tongue darting into my belly button—“Christ, what the
hell
is that?” he said the first time he saw my piercing. “Doesn’t it chafe?”—before snaking wickedly lower; but not yet low enough. He drops kisses on my eyelids, my nose, my cheeks, my lips, my throat, his eyelashes butterflying my skin as he moves. My breasts are squashed hard against his chest. He
smells so sweet and warm, like cinnamon in mulled wine, like cloves in oranges, like pine cones on a bonfire.

Treated with such expertise, the whole of my body is an erogenous zone. The skill with which he’s holding back, controlling the pace, not giving in to my craving to go faster, have him now, drives me absolutely
wild
.

Just as I’m about to scream loud enough for the entire hotel to hear, he plunges his head between my legs and I tangle my hands in his hair, my body bucking electrically as he tongues my clitoris. Feverishly I wrap my legs around his shoulders. He thrusts two fingers inside me, moving them like leaping fish against my inner wall, still lapping my clitoris, and it’s a sensation like nothing I’ve ever known, an erotic roller-coaster speeding ever upward. Stars explode behind my eyes. Lightning rips along my nerve endings. I come faster and harder than I have ever done in my life, my body ricocheting against the bed as the waves break, and keep on breaking, across my body.

Finally, Nick lifts his head and moves a little farther up the bed, resting his cheek against my stomach as I quiver with spent passion. “I love—I love to be here,” he says quietly. “I feel safe, safer than anywhere else in the world.”

Did he—
did he nearly say the L word just then?

He rolls onto his back next to me. After a few minutes, I envelop him with my body, and cover his face with kisses, his stubble sandpapering my mouth. Straddling him, I kiss my way down his chest, nibbling little fish kisses, relishing the salt and sweet taste of his skin. I suck his left nipple and he groans appreciation. An answering beat throbs between my legs as I grasp his cock, steel covered in velvet—

His mobile telephone rings, and I don’t have to ask who’s calling.

I stretch languorously on the bed, trying to look unruffled by the fact that he bothers to answer it. A sexy, cool mistress, not a frustrated and demanding girlfriend.

Nick throws me an embarrassed half-smile as he clumsily pulls on his clothes, gripping his phone between neck and ear.

“I’m on my way. Just finished now. Yes, I know, and I’m sorry, but—”

I hand him his shoes. He doesn’t meet my eye, his expression closed as the phone squawks. She doesn’t sound very happy to me. Poor Nick, the last thing he needs is some nag of a wife bitching at him after he’s worked his arse off all day keeping her in bloody bonbons. If I were married to him, I’d never gripe at him like that; after all, I know from the inside what he has to go through, the stress he’s under, every day. I’m in the business. She can’t
possibly
understand.

“I don’t know what time. I might be working, anyway. Yes, I realize that, but it can’t be helped. Look—
look
, Malinche. I said I’m sorry, but the Court doesn’t see February the fourteenth as anything other than the day that happens to fall between February the thirteenth and February the fifteenth.” Wearily, he rubs his hand over his face. “I know; I
know
you have, but—”

Another burst of indistinct babble. He stalks over to the mirror, running his fingers through his hair and checking his suit jacket for telltale blond hairs. It’s lucky he’s cautious. I’m glad he is. I don’t mind it in the least.

“Look, we’ll talk about it when I get home.”

“Are you sure tomorrow night’s going to be OK?” I ask, knotting my bathrobe. “We can always do it another evening if it’s going to cause a problem. I won’t mind.”

“Of course you will,” Nick says, with unexpected
shrewdness. “And I wouldn’t blame you. I promised I’d take you out for Valentine’s Day, and I will. Now,” his voice softens, “hand me my briefcase and lock yourself in the bathroom, you temptress, or I might just find myself unable to let you go.”

I feel shivery
and glittery inside, like this is our first date. In a way, it is; well, our first special event date, anyway. I spent last year’s Valentine’s Day in Andorra with Amy, the two of us trying to drown our mutual despair over our romantic ineptitude by hiding out somewhere Hallmark-free. We weren’t to know an Internet dating agency had chosen our hotel for their annual Celebration of Love weekend. Forty-two loved-up couples holding hands and smiling all the time. It gave me a migraine.

I scan the sushi menu again, sipping my Mimosa and hoping Nick hurries up and gets here. I’ve been stuck in bloody Birmingham on a case all day, so I haven’t seen him since he left the hotel last night. I can’t wait to give him his present. Well, wear it for him, at least.

I tick off my sushi and sashimi choices—I’m glad Nick picked Yuzo’s again; let’s hope we break the jinx this time—and dither over seaweed or cucumber salad. Maybe I’ll wait till Nick gets here and see what he wants. Actually, now I come to think about it, we haven’t ever had a proper dinner date at all, unless you count Manchester that time. It’ll be quite nice to sit and
talk
, like a normal couple, before jumping into bed.

Quarter past eight. Fifteen minutes late. Oh, come
on
, Nick, I
hate
waiting at a table on my own. There’s only so
long you can fiddle about with a menu trying not to look sad and stood-up, even one as complicated as Yuzo’s.

A waiter hovers discreetly by my elbow. “Are you ready to order, miss?”

“No, I’m just waiting for someone. I was a bit early; he should be here soon.” I glance hopefully toward the door as it jangles open. My whole body fizzes with pleasure and relief. “Oh, look,
there
he is!”

“Whenever you’re ready, miss.”

Thank God
. For a moment there I thought—