Audrey Ch. 02

It was Sunday morning.

Bryan awoke, his head fuzzy, his body aching. The room felt bright despite the closed curtains. His wife Becky was out of bed, probably giving Tara her breakfast. No, wait... Tara was at her grandparents'. Becky wanted her out of the house, just in case...

Bryan remembered. The grogginess vanished and he sat up in bed, leaning against the pillows. My god, what an evening. And what a night that had followed! He and Becky had fucked and talked and talked and fucked, until past three in the morning. She was right -- there was something about the idea of Bryan having sex with 'Audrey' that brought out the devil in both of them. Several times during that night of sex, Bryan had thought, 'Okay, now is enough', only to re-read Sarah's text message and get turned on all over again.

Bryan glanced over at his wife's bedside table, but was not surprised to see that her phone was gone. Was she talking to someone now? Bryan listened. The house was quiet, but every now and then he heard his wife's laugh from the region of the kitchen. He slipped out of bed and went to the bedroom doorway to listen, holding the door ajar.

Yes, she was definitely talking to someone on the phone. He couldn't make out the words, but it sounded like she was enjoying the conversation. Was she talking to Sarah? Bryan groaned in pain and looked down. Despite all the punishment it had taken, his cock was getting hard.

'My god...' murmured Bryan. 'What is this?'

He went to the cupboard to grab a fresh towel, then took himself to the bathroom. Standing under the shower, he felt the hot water drum the skin of his face and chest as he contemplated the situation. There was a queasiness in his stomach and he put his hand over it, spreading his fingers. He wondered what the feeling was and realised it was self-disgust.

Why was he feeling that?

'Because you are not the man you thought you were,' said an inner voice. 'You thought you were a decent man, a good man, a man of principle. And you're not. You'd rather fuck Sarah than be a faithful husband. And the fact that your wife encourages it just means she is as corrupt as you are.'

Bryan shook his head as he shampooed his hair and body. Becky always said he had a self-righteous streak, that his desire to be a decent man was only skin deep. And maybe there was some truth to that. But as Bryan soaped his penis and balls -- the cause of all the trouble -- he realised that it wasn't the whole truth. He did have a genuine wish to be a good man; to seek the truth in every situation. But the truth in this instance, whether he liked it or not, whether anyone liked it or not, was that he wanted to fuck Sarah Kettleman. And, even more to the point, she wanted to be fucked by him.

Bryan leaned with both hands on the tiled wall, hot water pounding on his head. That was it, wasn't it? It wasn't so much Sarah's body he wanted to experience... it was her desire. It was the fact that she wanted him. And he suddenly saw with crystal clarity how his desire for Becky had been the driving force of their relationship. It was Bryan who had asked Becky out on their first date, Bryan who was the first to say, 'I love you', Bryan the one who proposed marriage and family. Becky had had the power of 'Yes or No' right from the beginning... and she had used it every step of the way. And Bryan simply accepted that this was how things were between a man and a woman.

But Sarah offered something completely new. She had nothing to gain from having sex with him other than the sex itself. And the thought that she might want Bryan anyway, that she would say yes, not because he could offer her love or a relationship or emotional security, but simply because she REALLY liked him and just wanted his cock inside her... suddenly that seemed to Bryan like the most precious thing in Creation.

He turned a dial and freezing cold water shot out of the showerhead. Bryan gasped at the cold, then shut off the water completely. He stood, water dripping, his skin tingling, the hard-on wavering. Then he shook his head, pushed back his hair and reached for the towel.

*************************

Bryan put on a sweatshirt and pair of jeans and went barefoot downstairs. He found Becky in the kitchen-dining room, dressed in a bathrobe and sitting at the table. There was a coffee mug and the phone before her and her hands pressed onto the wood as though holding a one-woman séance. She started when he came in, as though waking from a trance.

'Morning,' he said.

'Hi.'

Instantly, he knew something was wrong. He sat down opposite her and took hold of her hands from across the table. Becky grasped his fingers tight, let out a deep sigh and bowed her head so that her face was hidden by her hair. Bryan cleared his throat and said:

'Was that Sarah you were talking to?'

Becky's hair shook as she nodded.

'Did the conversation not go well?'

'It went very well,' said Becky. 'She's such a lovely person. I really like her.'

'So what's wrong?'

Becky sat back. Bryan let go her hands and she flopped against the backrest of the chair, her chin tilting up as her gaze went to the ceiling. She let out another deep sigh.

'Bryan...' she said. 'Are you familiar with the phrase "Be careful what you wish for"?'

Bryan felt his stomach lurch in disappointment. He knew that phrase all right, and he guessed what was coming. Against all the odds, Becky had got Sarah to admit that she wanted to have sex with him. And now that she was on the verge of making her 'Audrey' fantasy come true, she was getting cold feet.

'Bryan, please say something.'

'I'm not sure what you want me to say.'

'Are you really disappointed?'

Bryan knew exactly how Becky would react if he said yes, so he frowned and took hold of the mug, as though wanting to check its contents.

'Look,' he said, 'the last thing I want is to put you in a situation where you feel forced to do something you're not comfortable doing.'

Becky reached over to take his hand. Bryan did not let go of the mug, so she took his wrist instead.

'I'm so relieved to hear you say that!' she said.

'How did Sarah react?'

'Oh, I haven't told her yet. She basically agreed, but I said that I had to talk to you first. She understood.'

'What exactly did she agree to?'

Becky hesitated. When she spoke, she tried to sound casual, nonchalant.

'Oh, to come over and this time stay the night,' she said. 'For the three of us to have sex together. Actually, she and I had some fun talking about some of the "things" we would do to you! She has quite the--'

'But after you put down the phone?'

'Well... then it hit me. I would be letting another woman have sex with my husband. And I got this cold feeling in my stomach and I realised I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. You do understand, don't you?'

Bryan gazed at the circular lip of the mug. Of course he understood. If Becky told him she wanted to have sex with another man, he'd want to rip the house apart. He looked up at his wife, her anxious expression pleading with him not to be angry with her. He frowned and said:

'Last night you told me you didn't know who you were as a woman and that you wanted to find out what was "down there" -- to discover what you truly wanted underneath what you think you want. Is that right?'

'Yes.'

'Well, based on what you've just said, it seems to me that what's "down there", underneath all the talk of Alpha Males and primal instincts and what-have-you, is the realisation that what you actually want... is a monogamous marriage.'

Becky let out a cry. She ran around the table and leapt onto Bryan's lap, flinging her arms around him.

'I love you, I love you, I love you,' she cried as she squeezed him as hard as she could.

Bryan shifted her weight to get more comfortable. She was still saying 'I love you', but he believed what she was really feeling was relief. It occurred to him that she had not sought to find out how he felt about it, to say nothing of Sarah's feelings.

But that was Becky. She had always been like this. And as Bryan held the woman, feeling the flesh of her bottom on his lap and her soft hair against his face, he realised that he didn't really care. Well... he cared up to a point. But not enough not to hold her and kiss her and make love to her. She was his wife, the mother of his child, and he loved her.

For better. And, in this instance, for worse.

*************************

After lunch, Becky and Bryan drove up to her parents' house, where they were reunited with their bouncy little girl. They had a family day, staying for dinner and a glass or two of sherry, then drove home in the evening. Tara fell asleep in the back and her parents had a hushed conversation about the Sarah situation. It was decided that Becky would give her a call when they got home to 'put her out of her misery'.

When they arrived at the house, Bryan carried their daughter upstairs while Becky headed for the kitchen. As Bryan was changing the little girl into her night clothes, she half-awoke and he ended up staying with her for twenty minutes or so as she settled down to sleep. He crept downstairs to a silent house and went into the kitchen-dining room. The lights were on, but Becky wasn't there. Bryan was about to turn off the lights and go to the living room, when he saw movement through the back window.

Becky was pacing up and down the garden, the phone pressed to her ear. It was too dark for Bryan to see her face, but he could tell by her body language that the conversation was not going well. At one point, she stopped and crouched, her free hand clutching her hair in a fist as though struck by a sudden headache.

Bryan left the window and got himself a whiskey. He felt sad at the realisation at how much he liked Sarah. The fact that she was now giving his wife grief over the phone only increased his liking for her. 'I'll only be a minute,' Becky had said as he was taking Tara upstairs. Well, it was now thirty minutes and counting.

Bryan took his whiskey into the living room and settled himself on the couch. He considered watching TV, then reading a novel, but ended up just staring at the room. It was another half an hour before he heard the back door slam. A minute later, Becky slunk in and went straight to the couch, lying down and putting her head in his lap. Her skin was cold and she looked like she'd just got back from a hard day at work.

'My god...' she said. 'I totally underestimated how much she liked you.'

Bryan was tempted to remark, 'Well, tell me where she lives and I'll go and cheer her up.' But he kept his mouth shut and stroked his wife's hair.

'She was pissed off,' said Becky. 'I mean, really pissed off. She said we'd been toying with her.'

'We?'

Becky twisted her head to look up at him from his lap.

'This was our decision, right?' she said. 'I mean, you said you understood!'

'Yes, I did say that,' said Bryan. 'All right, I'm sorry. It was a joint decision.'

Becky glared up at him a moment longer, then she went back to lying in his lap, hugging his leg. When she spoke, her voice was back to being shocked and self-pitying.

'She was crying too. I felt so guilty, Bryan. I would never have done this if I'd known how much it would hurt her.'

'I know,' said Bryan.

He meant it too. Becky could be thoughtless and single-minded, but she was not malicious. He felt her spread her fingers and grip his thigh.

'I have a favour to ask you,' she said.

'Go ahead.'

'Can you let me do Tara's school runs?'

'Taking her or picking her up?'

'Both.'

Bryan stopped stroking her hair. Becky sat up and looked at him, with that same pleading look as that morning.

'Bryan, Sarah's at the school every day to drop off and pick up Max. It'll be painful for her to see you.'

'Did she say that?'

'Well... not in so many words. But I'm a woman, Bryan, and I know how it is.'

'Yes, but you're not her.'

'For god's sake, Bryan! Just for a month! Just to give her a chance to get over you!'

'You make her sound like a lovesick teenager.'

'You weren't on the phone with her! Bryan, please! At the very least, it'll give me the chance to talk to her in person, to maybe rebuild the friendship. Please give me that chance!'

Bryan sighed. He knew he couldn't say no to that. There was something about this whole thing which didn't feel right, but he had no idea what and -- given the circumstances -- Becky's request was not unreasonable.

'All right,' he said. 'One month.'

Becky flung her arms around his neck and thanked him effusively. Bryan hugged her back, happy that she was happy, but not happy about anything else.

*************************

In the days which followed, things slowly edged back towards normality. Or, at least, Becky pretended it was normality. She took Tara to school and picked her up, pretending all the while that the small, elegant woman who waited for her little boy was invisible. The other woman was clearly of the same mind and even when their children exchanged words, their mothers would escape into their mobile phones until the kids were done talking.

Meanwhile, Bryan threw himself into his work and, when he got home, threw himself into being a father. He also bought a self-help book called Letting Go of Anger which he read instead of his usual novel. The first time Becky saw it, she said:

'Is this your way of making a point?'

'Believe it or not, it actually helps,' said Bryan.

'Why don't you talk to me about it?'

'I'd love to talk to you about it,' said Bryan, lowering the book. 'Trust me, Becky, I would welcome the opportunity to tell you exactly what I think of you.'

Becky felt her entire insides go cold. Bryan looked at her with ice in his gaze and said:

'Are you giving me that opportunity?'

Becky swallowed and left the room. Bryan's 'home truths' had a way of burning themselves into her memory and Becky didn't feel she could handle another one. She hated herself enough as it was. Tara was in bed upstairs, so Becky went into the kitchen-dining room, sat down at the table and broke down in tears.

In the living room, Bryan heard the muffled sound of his wife crying and his first thought was: 'Good! Serves her right!' He knew from experience that the crying came from guilt and self-pity more than any grand realisation that she had done something wrong -- and in his eyes, she had definitely done something wrong. Not getting cold feet, that was easy to forgive. No, it was the bullshit which came afterwards.

Becky would say 'I'm sorry' without fully knowing why she should be sorry -- and what's more, she didn't want to know. What Bryan saw when he looked at her was an intelligent woman who refused to use that intelligence to examine things her heart didn't want her to feel. It was a kind of conscious ignorance which frustrated the hell out of him and he found it hard to respect her in those moments.

But as he sat on the couch and heard the sound of her crying, another thought came to him: 'Didn't you promise to love and honour this woman?' Yes, thought Bryan, I suppose I did. 'So even if she is the cause of her own pain,' said his inner voice, 'what would Love do now?'

'Fuck's sake,' muttered Bryan.

He put his book aside, got up off the couch and went to the kitchen-dining room. He moved a chair next to his weeping wife, sat down and took her in his arms. She immediately sank into his embrace and hugged him as she cried.

'I'm sorry, Bryan!' she sobbed. 'I'm sorry!'

'I know you are,' said Bryan gently. 'I know you are.'

*************************

The one month was nearly up.

Bryan went straight to work on that last Friday morning while Becky took Tara to school. His daughter had been nagging him -- 'Daddy, why do you never take me to school anymore?' -- and Bryan promised her he would do it from next week onwards. Becky had wanted to extend the arrangement, but he had flatly refused. Enough was enough.

He had been working at his company desk for about an hour, when he got a call from the reception desk.

'There's a woman here to see you,' said the voice. 'But she's not on the visitor list.'

'What's her name?' asked Bryan.

'Sarah Kettleman.'

'I'll be right down.'

As he rode the descending lift, heart thumping, Bryan wondered how Sarah had found him. 'Um... Google?' said his inner voice. The lift doors opened and he headed for the reception hall, swiping his company name tag at the security gates.

There was a waiting area to the side of the entrance foyer with a carpeted floor and designer furniture which seemed inspired by children's building blocks. Sarah was sitting on a bright red couch, but she got to her feet the moment Bryan appeared. His heart leapt in his chest. My god, he thought, I'm really happy to see her.

Sarah wore a cream lambswool coat and her hair was piled on her head in the same style as at the dinner, even down to the tortoiseshell hairgrip. But instead of the usual schoolgirl shoes, she wore knee-high heeled boots and Bryan somehow knew she was wearing them for him. Her brown eyes glistened as he approached with not a trace of the anger Becky claimed she harboured against the two of them.

Bryan stopped a couple of metres away from Sarah and the man and the woman regarded each other.

'Hello, Bryan,' said Sarah in her soft, posh voice.

'Hi Sarah,' said Bryan. 'It's good to see you.'

'And it's wonderful to see you.'

She didn't even attempt to hide it. Bryan tried to remember when any woman -- even Becky -- had expressed such naked desire for him. He couldn't think of a single instance.

'Please, let's sit,' he said.

Sarah smiled at the forced formality and took a seat on the red block with a backrest that served as a couch. Bryan had not meant to share the same seat, but the way the interior designer had placed the furniture meant the nearest chair felt like half a mile away. He sighed and sat next to her, keeping as much distance as was polite. Sarah seemed to enjoy his predicament and Bryan cleared his throat.

'So, how can I help?' he said.

'I came here to ask why you haven't been to the school for the past month,' said Sarah. 'I hope that was not on account of me?'

Bryan was at a loss for words. Sarah let out a sigh.

'Bryan, you can't not take your little girl to school! That's just ridiculous!'

He privately agreed, but didn't know how to say so without sounding like Becky was leading him around by his dick. Sarah saved him the trouble.

'It was Becky, wasn't it?' she said. 'Just like it was Becky who got cold feet about our little "adventure".'

'No, that was a mutual decision,' said Bryan.

'Well, that's news to me,' said Sarah. 'Because Becky told me the decision was a hundred percent yours.'

Bryan's mouth dropped open. He was so stunned, he couldn't even disguise his reaction. Yet as shock percolated down to realisation, a lot of floating doubts suddenly clicked into place. He looked at Sarah, his expression serious.

'What did she tell you?' he said.

'She told me that after a good deal of thought, you had changed your mind. That you were a man of your word and you didn't want to break your vows. That you were worried what it might do to your marriage. That you were concerned about my "vulnerability". That the whole thing made you realise that under all your talk of wanting to be an "Alpha Male", what you really wanted was a monogamous marriage.'

Bryan stared at her in bewilderment. Any thought that Sarah might be misrepresenting his wife was dispelled with that last sentence. He leaned his elbows on his legs and rubbed his face. He wasn't yet angry with Becky, but the coldness deep in his gut told him that anger was on its way. Next to him, Sarah put her hands on her knees and looked at her fingernails. Bryan glanced in her direction and said: