Lisa Had a Bad Day

Lisa arrived home to find Morgan's shoes in the hallway.

"You're here?" she shouted, surprised, as she dropped her bag and removed her own shoes and coat hurriedly.

"Heeeeey!" came the return call from the kitchen.

This was unexpected and welcome. He'd been away on a rare freelance job and she'd not expected him back until the late hours. She walked barefoot and eagerly across the hard floor hallway, past the living room and into the kitchen where Morgan clanged a tray back into the oven and let the door slam shut. He'd obviously been home a while because the kitchen was spotless with all of Jeanie's things tidied away, dinner on the stove and he was showered with his hair slicked back and dressed smart in a shirt and tie, dark skinny jeans and his nicest shoes.

"Hey! How are you d..."

Lisa said nothing and instead rushed up to him as he straightened and planted her lips directly on his, cutting him off, closing her eyes and throwing her arms around his neck as she kissed him deeply. He took a deep breath at the pleasure of her passion and returned the grasp by placing his arms around her waist. The kiss held for well over a minute. There was a need for comfort in her kiss. She seemed to give up on breathing and her eyes didn't open for even a glance as the kiss continued.

When eventually the kiss ended she placed her arms around his torso and snuggled her head in under his chin and against his chest, taking more comfort in the proximity of his heart beat.

"Bad day?"

"The worst," she said, still pressed to his chest, his hand stroking her hair now. "But it's over now," she said, turning straight to face him and a smile washing over her face. "And you're here. And we've got a Friday night all to ourselves!" She punctuated this delight with a quick sharp kiss to his lips that rang out percussively. "What are we having?" On the stove sat a wide shallow pan with a tomatoey meat sauce simmering in red wine, so the answer would be no great shock.

"Spaghetti. And... other things, presuming I don't screw it up." He was being modest as it was widely accepted between them that he was very skilled in the kitchen.

"Can't wait!" she said with a tired smile. "I'm gonna go shower this horrible day outta my hair. We got time for a drink before dinner?"

"Sure. I'll pour you one to take up with you."

"No. Let's go out. I wanna be on your arm. Just a quick one. I wanna get dressed up and look as good as you. I wanna stare in your eyes over a cocktail. And then I wanna come back here and eat your beautiful food. And then I wanna take each other's clothes off and fuck. I need you to fuck me tonight. Sound good?"

Morgan took a second and grinned.

"If the answer to that question is ever no... well then it's time to be euthanised."

She smiled as she walked away, leaving him to his work. As she ascended the stairs she removed her earrings and bracelet, undoing the blouse as she cornered the top of the stairs. By the time she was in the bedroom she needed only to let the clothes fall to the floor. She threw them in a laundry hamper as and then u-turned for the bathroom where she climbed straight into the shower and soaked in the steamy water, thinking about her sexy demand all the while. She exited a full 15 minutes later wrapping a towel around her body and falling on the bed with a deep breath.

It had a been a fucking shit day at work; the company was now a few employees lighter and one contract shorter than it had been at the start of the week. No one had been to blame, but the consequences were the same; especially when certain people only worked at the company to service certain clients. She lay there for a time and allowed herself to feel bad for a few minutes. She was not a natural at firing people. She was a creative, and that was the work she excelled at. Everything else was admin and the more it encroached on her workday the happier she was not.

She turned to the side and saw the small framed picture of her and Morgan on his bedside table and smiled slightly. Music started from downstairs. Something light and soulful.

She stood and walked to the mirrored wardrobe where she let the towel fall to the floor. Lisa was 37, average height; her hair white blonde and cropped around her chin. Her skin was pale to match with a number of small moles that speckled her slender body. Her eyes, an almost denim blue, were large and sparkled even when serious. She looked at her naked self in the mirror and felt no resentment. She did the usual routine of inspecting her moles and marks, concentrating only briefly on the small stretches that carrying Jeanie had left her with 5 years ago. She felt no resentment about this; if anything it was a wonderful memento. Almost the same as a tattoo.

She leafed through the wardrobe and assessed her options for the evening. It was June. Dry and fresh. She wasn't the kind of woman to display a lot of flesh. True, she had little in the way of a bosom to show off; but more because she just didn't enjoy that kind of attention. Looking like she did; it was a constant effort of conservatism to not encourage leering. But tonight she would indulge. She wanted to be stared at by one man in particular. And she wanted him to be envied by anyone else whose eyes wandered. If she was in any way a prize then tonight he would be seen as the champion.

Though he didn't know it, this would not be the first time in recent history that he would be the target of such ire. It was over a year ago now, and in the early days of three particular circumstances which all came into being at the same time: her separation from her now ex-husband, John; her new relationship with Morgan and the beginning of their co-habitation.

Though she did nothing to invite attention, she had begun to receive increasingly blatant flirtatious behaviour from a young executive at work named Mark. He was a few years younger, undeniably handsome and well kept. Despite the full details of the full drama of her life in recent months, Mark seemed only to see a recently single woman and allowed the other facts to fade into the background. At first it was almost imperceptible things such as him inching closer to her than normal so that he was just inside her personal space. Then slightly more personal remarks that indicated a closer personal connection than any that existed. Soon she found that he was always placing himself beside her at meetings and even shadowing her to make them almost appear as a couple.

Lisa reacted calmly and without comment. She made no complaint but did not respond affirmatively in any sense. She closed off her body language, made obvious attempts to step back from any physical advance and made any verbal response to anything he said to her short, monosyllabic and as un engaging as possible. But he seemed not to take the hint and continued to pursue this line of behaviour. Eventually he succeeded in being alone in a room with her, something she had managed to avoid for a while but could escape for only so long. In no time he was beside her and within her bubble, this time egged on by her being alone and without the last vestibule of social propriety to restrain him. She couldn't remember the exact words which spurred her to respond, but it was something about dropping their work to go and get dinner somewhere and some mention of his flat in some supposedly swanky area of town.

She'd begun with a deep but calm breath of finality. "Look Mark, let me be very clear about something. And I apologise if I seem callous or insensitive, but as you've ignored all of my attempts to distance myself from you both physically and professionally, I'm afraid you leave me with very little choice other than to be aggressively blunt. I have absolutely zero interest in socialising with you outside of work. I'd like to think it would be obvious at this point but your behaviour forces me to say out loud that I harbour no emotions towards you as a person nor feel even the slightest physical attraction towards you."

At this point, Mark started to hold his hands up and began some plea about her getting the wrong idea. Something about the way he'd jumped into it told her he was well rehearsed at immediately backtracking.

"No, no," she went on, "let me finish for the sake of being clear and removing any unambiguity so that we can put this to rest once and for all." The volume of her voice was raised (a rare occurrence) but the pace remained steady, the tone resolute. Mark put his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes like a teenager caught coming home late by his parents. "I find your behaviour towards me to be completely inappropriate. You are aware that I am recently married. I do not hide this ring on my finger and I speak regularly office wide about my husband and our domestic life. I can only presume then, that you take the failure of my previous marriage to mean that I hold no value over the commitment that my marriage to Morgan represents; a presumption I find to be both deeply offensive and remarkably creepy." She turned to face him and stared him in the eyes properly as she made her next point. "Morgan is my husband. He is the man I love and my physical attraction to him is whole and consuming. He is the only man who satisfies me both physically and emotionally and there is nothing a person like you could ever give me that would compare with even his flaws, which are few. So please refrain from standing behind me in that vulgar way that you do. In fact, don't ever fucking stand near me ever again as it makes my skin crawl. Have I made my point?"

Mark left the room muttering something about her overreacting all the way. It took all of sixty seconds for him to leave with what she presumed he felt was his dignity intact.

Later that night she arrived home to find Jeanie asleep beside Morgan on the sofa in front of a quiet TV.

"Hey," he whispered, followed by a shushing signal as his eyes gestured the sleeping child beside him.

Lisa responded by leaning up against the doorway that she stood in and unbuttoning the top she was wearing as she held his gaze with her eyes until a streak of pale skin was exposed all the way from her neck down to her belly button. Without saying a word she held his gaze a few moments longer and then left the room, making her way upstairs. Morgan manoeuvred himself off the sofa without disturbing the child and followed a trail of discarded clothes all the way upstairs. When he'd arrived in the bedroom he'd been greeted by the sight of Lisa kneeling on the bed facing away from him, naked but for her panties which she pulled down as she fell forward, landing on her palms so that she was on all fours. She lowered her head to push her ass outwards and expose the pink peach of her pussy lips.

"Don't keep a girl waiting," she'd said.

What had followed had not lasted long but had created a memory that had been engraved on both their minds for eternity. She enjoyed remembering this as she sat in front of her dresser mirror brushing her hair. She loved this dresser. She'd found it in an Oxfam shop when they'd moved in a couple of years ago. Almost all the furniture that she'd shared with John had remained in his possession. She'd felt no emotional attachment to any of it. Besides, she had wanted her and Morgan's home life to be a completely fresh page and this home had become exactly that; and, though the new furniture and appliances had helped, it was Morgan himself who curated the homely feel that welcomed her and cared for Jeanie.

Downstairs, Morgan had removed the sauce from the heat and set the oven to turn off after 30 minutes, in case they were gone by then. Despite the record playing, he could hear Lisa's occasional footfalls from upstairs as she made her way around the bedroom and in and out of the bathroom. He took the last of his glass of wine into the living room where the record spun. On his way through the hallway he took note of her coat hanging near the front door and her shoes abandoned messily next to his.

"If you ever change your mind, you shouldn't worry about telling me. I'll just be glad for what we've had this far."

This he had said to her the day before their wedding. She scolded him for his words, annoyed at his defeatist attitude. But Morgan was realistic. He knew that relationships were, in the main, finite. And it took a more resourceful man than himself to maintain them. For now they were happy the way things were. Certainly he was. He'd never had any great career to speak of and was happy to give up work to stay home and take care of Jeanie and the flat. Lisa was a big earner and could cover their lifestyle easily, whereas he'd never reached any particularly impressive income. He knew that her friends and family silently held this against him. They'd had a few mutual friends before it all went down a couple of years ago, and he was fairly certain that they all shared the feeling that Lisa had traded in her reasonably well to do husband with a good inheritance for... well, nobody in particular. They were all perfectly welcoming and polite to him, whilst never being in any way pleased to see him.

It must have baffled them no end that both Lisa and Jeanie were so besotted with him. At every family event they attended, Jeanie hung off him, desperate to play and laughing hysterically. The three of them always seemed out of place around the rest of her strait-laced and decidedly proper family. He smiled as he thought of this and made a plan to tickle Jeanie at the next family meeting until she screamed that very happy scream that she did.

Morgan finished his wine as he heard Lisa descend the staircase. She wore a black and white jumpsuit that he'd enjoyed removing once before. A small faux fur, camel coloured cardigan covered her shoulders and stopped at her bicep. Her makeup was as normal: modest and radiating a perfect complexion but this time with a glamorous streak of Ferrari Red across her lips. The girl was an artist. He'd never been happier to set his eyes on anyone. He watched as she slipped her delicate feet into some high-heeled Jimmy Choos which showed off well painted toes and adorned her ankles in a pretty way. A small chain of an ankle bracelet rested above the highest strap on her right ankle. It made a good match with the charm hanging in the centre of her chest from a long chain. The look was completed by her usual nose ring, some jangly bracelets on both wrists and a clutch which matched her cardigan.

He pulled on his jacket and checked the straightness of his tie in the mirror that hung between the front door and the bottom of the stairs. Happy, Morgan took Lisa's hand and helped her to her feet. They gazed at each other lovingly for a second and he leaned in to kiss her perfect red lips.

"No, my make up is good," she said, stopping him with fingertips on his chest. "Here," she said, turning her face to the side to expose her neck.

He wasted no time in planting his lips against the warm flesh of her soft pale neck. He breathed in her scent, perfumed and full of feminine magic. It instantly aroused him. He wanted to kiss and lap at it with his tongue, hold her close and close his jaw around her vein. He resisted, somehow. They shared a smile, hooked arms and galloped out the door.

The day had been muggy but clouds had moved out and what was left of the day was shining bright sunshine with a cool breeze. Lisa's mood had lifted and they snapped along the street with glee and the happiness of being together. She talked gossip about her friends which was always an evolving subject. Morgan made no objection as he knew it was a good distraction for her. Less than 10 minutes after leaving the flat they were descending steps into a tube station and two stops later they were coming back up. They made their way to a cocktail bar they knew would be quiet at this time. Inside were a few other business types cooling off from a hot week.

They parted instantly, Lisa making her way to the bar and Morgan claiming a booth they frequented. At the bar, Lisa took only two minutes to catch the attention of a barkeep who recognised her. As he prepared their drinks an uncharacteristically young group of women entered the bar noisily. The barman was pleased to see them. They were uniform in tight, short party dresses, fake tan, accentuated brows and heavy foundation. The only one who stood out was the shortest of the group whose dress stopped above the curve of her buttocks making it look like she was bursting out. They were loud and gobby, young and excited. Lisa admired their freedom and lack of commitments. These girls probably had nothing more than Monday morning to worry about.

The bartender brought drinks and Lisa handed over a twenty, abandoning the change as gratuity. At the booth she shuffled in close to Morgan and placed a hand on his thigh. They clinked glasses and she smiled a bright eyed smile of clean white teeth and genuine happiness; no small feat after the day she'd had. They sat mostly in silence as they drank, slowly watching the world go by.

Morgan liked to look at her while she was preoccupied. He enjoyed the way her eyes moved and studied the world; the way they focused on whatever held her attention. She was watching the group of girls, dressed to the nines with party dresses that gave away all their modesty. Their legs were stunning but their makeup ridiculous. Each one of them sported long silky hair which had clearly taken hours and tons of product to prepare. Lisa was entertained by their presence. Was she yearning for a simpler time in her life, he wondered?

After another minute or so of watching the girls cackle and scream excitedly at each other, Lisa turned to him, let out a deep breath and said, "thank you for being in my life!"

They both laughed together. She kept his hand on his thigh as they slowly sipped their drinks, talking about very little but looking into each other's eyes. When they were finished, the picking up of Lisa's clutch was the only cue needed to leave. They walked back the way they came, the city loud in their ears and the mild breeze in their hair as they made their way home. Lisa's arm held his tightly. There was no question of her love through this simple act of ownership.

When they descended into the tube station they made a run for a train which waited silently on the platform. Her heels got the better of her suddenly and she slipped, one ankle collapsing towards the other in a sudden jolt. The motion caused a scrape which Morgan reacted to quickly, shifting his balance to catch her before she fell away. In no time she was righted and steady, the whole thing no more than a second of broken pace which resulted only in him holding her tighter. Momentum was on their side and Morgan hurried her through the doors, on to the train. He caught a handrail from above which he used to steady both of their bodies, him catching her almost like a net.

Lisa was overwhelmed by the dual feelings of being rescued twice in the same moment by this handsome man and felt a tingle of pleasure in the security which she realised he naturally embodied and filled her with. She leaned against his chest once again as the train bolted loudly through the tunnels of the underground.

At home, Morgan boiled the spaghetti in no time, just long enough to lightly toast some sourdough in a drizzle of garlic infused olive oil on a grill pan. Once boiled he drained the pasta, returned it to the saucepan and added a ladle full of sauce for each of them and stirred it through. He twisted it on a carving fork and lay a serving each in two warm dishes; finishing it with a dusting of Parmesan and a leaf or two of basil.

Lisa was filling glasses with red wine as he brought the dishes to the table along with the accompanying bread. She handed him a glass and they clinked once again with her slowly blinking in affection as she sipped and surveyed the dish placed before her. The smell was intoxicating, almost arousing.