Thou Shalt Not

A/N: challenging myself by writing in a new genre. Constructive feedback greatly appreciated!

For a "cheating wife" story, both the husband and the sex have fairly minor roles - this is mostly a story about race, religion, nationality, and identity. Hopefully it still appeals to a broad audience.

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Her name, she had to keep reminding herself, was Catherine Taylor.

It was, in most senses, a downgrade. Growing up she'd been Kate Oppong. It was a percussive name that lent itself to puns. "Great Aplomb", her mother called her.

Mostly, though, Oppong had been the most obvious sign of her Ghanaian heritage. Her grandfather was black, but fairly light-skinned, something which he said the family had celebrated growing up, and had married a Scottish woman who was as pale as milk. Kate's dad could have passed for Italian or Greek, and Kate was barely darker than her white classmates. When she saw herself in the mirror, she noticed her wide, flat nose, the only outward characteristic she inherited from her grandfather -- but nobody else ever picked her out as mixed-race, not unless she pointed it out.

Kate's mother, father, and grandfather were all lawyers. Her grandfather, Kofi Oppong, had won an academic scholarship as a schoolboy, and studied theology at the University of Oxford before pivoting to become a lawyer after graduation. He had been a reasonable criminal defence barrister, one of the first in the UK, but his tendency to take on too many sympathetic pro bono cases stopped him from living a life of luxury. He was a god-fearing man, who knew what his creator would have him do.

Kate's father inherited Kofi's solemn Anglicanism, but criminal law was not for him -- he couldn't, he said, face defending someone who he knew to be guilty. That, Kate thought, was a cover. It was certainly convenient that he had no moral qualms about high-paying corporate law, which seemed to Kate to just be a quest to find the latest shakedown.

Kate had been the first girl in her year at school to get prominent breasts, and she soon became accustomed to unwanted remarks. One day, on a shopping trip, a strange man made a lecherous comment within earshot of her father. Kate had never seen her father so angry. She was more embarrassed by his temper than by the pervert he was angry at.

"Please, Dad, I get worse every day at school," she said.

That was a pivotal moment in Kate's life. Her father, convinced that Kate's school was raising her to tolerate inappropriate, un-Christian behaviour, pulled her out of the local comprehensive and put a large chunk of that corporate lawyer salary towards a private Christian girls' boarding school for Kate. It was a big culture shock for Kate. She'd always been a good student, only landing herself in trouble a couple of times a year. The environment of her new school was much less permissive, and she struggled to stay within the narrow confines of the school rules. Punctuality, concentration, and academic performance all became issues. Kate found herself spending nearly every evening alone in the detention room, being made to copy out long passages from Leviticus.

After a couple of years, Kate internalised the school's rules, and gradually got in less trouble. She emerged at 18 as a conscientious young Christian woman, who was fully aware of the temptations and risks of gambling, unholy substances, and premarital sex.

Unlike her parents and grandfather, Kate did not want to become a lawyer. She went to the London School of Economics, and graduated with a first-class honours degree in developmental economics. While studying at LSE, she met Sam Taylor, who was studying history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, at a social gathering of the Christian Unions of the London universities. Sam was kind, open, and witty, amazing Kate with his knowledge of Chinese history. Moreover, they were very compatible. Crucially, they were on the same page about hanky-panky: no sex before marriage, and no hanging around: they got engaged before their final year and were married within a month of graduation. Of course she took his name. Why wouldn't she? That was what all her schoolfriends had done, and her sisters-in-law.

Kate got a job working at the Treasury, the UK's finance ministry. It was prestigious in itself, and the sense of prestige was only amplified by the grandeur of the old building, which had mostly survived the Blitz. Her job involved assessing requests for funding from the Department for International Development. Mostly, these were boring: the interesting stuff, about designing aid programmes, was worked out every few years in a major spending review, and so all Kate had to do was review requests for salary adjustments and IT upgrades. She was doing mundane white-collar work in the fanciest setting imaginable. Kate couldn't complain.

Except she wasn't Kate, not at work.

On her first day at the Treasury, Kate was disappointed to find that her email address had been set up as catherine.taylor@hmt.gov.uk, not kate.taylor@hmt.gov.uk. She soon found out why -- the Business Manager to the Deputy Director was also called Kate Taylor.

"We decided to go with Catherine to minimise confusion," said her manager. "There's an option for you to be kate.taylor2, but you'd just end up getting each other's emails. Trust me, there are six Liam Kellys in the department and it's a total nightmare."

After an hour of setting up her IT, Kate went to get a drink of water. Stood at the kitchenette was the most handsome man Kate had ever seen, with a square face and the cheekbones of a supermodel. Kate found herself mentally undressing him.

"Hi, I'm Kate. I mean, Catherine," she said.

He grinned at her. "Don't you know your own name?"

She sighed. "Apparently I have to be Catherine at work so that I don't get confused with the other Kate Taylor."

"Ouch. Can't say I ever have that problem." He offered his hand. "Kwame Osei-Dadzie. The one and only."

"Wowɔ ano a emu yɛ duru?" Kate asked.

Kwame was taken aback. "You speak Twi?"

"My granddad was from Accra."

"Wow. I'd never have guessed. I don't actually speak it very well, but I recognise it when I hear it. I was born in Croydon."

Kwame quickly became Kate's main confidant at work. They would moan to each other about the canteen food, their managers, and above all else, the inanity of the budget requests they dealt with. Kate found Kwame to be a kindred spirit. He reminded her of the Ghanaian side of her in a way that dinner parties with Sam's white friends simply couldn't. She began to feel more authentically herself at work than at home.

Things boiled over, as they will, at the Christmas party. They weren't supposed to drink in the office -- the days of the permanently tipsy civil service were long gone -- but they had special permission to do so one Thursday afternoon in mid-December. Their Director brought in a crate of Prosecco and three cases of craft beer, a local pale ale.

Kate had never been a big drinker, but she figured one glass wouldn't hurt, and it soon turned into two. She had a good time, mingling with her colleagues. And then, across the room, she saw Kwame brushing the hair out of another girl's eyes.

Kate excused herself and went straight over to Kwame. "Hey, Kwame, there's something you need to see," she said, grabbing him by the hand. Kwame smiled apologetically at this other woman as Kate dragged him out to the main stairwell.

"What is it, Catherine?" said Kwame, now they were in the quiet of the foyer.

Kate knew what she wanted. She'd only ever had sex with Sam. How did she know if their sex life was satisfactory? She was missing out on so much. She was too hot to miss out. Yes, she'd made vows... but those vows didn't actually say anything about fidelity.

"Have you seen the gender-neutral toilet?" Kate said. She gestured towards the single bathroom that was set off from the stairwell. "It's really cool. I'll show you."

Kwame didn't protest. He followed Kate into the single-occupancy bathroom, and locked the door. The toilet was immaculately clean -- it probably hadn't been used since it was last cleaned. It had handrails for accessibility and plenty of space for wheelchair users. Perhaps, Kate thought, it had been repurposed from "disabled" to "gender-neutral". After all, weren't all disabled toilets gender-neutral?

"Look," she said, grabbing a box of tampons that was balanced on top of the hand-drier, "they even put these in here. I'm glad they realised that men aren't too fragile to see them."

"Catherine."

"Kate," she corrected. She grabbed his shirt and pulled their bodies together, pushing her sizeable breasts into his torso. She puts her hands behind his head and they kissed deeply.

"Fuck me, Kwame," she said.

"You're married, Kate," he said.

"He's not here."

Kwame dropped to his knees. Kate was confused, half expecting him to pray, but instead he pulled down her skirt and panties and shoved his head between her legs. He began to lap at her, sending pleasure pulsating through her.

"Oh fuck yes... whatever you're doing, keep doing that..."

"Have you never had head before?" Kwame asked.

"I've sucked Sam's dick..." Kate said.

"Oh, you poor thing... let me show you what you're missing..."

Kwame ate Kate out until she came, then bent her over the sink and railed her from behind. There was a firm banging on the door midway through their intercourse, but they ignored it, not even tempering their carnal moans. There was no doubt that the sound of slapping flesh would be audible from the other side of the door. They didn't really care.

When, finally, Kwame came inside Kate, who wasn't using birth control, they got dressed, dusted themselves down, and stepped out to find their Director stood outside the door. He was a short and ruddy-faced man, who was even redder than usual -- from anger, rather than embarrassment.

"I've sent the party to the pub," he said. "Let's take this into the meeting room so we don't disturb any other teams."

Kate and Kwame shared a glance. Being told off by your director just wasn't something that happened normally in the Treasury. Despite the traditional setting, it was a modern workplace, with proper procedures, HR, and management chains.

The director, Alan, led them into the meeting room next to their team workspace. It was a fairly small room, suitable for perhaps a team of twelve. Two of the walls were glass. Alan closed the blinds.

"Christmas or not, the two of you have displayed a total lack of professionalism. Your behaviour is totally inappropriate in the workplace and has made multiple colleagues uncomfortable. It is my view that there is a prima facie case that this amounts to gross misconduct. Kwame, tomorrow morning I'll be asking my Business Manager to arrange a disciplinary review. An independent panel will examine the circumstances and the appropriate course of action. Until then, I'm placing you on administrative leave. Please leave your IT in your locker and hand your pass into the main reception when you leave -- immediately."

"Alan, I'm..."

"Not now, Kwame. You can make your case to the panel. Leave, please."

Kwame's shoulder slumped and he hung his head. He left the room, leaving Kate alone with Alan. Kate felt cold fear spread through her. How could she have been so stupid? Not only had she cheated on her husband -- the man she loved! - but the professional consequences were going to be severe.

"As for you, Catherine," said Alan, "I'm tempted to suspend you until a disciplinary hearing, so you also end up being fired for gross misconduct with no payoff. But as you're still in your probationary period, I can simply terminate your employment immediately in exchange for one week's pay. Bluntly, I don't want to go through two gross misconduct hearings, so you're hereby fired. Don't come in tomorrow. You'll receive next week's pay alongside your final payslip."

Kate's heart sank. Sure, the job hadn't been especially exciting so far -- but she was working as an economist, in the Treasury! It was the ideal first step. She'd struggle to get more government work with this blemish on her career -- she was going to end up a corporate drone like her dad, if she was lucky. "Please, Alan, I made a mistake," Kate said. "Isn't there some way I can make it up?"

"Catherine, you're getting off fairly lightly here. In exchange for a week's pay, you get to avoid the humiliation of explaining that you had a noisy tryst in a disabled toilet. It's unlikely any panel is going to recommend you are kept on."

Kate grimaced. She felt sorry for Kwame, who was going to have to go through that embarrassment in order to fight for his job. She didn't have the stomach for it. "What if I resigned? That would make it a bit less humiliating for me."

"Why should I let you resign, Catherine? This is disciplinary. You're being fired -- no matter what we call it."

Kate smiled as seductively as she could. "Oh, sir, let me resign and I'll let you do whatever you want to me..."

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Kate got home an hour later, after a forty-minute commute from Westminster to their rented flat in South London. Sam was home first -- unusual, but given Kate's Christmas Party, not unexpected.

"Hi love," said Sam, who was making a tomato sauce in the kitchen. In that situation, they'd usually kiss. Kate didn't approach him. "You OK?" he asked.

"I need to tell you something."

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In January, Kate signed in as a guest at the Treasury. She was escorted to the second-highest floor, to a large, boardrom-style conference room. Kwame was sat with a union rep, with three panel members sat opposite. He smiled solemnly at Kate.

"Catherine Taylor?" said the middle-aged woman in the centre of the panel.

"Kate Taylor-Opong," Kate corrected.

"And what team do you work in?"

"I work in a cafe, for now. I was in Kwame's team."

"Talk us through what happened between you and Mr. Osei-Dadzie on Thursday 15th December last year."

Kate knew there was nothing to be gained in defending her reputation. Kwame, on the other hand, could still keep his job. "I led Kwame to a secluded area on false pretences. I locked us in the gender-neutral toilet and threw myself at him. He protested, but I was persistent. I accept the blame for what happened."

"Are you saying the incident was non-consensual? Because if so, Ms. Taylor-Opong, I'm afraid we will have to refer this matter to the police."

"Kwame consented, it's true, but he required persuading. The whole affair was initiated by me."

Kate had spent enough time in detention copying out Bible verses to know that false witness was a grave sin. But she wasn't testifying against Kwame -- her lies were to defend him. And anyway, she didn't care very much about the Bible anymore.

As Kate left the building and stepped out onto the corner of Whitehall and Parliament Square, amongst the gaggles of tourists getting the photos taken in front of Big Ben, Kwame caught up with her.

"Kate, thank you. You probably saved my job. You didn't have to lie for me."

"It was the least I could do," Kate said.

"You're calling yourself Taylor-Opong. Did you get divorced?"

Kate sighed. "We're separated, for now. I've been staying with my parents. Sam doesn't want to get divorced, but we'd need to make some major changes. I've damaged his trust in me."

"I'm sorry," said Kwame.

"I wasn't lying, Kwame. It was mostly me. I seduced you because I wanted to cheat on Sam. I can't complain if it ruined our marriage."

It started to spit.

"I'd best get back in there, or they'll realise I didn't just go for a bathroom break" Kwame said. "I have a friend at the Bank of England who is looking to hire a junior economist. I'll send you her details."

"Thanks, Kwame. I wish..." Kate couldn't finish the sentence. She wanted to say that she wished she'd met him before Sam, that she was his wife instead. But how could she? "I wish you all the best. Take care of yourself."

"You too, Kate. Thanks."

Kwame turned and walked back into the building. Full of regret for missed opportunities, Kate walked into the subway leading to Westminster station.