Page 26 of The Spare

Christ, the thought of her ‘putting herself in my hands’ is enough to make my dick twitch. I sit rapidly back down at the breakfast table and reach for my orange juice.

I just hope she hurries up and sees fit to ride my dick very fucking soon. At the end of the day, I stepped up and married her. I can’t think of a more effective way for her to show her gratitude. For the past three mornings, I’ve woken up hard as a rock. This morning, I actually woke up spooning her, my dick pressed up against her, my hand palming her stomach through the flirty little silk nightgown she was wearing. Honestly, someone should tell her that if she wants to keep me at arm’s length, she should seriously downgrade the night attire.

You know those extra-vivid dreams you have right before you wake up? Well, this morning, I was preparing (in my dream, I should stress) to tug up that nightie and slip right in so that I could fuck her slowly just like that before flipping her onto her stomach and taking her like that.

Jesus. I know I should feel lucky that this transaction has netted me an indecently hot wife, but I don’t feel lucky when I wake up throbbing and leaking, and I certainly didn’t feel lucky this morning when Slinky went from breathing softly and pressing her little tush against my dick to going rigid and bolting out of bed and straight into the bathroom.

Fuck my life.

Maybe my insistence that we share a bed was premature. Maybe I should crawl off to one of the spare rooms until my wife decides she wants to give me my conjugal rights.

Xav takes a seat at the table and picks up the pot of tea. I have to hand it to him: the guy has chutzpah. Our elite education was good for something, I suppose—it’s qualified us to brazen it out and maintain decorum in even the most excruciating of circumstances.

‘I saw the papers,’ he says blithely. ‘It seems you two pulled off a hell of a coup.’

Well, I suppose this is a marginally better topic for breakfast conversation than our dying father.

Marginally.

‘No one suspected a thing,’ I say. ‘They were all absolutely gobsmacked. Weren’t they, Slinks?’ I lay an arm along the back of her chair. She’s looking particularly lovely today, her shiny brown hair tied back in the kind of perky, virginal ponytail that makes her look like she’s off to play lacrosse and makes me horny as fuck.

She’s not a virgin. At least, I don’t think she is. She’s had a few short relationships, from what I know, even if anything longer term was impossible thanks to her high-profile engagement. Still, I have strong suspicions that she’s at the more innocent end of the spectrum of sexual experience, which is really fucking unhelpful, because Jesus, the things I could show her. Why is the thought of instructional sex so hot? And why is she so hot? And why am I so fucking sexed up this morning?

‘It all went off perfectly,’ she says, drizzling honey onto her Greek yoghurt. That’s about as superlative as Slinky gets.

‘It’s still so weird that my brother got married and I wasn’t there to see it,’ he muses aloud. There is so much subtext there that I have no intention of touching it with a bargepole.

‘You weren’t missed,’ my sister says, grinning at him. ‘Oh, that sounded so rude. I meant people weren’t upset with you for staying away. I don’t think anyone really noticed.

‘Except for the Daily Mail.’ I point my teaspoon at him, and Xav, Flora, and I laugh. Slinky and Ma do not.

The Mail published one of the many hilarious headlines on New Year’s Day: BIG BROTHER IS NOT WATCHING. BENEDICT STEALS WIFE AND TITLE FROM UNDER XAVIER’S NOSE.

We kept all the papers. I might have to frame that one in my study.

‘Yoghurt?’ Slinky asks, sliding a huge cut-glass bowl of the stuff towards me. She gives me a small smile that I take to mean I’m still not sure about you, or this, but I like you a whole fucking lot more than your douchebag brother.

I lounge back in my chair and grin at her, letting my eyes sweep appreciatively over her face in a way I know she’ll pick up on. Reflexively, she licks her lips and I inwardly punch the air.

‘Why thank you, sweetheart,’ I tell her. ‘I’d love some.’

The vigil by my father’s bedside goes on forever, or so it seems. Days bleed into nights, and I suspect the only person actually enjoying the situation is my bride, because we’re on totally different sleep schedules. She even escapes down to London for a couple of days for meetings. While she and her folks base themselves out of Wentworth’s original Oxford headquarters, several of the divisions are in London. I’m sure she’s glad to get away from her husband’s relentless morning glories and the air of death that hangs over Belvedere this week.

I should be grateful—we all should be—that Pa has been able to spend his last few months at home. It’s an insane level of privilege, after all, to have this round-the-clock care for him, complete with a proper hospital bed and endless equipment and countless medical professionals on rotation. I know that. Ivy’s poor stepmum, Dawn, has this horrific condition called Lewy body dementia where basically your brain and your body crap out. It sounds utterly tragic. And, before Xav had her transferred to the private care facility we’re funding, she was in this ghastly nursing home with no proper care. Stories like that really do put our privilege into perspective, but what I’m beginning to realise is that you can’t glamorise or sanitise this stuff. A bit, sure, but not fully.

It’s still utterly, unrelentingly shite.

The thing no one tells you about watching someone die—probably because most people have more common decency than I do—is that it’s as dull as watching paint dry but a hell of a lot more distressing. You sit there in this weird twilight zone, trying not to fidget, trying not to be disrespectful, not quite knowing what hour of the day or night it is. You watch with horror as someone you know and love—someone who could easily lift you onto a horse back in the day—disappears before your eyes. You worry that the assumption you have—that everyone presumably has—that you’ll die happily in your sleep one day after a full and painless life will not come to pass. And, worst of all, you fight every impulse you have to get the hell out of there and run for the hills: or at least some fresh, frigid air.

Actually, that’s not the worst bit.

The worst bit is the fact that it gives you way too much time to think.

About everything.

When I was six years old, my brother saved my life after I stupidly dived too far into Belvedere’s lake. You’d think I’d have learnt my lesson—think before you act, Ben—but this past week’s events would suggest otherwise. Once again, I jumped, figuring I could put up my parachute on the way down. Usually, I like to process events after the fact, but I didn’t figure on having quite as much processing time as I do sitting here in this grim room.

Right now, my brain is ricocheting like a damned pinball between two trains of thought: