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I leant forward, fixed her in my stare, thenoon my tongue fizzing away into fucking nothing. “Why did Stuart cheat, Lydia? What made him fuck some little blonde bitch from the office?”
If she was taken aback by my crudeness, she didn’t show it. Her expression stayed constant, determined. She had steel.
“My go next.”
“Fine.” My temples pulsed, discomfort at my own sorry predicament threatening to boil over, and yet I knew I’d answer her. Just like I’d always followed Katreya into the bushes. “Talk, before I change my mind.”
“He felt things had fizzled. That our sex life had dried up, and I hadn’t wanted him since the Anderson project came in at work. He said he was weak and horny and she was hot for him, promising to put her sour little mouth around his dick and suck him good, only that’s not the only place he put it.”
“Had things dried up?”
“That’s another question.”
“It’s an extension of my earlier question,” I said, with a dismissive hand gesture.
“I was tired and busy, I thought he understood. Hesaidhe understood.” Her lips pursed in anger, the first real chink in her facade I’d seen since the kitchen. “Has that answered your question? Do you think he was justified now because I wasn’t putting out for his bi-weekly demands?”
“Not at all.”
“Good, because our sex lifehadfizzled, but it wasn’t a few months ago likehethinks it was. It wasn’t down to the bloody Anderson project and tiredness over a couple of lousy months. It fizzled years ago for me, when we moved in together and he substituted any effort with nights of missionary and the occasional blow job in the living room. It may have fizzled forhimwhen I stopped rolling over for the obligatory late night shag, but he let it go to shit a hell of a lot earlier than that. It should have beenmescrewing some random in an alleyway on a work night out. Not him.”
I watched her ease down from the ceiling, regaining her composure in measured little paces. I soaked in the rise and fall of her breasts as she pulled back the rage, and the hurt and the injustice. She grabbed the wine bottle from the ice bucket and poured herself a refill, drinking it down with large gulps.
“Does that feel better?”
“What?” she snapped. “Admitting my boyfriend wanted it elsewhere even though he was a boring, conservative joke in the bedroom?”
“Venting the pain. Does it feel good?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “It’s new. I don’t vent, I just deal with shit. I don’t even know why I’m talking about it.”
“Venting is healthy.”
“Says he who doesn’t talk either.”
“I vent,” I said. “I just prefer a more physical outlet for my emotional discomfort - at the gym, or in the bedroom.”
“You vent in the bedroom?” she smiled.
“Sex is my preferred choice, although I have to say I utilise the gym more at this present point in time.”
“I’ve heard. Every lunchtime, at the gym down the street.”
“People talk about that, do they?” I felt the familiar bristling of the hair on my arms, the rage at the whispered discussions.
“It’s hardly a secret. You look sculpted from bronze.”
I forced the irritation back behind the veneer. “So, what’s your question, Lydia Marsh. What do you want to know about James Clarke, CTO?” I forced a smile, an easy one, relaxing back in my seat to diffuse the tension.
“Have you always been like this? Private, I mean.”
I smiled at the relatively easy question. Maybe I’d escape this little round of truth or truth unscathed after all. “No. I wasn’t private with Rachel. She saw all sides of me.”
“Do you miss the intimacy?”
“That’s another question.”
“It’s an extension of my earlier question,” she grinned.
