Any Way You Want Me (17 page)

I took a deep breath. I wanted him. That was the problem.

I put my hand over his. I touched his skin, ran my fingers over his knuckles and felt a throb of excitement.

He was pressed right into me. I could feel his hard-on through my dress. Oh my God. This was really happening.

There was still time to go. Still time to say, sorry, no, I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m not that kind of . . .

But I was hypnotized. Bewitched all over again. Without any permission from my brain, my own hand was stretching slowly, slowly back behind me, over his trouser leg, to stroke an experimental finger over his groin. His whole body stiffened. I heard him gasp.

Now he was running his hand down the front of my legs, pulling up the material, gathering it between his finger and thumb. One swoop and he was underneath, discovering my stockings, moving up, up . . .

‘Sadie! Over here!’

My head spun round as if it were on a string being pulled. Alex. Oh Christ, Alex, at the side of the crowd, triumphantly holding up two glasses of something or other, and beaming.

I smiled and waved back. Still I didn’t look behind me. I walked over to my partner, to the father of my children, the man I had loved for years, with my knickers made wet by someone else’s touch. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ I said as I made my way through the crowd of thirsty hacks. ‘Can I just . . .? Thanks. Cheers.’

I could feel Mark’s eyes on me all the while. I didn’t dare turn round to look at him. Fucking hell. Fucking hell!

‘It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?’ I said when I reached Alex’s side. ‘Phew.’ I fanned my hot cheeks – mentally thanking Cat for slapping on so much foundation – and drank my drink. Champagne cocktail. Delicious. I couldn’t look Alex in the eye. Betraying him under his nose, with all his colleagues in the room. What sort of a bitch did that to her man?

We went and stood with a load of the news hacks and I did the dutiful partner thing, smiling in the right places, polite and friendly, not saying anything offensive. I couldn’t concentrate on a word anyone said, though, just kept pouring booze into myself. All I could think about was Mark’s hands on my body. I wondered where he was, if he was still watching me. And where was Julia, anyway? Presumably not at the bar with Mark when I’d been there. I prayed she was with him right now, whisking him away to introduce him to some important people who’d keep him busy for the rest of the party.

A tall bespectacled journalist in the middle of our group was saying something about a scandal concerning the Department of Health, and hospital waiting lists.

‘And of course, that’s exactly what they promised
wouldn’t
happen, according to their election manifesto,’ he was droning.

Christ on a bike, did they all have to talk shop? It was meant to be an office party. Why weren’t people discussing who fancied who, and
EastEnders
, and where they bought their outfits? Wasn’t anyone going to get pissed and get a conga going?

I drained my cocktail in a gulp, felt it fizz through me. ‘Back in a minute,’ I said to Alex.

He nodded absent-mindedly, listening to and nodding at a middle-aged woman with a sparkly shawl who was quoting NHS statistics as if she’d been up all night revising them.

‘Up twenty-eight per cent on last year, whichever way you look at it . . .’ she wittered.

I made my escape, struck out in the direction of the loos. I was feeling quite drunk now and wobbled precariously on my heels. Oops! I just knocked somebody’s drink with my elbow. Oops! I just bumped against one of the whitewashed pillars. Bloody hell! Get yourself in the loos fast before you go flying arse over tit, I told myself sternly.

I had a great time in the ladies’, working out how to use the flush, admiring the stand-alone sinks and mosaic tiles, then helped myself to all the free hairspray and other cosmetic goodies on offer. I smiled at my flushed reflection in the enormous mirror, checked for lipstick on my teeth and tried to repair the damage to my Catherine Zeta Jones eyes, which were looking rather smudged by now.

I walked out of the toilets and there was Mark, waiting for me by a pillar, blue eyes fixed upon me. Just like I had known he would be.

Shit. This is serious, I told myself. Time to get a grip. Should I stop to talk to him? Or should I keep on walking, back to Alex?

‘Hello again,’ I said, feeling my pulse quicken at the sight of him. He had a dark blue shirt on, well-cut black trousers. I stopped for a second, and found myself rocking back on my heels. Bloody
hell
! Why had I let myself get so drunk?

‘Here, I’ve got you a drink,’ he said. ‘Champagne.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking it. Our fingers touched and I looked up at him. He had felt it too, the electric shock of contact.

‘You look amazing,’ he said.

I tried to be flippant. ‘Well, I
was
going to wear my running gear, you seemed to like me in that, but . . .’

Oh, no. That sounded really flirtatious. And I shouldn’t be flirting with him. I should not be flirting with . . .

‘I like you better in Chanel,’ he said. That crooked smile again. And how did he know it was Chanel? Did that mean Julia had the same dress? I bet hers hadn’t come from Portobello Market, I thought drunkenly. ‘Actually, I think I’d like you with anything on, Sadie,’ he said. He took a step closer to me and the space between us became an intimate one, our heads bent towards each other. ‘Better still, with nothing at all.’

I felt as if I couldn’t breathe in. The music seemed to have stopped. I couldn’t see anyone else in the bar, only him. Everything else was a blur.

I knew I had two distinct options ahead of me, lying like two long paths stretching out into the distance. In one, I walked away from Mark and his hard-on, went back to Alex and lived happily ever after. Hopefully. In the other, I abandoned myself to some glorious sex – and it
would
be glorious, I could just tell – with Mark, and . . . And what? Then what happened?

I swallowed, almost dropping my champagne glass. ‘Where can we go?’ I asked. I couldn’t help myself. The words just came out of me – and at that moment, I didn’t regret them.

‘Follow me,’ he said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him, towards the far end of the room. There was a door marked ‘Private – Staff Only’ on the back wall. He pushed it open, led me in, and slammed the door behind us again.

We were in a brightly lit, white-painted corridor that stank of cigarettes. Music thudded from the other side of the wall. I gulped, suddenly uncertain, but as he slotted his arms around my waist, and bent his head down to kiss me, I breathed him in, felt his mouth upon mine and it was right, so right.

His hands were on me, pushing up my breasts, squeezing them hard, running his fingers down to my waist and then up again, back up to my breasts and pulling the shoulders of my dress down so that he could . . . oh, so that he could slip a hand in, around the side of my bra, searching for my nipple. There. Oh yes.

I was gasping, eyes squeezed shut, mouth on his, one hand in his hair, the other trying to undo his flies.

Now he’d discovered my suspenders and was running a finger around the top of my stocking, letting it snap back against my thigh. Up his hand went, and up, now pressing a palm into the black satin triangle of G-string, sliding a finger along the top, now moving his hands out to grip my bare bottom and groan into my neck.

I fumbled with the zip, feeling how stiff he was inside his trousers. Oh God, I just wanted to do it there and then under the strip lights, back to the wall, legs curled up around him . . .

‘Excuse me – this is a staff corridor. Excuse me – you’ll have to go back into the bar. You’re not meant to be in here.’

I turned my head away from the voice – young, nervous and male – not wanting to see. My heart thumped hard. Mark’s hands had stopped moving on me.

‘Right. Sorry, mate. Just give us a minute,’ he was saying.

I waited until our intruder had gone, then looked up at Mark. Colour flooded my face. Oh God. We’d practically had sex in the corridor. ‘We’d better get back,’ I said, suddenly stricken with guilt at being there, away from the party.

He was shaking his head, eyes dazed-looking. ‘Christ, I can’t bear it. I just want to . . .’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Me too. But we can’t. We mustn’t.’

‘We can,’ he said. He put both hands on my breasts, pushed me into the wall, kissed me again. My hair clip dug into the back of my head and tears started to my eyes, tears of sudden pain and of something else I couldn’t quite name.

‘Monday night,’ he said. ‘Outside the Albert. Sixish.’

He was rubbing circles around my nipples and it was too much; I had to pull away. ‘Yes,’ I said.

Ten

Dear Sadie,

Sounds like you’re really busy with work. Did you get your programmes finished on time? What are they, anyway? Let me know so I can look out for them.

Life in the shop is going well. It’s an independent record shop I set up with a mate, Vic. We specialize in dodgy old punk, your favourite. If you’re serious about me selling your album, I will. How long do you reckon it’ll take me to shift it? I give it two weeks, tops. Still lots of Smiths fans in Manchester.

I’m going to be down in London for my mum’s 60th soon (last week in March). You suggested ‘doing lunch’ but I was wondering how you felt about a pint instead. What do you reckon?

Love Dan x

Oh, Danny boy. From being a mad moment of escapism, he was becoming a complication. There was a brief ten seconds or so while I wondered if Vic was male or female before realizing I didn’t actually care. And now he wanted to go out for a pint with me . . . Hmmm. Could I really carry my bluff off, in person? Did I even want to? After all, there were other irons in the fire right now. In fact, the fire was liable to burn my hands if I wasn’t careful.

It was the Monday after the Saturday before, and the secrets of Saturday night had beaten their wings inside my chest like caged birds for the whole of Sunday.

I hadn’t seen Mark for the rest of the evening. It was as if he had been spirited away by Julia, or the whole thing had been a mere delusion, a wildly erotic dream I’d had that seemed more and more fantastical every time I thought about it.

I had spent a good ten minutes sitting on one of the loos, my mind in utter turmoil. Drunken slut, I chastised myself. Drunken idiot! So much for sticking to Alex’s side all night! I’d all but had sex behind the scenes at Alex’s work do – I mean, what sort of a person did that? How could that have happened?

I’d been pissed, sure, but I hadn’t been comatose. I still could have pushed him off me, click-clacked away from him as fast as my heels would carry me. And I should have done.

But . . . God! It had been electrifying! It had been utterly primitive – an animal lust. Just his touch had bewitched me. I’d been completely under his spell. And when I was with him, it felt incredible. It was only when I was apart from him that the thump of guilt kicked in. And boy, what a kicking I’d taken ever since.

Alex hadn’t noticed my prolonged absence or my dishevelled appearance when I had rejoined him. Hadn’t smelled desire on me, or noticed the nervous fiddling guilt of my hands. He had smiled at me, and then gone straight on with his story about bumping into John Prescott by the lifts the other day. At least the conversation had moved on to celeb spotting anyway, even if it was only John Prescott. That was some small thing to be grateful for.

We had gone home after a couple more hours of free booze and polite chit-chat. I’d packed Cat off in a taxi with drunken, stumbling hugs, and then, for the first time in, well, ages – I literally couldn’t remember when – I had instigated sex with Alex, had pushed him flat on the bed, climbed on top of him, and eased his trousers down. He had looked dazzled, as if Christmas had come ten months early, when really it was only guilt walking the walk.

‘I’ll have to take you out to more swanky bars if this is what it does to you,’ he’d said afterwards, smirking all over his face.

‘You do that,’ I’d said, rolling off him and lying on my back, panting. I stared up into the darkness of our bedroom. Mark. Had he done the same thing, gone home and demanded sex from Julia? Or was he going to wait until Monday night . . . and me?

Monday morning was sunny and warm. Once the kids had been fed and watered, I got straight on the phone to Anna and arranged to meet her in the playground down the road. I felt as if I was about to explode with the weight of my guilty secret; I couldn’t think of anyone else to tell. Becca was too loved up with Nick to listen to anything I had to say, and my sisters were just a bit too close for comfort. They would be disapproving, tell me what a terrible mistake I was making in full sisterly honesty. As for my mum, yeah right. She and Dad had been together since the dark ages; she had absolutely no truck with broken marriages. Even if they weren’t actually marriages as such. ‘People don’t work enough at their relationships these days,’ she’d sniffed disapprovingly, more times than I could remember.

Anna, on the other hand, had never met Alex, so I wouldn’t be putting her in a position where she’d have to lie to him, or deceive him in any way, on my behalf. I just wanted ears to hear me spill out those secret words.

It was a gorgeous day, T-shirt weather when the wind dropped. The clouds had melted away to nothing for once, leaving seamless blue sky stretched out underneath. The snowdrops were all out now in the gardens, daffodils too, pushed right up through the bare earth. Leaves were budding on the trees. It was the beginning of March, and new life was bursting out all over the place.

The playground was heaving. Every mum in the area seemed to have had the same idea as us because the sandpit was packed with digging toddlers, there was a queue for the swings, and babies crawled on the warm grass in wonder – the first time they had ever felt it under their hands and knees for some of them. I looked at one who was on all fours, stroking the blades, pulling at a green tuft, with a look of amazement on his face. The beauty of babyhood – the endless discoveries to be made.