That Filthy Book (20 page)

Part of me was relieved. Part of me missed it so much I wanted to cry.

“I’ve shown everyone that I like to fuck your cunt and your mouth, now it’s time for me to fuck your arse, whore, so get ready for it.”

There was no further preamble. His cock was at my anus, nudging forwards, gaining purchase. I gripped the side of the bench and twisted my head to look at the windows on my right. The girl chewing gum had frozen with her mouth wide. Had she ever been fucked up the arse? Judging by her rapt expression, I guessed not.

Suddenly Jacob pistoned in. He made no allowance for my small, tight hole and rammed his dick to the hilt. His balls slapped hard against my vulva and I cried out, adoring the sudden, brutal filling.

“Ah, fuck yes.” He gripped my hips, held me tight and firm and pounded in and out. A few times he withdrew completely then blasted back in, stretching my scorched anus anew with his wide glans.

I felt helpless, like a rag doll with orifices for his use. My arse was on fire, my pussy weeping, and my nipples dragged painfully on the bench as he jostled into me. Every sensation was erotic and torturous.

Bliss wrapped in depravity.

“Ah, yes, come. Come, whore,” he ordered.

I couldn’t see his face but I could imagine his head tipped back to the ceiling, the tendons on his neck straining, his teeth bared.

I shot my hand down to my clit. “Oh, yes, yes, harder, fuck me harder,” I wailed, not caring that I had surrendered to screaming my needs. It only took three nudges on my hard, swollen nub and I climaxed. I was so close anyway. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” I shouted, reeling over wave after satisfying wave of delight. “Fuckmefuckmefuckme.”

He obliged, and as I pulsed and spasmed on the bench, he flooded my arse with his pleasure, a long, hot shot of cum that warmed my insides and soaked his cock.

“Oh, God, yes,” he shouted, stilling as deep as he could go. “Ah, yes.”

I released my hypersensitive clit and gripped the bench again. Allowed my orgasm to ravage through my pussy and rectum and squeezed every drop of pleasure from every nerve possible.

Jacob gave one final shunt into me then his body was over mine, his chest touching my shoulder blades and the mask rubbing against my hair. His breaths were a raging storm in my ear.

A whirring sound scraped around the room.

Panting, I opened my eyes and noticed the automatic curtains closing. The last face I saw was the man who’d definitely been wanking.

Chapter Thirteen

Life had got back to normal so quickly once we’d arrived home that it was almost like Amsterdam had never happened. A dream of my making—a damn wonderful dream that I pulled out at my leisure, reliving time and again while alone. Sometimes even when Jacob fucked me. The memories gave my orgasms a sharper bite, and I had to will myself not to cry out too loudly and wake the girls.

My orgasms had intensified during this journey of re-discovery and so had our relationship. There was nothing dreary about our lives together. I’m sure to the outside world we were just like any other married couple in our cul-de-sac, me a little tubby and not terribly fashionable, Jacob often unshaven and overtired because of work demands. But I knew different.
We
knew different. Because sure, the effort of running a home and bringing up two energetic little girls could be exhausting, emotionally and physically, but we still found time for one another—whispered desires at the kitchen sink, a naughty text when I knew he was in a meeting, or a sexy rendezvous in any room in the house if the girls were on simultaneous play dates.

One of the most delicious new additions to my life was the sizzle of anticipation and the sexual tension that could come from a day of thinking about what we had planned once the girls were asleep. Jacob was always willing, never disappointed me and always made me feel like his most precious, adored possession, even when his coarse whispers were sinfully filthy.

One night, as we were getting ready for bed, he’d given my rump a slap and called me a slut in his best bad-boy voice. My whole body had hummed with delight until I heard the toilet flush and realised one of the girls was up.

We both froze, caught one another’s gaze and waited to see if one of our daughters would appear at the bedroom door.

They didn’t.

Thank goodness.

We’d entertained the thought of soundproofing our room on more than one occasion, dismissing it as a frivolous expense, but Jacob had got a bonus from securing a big deal and as the girls grew older, our dilemma would increase.

Hence the two workmen in our bedroom now; nailing, banging, fixing.

They would be done soon, and no one would be any the wiser. A new stud wall would be placed over the soundproofing materials, a special door fitted to match the other rooms, and as far as anyone else was concerned, we’d just redecorated. Tomorrow I planned to sit sewing while the painters did their bit in there and they painted the spare room too. The fresh coat we’d neglected to paint when Jacob had…

God, since that first time we’d indulged in anal play and bondage so often, like kids with a new toy. It was still novel enough not to become boring, but I worried if we did it too often it could. We needed to mix it up, find new ways of creating pleasure, or switch things around so we never did the same thing twice in a row.

That filthy book came to mind then, and I left the kitchen, not caring that these men were in our home and that I was meant to be making them coffee with two bloody sugars and ‘just a splash of milk, pet’. I rushed upstairs, standing on tiptoe to push the attic door that would release the lock and let it swing down. Reaching up, I grabbed hold of the metal ladder jutting halfway across the square opening and dragged it down. It clattered loudly, the two sections clicking into place as the base met the landing.

“Coffee won’t be a minute!” I called, gingerly climbing the ladder.

My stomach bunched at the fact I was actually going up into the roof, something I always left to Jacob. I was all right getting up there, sort of—the banister being beside the ladder and me worrying I’d pitch over it and tumble down the stairs didn’t help—it was getting down that would prove a problem. But I’d do it because I wanted to get hold of that book again. There were so many fantasies in there, ones every couple tried and others they most certainly did not. But if I remembered correctly, there was one in particular that Jacob had already mentioned and it had gripped me lately. Imagining it in my mind before I fell asleep had created dreams that tortured me with their sexual intensity. They’d been so vivid I would have sworn I’d actually been fucked, my cunt sopping, the sheets beneath me damp from my juices, my hand firmly between my legs, leaving me in no doubt I’d fondled myself while I slept.

The ladder creaked ominously as I climbed inside. With my heart pounding erratically, I crawled across the plywood covering the fluffy yellow insulation, unable to bring myself into a hunched-over crouch. Hands and knees would have to do. It was dark until I reached up and tugged the cord that switched on the light. The bare bulb emitted too bright a light and I squinted at an attic full on all sides, although Jacob had packed things in an orderly way. Two bed frames rested against the far wall, as did the dining table and chairs we’d had too many years ago to count, in its pre-erected state, a regimented row of legs, chair backs and seats, the worn tabletop behind them. To my left sat the pink plastic baby bath I’d used for the girls, and a potty I’d kept just in case we’d decided on having more children. We hadn’t, agreeing two was enough for us, and I thought about doing a car boot sale to get rid of them. There was a lot of stuff up here that was junk to us but treasure to someone else, and the money we would generate could be put to good use by purchasing new toys for us. Adult toys.

I looked over at the space opposite, trying not to think how many spiders and creepy crawlies lurked in the crevices. I glanced up, seeing the inevitable webs, thick and weighted down by dust. I returned my attention to what was in front of me, suppressing a shudder.

Containers of all sizes, with black marker pen proclaiming boldly what they held inside, appeared as a higgledy-piggledy beige wall. I scanned them, noting that some housed old clothes, blankets, and crockery. Others were filled with magazines from when we’d needed ideas on how to do up the house, and others still contained knick-knacks I couldn’t bear to part with, even though I would never have them on the shelves again. But one red box sat there, in the top right-hand corner, with no black marker wording, its only decoration a few overlapping strips of brown sticky tape and the original logo from when the box had been the home for packs of frozen spare ribs.

My box.

My book.

I gasped, smiling so hard it hurt. Giddy with excitement, I scrabbled over to the boxes and reached up to pull mine down. Nostalgia hit, a great wave of the past covering me from head to foot in goosebumps. I recalled packing my things so vividly it was like I’d done it yesterday. I smelt my old bedroom, recalled the state of it, junk all around as I’d taped the box closed. My feelings from that time returned then, full force and blunt—shame, embarrassment, guilt, a vow never to read the book again. But here I was, fingers itching to rip back that brown tape, toss every other book aside and clutch that filthy book to my chest.

The ripping of the tape sounded obscenely loud, and I glanced over my shoulder at the insane thought that the workmen might have heard it. So what if they had? Why was I even bothered? Funny how strange things entered the mind like that. Did some of the old guilt still linger, was that it? Would it always be ingrained in me, a patch of mould that could grow and grow until it infested me once again?

I wouldn’t allow it.

This time was different.
This
time I could embrace what the book said, do every damn thing it suggested, providing Jacob was game.

And I had no doubt he would be.

I peeled back the four top flaps, taking the time to run my fingertips along the spines so the lids didn’t spring closed again. The scent of cardboard, musty from years of being in an attic, wafted up to greet me. And that special smell, of ageing books, all semi-damp dust and yellowing pages, made me think of university days in the library, dissertations being written with the deadline looming. Feet shuffling on the cheap, flat-pile brown carpet. Shelves stacked high, books sticking out, some lopsided and others bolt upright.

I knew where the guilt had come from, then. It wasn’t what the book contained, not really, but that I’d checked it out of the library without taking it back. The librarian had given me such a look of disdain as she’d slammed the date stamper down on the form inside the front cover that I hadn’t wanted to return it—to be given the same look again. She’d made me feel, when I read the book, that it had been wrong. That the events inside had been wrong. Maybe even immoral. But they weren’t, I knew that now, not when they were performed by two consenting adults.

Absurdly, I wanted to cry. That woman had planted a kernel of doubt in my mind at a tender age, and it had sprouted, stayed with me for years, even though I’d talked dirty to Jacob right at the start, before the girls had come along. Even then I’d worried a little that what came out of my mouth made me a filthy person, that I was all kinds of corrupt. Yet I’d still said them. Still enjoyed the result of them. Then becoming a mother had stripped everything away, as though enjoying sex as much as I could wasn’t an option anymore. And my obsession with making sure the books we checked out of the library these days were returned promptly made sense now. I didn’t mind taking
those
books back. Children’s adventures and good, clean romance fiction. I could saunter in there, head held high, knowing the librarian wouldn’t even look up at me as she scanned the barcodes inside the books and nodded that, yes, I could select some new ones now.

Hell, I might even borrow a dirty book again; see how it felt now I was more adult and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.

Thank God I’d woken up. And thank God Jacob had joined me on this new journey.

I removed the books one by one, placing them gently on the plywood, stalling the moment when I’d see that filthy book again. Although I’d seen another copy in Amsterdam, it wasn’t the same. This was
my
book—even though it technically still belonged to the library—and it was in English. It had page corners folded over, I remembered that now, and a splash of Coke coated one page where I’d spurted it from my mouth in shock at what I’d read.

Would those same words shock me now?

I didn’t think so.

There was one book left to remove before I’d see my prize. I lifted it, deliberately not looking inside the box, and popped it onto the pile with the others. They slewed sideways, much like the ones in Amsterdam, and I stared at the domino effect, a fan of well-loved literature.
To Kill a Mockingbird, A Clockwork Orange, Macbeth
and
Hamlet
. A few cheesy romances that brought a smile. A couple of detective thrillers from when I’d fancied myself the kind of girl who could work out who the killer was, then realised I hadn’t when it came to the reveal. A glut of memories, all attached to those pages. Clothes I’d worn, hairstyles I’d sported, food I’d eaten, people I’d hung around with… God, it had all gone by so fast.

I turned to look at the wall opposite, delaying the final moment some more, enjoying the recall of my youth. And then I’d met Jacob, tousle-haired Jacob who had turned my world upside down and still kept turning it. The man who had cared for me without question since that first day and continued to do so.