The Other Woman's Shoes (25 page)

She couldn’t remember at which point he edged her
trousers down, inch by inch, but certainly not before time. She was lying on the carpet in the living room, that much she could remember. It might have been the fact that she was lying on a carpet in the living room and trying not to make too much noise so as not to wake Eliza and the children, but Martha felt exactly as she’d felt in her late teens when she’d fooled around in silence with her boyfriend on her parents’ couch, conscious that even one over-enthusiastic groan would excite their unwanted attention.

His cool fingers wandered towards her freckled shoulders and traced a line from one freckle to the next, as though he were playing a game of dot-to-dot. In a rapid, almost unperceivable, manoeuvre he removed the shirt that was clinging to her wrists and unfastened and removed her bra. He cupped her breast. He seemed to anticipate where she would like to be touched next and the pressure she’d like him to apply. Groaning quietly, moving slowly, so slowly, as though he had all the time in the world to spend on her, his cool fingertips teased and plucked her nervous system into overdrive.

They’d never be breasts again. Martha had tits. Sexy, desirable, pleasing tits. She felt wanted, almost hunted. Thrilled and thrilling.

He lowered her back on to the carpet.

And back into herself.

They rode hard and fast and long and slow. The sweat ran down Martha’s back and slipped between her buttocks, making her skin appear sparkling and precious. He sucked, stroked and eventually stabbed with the precision to leave her breathless, speechless, helpless, hopeful. She felt him
consume every ridge. His big and beautiful cock had taken ownership; she came again and again and again. With each wave of cum that spilt between her legs, her history was wiped away. His kisses burnt her lips, like acid removing fingerprints. She had been no one before him.

She could smell her own sex. It smelt fantastic. Fabulous. Her legs were longer, her tits were more pert, her waist was smaller. He felt like chances, and dreams, and possibility. It was supposed to feel odd. That’s what she had expected, after years of making love with one man, a new man should feel odd.

But it didn’t.

It felt like his clean, neat, smooth, hard body had been built solely to pleasure her clean, neat, smooth, hard body. She felt as though she had been constructed, actually created, to accommodate him. Hold him. Encompass him.

Everything went white and then black.

She thought she’d opened her eyes but she wasn’t sure, she couldn’t see anything clearly. Slowly her vision began to sharpen and she was faced with his half-closed eyes. He smiled nervously: had he done OK? Was she happy? Did she feel like he did? Did he feel like she did? She stared at him, studying everything, even the delicate, almost transparent skin of his eyelids. The exact texture of his firm, solid lips. She wanted to remember it, consume it, eat it all up, she wanted to be it. She wanted to get so close as to be under his skin, she wanted to be his skin.

They lay in the dark sitting room, lit only by the street light that flooded in through the window. Martha nuzzled into his shoulder, smudging her existence into his. He pulled her a fraction closer still.

It was possible that he’d kissed every inch of her body and mind. He’d reached her. She realized she should have closed off. She should have been more cautious. Every sensible bone in her body was screaming out for reserve, discretion, wariness, watchfulness. But Martha plunged. Dived. Fell. Disregarding any prudence that ought to be employed.

She’d been kicked when she was down, but now she had hope.

She’d loved and she’d lost, but she still believed.

26

‘So let me get this straight,’ demanded Eliza. ‘All night?’

‘Yup.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I’ve never believed it when I’ve heard people going on about it, but it’s true.’

‘So numbers then, give me numbers.’

‘Four.’

‘So now you’re in love with him, right?’

‘Ha ha, I never said that.’ Martha was no longer sure what being in love was; but she thought it was safest to change the subject. ‘He’s got great eyebrows.’

‘Eyebrows.’ Eliza was stunned. ‘God, he must be evil-looking if you have to resort to complimenting his eyebrows.’

Martha smiled and hummed to herself. ‘Actually the reverse. He’s soooooo perfect that even his eyebrows are perfect. They look like he visits Amy every week.’ Amy was their marvellous beautician; both women knew the extent of Martha’s compliment. ‘You know when you see someone famous on the street? Someone from your favourite soap opera you’ve always had a bit of a crush on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And they’re always a disappointment. You’re struck by how short they are, or their bad skin.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he wasn’t disappointing. He was even more delicious than I’d remembered. His eyelashes are so long, they rest on his cheekbones. His cheekbones are chiselled. His skin is iridescent. He has heroic stubble. You know what, Eliza, he looks like the type of man you imagine would be a gladiator. He even looks good when he’s had no sleep.’ Eliza raised one of her own eyebrows in a way that clearly communicated more than a little scepticism mixed with a healthy dose of irritation. Martha realized she hadn’t done such a fantastic job of changing the subject.

‘Martha, girl-friend, you are in lust.’

The debrief was taking place the next day, in the sitting room. The two women were putting up the Christmas tree. Their hope was to finish this task before Mathew returned home from playschool and before Maisie woke up from her afternoon nap. They were at the stage where they had retrieved the huge box of decorations from the loft, and had managed to stand the tree in its pot and it was – more or less – vertical. They had even done the insufferably boring bit of testing the fairy lights. Only to discover that, naturally, as was always the case, lights that had been in perfect working order when put away at the end of the previous Christmas no longer flashed or fluttered. They were as dead as a string of dodos could be; no amount of tightening bulbs could resuscitate them. Martha had given up on them and been out to buy a new box. As she had bought them from her local artsy-craftsy shop, she had paid way over the odds. Still, they were beautiful. Martha thought, What the hell, she was having
fun and she was very touched that Eliza had taken an afternoon’s holiday to help her put up the tree.

Eliza had decided to spend some of her scant and precious holiday allowance to help Martha with this task as she was sure that it would be a terrible emotional ordeal for Martha to tackle on her own: surely every single bauble was imbued with history and memories.

‘Throw that awful star in the bin. I’m having a fairy guarding my Christmas tree this year,’ instructed Martha.

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s certainly past its prime. Look, the glitter is coming off on your hands.’

‘That’s the point,’ argued Eliza, shocked. ‘That’s the point of Christmas decorations, they’re meant to be past their prime.’

‘I’ve never had you down as overly syrupy,’ commented Martha. ‘No, throw it out, and that tinsel, and all those Santas that are missing their beards.’

‘Your tree will be bare.’

‘No. I’ll buy new.’

Eliza felt grumpy. She wasn’t expecting this from Martha, not at all. Shouldn’t she be more distracted? More sentimental? Shouldn’t she be just a smidgen more nostalgic? Not that Eliza wanted Martha to mourn Michael any longer, but surely this Jack character couldn’t have blown Michael so entirely and cleanly out of the picture, could he? Martha was so naïve, Eliza fumed. She had no idea. Of course this Jack bloke had left Martha feeling wonderful; he was well practised; he was bound to be an orgasm generator. He’d probably left dozens of women feeling wonderful in his time. Poor Martha. How was it
possible to be such an unapologetic romantic in this day and age?

Eliza decided it was right to inject some caution into Martha’s fledgling relationship. ‘So let me get this “naked friends” thing right. He has a number of friends, and I say this holding the first two fingers on each hand in the air, and making wanky speech marks around the word “friends”.’ Martha sighed; Eliza ignored her and carried on. ‘He has a number of “friends” with whom he sleeps, but they’re not girlfriends.’

‘Yes.’

‘But he takes them out for meals, to the cinema, to bars, he sees them regularly.’

‘Yes.’

‘So why aren’t they girlfriends?’

‘He says a girlfriend is a person you argue with in supermarkets.’

‘How romantic. That’s fucking inspired. God, these blokes have some nerve. I hope you told him to piss off.’ Eliza was squeezing a plastic beardless Santa. The pressure became too much for him to bear and his head caved in under her thumb. It was clear she was imagining it was Jack’s face. Or maybe Michael’s. Or maybe Tarquin’s, Piers’s, Charlie’s or Sebastian’s. Or maybe they were all on her list.

‘Not exactly,’ confessed Martha taking the broken beardless Santa away from Eliza and dropping the remnants into the bin. She made a mental note to buy Eliza a stress ball for her desk at work. She wasn’t nearly as chilled since she and Greg split up; Greg had been such a great influence.

‘How “not exactly”?’ demanded Eliza.

‘So he doesn’t want an exclusive relationship, it’s no big deal,’ shrugged Martha.

‘It is, Martha. You’re not up to this.’

‘How do you know?’ Martha concentrated on finding the exact place to hang a wooden robin.

‘You’re not the type to handle this, you’re a serial monogamist.’

‘It suits me right now. I don’t want to walk straight into another relationship myself. Besides, I can do the naked friends thing with other men too.’

Eliza nearly choked and only stopped herself through an amazing act of will. It would be awful to choke to death before she’d had the chance to splutter, ‘Who? I’ve been trying to get naked for weeks now and it’s virtually impossible in the circles you mix in. The men in your Filofax would rather take a girl out for tea than take her sexually.’

Martha stooped down to pick up another ornament. She chose a toy soldier with a ramrod posture. ‘Leave me alone, Eliza.’

But Eliza couldn’t. ‘Martha, it won’t work. Will you stop that bloody humming,’ she demanded, becoming increasingly perturbed. ‘The thing is, this is typical of you. Cast your mind back. You always fall in love with the men you sleep with.’

Martha stopped humming for a second but only because a dazzling flashback had just prised its way into her consciousness: the moment when Jack’s fabulous cock had eased its way into her hot, expectant body. He’d held her gaze throughout, as though casting a spell, and his
eyes had bored into her mind with the same intensity as his cock drove into her body.

‘Michael called last night,’ said Eliza.

‘Did he?’

‘Aren’t you going to ask what he said?’

‘What did he say?’ asked Martha dutifully, but it was clear to Eliza that her mind was elsewhere. Eliza briefly considered the possibility that Martha had tried drugs for the first time. Then dismissed it. But there had to be some explanation above and beyond this chancer’s sexual expertise, didn’t there?

‘He said he wants to talk to you about dividing furniture,’ Eliza reported.

‘How very seasonal of him,’ muttered Martha, before returning to the topic of conversation that really interested her. ‘Jack asked me what I was thinking. Afterwards, when we were just lying together.’

‘I don’t believe you. No man has ever asked a woman what she’s thinking. They don’t care. You’ve made that up.’

‘No, honestly, he really did ask me.’

Eliza was incredulous, but because she was talking to Martha – who didn’t tell lies – she decided to take her word. ‘So, what were you thinking?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Martha, ‘it hardly matters.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

Both women fell silent and concentrated on the tree for a little while. As Eliza carefully lowered a plastic dove of peace on to one of the prickly branches she said, ‘Martha, there’s something you should know. Every woman who has dated a womanizer has the same fantasy.’

‘Really? And what would that be?’

‘To be the one that makes the cute bastard settle down.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And do you know what?’

‘No, what?’

‘No woman has ever succeeded.’

‘Really?’

‘I suppose he told you he’d phone.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Well, he won’t.’

‘He already has.’ Eliza tried not to show her surprise and Martha tried not to show her glee. ‘He’s coming round tonight.’

‘This is a rebound thing.’

‘Who cares if I’m bouncing?’

‘You’re making a mistake,’ warned Eliza.

‘Well, at least they are
new
mistakes,’ countered Martha.

27

Eliza felt rotten, as was the usual state of affairs for her throughout December. Her days were merging into a shambolic haze of parties and long lunches and the obligatory accompanying hangovers. All her promises to be more mature this year in her approach to the season of goodwill had flown out of the window. If anything, she had accepted more invites than in previous years. It wasn’t as though she had anywhere better to go. It was no fun staying in at Martha’s any more, and she didn’t have a home of her own.

Eliza felt angry. She wasn’t exactly sure who or what her anger was directed at; there were a number of possible suspects. Moving from the micro to the macro. She was angry at Fred and Ella, with whom she had spent most of last night propping up the bar at the Atlantic. Why had Fred suggested that third round of tequilas? And why hadn’t either of them suggested buying any food to line their stomachs? It was hardly responsible to keep buying bottles of Chardonnay just because the previous bottle had run out. OK, she’d had a laugh at the time and Ella had spooned her into a cab. To be fair, she’d also called this morning to check Eliza was still in one piece (she could just about answer in the affirmative), but that still didn’t make up for the irresponsible behaviour last night.