One Too Many Read online

  I didn’t even know where I was headed as I sped away on dead country roads. I didn’t bother with satnav, caring for nothing more than putting distance between this sorry place and my tattered hopes of what it would mean to claim the pussy I’d been denied back when it mattered.

  I was halfway back across Wales when I pulled into a shitty little service station in the middle of nowhere.

  I grabbed a coffee, black and cheap. It almost burned my lips off when I took a swig, my fingers shaking as I hissed out a curse and tossed the Styrofoam cup of rancid crap in the outdoor bin.

  My phone was still flashing with the alarm I hadn’t properly silenced when I pulled it from my pocket. I dismissed it with a swipe of my thumb before Polly’s messages pinged up.

  Please say you didn’t.

  You did, didn’t you?

  It won’t solve anything.

  Tom, please say you haven’t done this.

  Did you tell them?? Please at least say you told them who you really are.

  You have to tell them, Tom. Put this stuff to bed once and for all. Maybe he’ll be nice when he knows?

  I guess you’re still with them. I hope she was worth it.

  Congratulations. I hope it feels every bit as good as you hoped.

  I could barely focus on her messages, my temples thumping as I scrolled.

  The last one was from ten minutes earlier.

  I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, Tom. You’re on your own.

  I blurted out a laugh but it sounded like death. On my own. Like I hadn’t been on my own for a fucking lifetime already.

  I was back in my car when I fully contemplated a response, my fingers still shaking like a fucking weakling’s as I dithered over the letters.

  Tell me something new, my words said, but they were a lie. It was new. Polly being like this was new, because in spite of the way I’d kept her at a country’s distance for the past few years and at arm’s length for the years leading up to it, she’d always been there.

  A quiet part of me hoped she always would be. That maybe the Fosters really would be the ones who proved me wrong and opened the doorway just a sliver on my belief in a love that really meant something.

  But no. They hadn’t proved me wrong. Not about that. Not about the fact that two people’s love couldn’t be undone in one single sorry evening.

  Not even about the fact that two people could really, truly know each other after a lifetime in each other’s arms.

  Her jerk of a husband hadn’t even touched the sides of his beautiful wife’s potential, as oblivious to her deep, dark fantasies as he was to my existence, even though I’d rocked up bold as brass onto his doorstep and smirked right over at him.

  Polly would never be my forever. Her messages were just a sorry confirmation of what I’d long known.

  I tossed the handset onto the passenger seat without sending my response over to her. There was no point.

  I couldn’t do this anymore, even if she’d been willing. I couldn’t cling onto a friendly face in the ether in the hope that one day I’d have her at my side all over again. Those days were gone, finished. They’d been numbered right from the start, since she’d sent me the barely disguised Valentine’s Day card on my fifteenth birthday and prompted me to uncover the truth about who’d really sent it.

  I knew who’d sent it. The writing was hers but slightly more squiggly, the envelope sealed with the heart-patterned tape she’d carried in her pencil case since the first year of high school.

  I hadn’t been good enough for her back then, even if she hadn’t realised it. I wasn’t good enough to have a girl in my arms. Too weak and weaselly to have someone else’s fingers on my pale nerd body.

  And when I was good enough? Finally?

  I didn’t believe in I love you by that point. Didn’t believe in the strength of the line of hearts she’d drawn under the question mark on that Valentine’s card. Didn’t believe in anything but money, pride, and my ability to destroy people before they ever came close to destroying me.

  My relationship with Polly had had numbered days from way back when, and now the countdown was over.

  But Brett and Grace’s countdown had only just begun.

  I grabbed my handset back up to click on my calendar app. I set the date for two months’ time, then remembered the horror on her pretty face when the alarm sounded out and I’d pulled away.

  One month.

  I set the date for one month.

  My predictions up until now had never been more than a week out, not even the ones I’d set early enough that I’d been barely back at my desk before the woman’s call came through on my mobile.

  Grace Foster would call me in one month’s time, or near enough as dammit.

  And I’d be waiting.

  Breaking her apart all over again was all I had left to look forward to. Destroying Brett Foster’s marriage was the only victory left to claim in my damnation.

  I unfriended Polly on social media before I called up satnav and keyed in my London address.

  I didn’t even let myself feel the pain as her profile picture disappeared from my messenger list. I slapped the sad boy inside me before he could cry his tears, forcing him down in the depths so deep that I swore I’d never hear from him again.

  And then I thought about Grace Foster’s needy pink cunt all the way back to the city.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Grace

  We put a face on it, welcoming our new guests with our usual wide smiles and friendly handshakes. We showed them to their rooms, gushed about the beautiful beach and told them all about breakfast times, acting like life was all peachy here in our little slice of heaven.

  I almost believed it myself.

  We spent that afternoon in the lounge, just as Brett promised, holding each other tight through the unspoken tension while my favourite sitcoms blared on screen.

  We served our fresh handful of guests in the bar that evening and asked all our usual friendly questions about their lives and loves. We talked about tennis, countryside living and the state of the economy, only this time financial topics didn’t fill me with the same dread as they had just a week ago.

  We shared a few bottles of house white with a particularly nice couple who enjoyed a healthy friendship with alcohol, and finally, at the end of the night, we wiped down the sides and switched off the lights, filing on through to the quiet of our own private space.

  And there I lay, in my baggiest PJs, staring up the ceiling in bed while Brett finished in the bathroom, trying not to think about the man who’d flipped all my switches and left me a mess in his wake.

  My pussy was still sore, and my ass still felt fresh from a battering, my belly tumbling at the horror of all the dirty things I’d done. But still my clit pulsed and tingled at the thought of being stretched open wide by the man who’d known my everything, despite being a total stranger.

  I rolled into Brett as he slipped between the covers, hooking a leg over his and resting my cheek on his shoulder. His arms were welcoming, but his dick was not.

  “You must be sore,” he told me, kissing my head as though his lack of desire was all with me in mind.

  “It’s going to be like this, is it?” I asked him.

  “Like what?” he grunted, still holding me tight.

  “Like I’m soiled goods now I’ve been used by a man for money.”

  My words were overly harsh and I knew it, but I couldn’t take them back. Didn’t want to take them back.

  His eyes were fierce enough to burn in the darkness as he turned towards me. “You aren’t soiled fucking goods,” he said. “You aren’t soiled anything. You’re just sore and I’m just tired, and this is night fucking one after that cunt’s departure. Give it a fucking minute, Grace.”

  It wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not now.

  My hands were persistent as they snaked down to his boxers and slipped inside. His breath was a hiss as my fingers gripped and tugged, coaxing him to put this filt
hy mess behind us and make it right again.

  “Fuck, Grace,” he said, and thrust into my grip. I was on autopilot as I pulled the covers back and peppered his body with kisses, trailing down his belly as I freed his cock and positioned him ripe for my mouth.

  I knew this game. Knew how to suck, lick and tease. Knew how to slide my fingers down his thighs and bring his skin to horny goosebumps as he fought the urge to buck into my mouth and leave me retching.

  But no. Not tonight.

  His fingers were rough as he took my hair and made me suck him deep, thrusting up from the mattress and into my throat in a blatant imitation of the other man’s violent moves.

  It was brutal. Desperate. Filled with fake fire as he groaned and snarled and aimed for maximum impact.

  But it wasn’t the force which had my excitement flatlining. It wasn’t even the drastic change from all our years of learned compatibility.

  This wasn’t him. Wasn’t us. Wasn’t love in the way I’d known it from him my entire adult life.

  I took it gladly regardless, with a thumping heart and churning gut, hoping this was just a stupid blip and we’d be right as rain in the blink of an eye. But even as I took it all, staring up at him with warm eyes as he jammed in hard, I knew he was thinking of him. Of Thomas Heath. Of me with spit streaming down my face as I thrashed and spluttered and begged for more.

  I’d have given the same to Brett if I knew how. I’d have given the same to Brett if he’d seized it from me the way Heath had.

  But he didn’t.

  Couldn’t, maybe. Floating on the same sea of uncertainty as I was as we jammed to some alien groove.

  The halfway house of fucking me hard but not hard enough was a sickly no man’s land where nothing felt genuine. Not my effort nor his pleasure.

  My eyes watered, and it wasn’t just from my gag reflex. The sadness was a tarnished penny I’d swallowed down deep, metallic and bitter and enough to put me in the foetal position, knees up high to my chest once I’d swallowed down his cum and retreated. Having him curled around the back of me made no difference. His steady breathing did little to lull me into my sweet little bubble of security.

  It wasn’t regret that haunted me that night. Not the disgusting reflections on a man who’d used me like a cheap slut while I’d begged for more, or my desperate efforts to make him come for me. It wasn’t my swimming thoughts which drove me to the edge of the bed and away from Brett’s warm arms, nor the promise of the soothing sea through the window.

  It was Thomas Heath’s business card in the dining room rubbish bin.

  I wasn’t going to call him, not in the rest of this lifetime, but still I fished it out from the depths with my breath held tight, rubbing a grease stain with my finger to make sure the contact numbers were still readable.

  I slipped it into the reception desk drawer with other guests’ contact details for upcoming bookings, uncertain quite why I was rescuing it as I closed that drawer up tight.

  And then I went back to bed with my husband, praying to everything on this earth that it was still where I belonged.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Brett

  I wanted to fuck my wife like he had, but I didn’t know where to fucking start.

  I could slap and grind with an edge of roughness, calling her my dirty little bitch as she grinned back at me over her shoulder. But it wasn’t like he did it. Wasn’t even close.

  Maybe I didn’t have it in me. Maybe that kind of inhuman prowess was the result of some tantric guru sex teachings – that and the boulder-weight chip on his shoulder. Maybe he really was on little blue pills, or had some medical condition making jizzing impossible. Maybe that’s why he paid for it with such fucking delight, just so his conquests would think him a God.

  Fuck really knows, but still I kept pushing Grace to give me the same slutty doe-eyed rapture she’d given that sonofabitch, and still she kept on seeking what I wasn’t able to give her.

  I slammed her body every night that week once her tight little holes were up to it. I fucked her ass like a man possessed, holding her face down into the pillow as I called her my dirty little slut. I fingered her sweet pussy with four fingers instead of my usual two, and all she did was hiss and spit and say it hurt too much to take it.

  She took it for him though. Begged him fucking for it, in fact.

  I started jerking myself off in the shower every morning to ease the spitting tension in my gut. I’d slip that rusty bolt into place and work my dick hard, thoughts jammed full of the Grace I’d seen open wide for him.

  That Grace wasn’t my Grace, but I wanted her. Needed her. Craved her with every drop of cum in my balls.

  My Grace still smiled sweetly and helped me on the breakfast run. She still laughed with guests every evening and snuggled up to me in bed at night. She still took every pounding on offer, whimpering for more in a voice that almost rang true. Almost.

  The first real grin I got from my wife was when the advert for the chef position I’d phoned into the local paper appeared in print and I opened up the job page in front of her.

  “You really think we should do it?” she said, eyes bright at the thought of a new hotel adventure.

  I didn’t think we should do it. Not even close. Not with a looming competitor opening in two short months, able to staff their place with ten chefs for every one of ours if they so wanted.

  “I think we should do whatever you want for this place,” I told her, and I wasn’t lying.

  “It could be great for us,” she said. “A reputation for good food can spread for miles. We could be rammed to the ceiling with bookings on the back of a perfect steak.”

  And so they came calling. Chefs and trainees and people applying for any old job they thought they could get their hands on. Spotty teens and grumpy old men. Women whose experience didn’t exceed their weekly Sunday roast and packed lunches but had always fancied making a good trifle.

  Grace sighed after the tenth shitty interview in a row, opening a bottle of house red at just past lunchtime and cursing the pool of wannabes in our ten-mile radius.

  “Maybe we should sell up and go back to the city,” she said after taking a glug. “Maybe we really are doomed in running this place.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll do alright. It only takes one person walking in through that door with the right set of skills, and this whole venture could flip on its head.”

  Her eyes widened on mine as I said it, and I knew she was thinking about him. Heath. The sonofabitch with his set of skills who’d flipped our whole fucking life on its head.

  “Forget about him,” I barked, and she dropped her mouth open in feigned ignorance.

  “Jesus, Brett, I wasn’t. I’ve barely given him a second thought since he left.”

  How I fucking glared at her as she dropped her eyes and dicked about with some glasses from the dishwasher. I could see the bloom on her cheeks, smarting hard at my observation. I’d felt her in bed at night, rubbing that horny little clit after I’d fucked her senseless, no doubt thinking of that prick and his superior skillset every time she thought I was out for the count in dreamland.

  “You need to stop this,” she told me with a voice full of prickles. “Every time I think for a single fucking second, you think I’m thinking about him.”

  “Because you are,” I snapped.

  “Because you are,” she snapped back. “You’re the one who has the fucking problem with him, Brett, not me.”

  It was her choice of words that got me going, more than the flash of guilt in her eyes.

  “No,” I grunted. “You haven’t got a problem with him, have you? You fucking loved it, Grace. You’d have him back all over again in a heartbeat, only next time you wouldn’t need fucking paying.”

  It was when she launched the wine bottle across the bar top that I knew I’d pushed it way too fucking hard. It crashed into the nearest table, glugging red all over the upholstered seats underneath as the shards glittered like ice on the woo
dwork.

  It looked like blood. Arterial bleeding as we both stood staring, dumbstruck at the veins of disgust still pulsing dark between us.

  She went for it first, but I headed her off at the hatch, taking the dustpan and cloth from her before she’d got the chance to dive under.

  “I’ll do it,” I told her. “It was my dick move that set you off.”

  She joined me anyway, picking up the big shards with careful fingers as I dabbed up the worst of the spill.

  “I know you jerk off in the bathroom,” she whispered. “I hear the bolt click every morning and press my ear to the door. You think about him, don’t you?”

  “No more than you think about him when you think I’m asleep,” I countered, but she sighed out loud.

  “We’re both guilty of thinking about that night,” she said. “Maybe we should be talking about it rather than brushing it under the carpet and hoping life has a chance of returning to normal.”

  I hated the twist of fear as it sliced my insides. “We are returning to normal,” I argued. “It’s just a little slower a process than I was hoping for.”

  “We need to experiment,” she said. “You and me, and whatever crazy shit we conjure up with our dirty money. If we can’t beat him, join him, hey?”

  I didn’t follow at first, not until she bit her lip and spelled it out for me.

  “He had a whole arsenal, Brett. Toys and gadgets and goddamn sheeting. Surely we can spice it up like he did? Make some memories of our own?”

  It was a thread of hope, and one I grabbed hold of with everything I was worth.

  My smile was eager, just as hers was relieved when I nodded my head. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s place an order. If it’s good enough for that sonofabitch, it’ll be good enough for us.”

  And so it started.

  Me, Grace and a tablet full of sex store browser tabs that evening in the bedroom. Racking up a cartful of purchases that asshole paid for with his dirty money.

  I was grinning as we clicked confirm on the checkout, pulling my pretty wife close and landing a hungry kiss on her sweet mouth. She was waiting, squirming out of her nightdress before we’d even had the ping of the confirmation email, begging me to fuck her in some semblance of similarity to how she’d asked him to do the same.