The Adultery Club (25 page)

“Emma, would you mind
getting Simon Jailer on the phone? I need to clarify a couple of points on the Wasserstein case before Friday, and I know he’s tied up in Court all day tomorrow.”

I go back into my office, glancing at my watch as I pick up my briefcase. Nearly seven; I should get going as soon as I’ve spoken to Counsel. I don’t want to leave Sara sitting alone at Yuzo’s, tonight of all nights.

This time tomorrow it will all be over. I know this is my choice, it’s what I planned all along; but it’s going to be harder to say good-bye than I thought.

I take out the glossy bag containing my farewell gifts to Sara from my desk drawer, and flip open my briefcase. As I slip it in between a legal file and my newspaper, unable to suppress a shiver of erotic anticipation, my office door
opens and I shut the briefcase quickly, not wanting Emma to see.

But it isn’t Emma standing in the doorway.

Saying no to
my wife’s invitation wasn’t an option. Not only was I wrong-footed by her improbable materialization in my office, barely able to summon the wit to utter her name, never mind fabricate a plausible excuse to flee; but the searing guilt which I have successfully banished from my mind these past few weeks is now rising up a thousandfold stronger for its exile.

I have no idea what will happen in the next twenty minutes; nor any control over it. In some ways this enforced abdication of responsibility is almost a relief. Perhaps Sara will betray me: inadvertently or by choice, a woman scorned. Maybe Mal will guess the moment she sees my colleague sitting in my favorite restaurant. If I am truly fortunate, this noisome taxi will disappear down an abyss in the road and swallow me whole.

Clammy and sick with fear, I try to imagine a life without my wife and daughters in it, and fail utterly.

I cannot even meet Sara’s eyes when my wife rushes over to greet her—dear Christ, did she have to comment on the bloody bracelet?—and grip the back of the nearest chair as Mal chatters relentlessly.

It seems Sara has more presence of mind than I could ever have anticipated. Within moments, she has confected some excuse and vanished.

“Well, she seems very keen,” Mal says brightly, shaking out her napkin. “How lovely.”

Nausea rises. “Can we order, please, Mal?” I say desperately.

I can barely concentrate on a word she says as we plow through the meal.
Dear God, how am I going to unravel this unholy mess?
I cannot believe that I, of all people, have managed to get myself into such a foolhardy, melodramatic position. Dammit, I was going to end it tomorrow! Mal seems blissfully unaware; but the possibility still exists that Sara will be so incensed by what can only seem to her as my betrayal, that she seeks revenge by confronting my wife. The hurt that would inflict on Mal doesn’t bear contemplating. And my girls. How can I ever look them in the eye again if they find out what I’ve done? I have been seven types of idiot, led by my genitals like a schoolboy. Christ Jesus, let me walk away from this unscathed and I swear to God, I will
never—

“—So go on, don’t keep me in suspense.”

I startle. “Sorry?”

“Oh, Nicholas, don’t be mean, you know I saw you put it in your briefcase,” Mal teases, “and I just can’t wait any longer, I’m
dying
for my present,
please
can I have it now?”

This unedifying, shameful farce is clearly destined to play itself out to the bitter end. I reach beneath the table for my briefcase.

“I’m sorry. I—um—I didn’t get you a card.”

“Oh, Nicholas. As if that matters.”

She opens the bag and unwraps the underwear I selected for another woman. I feel sick with shame as she innocently holds the wisps of silk and lace up against herself. “Oh, how
beautiful
! Do you like them?”

“Of course,” I mutter. “I wouldn’t have bought them otherwise.”

“I can tell it’s been a while.” She laughs, examining the label. “These are two sizes too big; I’ll have to take them back and exchange them. You kept the receipt, didn’t you?” She peers back into the bag and gasps. “Oh, Nicholas. You
didn’t—
”

Please don’t notice that these match the bracelet Sara was wearing, please don’t put two and two together, please be your usual sweet, trusting, innocent self
.

“Nicholas,” she breathes, gazing at the earrings. “They’re exquisite. I don’t know what to say.”

And suddenly, in a moment, the fog lifts.
Non pote non sapere qui se stultum intellegit:
A man must have some wit to know he is a fool.

I love Mal; I always have. From the moment I first met her, I’ve known she’s The One. She’s my dearest friend, my love, the mother of my children. There is a sweetness to her, a purity of heart and spirit, that I have never known in anyone else. And she loves me, far more than I deserve. I know she would never contemplate betraying me; her loyalty and fidelity are absolute. How can I have risked all of this for what amounts to no more than a glorified roll in the hay?

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I tell my wife, meaning it.

Later that night, after Mal and I have made love for the first time since I slept with Sara—not the roller-coaster of eroticism that it is with Sara, granted, but laced with a love and gentleness I can only ever find with my wife—we make plans for a romantic break in Cornwall, where we honeymooned; we build castles in the air and articulate our dreams for our children, for ourselves. I fall asleep with my head in
the curve of her arm, and promise from the depths of my soul that it will all be different from now on.

For four days
, Sara manages to avoid being alone with me for a single moment with the same expertise with which I once evaded her.

She whisks in and out of my office with armfuls of files, careful to make sure that Emma is within earshot before doing so. Christ knows how her bladder is holding up; I’ve stationed myself outside the women’s toilet for hours without glimpsing her. Much as I’d be happy to play ostrich with her, I know we can’t bury our heads in the sand forever; I need to end this liaison cleanly, and with as little acrimony as possible. I have to explain, for my own peace of mind; and to somehow find the right moment to discuss a very good job opening at Falkners Penn for a young, ambitious lawyer keen to make partner before she’s thirty.

I have to be certain she’s not going to betray me
.

My chance comes on Friday, when Emma’s sister unexpectedly arrives from Worcester, and she begs for an unscheduled afternoon off.

Joan and David are out of the office; a secretarial leaving party has decimated the remainder of the staff. I give the one temp on duty a free pass, and she scuttles off, delighted, to join her colleagues across the road.

Sara looks startled as I walk into the conference room, and instantly leaps up from the table. “I just have to get this FDR statement to Emma—”

“She’s not here. She’s taken the afternoon off to go shopping with her sister.”

“Perhaps one of the other girls—”

“They’re all at Milagro’s for Jenny’s leaving party. Sara,” I put out a hand to detain her, “I need to explain.”

She stiffens.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“I know this must be hard to believe, but I had no idea she was going to turn up until she appeared in my office.
I swear it
. I wouldn’t do that to you; you
must
know that. I didn’t have a chance to phone you; she was with me the whole time, and then she insisted on Yuzo’s—Christ, what are the odds—”

“Quite high, I should imagine, when you declare your preference to the world in
The Lawyer,”
Sara says acidly.

“But I really had no idea she—”

“Nicholas, please. I think we both know the situation. You’re a married man; I knew that from the beginning. There’s really no need to rake things over anymore. We had a good time, but we knew all along it had to end sooner or later. At least this way no one’s got hurt.”

Her eyes are suspiciously bright. I brush my thumbs beneath them. “Haven’t they?”

I sought her out with the most honest of intentions. I truly meant for this to be a tying up of loose ends.

But that touch is all it takes. A fire ignites between us; my cock is rock hard in an instant, and as Sara’s eyelids flutter, I smell her arousal. Gripping her face between my palms, I bruise her lips beneath mine. I taste the metallic tang of blood and don’t know which of us is cut.

She yanks my shirt out of my trousers as I propel her backward toward the glossy mahogany conference table and
shove her skirt up over her thighs. She fumbles with my belt buckle. Buttons plink across the table as I rip open her shirt. I push aside her panties with fierce fingers. In a moment I’m inside her, forcing her down onto the surface of the table, frantic and angry and hot with desire. My mouth descends on one cinnamon nipple, biting it roughly through the flimsy fabric of her bra. There’s a crash as her heap of files tumbles from the table to the floor.

Her legs curl around my waist, and I drive my cock deeper into her. She pulls my shirt free from my shoulders as I unhook her bra; our skin hisses as it hits. She smells of vanilla and sweat and peppermint and sex. Her ripe breasts splay lushly either side of her breastbone, eddying with every violent thrust. Throwing back her head, a guttural growl vibrates low in her throat, her sharp white teeth biting down on her swollen lower lip. Her nails dig deep into my shoulder blades and I flinch
don’t leave marks
and then oh God oh God
oh God
—

She comes a moment later, her body jerking so hard that her spine thumps against the table. I feel her juices flood us both and it’s almost enough to get me hard again.

“Oh, Christ, I’ve peed myself—”

“No. You just came. You know. Ejaculated.”

She laughs disbelievingly. “Fuck off.”

I pull out of her and yank up my trousers. “You’ve done it before. Not many women do it, but those that can—
Jesus
. You have no idea how erotic it is.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Would I joke about something like that?”

“You tell me.” She sits up on the table and pulls down her skirt. “Shit, you’ve ripped half the buttons off my blouse. You couldn’t have just waited a moment and undone them, could you?”

“Could you?”

Her expression is dark and hot. “No.”

“It’s not over, is it?” I whisper, cupping her breast in my hand and pulling her buttocks toward me with the other. “Between us.”

Her nipple stiffens instantly. My cock is already halfway to being ready for her once more. I drop to my knees and spread her legs as she sits on the edge of the table, burying my face in her wet pussy.

“We haven’t even started,” she groans.

My mother had
a saying:
No one misses a slice of cut cake
. She meant that the first cut is the one you notice. After that, the difference is much harder to see.

The first night I slept with Sara, I was tormented with guilt. Each subsequent liaison has compounded the betrayal; but somehow, where once guilt blistered my skin and rubbed my soul raw, now it merely chafes like an ill-fitting shoe.