Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [101]
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘Although I have to say one more thing before I go.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Lucky bitch.’
‘No I’m not. I’ve been doing an absolutely dreadful thing and I now have to leave him anyway.’
‘I know all that, but even so you’re still a lucky bitch. I’m hoping he’s going to move on to me when you’re gone.’
Even though Melanie was being so kind and generous with me - even offering to perjure herself for me - for a brief moment my fourteen year old self almost made a reappearance and I wanted to snap at her, ‘Hand’s off. He’s mine’. But if I no longer thought of Tony as ‘mine’ how could I possibly claim that Alex was? In fact I was willingly going to give him up. After tonight he could go home with whomever he pleased. All I could hope was that it would be some anonymous girl he hadn’t even met yet, not a person from the office, someone I already knew.
Alex had parked in a nearby car park so I arranged to meet him a few blocks away and made a big show of leaving with Melanie. There was no need to add any more substance to the rumours. I leant my head on his shoulder as he drove the short drive back to his place. He stroked my leg: up and down, up and down.
In his bedroom he lifted my dress over my head and I stood in front of him, naked except for my tiny little underpants and my sparkly high-heeled shoes. I had promised that privilege to my husband, who was sleeping only a few kilometres away. Only tonight, I told myself, I’ll be good after tonight.
And it was just like our first night, except it was our last. That first time we had sought to know one another, on this occasion we wanted to remember. I tried to imprint his essence into my memory: the smell of him, the feel of his skin, the way his hair flopped down in a dark curtain when he was on top of me, the gentle undulations of the muscles in his chest and stomach. These memories had to last me a lifetime and I was determined to make them stick.
It would have been perfect if not for that other in the bed. Not a flight attendant this time, it was another faceless enemy; the future. Although we tried to ignore it and not refer to it by name it kept intruding, that unwelcome third in our threesome.
I asked him about his holiday in Byron Bay.
‘Paul came with me to keep me company. We just lay on the beach and watched the cricket and drank beer.’
‘And how many women did you sleep with?’ I couldn’t help asking.
‘Now let me see - that would be exactly none, although once you get on that plane I’m planning to turn into a total slut. But Paul met a girl - a nice girl called Carla - from Sydney too. She’s a teacher and not at all like the gold-diggers he usually attracts. He went out with her tonight and since he hasn’t come home it looks like he might have got lucky.’
‘That’s great. I hope it works out for him.’
‘Hmm,’ he said and I knew what he was thinking. ‘Actually it’s just as well he didn’t come home because he wouldn’t have approved of this.’
‘Yeah he hates me, doesn’t he?’
‘He doesn’t dislike you as a person. He just thought you’d turn out to be a heartbreaker. And he was right.’
Eleanor the heartbreaker - I would have dreamed of being described that way as a teenager, but now I found the reality wasn’t fun at all.
We talked more about Melanie.
‘I better give up my 007 aspirations then,’ he said. ‘The thing is it’s not only Melanie. I think Amanda suspects.’
‘How come?’
‘She made a pass at me tonight. I thought about taking her up on the offer just to spite you but I dislike her so much I reckon I’d struggle to get it up.’
‘I’m sure you’ve got a few Erecta samples kicking around you could have used.’
‘Doubt they’d even be powerful enough. Anyway, I gave her the excuse that I didn’t like to get involved with co-workers and she said, “unless they are married that is”.’
‘Oh no…it does sound like she might have an idea. Thank God I didn’t bring Tony tonight.