Chapter 7
Simone had never got her head around threesomes. Sure, she’d seen porn in which bad actors demonstrated the pure physics of the proceedings, various permutations of penises and vulvas adding up to a triumvirate of titillation, but what about the etiquette in real life? Especially in England, with its social mores and politeness. If there was going down to be done, did everyone wait to eat together? If you were about to be screwed by two men, would most of the time be spent in a sequence of no please, after yous, or you were here firsts? Yet here she was with the averagely pretty face of Marcus’s wife Bryony bearing down on her with all the beatification of Mary Magdalene. It was disconcerting enough to take her mind off the expert tit sucking to which she was being subjected.
‘Can you take that picture down?’ she asked.
‘Which one?’ Marcus wasn’t really paying attention. He buried his face in her cleavage. ‘God, I love your tits.’
Now she examined the wall above the bed properly, there were three pictures. The biggest one was of Bryony, in full Princess Diana pose, head slightly cocked to one side, like she was open and ready to listen to someone’s problems. A second was of Marcus with Bryony and their two boys in what looked like Richmond Park, but which, given Bryony’s connections to royalty, could equally be the Balmoral Estate. And there was one of Marcus and the two kids, taken before Marcus’s hair turned salt and pepper, and his eyes became sexily creased by nearly fifty years of disarming smiles.
‘The one of your wife,’ she said. ‘It’s like being judged by Darcy Bussell on Strictly Come Fucking.’
‘Darcy hasn’t been on Strictly for years.’
He flipped her over, pulled her bum up into the air and slipped his cock back inside her. She grabbed a pillow to rest her upper body on, her nipples already missing the stimulation of his mouth. The feeling of being watched was worse now she was upright.
‘She doesn’t look as awful as you make her out to be,’ she said.
‘Darcy?’ His breathing was getting heavier now.
‘Your wife.’
‘Just ignore her. I do.’
She almost felt sorry for Bryony; she had her own parents to thank for that. They hadn’t had a good marriage, but they loved each other in the way that only people who liked to make one another truly miserable could. Indifference, on the other hand, was too terrible a concept to contemplate.
‘Yeah baby.’ He grabbed her buttocks and grunted.
He was fucking her quickly now, like he was on a deadline, which she supposed he was. As editor-in-chief of London’s biggest newspaper, there was always a scoop to be unveiled, an edition to get printed, advertisers’ needs to be met. She wished he’d do more to meet her needs at that moment. With zero clitoral stimulation in this position, there was as much chance of her coming as there was of him introducing her to his kids.
‘God, I love your arse.’ He gave it a light slap.
Not that she’d ever want to meet his kids. But sometimes she wished she could introduce Marcus to the people she knew, or tell someone that she was sleeping with one of the most well-connected and understatedly powerful men in London. But their eighteen-month relationship was strictly off the record. It wasn’t like Bryony didn’t know he was having an affair; she was having one of her own. Although, strictly speaking, could you call either arrangement ‘an affair’ if the marriage was long since dead? The appearance was only being kept alive for a deeply religious and extraordinarily wealthy set of Catholic parents (Bryony’s) who had hinted at disinheritance should they ever divorce.
‘Spread your legs wider.’
He slammed into her cervix. She groaned.
‘That’s good, huh?’
Normally it was tolerable, but not today. This was the first time she’d come to his marital home. What was wrong with the five-star hotel room he usually expensed for their trysts? The weekends away? Was she no longer worth the investment? Was he making cutbacks?
‘Ooh, yeah. Please, sir, can I have some more.’ No sense in telling him she wasn’t feeling it. She too needed to get back to work.
They’d met at a film premiere after-party, and even though he was ten years older, his middle-aged good looks had a touch of the very bad about them which she’d found hard to resist. He also had the type of eyes that wouldn’t just undress you, they’d undress you, put you in expensive lingerie of their own choosing, and then undress you all over again. When they’d first started seeing each other, he’d treated her like a precious object to be marvelled at, but recently she felt more like a fidget toy, there to be routinely fingered.
‘Ahhughugh.’ He arched his back and stiffened against her.
The tightness and expectation in her pelvis ebbed away. She’d have to masturbate later. Bryony looked almost apologetic.
Marcus flopped back onto the bed, leaving her to clear up after him. Perhaps she needed to play harder to get, or to play the field again. Trouble was, guys her own age and social standing just couldn’t measure up in the status department and, as Kissinger said, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
‘God, I love fucking you.’
She noted the order of the words. He’d never said he loved her in her entirety, just parts of her, and what he loved doing to them. That was okay, though; at least she knew where she stood. The one power he didn’t have was to disappoint her; not emotionally at least.
‘I might be able to wangle us a weekend away next month,’ he said. ‘Got a contact with a place in Southwold who owes me one.’
She lay down next to him, put her head on his chest, and let him kiss her forehead. In these more tender moments, she imagined that he recognised something of himself in her: the desire to be someone more than their respective backgrounds might ordinarily allow. But mostly he just liked to see himself in her, legs spread, brow moist, begging him to screw her.
Still, a weekend near the beach would be nice, wouldn’t it?