Chapter 13 #3
When he’s standing back in front of her, head slightly tilted, he asks again, ‘What’s happened, Ro?’
She laughs. ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘Lying.’
Seb doesn’t react. Instead, he waits, knowing she’ll keep talking, which of course she does.
‘You weren’t shown Abi’s website at that awards thing, were you? You went searching for her. Literally, shopping for a woman.’
Seb’s eyes swivel away from her and she knows what he’s thinking.
‘You didn’t delete your laptop history, you idiot. I saw everything.’
Seb closes his eyes briefly; his cheeks and the scar above his lips redden.
It feels fucking wonderful. But it’s not enough.
She swivels his laptop towards her on the table; it’s still unlocked, and she navigates quickly to the history and opens up one of the sites.
There’s a close-up of a tongue licking an erect penis: ‘The best oral without condom in London for only ￡80!’ She scrolls down, stops at a woman’s face– she’s smiling, licking her top lip while her hands cover her bare breasts.
Rosie points to her. ‘Tell me something, Seb– do you think she actually wants you? Are you that delusional? Honestly, I think you’re sick.
Either you’re mentally unwell, believing that a woman like that wants to have sex with you, or you’re sick because you don’t give a shit that that poor woman is obviously lying because she’s desperate for money and you don’t care about her pain. You’ll just fuck her anyway!’
She starts scrolling again, down to a GIF of an arse in a G-string wiggling back and forth.
Seb closes his eyes again and Rosie has to resist the urge to peel them open with her thumbs, force him to look at what he’s done, but instead gets closer to him and says, ‘But that’s not all, is it?
You’ve been telling people about us, our sex life, that I hadn’t had sex with you and that’s why you hired Abi… ’
‘What? No, no, of course I haven’t,’ Seb interrupts, shaking his head, which makes Rosie erupt.
‘Then how the hell does Anna know we haven’t had sex in a year?’
Seb freezes, caught out, and Rosie feels a rush, the thrill of being right, her anger justified, so she keeps shouting, ‘This isn’t The Handmaid’s Tale , Seb– a woman has the right not to want to have sex!’
She’s expecting his head to drop, for him to become all meek and hangdog like he’s been for the last few days, so it’s a surprise when, jaw flexing, he takes a step towards her.
‘And what about what I wanted? I tried, I tried everything I could think of, but you turned me away again and again. I didn’t want to never have sex again.
It was driving me mad, Rosie, completely insane. ’
He taps his finger to the side of his head, his voice getting louder and louder, the scar on his lip getting redder.
‘Perhaps I am delusional but at least I know what I want. I only ever wanted to have sex with you, my wife, the person I love, but that wasn’t allowed, so what should I have done instead? I’d love to hear it.’
‘No one should ever be forced into having sex!’
‘And no one should ever be forced into celibacy!’
Rosie remembers the nights Seb tried to talk, the marriage counsellor she always found a reason to avoid, the gifts of lingerie Seb bought her, but she kicks the memories away.
She won’t let Seb derail her now, not now her anger is still fizzing through her.
‘You’ve weaponized our intimate life to justify your own disgusting perversion.
I never thought you’d sink so low, Seb, truly. ’
Seb is shaking his head at her in disbelief. ‘What intimate life? We didn’t have an intimate life, Rosie, because you didn’t want one! That’s the whole fucking point! I told…’
‘Every time I close my eyes, Seb’– Rosie moves closer to him, close enough that he can see her revulsion; she doesn’t care as spit from her mouth flies at him– ‘I see you fucking her! Do you have any idea how messed up that is?’ She closes them now briefly, as though to demonstrate, and there they are– naked, Abi sinking her lovely mouth on to his, Seb desire-drunk and clumsy, Abi gasping at the cold press of his wedding ring in her vagina.
Seb doesn’t see it, of course; he’s too obsessed with his own pain as he shouts, ‘And you have no idea how messed up it is feeling like your body is slowly starving, literally dying, Ro…’
Through his shirt she can see his muscles moving in and out, the chaotic beat of his heart, but she doesn’t, she won’t soften– not in front of him, anyway.
Suddenly she just feels so exhausted. As though her whole energy quota for the day has been used up in the last few seconds, it takes all her effort to move close to him again as she says, ‘I want you to go now Seb.’
He stares at her with dull, expressionless eyes before he starts packing up his disgusting laptop and his notepad and pens.
Rosie watches him numbly and just before he heads towards the door she says, ‘Don’t you dare tell anyone anything else about me.
Or try and make out like you shagging a prostitute is my fault.
If you do, I swear to God I’ll happily let everyone know the shit you really are. ’
And just before he walks away, a part of Rosie expects to hear him say her name, apologize or even try to touch her again, and a bigger part of her is terrified when he does none of those things.