6

IT’S MAY NOW, THE FINAL HALF-TERM HOLIDAY BEFORE ALEX leaves school, and he’s gone away with Angie for the whole week to revise for his exams. That leaves me home alone with a lot of time for thinking and the freedom to do whatever I want. What I really want to do is see Graham and get fucked, but he’s away too, on a long-planned trip to the south of France, where he has a house that needs a lot of work, ‘otherwise I would have invited you,’ he said, and I pretended to believe him. I’d happily live in a building site if his cock was up my arse, but I didn’t say that; it doesn’t pay to appear to be too keen, especially with rich men who think you might be a gold digger. He said he’ll call me when he gets home, but I suspect he won’t. I’m too complicated. I’ve got a wife and kids, an undecided sexuality, too much drama for a man whose life runs on such orderly lines as Graham’s. And let’s face it, he can afford younger, handsomer companions who come without baggage.

In Graham’s absence, with a house at my disposal and a growing recklessness as it dawned on me that my marriage was coming to an end, I placed my own ad on Craigslist. After several drafts, I came up with this.

While My Wife’s Away
Bi-curious married guy, fit, 42, seeks masculine guys, any age, for NSA fun. Please be sane, genuine, and in good shape. This week only. Evenings. Travel or accom. Your photo gets mine.

Short and to the point, not promising anything I can’t deliver, but allowing for the fact that someone might come to my house—‘travel or accom—and specifically marketing myself in the most effective way, as a straight man taking a walk on the wild side, see him once, do whatever you want to do, and you’ll never have to see him again. I know a bit about salesmanship—I’ve done enough work for marketing departments over the years, tweaking online campaigns, making sure the buttons work—and I know you’ve got to have a clear message right upfront, something that grabs the punters by the balls and won’t let go. And this is it: While my wife’s away, a whole story in four words, a straight man, limited time, urgent, illicit, exciting.

Within half an hour, my inbox was busy. I could have a different man every night if I wanted. If I took time off work, I could do daytimes as well. Perhaps a week-long orgy would get this out of my system. I could stuff myself with cock to the point of surfeit and self-disgust.

I fired off a few replies, sent headless photos where requested, discussed in a little more detail the things that I was interested in doing. Some of them never replied: time-wasters and photo collectors, the lot of them. Others were too keen, insisting that I give them my address RIGHT NOW. Others suggested doing things that were stupid or life-threatening; if anyone mentions the words bareback, raw, or breeding, they go straight in the trash.

There was one, however, who seemed sane and sexy, and very different from my previous encounters. A young Frenchman, just twenty, student, athlete, basketball player, tall, muscular, of West African descent, describing himself as ‘curious.’ Less than half my age. The same age as my daughter. That gave me pause. How would I feel if one of my kids was replying to online ads, going around to old men’s houses for sex? Well, at least if he came to me I would take care of him, make sure nothing bad happened, give him some good advice. And fuck his beautiful arse, and get his lips round my dick, and see him come over those rippling abdominals.

My pastoral interest went only so far.

I wrote back asking where he was and when we could meet. He was only about five miles away. He was free this very evening. Within a few more exchanges, I’d arranged to pick him up at his gym at seven o’clock and bring him back to my place.

It may sound as if I did all this without a second thought. My wife’s away, and I’m wasting no time in picking up strangers online and bringing them back to the family home, probably to fuck them in the marital bed, exposing myself and Angie and the kids to all sorts of dangers, let alone what the neighbours might think. And in a way that’s true; my brain was so jammed by lust and by the compulsion to change my life, that I rushed headlong into a situation I could scarcely control. But there is another part of me that has thought long and hard about what I’m doing, that grieves for the family I am destroying and for the years of untroubled happiness that Angie and I once enjoyed. What went wrong? Is it me that changed or her, or both of us? Was our marriage a massive mistake? And why am I destroying it in this reckless way, precipitating disaster, when I really need to sit down with her and talk things through? We could see a counsellor, make things work, acknowledge how we’ve changed, embrace a new relationship. Maybe she’d even accept that I needed a bit of cock on the side from time to time and would turn a blind eye.

Instead, I’m taking a sledgehammer to the whole thing. I want to get caught and punished. I know I’m guilty. It’s a very easy, comfortable place to be. You let go of all responsibility. And it’s even easier when I look at a photograph of Pascal’s broad shoulders, smooth back, and round arse.

So I’m in the car driving to an ugly brown building on the edge of a retail park, litter bins overflowing, but I don’t see any of it, because all I can think of is Pascal and what we’re going to do together, how it will feel to kiss him and fuck him, and how this could be the last hammer blow to my marriage, smashing through the present to reach an uncertain but necessary future.

He’s there already, perched on a concrete bollard, a grey tracksuit top with the hood up, tight blue jeans, a kitbag on the ground beside him. He’s looking around nervously, biting his thumb, fiddling with his earphones, which keep falling out. He hasn’t seen me yet, and for a moment I watch him, taking in his youth, his discomfort, the lowering of his brow, the curve of his thighs. Then I take pity and beep the horn. He looks up, smiles, raises a hand, and jogs over to me. I lean over and open the door.

‘Hey, Joe.’ He takes his earphones out as he climbs in. ‘Pascal.’

We shake hands over the gearstick. I can feel heat from his body.

‘Good workout?’

‘Yes, it was fine. Today I do martial arts.’ His accent is French overlaid with London inflections. ‘Hard work.’

‘I’d better watch my step then.’ I want to kiss him, to make out in the car like a couple of kids.

‘So we go? To your place?’

‘Of course.’ I start the car. We make small talk. He is sweet and shy and funny, he wants to know all about me, how long I’ve been married, how old the kids are, what I do for a living, and for a while I forget what we’re doing, we’re just two guys chatting in a car, colleagues perhaps, passing the time, sussing each other out, that’s as far as it goes. And then I glance sideways at him, and I see his hand resting on his crotch with a visible bulge, a smile on his face, his eyes half-closed, and it suddenly hits me that I’m taking a twenty-year-old athlete home to fuck instead of my wife.

I swerve a little, say ‘shit,’ and then mask it with a laugh, I feel the blood surging into my cock, and my GPS makes alarmed little pinging noises because I’m exceeding the speed limit.

Any of the neighbours might have seen us coming home. They’d assume that I was giving a lift to one of Alex’s friends, I supposed. One or two of them would know that Alex and Angie are away, and they might wonder who my guest was, but they would never in a million years jump to the conclusion that I was bringing young men home for sex. Any explanation would occur to them before that. If they were using binoculars, they might notice that both Pascal and I had erections, and that we were hurrying a little over parking and opening doors, fumbling with keys, standing closer together than was necessary.

As soon as the front door was closed, we kissed. He tasted of chewing gum. He pressed himself against me, holding onto my neck, the weight of his body almost tipping me over. I braced myself with one foot behind, put my hands on the tight denim of his arse, and squeezed. His tongue was in my mouth, kissing with the passion of a horny teenager, which is exactly what he had been a few months ago. Maybe I was his first man. Maybe his first anything. He’d have dated girls at school, then concentrated on his sports, avoiding the issue, trying not to look at the other guys in the showers, trying not to get hard.

He was hard now. I could feel it pressing into me as we stumbled around the hall in a clumsy waltz, back together, front together, tongues entwined.

‘My God,’ he said at last, coming up for air, ‘I did not expect this.’

‘You OK?’

He stepped back, grabbed the bottom of his hoodie in both hands, and with one smooth, elegant move removed all his upper garments. The photograph had not done him justice. His body was a perfection of skin, muscle, and bone, but it was in movement that it revealed itself, in the easy grace of every gesture. I kissed the side of his face, his jaw, his neck, tasting soap, and the slight saltiness of sweat. Before I could work my way down to his nipples, which I really wanted to suck, he pulled me back up to his lips, moaning as our tongues touched again, the sound trapped inside. I had to have him naked now, in the hallway, with the full-length mirror beside the door reflecting the rear view. I pulled the drawstring of his pants, felt the satisfying little jump as the knot was untied, then pulled them down, boxers and all. Pascal’s cock sprang up with the bouncy energy of the very young, slapped against his corrugated belly, and then swung around like a crane. I took hold of it, pulled him toward me, and with my other hand grabbed his naked arse. It was smooth and round and solid. We kissed again, and I wanked him until he said, ‘No! Not yet. I am too close.’ My hand was wet with his pre-come, my mouth with his saliva, and my finger had found his hole, which was damp with sweat.

He kicked off his trainers and pulled off his pants, naked now but for a pair of worn white socks, brilliant against black skin.

‘Come on. Let’s go upstairs.’ I took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom where I hadn’t slept for months; even now, with Angie away, I kept to my single quarters. Now I was making a triumphal return with a horny twenty-year-old. The familiar furnishings —the old dressing table we inherited from Angie’s mother, the chest of drawers, the vase on the windowsill—seemed strange to me now. I’d changed the bedclothes, of course, and put away the framed photographs. Condoms and lube were on the bedside table. Tissues. I was prepared for anything.

I pushed Pascal back, one hand on his chest, and he fell with a bounce to the bed, propping himself up on his elbows, a position that accentuated every muscle in his torso. I knelt before him and removed those tiny white socks. I kissed his feet, rubbing the soles with my thumbs, hearing him sigh, then worked my way up his legs, over the fuzzy hair on his shins to the mighty thighs, feeling the muscles tense as my lips touched him. Then, placing a hand behind each knee, I lifted his legs, opened them, and pushed them back until they touched his stomach, and exposed his arsehole. I looked up. Pascal was watching through half-closed eyes, his mouth open, lips wet. He knew what was coming, and he wanted it.

I kissed his balls, the scrotum smooth, whether naturally or otherwise I couldn’t tell. I licked, outlining each testicle with my tongue, and then, very gently, took each of them into my mouth, tugging slightly, letting him know that he was all mine. Pascal was groaning now. The sound, although soft, seemed to fill the room, the whole house. I tried to get both balls in my mouth at the same time, as others have done to me, but I failed. They were too big. Instead I worked my way down the shiny perineum until I reached his hole.

I have eaten a good deal of pussy in my time, but never an arse. If you’d asked me to do it a year ago, I’d have turned my nose up in disgust. But now, knowing how good it feels, I wanted to rim Pascal until my tongue was half way up his digestive tract. I wanted him to feel what I have felt, that sense of surrender and being possessed, the strange mixture of heat and coolness that comes from a vigorous tongue and lips on your anus. Pascal gave himself totally, pressing against me, reaching around to hold his cheeks open so I could get in further. We both knew where this was leading.

I was still fully clothed, and much as I could happily have eaten him out all day, Pascal had other plans. He rocked forward and, using his thighs as levers, wrestled me to the carpet, sitting on my chest. Now he towered above me, and I was the helpless one. He shuffled back so his wet hole made contact with my hard cock and started to unbutton my shirt. When it was open, he ran his hands over the dense fur on my chest and stomach, angling himself down to press his cock into it, leaving diamond chains of pre-come in the hair. While he was thus engaged, I unbuckled my belt, unbuttoned my jeans, and, somehow, pushed them down. Now there was only a thin layer of cotton between my cock and Pascal’s arse. He soon saw to that. He dismounted and, kneeling at my side, peeled my underwear down. I was naked now from throat to ankles, my arms still in shirtsleeves, my feet hobbled by trousers and pants, but that seemed to satisfy Pascal.

‘Don’t move,’ he said, and with lightning speed vaulted over the bed to grab the condoms and lube, which he’d obviously spotted the moment we walked into the room. ‘You are going to fuck me.’

It wasn’t a question, or an order, more a statement of fact. After a few minutes of playing with my cock, he rolled a condom onto it. His hands were shaking a little.

‘Is this your first time, Pascal?’

He waved his hand a little. ‘I’ve tried a couple of times.’

‘Tried?’

‘It didn’t work out.’

‘OK. Sure you want to do this?’

‘Yes. I’m sure.’ From the way he was plastering lube over my cock, he seemed more than sure, but I knew all too well how desire could diminish with the first stab of pain. But he was in peak physical condition, and well able to control his muscles, so I was optimistic. Even if it didn’t work out, I’d get inside him, and see the pain on his face, and that would turn me on too. I wanted to hurt him. Not a particularly nice admission, but lust isn’t nice. Now he was working lube between his buttocks. I watched and waited.

‘I’m ready.’

‘Come on, then.’ I held my dick upright. ‘It’s all yours. Think you can take it?’

He threw one leg over me and sat, his slippery arse making direct contact with the rubber end of my cock. Without breaking eye contact, he took hold of me, aligned me with his hole and, after a deep breath, moved down so the head of my dick entered him. And there he held me, his thigh muscles ridged with tension, his eyebrows drawn, expelling air through his nostrils. One jerk of my hips and I’d have ripped into him, but that was not what either of us wanted. Watching his expression was enough for now—pain and pleasure mixing on his face.

After a minute he said, ‘OK,’ and lowered himself a little further, until the thickest part of my cock was stretching his hole to the max. Then he screwed up his eyes and sucked the air through his teeth in pain.

‘Want to stop?’

‘No. Shit. I don’t know. I get this far and then it hurts too much. Look.’ He flopped his cock around—it had gone quite limp and small. ‘What can I do?’

I was the experienced one now, and I knew that all he had to do was rest, relax, and try again. I lifted him gently off me. He sat on my stomach, breathing hard. ‘It’s OK. We’ll get there. I’m going to fuck you, Pascal, and you’re going to have a great time. First we’re going to get you hard.’

I reached up and pinched his tits; he gasped, and put his arms behind his head, showing off his pits, the muscles along his ribs, stretching his stomach. Slowly the blood returned to his cock. My hands ran down the swell of his chest, over his abs, and down to his trimmed pubic hair. I wanked him gently, squeezed his balls, ran the tip of my little finger over his hole and just inside, pulling out a long strand of juice. It worked. His cock went from nought to sixty in about thirty seconds, and when I tasted his pre-come, licking my fingers, he reached full hardness. Oh, to be twenty again.

He was eager, reaching round to feel my cock, checking that I was still hard. No worries there; the thought of being the first man to fuck him right was keeping me as stiff as a pole.

‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘When you’re ready. Take it slow.’

Pascal did as he was told, inching down until he reached the point of pain. Then he stopped. Perhaps this just wasn’t going to happen, and we’d have to do something else . . . but no, he took a couple of deep breaths and then slid right down me. I felt everything open inside him, and instead of shoving my cock into a jar of walnuts, I was suddenly fucking a ripe, juicy melon, or a piece of butter, or velvet, or something. Pascal’s face opened up like his arse, his eyebrows lifting, mouth and eyes widening in a smile as he touched base.

‘Oh my God,’ he said, unable to believe the feeling. I knew exactly what he was experiencing. I let him become accustomed to the fullness, and then I gently rocked my hips against the floor, setting up a motion that moved my cock around inside him. There was so much pre-come running down his shaft that I thought for a moment he’d come already, but no—Pascal was good to go and ready for the fuck of a lifetime. Nothing ever compares to the first time you get properly, successfully fucked, when you realize that sticking a penis up your arse isn’t just something weird, but gives you access to a whole range of sensations that you never dreamed of. The mental, emotional, and physical experience of being well fucked seems to be kept secret, possibly because if every young man knew just how good it feels, he’d be sitting on the first hard cock he could find instead of dating girls and doing what society expected of him. If Stuart had fucked me the night before I got married, things might have been very different. I’m not saying I didn’t love Angie or that sex with her wasn’t great —but I’m wondering now, as I see Pascal’s face transformed by penetration, watching the juice running down his dick like nectar from a lily, whether I wasn’t really gay all along. I settled for what was offered, what was easier, because I knew no different and didn’t have the courage or the opportunity to explore the alternatives. Maybe it’s different for my kids’ generation—they seem more aware of what’s out there, and there’s less pressure to conform.

Well, Pascal wasn’t going to make that mistake by the look of things. He’d started moving up and down on my prick, using his huge thigh muscles to lift and lower himself; I know from doing squats in the gym that small movements like that are hard, even without a bar on your shoulders. Even Pascal was sweating. I let him do the work. My cock was just up there for him to explore. As long as I stayed hard, he could more or less fuck himself.

There comes a point, however, when a first-time fuck needs to progress from exploration to execution, when the bottom needs to surrender control. This was what Graham did for me, and I was determined to do it for Pascal. I let him ride me for a long time, loving the sight of his muscular body rippling and straining as he worked his internal organs around my dick. He was so in the zone, eyes half closed, lips parted, a continuous groan rising and falling with each thrust, that he could easily work himself to an orgasm that I was not ready to permit him.

As soon as I slipped out of his arse—and it happens regularly, even with the most coordinated fuck—I moved out from underneath him, stood up, and shed my clothes.

‘Up there.’ I clicked my fingers and pointed to the bed. ‘On your knees.’

This was it—I was going to fuck another person in the marital bed. No going back now, Heath. Bridges burnt. Did it bother me? Not a bit. All I could think about was Pascal’s hole, wet and shiny with lube, twitching open and closed as he crouched on all fours, pushing himself toward me. I climbed up behind him, took hold of his hips and pushed in, the whole length of my hard prick slamming into him. He gave a despairing groan, rested his head on his forearms, and braced himself for the onslaught. He knew what was coming, and he wanted it as much as I did.

I fucked that boy hard, pulling him into every thrust, picking up the pace until I could go no faster, and he matched me blow for blow, opening himself up, spreading his legs wider, taking every last bit of cock I had and wanting more. It couldn’t last for long, this friction, this ferocity; the only question was which of us would come first.

I saw Pascal’s hand working around to his cock, saw his arm moving, and from the rippling of his guts, I knew the end was nigh. No point in either of us holding back now. I slammed into him recklessly, felt the climax building; I was grunting like a heavyweight boxer, and then I felt his arse tighten, saw the bucking of his hips as he spewed his sperm all over the bed, and I was right behind him, fucking my way through an orgasm so intense I seemed to black out, to lose sight and sound as I emptied my balls into him.

When I came to, I had collapsed on top of Pascal, my sweaty chest on his sweaty back, both of us panting, my cock still inside him, still hard. I kissed the side of his face; he twisted round so that our lips could meet, but it was too uncomfortable, and as my dick began to soften, I dismounted.

Judging from the mess he’d made on the bedspread, Pascal had just had one of the biggest orgasms in history, but he wasn’t done with me yet. He held me, kissing me, running his hands over me, licking, working his way down to my cock. He wanted it inside him, limp or hard, mouth or arse, and so I let him suck it, stroking his head, marvelling at the beauty of his body and the seemingly permanent erection throbbing between his legs. I reached down and wanked him as he nursed on my prick, and before long he was building toward a second orgasm. I was so impressed and surprised that I got hard again as well, holding his head down on me, pushing into his throat as I brought him off with my hand. He gagged a bit as he came, tears coming out of the corners of his eyes, and spewed another, smaller load over my fingers and his thigh. Finally he let my cock go, we embraced and kissed and fell asleep.

I fucked Pascal again in the small hours, a strange, dreamlike experience in the dim light of early dawn, and awoke again to find him asleep beside me, so lovely and so warm that my cock stirred immediately—and, more surprisingly, my heart stirred too. I didn’t want to let him go. This moment was so perfect, and it felt so good to hold him and to know I could fuck him again, or maybe teach him to fuck me, if we only had time and freedom, all those things that life denies us.

‘I’d better go,’ he said, eyes still closed, his voice croaky. ‘I have to get to college.’

‘And I have to go to work,’ I said, ‘but we have half an hour.’

So I fucked him again until my dick was sore and I could barely come, but we managed it.

Pascal showered first while I stripped the bed, loaded the washing machine, and scoured the bedroom for evidence. A tiny scrap of foil from one of the many condom packets we’d used could be all it took to give us away. Why was I bothering? Surely such recklessness was crying out for discovery?

I made coffee and showered. When I got to the kitchen, Pascal was dressed, his coat on, nervously drumming his hands on his thighs, headphones in.

‘Give me a minute, and I’ll give you a lift to the station or somewhere.’

‘OK.’

‘Do you want anything to eat?’

‘No thanks.’

He wouldn’t look at me.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good.’ I wanted to say something nice, but my mind was blank. Can we see each other again? Do you love me? Do you want me? Of course not. None of the above. Impossible.

‘I think I should go,’ he said, gulping the last of his coffee.

‘No, it’s fine, wait.’

‘I know where I am.’ He stood up and shouldered his kitbag. ‘Thank you.’

There was nothing to say. I went to embrace him, but he offered his hand instead. We shook, and I showed him to the door, and I could think of nothing to talk about except the weather.

I watched him walk down the road, never looking back, and when he’d turned the corner, I went indoors and felt sick.

No time for self-pity though. There was more evidence to be destroyed. Feeling like a murderer, I went around the house with a forensic eye, looking for anything that would betray Pascal’s presence. A pubic hair, a fibre from his tracksuit, an unfamiliar foot-print—anything could be used against me. A guilty conscience, you’re thinking, and you’re right—I felt as if I’d just murdered my marriage. There’s a difference between sneaking out to saunas and strangers’ flats, and actually bringing someone home to fuck in the bed my wife sleeps in. OK, she’s away, she’ll never know, but that’s not the point. Actions have meanings and consequences, and even if I’m never found out, I’ve crossed a line. I can never go back. It’s not a question of whether I’m going to leave my wife, just when.

But if I leave Angie, where do I go? Who do I go to? I have that horrible vision of myself growing old in a one-bedroom flat, alone, desperately scouring Craigslist for today’s trade, losing my friends, never seeing my kids. I’m at the crossroads now. One false move, and I’m screwed.

What are my options? Pascal just disappeared into thin air, and I’m not going to scare him by trying to get him back. Besides which, however good we felt together, he’s less than half my age. What about Graham? A little older than me, but a nice guy, a great fuck, and certainly rich enough to save me from bedsitter hell. But why on earth would he choose me, out of all the high-class arse he can afford—and which he is no doubt shoving his bull cock into in the south of France? There’s nothing special about a forty-something married man with family issues.

Michael at the gym—the first man to make me come? We have nothing in common besides a gym membership. Adrian, the one I still blame for starting all this? For all I know, he’s straight. And the others—disappeared, gone, emails deleted, contacts broken.

If you’re running away, Joe Heath, you’d better have somewhere to go.

Alex came home at the end of the week. He looked tired and pale from study; this was a boy who always wanted to play outdoors, to be running around, and he was pining from lack of exercise. Angie was staying away for a few more days, she said; it was my job to get Alex up and ready in the morning, make sure he was fed, washed, and wearing clean clothes. I got my orders by email and text; we didn’t even speak on the phone. It didn’t occur to me that anything was wrong. Actually I was relieved. A few more days to compose myself after the enormity of what I’d done to Pascal in our bed began to fade.

It was nice to be a father again, or would have been if Alex could actually talk to me—but he came and went with barely a word, just a grunt of recognition. He stayed in his room during the evenings, and even if I managed to persuade him to eat at the table with me, he avoided eye contact and refused to be drawn into conversation. Questions like ‘Alex, are you OK?’ were met with scowls or eye-rolling or, at best, evasive replies like ‘of course I’m OK, Dad.’

I remember exams well enough to know what he was going through, but this seemed extreme. We used to get on well. I thought we still did. Perhaps in some way, he knows that I’m leaving him, betraying his mother, busting up the family.

Another email announcing a further day’s delay.

‘What’s your mother up to exactly?’ I asked Alex over breakfast one morning. He just scowled, and shovelled cereal into his mouth even faster than usual.

‘Did she say anything to you?’

Spoon crashed into bowl as he got up.

‘Alex, I’m talking to you.’

‘I dunno.’

‘Come on. She must have said something.’

‘You and Mum need to talk.’ His face was paler than ever, circles under his eyes, and I realized with a shock that he was about to cry. I hadn’t seen Alex cry since he was eleven years old and fell off his bike.

‘Alex, what’s the matter?’

But he was gone, grabbing his bag and slamming the front door.

Oh Jesus, she knows. She’s found out. She’s left me.

It was the only possible explanation. Instead of a big confrontation, she was simply going to leave without discussion. Perhaps even now she was scouting out a new place to live, seeing a lawyer who would slap me with divorce papers and a bill for child support. How long do I have to pay for them? Until Alex leaves home? Until they’re all earning? What happens to the house? Will I have to sell it? Will I see them at Christmas? What about this wedding we’re supposed to be going to? Oh Christ, what have I done?

As you can see I was taking a sensible, mature approach to the situation. As soon as I was certain that Alex was out of the house, I sent off a flurry of emails, and managed to set up a lunchtime meeting with a man in a hotel near my office. That was one way of avoiding the situation. I hoped he really was a total top, as promised, and that the penis in the photo really was his, because I wanted him to fuck my brains out. I was on auto-pilot all morning, answering calls and attending meetings, but it was just background noise. All I could think about was getting fucked, because if I thought about anything else, it led back to impending disaster.

At 11:45, shortly before I was due to leave for my lunchtime assignation, my phone rang. It was Angie. Angie only ever calls me at work if there’s an emergency—in the old days, it was if one of the kids was ill or she couldn’t pick them up from school. What now? I just wanted to let you know that you’ll be hearing from my lawyers . . .

I hesitated before picking up. It would be so easy to let it go to voicemail, run off to get fucked, and face the music later . . .

But old habits die hard. Something bad could have happened.

‘Hi darling.’ I tried to sound bright and breezy. ‘You OK?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She sounded as falsely cheerful as I did. ‘Just to say I’m coming back tomorrow.’

‘Right.’ How soon could I get off the phone? I didn’t want to be late. ‘See you then.’

‘And . . . look, what time will you be home from work?’

‘What, tomorrow? Usual time. Depends if I go to the gym.’

‘Could you possibly make it a bit earlier than usual? I need to . . . we need to . . . I think we need to talk.’ She sounded uncharacteristically nervous. This was not the Angie I know, a woman unafraid to speak her mind. It’s all about to end. It’s all about to change.

‘Of course. I can skip the gym.’ Keep it light, Joe. Keep disaster at bay. ‘Shall I pick up something nice for dinner?’

‘What? Oh, yes, if you want to. Her voice was a little shaky. ‘See you then. How’s Alex?’

‘He grunts at me in the hall occasionally. That’s about it.’

She laughed, then stopped herself. ‘See you tomorrow then.’ ‘OK.’

There was a long pause. She was waiting for me to say something. Like where the fuck have you been? Or what is going on? But I was silent, and she hung up.

I made it on time for a long and occasionally painful fuck. He wasn’t particularly good looking, but he wasn’t hideous, he knew what he was doing, and his cock was certainly big. He slapped my arse a lot and called me names, which is what I wanted.

I got back to my desk, I worked, I went to the gym, I went home, and spent the evening with Alex, in different parts of the house, and I slept alone in my daughter’s bed. Or didn’t sleep. At half past two I was wide awake, and anyone who suffers from insomnia will know that in the next four hours, I explored all the saddest, darkest scenarios that my imagination had to offer.

As soon as it was dawn, I got up.