I used to come into this bedroom every night to kiss her and say goodnight. It was a familiar routine that I would have been lost and unanchored without. The day only ended properly for me when I could say goodnight to my children. Even when she was an older teen she was very rarely not there for me to lean my head around the door and wish her the best night’s sleep. Verity almost always slept at home. I suppose I did, too, even when I was being screwed by my teacher.
‘Let’s go,’ I say.
‘Go where?’ she asks. It’s clear from the look on her face, even with her fancy nails, she does not want to go anywhere.
‘I need to show you something.’
She’s about to sigh, tut, roll her eyes, bring out all the snark, when she stops herself. She looks at me as though calculating something, trying to work out if she really hates me as much as she thinks she does.
Slowly she puts down her book, picks up the jacket and slips it on. Any irritation she feels is tucked away, any resentment brushed aside.
I can tell by her face she thought I was going to take her somewhere dramatic and majestic. A place where we could stand and commune with nature, immerse ourselves in the beauty of the world around us.
Instead we’re sitting in the car outside a small B&B about ten minutes from our house. It looks cosy enough, but everything about it needs updating. It is tired on the outside, the paintwork faded and chipped, the awnings seagull-christened and grubby, its sign bravely shining on despite how fatigued it seems. It’s just as exhausted on the inside, desperately in need of someone to love it again.
‘This is where I ended up because thirty-odd years ago my teacher kissed me and I didn’t tell anyone,’ I explain to my daughter. ‘This is where I came ten years ago when your father threw me out and Poppy Carlisle was stalking me.’
‘Poppy Carlisle was stalking you?’
‘Didn’t he tell you that?’
She shakes her head, looking upset and disturbed.
‘She only did it for a short time; she was trying to . . . well, that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that it was enough to scare me. It was a trigger point in my life. I don’t want this to happen to you, Verity. I need you to talk to me. If I had talked to your aunts, even Grandma, all that time ago, things might have turned out completely differently – not just for me, but probably for Poppy, too. Talk to me, Verity. Talk to me.’
There is so much to say, to reveal, to ask about. I can see it on her face. Eventually she says, ‘If I tell you something, will you promise not to freak out? I just need you to tell me what you honestly think once you’ve heard this story. I’m confused by it. And I don’t understand why I’m confused.’
‘Yes,’ I say simply.
‘All right, so, one evening I got back from work late. Not too late, but I had a ton of work to do because we were going to be in a client meeting first thing in the morning. Logan was already there, he’d cooked, cleaned up and everything. He was bored, I suppose, because he had to watch telly on his own and he’d done all this stuff for me. So after a bit, he came and started kissing my neck.’
verity
March, 2020
Logan’s lips slowly kissed a trail of seduction from my jaw down my neck to my shoulder.
I paused in typing the report I had been working on all evening and my eyes slipped shut and I sighed. He was showing his boredom not by moaning or sighing or sulking, but by kissing my neck. Once his lips grazed the neckline of my top, he moved to the other side, traced a track of kisses up to my jaw. As he kissed, his hand slid over my shoulder inside my top and into my bra.
I leant back against him, as his hand tightened around my breast and his thumb stroked firmly across my nipple, making me gasp out loud.
‘Babe, I’ve got to work,’ I murmured as his thumb continued to work on me.
‘Shhhhh,’ he hushed and pulled me to my feet. ‘Shhhhh.’
‘I’m serious, Loges,’ I replied. ‘I need to get this done tonight. We have to be at a huge client meeting in the morning. I should have stayed at work but I thought I’d get more done and would be able to work a lot later—’
Spinning me around, he covered my mouth with his to stop me speaking. The kiss deepened and lengthened and I wanted to go with it, but I had work. I had so much work. I was still a trainee, this was my last seat, my last bit of training where I was shadowing and being general dogsbody for one of the partners. I had been going all out the last two years. It was cut-throat, all of us trainees desperate to prove how indispensible we were so we would be in with a chance of a job at the end of our two years training. I wanted to stay at Frost, Palmer, Cummings, Quarry and Carter, desperately.
I was in early, left late, made sure all my work was 110 per cent perfect. I had work to do and I didn’t want Logan to distract me.
‘Loges—’ I began when he pulled away, so he kissed me again. Harder this time, for longer, undoing the small pearly buttons on my white shirt as he kissed me. When he pulled away I almost fell over from wanting the kiss to continue.
‘I have to work,’ I said feebly, even as he was leading me towards the bedroom. ‘Loges . . .’
He moved faster, tugging me along with him until we were in the bedroom.
‘I have to—’ Another silencing kiss, one that was huge and grand, like they were in the movies. As we kissed, he eased me back until my legs butted up against the bed and then he was easing me back onto the bed and climbing on top of me. There was no point arguing at this point, no point protesting, whether or not I had work to do, I was here now and the quickest way to get back to work was by going along with it. It wasn’t as if it was awful, this, it wasn’t terrible being undressed by him.
It wasn’t a chore undressing him while we kissed and his fingers moved over my skin. It wasn’t difficult to tear open the condom wrapper and roll its contents onto my waiting boyfriend. It was nothing but divine to curve my back and let out a deep sigh as he pushed his fingers into me, then immediately withdrew them, and then drove himself where his fingers had been. I really didn’t know that sex could be like this. My hook-ups and short flings had been good, enjoyable, but none were as satisfying as being with Logan.
As he moved inside me, and I rocked myself against him, he placed his hands around my wrists, eased them up and pushed them gently on each side of my head; with each thrust he increased the firmness of the grip until my wrists were pinned, hard.
Just as I expected him to start to speed up, to lead us to the finish, he suddenly pulled out and moved back a little. His right hand let go of my left wrist, and moved down between my legs, to his erection, and I felt him tugging at the condom, trying to remove it.
No, this wasn’t what I wanted, we weren’t at that stage yet. ‘What are—’ I began, but he covered my mouth with his, kissed away my words again. He kept his lips on mine, stopped me from protesting as he entered me again, but without the condom. Without protection.
I moved my free hand to push at his chest, but he gripped that wrist again, forced it back onto the bed and held it firmly in place as he continued to plunge deep inside me. I felt him groan against my lips right before he began his familiar fast, hard thrusts; harder and faster he moved, speeding to get to the end, to finish. He was going to . . .