Neurotica

by Sue Margolis

  She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Lying there in the dark, drunk on wine and exhaustion, she suddenly didn't give a monkey's about the dangers of starting a relationship with Ed. The only thing that mattered was that she was falling in love—and what she wanted more than anything at that moment was Ed in bed beside her.

  Anna kicked off the duvet. She would run into Ed's room and throw herself on top of him. What stopped her was the sudden fear that maybe she'd got it all wrong, and that the reason Ed had sent her to bed alone was because he had changed his mind and maybe he didn't fancy her after all.

  Lying there in the dark, desire seeped through her body like whiskey on a winter's night. She sat up and pulled her T-shirt over her head. The tree branches made a cracking sound in the wind. Lying down again, letting her head sink into the thick feather pillow, she ran her hands slowly over her breasts and belly. She drew up her legs and let them drop to the side and with both hands began stroking the insides of her thighs. After a few moments she parted her labia and felt the wetness flowing out of her. Her belly quivered as she ran her finger over her clitoris. She closed her eyes and felt the muscles tighten in her vagina. Her gentle strokes gradually became harder and faster.

  “Why don't you let me do that?”

  Anna froze, partly with shock and partly with mortification. How could she not have heard the door handle? Opening her eyes she saw Ed standing just inside the bedroom, watching her, his body backlit by the landing light. He was naked except for a towel round his waist. He'd obviously just got out of the shower.

  In a second he was sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning over her. She could feel his breath on her face. Although she hadn't the slightest idea what she was going to say, she opened her mouth to speak. Ed put his finger to her lips.

  “Ssh, 's OK. Please don't be embarrassed . . . you looked so beautiful.”

  He brought his mouth towards her and kissed her. As his tongue entered her mouth, she felt his hand move down over her stomach towards her bush. She put her arms round his neck and breathed in his warm, damp smell.

  Ed played with her bush for a few seconds and then pulled away from her. He knelt on the bed and took off his towel. Anna reached out and began running the palm of her hand over the top of his penis. After a while a tiny pearl of semen appeared. She touched it with her forefinger and gently rubbed it away.

  “I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered.

  “In a minute . . . there's plenty of time.” Ed moved himself round so that he was sitting up, leaning against the bed's wooden headboard.

  “Come here,” he said, his arms stretched out towards her.

  Anna crawled across the bed and sat herself between his legs, her back against his chest. “But I can't see you,” she protested.

  “Just let me hold you. Close your eyes.”

  He held her with one arm while she let her head flop back onto the top of his shoulder.

  Gently he opened her legs. A moment later he had found her clitoris. Anna gasped. As his fingers glided over the wetness, she thrust her pelvis up towards his hand. Every so often he nipped the base of her neck and ran his tongue inside her ear. As her body relaxed and melted into his, Anna felt herself swimming in pure pleasure.

  Afterwards, Ed carried on holding her. For what seemed like ages, they sat silently in the dark, listening to each other's breathing.

  Finally Anna turned round to face him and began running her tongue over his belly. She watched his penis stiffen and turn upwards towards his navel. A moment later he had pulled her on top of him. Their kissing became fierce and urgent. She could feel his fingers almost digging into her buttocks. They rolled across the bed in a tangled, breathy heap like two frenzied creatures attempting to caress and devour each other at the same time.

  The next thing Anna knew, Ed was standing on the floor, his hands round her ankles.

  “Bring your bottom to the edge of the bed.”

  Anna obliged. Ed pushed her legs up onto her chest. She felt him run his tongue over her clitoris and put some gentle pressure on her anus. Finally she was aware of his penis rubbing the entrance to her vagina. She winced and let out a tiny whimper as she felt the sensation, which exists somewhere between pain and sublime pleasure, of him pushing himself fractionally too deep inside her. She heard herself beg him to thrust harder.

  Anna came first. Then, a few seconds later, Ed let out a huge sigh. Gently, he lowered the top half of his body onto hers. As she held him and stroked his head, she felt the same emotion she used to feel years ago when she and Dan made love. She'd only ever been able to describe it as a feeling of coming home—a sense that she belonged with this person.

  Anna opened her eyes a few hours later to see the sun streaming in through the tiny cottage window and Ed standing by the side of the bed. He was bare-chested and wearing yesterday's jeans with the fly buttons half un- done.

  “For you,” he said, putting a mug of tea and a couple of biscuits down on the bedside table. “I nicked the Garibaldis from the stash of crap confectionery Graham keeps behind his jars of cep mushrooms. You could have Jammy Dodgers if you prefer.”

  Anna laughed and said the Garibaldis would be fine.

  “Listen, Anna,” Ed said enthusiastically as he climbed over the bed and sat himself down beside her, “I really don't want you to go home. I've got the cottage for the weekend and I thought once I'd got the car sorted out, assuming there's nothing major the matter with it, we could do a bit of sightseeing and go out for dinner tonight. The thing is, even though you're the most stroppy, argumentative tart I've ever met, for some perverted reason I love being with you and I'd really like to spend more time with you. What d'you reckon?”

  Anna dipped her Garibaldi into her tea and bit into it. She decided to ignore the stroppy, argumentative tart bit.

  “Ed, I feel the same. I have only ever felt like this twice in my life. The first was when I met Dan. I'd like nothing more than to stay here with you, but I must get back to my kids. I promised I'd be home for lunch. Plus I've got some thinking I need to do.”

  “About us?”

  She nodded, then grabbed his wrist to look at the time.

  “Christ, it's gone eleven.” She watched a bit of sodden biscuit break off and splash into her tea.

  “Please stay.” His voice was pleading.

  “I really can't,” she said tenderly. Seeing the look of utter heartbreak on his face, she put her mug down on the bedside table and pushed him down onto the bed. She then began undoing the rest of his fly buttons. Moments later he was lying naked beside her and she was covering his penis with her mouth.

  “Christ, Anna,” he said between moans, “you don't give blow jobs, you give entire blow careers.”

  Afterwards he cradled her in his arms.

  “Ed, there's something I feel I ought to tell you,” she said, playing with the column of thick hairs below his navel.

  Ed sat up, clearly alarmed.

  “Bloody hell, Anna, I've had enough bad news in the last twenty-four hours. Please don't give me any more.”

  “It's not bad news, exactly, but you might not want to see me again when I've told you what it is.” Anna took a deep breath and told him about the Clitoris-Centered Woman article she was writing for the Daily Mercury.

  When she'd finished, Ed stared at her for a few seconds.

  “So you mean you've used me, quite cynically, as part of your research for this piece?”

  “Look, I admit that's how it started out. Please don't be angry.” There was panic rising in her voice. “The reason I'm telling you this is because, like you, I feel there's something between us which is based on more than just sex, and . . .”

  But Ed didn't let her finish. He burst out laughing.

  “I had no idea you took your job so seriously. I promise, never again will I accuse you of making up the stuff you write.”

  “I don't get it. If I were you, I'd be furious.”

  “You told me, that
's the important thing. Besides, you don't fancy you like I do.”

  With that he pulled her on top of him and kissed her.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y

  ANNA PUT HER KEYS DOWN ON THE hall table next to the kids' lunchboxes. These were meant to live in the kitchen when they weren't at school. Pretty sure what she would find inside, Anna opened Amy's red plastic box. As she'd suspected, it contained an empty bashed-in apple juice box, a quarter of a stale peanut butter sandwich and a half-eaten nectarine which had grown green fur overnight and was oozing over a letter from the PTA pleading for cakes for the school bring-and-buy sale.

  Feeling slightly irritated with Dan for not emptying them, she picked up the lunchboxes.

  “Hey, you lot,” she shouted in no direction in particular. “I'm back.”

  There was no reply.

  Anna wandered into the living room. Mrs. Fredericks had been in yesterday to clean, but the room was a dump. It also stank of food which had been left out overnight. There were newspapers, empty glasses and a couple of dirty plates on the floor. One of the plates contained the cause of the stink—an untouched chili dog.

  With her free hand, Anna picked up an empty bottle of Red Label from the coffee table and held it up. She was certain that yesterday it had been full.

  The untidiness annoyed her; the sight of the empty whiskey bottle, on the other hand, worried her. Dan drank an occasional Scotch late at night, but she had never known him to have more than a glass or two. Perhaps he'd had a mate over last night and they'd got pissed? If that had been the case, he would have tidied up this morning. The mess in the living room had all the hallmarks of a man who had spent the night drinking alone.

  Anna ran out of the room and shouted up the stairs.

  “Amy, Josh, anyone . . . speak to me if you're up there.”

  Silence. Dan must have taken the kids out.

  Anna went into the kitchen. She put the whiskey bottle and the lunchboxes on the worktop and began sifting through the scraps of paper, old envelopes and ends of American legal pads which always lived in a pile next to the bread bin, to see if Dan had left her a note to say when they'd be back. There was nothing. Anna had a feeling, the kind of feeling her late grandmother always referred to as a “presentiment”—because she could never think of the word “premonition”—that something was seriously wrong.

  She began pacing up and down the kitchen, trying to decide whom to phone. Each time she reached the hob, she did an about-turn and walked towards the door which led into the hall. On her third or fourth about-turn, she looked up and saw Dan standing in the doorway. She jumped with fright and then bellowed at him.

  “Do you mind telling me what the hell has been going on here?” She picked up the whiskey bottle and thrust it angrily in his face. His eyes peered out at her from puffy hollows. He needed a hairwash and a shave. And he was wearing the same shirt and trousers he'd had on when he'd left the house the previous morning.

  “Nothing very much, other than I felt the need to get mightily slaughtered last night. You'll find an empty vodka bottle in the bin if you look.”

  Anna found the mock joviality in his voice almost menacing. “What have you done with the kids?”

  “Brenda's.” Dan went to the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice. He closed the door and glared at her.

  “Anyway, I think I am the one who should be asking you what's been going on.”

  Anna felt herself begin to tremble. “What are you talking about?” She had no idea why she had asked such a fatuous question. She knew precisely what he was talking about. She didn't know how he had found out, but the game, her game, was up.

  Dan finished pouring juice into a glass.

  “What I'm talking about is this.” He took a piece of paper from his back pocket and held it towards her. Anna took it and unfolded it. It was her Barclaycard statement. The £75 payment to Liaisons Dangereux jumped out at her.

  Dan finished his juice and put the glass down on the worktop. “Oh, I nearly forgot—there's this too.”

  He handed her a postcard. It was from Charlie. It was one she hadn't seen before. He had sent it from San Diego.

  “Where did you get it?” she said almost in a whisper.

  “When I took the kids round to Brenda's last night, I saw it lying on the kitchen table. It seemed odd that a postcard clearly meant for you should have Brenda's address on it. So, nosy bastard that I am, I picked it up. I particularly like the bit where he says, “You're simply the best.' I find it hard to believe you slept with a bloke for whom the pinnacle of literary expression is to quote from Tina Turner.

  “Oh, and then,” he continued, “there's Reenie Theydon-Bois, but you don't have to explain about her because I know all I need to know. After a little research yesterday, I found the number for Liaisons Dangereux and I spoke to her last night. Charming woman. Says she found you a “delaytful' doctor to screw.”

  Anna could feel the color draining from her face.

  “What, she told you?” she gasped, holding onto the worktop for support. “She promised everything was confidential.”

  “It's funny how unconfidential everything can become when you threaten to report her for operating illegally as an escort agency when Liaisons Dangereux is registered at Companies House as a shih tzu breeding establishment.

  “How many men have there been, Anna? How many men have you fucked in the last couple of months?” He was shouting at her now, his face almost touching hers. His breath reeked of booze and he was spraying her with saliva. “Two, three, four, a dozen maybe. How many, Anna, how fucking many?” A split second later she felt a sudden and intense burning sensation down one side of her face. Her hand leaped to her cheek. Her head spinning, she caught hold of the worktop to steady herself. Dan stared down at his hand in disbelief. In all the years he had known Anna, he had never laid a violent hand on her.

  Anna fought the instinct to back away from him. Instead she stayed put. Dan looked up again.

  “Three,” she said, staring into his eyes with a forced calmness. “There have been three. I managed to find three men who wanted to make love to me when you wouldn't. Three men who made me feel beautiful and wanted me while you sat at home taking your fucking blood pressure.”

  Dan scraped a chair noisily along the polished floorboards and sat down at the kitchen table. He put his head in his hands.

  Anna sat down opposite him. She reached across and touched his arm. He withdrew from her in an instant. After a couple of minutes he looked up.

  “If I'm honest, I think I probably saw it coming. Brenda tried to warn me a few weeks ago that the illness thing was driving you to breaking point. She hinted you might do something like this.”

  Anna realized she felt no anger towards Brenda for speaking to Dan. She knew it was just her friend's way of trying to help.

  “So, did Brenda mention the article I'm supposed to be writing?”

  He shook his head. “What article?”

  For the second time that day, Anna explained about the Clitoris-Centered Woman piece.

  “Talk about crap timing.” He laughed bitterly. “You decide to get laid at the same time as I try to repair our marriage. After Brenda told me how much my hypochondria was affecting you, I went straight out and found a shrink. I didn't tell you I was seeing her because I had this plan to come home one day, announce that I was cured and whisk you off on some exotic holiday.”

  “I think at some level I knew you were up to something. I had the feeling you were less obsessed with your health lately. The thing is, Dan, you left it too late. You know as well as I do that you should have gone into therapy years ago.”

  “Probably.”

  “Dan, I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry I've hurt you.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said flatly. He paused. “There's something else you need to know.” In an almost matter-of-fact tone he told her about his visit to Dr. Harper, the chest X ray and the certainty in his mind that he had lung cancer.


  Anna listened in horror-struck silence.

  “But you don't know for definite,” she said when he'd finished. She was doing her best to sound upbeat. “You haven't had the results of the X ray and then there will be loads of other tests they'll want to do.”

  “Anna, you weren't there. You didn't hear Dr. Harper, the tone of voice she used when she put down her stethoscope. She's been a doctor for thirty years. Believe me, she recognizes the beginnings of lung cancer when she hears it.”

  Anna wanted to hug him, hold him, but she knew he would push her away.

  “So,” she said, “what happens now?”

  Dan sat up straight and tapped his palm briskly on the table. “I should have the X-ray results in a few days. In the meantime, I shall go and see a solicitor about a divorce. I suggest you do the same.”

  “OK,” she said wearily. “If that's what you really want.”

  Dan stood up and glared at her again. “And get this absolutely straight, Anna: if by any chance I am not ill, I will be going for custody of Amy and Josh. In my opinion sluts do not make fit mothers.”

  Those last words were the most hateful she had ever heard come from his mouth. She would have preferred it if he'd hit her again.

  Dan walked to the kitchen door and said he was moving in with his cousin Beany for a couple of weeks. For a few seconds Anna was transported back to Gants Hill and the night she and Dan had met at the party to celebrate Beany passing his bar finals. Dan had always kept in touch with his cousin. It was Beany who dragged Dan to West Ham most Saturday afternoons. He had a lot of time on his hands since his divorce the previous year. These days he lived alone in a flat in Hammersmith. After ten years of marriage, he had been too shell-shocked by the split to get swiftly back into the swing of dating women. He would, thought Anna, probably be only too grateful for some blokeish company.