Infidelity for Beginners

by Danny King

  “Fucking right you will,” Tom told me, checking his watch. “Five quid says he’s still there in ten minutes.”

  “Getting back to the point, do you want to enjoy your own party and let me enjoy mine?”

  “Depends on who else you’re planning on inviting.”

  “How has what I do got anything to do with you anyway?” I asked.

  “Because I’m your mate, I’m looking out for you,” he insisted.

  “Well why don’t you go and look out for me somewhere else and get off my back? I wasn’t doing anything anyway, I was just…” I said, but trailed off.

  “Just what?”

  “Just… I don’t know. That’s the point, I don’t know what I was going to do. Nothing, probably. I just wanted to…”

  “Fuck Elenor?” Tom nodded, finishing my sentence for me.

  “No!” I denied.

  “Feel her tits?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Stick your dick in her gob?”

  “Stop it!”

  “Look, you can dress it up any old way you want but there’s really only one name for it. You want to look at, touch and feel Elenor’s rude bits and have her look at, touch and feel yours. That’s called sex. Even if she just sucks you off or talks dirty to you over the phone while you’re looking at pictures of her in her pants, it’s still the wobbly side of fidelity. I mean, if you’re only going to do that, you might as well go the whole way and bang her tits off because it all boils down to the same thing in the end.”

  “Which is?” I asked, realising I was going to hear this lecture one way or another so it was best if I just let him get it off his chest.

  “Sally wouldn’t like it.”

  “Sally doesn’t like lots of things,” I pointed out.

  “This isn’t you doing the crossword on the bog for half an hour, this is the big one. The no turning back one. The really fucking stupid one. You think about it.”

  And with that he finally wandered off.

  *

  If that wasn’t enough, when I got back to the bar I suddenly remembered Norman was still there waiting for me with a year’s supply of John Smiths.

  “Thought you’d fallen in,” he joked.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake….!” I mumbled to myself as Norman handed me an enormous tumbler full of whisky.

  “Ah no, just having to explain to someone else about Rosemary. Is she still milking it?”

  “Yes she’s got her coat from the cloakroom but she hasn’t actually gone anywhere yet. I think she’s waiting for someone to ask her not to go before she goes,” Norman concluded. That was quite good for Norman so I smiled accordingly and decided I’d better ask him a few questions about Christmas, family and his never-changing wife, just to be polite.

  “How’s the family?”

  “Fine, fine, ever so good. My youngest has just sent off the UCAS forms – you know, for a university place – and is awaiting the results.”

  “Oh really, Oxford? Cambridge?” I asked.

  “Nothing so ambitious, I believe Nottingham’s top of the list,” he replied.

  “Oh yeah, I wonder why?” I laughed, giving him a cheeky dig in the ribs.

  “What do you mean?” Norman asked.

  “Well, who hasn’t heard all the rumours about Nottingham being full of women? Three girls to every boy, apparently. That’s half the reason everyone applies to go up there,” I said. “Probably the reason your youngest applied.”

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that. I’ll have to ask her,” Norman said.

  At that moment Elenor entered the bar and I was relieved to see that Godfrey was no longer attached to her. She cast me a look as she took her place at the bar next to me then swung her eyes towards Norman and back at me again, all without saying a word.

  I felt my mercury rise when I realised that Elenor had been holding my gaze for almost a full five seconds and didn’t look like breaking it off any time soon. I went to say something about something but stopped when, unbelievably, out of Norman’s line of sight, she aimed a little “shush” at me.

  At that moment, I not only knew we were both singing from the same song sheet, I also knew that Elenor was going to suck me off once we’d finished singing.

  My heart thumped heavily inside my breast pocket and my trousers tightened divinely around my hips. I twisted my legs at the ankles and adjusted my posture to try and disguise my increasingly obvious excitement but things soon got so bad that I was forced to resort to the old ‘hand in the pocket’ ploy to cover up the physical evidence of my sinful conclusions.

  I don’t know if Elenor or Norman noticed, I’m pretty sure they didn’t, though there was one set of beady eyes on the other side of the hall that weren’t as blinkered.

  “Yes it’ll be a shame when Anna goes off to university,” Norman was saying. “What with Joseph in Leeds and Brian already graduated and living up in Edinburgh, I’m afraid the house is going to seem very empty.”

  “Yes that happens,” I said without really listening.

  “And how are you young lady? Enjoying the party?” Norman asked when he finally noticed Elenor standing the other side of me.

  “Yes it's fun, a bit like work only with booze and music.”

  “Are you staying in the hotel tonight?” he then asked.

  “I don’t know, are you offering?” Elenor replied, momentarily knocking the smile off Norman’s face. It soon returned a couple of seconds later with interest and brought with it a big booming laugh that drew a few stares.

  “My god, I’m old enough to be your father,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully stand aside and leave you to some of the younger chaps.”

  “Not too young though,” Elenor said, shifting her eyes to mine. “I prefer my men to have a modicum of experience.”

  She took a tantalising little sip of her drink then seeped away from the bar in thirteen heel-to-toe steps before disappearing through the door.

  “By crikey someone’s going to get it tonight,” Norman speculated.

  I could no longer speak.

  “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, how’s that lovely Sally of yours?” The sound of raised voices and a sudden kafuffle from across the hall rescued me from this particular question as Norman decided he’d better go and check out what was going on over in the Xtremers’ corner.

  “... up and... ’sh ... ace in!” I heard someone shout, before a familiar voice questioned the shouter's sexuality and suggested a few places he should “fuck off back to with your fucking windmill”.

  “Leave it, leave it!”

  “Get off of me!”

  “I’ll fucking have you!”

  “Don’t Rob, it ain’t worth it!”

  “Break it up! Break it up!”

  Me and Norman pushed our way through to the front just in time to see Tom take an almighty fist in the face. He tried swinging his own fists in defence but he was already motoring back at a full lick and inevitably crashed straight through the Xtremers’ beer mountain at a hundred miles per hour, arse-first.

  I’d never seen fifty pints spilt at one time before and pray I never see it again. A tsunami of lager drowned everyone’s feet within a 10 yard radius and the crash of breaking glass caused the DJ to gouge a new verse into Frosty the Snowman. A couple of women screamed and I savoured the sight of the other three Xtremers’ faces as their night’s supplies headed for the dance floor before wading in make sure Tom was okay.

  Surprisingly, he wasn’t too bad. He had a few cuts on his arms, a bit of glass in his hand and his trousers probably wouldn’t make it through the night, but other than that he was okay.

  Absolutely drenched, but okay.

  “You fucking bastard!” he shouted as he held his arms at right-angles to drain the Stella from his sleeves. “You utter fucking twats!”

  “What have you done?” one of the distraught Xtremers shouted at his mate.

  “It wasn’t me it was him. He...”r />
  “Now now, let’s all simmer down,” Norman interjected. “We’re going to need a mop and a bucket,” he reckoned, then started ordering people this way and that, breaking off to tell the Xtremer who’d thrown the punch that he wanted to see him in his office first thing in the morning, before continuing with the clean up operation.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “What the fuck do you think?” Tom replied, examining his phone, wallet and fags to find that only one of the three had survived. “Christ al-fucking-mighty!”

  I offered him my handkerchief to wipe some of the lager from his eyes and they bore into me with a bloodshot intensity that knew no bounds.

  “I’m going to have to go back to my B&B and get changed,” he tutted. “Fucking walking half a mile down the road in this weather! The bastard. I’ll be back coming back though, don’t you worry about that,” he warned me before trundling off into the night.

  That was it. I didn’t have long.

  Maybe an hour or so if I was lucky.

  I had to speak to Elenor.

  Chapter 10. Crunch Time

  I found Elenor a few seconds after Tom found the exit. Several people had attempted to detain me with a load of pointless questions about what had happened to Tom (Rosemary – still with her coat on her lap – muttered, “I thought he’d be involved” as I walked past) but I didn’t break stride until I found Elenor.

  Once again Godfrey had cornered her and once again he was pleading his case, but Elenor’s mind was not only made up, she was actively enjoying the anguish she was causing Godfrey. At least that’s how it looked from where I was standing. I’d hung back a couple of yards hoping to grab her when Godfrey finally gave it a rest but the moment Elenor spotted me she turned her back on Godfrey, just as he was reaching the crescendo of his humiliation, and strode purposefully over towards me.

  “Hi, are you looking for me?” she asked straight out.

  “Er… I…you know, sort of…” I muttered by way of a reply, reluctant to answer any sort of direct question with any sort of direct answer. “Sure.”

  “What’s up?” she grinned, swivelling her hips from side to side and playfully toying with one of her loose curls.

  I looked past her at Godfrey and saw all the misery and suffering of the world etched onto his face. He made no attempt to disguise his glare and kicked the last few fragments of his own shredded dignity into touch by studying us for signs of intimacy.

  “Had a fight?” I asked, nodding towards Godfrey.

  “Hmm?” Elenor feigned, then laughed. “Oh no, just little boys being little boys.”

  Elenor looked back over her shoulder during one particularly acute twist of the hips before redirecting her sparkling eyes at me.

  “So what’s up?” she asked. “What are we doing?”

  My heart leapt at the way she’d phrased that. What were we doing? I didn’t know, but at least there was finally an acknowledgement that we were doing something.

  Elenor stared at me and chewed her painted lip. It was almost as if she was urging me to ask the question. I wasn’t entirely sure what the question was and I certainly didn’t want to go bumbling about in the dark without so much as a beacon to head for, so I stared at her for a moment, chewed my own lip (not half as seductively as Elenor) then asked her how it was going.

  “Fine,” she smiled back twisting me, Godfrey and her loose auburn curls around and around her little finger.

  “Good, erm, what was I going to say?” I muttered, causing Elenor’s smile to broaden.

  Elenor had a lovely smile, really really sexy. Unfortunately I couldn’t look at it because every time I tried I caught Godfrey glaring at us as if we were holding him by a leash.

  “Godfrey’s really staring,” I finally told her.

  “Let him, I’m not bothered,” Elenor shrugged.

  “Yeah but it’s a little off-putting,” I admitted, so Elenor looked over her shoulder, then back at me.

  “Okay, let’s go to the bar and… have a little chat?” she said. “I’ll even let you buy me another drink if you want.”

  “Okay,” I said so we turned and headed back to the party.

  My heart was thumping as I fought the rising tide of apprehension, but I knew it was now or never. So, taking a deep deep breath and summoning up all the courage I could muster and grabbed Elenor by the arm.

  “Actually, there is something I wanted to say. I want to say… oh why don’t you give it a rest and leave me alone you miserable old cow!”

  Elenor turned just in time to see Rosemary spin on her heels and run back into the party with a fresh case of waterworks.

  “For fuck’s sake, can’t everyone leave me alone for five minutes?” I asked, then remembered Elenor. “Look, this is going to keep on happening all night, we might never get another moment to have a chat so…”

  “Do you have a room here in the hotel?” Elenor suddenly asked.

  My heart exploded into a million different pieces and each of those exploded again. “Yes, room 64,” I replied, barely believing where this was going.

  “And do you have a mini-bar?”

  “Yes, and a bottle of scotch I bought from the off-licence,” I admitted.

  “Even better. We could have a drink in your room if you liked,” Elenor suggested. “Just to get some privacy.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “But don’t you go trying anything on, you dirty bastard,” Elenor warned me with a wry smile. “I know what you guys are like once you get a girl into your room. You think you can just chuck us down on the bed and fuck us at will.”

  “Oh no, no, nothing like that!” I protested, shocked that she should even think such a thing of me.

  “Because I wouldn’t want it getting around at work that that was what we’d done,” she said.

  “Of course not, no, God forbid!”

  “Good,” Elenor said, before drawing close enough to murmur in my ear, “because if we did do anything like that, then I think we should keep it to ourselves. Don’t you?”

  How I didn’t cum in my pants at that moment is a mystery to me. I was the definition of excitement. In fact, if you look ‘excitement’ up in the Oxford English Dictionary you’ll see a picture of me standing in the lobby of the Croydon Park Hotel with a really obvious hard-on and a scantily clad secretary. Oxford English put it there to save any confusion over the interpretation.

  “I do,” I finally agreed, catching Godfrey’s eye once more, though this time it was his turn to look away.

  *

  We sorted out the mechanics of our tête-à-tête with the fewest words possible. Elenor told me to go up to my room and said she’d follow me up in five.

  “Just so no one sees us go up together. You know what these gossips are like. Pour me a drink and I’ll be up before you know it.”

  I had a brief vision of me standing up in my room all night looking out of the window at Tom’s Xtremer in the car park but something told me it wouldn’t come to that. Elenor would be up. Of that I had no doubt.

  I twisted the lid off the bottle of Jim Beam once I got up to my room and took an enormous belt. That soothed my nerves just a little, though it did little to appease my excitement. That really needed attending to and I wrestled over the conundrum of how I should go about things with Elenor as I waited for that knock on the door.

  Would Elenor lay it on a plate and drop to her knees the moment she was through the door (God I hoped so) or would she see this as a brilliant opportunity to tease me to delirium? Very likely.

  Perhaps there was a clue in what she’d said?

  “I know what you guys are like once you get a girl into your room. You think you can just chuck us down on the bed and fuck us at will.”

  That was probably what she was after. She’d come up here and act all coy, then she’d give me a little taster, possibly talk dirty to me, then snatch it back once I’d fallen for her ploy. In the end, that’s what I’d have to do. I’d grab her up in
my arms, bundle her onto the bed and jump on top of her.

  “Oh my, Andrew, whatever are you doing?” she’d giggle, as I peppered her with kisses.

  “Shut up! Just shut up and take it!” I’d reply, pulling down her panties and ripping open my fly.

  “Are you going to fuck me Andrew? Are you going to give it to me good and proper?”

  “Oh God yes. I’m going to give it to you like you wouldn’t believe,” I’d say.

  I’d sink into her with one smooth thrust and… hang on a minute, did I use a condom? Did I stop half way through and tell her to hold her horses while I rooted around the room, found my overnight bag, ripped open the packet of three I’d bought for the evening and stretched a little rubber hat over my pan handle?

  “What are you doing in there? Andrew, where are you?”

  “Hold on a sec, I put the first one on backwards, now I can’t unroll it. Hang on!”

  I’d pull the second one out and tear it in half as I opened the foil then fiddle with the third one and mutter and swear as I flicked myself a few times, before finally managing to roll it down my shaft, painfully trapping half a dozen hairs in the process.

  “Just coming, almost ready. Sorry about this.”

  Elenor would still be on the bed, lying in the position I’d left her. Her legs would be open and breasts would be bare. “What were you doing?”

  “Putting on a condom,” I’d say, showing her my handiwork.

  “Why? This is just a fantasy Andrew. Why are you putting on a condom in your own fucking fantasy?” I didn’t get the chance to explain. At that moment there was a knock on the door that made me jump off the bed. My pulse suddenly soared and my stomach was swamped with a million frantic butterflies.

  Jesus, she’d come. Elenor had actually come.

  In the blink of an eye I saw what lay in store: the seduction, the longing, the having, the passion and the release. A fulfilment of all that I had desired in one insane headlong rush into the unknown and then…

  The knock came again.

  “Just a moment,” I croaked, scurrying up off the bed and folding my eagerness out of sight before making for the door. I was just about to twist the handle when a thought suddenly occurred to me.