by Penny Jordan
As perhaps Kenneth’s had done.
She dismissed the traitorous thought. Kenneth loved her. He wanted her. He would make her feel safe and protected… as Joel had once done.
She gave a small shiver. Some women were designed to be independent… needed to feel that independence; but she wasn’t like that. It hurt acknowledging this weakness within herself; she had always tried to keep it hidden from other people, ashamed of being so needy in a world where women were expected to be so much more than she had always felt she was.
Back at home, she went slowly upstairs to hers and Joel’s bedroom, walking like someone in a semi-trance.
The house was empty, as she had known it would be; Paul was at school and Joel was down at the leisure centre—where else? He had said last night that he would go straight from there to the hospital to collect Cathy.
The bedroom looked unfamiliarly tidy. Joel had made the bed before he left.
There was nothing particularly special about the room—there were thousands upon thousands like it all over the country, decorated in much the same way: a pretty floral wallpaper, enlivened by a matching border, a soft pastel carpet… matching bedlinen, the peach and grey colour-scheme designed to be warm and comforting.
She had been so thrilled when she and Joel had redecorated this room, she remembered as her hand smoothed absently over the pillowcase on Joel’s side of the bed, just as she had been thrilled when years before Joel had made the row of built-in wardrobes which housed their clothes.
Kenneth would hate this kind of bedroom, she recognised… His would probably look like those she had seen and felt repelled by in glossy magazines on her rare visits to the hairdressers.
Kenneth. She closed her eyes, squeezing back the tears she could feel threatening her.
Why was she crying when this was what she wanted? When she wanted to be with him… to go to him?
Like a sleepwalker she opened the wardrobe doors and then pulled open a drawer, carefully removing the underwear stored in it.
For her birthday the previous year the girls at work had bought her this delicate lacy set of bra, briefs and suspender-belt. She had never worn them. Wearing stockings was something that always made her feel slightly uncomfortable… not tarty exactly, but somehow sexually available.
She hadn’t shown the set to Joel, knowing how he would react. He used to love her wearing pretty, feminine underwear…
She showered slowly and carefully, not using the perfume which Joel had bought her for Christmas, but a different one which Daphne had given her.
When she slid on her stockings her fingers trembled violently. She avoided looking at her own reflection in the mirror.
She was doing what she wanted to do, she reminded herself. Making this commitment to Kenneth, taking this step that, once taken, meant that she could never, ever turn back, was her decision.
Giving herself sexually to Kenneth was crossing a chasm which could never be re-crossed; an act of symbolism and sacrifice…
Sacrifice? What was she sacrificing? A marriage that was just a hollow, empty sham, a family, children who had already outgrown her.
There could be no betrayal like this one… no greater way of destroying her marriage… not so much because of the sex itself but because she was giving to Kenneth something she had withheld from Joel; and something, moreover, that Joel had greatly valued.
But she wasn’t doing it to punish Joel, she was doing it because… Tears blurred her eyes as she stood up and reached for her dress. She was doing it because even now half of her was still afraid… still, like a coward, wanting things to change… to go back to the way they had been.
With Joel on the outside and her the one the children wanted, had Joel ever felt as she did, unwanted, alone… afraid…?
It was too late now to feel regret, to wish that… that what? That she had talked to Joel… asked him…?
What had happened to the sense of power, of control she had felt when she had gone back to work? When had it become resentment and anger and an awareness that it had not brought her the things she had expected; that feeling that as the only breadwinner she had the right to expect Joel to acknowledge that she was the one to impose her control of their relationship on him, to refuse him sex in much the same way as she had felt he had demanded it from her?
Kenneth would never impose that kind of subtle sexual pressure on her; he just wasn’t that kind of man. He would know, too, that in coming to him now, in giving herself to him, she was making an unchangeable choice between him and Joel.
She opened the wardrobe to remove her jacket, pausing as her hand brushed against one of Joel’s sweaters. It felt soft and warm, her touch releasing a faint scent of his aftershave… of Joel himself.
Fresh tears blurred her eyes.
What had happened to them… to their marriage? It frightened her, made her feel threatened and resentful that Joel had changed, adapted to their new way of life, deserting her almost, leaving her alone to face worries, carry burdens she just wasn’t able to manage.
The house felt silent… too silent… but it was a silence she would have to grow used to.
She went downstairs and walked to the back door, opening it slowly.
There was no point in looking over her shoulder, hesitating… there was no one there to see her go… no one to care that she was going.
She felt cold and calm, her body almost weightless, her thoughts and emotions all suspended in the relief, the release of knowing that there would be no more indecision, no more worry or anxiety…
* * *
It hadn’t occurred to her to ring Kenneth to warn him of her arrival, and she could see the startled surprise in his eyes as he opened the door to her.
‘Sally…’
She saw him glance uncertainly, uneasily almost, past her as though concerned that someone might have seen her, before he ushered her inside.
The stairs lay ahead of her, bleached and bare; they seemed to rise up steeply in silent, jeering challenge, mockingly aware of her weakness and apprehension.
As Kenneth closed the door she started to climb them.
She heard Kenneth saying her name, his voice sharp and anxious, but she didn’t stop to respond to him. If she did… if she tried to explain… She dared not let anything break the fierce wall of concentration she had built so protectively round herself.
Joel had been her only lover and it was her nature to let him be the one to take control sexually, to approach her… To know that she was the one inviting, initiating sex was something that she could not consciously allow herself to acknowledge, and if she stopped now to talk to Kenneth…
She heard him climbing the stairs behind her but she still didn’t look back.
Several doors led off the landing; she automatically headed for the closest and pushed it open. The bedroom beyond it was furnished just as starkly as she had imagined, its décor reminiscent of pictures she had seen of interiors of monasteries, she decided absently.
Kenneth had followed her inside the room.
She stopped at the foot of the bed and turned round to face him.
He looked different somehow, his features sharper, clearer, unfamiliar in some odd way.
Slowly she started to unbutton her dress, keeping her eyes fixed on his face. She could hear the sound of her own breath, shallow and nervous. Her mouth was dry, her body icy cold, apart from her face which felt burningly hot.
The room was airless, a vacuum that seemed to suck up and drain all the emotion from her, so that she felt she was just a collection of bones and muscles and flesh, that this woman carefully removing her dress was not really her but someone else.
Once the dress was unfastened she took it off, carefully folding it neatly and putting it on the bed.
It was time now… Time to do what she had come here to do… time to…
She froze as she heard the sharp, ragged indrawn sound of Kenneth’s breathing, her body tensing in anticipation of his touch, of his sexua
l arousal and need, even though she had come here expressly so that they could be lovers. Nervously she waited for him to come to her, to hold her, to cover her nakedness and vulnerability with the warm protection of his body… to drown out her doubts and fears with the heat of his desire.
‘Oh, my God… no…’
She heard the words, but her brain, her awareness, was several seconds late in translating their real meaning, several seconds during which she simply stood there waiting, not recognising that the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice signified not passion but revulsion.
At first she couldn’t believe it… couldn’t accept the evidence of her own senses, couldn’t understand why he simply stood there and stared at her in a white-faced mixture of anger and disgust, looking at her as though her body, her nakedness, her availability was something shameful and embarrassing.
‘Kenneth…’ Her voice was a cracked, shocked, pleading protest expressing her need and fear, but he ignored her, shaking his head and turning towards the door.
‘Please get dressed,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got a colleague coming round in fifteen minutes. He mustn’t find you here… like this…
‘My God…‘ he demanded as he reached the door and turned round to look at her. ‘How could you? How could you come here dressed like some cheap joke of a tart, soliciting sex? I thought you were different… I thought you…
‘Why couldn’t you wait?’ he asked her almost sorrowfully. ‘I had it all planned… It would have been so perfect between us, so aesthetic and pure, not coarse and vulgar like a cheap harlot selling her wares, gross and demanding… My God, look at you…’ Sally saw him shudder with distaste. Her throat was thick with tears, her body cold with shock.
Trembling violently, she pulled on her dress. The knowledge that she had been sexually rejected burned her skin like acid; the look she had seen in Kenneth’s eyes was something she would never, ever forget.
She felt cheap and dirty, choked almost on the sterile, thin air the house seemed to possess.
How could she ever have thought that Kenneth loved her? That she loved him? Why on earth had he ever said that he wanted her when it was obvious that he didn’t, or at least not in the way she had always thought of a man wanting a woman? It was like waking up abruptly from a dream or a nightmare.
Now the lack of sexual contact between them, the lack of sexual pressure on her from him which had pleased her so much, seemed cast in a different light, and all the doubts she had previously suppressed came rushing to the surface: the knowledge, for example, that a man who could so easily dismiss his own children from his life must surely have an intrinsic coldness about him, a coldness confirmed by his attitudes… his surroundings… and his rejection of her?
Her tears stung her eyes. She had never felt so degraded or humiliated, and it didn’t help knowing that she had brought it on herself by coming here.
As she hurried downstairs Kenneth was saying something to her, but she ignored him, her stomach churning with revulsion—against him and against herself.
He was right, she had behaved like a tart, dressing herself up like that… asking for sex.
In the hallway Kenneth reached out to touch her, but she stepped back from him.
‘No…’ she told him fiercely. ‘It’s over, Kenneth. It’s over…’ She was crying as she ran out to her car, in her mind the image of herself as he must have seen her forever etched in painful clarity, her body, her clothes a gross parody of her sexuality.
She had gone to him expecting to be received with open arms and joyful passion, expecting him to honour the gift she had given him with tenderness, with an acknowledgement of just what the step she had taken meant, and instead he had looked at her with disgust and horror…
* * *
Angrily Kenneth watched her drive away. How could she do this to him… Sally, whom he had been ready to lift up on to the pedestal he had kept waiting for her? It had taken him a long time to meet a woman fit to occupy that place, and in Sally he had believed he had found someone he could mould and teach, someone malleable and grateful enough to appreciate all that he would do for her. He had thought she knew, understood that sex was something that he felt could only be justified if it was stripped clean of all lust and passion… A physical need which could only be satisfied if its darkness was lightened by purity… a purity which only he could control and approve.
To see Sally standing there in that cheap tarty outfit, like some back-street prostitute… stockings, suspenders, a form of bondage designed to titillate the male appetite—and, worse still, to wear such garments in white, the symbol of purity and innocence…
Sally had disillusioned him completely. He had thought she understood, that she shared his feelings…
The last thing he had ever expected was that she would come here dressed like that, looking for sex.
It was just as well he had discovered the truth before it was too late.
The hallway smelled of her of the perfume she had worn. Distastefully he opened the windows. Yes, it was just as well he had discovered what she was really like… And if he was honest with himself hadn’t he always had that small doubt about her, the way she had talked almost incessantly about her children and demanded to know about his? He had always deplored that kind of foolish sentimentality. Personally he had been glad, relieved when his ex-wife had severed all contact with him, between himself and his sons.
He had never wanted children in the first place; Rebecca had tricked him into marriage by becoming pregnant. All women were adept at deceit; it was a natural instinct for them—even Sally, who he had thought had not had the intelligence for it.
Well, at least he would no longer have to worry about cultivating that appalling sister of hers and her husband, and socially Sally would probably have never quite fitted into his circle, no matter how patiently or well he had groomed her.
No, on balance he was glad it was over and that she had revealed herself to him in her true colours.
* * *
Unsteadily Sally walked up the garden path. The car was parked behind her at an angle in the road although she had no knowledge of actually driving it home. She must have done so, though. She shuddered, trembling violently as she searched in her bag for her key and unlocked the back door.
The house was still empty and silent. Joel had obviously not returned from the hospital.
She went upstairs slowly and painfully. She felt so old… drained… exhausted… terrified of letting her concentration slip in case she started visualising all over again the way Kenneth had looked at her.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for what had happened. The thought of being sexually repugnant to a man who had claimed that he loved her, of being rejected by him, was completely outside her personal experience, alien to the way she believed men and women related to one another.
It had never crossed her mind that Kenneth would react to what she was doing with anything other than eagerness and desire. Whenever she had voluntarily dressed prettily for Joel, shown him that she wanted sex, he had always responded positively to her. She had heard other women complaining about their husbands’ lack of physical interest in them, of course, especially some of the older and more outspoken nurses on the wards, but it had never occurred to her that it might be something that could happen to her.
She had been stupidly naïve, she admitted… naïve and worse… but she had thought that Kenneth wanted her… that he wanted…
She froze as she heard a car pull up outside. Joel was back.
* * *
Joel frowned as he saw how Sally had parked her car. He still felt guilty about the way he had over-reacted and criticised her in the hospital but he had been so terrified of doing the wrong thing, his fear shocking him into the realisation of how many times when the children were growing up Sally must have felt as he had done—alone… afraid; but she had never let him see it… never taken it out on him the way he…
She had looked so hurt when it had bee
n him Cathy had turned to and not her. He understood just how that felt.
He opened the kitchen door, expecting to find Sally in the kitchen. Cathy had insisted on being dropped off at her best friend’s so that she could relate every detail of her ‘ordeal’ to her, and Joel suspected that Sally would be annoyed with him for giving in and letting her.
Paul was down at the leisure centre, now that the danger to his sister was over returning their relationship to the state of semi-siege which existed between them.
He had shown last night where his true feelings lay, though, Joel reflected, remembering his son’s frightened face.
The house felt disturbingly silent, a small, worrying thread of instinct tightening warningly inside him.
Without knowing why, he took the stairs two at a time. Sally heard him and cowered back against the bed. She couldn’t face Joel now… Not now. Tears filled her eyes and ran helplessly down her face while her body trembled uncontrollably. Distantly her trained mind registered what was happening, had made its clinical diagnosis… Shock… she was in shock… Talk to the patient calmly, reassure her… keep her warm… but she was the patient, wasn’t she, and so how could she do any of those things…?
‘Sally…’
Joel pushed open the door and then stopped abruptly. ‘Sally, what is it… what’s wrong?’
Instinctively he lowered his voice, speaking slowly and gently as he moved towards her.
She was shaking violently, her body racked by intense bouts of shivering, tears flooding silently and slowly from her eyes.
It was like watching someone crying blood. He had never seen her looking so shaken or afraid. Automatically he responded to her need, reaching out for her, taking her gently in his arms, holding her, rocking her, soothing her as he stroked her hair, crooning soft words of comfort in her ear.
This was the Joel she had loved, Sally recognised through her pain, the Joel she had needed and missed so desperately.
This was what she had gone to Kenneth expecting to find. The appalling irony that she should find it now, here in Joel’s arms after what she had done, sliced her with a pain so intense that she cried out against it.
