David thought now of being very close to her, tasting her, having those perfect long legs casually thrown over his shoulders. As far as he could tell she was tanned all the way up her thigh. Hadn’t Emma said they had sunbathed nude? He pictured them lying together naked. A lovely picture. The whole house seemed to pressure him to think dirty, dirty thoughts. Two women, alone all week. Two of the most beautiful women he’d ever known, together. What were those stories Emma had alluded to in their short courtship? Of young Sally and Emma experimenting?
There! Sally’s legs parted further. He saw them part. What luck! Now more light could illuminate the hidden recesses and David had to stifle a groan.
Sally was growing more and more excited the longer this moment lasted. For it was but a moment. She well knew she was actually being very naughty now. A bad friend. A wicked woman. She could see that David was caught. Thank God for sunglasses. She wanted very much to spread herself wider as he watched, to let him know she was not idle, that she was wicked. She wanted to do as she had done with Emma, she wanted to play with herself for him.
Sally had a rush of blood. David hadn’t reacted to her obvious tactic. She’d opened her legs wider and he had taken it in his stride. She lowered her sunglasses to the end of her nose and, before David had time to look away, she peered over them, holding his eyes with hers for the slightest of moments. Yes, I am bad, said her look.
Somehow that message was scrambled over the two or three metres of space it travelled. You are bad, was the message David received. He looked away, keeping Sally in the corner of his eye. He certainly felt bad. She had caught him. How coolly she had admonished him. Now that she knew he was bad, what did it matter if he were caught again? When he felt her turning her head away, his eyes returned and found her legs still parted and Sally’s hand fiddling with the edge of her sarong as it lay on her thigh.
Emma was unaware of all this. Moments had passed since David had sat down. She was happy to be able to recover from her efforts in silence, and happy that her husband was subtle enough not to disturb her, or them, with that awful pestering voice she’d known him to use to rouse her to go jogging or swimming, or whatever. She hated that voice. She’d expected it but he had behaved well. She just wanted to stay where she was, with both of them.
‘Why don’t you stay over Sunday night and head back Monday morning?’ suggested Emma quite suddenly, in a soft, vague tone. Earlier, at lunch, Mark had declared he had to be back in town on Sunday night because he had a meeting Monday morning. Sally hadn’t tried to dissuade him, Emma had noticed. If David stayed the women would have him all to themselves.
David was startled by Emma’s voice, he’d been under Sally’s spell. Before he had time to look away, Sally had caught him in the act, again, and had closed her legs abruptly.
David coloured and looked sharply away, but Sally knew he’d been bitten and this excited her greatly. The idea of seducing David behind Emma’s back was as ugly an idea as any she’d ever had. She had thought, somehow, they’d share him. Had Emma forced her hand, then? Yes, Emma had forced her hand.
‘I was thinking I might,’ replied David, who hadn’t given it any thought at all. He glanced over at Sally and found her staring directly at him, hidden again behind her sunglasses. He truly felt low now. She had completely understood what he had been doing. The first look she gave him, he realised, had just been curious. But the second, slamming her thighs together, how embarrassing! What a bastard he was. With his wife at his feet he had taken advantage of her friend.
‘What’s going on? Who died?’ asked Mark, in his most buoyant beach voice.
All three were surprised by his sudden appearance. Having been shaken awake by Mark’s words David realised what a trance he’d been in.
Oh, just fuck off! thought Emma.
‘We’re all just pooped, darling,’ said Sally, mistress of all social situations, even though she was shuddering with a full-blown lust.
‘But you haven’t done anything but mope about,’ said Mark.
‘So?’ said Emma, feeling ill at Mark’s continued presence.
‘Yeah, so?’ said Sally, with a smile. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘How about I pick up you up and throw you over the balcony into the pool?’ said Mark, stepping quickly forward.
Sally was up off the chair in a flash. Where did she run to? To David, of course. With David and Emma between her and Mark she felt safer, for she knew he might just follow through on his threat, he was that kind of man. He was always so sorry after he had hurt someone.
‘Jesus, Mark! You’d kill her if you tried. It’s five metres from the edge of the balcony to the pool,’ said David. Sally had placed her hand on his shoulder and he squeezed it, as if to say I’ll protect you.
‘Grab her feet, Dave, I’ll get her hands and we’ll toss her, swinging her like that!’ said Mark excitedly, acting out his words. But then, realising it just wasn’t going to happen, flopped into Sally’s chair. ‘What are we going to do then?’
‘You can make a start by getting us all drinks,’ said Emma.
‘Does her ladyship require anything else?’ he asked.
‘I’ll get them,’ said Emma, ‘don’t bother.’ They all watched her leave in silence. When she was safely inside Mark looked at David and asked, ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Nothing, sweetheart,’ replied Sally, who had remained standing behind David, and though he had released her hand, hers still rested on his shoulder. ‘She’s just exhausted. We’ve had many late nights and long days in the sun.’
‘Late nights, huh? Doing what?’ asked Mark, raising his eyebrows and smirking conspiratorially at David.
‘Fucking!’ said Sally, eager to diffuse the situation. ‘Surfer boys, each other and David. Didn’t you know he’s been up every night?’
‘What a week it’s been!’ said Mark, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Sounds like my week back in Mosman.’
‘I know, I reviewed the security camera footage. We all did. I have remote access.’
‘Gorgeous, if I’d known I would have played up to the camera. You know how I love to be watched.’
‘The watched pot never boils,’ said David, laughing at his own joke. The other two just looked at him. ‘What?’ he asked.
Emma came out with a bottle of champagne and four glasses.
‘Mark said he’d like to be watched having sex, and I said – the watched pot never boils. That’s funny, right?’
‘No, gorgeous. Cute, but not funny,’ said Emma.
Mark stood up and went to the kitchen, coming back with two beers. He tossed one to David who opened it automatically and took a manly swig.
‘Don’t you want champagne, babe?’ asked Emma.
‘No, I’m good,’ he replied.
Emma was tiring of the boys very quickly. The shade of difference in the way David behaved when alone and when in front of other men was enough to make her very cross, particularly when she was tired. Mark was an ugly influence on David – the idiot banter that went on. How could Sally understand and appreciate Emma and Mark at the same time? The conciliator would say Sally was flexible, that her tastes were broad, but Emma suspected it was because Sally’s sensibilities were unrefined and she was unable to register the prominent distinctions between them. Sally was someone who judged a person by their most recent acts and words without comparing this information with what she knew of the person. She knew what they said but rarely why.
Emma could actually imagine Sally saying, ‘Emma and Mark don’t get along – they’re too alike.’ However their similarities were superficial. They may both be flippant on the subject of sex and morality, but they came from polar opposite positions. Sally would never suspect this. The same way she would assume David and Emma thought the same because they were married, even though she knew this wasn’t always the case, for she did not think like her husband on everything.
Something else also aggravated Emma in this moment. Sally hadn�
�t moved from her position behind David and her hand still rested on his shoulder. Her stance was proprietorial. Seeing Sally standing thus was uncomfortable for Emma. She had always felt somewhat responsible for Sally, she had dragged her friend into her sensual world knowing Sally followed thoughtlessly. Emma’s world really required a system of thought to follow, or a knowledge of self, or at the very least a recognition of what one was doing. Sally did not realise this. Emma had been responsible for Sally since the beginning of their friendship.
Sally’s left hand lay on David’s broad shoulder, with the rock on her engagement ring sparkling, her wedding ring’s demure golden glow, and her fingers tanned and possessive. To Emma’s mind Sally was making a mistake by taking what would be freely given and now it was up to Emma to rectify the situation by stripping Sally of her will, once again, by predicting her next move and being there with a smile when Sally finally did arrive at her goal.
Emma only resented Sally’s desire because Sally felt deceit was the only way to attain her end. Emma saw that Sally felt she couldn’t safely broach the subject with her. They were not equals. Sally continually reminded Emma that she saw their relationship as baldly parent/child, teacher/student. The child can delight a parent, the student can surprise the teacher, the relationship is not all one way. But the responsibility lies with only one. The child’s wrongs are the parent’s, the student’s failings are the teacher’s.
Emma let the banter continue all around her. The talk was fast, light, highly flirtatious and very silly. Mark seemed to determine the tone of the conversation. Group talk often sinks to the depths of the lowest mind amongst it, the bottom rung on the ladder of thought, and Mark was that rung.
Emma feared she would never be able to sit and listen to such talk without having the shadow of her teenage anxieties. Memories of Sally and teenage boys, and their need to keep her constantly entertained. Memories of how silly grown men would become when talking with pretty little Sally, or how foul a grown woman could become in the presence of two young girls stealing all the attention. At first, when they were very young, Emma would stop herself from saying something intelligent in front of boys when she saw how far Sally got with pure unadulterated idiocy.
Emma noticed how quickly David and Mark were drinking down their beers. David was a mammoth, and his size – or was it just practice? – helped him handle his drink. She knew Little Mark would be foolish enough to try to keep up. Emma could see things getting messy. Sally hadn’t even sipped her champagne. She had moved long ago and sat across from David, beside her husband. David was the only one with his back to the water.
What Emma couldn’t see was that Sally was teasing David again, spreading her legs for him. There was no longer any misunderstanding between them. Sally had declared her interest and David had, by continuing to look, acknowledged it and shown his. He wasn’t taking it seriously, even now, for he was assured that neither was Sally. He knew how the world worked. He saw her behaviour as a game, a very naughty game, but one which would end as soon as it began. Obviously nothing further could happen, he reasoned, they were both happily married. Sally had no idea how inflexible David could be.
Emma was able to deceive the group. She threw in a quip now and again, and did laugh occasionally at what was said. She was certainly ‘one of them’ but a boredom crept up on her and she had to stifle a yawn or two.
She began to think of Jason. To wonder at his behaviour and also wonder what David had yet to tell her. Just thinking of him excited her. His youthful exuberance, general awe of her and his great expectations were very attractive qualities, especially now that she was sitting amongst the self-satisfied. She would re-live that moment in the bathroom for the rest of her life. She’d see his tanned ankles peeping out under the coarse blue denim of his jeans and his strong bare feet, she’d see his intense stare when she revealed her breasts, feel the longing which almost overwhelmed her every time she let herself dwell on that glorious moment.
She regretted her behaviour, leaving Jason without saying goodbye. Leaving at all in fact. Regrets were normally something foreign to her, but she knew she’d be a fool to allow the anger to overcome her.
Now that the husbands were here she was faced with the reality of her situation. One – her involvement with Jason was a selfish and harmful indulgence which she ought to have resisted. Two – she’d lifted Sally onto her back, again. And three – David’s desire for children.
She stood up and left the balcony. Upstairs, she lay down on her bed. No tears came. But she was feeling very low. When David came to find her, she pretended to be taking a nap.
FIFTEEN
By the time Emma woke, for she had finally fallen asleep after much circuitous introspection, it was nine o’clock. She was feeling much better, a little drowsy, but her heart was not so heavy, her mind felt clear. She wanted nothing. She lay quietly, happy to be part of the darkness for a while. She could hear David’s voice, at least the bass, reverberating downstairs, at one with the sound of the surf. She was slightly hungry. She made her way downstairs in the darkness in search of food and affection. No one had deemed it necessary to switch the lights on. Had she been able to see herself she may have noticed how like a child woken from a mid-afternoon nap she appeared. She even moved in slow motion. Her eyes had a cute, dazed expression, her wide open pupils adding to the effect.
A sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Everything about the scene was familiar, almost as though, while she was sleeping, she’d come down and witnessed the scene – some kind of out of body experience.
Mark was stretched out on one couch, lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head, eyes closed, mouth open; he was evidently fast asleep. He was still in his board shorts, shirtless and a little sandy. Two empty glass bottles of beer stood on the coffee table beside him, one full one on the floor by the couch.
On the other couch sat David, who raised his eyes to her own the instant she appeared. He was massaging one of Sally’s beautiful feet, both of which lay in his lap, slightly apart, for Sally was stretched out on the couch in the opposite direction to David, facing away from Emma. She lay on her back, her head pressed into a large pillow and she still wore her sarong over her bikini.
There was no sign that the trio had eaten dinner. Candles lit the scene, soft music played from the stereo (smarmy Perry Como), and a bottle of white wine rested on a bed of ice in a bucket on the coffee table. Sally held her half full glass by the stem with both hands, resting the base on her bare stomach. David’s glass stood precariously on the arm of the couch.
Emma’s mood of inane happiness was supplanted by a violent rush of doubts. Her body stiffened, her heart raced, her breath became short and hurried. She wanted so much to scream at them, but her will rebelled. David’s smile was a blanket on a spot fire. Everything is alright, the smile said.
Nothing is alright, replied Emma’s eyes.
Sally curved her torso and craned her neck to look where David was staring. She saw an upside-down Emma.
‘Hey, Em,’ she said. ‘I thought you were out for good.’
‘I bet,’ said Emma, regretting it immediately. Why should she reveal to them her suspicions? She felt like an idiot. She was being made to look a fool by two of her lovers at once. Had she brought this on herself?
Sally rolled off the couch and stood up.
‘We’ve done nothing wrong!’ she said, disingenuously. But then, she was Sally, always cool in a crisis, yet hopeless under the keen regard of her best friend. She felt clear denial the best policy, not fully realising that no accusation had yet been made.
David lounged, guiltless. He’d had no intention of allowing things to go any further. Sally’s foot had been soft and warm in his hand. He was enjoying the danger of the moment but knew it was nothing. Though, the longer he held her foot, the longer he stared at her pussy, for she was allowing him to look, the more aroused he had become and the less care he took of the consequences.
>
Two minutes before Emma’s arrival, Sally was in heaven. Her husband was a drunken wreck not three feet from her, her best friend was conveniently absent, while that friend’s husband massaged her feet, and occasionally kissed her toes and told her how beautiful they were. She was thrilled at each touch. The dangerous position she was in, the accidentally lifted sarong and the proximity of her exposed sex to his hand, so close to his mouth, had her aching pleasurably. All he had to do was bend a little and his warm mouth would be on her. That this could happen in front of her husband was so naughty it disabled her reason. Naughtiness overload, as it were.
Had you suggested such a thing to Sally three weeks before she would have condemned the idea, and you, for thinking it possible. She would have explained that she could never find a friend’s husband attractive. Such desire wasn’t biologically possible. Once you’ve found your true love, as she had, no one else could possibly attract you.
And adultery? Such a thing was wrong and there were no circumstances in which she could conceive adultery being thought right. Adultery was horrid. She was quite clear on such things.
So when she jumped up to declare herself innocent, she did so on the strength of her habitual position, not on the strength of this unusual turn of events. She stood in front of the one person in the world who knew her best with the smoking gun in her hand.
Emma had nothing to say, because she had too much to say and knew her audience would not understand, or not listen, and she hated being misrepresented. In her mind ran the line ‘They know not what they do,’ and this abominable conceit quietened her momentarily. She could barely look at them. Sally’s eyes flashed with indignation, David’s stared coolly with virtuousness. Thankfully these two people she loved were so hopelessly flawed she could see right through them to their core of goodness. For otherwise she might have been sick.
The Secret Lives of Emma: Distractions Page 8
