Shared Secret

by Ed Bemand

  Chapter 5 - How Alex and Maria met

  Alex and Maria were both pretty drunk the night they met. It was a Friday evening. Alex was out with his friends Joe, Mike and Rob. Alex had been single for a while. His previous girlfriend had broken up with him for being ‘too nice’. Mike and Rob had both brought their girlfriends to the pub with them and they were talking about property prices. They were also drinking much too slowly.

  “What the fuck are we still talking about this for?” Joe declared indignantly, downed the rest of his drink, stood up and walked off.

  Alex didn’t like the idea of being left the only sane man at the table. He still had about half of his pint left and knew that he would just spill it down himself if he tried to drink it all, so he took it with him.

  Joe was at the bar.

  “Two more pints and six shots of tequila please.”

  “I doubt those guys want to drink tequila.”

  “Fuck them. These aren’t for them anyway.”

  “You’re not planning on drinking them all are you?”

  “Some, yes, all, that depends. Do you want one?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then I’m not drinking all of them.”

  Joe handed over a twenty. It wasn’t enough to cover the drinks and he didn’t have anything else, so Alex had to rummage in his pockets to find the difference.

  “So what’s the game?”

  “Same as ever. Grab the beers, will you? I’ve got to look after these.”

  Joe made his way through the pub. The night was wearing on and there were a fair few people around. The pub had stopped serving food. The TVs had been muted and the music turned up a bit, but not too much, they weren’t trying to block out conversation yet.

  Joe approached a likely looking group of girls with his collection of tequila shots.

  “Want to help with these?”

  “Eww. No, thanks.”

  He passed on, not concerned by the knock-back. He approached a lone girl that was leaning against the wall.

  “Want to help with these?”

  “Fuck it. Why not.” She downed two shots, one after the other, then wavered and smiled wetly.

  “Good girl.” Joe complimented. She coughed out a short laugh then seemed to succumb to gravity. She fell forwards. Alex moved to catch her, still holding a pint in each hand. She slumped against him, her hands catching his shoulders. She dangled limply from him. Fearing loss of beer, Joe rescued the pints from Alex and he was free to use his hands to stop her from sliding down him to the floor.

  “She’s your,” Joe suggested helpfully.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Air... outside... need...” she groaned. Alex steered her outside, just in time. She threw up into a small tree in a big pot close to the door. She continued heaving for a few minutes. Alex wasn’t sure what to do but didn’t feel like he could just abandon her. Alex helped Maria back to her feet.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, I think. Who are you anyway?”

  “I’m Alex.”

  “Hello Alex. I’m, urgh...” what sounded like it would lead to vomit instead manifested as a burp, “Maria.”

  “Hi, Maria. Do you need me to find your friends?”

  “No. I haven’t got any. I mean, I’m not here with anyone.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I was with a guy, but I’m not now.”

  “Maybe the tequila wasn’t a good idea.”

  “What tequila?”

  He pointed at the steaming liquid covering the unfortunate tree.

  “Blame your mate.”

  “I do.”

  “Is this your technique? Find a vulnerable girl and then poison her.”

  “And hold her hair back. Who doesn’t go for puking women?”

  “Are you saying I look rough?”

  “You’re fine. Just wipe your mouth. I meant with a tissue. Here.” He offered one to her. She cleaned her face with it and handed it back to him. He felt guilty about just dropping it but he really didn’t want to put it back in his pocket.

  “Need anything?”

  “Water?”

  “I’ll get you some.”

  Fortunately the bar wasn’t too busy and the barman wasn’t so mean-spirited as to object to serving a glass of tap-water.

  Joe appeared at Alex’s side while he was at the bar.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I’ve been with that girl. The one you poisoned with tequila.”

  “How did that go?”

  “She’s stopped puking. What trouble have you been causing?”

  “Just chatting with a bunch of student nurses. They really know how to drink, those girls. I bet it’d take more than a couple of tequilas to make them spew.”

  “Sounds like your sort of girls.”

  “Yeah. Well, good look with pukey.”

  “Thanks.”

  Alex took the glass of water and headed back outside to find Maria. She had made it to a bench.

  “Here you go.” He handed her the glass.

  “Thanks. You haven’t got a smoke have you?”

  “Sorry, no. All I have are mints.”

  “That might not be a bad idea. My mouth tastes like...”

  “Tequila vomit?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lightened of her load of tequila vomit and with her palate cleansed by spearmint freshness, she seemed a lot more with it.

  “How come you’re here alone?”

  “I was supposed to be having dinner with a guy. Turns out he’d invited his whole family because he wanted to propose.”

  “What happened?”

  “I threw a drink at him and left.”

  “I bet that didn’t go down well.”

  “I didn’t hang around to find out. What the fuck was he thinking? Trying to propose to me like that in front of everyone?”

  “I guess it’s over between you two then.”

  “Too right.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Sure. I mean, it’s not like he’s breaking up with me.”

  “He must have been pretty confident that you were going to say yes, to pop the question in front of his family like that.”

  “We’d gone out a few times, and I’d stayed at his a couple of times but it wasn’t that serious. We hadn’t talked about it hardly at all. I mean, he asked me one time what my perfect wedding would be like, but what girl hasn’t thought about stuff like that? Ask any girl, she’ll have looked for a ring maybe tried a couple on. And most girls will have tried on a wedding dress at least once. But that doesn’t mean that you can just go around proposing to them.”

  Alex could see that now wasn’t the time to disagree with her. He’d probably get a drink dumped on him if he did. Non-committal noises of possible agreement seemed the safest bet.

  “I need a drink.”

  He held out the glass.

  “Fuck the water. Come on.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Utterly.”

  They made their way back to the bar.

  “What do you fancy?”

  “Not tequila. Something gentler. Vodka maybe?”

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t stick to water?”

  “Fuck off... what are you, gay?”

  “I just don’t want to see you kill another tree with your sick.”

  “Urgh. Where’s my phone?”

  It didn’t look like she could have a phone secreted about her person. The dress she was wearing was short and tight, leaving little to the imagination.

  “I’m sure I had a bag.”

  “Did you leave it inside? What does it look like?”

  “Shit. I must have left it back at the restaurant.”

  “Shall we go and check?”

  “Yeah. Come on. It’s just round the corner.” She got to her feet. Her hand flailed out. He took it and helped her up. She wavered slightly but stayed upright. “It’s alright... I
’m okay.” The height of her heels probably wasn’t making it any easier for her to keep her balance.

  Alex had set out that night to get drunk and so far he’d been too preoccupied to manage it. He had also, even if he might not have wanted to admit it, been hoping that by following Joe around he might at least find a chance to chat with a girl. He hadn’t expected things to turn out the way they had been so far. Maria was clearly a mess, but she was still an attractive mess and why shouldn’t he let himself be dragged along in her wake for the evening? Anyway, she was likely to get herself into trouble if he didn’t try and keep an eye on her. What kind of gentleman would he be if he turned his back and left her, without wallet, phone or keys, to the tender mercies of the night?

  The restaurant was a small, intimate sort of place. It wasn’t hard to spot Trevor and his family. They took up a lot of the floor space and several small tables had been pushed together to house them. It looked like they were trying to make the best of a bad job, and there were plentiful bottles of wine placed around the table and a general hubbub of conversation. The bonhomie of the people around the table dissipated when they saw Maria.

  “They don’t seem very happy to see you.”

  “No shit.”

  “How many of his family did he invite?”

  “All of them, I think.”

  “He must have been mad to think this was a good idea.”

  “I know, right?”

  “I see you didn’t hang around.” A tall, handsome bloke in a dull suit stood up and addressed Maria. The front of his pale blue shirt was heavily discoloured with wine stains. He looked sober and the fixed polite smile on his face must have been making his jaw ache.

  “I’m Alex.” Reflex made him offer his hand. Alex wasn’t looking to form meaningful relationships with any of these people. He would be happy if they could get in and out as quickly as possible with the minimum damage caused.

  “The name’s Trevor. Charmed I’m sure.”

  “Did I leave my bag here?”

  “Isn’t there anything else that you think we should talk about?”

  “Not really. I just need my bag.”

  “Fine. I’m not surprised you forgot it. It was a very abrupt departure.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Should I assume that I won’t be seeing you back at the flat?”

  “Too right.”

  “Then perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me my key back.”

  She had found her bag and dug in it. She detached a key from a bundled mess of several and two dangling colourful plastic lumps. She threw it at him. It bounced off his chest and disappeared under the table.

  “Watch out for her,” Trevor addressed Alex. “She’s a flighty bitch. Not much for keeping her promises.”

  Alex had never been a fan of violence, but he was aware of a chivalrous obligation to defend a lady’s honour and right now he was the one looking after Maria. It wasn’t much of a punch but it took Trevor by surprise and knocked him back. He tripped over a chair and fell in a sprawl over it to the floor.

  Maria grabbed Alex’s hand and dragged him out of the restaurant before Trevor’s family could react to their favoured son’s flooring.

  Maria started laughing when they were outside. They hurried down the street together, still holding hands. Nobody was following them.

  She kissed him impulsively. It went on longer than she meant it to.

  “What now?” Alex asked, flustered.

  “Might as well keep drinking.”

  Maria revealed a bottle of wine she’d been hiding behind her bag.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “I lifted it from the table while you were busy punching Trevor.”

  “Good girl.”

  She passed him the bottle. He took a couple of swallows of the wine and passed it back.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You had a key to his flat but you weren’t in a relationship?”

  “Stop going on about it. It’s clearly over now anyway.”

  “You don’t seem very upset.”

  “Fuck him. We should drink more, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve never been one to say no to a drink.”

  “Good boy. Let’s go find it.”

  The wine didn’t last long. He let her choose where they went next. It was noisy and confusingly lit. Alex usually preferred his drinking venues to be a bit calmer but Maria seemed to have a plan. She fought her way to the bar efficiently. Cleavage and personality got her served quickly. Alex was caught in the crowd two people back from her.

  “Alex! Come here and sort these.”

  ‘Sorting’ meant paying for and carrying. She had ordered an array of garishly coloured vodka shots on his behalf. He had no idea how much they were so he handed a ten and was pleasantly surprised when he received a five back.

  “Six shots for a fiver, bargain.”

  He clutched them awkwardly, half a dozen small plastic shot-glasses that weren’t really designed to stand up on their own.

  “Come on.”

  Alex liked to think of himself as a drinker of some experience and found the ferocity with which Maria attacked every drink she was presented with very impressive. The shots were no exception.

  Alex tossed back the first one. Sticky sweetness coated his mouth. It burned his throat and made him feel as if he had been touched by purest evil. Maria had already downed her three. Alex’s next was possessed of extreme and tortuous sourness. Presumably on purpose. It was thoroughly unpleasant and a harsh counterpoint to the sugar. He let her have his third one. She downed it without flinching.

  Next, she wanted to dance. It sounded like a horribly bad idea to Alex but he didn’t think Maria going off alone would end well either. How far would she have to look before she found someone better looking to distract her from him? Maybe his night had taken a weird direction, but most of it was fun.

  Fortunately the sticky vodka stuff had temporarily killed off the part of Alex’s brain that cared what other people thought about him so he was able to shuffle and occasionally wave his arms about in what he hoped was a serviceable approximation of dancing. Mostly she seemed happy to just grind bits of her anatomy against him. He wasn’t complaining.

  She ended up at his place that night. It wasn’t much. When Jules had kicked him out he had to find a place in a hurry and ended up in a room in a squalid house-share. Once there, it was hard to find the energy to look for somewhere else to be, so a few weeks had easily turned into a few months.

  “This place is rotten.”

  “It could probably do with a decent clean.”

  “I’m guessing no women have lived here in recent memory.”

  “None that I know of.”

  His standards weren’t very high so the rank stuff about the house didn’t bother him much. His sheets weren’t very clean either, but she didn’t comment. They’d already done some kissing on the way so it seemed pretty natural once he’d closed the bedroom door behind them that he started to help her out of her clothes.

  They kissed more and his hands roamed her body. It had been too long since he had felt a woman. He couldn’t pretend it was great sex but it was considerably better than his recent complete absence. She was drunk and abandoned and making pleased noises, even if it didn’t seem at all likely she’d climaxed.

  A few minutes after he was finished, she jerked from her daze and tried to detach herself from him.

  “Bathroom?”

  “Down the hall on the left.”

  She nodded and stumbled off to find it. She found her way back a few minutes later, then climbed into the bed and fell quickly to sleep. When she was snoring softly, Alex got up and walked naked to the bathroom. He pissed, washed condom residue and cum from his cock, splashed water on his face and stared vacantly at his reflection in the water stained mirror.

  He went back to the bed. It took him a while to get to sleep. Maria was lying on her side, facing away from
him. He spent a long time staring at a mole on the skin over her scapula.

  He woke up first in the morning, visited the bathroom and then the kitchen to put the kettle on. She was semi-conscious by the time he was back in his room with coffee for them both.

  “Urgh.”

  “Morning.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “When?”

  “All of it.”

  “From what I gather, you went out for dinner and got proposed to. You threw a drink at him, drank a lot and threw up. Then I punched your not-fiancé and we drank more. Then we came back here and had sex. Then I’m pretty sure you threw up again. Then I fell asleep.”

  “Fuck. Trevor.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I threw a drink at him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we fucked?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “You didn’t try anything weird, did you?”

  “I don’t think I tried anything, you seemed very insistent at the time.”

  “Who are you anyway?”

  “I’m Alex.”

  “Hi Alex. I’m Maria.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You’re not going to propose are you?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “Feel like reminding me what we got up to last night?”

  “All of it?”

  “Skip to the sex part.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  Chapter 6 - What Maria liked

  Maria didn’t think of herself as being particularly weird or kinky. She liked to think that she’d behaved herself pretty well, all things considered. Of course she fucked a few guys at university, but who didn’t? And there had been that one time with the rugby boys where she ended up having them take it in turns to fill one of her holes or another, but that was just youthful exuberance, surely.

  Other than a couple of random moments with guys she’d met while out on hen-nights, she hadn’t been fucked by anyone but Alex for years now. That wasn’t bad going, right? She didn’t even miss it, not really. It was all fun while it lasted, but you couldn’t spend your whole life getting tag fucked by burly lads, could you? The occasional weekend or two might be nice, but nobody could possibly blame her for that. She liked to think that she was a pretty good wife. There must have been women that did much worse things than she ever did. Enough of her old friends admitted to not being completely sure that their children’s fathers really were who they were supposed to be. Maria was glad to be more careful about that sort of thing. She had no desire whatsoever to get knocked up by some random dude.