Wife On Demand

by Alexandra Sellers

  “What is it?” whispered Hope, and with a broad grin Grant turned to her and explained: as a special surprise he had arranged for them to have a few hours alone in the “conjugal visits house.” Jude had not applied for the privilege, it was a special favour from the prison officer himself, he told her as he led the way to the little house. A last-minute surprise for them both.

  Hope was filled with such disquiet and dismay she could scarcely conceal it. She gasped in a breath and her eyes flew to Jude’s wooden countenance. “Oh, but—” she began.

  But there was nothing to say. She stared at the ground as they walked, and resolutely smiled. She knew she should put her hand on Jude’s arm, should hang on him, but it was beyond her to touch him. Grant unlocked the door, and stood aside to let Hope enter, then Jude. He followed them in. They stepped inside a conventional motorhome kitchen/ lounge, done in pink and cream.

  “Mostly the wives bring in groceries when they come for a weekend visit,” Grant told Hope. “But of course you and Jude didn’t know about this. The guys took up a collection and asked me to get you a few things.”

  On the counter there was a jar of instant coffee, a loaf of bread, a packet of cookies. Grant opened the fridge and indicated a half magnum of champagne with a gesture like a conjuror. “That stuffs illegal in here, so I never saw it,” he said with a grin.

  “It’s very, very kind of everyone,” Hope said in a stifled voice. “Will you tell all the—everyone that we’re just overwhelmed?”

  “You bet. Now I’m going to make myself scarce,” Grant promised with a grin. He was putting her awkwardness down to bridal jitters. Not every bride wanted to spend her wedding afternoon in a trailer that was the focus of several hundred men’s thoughts, however politely and resolutely they all averted their eyes. “You don’t want to spend any more time with me. Bathroom’s there...bed-room... well, you know.”

  He solemnly handed Jude the key to the door. “Three o’clock, Jude. I’ll be back then.” The door closed behind him.

  Silence settled on them like a new fall of thick snow. Hope looked at the floor, the window, the wall, anywhere but at Jude. He was standing where Grant had left him, a statue in black basalt.

  “Shall I just go?” she asked after an intolerable time. She glanced at him then, to discover that he was looking at her, and her voice faltered.

  Released from some spell, he moved. “No,” he said. He sounded trapped. “No, you have to stay. Damn it to hell!”

  “Four hours,” she said faintly. “What are we going to do?”

  He moved towards her, and reached out an arm, and for one moment she believed that this was his answer to her question. And that was all it took. With terrifying abruptness her heart leapt into her throat, and the wind of desire stormed through her.

  Almost a year since she had been alone with him.

  “Jude.”

  As his hand continued past her to the fridge door her breath caught on his name. A cold black flame spurted into life in his eyes as they fixed on her face.

  “What are we going to do with the next four hours? Is that what you asked?” he asked in a flat, hard voice. She swallowed and made no answer. Jude jerked the fridge open, bent and reached inside to grab the bottle of champagne. “Let me start by telling you what we are not going to do. We are not going to do what’s in your eyes right now.”

  He slammed the fridge door, and stood looking at her, the bottle in his hand. Her body was on fire, her brain a maelstrom of anger and desire.

  “There’s nothing in my eyes,” she lied furiously. “I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole!”

  “Good.”

  He busied himself opening the champagne. The muscles of his arms and chest bulged like a bodybuilder’s. He was a man she had been more intimate with than anyone else in her life. She knew what gave him pleasure, he knew every secret of her body. Yet he was at the same time a bitter, hard, angry stranger whom she did not recognize. Only her body’s involuntary, uncontrollable physical response to him was the same.

  “Why are you opening that bottle?” she demanded, because otherwise she might have said something else.

  He smiled grimly at her over his shoulder. “So that we can drink to our marriage.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  The cork popped under his hand and he turned to her, holding the bottle as foam billowed out of the neck. It was a symbol so phallic she had to press her lips together to keep from crying out. What she was feeling was insane. How could she still feel like this for him after all that had passed?

  “Kidding? Why?” He turned back to the counter and filled two cheap water glasses with the foaming liquid. “The guys spent money on this, do you expect me to pour it away? I haven’t had a decent drink for a year.” He handed her one glass and picked up the other. “To success,” he said, lifting his glass mockingly. He watched her over the rim as he drank. She did not move.

  “Drink to the success of our marriage, Hope,” he commanded softly. There was foam on his upper lip. She flicked her eyes away from the sight.

  “Wipe your mouth,” she said stonily.

  He wiped his lip with one broad thumb, then briefly sucked his thumb. Was he doing these things deliberately to provoke her? “Drink to our marriage,” he said.

  She hated him. “To this marriage.” She lifted the glass and drank. “But I hope you aren’t planning on indulging in any of the other little rituals of marriage, now or at any time,” she said, with cold precision. “Because this marriage has zero meaning as far as any conjugal rights are concerned.”

  His hard face hardened even more. “Never think it,” he said. “Never again. If I made love to you now it would not be to you, but to a woman. After months in here any woman would do. But I will never make love to you again.”

  “If you made love to me now, I’d scream, and then with any luck you’d be thrown in—what do they call solitary? —the hole!”

  His cold smile glinted at her. He shook his head contemptuously. “No,” he said.

  “No? They wouldn’t put you in the hole if your wife screamed?”

  “If I made love to you you would not scream.”

  Sensation rocketed through her. So he knew. She closed her eyes.

  “You’re sure about that?” she tried. Whatever he thought he knew, as long as she did not admit it, she was safe.

  “Moan, you would moan, I would hear you moan, yes? But you would not scream.”

  It was unbearable, that deep, grating repetition of the word moan, stroking every nerve ending in her. Hope’s head fell forward on a neck that was suddenly too weak to hold it up. She lifted her glass and tossed back more of the champagne. It went straight to her head; she had not eaten this morning.

  “You’re wrong. I would scream.” She would scream, her heart told her ruthlessly, but with pent-up passion. Something in her snapped as she admitted it to herself. She pressed her eyes, feeling as if she were going mad, and suddenly she grunted as if she had been struck.

  “I don’t understand how I can hate you, can be so angry with you, and yet still my body wants you like thirst in the desert. Why won’t it go away?” she exploded.

  Shaking, she set down her glass on the nearest surface and put both hands up to cover her face. She began to whimper with the fierce pain of wanting him. “Oh, God!” she cried. Her hands pressed to her mouth, she looked at Jude in torment.

  “How did you do it? How did you stop wanting me? How does it work, Jude? I don’t want to want you, I don’t want to feel like this! What can I do to stop wanting you?”

  There was a sound of breaking as he smashed the glass he was holding into the sink, and then Jude turned, and she was in the grip of hard, bruising hands.

  “Understand this!” he said with barely controlled ferocity. “Before you try a trick like this again, understand one thing, my wife!” His eyes were hard black bits of glass in the unmoving musculature of his face. “Your power over me is gone. I would rather kill
you than have sex with you. If I waited ten years without a woman, I would still not want you to take the edge from my hunger!”

  She whimpered his name, but he was unmoved.

  “I have spent months of my life in a place where no man, guilty or innocent, should spend a day. I have spent every day of that time pushing out of my mind the image of your face as you sent me here. I see it in my sleep, the face of the woman to whom I gave my soul and who gave nothing, not even simple trust, in return.”

  She was silenced. The tears dried in her eyes, so that they burned as she stared at him.

  “Do you understand now, Hope?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. It was true. She had not understood before.

  “Good. Because I do not want to watch you degrade yourself with attempts to entice me. So never tell me again that you desire me, Hope. I do not care.”

  “No, I won’t do that,” she said lifelessly.

  Later, she knew, she would understand what she had lost. But she would not think of it now. She couldn’t let herself think of it now.

  Chapter 11

  “It is not within the mandate of the Parole Board to put right possible miscarriages of justice,” said the parole officer, delivering the decision of the board. “That is a matter for the courts.”

  Jude looked at him without speaking, then flicked his eyes round the other faces. A muscle in his jaw clenched.

  “It is very rare for prisoners to be granted parole at their first hearing, Jude, as I’m sure you know, and granting you parole now may well give ammunition to those who will suggest that this is the Parole Board making a statement about the justice of your conviction, which we are not entitled to do.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “So we want to make it absolutely clear to you that there is no intention on the part of the Parole Board to subvert the normal course of justice, and that no judgement as to the safety or otherwise of your conviction is meant. We leave all such decisions to the Court of Appeal. Do you understand?”

  Jude’s eyes narrowed and he frowned at the officer. “No,” he said shortly.

  The man cleared his throat and tried again. “The Parole Board has taken the decision to grant you unusually early parole entirely and solely on the basis of your exemplary conduct in prison and the fact of your solid community support, as well as our belief that you have a valuable contribution to make to society and should be allowed to get on with it. This decision is not by any means to be taken as a comment on the justice of your case before the Court of Appeal by you or anyone else. Is that clear now?”

  He sat still as a statue while the earth heaved and shifted around him, only his eyes moving to flick to each pair of eyes around the table. They were all smiling at him. When the world had reformed itself, and was solid under his feet, Jude opened dry lips and breathed between them.

  “Yes, that’s clear,” he said hoarsely. Then, “Thank you.”

  “Good luck, Jude,” came a chorus from around the table.

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  “Oh, thank God, thank God, oh, thank you, God!” Hope breathed the litany of gratitude and felt the unbearable weight lift from her heart. “Oh, Jude, I’m so glad!”

  They were alone in the visiting room. This was not regular visiting hours, but it was common practice for the prison to allow a brief visit after a parole hearing, whatever the outcome. He had come straight from the hearing room to her. They had agreed upon it as a necessary part of the deception of their marriage, but he had had no expectation of a successful hearing. He found that he was glad she was there, if only to reflect back to him the news, and make it real and comprehensible to him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?” Hope smiled. “Didn’t you expect it?”

  “No,” he said. “Nobody gets parole so early without political connections. They didn’t even ask me about remorse, just about you and my plans for when I got out.”

  “So our marriage was worth it?” she asked quietly.

  “If I understood what they said, all they needed was something... a reasonable hook to hang the decision on.”

  She bowed her head. “Jude, I’m very glad about that.”

  He looked into the distance, as if her emotion had no meaning for him. “You may be a little less glad when you hear my parole conditions.”

  She looked at him.

  “A week in the halfway house, then one night every week I have to report back. The rest of the time I’m expected to reside in Toronto at the house I own with my wife.”

  Of course, they had known that it would come to that eventually; it was part of his “community support” that he had a home to go to. Knowing it would arrive some day and facing it as an imminent future, however, were two very different things. And looking into Jude’s face now, Hope knew that dealing with it as a reality would be something else again. Something else very difficult.

  Most parole restrictions were much more severe than this. He might have been allowed no more than one night a week in Toronto for several months.

  “Why are they being so lenient?” she asked.

  “They said they understood that I needed to be in Toronto, where the office is, in order to repair my career.”

  Hope swallowed and was silent.

  “I’ll be coming home to live with my wife in just over two weeks,” Jude said, as though that would be the beginning of another prison sentence.

  It was a clear, perfect summer day when Jude walked down the path of the halfway house to where Hope waited for him, leaning against the sexy, low-slung red car which had been her father’s last gift to her, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  They stood looking at each other, but there didn’t seem to be anything to say. Hope lifted one hand and dangled the keys. “Want to drive?”

  His eyes raked her, and then the car, and she knew she had done the right thing. For most of a year he had needed permission for every action. Driving, he would know he was free at last.

  “Thank you.” He took the keys in a firm fist.

  After that, they did not speak. On the highway he put his foot down and growled over into the fast lane. Hope wondered whether speeding was considered a breach of parole, but said nothing. After a few minutes of insane speed, he lifted his foot and eased down to eighty.

  “You’ve been able to keep up payments on the car?” he said then.

  “I didn’t have to. Dad’s—there was automatic insurance cover on the leasing agreement. It took over the payments when he fell ill, and paid the outstanding amount outright when he died. Otherwise the car would have had to go.”

  He grunted. He had the window open on the crystal-clear day, and there was little traffic. The air of freedom smelled like holy perfume to his starved palate.

  “There was no insurance on the office lease,” he said, after another few miles.

  “No.”

  “And no life insurance.”

  Her father had not believed in life insurance. But no doubt he had not envisioned leaving Hope a share of a cleanup bill that would impoverish her for years.

  “No.”

  “But you’ve managed to keep up the rent?”

  “We’re two months in arrears.”

  “How did you manage to keep it up so long?”

  “Can we leave this discussion till later?”

  “How?” he repeated grimly.

  Hope took an angry breath. “There were fees coming in till Christmas with the projects that were still completing. We didn’t close down finally till January. George and Janine—” she named Thompson and Daniels’ two assistant architects “—didn’t leave till the last project was completed.”

  “That still leaves several months’ rent.”

  “I’ve been paying it partly with my wages and partly with my share of the Picasso,” she admitted at last.

  Jude glanced over with a frown. “Your wages?
”

  “I have a job, Jude,” she said, irritated by his evident surprise.

  “Doing what?”

  “Computer graphic design. I took a Quark course.”

  “Well, we’ll have to find some other solution. There’s no reason for you to be working to pay the rent for Thompson Daniels.”

  Hope gritted her teeth at the implication. “Contrary to your understanding of my character, I am actually quite used to hard work. And do I have to remind you that my father left half of his share of the company to me?”

  “It was not his intention to leave you a share of a massive liability.”

  “Well, you win some, you lose some. It was my responsibility. Now that you’re ho—here, maybe some different decisions can be made. Have you got any idea yet what you mean to do?”

  He swung into the centre lane to let a car scream past.

  “I’m going to open the office again. But I don’t fool myself we’ll have the kind of business we were getting before, not for a long time. Maybe never. What I have to do is cut down overheads by sub-leasing some of the space to one or two small firms. That shouldn’t be as difficult as you found trying to get rid of the whole space.”

  She digested that in silence, but there was nothing to say. Either he would get commissions or he wouldn’t, and there was only one way to find out.

  “Have you talked to Nicholas Harvey since you got out?”

  “Only briefly. We agreed to save it until I was in Toronto and could go to his office.”

  “What are your plans for your appeal?”

  He glanced over at her, his eyes hard points of light. But it was not Hope whom he saw. “I am going to clear my name,” Jude promised.

  “I’ve put you in Dad’s bedroom,” Hope said two hours later, leading him up the stairs in the house they would be forced to share for months and maybe years to come. “It’s the biggest room, and his study has a communicating door, so I thought you’d like it.”

  She opened the door to her father’s room as she spoke, and stepped inside. It was the master bedroom, a large airy room with windows on two sides, a king-size bed and a fireplace. Jude stopped on the threshold as if he had walked into a glass wall, looked around and took a deep breath.