by Margaux Fox
‘New intel on Lorenzo. Bringing the dawn raid for 34 Highbury Road forward. Be at the station 5am for briefing.’ the text read.
I gazed in disbelief at the screen as Lyra got in next to me, pushed her face up next to mine and kissed my shoulder, running her hands down over my body sending shivers of desire through me.
“Your husband?” she asked, kissing my neck.
“No, it is work. I’ve got to be in at 5am for a raid.” I tried to focus on my iPhone screen.
4.34am
“Fuck. I’m going to be late. I have to go,” I started trying to sit up, trying to leave the warm cocoon of her. I finally managed to get up and went searching for my clothes dragging them on as I moved through her living room.
She walked out of the bedroom naked and exquisite.
“Jen,” she said, “I had a great evening. Hope work goes well.” She smiled. Still dazzling.
I felt dizzy with lust, but I smiled back, turned and left.
As I drove to the station I felt actually insane. What the fuck was I doing? I picked up my personal phone to find a text from Simon.
‘Love you darling, don’t work too hard, let’s catch up on The Apprentice if you get home in decent time tomorrow.’
I was an unfaithful, lying cheater and I deserved to feel this guilt. What was I doing? I had a husband who loved me and did nice things for me. I had told him a pack of lies about having to work last night. My marriage should be worth more than these cheap thrills. But it wasn’t. I’d never even considered myself interested in women. Not seriously. But I could still smell her perfume on me and I was dizzy with the thought of her.
5
Two hours later, it was only 7am, the lazy autumn sun was finally up and the raid on the Highbury Road house came up with absolutely nothing. I’d had zero sleep and the raid found nothing. No drugs. No cash. No sign of Daniel Lorenzo’s nefarious activities. All surfaces cleaned down so we couldn’t take prints and see who else had been there. They had been tipped off. They knew we were going to raid them. Unless Lorenzo had noticed us following him and guessed a raid was coming, the only explanation was that we had a mole on our team. I hate nothing more than lack of integrity and following the de-brief with the Detective Chief Inspector, I had a strong word with the Detective Constables beneath me. If there was a suspicion that one of our officers was working for Lorenzo, I would make it my job to find out who it was and make sure they paid for it.
I was scheduled to be on surveillance on Lorenzo for the afternoon and evening. It was Saturday. I have always hated surveillance shifts. People think they will be exciting, following criminals around seeing what they are up to, but the majority of the time they are so boring. Depending who you get partnered with, they can be bad or worse. Operation Phoenix was proving to be the most frustrating case I had been involved in. One step forward always seemed to be followed by two steps back. This gang were smart. They always seemed to be ahead of the game and Lorenzo always at the top of the tree keeping his hands scrupulously clean. He was bringing huge quantities of drugs into the city regularly but we couldn’t pin down who he had bringing it in for him and where they were storing them when they arrived.
I leant back against my desk and looked up at the investigation board we had going. Lorenzo and the centre of a spider web and all the men working for him linked up and spanning out from him. He had to be at the heart of everything. But which of these men was the main link? Which one of them was bringing drugs in and storing them?
It was so busy early on that I barely had a chance to think about what had happened the night before. I’d somehow blocked Lyra from my brain because I knew I needed to focus. I wanted a good result and was so frustrated at our failure on this case. Again. My colleague DC Alice Jackson was going to be my partner on surveillance this afternoon and I went over to her desk to brief her on our plan. I liked Alice, out of all of them. She was a diligent and dedicated detective. Young and still keen, before the years in the job have had chance to erode her. She reminded me of myself ten years ago.
“You look great,” Alice said. “Did you get your hair done? And I love your make up. You must have been up early this morning.”
Oh sure Alice, that will be me doing my hair and make up last night before I lied to my husband and went out. Then I had hot illicit lesbo sex all night with a woman I have just met, absolutely no sleep, no shower and I am still wearing last nights clothes. In fact, I am surprised you can’t smell sex on me. Because I can, and I vary from kind of liking it and thinking about her, to being horrified at myself and my actions.
“er… thanks. Anyway,” I pulled myself together and decided to keep the madness of last night to myself. It felt like a dream. It felt crazy. The more and more I thought about it in the cold harsh light of day, the more and more mad it felt. What did I think was going to happen? Lyra and I were going to run away together and live happily ever after? She was the kind of woman who could have anyone she wanted, anytime she wanted. And what about Simon and life as I knew it? He might find out or he might not. Or I might confess. I wasn’t really sure on the finer points of infidelity as it was not something I had ever practiced or even considered. Yet there I was, deep in infidelity territory.
It had to stop.
The Lyra thing.
Lyra.
It had to end. Seriously, there was no future there. What was I going to do? Just come screaming out of a closet I had never been in and be all super-gay all of a sudden? Get a divorce? Everything is so serious when you are a married grown up with a house. It isn’t as simple as just saying I don’t think I want us to be together anymore. It’s not you, it’s me, I think I might be gay. Maybe not totally, maybe just a bit gay or a bit bisexual. I’m not sure yet. Sounds like the ravings of a madwoman. I needed to end the affair with Lyra before it started. Surely once was more than enough.
Text to Lyra:
‘Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for last night. I had a great time and I am so sorry to do this, but I’m married and I’m not gay and I need to focus on my career. I think it is just better that we leave it where it is- at one amazing night that I hope you enjoyed too. J x’
I put my phone down and got back to work. Alice and I set off for the surveillance job. As we had finished handover with the previous team and got settled in position with a good view of Daniel Lorenzo’s house my phone beeped.
Text from Lyra:
‘It was perfect. You are perfect. But I understand. I won’t push things. You know where to contact me if you change your mind. L x’
I stared at the phone screen. ‘You are perfect.’ A complement unlike any other. Perfect. I smiled to myself. I had never felt the way that reading this made me feel. Warm inside. Special, I guess. As though I was maybe more than I had thought that I was.
The remainder of the surveillance dragged. Lorenzo didn’t leave his house. We watched him in the golden glow through his windows. Watched his lovely wife putting his beautiful children to bed. We watched them move around their big family home as though watching a doll house with live occupants.
11pm came and we handed over to the next surveillance team. I have never been happier to make it home to my home. I let myself in quietly and crept straight into the shower to scrub off the days work, the scent of her and the stench of my infidelity. Water as hot as it would go, hoping it would somehow purify me and absolve me from my sins. A warm clean towel on the heated towel rail that Simon had left for me. I let myself into our bedroom where he was asleep and folded myself into the depths of the duvet. My skin smelt of strawberries.
I sat up in bed under the safe cloak of silence and darkness listening to the ticking of the clock and the regular rhythm of his breathing. Time ticking away towards a conclusion. Would he find out? What would happen if he found out? What was happening to our marriage?
6
I chose to forget Lyra. To forget this ‘phase’. I worked hard over the following couple of weeks to push her from my mind, to move
on with my life. I deleted her number from my phone. She is one of those rare people in the modern world who doesn’t use social media, so my facebook stalking was in vain. It became easy enough to immerse myself in work. There was so much to do. Yet, I felt a nagging emptiness inside. As though the life that she had breathed into me was slowly being exhaled. I did the things I should have done with Simon and tried to improve our marriage. I tried to be home from work in reasonable time where possible. I booked us a table in our favourite restaurant for our wedding anniversary. I remembered our special couple things, trying to integrate them back into our life. A lazy day off together watching a box set on Netflix under a duvet. A long walk in the lazy autumnal sun in the Peak district. Sex.
The sex made me sad. The familiarity of his hard muscular body on top of me and inside me was no comfort as I felt distant and detached. I faked interest; I faked excitement; I faked orgasm. And I hated myself for it. I cried to myself quietly in bed after he fell asleep, satiated by my body and my acting skills. It was the moment that said to me dismally: This is it forever. This is your life. This is the bed you have made for yourself and now you must lie in it. This is your marriage.
Nevertheless, I persisted. I spoke to him honestly (well honestly apart from the Lyra part) one evening. I said I wasn’t happy and I felt distance between us. He sighed loudly and looked baffled. Confusion crossing his handsome face and dark eyes and I felt guilt at the core of me. He explained to me that this was married life. This was what happens. That the energy a relationship has at the start becomes replaced by an abiding love. A love that lasts through the ages. He spoke of how normal it was for levels of desire to wax and wane. That we were lucky because we had this happiness and comfort with each other. That we lived harmoniously together. That he honestly thought we were an ideal match.
His intellect and calm demeanour were qualities that had attracted me so much in the first place. I wondered if he was right and thought that perhaps he was. That what we had was indeed a healthy marriage. Two people who could be together unitedly and long term. We never argued. He had these fatherly qualities that sometimes made me feel like I was an errant child. Although he was only a couple of years older than me, he somehow had all this wisdom that he would impart to me when I needed to hear it. That was how I felt then, like a naughty child hiding secrets. I should be able to be happy with him. I owed it to us both to try.
The following day at work I had to investigate a car wash that we thought Lorenzo’s crew were using as a front for drug money. At this stage, all I could do was go in and have a look around and ask questions to the Polish guys who were running it. We didn’t have enough intel to be able to get a warrant to search the property. Our intentions were to push them and rattle them to try and force Lorenzo’s gang into making errors. It went much as predicted. Pawel Ryszkowski, a good looking blonde gym buff who was in charge was abrasive, defensive and confrontational. He had absolutely no desire to answer my questions or help me in any way. His snakey eyes darted around as we spoke and his broken english got significantly more broken as he realised I was Police. I sighed as I walked out, frustrated, yet hopeful that my visit would have the desired affect and shake things up.
I headed back to my car whilst checking emails on my phone and literally bumped into Lyra. It was a second before I realised it was her, cool as ever, her bewitching eyes hidden under sunglasses, her dark hair falling around her face. It was as though I had been hit with ten thousand volts of electricity. I was so flustered.
“Lyra,” I stammered.
“Jen. Hey. I was just heading home. I’ve been in town for a meeting with a new client. What are you doing here?” said Lyra.
“Oh, you know. Just work. Just following up on some leads,” I tried to put my phone away and fumbled with my bag and dropped my phone. “Shit.”
Lyra gracefully retrieved my phone from the pavement. I couldn’t stop watching her. Her hands. Her elegant long fingers. She pushed her sunglasses casually back on her head and her blue eyes dazzled in the sunshine. She passed the phone to me and as her fingers touched mine I jolted.
“Thanks.” I said.
“Do you want to come back to mine?” she asked.
There seemed to be no other option. I was powerless to resist her. She lead me into temptation and I followed impetuously. The sex was hot and hard. Our hunger for each other insatiable. Up against the wall as soon as we got through her front door. Eager hands fighting to undress each other. Eager hands fighting to feel each other. Eager mouths desperate to taste each other. On her kitchen floor, tiles cold against my back, her hot against my skin. On her kitchen table, feasting on her body. It was madness but I wanted nothing else. Eventually finished, I lay in her arms on the big grey sofa, her body sultry against my own and it felt like magic. Like there was nobody else in the world and all that existed was us and this moment.
But I had to go. Again. There was work. There was real life to return to. Already I had been gone too long. Already there would be more questions to answer and more lies I would readily tell. I’d changed so much I didn’t recognise myself. I had a quick shower in her beautiful bathroom and rushed back to the office, my post sex hair giving me away I was sure. Real life felt surreal. I could still taste her on my tongue.
Detective Chief Inspector Travis’s booming voice as I ran in disheveled, “DS Towers. Jen. Where the fuck have you been?”
7
I made up a story about thinking I saw something suspicious at the back of the carwash, so I stayed to watch, only it turned out to be nothing. My phone must have been out of signal when I got the 7 missed calls. The lies spilled from my lips so easily. And everyone believed me. All my years of honesty and hard work had given me a solid platform from which to lie from.
My lies carried on. Somewhere, subconsciously, I had made a decision to condone infidelity. My own infidelity.
I wanted Lyra and I didn’t care what I had to do or say to buy time with her. I lied at work. I lied at home. I took a sick day and spent it in bed with her. The rain lashed down outside her big windows and I felt cosy and warm in her bed. We had sex, she made cheese on toast in her underwear and a tight vest top and I watched her as she cooked. We ate it from a blanket nest on her big sofa. We watched Netflix, we had more sex. We Netflixed and chilled in every possible meaning of the phrase. I took an annual leave day when the sun shone and we went to the forest with a picnic and walked around a beautiful lake. We found a secluded area in the trees, laid our coats down and made out on the forest floor like lusty teenagers. Pine needles in my hair. Her fingers in my hair. I felt so alive.
Home life was the same as ever. As Simon said, we had an abiding love. A healthy marriage going through its own ups and downs. I often wondered if he suspected I was seeing someone else and dismissed it as a fling. Some expected part of a marriage that was just to be buried and ignored. As if it wouldn’t threaten the sanctity of marriage. As if it wouldn’t threaten the sanctity of us. When I was a child we played a dumb game called ‘Simon Says’. Where you basically are expected to do anything that Simon says in order to win the game. That a man called Simon is always right. I always wondered where it came from. I made vows to Simon when we married. But I never believed that everything that Simon said was right.
Lyra travelled extensively for work. A couple of days in Istanbul, a week in South America. When she was away she would text me plenty. We would sneak phone calls when we could. When she was home, we saw each other whenever possible. We stole moments when we could. Stolen hours from my home life. Stolen hours from my work life. She became my obsession and I was hers. I learned to live off very little sleep.
She invited me to Amsterdam with her. I told Simon I was visiting an old school friend. She went to business meetings while I had a lazy morning then met her for lunch near our tall canal side hotel. We hired bikes and cycled round the city. We went to the sex museum and laughed all the way through its quirky exhibits. We went on a canal trip in the evenin
g, she looked so beautiful in the moonlight reflecting off the water. We drank expensive beers and walked along the red light district hand in hand. I was fascinated to see the sex workers in their shop windows, red glows lighting up their bodies, groups of drunk men leering at them. I held Lyra’s hand as we walked. I held her in my arms after sex. I started falling in love with her in the easy Amsterdam air. There seemed to be so much possibility. We were so happy. We flew home and normal life resumed.
The next couple of months passed in a haze and actually everything became almost easy. It seemed so totally possible to balance both my lives. That there didn’t need to be any divorcing of Simon or coming out to my friends and family. I barely saw my family anymore. We were never overly close and now I seemed to have a million ready excuses. Most of my social life was with my police colleagues and again, I had so many excuses for them. Lyra was the most intense relationship I had ever had. The chemical lure of her was so much I could feel the desire between us even when she was halfway around the world. She never asked me about Simon or asked me for more. I had this romantic idea that one day we would just run away from everything together, there would be no more work and no more marriage. That there would just be us. Maybe in a country cottage or a little house by the sea. We would get a dog and just live happily ever after. More madness from me. She never mentioned the future. I didn’t ask.
Work was still a frustrating game of waiting and hoping. It would feel like we were closing in and then feel like we were a million miles away. Lorenzo was toying with us. He was the cat and we were the mice. It worried me that we might still have a mole within our ranks but I was no closer to identifying our mole. Surveillance on Lorenzo bored me, so I tried to avoid getting stuck with it- the beauty of being a Sergeant meaning I had constables beneath me to assign instead. I took my Inspector exams earlier in the year. I thought for a while that rising through the ranks was something that was really important to me. I passed as far as the scoring went, but too many of us passed our Inspector exams and I wasn’t awarded a position. Men I considered less than me were. It made me angry against the system. I had become that cliche of the angry feminist. Bitter about being passed over for promotion. I could always reapply on the next intake. But the job was starting to wear away at me. As if it didn’t fit properly anymore. I had become so institutionalised spending my whole adult life as a police officer that it was hard to imagine anything else. I got into the job in the first place because I wanted to make a real difference and help people. But, there I was, swimming in treacle with my hands tied.
