Say Something, page 7
“Thanks for coming to meet me; I know it’s late,” Jessie said.
“Don’t be silly, I’d only be staring at the TV. I’m a bit of a night owl.”
“I remember. Can I get you a drink?”
“Anything but rum,” Toni said with humour.
A flash of remembrance briefly flickered in Jessie’s eyes, then it was gone, as if the memory of their first kiss had never existed. Jessie hadn’t even smiled in response to her little teaser. This saddened Toni. Was Jessie trying to erase the bond they had once shared from her mind altogether? Though things had ended on a sour note, Toni had always held their memories close to her heart.
Jessie looked past her towards the bar. “I’ll be right back.”
Moments later she returned with two bottles of beer. She handed one to Toni then drank deeply from her own.
“It’s so good to see you, Jessie. I always hoped we’d meet again.” Though it had been under circumstances she could never have imagined.
Jessie took another swig of beer and gave her a long look. “Really and why’s that?”
Toni could feel herself blushing. Jessie had put her on the spot and she didn’t know how to answer. Should she just blurt out the truth – that she still had feelings for her? Instead she turned the question back on Jessie. “Why do you think?”
“I’m not a mind reader Toni, you tell me.”
Toni saw a dark glint in Jessie’s eyes that sent shivers down her spine. “Are you still angry with me? After all these years?”
Jessie leaned back and crossed her arms before bursting into laughter. “Are you kidding? I barely think about my childhood, and that’s all it was Toni: two children messing around.”
“Is that what you really think?” she asked, putting the bottle to her lips, trying to hide her inner misery from Jessie’s probing eyes.
“It’s not what I think, it’s what I know,” Jessie corrected her stiffly.
Toni’s insides started to tighten. Why did Jessie keep blowing hot and cold? If she hated her, which it seemed she did, why had she bothered calling her at all? Was she getting a sadistic pleasure from toying with her? “So why did you call me? You sounded quite urgent on the phone. Was there a reason?”
“You know why I called you, Toni,” Jessie interrupted her. “I want to know why you’re not going forward with your complaint.”
Toni squirmed awkwardly in her chair. She couldn’t tell her and have her believe she was still the weak teenager she once knew. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. This is exactly what you used to do at school. I hate it when you try to avoid answering my questions by using delay tactics. Shall I spell it out in clearer terms? Has someone said something to you that’s made you change your mind?”
Toni opened her mouth to protest but stopped short as she noticed a woman with a brutal and unfriendly stare making a beeline towards their table.
“So this is your idea of working late is it?” The woman demanded as she stopped directly in front of Jessie.
Jessie looked alarmed. “Jennifer, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Really? Well it looks pretty obvious to me,” she said switching her gaze between Toni and Jessie.
“I think its best I leave,” Toni said quickly standing. She couldn’t understand the woman’s hostility towards her. It wasn’t as if she had found her and Jessie in bed together. They were sitting in a straight bar packed full of people. What did she think they were going to do exactly?
Jessie placed her arm on Toni’s arm. “No please stay.”
“I’m sorry Jessie, I shouldn’t have come,” Toni said as she slipped into her jacket.
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Jennifer swivelled her head towards Toni, her brown eyes radiating hatred and contempt.
“Calm down, Jennifer,” Jessie said with a slight shake of her head.
“What did you say?” Jennifer asked raising her voice, her nostrils flaring.
“I said calm down. Nothing’s going on,” Jessie said.
“Now, now ladies.” The man whose birthday it was appeared from nowhere and came to stand beside Jennifer. He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Come on ladies, let’s not spoil the evening.”
Jennifer turned to him with a scowl on her face. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted.
“I just want you to keep your arguing down because we are all trying to have a nice evening and you, miss, are spoiling it,” he said, pointing at Jennifer as the smile faded from his face. He replaced it with an icy glare.
“Whatever,” Jennifer said, keeping her eyes glued to Jessie. “Are you coming home?” she demanded from Jessie in a lowered tone.
The man turned on his heel and went back to his party. Toni watched the scene unfolding in front of her, shell shocked. She couldn’t believe Jessie even seemed to be contemplating leaving with the aggressive woman.
“Well?” Jennifer demanded nastily. “Are you coming?”
Jessie’s posture stiffened. “I’m trying to conduct a business meeting Jennifer. I’m really not in the mood to be getting into all of this now.”
“Fine!” Jennifer snapped, wagging a finger in Jessie’s face. “Don’t come crawling to me when you’ve got no one.” With her head held high she made her way through the crowd. “What the fuck you all looking at?” she barked as she passed the people who had turned to stare at the commotion.
Toni sat back down and looked at her with an incredulous stare. “Are you two together?”
Jessie looked back at her solemnly. “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Jessie replied springing to her feet. “I’d better go home before she wrecks my place. Can we meet tomorrow?”
Toni took a swig of her beer. “I won’t change my mind, Jessie.”
“I’m not asking you to. Will you meet me?”
“Yes of course.”
“Good.”
“Tomorrow then,” Toni said, trying to suppress a powerful urge to take Jessie in her arms and hold her close. She wanted to put the memories of the past behind them, but it seemed Jessie wasn’t willing to do that.
She watched as Jessie walked away and melded into the throng of party goers before losing sight of her. Her heart pained at the knowledge that Jessie was no longer the teenage girl who had once been so in awe of her. Instead, she was a woman who had erected an invisible force field around herself and Toni didn’t think she would ever find a way in. She took another gulp of her beer as she thought about the woman who had seemed so threatened by her having a drink with Jessie. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Jessie was in a relationship. Was she that naive to think that the girl who had transformed from an awkward teenager into a swan in womanhood would still be pining over a teenage romance? Stupidly, it seemed she was the only one that was still carrying a torch for their lost love.
She polished off the rest of her beer and glanced down at her watch. Should she go over and see Michelle? No, that would be a bad idea. She didn’t want to keep going over the same old story. She sadly realised she had no one else to turn to. Most of her friendships had fallen by the wayside as she had gone in hot pursuit of the dazzling career she thought awaited her. She hadn’t regretted doing this until now – when the house of cards was tumbling down.
Maybe I should get myself a cat. Anything would be better than going home to an empty house. She left the bar.
***
Jessie stomped into the living room with Jennifer trailing behind her. Spinning around to face her, Jessie shook her head in disgust. “Do you know how embarrassing that was, hunting me down like some sort of stalker. What the bloody hell is wrong with you? How dare you speak to me like that!”
“You lied to me!”
As Jennifer glared at her she felt as if her eyes were boring into her mind. She was starting to feel guilty even though she hadn’t actually done anything. “No, I didn’t. I went to work and I got a late call from a client, which would have been over in half an hour if you hadn’t have interrupted us spoiling for a fight.”
“What’s with the tone?”
Jessie struggled to keep her voice from rising. “My tone? Are you serious? I should be fucking screaming at you for the way you behaved tonight.”
“In front of her you mean?”
“No, in front of the whole bar in general! Enough with the bloody mind games, Jennifer. If you’ve got something to say can you just spit it out so I can go to bed?”
“Okay, if you want to play it like that, fine. Are you sleeping with that slut? There, I’ve asked.”
Jessie’s body stiffened. It was several seconds before she answered. “Firstly, she’s not a slut and secondly even if I was, it would have absolutely nothing to do with you. I was a single agent the last time I checked and I answer to no one, and, yes, that includes you.” She wished she had the nerve to tell her the whole truth: she had slept with Toni, though it was many years ago; Toni was the only woman she had ever truly loved; and each second of each day for the last ten years that she wasn’t with her she had felt like there was a gaping hole in her heart.
“Well, do you fancy her then?”
“What’s all this about Jennifer?”
“I don’t like being lied to,” she raged. “I know there’s something going on between you two!”
Jessie’s rolled her eyes. “Well there’s nothing new there then. You seem to think there’s something going on with every attractive woman I come in to contact with.”
“So you’re admitting you find her attractive?”
Jessie groaned loudly. “I’m not bloody blind. It’s quite obvious that she’s very attractive.”
“Oh, so you don’t just think she’s just attractive you think she’s very attractive.”
“Don’t try and mess with my head. Yes I find her attractive, very attractive, beautiful even. Is that okay with you? Does that mean I’m sleeping with her?”
“I was watching you both for a while. I saw the way you looked at her. You’ve never looked at me that way.”
That’s because I don’t love you. “Oh my God, this just gets worse,” she said, sitting on the sofa and clasping her hands to her head.
Okay Jessie had to admit it might have looked a bit dodgy – her sitting in a bar with Toni late at night – but she’d been truthful inasmuch as there really wasn’t anything going on. She might have wanted something to happen in her head but that was about as far as it went.
Jennifer looked at her with doubt in her eyes. “And it’s not going to get better until you are honest with yourself. If you can’t do it for me at least do it for yourself.”
Jessie’s head snapped up. She suddenly felt drained. Her head throbbed from the unexpected turn of events. “What do you want me to say Jennifer? The truth – is that it? Is that what you want? Okay, well here it is – me and you, it’s over. It should never have happened in the first place. I want you to leave my house so I can have my space back. Alright? Happy now?” Jessie loved being alone in her house – it was her own little haven. She’d been living there for four years and Jennifer was the only person who had stayed for more than one night. Her affair prior to Jennifer had only lasted two weeks and during that time she’d spent most of it at the other woman’s house.
Jennifer had taken to pacing the floor, her eyes fixed firmly to the ground. “This is all because of that woman isn’t it? Is she an old flame – is that what this is?” she snorted.
“No, Jennifer, that’s not it. I’m just fed up and I want to be alone.”
Jennifer came to an abrupt halt and jerked her head up to look at her. “Maybe you’re fed up because you’re not with the one you love.”
“I’m too tired for this crap; I’m going to bed.” Jessie sprang to her feet and left the room. Jennifer had been right. She wasn’t with the one she loved and she didn’t think she ever could be, despite what her heart wanted.
Chapter 15
The sky was dark and broody as Mila walked up the tiled path towards her elegant double fronted, detached house. The night suited her mood – it had not been a good day. She could have scarcely believed it when Mark told her Toni had made a complaint about her. Shaking her head in disbelief, she opened the front door and let herself in. She hoped that after her little talk with Toni this evening that it was going to be the end of it. She couldn’t afford a scandal to follow her. Entering the house, she dropped her keys into the glass bowl on the table just inside the door and draped her coat over the hook. Seeing the light underneath the door of John’s man cave, she approached quietly. Almost immediately it swung open and John stood there with a look of distaste on his handsome, tanned face. A lock of dark curly hair fell over his forehead as his blue eyes looked down at her as though she were merely a bird’s dropping on a windscreen.
“Sneaking around are we?” he asked abruptly.
Mila felt as if she’d been caught red-handed. “No – of course not, I was checking to see if you were home.”
“Well, as you can see, I am.”
“Are you going to be spending all evening in front of the TV playing games?” she said, nodding towards the fifty-inch TV screen that was flashing the evidence.
His eyes narrowed. “Would you blame me?”
“We can’t carry on like this. John,” she said with an almost touch of pleading in her voice.
“You’re the one creating problems in this marriage, Mila, not me!”
Mila took a step closer to him and lightly rested her hand against his broad chest. “If you gave me what I wanted I wouldn’t feel the need to keep going on at you would I?”
“Mila, I’m not going to go through all this again!” he said pushing her hand away before attempting to shut the door on her.
“Please John, I’m begging you. Don’t punish me like this.”
“I’m not punishing you, I’m saving us from a whole lot of unnecessary stress.”
She looked up at him pleadingly. “No, you’re not. You promised me that you’d at least think about it.”
“I did. And I decided the answer is no,” he said with finality. “If you don’t like it, you know where the door is. Use it!” He gestured to the front door with the nod of his head.
Mila lowered her eyes. She was torn between anger and despair. “Okay John, We’ll leave it for now. Have you eaten yet?”
“Yes. Now I’d like to be left alone. I’ve got some work to finish. God knows I’ve got to work my arse off to pay the mortgage on this place.”
Mila looked at him incredulously. “John, you were the one who wanted to live here. I’m trying my hardest at work to earn enough money to help with the bills.”
“Well obviously it’s not bloody enough,” he said, slamming the door shut.
Mila stood outside the door for a few moments. When had things become so bad? What had started off as a fairytale romance had soon turned into a nightmare. She would never have believed that she’d become a statistic for unhappy marriages – but she was. Unhappiness ate at her like a cancer. The one thing she wanted more than anything in the world had been denied her by John.
She turned and walked along the wide hallway, glancing at the Egyptian death mask that hung on one of the walls. That was another one of John’s “must haves”. He thought having foreign objects in the house made him look more cultural than he actually was. Reaching her bedroom she was once again struck at how big it was, she’d actually seen studio flats smaller. The whole house was enormous and so ... quiet. When John had brought her to see the place, she’d hoped he was indirectly letting her know he was ready to give her what she wanted: a family. Instead of children, he wanted to fill it with expensive art and furnishings that cost an arm and a leg – all the while pressuring her to earn more bonuses at work, which she had done, even though it meant passing off her colleagues’ work as her own. She knew she should feel guilty about it but she didn’t. Keeping John happy was an important part of her plan and, if living in a house that they could ill afford made him stay with her, so be it.
She quickly stripped down naked, changed into a see-through black negligee and walked back to John’s room, stopping in the kitchen to pick up a few items she would need to get the night started. Reaching John’s room, she took a deep breath to steady herself, and gently tapped on the door. He opened it with an impatient expression, which quickly turned to interest as he took in her attire.
“I know just what you need to relax,” Mila said with a grin as she held up a chilled bottle of Chardonnay in one hand and two long-stemmed glasses in the other. John’s smile widened as he pulled open the door a little further allowing her to slide through the small gap. She handed him the bottle before making herself comfortable on the three-seater leather sofa, sprawling her legs open so he would get a clear view of what was on offer.
His eyes were glued to her as he pulled out the cork and poured them each a glass of wine.
“Well this is a good start, isn’t it?” she asked looking up at him with a smile.
“Definitely.”
“Come and sit by me,” Mila said, as she took one of the glasses and downed half its contents in one gulp. John took a sip of his own drink and began unbuttoning his shirt as he moved around the sofa and knelt down beside her.
“I know how much you hate being kept waiting, so let’s get started,” Mila said licking her lips.
John took her glass and laid it on the table before pulling her into a tight embrace. His large hands roamed over her slender body as she tugged the rest of his clothes off until he was naked. He let out a contented sigh as he moved on top of her, their bodies joining together as one. John’s hands and mouth found every one of her sweet spots, proving once again that he knew her body as intimately as he knew his own.
Damn you John, why won’t you agree to having a baby?
Almost instantly Mila’s body rocked as she reached a climax. Her muscles twitched like they were full of electricity and the sheer pleasure washed over her, but although her body was wracked with joy her mind was elsewhere. The need to have a child was becoming almost unbearable now she was forty two. She knew time was running out, but John wouldn’t budge, no matter how many times she begged him, and beg him she did. His answer was always the same. We can’t afford to have kids. Her resentment towards him had grown over the past few months to the point where she now only saw him as a means to an end. She earned double his wage packet with her bonuses alone, but all he seemed to do was spend it on expensive things: a bigger house, a better car, exotic holidays and more. They had spent enough money to raise a family of four for ten years.
