If You're Not the One (31 page)

Jennifer was ready which had taken a huge effort. Max had somehow managed to mess up the entire house during his day off. When Jennifer had returned home from her therapy session she'd walked in only to find the girls' bedrooms in a complete state. Every toy had been pulled out in the lounge and nothing had been cleared up from lunch. Still, she'd managed not to say anything. The kids were having a lovely time playing with their dad and despite her broken arm and how uncomfortable her cast was, Eadie was in good spirits. So that was the main thing.

Later though, the minute Max left the house to go to the gym, it meant Jennifer only had a small window of time to get everything ready for her night of seduction. In order to have the children fed, bathed and in bed, the house tidy, the dinner on, herself looking attractive and wearing sexy underwear underneath her clothes, she'd had to run around like a woman possessed.

She was finally ready now but slightly concerned she'd be too exhausted for the sex she was making all this effort for.

Nevertheless, as she crept out of her bedroom, she felt a flush of excitement as her satin G-string rode up her bum. How anyone could wear these for non-sexual pursuits she had no idea but she was happy to suffer it for tonight. She went to check on the girls. By some miracle it seemed they were both actually asleep. Yes!

Then, just at that second, Eadie, who on the contrary was still very much awake, rather ruined the moment by calling from her bed, ‘Muuuumy.'

Damn. Jennifer cursed inwardly. She should have known it was too good to be true.

She tiptoed into her bedroom. ‘What is it?' she asked, slightly impatiently. She and Max so desperately needed to have a good night together she'd worked herself up into a bit of a state. ‘Come on now,' she said to her daughter. ‘It's time to go to sleep.'

‘I'm not tired though.'

‘Yes you are,' insisted Jennifer, halfway out the door again. She wanted to make a nice mushroom sauce to pour over the steak.

‘What time is it?' said Eadie, refusing to play ball though and sitting up and looking around as perky as a meerkat, waving her plaster-cast about.

‘Ten o'clock,' lied Jennifer.

‘Ten o'clock?'

‘Yes, it's very, very late.'

Eadie didn't look convinced. She wasn't stupid. Apart
from anything else it didn't feel like ten o'clock, probably because it was only quarter to eight.

Just then they both heard Max's key in the door.

‘Daddy!'

‘OK, that is Dad and I'm sure he'll come up quickly to say night night, but then we're going to have some grown up time, so I want you to go to bed like a good girl. If you go to sleep nice and quickly I'll buy you some sweets tomorrow.'

‘Can I have a magazine too?' said Eadie, spotting an opportunity.

‘Eadie,' hissed Jennifer, her patience starting to wear thin. ‘Don't you blackmail me. I'm getting cross now. Just
go to bed.'

Jennifer left the room and went downstairs to see Max.

‘Hello,' she said, ‘how are you?'

‘Good, that was full-on today. Legs are going to kill tomorrow. I need a shower. Are the girls already in bed?'

‘Yes, well Polly is. Eadie's still awake. In fact, can you quickly say goodnight to her, then with a bit of luck we can have our dinner in peace.'

‘Mm smells lovely, what are we having?'

‘Steak, salad, jacket potatoes with sour cream, and corn on the cob.'

‘Oh wow,' said Max. ‘Fantastic, I could eat a horse.'

‘Well you'll need to leave some room for me,' said
Jennifer, in an attempt to get the whole sex thing rolling. Her comment was rather lost however because Max was looking straight past her.

‘Hello Eadie Beadie,' he said, managing to ignore what Jennifer had said quite magnificently and gazing up at his daughter who had just appeared at the top of the stairs, arm aloft. She looked like a mini angel of the North.

‘What are you doing?' spluttered Jennifer. ‘You promised Mummy you'd stay in bed.'

‘All right,' said Max, ‘calm down, she's not doing anything. It's not even eight yet anyway.'

‘See,' said Eadie triumphantly.

Jennifer gave up. Leaving them to it she took a deep breath and headed to the kitchen to make her sauce.

By the time Max finally appeared, showered and wearing a T-shirt and checked pyjama bottoms, dinner was on the table.

‘Ooh this looks amazing,' said Max appreciatively. ‘A bit of red meat's just what I fancy.'

‘Me too,' joked Jennifer, injecting tons of innuendo into her voice and wondering if she should flash Max a bit of stocking so that he'd get the hint. ‘Is Eadie asleep by the way?'

‘What do you think?'

Jennifer groaned. ‘Do you think she wants us never to have sex again for the rest of our lives or something? It's like she knows.'

‘It doesn't matter,' said Max tucking in. ‘She'll be
asleep soon enough so let's just enjoy our dinner, take our time, savour it, and by the time we're done and maybe have had another glass of wine she'll be out like a light and we can go upstairs and have sex.'

‘OK,' said Jennifer, feeling calmer. Honestly, once they'd got tonight out of the way she was going to ensure they got back into a routine of having sex far more regularly. Leaving it this long meant she was actually nervous. Not in an exciting, butterflies in the stomach type of way either. Instead it had reached the point where having sex with her husband felt like some sort of barrier she had to cross. She knew this was a slippery slope and was terrified of starting to view Max as her best friend or housemate. She needed him to want to be physically intimate with her and vice versa. Simply put, occasionally having your husband's penis inserted into you was what marked your relationship out as special and different to the one you had with everyone else wasn't it? She picked up her wine glass and pretty much drained it.

‘So anyway, how was therapy?' enquired Max, slathering his steak with mustard. ‘Helpful?'

Jennifer appreciated him making the effort to ask. She was well aware that really he thought it was a load of old hokum.

‘It was fine,' she said. ‘In fact, it was good.'

‘Good,' said Max, as if that was all sorted then.

‘I mean there's a long way to go but…you know…I felt like I really got something out of it today.'

‘Eadie, what are you doing down here, sweetheart?' asked Max as their daughter suddenly appeared at the door.

Jennifer glared at her daughter.

‘I can't sleep, my arm's itchy.'

Jennifer stopped glaring, felt guilty and rearranged her face into one of concern instead. ‘Hang on, I'll go and find the Calpol.'

One hour later and Eadie was finally asleep, Jennifer and Max were both stuffed with food and had polished off a bottle and a half of red between them. Jennifer's face was hot and she could feel her tongue furring up from the tannin already.

None of this was particularly conducive to sex but she didn't care.

‘Right, shall we go upstairs then?' she suggested, almost briskly. If she could have done, at this point she'd have just herded him up the stairs if that was what it took. Anything to just get the deed bloody well done.

‘Yes,' said Max, ‘let me just check in with Judith first though. Make sure everything was OK today, what with me being out of the office.'

‘Why don't you do that after?' asked Jennifer, trying not to sound intensely irritated.

‘Because I'd rather get it out of the way,' said Max, ‘and also because I don't want to disturb her too late.'

Jennifer was definitely quite drunk because she felt like sticking her tongue out and giving the whole notion of him
ringing Judith the finger. Still, she found some restraint from somewhere.

‘OK, well be quick won't you?' she said, walking as sexily as she could out of the room. ‘I'll be waiting upstairs for you…although, actually hang on, I need to take some water up. That wine's made my mouth so dry.'

When did life get so unspontaneous she thought, scuttling back to the tap?

Twenty minutes later Jennifer was starting to get deeply pissed off. She'd been lying wantonly on the bed in her temptress underwear waiting for Max for ages now. As soon as she'd got upstairs the first thing she'd done was to check that the girls were definitely asleep. Upon finding out they were, she'd stripped off, only leaving on her new bra, stockings, suspenders and G-string (cheesewire). She'd put on her highest pair of stilettos, glugged down half a pint of water, brushed her teeth and then arranged herself on the bed and waited, all the while contemplating how she was pretty sure that there had once been a time when she and Max had barely been able to make it up the stairs so eager were they to have sex with one another. Making her wait like this was very depressing and didn't exactly make her feel very attractive. It was almost like he'd be doing her a favour or something. As if having intercourse would be his final chore of the day. I mean, why of all times did he have to pick now to phone bloody
Judith? He'd had all day to do it. If he'd been truly looking forward to a night of passion like she had, wouldn't he have called her earlier and got it out of the way?

From downstairs the sound of Max's phone conversation floated upwards to the landing. It was like pouring petrol on the flames of her suspicion. He sounded so jovial, so alive, and like he was making every effort to be charming and engaging. This wasn't helping her mood at all, and if he laughed that nauseating laugh again she'd be tempted to take off one of her shoes and stab him in the eye with the heel.

Another ten minutes later and Jennifer was prickling with embarrassment. She felt so stupid. She felt unloved, unbelievably jealous, rejected and because she was trying so hard not to cry, all these emotions were steadily transforming into crystallised fury. How could he do this to her? By now Jennifer had given up sprawling on the bed and had decamped out onto the landing, where she was squatting on the floor, head stuck between the bannisters. That way she could hear exactly what was being said. Their conversation was all fairly innocuous but also seemed largely unrelated to work. Instead they were gossiping and sharing private jokes, which only confirmed that this was a chat that they definitely didn't need to be having now. The rawness of what she was feeling, combined with how much wine she'd drunk, meant that by the time he did finally terminate the call, the only thing she was ready for, was a fight.

‘How could you?' she said to a surprised Max as he finally rounded the top of the stairs only to find her crouching on the landing dressed like a prostitute.

‘What are you doing? What are you wearing?'

‘I'm wearing what I thought you might possibly find sexy enough to want to fuck me in. Only clearly I was wrong. Why did you have to talk to that stupid cow for so long? You knew I was waiting for you up here. It's so rude,' she cried, hot jealousy welling up inside her, like a volcano about to erupt.

‘Calm down,' said Max, only fuelling the fire further. ‘I told you I had to phone her because I took the day off today to help
you
. I'm sorry it went on for a bit but you know what Judith's like once she gets going.'

‘Oh, and I suppose you were physically unable to say something like
“I need to keep this quick because I'm in the middle of something”
. Or, “I'm
sorry Judith I've got to go because I haven't had sex with my wife for so long she doesn't know if I even love her any more”
. Or “I
must dash, my wife's dressed like a slut, only I've got to the point in life where I don't even care because I'd rather be talking to you”.'
Jennifer was so upset that by now she knew she was looking deranged but was unable to stop herself. She just needed to hear him say sorry.

‘You're being ridiculous,' Max thundered.

Jennifer recoiled because of course she
felt
ridiculous. There wasn't any part of her that wanted this to be happening. This was supposed to be their evening for a bit
of love and romance. Instead, she was dressed in this ‘get up' which she'd hoped he'd find really sexy but which was now making her feel like a cheap hooker, and she felt totally embarrassed. Worse still, Judith had impinged on their lives once again. she couldn't stand it.

‘You're so out of order,' she cried.

‘Oh for fuck's sake, you're being so dramatic. Just because you've had a couple of glasses of wine you act like an idiot.'

‘Fuck you,' screamed Jennifer.

‘Ssh, keep your voice down, you'll wake the girls.'

Jennifer was trembling with rage and hurt. She took a sharp inhalation of breath in an attempt to calm herself. Max had never taken kindly to histrionics. Plus she really didn't want to wake the children.

‘Look, I'm sorry I've got myself into this state,' she said, happy to acknowledge that she was acting like a crazy woman but determined to make him understand why. ‘I just want you to try and get how I feel. I've made loads of effort for tonight and I had hoped you might like what I was wearing. I wanted you to fancy me and for us to feel like we used to when we had sex. I wanted us to be close.'

‘You look great,' said Max unconvincingly.

‘But instead,' Jennifer said, smearing mascara across her face, ‘it's just another time which has been dominated by Judith, who you know I feel insecure about as it is.'

Max traipsed wearily from the landing into their room where he sunk onto their bed, shook his head and rubbed his face with his hands. ‘I'm too tired for this, Jen. I just want to go to bed now.'

Following him in, she felt sick. His lack of effort to make things better made her stomach turn. She felt terrified, yet intuition was telling her to keep digging. Why should she let him get away with this shitty treatment? Why was she constantly apologising all the time? It wasn't fair. It wasn't
all
her fault and she was fed up with being made to feel like it was, like she was mad.