Love Rules (32 page)

‘That'll certainly put me to sleep with a smile on my face,’ Saul chuckled, switching off the light, spooning against her and nuzzling the nape of her neck.

It all felt dirty. As if everything needed a good scrub and a boil wash. Saul's sheets. Saul's bathroom. Saul's crockery. Thea's body.

‘I have Pilates three times this week,’ she announced after a lengthy, scalding-hot shower the next morning. Actually she had only the one class booked. Saul nodded as he tucked into two croissants on account of Thea claiming no appetite. ‘And Alice and I are going to the cinema tonight.’

No, we're not – but Alice'll cover for me.

‘Busy bee!’ Saul said affectionately. ‘You'd better start packing too.’

Oh, God. My flat. I have just over a fortnight.

‘Yes,’ Thea agreed, ‘lots to sort out.’

‘But we're off to my parents this weekend, remember?’

‘This weekend? Oh. Oh, God. I forgot.’

I did forget. It's true.

‘Yes – but it isn't a problem, is it? They're looking forward to seeing you again.’

‘It's just that I promised Alice I'd—’

‘Oh.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don't worry. We'll go another time.’

‘But you'll still go? You must, Saul – they'll be so disappointed.’

‘Yes – I'll go. See if you can change whatever it is with Alice?’

‘I'll try.’

No, I won't.

Thea couldn't leave Saul's flat fast enough, inventing an early booking at the Being Well. Yet, by the time she arrived at work, she sat alone in her room at the top and felt like running all the way back to Saul's. An hour later, she felt intense hatred. By lunchtime she was so confused that she wondered whether she'd imagined it all. During the after-noon, all doubt had been blasted away by pure anger. By teatime she was exhausted. When Saul phoned her, his voice made her shudder. She couldn't possibly countenance seeing him at all while her emotions were so varied and raw. She feigned flu and managed to avoid him for five days.

The Oldest Trade

I never noticed before. I never noticed, but suddenly I see that the world is full of prostitutes. Or is it that I'm becoming obsessed? Only a month ago the world seemed a very nuptial place – everywhere I looked I saw brides and weddings and everything pointed to love and romance. De Beers' adverts on buses. The local church festooned with flowers. Honeymoon special in the ‘Escape’ section of the
Observer.
Now my world is rife with the world's oldest trade. I've just been to my local newsagent's. I never before stopped to read those hand-written cards in the window. I couldn't believe it – an alarming number of them offer ‘exotic massage’ or ‘adult fun’ or ‘toys and role play’. One advertised ‘dominatrix. Nice flat.’ What does Mr Patel think he's doing, condoning all of this? And the newspaper I've just bought has three different scandals involving hookers – a politician caught kerb crawling, a police raid on a vice ring in suburbia and a respected actor caught with an escort and Class A drugs in a Leeds hotel. If I'd bought a tabloid, I bet there'd be even more stories.

Have you ever noticed how every local high street has a dodgy massage/sauna establishment? But have you ever seen
anyone actually go in or come out? You should see the phone box near work, it's awash with cards advertising the services of Asian Nymph, Busty Blonde, Thai Princess, Fantasia Twins and scores of other unlikely-named sex workers. Who uses phone boxes nowadays anyway? Doesn't everyone have a mobile? Are they there only as a pinboard for pimps? I noticed that two of the cards have the same photo but with different names and phone numbers. As if, in the end, all the punter requires is a nice, accommodating vagina: surface details are interchangeable or irrelevant. Perhaps it simply doesn't matter what she looks like.

Are they prettier than me?

Are they better in bed than I am?

How much does it cost?

How much does Saul pay?

How much money has he spent, over the years?

I hate him I hate him but how then can I miss him? I haven't seen him for a week. I'm running out of excuses. I've done the imagined flu. Now I'm fobbing him off with make-believe Pilates classes and non-existent arrangements with Alice. I know I can't keep kidding myself that I'll think about it all later, that somehow I'll know what to do. I don't know what to do. I cannot believe this has happened. Maybe it didn't. Perhaps I was mistaken. There's probably a straight-forward explanation. There has to be. Saul Mundy does not use prostitutes. It really is the most loathsome and ridiculous notion.

‘Alice? Can you meet me for lunch? There's something we need to do.’

‘Of course I can.’

It is one of the most bizarre marks of their friendship but also the truest stamp of their intimacy and loyalty that neither Alice nor Thea has thought to acknowledge that they're
on speaking terms again. In fact, they've slipped right back into being the closest of friends. There have been no out-right apologies, no calm or emotional workshopping of their massive falling-out. Thea is in the midst of a crisis – why wouldn't she turn to Alice for help? And why wouldn't Alice drop everything to be there? Apologize? Who should apologize to whom? Didn't you know that love means never having to say you're sorry?

Thea and Alice retraced her steps of a week ago, or were they Saul's steps, back down Berwick Street. They turned left and stopped outside Black Beauty's stable. There was the doorway, wide open; the shabby staircase leading up.

‘Do you want me to go up?’ Alice asked.

Thea looked at her as if she was crazy. ‘And do what?’

‘I don't know,’ Alice shrugged. ‘Suss it out? Talk to them? Ask them if they know Saul?’

‘No!’ Thea cried. ‘No! I don't even know why I need to be here.’

They crossed the street and loitered. The perspex shop was once again closed for an hour. ‘Need any perspex?’ Alice asked Thea, while they lingered, as if she was talking about toothpaste or postage stamps. Thea laughed nervously though a frown was stitched to her face. They watched and waited. No one went in or came out of the building.

‘Do they have days off, do you think?’ Alice pondered.

‘What are we doing here?’ Thea asked Alice.

‘I don't know,’ Alice admitted. ‘If we loiter much longer, they might think we want a job.’

Thea tittered bravely but then a man went in and wiped her smile away.

‘Christ,’ Alice hissed, ‘he could have been our fathers – did you see him? All suited and dapper and –
normal
?’

‘I think I want to go now,’ Thea pleaded, walking a few yards this way and then that, ‘I don't know what to do.’ She
started walking away. ‘I don't want to wait for him to re-appear. I don't want to time him. I don't want to stand here while he's paying – and having – sex right now, yards from where we are.’

Alice linked arms with her and they walked briskly away. She sat Thea down in a café and allowed her as much silence and middle-distance gazing as she needed. Finally, Thea looked up and mouthed, ‘I don't know what to do, Alice. I don't know what to do about anything. What do I do with all my plans?’

‘Do you love him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it enough?’

‘I don't think so.’

‘Had you any other doubts, any at all, before you uncovered all this?’

‘None whatsoever.’

Alice shook her head and shrugged. ‘I know, without asking him or you, that this man loves you absolutely.’

‘But he goes to prostitutes!’ Thea protested, suddenly objecting to Saul having anything in his defence at all.

‘We don't know that,’ Alice said, hoping she sounded more convinced than she felt, ‘not for sure.’

‘I saw him go in! I saw him come out!’ Thea declared. ‘I don't think Black Beauty runs the Anna Sewell fan club. I don't think “Models! top” sell Plasticine or Hornby toy rail-ways.’ Thea was hunched, rocking with the pain of it all. ‘I want to run away.’

Alice felt powerless as she tried to comfort her. ‘If you run from pain, it will follow you – but if you turn towards it, face it head on, it can only reach halfway,’ Alice soothed.

‘But that's like saying a problem shared is a problem solved and it's not, Alice, it's not,’ Thea sobbed tearlessly. ‘I've shared with you that Saul pays for sex, fucks hookers,
visits prostitutes, call it what you will and what have I solved? My anguish isn't lessening, it's increasing.’

Alice sucked at her bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps he doesn't have sex with them, Thea. Maybe he has a perversion he's embarrassed about – maybe he likes to dress as a baby or a nun, perhaps he likes to look but not touch. Maybe he likes to be spanked or spat at or pissed on or God knows what.’

‘He has
me
!’ Thea bellowed. ‘Let him spank me, if that's what he wants. I'll wee on him, if that turns him on. If he satisfies my every desire, why can't I satisfy his?’

Alice paused again. ‘I'll do the devil's advocate thing, OK?’ She waited for Thea's reluctant shrug before continuing. ‘We don't know the specifics but what we do know is that it's Saul's secret. Don't we? Isn't it? A secret he'd categorically hate you to discover. You chanced upon his most private whim, however deviant we decree it. You weren't meant to know. He'd be mortified.’

‘No!’ Thea all but barked. ‘No Alice
no
. Christ, sometimes I pick my nose and eat it, sometimes I waft the duvet and indulge in the stench of my farts, sometimes I fantasize about gang-bangs – those are the secrets of
mine
that I'd hate Saul to discover. Come
on
. No! No correlation.’

‘At our age, we all have history,’ Alice tried a different tack.

‘This isn't history!’ Thea objected. ‘A week ago is
not
history!’

‘The thing I'm sure about,’ said Alice, trying to sound balanced and credible, ‘is that he's not doing this to hurt you. OK? Can you hear that? Saul wouldn't do anything to hurt you. You
are
the love of his life and I think that you
do
know that. Whatever he's doing, whatever he pays for, it
is
a weird, upsetting, dark predilection – but on paper he's a wonderful boyfriend. You've never doubted him, you've never loved or been loved so deeply, so entirely. So, can you live with it?’

‘Turn a blind eye?’ Thea was staggered. ‘Ignore the fact that the man I honour with my sexual fidelity fucks whores in his lunch hour?’ Alice looked down at the table. ‘What would you do, Alice,’ Thea asked her levelly, just then thinking that Saul wasn't so much dark as the devil incarnate, ‘if this was you? If you found out that Mark pays for sex?’

They looked at each other and tears sprang to both sets of eyes. They both knew that Mark simply wouldn't.

‘I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,’ Thea sobbed.

‘The thing is,’ Alice said carefully, ‘I think you really want to hate him but I don't think you ever can.’

‘I never want to see him again.’

‘The thing is,’ said Alice, ‘at some point you're simply going to have to.’

Thea's Two O'Clock

‘Hullo, babes.’ Peter Glass was waiting in reception, halfway through the
Evening Standard
when Thea arrived back late from her lunch with Alice. Thea was not in the mood to be called babes. Just then she hated the male species without exception.

‘How are you, Peter?’ Thea asked perfunctorily, as she led the way to her room.

Do you pay for sex, Peter Glass? Is it a toss-up between one kind of massage and another? Did I win or lose today, hey?

‘I'm the usual, babes. You know, stressed, overworked,’ he laughed. ‘It's my sodding lower back today, Thea. The pain is going down my leg – I'm hobbling, it hurts to drive even the Beemer.’

‘OK,’ Thea said, skimming through her notes on his last visit, ‘down to your boxer shorts and onto the bed, please.’ In the calm of her room, with something to absorb her, she was soon grateful to Peter for bringing her his aches and pains. For an hour she could take her mind off what irked her and concentrate instead on alleviating someone else's discomfort. It was something she knew how to do. Placing her
hands on Peter's back, Thea began to rock his pelvis rhythmically to and fro.

‘How are you, babes?’ Peter asked, his voice suddenly softer as his body began to unwind under Thea's guidance. ‘How's it going? All signed and sealed on the new place? Have you exchanged on yours?’

Thea stopped rocking and for the first time in her career, entirely took her hands away from a client's body mid-massage. Peter felt the chill and isolation and lifted his head, twisting round to look at her. She looked very puzzled. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, though she didn't look it. ‘Peter, is it possible for the vendor to unexchange a contract?’

‘Revoke?’ he balked as if the crime was so heinous as to be virtually unheard of. Thea shrugged. ‘Fucking hell, Thea,’ he said, returning his head to the hole in the massage bed, ‘you'll be sued to within a pound of their entire deposit – they just changed the law to prevent misdemeanours like that.’

‘I thought so,’ Thea said with forced jollity. ‘Cold feet?’ Peter asked. ‘Nah,’ Thea faked her nonchalance, ‘I was just wondering.’ She said no more. She rubbed some more ointment between her palms and effleuraged Peter's back with long, smooth strokes. When he wasn't groaning in appreciation and sighing with relief, he was filling her in on the details of his life, professional and personal. He'd pranged the Beemer, he'd chucked the girlfriend, bedded her best mate to make her jealous but since started dating a teacher.

‘Not my usual type, Thea,’ he marvelled, ‘she's a bit older than me and not what I'd call a “stunner”. But she's a great girl and she makes me laugh out loud.’

Thea hooked her fingers around the lateral fibres of Peter's latissimus dorsi, lifting and pulling medially. It silenced him
for a while and then he started a rant against a rival estate agent. She set about some deep tissue work where he didn't realize he needed it and for the time being, she managed to massage away the stress his adversaries had heaped around his neck and shoulders.