One Plus Two Minus One (20 page)

It was odd
and very unfair that Ethan was better than
Robert without even trying, while Robert did all the things
she was supposed to like. It was unfair because there was no way
Robert could fix it, no matter how hard he tried. He just wasn’t
what she wanted any more.

When he tried
to fuck her she told him to wear a condom.
She was thinking of Ethan and how she wasn’t using them
with him, then realized somehow her loyalties had got mixed up, and
it wasn’t Ethan she owed the condom to.

Robert
seemed surprised. “When did we start doing
that?” he said.

“
You weren’t
here,” she said.
“I went off the
pill.”

“
It’s in the
bathroom.”
Beside the sink, next to her
toothbrush, where she’d left it last night. But he probably
wouldn’t have noticed whether any pills were actually getting used.
She knew, from the one time they’d talked, that being grossed out
by her period went as far as being grossed out by the pink bit on
the foil around the inactive pills.

“
Yeah,” she
said, “I just left it there.
I’m not
taking them.”

“Your phone alarm still goes off.”

“
Hadn’t
bothered changing it.
Stop fucking
interrogating me.”

He looked at
her for a while then said, “You’ve got some somewhere?
Condoms?”

She almost
said no, to try and get out of sex, but he’d probably already found
the boxes she’d used with Ethan, still in the bathroom
drawer.
He’d probably already noticed
them. He shouldn’t be in her bathroom, poking around, but he
probably had been.

“
Bathroom,”
she said.
“Bottom drawer.”

Robert
went and got them, and they had sex, and Beth
laid there and didn’t really feel anything. She just watched him,
and didn’t care he was there.

Not how she watched Ethan when he was inside
her.

The next day
she had to change her phone alarm, and hide her pill, and start
taking it at lunchtime, when she was at her office and
Robert wasn’t around, all just to keep from
getting caught in one lie.

Everything
was getting complicated.
Robert didn’t
interest her any more, and she couldn’t think of any way to tell
him that which wasn’t utterly horrible, so she let him fuck her
instead.

She’d never felt as despicable as she did
then.

Robert
tried again a few nights later, and Beth just
lay there again, on her back, passive, watching. She felt like her
grandmother.

“
What’s
wrong?”
Robert said, and she shook her
head.

He tried to
get her to go on top, but she said she didn’t want to.
After a while she said, “Hold my wrists,” and he
looked confused, but did, and then at least she enjoyed that a
little.

He held her
arms down, and she watched him, but whatever she’d felt for a
moment was gone.
He held her arms
together, over her head, like Ethan did, but it wasn’t the
same.

He was
rubbing her, fumbling between her legs, and she watched, waiting,
fairly sure what he was about to do.
He
pressed his finger against her ass. It was wet enough to go in
without hurting, but it was probably just spit. Or her.

She moved, put her foot on his chest, pushed
him back.

“Don’t,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t want to.”

He tried
again, grabbed her wrists tighter, and was probably rougher than he
should have been.
She got more
interested, suddenly. It felt like that was wrong.

He turned her
over, pushed her face-down on the bed, and held her arms.
Like Ethan had sometimes.

She lay there for a moment, while he got lube
from the drawer and squeezed some out, and she was co-operating
enough she didn’t go anywhere while he did, and pretended not to
notice that awkward little pause.

He held her
down and slid a finger up her ass, then two.
She lay there and didn’t stop him. He pushed his cock into
her, which was a bit sudden, and she’d have said so except she
actually wanted him to, a bit, despite herself.

He started
fucking her, and let go of her arm, and that spoiled
everything.
So she tried to bang her
elbow into him, backwards, to make him grab her again. He did, and
she actually felt excited.

It still
hurt, though, a little.
She hadn’t been
nearly ready enough. It got worse, started to sting. “Hurry,” she
said. “I can’t…”

He
did.
Then lay there on top of her while
they both panted.

She was
confused and a bit revolted by herself.
Apparently she only wanted sex with Robert if he made her,
and she really wasn’t sure she was okay with that.

“I didn’t like that,” she said after a
while.

“You seemed to.”

“
Go fuck
yourself.”
She wriggled out from
underneath him and sat up. He’d had a condom so she didn’t need to
run off to the bathroom straight away.

“I told you not to,” she said.

He looked at
her and didn’t answer.
She was right.
She’d told him not to, and he kept going anyway, and to Robert, at
least in theory, that was an unforgiveable sin.

“
I don’t like
doing that,” she said.
“Not in my
ass.”

“You never minded before,” he said.

“And now I do.”

She sat there for a moment.

“
Back then I
did too,” she said.
“I just didn’t tell
you.”

He seemed a
bit hurt.
“You should have said
something.”

“I am.”

He nodded.

“
Has it ever
occurred to you,” she said.
“That we’re
both professors now. I’m a professor. And you’re still trying to
stick your cock up my bum like we were kids.”

“I don’t think our jobs have got anything to
do with this.”

“
Yours
doesn’t.
Mine does. I have a proof.
People write about my work. In a few years I’m going to be tenured.
And you want to ass-fuck me like I’m sixteen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“
Me
either.
Just don’t do that, okay. I never
liked it. It hurts.”

He nodded.

He still seemed upset, and she felt bad.

“
I don’t mind
doing things with you,” she said.
“Sometimes I like it. But I get sick of you just doing it
without asking me.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“Okay.”

She
sat.
She wasn’t sure why, until she
suddenly realized she was expecting more. She’d been around Ethan
too long. A guy came inside her, and she just hovered, waiting for
him to start again.

That wasn’t
going to happen with
Robert.

“I didn’t come,” she said.

“
I
know.
Sorry.”

She looked at him for a while, and decided he
really wasn’t getting the hint.

“Could you do something about that?” she
said.

“
Yeah,” he
said.
“Of course.”

He still didn’t move.

“Well?” she said.

“Aren’t you going to have a shower?”

She sat there
for a while and wondered what to say.
He
stuck his cock up her ass without asking, and she ended up dirty
and needing a shower before he’d put his tongue on a completely
different part of her.

“Never mind,” she said, and stood up.

“Beth…”

“Never mind.”

She got herself off in the shower and by the
time she’d finished, the whole sex thing seemed to have been
forgotten.

*

Beth was
missing Ethan.
She wanted to see Ethan.
There were other ways she could have organized it, but they would
be complicated and take time out of her research and it was about
to be poker night anyway. She wanted him at poker night. She wanted
him to meet her friends, and pretend everything in her life was
normal and Robert just wasn’t here, and that the way things should
have been evolving with Ethan by now would keep evolving
anyway.

Sometimes she didn’t make sense even to
herself.

She phoned Amanda and said, “Can Ethan come
to poker night?”

“Is he a girl?”

“Not really.”

“Only girls at poker night.”

“
Please.
Just this
time?”

“Just go fuck him, then come find us.”

“I want him to meet you all.”

“Aw, that’s kind of sweet.”

“
I
know.
So yes?”

“So maybe.”

“
We can have
it at my place.”
They smoked cigars, so
whoever’s house it was stunk for a week. Everyone wanted poker
night and no-one wanted to host it.

“
Yep,” Amanda
said.
“Deal. If no-one else
minds.”

“I’ll ask.”

“
You
will.
And hey, Beth, remember he’s poor
and we’re not. You might need to lend him money or
something.”

They played
for fairly large amounts of money.
Because when Amanda started it, she’d said that it wasn’t
fun unless you were playing for more than you wanted to lose. And
they all had disposable income and no commitments and that wouldn’t
be the case forever, so they had. Getting your first academic job
meant doubling your income at least. For Beth it had meant tripling
it.

Beth phoned
everyone, and pleaded and blackmailed, and in the end they all said
yes.
All were scientists, all early
career over-achievers who needed an outlet. Keri in chemistry, Anna
in mathematical physics, Sofia in computer science. Beth warned
Sofia that Ethan might be one of her students, but she didn’t seem
to care. She seemed more interested in meeting him.

Then she
phoned
Robert and said he needed to go to
a hotel tonight, that she had girls’ poker night and she’d
forgotten, sorry. It would go late so not to bother coming
back.

Then she phoned Ethan and said, “What are you
doing tonight?”

“You, I assume.”

Ha ha, she
thought, but was glad he was free.
She
hadn’t thought to check first.

“
Yep,” she
said.
“Hope so. Want to meet my friends
too?”

“
Sure.
Are you okay with that?”

“
These
friends, yeah.
Do you play
poker?”

“Not really.”

“Do you know how?”

“Kind of.”

She thought
for a moment, suspicious.
“Like don’t
right up until you hustle me, or really don’t?”

“
Really
don’t.
I get lost with the seven card
draw and all that shit.”

“
Yeah, that’s
okay.
It’s just basic poker. You
sure?”

“
Yeah.
I’d like to meet your people.”

“
Come to my
place. After seven.
Be a bit late, I’ll
text when it’s clear.”

*

Poker night
happened once a month and was loud and rude and they all got very
drunk.
Beth didn’t text Ethan until she
was sure Robert had gone for the night, so the others were there,
drinking, teasing her, making her wonder if this was a terrible
idea.

When Ethan
knocked she got up and met him at the door.
She was holding a cigar. She handed him whiskey, and kissed
him like she’d been wanting to for a week, all open and needy and
desperate.

He pulled a face when he tasted her
mouth.

“Man up,” she said, grinning. “That’s the
taste of testosterone.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just what I always wanted
in a girlfriend.”

“More,” she said, and kissed him again, and
he didn’t seem to really mind her smoky mouth.

He was
touching her back, sliding his hand around.
He reached up her front and put his hand on her
tit.

“
Yep,” she
said into his mouth.
“Poker night. No
girly shit. This is a night to be men and do manly
things.”

He thought about that for a moment, then
said, “That’s just creepy.”

So she flashed him, and he stared, and got
interested in kissing her again.

“Nope,” she said. “Come and meet
everyone.”

She pulled him backwards towards the
lounge.

“
Oh yeah,”
she said.
“By the way. You perve, we all
kill you. Just so you know.”

“Perve at what?”

“
Ah,
dude.
A night to be men, manly
things?”

He looked blank.

“
No-one’s got
a bra on, you dick, and some of them are your professors.
So you perve, and first I kill you, and then
they all do too.”

He grinned,
and nodded.
“Okay.”

They were
sitting around the kitchen table filling her lounge with vile
smoke.
She had the ranch sliders open and
the kitchen extractor fans on in the hope it would help, but it
didn’t really. It never did.