Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (49 page)

Malinche says, firmly, ‘I want to work. Not full time,

of course, I’ll hire a manager and a chef: you and the girls

will always come first; but I need to do this for me. How

can I expect to interest you if I don’t interest myself?’

‘You do interest me,’ I say feverishly, ‘very much.’

“This is a second chance, Nicholas. It’s not carte blanche. I can’t promise I’ll always be able to look at you and not see her. I can’t promise I won’t take it out on you sometimes.

Throw it back in your face. I’m not a saint, you

know. And I want us to talk about this, I don’t want to

brush it under the carpet in that public schoolboy way of

yours; I know that’s not your way, but this is no time for

a stiff upper lip. We both have to find a way to live with

the past. It’s going to take time. We can’t just go back to

the way we were overnight.’

‘I know. I don’t expect that. I know I have to earn back

your trust. And obviously I’ll sleep in the spare room

until—’

‘Why she asks, ‘would you do that?’

‘Well, but you -1 mean—’

I’m acutely aware of the closeness of her body, the

flimsy jersey encasing her bare breasts, the glimpse of soft

thigh at the part of her skirt. Her warm scent is at once

achingly familiar and erotically exotic. She has changed. Or

perhaps: simply rediscovered what was there all along.

There is challenge in her honey-swirled eyes. Challenge;

and something else, something that seems almost

like desire-‘Sex is where everything starts and ends, Nicholas,’

she says clearly. ‘If you want to sleep in the spare room,

I might as well call your Ms Schultz now and—’

‘Christ, no! No, that’s not what I want! I want you, I’ve

always wanted you, you’re in my blood and my brain and

my body, you’re the reason my heart beats, you’re why I

get up in the morning. Jesus, don’t you understand that

still?’

She smiles. A slow, warm smile that reaches out to me.

‘That,’ she says, ‘is what I wanted to hear.’

I move towards her, but she backs away. Holding my

gaze, she unfastens the belt of her dress, and allows it to

fall to the floor. She is naked beneath it, but for those

heels. Her high breasts are as firm and pert as the day I

met her. She has the legs of a dancer, the poise of a queen.

Her belly is less taut, perhaps, than it used to be, but its

noIIiu’nh speaks of sensual, erotic pleasure, of fecundity

and libidinous, carnal satisfaction. Far rather this than the

hard-bodied stomach of a gym maven.

She moves with a confidence I haven’t seen for years.

She is in control: not just of this moment, I see suddcnlly,

but of herself, her life. She has made a choice.

‘Close your eyes, Nicholas she says.

And shut cut all of this?

She laughs at my expression. ‘Come on. Close your

eyes.’

I do as I’m bid. Her hands are at my trousers, unbuckling,

unzipping.

‘Now—’ she says:

—just as I smell it; just as I realize that however hard

the road ahead, however long it may take us to rebuild

our marriage, we will succeed, and it will be stronger aid

better than it ever was, that we have endured, that I am

the luckiest man alive-‘—open your mouth.’

Chocolate.