Chapter Four
What A Mess
Later that night, after an hour and a half and three stories, Kate finally went to sleep. At last, the house was silent and I breathed a sigh of relief. There was laundry to be done and dishes from dinner still to be washed, but I couldn’t be bothered with either. Instead, I plodded wearily to my bathroom and ran a nice, hot bath.
I couldn’t contain the long, deep sigh I exhaled as my body slipped beneath the warm water and it seemed as if a huge weight had been lifted from me. Under the spell of that glorious calm, my brain stopped whirring and, for the first time in longer than I cared to recall, I was at peace.
I made no conscious decision to move my hands. In fact, I surprised myself when I found them slipping over the slick skin of my chest and caressing my breasts. Quickly giving way to the pleasant sensation, I allowed my eyes to lazily drift closed, as I continued to move my fingers in slow, teasing circles. When I reached my nipples, I found them rigid and aching. Gently gripping those tight pebbles between my forefingers and thumbs, I pinched lightly. “Hmmm,” I mumbled longingly, my right hand leaving my breasts and smoothing over my abdomen.
With my eyes shut, I imagined another hand traveling to my navel and slowly sliding over my mound. It was Paul I thought about. It had always been Paul; except perhaps for a short time when I was sixteen, when mind candy for my self-exploration was the blonde-haired guy from that boy band. The fact that Paul was, and always had been, the focus of almost all of my erotic fantasies wasn’t due to any misplaced sense of disloyalty via thought. It was simply a case of never having felt the need to focus on any other man. My husband turned me on – not everything about him, of course. The sight of him sprawled out on the bed that morning, for example, was not the stuff of my sexual dreams. However, there were always memories that I could hang my masturbating hat on. We’d had some really good times together, and it wasn’t difficult for me to focus on those.
My fingers moved leisurely over the neat triangle of short hair that covered my mound. Drawn further, they smoothed between my outer lips finding them smooth and plump. Bending one leg and sliding my foot up to my bottom, I offered my own roaming hand freer access. With the pad of my middle finger, I rolled carefully over my clitoris, which instantly responded.
Often, during moments like those, I’d think of the first time Paul touched me like that. It was several months before we went the whole way and not long after my eighteenth birthday. He’d been so nervous that his fingers were trembling. He didn’t know what he was doing, and truth be told, neither did I. Sure, I knew what felt good, but I hadn’t got a name for that small bud that sent warmth flooding through my entire body. We were both giddy and a little scared, but we laughed together and, eventually, he asked me to guide his fingers.
“Show me,” he’d urged. “Show me how to touch you.”
I was hesitant at first, sure that he’d much rather be in control of the situation. I was also reluctant to give the impression that he was doing something wrong. However, he continued to insist and, as I placed my fingers on top of his, it wasn’t close to being as embarrassing or awkward as I’d assumed it would be. That afternoon, I’d coaxed him into rubbing my clitoris, until I bucked and writhed in climax. What I didn’t know then, and would never have known had he not confessed it a couple of years later, was that the sight and feel of my orgasm had caused Paul to come in his pants.
Brought back to my present surroundings by the stirring of electricity between my legs, I started to increase the pressure of my touch. It had been several weeks since I’d pleasured myself and even longer since Paul had driven me to orgasm, so the speed of its climb caught me off guard. Usually, after long dry spells, my body is slow to reach boiling point.
I was close; so close. My mouth fell open and I began suck in shallow panted breaths. My hips were moving of their own volition, my backside swaying on the bottom of the tub in rhythm to the movement of my fingers. Sparks were triggering a restless warmth in my belly. And then, as I began to reach the summit, the phone’s harsh ringing ripped me from the high and yanked me back down. I tried to ignore it, I kept my eyes tightly shut and strummed my body with renewed vigor. However, as the beep of the answer machine cut in and my mother-in-law’s voice drifted to the bathroom from the phone on Paul’s bedside table, I removed my hand from between my legs with a muttered, “Shit.”
“Julia, it’s Carole,” she began in her hash, nasal tone. “I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay. I know you said you can cope, but I really think that things are becoming too much for you right now. It’s understandable,” she quickly added. “It’s hard for an inexperienced mother to care for three children on her own.”
The bath was suddenly no longer relaxing. My jaw had tightened and I felt my shoulders begin to rise to my neck. What she meant by ‘inexperienced mother’ I didn’t know. I’d been a mom for nearly eight years and certainly didn’t consider myself new to the job.
“All I mean is, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. And I’m always here if you need me,” she announced, a smile clear in her voice. “Anyway,” she added briskly. “Call me, because it’s really quite late and I’m concerned about where you are.”
“Argh,” I growled, my hands gripping the edges of the bathtub and imagined it was her neck beneath my fingers. With the firm click of her phone being put down, I gave up all hope of a soothing soak in the tub, let alone any prospect of sexual release. Yanking myself up, I reached for a big, fluffy towel with one hand and held it loosely to my chest, not bothering to wrap it around me. After quickly tugging the plug out of the bath, I wandered bare foot and dripping into the bedroom.
Once there, I stared at the phone, with a red light blinking on its base, for several seconds. Should I call her? If I did, she’d jabber on and on for ages. If I didn’t, she’d just keeping calling all night long. Making a sudden decision, I lunged forwards and edged the bedside table out slightly. Then, I grabbed the cable at the back of the phone and pulled until I felt the mains pop out of the wall socket.
With a satisfied nod and a naughty grin, I flopped down onto the bed. Knowing exactly what Carole would think if she could see me making the bed wet with the outline of my buttocks, I dropped onto my back. Sprawling out, I let my soaking wet hair drench the sheets. However, my delight in doing something that seemed so rebellious was short-lived. Eventually, I sat up and, when I did, I was met with my first real acknowledgment of the car crash that was my bedroom.
Up until that time, I hadn’t been back in the room since leaving it that morning. And as I’d strolled to the bath, I’d failed to really take it in. Carole’s opinion that I was a lazy wife and mother came back to haunt me. Our bedroom certainly was a mess, not of my making but, apparently, it was my ‘job’ to clean up after my husband.
There were clothes everywhere. The ones Paul had worn the night before were strewn on the floor from where he’d stripped them off that morning. His damp towel had been tossed at the foot of the bed and now just a tiny corner clung to the mattress while the rest draped slovenly on the floor. A sports bag sat beside the wardrobe. It was open with a creased shirt spilling out of it. This was the bag he’d taken on his last trip and must have been placed in the closet when he got home. Paul appeared to have pulled it out and been rummaging for something. Thoughtfully, he’d left it in disarray for me to deal with.
I considered leaving it; just watching TV and putting all that mess off until the morning. However, I couldn’t take my eyes off the state of the room and was bombarded by the thought that I wasn’t being a good enough wife to Paul. I was supposed to want to take care of him, it wasn’t meant to seem like a chore. Perhaps he felt, like his mom, that I wasn’t doing a very good job – was that why we’d been so disconnected?
Pushing myself up from the bed, I quickly strode back into the bathroom, tossed the towel in the laundry hamper and grabbed a robe. It was a silk one that reached my calves; a present from Paul for
my birthday. Carefully drawing the tie around my middle and securing it in place, I didn’t care that my damp hair was already soaking through the material at my shoulders.
Marching back into the bedroom, I pushed the sleeves of the robe up to my elbows and was ready for business. I moved quickly around the room, first picking up Paul’s towel and scooping that over my arm as I bent for his clothes. While I walked purposefully to the large bathroom hamper, I slipped my hands into his pants pockets, turning them inside out. True to form, a handful of change clattered onto the bathroom tiles.
“Paul,” I groaned, realizing that after a decade of begging him, he was never going to empty the pockets of his dirty clothes.
After tossing my armful into the laundry basket, I crouched and picked up each coin one by one. Two quarters, three dimes and five pennies. With a huff of weariness, I pushed myself upright and took the fistful of money to Paul’s bedside table. Right next to the phone was a sterling silver tray with ‘change is good’ engraved in the center. It had once belonged to Paul’s grandfather and, although he treasured it, he didn’t see fit to use it. With a satisfying clatter, I placed the coins onto the tray and spun on the balls of my feet.
The sports bag was the one remaining eyesore. I would have felt that I was on the home stretch, but the worst thing about being a housewife is that there’s never a home stretch. There’s always something to do; always more mess, because while you’re cleaning someone’s making some more. But, for the time being at least, I was on the verge of having a clean bedroom.
I moved for the bag, gripping the thick shoulder strap and half lifted, half dragged it into the bathroom. Setting it down by the still open hamper, I crouched down and began tugging each item of clothing from the bag. Two dress shirts went straight into the basket. A white T-shirt followed and then there were three boxer shorts. Black dress pants and a pair of jeans dwelt at the bottom and, sure enough, both had change and receipts stuffed in every available pocket.
“For God’s sake,” I muttered pulling out all the junk and chucking it temporarily in the bottom of the bag. As I did that, my eyes flashed down at the black polyester lining that was speckled with tiny balls of white fluff. My gaze caught something shiny. Releasing their grip on Paul’s jeans, my fingers delved into the bag. I tried to tell myself that it was just a little scrap of foil; it couldn’t possibly be what it looked like; what I thought it was. Grasping it with my forefinger and thumb, I slowly pulled it free from its hiding place. It wasn’t just the tiny edge I had been able to see. It was a full square with a clear circular indent. The shiny, blue wrapper had been ripped at the top and its contents removed.
The hand holding the condom wrapper began to tremble, as the implications of it settled painfully in my chest. My mouth and throat went instantly dry, while palpitations caused my eardrums to throb with each deep, pound of my heart. Paul and I hadn’t used condoms since our engagement; he’d never liked them, we both wanted a family anyway and, shortly after Lizzie was born, I’d started taking the pill. There was no need for any other form of contraception.
The object in my hand could mean only one thing. God knows I tried to find other explanations. Most of them were wild, nonsensical excuses; anything to avoid the truth that was staring me in the face. But there was no way to avoid it. Paul had an affair while he’d been away.
Dropping the wrapper and swiveling toward the tub, bile suddenly rose in my throat. I dry heaved, nothing more than saliva dribbling from my bottom lip while my throat burned. I remained that way for several minutes, my empty stomach continuing to retch.
Eventually, my insides stopped trying to turn themselves inside out, but my heart still raced and my fingers tingled with a lack of circulation. My knees beginning to feel numb, I forced myself up, regretting it almost instantly when my head pounded and I felt a wave of dizziness. Nevertheless, I pulled myself around to the sink and turned the cold faucet on full. I let the stream flow noisily for a second, while I looked at myself in the mirror. My usually bright complexion was deathly pale and my blue eyes gazed blankly ahead. Unable to bear the sight of myself, I stuck my head beneath the water’s stream, vigorously rinsing my face before filling my mouth with several large gulps.
When the feeling of nausea returned with a vengeance, I quickly turned off the water and slipped down onto the cold tiles, my legs collapsing beneath me. My back propped up against the edge of the tub was the only thing keeping me sitting upright. Never, either before or since, have I experienced such a sudden and debilitating sense of loss and disorientation.
It was an hour or more before I was finally able to drag myself up from the bathroom floor. By that point, I was still trembling, but it was no longer with fear. The victim mentality had been replaced with anger; a seething rage. Questions swirled around my frenzied brain, and I was determined to get answers.