Riders

28

Hilary, in fact, was Rupert’s first serious affair since he had met Helen, and it was a complete love-hate relationship. Despite her protestation that all men were beasts, Hilary herself was an animal in bed — insatiable, almost a nymphomaniac. She didn’t bathe enough, she was a slut, she had a bad temper, and Rupert had to keep kissing her to shut her up, and later cut her nails himself to stop her lacerating his back. He detested her hypocrisy in still going on being a friend to Helen.

It was the one affair about which he never boasted to Billy, knowing how appalled Billy would be. Making love to Hilary was like eating a pork pie when you were desperately hungry, then discovering by the date on the discarded wrapping that it should have been eaten a month before.

“If you ever breathe a word about this to Helen I’ll throttle you,” he frequently warned her, and she knew he wasn’t joking. This, however, did not prevent her from rocking the boat. The night before Rupert was due to leave for Aachen he’d stood her up and she had rung up Penscombe in a rage, screaming at Rupert down the telephone. Rupert, who was in bed with Helen at the time, reading his horoscope in Harper’s, held the receiver to his ear for a minute, then said calmly, “Have, a word with Helen about it. She’s just here.” And Hilary was forced to pull herself together and issue an impromptu invitation for Helen and Rupert to come to a dinner party in three weeks’ time, which meant she had to go to all the expense of giving one.

For Hilary, despite her ranting, was mad about Rupert and grew increasingly strident as he showed no inclination to move in with her. Part of the fascination for him was that they saw so little of each other, perhaps a couple of hours a month.

Hilary was sure she could nail him if they had a little more time together. While Rupert was in Aachen at the end of July, she flew out to Germany, leaving the children with the long-suffering Crispin. Her excuse was that she needed to be alone to paint. After Aachen, Rupert sent Podge home with Billy and the horses, saying he was off horse-hunting and would be home in a day or two. He had been very short-tempered with Podge all week, because he felt guilty and nervous about Hilary coming out. Together, he and Hilary drove to a hotel in the Black Forest, chosen by Hilary. Their stay was a disaster. Having screwed her, Rupert found it a nightmare to have to make conversation with her at dinner, or walk with her in the forest, or be greeted by her carping, rather common voice when he woke in the morning. After forty-eight hours, they had a mighty row and returned home on separate planes.

Podge, meanwhile, had returned home twenty-four hours earlier with Billy and Janey to find England in the grip of a drought. Day after day the sun blazed down; young trees and flowers withered; Penscombe’s green valley turned yellow; the streams dried to a trickle; leaves were turning. In Gloucestershire people were forbidden to water the garden or wash their cars, and there was talk of standpipes and water rationing.

When they got back, Janey and Billy collapsed into bed for sixteen hours to get over the journey. But Podge and Tracey still had to get up at six next morning after four hours’ sleep, because the horses had to be looked after. When a telephone message came through that Rupert was coming back that evening, Podge redoubled her efforts. Usually, to reestablish his ascendancy as master of the house and the yard, he came home in a picky mood, criticizing everything she’d done and then biting her head off for sulking. By late afternoon, the relentless heat showed no sign of letting up. Most of the horses were inside to avoid the flies, and were let out at night. Arcturus, a gray Irish-bred stallion, was Rupert’s latest acquisition. He showed potential, but had blotted his copy book by jumping sloppily at Aachen. Wearing only a black bikini and espadrilles, her sweating hair in a ponytail, Podge chattered away to him as she strapped his dappled coat to firm up his muscles.

“Bugger off, sweetheart,” she said, as Arcturus nudged her lovingly in the back. “Your master’s coming home tonight, and he’ll want you looking lovely. Hope he’s cheered up and not cross with us anymore, Arcy. You didn’t mean to hit that last triple, and I didn’t mean to bugger up the map-reading on the way out. He can be ’orrible, Arcy. If he wasn’t so lovely when he was being lovely, I don’t s’pose we’d put up with the ’orrible bits.”

“I don’t expect you would,” said a voice behind her, “but I’m in one of my lovely moods today.”

Arcturus jerked up his head as Podge jumped out of her skin, dropping the whisp and going crimson. “I didn’t think you was coming back till this evening,” she muttered.

“Obviously not, or you’d be properly dressed.”

“Sorry.” She picked up the straw whisp and attacked Arcturus’s already gleaming flanks again. “But it’s been ever so ’ot.”

“You look very fetching,” said Rupert, pulling her ponytail. “I just don’t want Phillips getting ideas.” Phillips, the undergardener, had an unrequited crush on Podge. “You’re my property,” added Rupert.

Podge was filled with a happiness so intense, that tears stung her eyelids.

“Hey,” said Rupert, giving her ponytail another gentle tug, “you don’t seem very pleased with me.”

“I am, I am.” She brushed away the tears with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of dirt across her face. “I just thought you was cross with me, and if I got everyfink perfect for when you got back, you wouldn’t be.”

“Everything looks fine,” said Rupert. “I’m going to change. Finish off Arcy and then we’ll walk up the fields and see Gemini’s foal.”

He sauntered off, followed by Badger and two of the Jack Russells.

Podge’s hands shook as she filled the haynet and Arcturus’s water bucket. Then she shot up to the loft and frantically washed her face. Oh, that awful muddy smear down one side. And she’d wanted to wash her hair before he got back. It must still reek of Billy and Janey’s chain-smoking on the drive home. She had a frantic shower, twice washing under her arms and three times between her legs, and making herself sneeze by shaking on so much talcum powder. She’d just pulled on a faded orange T-shirt and skirt which clung to her wet body, when she heard Rupert yelling from downstairs. As she came backwards down the ladder out of her attic flat, Rupert was waiting, sliding his hands up under her skirt, his thumbs biting into her plump bottom.

“Don’t,” she shrieked.

He was wearing nothing but a pair of old jeans and he smelt of an expensive French aftershave which she couldn’t pronounce. Suddenly she had difficulty breathing.

“Not here,” she gasped. “What about Phillips and Mrs. Campbell-Black?”

“In London. Come on. Why’d you change? You looked sexy in that bikini.”

“Too fat,” muttered Podge, pulling on gum boots.

“What the hell are those for?”

“Adders,” muttered Podge. “Phillips killed one by the tennis court last week. And nettles and thistles.”

As they walked up the scorched fields, Rupert carrying the Hasselblad camera he’d won in Aachen, the chestnut trees were raining down orange leaves, the thistles were turning to kapok, and the little copse of hornbeams Rupert had planted earlier in the year had already died. There were huge cracks in the ground. In the distance they could hear the jangle of a fire engine.

“If we don’t get some rain soon, we’re going to be in trouble,” said Rupert. “Going’ll be murder at Crittleden.”

The nettles on the way down to Billy’s secret pond, which used to reach to four feet and close over the top, were shrunk to a pathetic eighteen inches and no threat to Podge’s legs today. The pond was almost empty. Sweat was running in rivulets between Podge’s breasts and down her sides. She felt her heart pounding.

“Which horses are you taking to Rotterdam?” she asked.

“You asked me that five minutes ago. You’re not concentrating,” Rupert said mockingly. As they reached the bottom of the path, he took her hand and turned right.

“Gemini’s in the oak meadow,” said Podge quickly.

“We’ll go and see her later,” said Rupert. “I’ve got more pressing plans for you.” He put his arm round her waist, then moved it upwards, till his hand squeezed her left breast. “Very pressing.” Then he let her go.

They reached the stream that ran down the valley with water meadows on either side. It was greener here, the stream choked with figwort and forget-me-not. A circle of ash trees formed a sun trap. No one could see them from the road.

“What happens if someone walks across the fields?”

“Private property. I’ll have them for trespassing.” Rupert raised his hand and smoothed the sweat from her face. “I’ve missed you, Podge,” he said gently. “Get your clothes off.”

An expression of doubt flickered in her eyes, but she took off the orange T-shirt so that her breasts fell out full, pointed, and sloping downwards.

“Lean against that tree,” said Rupert, adjusting his camera for the light.

Instinctively, Podge put her hand up to loosen her hair.

“No, leave it tied back. I want to see the expression on your face.”

“I haven’t any makeup on.”

“Suits you. Put your arms above your head and lean back against the trunk. Beautiful. Christ, you’ve got gorgeous boobs. Now turn sideways. Keep your arms up, lovely.” He took another picture, then came over, running his hands over her breasts, then kissing her. He tasted of toothpaste and animal health and wonderful digestion. Putting her arms round him, Podge kissed him back so violently, they nearly toppled over.

“Steady,” he whispered. “I haven’t finished yet.”

He undid the drawstring of her skirt and she stepped out of it, then he pulled her panties off. The mouse brown bush was flattened and he ran his hands through it to fluff it up. Then he spread the pink lips. A shiny snail’s trail was trickling down both thighs.

“All right, keep your legs apart. Don’t be shy, sweetheart. If you knew how fantastic you look. Now turn around. Don’t tense your bum up. Relax.” She heard two more clicks. She waited, clinging onto the ribbed surface of the tree, throat dry, heart crashing against her ribs. Then she felt a warm hand on her back. Rupert wasn’t even sweating.

“Lovely arse,” he said softly, running his fingers down the cleft before he came to the sticky warmth between her legs.

“Christ,” he said, his hand like a burrowing ferret. “You are the most welcoming thing.”

He thought of Hilary’s tantrums, of her vacuum-cleaner kisses, her sharp teeth and scraping hands. He thought of Helen’s cool distaste and he compared them with Podge’s ecstatically grateful gentleness.

“Why don’t you take your clothes off?” she said, turning around and kissing him passionately, as she fumbled with the zip of his jeans and then his briefs. Then, sinking to her knees, she buried her face in the blond hair of his groin, sucking him as pleasurably as a child with a lolly.

“Steady, sweet. I don’t want to come yet.”

As he turned to remove his trousers, she seized the camera. “Now it’s my turn to photograph you!”

Giggling hysterically, she photographed him as he was turning, then caught him again as he was coming towards her half laughing, half angry.

The next moment he’d caught up with her, pushing her down on the grass, parting her legs, and kissing her damp bush. She writhed, tensed, gave a gasp of pleasure, and came. So blissfully quickly, thought Rupert. Recently, Hilary seemed to come later and later, like the Christmas postman. He turned over, lay back, and pulled Podge on top of him, feeling her muscles, so tight but so oily, gripping him, breasts swaying like party balloons when the front door opens. Really, she was gorgeous.

The sun had disappeared behind the ashwood by the time they had finished, sated with pleasure and exhaustion. Podge rinsed herself out in the stream, startling several minnows. As they walked home up the sun-drenched valley, Rupert picked grass seed out of her hair.

“There isn’t time to see Gemini’s foal,” he said. “I’ve got to go and give the prizes at Cheltenham Flower Show.”

They were greeted in the yard by Tracey and Phillips. “Mrs. Campbell-Black’s just rung from London,” said Tracey. “I couldn’t find you. Will you ring her back?”

“Just been up to the oak meadow to photograph Gemini’s foal,” said Rupert coolly.

“That’s funny,” muttered Phillips, bitter with jealousy, to Rupert’s departing back. “The grass was so poor, we moved them up to Long Acre this morning.”

Rupert went off to Rotterdam two days later. The day before he was due back, Helen drove into Cirencester to shop and bumped into Hilary in the market, crossly buying cheese for the dinner party she’d been forced into giving the following night.

“Rupert is going to be back, isn’t he?” she demanded. “Not that he’s a great asset at dinner parties, always making fascist remarks and falling asleep. But I’ve got ten smoked trout and I don’t want my numbers messed up.”

Helen, who found herself increasingly irritated by Hilary, said you could never be sure with Rupert, but she thought it’d be 99 percent certain.

“Well, make sure he’s there,” said Hilary. “No, about an inch more Dolcelatte, please.”

Hilary had realized by the time she got back from the Black Forest how much she was going to miss the excitement Rupert provided in her drab life. She must get him back. It would be too cruel if he didn’t turn up tomorrow night.

Leaving her, Helen popped into the chemist to pick up the rolls of film she’d found lying around on Rupert’s dressing table. He’d actually taken some of Marcus last time he was back and she was dying to see them. Mr. Wise, the chemist, had popped out and hadn’t checked the photographs as he normally did. He always liked to look through the Campbell-Blacks’ folders; they often contained pictures of famous people and interesting places abroad.

The drought didn’t seem to be deterring the trippers at all. Stuck in a holiday traffic jam on the way back to Penscombe, Helen couldn’t resist looking at the photographs. That was a gorgeous one of Marcus, but she wished Badger wasn’t licking his face, and a lovely one of the rose bower, and a rather boring one of the Jack Russells and Arcturus. Why must Rupert always photograph animals? That was lovely of the herbaceous border, and the valley; how yellow it was now. That must be Gemini’s foal. She’d finished one folder and shook the photos out of the next. The first thing she saw was a plump, topless girl. Mr. Wise must have given her the wrong set of photographs. Here was another one of her full length, legs apart, in the most disgustingly provocative pose. Helen looked closer, and stiffened. The girl looked like Podge. She looked at four more pictures, all disgusting. Yes, they were definitely Podge. The next one, taken at an angle, half cut off the man’s head, but the rest of him looked decidedly familiar. The next, also naked, was definitely Rupert, full frontal and roaring with laughter.

A second later, Helen had rammed the Porsche into the car in front with a sickening crunch. She banged her head hard, and the bonnet of the car just buckled up like the face of a bulldog in a cartoon film.

“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” yelled the driver of the car in front. He found Helen crying hysterically, trying to collect together the scattered photographs before anyone else could see them.

Rupert flew in from Rotterdam around six the following evening, tired but once again victorious. He’d left the grooms to bring back the horses. Phillips met him at the airport in Helen’s Mini and gleefully told him that Mrs. Campbell-Black had pranged the Porsche the previous afternoon. Serve the bastard right, he thought, as he saw Rupert’s look of fury. Shouldn’t go down in the woods with Podge.

Helen walked up and down her bedroom, wondering how the hell to tackle Rupert. By some miracle, in four years of marriage, she’d never actually caught him being unfaithful. She’d suspected other women — Marion, Janey, Grania Pringle, several of Rupert’s exes, but never in a million years Podge, with her fat legs, her cockney accent, and her plain homely face. It had come as a terrible, terrible shock. Helen couldn’t stop shaking. It was so revolting, too, taking photographs of her in one of their own fields, where anyone might have walked past. She wished she had a girlfriend to pour her heart out to, but Janey was still on the way back from Rotterdam with Billy, and, anyway, Janey wasn’t safe. She thought of ringing Hilary, but Hilary would just say, “I told you so.” She still had a blinding headache from yesterday’s shunt in the Porsche, and a huge bruise on her forehead beneath her hair.

The usual frantic barking told her Rupert was home. For once, instead of going to the stables, he came straight upstairs into the bedroom.

“I hear you pranged my car. Are you all right?”

“Perfectly, thank you.” Helen gazed out of the window, quivering with animosity, refusing to look around.

“How the hell did it happen?”

“I was in a jam, looking at some of your photographs just back from the drugstore.” She swung around, handing him the folders. “They’re kind of interesting. Have a look.”

Casually Rupert picked them up. When he was feeling trapped, his eyes seemed to go a darker, more opaque, shade of blue and lose all their sparkle.

“I thought I’d taken some nice ones of Marcus. That’s good, and so’s that, and there’s a gorgeous one of Badger, and Arcy. Christ, he’s a good-looking horse. Pity you shut your eyes in that one.” He gave a low whistle. “Who’s that?”

“You know perfectly well,” screamed Helen. “It’s that slut, Podge.”

“Phillips must have borrowed my camera. God, she’s got quite a shape on her.”

“It was you who took them,” hissed Helen, “and your hand is remarkably steady, which is more than can be said for Podge’s when she took photos of you.”

Rupert flipped through the photographs, playing for time.

“Who’s that headless chap? Got a cock like the post office tower.”

“It’s yours,” said Helen in a choked voice, “and I guess you can’t deny the fact that the next one is you.”

“I’m afraid it is,” said Rupert. Then he committed the cardinal sin of starting to laugh.

Helen lost her temper. “How dare you go to bed with her!”

“Who says I’ve been to bed with her?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. And I suppose Janey and Billy know all about it. How could you, how could you?”

Rupert scratched his ear, looking at her meditatively. “Do you really want to know?” he said softly.

“Yes, I bloody well do.”

“I fucked her because she was at home when I got back, and she wanted me.”

Helen flinched.

“And she’s a bloody miracle in bed.”

“And I’m not, I suppose?”

“No, you are not, my pet. If you want the truth, you’re like a frozen chicken. Fucking you is like stuffing sausage meat into a broiler. I’m always frightened I’ll discover the giblets.”

Helen gasped, unable to speak.

“You never react, never display any pleasure, never once in four years of marriage have you asked for it. If I want you, I have to sit on the street with a begging bowl, and I’m bloody fed up with it. Every time you part your legs a degree, you behave as if you’re bestowing a colossal favor. It’s not your fault. Your bloody mother instilled it into you: ‘Behave like a lady at all times.’ My God.”

Helen gazed at him, too stunned to say anything, just watching him strip off his clothes in front of her, down to the lean, beautiful suntanned body that was so terribly reminiscent of the photographs. For a horrifying moment she thought he was going to pounce on her, but he merely went off into the shower, to emerge five minutes later dripping and rubbing his hair dry with a big pink towel.

“Have you got the message?” he said. “I don’t get my kicks at home so I get them elsewhere.”

“You’ve got to fire her,” whispered Helen, through white lips. “I can’t go on meeting her, knowing this, having seen those disgusting pictures.”

“What’s disgusting about those pictures? Kodak obviously enjoyed them. She’s got a nice body and, what’s more important, she’s not remotely ashamed of it. You could pick up a few tips from her.”

He went into his dressing room and got out his dinner jacket and a white dress shirt.

“Where are you going?” Helen asked numbly.

“Out to dinner. It’s Hilary’s dinner party, remember? You insisted I should be back on time.”

No one could dress more quickly than Rupert when he chose.

“You can’t go out to dinner after this,” Helen whispered in bewilderment.

“Why not? The drink’s free. It’s much better than staying here and listening to the hysterics that you’re about to give way to any minute. I don’t like having books thrown at me and that scent bottle’s dangerously large. Don’t you think you’d better get changed, too?” He was frowning in the mirror now, as he tied his tie.

“Aren’t you even going to apologize for you and Podge?”

Rupert flicked the bent tie expertly through the gap. “Why should I apologize for your inadequacies?”

Now he was brushing his still damp hair with silver brushes, back over the temples, and in two wings over the ears. He picked up his jacket. “Don’t bother to wait up for me. I’ll tell Ortrud, or whatever her name is this week, you’ve got a migraine.”

Helen simply couldn’t believe that he could treat an act of such magnitude so lightly. And the terrible things he had said. Was she really that awful in bed? Was it all her fault? The moment he’d gone, she threw herself down on the bed sobbing her heart out. Not for the first time she wished she hadn’t put Marcus’s nursery next to their bedroom. Within seconds there was thumping on the door and cries of “Mummy, Mummy.” Helen gritted her teeth. Where the hell was Ortrud? The thumpings grew more insistent. “Mummy, why are you crying?”

Helen put on her dark glasses and opened the door. Marcus almost fell inside. He was wearing blue and white striped pajamas and clutching a stuffed purple skunk Rupert had brought him from Aachen.

“Mummy crying,” he said doubtfully.

Helen picked him up, reveling in his newly bathed softness.

“Momma’s got a sore head.” She banged her hand against her temple, then the skunk’s head against the window. “Mummy go bang in car. That’s why she’s crying.”

Marcus seemed to accept this. Helen looked nervously for the thin trickle of mucus from his nose that always heralded an asthma attack (usually triggered off by Rupert’s presence), but there was no sign.

“Story,” said Marcus pointedly.

I can’t face it, thought Helen. “Ortrud,” she screamed down the stairs. But Ortrud, on hearing that Helen would be staying in, had pushed off to the Jolly Goat in Stroud to meet her friends.

Rupert, having vented his wrath on Helen because he felt so guilty, was not enjoying Hilary’s dinner party. Hilary, despite her arbitrary comments to Helen about even numbers, was delighted he had come alone.

“What’s the matter with her?” she asked.

“Migraine,” said Rupert tersely.

“You mean a row,” said Hilary, out of the corner of her mouth. “Have some of Crispin’s elderflower wine to cheer you up.”

Rupert looked round dismissively at the earnest women, their bulges concealed beneath ethnic smocks, and their bearded husbands looking self-conscious in dinner jackets. If it hadn’t been Hilary and Crispin’s wedding anniversary they would have refused to dress up. Everyone, except Rupert, brought presents.

Hilary put him on her right at dinner. There wasn’t even a decent-looking woman for him to flirt with or make eyes at across the table. The dinner was disgusting — smoked trout, then jugged hare, of all unbelievable things in August. With Hilary’s slovenly cooking, it was probably jugged hairs as well.

“What’s the matter? You’re not your usual dazzling self,” said Hilary in a low voice, letting her hand brush against his as she passed the red currant jelly. Rupert didn’t return the pressure.

“What’s really the matter with Helen?” she asked. “She was all right yesterday.”

“She’s all wrong now,” said Rupert. He turned to the German woman with plaits round her head on his right.

“It must be a lonely life working with horses,” she said to him.

“No,” said Rupert. “It’s very overcrowded.”

What an idiot he’d been to shit on his own doorstep. He’d have to sack Podge now, and Arcy and the other horses who were absolutely devoted to her would be upset at the height of the season. Grooms weren’t hard to find, but ones as good as Podge virtually impossible. Why the hell, too, had he ever embarked on an affair with Hilary? She revolted him now. She insisted on lingering for hours over coffee. “I hate breaking up the ambience.”

Rupert grew increasingly restless as the dwindling candlelight flickered on the shiny unpainted faces. The woman on Rupert’s right went off to the loo. Crispin was out of the room making more coffee, no doubt caffeine-free. Hilary’s lugubrious paintings glared down from the walls. Hilary could bear it no longer.

“Helen’s found out about us, hasn’t she?”

Rupert’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Us, you and me of course.”

Rupert laughed. “No, about someone else, actually.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Helen found out I was knocking off someone else.”

“A long time ago?”

“No, ten days ago.”

Hilary gasped. “You bastard. You rotten bastard,” she hissed. “You’re deliberately winding me up. I don’t believe you.”

“What are you two looking so secretive about?” Crispin appeared at their side. “Sorry I was so long, dear, I was changing Kate. More coffee, Rupert?”

Rupert looked at Crispin’s hands. He bet he hadn’t washed them. “No thanks.” He got to his feet. “I must go. Been a lovely evening, but I got up at four o’clock this morning and I don’t like to leave Helen too long.”

He never minded in the past, said Hilary to herself furiously.

“Why don’t you ring up? She’s probably fast asleep. Pity to break up the party.”

“What party?” said Rupert, so only she could hear him. “Our particular party is over, my darling.”

“What happened to your Porsche?” asked Crispin, watching Rupert curl his long legs into Helen’s Mini.

“Helen had a prang yesterday.” Then he was gone.

He was home by a quarter to twelve. Ortrud’s light was on, so was Podge’s, over the stables. Probably the whole household knew he’d gone out after a screaming match with Helen. He wandered down to the stables. It was still impossibly hot. A full moon upstaged the crowded stars. The horses were moving restlessly. Arcturus came to the half-door. Rupert gave him a carrot he’d pinched from Hilary’s crudités dish on the way out.

“Wish I was a stallion like you,” he said.

Arcy rolled his eyes and took a nip at Rupert, who cuffed him on the nose.

“One day, when you’re famous,” he told the horse, “you’ll be encouraged to fuck any mare you like. Why can’t I?”

Rupert knew Podge would be waiting up for him, but he went straight back to the house. He didn’t fancy sleeping in the spare room. It was supposed to be haunted and he wasn’t tight enough not to mind.

After finally settling Marcus, Helen had had a bath, bathed her eyes, washed her hair, and put on the plunging, black silk, Janet Reger nightgown Rupert had given her for Christmas, but which she had never worn because she had no cleavage. Now she lay in the big bed without the light on, with the moonlight pouring in through the windows. As Rupert tiptoed past the door she called out to him. He entered cautiously, waiting for abuse, his hair gleaming as silvery as one of his hairbrushes.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a choked voice. “It’s all my fault.”

Rupert, completely wrong-footed, was unbelievably touched.

“I understand exactly why you went for Podge,” she went on. “I’m hopeless in bed. It’s just my upbringing that makes me so dreadfully inhibited, but I love you so so much. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. I’ll try and make as many overtures as Rossini.” She was trying to make a joke, but her voice cracked. Rupert sat down, pulling her against him.

“No, it’s my fault,” he said, stroking her bare arms. “I’ll get rid of Podge tomorrow. I’ll pay her off, so you never have to see her again. I suppose it’s my upbringing, too. Fidelity wasn’t the family’s strong point, but I love you.”

“I’ll go and buy black sexy underwear, like Janey’s, and read sex books and learn how to drive a man to the ultimate of desire.”

“You do already. Have I ever not wanted you? I just got tired of trying to fuck someone who didn’t want me.”

That night Tabitha was conceived.