Alexander

I didn’t cheat on my wife. Not once in the entire decade we were married. That may well surprise some, including her, but it’s true.

I took my marriage vows seriously, for better or worse, and with that came… sacrifices. Sacrifices I was prepared to make for the sake of having a family. A real family – not the pathetic excuse for one I’d known growing up.

Just how many sacrifices I’d have to make didn’t become entirely apparent until after the rings were exchanged, when Claire dropped the bombshell I imagine so many newlyweds are unexpectedly burnt by. But I thought you’d change… I thought things would be different, now we’re… married.

My wife Claire was a lot less keen on a rough anal pounding once that band of gold was on her finger. She no longer felt the urge to sidle up to me at social events and let me know how keen she was for later. My wife Claire turned her nose up at my dirtier sexual advances.

Can’t we just do it like normal people, Alex? I’m too tired for all that tonight, Alex.

Can you be quick, Alex?

I’ve got a headache, Alex.

And then we had our two beautiful boys.

Not now, Alex.

Not that, Alex.

Why do you have to be such a fucking pervert, Alex?

I had some choice answers for that question, but I digress.

My point is, I understand restraint. I’m capable of restraint. Or I was.

I’m determined I shall be again, which is why I walk into my office on Monday morning with a steely determination to plough myself into my caseload, and why my other phone is still at home on my bedside cabinet.

I’m done with Claude.

I’m done with paying for dirty sex.

I’m certainly done with this grotesque bargaining-waltz I’m obliged to perform for the sake of sharing the same escort agency as my grubby shit-stain of a father.

Cold turkey. It’s the only fucking way.

And so it begins.

I tell Brenda she has free rein of my diary and focus back on my client list like a rookie with a point to prove all over again. I organise catch-ups with my key networking associates, reinforcing once again why the industry not-so-affectionately labelled me the Puppet Master, and I give my clients my absolute undivided attention. I manage to get three driving offences thrown out of court in the first three days, and convince the local authorities that prosecuting Mr Rand for cannabis possession is a waste of both their resources and mine.

I scope out upcoming matches for Portsmouth football club, swallowing down both my pride and my own preference for rugby to ensure I give my boys a good time on our Sundays, and then order them a couple of shirts to be delivered to Claire before I’ll see them next.

I manage three days without jerking off to porn. Three nights of lying in bed at night, wide awake with a raging hard on I refuse to fucking finish.

Day four since shooting my load and I’m irritable and foul-tempered, desperate to empty myself inside some dirty little bitch’s asshole and find some fucking relief.

That’s why I finally switch on the other phone. Not to go crawling back to Claude and his seedy new meat auctions. I don’t go in for the new meat – virgins don’t hold any special interest for me. Not only do they not have a fucking clue what they’re doing, they also have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I’m not in the market for fucking up some naïve little plaything, staring at me doe-eyed, in blissful ignorance as to what exactly she’s signed up for.

No. I switch on my other phone to re-engage with my other pastime. The only thing that’s ever been a semi-effective balm to soothe my self-loathing.

It’s a band-aid on a bullet wound, but hell, I need something.

Something more than this.

I call the number as soon as I’m safely back through my front door. My cock is so fucking hard it actually hurts, my balls tight and aching, my temples pounding for relief. It’s Annabel who answers on the third ring, and the warmth in her tone takes me aback.

“Ted! I was only talking about you yesterday! We’ve missed you.”

I utter a load of bullshit apologies, tell her how I’ve been so busy, travelling across the country selling stationery, a lie I made up on the spot eighteen months ago and have upheld ever since. A conference, I tell her. No rest for the wicked, trying to plug my wares to hit targets. Boss is a ball-breaking wanker, blah, blah.

She tells me she understands. Tells me they hope I can come back soon.

I clear my throat and check my diary, and then I commit to coming back real soon.

“Tomorrow?!” she asks. “Wow, that’s great! We could really do with the help. Stacie’s son is sick, we’ve barely had enough hands to get the food prepped. You know what Fridays are like, Ted, always a nightmare.”

I tell her I’ll be there. Right on time.

And I will be.

I hang up and then feel a flash of concern.

It’s been months since I last put on my incognito jeans and baseball cap, and I haven’t seen them since, which wouldn’t be any reason for alarm should I not have a new cleaner, and should new members of staff not inevitably feel the need to deviate from just about everything their predecessors did. I head upstairs to search through my dressing room, and the crisis is averted as I find the clothes I’m looking for in the odds and sods clothes drawer.

I’d say I’d almost forgotten I have a new cleaner, but that would be a lie. There’s no way I could forget about the new cleaner, because the place looks impressively immaculate when I step through the door every evening. The old cleaner was good, but the new cleaner is something else, just as I’d hoped she would be.

The new cleaner turns the corner of my bed sheets back. An odd little touch that makes the bed all the more inviting, even if I still can’t get to sleep at night.

The new cleaner must have noticed the empty vases in the living room – the ones Claire used to fill – and has taken it upon herself to fill them with fresh white orchids to match the decor. It’s surprising both how much I appreciate them, and how much difference they make to the room.

The new cleaner is getting my eggs from a different supplier, and I’ve had two double-yolkers for breakfast this week.

It turns out that the new cleaner is also the reason I jerk myself off in bed on night four without using pornography. She’s the reason I shoot my load without any thought for some seedy guy’s asshole, and the reason I don’t feel the need to scrub my hands clean afterwards.

The new cleaner is the reason I abstain from looking at Claude’s string of messages, although that makes no rational sense whatsoever.

I’ve never even properly seen her face, but she’s there. A hazy figure at the edge of my consciousness, almost ethereal as I picture the meek little picture she cut as she shrunk away from me, the tenderness of her apology just a whisper in my memory.

I’m certain my sex-starved mind is distorting things – shrinking her stature and making her voice all the more reverent. The desperate fantasies of a man battling his demons, turning some poor little slip of a girl into a glowing figure of hope in my unconsciousness.

I smile at my own ridiculousness, my fingers still sticky with cum.