Thomas

 

It was usually a pleasant affair, waiting for the fallout. I’d be able to relax comfortably behind my London office desk, staring out at the skyline and imagining the sweet, dirty thoughts of me the poor woman was plagued with in her husband’s arms at night. If she was still there, that is.

Sometimes the relationship didn’t make it that long.

I’d been expecting the weeks following my night with the Fosters to be the most thrilling of all, my fantasies of Grace struggling with the memories of me the most victorious I’d ever been blessed with.

But no. The weeks following were anything but victorious.

I kept my business engagements clipped and curt, and my gym sessions isolated with earphones blaring my favourite songs. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Them. Couldn’t stop imagining another night pushing her body to her limits. Only this time, unlike all the others, I was imagining him — Brett — being there too.

I’d have booked myself into a therapist if I thought they’d achieve anything whatsoever with a cynical bastard like me.

I didn’t even have the kind words of my distant best friend to help ease my discomfort. I’d been the one to delete Polly from social media, but she’d made no move to contact me through other channels.

I found myself staring at my phone whenever my workload had moments of calm, wondering if she was missing my virtual presence as strongly as I was missing hers.

I was missing hers.

She’d be on my mind late at night, just as soon as I’d finished shooting my load over fantasies of Grace Foster’s hungry pink pussy stretched wide. I’d find myself smiling sadly at childhood memories of her laughing at stupid jokes and pulling silly faces. Of scrabbling to finish her homework on the school bus, digging for answers from my nerd brain when hers was lacking.

Polly Piper had been a constant in a life without basic constants. My only source of stability through my bitter quests of destruction.

And she was gone.

Without all doubt, she was gone.

No calls, texts, or friend requests. No emails to my work address. Nothing but radio silence after telling me she was done.

That little boy in me who’d hoped for more from our lifetime of closeness hated me enough to keep his distance. He was quiet, weeping in the far shadows where I couldn’t hear his cries. I was glad of it, even if my detachment from life wasn’t holding up as well as it should have.

I knew his mind well enough to know how he’d interpret Polly’s silence during his fleeting moments of optimism.

He’d say she was hurt beyond repair by my relentless pursuit of another woman, even if I did mean her no good whatsoever. That her drawing such a concrete line in the sand after all these years was testament to the strength of her emotions for such a fucked-up asshole as me.

I’d never been an optimist, not in ways it mattered. My belief was in my own talent for wreaking havoc in other people’s lives. In my cold, hard intelligence and my application of strategies to everyday life. In business, in money, in cynical endeavours.

Not in people. Not in love. Not in the ability of two people to weather the storms that came tumbling in around them, their fingers linked through the chaos tightly enough to stand shoulder to shoulder through it all.

I didn’t believe in Polly Piper being the woman for me.

I didn’t believe in Grace Foster being that woman, either — I just believed I’d enjoy my limited time destroying her marriage.

Maybe it was already done.

I checked up on Cliff House B&B through the online booking portal and found it functioning as normal. I discovered an advert for a chef position in their local newspaper and laughed to myself at their efforts.

It would take more than an evening meal restaurant to bridge the gulf I’d left between them, but regardless, if that was indeed their hope for a brighter business future they’d be struggling all the same.

That same advert was in the job section three weeks running, which can only mean one thing in recruitment.

Nobody fucking suitable. Not in a hundred mile radius of that backwater backyard.

It was that observation that piqued my interest enough to look at the state of the venture down the road from them. The budget hotel opening along the coast was bleating loud from their website, as well as having advertisements in the same job section of the newspaper crying out for staff for all roles within the hotel space. Maids, waitresses, bar staff. Cooks and gardeners and someone to maintain a swimming pool.

Interesting.

Navigating their online booking portal showed them full to bursting for three months straight after opening, but I’d been in business long enough to know the strength of illusion in corporate appearances.

I called a contact in my property subsidiary, asking them to do some digging on my behalf in the hotel trade. They reported back their findings that same afternoon after a stint at the golf course nearest the hotel chain head office.

The bookings were void. Faked to disguise the issues they were experiencing in opening such a small town venture. They’d refunded the initial rush of paying guests and moved them to alternative locations as a gesture of goodwill.

There would be no hotel opening in March, nor April, either.

The new date scheduled was mid-June, and even that allegedly had the management contact groaning at how they’d potentially have to pay agency staff to get the place up on its feet.

I wondered if the Fosters knew about the change in their rival’s opening schedule. If it allowed them to sleep a little more easily at night, despite the more pressing issue of another man coming between them.

I doubted it.

They hadn’t done enough research to know about the looming rival in the first place when they went double or bust and invested the entire sum of Brett’s inheritance on the mortgage deposit.

One hundred and seventy five thousand pounds handed over in its entirety, less than two years after his daddy’s death.

I hoped he would be turning in his grave at the fuck-up they were making with his hard earned cash, realising in the afterlife just how much of a bull-headed loser his precious boy was after all.

Brett was worth nothing. A failure with a face that fit, hurtling through life on the back of an unfounded ego.

Soon he’d fall, and I’d be waiting, just as I had been for years.

Smiling.

Laughing.

Bathing myself in delight after years of hate and spite.

But not today. Today I’d be shutting down another cruddy little family business and swallowing up their life’s work with my gnashing corporate jaws.

Today I’d be Thomas Heath Global, master of his whole sorry fucking universe.

And today, most importantly of all, I’d be the man who waited. Patiently.