Thomas

 

I was a stumbling mess as I took the rear stairs two at a time, my shirt barely fastened properly as I tumbled from the back door onto the terrace. I craved air, space, the cleansing chill of the sea breeze against my skin.

I craved Polly’s sweet messages to help me make sense of my own fucked-up brain, lost in the spinning world of haunting memories and my own fractured ego.

The ego these people had destroyed in the face of all the preparations I’d made for their destruction.

They’d beaten me. He’d beaten me. That cunt Brett Foster had beaten me like the scrawny little school kid who couldn’t stand up to a beefy piece of shit like him all over again.

I should hate him. Them. I should hate this place, hate what it was doing to me, hate everything it stood for here, and my own idiot bastard decision to come running when he called.

But I didn’t. I didn’t hate any of it.

Grace’s touch was divine, filled with something I’d shied away from my whole fucking life.

Truth.

Her touch was true. Genuine. Filled with want and warmth enough to drive a man crazy with the need for more.

I’d never seen it, nor wanted to. My slut of a mother had put paid to that with her string of asshole fuckwit boyfriends right the way through my youth, throwing out the ones worth anything and climbing mountains for those who weren’t, and all the while I cursed from the side-lines and shivered in bed at night — hoping, praying, that my real father would see the error of his ways and come running back to make it all better. That one day I’d be worth enough for him to acknowledge I was a part of him.

Only that day never came. No matter how hard I worked, or how much fucking money I made. No matter how high I climbed or how many people I stepped over, he was never there. Never even willing to reach out and make a call.

And now he was dead.

Dead and buried with only Brett fucking Foster listed as his offspring in his last will and testament.

I slammed my fists against the railings as I stared out to sea, my balls still aching empty and my dick still wet with Grace’s juices. I stared out at the choppy waves and cursed myself for ever coming here in the first place, reaching into my pocket for a cigar as I choked back the ridiculous tears of that sad little boy inside and swore I’d leave in the morning, never to return.

I’d barely got a grip of myself when I felt her behind me. My back tingled at her closeness as she stepped right up, craving more of everything I should despise.

A quick look around confirmed her jock asshole husband was nowhere to be seen.

“This is a private moment,” I barked, but she didn’t even flinch.

“That was a quick exit,” she commented, her voice so even as she positioned herself at the railings to my left.

“What did you expect? A shared toast at a job well done? The three of us reminiscing over the shudders of your slutty little cunt as we ploughed you deep?”

I wasn’t ready for her laugh. “Maybe, yeah. It was a job well done.”

I bristled at her humour, taking a deep puff of smoke and blowing it out hard.

“It was a temporary truce,” I told her. “It meant nothing.”

“A temporary truce from what exactly?” she asked, and her humour was all gone. “Do you know us? Do we know you?” She paused. “Did we do something to you?”

I didn’t say a word, and she kept on rolling.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t know. It just doesn’t… add up. And I don’t get it. I’ve tried working it out, but the picture doesn’t make sense.”

“Stop trying to make sense of senseless things,” I told her.

“That’s the thing,” she replied. “I don’t think anything about this whole weird setup is senseless. You don’t seem like a senseless man.”

When her arm hooked into mine it was enough of a jolt that I almost dropped my cigar to the beach. I was torn. Rigid and reeling all at once as that idiot boy dared to wish for more. I hated him. Myself. Hated not being good enough, because that’s what this was, ultimately. One big fucking failure. Two people being strong enough to tear down years of bitter planning. Two people daring to have something I’d convinced myself didn’t exist.

Something that would last. A love that was stronger than the cash I’d thrown at them, or the physique I’d built up to compete with any other man.

I knew in that moment, right there on the seafront with that woman’s gentle arm wrapped in mine, that it didn’t matter what I did in this place, no matter how hard my body claimed hers, or how much cash I tempted them with, or how sharp my moves were to tear them down.

They’d still be standing.

Maybe not here, with a hotel struggling to stay afloat. Maybe not even with the contented smile of two people looking forward to their years to come. But they’d be standing together, even if it was up to their knees in rancid, festering shit, with nothing to their name.

They’d still be side by side.

“Love doesn’t exist,” I said to the sea, caring little for the fact she was hearing me. “It’s nothing but the desperate quest of lonely people trying to find a missing piece of themselves. It’s pitiful. Desperate. Nothing but a pathetic illusion.”

“That’s a very sad way of looking at the world,” she said.

“Sad but true.”

“And that’s why you do this? With the money? To prove love doesn’t exist?”

“Something like that,” I snapped back, and took another mouthful of smoke.

“You split people up with money, don’t you? How many before us?”

My smirk felt so welcome when it reappeared on my face. “Plenty.”

Her arm didn’t leave mine. “It won’t work here. Sorry, but it won’t. I guess we’ll be the blip on your winning score sheet.”

“So it seems,” I said. “I’ll leave first thing, case closed.”

I despised how the defeat sounded even in the stillness.

“Or you could stay,” she said, with a softness to her voice at odds with the situation. “Stay. Walk the beach. Eat breakfast. Talk. Drink whisky. Have a holiday.”

“I’m sure your good husband would be very happy with that arrangement,” I scoffed, but she shrugged.

“He isn’t nearly so bad as you think he is. You asked for every bit of venom. He’s just a guy trying to live his life and make me happy. You were the one who wanted to tear us apart.”

“And are you happy?” I asked. “Has this little fantasy lived up to your expectations?”

Her giggle was divine. “You could say that.” Her arm squeezed mine. “I’d be more than happy for a rerun, taking out the crappy point-scoring, that is.”

“You don’t know me,” I told her. “You don’t know what you’re playing with.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She sighed. “But this place is good for the soul, and I think yours is begging to be found.”

I’d have laughed in her face if that sad little sonofabitch wasn’t in my throat.

“Don’t go,” she said again. “Not before you’ve worked it out.” One final squeeze of her arm in mine and she pulled away. “The room is on us, as long as you need it. So’s the pussy and the ass, if you want those too. On the house. Just, please, no more plots of marital destruction.”

I turned to face her as she backed off. “That’s an invite for another three in a bed, is it? Despite knowing I’m all out to bring your marriage to its knees?”

“It’s an invite for you to find what you’re looking for. I’d love to prove you wrong. Love does exist. It’s all around us, all the time.”

“And what then? Shack up in a cosy little ménage, will we? That would make quite the pretty picture.”

Her eyes twinkled in the darkness. “I think a cosy little ménage would most definitely be a case of one too many, Mr Heath. I only have enough heart for my husband, even if my body is keen to enjoy two. But there’s someone out there for you, you just need to be willing to let them in when they come calling. Maybe this place will help.”

Someone out there for you.

I felt empty enough to break in that moment. More isolated than I’d ever felt, even huddled in a corner of my old shitty bedroom while my mother entertained another of her disgusting suitors.

“You’re sex drunk,” I told her. “Go back to your husband.”

Her smile was bright. Delicious.

“I’m on my way,” she said. “Enjoy your quiet room. I’ll see you at breakfast I hope.” She turned away to retreat back to the hotel, but flashed me one final look over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Tom.”

She was long back inside when I finished up my cigar and tossed the butt down onto the beach. I was in my car before I realised it, the key in the ignition before I had any idea where I was headed.

And then it dawned. The cold, hard reality that I had nowhere to head to, only back to London for an eternal string of the same nameless, mindless, soulless days.

A full English fry-up sounded as good a destination as any.

At least that’s what I told myself when I headed back upstairs.