Thomas

 

Over the well-worn course of paying for sex with other men’s wives, I’d become accustomed to expecting the unexpected.

Still, it had been a surprise to see the glowing flare of excitement behind Brett’s disgusted eyes as he’d glared at me across the breakfast table.

I didn’t expect any less of the rage from him. The simmering gutful of hatred clearly straining to unleash across the space between us was as satisfying as I’d ever dreamed it would be. I didn’t even expect any less of the nervous but heady anticipation fluttering across from Grace and her big wide eyes, either. I mean, I wouldn’t. Monogamous and committed or not, the prospect of a well-groomed stranger offering you a vast sum of money to take his dick was enough to make even the most frigid of women wet their knickers.

No. Nothing much surprised me, not these days. But seeing Brett storm away from the table, angled in a pitiful effort to hide the tent in his pants as he struggled with his demons, was enough to bring a smile to my face.

I do enjoy unexpected turns in the road.

I remembered with delight Grace’s utter bemusement at my words.

Hurry though, or he’ll be done and you’ll be none the wiser.

I wondered if she’d scurried along quickly enough to have found him with his fist clenched tight around his dick, or if he’d managed to evade her scrutiny a little better than he’d evaded mine.

Maybe he was pounding that pretty little pussy deep as I drank up the rest of my average coffee and vacated my table. The question would be – if either of them were truly honest with themselves – were they thinking purely about the animalistic desire to consume one another amidst the chaos, or were they thinking about the filth to come.

I knew where my money would be.

I grabbed my thick woollen overcoat from my room upstairs and ventured out along the front for a closer look at nature’s beautiful canvas. The tide had shifted, pulling back in flat, shallow sweeps of magnificence. It seemed a good time to venture down the sandy stone steps and onto the beach itself, so I did. I took off my brogues and winter socks in favour of sinking my bare toes into the sand. It was dusty at first, and then wet, hard under my feet even as the waterlogged ground squelched around my toes. I breathed in deep and long, enjoying the gusts of wind around my ears as my lungs drank in the tranquillity of the wide open space.

I kept walking, slowly, my eyes up ahead to the rocky crags and the sloping incline back up to civilisation. I had no urge to venture amongst humanity, not today, so I kept well away, daring to skirt the edges of the waves and caring little for how they swallowed up my trouser cuffs and left my skin raw and cold underneath.

I’d climbed an outcrop of rock amongst the ebbing tide before those text messages from the previous evening came back into my consciousness. I picked at some barnacles on the rock face and considered denying her an answer entirely, but the sad little boy inside scratched at my poor dead heart until it jolted into some semblance of emotion.

It was a shiver of regret. Barely more than a guilty nip in an ocean of oblivion. I pulled my phone from my inside pocket and the text was still there, still glaring, taunting the weakness inside me and begging for more.

Please, Tom. Hold onto hope. You’re nothing without it. Walk away.

My response was curt and cold, just as it should be.

Hope is dead. Tuesday night she’ll be mine. Signed, sealed. And truly delivered.

A particularly large wave crashed up around me, fighting the death throes of its inevitable retreat. Its foam misted my glasses as I smiled at the horizon.

Even nature fights its course, just as people do. Struggling to cling onto ground that’s no longer theirs as it pulls from their grip. They could spit and foam and snarl, like the waves around the rocks this morning. They could burst forth in one final moment of rage and madness, marking the scene with one final spark before burnout, but it was always the same.

The tide would wane and retreat, and the bond between sand and sea would sever until the water was just a glint in the distance and the beach was shivering naked out of reach.

Brett and Grace would fall, just as the others before them. Their bond of a lifetime severed with a blade so sharp and practised they’d never even feel it coming.

I ignored the vibration of the new message until the waves really had given up their bid to hold onto the outcrop. There was only the stillness of rock pools around me as I pressed the button to call up the text.

You’re better than this.

It made me laugh out loud in the stillness.

She was wrong.

My distant Polly’s beautiful notions of the humanity inside me were sweet in their idiocy, coloured by her foolish optimism that love was anything more than the pitiful illusion of human closeness amongst the chaos.

Love was selfish. Fragile. Temporary.

Grace and Brett would find that out for themselves soon enough, and so would the sweet girl back home when I told her of the final jewel in my crown of spite.

I scrolled through my online purchases to distract myself, checking again the priority delivery dates. Everything would be in place by Tuesday. Packages of toys and tools to turn pretty Grace into a whimpering little slut as I took her body to places she’d never known.

I found myself pondering if Brett’s filthy fascination would extend to a hard on while he watched his wife take my cock all night long.

One guy some months back had taken his dick out halfway through and attempted to join in proceedings. He’d taken the rebuttal like a slap in the face, flailing like a clumsy teenager in his objections until I’d threatened to halve their payment.

I really couldn’t imagine a bull like Brett doing the same. He’d keep it under wraps, of that I was certain.

My phone vibrated again as I considered lighting up a cigar for the walk back. The words flashed at the top of the screen before I had the chance to ignore them.

Please, Tom, talk to me. Don’t shut me out.

How I wished I had something to say.

I missed the naive kindness in her voice, untainted by years of bitter inferiority. I missed her sweet laugh as she told me about her day, the same old shit from the same old customers at the bakery she’d been working at for ten years straight. She amazed me with her ability to find reward in the same static routine on loop. Never tiring, never growing jaded. Always seeing the best in everything and everyone around her.

Leaving her alone for pastures new had been the greatest decision I’d ever made. For her, not for me.

I may have been selfish, but I’d never scraped the depths enough to take her down with me. I thought too much of her for that.

It was just a shame she’d never know, and more of a shame that I’d never feel that kind smile of hers against my lips.

My cigar was a struggle to light but its deep plumes were like satin in my throat. I dropped back to the wet sand with feet so cold they were burning. The familiarity of the discomfort was a welcome reminder of all that had been, and all that would be.

I was smiling all the way back across the beach.

Soon it would be done, and finally, for once in my life, that little boy in me would find his peace. Even if just for a triumphant heartbeat.