Brett

 

We busied ourselves that afternoon, smiles fake but bright as we went about our everyday business, checking out the bulk of our handful of residents and pretending as best we could that Thomas Heath didn’t exist. I scrubbed the kitchen after we’d waved them off, while Grace took stock of our supplies. You’d never know there was anything afoot from the outside when I kissed her cheek and she disappeared upstairs to sort out the bedrooms for tomorrow morning.

It was while I was changing kegs in the cellar that I opted to do a bit of research on the guy promising us fifty grand. My fingers were shaking as I scrolled through the internet search, my pride smarting at the full extent of this guy’s successes in the city.

He was loaded. Really fucking loaded. He had directorships listed in so many companies I lost count. Profiles listed on Britain’s most wealthy sites with grainy pictures of him grinning that smug smile of his like he was lord of fucking everything.

He was one of those weird virtual currency winners, investing early and cashing out with what one site estimated was over fifty million a year or so back.

Fifty fucking million.

No wonder he could cough up 50k for a night with Grace. He could fuck her every night for a month and not even break a sweat.

It was a strange feeling, being up against a guy like that. All smirk and cockiness and a bloated bank balance. I wished he was a balding, fat guy in his sixties with inch thick glasses, not the suave geek chic things he wore like some kind of genius professor.

Genius professor with a six pack and perfect teeth.

I wished I could take those off him with my fist at least.

I’d never suffered with confidence. I wasn’t the kind of guy who got intimidated by other men, or people in general. I’d been born lucky on that front, doing just fine and dandy through those formative school years that fucked some kids up so bad they went into adult life with more issues than sense. I’d been proud of my career, proud of my marriage, and proud of buying this place at thirty-two.

So why did I feel like such a loser against this prick who’d showed up in our bar?

I poured myself an early evening beer when I was done in the cellar, figuring it might steady out the twisted pile of dread in my gut. It didn’t.

I’d been hard at the thought of that cunt with my wife. Hard enough that I’d had to take my dick in hand in my own fucking bathroom.

What did that even mean?

I’d knock his teeth out as soon as share a drink with him. I had less than zero interest in seeing what he was packing under that stuck up suit shit he had going on, and the thought of Grace seeing it was enough to drive my hands into fists.

But there it was again. That throb in my fucking pants. The tightness in my balls at the thought of him pushing hard into her tight little ass and making me watch.

Fucked. I was fucked.

I swore under my breath as the sack of shit himself came through the doorway at just gone five and sat himself down on a barstool. He took off his coat and draped it over the seat at his side, smirking over at me like this was just a regular Sunday drink in a regular seaside hotel.

“What do you want?” I grunted, and he gestured to the optics behind me.

“Surprise me. Your finest.”

I grabbed him a double of our finest rum and resisted the urge to spit in it.

“Not my usual tipple,” he commented and took a sniff. “Get one for yourself… on me.”

I flashed him a glare as I grabbed a glass, wondering just what the fuck he was planning with this man to man shit.

“I asked your wife if she had any special requests,” he told me. “I thought I’d offer you the same courtesy.”

“Keep away from my fucking wife,” I snapped back in a breath, holding back a curse as I realised the cunt was still calling all the shots here.

“I was being amiable,” he told me and held up a hand. “Simply trying to make the experience as pleasurable as possible for all parties involved.”

“And what did she say?” I asked and he smirked that shitty fucking smirk of his all over again.

“A gentleman never tells.”

My fingers were under his chin, hooking his collar and pulling tight before I could stop myself. His eyes were cold and unflinching against mine, but he made no move to shake me off. “You’re no gentleman.”

“Says the man acting like a thug.”

“You think this is acting like a thug?” My breath was hot and heavy on his face, but I didn’t give a shit. “You have no fucking idea.”

“I’m offering you a lifeline and you repay me with disdain. That’s poor manners on your part. Very poor.”

“You’re buying my wife’s pussy for your cheap kicks. That’s not a lifeline, that’s a dick move.”

He turned his face away with a grin, only to clear his throat and come right back at me. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t make you hard.”

I hated how my eyes widened. “Of course it fucking doesn’t.”

“It makes your wife wet, you know that, yes? Please tell me you aren’t so deluded that you can’t see how much she wants me.”

“She wants the fucking money. Nothing else.”

His laugh was filth. “She wants more than that. You both do. I’m simply offering the opportunity for expression.”

“You’re the one who’s fucking deluded,” I said, and forced myself to laugh right back at him. I dropped his collar and spun my fingers against my temple. “You’re fucking insane. A fucked up crazy cunt.”

“What excites you more? The thought of me taking which hole?”

I shook my head and took a breath. “Nah, fuck you. I’m not playing this stupid game. Talk about the weather or fuck right off. You’re paying for Tuesday night, not to get in our faces the rest of your fucking stay.”

I turned my back and took a decent swig of rum, hoping with any luck he’d down his drink and piss off somewhere else, but he was still right there as I resumed emptying the dishwasher.

“How will it feel to know you aren’t the only one who’s been inside her?” he called over, but I ignored him. “Something that will keep you awake at night?”

His laugh was so easy I figured he must be some kind of sociopath, revelling in people’s misery.

“Something that will keep her awake at night, probably. I wonder who she’ll enjoy most.”

I flashed him the band on my finger. “No contest. We’re worth a lifetime, not one seedy little night with a stuck-up cunt.”

He nodded like this whole thing was just chitchat over dinner, and in that moment I wondered whether this was his stupid idea of humour. Maybe this whole thing was a crazy game to him, some joke to regale his friends back in the city after a couple of beers on a Friday night.

I looked at him afresh, beyond the stupid tailoring of his suit and the prissy styling of his hair. Beyond the way he held himself so composed, like he was untouchable, unreachable.

“What are you trying to prove with all this?” I spoke aloud, realising I was as genuinely curious as I sounded.

“Prove?”

I got to my feet and closed the distance back up, taking his almost empty glass and refilling it with another measure.

“This city slick act you have going on. Rolling in from the big smoke and paying a shit ton of money for a random guy’s wife. What’s the fucking point?”

His eyes were like lasers on mine. Too steady. “Because I can.”

I shrugged. “One night in a lifetime for enough money to change people’s worlds. Of course you can. Anyone would say yes.”

“Your point being?”

“My point being that it doesn’t make you a bigshot.” I refilled my own glass. “Curing some godawful fucking disease or opening an animal sanctuary, that makes you somebody. Risking your life to save someone from a burning building, that makes you someone. Investing in some climate saving technology or using your cash to reduce homelessness on the streets, that’s worth something.” I paused and still his eyes stayed firm on mine. “Fucking someone’s wife for fifty grand, that just makes you a jerk with more money than sense.”

“Be careful you don’t talk me out of it,” he said, deadpan, but I was already onto him.

It was nothing more than a hunch in the pit of me. An inkling of something lying deep behind his calm. Maybe he was a sex addict, or a guy who got his kicks from flashing the cash. Maybe he was someone fucked up by adultery, or suffering from some weird mental health condition that made him a dirty cunt to random strangers.

I didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

But there was something.

I knew right then and there he wouldn’t walk away from this. Not before Tuesday night. Maybe not even if I really did knock his teeth out.

“Drop the bullshit,” I said, and for the first time since meeting him I raised my glass across the bar in some fucked-up guy to guy toast. “Here’s to a fucked-up Tuesday night, and for an exchange that sees all of us get what we need from this fucked-up situation.”

“I don’t need anything,” he said. “This is all for my amusement.”

“Whatever you say, mate,” I laughed and his laser eyes lost their firmness for the tiniest flash.

I clinked his glass before he could refute me, knocking the drink back in one, and his stare was right back at full intensity by the time he’d knocked his back along with me.

It didn’t matter.

I’d already seen enough.

The sonofabitch needed to fuck my wife while I watched, just as much as we needed the money he was offering for doing it.

It put us strangely on a par.

And made me feel strangely proud of the power my wife had over the prick as she headed down the stairs to join us.