The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,3

eyes drank in the contours of his body, the narrow hips, the long sweep of his spine, his buttocks.

I lay back, reliving the feel of his hands on my body. I imagined Helen sitting primly in this very spot later this evening, watching television, drinking tea, with no idea what we’d done here.

My body slowly cooled. I heaved myself to my feet, pulled on his large, crumpled shirt, discarded on the floor, and went in search of him.

‘Ralph?’

The kitchen floor was hard and cold under my bare feet. He was standing there in the shadows, just inside the doorway, hunched over his phone, thumbs tapping.

He turned, then started when he saw me.

I smiled, cheeky. ‘Hey, you. What’re you up to?’ I stepped towards him, imagining how alluring I must look, feeling the soft fabric of his shirt brush against my skin as I moved.

He dropped the phone on the kitchen counter as I reached him.

I pressed myself against his side, tilting my face to his. ‘Ready to go again?’

He couldn’t look me in the eye.

‘We can’t…’ He hesitated. ‘That wasn’t meant…’

He pushed past me, embarrassed, heading back into the dingy hall. I grabbed at him.

‘Wait. Ralph. What?’

He pulled away. His skin was slick.

My heart fluttered with panic. ‘Ralph, I love you. Don’t you know that?’

He shook his head, his face miserable. ‘Laura, I’m sorry—’

I raised my voice, willing him to stop and listen. ‘Is it what I said before? About telling people what you’ve done? I just can’t bear it. That’s all.’

He twisted away. I had the sense he wanted to shake me off and escape upstairs. I lunged at him, pushing him backwards and his back banged against the wooden panelling below the stairs. His abrupt change of mood frightened me, just when I’d let myself hope.

He rallied and grabbed my wrists. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down.’

Anna, of course. He was worried about disturbing her, his innocent princess. Asleep upstairs in her perfect bedroom, all pink and frills.

‘You miss me too. I know you do. Don’t lie.’ My voice became a shriek as I lost control. ‘That’s what drove you to do it, isn’t it? What you did.’

He pulled a hand from my wrist and tried to put it over my mouth, to shut me up. I twisted and grabbed his hair, kicked out at him. It was brutal, I was brutal, but something exploded in me, feeling him use his strength against me, the hands struggling to restrain me, when just a short time earlier, they had been caressing me.

Even fighting him made my heart pound. Our naked bodies slapped against the hall wall, twisting, slippery with sweat, limbs knocking. It was as if we were two halves of the same whole. I felt it again as powerfully as I had when we’d made love, lost in each other. As if we’d never been apart.

He rallied and tried to push me away and I pressed back, kicking out at his ankles, lunging at him with strength I didn’t know I had.

It happened in a moment. One second, we were locked together, wrestling in the narrow hallway, fighting with raw passion. The next, I shoved him away, hard, and he lost his balance, then fell heavily against the cellar door. It gave way under his weight and he plunged backwards into the darkness. His eyes were wide with shock, his arms flailing, as he struggled to regain his footing, slipping on a mess of buckets, brooms and boxes cluttering the top of the cellar steps.

He toppled sideways and disappeared from sight. Sickening bangs and thuds, muffled and quickly fading. I screamed, picturing his grasping body bouncing helplessly down the concrete steps. Then, finally, a dreadful silence.

For a second, I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even breathe.

A sudden noise at the far end of the hall. I twisted to look. The front door was thrown open. Helen stood there. Her jaw slackened in disbelief as she stared at me, frozen in the dark hall, wearing nothing but her husband’s shirt, my terrified eyes on hers.

Three

Helen didn’t move. Her eyes were glassy. Her body looked rigid with shock. The house sucked itself empty of air, of sound, of life.

The moment stretched, unbearable.

Finally, Helen jolted into motion. Her handbag fell from her shoulder and landed with a thud as she kicked the front door shut and sped towards me with hurried strides, electrified by the panic on my face.

‘What?’ Her voice was hard and thin. ‘What happened?’

I couldn’t speak, just tore