Breaking Point (8 page)

She winked at me.

I barely remember the kiss that followed, so stunned was I by this revelation. All the fractured shapes had fallen into place; the pieces of the kaleidoscope resolved into a nightmare vision. It couldn’t be true and yet it had to be. She had been as clear as could be, as honest as she always was, and only my own simple ignorance, my dumb denial, had stopped me hearing her clearly.

A part of me, even now, wishes I could have stayed ignorant. But how can one switch off a lifetime of work and care, even if one wants to?

She either misread my breathless silence following the kiss or, more likely, read it just so. Either way she laughed again, a laugh of relief it seemed to me; a laugh that seemed to speak of letting go of a guilty tension. Low and dirty.

“Is the work on the conservatory done?” All my effort, all my will was summoned in an effort to make this sound light, conversational, but I’m sure my voice must have betrayed my inner turmoil, my eyes shown some of what boiled away beneath.  Her eyes narrowed and became half-lidded as she peered up at me. Her face showed annoyance, a peevish frustration that ordinarily would have me scrabbling for a witticism or apology. Not that evening though. Depending on how she answered, perhaps never again.

I watched her - calculating, contemplating, irritation warring with some unknowable motive - and I realised I was holding my breath, utterly unconsciously. The tension across my shoulders was matched only by the near painful swelling in my trousers and, for the first time, I feared what I might do next – what her response might drive me to.

Her eyes rolled to the ceiling in exasperation and, for a second, I imagined hitting her in the face. I pictured it with perfect, terrible clarity: my fist colliding with her mouth, feeling her teeth mash against my knuckles, seeing her lip swell and split with the impact, the blood flow as her head rolled back with the blow. My sure and certain damnation. The vision was so vivid, so complete, that it took me a moment to realise that it hadn’t happened and, in that moment, she chose to save me.

“Yes, they finished the work. It was just that young man, actually.” She paused for a second and I saw her seeing him, holding him in her mind's eye, and I did the same, involuntarily. “He just had some tidying up to do really, but he was very thorough, all the same.”

That was the point that I passed clear through rage, and into a cold calm.

“Yes, most satisfactory work,” she said, and I saw it all so clearly as to be a vision. My wife, still in her nightclothes, still mostly asleep, forgetting that he had a key, walking into the kitchen to make her morning tea and seeing him there. The shock of it, the surprise, and then...

And then the off-colour joke, the blushing nervous laugh in response, the lewd comment about her attire, the more nervous half-rebuff. He would have moved so quickly, of course he would, smooth operator, keeping the bored housewives happy. Wham bam thank you ma’am. He would have moved in very quickly, physically. He would not have been subtle, his hands would have been on her body, grabbing, kneading, tugging the silk loose to run over her flesh, her confused resistance gradually giving way as she was caught up in the wave of his animal lust, feeling her body respond involuntarily to his, until she was tearing at his clothing, licking, biting, scratching, he clawing at her underwear, shoving his fingers rudely into her, causing her to cry out, her hands gripping his throbbing, swollen member, pulling her into him, him laughing at her, turning her around roughly and shoving her over the breakfast table, and then taking her, savagely, brutally, both of them sweating and grunting like beasts in heat, her eyes screwed shut with shame and pleasure, being ridden by this grotesque greasy thug, this ugly, handsome, vile taker.

I felt a shudder then and I used the coldness to suppress it, but not before the final image came to me: his arm muscles rippling rhythmically, causing the woman on his shoulder to gyrate her naked breasts in an obscene come on.

“He... there was something about him that I didn’t really care for, you know. I’m glad he’s gone.” She broke eye contact at this and I felt her shame, her regret. More, I felt my own. How could I have allowed this to happen? How could I have let my working life keep me from my first and most important duty? How could I have failed to see the danger of inviting that snake into my home, allowing him access to my most precious and treasured things? What had possessed me?

My rage turned inwards, still cold. This was my fault. My responsibility.

I must find a way to put it right.

She re-established eye contact and her gaze was frank, direct, naked. “I like you far more. I’m glad you are my man.”

You see how clear she is? The apology, the regret... and now the instruction. Be my man. I promised to myself in that moment, my most solemn vow:  I would be her man, from that day forth, never again to fail her.

She smiled again, then; a lazy, dirty smile I normally only saw in our room, and even then, only after she’d had a little too much wine. “Do you feel like being a bad boy?”

My heart turned to ice, but one part of me was suddenly burning, aching. I have always scoffed at those who describe their sexual impulses as needs, rather than the selfish wants they really are, but I tell you that in that moment, I had no self-control at all. I had to take her, immediately, had to make her mine again, to punish and reclaim and I know, to my shame, that I would have brooked no descent, ignored all protest; I would have had my way with her, selfishly, with no thought for consequence. Thankfully, she offered no resistance to my assault and gave her silent consent by pulling me to her as my hands tore at her clothing and my own in my rage-fuelled lust.

After, we lay on the floor, panting, coming back to ourselves slowly. I had felt her body respond to my own, yet I was also aware that I had used her far more roughly than I ever had before and must surely have hurt her. My own heart was still hammering, retuning to its regular rhythm slowly, but my mind felt at peace again, the pleasure burst of my climax having obliterated for a blessed second all thought, and in doing so restored blessed clarity.

The offence was not hers. The situation she had been placed in was an impossible one, and one that ultimately only I was responsible for. I had failed her as a husband and now she felt ashamed and abased, and guilty. Very well, any punishment due to her had just been made and I believed then, and believe now, that she welcomed that punishment, needed it, to know that I forgave her and still wanted her. I now owed it to her to be the man she deserved, to return to the role she had always required of me, and I would do so gladly and without regret.

“I am sorry, you must think me quite the harlot! I’ve just missed you my dear, so much. I’m sorry for catching you unawares. You do forgive me, don’t you, darling?”

“Of course I do.” And I did. Totally and for all time.

She laughed, this time genuinely, happily, and kissed my nose.

“Husband.”

“Wife.”

6

Sleep refused to come that evening. I have never suffered particularly from insomnia, but that night I was completely unable to rest. I had made my peace with the extraordinary events of the day and, after all, hadn’t things returned to exactly where they should be? And yet, and yet... I kept seeing him, you see. Every time I closed my eyes, instead of sleep rising up to meet me, a vision of his half-turned face, his wink, would drive me back to consciousness.

I am not, have never been, a vengeful person. If someone wrongs me, I normally either forgive them or, if the offence is too great or the trust too fragile, ensure they are never again in a position to exact power over my life and simply forget them. Life is too short. And in this case, I was confident there would be, could be, no repeat of the offence. The keys had been returned, we would not employ his firm again at the house, and my wife, I am sure, would die before allowing him near her again – her shame was palpable and ran deep. I hoped that she would not continue to suffer with self-reproach, though her untroubled sleeping form next to me seemed to indicate that this worry was, for the moment, unfounded.

So why did his face return to my mind each time my lids closed? Why was his wink haunting me, denying me rest? She was my focus and sole concern, not him, and here she slept, at peace, and no further harm possible to her...

At that moment, the penny dropped. No further harm? Indeed? Why, did this man strike me then as a gentleman, whose sexual exploits were strictly between him and the women he employed for his pleasures? Might we judge from his manner and behaviour that such a man is a soul of the utmost discretion?

I felt my heart rate increase and a most unwelcome heat rise in my cheeks. Idiot! Why, there’s every chance he’s bragging to his ‘mates’ right now, in one of the many god-awful, tasteless drinking holes of this stinking town, about the married woman he ‘gave one’ to that morning while ‘on the job’!  Every chance too that he was giving out the address, to plumbers, electricians, other local handymen. “If you’re ever lucky enough to get a call out here, make sure the husband's not home. Right dirty, she is! Likes it rough!” And the roar of laughter, like trolls under a bridge.

My temperature continued to rise and I began to feel nauseous. How could I have been so foolish? I vow to reclaim my role as her man, her protector, and then immediately fail again at understanding my task! Idiot! I began to panic then, my mind racing; how could I prevent this? Shall we have to move? Could I get another job elsewhere? Could he be stopped, bribed, reasoned with? Had he already began to talk? Was it too late? Had I already failed? Round and round, faster, dizzying, until I realised that I was going to be sick. I managed to close the bathroom door quietly before turning on the light and then retched as delicately as I could into the bowl.

As my eyes cleared and the half-digested takeaway food swam slowly back into focus, miraculously, my thoughts also resolved themselves. As I caught my breath, I examined the matter with my new found clarity.

He could not be spoken to or reasoned with; that much was clear. Equally clear, my wife remained at risk of dishonour and disgrace as long as he continued to move freely, and that became more likely - perhaps certain - the longer he did so.

The solution was clear; trivially obvious, once I’d gotten past the panic.

It was my responsibility, my burden, and mine alone. I thought again about her sleeping form in the morning sunlight, this morning, a thousand years ago, safe and carefree and secure in our world, and I vowed that she would return to that state, no matter the cost. I owed it to her for my own culpability.

“I’m glad you are my man.”

I will earn that gladness, my love. I will.

I returned to our bed, quietly, and slipped between the sheets, my mind now perfectly at peace, all issues and doubts resolved, my course once again clear and my role assured. On my way to sleep, one final rogue thought bubbled up to test my new tranquillity: What if he’d already told others? What if he’d done so tonight?

The thought did not trouble me for long. For one thing, he may not have, and if he did...

...if he did, he’d know their names, I was quite sure.

And with that, I slipped into dreamless oblivion.

7

The weekend passed as many before, save that I spent much of the time thinking while putting on a performance of relaxing. The following Monday, I returned to work and began to put my plans into action. To begin with, I begged off lunch again, regretfully, grateful this time for the increased hours that I’d been forced to put in. She was disappointed, naturally, but not surprised. This extra work had been a major factor in our current crisis and I resented it mightily, but it would at least serve to give me cover while I went about the resolution.

Next, I visited the library on my lunch break and employed one of the internet terminals, choosing one at the end of a row, against the wall, to minimise the chance of my work being observed. The firm we'd used had a website, of course, and a list of employees with photos. It took a little under a minute from sitting down before I had a name to put to the face.

I thought long and hard about the next step:  how to obtain an address. I had decided that what I was planning would work best as a home invasion. Bad Boy was clearly a singleton and would be most at ease in his own home. Abduction would be problematic at best. No, a break-in should be the best bet; keep it simple and neat, let the police go looking for a burglar.

His name was damnably common, but luckily we’re still a relatively small town, despite our repeated pretentions to city status, so it seemed reasonable that the phone book might yield fruit.

Fifteen people with that surname and three misters with the correct or no first initial.

Bother.

I contemplated visiting each address in turn, looking for clues as to the resident. I was confident that I would be able to ascertain his dwelling once I found it, but equally aware that this would expose me to the risk of being seen and remembered, especially if I needed to make more than one visit. If simple burglary had been my goal, this might have seemed an acceptable risk, but under the circumstance... no. No good.

Time for Google maps to earn its keep.