Chapter 3

To Prue an empty bedroom started feeling almost normal.

There was the gray silence, the vast ceiling with its reflections of streetlight and leaves. She hadn’t closed the curtains, nor had she closed the bedroom door. There was a draft tugging at her exposed chest. She pulled up the blanket, shivering.

Her phone rang.

She rolled to the side of the bed, grabbing the little machine.

“Peter?!”

Julia’s name was on the screen.

“God, he’s an asshole,” Julia said, spitting out the word.

“He promised to come over and talk,” Prue said, her voice hoarse from disuse. “He never did.”

“I know,” Julia said. “We talked this afternoon and I made him promise to see you and talk the whole damn mess out.”

“I guess he got cold feet,” Prue supposed.

“Hmmm,” Julia grumbled. “More of a hot cock, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

Prue’s voice went up in dismay.

“He came to my apartment around six, about three, four hours after I left him at the tearoom where we chatted – Mitzy’s, you know it.”

Prue didn’t answer. She knew by now that things would be bad.

“Right at the front door he came on to me, grabbing me, pulling at my blouse and trying to kiss me,” Julia went on. “I pushed him away, of course. He stank of booze.”

Prue still didn’t say a thing.

“He looked awful,” Julia proceeded. “And he wailed that you cheated again and humiliated him. He said ‘mummilated, ‘ he was so drunk. And he said he needed someone to hold him. He cried, you know, tears and all.”

Prue bit her lip, holding the phone, but unable to say anything.

“Are you still there, Pruts, honey?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I made him sit down on the couch and poured hot coffee into him,” Julia resumed. “When he seemed to sober up a bit, I told him to take a shower. He stank, you know. But I guess I shouldn’t have offered that.”

“Why not?” Prue asked, slowly getting over her shock.

“Because, when he returned, wearing one of my robes, he started all over again, bawling and grabbing. God, he’s a real wuzz. I never knew that.”

“Where is he now?” Prue asked.

“On my couch,” Julia answered. “Totally out.”

“Can I come over?” Prue asked.

“I ... I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Julia said with a hesitant voice.

“Why not? I need to know why he never showed up.”

“That’s exactly what I mean, honey,” Julia said. “You see, he was at your house and he saw your lover leave. Goddammit girl, you are one stupid bitch.”

A choking panic left Prue speechless. Then she squeaked:

“What do you mean? There was no one here, nobody! No lover, not anyone! I was alone, waiting for him. I waited for hours!”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line.

“He saw him, Pruts. He saw the asshole run from your door to his car and tear off, leaving rubber.”

A new flash of panic hit Prue. Hyperventilation brought her to the brink of fainting. Her voice sounded distant.

“No, noooo. It isn’t true! Nobody was here with me. Nobody! What is happening?”

“You tell me, girlfriend.”

Julia ended the last word with a sigh.

“Wake him up!” Prue suddenly cried out. “Get him on the phone. I need to explain. No, not explain. Nothing happened! I need to talk to him. Get him on the phone!”

After a silence, Julia sighed again.

“Not now, honey. Bad idea. Try to sleep a bit. Call me tomorrow.”

The ‘click’ cut straight through Prue’s desperate ‘nooo.‘

Peter woke up with a hangover.

Maybe it was the constant buzzing and hammering in his head that made him puzzle at where he was. The white ceiling could be anywhere, but somehow it didn’t look like his. Turning left, he got a shock.

He was in a strange bed and obviously not alone.

The long blond hair on the pillow looked disheveled. A white, bare shoulder peeped from the blanket. All he saw was the woman’s back, but he knew who she was.

Memories returned and they didn’t improve his hangover.

Curiously enough they seemed to work backwards. He remembered fucking a woman, but all associated feelings were muted. Then he recalled talking to her over a lot of booze.

The woman was Julia; her face swam in and out of his mind’s eye.

Her big mouth featured prominently, blood red lips moving over white, shining teeth – smiling, laughing, but most of all talking. Then he saw that same mouth sink over his hard penis, the blond hair bobbing.

What happened; why was he here?

Worming his brain deeper down into time, he recalled running into a tree-lined street, a well-known street. A wave of anger flooded the memory. He saw a man running from his house, Prue’s house. He jumped in a car and raced off. Then the meaning of it all returned, and Peter groaned.

The blond head on the pillow turned at the sound; blue sleepy eyes opened.

“What is it, honey?” her mouth said.

The lipstick was smeared. A long, white arm slid from under the sheet, following a crawling, red-nailed hand.

Peter moved back, away from the hand.

“Did we fuck?” he asked, his voice thick.

The woman chuckled. She rose to her elbows, making the sheet slide off her chest. Two pale breasts tumbled free, nipples bloated and red.

“Did we ever,” she said, grinning.

“Why?” he asked, not aware of the stupidity of his question.

Julia pouted, frowning.

“Oh my,” she said. “That is a very rude question to ask a woman, Pete, don’t you agree?”

He didn’t apologize.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

She winced.

“Another blow to my ego I’d say,” she said. “But okay, I guess your head takes time to function again. Boy, can you drink.”

As she talked, his mind cleared. The pain still throbbed at the back of his skull, but a rudimentary sense of cause and effect started to return.

He recalled walking away from Prue’s house, feeling completely humiliated and seething with rage. He’d started drinking whisky at a dark Irish pub on Main Street – Paddy’s he drank, or was it Jameson?

It had been whisky for sure, and lots of it.

Before getting totally pissed on an almost empty stomach, he’d dragged himself to his apartment. Entering it, the booze and the musty smell of the miserable little flat, combined with his recent experiences made him race to the toilet, missing it by an arm’s length.

It must have been half an hour later when he came to, his cheek pressed into the soiled tiles. He rose and undressed, groaning at every move.

Then he cleaned the mess and took a shower.

Four fried eggs later, flushed down with a quart of milk and two very dark coffees, he sat down on his shabby couch and started staring at nothing in particular.

Prue sounded glad when he’d called her, he remembered. She’d been glad and eager. He’d gone to see her and talk. But yet again he’d had a text on his phone. ‘Don’t hurry, ‘ it said. ‘Give the bastard a chance to pull up his pants.‘

Lying next to Julia, head buzzing, he tried to recall what the asshole looked like, running from Prue’s door to his car. He’d worn a raincoat and dark pants. He had something on the head and was facing away from him.

Useless.

So, finally there he’d been in his flat – sitting on his couch, fed and freshly showered. He stared into space for a while, as his phone rang. Damn phone. By then he associated it with everything that went wrong, these last days. They were a curse, these fucking cell phones. But not taking a call was no option; it could be anyone; it could be important.

It had been Julia.

“I called you twice,” she’d said. “You made me worry.”

“No need,” he’d answered. “I was occupied.”

She’d chuckled.

“I see. Good news by the sound of it?”

“Hardly.”

“Oh?”

“She was fucking her damned fucker when I arrived. He came running from her house. I goddamn called her. She must have been fucking him while we talked.”

“Little bitch,” Julia’d said.

They both had kept quiet for a bit.

“Now what do we do?” she’d finally asked.

He’d sighed.

“Move on, I guess.”

Another silence.

“Pete?”

“Yes?”

“I feel a bit guilty about what happened.”

“Why?”

“Well, I more or less made you go to her to talk it out. Now it seems I just tore up old wounds and added to the mess.”

“That’s all right,” he’d said. “Not your fault, really.”

“Pete?”

“Yes?”

“I’d hate to have you sit at your tiny flat, moping alone. Why don’t you come over? Have a bite, maybe? Watch TV together, you know? Just to cheer us up?”

‘Us, ‘ she’d said. Maybe she was right.

“I already ate,” he’d informed her. “But I’d love to come over.”

Prue hadn’t slept a wink after Julia’s call, of course.

The growing exhaustion separated her mind from reality. Her head was like a balloon, hardly attached to her body anymore; her eyes felt like stitched-on buttons.

She’d stopped thinking rationally for a while now. Images and wild associations ran amok in her skull. She saw Pete and Jules together, his face between her big tits.

Maybe it had always been her? And for how long?

They said cheaters were often well known by their victims. They were good friends, or family even. She tried to recall their past, Julia’s and hers – before Pete and after. She’d been good to Jules, letting her stay in the apartment after she went living with Pete – not asking more rent. She thought of all the clothes and things she’d handed down to her – for free. She’d left furniture behind, a TV set and a refrigerator.

“The ungrateful bitch,” she murmured.

She knew Julia was better looking than she. Julia always caught the first glances, being tall and blond. And second glances too, with her big tits.

So now she’d taken Pete away from her. Fuck you, Julia. I hope you choke on his cock. I hope it tears your dry cunt open and makes you bleed to death! I hope ... I hope...

New tears ran down her face.

Peter recalled arriving at Julia’s apartment.

He vaguely remembered the place from the time both girls lived there – well, he mostly remembered Prue’s bedroom. Julia had usually been away when he visited. And soon enough Prue took up her things and went living with him. All in all, he didn’t know the place that well, and no doubt Julia had changed a few things after she started living there alone.

He was amazed how good the apartment looked – tasteful furniture, a newly built kitchen. Julia showed him her new bathroom that was the en suite of the two bedrooms she’d made into one. There even was a built-in terrace. She called it a loggia.

Julia herself looked amazing too.

Somehow, he’d never really appreciated her when things were still right with Prue – wearing the blinkers of fresh love. Now he saw what Prue had always told him: Julia was by far the more beautiful of the two – and not just her tits.

From the moment he entered the flat, he felt the sexual tension she exuded. She welcomed him with a rather tight and long embrace, cooing how very sorry she was for his mishaps. He felt every curve and was immersed in her perfume.

Before long his swelling penis pushed into her stomach.

He muttered something and tried to free himself from her embrace. She just chuckled and said she was glad he felt a bit better.

Leading the way, she showed him the flat and its improvements. When he saw the big bed, he couldn’t help imagining Prue on it with two, three men, like in the pictures. It killed his erection. It also made him want to leave the room as soon as possible.

“You don’t like my bedroom?” Julia asked, looking over her shoulder as she fluffed a pillow.

He shrugged.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “So here you took the pictures of Prue fucking all these men? Does she still have the key? When did she last use it?”

Julia looked puzzled and he knew she’d lied to him. About the pictures? About the key?

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s have a drink.”

She’d prepared a pitcher of Margarita’s.

Sitting down on her new couch, she poured him one and took one herself. She toasted.

“To better times,” she said, winking.

They drank.

“So, what happened?” she went on. “At Prue’s I mean. She really is a stupid bitch.”

He remembered telling her in more detail what happened at Prue’s house, feeling the anger return. After he ended, Julia was pouring his third Margarita. He protested. She stood to get snacks.

“You’re right, Pete,” she called from the kitchen. “You really should move on; she isn’t worth it.”

When Julia returned with the nuts and nibbles, he saw she’d changed into a kimono-like robe. It seemed to be all she wore. The thin silk allowed her tits to move freely, pushing their nipples into the shining fabric. She smiled and turned left and right.

“Like?” she said. “Maybe you should get a bit more comfortable too.”

He rose.

“Ah,” he said, feeling awkward. “Julia, I don’t think we should be doing this.”

She beamed at him.

“Doing what?” she asked. “This is just two friends having a nice evening, no? Let’s watch a movie.”

She set down the nibbles, allowing the robe to gap. Then she sat down on the couch, patting the cushions beside her.

“I only bite on demand,” she said, chuckling.

So, in the end they fucked.

Peter remembered Julia moving closer and closer, the heat of her body radiating into his. He had no memory whatsoever of the movie they saw. He knew they drank a lot; at least he did.

And then her hands opened his belt and the fly of his pants.

He remembered the buzzing in his head. It overruled his feeble protests. He’d closed his eyes, maybe to pretend he wasn’t there, maybe to feel more intense how her hot mouth took in his raging erection.

He came almost instantly.

Did he apologize for coming so soon and flooding her throat without warning? He didn’t recall. He just remembered trembling, feeling the orgasm shake his body. When he opened his eyes, he saw her face floating before him.

“Take me to bed,” she said.

He did, and when they were naked, she took him in her mouth again and sucked him hard. The rest was one long rollercoaster. He remembered leaving the bed to empty his sick stomach in her bathroom.

It didn’t stop her.

And now it was morning and he sat against the headboard of her bed, fighting the aftermath of a night of boozing and fucking the best friend of his wife. She’d left the bed; he heard the shower running.

Minutes later she came back, wearing a towel as a turban and a short, fluffy bathrobe around her pinkish body.

“Eggs?” she asked. “Bacon? Coffee?”

He groaned. She chuckled, and left the room.

At last deciding it was morning, Prue rose and took a shower.

She felt every bone in her exhausted body. The hot water helped; she stayed under it until it turned cold. Shivering, she dried herself. Then she dressed and collected her toiletries, filling a suitcase with clothes.

Finally, she called a cab and drove to the palace by the sea.

Entering the posh hall felt like walking into an embrace. It also felt like defeat. The first one she saw was Alice. Sinking into her big soft body was like dissolving into oblivion. She felt the resonance of the woman’s voice through layers of flesh and fat, smelling the fragrance of her youth – lilacs mixed with spicy sweat.

“Oooooh, my lil mumkin,” she heard. “Welcome home.”

It was a lie, she knew. This wasn’t home. Home was where she and Peter were. This was the past, a passed station. But she let go of the thought, taking a free fall into defeat – soft, delicious, lilac-scented defeat.

“My princess!”

Of course, she’d seen her father often enough after she married – Thanksgivings, birthdays, Christmases, 4^th of July’s. But this felt different. Her father looked different, too; he sounded different. He was smaller, somehow, and older.

Did she see a tear in his eye?

The embrace was ... brittle. He’d always been the dominant hugger, but now it was she holding him. She searched for his eyes.

“Are you all right, daddy?” she asked.

He pushed her to arm’s length, beaming a forced smile.

“Never better! Never better. Especially with my princess home again.”

He tried to echo his old, self-assured voice. But it was just that: an echo. Daddy growing old – it certainly was a thing to get used to.

“Alice will take you to your rooms,” he went on. “Your old rooms. After that, meet me in the library. We have so much to talk about!”

Prue followed the wobbling, puffing woman up the sweeping stairs. Every step up seemed one down; it was a confusing sensation.

After breakfast Peter left Julia.

She wanted him to stay, but he faked an appointment. He had to be alone, but mostly he had to be away from her. A sense of betrayal entered his mind as the memories of last night became clearer and more detailed.

It made him feel dirty and that confused him.

Why should he feel dirty for fucking a gorgeous woman after finding his wife with a man? His wife who had betrayed him earlier, and, who knows, had cheated on him all their marriage.

He cursed under his breath.

He had to move on. She divorced him, goddammit. What more did he need to wake up? He had it in writing, handed to him by a distinguished gentleman in a pinstriped suit.

The morning was crisp.

After a week of showers and gushing winds the sky was clear. He loved to call it sapphire, just for the sound of it – sapphire skies and verdant foliage. Maybe using new names for old things might give him a new start?

Childish, but well, who knows. It might work.

His apartment was as stifling and musty as ever, no matter what name he gave it. He opened all three windows that could be opened, allowing fresh air in. He really should move on and find something better.

Starting his laptop, he went checking his mail.

Most of it was work-related. It reminded him that tomorrow was Monday. There was comfort in knowing he could escape into work again. Maybe men shouldn’t be bothered with the intricacies of social nitpicking. He shouldn’t have to care about who fucked who, who was whose friend, so who had obligations to whom.

Maybe he should never have married.

As he mused, he worked his way through the endless row of red dots, deleting most messages, reading some haphazardly and storing others.

There was one from Prue.

Moving a finger on his mouse pad to have it deleted, he was caught by the first line.

“Dearest Pete, I have moved back to my parents’.”

How inconvenient, was his first thought. For her lovers, he meant. But maybe her parents were agreeable; they never cared much about him – too poor, too proud. Maybe they preferred her to have a rich slime ball, like her two brothers.

The house was big enough for some privacy, that’s for sure.

Although there was more to it, he deleted the message with an angry flick of his fingers. So, she moved and he could return to the house. It would be practical, and certainly a lot more comfortable than the dump he lived in now.

But he doubted he could.

He’d better look up some real estate offices and have it sold. There was hardly money in the place, as they’d taken their mortgage only two years ago. For a while Prue had insisted to fund a bigger down payment, but he’d proudly refused.

His father-in-law had called him an idiot – not in his face, of course.

No, the best course was to sell it and share the meager profits. He’d mail her to ask what pieces of furniture and things she wanted; he didn’t care. There were cd’s to fight over, of course, but thank God, no pets.

Deleting the last few e-mails, he heard a ping announcing a new one.

It was from Prue again.

“I understand,” it said. “But did it have to be with her?”

Below the single sentence was a picture of a man and a blond woman, naked on a bed, fucking. The blonde was Julia, he was the man. Julia looked straight into camera while riding Peter’s hard cock reversed cowgirl. His face was visible in the darkness behind her.

So. Jules had taken pictures.

Had she done it herself somehow, and sent them to Prue? Why? Out of spite; or just out of plain meanness? Who understands women?

Or had there been someone else? An intruder; someone she’d invited or paid for. He didn’t remember seeing anyone. He hardly recalled the fucking itself.

It looked quite intense, though.

Damn. So, Prue knew what they did last night. Well, didn’t she do exactly the same thing too? Worse – she’d fucked three men. Then again, he’d been fucking her best friend.

He guessed she’d call it a revenge fuck.

But not one moment of the night had it felt like that. Mostly, Peter had been confused, overwhelmed, numb. Okay, his cock had been an enthusiastic participant, but any orgiastic sensations he’d felt had been purely located in his groin.

It had been like masturbating.

If there were emotions involved, they’d not been at all sexual and rather gloomy. There had been a confusing mixture of sadness, inadequacy, insecurity – and sickness of course. With every bout of fucking Julia initiated, he’d done his utmost to finish fast and return to the misty, roiling landscape of his drunken, frustrated existence.

The photo must be telling Prue quite a different story, though.

‘Did it have to be with her?’ she asked. No, he admitted, it shouldn’t. Nothing should have been anything else than the two of them together, Prue and he – cuddling, kissing, making love.

He sighed and rose, when another ping announced a new message.

There was no name attached to it. The title just said: Pictures. They were more of the same – ten in all. Jules sucking, Jules riding, Peter eating bare pussy, the two of them in 69, he, fucking Jules’s ass. The bodies were sweaty, skin gleaming, faces contorted. There was one picture where he held Julia’s tits, licking their swollen tips.

Somehow it seemed the most provocative of the bunch.

The mail had no comments and an unknown sender. It must be the same Prue had received. Who sent it? Jules?

His phone rang.

“It wasn’t me,” Julia said.

“You got them too?”

“Yes. But I didn’t send them. And I didn’t take them, either. You must believe me.”

She’d lied before, he thought.

“They were taken in your bedroom, Jules!” he said, speaking louder. “Who could take pictures there without you knowing?”

“I don’t know,” she said, stretching the last word in despair. “Prue has a key.”

Prue. Why would Prue want pictures of them fucking – and then act upset because she got sent some?

“Why would she do that, Jules?” he asked. “She was the one wanting a divorce and serving me. She doesn’t need proof; she’ll get her divorce anyway. So why take pictures and spread them around?”

Again, Julia said she didn’t know, more resigned now.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” she said. “I hate seeing your privacy violated like this, and in my house. I’m sorry. But it wasn’t me.”

Prue stared at the pictures. They were awful, and they hurt.

So, she’d been right: Peter fucked Julia. Maybe he did it for as long as they’d been married – or even longer. The ever-present nausea in her stomach reared its head, making her belch.

He’d been with Jules at the tearoom place before he’d phoned to come over and talk. Maybe the bitch was still there when he called. Perhaps they made fun over her despair – damn Julia.

What had she ever done to deserve so much meanness from her husband and her best friend?

Lying on her pink-flowered teenage bed in her pinkish teenage room, looking at the old pop-posters still hanging on the walls, she felt misery taking over, yet again.

Or had this just been a one-off? Had it just been his way to get even for what he supposed she did that night at the Zoozoom and later? But why with Jules? He should hate Julia for setting Prue up that night.

It had been Julia who made those pictures, after all.

Once again Prue tried to reconstruct what exactly happened that night. But everything was as vague as ever. She must have been given something – a drug, maybe, and a lot of booze. A lot.

It wasn’t fair.

She picked up her cell phone and hesitated before pressing a button.

“Hello?” she heard.

“Why do you hate me so much, Jules?” she asked.

“Hate you?” The voice sounded baffled. “Why would I hate you?”

Why indeed?

“You fuck my man and send me the pictures.”

Her man.

“Sorry,” Julia said. “But last I looked you divorced him. And I did not send any pictures. – just as I told Pete.”

“You talked to Pete?”

“Well, he called me,” Julia replied. “He called me about those same damn pictures. I received them myself right before he called and no: like I told him, I didn’t make those photo’s or send them.”

“They’ve been taken at your house, Jules, your bedroom.”

There was a sigh.

“Yes,” Julia said, sounding tired. “Did you make them, Prue? You still have a key, you know. Did you hide and spy on us?”

Prue didn’t know what to say. Her thoughts ran in circles, galloping their sickening stampede.

“Are you trying to make me crazy?” she asked, hearing the forlornness of her voice. “You and Pete?”

“I don’t know,” Julia said. “You should know best, don’t you think? You started it all with your silly divorce. You never talked, never asked, just: slam bam threw a bunch of lawyers at him. And now you cry crocodile tears when a healthy man decides to take you seriously?”

Prue heard a moaning sound; it rose from her own throat.

Monday came around.

To Peter Hawkins it felt like relief, like taking deep breaths of fresh air after leaving a closed, airless space. Work had this exhilarating quality of normalness. Everything was clear-cut, with the encouraging perspective of a shared goal.

There were no unreadable glances, no hints of hidden agendas.

Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is a cigar. And after a weekend filled with duplicity it was paradise to know, at least for another week, that there would be no false bottoms or secret meanings. The project they worked on was too complex for distractions.

So, his week had already reached Tuesday when disaster struck.

It was in the mail, the slow, old-fashioned paper kind. It had the posh heading of Prue’s lawyers’ firm, embossed with fading gold. It said he would be summoned to appear in court – no fast track for him, no short cuts; to hell with the prenup’s promise of simplicity.

The cause for divorce had changed from neutral to horrible formulations like ‘mental cruelty’ and ‘adultery.’ Not that they would have any serious bearing on the end-result, but they would certainly make the road longer, bumpier, and dirtier.

So, the bitch decided to torture him.

After fighting his anger, disgust and nausea, Peter knew he needed a real divorce lawyer.

Three hours later he sat opposite a tall, sharp-faced woman in her fifties. She wore a severe pearl-gray suit and the ageless type of silk blouse that had these flaps at the collar, tied into a bow. She had a voice that never rose; it was emotionless and precise in its formulation.

A friend had assured him she was good.

After reading the letter, she asked him to tell the story, and he did. He explained what happened from the first anonymous cell phone message to the fucking pictures and the running asshole.

She cleared her throat and demanded more detail. So, he extended his story, giving background on people and happenings. Hearing himself summing up the ever-escalating incidents, a feeling of alienation crept in.

“So, you had intercourse with another woman too.”

It wasn’t a question. Neither were the comments that followed.

“You both went off the handle after only two anonymous rumors. You ran off to a motel. And you accepted the divorce papers you were serviced with. Could I see those papers?”

He gave them to her, together with the e-mails and pictures.

She studied them in silence. Then she looked up.

“This ... Julia,” she said, pointing at the smiling face of Jules riding his cock. “She seems to have been at all the right places at all the right times. And she’s best friends with your wife?”

He nodded.

“And she has this apartment she rents from your wife for, let’s say, a song?”

He nodded again.

“Is she poor?”

Peter wondered about the question. He remembered the renovation and the new furniture.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

The woman nodded.

“Where is your wife now?”

“At her parents’ house, since last week,” he said.