Chapter 4

When Monday came, Prue went back to work.

When it all started going to pieces, she’d first tried to drown herself in work for a few days. Work would distract her, she’d hoped, and she needed distraction.

But it hadn’t.

That first Monday, weeks ago, her boss Victor Kuric, Vic, had talked to her and it had been about her coordinating the next project. It was a promotion and a huge compliment. But somehow all the glamour had left the prospect, and he’d noticed. Grinning in his sweet Clooney-type way, he’d asked if something was wrong.

She’d denied, of course, but after the third day of dragging herself through the motions, they’d talked again, and she’d shared her doubts about their marriage – telling him Peter left her.

He’d taken her out to lunch – just a sandwich – and advised her to call in sick until she was up to work again. Now, almost two weeks later, she remembered how his warm hand on her shoulder had sent little tremors down her back.

He’d been so very understanding.

She parked her car and walked to the elevators, heels clicking on the concrete floor. They were simple things she’d done hundreds of times before, but today they felt new and they thrilled her. She met colleagues in the elevator, and they were all very sweet to her, asking her how she was, complimenting her on how she looked, and telling her they were glad she was back on board.

Walking across the office floor felt like immersing in a warm bath.

Prue found that people liked her, and had genuinely missed her. Getting a cup of coffee was a quiet act of triumph; sharing gossip a rare bit of common-day bliss.

Prue was back.

She greedily drank in every greeting, every compliment. And she needed it. Seeing Peter jerk off hit her hard – hurting her ego and shaking her confidence. His lame excuses never really convinced her. She obviously wasn’t enough for him anymore.

Look what happened: they’d just made love again after weeks – twice even. She was there, naked in bed with him, and he had to sneak away to masturbate in the bathroom?

Images of Peter and Julia kept popping up as she lay in bed with him later, desperately cuddling into him, holding on to his body; the damn pictures of him and her wouldn’t go away – the riot of blond hair, the big tits and the endless legs. And of course, the sight of Peter crouching over the toilet, jerking his penis.

Did he think of Jules as he came, reliving their fuckfest? Had he seen her too as they made love?

The ghostlike images never left her that night. But she decided to swallow her pride. Give him time, she told herself, maybe it is all a matter of healing.

They’d made love again twice that weekend, sweet and slow. And they’d gone out to eat and dance. She’d only danced with him and turned down advances and drinks. Back home they’d kissed and cuddled, drifting off to sleep.

Give him time.

And now she was back at work, putting away her jacket and placing her leather briefcase on her empty, shining desk when Bridget, her shared secretary, told her she was expected to see Kuric.

A thrill touched her.

He walked around his desk when she entered – tall, wearing an impeccable suit and his boyish grin. Ignoring her hand, he hugged her, telling her how welcome she was, and how sorely she’d been missed. His aftershave filled her head; her body felt his muscles through the suit.

She blushed when they parted.

Sitting in one of his overstuffed chairs she listened to him informing her about the progress of the project that had – ‘regrettably’ – started without her. He explained how she could still contribute until the next project would present itself.

Prue just watched his mouth move.

She should feel regret about missing the promotion, but she didn’t. So many other things had happened since the shake-up of her life: the betrayal by her best friend, the doubts about her once unconditional love.

She tried to focus on what Kuric said, but the emotions of the weekend returned – the relief and the disappointment, the hope and the bitter taste of reality.

If Pete wasn’t totally hers, what was the use of being true to him?

The thought invaded her mind bluntly – it didn’t knock or announce itself. It just entered, startling her with its matter-of-factness. Prue knew she’d always liked watching other men, weighing their attractiveness and enjoying their attention – basking in it, even. But it had always been a superficial thing, a massage of her ego and an affirmation of her own attractiveness.

Funny enough it had been more about ensuring her place amongst women than a sexual thing. She loved to compete by dressing well and looking good – not so much to send sexy signals to men; just to be noticed by women.

When men really took her up on it, she’d panicked and rushed to get back into the save arms of Peter. To be true, she wasn’t a very sexual creature at all, was she? It took a lot of cuddling and attention to arouse her. And the only man she’d wanted to do that with had been Peter Hawkins.

Maybe having that certainty was the only reason she dared to do it – the flirting and the teasing.

Up until now.

Watching Victor Kuric talk and smile and grin caused a warmth to spread inside her. Not the cozy, secure feelings she had with Peter, or the exciting superficiality of flirting, not at all. There was a thrill in it she’d never felt with Kuric before – or with any man. It felt as if a door had opened inside her; as if a barrier had been pushed aside, allowing the warm feelings to spread, not as something sweet and sympathetic, but as a real, earthy, physical thing.

It made her wet.

It also made her feel embarrassed.

“Are you all right, Prue?”

She shook her head to lose the sticky, spidery web her thoughts had woven around her. Smiling wide she said she was fine, thanking him for his kind words and assuring him she was prepared to get back to work full force.

He grinned his infuriating lopsided grin again and rose. Following his example, she felt moisture stick to her crotch. There was a slightly awkward quality to the next moments. Then he hugged her again, wishing her success.

Prue rushed down the corridor to find the nearest toilet.

For Julia Monday was a blur.

She stared at the empty bottles. They seemed to be everywhere; crowding the table, lying around her bed, and even scattered throughout the bathroom. Stiff-limbed and groaning she went picking them up and dumping them in the large trash bag she dragged behind her. The clanging of the glass hurt her head and made her wince.

It was afternoon; she’d lost an entire weekend.

After working through her impressive wine collection, she’d attacked whatever liquor she had, ending with beer. She’d made sure to not have one clear moment all day or night; it would have too painfully reminded her of how stupid she’d been.

There were huge gaps in her memory, where she must have blissfully zonked out.

Collecting the empties, she found half-dried vomit and dark stains that reeked of urine.

She’d been on drinking binges before, but never like this. Slowly returning to sobriety she thanked God there hadn’t been drugs or pills in the house. After cleaning away the bottles and the filth, she responded to the three voice mail messages from work. She apologized, claiming illness, and took a shower.

The water felt great.

It cleaned her body and her mind, flushing ghosts and demons down the drain together with the dirt and the embarrassment. My God, she should be ashamed. The proud and independent Julia crawling through the house, boozing and vomiting, and most of all: wallowing in self-pity. And why?

She’d gambled and lost; she’d been stupidly arrogant, thinking she was invulnerable – what else was new?

Sitting down in her fluffy bathrobe she meticulously made up her face, covering the rings under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. Then she blow-dried her hair, making it grow into a halo of golden curls. She packed her tits into a push up bra, her freshly shaved pussy in a thong. Then she covered it all with a tight jersey sweater and a black, ass-hugging skirt. Adding dashes of perfume to the fragrances of shampoo and body lotion, she went looking for her tallest heels.

Nothing like a pampered body to shore up the mind.

One last check in the mirror, and Julia Connors crossed her front door sill to meet the world.

A lioness roared in the jungle.

For Peter Monday morning was a relief.

Before going into work, he went by his apartment to get fresh clothes. He supposed Prue expected him to give up the dumpy place and return to their old home. He guessed it was the natural thing to do, but he had to force himself into thinking that. Being around Prue wasn’t as easy as it had seemed at first.

Something changed.

Was it all the damn things they went through that kept sticking to them? Was it their time apart? Or the cheating they’d both done? You might think making love again would have erased the awkwardness, but it hadn’t. At first there’d been the rush of relief that they’d been able to overcome the past and be together again. But Prue had just been ... Prue. And the orgasms had been ... tame.

He also knew he’d lied.

He’d masturbated to his lively memories of fucking Julia – her mouth, her tight cunt, her ass. And his orgasm, although his third in only hours, had been more intense than the ones he had with Prue.

Maybe they needed time.

But deep down Peter knew this wasn’t true. Something’d changed between them. Maybe the change was only with him? Prue was her sweet cuddly, kissing and spooning self, wasn’t she? Like a cute, purring animal in his embrace. Her orgasms had been as always – slow in the coming and discreet, with meowing little moans. No shaking, no screaming, no clawing with her toes.

Not at all like she had been in the pictures, devouring three men. And not at all like Julia, he thought.

Why did he think that? He’d felt disgusted after what Julia did to him – boozing him up and using him – raping? But there had been this second time when he’d looked Julia up, gone to her apartment. She’d seduced him then, hadn’t she, taking advantage of his depression? Yes, he liked to think that.

And thinking it, made his penis hard.

Work was gloriously normal, and thank God totally absorbing.

No one asked anything, it was all just about the things at hand – and about sports of course. Ever since his active days, Peter had developed a lack of interest in football and baseball. Basketball had never been his thing. He played some tennis, but hardly ever watched it on TV. So, the never-ending comments during coffee breaks didn’t attract him.

Today they did, however; he just loved to listen and float on the utter shallowness of it.

Then five o’clock came and he realized he didn’t want to go home. He couldn’t stay at the offices, though _– they closed for security reasons. So, at five fifteen he sat in the Bell and Clapper, drinking ale and shooting the breeze.

Around six thirty his phone rang.

“Pete? Where are you?”

It was Prue. She worried, she said. Why didn’t he call? She was making dinner, and she supposed ... That was where she fell silent.

“Ehm... ,” she then said. “If you don’t want to come home yet, that ehm ... is all right. I don’t want to...”

And she became silent again.

Peter felt awful. He knew he was a coward to stay away without calling her. The buzz of the bar closed in on him. One of his colleagues called his name. He waved him away. Then he rose and walked out of the bar, into the street.

“Prue,” he said, not knowing how to go on – just filling the gap.

“Peter,” she said. “If you’re not ready, I understand.”

No, dammit, he screamed inside. She shouldn’t understand him. She should scream and cry. She should accuse him, make him feel what a bastard he was.

But she didn’t.

She told him she understood, but if he please would let her in on his plans so she knew what to expect. Please, she said, for God’s sake.

Then she disconnected.

Prue hung her jacket in the small closet at her office.

She straightened a wrinkle, admiring the deep red of her fingernails. She was back on track, wasn’t she? Three days since she’d started again, and everything was under control. Yesterday a colleague said he was glad to see she was the old Prue again.

She took it as a compliment, smiling at the sweet old man.

Ah, she could use compliments. For a moment, she’d thought things were back to being all right with Pete and their marriage – until she saw him masturbating. She’d been sure it had been Julia’s name he was muttering while pulling on his hard cock.

My God, yes, she could use compliments.

Looking in the body-length mirror she critically checked her outfit. Silk white blouse on a charcoal, knee-length pencil skirt; black sheer stockings, shining patent leather pumps; higher heels than usual. Her dark hair shone, framing a pale face. She blinked her huge, smoky eyes and stretched her signal red lips into a smile.

Was it too much?

Prue shook her head, making her hair sway. No. Her modest days were over. Opening another button, she watched her cleavage appear. She noticed what her first time ever Wonderbra did to her chest. It gave her a little thrill.

She touched an invisible speck at the corner of her mouth, and turned to start her day.

“Bravo.”

She’d left her door open. In its frame stood Vic Kuric, smiling. A sudden blush washed over her face and throat. Yes, he was tall; he filled the entire opening.

“I thought I’d pick you up for the meeting,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

The shock abated, and she found a trembling smile.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed louder than she’d wanted to. “Let me get my jacket.”

Walking down the hallway next to him felt giddy but good.

Her new heels made her ass sway a bit more in the tight skirt. They also gave her a new height and a wonderfully risky wobble to her ankles. Once she slipped and he grabbed her wrist. They had a good laugh, but she felt the warmth of his squeeze for minutes.

Standing in the elevator, alone with him, seemed to last forever.

She stole a glance past him into the mirrored wall. God, they made a lovely pair, she thought, feeling another blush come up. He had the perfect body for the light wool suit he wore: straight and slim, muscled, no fat.

She guessed anything would look good on him.

The meeting was nothing special, except for Vic’s compliment on the work she’d done. It gave her the third blush of the morning.

On their way down again he asked her if she had plans for lunch.

It took her by surprise; she stuttered a bit as her brain raced. They’d lunched before and it had always been simple and rather functional – just two colleagues grabbing a bite and a coffee.

So why did this feel different?

They were in the elevator again. He grinned at her predicament, his gray eyes twinkling in full George Clooney mode.

“Just a bite,” he said. “Nothing special.”

“Ehm... , well, of course,” she muttered. Then she found her smile.

He nodded.

“Or should we hit the Carlton?” he asked. “The Orangerie?”

The Carlton was the posh place Julia had disastrously taken her to. It had a sumptuous dining room, but next to that was a rather cute lunch place, situated in a glass greenhouse-like restaurant called l’Orangerie. There were palms and orange trees, rare birds in cages, and shielded niches with rattan furniture.

It was a place famous for romance of the naughtier kind.

Before she could say something he apologized.

“Sorry, I guess I was a trifle too enthusiastic,” he said, nullifying his apologetic words with a grin.

“No, no!” Prue said. “Not at all! I was just, ehm ... surprised.”

He chuckled.

“Surprised,” he repeated.

Just then the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the hallway. Prue felt stupid. Why did she have to be so damn uncouth, and blush all the time?

He stopped in the middle of the corridor, turning towards her.

“Why would that surprise you, Prue?” he asked. “I’ve been wanting to ask you that for ages, don’t you know? I just never dared.”

It was all Prue needed to feel her old flirting self return.

Now it was she who chuckled, turning her face down to look from under her eyebrows. She called it her Diana-gaze, from the late British princess. It always worked.

“Now I’m truly surprised, Vic,” she said. “I wonder why you didn’t dare. What could be so dangerous about an innocent little lunch?”

He laughed. It wasn’t a chuckle or a grin, but a true belly laugh.

“Twelve-thirty,” he said. “I’ll pick you up.”

He turned and walked to his office.

Prue still stood staring after he’d long gone.

Julia Connors sat back in her rattan chair and waited.

She realized she’d blown it with old Gascoyne, throwing away all she’d worked on so hard. She agreed that she had been monumentally stupid and arrogant not to realize the little bitch would show daddy the pictures, after their clash at the Carlton.

Still Gascoyne’s reaction had surprised her – where would the old geezer ever again get his limp old weenie sucked as patiently as she’d done, over and over? But she knew the answer, of course: by another whore.

Julia had blown it, and she knew someone would pay for it.

So, the fool thought he had a perfect daughter? He’d pooh-poohed her cheating, calling it drugs-induced rape. He’d even tried to find out who did it.

Of course, he would find nothing.

He’d also applauded Prue’s leaving Peter as it brought her back into the fold. His daughter was his Princess – sweet and flawless, and innocent.

We’ll see to that, Julia thought.

She picked up her tiny cup of espresso, sipping and leaving a semi-circle of lipstick on the rim. Sitting behind a trellis overgrown with tropical plants, wearing her tightest dress and her most aggressive war paint, she watched the entrance of the Orangerie.

‘Don’t let me down, Vic, ‘ she thought, frowning a dark vertical in her immaculate brow.

She’d met Victor Kuric shortly after she went to college, even before meeting Prue.

She’d just left her mother’s house in the trailer park and a childhood marked by insecurity, abuse and abandon. She’d always been well-aware how the woman paid the rent. All through her youth there had been these shady men visiting, giving her coins to stay away and have an ice cream. She remembered the many sleepovers with her aunt or friends, the quarrels at night when she was supposed to sleep.

It should have made her a very cynical girl. And of course, she was. It helped her step out of herself when she sucked dirty cocks in cheap motels to pay her rent and add to her meager allowance.

It also prepared her for Victor Kuric.

Maybe it takes one wolf to sniff out another, even when both wear sheep clothes?

She remembered the first time they met, in the Zoozoom, where she sometimes picked up guys. He was older, already working. He also was very handsome, and aware of that.

She observed him from behind the invisible battlements of her cynicism – watching his ice cold, deadly charming techniques at seducing girls. He was good, she admitted – an accomplished asshole.

When he spotted her, she almost melted under the sudden impact of his attention. He smiled, joked cleverly, bought her drinks and exhausted her on the dance floor. She knew he aimed at making her drunk, but she knew how to hold her liquor. There had been too much secretly snatched booze in her past.

But they had fun, my God, did they have fun.

She teased him mercilessly and he was a great sport, even satisfied with a simple kiss when they parted. But she was back at the Zoozoom the next night, and so was he.

At times their evenings ended in bed together, and the sex was great. But soon they started playing at different games, seducing innocent girlfriends and awkward boyfriends, loving wives and cheating husbands, leaving a nonchalant wake of broken hearts and disillusion – laughing at the debris and having a great time.

It contrasted very nicely with the tedious routine of her studies, and the bland turn her life took after meeting Prue. Of course, she kept the girl in blissful ignorance about her second life.

She and Kuric started challenging each other to take ever-bigger risks. They invited danger, putting each other in reckless situations – pushing their game closer and closer to the abyss.

‘Dangerous Liaisons, ‘ Julia thought, chuckling.

Then she remembered the day she had to bail him out.

He’d just made head of a new department and was unaware that he’d seduced and fucked the young wife of a colleague. He’d ‘helped’ her on her way with a tiny pill, and she proved allergic to an ingredient.

At the hospital, they stated she’d been drugged and soon the husband found out she’d been with Kuric, his boss. Being a rather timid man, he didn’t resort to violence; he just went to the police and informed HR.

The legal department started earning their money, finding experts to cast doubt on the hospital’s findings. It also had been quite easy to bribe Julia in providing an alibi, although she cruelly kept postponing her disposition.

She remembered that the money she got for it paid for a new bathroom and redecorating her apartment.

After all the dust settled, she made him see very clearly how he owed her big time.

To avoid any more scandal, the company shipped Kuric to a branch in Britain, only to return half a year ago.

From the moment Prue told her that a Victor Kuric had returned from Europe to become her boss, Julia knew she would collect his debt. She’d seen him in town a couple of times, often too busy seducing young girls and older wives to see her.

But on the evening of her return to sobriety, Julia’d gone looking for him at a bar she knew he frequented after work. As she’d walked in with all her guns blazing, he recognized her immediately.

“Oh God!” he’d cried out with pathetic irony, grabbing for his heart. “Juli Cool! The one and only Queen of the fucking Night.”

Julia chuckled as she reminded herself that while being abroad he hadn’t even once taken the trouble of dropping her a line or keeping in contact. He hadn’t even invited her to his wedding. Too ashamed of confronting his fine new in-laws with the tramp in his closet, she thought.

She’d had to see the pictures in the glossies.

His milky-skinned wife gave him twin boys before they came back to the States. Seeing him feeding drinks to barely legal girls at the bar convinced her that marriage or even fatherhood hadn’t slowed him down one bit.

“Victor Fucking Kuric,” she sang with her sweetest voice. “Interrupted at his favorite game.”

They’d kissed and retired to a distant booth with a bottle of wine, him dumping the girls without an afterthought. They shared memories, falling back into their flirty and strictly superficial tone of voice.

Victor had no idea Prue knew Julia. She might have told him about her, but Julia doubted if he would have made the connection, being his good old self-absorbed, assholed self.

It took Kuric only minutes to start bragging about a ‘new project’ as he called it: this ‘little chick that worked for him, married of course and daughter of money. “Naïve,” he said, “and quite the catch. Pretty little thing.”

Basking in the egotistic certainties of the self-proclaimed alpha man he’d obviously gone to work the moment he sensed the recent changes in Prue’s marriage – the widening cracks in her armor.

Marveling at the man’s predictability, Julia started feeding his ego, while refilling his glass without pause. She was stunned how easy it was to usher the man onto a path that already had proven almost fatal for him in the past.

He really must believe he was invulnerable.

They ended up in a room at the Carlton, but he was so drunk that fucking was out of the question. She didn’t mind.

Now sitting at the Orangerie, watching the entrance, Julia felt the heat of her anger simmering in the pit of her stomach. She wondered whom she hated more, Gascoyne who dumped her expecting his child or his spoilt, greedy daughter. She also noted that she didn’t care what would happen to Victor Fucking Kuric or his sham of a marriage.

To be very sure, she’d once more met Victor yesterday over drinks at the lounge of the Carlton, subtly milking him for the latest news in his quest for ‘his new little housewife, ‘ as he put it.

So here she was, waiting, sipping coffee.

Last night Peter had crashed at his old place, after drinking and eating with a few of his colleagues, one of them female. He’d danced with her and through a haze of alcohol he remembered a long and steaming kiss.

He hadn’t phoned Prue; Prue hadn’t phoned him. It caused a sense of guilt lingering at the back of his head, covered by muffling excuses. It was like a dung heap buzzing with flies. Still he fought every weak lurch of it to get front stage and bother him.

He loved Prue – he kept telling himself he still loved her.

But why did he have to keep telling himself that? And why did he fight his guilt – why not phone her? And, finally, why did he get up in the middle of the night to masturbate to the images of him and Julia?

When he went up in the elevator next morning, he met the girl he’d kissed the night before, and he knew work had stopped being the innocent and uncomplicated haven it used to be. He’d messed that up too, he thought as his eyes traveled down her tight body, her firm dancer’s legs and up again to her face. She smiled.

“Hi, Peter,” she said.

He wrecked his mind to find her name.

“That was fun, last night,” she added.

He mumbled an agreement.

Prue’s heart raced like a little bird’s.

Damn, she wasn’t a teenage girl anymore, was she? Not a wide-eyed innocent. She was a woman, an experienced, adult woman who’d had her choice of men. Who’d proved she could wrap them around her little finger. A married woman, a...

Her brain came to a halt.

She shook her head to get rid of that last thought. But then again, why should she? She hadn’t seen Pete for two day and a night; no phone calls either, no explanations, no excuses.

As far as she knew, she was on her own.

Holding on to Victor Kuric’s arm she walked up the steps to the Orangerie in her new heels, savoring the thrill and the glamour of it all. Inside it wasn’t busy yet. The high, beautiful room had tall windows and a vaulted glass ceiling. Plants were everywhere and so was the twitter of birds.

She inhaled an overwhelmingly sweet scent of orange blossom.

The maître d’ walked up to them, asking for their reservation. The woman smiled at Victor; then she led them to the back where an intimate table waited, shielded by tall plants on three sides. As they sat down Victor ordered a bottle of champagne. Prue objected weakly, but the woman had already left.

“You look gorgeous,” Victor said.

Sitting down, their eyes were almost level. They were also very close. The impact of his steely gray gaze made her look down and blush. He chuckled. She cursed inwardly.

Then the woman returned, pouring the bubbly wine.

“To us,” he said.

Us?

The champagne was sweet, but strong. Prue knew she shouldn’t drink fast, and stop after this one glass. She really should be careful. She really should.

But then again, why?

Picking up the menu, if only to get her eyes away from his, she felt his hand on hers.

“Please allow me to order for us,” he said.

Prue looked up. He smiled.

“Oh,” she said. “But I’ll just have a simple salad.”

His smile changed into the comical expression of a begging puppy. It made her giggle.

“Salad it will be, madame,” he said, taking away the menu. “But first let me order us some oysters. I bet you love oysters.”

The word shocked Prue.

Of course, there had been oysters in her life _– at the posh Gascoyne dinner tables and when they traveled. But the first time she’d really and consciously tasted one was on her first vacation with Peter; somewhere in Europe, maybe Brussels.

The place had been gorgeous – art deco, lots of glass and decorated, shining tiles. It was a perfect little lunch place after crossing the old city’s length and breadth. She remembered a drizzly rain outside; it hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered in those days, just she and him and all the things they did together.

They’d fed each other the raw, salty, slithering creatures at the cute high table, drinking white wine, Loire wine, she remembered. Sancerre. It had just been a standing lunch – nothing much really, but everything.

Prue pushed back her chair and rose.

“Sorry, Victor,” she said. “This is a mistake. I can’t do this. I’m very sorry.”