Chapter 10: Chapter 10

My hangover had worked its way out of my system by the time I got to my marital

home in Fulham. I figured that's where I 'd find Sam and I was right. He was about

to leave our garden flat when I arrived at the gate. He had his back to me and did

not see me straight away.

'If you're going to Julia's, she's out,' I said. He jumped and the colour ran from his

cheeks.

'Lori.' His voice was weak and he couldn't meet my gaze. I was firing all the venom

in my blood at him through that gaze.

'I assume you're going back there,' I said.

'No, as a matter of fact I was going round to Riz's. I assumed that's where you might

be staying. I hoped you might come home.'

'What home? Why would I want to come here of all places?'

'Because... this is where you live. It's lonely without you.'

'Is that why you spent the night at Julia's?'

He was shocked. He moved his lips but said nothing at first. He took a breath and

looked down.

'It's not what you're thinking, Lori. Can we go inside?' His eye shifted up and down

the quiet, leafy street. Maybe he didn't want to upset our middle class neighbours

with what was definitely going to be a heated conversation at the very least.

I would have liked to have drawn blood but, apart from the fact I couldn't stand the

sight of it, I'm just not a violent person. Not really. I shout a lot and rant a lot but

falling to the floor in floods of tears is as demonstrative of my anger as it gets. Sam

knew his balls were safe. If I was to hurt him it would be in words and he was

reluctant to have witnesses to what he knew I was likely to say.

I followed him into the cool living room. It was a sunny day but it hadn't gotten to

that side of the house yet.

'Before you say anything,' he said as he turned to face me, 'I didn't sleep with Julia

last night. If you must know I went there for advice.'

'Advice? That's a good one.' I looked at the armchair behind me and flopped into it.

'I don't know what advice you can get from a home wrecker. Enlighten me.'

'Well to be fair,' Sam said, sitting on the coffee table in front of me. 'You can't

officially call her a home wrecker if we weren't technically married when I slept

with her – technically.'

'What's the difference Sam? Technically, untechnically. We were on our way to

being married. When exactly did this little love pact happen? Or was it more than

once.'

'It was just one night.'

'But how many times?' He put down his head. 'Don't bother. I know what you're

like.' I shook my head. 'You know every time I close my eyes all I see is your

backside, humping up and down, Julia looking up at me and grinning while you

make her come. You know how I'm feeling right now?'

'I can imagine.'

'No you can't, Sam. Because it didn't happen to you. She's my best friend. I can

imagine you having a lap dance as a final fling before we got married but a full

blown shag – with Julia?'

'I suppose you won't believe me when I say I'm sorry?'

'No, you're sorry all right but sorry doesn't help me, Sam. You must see that?'

He flung himself onto his knees and leaned against me, putting his hands in prayer

position. 'Lori, please. Let's work this through. It was a glitch, that's all. Julia didn't

mean a thing to me. It's you. Always was, always will be. I lost my head. It will never

happen again. I know you think I'm an idiot and maybe I have had too many

concussions in rugby, but I've got my head screwed on now. I want to make our

marriage work. I know it can.'

I was so convinced he meant it. So, so convinced. I opened my mouth to ask him if

he was sure he could keep his pants up but, instead, I screwed up my eyes and his

backside humping up and down on Julia, her legs in the air and the smug look on

her face was all too much for me. I got to my feet and brushed him aside.

'No Sam. I can't work through this. It breaks my heart that we could have started

our married life this way. I like romance. Champagne and chocolates.'

'I know,' he said, getting to his feet and following me to the window. 'And that's

what I want our lives to be. The Julia thing was well and truly over before we

walked down that aisle. When we took those vows they meant everything to me.

You mean everything to me and I don't want one stupid, shameful, juvenile mistake

to ruin all we could have together.'

'It's too hard Sam. I can't get the images from my mind. How can you expect me to

live like that? I can't fake it.'

'You don't have to. You'll see, the images will fade. We'll have children. Like we

talked about. Two girls and a boy. You'll look at them and you'll see our love

reflected back. That's magic right there. That's champagne and roses, Lori. It's what

I want our lives to be.'

I looked deep into his eyes, I knew he was telling the truth. I knew it. It would be so

easy to fall into his big rugby players arms and feel him crush me into his body. To

feel protected and warm and to know that he loved me and wanted to be with me.

Easy, except for one thing. Alongside the images of Sam's backside and Julia's legs

in the air, there was another. It was the image of Matt's face, hovering above me as

he thrust into me with something close to love and not lust in his eyes. At least

that's how I remembered it.

I shook my head and turned away from Sam.

'What is it?' he said. 'What are you thinking? Tell me what worries you and I'll lay it

all to rest. I can do that Lori. It's in me to do.' I looked at him again. He had his arm

outstretched, hand reaching for me so I could take hold and let him pull me to him.

I looked away.

'You can't stop my fears, Sam. No-one can. It's a matter of trust and I'm losing it for

you big time.'

'That bloody cow, Julia. Why did I listen to her?'

'Yes, why exactly?' I turned to glare at him, 'You must have been curious all this

time to find out what it would be like to sleep with her. She's gorgeous. Men are

always eyeing her up.'

'Men are always looking at you, Lori.'

'But not like that. Not the way they look at Julia. I'm tall and blonde, men like to

look, check out whether this blonde is the full package or not. But Julia is for them.

I see the hard-ons developing the second she walks into a room. She's got the big

eyes, wild hair and I won't even go into that hour glass figure because you've

already had more than your handful of that body.'

'Is this a jealousy thing?'

'You what?' I spat out, amazed that he should ever say a thing like that.

'Jealousy. The green eyed monster. If you thought Julia overshadowed you in the

looks department then me sleeping with her would be more hurtful than had it

been someone else.'

'You're no psychoanalyst, Sam. Not by a long chalk. Julia is my best friend. I love

Julia. I like that she gets lots of attention, I know how good it makes her feel. But I'm

not her. I don't need the attention. Up until recently, all I ever needed was you. And

I thought you felt the same. The fact that you should jump into bed with her so

easily only tells me that you were just another hard-on. A selfish bastard who

wanted to satisfy the need to know how good the sexy siren actually was in bed.'

'Now who's being a psychoanalyst? It was nothing like that. I know I'm not as

educated as you three, but give me some credit for not being so basic. I'm not a

Neanderthal. Matt has all the sophistication but I didn't lust after Julia. It was a one

off for fuck's sake. Why can't you see that? Or maybe you don't want to. Maybe you

want us to be over because you never loved me as much as I love you.'

'What the hell does that mean?'

'It means,' he said, walking up close so I could feel his breath in my face, 'that I did

all the running when it came to getting married. I proposed, you had to think about

it. I bought you a ring, you changed it. I found us somewhere to live, you weren't

sure. Were you sure about me? Did you marry the right guy, Lori?'

'I don't know what you mean.' I immediately thought of Matt. 'We dated for two

years. I've never dated that long before. Of course I thought you were the right guy.'

'Well if you thought that then, you should know I haven't changed. I'm the right guy,

Lori. The one you should be with.' I could see then why Sam was head of his Sales

team. He had all the right words. I was falling under his spell and I wanted so much

to hold him and whisk us back to the Caribbean. Maybe I should just have stayed

there and worked it out in the first place, instead of maxing out my credit card to

come back and shag his best friend. What a mess I was in.

'I need time, Sam. I need to think.'

'Take as long as you'd like. I'm right here. I'm waiting for you.' He went and sat on

the sofa, spreading his open arms onto the headrest.

'So, you're just going to sit there and wait for my decision are you?' I said looking

down at him.

'Yep. I'll be right here.'

'It could take forever and it could be bad news. You'll look pretty stupid if it was.'

'It won't be. You'll see, Lori. You'll see it was supposed to be. Matt and Julia didn't

go the distance because there was nothing bonding them. But we're different.

We're strong and you'll see it soon enough, even if you can't see it now.'

'I don't know, Sam. I just don't know.' I turned to leave. He didn't get up as I

collected my bag and saw the packet of incense sticks next to them. 'Where did

these come from?' I asked him.

'You were holding them when you got here.'

'Shit, I must have shoplifted these by mistake. I was in a shop before I came here.

Shit.'

'Don't worry. You're not a bad person. Lori. You didn't do it on purpose.'

'No, I didn't accidentally sleep with...' I couldn't finish the sentence but not for the

reasons Sam must have thought. I was thinking about my misadventure with Matt

as slowly but surely it was seeming less so. I needed to see Matt one last time to be

sure about my feelings for Sam and to decide if our marriage was worth saving.