Cheating is Sexier
by L. E Yates
short fiction | 14/04/2020
It was fine that her wife, Kate, was out seeing her lover tonight. Absolutely fine. Cal eyed the damp patch on the hotel bedsheet. She’d been at a loose end after work so now she was here doing this and Kate was seeing Maury, and that was all just fine.
Valentina was lying on her side. Her ginger hair frizzed around her head. The contrast of her pale skin against the crumpled paper-white sheet made it clear there was more pink to white people than you might think.
Cal broke the seal of the unopened pack of cigarettes she’d been carrying around since the party and lit one. ‘What would you do if this was your last day on earth?’
‘Does the day end at midnight?’
Cal shrugged.
It’s all death with you, isn’t it?’ Valentina hopped out of bed. ‘What if today was the first day of the rest of your life on earth?
‘You sound like a motivational poster.’
‘Hope is a radical act, Cal.’ She pulled on lacy, black knickers, ducked into the loops of a tiny bra and deftly fastened it behind her. She bent to fish in her bag. ‘Everyone’s bored of cynicism.’
Cal, half-way through her cigarette, felt annoyed by this. She wasn’t going to enjoy it as much now.
Valentina, completely oblivious, still in her underwear, was stroking mascara onto her invisible lashes. Concentrating so hard on her reflection in the mirror made her undefended face looked even younger. ‘God, I love how sordid this is.’
Cal tried not to smile. ‘Should I have got us a worse hotel room?’
Valentina didn’t break her own gaze in the mirror. ‘Yeah, the bedsprings not creaking did spoil it a bit.’ She dipped her mascara brush. ‘Smoking makes you look pretentious, by the way’.
Cal, half way through inhaling, narrowly stopped herself from choking. She was used to any criticism being swaddled in Kate’s concerned disapproval. ‘Cool. Thanks for your input.’
Bright red lipstick now. It clashed with her ginger hair. The way Valentina smacked her lips together then opened them wide made her mouth look predatory.
‘By the way, if you could not mention this to Kate for now, that would be great.’
‘I thought you had an open relationship?’
‘We do. I just need to check in with her first.’
Valentina pulled a face.
Cal took another drag of her cigarette. She wanted to impress this on Valentina more strongly but worried that saying anything further would spark perverse disobedience in her.
Cal could exactly imagine her wife’s face hardening in that way that pulled her fine-grained skin into wrinkles around the corners of her eyes when she found out Cal had breached their agreement to be honest with each other no matter how painful, then she would retreat into another room without a word. They could shout at each other when it was minor but when Kate withdrew Cal knew it was really serious.
Her conscience whispered that there was a difference between a carefully negotiated open relationship and her randomly sleeping with one of Kate’s old work colleagues, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘She’s seeing someone else right now too.’
Valentina rolled her eyes. ‘You’re so fucking keen on taking the easiest path, Cal.’
‘What? Like what?’
Valentina, busy screwing her lipstick away, didn’t answer.
‘What, like being gay? Being in an open relationship? Super-conformist.’
‘Yeah, sorry, my mistake. You’re a total rebel.’
‘Go on then, what do you mean?’
‘Like smoking after sex. If there’s a cliché, you’ll reach for it. It’s like the world’s script is propping you up. Do you wear an ironic apron when you barbeque in the summer? Do you look out of the window on spring mornings and drawl, ‘Turned out nice again”? Do you curl your biceps to admire the muscles after working out? Do you cheat on your wife and beg other people not to tell?’
Cal turned her head away but unfortunately the only view from the hotel room was of a wall and she couldn’t realistically pretend to be absorbed by this.
‘You think it’s ironic just because you’re gay but if you were a guy it would be called being a basic bitch, which, by the way, only basic bitches say.’
Cal stubbed her cigarette out in the tissue box and climbed out of bed. It took her a few moments to find her suit trousers on the floor.
‘Have you ever referred to anything non-human as ‘cheeky’?
‘What do you mean?’
‘Cheeky drink? Cheeky Nando’s?’
‘Who do you think I am? Someone who works in marketing?’ Cal raised her right hand. ‘I do solemnly swear I have never…’ This was the beginning of a lie. ‘And how come you’ve cornered the market on being earnest and sarcastic at the same time?’
Valentina was tucking her lipstick and mascara wand away in a small cotton bag which had a cartoon drawing of a smiling sun. She seemed to take no interest in the question.
‘I’m hungry.’ Valentina waited for Cal to ask and when she didn’t, she said. ‘So, do you want to get some food?’
No. ‘Sure,’ Cal said.
All the way down in the carpeted lift, staring at each other’s reflections in the mirrored doors, Cal wasn’t sure why she’d agreed. The lift pinged and Valentina stuck her tongue out at Cal just before the doors opened and she swerved out past the Korean family waiting to go up. So fucking childish. She definitely didn’t want to get food with Valentina.
‘We’re having an affair.’ Valentina forked up another mouthful of zucchini fritti.
Lloyd’s leathery face brightened.
‘Hahaha.’ Cal saw too late that her weak laugh was exactly what the least bright of Kate’s senior colleagues at the BBC would expect from someone having an affair. She’d met him often enough over the years at work events or at Jan and Arnold’s house for him to have recognised her easily but trust Lloyd, who now stood in front of their table, his young-old face wrinkling with excitement, rocking back on his heels, to have just enough imagination to encompass this possibility and no more.
‘Valentina’s an old friend.’ Perfect, Cal, for fuck’s sake. Could you have sounded less convincing? Strike two.
Cal and Valentina had ended up in a weak Soho replica of a grand, old-fashioned Italian restaurant with scallop shell light fittings, inflated prices and a run of booths along the wall that the maître d’ seemed determined to keep empty. This was exactly the kind of place that someone with Lloyd’s obvious lack of taste (look at his jacket and black jeans!) would choose to take someone for a smart dinner.
Cal could imagine Lloyd lingering in a corridor at the BBC after the next meeting, no, zipping up at the urinals, exchanging breezy conversation with Duncan. ‘Funny thing, saw Cal having a cosy dinner with a woman, not Kate, if you get my drift…’ The insinuation would be enough for Duncan to take that straight back to Kate.
Didn’t Lloyd live out near Kate’s parents somewhere in Berkshire for fuck’s sake? What was he doing here? Her armpits were wet.
Valentina was chewing noisily, looking between Lloyd and Cal with obvious enjoyment.
‘Well, Lloyd, don’t let me keep you from your dinner.’
Lloyd beamed at Valentina. ‘Lovely to meet you. Enjoy your food, chief.’
Cal mentally punched Lloyd twice in the stomach. One for that smile at Valentina and a second for the mock-jovial ‘chief’. Sexist prick.
Valentina licked her lips and laid her fork down. The zucchini fritti were gone. ‘Why weren’t you just honest with him?’
Cal quashed her instinct to hiss at Valentina. It wouldn’t do to show her she’d rattled her. She hated that Lloyd knew such personal information about her and knew it wouldn’t take long to get back to Kate. Cal made the circle in the air sign to the waiter for another watery Aperol and momentarily felt powerful again. ‘Because it’s none of his business.’
Cal was going to tell Kate everything when she got home, well, not quite everything but most of it.
Cal made espresso martinis and they sat side by side on the sofa, both on their phones.
‘How’s it going with Maury?’
‘Yeah, good, thanks. They’ve been busy with work but it was really nice to see them tonight.’
The temptation to dig was irresistible. Cal still couldn’t decide whether Kate’s chirpy, ostentatiously casual mentions (‘Oh, yeah, I think Maury knows them’) or her glaring omissions whenever Cal mentioned polyamory or climate change research were worse.
‘Oh, they work at UCL, right?’
From googling Cal already knew which building on campus they worked in. Maury was developing a new metric for better factoring the effects of methane into the way carbon footprints were calculated aka saving the planet from climate change single-handedly. They may as well have a fucking cape and badge.
‘I thought you knew that already.’
‘I wasn’t sure.’ Cheating is sexier. A friend’s comment rang in her head. ‘Do you want another drink, darling?’
Kate glanced up from her phone. Cal could see she was on her work e-mails, not texting anyone. ‘Could I have an Old Fashioned this time? Don’t want to be awake all night.’
Fucking Valentina was a one-off, Cal told herself as she collected their glasses. It wouldn’t happen again.
But it’s hard to pretend it’s a spontaneous fuck if you happen to have brought your dick and harness in your bag. Valentina had raised one eyebrow but at least she hadn’t said anything.
Afterwards she clung to Cal’s back so that Cal could feel the tensile strength of her thin arms, as if Cal was the only thing preventing her from falling. Then suddenly she lifted her leg and let Cal’s dick slither out of her. She sprang up and started to whirl around the room. ‘I feel like… like… lights on a pier. You know when it’s dark and there’s just this chain of lights stretching out into the blackness over the sea? That’s what I feel like.’
That didn’t seem to require any reply. Cal slipped out of her harness and thought about lighting a cigarette. She felt suddenly shy compared to Valentina’s pale, sculpted, whirling nakedness; her body heavy, her thighs stippled with dark hairs. She was about to pull the giant sanitary napkin that passed for a duvet in expensive hotels up over her when Valentina grabbed one of her hands. ‘Come on, dance with me.’ Question marks of ginger hair stuck to her sweaty neck. The way she bared her teeth made her look like a cornered fox.
‘There’s no music.’
Valentina let go and twirled off. ‘God, Cal you’re so straight.’
Cal went to the timed mini-fridge, poured herself a whisky. She’d already been for her run at lunchtime so she could do this. ‘Do you want one?’
‘No. Yes, gin.’ Valentina looked like she was running out of steam, at least, the whirling had slowed. Cal was glad, glad too that it had stopped without her having to ask Valentina to stop, better to pretend to be oblivious. When Cal handed her a drink she flung herself down on the edge of the bed, body striped with sweat, then crossed her legs and sipped demurely. ‘Looks like other people have the same idea as us.’
‘What?’
Valentina cocked her head towards the wall. Cal listened and the rhythmic banging she’d vaguely thought was someone hitting pipes with a wrench came together with the ah ah ah high-pitched squeal to mean fucking.
‘She sounds like she’s faking it.’
Cal laughed. You could hear him now too – a meaty, rhythmic grunting. ‘I could fuck you like that, if you want.’ Cal pulled Valentina down on top of her, gin and tonic slopping onto the duvet.
‘You fucking pervert,’ Valentina shrieked. ‘That’s a hard limit.’ Her mouth tasted medicinal.
‘We need to have rules.’ That was the first thing Cal said when Kate got back from work that evening.
Kate had no sooner taken her jacket off than she was burrowing in her bag, untangling headphones, yanking out her empty lunch tupperwear.
‘I think we should limit any dates we might have with other people to one night a week, like Tuesday.’
Kate slung her empty tupperwear in the sink. ‘It’s not five-a-side football. Good to have some flexibility, no?’
‘This would make it much more straightforward.’
‘When we talked about this right at the start we agreed that we didn’t want to set boundaries on what we could and couldn’t do.’
Cal thought there was some sadness in Kate’s voice but it was hard to see because she kept her face turned towards the blank wall above the sink, washing up the tupperwear.
‘Why don’t you just put it in the dishwasher?’
‘I’ve done it now.’
It was Thursday night, not one of their usual times for sex, but Kate snuck her arms around Cal while she was brushing her teeth. Cal nuzzled back into her. She’d felt tired in the living room but she didn’t any more. ‘Go into the bedroom.’
Cal pulled the blinds down to block out their view of the red light on top of the Shard, the concrete towers of the Barbican. This made the room seem smaller, their clothes on top of the laundry basket and the dry cleaning in slithery sacks draped across the sofa.
‘You look hot.’
Kate was standing by the bed in only her pants. Thin and tanned, she looked boyishly vulnerable, her hair slightly shaggy over her eyes.
‘Kneel down.’
Fuck, Cal’s usual cock was still in her bag, still bearing worms of toilet paper from where she’d washed and dried it hurriedly in the hotel bathroom. ‘You’re getting the big cock tonight.’
Kate shook her head in that way that mixed reluctance with excitement. Cal took the big, black cock out from the drawer along with the leather cuffs. She strapped one on each of Kate’s slim wrists, struggling to tighten the buckle far enough.
‘Do you want this?’ Kate lay on her back, naked. Cal shoved her knees open and knelt between her legs. ‘Tell me you want this.’
‘I want this,’ Kate said in a small voice.
‘You’re going to take my whole cock, no complaining. I’m not going to be gentle with you.’
‘No,’ Kate whimpered. Cal could feel this making her wetter. She put one hand around Kate’s neck. ‘Is this what Maury does to you?’ Before Kate could answer Cal pushed her dick hard inside her.
Cal blew out a lungful of smoke. She wasn’t even particularly enjoying smoking any more but this was something the person who was sleeping with Valentina did, a useful demarcation. She’d saved the particular story she was now embarked on in the hope it would amuse Valentina.
‘So I said to him, “What’s the advantage in using that peptide then?” and he couldn’t say anything. Not one thing.’
Cal shot a glance at Valentina, head on the pillow. She was unusually still and Cal wasn’t sure whether she was even listening. She was so fickle. Cal couldn’t predict whether she’d throw back her head and laugh or launch into fierce condemnation.
‘He’d just repeated what Eleanor had said, almost word for word. Classic patriarchy. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the meeting after I called him out.’ It was a let-down having to explain the punchline.
Valentina turned her head listlessly, blue eyes unfocused. Her bright orange hair fanned out across the pillow, the colour of burning, Cal thought.
Living with Valentina would be unmitigated awfulness: she was capricious, disorganised, infuriating. She wasn’t at all tactful and she was careless of Cal’s feelings. She’d embarrass Cal in public constantly – look what she’d achieved in five minutes with Lloyd. Cal imagined Valentina eating grapes she’d not yet paid for in a supermarket queue then presenting the bare stalks to the check-out man’s eye roll. Mortifying.
‘Could we just be in this moment, Cal, please?’
‘I’d leave Kate for you if you wanted me to,’ Cal said.
They could hear voices passing in the corridor, the thump of a closing door.
‘Really?’ Valentina said, then quickly, ‘God, you’re so fucking monogamous.’
‘Yes, really.’ Cal tried to hold Valentina’s gaze but she looked away.
‘I have to leave. I’m meeting a friend at 9.’
Then they were both out of bed and snatching at clothes.
The light from the window bleached a square of the green wall, hard and melancholy.
‘Same time next week?’ Cal tried for an uneven, winsome smile.
‘I can’t next week. I’ve got a date on Wednesday.’
Cal had been fiddling about, carefully transferring her wallet, a toothbrush, old pants into the right compartments of her bag but now she just shoved everything in. She should have been home for Kate hours ago.
A funny expression crossed Kate’s face when Cal had finished confessing and she stood up. This was it – she was going to walk out of the room. But she didn’t. She paused in front of a vase of crisping daffodils then shifted them slightly to the right, keeping her face carefully turned away.
‘Kate, I am so so sorry. I made a huge mistake. Whatever it takes to make this right between us, I’ll do it.’
‘I wish you hadn’t hidden it from me but it’s really okay.’
‘It’s not going to happen again, that’s for sure.’ Cal was prepared to console her, to apologise for not having consulted her before it had happened, for having picked someone Kate knew, but then she realised. Kate, scowling as she re-fanned Kinfolk and New Yorkers on the coffee table, was trying to hide her relief.
about L. E Yates (she/her/hers)
L.E. Yates was born in Manchester in 1981 but now lives in London. She's interested in the imaginative loophole fiction creates out of the contract of everyday life. She has been awarded Arts Council, England funding and her short stories have appears in anthologies from Parenthesis to Dead Languages.
Website: http://www.leyates.co.uk/
Twitter: @l_e_yates