This whole business has been yet another one of those things. Sometimes, I wonder just how I get into situations like this. Things seem to happen to me without me getting any say, any initial choice, in the matter.
My life with Jane seemed to happen to me, no matter what I did. For instance, I can remember waking up one morning and, quite suddenly, realising we had been married for six years. I could not remember where all the time had gone. I had - sort of - just drifted, gone along with the flow, letting Jane decide when it was time to move along to the next stage from going out together, to engagement, to marriage, to mortgage and new home.
When the long-expected redundancies finally came around, and my job disappeared, I had no idea what to do. I just wandered around in a state of... well... shock... I suppose. Again, it was Jane who pushed me out of my torpor and into the round of applications, interviews and the - seemingly inevitable - rejections.
That was it really. Job-hunting became something else I slipped into, another dull routine. That is, until the day I walked into that office, and Fiona stood up, leaning forward from behind the desk to shake my hand. There was something in the way she stared at me all through that interview that made me nervous. I wondered if I had ever met her before and - maybe - insulted her in some way.
All through that interview I had the feeling that Fiona was someone I must have yelled obscenities at; for nicking my parking space, or pushing in the queue at the Post Office or something like that. Usually, I am quite a mild-mannered and relaxed person, but sometimes - just sometimes - I do really lose my temper with people. When I'm in one of those fits of temper, fits of rage, that seem to be growing all too common these days. Whenever I shout at anyone - usually in the car, or in shops and suchlike - I often wonder how I would react if I met those same people in another, less fraught, situation.
I was nervous throughout the interview. I was almost trembling with the growing conviction that she remembered me from such an incident and she was - somehow - planning her revenge. To be honest, I am not very good at interviews, even at the best of times, but the way that Fiona kept on staring at me made me even more nervous than usual.
At the end of the interview she held onto my hand and stared at me again. I was, any second, expecting her to blurt out something like: "So you don't remember calling me a cretinous blind cow at the traffic lights in town six months ago, then? And you dare to think I would give someone like you this job?" However, she just smiled and said something along the lines of, "Thank you, Alan. We'll let you know." The usual post-interview stuff.
So, I was really surprised - just two days later - to get the letter offering me the job. I showed the letter to Jane.
"See, I told you that persistence would pay off in the end," Jane said.
*
"Come on, Alan. It's time we got back to the office." Fiona kissed me, deeply but briefly. She took my hand as we walked back to her car and winked at me. "After all, if we are going to be working late again, we need to get everything for today finished, quickly."
I smiled back, rather weakly, hoping that my lack of enthusiasm wasn't too obvious. After all, I do need this job, especially the way Jane is spending money these days, and with the baby on the way (I can still remember Fiona's thin frosty smile when I told her that bit of news). Fiona is, after all, the one who said this was strictly sex, and that was all it was ever going to be.
I have noticed that Fiona does tend to go a bit - I suppose, sullen is the word I'm looking for - at times. I think that however much she tries to deny it; however hard she tries to play the super-efficient businesswoman and all that, I do think that she can still hear the tick of the biological clock. That she can hear the voices of her parents, hear her married, settled friends and their smug talk of their good lives. She can feel the pull of the wedding, the house, the mortgage.
I don't think she can be all that different to any of the rest of us in noticing the passage of time. Just occasionally, I can see it in her eyes too. I think I can only describe it as a look of yearning. It seems to be a search, a quest for something more than what her life is offering to her.
It is, I suppose, like these games that I have to play with her. This desire she has to do it in risky places, in public, or - at least - semi-public, places. It seems that ordinary sex, an ordinary affair, isn't enough for her. She needs more. She needs the extra pressure of the risk, of being seen, of being caught.
Maybe it is because these days it is not enough for us to just get through our ordinary lives. No, we have to fight, to struggle, to overcome. We have to see our lives as a test, a challenge, a quest. A life is not a real life unless we can point to the corpse of some dragon that we have slain along the way.
It seems to be that way with Fiona too, the closer she is to being caught the stronger her orgasm. I'm getting quite good, these days, at getting dressed as we run, or drive away, from the scene of our latest adventure. There must be a fair few security guards in the local area who have had a dull shift enlivened by a grainy out-of-focus sequence of Fiona and me getting down to it right in front of their cameras.
Once, I asked her about her current obsession with doing it in front of the security cameras.
"Perhaps I'm a frustrated actress," she said between giggles as she struggled to dress while I drove us out of the multi-storey car park.
*
"You look tired," Jane said to me at the weekend. "Are you sure all this overtime, all this extra work isn't too much for you?"
I yawned and shrugged. I was having trouble staying awake. The previous week Fiona had had me in a multi-storey car park, a cinema, the zoo, the art gallery and - almost - in a phone box. But some fraught woman had banged on the phone-box door, just as I was slipping my hand up between Fiona's thighs.
Apparently, there had been an accident just up the road. A speeding mini-cab had knocked down an old man. Luckily, it was beginning to get dark, so the woman had no idea what we were doing in the phone-box.
"Perhaps you ought to get another job," Jane said. She shifted around in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She was seven and a half months gone, and the hot late summer weather made it difficult for her.
I looked at her - really looked at her - for the first time in what seemed like months. As with so many women, late pregnancy seemed to suit her. I leant across and kissed her.
She looked at me in surprise, blinking quickly a couple of times. "Y'know, that is the first time you have kissed me in weeks... maybe months.... I thought that maybe you'd gone off me because...." She looked down, touching her stomach.
"No, of course not. Don't be silly," I said, slipping my hand up between her thighs. "It's just... maybe you are right, maybe this job is too much for me, taking too much out of me."
We kissed again, and she looked at me in a way that I recognised only too well. "Do you... well...?" she said.
At first, I didn't think I could, not after all that Fiona had put me through during the previous weeks, but - in the end - I managed it.
But, it was the just lying there together bit, afterwards. Together, there on the front-room carpet, our backs leaning against the sofa, that was the best bit. It was such a relief not to be racing away, fastening my shirt with one hand and holding up my trousers with the other. We just sat their skin against skin, talking of this and that and whatever else came to mind until Jane took it in mind to have another go and climbed back onto my lap.
I was very surprised to find that I did - as it were - rise to the occasion. But I was not half as surprised as Jane was a couple of minutes later.
"What did you call me?" She stopped dead.
"What?"
"You just called me Fiona." She twisted her breasts away from my hands.
"I didn't, did I?"
"You did."
"Oh, I... are you sure?"
"Yes." She looked at me hard, for a moment. Then she smiled. "Yes, I think that job is getting to you." She began to move again. "After all, the other night you called out her name in your sleep."
"Did I?" I tried to sound casual.
"Yes. But I know not to take it seriously. I can't imagine you ever finding her attractive."
"No, " I said. "Of course not."
"Anyway, you know I'd kill you if you ever messed around, don't you?"
"Yes, dear. Of course." I smiled up at her.
She stopped moving again. She stared at me levelly. I could see the seriousness in her eyes. "No, I'm serious. Look at the state you've got me into." She sat up straight and stroked her stomach. For the first time, I noticed there was a new thin line of hair from her navel down to her pubic hair.
"I'm not going to let you escape, not now. You have responsibilities, obligations," she said. "Aw... what's happened?"
"I'm sorry," I replied. "I must be more tired than I thought."
"It's all right," she said. Although I could see that it wasn't.
*
"No! I just can't.... Not any more. Sorry."
Fiona was not the sort to give up easily, she was not used to being refused. Her hand moved down my body. I tried taking a step backwards, but I was up against the wall.
Her face was close to mine. I could see every pore in her skin. "I could always sack you... for non-co-operation," she said as she pulled my zip down.
"I... could... have you for sexual harassment," I said.
"Bollocks. Who would believe that?" she laughed. "Anyway, you wouldn't be able to live with it, no man could. Imagine what all the other blokes will say about you: 'fancy turning that down - must be a closet poof'." She took a step back, although her hand remained inside my underpants. She cocked her head to one side. "Is that it? Are you a poof?"
"No... No. I... it's just that... well... Jane, y'know? Come on, Fiona. I am a married man."
"So?" She now had both hands inside my trousers. "That never bothered you before." She squeezed. Hard.
"Ooh - aaah! Jesus Christ!" I doubled up as she let go.
"You do disappoint me Alan," she said. "And I thought I'd found a man with some balls at last. It seems you are just like all the rest. Another wimp." She turned away, wiping her hands on her skirt. She turned back. "One week's notice."
"You can't do that!"
"Can't I? Why not?"
"Because.... I...."
"Oh, come on. You haven't got the balls to quit, to walk out. You're too scared - shit-scared - of what precious little wifey will think."
"No... no, it's not that. I... well...." I smiled. I took a step towards her and kissed her. I stroked her cheek with my fingertips. "It's just that I'm not sure I can resist the temptation, not any more. I think I ought to go, get out of here, before... well, with the baby coming and... you always said you wanted no commitments."
Fiona smiled as she looped her arms around my neck. "You could always stay. You deserve a promotion. You could become my right-hand man. Yes, that's a good idea. I like the things you do to me with your right hand."
We kissed again. I looked over her shoulder at the clock. "Come on," I said. "One more time in the multi-storey?"
She nodded slowly. "I think one more time is easily enough to get you to change your mind."
"I'm beginning to change my mind already." I nuzzled her neck, nibbling her earlobe in the way I knew she liked. "I'll drive," I said. "You get undressed... completely... like last time."
She giggled and kissed me on the lips. Taking my hand she led me out of the office and around to the car park.
*
I drove all the way to the top of the multi-storey - five floors. It was a bright warm day. By the time I stopped the car, Fiona was already naked.
I pointed over to the housing for some type of ventilator shaft, a brick construction about four or five feet square with a flat concrete top, just off to the left of the main ramp to the level. "Over there," I said, leaning over to Fiona.
She nodded eagerly, giggling as she got out of the car.
*
I can still remember the look on her face as I drove away, the passenger door flapping. I think she thought it was a joke when I stopped the car. She began to run towards the car. I almost waited for her, but then I had another twinge in my balls from when she had grabbed me in the office. I leant across the seats, quickly slammed the passenger-side door and drove off.
I left her clothes - neatly folded - on her desk. My letter of resignation - with immediate effect - was lying on the top of the pile.
END
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