Antidote to Infidelity by Karla Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

at first (sex is tough, you see, with two
snoring midgets in the middle), then last night passionately, for the first
time in over a month.
    Very passionately, actually. Talk
about release. It was like the Hoover Dam bursting its banks or Mount St
Helen’s erupting after fifty dormant years . . . oh, but don’t think just
because Will’s having his wicked way, I’m having the wool pulled. Don’t think
I’m daft enough to forgive and forget in the wink of an eye - I’m not.
    I’m hurting .
    I’m angry .
    So angry, in fact, that if I had
one of those sadomasochistic knacker clamps, I’d dangle him from the ceiling
fan by his cheating nuts and hit ‘spin’.
    Will might think he’s
got away with it just because he gave me three mind-blowing orgasms but he can
think-a-bloody-gain. A rampant roll in the hay, no matter how hungry the
kisses, how intense the euphoria, is not going to make me forget what
he’s done in a hurry.
    I didn’t want to sleep
with him, you understand. I had to. Somewhere deep inside, beneath the
urge to mince his manhood whilst still attached and turn his testicles into
Christmas tree baubles, I felt the need to reclaim him. To make my husband mine again.
    I’ll be honest, Rowan thinks
I’m insane for allowing him back in the marital bed. I just don’t know what to think. I can’t trust my head or my heart at the moment, so I’m acting on
instinct - and instinctively, it felt right.
    At the time, that is. In the
cold light of day, I have my doubts.
    ***
    Nevertheless, in reflective
post-coital morning-after mode, with the cringing memory of pie-eyed Clive
still fresh as a daisy, Will and I are standing outside our house in the crisp
midday sunshine, waving the kids off on a winter-warmers trip to Tenerife with
their grandparents.
    Rosie and Ryan, passports
tucked safely in the pockets of their matching denim dungarees, are electric
with excitement, their eager little faces pressed up against the back window as
they happily wave a medley of buckets and spades, thrilled to be off to the
seaside.
    Clive, on the other hand, is
getting more exasperated by the minute, trying to make them sit down, turn
round and belt up so they can bugger off and begin their holiday.
    Finally, he wins the battle
and, satisfied with his efforts, scrambles into the driver’s seat of his new
gold Subaru, mopping his shining brow with what he thinks is a clean
hankie but is actually the greasy window leather.
    “Phew! Dear me,” he pants,
forehead covered in grimy fluff. “It’s worse than herding cattle. Right gang,
are we ready at last?”
    But it’s a case of three in,
one out, as Mary (dear), clad in luminous Hawaiian florals and reeking of
Chanel, totters around the car and seizes us, squeezing us tightly together.
Cutting off my air supply with a chubby forearm, she peppers us alternately
with sticky pink kisses.
    “Mmwaa! Ahh, you kids have a
wonderful, wonderful time . . . all on your own.”
    She winks a bright green
eyelid, reminding me of Will. Another winker .
    “Mmwaa! I wouldn’t be adverse
to another little grandchild you know, dear.”
    Huh! Fat chance. I wouldn’t be
adverse to a villa in the Costa del Sol but guess what, we’re not getting one
of those either!
    “Oh Sally dear, you look sooo
much better,” she gushes, patting her rigid grey roller-curled crop. “You did
look quite ghastly on Christmas Day but all the colour’s come back to your
pretty little cheeks!”
    Not missing a beat, Clive
gaffes and sticks his balding bonce out the window. “Haaa! Ha - which cheeks?
Haaa! Mary, for heaven’s sake , will you please get in the bloody car?”
    Almost as if she’s swatting at
a fly, Mary shushes him with a dismissive royal waft of her hand, planting
another smacker on Will. “Mmwaa! Ignore him, dear, he’s a pig, not like my
Will-ee-yum.”
    She coo-che-coos her eldest
son’s cheek, clucking, “Be good to her, you brute, or you’ll wake one morning
to find she’s wised up