Tell Me. M. Colette Jane

that in my Google chat. Fuck. What’s wrong with me? Flirting with danger.)

       How did that feel?

      —I almost came.

       Do it again. All caps.

       And cum.

      —wait…

      —typing

      —…

      —cumming…

       Good

      —now you

       Mmmmmmm

       Done

      —I cum on command for you

       As do I apparently

      —There is power in submission…

       Shot up to my neck

      —I get up on my tippy-toes, lick it off

       You are thorough. Diligent.

       Dedicated.

      —(how can I come this much in 24-48 hours and still be unsated?)

       (Lucky me. Hopefully this mystery will never be solved.)

      —We should go do stuff. Get dressed. Work.

      —It’s like the languor of leaving a well-used bed…

       Languor.

       Your mind turns me on so.

      —the idea of your tongue on my nipples makes my toes curl

       And yes. Work. Clothes. Reality. Nipple.

      —7 days.

       Seven. But you’re mine. Already.

      —utterly

       Always.

       In all ways.

       Have a good day.

      —It has a lot to live up to.

       I have every faith. xx

      —xo

      I breathe. Shower. Dress. Race down the stairs after Alex, his phone in my hands, catch him at the door, ‘You left this in the bathroom again, love!’ Marshal kids out of bed. Breakfast. Clothes. School run for all four today, because it’s a preschool morning for the squirt. Everyday, ordinary things. Real life. At which I’m looking through a distorted lens, a curtain. Seven days. Seven days.

      The phone buzzes and I swear my clit screams. My mouth parched. I stare, unseeing. Then crash, so disappointed. Nicola. Texting. Me? I raise my eyebrows, surprised, because Nicola does not really like me, never has. We’re ‘friends of friends’, frequently in the same physical space together, but hardly soulmates. Her text says it all: ‘Jane? Are you there? No one else is around. I. Am. Going. Mad. Need to talk to someone!’

      My disappointment, my wetness anger me. And so I dial her number as an act of atonement.

      And she spews. So much unhappiness and so much anger there. And it’s just; I cannot deny her this anger, her right to be angry. The rat-fuck bastard is acting like, well, a rat-fuck bastard. Refusing to take the co-parenting-after-separation seminar. Refusing to negotiate an interim financial agreement. Refusing, I realise suddenly, to accept that he is in the middle of a divorce.

      ‘He still hopes this is a separation,’ I say, but Nicola doesn’t hear me, she finishes the sentence differently:

      ‘…not to take the responsibility for anything!’ she cries. And she shouts and screams, and then, abruptly, switches gears and starts talking about the skank. Because none of this would have happened if it weren’t for her. If she hadn’t approached him, if she hadn’t chased him. If she had acted the way a woman should – if she had respected Nicola, another woman, a wife, the rights of a wife…

      I hold the phone away from my ear, but I still hear. And every few seconds make a sympathetic noise. A perverse part of me imagines she is Joy. A masochistic, martyred facet of my psyche casts her as Alex, saying all of this in his head – because he is a man, and he is Alex, and he would never bare his soul like this, no more would I. In both scenarios, the calumnies are cast at me, not at Matt. Of course, at me. Just as Nicola, angry, angry though she is at the cheating rat-fuck bastard, is angrier still at the intern-skank, and sees her as the catalyst. He was weak and unable to say no, she was the instigator, the catalyst. If she hadn’t seduced, invited, aggressed…

      Jezebel.

      How very Christian of Nicola, I think, and then, I think this: flip it. So. For me – am I weak and unable to say no? If Matt hadn’t come – if he hadn’t seduced, invited, aggressed…would I have sought him out? Or another?

      It is a very, very interesting question. So interesting, I hold the phone away from my ear and sit on the floor to ponder the answer.

      What is happening here? Is it me? Him? Us?

       I wanted you then. I wanted you always. I want you always. But I always want you…tied to someone else.

      —Ah.

       I believe this is what you want as well. It used to be. Is it still?

      I rejected Matt, consciously, effectively, once. But fully. With Cassandra in my belly. My commitment and love for Alex and the family we were starting were the most important, the only things in my universe. And what followed? Ten years. Almost eleven. Five pregnancies. One near-death experience, four babies. Swollen belly, milk gushing from breasts. Extreme joy. Exhaustion. Love. Motherhood. Monogamy. Monogamy without much struggle, without much reflection, because there wasn’t much room for anything else. And yes, happiness, fulfilment. Other lovers, other desires? I barely had time and desire for Alex. It was all…babies. Toddlers. Obligations. Never enough sleep.

      Nicola’s two kids are Cassandra and Henry’s age, I think, maybe older. Is she at this place? I suddenly wonder. Coming out of the cloud cast by reproduction…no, wait. It is her husband who strayed. I am mixing stories and metaphors.

      I am looking for justification.

      I am looking for an argument that ends like this: I deserve this night.

      Fuck it. One night. Eleven years of pregnancy, and babies, and breastfeeding and faithfulness and monogamous sex and no real transgression or temptation, eleven years of duty. Fuck it. One night. I deserve this one night.

      I’m going to do it. And I’m not going to feel an iota of guilt about it.

      Done.

      Shut the fuck up, brain.

      ‘And is that too much to ask, Jane?’ Nicola’s voice echoes in my ear.

      ‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s not too much to ask.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you. I know this – I just needed to hear someone else say it.’

      ‘It’s not too much to ask,’ I repeat. And then I add, ‘You’ll get through it.’

      ‘Of course I will,’ Nicola says. ‘I will. Because I am awesome. And not an immoral, cheating skank.’

      She hangs off. I touch my forehead against the cold tile floor.

      Fuck it. One night. I get one night. And I get flooded with relief. The dilemma, the angst, the search for the guilt, disappears, recedes. One night. The climax. In, what, eight days? Seven days. And one night. And then, it’s over, and real life takes over again.

      One night.

      It’s my mantra for the rest of the day. I field one more telephone