The Good Father by Marion Husband Page A

ran down the middle of her backside. He’d imagined the stitches giving way, hot, fervent imaginings that had him wanting to grind his erection hard against her as they danced. The green satin dress was low cut, back and front, that straining seam giving way to a daring split that showed how erotic the backs of a woman’s knees could be. She wore no jewellery, nothing to distract from the sheer magnificence of her body, those curves encased so tightly, so perversely restrained. It had been all he could do not to pant, not to take her hand and press it against his cock. He worried that his own hand would leave a big, sweaty print on the small of her back.
    As they danced he had asked if he could drive her home and she had declined, of course, afraid of gossip probably, afraid of him too no doubt – that he would be all over her the moment they were alone. But then she had smiled at him. ‘You’re a very good dancer – I just wanted to tell you that.’
    â€˜For a fat man, you mean?’
    She’d laughed. ‘You’re not fat! You’re imposing . . . Statuesque.’
    She went on smiling, smiling and smiling, and he saw that she was teasing him so that he relaxed a little, his filthy thoughts becoming a little less rampant. He’d even managed to smile at her almost normally, only spoiling the effect by saying, ‘You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life – I just wanted to tell you that.’
    â€˜For a spinster, you mean?’
    He’d looked away, wanting to close his eyes and groan to release some of the pent-up frustration, at the same time wanting to laugh at the ridiculousness of being forty-five-year-old Harry Dunn who had told himself sex was a joy he could live without. He forced himself to look at her. She gazed back at him, no longer teasing but serious, appraising. No woman had looked at him with such direct honesty; he searched her face, wondering if he could dare to be so honest in return. When she smiled, eyebrows raised, he laughed despairingly.
    â€˜All right. I admit it.’
    Her smile became archer. ‘Admit what?’
    â€˜That I want to fuck you.’
    She gasped, astonished.
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ He stopped dancing. ‘I can’t believe I said that.’
    â€˜No, neither can I.’
    They stood at the edge of the dance floor and she was still in his arms, still notionally at least his partner. He thought that she should have slapped his face and walked away; he imagined her proud, indignant exit from his life. Instead she seemed to be waiting for something.
    Just as he was about to apologise again she said, ‘I heard you’re married.’
    â€˜Yes. I am,’ he told her.
    â€˜Where is she tonight?’
    He was unable to look at her, feeling that she had manoeuvred him into a trap, resenting her even as he felt he deserved his humiliation. At the hotel’s bar, he saw Stanley Davies lift his drink in a silent, smirking salute. He thought he had never felt so ashamed, so nakedly foolish in all his life. Quickly he said, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me.’
    She followed him off the dance floor and out into the hotel’s deserted lobby. Facing her he said, ‘I’ve never spoken to a woman like that before.’
    She stepped back, startled, as though he had swung round too suddenly when she had expected him not to turn around at all. Awkwardly she said, ‘It was flattering really, in a way.’
    â€˜Was it?’
    â€˜No, not really. You made me feel cheap and it was a shock, a nasty little fizzing shock darting through me.’ Looking at him she said, ‘Humiliating, how your body reacts, isn’t it?’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    She sat down on the hotel’s stairs. ‘Is your wife at home looking after the babies?’
    He thought of Guy, his son, who wasn’t a child, who sometimes, it seemed to him, had never been a child at all, and