LITMIR.BIZ

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      At this moment, with Don on the other end of the line, bed was the last place she wanted to be. For Don it was different. When he called he only wanted one thing: telephone sex. That had been his aim from the very beginning, with the added frisson that they’d actually slept together. Impetuously, Ed had gone along with his suggestion, equally excited by their hands-off/hand-on encounters, but, on arriving in Canterbury, she’d drawn the line. Ed stayed where she was, at the desk with her laptop.

      ‘Eddie … it’s Don.’

      The irritation had returned, tinged with surprise.

      ‘Yes …’

      Of course it was Don. She was holding the cheap pay-as-you-go phone he’d given her in Manchester. Nobody else had the number.

      ‘Weren’t you expecting my call?’

      ‘Yes … No … I don’t know.’

      ‘What d’you mean, you don’t know?’

      Ed thought for a moment. Last night in the hotel bar she’d finally made her decision. She should have done it months ago as soon as the furore broke in London, but back then she was in limbo waiting for her transfer to come through. After her meeting with CS Shawcross she’d needed comfort and sympathy. Instead, she’d settled for telephone sex. It was a brief release but, sod it, she enjoyed it while it lasted. Dumping Don wasn’t an act of revenge, simply ending that period in her life. Now was the time to go for it.

      ‘I hear you’ve got a new phone,’ she said.

      ‘Well … you’re in the sticks.’

      ‘And why’s that?’

      ‘Why …? Manchester.’

      ‘And why was I in Manchester?’

      ‘You were ideal.’

      ‘For Manchester?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Ideal for you in Manchester?’

      ‘For the conference.’

      ‘And for you?’

      ‘Come on, Eddie.’

      It was still the same old Don. Had she really expected him to be different? The Don might grace you with his favours but only for as long as it gave him what he wanted. What had he ever given her? Good sex, well, that worked both ways. The mobile phone, yes, but from the sounds she heard he got as much from it as she did. What had he given her that wasn’t also a gift to himself? There’d been no consideration for her position following the furore. This wasn’t revenge, but she was going to enjoy goading him a while longer.

      ‘Don, it was you, wasn’t it? You fixed my trip to Manchester.’

      ‘Eddie, you know the score.’

      ‘Do I, Don?’

      ‘Sure you knew.’

      ‘And Canterbury?’

      ‘Canterbury?’

      ‘What’s the score there?’

      ‘What d’you mean?’

      ‘Old Boys 1; Naive Bitches 0?’

      ‘For Christ’s sake!’

      ‘Oh, it was for him too, was it?’

      Ed smiled to herself in the mirror, enjoying Don’s discomfort. She savoured a sense of power that was different from her manipulation of their telephone conversations, holding back from the brink, tension gone, relaxed because the end is inevitable, poised waiting for the moment of release and surrender to the uncontrollable rush when every aspect of existence is reduced to a single point of concentrated feeling, waiting, knowing it will burst, radiating to every extremity, muscles tensing to prolong the sensation.

      ‘Be reasonable, Eddie.’

      Reason was the last thing on her mind when she felt her toes curl involuntarily and she knew … but no. She dragged her thoughts back to the present. Decision made, it was time to deliver the message.

      ‘What was reasonable about the way I was treated?’

      ‘One of us had to go?’

      ‘The junior officer?’

      ‘My hands were tied.’

      ‘Band of gold?’

      ‘Come on, Ed. You knew—’

      ‘—the score?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Let’s not go there again.’

      Don was silent. She waited. This wasn’t a last chance; she’d stopped thinking about immediate gratification and she would have liked him to do the same. Just one time, if he could stop thinking only of himself she’d be able to feel better about their relationship. If only he would ask her how things were in Canterbury. It was a forlorn expectation. He hadn’t done so earlier when she’d prompted him so there was little chance he’d do it now. Nonetheless, Ed let him stew. Finally he broke the silence.

      ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

      ‘Don’t bother. I’m upgrading.’

      ‘Upgrading what?’

      ‘The phone.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘It’s an old model, about to be superseded.’

      ‘It does the job.’

      Her mind flashed back to previous times she’d held the mobile with Don’s voice in her ear. She looked at the bed but remained resolute.

      ‘It did the job.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I want a new model too.’

      ‘You’ll transfer the number?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘What do you mean, No?’

      ‘New job, new phone, new number.’

      Ed wasn’t sure where the new model would come from but she was determined that her relationship with Don was at an end.

      ‘Eddie!’ Irritation had turned to exasperation.

      Ed had no second thoughts.

      ‘Goodbye, Don.’

      There was a pause. The tone of his voice changed. ‘I’m sorry.’

      Ed knew this was not contrition for the way he had behaved but perhaps it was genuine sorrow that he was losing her. Maybe his new model was falling short of the old. She smiled at the unvoiced compliment but he was too late. Her mind was made up.

      ‘I’m sorry too.’ Ed was sorry for many things. It had been a mistake to start the affair in the first place but she needed a man in her life and in that sense it had been good while it lasted. Would smart hotels always remind her of that? Something cool … She closed her eyes to block her view of the room.

      ‘Can’t we …?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Eddie …?’

      ‘You’ve got to go.’

      ‘You’ve got to go? What’s the rush?’

      ‘No, Don, you’ve got to go. It’s over.’

      ‘No chance …?’

      With her decision made and the message delivered, Ed was rapidly losing interest in the conversation.

      ‘None.’

      ‘So that’s it?’

      ‘That’s it, Don.’

      She

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