Author: Akiko

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I put my pillow over my head, which did nothing, because the wall was still there and so was she.

I must have slept in the end, because the next thing I knew Hannah was climbing in beside me at ten past eight, cold from the morning air, in her scrubs, smelling of hand gel and toast. She pressed her chilly feet against my calves and I yelped. She laughed and tucked herself against my chest.

Hannah is thirty-four, tall and dark, with a sharp bob, a dry sense of humour and a way of looking at me that makes me feel read like a book. I love her more than I can put into words, which was why I felt so guilty about the night.

Through the wall, the shower in the bathroom started up. Jess began singing, flat and cheerful and wildly out of tune.

“Thin walls,” Hannah murmured against my neck.

“Very.”

“Hmm.” Her hand slid down my stomach, found me hard under the duvet and stayed there, resting, not stroking. “That’s for me, is it?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

She propped herself on one elbow. Her eyes were tired but very alert.

“Tom,” she said. “I’m not daft. Something’s been on your mind since Jess arrived. Tell me what.”

The shower hissed. Jess hit a high note and missed it by a mile.

→ I tell her the truth about Jess

→ I tell her it’s nothing

← Back

I told myself it was for water. I pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, took the stairs on the edges of my feet and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

Jess stood at the kettle in a vest top and tiny cotton knickers, curls piled up and falling down. Behind her, her washing hung on the radiator: bras, lacy thongs, a pair of red knickers drying in the warm like a shop window I wasn’t supposed to look in.

“Oh, hi,” she said. “Did I wake you? These walls, God. I swear I can hear you turn over.”

“I heard you,” I said, before I could stop myself.

Colour rushed up her neck and across her freckled chest. Then the dimple appeared. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to need a glass of water.”

She laughed, big and helpless, and covered her face. Then she told me about Callum, the ex, who said she was too loud, too needy, too everything. “Say I’m not too much,” she said.

“You’re not too much.”

“Again.”

“You’re not too much, Jess.”

She stepped close. Her nipples stood hard through the thin cotton, and she smelled of coconut shampoo and warm skin. She laid her palm flat on my chest.

“Tom,” she said softly. “Your heart’s going like mad.”

She didn’t move her hand. I didn’t move away.

→ I kiss her

→ I lift her hand off my chest and step back

← Back

Hannah looked at me for a long moment. Then she kissed my forehead and said, “Okay. If you say so,” and turned over and slept.

I didn’t say so. I just didn’t say anything else.

For five days I became the most polite man in England. I ate toast standing up. I did my bookkeeping at the library. I left the room when Jess laughed. Hannah worked nights and slept days, and Jess drifted round the house in her pyjama shorts with her curls tied up, wounded and confused.

On Friday night I came downstairs at midnight for a beer and found her at the table in a vest top and nothing else but knickers, her washing steaming on the radiator behind her. She’d been crying a bit.

“You’re avoiding me,” she said. “Have I done something?”

“No. God, no.”

“Then why do you leave every room like it’s on fire?”

I stood there holding the fridge door. She wiped her nose on her wrist and gave a small, wet laugh.

“I heard you too,” she said quietly. “Tuesday night. Through the wall. Your breathing, and the bed, and my name.” Her cheeks were scarlet. “I’m not going to do anything, Tom. I love Hannah. I just needed you to know I’m not imagining it.”

The fridge hummed. Her bare knee pressed against my leg.

→ I tell her it ends here, for Hannah’s sake

→ I say nothing and go out for a run in the dark

← Back

I looked at the ceiling because it was easier than looking at her.

“I fancy Jess,” I said. “That’s it. That’s the whole confession. Nothing’s happened, I haven’t touched her, I haven’t even really looked, except I have, obviously, because she’s in our kitchen in tiny shorts every morning. I can hear her through the wall, Han. I didn’t want it to be a secret.”

The shower kept running. Jess had moved on to something by Abba.

Hannah didn’t move. I waited for the slap or the silence or the packed bag.

Instead she started to smile. Slowly, like a woman who’d been handed a present she’d guessed the contents of.

“Two days,” she said. “I had you down for the end of the week.”

“You knew?”

“Tom, I’ve watched you not-watch her since she walked in. You carry her suitcases like they weigh nothing and you go pink when she hugs you.” Her hand tightened on my cock, properly now, a long slow stroke. “And I’ve seen how she looks at you. Do you think I’m angry?”

“A bit?”

“I’m not angry.” She swung a leg over me, scrubs and all, and ground down. I could feel how warm she was through the cotton. “I’m interested.”

My wife was wet for me and talking about her best friend in the same breath.

→ I ask her what she means

→ I tell her nothing is going to happen

← Back

I took her hand off my chest and held it for a second, then let go. “I should go up,” I said. My voice sounded like gravel.

Jess’s face did something complicated. Then the bubbly mask slid back on. “God, yes. Sorry. I’m a total mess. Pretend I didn’t do that.” She laughed, a bit too loud. “Night, Tom.”

“Night.”

I climbed the stairs with my cock aching against my shorts and lay in the dark staring at the ceiling like a man doing penance. Hannah’s side of the bed was cold and flat. I thought about her, I really did, her laugh, her tired smile in the morning.

Then I heard the door of the spare room close, the bedsprings, and a long, shaky exhale a few inches from my head.

Tap. Tap.

Two soft knocks on the wall, right by my pillow.

I held my breath. My phone buzzed on the bedside table and lit the ceiling. A message from Jess.

can’t sleep. u?

Another one, a second later.

also i’m sorry. i’m a bit turned on and a lot embarrassed. this wall is THIN

My thumb hovered over the screen. In the next room, her breathing was quick and uneven.

→ I text her back

→ I turn my phone face down and put earbuds in

← Back

I kissed her. Of course I did.

It was soft for about one second. Then Jess made a noise in her throat, grabbed my T-shirt in both fists and kissed me like she’d been saving it up. Her mouth was hot and tasted of tea and toothpaste. I got my hands on her hips, soft and generous and exactly as good as I’d imagined, and lifted her onto the worktop. She wrapped her legs round me and ground herself against the hard length in my shorts.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “I’ve wanted to do that since Sunday.”

I pulled her vest up. Her breasts were heavy and freckled, pink nipples tight, and I took one in my mouth and sucked until she hissed and arched. Her hand shoved down the front of my shorts and closed round my cock. “Fuck, Tom. Look at you.”

I slid two fingers inside the leg of her knickers. She was soaking, slick and swollen, and she gasped into my hair when I found her clit. Behind her, the red knickers on the radiator watched us.

Then she caught my wrist, breathing hard, and nodded at the uncurtained window over the sink. “Not here. Next door’s lights are on.”

Her eyes were dark and begging. Hannah’s best friend, wet on my hand, waiting for me to say where.

→ I carry her upstairs to the spare room

→ I stop, and take my hand out of her knickers

← Back

I said nothing, pulled on my trainers by the back door and ran.

It was gone midnight, raining lightly, the streets empty and orange under the lamps. I ran like a man being chased, past the shut chip shop, round the park, up the hill by the allotments, and with every step her face kept coming along with me. The dimple. The red knickers. Her whispered “my name”.

Forty minutes later I was soaked, shaking and as hard as a fence post, which is an irritating thing to be at the top of a hill in the rain. I jogged home with my phone buzzing against my thigh. A message from Hannah, from the ward: quiet night. missing you. 3am cuppa? x

I could do that. I could walk up to the hospital, kiss my wife in the corridor and be a good husband.

But first I let myself in, dripping on the mat. The house was dark. The spare room door was shut. The bathroom light was on, and the radiator on the landing was heaped with Jess’s washing, a pile of lace and cotton and one pale blue thong I definitely hadn’t seen before.

I stood there steaming, in the dark, with the smell of her coconut shampoo drifting out of the bathroom.

My cock throbbed in my wet shorts. I could take myself in hand in the shower and be done in a minute. Or I could get dry, pull on dry clothes and walk the mile to the hospital with a flask of tea.

→ I lock the bathroom door and get in the shower

→ I get dry and take a flask to Hannah’s ward

← Back

I took a breath. “Jess. I’m flattered. You’re gorgeous and funny and I’m not made of stone. But I’m married to your best friend, and it ends here.”

She nodded slowly. I’d expected her to cry again. She didn’t. She breathed out a long wobble of a laugh and tucked a curl behind her ear.

“Good,” she said. “Thank you. I think I needed someone to say it. Callum never said no to anything, which is why he said yes to Becca from his office.” She wiped her nose on her wrist. “God, I’m a mess. I’ll stay out of your way. And I’ll put a pillow over my head at night.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do. For both of us.”

She stood up, barefoot on the lino, her vest sliding down her round stomach, her knickers a pale triangle under the cotton, her washing drying on the radiator behind her like a flag of surrender. I made myself look at her face.

“Can I at least have a hug?” she said. “A proper one. Then I’ll go to bed like a good girl and we’ll never speak of it.”

She opened her arms. She was twenty-nine, warm, curvy and wearing next to nothing, and every cell of me wanted to say yes and also, in a quieter, wiser voice, wanted to say yes very carefully.

→ I give her a quick, brisk hug and say goodnight

→ I hold her as long as she needs

← Back

I took a breath. “Han, I wanted you to hear it from me. That’s all. I’m not going to do anything. I love you. I just didn’t want to hide it.”

She didn’t move. Then she let out a long, slow breath and kissed the corner of my mouth.

“God, you’re a good man,” she said. “Annoyingly good.” Her thumb stroked my jaw. “Okay. I believe you. And I’m going to say something and you can say stop at any time.”

“Okay.”

“Now it’s in the room, I’m a bit turned on by it. Not the doing it behind my back. Obviously. But the wanting.” She laughed softly, embarrassed. “I’m not sure what to do with that. Are you?”

Through the wall, a hairdryer started. Jess, singing along to it.

Hannah’s hand was back on my cock, firm and slow. She lifted the duvet and looked down at me, then at me. “You’re so hard. Is that all me?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly.” She snorted. “Honest man.” She crawled down the bed, pushed my knees apart and took me in her mouth, one slow wet suck, and I groaned so loud the hairdryer paused.

She lifted her head, lips shining. “So,” she said. “Do you want me to tell you what I’d say if I were being really naughty? Or do you want me to stop talking and just ride you?”

→ I ask her to tell me, in detail

→ I tell her I just want her, nobody else

← Back

I asked. My voice cracked halfway through.

Hannah rolled off me and lay on her back, one hand stroking my chest, the other tucked behind her head. Through the wall, the shower shut off.

“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “Before Jess even moved in. When she was telling me about Callum, how she’d been crying in the loo at work, and I thought, God, someone should show that girl what she’s worth.” She turned her head. “And then I thought about you doing it. And then I thought about me watching. And then I had to go and have a very quiet wank in the sluice room.”

“Han.”

“I’m serious. I’m not talking about you sneaking off. I’m talking about all three of us. Her, if she wants it. Me in the room, in the bed, with my hands on both of you. Everyone saying yes out loud, nobody lying. Rules.” She counted on her fingers. “Jess says yes freely. I’m there. We stop the second anyone wants to. And afterwards we’re still us.”

She took my hand and slid it under her scrubs, into her knickers. She was drenched.

“Feel that? That’s me thinking about it. That’s all from my best friend’s tits.”

I almost came on the spot. Down the landing, a door opened and Jess’s bare feet padded towards the kitchen.

“So,” Hannah whispered, grinning. “Do we ask her tonight, together, or do you want to sound her out on your own?”

→ I say we ask her together, tonight

→ I say I’ll sound her out on my own first