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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.