Jealousy: The Biter Bit

This went on for another half hour and she felt more and more erotically charged. Then Sven confused her completely.

"Sonia, darling," he whispered in her ear as they moved as one round the floor. "Let's go somewhere quiet. Let him see. You want to teach him; that will make him mad, but I am too big for him; he will not interrupt."

Suddenly she was worried. Had she gone too far? Gary looked stricken by turns and then angry, but Sven was gorgeous; she could really sort Gary out and have some time alone with this hunk. She, or the drink, or the dancing, overcame the worry and she decided to go.

"OK," she said, "but only for a short time, long enough to really worry him."

"Of course," he smiled and her insides melted. She linked his arm and she looked pointedly at Gary as they left the room and made for the stairs. His stare at her seemed wooden and vacant. She felt a flash of disappointment that he didn't intervene but it did not last. It was too late now. Her excitement began to grow; she hadn't felt this way since before she got married. It felt as it used to when she had scored with a new lover.

He led her to a bedroom; he seemed to know which one. Then they were inside and he closed the door behind them. Before she could react, she was in his arms and his lips were caressing hers. Shivers ran up and down her spine. This man could kiss and she abandoned herself to the sensation -- to that sensation and to the other one, the one of his hands caressing her back and then the sides of her breasts, then her hair, and all the while she drifted deeper and deeper into that kiss, at times delicate then aggressive, at once with his tongue deep in her mouth, and then his mouth on her neck. She shivered, and was lost.

Vaguely there was a misgiving -- this should not be happening, but she had lost all will to resist.

She felt the zipper on her little black dress go down. It was happening to someone else. She let the dress slip to her feet. She was a teenager again. She pushed up his shirt and he helped her to remove it. The sight of his bare chest, his six pack and muscular arms made her weak at the knees, but she held herself up with her arms around his neck as she kissed his chest, and felt her lacy French knickers being lowered. She began to tingle down there between her legs and she was rapt in desire. She wanted him.

Then came the flash. They both looked round and the flash came again, catching their faces full on.

"Ta!" shouted the photographer and was gone.

So was the mood. She realised she had been photographed in bra, suspender belt and stockings and nothing else, in the arms of a man stripped to the waist. She pulled away.

"Oh God!" she swore. She hastened to dress and was decent when Colleen burst in.

"Hey, Sonia!" she shouted eagerly. "You should see your husband on the dance floor! I thought you said he couldn't dance. You've got to see this!"

The two women hurried downstairs; Sven, totally forgotten, bringing up the rear.

They stopped at the door to the ballroom. Sonia couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was a fast number and her Gary was dancing with that beautiful woman. He moved with grace and rhythm; he approached and receded from his partner; he circled her, he held her, he twirled her, he ground against her, and she sinuously rubbed herself against him and he was returning her sensuous movements with his own. It was almost sex on the dance floor.

"But he can't..." she stuttered.

"I think he can," came a voice from behind her. It was Sven. "He moves better than most. You can almost see the music. How could you not know? His balance, movements, you must have noticed he is a graceful man?"

She thought. Sven was right. How could she not have seen it? She remembered how he moved at home, fluid, balanced.

Now there was an emotion rising in her. It rose further when the next slow number came on. The couple on the floor plastered themselves onto each other and moved together. It was practically obscene. His hands were moving over her, everywhere, and hers over him.

If Sonia had realised it, they were mimicking those same movements of hand and body that she had used with her own dance partners when Gary was watching, but she didn't realise it. She thought he was lost to her. He should be doing that with her, not with that woman. At last she could stand it no longer and ran from the room.

Sven followed her. He found her in the dining room, sitting in one of the chairs, her head on the table, sobbing. He took the chair next to her and held her to him. He made soothing noises.

Eventually she sat up.

"He's no right to be doing that. He's married to me! How could he? It's wrong!"

"It's what people do," said Sven quietly. "It is the twentieth century, you know. You have to be adult about it; no room for childish jealousy. The woman he dances with is my wife."

The words seemed familiar, but she couldn't place who had said them before. In any case the last comment he made floored her.

"How can you let her--"

"She's a grown woman. She does what she wants, with whoever she wants, how she wants."

Now this part of the speech was not planned. His previous statement had been taken from her own words to Gary, but this was from him. It just happened to echo what she'd said to Gary on the way to the party.

"But--"

"It's only dancing Sonia. Now divorce: that's something we know how to do in the twentieth century. It's an option always."

Gary's words about divorce came tumbling in on her.

"We have to get back to the dance," she said, and she was away, leaving him sitting there.

Gary was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Sven's wife. She ran to the kitchen. Colleen was there.

"Have you seen Gary?" she asked breathlessly.

"Now you're worried about Gary? Didn't notice much interest in him until now," Colleen scowled at her.

"He's with that woman. I need to find him."

"Oh, yeah?" Colleen shot back. "You were with her husband. I don't remember you being all that worried then. You want it all ways, Sonia. You're jealous. You need to get over this infantile jealousy of yours. Join the twentieth century, Sonia. It's what people do."

She knew then. All these people knew what she'd been doing to Gary. They were helping him with some sort of revenge. She began to crumple. She felt fear: it was the first time her man seemed to be putting a distance between them. He had turned away from her. The prospect of him really leaving her, or at least finding someone else, had suddenly become real.

"Please, Colleen. I love him. I've been stupid. I need to find him."

Colleen waited a long moment, staring at her. "Upstairs. Turn left. Fourth door on the left. You'd better knock, less painful -- for you."

"Thanks."

What did Colleen say? You were with her husband. Sven had certainly a way with him; she knew she would have given in to him if that photographer hadn't burst in. Perhaps his wife was just as irresistible; she was certainly pretty enough. A pang of jealousy surged through her. Colleen seemed to know the woman's power over men.

She didn't run as she had before. She walked. She climbed the stairs. She walked the corridor. She stopped at the door. Listened. No sound. She waited a long few minutes.

She moved her hand to the doorknob. She hesitated, her hand hovering over it. She summoned up all her courage and grasped it, turned it and threw open the door and stepped in.

"You basta..." She stopped, puzzled.

Before her, in two armchairs, fully dressed, were Gary and the woman. There were two wine glasses and a bottle on the little table between them. They looked at her, and their look was cold. There was a long silence.

"But..." she began and stopped again. She felt as if she were cast adrift from reality. She had been so sure of herself when she arrived at the party. She was going to finally teach her stupid jealous husband a lesson, but nothing had gone her way. There was a surreal quality to everything people said to her, as if she remembered it being said before. Now here he was with this woman. They were drinking wine and chatting -- or at least she assumed they had been chatting all along. There was no 'just fucked' look about either of them, not even 'just kissed'. So far they had said nothing.

"But what, Sonia?" asked Gary. His tone was monotonous, devoid of love or affection. It annoyed her.

"I saw you dancing."

"Yes?"

"I didn't like it. You nearly had sex with her down there. How could you?"

"Come now, Sonia," said Ingrid. "It was only dancing. That's how people dance nowadays -- didn't you know?"

"No they don't! Not when they're married." Her eyes flashed at Ingrid's comment.

"Exactly," said Gary. He paused.

"What you felt wasn't jealousy, was it? No, it was anger, and you had a right to be angry. We were too intimate with each other for married people. I don't know if you noticed it, but everything we did down there, you had done with other men in front of me, and when I protested, you were angry with me, calling me childish and jealous, and then you cut me out of your life, but I wasn't just jealous then either, was I?"

Everything fell into place then. She now knew for certain she had been set up. There was a flash of resentment, but it was replaced immediately by remorse and regret, and worse, fear. She remembered what Gary had said about divorce.

"Oh Gary," she whispered, her head downcast. "I've been such a fool. Can we go home now? I don't want to face those people downstairs. I'm so ashamed."

"I don't think so," said Gary. "I don't think you'll be coming home with me."

Her head jerked up. "What?... Why?"

Gary reached down by his chair and placed two photographs on the table. They were glossy computer printouts, A4 size. There in front of Sonia was the evidence of her betrayal. There could be no doubt; they were clear and unambiguous. She stared at them for a long while, the evidence of her nakedness shouting her guilt. She desperately wondered what to say to escape from this nightmare. When she looked up, Gary was staring at her. There was no emotion in his eyes; they were dull and lifeless.

At length he spoke. "When we planned this evening, it was to bring home to you what you were doing to me. It was to show you how wrong you were to behave like that. Well, we succeeded.

"But when you were dancing in front of me with that louse George Gumley and when you left the room with him, I began to suspect that what you really wanted was a bit of strange. I was not enough for you; you wanted another man, or men, to fuck.

"Well, tonight you got him. I hope you're satisfied. Ingrid here is thinking of divorce. So am I. So why don't you go downstairs and find your lover. Perhaps he can console you again. Perhaps Ingrid and I will console each other."

"But--" Sonia began, her eyes tearing up.

"Just go Sonia!" Gary shouted.

She spun round and ran from the room.

Much later in the evening, after the food and the toast to Liam and Colleen (nothing was said about Gary and Sonia's anniversary), Sonia was sitting dejectedly with Clive and Barbara.

There had been no sign of Sven, but that had been a relief to her. She did not want him, she wanted her husband. She had relayed a sanitised version of how she was caught with Sven, and her meeting with Gary and Ingrid. She had cried herself out with them. They had not reproved her or rejected her. Indeed Barbara was not as pessimistic as Sonia.

"He only said he was thinking about divorce," she told the weeping girl. "You may yet have a chance to talk with him."

She hoped so. "He said I was not to come home. Where shall I go?"

"You'll come home with us," said Clive, and she smiled at him gratefully. These in-laws of hers were so kind, and after she had ruined the life of Clive's brother. Somehow the evening seemed to be too long. She wanted to go home but she knew she couldn't. She wanted to sleep and to forget about the nightmare this had turned out to be.

Clive and Barbara seemed to sense it and invited her to go home with them right away.

They were all practical when they arrived at the house, setting her up with nightwear and toiletries, and leaving her to get to bed. Once she lay down, the enormity of what she had done and Gary's reaction hit her hard and she cried and cried until exhausted, she fell asleep.

-----

Gary and Ingrid looked at each other as Sonia fled the room.

"I'm sorry, Gary," she said. "Sven went too far with her. I don't think he would have had sex with her, but now I can't be sure. It was not in the plan to take off her panties."

"How do you feel about that?" Gary asked. He wondered how liberal this couple were and how open was their marriage.

"I cannot say that I am happy," she said reflectively. "Yes, I know what people think of us Swedish, but really we are not all free love and swinging. Sven and I are happy just with each other. I think he got as carried away as Sonia did. We will talk about it. It will be all right, but I don't think we'll be helping any other couples with their marriage problems!" she laughed gently then, and he could see she was at ease.

"Do you think Sonia really does want to get laid by another man?" Gary asked her.

"I will not lie to you Gary." She was serious. "I think to begin with she was just trying to get at you, then things got out of hand. I'm sure if Sven had carried on and the photographer had not interrupted, she would have tried to fuck him. it was just as well we'd paid the photographer to barge in!

"But I don't think Sonia planned it that way. From the look of her, what she said and how she said it, I think she was shocked at how easily she could be seduced. So no. I don't think she wants another man."

"I need to do some thinking," said Gary. "I don't know how I feel about her now, I'm not sure any more that she can be faithful. Before she arrived if you remember, I was saying that before we started going out together she used to be quite wild: she often had sex with men she had danced with -- one-night stands."

He paused, then felt very tired. "I think it's time I went home."

He stood up. So did Ingrid. She came to him and pulled him to her, kissing him on the lips.

"Gary," she whispered. "We wanted to wake Sonia up to what she was doing. We succeeded. I'm sorry if the cost is too great. No one wanted that. Talk to her Gary, and let her talk to you. Good luck!"

They kissed again briefly, smiled at each other, and disengaged. Gary picked up the photos and walked to the door.

"Gary?"

He stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"You're quite a dancer."

"Thanks to you. Those hours of practice you gave me over the week were good for me."

"No.You've always been a good dancer. You just didn't know it or believe it. You only needed a little push."

"I know I enjoyed it! Thanks Ingrid!"

"You're welcome," she smiled and nodded, and he smiled back and went home.

The house was dark and quiet. Empty.

Automatically he went through the hall and into the living room, switching on the lights. He turned on the radio. It was playing soothing night music, though it had no soothing effect on him: it was only companionable noise.

He went to the pantry and took a bottle of beer without checking the label. He sat down in the living room and drank the whole bottle. Then he went and got another and did the same. He knew this was not a good idea after an evening's drinking, but he did it anyway. Then a few more. It would help him to sleep.

It did -- he never made it to bed -- but it certainly didn't help him to wake up.

------

Gary came to consciousness on Sunday morning wondering about the loud church bells he could hear in his head. Then he realised that they weren't in his head, and neither were they church bells. It was the doorbell and it was ringing and ringing: someone was leaning on the bell push.

His head ached, and he felt stiff. He was still on the sofa, and in last night's clothes. His mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage.

He struggled to his feet and went to the door. It was Clive.

Clive did not look very cheerful, but he looked a lot healthier than Gary felt.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

Gary stood back and Clive passed him, went to the kitchen and put on the kettle to boil. He went to the medicine cupboard and took out tablets of painkillers, filled a glass with water, then set them before Gary who had resumed his position on the sofa. Gary took the tablets.

"Slept down here?" Clive asked.

Gary nodded.

"Drunk?"

Another nod.

"Feel like talking?"

"No."

Clive brewed some tea, made some toast and buttered it lightly while waiting for the tea to be ready, and set the spartan breakfast in front of his brother. They drank the tea in silence and Gary ate the toast gratefully and began to feel a little better.

"So," said Gary. "What brings you to your little brother's house?"

"Thought you might like an update on your wife."

"Not sure I do, but go on."

"Last night, after you'd gone, she was quite broken up -- almost catatonic. We took her home and put her to bed. This morning at breakfast she didn't look much better, but that didn't stop Barbara. Wow! I'm glad I've never done anything against our marriage, Gary old son.

"She didn't lecture Sonia, but she asked questions. What did Sonia think about what she'd been doing over the past few weeks? How did it feel when you did the same to her? What really happened with Sven? (Ingrid had phoned Barbara and told her). How was she going to put it right? Did she want to? Why didn't she get divorced if she didn't want to play her part in the marriage? Wouldn't she prefer to be free to fuck around again?

"Honestly, Gary it went on and on. She didn't shout at Sonia -- just calmly asked the questions, waited for answers, left long significant silences, and then more questions."

"So?"

"Little Brother," he offered, "We set out to teach her a lesson last night. It was our doing. Sven got carried away apparently, and didn't mean the undressing to go as far as it did: the girl photographer was a little late arriving at the room. So as a group we have our own responsibility in this. It got out of hand. Sonia really didn't have a chance.

"Don't mean to patronise, but Barbara and I think you two have real potential as a couple. This event can finish you you as a couple or it can build up your relationship.

"You know, forgiving is no soft option, and it doesn't mean just forgetting it and letting her do something like this again. She has to repent, be sorry and make a firm resolution never to treat you that way again, and then you have to watch her.

"I'd have thought you would want to make rules and expect her to listen if you thought she was falling away. She needs to know that if anything like that happened again, that would be the end: no reprieve.

"From what I heard this morning, she's used to sex being a game, and it's difficult to give that up and adjust to using it for building a relationship. It means complete faithfulness, and sex never had anything to do with faithfulness for her until now.

"Sorry about the lecture. It's just the way I feel. Barbara had a few lovers before me, but she wasn't promiscuous. Sonia has a longer road to travel."

There was a pause.

"She would have had sex with Sven," said Gary. "She couldn't control herself. If she couldn't then, she'll likely fall again."

"We put her in that position, Gary," replied his brother patiently. "We made sure she'd had a few drinks -- rather more than a few; you said yourself she's wild when she's had a few.

"Then we put her with an impossibly fit Swede, blond, muscular. We get him to take her to a room and partially undress her so we could get those photos. The undressing went too far, that was Sven's fault; he admitted he lost control. It wasn't a natural situation."