Loving Authority Ch 07

Chapter 7 - Love without Limits

The following day was rainy. Fat drops of water ran down the windowpanes and the grey sky hung low over London. Turning over, Emily found Mark's side of the bed already empty. She rolled back over and pulled the duvet higher, not yet ready to face the day. Her phone pinged as a message arrived. "Urgh," she groaned internally. "Who would send a message so early on a weekend?" Sleepily, she peered at the screen. Suddenly, she was wide awake -- she sat upright and grabbed her phone, reading eagerly before tapping out a reply.

Downstairs, Mark sat alone at the breakfast bar, slowly spooning soggy cornflakes into his mouth. He'd poured milk over them twenty minutes earlier, and they were now more like cornpulp. His mind was elsewhere, daydreaming about his wife dominating him, and fretting about anonymous men. He heard Emily moving about on the top floor, but soon she bounced down the stairs to join him. She came straight over, and he turned his head for a kiss. She raised herself up on her toes to plant her lips on his forehead.

"Morning, lover," she said. "No, I'm not kissing your mouth, it's all milky. Besides, I know where it's been..." She laughed and went to make her own breakfast. She was clearly in good spirits.

Saturday passed quickly. Mark continued to chip away at his paperwork, but Emily wasn't scheduled to work all weekend. She spent most of the day holed up in the living room as the rain beat down furiously outside. A roll of thunder grumbled in the sky above them, though it was soon outcompeted by a low-flying jet making its approach to Heathrow.

Mark heard Emily's phone pinging all morning as he worked, the 'ting' jolting his concentration every time a notification arrived. "It really is amazing the amount of chatter a woman can sustain," Mark thought to himself as he plugged in his earphones to block out the noise. "If she's got this much to say, she should just call whoever it is." Probably Mary, or more likely Isla, he reasoned; "those girls are thick as thieves."

*******

Emily sat on the sofa, typing out her latest reply. She was engrossed in the flow of conversation, acting like she had an addiction that could only be scratched by the jingling of her phone. She wasn't texting Mary or Isla. She smiled and looked to the rainy skies as she tried to find the right words.

"Just enough to keep him interested, but not so much I seem over-keen," she thought to herself.

She and Max had been engaged in a torrent of texts all morning. He'd sent her a note to say how much fun he'd had meeting her, how funny she was, how much he wanted to see her again. With his obvious ego, Emily had expected him to adopt the usual rule of a two-day gap before making contact, and even then to keep his cards close, but he was all-out going for gold.

The pace of messages had started furiously, but slowed over the morning. Emily grew frustrated when Max didn't respond at all to her cleverly constructed message riffing on the wet shirt worn by Colin Firth's Mr Darcy in the BBC's adaptation of

Pride and Prejudice

. "Uncultured boor," she thought to herself, throwing her phone down after waiting excitedly for long minutes without a reply. She left the room to make tea. Across London, Max screwed up his nose as he read the message. "Who the fuck," he wondered, "is Mr Darcy? And why would she want to tell me about another bloke?"

*******

Mark pulled out his headphones. Done at last! He stretched in his chair and stood up, looking forward to an afternoon away from his desk. He wandered into the living room, looking for Emily.

There was no sign of her. He heard the kettle boiling loudly in the kitchen and turned to go to her. 'Ping,' went Emily's phone, lighting up on the sofa. Mark saw the sender flash up on the screen: 'Hot Max'. He leant over and picked it up, his brow furrowed. He swept his thumb over the screen, the phone unlocking without a code as it recognised its location.

He read the message: "Sorry, I had to look that one up -- I'm not much of a reader! So are you saying I'm your Mr Darcy? Sounds hot." Mark started to scroll back up the screen to read the earlier messages.

"What are you

doing

?" came the anxious voice of Emily as she came back into the room. She rushed over to snatch her phone from his hand, the hot tea spilling from her mug as she lurched across the room. "That's mine, give it here." In the stress of the moment, she made no attempt to hide her concern as she desperately tried to stop Mark reading any more.

"Who's Max?" asked Mark slow-wittedly, staring at his now empty hand. "I mean, I thought I was your Mr Darcy... I'm literally called Mark, if you don't mind the Bridget Jones version..."

Emily tensed. This wasn't the right time to reopen the great Jane Austen vs Helen Fielding debate. She must have told him a thousand times: Mark Darcy was no match for Fitzwilliam.

"No one. He's no one," she said, returning to the matter at hand. Her response was totally unbelievable, especially as she immediately bit her bottom lip as she said it, a sure sign that she was lying. When caught red-handed, untruths are always difficult to get away with convincingly.

Mark stared at her, his thought process finally up to speed. "Look Em, I'm not a complete idiot. I guess Max is the guy from last night, right? Why does he think he's your Mr Darcy? Are you leading him on somehow? Leave the poor guy alone, he doesn't deserve to be messed around." Incredibly, Mark was defending the bull in this potential

ménage à trois

, and didn't seem to grasp his likely role as sub.

A jolt of anger flared through Emily's mind as the rain lashed against the windows (it would have been neat if there was a perfectly timed bolt of lightning, but no story is perfect).

"I'm not messing him around Mark. I'm not some floozy, out on the street to corrupt any passing guy. Don't you dare suggest anything is wrong with my behaviour."

Mark had clearly touched a nerve. Emily trembled a little as she readied herself for battle, although in truth, she knew that her over-defensiveness came from guilt at her own intentions. "Don't make out that this is something weird," she continued. "You started it, this is what you wanted."

That assertion again. Mark stared at her, uncertain how to proceed. He was sure now that this

wasn't

what he had started. Whether it was what he

wanted

was another question, and he didn't want to start an all-out war with his wife.

"Why is he called

Hot

Max?" Mark persisted.

Emily flushed indignantly. "He typed in his own details, OK? I think it was supposed to be a joke. Look, stop questioning me like this, it's not fair!" she protested.

"OK, OK, calm down, I'm not suggesting anything," Mark replied, holding his hands prone in front of him. "Just tell me what's going on."

Emily sat down heavily on the sofa. She sat still for moment before replying, reluctantly realising that she had no option but to come clean. She spoke quietly.

"You're right, he is the guy from last night -- Max." Mark was caught off guard hearing his name, feeling unexpectedly winded by the information. "But it's not his fault, he doesn't know I'm married -- that

we're

married," Emily quickly corrected herself.

"How, exactly, does he

not

know you are married?" Mark asked slowly.

"It just didn't come up," Emily replied feebly. "I didn't have my rings on, and he didn't ask."

Mark considered her words. "He didn't ask..." he repeated in his mind. He was starting to doubt how well he really knew the woman sitting in front of him.

"So what did you really do last night? Was it

really

just a drink?" Mark asked, suspicions and anger rapidly building.

"Yes, YES!" Emily replied to his question and raised eyebrow. "Don't suggest things that aren't true Mark, it's just not cricket." Even in this moment, Mark had enough composure to appreciate the incongruity of her choice of words. She'd clearly picked the phrase up from him, and now it had popped up in the most unlikely conversation. He forced his mind back to their current discussion.

"And when you came home and we made love, was it him you were thinking about?" Mark asked calmly, his emotions separated from his speech and his barrister persona coming to the fore.

"Don't cross-examine me like I'm one of the criminals you represent," Emily spat back.

"I'm not a criminal lawyer Em, I'm a..."

Emily cut him off. "You work for criminals as much as any other lawyer, it's just you work for the rich ones who can bend the law to suit them." Her words cut deep. This was the first time he'd heard her criticise his career -- he had thought she was proud of him, that she was impressed with his promotion to Junior Partner. Just because she saved children's lives didn't make her a better person than him.

She saw the pain in his face and immediately regretted her words, her actions last night, her whole stupid daydream to see Max again. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's just I'm feeling confused by all this. We should never have started all this -- I'll just delete his number."

"Obviously, I wasn't planning on meeting him again anyway." Emily twisted her hands together as she worked up her lie for Mark's benefit. "It was just all talk. He wasn't even that good looking, and we didn't click at all -- he's not my type. I really didn't like him."

Mark raised an eyebrow as he thought of the volume of texts that he'd just seen that suggested otherwise.

Emily lifted her phone to do delete the evidence, thinking back to Max as she did so, a pang of regret at never getting to see him again welling up.

Mark looked at her crestfallen face and lifted his hand to rest on top of hers, preventing her from touching her phone. "I didn't say anything about calling it off," he replied with composure. He felt his body stirring in his trousers as he continued.

"Last night was hot. I've never seen you like that before -- so alive and confident. I loved you like that. Were you thinking of him?" Emily started to interrupt and shake her head in denial, but Mark shushed her.

"Em, I don't care if you were -- there's no harm in a little fantasy."

Emily looked up at him surprised. This was not how she had expected this conversation to go.

"So you were attracted to another man -- that's not a crime," Mark continued. Emily began to feel better, her hopes of restoring the mood with Mark -- and maybe of seeing Max again -- rising. "Look, can I read the messages with you? I just want to know what's going on." He sat down next to her on the sofa. Hesitantly, she passed over her phone.

Mark sat quietly as he scrolled through the texts -- what seemed like hundreds of them, but really numbered about sixty. He paused when he read the first text that Emily had sent the previous night, the message that had started it all: "I had a great time too x". He saw the time stamp and realised she had sent it within minutes of having sex with him. He looked up at Emily, who was biting her lip anxiously again.

"Did you really have a good time with him?" Mark asked.

Emily nodded. "Yes. He was something new, it was just fun getting away from my shitty life -- at work," she added quickly. "I love you Mark, I really do, this was just a diversion. I don't want to put us in danger."

Mark sat quietly, nodding to himself as he thought it over. "He's asked you out for a date next weekend, it says here," Mark said, pointing to latest message that had arrived as they were arguing. Emily's eyes shot straight to the screen to see the proof.

"You haven't replied to him," he said softly.

Emily looked up abruptly at Mark, her eyes quizzical. "What are you suggesting?" she asked. Her heart had accelerated sharply.

"I think you should say yes." Mark felt a confusing mix of emotions wash over him as the words left his mouth. A part of him was deeply unsettled by the prospect of Emily going on another date with Max, yet another part of him (the trousered part, if we're being honest) felt a deep stir of arousal. His stomach churned.

There was a heavy silence as Emily picked up her phone, turning her eyes away from Mark to the screen. It cast a white glow on her face in the dim room, the rain still pouring outside. Mark watched, almost in a trance, as she typed out her message. Emily didn't need asking twice.

"Sounds great! I'd love to meet up -- can't wait to see you xx". Each tap of her fingers on the screen was audible in the quiet of the room.

The response from "Hot Max" was almost instantaneous: "Can't wait to see all of you xx".

Emily and Mark looked up simultaneously as they finished reading his reply. They looked at each other and burst out laughing with shock, the implication of Max's message clear. The laughter broke the tension between them. This was no longer just a fantasy; it was becoming rapidly real.

*******

Neither Mark nor Emily got much work done that week. Mark's case suffered, and he lost his argument in court; four months of work were wasted in a matter of hours. But there was no 'Dark Night of the Soul', and no vanity wasted -- he simply didn't care. Emily's Professor continued to harangue her each day, but her team had started to be more supportive -- even the lab tech ('Science Guy', as the nurses liked to call him) muttered a supportive "prick" under his breath when the Professor tried to belittle her on the ward. The Prof was well out of earshot, but Emily grinned at him when she heard. With their support, she managed to rise above it, and came home calm and collected each night. Neither were bothered by their work failures. Any airs they may have held about the importance of their jobs were vanquished; there were more important matters on their mind.

The weekend eventually arrived. Emily was in a high energy state all day, buzzing around the house but achieving little. "Are you sure I shouldn't cancel? Maybe I should, what do you think?" she asked several times over the morning.

"Em, it's up to you," Mark replied. "I'm here for you whatever you decide."

Emily hugged him when he finished speaking. "Thank you," she said, almost in tears of gratitude, but before long she would continue with her fretting.

"Sit down Em, chill out a bit," Mark interjected as she fussed around him for the fifth time that morning, but she wouldn't be stilled. At last, after a long afternoon for both of them, it was time for her to get ready and she could put her energies into preparing herself.

She disappeared to the bedroom a full two hours before she was due to leave. Mark heard her hurrying around, the shower running, drawers banging and hair dryer blasting. He felt surprisingly relaxed about the whole affair, wondering what the night would bring. His only request -- no, his

rule

-- for Emily, was that she tell him everything that happened when she got home, without leaving out a single detail.

With half an hour to go before her taxi was due, Emily called him to the bedroom.

"Help me with my necklace?" she asked. She swept her hair to the side to let Mark fasten the clasp.

Task complete, Emily dropped her hair down and stood in front of the mirror to check her appearance. Mark stared in admiration.

She was a woman transformed -- two hours ago she'd been clad in old jeans and a jumper, but now she looked simply stunning. Her claret dress hugged her curves, the invisible zip running the length of the bodice making it almost impossible to imagine how she had slid herself into the tight material. The scooped neckline revealed a little cleavage -- but not too much -- and the colour of the dress accentuated the warm tan of her skin. Her makeup was so understated it was barely noticeable, giving her a fresh and natural glow. The only statement touch was the line of dark eyeliner that framed her eyes. She'd painted her nails a deep, dark red with a subtle shimmer to match her dress, and she wore red stiletto heels so high she was able to look Mark in the eye. The necklace he had just fastened rested on her chest, its delicate chain and topaz stone sparkling, and the scent of her floral perfume caught his nose as he stood close.

Emily turned away from the mirror, anxiety written over her face. "Is it too much? Maybe the dress is too formal, I've got time to change into something else, I could wear..."

Mark cut her off. "Em. Stop. You look perfect, like, the most beautiful I've ever seen you. My God, just look at yourself." He put his hands on her waist and turned her back towards the mirror, continuing to stand at her side as he did so. "Just, wow. Max is a lucky guy." Mark swallowed.

Emily's eyes welled up with tears, but she rapidly got control of her emotions, waving a hand in front of her face and grabbing a tissue to carefully dab her eyes. "Don't make me cry, Marky, I've just done my makeup." She laughed aloud. "I can't even kiss you or you'll smudge my lipstick."

In a few seconds, Emily was back in full control of herself. "Right. Your turn." She turned business-like and walked to her bedside table before turning back towards him, his chastity cage in her hand.

"Drop your trousers then," Emily requested, her tone light and matter-of-fact. Mark was taken aback, this part of her plan not having occurred to him. Emily continued speaking as she saw his look of confusion. " Look, tonight isn't just about me, it's for you too. I thought you liked this thing - isn't this what you wanted?"

Mark faltered, uncertain what he

did

want. Sending his wife out for a date already seemed like a massive step into the unknown, and adding cheap toys to their game hardly seemed necessary.

Emily answered for him. "Don't dress me up and send me out there all alone without playing along yourself, it's not fair. Besides..." she said guilefully, "I don't want you getting all excited when you're all by yourself -- who knows what you might get up to...?"

Emily pushed her shoulders backwards, and straightened her pose to stand at full height; her mind was made up. "Look, we're in this together, or not at all. I want you to be thinking about me all night. Drop them," she demanded, looking toward his trousers.

Uncertainly -- but not reluctantly -- Mark unbuttoned his fly and complied. Emily was getting expert in fitting the cage on a semi-erect penis and slotted it together in a new record time. The physical sensation of being locked away was nothing compared to the psychology at play; Mark pulled his trousers back up, knowing the night ahead of him would be a long one.

Standing in front of the mirror again, Emily checked herself for a last time. Her overall demeanour was now one of poised certainty, her earlier agitation gone. She was fully aware of the effect she had on men, yet she was still nervous about what Max would think. Unknown to her, it was the combination of confidence and vulnerability that made her irresistible.

"OK, we're really doing this," Emily spoke aloud. She touched her fingertips lightly to Mark's lips before pulling back. She held her hands together for a moment and carefully worked to free her ring finger of her diamond solitaire and matching wedding band. Reaching for Mark's wrist, she turned his hand over and placed the rings in his palm, then squeezed his fingers into a fist so that they closed around them. "He doesn't know about all that," she said, almost apologetically.

She hesitated at the threshold as she left the room. "Wait up for me?" she asked.

Mark stood quietly, looking at her in admiration. "Of course," he replied. Her beauty was undeniable. The woman he had known for so long, had shared almost every moment of his adult life with, was both familiar and distant to Mark in that moment.

Emily clutched her handbag, made a final check of readiness, and left the room in a waft of perfume.