I stared at my reflection in the mirror on Saturday night as I carefully put the final touches to my make-up and fastened my necklace and bracelet in place.
To my relief the hickeys Darren had given me were already beginning to fade. The overdose of concealer I had applied had done a good enough job, at least for the most obvious mark and the two dark patches above my collar bone were hidden by the high collar of the dress I had chosen for the evening's event.
My tummy still churned when I remembered what had happened only two days before; the genuinely unplanned but intensely pleasurable all-night fucking I had received at the hands of an intellectually pedestrian but drop-dead-gorgeous Personal Trainer.
The twenty-nine year old boy had delivered in his dirty, untidy bedroom a night of copulation that had opened my eyes even further to the extraordinary physical pleasures an exciting, adventurous sex life could bring a girl - even one of my advancing age.
Even better, with my wedding ring no longer on my finger - at my husband's Pete' insistence - I need not feel any guilt about having had only the second extra-marital lover in my life. I felt shame for having behaved like a slut in bed and fear of my infidelity being discovered by my friends but these were manageable.
I felt no guilt at all for having added my name to the list of married women carved into Darren's bedpost.
The thrill and excitement had carried me through a dreary Friday at work, an evening in the gym followed by another lonely night alone at home and in bed. It also helped overcome the dull pain of finding my secret phone still devoid of messages from Tony, the man who had first seduced me, fucked me and started the affair that had led to my current horrible situation.
Had it not been for the obvious pleasure Darren had enjoyed in my company in and out of bed, I don't know what this sudden and total rejection by both the men I loved might have made me do.
Learning that for a second time I had cheated on him by arranging secret dates with Tony, my husband had insisted that we separate. It might only be for a couple of weeks; it might be permanent. Pete had even insisted we gave back our wedding rings to make sure we both understood the magnitude of what was happening. Putting distance between us would, he said, give us both time and space to decide what we wanted and the opportunity to try other previously forbidden fruit.
What we had both expected was that I would spend the time living with Tony in his flat. After all, he had told me many times how much he loved me and had even asked me to leave my husband and marry him once his divorce from his estranged and unfaithful wife Julie had come through. By becoming his wife for two weeks I would know for certain which of the two men in my life I wanted to be with.
At the same time my husband would be deciding whether he wanted me back at all.
But now the opportunity had arisen for real, instead of welcoming me into his apartment, his life and his bed, Tony was behaving very strangely, making excuses to avoid seeing me and even standing me up on the one occasion he had agreed to meet. He wasn't even answering his phone now or responding to messages.
In the face of all the evidence, I still stupidly held onto the belief that, once his daughter Hannah had gone back to University, he would call me, tell me he still loved me and welcome me into his apartment, his bed and his life.
The self-delusion was extraordinary.
In contrast, my husband Pete had stuck to his plan, moved into the Duty Consultant's rooms at the hospital and hadn't made any contact with me at all since leaving the house the previous Sunday. I had seen his car in the Consultants' Car Park and I suspected he had spent at least some time on Thursday evening with Julie, my closest friend and Tony's wife.
Otherwise I hadn't set eyes on him and had no idea what he had been doing and now I would not see even this little of his life because on Friday afternoon he had flown to Geneva to take part in a week-long conference in his medical specialism. It was an event I had once attended with him; a week in which a great deal of hard work was done during the day and a large amount of bed-swapping took place afterwards.
If he wanted, my good looking, successful husband would have no problem finding someone to fill the place in his bed I that his unfaithful wife was now denied.
Unused to jealousy, the thought of my husband with another woman in any circumstances was intensely and increasingly painful. His absence from my life went far beyond his mere physical presence; we had been apart many times when one of other of us was away for work but there had always been the knowledge that we missed and wanted each other.
Being apart from him because he couldn't put up with the humiliation of my repeated betrayals, couldn't even stand being in the same house as his cheating wife and needed to decide whether he could now live with me at all was an agony all on its own and increasingly hard to bear.
Whatever I decided, the decision was out of my hands. For months I had enjoyed having both men in my life; now it looked like I might end up with neither. With another whole week of supposed freedom, there seemed nothing I could do but wait for one or both men to make their choice.
As if this wasn't bad enough, Julie had called me on Friday asking if we could meet up.
Despite her having been my closest friend, I hadn't returned her call. This was partly because I was angry that her husband Tony had seen her earlier in the week while avoiding seeing me, partly because she had apparently gone out to dinner with my husband on Thursday night and partly because I had ignored her pleas and done nothing to help her and Tony get back together again.
But mostly it was because the young man who had fucked me so comprehensively on Thursday was the same young man Julie's yearlong affair had been with; the affair that had made her husband walk out on her. Julie and my names metaphorically appeared above each other on Darren's bedpost; I wasn't ready for the complications all this brought to our already-complicated relationship.
She had called me on Saturday morning too and left several increasingly urgent text and voice messages but I had ignored them all.
So, as I prepared myself for a desperately needed evening with the girls, far from being the wild, romantic fuck-fest I had expected, with one unexpected but spectacularly enjoyable exception, my first week of freedom had been spent almost entirely alone so having Claire's party to look forward to was a godsend.
***
It was my friend's fifty-third birthday and the girls in our social group were having dinner in a smart restaurant together to celebrate. Under previous circumstances we would have been a table of eight but with Julie still persona-non-grata there were only seven of us that Saturday night; the Magnificent seven as Claire christened us.
The first bottle of Prosecco had barely filled our glasses so a second and third had been promptly ordered. After my lonely week it felt wonderful to be in a noisy, friendly group again and I took maximum advantage of the opportunity to gossip, eat things I shouldn't eat and drink much more than was good for me.
As usual, after a few rounds of the bottle the conversation turned obliquely to sex; with our husbands in general and about Julie and Tony in particular. There was much good natured complaining about our various spouses either demanding too much or providing too little in the bed department.
I kept quiet as much as possible without appearing prudish; there were too many booby traps in my sex life to let down my guard.
By the time the coffees and over-sweet liqueurs had arrived the two divorced girls amongst us had graduated onto the lack of eligible men in our town and from there to which of our husbands they found most attractive.
To my considerable surprise, Pete and Tony featured high up on both their lists. Tony in particular was deemed to need a great deal of personal attention to comfort him following Julie's appalling behaviour; support both girls said they would be happy to provide. Julie herself was discussed with a mix of contempt, admiration and a good degree of envy.
My husband Pete was universally praised for being both good looking and a warm, caring man. There was much ribald speculation about what he must be like in bed - which I took care not to encourage - after which I was voted the luckiest girl at the table.
A toast was drunk to both of us. I had to blink back the tears; fortunately everyone misread the reasons behind my reddening eyes.
I was still one of the more sober members of the group by the time we bundled into taxis and headed into the city aiming to hit a club for a few hours' dancing. Before my affair I would have avoided sweaty nightclubs like the plague, especially on 'Grab a Granny' night as this particular evening had been named by the younger male clientele who laughed at groups of middle aged women like us.
We danced until after one o'clock. Interestingly, all of us were approached during the evening by men much younger than ourselves. After my one night stand with Darren and with no wedding ring on my finger - I had lied to my friends about having it made larger - I was in great danger of accepting but there was a limit even to my insanity.
