Chapter 8: He Leaves a Mark
Leslie lay on her right side with her legs spread so that her right was on the bed and left was up and bent at the knee. Her right hand was massaging her button and her left was stimulating her g-spot. Open next to her was her laptop, the video that was playing showed a muscular bum rising and falling as its owner thrust into a woman lying on a hotel bed.
The woman on the bed was grasping at the sheets as her stocking-covered legs swung back and forth in the air in time to the undulating bum. The noise on the laptop was turned down to a whisper, despite the fact Leslie was alone at home, but she could hear the groans of the woman in the video get louder. The woman's hands grabbed her lover's back, whilst her high-heeled shoes crossed over above his buttocks.
She could see the guy speed up as the woman held tighter and, just audible on the low volume setting, she heard the woman moan, "Uhn, fuck yes, Bully Boy."
Simultaneous to her orgasm in the video, Leslie came as she watched Stuart fuck her. Both Leslies sharply exhaled but the one in the video kept going as it was only minute 23 of nearly two and half hours of footage. Leslie closed the video player and ejected the USB stick with the MP4 file. She deleted the file shortcut from 'Recent Files', something Google had taught her, and stashed the flash drive in her make-up bag.
Her thong and leggings lay discarded on the bed; she retrieved them and pulled them back on. She hadn't removed her pale pink tank top or her bra, so it took her only a couple of minutes to dress. She headed downstairs to grab a drink of water as well as start cooking for dinner.
The mince, which was to become part of a lasagne, had nicely browned when the front door opened. She heard Malcolm's briefcase touch the wooden hallway floor, followed by his footsteps into the kitchen.
"Hi sweetheart, what's for dinner? Oh... Um wow," Malcolm's voice ended on a surprised tone as he looked at his wife.
"What? It's just mince for lasagne."
"Oh, not that, just quite a bit of skin on show there," he mumbled, awkwardly.
She looked down at her outfit; black three-quarter length leggings and a top that admittedly was skin tight, low cut and left two to three finger-width worth of midriff on show. Stuart would have wished she was wearing less.
"Well I've been at home alone all day, both the kids are out with friends," she replied, letting a little annoyance show in her voice.
"Oh, um, yeah it's fine, just different, but uh, yeah, you look great."
Her 'traditional' husband didn't sound convincing at all, but in fairness to him, she would rarely show so much skin. Legs and arms occasionally, for dressy events, but her stomach was never on show, and her cleavage was always quite modest. However, that was always for Malcolm's benefit. She was happier to show more skin; perhaps her outfit to see the principal with Stuart and Lewis was a little bit too much, and Lewis had commented on that, in an awkward way, like his father, but on a summer's day she would have worn this outfit outside the house, if it didn't scandalise her husband.
She added canned tomatoes and some herbs to the mince, before taking a deep breath and starting a new conversation with her husband, "So, you remember how I wanted a tattoo at university?"
"Uhh, maybe, yeah. I think so, why?" He asked, brows furrowed as he remembered back over two decades.
Leslie pursed her lips, but worked to hide her disdain that he could almost forget the time he forbade a consenting adult from choosing to do something that she had every right to do.
"Well, I've decided that I'd like to get one actually," she said it calmly, belying the fact her heart was racing.
"What? Really?"
"Yes," her tone was curt.
"Why?"
"I just think it would look nice."
"But you'll just regret it later..."
"No!" she forcefully interjected, "You said this twenty years ago and here I am wishing I'd got one back then."
That last bit wasn't strictly true, she had fallen out of love with the idea after a couple of years, and hadn't really given it further thought until Stuart had mentioned it a few weeks ago. She didn't think she'd have regretted it though. She just wanted Malcolm to be a grown up and say he didn't like tattoos.
"Fine," he grumbled, "I don't like them and I don't want you to get one."
Since university, it appeared he had grown up enough to give a straight answer on this topic.
"I'm not asking you to get one. I like them and it is my decision."
"Yeah, but I don't think they look good..."
"But I do..." she interrupted, "so unless you want to tell me you own my body, and I don't have the right to choose, then I'll be getting a tattoo and... a belly ring."
"Don't you try and make it sound like I'm controlling you!" Malcolm replied, voice raised.
"Then what are you doing?" she retorted, matching his volume.
"Leslie, you can't just suddenly from nowhere decide to get a tattoo..." raising his voice further.
"I CAN'T?!" she shouted back, matching his volume, "I can't decide if I want to put a tattoo on my own body?!"
"But what about what our friends and the kids will think about...?"
"Malcolm!" she interrupted, "I was NOT asking you. I am informing you. If you have nothing positive to say on the matter, you can leave me to finish cooking."
Her eyes made daggers at her husband. He opened his mouth, cheeks red, looking like he was about to outburst at her but he stopped himself. He shut his mouth, stared for a couple of seconds and stormed out, shaking his head.
Leslie flip-flopped between feeling angry at her husband to guilt for that anger, aware she was only modifying her body as a way of arousing their son's teenage bully. However, by the time the lasagne's filling finished cooking, anger had won out; regardless of her infidelity, Malcolm had no right to stop her changing her body, whether it was now or twenty years ago.
She slopped the mince into a baking tray, between pasta sheets and threw the dish into the oven before slamming its door closed. She picked up her phone and messaged Stuart, asking if he was free. He replied within seconds to say he was done, having been hanging out with friends. She told him she was going to pick him up in her car, before shouting to her husband to tell him to remove the lasagne when the oven timer beeped. Donning her tan coat and a pair of pale pink heels, to match her top, she left the house to see Stuart.
****
Leslie returned to the house around an hour later, more relaxed and satisfied than when she had left. She and Stuart were only able to get in a 20 minute session in the back seat of Leslie's car, but having done that half a dozen times now, they were getting pretty good at it. She had awkwardly removed her underwear in the car just before meeting Stuart, but she had only bothered to put her bra back on afterwards. A disapproving look from her husband did not persuade her to change, despite the fact both her children were back. However, she switched to a friendly demeanour very quickly, partly because dinner had been set but more importantly because she realised her affair, and who she was having it with, meant her hold on the moral high ground was tenuous.
Katie, Malcolm and Leslie sat down at the dinner table as Malcolm called for Lewis again. Lewis walked in and Leslie thought she noticed a slight hobble to his gait. He sat down and looked at her, with red, puffy eyes, clearly he had been crying. Wondering if she already knew the answer, she asked what was wrong.
"I'd headed into the shops and Stuart was there," said Lewis, his voice warbling, "He didn't notice me at first, so after a bit I almost forgot he was there."
"Les," her husband chimed in, presumably already having heard the story, "We need to do something about this kid."
"First, what actually happened Lewis?" asked Leslie, subconsciously crossing her legs, feeling guilty that Stuart's semen was leaking into the crotch of her leggings.
"I was walking through the little path next to Costa, to get to the bus stop, and I came out by Weybourne Street, when I felt someone grab my shirt," Lewis continued, his voice a little croaky, "It was, of course, Stuart, and he kneed me in the thigh twice giving me a dead leg."
Lewis stopped to let out a sob and Leslie's heart felt a huge pang of anger, guilt and sympathy.
She listened as he finished the story, "I fell down and he asked if I had bought a dress for the next time I visit Principal Bullock. Then he left, saying he wished he could hang out longer but he had to go."
"He's ambushing our son now, Leslie," said Malcolm, with the same anger in his voice from their earlier tattoo discussion; if only he knew who the tattoo was for.
"This is obviously a problem," she said, sincerely, each word spoken cautiously, "but firstly, I don't think it sounds like it was a planned ambush, just Lewis got unlucky. Secondly, what can we do?"
Leslie's stomach churned as she knew Stuart was completely in the wrong but she had an overwhelming urge to protect him. She also knew Stuart hadn't 'ambushed' Lewis because she knew he was passing by that street to meet Leslie in her car. He had hit Lewis twice, knowing he would be inside Leslie just minutes later. She had climaxed calling his name; no, not even his name; calling out 'Bully Boy', as her son sobbed in pain; a pain caused by her boyfriend.
"Let's talk to the school," suggested Malcolm.
"We tried that," stated Leslie, pushing to one side the memory of climaxing in the Principal's office by Stuart's fingers, "so I'm not sure what would change, besides this happened outside of school, outside of term time, between two legal adults, what should the school do?"
"Fine, have you got any ideas other than 'let's do nothing'?"
"I didn't say that!" exclaimed Leslie, whilst thinking that's exactly what she wanted to happen.
