S. Watson - Second Life

‘How is she?’

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I think.’

‘I hadn’t realized you were still in touch.’

I’m surprised. He must know we’ve been talking. It crosses my mind that he suspects, somehow, that I’m lying.

‘Oh, yes.’

He doesn’t answer. As he sits back down my phone buzzes once more.

– Are you there?

Hugh notices. He looks annoyed, or upset. I can’t tell.

‘Sorry, darling.’

‘It’s fine.’ He picks up his pen, as if he’s about to go back to his paper. His annoyance has lasted only for a moment. ‘Message your friend. We’ll talk later.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I switch my phone off, but Connor has already started asking his father something about arteries and in a moment Hugh will be busy with an explanation. I’m hurting no one.

‘I’m just going to go and do some work,’ I say.

I cross the garden and go into the shed that is my office. I put my phone down and open my laptop.

– Sorry, I type. I was out. I’m at home now.

– Doing?

– Nothing.

– Wearing?

– What do you think?

There’s a pause, then:

– I need to see you again. Say you want to see me, too.

Yes, I think. I do. Funny how much less ambiguous my desires are now that they can’t be fulfilled.

– Of course I do.

– I’m imagining you. Naked. It’s all I can think about…

I’m sitting on the stool. I can feel the metal footrest under my feet, the hard acrylic of the seat beneath my buttocks. I close my eyes. I can see him, here in the room with me. He seems real. More real than anything else.

I don’t reply for a moment. I see my family, in the kitchen, Connor puzzled, Hugh helping him, sipping his coffee, but I push it down and instead imagine what Lukas is describing. I imagine what he wants to do.

I begin to type. I picture him as I write. He’s standing behind me. I can smell his aftershave, the faint aroma of his sweat.

– I want to be naked for you.

– I want you so badly.

I think of his urgency this afternoon, his desperate need. The shock of his desire. I let it course through my body. I feel alive.

– I want you, too.

– I’m imagining it. I’m reaching over to you. Running my hand through your hair.

Again I flash on my husband, my son. This is wrong, I think. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should protest. But I can feel his hands on my scalp, both rough and gentle at the same time. Lukas is drawing it out of me, bit by bit he’s making me feel safe, moment by moment encouraging abandonment. He coaxes out my fantasies and they’re unfurling in front of him.

– Tell me what you want.

My hand goes to my throat. I imagine it’s him, touching me.

– Tell me your desires.

I turn round. I slide the bolt that locks the door from the inside. I take a deep breath. Can I do this? I never have before.

– Tell me your fantasies.

There are lots of things I’ve never done before. I undo a button on my shirt.

I begin to type.

– I’m alone. In a bar. There’s a stranger.

– Go on…

I let the images come.

– I can’t take my eyes off him.

– He’s dangerous…

– Someone I won’t be able to say no to.

– Won’t be able to say no to? Or who won’t take no for an answer?

I hesitate, briefly. I know what he wants. I know what I want, too.

It’s words on a screen, I tell myself. That’s all.

– Who won’t take no for an answer.

– What happens?

I breathe in deeply. I fill myself with possibility. I undo another button on my shirt. I’m hurting no one.

– Tell me, he says, and I do.

When we finish I’m not embarrassed. Not quite. I haven’t described rape – it’d been more complicated than that, more nuanced – yet still I’m uneasy, as if I’ve somehow betrayed my sex.

It’d been a fantasy, I tell myself, and not an uncommon one, from what I’ve read. But not something I’d wish on anyone. Not in real life.

He sends me a message.

– Wow! You really are something.

Am I? I think. I don’t feel it. In this moment, now it’s over, I want to tell him everything. I want to explain about Hugh, the husband he doesn’t know I have. I want to tell him about my gentle, caring, solicitous Hugh.

I also want to tell him that sometimes Hugh isn’t enough. My need is raw and animal, and yes, yes, very occasionally I just want to feel used, like I’m nothing, just sex, just pure light and air.

And I want to explain that one person can’t be everything, not all the time.

But how can I, when he doesn’t even know Hugh exists?

– You, too, I say.

I look at the time. It’s almost nine; I’ve been in here for nearly forty-five minutes.

– I have to go, I say, but then I hear the quiet roar of a plane flying overhead and something strikes me.

– Shouldn’t you be in the air, now?

– I should.

– You missed your flight?

– Not missed. I cancelled it. I thought I’d have one more day in London.

– Why? I say. I’m hoping I already know the answer.

– To see you.

I’m not sure what to feel. I’m excited, yes, but underneath it is something else. At the moment I can almost convince myself I haven’t been unfaithful, haven’t betrayed my husband. But if I see him again?

I tell myself I wouldn’t have to sleep with him.

Another message arrives. It’s not quite what I’m expecting.

– The truth is, he says, I have something I need to tell you.

We arrange to meet back at the hotel the following day. I arrive early; I want time to collect myself, to calm down. I’m nervous, I can’t work out what this thing is he wants to tell me. It can’t be something good, otherwise surely he’d have told me yesterday, as we lay in bed together, or last night as we chatted online. It’s hard to prepare yourself for the worst, when you don’t know what the worst will look like.

I’m distracted enough as it is. This morning Hugh has finally told me what was on his mind. He’d had a letter, a complaint. It had been copied to the head of the surgical directorate and the chief executive. ‘A complaint?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

He poured the tea he’d made. ‘Nothing, really. I did a bypass on a patient a few weeks ago. Pretty standard. Nothing unusual. He’s fine, but has pumphead.’

I waited, but he didn’t go on. He does this a lot. I’m expected to know.

‘Which is?’

‘Postperfusion syndrome. Poor attention, impaired fine motor skills, some short-term-memory problems. It’s pretty common. Usually it gets better.’

‘So why the complaint?’

He put his cup down. ‘The family are claiming I didn’t warn them it was a possibility pre-operatively. They’re claiming it might’ve affected their decision if they’d known.’

‘Did you?’

He looked at me. I couldn’t tell if he was angry. ‘Of course. I always do.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I pulled the notes from my consultation yesterday and went through them. I didn’t make a note specifying that I’d warned the family that this was a possibility.’ He sighed. ‘And, apparently, if I didn’t write it down then, legally, I might as well have said nothing. The fact that I always tell every patient makes no difference.’

I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Will it go further?’

‘Well, the complaint is official.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s pathetic. I mean, what would they have done, anyway? No one ever turns round and says they won’t go through with a bypass because there’s the danger they’ll forget what’s on their bloody shopping list for a few weeks! I mean…’