Daphne Clair - The Marriage Debt

He stopped in the centre of the Belgian rug, looking round with critical eyes.

Shannon had set the overstuffed pumpkin-coloured sofa against a cream wall that held a collection of funky little mirrors she’d picked up in second-hand shops and hung in a random pattern, each reflecting a tiny piece of the room. One deep armchair was covered in ruby-red fabric, the other in dark forest green. Scatter cushions on the chairs echoed the colours of the patterned rug and gave a touch of luxury.

Devin strolled to a set of shelves and picked up a Venetian glass rooster with an extravagant plumed tail of gold, green and blue tail feathers, and an erect red comb that matched the ruby chair. His hands followed the fluid contours of the glass. ‘You still have it.’

He had given it to her on their honeymoon, when she’d taken a fancy to it in an art shop. ‘I still like it,’ she said. ‘And it goes with the room.’

She recalled picking it up on some confused impulse and putting it with some clothes and books when she’d packed up her things, severed her relationship with Devin. Pulling it out later when she’d furnished her new home she’d wanted to weep, and debated hiding it away. But in some obscure way it had been a comfort during a bleak, lonely time, a tenuous link with a happier past.

Replacing the rooster, Devin turned and surveyed the small room again. His gaze lingered on a large abstract painting, inspecting the vibrant primary colours splashed on the canvas in bold strokes. He moved closer to read the artist’s name. ‘Expensive, isn’t he?’ he queried. ‘Though I could never see quite why.’

‘He gave me a special price.’ She had met the painter at a party in his studio that a friend took her along to, and had bought the painting on sight. She wasn’t surprised that Devin didn’t appreciate her taste. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘No, thanks. I’ll have some wine at dinner.’

‘Well then…shall we go?’ He made her nervous, prowling around her home.

She switched off the living room light and he opened the front door for her. ‘Shall I turn off this light?’ he asked, his hand on the hall switch as she passed him in the doorway.

‘No.’ Descending the steps she said, ‘I leave it on when I’m out so I don’t come home to a darkened place.’

‘You live alone?’ He went ahead of her on the path and opened the door of his car, maroon and low-slung but roomy.

‘Yes,’ she said, sliding into the passenger seat.

Devin closed the door and came round to the other side. His sleeve brushed against her arm as he fastened his safety belt, and she felt a disconcerting frisson of awareness before he inserted the key in the ignition and the engine purred into life. ‘So who was with you yesterday morning?’ he asked as the car picked up speed.

‘You…knew there was someone?’

‘It was rather obvious.’ His voice was bleak and desert-dry.

She slanted a look at him, but the dim light fleetingly thrown by a street lamp didn’t help to define his expression, which was seldom simple to assess anyway. ‘It was Craig. Craig Sloane.’

For a few moments he drove in silence. Then, in a curiously detached tone, he said, ‘So you’re sleeping with your handsome leading man.’

‘I’m not sleeping with him!’ Before she could stop herself, she shot at him, ‘Are you sleeping with the divine Rachelle?’

He looked at her, then laughed as he returned his gaze to the road and the traffic. ‘Do you care?’

‘Of course not.’ A lie, she dismayingly discovered, almost suffocating with unreasoning jealousy.

Stupid, she told herself. For three years she’d managed to blot any thought of Devin with another woman out of her mind, tell herself it no longer concerned her.

Which it didn’t.

‘If you’re not lovers,’ he said, ‘what was Craig doing at your place?’

‘He used my sofa. He was a bit…under the weather.’

‘Drunk.’

‘Tipsy.’

‘Like I said.’

Shannon compressed her lips.

Devin swung the car around a corner. ‘And if he hadn’t been…’

Shannon shrugged. She didn’t need to justify herself to him, and objected to being cross-questioned.

Devin persisted. ‘Are you telling me you haven’t let him into your bed yet?’

‘I’m not telling you anything,’ she snapped. ‘My love life is none of your business.’

‘We’re married,’ he reminded her.

‘We are not married! We haven’t been for the last three years.’

‘Your choice.’

‘You forced me to choose!’

‘Is that how you see it?’ His scorn was patent.

‘There’s no point in going over all that again.’

He stopped for a traffic light and turned to look at her. ‘You’re right. Let’s leave the past where it is and move to the present. Does Craig know you’re out with me tonight?’

‘It was his idea.’

‘His idea?’

‘To phone you. I told him it wouldn’t do any good.’

‘You’ve lost me. Any good for whom?’

‘Can’t this wait until dinner?’ she asked. After all, the whole idea of having a meal together was so that they could talk, wasn’t it? In the comfort of a restaurant, with a good meal hopefully making him amenable to her request.

Someone tooted impatiently. The light had turned green.

‘Okay,’ Devin said on a tight, irritated note. Shannon wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or the aggressive driver behind them. He released the brake and the car glided forward.

After a while she asked, ‘How did you know where I live?’

‘It’s not a secret, is it? You’re in the phone book.’

‘No, it’s not a secret.’

‘Well, then…’ He shrugged as if the subject bored him, and for the rest of the journey into the central city he concentrated on his driving.

It wasn’t until they had ordered from the glossy menu in the expensive restaurant he’d chosen—or that his secretary had chosen for him—that he leaned his forearms on the linen tablecloth, looked across the wreath of flowers surrounding a squat gold candle in a glass bowl, and said, ‘So why did you phone me, Shannon? If not just to give your bedmate a bit of kinky titillation?’

Shannon clenched her fingers about her fork. ‘Craig is not my bedmate. And if he were, I wouldn’t have done a thing like that.’

Looking at her thoughtfully, he said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. Considering the company you keep you’re surprisingly straitlaced in some ways.’

‘Is that a complaint?’ she asked, stung. Had he found her a boring lover? ‘I’m sorry if I wasn’t up to your expectations.’

‘You know I had no complaints,’ he said. ‘I’ve never enjoyed such a…satisfactory relationship, as far as sex goes.’

‘Satisfactory,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, thank you.’

‘I’ve offended you,’ he said calmly, but there was a lurking amusement in his eyes. ‘You were all I had imagined, and more,’ he said. ‘You have a beautiful body that I still dream about, and you made love like an angel—a surprisingly shy and yet intriguingly sexy angel.’

‘Angels have no sex,’ Shannon rejoined. ‘They’re gender neutral.’

‘Let’s not be too literal.’ He paused before saying with unusual deliberation, his lowered voice sending an insidiously pleasurable sensation curling down her spine, ‘It was a transcendental spiritual experience making love with you, as well as a very pleasurable physical one.’

Transcendental? An extravagant word, especially from Devin. But one that just about described it, for her as well as for him.

Not transcendental enough to keep them together. Her heart seemed to swell under the influence of something painful pushing against its walls from the inside. ‘That’s very…flattering,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you’ve had equally spiritual experiences with other women.’