Four Temptations by PJ Adams Page A

“And anyway, it’s not my car.”
    With that, he smiled, took his keys from his pocket and pressed something. Immediately the lights of a car in the next row flashed twice.
    “Shall we...?” he said, reaching for my hand.
    §
    We set the ground rules from the start.
    “You’re a cheap, lousy man-slut who only ever thinks about getting his end away.”
    “Don’t ever call me cheap.”
    We were having fun. We were just playing around. He was quite clear on that. We both were.
    Stolen moments. Fictitious business trips. Lunchtime encounters. A snatched blow-job in his car. Phone sex and webcam sex. Lots of that.
    “You really are a bitch and a slut,” he told me one time, when I’d been teasing him. I looked at him on the screen of my laptop. The view showed him from the chest up, but I could see that his hands were busy elsewhere.
    “Just like you,” I said, and it was true. We both were. I’d never met anyone whose mind worked just like mine. The dirty, risky fun; the blunt humor; all the little digs. I hadn’t had so much fun in years as I packed into that month with Porter.
    “And if you cared about me at all,” I said, “you’d show me exactly what you’re doing...”
    §
    She hated me, of course.
    Rebecca. The wife Porter had walked out on only a week before.
    I could tell from the first look, the glance across the bar, eyes skipping over us, then darting back to Porter and then to me. That look said, So you’re the slut who stole my man , even though it wasn’t like that at all: she’d lost him a long time before I ever appeared on the scene. She probably even understood that, but I was there, in public with Porter, an easy scapegoat.
    “You really want me at this book launch?” Porter had said a short time earlier. “It could be awkward. You know Rebecca’s friends with Maggie.”
    “Maggie said you should come.”
    And so we were there, standing at the bar of that historical pub, when she walked in, glanced at us, did a double-take and then gave a look that by rights should have killed. Then Maggie was all over her, and the moment had passed, and I was left with the feeling of being the other woman again.
    I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like that before. Porter and Rebecca were separated; I was here with my man quite legitimately. And yet it felt seedy, shabby.
    This thing, whatever it was... it was supposed to be fun . Complications should never have been a part of it.
    “Ooh, frosty ,” said Simon Darby, nodding towards Rebecca. He was an old friend of Porter’s, his business partner and a guy I’d never really warmed to. Too smooth, too arrogant, too two-faced. I know: Porter’s a smooth, arrogant cheat, too, but a girl can have double-standards, can’t she?
    I tugged at Porter’s arm, leaned in, and kissed him on the jaw. I knew it was a needy thing to do, possessive and defensive. But all of a sudden I felt vulnerable. Porter was a solid, reassuring lump of man , and I needed that just then.
    “So how’s she taking it?” Simon asked Porter.
    “You should know better than me,” said Porter. “She’s still talking to you.”
    There was something in his tone that made me pull away, study him more closely.
    “I’m just being the nice guy,” said Simon. “It’s what I do.”
    Porter hadn’t responded to my kiss. If anything, his body had tensed at my touch.
    “I reckon she needs a good seeing to,” said Simon. “Take her mind off things. Know what I mean?”
    The muscles in Porter’s arms tightened, and I could see the tendons and veins in his neck standing proud.
    Oblivious, Simon went on: “How long is it since she’s had anyone apart from you, Porter? As far as you know, that is. I mean, just as  a mate I’d–”
    “Will you just cut it?” snapped Porter, his voice low, tightly controlled.
    I let go of his arm.
    “Hmm?” said Simon.
    “Just leave her alone, okay?”
    §
    I turned away. Suddenly all this was too much for me to handle.
    We were