It's Raining Men by Milly Johnson Page A

side of the road, texted May that she was going to be
slightly late, and turned back.
    Someone had taken her space so she had to park further up the road than usual. The front door was locked. She slid in her key and breezed inside, then straight up the stairs to get them from her
side of the bed where she remembered she had taken them off after making her packing list.
    ‘’S only m—’ she called, her words dying in her throat when she heard the small excited pants.
    A female voice.
    ‘Yes, yes, oh God, don’t stop.’
    Lara’s footsteps slowed and she took the remaining eight of them with the stealth of a Siamese cat with slippers on. Was James watching porn? But she knew he wasn’t. That voice
wasn’t coming out of a TV.
    ‘Do you like this?’ she heard James say, followed by a crescendo of delighted female yelps. Lara pushed open the bedroom door, then froze. Secured to the bed with a selection of his
best Austin Reed silk ties was a naked woman, and an equally naked James was just lifting his head from between her legs.
    ‘Shit, oh shit, oh shit,’ said James, attempting to scramble from the bed and reach something to cover himself up with, whilst the woman made no effort to struggle from her
restraints. Her long dark hair fanned out around her head.
    Tianne.
    It couldn’t be anyone else.
    ‘Lara, it’s not what you think,’ said James, who had quickly wrapped himself in his blue robe. The one she had bought him for his birthday.
    Lara didn’t know what she thought. She felt as if a bomb had been put under her world and it had just blown up and none of the pieces falling around her could be put back in any order that
made sense. She viewed the carnage in front of her strangely objectively. So this was younger, smoother Tianne. Tianne who didn’t want commitment, just ‘spicy sex’, fun with no
strings. She had small pointy breasts, rather pudgy thighs, a waist far from the trim one of Lara’s imaginings, and she was sporting a Brazilian. She seemed quite content to lie there,
tethered to the bed –
their bed
.
    Lara picked up her glasses from the bedside table, brushing past James, who was stuttering, holding out his hands as if he wanted to touch her but found there was an invisible force-field
holding him back.
    Lara turned on her heel and marched out of the door on automatic pilot. James followed her, pleading for an audience, beseeching her to listen.
    ‘Please just hear me out. Listen, darling.’
    With her hand stretching out to open the front door, Lara twisted back round to face him. He’s only given me oral sex once – ever – thought Lara, unable to take her eyes away.
Tianne got foreplay. That hurt. She hated him. She wanted to slap him and she wanted to throw herself against him and cry and feel his arms around her.
    ‘Okay, then. I’m bloody listening.’ Keely would have loved the way she said that – pure South Yorkshire.
    Given the platform to speak, James now found he couldn’t say anything. He stammered and stroked his forehead a bit and then paced up and down in front of Lara until eventually he halted,
shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ Lara said, and smiled.
    ‘Is it?’ James looked delighted.
    ‘Is it fuck!’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Bitch, you said. Evil cow. I wouldn’t touch her again even with a barge pole, you said.’ Lara was shouting and hoped the podgy-thighed, fat-waisted, pointy-titted naked cow
upstairs heard.
    ‘I know, I know,’ said James, looking very much as if he was in pain.
    ‘I haven’t been out of the house an hour. My, you had this well planned, didn’t you?’
    ‘I . . . I just . . . I just wanted . . .’
    ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess – a shag. A spicy shag?’ suggested Lara. ‘I think that’s obvious.’
    ‘I thought we were going a bit stale,’ James explained, advancing a step towards her. ‘But it was a mistake. I see that now.’
    Lara’s head jerked up. She rotated