The Accidental Bride by Portia Da Costa

heart.’ There was fondness in his voice, but this time, Lizzie couldn’t resent it. She knew Benjamin had been good to John, back when they’d enjoyed their passionate fling, and she had a feeling it might have been the same later.
    ‘But I thought … after prison and Jack and all that, well … that you might not have been into men any more.’ After the trauma, it only seemed logical.
    John brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘At the time, I thought that too. But I was glad of Ben as a friend back then. He’d heard about my various falls from grace … prison, my glorious army career, the big bust-up with my father … and he reached out to me. He knew the score with Clara, and because he was a decent guy, who still cared for me in his own way, he made a kind gesture.’
    ‘He sounds nice.’
    ‘He was nice. He still is.’
    ‘But … how did it get to sex?’ Sensitive as it was, she suddenly had to know.
    ‘We talked a lot. He knew I needed it and he was a good listener. Because we’d been lovers, I was able to tell him about Jack … and my confused feelings.’ His voice sounded haunted. He was reliving those feelings. Lizzie returned his gesture, bringing his fingers to her lips, now, for a reassuring kiss.
    ‘We talked long into the night, on the gin, and I admitted that I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever want to have sex again … with a man or a woman. Because we were both tipsy, Ben offered his services, as therapy, and I accepted.’
    Lizzie said nothing, not wanting to fracture the delicatemoment, or balk John in his narrative. She hardly dared breathe again, but she let it out in a gasp when she saw that John was smiling.
    ‘And it was good. Really good,’ he went on, voice warm as if reliving the sense of relief he must have felt. ‘Ben was gentle when I needed him to be, and, well, enthusiastic when I needed that. We were only together for a shortish while. We messed around, played a bit, even fucked a few times … One day we even did a bit of BDSM, more for a laugh than anything. I’d never really thought much about it before then, but that was when I discovered I had a taste for it … and Ben liked it too.’
    ‘Good for Ben! He’s done me a service. All my little forays into that area were sadly disappointing until you put me right!’
    John laughed, and nibbled her fingertips. ‘Yes indeed. That all worked out very nicely, didn’t it?’
    ‘Absolutely. But what happened to you and Ben? If you were getting on well? Apart from not being able to sleep together, that is? I guess he was sympathetic?’
    ‘He was. He never tried to force the issue. He said I shouldn’t worry, that things would right themselves eventually.’ John smiled at her, and Lizzie’s heart sang. They would right themselves. She knew they would. They were already partway there. ‘But … I sensed there was something else going on with him, and he admitted there was someone else he was drawn to, where he’d been working. A woman. He hadn’t asked her out or anything yet. Hadn’t even intimated he was interested. But he did like her, and he wanted to be honest with me, first, before he made a move.’
    Lizzie bit her lip. It was so bittersweet. John and Ben sounded as if they’d been a wonderful couple, but if they’dstayed together, there might never have been a ‘John and Lizzie’. ‘Were you upset?’
    ‘No. I was happy for him. I knew what we had was only temporary, just a moment in time, even if it was great. I was glad he’d found someone he might have a future with, and, as luck would have it, it wasn’t long after then that I met Caroline again.’ There was an odd note in his voice, perhaps a lingering wistfulness, a curiosity, him wondering what a quite different life might have been like. ‘And I’ve always known that, at base, I’m heterosexual more than bisexual. Ben and I both were, and I valued him as a friend most of all.’
    ‘Sounds like he was certainly that. Do you know