Deadly Games. Steve Frech

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СКАЧАТЬ way. It’s almost entirely physical. That’s not to say that I don’t care about her. I do, but we’ve laid our cards on the table and “love” was not one of them. We are fine with it.

      I didn’t even know that she was married the first time it happened. She conveniently forgot to mention it. She came into the bar by herself, we flirted all night, and ended up in bed together. It was fun and I thought it was a casual, one-night stand.

      Then, a few nights later, she came into The Gryphon with her husband. They were a total physical mismatch. She was stunning, sensual. He was a short, thin, balding man. He was also arrogant, demanding, and eager to show her off. To put it another way, he was that stereotypical short, incredibly insecure guy with a massive chip on his shoulder, but as a hedge fund manager, he possessed the one asset that levelled the playing field: money. For Emily’s part, she was bored.

      I was speechless.

      She and I kept exchanging glances while he would speak too loudly about his business deals in an attempt to impress those around him, many of whom were also millionaires and didn’t care for his grandstanding.

      At one point, he theatrically announced that he was stepping outside to take a phone call about a “billion-dollar project”. After our shared glances, I took the opportunity to approach her.

      “So, who exactly is that?” I asked.

      “My husband,” she casually remarked.

      “You didn’t tell me you were married.”

      “You didn’t ask.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re not in danger of breaking up a happy family or anything. There’s no kids. We’re only married in a legal sense.”

      “Isn’t that kind of the only sense that matters?”

      “Do you regret the other night?”

      My hesitation was all the answer she needed.

      “Good,” she said with a look that intimated we were just getting started.

      I liked her little game. I liked her confidence. I liked her.

      Just then, her husband re-entered the bar with a swagger and a sense of self-congratulation that was almost comical. He ordered a round of shots for the bar in celebration of the deal he had just closed. I was pretty sure he was lying but he paid the exorbitant tab and insisted that Katie and I join in by taking a shot. We were more than happy to oblige. Emily and I locked eyes as we took our shot.

      In that moment, I knew that what I had thought was a one-night stand was far from over.

      When they closed out their tab, I thanked them, saying I hoped they would be back soon, all the while keeping my eyes on her.

      A week later, she did come back, sans husband.

      “No date, tonight?” I asked as she settled into the bar, surprised at how happy I was to see her.

      “Nope.”

      “That’s too bad.”

      “Isn’t it? I’m so distraught. I’m going to be so lonely.”

      “Tragic.” I nodded. “Well, I suppose I can keep you company if you don’t mind me working for a bit.”

      She gave me a hungry look from head to toe. “Not at all.”

      She and I continued our parries and jabs of innuendo all night.

      When I got off work, we went back to her place. Her husband was in San Francisco at some conference, so we had sex on his prized pool table. I was in a little bit of a dry spell, but from our two encounters, it was obvious that she had been starved for a long time.

      Ever since then, we had seized every opportunity offered to us.

      I turn right onto Kensington, which runs along the beach, and will take me right to the Seaside Motel. If I had kept going straight instead of turning, I would have eventually reached the Parker house.

      When we first started sleeping together, that’s exactly what I would have done, but not anymore. We’ve stopped meeting there. We had been on a mission to break in every room in the house while her husband was away. It was fantastic. We’d have sex, and afterwards I’d walk naked out of their bedroom onto the massive balcony, which was cantilevered out over the sea, and marvel at the view. Then, I’d go back inside and we’d have sex in another room. I would spend the night. We’d fall asleep around eight in the morning. I’d wake up and leave from her place to go to work in the afternoon with a flushed glow and receive looks of scorn from Katie and Alex. Alex knew I was seeing someone but he didn’t know who. Katie figured it out because she had seen us flirting at the bar multiple times.

      Emily isn’t a fan of being a trophy wife. In fact, she hates it and she’s most definitely not a fan of her husband. She’s talked about leaving him, but she loves the perks and she’s not in a hurry to part with them. Eventually, she began swinging from paranoid about being caught to “devil-may-care”. Sometimes, she would be overly worried about someone finding out and cancel plans at the last minute. Other times, she would rail about how much she didn’t care and we’d take ridiculous risks, like the time during one of my shift breaks when we had sex on the hood of a car on a side street next to The Gryphon. Then there were the times when we’d just go back to her place.

      But we were sloppy and almost got caught at her house.

      After that, she decided that we would only meet up at motels, and not good ones, either. In my opinion, I think it’s lame but after a world of fine Egyptian cotton sheets, marble floors, and a private wine cellar, she finds it a turn-on to meet at these “seedy” establishments. Whatever. I’m not going to say no to getting the chance to see her.

      Which is why I’m already fantasizing about what I’ll find in room 37 as I pull into the Seaside Motel parking lot. It’s an L-shaped, single-story structure forever stuck in the 1960s, but it’s not without its charm. They’ve embraced the retro look and there’s a stunning view of the ocean across the road. Avalon is full of places like this.

      I park in one of the numerous open spots. The air is heavy with the taste of salt, churned up by the low tide. I notice that there’s another gray Honda Civic just like mine occupying one of the spaces near the office. I don’t see her car, which is not a surprise. Like I said, since we were almost caught, she’s become much more paranoid. She always pays cash at the bar. She also bought a burner phone for us to text each other. She finds Uber and Lyft drivers that will accept cash to drive her to our hookups. There’s always a handful of them outside The Gryphon. They don’t want to split the fare with the rideshare company. They also don’t want to pay the taxes and their riders don’t want anything showing up on their credit card statements for their spouses to find. Emily also discovered that motels like the Seaside often don’t need to see your ID or make a record of your stay if you offer to pay double their nightly rate in cash. She’s become very good at making sure that her husband’s assistant won’t find something that will raise any red flags on her credit cards, which her husband pays, and that he won’t see anything in her bank accounts, which he controls.

      I stroll down the row of numbered doors. Next to each is a large window. Some have the curtains drawn and are illuminated by the soft, flickering glow of a television but at this hour, most of them are dark.

      I arrive СКАЧАТЬ