How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints) Kathy Lette (books recommended by bts txt) 📖

Sylvia Plath academic telephonically doorstepped her. ‘Look,’ Jazz barked down the phone, ‘I know you’re having an affair with my husband. Just as long as you know you are one of many, sweetie.’

No, no. I wouldn’t put myself in such a vulnerable position. But then again, the thought of Trueheart Jones kept triggering that heat between my thighs. Something had to give and it could be my knicker elastic. Maybe he was the one to shift my sex-drive out of neutral?

I booked and cancelled a double date with Jazz. And booked and cancelled. But in the end, my vacillation was pointless. I came out of the school gate one Wednesday evening after choir practice, glum at the prospect of the long night ahead of me – Jamie was away at school summer camp, Jen was on a sleepover and Rory was still living in the flat – when he was just there beside me, dexterous as a cat burglar.

Against my better judgement, I felt a delightful throb of expectation. I floated towards him. Cosy in the shelter of his huge arm, I was led by Trueheart Jones on a walk towards Regents Park. I could feel the warmth rising up off his skin as we strolled over the lawns and down amongst the roses. Behind the Open Air Theatre he brushed a fingertip along the nape of my neck. A hunger spasm shot through me, and not for food either. I had a craving for the meat and bones of a man. He traced the neckline of my T-shirt, where it ran along the collarbone, and electricity rushed through me from neck to knee, and quite a few places in between. I was so turned on I forgot to feel guilty. I was so turned on, I forgot to cry ‘bring me my breasts.’ There was no fumbling as he expertly got beneath my old grey bra, found my nipple and squeezed it. Not softly, the way Rory did. But hard.

‘I have breastfed two children . . .’ I spluttered apologetically.

I’d hardly finished the sentence before his lips were on my breast, warm, wet, startling. He didn’t suckle as Rory did, but bit me, lightly. Sensation juddered along my spine and down my legs. He crushed me to his body. I was under a libido attack. And oh, how happily I surrendered as his hand crept beneath my skirt and up my thigh, slow as Tai Chi. He was under the knicker elastic of my big white cottontails and inside me, two fingers, circling. ‘I want you so bad.’ And suddenly I knew why half of all married women are apparently having affairs. Not because they want mind-blowing orgasms. Although, yes, yes, yes!!! They do want those. But because a woman needs a man to desire her. At least half as much as he desires victory for his country in the cricket.

As sensation built, I found myself writhing up against Trueheart Jones. I was about to be in my prime! Just like Miss Jean Brodie! My muff would no longer be in a huff! Any minute now I would cry out in an urgent, animal way before I collapsed wrecked, in a sweaty, panting heap . . . But no sooner had I imagined it, than I found myself pulling back from the brink, like some sappy romantic heroine in an eighteenth-century novel. The sensual mist, the cocoon of breath and skin he’d spun around me, tore.

‘I need to go.’

‘Yeah well, I need to lie ya down so I can lick ya.’ His hot voice was thick with lust.

I swallowed hard. My body gave in straight away, yes, yes . . . but a warm storm of feelings took me over. I loved my husband. I belonged to Rory. He had soaked into me, body and soul. He was my man.

‘Hey, I thought you wanted to go all the way?’

‘Oh, I do – But it’s got to be in opposite directions. I’m so sorry, Trueheart. So, so sorry.’

Racing round the Inner Circle to Baker Street tube, I realized I’d recycled Rory too easily. He was like the stuff you keep for years and years, only to throw out two days before you need it. There’s a fine line between lust and insanity. And I had just stopped myself from erasing that line.

17. Till Homicide Do Us Part

The night was warmly scented with honeysuckle, which buoyed my spirits as I let myself into the surgery and went straight to the little flat behind. All I could think about was the dreamy, creamy warmth of my husband’s embrace. I was burning up with need – the need to feel Rory close to me. That was my matrimonial mantra. Rory wasn’t back yet from his home visits so I crashed into the spare bedroom, determined to wait for him, but after a couple of hours, I passed out, fully clothed, face down on the bed. In my light-headed relief at having escaped from folly, the last frivolous thought on my mind was that it had been so long since I’d seen my husband I was frightened I’d shoot him as a burglar. But I was the one hell-bent on theft. Emotional break and enter. I would steal my way back into my husband’s heart.

I woke in a mist of adrenalin and angst. The dawn gave the surgery bedroom a melancholy, vanquished look. Much like me. The pillow beside me was empty. Where was Rory? I felt the zig zag of doubt go through me as the pendulum of suspicion swung back and forth. Clambering off the bed, I searched the room for clues. I prodded at the message button on the decrepit answerphone. The tape was so old that the message which had been left was scratchy and warped, but the voice was definitely female. And it was arranging a time to meet. I frantically tried to come up with other excuses for why my husband would be meeting a female. Perhaps his