Now or Never

Laura’s face burned even hotter as Nicki made no attempt to conceal the smugly superior tone of her voice. Immediately she reacted to it, saying fiercely, ‘It’s typical of you to think what you’re obviously thinking, but you’re wrong. I don’t want him to ring back. In fact, I don’t want to speak to him at all. To speak to him or to see him. You see, unlike you, I have no intention of becoming involved in an affair with a married man or having sex with him behind his wife’s back.’

As she listened to Laura’s outburst Nicki’s face went white. Releasing Joey, she told him huskily, ‘Joey, go up to your room and watch your videos for a while before it’s time for school, will you, darling?’

Over Joey’s blond head their glances fought, neither of them allowing herself to give way. As soon as the door had closed behind Joey Nicki demanded, ‘What is it exactly that you’re trying to say, Laura?’

Laura shot her a bitterly cynical glare, hating what was happening but powerless to stop it. The words, the pain, the anguish had been dammed up inside her for too long to be controlled, now that she had released them.

‘What do you think I’m trying to say? You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. And don’t bother trying to lie about it. I was there! I heard you. They’d sent me home from school because I wasn’t feeling well. I tried to tell them that there wasn’t any point because there wasn’t anyone there to look after me.’ She gave a mirthless smile. ‘After all, my mother had only been taken into hospital a few days earlier. To give my father a rest, that’s what they’d said when I went to see her. But it wasn’t a rest he was getting, was it, Nicki? He wasn’t resting on the bed in the guest room at all, was he? No. He was lying there whilst you—’

‘Stop it.’ Appalled and sick with shock, Nicki covered her ears, her shock increasing as Laura flew at her, tearing her hands from her ears as she screamed.

‘No! You will listen, just as I had to listen to the pair of you! Have you any idea how disgusting it sounds hearing your own father sobbing with sickening lust whilst his whore relieves him? I heard every word. Every sound … every sound,’ Laura stressed savagely.

Tears of rage were pouring down her face—a face that was contorted into an expression of fury and loathing, the strength of the emotion emanating from her such that Nicki could almost feel it heating the air between them.

In contrast she felt icy cold with shock. She could feel herself shivering as the nausea churned unpleasantly in her stomach. She tried to defend herself, to stop the flood of obscenity pouring from Laura’s mouth, protesting, ‘Laura, it wasn’t like that! You don’t understand …’

‘No, I don’t!’ Laura agreed furiously. ‘I don’t understand how my father could have possibly wanted to take you to bed in my home, my mother’s home, whilst she was dying in a hospital bed. I don’t understand how he can ever have wanted to touch you, never mind do the things he did to you.

‘You couldn’t wait, could you, Nicki? You wanted to desecrate my home, my mother, so badly that you couldn’t even wait for him to undress you. I heard you begging him, screaming to him to take you, to fill you. I heard him … My mother was dying and the pair of you were shagging each other like animals. You couldn’t wait for her to die, could you, Nicki? You couldn’t wait to take her place. You didn’t wait, did you?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Nicki protested, white-faced. ‘Laura, please listen to me.’

‘Listen to you?’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘That’s what he wants me to do! My boss … the reason I have had to come here, the one place where I know I’ll be able to resist the temptation to give in to him, because you’re here, Nicki, and every time I look at you I remember what you did and how much I hated you then and still hate you now for it.

‘A married man with a dying wife. Was it good for you, Nicki, knowing that she was dying? Did that add that extra bit of something to your enjoyment? Did you think of her when my father was—?’

Laura gasped in shock as Nicki slapped her face. The sound ricocheted through the kitchen as her head snapped back.

Her eyes glittering with contempt, Laura ran to the back door, pulling it open.