I didn’t really know what to expect from Denise this morning. I assumed she would still be angry, that she wouldn’t speak to me or even look at me. I almost didn’t go into work at all, caught between a desire to see her, and a fear of seeing her fury.
She was okay though, a little cool and distant, but not hostile. At lunch she came over and sat with me. We’d both opted for jacket potatoes with cheese and salad. ‘I had another dream about you,’ she said.
‘Is that the only time I get to kiss you?’ I asked. ‘In your dreams?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t there,’ she said. She was trying to fight down a smile, but her lips curled around the fork as she ate.
‘So, what was I doing?’
Denise hesitated, suddenly embarrassed, before whispering, ‘You were bent naked over a snooker table, some woman fucking you from behind with a strap-on.’ She picked up her apple juice and watched me nervously while she sipped.
I was too astonished to reply, so focused on my food for a minute. Denise, thinking she’d upset me, reached over to hold my hands in hers. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Did she have long, dark hair?’ I asked.
‘Who?’
‘The woman with the strap-on.’
Denise laughed, relieved. ‘Yes, actually.’
‘Was there a man there wearing a pink dress?’
She squinted, trying to remember. ‘There were lots of people. It was like an orgy, but I was watching you, and… Oh God! There was! Yes!’ She laughed again, then tensed suddenly. Her arm knocked over her cup, spilling juice across the table. ‘Wait! What the fuck? How do you know what I dreamed?’
‘That was no dream,’ I said as I helped her mop up the juice with napkins. ‘Every month, usually on the third Saturday, Mrs and Mr Alexandra Saunders hold an orgy out at their country mansion. On normal days, he’s a hot-shot banker, or something, and she’s the perfect wife, doing whatever it is bored rich wives do. One day a month, though, they hold an orgy, Alastair becomes “Alice The Slut”, and Alex lets out her inner man.’
‘And you were there? After I walked out on you at the restaurant, you went to an orgy?’
‘No, I went home, drank half a bottle of wine, watched The Big Bang Theory. I like Penny. Then a friend phoned and asked if I wanted to go to an orgy, and I thought… why not. Did you enjoy what you saw?’
Denise blushed suddenly, then laughed. ‘It took me ages to get to sleep the first time because I was so angry with you. Then after I woke from that dream, it took me ages to get to sleep again, but not because I was angry…’
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 