Wicked Wives

*

‘Stop it! You’re hurting me,’ Ellie yelped as Tom pulled her roughly down onto the bed and pinned her by her arms. ‘I told you,’ she said breathlessly, ‘not until my birthday, and that’s not until tomorrow in case you’ve forgotten.’

‘Bloody cock tease, that’s what you are.’ He pulled a face.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Tom,’ she pleaded, rolling into his back as he turned away from her, spooning him. He was naked from the waist up and his skin felt soft and smooth against her chest. ‘It’s just that I want it to be right, you know, proper.’

‘Whatever,’ he sulked. ‘But I might’ve found a replacement by the time you make up your mind.’

‘Big head,’ she said, giving him a playful slap on the back. But she knew he was right. Tom Black could have anyone he wanted. With his dark Latino complexion, hypnotic eyes, and cocksure smile, he was as close to perfection as a man could get. Or at least Ellie O’Connor had thought so. And it would be fair to say she wasn’t alone.

She stared at him, unblinking, and wondered what it was about him that made her love him so much. It wasn’t just his movie-star looks; she came alive whenever he was near her, but she knew him inside out. Tom Black had more front than Blackpool Pier, as her old Nan would’ve said. He could be cruel and dismissive but it was all just a ruse at the end of the day, an elaborate disguise to cover up the insecure little boy underneath, the one who just wanted to be loved.

‘I don’t see what difference a day makes anyway,’ Tom said, continuing to push. He wanted her; badly. Ever since he’d noticed the swelling beneath her t-shirt, how her hips had become rounder and smoother, he couldn’t get her out of his head. His little Eleanor had grown into a woman right before his eyes and he wanted to be the first to sample the goods. ‘It’s just a day; just another number,’ he gave a casual shrug. ‘You’ll not feel any different tomorrow, birthday or otherwise.’ He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back still towards her, and she noticed a freckle on his shoulder that she’d not seen before.

‘It makes a difference to me,’ she replied, sharply jabbing him in between the shoulder blades. ‘And that, Tom Black, is all you need to know.’

He was smiling, she sensed it.

‘Tomorrow you could get run over by a truck,’ he turned his body to face her then, grinning. ‘Then you’d be up there,’ he pointed to the ceiling, ‘kicking yourself in heaven, thinking “if only I’d done it with Tom!” You could die a virgin, Eleanor. Imagine that, going to your grave never having known the pleasures of the flesh.’

Ellie gave an uneasy laugh. He could love her and destroy her in the same breath.

‘Yeah, or I do it with you, get hit by a truck and end up down there,’ she pointed to the floor, ‘burning in hell for my sins!’

‘Hell sounds like my kinda place,’ Tom snapped the ring pull from a can of Colt 45, discarding it on the threadbare carpet with a sniff, ‘more fun.’ He got up from the bed and made his way over towards the stereo, stopping to open the small window a little wider, a wall of cloying Nevada heat smothering his face like a blanket.

‘Anyway, it’s hardly romantic is it?’ Ellie threw him a look, ‘what with your dad and my mum tearing lumps out of each other downstairs.’

The muffled voices from the room below, they had both noted, were getting progressively louder and Ellie knew it wouldn’t be long before it reached a messy, bloody crescendo. She knew the drill only too well.

‘They’ll kiss and make up in a minute, they always do,’ Tom said, sensing the despair in her voice and wanting to say something to make it better. He pressed a button on the stereo and Simply Red’s A New Flame began to play as he flopped back down on the bed next to her. She really was quite something to look at now, all bright green eyes that sparkled when the light hit them, pillow lips and long, honey-coloured hair that felt as soft as cashmere to stroke. He certainly wanted to fuck her, but it was more than that. They’d been thrown together through circumstance and it was something unspoken between them, a silent understanding.

Ellie was distracted by the almighty row taking place between their beloved ma and pa downstairs. She was sensitive underneath all the streetwise swagger and he knew the fighting really got to her. It got to him too, only he was much better at hiding it.

‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,’ he teased, wrapping his arm around her as the bloodcurdling screams downstairs reached new heights.

‘I have been kissed, I’ll have you know. Plenty of times, actually,’ she bristled.

Tom sighed as he stared up at the peeling artex ceiling above them; it was a depressing grey colour, matching the grubby net curtains that gently lifted from the sticky breeze outside.

‘I remember my sixteenth birthday,’ he said, a little wistfully. ‘I got drunk on 20/20 and screwed Chasey Grey in the parking lot behind the Walmart.’

‘Wow, a regular romantic.’

‘Well, she seemed to enjoy it,’ he retorted, placing his hand on her belly, the feel of her naked skin beneath her crop top giving him an instant hard-on inside his battered Levi 501s.

They were silent for a moment, the sound of their respective breathing barely audible above the music and muffled cries below.

‘I wanna get out of here, Tom,’ Ellie said suddenly, her voice cracking slightly. ‘I don’t just mean this shitty room, I mean this life. I feel like I’m dying a slow death here.’ She sat up with purpose, stretched her long, slim legs out in front of her. ‘I wanna do something with my life. My dance teacher thinks I’ve got what it takes to make it big, you know, the ballet, Broadway! Be someone.’

Tom watched her intently as she made her speech. He wanted so much to be able to say something to make it better but as always, something stopped him; at the end of the day, kindness felt just too much like weakness.

‘Face it, kiddo,’ he snorted, ‘this time next year you’ll be in the clubs shaking it for men like my dear old dad downstairs.’

Ellie pulled her knees into her chest and hugged them. She vehemently resented this remark, if only for the fact that she feared it might be true.

‘You know nothing, wanker!’ she spat back.

Tom laughed, amused by her outburst. He liked that she was feisty. They were similar that way. He pulled her back down onto the bed next to him. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I believe you’ll be someone, someday,’ he said, keen to get her back on side. ‘Though whether you’ll ever be as successful as me … now that’s debatable.’

‘Oh really?’ she raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

‘In ten years’ time I’ll be a multi-millionaire.’ He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her with an arrogance that she found irresistible. ‘The boats, the jets, the houses and cars, the jewellery …’ he raised his hands in demonstration. ‘The whole fucking enchilada … I’ll have it all. I’ll call them Black’s. Have hot girls dancing for me, on my payroll … king of the fucking clubs.’ He jabbed his chest with his thumb.

‘What, like your old man, you mean?’ She grinned facetiously.

‘Watch me, you’ll see. Actually, me and Jack are onto something as we speak,’ he tapped his nose with a conspiratorial finger. ‘I might even give you a job if you ask me nicely. Pay you to shake your little ass in my club.’

Ellie hit him with a pillow. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she made to turn away from him, but he was too quick for her and held her there, her strength no match for his.

‘So easy to wind up …’

Ellie had grown used to Tom’s unpredictability over the years they had lived together. In fact, as far as she was concerned, it was all part of his appeal. The proverbial sunshine and showers; that was Tom. You never knew what you were going to get.

A sickening thud from downstairs stopped their conversation mid-track and Ellie winced.

‘Sounds like they’re really going for it tonight,’ Tom remarked after a long moment.

He held her then and she felt a genuine tenderness in his touch.

‘I mean it, Tom,’ she said, fighting back tears as she buried her face into his warm chest. He smelt of cheap aftershave and fags. ‘I’m going to get out of here and make a good life for myself one day; be rich and successful; be happy …’

‘We’re gonna be winners. I know it.’

Ellie loved Tom when he said things like this. Things that gave her hope for the future, a future she could not envisage without him. ‘We’ll make it together. You’ll get out of this festering shit pit and make something of your life, fulfil your dreams, because that’s the kind of woman you are.’ He paused for a moment, allowing his carefully chosen words to resonate.

Ellie was floored. He had never referred to her as a ‘woman’ before.

‘I love you, Tom,’ she whispered the words just loud enough for him to hear them.

She would marry Tom Black and they would make a life together. Her, a famous ballerina, him a lauded entrepreneur, the kind of couple that women envied and men wanted to be. It was their destiny, she felt sure of it.

Tom’s hand moved gently upwards of her thigh, gently resting between her legs. This time Ellie did not move it. Maybe he was right after all; what difference did a day make?

*

Coming round from her shallow slumber, Ellie sat up in her bed and, rubbing her gritty eyes, brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, cursing herself. She felt the heat pulse between her legs, a dull ache for him. Even dreaming of Tom felt like a terrible betrayal of her husband and yet there were times when she could not prevent it; it was times like this, in the dark of a lonely night, that he dripped into her psyche, resurrecting feelings she had spent a lifetime trying to bury.

Though she attempted to deny it to herself, Ellie knew she had loved Tom Black with a deep, intense passion and burning lust that regrettably she had never mimicked with her husband. With Tom it had been instantaneous and all-consuming; she had wanted him with a base ferocity that had scared her, if only for the fact that deep down she suspected it would one day destroy her – a supposition that had nearly turned out to be correct in the end. It had always bothered Ellie that it had not been the same way with her husband. A husband who she knew would walk the world barefoot twice over to make her happy and give her what she wanted in life. She heard her mother’s familiar voice resounding inside her mind, ‘the heart wants what the heart wants, Eleanor,’ she would say as if to justify her own dubious choices. ‘You don’t choose love; it chooses you.’ And yet Tom had turned her over without a backwards glance the moment Loretta Fiorentino had strutted into the Venus Club, all tits and lips and cheap costume jewellery, seducing him with her exotic accent and talk of going places. Loretta had set her cap at Tom Black that night and had promised him the earth in a bid to lure him into her lair; money, clubs, contacts, ‘the whole enchilada’, as Tom had put it. Not that Tom had needed much persuading. He was going places, with or without Ellie in tow, and had abandoned her without a second’s thought; though some years later he would vehemently deny this betrayal, attempting to prove his love to her one final time …

It was no good. Ellie threw back the fine cream silk sheets and flung her long, slim dancer’s legs over the side of the intricately carved four-poster Fratelli Basile bed that in a twist of irony her husband had imported from Italy, her Agent Provocateur lace chemise sliding down her naked body as she stood. Making her way over to her dressing table, she sat down on the cushioned stool and blinked at her reflection; seeing herself as a stranger would. Ellie pulled at her skin absentmindedly, poking her tongue out before reaching for her Crème de la Mer serum. Eye bags she could cope with; she could have them removed tomorrow if the fancy took her, it was just her past that wasn’t so easily erased.

Ellie snapped herself out of her thoughts by applying a dollop of Laura Mercier Fig hand cream, inhaling the deep, earthy sweet scent as she rubbed it into her skin. She had to stop this; no good had ever come out of raking over the past.

It was that bloody bitch Loretta’s photograph that had triggered all of this. Ellie had spent decades repressing her past with an iron will that would’ve flawed a heavyweight champion, and so tonight felt like a defeat, though if she was honest, it had also been cathartic. Thinking of Tom had allowed her to remember the girl she had once been, someone she had denied for the past two decades. A girl that, in an odd way, she missed being.

Ellie’s iPhone suddenly beeped, and alarmed, she snatched it up from the bedside table.

‘Oh thank God,’ she breathed aloud as the message came into view.

Hi Mom, Dont worry bout me. Havin a GR8 time. B in touch soon. Tx

She stared at the text for a moment. Something was different somehow but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. The use of the word ‘Mom’ perhaps.

Ellie slid back into bed. She was just being paranoid. Tess was OK, and even though she could not quite shake the sense of unease that had stalked her these last few days, for now, it was one less thing to worry about.

CHAPTER 15

Marco DiMari discarded the phone onto the bed without so much as a second thought as he rifled through Tess’s belongings. There had to be a fair few grand’s worth of designer gear here he thought happily, as he inspected the contents of her Louis Vuitton holdall with gusto. The suitcase alone was worth a small fortune and he could just see himself passing through customs with it. He grinned at the thought.

Marco DiMari’s real name was Tarik Valmir and although he had people, women largely, believe that he was a real Italian stallion from Rome, he was in fact born in a small city called Lezhe in Albania and had grown up largely on the peripheries of East London, Bethnal Green, to be exact. The Italian thing was simply a ruse to entice women; it certainly got you into their knickers a lot quicker. Ever tenacious, he had even learnt to speak the language fluently, fooling Italian women themselves on occasion. Oh yes, Tarik liked his alias. He liked it a lot.

Hoping that he might’ve thrown Tess’s mother off the scent with his text message, Marco came across Tess’s passport.

‘Bingo,’ he said underneath his fetid alcoholic breath.

He was sure there was big money to be made from this one and he wasn’t about to let such an opportunity slip through his nimble fingers. He’d seen a new opportunity in Tess Scott, the billionaire’s fragrant daughter. One that was far too good to pass up.

Marco heard the pounding on the wall next door again. The girl had been going at it on and off all morning, hammering at the door and walls, crying and screaming like a banshee. He knew he would have to give her something to drink soon before she collapsed with dehydration. He didn’t want a stiff on his hands – she was worth far too much for that.

He heard Tess’s muffled cries through the wall.

‘That’s right love, you carry on. We’re halfway up a fucking mountain in Spain you dozy bitch, no one can hear you.’ He banged his fist against the wall in retaliation, laughing, ‘no one at all!’

CHAPTER 16

Tom watched as Candy threw herself around the dance floor like an epileptic on acid.

‘Come on!’ she beckoned to him above the deafening sound of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve just won ten million bucks! If I were you, buddy, I’d be on the tables doing the frickin’ can-can.’ Tom raised a distracted smile. Truth was, Candy Wilson was beginning to grate on his nerves; it was coming up for three a.m. and, flying off her tits on coke, she was showing no sign of calling it a night.

Deep down Tom knew he should really get the fuck out of Vegas, pronto. Access to this amount of ready cash was way too much of a temptation for the likes of him. It was like putting a dope addict in a field full of poppies.

Agitated, he pulled at the collar of his bespoke white shirt. It was hot inside The Paradise Club, The Player’s resident hot spot which attracted the young, beautiful and rich from far and wide. He delicately sipped at a chilled glass of Cristal champagne from the magnum he’d bought earlier and took a pinch of coke from his snuff box in a bid to distract himself from the pull of the casino tables downstairs. Surely a little flutter on the roulette or the craps wouldn’t do any harm, the small voice inside his head whispered, besides, it would give him a breather from the coked-up Candy. He’d quite happily bung her a thousand bucks and her flight home if it meant getting shot of her. However, Tom had promised the girl a shopping spree with a champagne and lobster lunch thrown in and he was pretty sure hell would freeze over before she allowed him to renege on his word.

‘I’m going down to the casino for a bit,’ he shouted in Candy’s ear above the melodic voices of Pitbull and Ne-Yo. ‘You stay here, have some fun. Do some more coke.’ He handed her a fat bunch of hundred dollar bills and watched as her eyes lit up like diamonds. ‘I’ll meet you back at the suite – no rush, baby,’ he adding disingenuously, pressing his lips against hers and sliding his long tongue deep into her glossy, willing mouth.

‘Mmm,’ she made an appreciative noise as she merged back into the dancing throng. ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ she cooed, lowering her eyes seductively.

*

Throwing back a tumbler full of bourbon, Tom swallowed hard. He’d only been at the craps tables for an hour and was already $750,000 down. He was thoroughly pissed at himself.

‘Another bourbon, sir?’ the overly made-up waitress in the tiny dress enquired as she hovered over him.

‘Make it a double, sugar,’ he winked. Tom ran his fingers through his dark hair, fighting back his agitation. This was just a little blip on what had otherwise been a momentous occasion and he wasn’t about to let it unduly concern him.

‘I hear you’ve had a pretty good night tonight, my friend,’ Tom looked up to be greeted by Marvin Katz’s familiar grinning mug, ‘congratulations.’

Tom clapped Marvin’s shoulder with a victorious smile that made him look even more handsome than he was.

‘What can I say, Marv?’ he said with a hefty dose of false modesty, ‘you know how it goes; you win some you lose some.’

Marvin took a seat next to Tom at the craps table and the waitress reappeared with a bottle of Maker’s Mark and two fresh crystal tumblers.

‘Cheers,’ the men knocked glasses, ice chinking.

‘Indeed,’ Marvin replied, careful to conceal his emotions. That Tom had just won big irked him, just as it did whenever anyone won big in his casino. The trick now was to make sure he stuck around and shared it all back out to the house again.

‘I’ve organised it for you to keep the Penthouse Suite for a further couple of days, Tom. Give you and that little piece you brought along time to get to know each other better.’ He gave a good-natured laugh that was as flimsy and transparent as a cellophane wrapper.

Tom took pleasure in the knowledge that Marvin Katz was seriously pissed; pissed that he’d won big and pissed that he had a pretty, insatiable twenty-something on his arm who would quite happily suck his dick all night long without breaking a sweat.

‘And how’s your wife these days, Marv?’ Tom carefully enquired, wondering how Marvin would react if he knew that Tom had once given his wife, Elaine Katz, a mercy fuck in the back of her Mercedes a decade earlier. Not that he’d been given much choice in the matter. She’d practically lampooned herself on his dick, almost chewing half his ear off in the process.

‘Can’t complain,’ Marvin replied tightly, grimacing as he swallowed back the bourbon.

‘Send her my regards, won’t you?’ Tom said. ‘Is she still driving a Mercedes these days?’

Marvin glanced at him, thinking it a strange question. How did Black know what car his wife drove?

‘Yes,’ he nodded, suspiciously, ‘E-class cabriolet. She upgraded to a new model some years ago – never looked back.’

‘Bet you wish you could say the same thing, eh Marv?’ Tom clapped him on the back again. Marvin Katz detected the lightest smirk upon Black’s face and felt an urgent need to wipe it off.

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