ILYA & JESSIE Part one, a short story by lexiemueller. Date added: 2012-07-04. Times viewed: 2320.
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- Intro: Part one of a fictionalised erotic memoir (re-edited) M/F
JESSIE & DEBORAH
Deborah took a sip of coffee and looked at her young friend across the rim of her raised cup. ‘I don’t know how you put up with it’ she said, ’I wouldn’t stand for it for a moment’.
Jess glanced down at the table and thought for a while before replying. ‘I know I should, but I’m not sure I care all that much. I kind of figure it’s a guy thing and you’ve got to expect it, specially considering where Ken comes from. I’m pretty sure his dad was the same.’
The older woman put her cup down and cradled it in both hands. ‘Yeah, thinking about it, you’re probably right. Probably they’re all the same', she hesitated for a moment and then went on, 'you know the last time Ilya went abroad, he had it off with a bar-girl in Taiwan.’
‘Whaaat? Are you saying he told you about it?’
‘Soon after he got back we had this amazing fuck - I came at least four times; massive orgasms; one right after the other. It was incredible! I asked him where did you learn that? and he thought, rightly as it happens, that I’d guessed he'd had some strange and came clean. I was so pissed off I whacked him across the face while he was still on top of me. Turns out he hadn’t learned it from her at all, he’d just read about it in a book he’d bought there.’
Jess laughed. ‘Gee, I don’t think I’d want to hit anyone who’d just made me come four times. Maybe I should buy that book for Ken. Fuck! Four times! That’s never happened to me. To be honest, I don’t think Ken fancies me that much anymore. Not since Hetty was born. The last time we had sex he told me I was about as animated as a log, so I guess it’s to be expected he’d look for it elsewhere.’
‘How can you let him put you down like that? If the sex is not that good mightn’t that be as much his fault as yours - or more even? Look, like I said, I was pissed off with Ilya but it was a one off, or so he tells me, and it was a long way away. At least he didn’t shit on his own doorstep like Ken is doing. You really should stop being so passive.’
‘You say that, but maybe it’s my passivity that keeps him hooked. He’s quite attractive, he works pretty hard and he’s a good provider, whereas I’m a lazy cow who wants to do as little as possible. And being compliant and accommodating is how I get away with it. It may not be very admirable but anything for a hassle-free life.’
Debbie has no answer to this and the two friends fall into a companionable silence. The sky above them is a peerless blue and the day looks to be shaping up well. In the tree overhanging the verandah two parrots squabble noisily until one flies off and the other, unwilling, it seems, to let the matter drop, follows in hot pursuit. Their brilliant colours flash briefly against the green foliage and they’re gone.
When at last Deborah speaks again it is with some hesitation. ’I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she says, ‘and promise you won’t get mad with me, but since Ilya’s been away, Ken’s come on to me quite a few times. Like - you know - when we’re rehearsing. I don’t know, maybe I’ve encouraged it. Do you think I might have - has he said anything?’
Jess finds herself wondering whether things might already have gone beyond the ‘coming on to me‘ stage but, pushing the thought to one side, says: ‘No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re a good looking woman, and what with being thrown into such close contact it’d be surprising if there was no emotional connection. In fact, I think it’s been a bonding experience for all four of us even though me and Ilya only feature as part of the audience. Anyway, don’t feel you’ve got to hold back on my account.'
’Her own words surprise her; it's not clear whether she's really as disinterested as she sounds; or has she a premonition that down the line there might be something in it for her as well?
Debbie is also surprised: ‘Are you really telling me you wouldn’t mind?’ she asks.
But Jess doesn’t reply; something has attracted her attention. She is gazing intently towards the field, where the horses are. She gets up and, leaning forward with her arms on the balustrade, counts them off. There’s Ilya’s chestnut gelding; Debbie’s bay mare; the children’s painted ponies and they’re all grazing - all, that is, except Apache. The little palomino, that Ilya‘s supposed to be breaking in for her is lying, flat on his side, completely motionless. It has taken all of five minutes for her to register that the whole time she's been watching, the horse has not moved a muscle. She tells Deborah, ‘I think there’s something wrong with Apache’, and is about to run across to the field, when the horse raises its head and neck from the ground, struggles to its feet, and starts to graze nonchalently. Jess wonders if she should take the pony back into pasture with Satan - Ilya has never broken a horse before and is trying to teach himself from a book - but now she sits back down and ponders Debbie’s question. When eventually she replies, she speaks slowly.
‘Well maybe a bit, but he’s going to go on doing it anyway and, strange as it might seem, I’d rather it was with you than with someone I don’t know.’
‘You’re being very open minded’ Deborah says,’ but it would feel like taking advantage. Look, me and Ilya have been together fifteen years now. Sex is OK when it happens but I can’t pretend to be that keen and Ilya knows it. You know he wanted me to go on this trip with him - I think he thought it could be a second honeymoon‘.
'Why didn’t you go?’
‘I thought the kids were too young to leave, even with their grandparents. Lizzie’s not yet three after all‘.
As one who will sieze any opportunity to take a holiday without the encumberance of a child, Jess finds it difficult to get her head around this. Hetty’s not yet five and several times already she’s been left with her grandparents, while her parents holiday abroad . It doesn’t, appear, Jess thinks, to have done her any harm.
‘Anyway,‘ Deborah goes on, 'Before he left he asked me if I still loved him and I told him yes, I loved him, but like a brother. He wasn't happy. He told me if I didn’t want him anymore he’d go elsewhere. You say Ken’s not that keen either, so I’m wondering, what would you think to a swap around? Might that liven things up a bit for all of us? I mean, you do fancy Ilya don’t you?’
If this possibility is already germinating in her mind , Jess is not quite ready to acknowledge it. She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think Ken would be up for that, and anyway, I can’t imagine Ilya’d be interested in someone like me.’
‘Why on earth would you say that? Ilya thinks you’re beautiful; believe me he’d love to go to bed with you. As for Ken, as long as you’re comfortable with the idea, you can leave him to me. So what do you think?’
‘Well I guess at least I’d be getting something out of it, which is definitely better than how things are now.’
You might think, given Jessie’s earlier speculation about the relationship between her husband and her friend, that the significance of Deborah’s confidence in her ability to influence Ken, would not be lost on her. But it is not in Jessie’s nature to dwell on such matters and all she now says is:
‘Come on let’s go down to the beach’.
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ILYA & JESSIE
Ilya always said that he fell in love with Jess the first time he saw her. She was walking past Morgan’s café pushing her baby daughter in one of those Victorian style prams which were fashionable back then. He saw Morgan do a double take and heard him ask: ‘Who is that beautiful ethnic-looking woman?’
But it was the next time he saw her that really did for him. He’d gone round to see Ken, but it was Jess who answered the door. And she was stunning. For what seemed a very long moment he stood there speechless, as if someone had punched the air out of him. She was wearing a bikini so small that she might just as well have been naked. He wondered how she could have recently given birth and still have a belly like that - so flat it was almost concave; and her breasts were so shapely and set so high on her slender torso and both of them a perfect handful. She had an air about her of sun-struck indolence which might, he thought, have been post-coital languor and he felt a sharp pang of jealousy; Deb would never have walked around the house like that for fear he’d come on to her. Thinking about it afterwards, he was struck by how unselfconscious she seemed, not flaunting her body, just very comfortable in it. After a while, Ken came to the door, he was naked to the waist and carrying a guitar. To Ilya’s jealous eyes he looked smug and satisfied as though he’d just had sex. Swallowing that bitter pill and remembering what he’d come for Ilya asked: ‘Can you play that thing?’…
Oh but she was beautiful. How he longed to hold her in his arms. That he would, as he then thought, never do so, seemed nothing less than an intolerable injustice. He left their house feeling desolate.
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