Simon’s Dark Secrets

We both lay back in the bed, Caroline breathing heavily whilst I lay there, reflecting on the last few minutes. My journey, inside a year, from being a lesbian virgin to leading a woman ten years my senior into my world. It felt good. I was satisfied that I had come a long way since those early days.

I glanced at Caroline, who I realised was looking at me.

“Well,” she said, “no matter the future, I shall be grateful to you for that.”

“Enjoyable then?”

“You jest, of course. Or do you think my body usually shimmers like jelly in an earthquake?”

“It did seem quite an event. Did you climax like that for your husband?”

“I’m not sure I can remember climaxing for any man like that. Mind you, this was probably the biggest gap between sexual activities since I was about fifteen.”

“Do you think you might do it again?”

“Oh, definitely, and before midnight, I hope. It’s another advantage of not relying on a man, isn’t it? Not needing to wait for him to reload.”

“Ha. Yes, missed that one, didn’t I? Can I ask a personal question?”

“Fire away.”

“We pulled the current Simon to shreds earlier, but I wondered. Was he always like that? Controlling I mean.”

“I wouldn’t use the word controlling on its own. He was manipulative. He could wrap my mother around his little penis, so I suppose in that sense, yes, he did control her.”

“But not you?”

“No, not me. Or at least not for long. I knew his dirty secret. Secrets.”

“Care to share?”

“Why not? Mind you, I’ve never told anyone else. I’ve thought about telling Mary a few times. Give her something to throw at him, but I’ve chickened out in the end. Shouldn’t tell you really, but I’m in the mood. Two dirty secrets. First, I need to explain something about our family. Dad was a strict Presbyterian or something. Sex was evil. A necessary prerequisite to procreation but to be forsworn for any other reason. He was also a strict disciplinarian. Quite Victorian, even using a leather belt on me more than once. So one day when I was about nineteen and Simon fifteen, my brother caught me masturbating with a hairbrush and threatened to tell dad if I wasn’t ‘kind’ to him.” Caroline did air quotes around the word kind. “You can guess what a randy fifteen year old boy wanted from, if I say so myself, an attractive nineteen-year-old. I could have let him tell dad and taken the strapping I’d undoubtedly have got, but I was quite a randy thing in those days do didn’t see the harm in wanking him off. The trouble was, he wanted more. Not immediately, but after a month or two of me giving him a hand job, he demanded a blowjob. I knew that wouldn’t be the end and that if I relented, he’s soon be demanding a full fuck. So I said no. Well, he went berserk. Calling me a dirty whore and saying as soon as dad got home he was going to tell him. That’s when I let him know I knew his other secret.

“Quiet by chance, I’d been standing at a bus stop behind two of his classmates who were talking about him. They didn’t know me and clearly didn’t like him, and at first I was disinclined to believe what they were saying — that he was queer. He obviously wasn’t from what he’d been doing with me, but the detail they went into they seemed to know he had been having sex with a boy in the sixth form.

“So I said to him, ‘Then I’ll tell him about you shagging a boy!’ His face! A mixture of fear and hate. He shouted at me ‘How the fuck do you…’ and stopped. He’d realised he’d confirmed it as being true. I won’t bother you with the rest of the conversation, but he never bothered me again.”

“Oh wow! Do you think he’s totally gay now, and that’s why he’s not bothering Mary?”

“I very much doubt it. My view is he did it because he shouldn’t. Like with me. Something taboo. There is something else too. I’ve no proof of this, but call it girly intuition. He might have had something going on with our mother. I think that’s where he gets off. Not in just the sex, but sex that shouldn’t be happening. Fucking his wife is too vanilla for him. Won’t give him any satisfaction.”

“Shit. His own mother?”

“Look as I said, it’s only my feeling. Sometimes the way they exchanged glances said a lot.”

“So you think he’s probably fucking someone or something else now?”

“Put it this way, I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I would my house. He’s a devious control freak and anything that gives him a sense of power turns him on. In Mary’s case, it’s withholding his favours and not letting her breathe without permission. Poor lass. Has he come on to you yet?.”

“Me? He seems to hate my guts for some reason.”

“That’s because you’re friends with Mary and she shouldn’t have friends. He would have done it to scare you away. As that hasn’t worked, he’ll try and get in your knickers so you’ll be embarrassed, then he’ll threaten to tell Mary you seduced him. He was friendly at the Christmas do if I remember.”

“Yes, and I have to say that was a surprise.”

“There you go then.”

This was incredible news. Knowledge is power, as they say, and knowing this about him gave me some hope of easing Mary’s life. I wasn’t quite sure how yet, but needed to clear something up.

“So you’ve not told Mary this?”

“No. Pathetic aren’t I?”

“Why not?”

“Possibly some misplaced sense of family loyalty, but more probably because even with all their problems, Mary seemed content in her little life and I didn’t want to rock the boat.”

At Christmas, Mary had asked me not to tell Caroline about her and my jollies, but I felt this changed things. I’d hedge my bets, though, and see where the conversation went.

“Do you really think Mary is content?”

“Perhaps content was the wrong word. Prepared to let things tick along, perhaps.”

“Mm, she might be your sister-in-law but I think you’re off track there. What would your reaction be if she went and had an affair?”

“I’d say the chances are nil to minus five but jolly good luck to her and it would serve the bastard right.”

“You must tell her. Or give me permission too.”

“You’d keep it secret if I asked you to?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, coward that I am, if you think it’s the right thing to do, tell her and let me know the fallout.”

This knowledge of what lay behind Simon’s attitude was exciting. My mind was already working on potential scenarios, but at that moment I had more urgent things to attend to. Caroline’s hand was kneading a breast.