Free Infidelity for Beginners by Danny King

truth as she’d never lied to me about this sort of
thing before, but it was possible, I suppose. Everything was possible.
    Maybe she’d had more than five men. Maybe she’d even had
ten. Or twenty. Or thirty.
    If she had’ve done, it probably wouldn’t have been the sort
of thing she would’ve shared with her eager young husband-to-be, especially
when that poor near-virgin still had two fingers and a whole other hand free
after totting up his total.
    Maybe she was still at it. Maybe she was like Martin from
the Duke of York and had been getting pummelled senseless by two hundred guys
while I’d been at work.
    I doubted it, because Sally wasn’t the type, but then again
who was? You read about these sorts of thing in the Sunday papers all the time
and I’m sure these women’s husbands didn’t think they were the type either, but
it goes on.
    Hmm.
    Elenor?
    Now she most definitely the type.
    I wondered how many guys she’d slept with and concluded it
was more likely to be nearer Martin’s total than mine. I thought about her for
a while and inadvertently ended up picturing her buffeting and bashing, moaning
and thrashing, sweaty, crying, yelping, sighing, stroking, coaxing and sucking
her way through an army of hairy-backed gorillas.
    Loving it she was. Absolutely loving it.
    When the last of them was done, she lay there puffing and
panting and doodling her fingers all over her sweat-streaked skin before
suddenly noticing me.
    “Enjoy the show?” she asked, making no attempt to cover
herself up.
    I looked down before zipping myself up and realised I had
– a little too much if I’m honest.

 

Sally’s Diary: December 31st
    It’s New Year’s Eve, out with the
old and in with the new. I’m going to make a real conscious effort to stop
bickering with Andrew and just get on with him. I don’t think it’s me a lot of
the time, but it takes two to argue, just as it takes two to do most things in
life, so I’m going to redouble my efforts and hope this inspires Andrew to
redouble his. To be honest we’re not at each other’s throats the whole time.
Reading back through my diary you might think we are, but actually most of the
time we’re perfectly happy. Well, maybe happy’s putting it a bit strong. We’re
together and we’re content. To be happy would probably require something else,
so I’ll start with content and see where I can take it.
    Other resolutions: to cut out the chocolate for the whole of
January, and to stop watching so much nonsense on the television.
    Naturally Andrews talking up the gym again but for once I’ve
decided not to fall for it. Sure it would be lovely to go to the gym three
times a week, take a couple of years off my butt and fit into my old jeans again
(I still have them somewhere for motivational purposes) but I think it’s time
we stopped kidding ourselves. This isn’t going to happen. For either of us.
Why? Okay, I’ll admit it even if Andrew won’t. The gym is soooooooo boring. I
can’t even begin to describe it. I’ve come to dread January because every
January means another two or three weeks of huffing and puffing on a tread mill
or a bike or a step machine before we’re ready to admit defeat and put
ourselves through the ritual humiliation of cancelling our membership again.
    Well I’ve had it. I’m going to finally throw my old jeans
away and accept once and for all that this is the shape God intends me to be.
    Hey, you know what, I think I’ve just taken that first step
towards that happiness I was talking about.

 

Chapter 6. New Year, Same Old Story
    The crowd was on its feet. They
could scarcely believe what they were seeing. This unknown, unseeded, last
minute qualifier had made it all the way through to the final and he was
matching the undefeated six-times world champion application for application.
    “Quiet please, ladies and gentlemen. Quiet!” the umpire
insisted and an expectant hush descended upon the hundred-thousand-strong crowd
that