Wild Horses Read Free Page B

blew me a kiss, smiling into a camera. I
logged off, and reclined in the chair, to think. I often did it.
That was probably $20 I told myself. To chat to a girl whose name I
didn't know, on the other side of the word. A naked girl! A girl
willing, even offering, to do things I would not dream of asking
Paula to do, not now – chiefly because I knew she would tell me to
“fuck off”! A wry grin appeared on my face. I could see it, in my
reflection, in the blank computer screen. An idea was forming in my
mind. It was lunacy of course. But even as I told myself it was
“nuts”, I knew I was going to do it. I reached for the iTunes icon
and clicked on it. When the program launched, I selected the
Rolling Stones playlist and clicked on “Wild Horses.” I turned it
up, loud.
    “I’m trying to read,” Paula’s strained voice,
crisp with anger, objected, from somewhere inside the house.
    I turned it up further.
    “For fuck sake,” she cried.
    I leaned back, further, in the chair, to let
the words wash over me. She appeared in my vision, - sweetgirl34.
Smiling, laughing, her brown hair falling down in front of her. Her
brown eyes looking up at me. Her lithe body, and white flesh. Mick
was singing:
    “I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie,
    I have my freedom, but I don't have much
time,
    faith has been broken, tears must be
cried,
    let's do some living after we die.”
    Keith joined him for the chorus.
    “Wild horses, couldn't drag me away.
    Wild wild horses, we'll ride them
someday.
    Wild horses, couldn't drag me away.
    Wild wild horses, we'll ride them
someday.”
    I knew I was going to do it!
7
    I raised the subject, tentatively, in a
nonchalant voice, as though I didn't really give a toss at all.
Paula was sitting at the breakfast table, flicking through the
Saturday morning newspaper. Her hair, a very deep black, was tied
up into a rather severe looking bun, but she appeared calm
enough.
    “I was thinking I might go somewhere, on my
leave,” I announced, slipping onto a chair opposite her. I stirred
my coffee, waiting for a reaction. There was none. I had almost
eight weeks owing, and the company were writing to me monthly now,
asking when I would be taking some of it, they didn't like it
accruing. And there was a handsome payout that would come with it,
thanks to a clause I had negotiated into my package some years
back. I had argued for it so that we could holiday together, but we
never did. I would be using it for myself this time. I wasn't sure
what Paula would say, and I had even less an idea about what I was
going to do if she hit the roof, if she shouted it down, or argued
vigorously against it.
    “I thought I would go overseas for a while,
maybe two weeks, maybe three. I don't want to waste my leave, and I
get that payout. I don't want to sit around the house wishing I was
doing something.”
    This time she glanced up at me, across the
table. Her reading glasses were on. It always made her look a bit
older.
    “Sure Ryan,” she said crisply. “You should.
You work hard. Go for four weeks if you like.”
    The thought that leapt into my mind
immediately was – she’s having an affair, she wants me gone. I
studied her carefully. Her expression was like granite.
    “You don’t mind?” I asked eventually,
probing, waiting for the reaction.
    “No honey,” she said cheerfully. “Mandy and I
can look after ourselves. Go. Enjoy yourself.”
    “Thanks darling. I really appreciate it, you
letting me go on my own.”
    “We were only there, in Paris, last year,”
she reminded me. “I don't think I could do that again this year. I
love Paris. But I loathe the travel. Twenty-four hours on a plane,
it makes me shudder.”
    Her voice quivered as she said it.
    “I’ll get online and see what I can book,” I
said brightly, trying to keep the rising excitement out of my
voice.
    “Where will you go?” Paula asked. Her voice
was dispassionate.
    “London of course.”
    “Of course.”
    She knew how much I