Page 88 of The Spare

Tennis coaches have been a regular fixture at Belvedere these past couple of months. I adore tennis, having captained the girls’ tennis team during the summer term at school. The boys are both excellent players, and twice-weekly coaching has really brought Ivy’s game up. She’s naturally sporty and, more importantly, scrappy. She won’t cede a point without expending every ounce of energy available to chase the ball.

‘Out!’ Xav shouts as my serve lands perfectly on the line.

The ball is not out. This is definitely a case of human error, or, more specifically, of Xav being overly focused on his wife’s tits.

‘No fucking way was my wife’s serve out,’ Ben retorts.

‘Let’s check,’ Xav says, and the four of us run over to the smart net post.

A little backdrop: back in May, when I was having my extended meltdown and Ben was hiding out with me, he and Xav hatched a plan to install at vast expense a smart court system called Zenniz. The reason? They are competitive bastards with far too much money.

Ben taps the ‘shot replay’ button on the Zenniz machine’s touch screen and we watch as it confirms what we already knew: my serve was in.

‘Suck it, bitches,’ he says to Xav and Ivy as we high-five each other.

‘Fifteen-love. Try to keep your eyes on the ball,’ I tell Xav with a self-satisfied smirk.

‘She’s not wrong,’ Ivy mutters.

As we walk back to the serving line, Ben slaps my bottom. ‘Fuck me, you’re so sexy. I cannot with this prim little schoolgirl thing.’ He leans in. ‘I’m going to fuck you so hard later.’

‘Er, try keeping it PG, please,’ Xav calls. ‘There’s family around.’

I swivel around and bounce the ball a few times as I prepare to serve. ‘People in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones,’ I yell at Xav. ‘Or should I say orangeries?’

Xav instantly goes beetroot. Ivy honks out a laugh, and my husband doubles over. ‘Dead. Oh my fucking God.’

‘Just tell me when you’re ready,’ I tell Ivy sweetly as I prepare to throw the ball upwards for the next serve.

We win the game without ceding a single point.

An hour or so later, I’m feeling extremely relaxed. It’s partly due to the fact that Ivy and I are lolling in the pool on the twins’ abandoned floaties, and partly due to the thorough seeing-to my husband gave me after we won our tennis match.

He bent me over the sturdy vanity in the pool house bathroom, flipped up my flirty little tennis dress, dragged the built-in shorts aside, and fucked me like the world was ending as he growled a steady stream of filth in my ear. It was completely inappropriate and extremely disturbing, and I came so hard I’m surprised I’m not still seeing stars.

I have no reason to doubt the depth of Ben’s feelings for me these days, physically or emotionally, because he tells me—and shows me—in great detail, every hour of every day.

But do you know what’s even more romantic than getting a random text from him in the middle of the day saying, I love you?

It’s getting a random text from him in the middle of the day saying, Can we have a chat later, but don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. I just want to find a date for us to meet up with Pieter in Knokke-Heist.

Because my husband is an RSD king now, and he is all too aware that, for a brain like mine, an out-of-context Can we chat? is like lobbing an emotional hand grenade at me. He’s my brain’s biggest cheerleader and most anxious helicopter parent. It’s his love language, and I adore him for it.

‘I have something to tell you,’ Ivy says now, pulling me out of my post-orgasmic fog and into the present. We’re alone, the girls having gone inside to get changed and our menfolk stoking the barbecue out in the summer kitchen that serves as their tiny manosphere.

I turn my head towards her. She looks pretty dreamy herself, and I wonder if she didn’t get the same treatment as I did after the match. Like the rest of us, she has an epic tan from hanging out at Belvedere. She looks golden and glorious and glowing with health and⁠—

‘Oh my God,’ I say, scrambling up onto my elbows as the floatie lurches beneath me.

Her smile is radiant. ‘Yep.’

‘Oh my God. That’s amazing! Fuck, I’m so happy for you!’

‘Thanks.’ She’s grinning so widely it’s almost splitting her face in two. ‘It’s early days, but I wanted to tell you.’

‘How early?’

‘About eight weeks. So keep it under wraps, okay? There was no way I couldn’t tell you.’ I can’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but her voice is shaking. ‘You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend, apart from Flora.’