The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  The first in a series of erotic novels that tap into our deepest, sexiest fantasies, from the publishers of Fifty Shades of Grey.

  Thirty-something Emma Benson is a free spirit. For her a good life means a life of sensuality.

  So it’s a surprise to everyone when she marries David, a successful businessman, and settles down in the suburbs.

  One year on, and she’s trying so hard to be loyal to her man. Not easy to do when you’re passionate and uninhibited.

  But then, while sunbathing in her garden, her neighbour’s eighteen-year-old son appears. And Emma has found her new project …

  She will be his perfect teacher …

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SNEAK PEAK INTO THE SECRET LIVES OF EMMA: DISTRACTIONS

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  MORE AT RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA

  To the love of my life

  ONE

  Emma Benson had an essay to write. A small book of literary criticism lay unopened on the kitchen table along with a cold cup of coffee and Emma’s laptop, which hummed softly as the screen saver displayed the photos from her picture file. A photo from her wedding faded away gradually to be replaced by a blurred shot of a sunset taken with her phone, which in turn was replaced by one of her husband, David, while on honeymoon, standing on the balcony of their hotel room. Suddenly the laptop timed out and shut itself down. The sun-filled room fell silent.

  She lay on her beach towel on the grass in the backyard.

  An hour earlier an Emma full of good intentions had seated herself at the kitchen table with her notes opened on her laptop. She had read the required texts. She had switched off her phone and had made herself a coffee which steamed within reach. But then she had checked her messages, had read the front page of three newspapers, had opened and scanned through an erotic story she was writing for David, had searched for and found photos she had taken of him which were not in her regular picture folder, but were buried in a locked file. There was a subfolder to this file, with other photos in it, photos of them both and she opened these too.

  While flicking through, her mind had drifted a long way from the topic of her essay. There were other buried files, she remembered. Files her husband had never seen. Photos and videos. Memories best hidden from his eyes. She drifted further and further from the task at hand. She grew steadily more agitated and could not sit still. She had to close the files and step away from the computer.

  Emma’s priorities had changed then. Her labours were postponed indefinitely. The essay no longer seemed as interesting, or important, or as pressing as it once had.

  She changed into her bikini, covered herself in suncream, spread out her towel on the grass and, as she had done many times before, lay on her front and beckoned the sun down upon her.

  An hour later, Emma still lay on her beach towel on the grass in the backyard. Her face was pressed against the soft towelling and her eyes were closed. The leaves of the huge eucalypt which shaded the back portion of her garden were disturbed by a slight but persistent breeze and someone’s wind chimes were jingling nearby. The bikini-clad truant lay in the direct sunlight by the fence out of the draught. A crow launched itself from the eucalypt and cried out far above her as it beat its wings and took flight, crying again and again. The sound, becoming more and more distant, petered out and was exchanged for the rhythmic pock-pock of her neighbour’s tennis ball, now hitting the racquet and now the wall. Occasionally the direction of the breeze would change, bringing muted noises of the workmen renovating a house a block away.

  All of these sounds played upon her mind, bearing her in and then out of her daydreams like the tide upon the shore. These daydreams were sweet to her. Quite naturally, her mind had wandered back to the images she had seen. Quite naturally, too, her mind had moved beyond this paucity of remembrance ensnared in hastily taken photos, or in minutes of shaky, poorly lit home video. A deeper reservoir of memories revealed itself to her. Some were reminiscences, some were fictions but most were a seamless mingling of the two. In their coming and going they were altered, emphasis was shifted, episodes were repeated, corrected, bettered, beguiling her senses with newly formed sights and sounds and sensations. Her whole body was responding to the play of her mind. The flesh was deceived.

  Having found a suitable theme for idle contemplation, and having moved her hand so that she might touch herself without fear of exposure, Emma drifted off into that place between wakefulness and sleep, which is, when properly directed, a delicious state of near permanent arousal.

  Jason dropped over the shared pine paling fence, landed on the soft grass and steadied himself. He noticed that Emma was lying in a bikini on a towel by the table and chairs not two metres away. A closed book and a bottle of 30+ lay beside her.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Benson, I didn’t know you were home,’ he said.

  Emma was jolted out of her daydreams.

  ‘Shit! Jason. You frightened me,’ she said, lifting her head up from the towel to make eye contact and moving her hand from under her. The sun was bright. She lay her head back down and watched his ankles through her eyelashes.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here. I lost my ball,’ he said, and cast a cursory glance around the garden in search of it. He glimpsed the bare legs, the soft white feet, the small but curvaceous backside barely covered by a white bikini bottom and the long smooth back, but hardly considered them. Pressing and immediate thoughts about the development of his serve and the possibility of switching from cricket to tennis next year hampered his appreciation of these sights. Jason’s brain was slow to shift between scenes. Finally, his gaze returned to Emma. And he recognised that she had a beautiful body.

  ‘You could use the gate. That fence is shaky enough as it is without your muscled frame swinging over it,’ she mumbled as she closed her eyes.

  ‘Sorry.’ He remained still. She could sense him looking at her. She thought about his face as it might look if he was to see her naked. She wondered if Jason had thought about her that way. She waited a time before she felt the silence had lasted long enough for him to have had his fill of her body.

  ‘What are you waiting for? I’m not going to help you. Besides I want to lie here and watch you,’ she said, laughing and lifting her shoulders and head to look at him properly. She rested on her elbows with her hands out before her like the sphinx. Her breasts hung in her bikini. Jason did not avert his eyes as an older man might. Emma noticed this and found the youthful naivety of his stare exciting. Her mood shifted from her sleepy indefinite arousal to something more pressing.

  ‘How old are you? I forget,’ she asked.

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Did you become an adult without telling me?’

 
; ‘You were at the party!’ he said smiling. He stood on the grass in bare feet, naked but for a small pair of board shorts. Emma watched him; he was growing more and more self-conscious. She knew she was messing with him. She liked the way his body was developing. He was a very attractive boy who would probably fill out too much as he grew older but now he was lean and toned. She habitually teased him about his looks but it wasn’t all play, she genuinely admired his adolescent beauty.

  ‘Have you come over for me or the ball?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were home.’

  ‘I’m always home, Jason,’ she said, smiling brightly.

  ‘Did you see where the ball went?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said and looked around. Emma’s garden was large and mostly lawn with garden beds along the edges. She and David were planning to get a landscape architect in; they had been planning to for ages. She looked over into the worst part of the garden under the shade of the eucalypt and saw the ball under a fern. She had no intention of helping him out. He had leapt into her languorous afternoon and in doing so had interrupted an intimate and pleasurable run of imaginary sexual encounters.

  Till this moment Jason had only ever drawn a casual appraisal from Emma. He had always remained within his yard, so to speak. He was always the son of Simon and Anne, or the boy next door. But by chance, Jason had grown up and landed squarely in Emma’s fantasies. She saw him afresh.

  Jason walked around the lawn looking into the mess of a garden. He glanced at Emma over his shoulder and saw her watching him. She blew him a kiss.

  ‘Found it!’ he said. She watched him crawl under the fern and pick it up. His body was deeply tanned and as he leant over and stretched out his arm to take hold of the ball his young butt looked good enough, Emma surmised, to eat. She took a mental snapshot.

  Jason padded across the grass towards her.

  ‘Don’t tell Mum and Dad you saw me,’ he said.

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ said Emma, trying in vain to come up with a reason for him to stay. She watched him walk to the side of the house and disappear down the path. Moments later she heard the sound of his ball hitting the racquet and then the wall.

  Emma lay where she was for another ten minutes or so, but now the sound of his tennis ball was intrusive. Its rhythm kept the image of the young man before her eyes, whether they were closed or open. She tried to think of other things. She tried to recapture the mood she was enjoying before the interruption but nothing would cure her of the strange and uncomfortable malady brought on by his momentary visit.

  Once safely inside she was able to chide herself for her foolishness. The boy had fallen from the sky in a moment when she was highly aroused. Her feelings were an accident of circumstances, nothing more. This rationalisation did little to calm her heightened senses. She drank a glass of water and stared out of her kitchen window. Across the side passage was the window of her neighbours’ house. She could see right into their rumpus room. The room was empty. There was the pool table she and her husband had played on a few nights before. Would she ever be able to be so comfortable in that house again?

  Emma pulled the cord to her Venetian blinds and let the slats fall noisily and heavily down, tidying her view. She wished she could do the same in her mind. Her imagination was building upon the chaste scene she’d just shared with Jason, improving the dialogue, developing the themes and changing the outcome to suit her immodest expectations. The fact that any involvement with him was impossible only made the subject more attractive to the fantasist. The sound of the tennis ball was still audible. With a flick of a switch music filled the room. Pock-pock. She ran upstairs to her bedroom at the front of the house. She changed into her jeans quickly and threw on the top she’d been wearing earlier. But pulling on her jeans had excited her. She was on heat. It was all so unexpected. There was no way around it. The bitch switch had been flicked.

  Now, in front of the mirror, she stood studying herself with new eyes. She adjusted her hair and looked closely at her face, pursing her lips then relaxing them into a smile. Her eyes lied to her. They looked calm, indifferent and in control. In a flash the t-shirt she’d just put on came off and with it the bikini top beneath. Her breasts were scrutinised. She’d always liked her breasts, but now she looked at them and wondered whether they were sagging. She lifted them with two hands and let them drop. His youth had rattled her. His body was so vital, youthful, potent. How quickly time seemed to run away from one. It was almost a year since she had married David. She had just turned thirty-two.

  Before she knew what she had done she found herself at the back of the house, in a guest bedroom looking down at the boy hitting the tennis ball in his backyard. She was still topless, as was he. She wondered whether he would look up and catch the crazy old lady next door flashing her boobs at him.

  But Jason was totally absorbed in the task at hand – which was more adorable than sexy. His feet moved swiftly and his muscles were sharply defined as he hit the ball with surprising power. He seemed taller, stronger and fitter than ever before but he had a boy’s look of concentration. The ball would rebound from the wall at great speed and he was there, ready and waiting, nearly every time. He’d been known to do this all day. Emma had paid him no attention in the past except heed the sound of the ball. He’d only ever been the neighbours’ son. But now …

  Minutes passed by as she watched his graceful athleticism.

  She wandered away from the window, conscious of every step. She seemed helpless against the onrush of her desire and could barely hold herself steady. She lay on her bed and tried to relax, but realised it was the wicked nature of her desire which had done this to her. He was not just a handsome young man, he was the neighbours’ son. Her lovely, sweet neighbours’ nice, polite, naive, handsome son. Their little boy. On this nice street, in this nice neighbourhood in Mosman.

  That was the key to her disturbed state. She needed a release. She’d been good for so long. She’d never been married before, she’d never been so restricted in her choice of sexual partners. Her life was once very different. She was not unhappy with her marriage. She loved David. She was surprised by him every day. He was more attentive to her needs than many men would know how to be. David was an instinctual lover, an insatiable man-beast. She was not unhappy, not at all, except in this: she needed from time to time to be very naughty.

  TWO

  Emma had remained faithful to her husband for three long months. This may not seem long, especially when we note that fidelity in marriage is presumed to be lifelong. But Emma knew the exact quantity of respect, in days, a modern marriage deserves. Eighty-nine days, or roughly three months, was her assessment. This was according to her concentrated personal brand of respect not the heavily diluted brand commonly bandied about.

  Her behaviour seemed worse than it was. Her only indiscretions were with her lifelong friend and lover, Paul. Emma was not a bad woman. Morality was the guiding light of her life. She wanted to live by morals that recognised and included who she was – a self-reliant, thinking, sensual woman. She did not need to be protected by archaic moral laws. These did more damage than good. She was not a coward. She’d read widely on the subject of morality and rejected most moral systems as basically sexist. They tended to reflect the supposed needs of women in a world greatly different from the one she found herself in. She did not relate to those traditional moral guidelines. Her own system of values was exact and, she would boast, thoroughly examined. How many of us can declare they have done as much? She was more than ready to defend her moral position against bigots. She had discarded, over time, many values people mistakenly believed, and still believe, to be essential. That was all.

  According to Emma’s lover, Paul, a three-month hiatus was excessive. Emma was sure she knew best. She’d actually told him she’d remain faithful to her husband till the day she died. This was a bold lie to excite a certain response. Her lover was disconsolate but nevertheless, from her first denial on her wedding day, he redoubled
his efforts to seduce her. She was chased round her home and even pinned against the wall when David was in the next room.

  Paul was incorrigible. Over weeks he begged, teased, threatened and had come close a number of exhilarating times to resorting to the extreme of taking her by force, but his good heart got the better of him. Emma had always found Paul very attractive, for many reasons, and had indulged his every whim since meeting him in her teens. Denying him now, and by default herself, was a very, very erotic act. To Emma the good life was a life of play.

  One night, shortly after Paul had tried his best to tempt Emma in the hallway while David was pouring them champagne in the living room, Paul found himself alone in said living room and distinctly heard the brutish sounds of David reaching climax with his wife, probably in the very same alcove where his own attempt had come to nothing. The smile on Emma’s face when she reappeared was worth the searing jealousy Paul had felt and more. She was his devil.

  Emma was sure an erotic life must be managed, if only loosely managed. Marriage awakens in oneself, and in others, a wealth of traditional values and habitual perspectives which permeate one’s life. People treat a husband or a wife differently. Living with a man just doesn’t have the same status, there is no solidity to it, and therefore no risks are involved if one were to stray or be led astray. In the eyes of a predatory outsider, marriage is a fixed entity which must be acknowledged. The seduction of a married person requires subtle arts not needed at other times.

  David was all for their marrying. He thought it the natural progression of their relationship. Emma was the one for him – case closed. She was dead-set against it, until … until she discovered the erotic potential of marriage. Then she got married, much like a good girl puts on a pair of sexually charged high heels for the first time. Marriage as an erotic accessory.

  Some people may jump to the conclusion that Emma did not love her husband but this would be a hasty judgement, for Emma was unlike most women, or more like their potential, their true selves, than their actual selves. She was a sexual glutton but, like any good diet, her diet required variety.