Tell Me
This: this is about us. Always. An opportunity. A gift. A chance to come together again. And you want it as much as I do.“Thank you for unhinging my sanity, threatening the stability of my life, with one text. Because that’s how it begins, one text, one message. “I’m coming to town. Would like to see you.”And I think, why not? Old friend. Oldest of friends. Favourite of ex-lovers. Married now, as am I. Both anchored in lives full of obligation, responsibility to others. Safe. What’s the harm? We’re neither one of us stupid enough to risk our marriages, our families, our real lives. Are we?”As Jane “sexts” her lover and attempts to figure out how this aspect of herself fits into the obligations of marriage and motherhood, other relationships around her strain, fracture, and collapse.Her best friend is recklessly pursuing a series of cyber-affairs, while another friend attempts an open, polyamorous marriage. Her next-door neighbour is planning a wedding with her on-again/off-again lover—but will it really happen?Meanwhile her lawyer-husband is exchanging a lot of texts with an adoring young associate. Does Jane care? Or is she too engulfed in her own sanity-straining cyber affair to really notice?
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Mischief
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Copyright © M Jane Colette 2015
M Jane Colette asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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EBook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008148737
Version: 2015–04–22
Contents
Interlude: She only belongs to those who take
Day 17 – Interview for an affair
Day 18 – I take good care of my possessions
Jane: protagonist-narrator. 38. Married. Four children. Works from home erratically as a financial analyst. Analytical, realistic, rational, almost detached…until she gets that text from Matt.
Matt: hero/anti-hero in one. 41. Married. Childless. A lover from Jane’s past who re-enters her life and shakes its foundations.
Marie: Jane’s best friend. 39. Married. Two children. As emotional and volatile in her expressions and search for passion and romance as Jane is controlled and restrained. Actively and constantly searching for affairs; failing to consummate any of them.
Alex: Jane’s husband. 40. Lawyer. Workaholic. Good father. Affectionate but perhaps unexciting. Except to his young associate, whose texts he reads in the bathroom…
Lacey: Jane’s next-door neighbour. 53. Gorgeous, sexy, confident and loving. The only person Jane comes close to confiding in. In a twelve-year-long, on-again-off-again relationship with Clint.
Clint: Lacey’s lover and father of her ten-year-old son. Player. Engaged to Lacey, but still involved sexually with the mother of his other son, who becomes pregnant (by him? Or her other lover?) while Clint is wedding planning with Lacey.
Nicola: Marie and Jane’s friend. 40. Two children. In the middle of an acrimonious divorce from Paul, her husband of twelve years. Angry, resentful. But also…hungry.
Jesse: Jane and Nicola’s personal trainer. 26. Eye candy. Not very bright. Taken for granted by Jane. Coveted by Nicola.
Jane’s mother and father: In their 60s, spry and attractive. The tensions in their 43-year-old relationship, a defining feature of Jane’s childhood, reach a breaking point as Jane begins her mindfuck with Matt.
JP: Marie’s husband. 45. Lawyer. Works with Alex. ‘King of foreplay’, but otherwise thoroughly unsatisfactory.
Paul: Nicola’s husband. Referred to by Nicola and her friends as cheating rat-fuck bastard so often, Jane forgets what his name is…until he starts sexting with Marie.
Colleen: Nicola’s best friend. Long divorced. Appears intermittently in role of ‘Greek chorus’ to offer unconditional support to Nicola and vent against all cheating spouses.
Melanie-Susan-Shelley: Alex’s associate, whose name Jane refuses to remember. 28. Has a huge crush on Alex. Not sure how to deal with the fact he has a wife and children.
Craig: Married. 45. Attractive, restless. Minor character who enters Jane’s life and is passed on to Marie.
Alex’s mother, father and assorted stepmothers: Alex’s mother was ‘the first wife’, and she’s still not quite over the divorce. Neither is the second wife. The third wife wants to have a baby. His son desperately wishes he didn’t have any of his genes.
2001
Recovered from the exertions of your wedding night, lover? And the honeymoon?
—Fuck off.
Of course. Tell me next time you’re in Montreal.
—I will.
Good.
2002
Jane, what the fuck happened? What did I do? Tell me.
—Nothing. It’s not you. I have to be done.
Clarify.
—I can’t do this. I can’t be – his. Yours. And now the other. I can’t. I have to be done.
