A weekend getaway seemed to be the perfect solution to their problems. Cathy and Andrew had been going through a tough time and if something wasn’t done, the young couple could easily have ended up on the divorce statistics. Scarborough was an easy decision, too. The local seaside resort was easy to get to and filled with good hotels and the sweet sea air that they enjoyed on their honeymoon. It would be the perfect getaway. They were sure that a few days away from the pressures of work would do them a world of good.
Cathy was more than pleased with the hotel as she wheeled her large suitcase up to its impressive, red-bricked front. The Three Mariners had been her husband’s choice, and as she walked into the lobby she was surprised to see what a modern, smart hotel it was. Andrew’s common sense had attracted her to him, but his penny pinching ways soon became annoying. Cathy had a ton of credit card debt hidden from her husband. A girl has got to be able to shop and he just didn’t get that.
Andrew was also impressed with the hotel; he’d gotten a killer deal on two nights here, and he was pleased to see Cathy smiling at his choice. He’d gotten far too used to the sight of her nose pinching in disgust of late.
He booked them in and they were shown to the honeymoon suite. It was high up on the top floor and in the middle, with a lovely view out over the bustling harbour, and an ornate four poster bed which screamed quality, age and expense. Cathy was in her element. This was the hotel room of her dreams. She was so taken with it that she ran into her husband’s arms and kissed his cheek.
“This is perfect, thank you.” She smiled and he enjoyed the glow of it, remembering the days when such smiles were a regular occurrence. He bent his head down to hers and their lips met. This was one thing that still held them together, this instant lust that burned between them. She responded eagerly, partly because she felt horny but mostly because she wanted it over with, so she could go out and indulge her senses in all things seaside.
The kiss grew, pulling in hands that grasped and stroked, then chests that mashed together, squashing Cathy’s breasts almost painfully against him. They stepped over to the bed, lips still joined. Parting only for a moment, they raced to ditch their clothes. Andrew stripped first and dived onto the bed, his cock proudly pointing up into the air.
She took a little longer, admiring the length, strength and deliciousness of her husband’s meat. He lay there, stroking it and devouring her body with his gaze. His intense hazel eyes still made her damp with desire and his body was still a feast to her eyes.
They met in the middle of the bed in a confusion of limbs. Their lips joined and Andrew’s hands roamed her body, skimming over her breasts and slipping between her thighs. Cathy moaned as his finger slipped inside of her. She was already wet and Andrew was soon between her thighs, forcing his cock inside of her.
Cathy would have liked foreplay, it seemed to be something that just did not happen in their lovemaking these days. But the feeling of his cock inside of her, pulling wide her sex walls and tickling her so erotically, erased the thought from her mind. She slipped a hand down between their bodies and discovered her clit. She strummed at it, needing to come and knowing that Andrew would not hold out long. She could not remember the last time they had fucked.
Andrew was looking at her beautiful face, eyes tightly closed as she concentrated on the feelings emanating from her crotch. He was trying his best to hold down the impending orgasm, but actually being inside his sexy wife for the first time in over a month was too much for his wanked-raw member. As the orgasm took over his body, he felt a cold shiver run down his spine and as that shiver tailed off at the bottom Cathy bucked beneath him, the guttural grunt signalling that she too had come.
Slipping off her, he kissed her cheek and they lay on their backs, panting and looking up at the deep red of the material draped over the dark wood frame of the romantic bed.
“Want to go for a walk along the front?” he asked her and she nodded. She would soon be able to give him the slip and disappear into the town for some retail therapy. She did not miss the irony in the fact that she wanted to get away from her husband on this, their romantic getaway but she did not want to analyse it either. She was not going to become another statistic, not after only two years of marriage anyway.
* * * *
“How about a Pirate ship ride?” Andrew asked as they walked along the seafront.
“Are you joking? That’s for kids,” Cathy replied shaking her head and adjusting the thick wool scarf around her neck.
“It’d be romantic,” Andrew countered, his cheeks blushing.
“Maybe in the middle of summer it might be, but not at the end of October when it’s cold and grey and windy. You’d be seasick.”
“I would not,” Andrew countered. “It’d be fun.”
“Well go on then, Long John Bloody Silver, go and join the pirate crew. I’m going to go and do some shopping.”
“We’re supposed to be here together,” he snapped. “We’re supposed to be having a romantic weekend together.”
“Well, I want to shop. Do you want to come with me?” Her reply is icy, colder than the freezing westerly breeze coming in off the sea.
“No. Go shop, selfish bitch. I guess we know the answer to the question of our marriage now, don’t we?”
Andrew strode off towards the harbour and the fake looking pirate ship. For one moment Cathy hesitated, looking after him with pain in her eyes.
“Fuck it,” she said and walked the other direction, in search of retail therapy.
She was in the middle of Topshop when an attack of conscience hit her. She picked her mobile phone out of her handbag. She dialled Andrew’s number and got the voice mail. She did a little more shopping, then tried again on her way out. Again she got the voicemail and stopped the call without leaving a message.
“Bastard’s turned off his phone,” she mumbled to herself, as she exited the shop and headed for yet another. “Hardball it is, then.”
He wasn’t back at the hotel when she reached it a few hours later either, which really made her mad. She rang room service (which Andrew would go mental over) and ordered a bottle of expensive white wine. Once it arrived she poured herself a glass and took it into the bathroom, where she indulged in a long, bubbly bath.
If he wasn’t willing to work on this marriage, there was nothing she could do. It’s not like she’d been unreasonable; the boat had been a bad idea. He’d obviously already made his decision. The tears stung her cheeks and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. After taking a huge gulp of sparkling wine, she lifted herself from the bath.
She had known things hadn’t been right between them for many months now. They barely spent more than an hour or so in each others presence. It had gotten to the point where Andrew slept most nights in the spare room so as not to disturb her when he came in late from work, or so he said. But recently he’d started to sleep in there even when he wasn’t working.
How had it happened? Where had it gone wrong? She wasn’t quite sure. She pondered the question as she smothered her body in expensive, sexy-smelling body lotion. They had been so in love when they first met. He was her knight in shining armour, saving her from the advances of some skanky male in the student bar. They had fallen instantly in love and she remembered fondly the first night they consummated that love on her small, single bed and how they fell asleep entwined together. She still loved him and he loved her, or at least she thought he did. Why then had they grown so distant? Where had they lost that love?
Was it simply that they were both so busy? She took another sip of wine, then settled down to treat her hands and nails to a manicure. She was sure that if they found whatever it was that was straining this relationship, they could make it good. They were a good couple. Everyone said so. They had loads in common; same tastes in music and TV programmes and even supported the same football team. Maybe time was the answer.
However, it was clear that Andrew had decided that spending time together was not the answer. Cathy ended up going to bed alone. She sat up as late as she could manage, reading. But as midnight approached, she found herself nodding off. Putting on her black sleep mask, (she could not sleep properly without it) she shuffled down under the heavy blankets and closed her eyes.
She woke to the blankets being violently snatched off her body.
“Andrew!” she yelled. “What the hell are you doing? It’s fucking cold in here.” She tried to snatch the blankets back, but couldn’t find them. She peeled up the corner of her mask but a cold grasp pulled her hand away and pressed it into the pillow beside her head.
“Stop pissing about,” she hissed. “Your hands are freezing.” She found her other hand clasped and forced up beside her head as well, and became aware of a body above her. “You’re drunk aren’t you? You always get horny when you’re pissed.”
Cathy wasn’t as scared as she thought she should be, nor as angry as she knew she had the right to be. She was more turned on than she had been in months and when his cold lips pressed against hers she kissed him back passionately. Their tongues danced together as their lips moved in sync.
All anger, resentment and hurt washed away as his lips, still unusually cold, slid down to her throat. She gasped and moaned as he bit her quite violently on the most erogenous zone in her upper body. He was kissing all her right spots and he sank lower, pulling down the top of the expensive new satin nightgown to pull up her breasts and suckle on her nipples.
It was strange how she seemed to still be able to feel his hands holding hers down, though they were obviously handling her breasts, arousing them with a passion she had not felt in far too long. She put it down to not being fully awake and enjoying the feeling of being held down.
His lips continued lower, over her stomach and down ’til she could feel his cold breath on her juice-covered pussy. His fingers carefully pealed her wet, warm lips apart, allowing his tongue to lap at the nub of pleasure beneath.
“Oh fuck, yes,” she moaned as his mouth and tongue lashed at her sensitised flesh, making her writhe and buck, smearing his icy cheeks with her juices. It registered somewhere in her brain that his skin was still cold, but put it down to the strong winds along the seafront. She continued to enjoy the spiralling sensations of pleasure seeping through her body and making her tingle all over.
He took her to the very brink and left her hanging there; she moaned out her frustration and writhed on the bed.
“Don’t leave me like this,” she moaned, then lifted a hand to her eye and began to slide up the eye mask. A strong slap to her hand stopped her in her tracks.
“Ow, Andrew!” she cursed, but before she got any further she felt the hard stub of an erect cock stuffing itself into her wet, wanting passage. She forgot the words that she was about to lash out with, and gasped instead. His cock felt bigger, harder than it ever had before, filling her in a way that sent actual shivers up her spine and threw her body into orgasmic paroxysms.
Over and over he thrust and over and over she cried out. She’d never been very vocal but Andrew was the only lover who had ever managed to make her scream for more of his love making.
“Fuck, I love you,” she gasped and meant it. She was stunned by the new intensity in those words, when she’d been lamenting the loss of the spark mere hours ago. When the pace changed she knew he was close, but as her body shuddered with pleasure all she heard was a far away yell, as if from somewhere out to sea. As she stopped panting, she felt him slip from between her thighs. Those cold lips pressed against hers again, briefly. :
“I love you, always,” she heard him whisper. Then a great tiredness swept over her and she knew nothing more.
* * * *
Her mobile phone woke her the following morning.
“Is this Mrs. Wild?”
“Yes, yes it is,” Cathy replied, slipping the eye mask off her face.
“Ahhh, Mrs. Wild this is Inspector Kline from Scarborough Metropolitan police, we need you to come in to the station for us as soon as you can.”
“Oh, oh. Okay,” she mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she tried to fashion the words needed to enquire as to why they wanted her.
After hanging up on the police officer, Cathy went into the bathroom. The first thing she noticed was a large bruise on her neck. She smiled. It was years since Andrew had last given her a hickey. Good job roll-neck jumpers were in this season. She pulled on a bright red one to compliment her pale features and left the hotel on her way to the police station.
* * * *
“No, no, no it can’t be,” she gasped, tears spilling down her face. “It can’t be my Andrew.”
The stocky policeman pulled out a plastic bag containing a wet open wallet that contained a soggy and stained photo of her.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wild, for your loss.”
“Not Andrew. No. I mean he came into our room last night. He was there.”
“The pirate ship got into trouble on the rough waters at five-fifteen and capsized only a few minutes later. I’m afraid your husband was caught under the boat. His end was quick, and we’ve heard others say he was talking of you when the ship was floundering in the water. He obviously loved you very much.”
* * * *
It was not until the coffin was lowered into the ground that Cathy accepted that he was really dead. She cried and cried. Cried for the opportunities lost and the way her last words were harsh and angry. If only she had persuaded him not to go, if only she had not been so selfish.
It wasn’t until she told he best friend about the night in the hotel room and how it confused her that she found out the Three Mariners was the most haunted place in Scarborough.
“He came to you from beyond the grave to make all things better,” her friend said. “Now that’s real love.”
“Love hurts,” Cathy replied through the tears, pulling down the high neck of her jumper and showing the livid, purple and black mark below that was spreading down to her collar bone and round her neck. “Love really fucking hurts.”
