Honeytrap (Part Two)

Alison, the more experienced of the two when it came to men, decided that she should have a few practice runs with Dave, before the big reveal.

“He won’t go for it straight away,” she said.  “You have to build up to adultery.  I’ll need to do the groundwork first.”

What “the groundwork” was exactly, Paula wasn’t sure, but it involved Alison getting Dave alone under the pretext of him working in her garden.  Alison was a formidable seductress.  Paula had seen her in action on their girls’ nights out: the pout, the eye flash, the cleavage, the way she hung on a man’s every word.  It made Paula feel sick to think of it now, alone in the flat.

Alison kept saying that Dave wasn’t taking the bait.  She needed more time.  Dave was always round there and yet her garden looked a right state.

Then Paula discovered that the honeytrap had backfired.  Or perhaps it went exactly to Alison’s plan? thought Paula now, glancing down at the mobile phone in her hand. 

When Dave had moved out last week, she’d hidden it behind the fridge.  He’d turned the place upside down, but hadn’t managed to find it.

“I don’t want it to end like this, you know?” He’d said before he left. 

Paula rolled her eyes and they brimmed with fresh tears.

“You should’ve thought of that before then.”

He shrugged.  “Can you text Alison if my phone turns up?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake Dave – rub it in why don’t you?”

Then he was gone.

Paula cupped the sleek black phone in her hand, stroked its touch screen and it sprung into life.  She smiled to herself.  It was like some sort of Rosetta Stone she thought.  It had led her to the discovery of Dave and Alison’s relationship, when she had found photographs of her best friend’s vajazzled pudenda stored in the image folder, it had provided the key to her understanding of Dave’s secret double-life, and now it was going to help her to get her own back.

Paula scrolled through the contact list.  Name after female name cascaded down the viewing pane.  She had already started compiling a list.  Some of the names, such as mutual friends or family members, could obviously be eliminated, but there were dozens more to work through.  Candy Cane?  Good grief, she thought, that sounds like a hooker or a transvestite, but she added her to the lineup anyway.
………………..
“Thank you all for coming,” said Paula to the assembled gaggle of women. 

A few looked surly and uncomfortable, but Paula soon put them at their ease.

“Look, I know from talking to you on the phone, that you’ve all been involved with Dave over the past few years and although it’s quite an uncomfortable experience for me, I think you can all help me to draw a line under it now and I’m very grateful.  I know what Dave’s like and I don’t bear you any hard feelings.  I’m sure he didn’t bother to tell any of you that he already had a girlfriend.”

A stroppy looking redhead coughed.  “He started seeing you when he was with me, actually.”

You must be the one who made the strange phone calls, thought Paula.

“Sorry - Hattie isn’t it?  I had no idea,” she explained.

Hattie unfolded her arms and sat back in her chair.

“Why are we here anyway?” she asked sulkily.

Paula, used her people skills, honed as an Ann Summer’s rep for many years, and went over the plan again.  Soon the girls were laughing as they passed round the t-shirts she’d brought with her for them to wear.

“Where the hell did you find this photo?!” one screeched and they all joined in with the cackles of mirth.

Paula turned the phone over in her coat pocket, but didn’t reply.

Sally spoke up.  She was the one Paula found hardest to talk to on the phone, being the most recent of Dave’s conquests, apart from Alison.

“Am I allowed to chin the bastard?” she asked.  Sally was obviously still taking it hard.

“Seeing twenty of his ex-girlfriends, walking across the restaurant towards him, is probably punishment enough,” Paula answered.

“Castration might not be punishment enough, if you ask me.”

“As they'll all be wearing Alison's muff on their t-shirts it might be though!” Paula laughed.
………………..
Half an hour later and Paula poked her head round the door of Zizzi’s to check that Dave and Alison had turned up for the meal they’d booked.  She couldn’t believe the amount of detective work she’d done to set this up.  Thankfully Alison’s teenage daughter was appalled at her mother’s behaviour and had agreed to act as her spy.  Paula hadn’t realised she’d got it in her to organise all this.  “It seems that revenge is sweet.  A woman scorned and all that…” she thought to herself and gave the waiting gang of women the thumbs up.