Kiss Don't Tell

by Avril Tremayne

  Lane raised disbelieving eyebrows.

  ‘Well, it is,’ Sarah insisted.

  ‘We’re making a mistake with the tight sheaths,’ Erica said. ‘You’ve got the boobs for them but the leanness everywhere else isn’t screaming sex.’

  ‘Who said I wanted to scream sex?’ Lane asked, a little alarmed. ‘I don’t want to scream sex. I don’t want to scream anything. I don’t want to scream.’

  ‘Then what was the point of hiring Adam Quinn?’ Erica asked.

  ‘Not to … to scream,’ Lane said.

  ‘Oh God help us all, do we have to do this?’ Sarah, covering her eyes with a hand.

  ‘The thing is, Lane, there’s screaming and then there’s screaming,’ Erica said, giving the hem of the green dress a slight tug. ‘And I thought this little fashion expedition was about putting you in the hands of Adam Quinn to entice a certain type of scream out of you.’ She stood back and looked Lane up and down again. ‘But this definitely isn’t going to do the trick, so try the pale pink silk dress Sarah chose for you instead. It’s kind of floaty and romantic, and if you cinch it with this—’ she handed over a thick, dark gold belt ‘—we might be onto something.’

  ‘Pink?’ Lane asked doubtfully. ‘With carrot hair?’

  Erica shook a finger at her. ‘Stop channelling Jeanne-the-Martyr! I keep telling you, your hair isn’t carrot, it’s scarlet. Girls spend a fortune at the hairdresser trying to get that exact shade of red. And you will be very surprised how lovely pale pink will look with it. Now, in!’

  ‘All right, but if I try it on, can we go home?’ Lane asked.

  ‘No. But if I like it and you buy it, we can drink margaritas. And I will even consent to going that hellhole bar you and Sarah like—especially if we can talk more about the elusive Mr Quinn.’

  ‘He’s not elusive,’ Sarah said reproachfully. ‘He’s just my brother, and not, as I keep telling you, a psychopath.’

  ‘Be that as it may, he’s still an unknown quantity and—as far as I’m concerned—and unmet quantity, so if I’m trusting my best friend’s tender heart to him, I need reassurance.’ She gave Lane a little push towards the fitting room. ‘So in please, margaritas and conversation await.’

  Lane stood her ground. ‘As long as you understand I’m not dressing myself to please Adam.’

  Another push. ‘In, Lane.’

  Lane reluctantly re-entered the fitting room, and as she closed the door she heard Sarah whisper, ‘What are you doing, Erica? Don’t talk about hearts. Adam’s a commitment-phobe; he’s not interested in hearts!’

  ‘Shh!’ A hiss from Erica.

  ‘Well, to listen to you talk, anyone would think he was …’ But Sarah’s voice dropped so low at that intriguing point that strain though Lane did, she could only hear a snatched word or two after that.

  Anyone would think he was what? How she wished she knew. Maybe if she knew, she would have found a way to entice him into having sex with her on Wednesday night instead of being left like a wilting wallflower.

  Lane stripped off the diabolical green sheath and yanked the pink dress down over her head. Really, who cared what he was? This was a paid job for him. She didn’t have to entice him; the onus was on him to teach her to entice him. So he’d better find a way to get the lessons underway quick smart so they could all relax.

  She glanced in the mirror, preparing for a shudder, and surprised herself with a spontaneous smile instead. She looked more closely. The pink really did suit her! She reached for the zipper at the back and tugged it up, only for it to jam halfway. She jiggled it, then tugged it, then jiggled it again, trying to ease it up, then down, then up. No joy; it wouldn’t budge.

  At that moment she saw the dress as a metaphor for her life. The dress was Adam, chosen for her but not by her, and although it seemed to suit her at first glance, something was derailing her attempt to wear it. She couldn’t reverse the zipper, but she couldn’t move forward with it either, and she was stuck on her own with the problem while her friends tried to find other options for her. Damn zipper!

  Just as she thought she was going to have to call Erica and Sarah in to help her, the zip unjammed and she managed to slide it all the way up. Victory was hers. She smiled to herself. Yes, victory was hers, just as it would be in three months’ time, without her friends having to step in to save her.

  She grabbed the gold belt Erica had insisted on and positioned it around her waist. Instantly, she imagined Adam’s big hands there and shivered deliciously. It was a short step to thinking about his hands under the belt, under the dress. On her naked flesh. That was what she wanted: his hands, on her. And his mouth, she wanted his mouth sending her mindless as he kissed her. And she just had this feeling … this feeling that if she couldn’t find her way with Adam, she’d never find it.

  On that basis, she couldn’t let her friends’ misgivings stop her. She wasn’t going to let anyone stop her from doing this. She was unsticking the zip that was her stalled sex life on her own and going all the way up with it.

  She gave the belt tug, tightening it so enthusiastically an ‘Ouch’ flew out of her mouth.

  The whispering outside stopped abruptly.

  ‘Laney?’ Erica. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she called back, loosening the belt a notch. ‘Just give me a minute and I’ll be out to show you.’ She looked at herself in the mirror and nodded. ‘Coming out now.’

  There was a moment of silence as she walked out and favoured the girls with a slow twirl. But she found, for once, she didn’t need their approval. She liked the dress without needing anyone else’s opinion.

  Still, it was nice to see Sarah and Erica smiling conspiratorially at each other like proud parents. Better than the tension-fuelled whisper-fest they’d been indulging in all day.

  Erica came up behind her, ripped out her hair elastic and turned her to the larger mirror. She smoothed the straight fall of Lane’s hair. ‘Darling, if you wear this with my chocolate suede high heels, I’m going to want to do you,’ she said. ‘If only I could be there tonight to make sure Adam’s worth the transformation. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to let me stay?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  ‘Damn!’

  ‘And just to be one hundred per cent clear, I’m buying this dress for me, not Adam,’ Lane added.

  ‘Aha,’ Erica said, patently unconvinced.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘Erica!’

  ‘All right, all right. Go. Change. Pay. Margaritas. Talk.’

  ***

  Erica barely waited until she’d ordered a double round of drinks (to avoid re-order interruptions) from Glory, the barmaid who was practically a fixture at Midnight Madness, before fixing Lane with a laser stare. ‘If you say one more time you’re not dressing to please Adam, I’m going to cut up every white shirt in your wardrobe. You’re deflecting.’

  ‘I’m not deflecting!’ Lane insisted. ‘I’m really not dressing to please him.’

  ‘Hide the scissors tonight, Lane!’ Erica sing-songed.

  ‘I mean not … not as such. Of course I’m interested in Adam’s reaction to the pink dress, but only as a means of comparing it to his reaction the other two times he’s seen me. It will be instructional to note if there’s more of a spark there.’

  ‘Oh instructional,’ Erica said, with an eye roll. ‘In that case—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Sarah interrupted her, reaching out a refocusing hand to grip Erica’s wrist. ‘Are you saying there hasn’t been a spark, Lane?’

  ‘Not on his part, no.’

  ‘Not on his part,’ Sarah repeated, ‘but what about on your part?’

  And—bang!—into Lane’s head popped an image of Adam tracing a fingertip around her lips. ‘Oh,’ she breathed, as her own fingers came up to press against her lips, which had started to tingle at the memory. The memory kept going … his fingers moving down over her chin … t
o her collarbone … to her buttons … undoing them … that line of freckles. ‘Oh,’ she breathed again. Would the pink silk dress have made a difference? If she’d been wearing it on Wednesday, would he have pulled down the zip and dragged it off her body? Put his hands on her skin? His mouth? God. Oh, my God.

  ‘Okay you’re scaring me, Lane,’ Sarah said, and she really did sound fearful. ‘What’s the “God-oh-my-God” about?’

  Lane snapped back to the present. ‘Did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Well you did,’ Sarah said. ‘And I don’t want you to “God-oh-my-God” like that about Adam. I warned him, I really did, not to do this to you.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Whatever it is that makes girls say “God-oh-my-God” about him.’

  ‘Do all girls say that about him?’

  ‘As far as I can tell.’

  ‘Oh! It’s just that he … he … he …’

  ‘He …’ Sarah’s eyes were wide with burgeoning dread.

  ‘He …?’ Erica’s were wide with unholy joy. ‘Don’t make me beg, Laney.’

  ‘It’s nothing, really. Just that the other night I started taking off my clothes—’

  ‘Oh my G-o-o-o-o-d.’ Sarah, melting down, covered her face with her hands. ‘No, no! I don’t need to hear this.’

  ‘—and he stopped me—’

  ‘Really don’t need to hear this.’

  ‘—so I did the buttons back up.’

  Sarah peeked between her fingers. ‘Okay, I’m recovering.’

  ‘And he undid them again.’

  ‘Gah!’ Sarah’s fingers closed up again, eyes shielded. ‘I can’t take it.’

  Glory chose that moment to deposit six margaritas on the bar in front of them.

  ‘Ah, thank you, Glory, what a sense of timing you have,’ Erica said, with a travesty of a smile.

  Glory half tossed her head, as though they weren’t worth a full toss, grunted something unintelligible, and left them to it.

  ‘Okay, hold that thought, Lane, and stop moaning, Sarah,’ Erica said, looking around. She nodded at a table by the window. ‘Let’s grab that table over there—that one with the two stools. We can gaze out at the hustle and bustle of grungy old King Street while we contemplate why we keep coming to this bar when the cocktails are so bad and the service is worse.’

  ‘It’s our old uni hangout,’ Lane said.

  ‘And if either of you was still at university, I might—but only might—understand,’ Erica said. And then she grinned at Sarah. ‘But maybe it’s serendipity. Adam lives here in Newtown, doesn’t he, Sarah? Maybe he’ll walk in off the street.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘Not a chance. He hates this place.’

  ‘Then maybe we can go and call on him.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah and Lane burst out together.

  Erica sighed. ‘I’ll meet him one day, might as well get it over with.’

  ‘Why is there any need for you to meet him?’ Lane said.

  Erica blinked at her. ‘Um … because he’s going to be an important fixture in your life for three full months.’

  ‘So was Chao, and for way longer than three months.’

  ‘And who the hell is Chao that I should want to meet him? Or is Chao a her?’

  ‘He’s a him. My Mandarin teacher. Who you never insisted on meeting.’

  Erica opened her mouth … then closed it. She looked at Sarah. ‘I’m not sure what to say to that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sure what to say to anything at this point,’ Sarah said, and slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder, picked up her two drinks and made her way to their chosen table.

  Lane and Sarah took the two stools that were already there while Erica snagged a third from a group of guys nearby with a swing of her hair and a come-hither smile that managed to charm them out of the stool without being quite come-hither enough to make them actually come hither.

  ‘Now you see, I need to be able to replicate that,’ Lane said, and flung her head in a circle in a poor facsimile of Eric’s stylish swish.

  ‘To start with, you’ll have to get rid of that elastic band,’ Erica told her.

  Lane reached a defensive hand up to her ponytail, and Erica laughed, then sighed. ‘If you won’t even take out the band, I’m not sure what the point of the pink silk is,’ she said. ‘But let’s get back to the undone buttons anyway.’

  ‘Do we have to?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘You started all this,’ Erica pointed out.

  Lane took a sip of her margarita. ‘I’m afraid the undone buttons were done straight up again, so it’s not a very exciting finale.’

  ‘By him?’ Erica asked.

  ‘By him. And the lesson was over.’

  ‘What were you wearing?’

  ‘My navy blue suit.’

  ‘And the other time?’

  ‘My navy blue suit.’

  Erica pantomimed banging her head on the table. ‘So. Much. Becomes. Clear.’

  ‘Clothing is incidental in our case,’ Lane said, in her own defence. ‘I’m paying him, remember?’

  ‘If you really believe clothing is incidental,’ Erica said, ‘I want to know why we’ve spent the past three hours looking for something for you to wear tonight. At your instigation I might add.’

  ‘It’s … complicated.’

  ‘You’re a smart girl, Lane. I’m sure you can find the words.’

  Lane took another sip of margarita. ‘Because the button-unbutton episode got me thinking, which is what a lesson is supposed to do.’

  ‘Thinking about …?’ Erica asked.

  ‘David Bennett.’

  ‘Did you know we all have a tell when we lie? Sarah’s is easy—she blushes. Yours is more subtle. Your eyes flick to the left.’

  ‘My eyes aren’t flicking,’ Lane said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’ Lane insisted, and tried hard to keep them still.

  ‘Okaaay, keep going and I will ignore that little twitch of your right eyelid as it struggles under the pressure of not flicking.’

  Lane took a deep breath. ‘The point is, clothing won’t be incidental when it comes to David, but with Adam … Well, with Adam practice will make perfect, so I might as well practise.’

  ‘Practise,’ Erica said, and licked a patch of salt off the rim of her glass. ‘So we went shopping for three hours because in three months’ time, when we will be in an entirely different season, you want to look good for David Bennett. It has nothing to do with seeing Adam Quinn tonight.’ She smiled. ‘Well, good to know the legendary David Bennett is still in the picture, anyway. I was starting to wonder. You know, since the only guy’s name I’ve heard since I got back is Adam Quinn.’

  Lane frowned. ‘Of course David’s still in the picture. It’s just …’

  Erica cocked an eyebrow. ‘Just …?’

  ‘Well you only got back last night. And ever since I told you about Adam, all your questions have been about him, so of course it’s his name you’re hearing. That’s all.’ She forced out a laugh. ‘There’s no mystery.’

  ‘No mystery. Got it. Just a job. Got it. Nothing more than a practice run. Got it. And you may or may not decide to wear your blue suit tonight and maybe just show Adam the dress because it doesn’t matter if he likes it or not and it’s no big deal if he doesn’t undo your buttons.’

  ‘Zipper.’

  ‘Zipper?’

  ‘The dress has a zipper, not buttons.’

  ‘Ah, I see. You’ve thought it all out.’

  ‘No. I mean yes. I mean … no? I mean of course I’ll care, but it will be academic.’

  ‘Oh, academic. Like he might give you a score or something, for your femme fatale fashion sense.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lane said and helped herself to another big gulp of margarita. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Like at school. Mr Cook—English. Miss Symons—geography. Mrs Feldman
—mathematics. Mr Quinn—fashion.’

  ‘Not exactly like that, obviously.’

  ‘So … what? More romantic?’

  ‘No! As if I’d ever be interested in Adam as a romantic part— Oh!’ She cast a conscience-stricken look at Sarah. ‘I don’t mean that the way it sounds.’

  ‘Hey, don’t apologize!’ Sarah said quickly. ‘I am very, very glad to hear you say that! Believe me! Ecstatic. Jubilant.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Erica slipped in. ‘We’ll be wondering why you recommended him in the first place in a minute.’

  ‘Well not to usurp David Bennett, that’s for sure,’ Sarah said. ‘Adam is not for romancing. He hates the mere mention of romance.’ She looked hard at Lane. ‘Keep in mind that he’s a total, unrelenting tart so definitely not the man for you, Lane. Believe me, I’ve had enough friends fall in love with him over the years to know what I’m talking about. They all get their hearts broken because he just will not love them back—I wonder if he even can love a woman back—and then they end up hating me, which is so unfair! I just don’t understand women who know a guy is a womanizer, a philanderer, a Casanova, and yet somehow think he’s going to settle down.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Lane said uncomfortably, ‘I think David Bennett is a philanderer, too. I don’t know any substantiated details, because he seems incredibly discreet—he’s not even on any social media!—but I do know he’s very experienced with women, as I’ve told you before. The girls are all lining up for him at work, praying for a turn.’

  ‘Yes, but David Bennett isn’t my brother,’ Sarah said, ‘so killing him if he breaks your heart won’t be morally ambiguous for me.’

  ‘But how can Adam break my heart when I’m separating my head from my body?’

  Erica laughed. ‘Which sounds psychopathic, of course – exactly what we’re trying to avoid by using Adam.’

  ‘I’m talking figuratively, not literally.’

  ‘Well duh, Lane! I’d be calling the psychiatrist if I thought otherwise!’

  ‘I’m just trying to make the distinction between Adam and David.’

  ‘Because David is the body and head?’

  ‘Well … yes. Or at least the possibility is there, because I won’t be paying him, so he’ll have to want me for my own sake, and I think … I think …’