Untouchable

by Ava Marsh

  It’s then I see the calendar on the wall. And the date. The fourteenth of February.

  Happy fucking Valentine, Grace.

  Swilling my mug under the tap, I dry it with a tea towel and replace it on the shelf. Like I was never here at all. Then pull on my coat and let myself out, closing the door to the flat softly behind me.

  I don’t bother with goodbye.

  12

  Saturday, 14 February

  ‘God, I’ve missed you.’

  Roy traces a finger from the hollow of my breastbone down to my belly button, where it pauses, waiting for my response.

  ‘It’s been a while.’ I keep my voice non-committal.

  He smiles, but his eyes betray his disappointment. Poor old Roy. Always hoping for more. My gaze flicks to the card on my chest of drawers. A cutesy teddy bear holding a red heart-shaped balloon with ‘Be My Valentine’ printed across the front.

  Jesus. A shift of guilt inside me. I hate feeling I’m leading someone on, even when I’m not. And I have made it clear, as firmly and kindly as I can, that this is just what it is.

  ‘Issues at home.’ Roy clears his throat. ‘Big fuss about my daughter’s wedding. I couldn’t get away till it was all over.’

  Roy lives somewhere in the Home Counties. The kind of place where women like me exist only in the pages of the Daily Mail. I’m his treat, his dirty little secret, possibly his sole indiscretion in an otherwise ordinary, irreproachable life.

  ‘Did it go well?’ I ask.

  He gazes at me. He’s had a recent haircut, I notice. It makes his bald patch more pronounced.

  ‘Your daughter’s wedding,’ I prompt.

  ‘Ah. Yes. You know, the usual.’ He flushes slightly and looks away, as if he’s made some kind of faux pas.

  ‘You’re not keen on him then? Your son-in-law?’

  He presses his thin lips into a line. ‘No, it’s not that. He’s a nice enough chap, a doctor. Neurologist, I think – something like that. It’s more that … you know … you so desperately want them to be happy and …’

  He pauses. Regroups. ‘The whole marriage thing isn’t easy.’

  I turn on to my back. My sense of smell seems heightened somehow, and Roy’s aftershave is almost unbearably strong. I study the ceiling, still feeling a little queasy.

  ‘Yes, I know. I was married once.’

  ‘You were?’ Roy’s expression is incredulous. I wonder briefly if I should be insulted.

  ‘Seven years,’ I say.

  Why am I even telling him this? I close my eyes. It must be the dregs of my hangover. Or last night’s encounter, already leaving the stain of regret.

  ‘Seven years,’ he repeats.

  I reopen my eyes and turn to face Roy. He still looks faintly shocked. Or perhaps merely surprised.

  Too much detail, I scold myself, aware I can’t afford to get complacent. Clients don’t like having their idea of you shattered – even clients as devoted as Roy. Most prefer to believe you have absolutely nothing in common with their wives.

  ‘So what happened?’ he asks, and I can tell by his tone that he really wants to know. And seeing he cares somehow makes me feel worse.

  ‘I screwed it up.’ I try to sound upbeat. Obviously fail miserably, because his expression turns sympathetic, his hand reaching across to mine.

  ‘It takes two, though, Stella, to screw up a marriage.’

  I return his gaze. ‘Not in this case.’

  I say it quickly but it’s too late. My mind seizes on an image of my husband’s face after the police had dropped me home, his appalled, shell-shocked expression when I broke down and told him what had happened.

  A good marriage. A sane and useful life. Wiped out in one afternoon.

  I blink hard, squeezing away the memory. See Roy open his mouth to say something, then close it again. Knowing not to push things too far.

  ‘So,’ I say, as brightly as I can manage, ‘how’s it going at Twickers?’ It’s our joke, rugby being the standard excuse Roy gives for being here; though I do wonder how he makes this stick out of season.

  ‘I’m much more interested in the state of play here,’ he chuckles, his hand lowering itself to my breast, his face taking on an intense look that tells me he’s had enough of conversation.

  I manage a surreptitious glance at the clock on the bedside table. Only ten to three. Oh God, another two hours and ten minutes to go. Which might be fine with a man not well into his sixties. A man still up for doing it a couple of times in a row. But even with the aid of the little blue pills the GP prescribes for Roy, twice would be a stretch too far.

  So we need to make this one last. My heart sinks. All I want right now is to let my head droop on to the pillow and sleep off the aftermath of last night.

  Consequences, Grace. There’s always consequences.

  I turn to Roy and smile, but he doesn’t notice. He’s distracting himself with my nipple, twirling it in his fingers like a radio dial. I can’t even be bothered to pretend it’s erotic, just let him fiddle away while my thoughts drift to that place in my head where no one can follow.

  A narrow bed in a bright whitewashed room.

  A single stone cottage.

  An island surrounded by sea.

  Nothing to see beyond except grass and cliff, rock and sky. Nothing to hear but the wind, and the steady, rhythmic pounding of waves on the rocks below.

  13

  Thursday, 19 February

  The doctor peers up at me from behind the speculum. ‘Rather a lot of inflammation up round your cervix, Miss Thomas. Looks like you may have picked up a mild infection.’

  Infection? My mind leaps to HIV. I take a calming breath and remind myself she said ‘mild’.

  She drops the plastic speculum into the waste bin and pulls off her latex gloves. ‘Probably trichomoniasis, but we’ll run a check for chlamydia too. Any other symptoms?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Painful intercourse. Unusual vaginal discharge.’

  I shake my head, wishing I could get out of these stirrups. It’s hard to discuss anything with your legs up in the air.

  ‘So this was simply a routine check-up? Nothing in particular you’re concerned about.’

  I shake my head again. ‘So, what causes it? This tricho …’

  ‘Trichomoniasis. Unprotected sex,’ says the doctor, her tone peremptory.

  ‘But I always use condoms. I mean always …’ I stop. It’s true. I do always use condoms … with clients.

  Shit. The man from the restaurant. I can’t remember clearly enough what we did.

  ‘It only takes once,’ she says wearily. I feel shame, hard and heavy in my stomach. How could I have been so stupid?

  ‘How about oral?’ Guilt congeals the feeling in my belly as I think of other clients I might have exposed. ‘Can you pass it on that way?’

  The doctor shakes her head. ‘Only penetrative sex. Or shared sex toys.’ She releases my legs and waits for me to heave myself into a sitting position. ‘Do you need a pregnancy test as well?’

  ‘I’m on the pill. Belt and braces.’ People imagine what escorts fear most is violence from clients; my worst nightmare is one getting me pregnant.

  ‘You on any other medication?’

  ‘Just an inhaler. For my asthma.’

  She scribbles a prescription and hands it to me. ‘Antibiotics. Broad spectrum. Single dose. No alcohol and no sex for a week.’

  I take the piece of paper and stuff it into my handbag. ‘Thanks.’

  She calls me back once I’ve dressed. ‘If you need more condoms, you can pick some up free at reception.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, my smile sheepish. ‘I won’t be making that mistake again.’

  14

  Wednesday, 25 February

  I have to cancel two appointments while I wait for the antibiotics to do their thing. One with a regular who I know plans meticulously for our meetings. The other a dinner date with a Finnish man who sounded nice on the ph
one.

  I calculate my little foray into Civvie Street has cost me well over twelve hundred quid. That’ll teach you, Grace.

  Still, I use the fallow time productively. Go through my bank statements, pay all my bills. Get in a few sessions at the gym and persuade my hairdresser to squeeze me in for a trim. Actually take myself off to the cinema, luxuriating in the dark of a matinee watching Lars Von Trier.

  On my last afternoon in purdah I’m updating my website, mixing things up a bit. A couple of new pictures, taken from the batch I had done six months ago. A quick tweak of the text. I like to keep it sharp, snappy. Nothing cheesy; no erotic poetry or lurid accounts of my sexual fantasies.

  Five emails arrive while I’m fiddling around online. One from Stacy at the crisis centre to see if I can do an extra shift on Friday. Answer – yes. One from a client I’ve seen a couple of times, an engineer for a large oil company, down from Aberdeen for a meeting next week. Another yes. A request for face pics – I pick out three and mail them back.

  The man enquiring about role play – the usual stuff, maid and master, boss and secretary – I refer on to Anna. God knows, getting through an appointment with a straight face can be hard enough at the best of times.

  The last is from Ben, asking if I could meet up tomorrow, in Gloucestershire of all places. I check it out on Google maps. A nice country house hotel, but looks a bugger to get to without a car.

  I ponder it for several minutes. I usually refuse out-of-town appointments. The travel is a hassle, and you’re not paid for the time it takes. Besides, I’ve got the wedding in a few days’ time. Plenty of country house there.

  On the other hand. I’m pleased Ben wants to book me again.

  I’ll decide later, I think, stretching out the stiffness in my back. My stomach is growly, but I don’t feel hungry. The lingering effects of the antibiotics, maybe. I consider going out for a walk. Pick up something light for supper, then come back and read for a while, get an early night. I’m about to shut down my laptop when another email pops into my inbox.

  I open it up, assuming it’s from a client. But it’s from a woman.

  Hi,

  I’m sorry I don’t know your real name. Amanda, my girlfriend – I think you know her as Elisa – always called you Stella. I’m not even sure I’ve got the right person, but you’re the only Stella I’ve found working in this part of London.

  Anyway, I was wondering if you’d heard from her at all? She left the flat yesterday in the afternoon, and hasn’t been back since. I’ve tried her mobile but she never picks up. I’m getting a bit worried and trying everyone who might have seen her recently.

  Thanks, Kristen

  I stare at the screen. Elisa has disappeared?

  My first thought is she must have gone off on a long appointment and failed to tell her girlfriend. Elisa regularly has two or even three-day bookings from clients who want her all to themselves. It would explain why she’s not answering her mobile.

  It doesn’t seem likely, though. Elisa might play up the ditzy blonde to punters, but underneath she’s meticulous; she wouldn’t forget to tell Kristen.

  So she must have some other reason. Something she doesn’t want her to find out. An affair, perhaps? Another girl on the side?

  But I’m not convinced of that either. Elisa seems devoted to her girlfriend. She’s never said much about Kristen, granted – just her name – but she was always mentioning little things: stuff they were going to do together, places they’d been. She told me once about a birthday treat she’d been planning for ages, a surprise weekend in Madrid, staying at one of the city’s most luxurious hotels.

  Besides, it’s not her style somehow. If Elisa – Amanda– has tired of Kristen, I feel sure she’d deal with it up front rather than sneak around behind her back.

  I open up the reply box, my fingers hovering over the keys. I’m about to say I can’t think of anything when I remember the party. Elisa tinkering with her phone, texting or whatever in the middle of the action. I was annoyed. And surprised. She was usually so professional.

  What was it she’d said when I asked her? Some kind of family crisis. Could that have something to do with her disappearance?

  It’s all I can come up with so I type it out quickly. Say I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but I’m sure it will be OK. That Elisa is bound to turn up soon.

  I go back and change the name to Amanda before I press ‘Send’. Amanda, I repeat to myself firmly, trying to fix it in my head. By mutual agreement we call each other by our working names, so we don’t slip up in front of clients. It’s difficult to adjust.

  I abandon the idea of a walk. Make myself a decaf tea instead and find a packet of biscuits in the back of the cupboard, the ones with the coffee icing. Only a little stale. I nibble one while I run a bath. I already showered before the GUM clinic this morning, but I’ve an urge for the soothing comfort of hot water. I pour in a capful of Tisserand floral soak, strip off, sink down, leaving only my face exposed.

  Could anything have actually happened to Amanda, I wonder. I’m sure I’m being silly, that Kristen has probably overlooked a note, or got her wires crossed perhaps. But I can’t quite shake the feeling of disquiet.

  I close my eyes and inhale the scent of oranges and lavender, an echo of summer, of somewhere more pastoral. I breathe slowly, trying to relax, but my mind has built up its own momentum, determined to run this to ground.

  In all honesty, I’ve never worried much about what I do. Statistically, prostitutes may well be more at risk of rape and physical abuse, but that’s more of a concern for girls working the street. I take the usual precautions. Don’t answer withheld numbers. Always call clients back on their mobiles to confirm an appointment, and insist on a real, verifiable name before going to a private residence.

  And in three years nothing has happened to make even this caution feel warranted. Sure, some clients can be a bit pushy, wanting to try something off-limits or dispense with the condom, but nobody has ever really crossed the line. Most are polite, gentle, even charming – treating us better, I suspect, than their own wives or girlfriends.

  No, the things that bother me most are far more prosaic. Whether an appointment will go well. Whether my shaving rash will flare up, or I’ll get an asthma attack halfway through.

  So why, now, am I so uneasy about Amanda? It’s not like I know her that well. We’ve only worked together, what, half a dozen times? And we’ve never met up socially.

  I sit up and soak a flannel. Press it to my face. It was the anxiety in Kristen’s email, I realize, the fear underpinning every sentence. For the first time it hits me just how difficult it must be to love people like us. I always assumed the jealousy would be the hardest thing; now, I can see, it may well be the worry.

  But there’s a niggle at the back of my mind, a detail I never even thought to mention to Kristen. That moment at the party, in the kitchen, when I asked Elisa – Amanda – what she was doing with her mobile. I remember the flush in her cheeks. The way her eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine.

  A family crisis, she said. Yet in the ten hours we spent together that night she showed no sign of being anxious or preoccupied. She seemed upbeat, cheerful even – apart from that little incident with Harry and the facial.

  I pull the flannel off my face and wipe it with a towel. Release the plug and lie there, unmoving, while the water sucks and drains around me.

  Amanda. The more I consider it, the more my certainty grows that she was lying about those texts. However badly I’ve misread things in the past, I couldn’t miss a reaction as obvious as that.

  No, I decide. There was definitely something else going on. Though what, of course, I’ll probably never know.

  15

  Thursday, 26 February

  ‘Nice place.’

  I slip off my coat and drop it on a chair, walk over to the hotel window and examine the view across the wide lawn to the distant lake. The crowd of birds massing on the water, white against stee
l grey.

  ‘Work’s paying,’ Ben says. ‘I’ve got a client conference tomorrow. You don’t mind coming all the way out here?’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s nice to get out of town for a while. Remind myself that there’s life outside the capital.’

  Ben smiles. ‘I know what you mean.’

  He stands over by the desk, dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers. His hair glossy, recently washed. I look away. Attractive clients make me uncomfortable, like I’ve got more to prove.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ he says.

  ‘Good thoughts?’ My voice comes out too bright, its tone somehow false.

  ‘Very.’

  I smile, but there’s not enough heart in it. In truth I feel odd, wobbly. Something in Kristen’s email yesterday has me rattled. Or maybe I’m just getting too old for all this.

  ‘So,’ says Ben, looking like someone struggling to get into his stride, ‘how’s things with you?’

  ‘Fine. Same old.’

  He studies me for a few seconds. ‘You seem tired, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  I flush, turning self-conscious. ‘Sorry. Probably a bit of a rush job with my make-up. I’ll knock fifty pounds off.’

  Something flashes across his face. I can’t tell if it’s hurt or irritation. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Stella. I wasn’t complaining. I’m concerned about you, that’s all.’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’ I cross the room to meet him. ‘Enough talk.’ I reach out to unbutton his shirt, but his hand comes up to stop me.

  ‘Slow down.’

  I laugh. ‘That’s not something I’m used to hearing.’

  Ben keeps hold of my hand. ‘I thought we might take a walk. Over to the lake.’

  I stare at him. Seriously?

  Then remind myself he’s paying. And a tidy sum too. Enough money to entice me into a two-hour train and a twenty-minute taxi ride. ‘Sure. That would be lovely.’

  Thank God I had the forethought to bring a spare pair of boots. Flat ones, so I don’t have to teeter around the Gloucestershire countryside in black stilettos. Though now I’m thinking this pencil skirt wasn’t such a great idea.