by Fox, Lana
Anyway, after half an hour or so, I hear Janey get home and turn on her music, so I climb out of the bath and wrap myself in my towel just in case she’s free to say hi. It so happens she’s more than free. As I walk out of the bathroom she walks out of the bedroom and we almost slam head-first straight into one another. ‘Woah!’ she says, lurching backwards and holding up her palms.
‘Oops,’ I say, and I notice her gaze running over my damp body, my cleavage, my thighs, culminating at my freshly painted toes. ‘Gorgeous varnish,’ she says. ‘You’re so pretty in pink.’ Then, looking back up, she seems to remember herself. ‘How are you?’ she asks.
‘Just had dinner with a friend.’
‘Not Guy,’ she says, and her expression surprises me. As far as looks go, it’s a cross between a smoulder and a glare.
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘Definitely not Guy.’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Did you see the delivery downstairs? It came this afternoon. From the arsehole himself, I imagine.’
‘Oh.’ I feel a little lift in my chest, but it only lasts for a second before I’m feeling sick again.
‘Maybe he’s feeling bad about the way he treated you.’
‘It wasn’t really his fault,’ I say.
Janey looks me right in the eye. ‘It was totally his fault. Insensitive bastard. If I see him again, I’ll introduce him to my fist.’
Oh, my God, she’s beautiful right now! So wild and dark and do-as-I-say. She’s wearing a black ribby top that clings to her body, and the shapes of her nipples are clear. Round her neck is a silver chain sporting a Ban the Bomb symbol. I want to grab hold of it and pull her towards me, yanking at her neck, pulling her off her guard. I want to kiss her – oh, Kitten! – all I can think of is kissing her.
She reaches out and touches my hair. ‘You’ve had it cut. It’s lovely.’
‘Really?’ I say.
‘Gorgeous,’ she says. ‘And you smell lovely too,’ she tells me, running a cool fingertip down my arm – it feels like she’s a cool drop of water on a humid day – and the slowness of her movements … oh, dear God, it’s enough to make me jump on her, rip open her tank top and attack her beautiful body, planting my mouth on hers. ‘You’re fresh from the bath,’ she says. And when I’m too stunned to comment, she adds, ‘You’re warm.’ Her voice is a murmur. ‘Perfectly warm.’ As soon as her fingertip pauses around my elbow, she reverses her course and strokes it back towards my shoulder. I may be imagining things, but as she passes my cleavage, I swear I hear her give a sudden breath.
‘Are you seeing Lil tonight?’ I ask, hoping she’s split up with the girl.
At this, Janey pulls back and hugs herself. ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘I have to work tonight.’ And before I know it, she’s giving a little wave and entering her bedroom.
Downstairs, Kitten, is a bouquet of birds of paradise, my favourite flowers in the whole, wide world. They’re utterly gorgeous! I pull off the message tag, my insides light with pleasure. Maybe Janey’s right about Guy feeling bad about last night.
Drum roll, Kitten. Are you ready for the big suspense?
The card says, ‘For my Beautiful Debs. Why? Because.’
It’s signed Henry.
Chapter Eleven
To Be or Not
Friday, 23 March
Dear Kitten,
My goodness, I was in a resplendent mood this morning!
First, we chatted about Janey’s new job at Pussyfoot Shoes while we were making breakfast. I can hardly believe that she starts tomorrow! Anyway, after I filled her in a bit, we fell into talking about shoes. According to Janey, high heels restrict women’s movements in order to force them to move in a different, sexier, curvier way. ‘My dissertation tutor says that makes high heels sexist,’ says Janey, ‘but that isn’t the only way of seeing it.’ After all, when you restrict someone and they overcome the challenge, they grow stronger than ever. ‘It’s like gymnasts,’ says Janey, ‘when they do amazing things on the beam. The beam’s a restriction, but it’s one they choose to conquer, and they become more powerful when they do.’ Janey also says there’s a lot of sexist guff out there. After all, in the 1500s, high heels were in fashion for men as well as women. I tell her that there was a rumour a few years back that high-heeled shoes were coming in for men, but it never took on.
Janey looks angry at this, buzzing the blender for longer than usual. By the time she says, ‘Typical men!’ she’s all red-cheeked and adorable.
‘We have a drag queen who shops at the store,’ I say, ‘and he’s a man … you know … technically. He comes once a month or so to buy high heels.’ Then I get all confused about genders, and add, ‘Does that make him a “he” or a “she”?’
Janey shrugs. ‘Maybe it depends if he identifies as a woman at the time.’
‘Identifies?’ I ask, puzzled.
‘It’s a way of saying “how someone feels”.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ I say. Then I mull for a minute. ‘He doesn’t look like a woman. Not when he’s buying his shoes.’ Then I pause and add, ‘But should I call him a “she”?’
Janey gives me a smile. ‘We’d have to ask her and see what she wants to be, right?’
These words stay with me as I stare at the birds of paradise I’ve placed in a vase on the windowsill. Henry never asked me who I wanted to be. He didn’t even ask me who I was. So why, when I think of that card he wrote, and the flowers he delivered, do I feel brightly triumphant?
Janey must have caught me gazing at the flowers because she interrupted me. ‘You like birds of paradise, don’t you?’
‘They’re my favourites,’ I said.
‘He cheated on you,’ she said softly. ‘He broke the rules.’ She then padded across to me, her strange, green smoothie in the glass she was holding. And before heading off upstairs, she looked me deep in the eyes and said, ‘You deserve to be bought birds of paradise because your lover loves you. Not because they cheated on you and want to get you back.’
I blink at her. She looks adorable in little grey shorts and a black-and-white striped top that clings to her breasts and body. Her pale legs go on and on. She smells of cucumbers … but maybe that’s the smoothie.
‘Is that why he bought me the flowers?’ I ask, at last. ‘Because he wants me back?’
Janey closes her eyes, gives a deep sigh, and turns away. As she leaves the room, she tells me, ‘Enjoy them while you can.’
And she’s right. After all, they die quickly.
Around eleven, after I’ve tried to sell shoes to lots of shoe-phobic customers, I get a text from Guy. It says: Haven’t heard from you, Goddess. Got time for dinner tonight?
I stare at the text, remembering his body curled around Valerie’s. I have no idea how to respond, so I don’t. I’m distracted by a sudden fear that I’ve left the living-room window wide open, so I call Janey in case she’s home. But it isn’t Janey that answers.
‘Janey’s phone,’ says Lil.
I ask if Janey’s around, but I’m tongue-tied and embarrassed. I feel like I’ve somehow exposed my feelings for Janey, though I was obviously just panicking. But I somehow needed to hear Janey’s voice. Plus she’d said it wasn’t working out with Lil, yet here was the girl herself, comfortably answering Janey’s calls! I admit, it made me feel twisted inside – angry from the inside out. And then, after I’d asked Lil to close the bloody window – which, it turns out, was closed after all – I feel useless again, and old, and crazy. So I dream of the birds of paradise and imagine Henry grovelling his apologies, his tears falling on my peep-toe shoes.
Anyhoo, around lunchtime, I pop out to grab myself a sandwich, but because of a load of building work I take a quieter route. This leads me behind a car park and past a betting shop, and for some strange reason I get the urge to look up. Above the betting shop is a smart-looking office with windows that are far swankier than the store beneath it. Letters are impeccably stencilled in gold on every window. They say: Malone and Dawes, C
hartered Accountants.
Holy shit, Kitten! It was Guy’s office!
It took me by surprise for a minute because I’d expected a posher place. Up above a betting shop isn’t my idea of swish! But in any case, I decided to go on up. I’d surprise him; see if he wanted a sandwich. Maybe then we could talk face-to-face. And if not, no harm done.
So I find the side door, which says, ‘Out to Lunch’, but I know that probably means they’re just up there eating sandwiches, so I head up the stairs and through another door, and the room I walk into is actually rather nice. Swanky wood panelling and floorboards and a sturdy oak desk at the centre of the room. There’s a nice leather swivel chair and rows of wine-red leather-bound books. On the desk itself is a photo in a frame: a little girl who looks like Valerie, except she has gorgeous dimples and dark hair in plaits.
Each side of the desk is a door. One is ajar and the other is not. Now call it intuition, if you like, but I’m drawn towards the open one … can’t seem to help myself. Maybe Guy is inside? Maybe I can catch him for lunch.
That’s when I hear the first noise. A male voice moaning, ‘Do it, do it.’
Up against the crack in the door, I stare into the office beyond.
I would tell you how it was decorated, Kitten. Neat or messy, suave or tacky. But these weren’t the details I caught. Because Guy was lying prone on the desk, his tie loose, his shirt partly unbuttoned and his trousers down. And on top of him was Valerie.
Kitten, is it my curse to catch my lovers cheating on me, in the buff?
I get a sickly feeling at first to see Valerie’s ecstatic face as she bounces on him. And he looks so much more into it than he does with me, and it’s so frustrating that I can’t look away – I’m just too wet not to watch. I mean, oh, my God, Valerie is hot. She’s wearing a cream-coloured corset that has been pulled down to reveal her tanned breasts – and because of the way it pushes them up, they’re particularly round and bouncy. She’s also wearing flesh-coloured stockings and her curvy bum is magnificent as she rides up and down, up and down, harder and faster at every turn. She’s wearing the same spiky shoes she wore on our date, and the light in her eyes is devilish. Her facial expression makes her look like a girl who’s triumphantly laying into her playground enemy.
With her every thrust, Guy’s stare moves from her breasts – not her shoes – to her pussy. His brow is furrowed and his mouth is snarly and he’s saying, ‘That’s a good girl … fuck me … fuck me …’ over and over.
And it hurts to see them there doing it without me, as if I never existed, as if I was their third, not the other way around. But then again, I’m wearing these lacy knickers that rub, enjoyably, against my trimmed pussy, and Valerie looks so gorgeous as she rides him to ecstasy, her eyes glazing wildly, her hips moving in a crazed abandon, that I lean against the door post and slip my fingers up my skirt.
‘Fuck, yes,’ moans Guy.
And by the time I’m on the edge of climax, Valerie comes in a tearing explosion of squeals and thumping, and thrusting frenzy, and Guy groans at the very same time, shouting, ‘Yes, oh, fuck it, yes … ’
And from the squelching noises Valerie’s pussy is making, he must be slicked with her wetness, and that’s when I come, the heat erupting, my own pussy filling with a tingly high that rises and quells, then rises and quells, then rises and rises and quells yet again.
Of course, I made one hell of a noise. That’s why, when I finally come down, both of them are staring at me.
Valerie clambers off him, a look of horror on her face as she hides her boobs … as if it matters now … but Guy, who’s presumably seen me climax, watches me with a hefty lust. ‘Oh, you sexy bitch,’ he murmurs, rising to his feet and climbing out of the trousers that imprison him.
I have no idea what to say. So I just stand there, stunned.
In a moment, he has me forced against the door frame with my skirt hitched up and the gusset of my knickers swept aside; and he’s in me, Kitten, and I’m wet as hell, and he’s fucking me and fucking me – where does he get the energy? – and as I’m about to come, high as a kite, I glimpse Valerie sitting on the desk, touching herself. She has a blissed-out look on her face, as she whispers, ‘Oh, fuck,’ and watches me.
It’s Valerie that makes me come like the clappers, with Guy groaning as he shoves himself into me, over and over. I might as well be fucking a silver pole – that’s how hard and slick he is. But as Valerie’s head rolls back and her breasts pop out of her corset again, my whole body is full of hers, and I’m dizzy with abandon.
Then, afterwards, I’m surprised to find that my face is wet with tears.
I dry my eyes as Guy pulls out of me. He tries to touch my face as he murmurs, ‘What’s wrong?’ but surely he knows what’s wrong, the arrogant bastard. ‘You should have told me,’ I say, with as much dignity as I can muster. ‘You should have said that you two were having a thing, and I was your third.’
‘It isn’t like that,’ says Guy, trying to reach for me, but I twist away, fumbling with my skirt.
‘I’m going,’ I announce.
Valerie stays silent.
‘Deborah …’ says Guy, ‘I thought you knew this wasn’t serious …’
‘That isn’t the point!’ I snap. ‘You were with Valerie and you never even said!’
Guy follows me as I march back through the front office, saying he’s sorry if – it’s the ‘if’ that gets me, Kitten – sorry if I thought we were monogamous.
Just as I’m rushing to get the hell away from this stupid place, I hear Valerie in the background: ‘I told you we should have said something.’
But I’m practically running out of the door because all I need is a lover who’s going to treat me like a goddess … and I thought Guy was going to do that. But no.
Mere minutes later, while I’m pacing down the road, my phone rings. When I see that it’s Henry, I feel such a mixture of sickness and triumph because he’s actually calling me that I don’t know where to put myself. I mean, I’d love to hear him grovel, Kitten, and tell me he made a huge mistake. But at the same time, will I fall for him if I’m with him? Will he put a spell on me, like he did in the past? Anyway, on the phone I let him do most of the speaking. He’s back in the area, he tells me. Would I like to meet for dinner tonight? His treat. He’d love to see me.
I was about to say no. Make him feel what it’s like to be rejected, for once!
But what I really want, if I’m honest, is for him to grovel at my feet and tell me he made a horrible mistake. I want to feel wanted by him to make up for having been so unwanted. So I agree to the date.
And when I come off the phone, the first thing I think is: Janey can never know. Is that messed up or what?
Chapter Twelve
Just a Bit of Totty
Friday, 23 March
Oh Kitten!
I arrive at the restaurant ten minutes late. Make ’em wait, Gladys always says, and it’s Gladys I turned to today. On the phone, I told her about my nightmare of a lunch break, in which I came like the clappers and discovered what Guy is really like. But I also tell Gladys I’m going for dinner with an old friend. If I’d mentioned it was Henry, she’d have come round and tied me to a chair.
And, frankly, her instincts are pretty darn good.
Henry’s already at our table in one of his usual grey suits – although his shirt is an almost electric blue, which is really quite bold for him. I know it sounds rude, but I’m thrilled to see that he’s aged a little, his dirty blond hair a mixture of gold and grey. He’s got new glasses too – a trendier pair that are blockier than his old ones. I wonder if she chose them for him, that delectable slapper of his. Predictably, he’s doing the newspaper crossword when I arrive. As the waitress leads me over, I can see that he’s almost filled the whole lot in.
I feel a moment of longing, up close, followed by a sickness rising in my belly. I’m not sure I should be doing this. My gut tells me everything is wrong.
Wh
en he sees me, Henry rises to his feet, eyebrows raised, and dashes to greet me. Once up close, I stay stiff enough to discourage a hug, and he awkwardly squeezes my arm. ‘My dear, my dear,’ he says. ‘How wonderful to see you. Just wonderful.’
Immediately I’m reminded of his irritating tic. The man repeats almost every word he says. Dear God, it used to drive me to distraction.
‘Hello, Henry,’ I say, giving the sort of smile that a movie star gives the press.
He pulls out my chair for me and I can smell his familiar scents – aftershave, breath mints, the tang of his car’s air freshener. A rush of memories gather me up, and I feel the strange, twisted memory of his body, and how it felt to lie in his arms, drunk on love, once upon a time. My poor insides feel raw when I think of it.
All the way to the restaurant I’ve been repeating affirmations: ‘I am happy without him …’ and ‘I deserve the best … Henry praises my strapless wine-red number with its lovely flared skirt. It’s the one Gladys says looks divine on me.
What he doesn’t notice, of course, is my pair of tiger-print stilettos. I don’t care if Guy bought them for me – they’re mine and, frankly, I earned them. But of course Henry was never interested in shoes.