by Anthony Burn
She woke me with toast and coffee in bed, apologising for having nothing more to offer. ‘This is all I usually have for breakfast, but I can go down to the shop if you want something else.’
‘No, this is fine.’ I smiled and tried to hide my disappointment that she had dressed. She perched on the edge of the bed while we ate, and I noticed from her bedside clock that it was just before seven.
‘Do you always get up this early?’ I asked.
‘Not always, but sometimes I like to go for a run in Trent Park before work. It’s just the other side of the station so it’s really handy, and it’s lovely first thing in the morning.’
I studied her tailored skirt and satin top. ‘Is this what you usually wear for running?’
She laughed. ‘No, I usually dress it up, you know, tiara and everything.’
She bent down to kiss me, and I pulled her on to the bed, making a play of trying to remove her top.
‘Easy, tiger,’ she said as she pulled away. ‘Wasn’t three times enough? In any event, we’ve got to get to work.’
‘But we don’t open until ten,’ I complained. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
‘Yes, but it’s my first official day in my new job. I don’t want to be late or rushed. The boss is a bit of a tyrant,’ she said, and winked at me.
‘Yeah, I’ve heard she can be a bit of a dragon,’ I agreed.
‘She? Are you saying I’m the boss?’
‘I told you that when I offered you the job. You’re in charge when it comes to running the gallery.’
‘But it’s your gallery, Kee,’ she protested. ‘You can’t mean I should tell you what to do.’
‘I can and I do. You’re the one who knows how to run a gallery, not me. So if you don’t tell me, I won’t have a clue.’
She thought about it, nodding as the logic sunk in, and then the minx was back behind her eyes. ‘In that case, you can get your lazy ass out of my bed and get ready for work.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, grinning at her. ‘I told you she was a dragon.’
She pointed me towards the bathroom, watching me with undisguised glee as I gathered my clothes and headed naked in the direction she had indicated.
‘I need to go home to change, so I might as well shower and shave when I get there,’ I told her. ‘I’ll just have a quick wash here. Have you got some toothpaste I can use?’
‘In the cabinet. You’ll find a spare toothbrush in there too.’
She’d come up behind me and opened the cabinet to find the brush, her other hand resting flat against my back. As the door swung towards me, I couldn’t help a double take at the sight of two jars of honey, one full and one half empty, sitting on the glass shelf.
‘They’re for my freckles,’ she said in response to my puzzled look.
‘I didn’t know they got hungry.’
‘It’s a natural method for fading them,’ she explained.
‘Why would you want to?’ I asked. ‘I love you’re freckles. They’re beautiful.’
‘Thank you. It’s nice to know someone thinks so.’ She kissed my cheek and slid her hand down to caress my buttocks.
‘Hey, I thought you said we didn’t have time,’ I said.
‘We don’t, but I couldn’t resist a quick feel.’
‘When we’ve got time, I’m going to kiss every single one of your freckles.’
She peered deep into my eyes. ‘I’ll hold you to that. But I can think of some you won’t want to go near.’
I held her gaze. ‘There isn’t any part of you I don’t want to kiss.’
After I’d washed and dressed, I found Lauren in her kitchen. She’d cleared away the breakfast things and handed me a fresh cup of coffee.
‘Have you got any plans for tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘Nothing I can’t change if I get a better offer.’
‘Okay, how about coming to stay at mine tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you out for Sunday lunch?’
‘That sounds great,’ she said. ‘Where are you going to take me?’
‘Wait and see,’ I told her firmly.
‘No, you can’t do that,’ she complained. ‘How will I know what to wear if I don’t know where we’re going?’
I saw her point. ‘Hmm, okay… Do you have a passport?’ I asked.
She nodded.
‘Bring it with you, and something summery to wear.’
Her eyes widened. She said, ‘Okay… where are we going?’
‘I’ve told you, you’ll have to wait and see.’
I half expected her to quiz me all day about the lunch plans, but when we got to work Lauren became very professional. She busied herself on the phone with her extensive contact list, letting everyone know the gallery was open, and attended to several people who walked in during the day. I noticed she always gave them time to browse for a while before offering them wine and advice about the art.
I got on with finishing our website, taking occasional breaks to avoid eye strain by strolling around the building and getting a proper look at the works of art. I could easily have whiled away the day viewing them, and once or twice I sat on a sofa just to take them in. But I soon felt guilty, because I could hear Lauren working hard on the phone, so I reluctantly dragged myself away.
It was after one of these excursions that I came back to find her inspecting my work. ‘This is looking great, Kee. When will it be up and running?’
‘It is now,’ I told her. ‘It’s been live since I added some photos I took earlier. I’m just making minor adjustments, and I can do those on the fly.’
She looked confused. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, for major updates that need a lot of code, I use my home computer because my editing app helps to keep track of the changes, colour-codes the languages, highlights parsing errors, automatically indents child elements…’
‘I’m sorry. Are we still speaking English?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, it gets a bit like that, sorry. Basically, I make and store big changes and new pages on my PC and then upload them to the host server, but I can do minor tweaks directly on the server using their code editor. I’ll show you what I mean.’
I brought up the code for the page she was viewing, changed an image tag and clicked on the refresh button. The picture of the front of the gallery changed to a close-up of Lauren working at the desk that I’d taken without her noticing. She immediately protested at the sight of herself, but as I changed it back again she nodded her understanding of my demonstration.
‘So, why can’t you do it all that way?’
‘It’s too easy to break,’ I said, and scrolled down the page to show there were several hundred lines of code. ‘If, say, I forget one of these semi-colons at the end of a line, the whole page will crash.’
‘That’s scary,’ she said, and became quiet as she processed what I’d told her. ‘So, if we wanted a big change, you’d have to go home to do it?’
‘No, I can use my home computer from here, with a remote desktop connection.’ I clicked an open tab on the browser and showed her a desktop screen within the window. ‘This is my PC. Now I can use it as if I were sitting at home.’ I demonstrated by opening and closing a few of my apps.
‘That’s really useful. I wish I could do that with mine.’
‘You can,’ I told her. ‘You just have to set it up first and leave your computer on, but then you can log in and use it from any PC or even from your phone, although that’s a bit fiddly – lots of zooming in and out.’
‘Can you show me how to do it?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, we can do it next time I come over to yours.’
Her eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Oh, you’re planning to come back to mine, are you?’
‘Depends on whether I’m going to get lucky.’ I laughed, and bent to kiss her.
She backed away, looking both serious and a bit worried. ‘Not here, okay?’ she said. I was a little disappointed, but left her to her work.
At the end of the day w
e climbed into a black cab, and as soon as it moved away Lauren pulled me close for a passionate kiss. It was a long time before she broke away, and when she did, I immediately went back for seconds.
After several torrid minutes we finally drew breath, and she said, ‘I’ve been aching to do that all day.’
‘You could have kissed me whenever you wanted,’ I said.
‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that if I’d started to kiss you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop. We wouldn’t have got much work done, and it wouldn’t have looked very professional if customers came in and saw us snogging. Besides, if we’d been kissing all day, we wouldn’t have had anything to look forward to. Am I forgiven?’
I knew she was right, and secretly I admired her decision, but I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I think you’ve got a lot of making up to do.’
We didn’t surface again until much later, by which time the taxi driver had long since given up on trying to talk to us.
I asked Lauren if she had enjoyed the first day of her new job.
‘It was brilliant,’ she said. ‘I totally loved it. I love the gallery and working with you. It would have been nice if we’d sold something though.’
‘Yes, it would have been the icing on the cake, but it’s only the first day. It may take a while for people to get used to us being there.’
She smiled and agreed, but I thought I noticed the tiniest flicker of doubt in her eyes before I dismissed it as my imagination and kissed her again.
The approach along Wapping High Street and the entrance to my block gave no clue to our proximity to the river or the panorama my apartment provided. When I opened the door for Lauren, she took two steps into the living room before she dropped her holdall and stared with increasing astonishment through the windows.
‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’ she said, her voice getting progressively louder. Her eyes followed the river upstream and she saw Tower Bridge in the middle distance.
‘Oh my God!’ This time it was practically a scream. She ran to the window to get a better look before turning back to me. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘Yeah. It’s not too shabby, is it?’ I said, revelling in her excitement.
‘Oh my God! It’s amazing. It’s just, oh my… I’m sorry, it’s just so…’ She held her hands wide as her eyes flitted back and forth, taking in the details. ‘I mean, it’s, you know… fuck me!’
I’d been trying not to laugh at her, but now I couldn’t help myself. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that… Well, yes, I did, but not now. Maybe later. I mean definitely later. Oh, you know what I mean.’
She beat her fist on my chest and I kissed her forehead. ‘I know,’ I said gently.
She looked back at the window and noticed the balcony for the first time. Her excitement bubbled up again. ‘Can we go outside?’
I slid open one of the windows. ‘Be my guest. I’ll get us a drink.’
I had white wine chilling in the fridge and I’d intended to pour a glass for Lauren and take a beer for myself, but as I reached for the bottle I noticed the champagne that the interior design team had left for me. I’d got so used to it being there I’d almost stopped seeing it, but now as it registered I couldn’t think of a better occasion to open it.
I filled two of my previously unused flutes and took them outside to join Lauren. She’d moved along the balcony to the terrace and was leaning against the railing watching the traffic on the Thames.
‘The people on the boats keep waving,’ she said, and I noticed her voice had become calm again as she waved back to them.
I handed her a glass and clinked mine against it. ‘Yeah, they do that all the time. I think it’s nice.’ I joined in with a wave of my own.
She took a sip of her champagne and smiled at me. ‘Mmm, this is lovely. Are we celebrating the first day of the gallery being open?’
‘No. We’re celebrating having you come to stay with me tonight,’ I told her.
‘Oh, you smooth talker. I’m sure that's not the most exciting thing ever.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ I assured her. ‘I’m very excited about you being here.’
‘Thank you. Me too.’ She became earnest. ‘Kee, I’m so sorry about before. You must have thought I was a complete idiot. I totally sounded like an excitable schoolgirl saying “Oh my God” all the time.’
‘No, don’t worry. I felt exactly the same way when I first saw the place, and I’d seen photos on the property pages so I knew what to expect. In any case, I love your exuberance; it’s very infectious.’
‘I’m not sure if you’re just being kind, but thank you.’
‘Well, I could tell it was a religious experience for you,’ I said.
The late August weather had been warm for most of the day, but now the sky was beginning to cloud over, and at this height the increasing breeze had an icy edge to it. I noticed Lauren shiver and guided her back into the apartment.
‘Why don’t I give you the rest of the tour?’ I suggested.
She made all the right complimentary noises as I showed her around the rooms, finishing in the master suite where she goggled at the size of the bed before concluding that it would probably have to do. I’d collected her holdall en route and put it down on the sofa at the foot of the bed.
‘There’s plenty of space in the wardrobe if you want to hang anything up,’ I told her.
‘Great. Thank you,’ she said, and started to take off her jacket before she stopped abruptly midway. ‘Can I change?’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said. ‘Do I look like a psychoanalyst?’
She groaned at my terrible joke, and I left her to it while I went back to the kitchen to refill our glasses. I settled down to wait in the living room, until she reappeared having replaced her elegantly tailored skirt suit and high heels with a vest top, soft cotton pull-on trousers and bare feet.
I looked her up and down, and into her glowing face. ‘Is there anything you don’t look sexy in?’ I asked.
Nineteen
The clouds that had started to gather together the previous evening had stitched themselves into a fluffy blanket overnight, but the gloom of the outdoor climate couldn’t penetrate the radiant atmosphere within my apartment. I’d made tea and toast, and we sat in my unkempt bed with our feet intertwined as we ate. I watched Lauren unselfconsciously eating her last piece while crumbs fell onto her chest. When she made no attempt to brush them away, I bent to lick them from her naked breasts.
She squirmed at the touch of my tongue and asked, ‘Are you still hungry?’
‘Only for you,’ I said without thinking and grimaced, knowing I wasn’t going to get away with such a corny line.
Her pained expression came complete with a sigh. ‘I think you should keep away from the Camembert.’
‘Yeah, sorry. That was pretty cheesy.’ I sat back up to look at her. ‘Talking of Camembert, do you like French food?’
‘Mais oui, certainement,’ she said, ‘but I might draw the line at snails.’
‘Okay, l’escargot,’ I said, de-emphasising the middle syllable as I tried and failed to make it sound like ‘Let’s go’.
‘Sorry?’ she said, looking confused.
I explained what I’d attempted, and she gave me a pitiful look. ‘Vous etes tres rapide, monsieur.’
‘Je ne pense pas,’ I told her. ‘Anyway, that reminds me. We need to get to the airport. Can you be ready in thirty minutes?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Thirty minutes?’ she asked. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere nice,’ I said.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But half an hour? You could have given me a chance.’
‘You’ll make it.’ I laughed and pointed to the en suite. ‘Et maintenant, salle de bains. Allez, vite.’
‘Oui, patron.’ She leapt out of bed and skipped naked to the bathroom, turning to blow me a kiss before disappearing through the door.
As soon
as she was out of sight, I found my time turner and went back just far enough to get a repeat performance of her trip across the bedroom, lustfully taking in the details of her beautiful bottom, before she turned and blew me the kiss again. I laughed and turned it back once more; it was like having a rewind button for real life. My only regret was that I couldn’t press pause or put her into slow motion. I could happily have continued winding back those few seconds forever, but after five times I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and off to the bathroom in the second bedroom.
My own preparations, though rushed, took around twenty-five minutes; I returned from the bathroom, clean and dressed, and wondering if Lauren was close to being ready. I wandered into the lounge to find her waiting in the middle of the room. She was wearing a thin-strapped, cotton floral sundress that fell to just above her knees. Her look was completed by a pair of mid-heeled cork sandals that strapped up around her ankles, and she’d put a light cotton jacket with her handbag over the arm of the sofa.
She was standing with her hands clasped behind her back and her legs crossed at the ankles, looking fresh, demure and simply lovely.
‘Will this do?’ she asked.
I made a show of considering her question. ‘Well, if it’s all you’ve brought with you, I suppose it will have to.’
Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips playfully. ‘If you’re going to start that nonsense, I’m going home.’
‘I’d never do that,’ I said, and bent to kiss her.
‘No, you can’t. You’ll smudge my lipstick,’ she said, pushing me away.
My face dropped, but I caught her grin before she came back for a long sensual kiss, and when I checked afterwards her lipstick was still immaculate.
A half-hour taxi ride took us to London City Airport, but when we got there, instead of heading to the main terminal the driver turned into a small car park and stopped in a bay at the far end. A middle-aged man in a suit and tie opened the door for us, and as we stepped out he shook our hands. ‘Good morning, Miss Dinsdale, Mr Walsham. Would you like to come this way? There’s a slot available in five minutes, so I’ll take you straight through.’