The Dating Game

by Avril Tremayne

  ‘Because I was grumpy.’

  ‘Oh, you! You …’ she spluttered, trying to be angry, but laughing despite herself. ‘So how about you tell me why you were grumpy.’

  ‘When I figure that out, you’ll be the first to know.’ He tugged her in, hugged her hard, dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘But meanwhile …’ releasing her ‘… at the risk of being punched, I have to tell you that those shoes of yours are not, in fact, going to make it into the portrait.’

  ‘But Frisky Frank said they were sexy as hell. And he’s a podiatrist!’

  ‘Oh, well then, he’d know all about sex. Podiatrists always do.’

  ‘And if it’s about my walk, I assure you I could perform a gymnastics routine in these shoes and not falter once.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that but it’s not about the walk. I like the way you walk.’

  ‘And they go with this dress perfectly.’

  ‘Ah, that’s the other thing. The dress.’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘But it’s my best dress.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And I wanted timeless elegance.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Then what about the dress I wore on Saturday night? Or the chartreuse I wore to the art gallery? Chartreuse suits me. In fact, it’s my favourite colour. I have something else, too, in silver. And black. I have lots of black dresses. Do you hate all my clothes? Do I need a new wardrobe? What about—’

  ‘Draw breath, bluebell. I don’t hate any of your clothes. It’s entirely possible I love every dress you own. I just thought of something specific I want you to wear.’

  Visions of the suits in the spare bedroom floated in Sarah’s head. She must have looked appalled, because he took her hands in his. ‘Trust me,’ he soothed.

  ‘I don’t want to wear a suit.’

  ‘That’s convenient, because I don’t want you to either.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Come with me.’

  So Sarah found herself following him into the hallway, past the bathroom and spare bedroom, past another closed-off room, to the last door at the end.

  ‘In,’ he said, opening the door.

  And just as instantly as she’d known the spare room wasn’t his bedroom, she knew this one was. Dark wood furniture. Bedcover and floor rugs in muted shades of blue. A built-in wardrobe, with the same mirrored doors as the one in the spare room. Art everywhere. ‘Which paintings are yours?’

  ‘The two landscapes,’ David said offhandedly, and while he went to rummage in the wardrobe, Sarah moved closer to them. One forest, one ocean. Different from his ‘brutal’ paintings in the living room, and yet you could tell they were by the same artist. Abstract. Colourful. Powerful, rather than beautiful.

  ‘Here,’ David said, and she turned to find him standing with his hands full of ivory wool. The scent of the wool filled her nostrils before he reached her. Patchouli, dark rose, brandy cream. ‘It’s going to swamp you, but that’s the look I want.’

  His sweater. Sarah took it from him with fingers that were trembling slightly and shook it out. It was a bulky cable knit and so soft to the touch, timeless elegance was forgotten in a twinkling. She could hardly wait to wrap herself in the sweater. His sweater. ‘Do I need my jeans?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Just your underwear.’ He inclined his head towards a door to the side of the wardrobe. ‘Change in the bathroom through there. And take off all your make-up while you’re at it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All off.’

  ‘But I just put it on!’

  ‘Off.’

  ‘Remember the eyelashes.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean mine, because I warned you about that.’

  ‘Mine! And it’s not funny. They’re invisible!’

  ‘Take off the mascara, Sarah.’

  ‘I’m going to look like a boy.’

  David laughed. ‘Not in this lifetime, bluebell. Now get in there. Make-up off, and wet your hair. I want it flat against your skull.’

  ‘I’m not sure my skull is my best feature.’

  ‘You have a perfectly shaped cranium.’

  ‘Oh, so at least my fontanelle development didn’t let me down! Just so you know, there are nicer compliments you can pay a girl. Even the guy who told me my lips had the tautness of a perfectly cooked calamari ring did better than that.’ Sarah prodded at her bottom lip as David started laughing helplessly. ‘Too bad I can’t kiss myself and find out for sure.’

  ‘Next time I kiss you, I’ll make sure I have some calamari on standby for the sake of comparison,’ he choked out.

  Next time. Did David even know he’d said that? Clenching, boiling, tingling, please. ‘I think I have the negs down pat now, so perhaps forget the calamari and move on to some other lesson that will make me kissable. Maybe that I’m cute or smart or funny?’

  ‘Yes, but you already know all that,’ he said, and reached out to fiddle with one of the curls behind her ear, making her want to throw herself at him. An impulse she managed to quash when he added, ‘Use some of Margaret’s stuff in the other bathroom to keep your hair in place.’

  Hair in place. All about the painting. Got it. Good. She needed that reminder of what tonight was all about. Needed to get herself under control.

  And then the rest of what he’d said filtered through. Margaret. Ex-wife. Aha! Her things in the spare bathroom. Her clothes, too? Only a saint wouldn’t be curious about that. ‘Won’t she mind? Margaret?’

  ‘No. Just let me know if you use it all, so I can tell her she’ll need to restock next time she’s down.’

  ‘Oh?’ Super innocent. ‘Down from where?’

  ‘Brisbane.’

  ‘And she stays here? With you? Often?’

  ‘Often enough.’

  ‘So … she hasn’t remarried either?’

  ‘Not as such. But she has a long-term partner who lives with her. I guess you could say they’re effectively married.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Just no certificate. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘And he doesn’t mind?’

  ‘He who?’

  ‘Her partner.’

  ‘Her partner’s a woman. Her name is Carly.’

  David turned her and used his hands on her back to propel her to the bathroom, where he released her and opened the door. ‘Now, get in there. I’ll get the living room reorganized and pour you some wine, but don’t take all night.’

  Sarah managed to get into the bathroom and close the door, but anything else was beyond her immediate ability, so she just stood there, gobsmacked.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  David stood outside the bathroom door, fingers on the wood as though he could touch Sarah through it.

  Grumpy? Damn straight!

  He’d been on edge for four days thinking about that grey hair; wondering when he could expect more grey hairs; debating whether grey hair was worse than no hair, a la the guy whose name he now knew was Brandon; stewing over that unanswered text, and whether the reason it wasn’t answered was because Sarah was having sex with that dweeb; annoyed that he himself wasn’t having sex, despite going on a libido-destroying prowl on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights; and basically being all-round ticked off that he was … well, ticked off.

  His ticked-offedness had coiled ever more tightly as Wednesday approached, hour by harried hour. Until the sight of Sarah’s smiling face—how dare she be so sunnily normal when he was in such a state?—had made him want to go on an axe-wielding rampage.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t the type to own an axe, let alone wield one. But he’d found a way to get the smile off her face nonetheless, picking at her from the moment she’d stepped inside. Anything to put some distance between them, keep some distance between them, while he tried to get himself around to feeling as normal as she apparently did. Culminating in
that asinine idea to put her through her paces like a mare in training for a steeplechase, when there was nothing wrong with the way she walked—except that he liked the heedless swagger of it a little too much. And that annoyed him too, because he didn’t want to like it.

  Grumpy.

  Right up until the moment he’d put his hands on her, and the scent of her, delectable gardenia tonight, wafted up and … calmed him. When he could have sworn touching her was going to have the opposite effect.

  And he’d stayed calm throughout that discussion about Brandon the Balding Bastard—Had she kissed him? Let him touch her? Did she like him?—because he’d felt the coiled tension in her, and known the man she wanted was him, David.

  The relief of that, of knowing she hadn’t betrayed him, had made him want to whoop and laugh and generally make an idiot of himself. Not that ‘betrayed’ was the right word. That guy, Brandon-Herbert-dipshit, simply wasn’t the right guy: that was the root of the problem. It would have been an insult if the first guy Sarah kissed after she’d kissed David was that guy. Next time, David would choose a better candidate and step away from the precipice of the axe-wielding rampage. Then he’d be free to focus on his own sex life again.

  He heard Sarah move on the other side of the door and realized he had no idea how long they’d been standing silently on their respective sides. What had Sarah been thinking about? Margaret, probably. She had to have questions, and knowing her, she was going to ask them. The Margaret questions were easy to answer, at least.

  And then he heard the rustle of clothes from her side of the door.

  Clothes. Coming off.

  Naked sketch.

  He snatched his hand off the bathroom door and only just stopped himself from thumping his exploding head against it. He needed help, and a cold shower, and chemical castration—not necessarily in that order.

  ***

  Okay, chemical castration had better come first, David decided, as Sarah walked into the living room and the painting jumped to vivid life in his head.

  A surge of testosterone flooded him. It was as though he was touching her, despite being on the other side of the freaking room.

  The sweater swamped her tiny frame as he’d known it would, coming almost to her knees, falling off one pale shoulder. The colour was exquisite on her—almost the same colour as her skin, the same tone as her hair. Ivory wool on cream velvet against silver-gold silk. It made the bolt-blue of her eyes pop and drew attention to that intriguing black beauty spot at the end of her quirky, come-hither, pale-ash eyebrow.

  She looked fragile and artless. Sexy as hell, but strangely untouched. Anyone who saw his painting was going to want to touch her, however. And he had a sudden insight that he was going to want to kill anyone who did.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, sounding uncertain. ‘Is it okay?’

  He made do with a nod, and a vague wave towards the couch, because he couldn’t find words that wouldn’t freak at least one of them out.

  Sarah moved to the couch and sat on the edge, yanking self-consciously at the hem of the sweater, while he retreated with his sketchbook to what he hoped was a safe distance.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Margaret.’

  David opened his sketchbook, clearing his throat to test his vocal cords. ‘What about her?’ Croaky. He cleared his throat again.

  ‘I guess I should have expected a guy like you to have enacted a lesbian fantasy, but—’

  ‘Lesbian fantasy?’ Not the fantasy that was currently playing in his head.

  ‘Don’t most guys have those?’

  He forced the pencil onto the page. Do not draw Sarah naked. Do not draw Sarah naked. ‘I’m not most guys. Turn your head a little to the right …’ Silence for a moment as he sketched. ‘Stop moving your eyes towards me.’

  ‘I won’t be responsible for the direction of my eyes until you tell me what happened.’

  He kept sketching.

  ‘If you tell me you turned Margaret off men,’ she went on, ‘I’m going to have to rethink your role as my relationship expert.’

  ‘My manhood is secure enough to withstand that slur.’

  ‘Humph.’

  ‘Move your left leg, just a little to the— No! Leave it where it is, that’s fine.’ Holy shit, that flash of blue gingham between her thighs was almost more than he could take. Breathe, David, breathe. ‘I met Margaret and Carly in London, when I was over there doing my business degree. Carly—who’s Australian—was studying fine arts. Margaret—British—was studying psychology. I told you she’s a psychologist.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  Pause, as he examined his sketch, a total disaster thanks to that quick flash, and flipped a page to start a new one. ‘Margaret and Carly were an item from the moment they laid eyes on each other. Birds were singing, bees were buzzing, unicorns were jumping over rainbows. You get the drift. When it was time for Carly to return to Australia, we had to work out the fastest and easiest way to get Margaret residency, and marriage was it.’

  ‘Marriage to you.’

  ‘To me. We were living together, only the three of us by then, and we were the closest of friends—in fact, it was Carly who hooked me on art. So I thought, why not?’

  ‘Isn’t that fraud?’

  ‘Whatever gave you the idea I was a law-abiding citizen?’ He looked at her, then, wanting to see her face. ‘Disappointed in me, bluebell?’

  ‘No. It’s just … Well, as it happens, I am a law-abiding citizen. Or at least I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had to decide whether or not to be law-abiding.’ She was frowning. ‘Do you think that makes me dull?’

  ‘No, so don’t get any ideas about jewel heists and drug running.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I mean it. And don’t get me wrong—even I, reprobate that I am, don’t go around breaking laws left, right and centre. But I love Margaret and Carly. More than a lot of men love their “real” wives. And if Australia could pull its head out of its arse on the subject of same-sex marriage, nobody would need to do what I did.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’ She reached for the wine he’d left on the coffee table for her. ‘So, you were married for how long?’

  ‘Four years. And in anticipation of your next question, we divorced four years ago, when the girls decided to move to Brisbane.’

  ‘I can see why you referred to your break-up as a conscious uncoupling. Nice and civilized. But the marriage itself …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Didn’t you worry that it was … limiting, maybe? What if you’d found someone you wanted to marry for real?’

  ‘Then Margaret and I could have divorced earlier. But I already knew marriage wasn’t for me.’

  ‘How could you know that at … how old? Twenty-something?’

  David found he was pressing too hard on the paper and forced himself to lighten his grip. ‘Twenty-six. And I promise you, I knew.’

  Silence. And then, ‘Do you have a painting of Margaret?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  He looked at what he’d drawn. Knew, suddenly, what he had to do. Closed his sketchbook. ‘Sure,’ he said—easily enough, although his pulse was kicking like a mule. ‘There’s one in the studio. It’s … time.’ Brief, tight smile. ‘Time we were heading in there.’

  Sarah was looking apprehensive as they approached the door to the studio, so David assumed he wasn’t giving off sunshine and light vibes. But it was too late to stop. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted this done, before he put brush to canvas. It would refocus him on the painting. The painting was all that was important.

  He opened the door and waved Sarah in ahead of him, giving her a moment to look around before following her in.

  The studio had originally been the master bedroom—the biggest of the apartment’s bedrooms, with a large walk-in wardrobe and attached bathroom he’d remodelled into a wash-up/storage area. The stu
dio itself was uncompromisingly plain. It had the same dark wood floors as the rest of the apartment, but its white walls were bare.

  There were two easels, plus a hanging system along one wall for larger canvases. A modern chaise longue in pale beige was set against another wall. The only other furniture was an assortment of utilitarian tabletops and stools. During the day, natural light poured in through three large windows. For working at night, he’d installed a comprehensive series of adjustable lights set on rails.

  David pointed to the chaise longue. ‘That’s where I’ll position you for the portrait.’

  As Sarah walked over to the chaise, he headed purposefully for the canvases stacked in a corner, facing the wall. Sorting quickly, he chose one and placed it on one of the easels. ‘Margaret,’ he said, looking with a critical eye at the fall of gold hair, the shimmering green eyes.

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ Sarah said, detouring to see it.

  ‘That painting doesn’t do her justice. She’s more beautiful than that in the flesh. She’s beautiful on the inside too.’

  But Sarah was already doing the bird-head, darting a look at the other paintings.

  It was coming.

  Time. It was time.

  ‘Are they of Margaret too?’ Sarah asked. ‘Or Carly?’

  ‘No,’ David said. He walked purposefully over to the remaining four paintings and turned them sharp and fast, one by one, leaning them side by side against the wall.

  They were all of the same woman. Stunning, assured, seductive. Naked, and revelling in it. Laughing in one. Sombre in another. Flirty in a third. Sultry in the fourth. A range of poses to match the mood of each—standing with her hands on her hips; kneeling as she gazed at the ceiling; looking over her shoulder; reclining on a messy bed. Glossy dark hair, pale grey eyes, voluptuous curves, full breasts, apple-round bottom. Long, shapely legs—closed in three; open in the fourth.

  David was expecting the squeeze around his heart that always came when he was confronting evidence of her, but for once, it didn’t come. He should have been happy, after waiting so long for that miracle. Instead, its absence frightened him.

  Sarah came to stand beside him, and in that instant, he wanted to turn the paintings to the wall again, pretend they didn’t exist. What was she thinking? Was she shocked? Could she guess? The tension, the waiting, was almost unbearable.