“And what is the point of that, exactly, if we’re going to pretend we’re only friends?”
He looked me squarely in the eye. “Isn’t that what you did to me, Leila? Showed me everything I could have and then refused me?”
“That’s what this is about?” Charlotte coiled, ready to throw a right hook. “Do you think I did any of this deliberately? It was you who hired me, remember?”
“You could have walked straight back out the door–”
“What, reject my boss and leave him in the knowledge that I was prostituting on the side? The pair of you knew just the position I’d be in as soon as I went in there. Don’t be such a fucking hypocrite.” I sat on the bench. “We’re going in circles here. Maybe we should just give up.”
He sank down next to me, staring at his hands. “I’m trying.”
“Stop trying to be such a model citizen and accept that you hired a whore,” I muttered.
“But that’s not what you are. Not anymore.” His voice was strained.
I stood up and started to peel off my clothes. One by one, I dropped the soaked garments on to the tiles: the cardigan, skirt, bra and knickers. I was naked before him, flesh goose-pimpled in the chill. “Look at me.”
His gaze rolled slowly upward and his eyes misted over. “What are you doing, babe?”
“I still look the same as I did when you paid for me. Don’t I? I can’t hide anything like this.”
He took my hand then and kissed my damp fingers, closing his eyes and pushing his cheek into my palm. “You taste the same, too.”
“I’ll always be the girl you fucked with your boss. You can take me or leave me, bearing in mind that I am a lot more than that.”
“But you’re his,” he said, still stroking my hand. “You can’t be with me until he’s done with you.”
“I’m not anyone’s.” Not yet. I dropped on to my knees to look at him. “But it’s just sex. Just…gratification and release. It doesn’t take away from what I am. I won’t be leftovers.”
“How much longer?”
“Two jobs. Maybe a few weeks?”
“I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”
I smiled ruefully. “But you will? Wait, that is?”
“Yeah.” He brought my hand down and squeezed it in both of his. “Wherever that leaves us.”
“In a better place than before, no doubt.” I got to my feet and started to dry off.
“But Leila…all this disappearing into his office. Him calling you. Whatever else there is, I can’t deal with that.”
I ruffled his wet hair. “Since I have a reason to stop, maybe I will.”
“You better.” He took the towel from my hands and stood up to pat me dry. I scooped my hair up off my neck as he rubbed down my shoulders, breasts and thighs, taking his time. “I’m protecting my investment,” he said playfully.
I inhaled too fast as a bare hand caressed my hips. Did he know how raw and erotic he could be?
There was a loud bang on the door.
“What are you doing in there?” Johnny called amid the sniggers.
“Get lost!” Matt yelled. “Give us five minutes.”
A key scraped in the door lock, and for a second, he clutched the towel over my body, afraid of intrusion. It didn’t come.
I thought briefly about guiding Matt’s hand down and showing him where I was still wet, but it wouldn’t lead to anything advisable. Not then, anyway.
“I suppose we should get dressed.” He rifled through the bundle of old kit. “Bunch of arseholes–have you seen what they’ve given us?”
I winced at what he held up. “Those are some short shorts.”
“They’re age eleven to twelve, that’s why.”
“They’re yours, right?”
He walked up behind me, pulled the towel away and held the shorts up over my thighs.
“I think they’d suit you better,” he said gruffly. “Put them on.”
“Yes sir!” I pulled them tight over my buttocks, twisting round in the mirror. “It’s a good job these are a dark colour.”
He tossed me a shirt in a slightly larger size and I pulled it over my head.
“I look ridiculous.” I giggled.
“You look ridiculous? Have you seen the state of me?”
I had to clutch the bench while I laughed at him. He wore a humungous shirt, and shorts that were obscenely tight. “You can’t go out like that, Matt!”
He tied another shirt around his waist by the arms. “How about now? Will my package still scare small children?”
“It’d scare grown women, let alone small ones.”
He squared his shoulders, grinning. “You think?”
“Oh, be quiet.” I combed my fingers through my wet curls. So much for straightening. “I take it we’re calling a cab, right?”
“One of the lads will drop us back. We’re owed.” He came close and tied another shirt around my waist for modesty. “Can’t have the world seeing your…er…”
“Muffin?”
“Is that the technical term?”
“Close enough.” I toyed with the shirt arms that dangled from the knot at his waist; I couldn’t stop thinking about what lay beneath. I hadn’t come on Matt yet, not with him inside me. He filled me so beautifully, too.
I gazed up at him, my lips parted.
“I want to kiss you,” he murmured, “but I reckon we both know it’s a bad idea.”
I nodded reluctantly, stepping away to gather my wet clothes. We made our way down the corridor, and I waited while Matt disappeared back into the noisy hall. He returned with Johnny two minutes later.
Johnny looked me up and down and gave a loud tut.
“I see what you mean, Matthew. It does make her look a bit chubby.”
I glared at him, which only made him laugh harder.
“I’d hit him,” Matt said, “if I thought it would do any good.”
I smiled brightly. “Hit him anyway.”
Matt obliged with a sharp clout on Johnny’s left shoulder. As predicted, he barely noticed in his amusement.
“Come on, you two. Let’s get you home. No making babies on the backseat though, okay?”
“I’m sure we can restrain ourselves.” Matt snuck a glance at me. It said, because we do that now. No more dirty secrets.
Well-behaved, hmm.
We strode out into the sharp night air, fell into Johnny’s Auris and rode home in prickly, damp Nylon. Matt got out and walked me up to my door. He leaned against the frame awkwardly, not knowing what to do with his hands.
“So, tomorrow,” I said. “What’s the plan, Mr Chauffeur?”
“I thought we might as well leave straight from work. We get out later than everyone else on a Friday anyway. We can walk back to get our bags, and then I’ll swing by and pick you up.”
“Sounds good to me.” I fiddled in my bag and drew out a jingly handful of keys.
“Toby is coming, by the way,” he added, frowning slightly. “You ought to know…he overheard our conversation the other night. He knows what you do.”
I shifted from foot to foot. “I kind of overheard him, too.”
“I’ve told him not to ask you any dodgy questions, but he’s a law unto himself when he gets drunk.”
I raised an eyebrow. “We’re getting drunk?”
“Thought I’d take you down to my favourite club. Seems a shame to waste a Friday night.” He grinned.
“It won’t be some awful hard house place where everyone is doing fairy dust, will it?” My key wobbled in the lock before it twisted open.
“Leila. Seriously–do you really think I listen to that shite?”
“You do own a floral tie.”
“Yeah, well. I also own a ‘Jesus is a Cunt’ t-shirt from my goth and emo days.” He laughed. “Which reminds me…” He leaned in to place a hand on my back. “I’d like to see you in something a bit burlesque. It’d be fitting.”
“Oh you would, would you? I’ll just rifl
e through the costume box and see what I can come up with.” His hand felt so warm through the shirt as I leaned back against it. This assertive side of him was cute–like his version of ordering for me in a restaurant. I’ll have the semi-relationship served rare, with a side of self-torture. She’ll have frustration for starters, three different imagined fucks for mains...and bloody like it. I needed to warn him that Charlotte got grumpy if she went without dessert.
“I’m glad we made up,” he whispered.
“Me too.” Our date-type-thing had turned us into a twisted couple-type-thing. I didn’t know quite what to make of that…but I sure as hell wanted to visit a different restaurant.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Wait a sec. You never told me Eton’s real name.”
He cringed. “Galahad.”
“Oh my God!” I put a hand over my mouth to stem the sniggering. “What were his parents thinking?”
“Jaunty Arthurian legends, apparently.”
As he disappeared into the lift, I waved my free hand, chafed into my shadowy flat, then fumbled with light switches and stripped off at the same time.
When I finally dug the phone from my dark pit of a handbag, a message sat on the screen:
Are you still awake, baby? J x
I took a deep breath, switched the phone off and went to bed.
Chapter 7
I’d marked the day I turned eighteen by attending my uncle’s funeral.
We never saw much of him. He lived in Manchester and I remember the hills turning grey as we drove north. I was bemused by my parents’ silence–it poured over the wobble of the radio, as if noise and noiseless were layers in a sandwich. It wasn’t my first funeral, but I didn’t remember everything being so…still at the others.
Bodies clustered outside the crematorium, moons for dead planets of carnation and lily. I made small talk, shook hands, nodded and smiled at anecdotes I didn’t recognize. Behind me, grief shook its smoky fist every time I fell through its fingers.
I didn’t get it. I couldn’t cry. I knew I ought to feel something, but as the coffin disappeared behind the curtains, all I felt was relief. There was respect, and yet a glaring lack of it in the absence of tears.
That disconnection was what monogamy felt like. I had been unfaithful often enough to know.
Even then, when I left the arms of a boy to fall into those of a man, I knew I was different. There should have been an echo of guilt in those languid office fucks, but instead, I buzzed between the sheets it creased. Just like buying a jigsaw puzzle, finishing it and finding an extra piece–there was no space for monogamy, and had I laid it beside my jagged edges, it would have been ripped to shreds. Charlotte took that last piece and made an exhibition of it. A mockery.
So Matt and Joseph had showed me what it was like to have both of them at the same time. Oh, there was room for them there–they stretched me taut and blissful. Little deaths. It had been the most exhilarating night of my life.
Then, they took it away.
Did they realize what they’d done?
* * * *
I shouldn’t have called William when drunk. It had given him my other mobile number, which would explain why he was ringing me at near midnight on Thursday.
“Is this revenge?” I groaned.
“Are you defecating?” he asked cheerfully.
“Eww, no.”
“Well then.” He paused to chuckle. “I’m sorry it’s so late, but I totally forgot about tomorrow night–”
“You forgot about your own wedding?”
“Feasible! But no. I just spoke to Aidan and it occurred to me–I don’t know if you two are still doing your little show, what with you deserting the industry.”
Bollocks.
Months ago, Aidan and I had agreed to do our little exchange student skit–for a small and discreet audience–as a wedding gift to Angus and William. At the time, it had been like agreeing to do any other job. So much so that I had utterly forgotten it.
“But Aidan can’t make it.” I hoped that was a good enough excuse; Charlotte rolled her eyes at me.
“Yes he can. He told me about that.”
“About what?” I said suspiciously.
“That he lied so you’d bring your boyfriend.” William laughed in throaty octaves.
“He’s an arse! When I get hold of him–”
“So what’s the situation? If it would bother your boyfriend, I’ll understand. You can just get us the traditional Wedgewood. Do you think they have a special collection for fag weddings? Feels like they might.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” I shouted down the phone.
“The lady doth protest too much. Shall I book the room anyway and let you think about it?”
“Um. Ugh. I don’t know, Will.” Matt and I had just made such headway–slinking off to perform in a sex show would not go down well.
“I’ll book the room. Let me know.” He hung up.
Incensed, I stabbed in Aidan’s number.
“You bastard!” I shrieked.
“Lei-Lei. We have had this talk about your language.” I could hear him grinning.
“Why did you tell William I had a boyfriend? In fact, why did you even assume that Matt was my boyfriend? Why did you threaten me with Metro Paul?”
“Calm down. I was just trying to be a good friend.”
“Good friends don’t lie!” I wailed.
“Shush, Lei-Lei. I take it Will rang about tomorrow night?”
“I totally forgot,” I groaned. “I feel so guilty. But I can’t do it, not now.”
“Not now you have a boyfriend, heh?”
“Oh fuck off, Aid.” I paused. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He laughed. “But why can’t you? You know it would be fun…”
“How do you suggest that I tell him?”
“You could lie. That’s what good friends do. Tell him you’re off for a spa treatment or something. That facial,” he tittered.
“I’m not lying.”
“Then be honest. Explain to him. Ask him if he minds.”
“Are you insane?”
“No, I’m being serious. He knows what you do–he hired you himself, for God’s sake. He might have a better reaction than you think.” He paused. “I’d suggest that you invite him to watch, but once he experiences my manwhore proportions, he’s going to feel awfully insecure.”
“Fuck off. I meant that one,” I added.
“Well, you know what I think. And I’d love one more little game with you.” His voice lulled beneath the weight of suggestion. “For old times’ sake.”
I blushed. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. And I still have your costume.” He hung up with a loud beep.
Second time it’d happened to me that night. Did that make me well hung?
Sorry, that one was awful.
* * * *
Joseph had scheduled a working lunch on Friday to “talk about my future with the company.” He did so not by booking it with Sadie, but with another bunch of peonies on my desk–this time, laced with fat sprigs of lilac. All over the office, the sweet scent made the air burst into colour.
Joseph would have noticed the lilacs on my bedside table as he pinned me, still soaking, to the cool sheets, and rubbed my flesh to friction burns.
“Another job?” There was a low rise to Matt’s tone that unsettled me.
“Just a meeting.”
“I don’t get flowers for my meetings.” Files smacked together in a heap as he emptied his briefcase. Slap. Slap.
“No,” I teased, “you get them from drunk girls while you’re hosting rugger bugger breakfast club.”
He didn’t smile back.
One o’clock rolled around and I headed out to meet Joseph, who had been out with his real solicitors all morning. He’d booked the same restaurant that we’d dined at on Isobel’s birthday, and it was as gloriously pristine in the sunshine as in candle light.
I wished I’d worn something more formal than my fennel wrap-over dress.
Joseph stood up to greet me, planting a kiss achingly close to my mouth. He smelled like lemon and tarragon: fresh and wild.
“Good morning?” I asked.
“Boring as fuck. You’d best be entertaining.” That freshly-fucked gleam shone in his eye–was he thinking about it?
“Erm…I’d planned a fascinating discussion on my holiday allowance and probationary period.”
“Leila, you could be telling me the winning lottery numbers and my mind would still be elsewhere.” He cocked his head. “In the gutter, most probably.”
“I like the gutter.” Oops. “That came out wrong.”
Beneath the table, he trapped my bare leg between his. “Shut up.”
The waiter arrived with a bottle of Champagne and opened it with a crisp pop.
“Are we celebrating something?”
“You, of course.” A smile played on his lips. “Your glittering future career with Bach and Dagier.”
“I haven’t even had a contract yet.”
“Considering another offer?” He wasn’t talking about work anymore. A teasing edge scored his voice.
The froth rose in my glass and I ducked to hide behind it.
He sat back in his chair. Stared at me. “I know about you and Matt,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not stupid, Leila. He may as well piss all over you.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I was never much for water sports.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Joseph tightened his legs around mine. “Are you involved with him?”
“Not in the way you think,” I muttered.
“What do I think?”
“I don’t know, but you were the one who decided to involve him in the first place. Don’t try to make me responsible for the way he’s acting now.”
“Apologies for being such a big, bad wolf. Not my fault he needs a big pint of man-the-fuck-up.” One hand toyed with his open collar. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“No.” I was uncomfortable. Beginning to sweat. “Shall I be honest?”
“I’ll know if you’re lying.”
I took a moment to compose myself.
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