Fire After Dark (7 page)

Chapter Four

I’m still buzzing the next day. It’s a rather luxurious feeling, as though I want to rub myself against the sheets on the bed, or stand naked at the open window and feel the breeze on my skin. For a moment, as I lie in bed, my hand brushes down over my belly to the patch of soft hair between my legs. The tip of one finger strokes gently over the small but intensely sensitive spot that protrudes slightly from the lips there. The effect is electric. It springs to life, swelling under my fingertip as if begging for attention, and a pleasant sensation spreads outward from my belly.

The image of that throbbing, pulsating shaft with its tantalising grinding little thumb placed exactly in the right spot, and the pictures I saw last night, float into my mind. I swallow hard and pull in a deep breath. A hot wetness is spreading through my groin. I see Mr R first in his tennis kit, damp with sweat, and then naked to the waist, wrapped in a towel. My fingertip sinks deeper into the warmth and I twitch just a little in response. My clitoris is stiff now, making its presence known, every nerve ending wanting stimulation.

Shall I?

I’ve brought myself to a climax before, of course. The long months at university without Adam had taught me the merit of that particular solitary pursuit. But since that night, I haven’t been able to bear it. I can’t touch myself. I’ve felt too rejected to be able to lose myself in the pleasurable imaginative space that would allow me to come.

But now? Can I . . .?

I flick my fingertip back over my swollen bud and this time a shudder ripples down my legs and up over my belly. My body is longing for it, begging me to give it release. I rub again and then again, gasping a little at the intensity of feeling it creates.

Then, it happens. I see that goddamned awful picture in my mind again: Adam turning to face me, revealing Hannah lying below him. I see his flabby belly with the rough patch of coarse brown hair at the base, and I see Hannah’s spreading legs, the triangle of damp and flattened hair. I see again, with horror only a little dulled by repetition, the way they are joined together, his dark red shaft poking deep into her glistening ruby lips.

I groan. The desire that a moment ago was racing through me vanishes.

Why the fuck did I have to see that? Why the fuck can’t I forget it?
That image will always haunt me. The vision of their panting, animal desire kills my own arousal. The sight of Adam’s cock, once my own prized possession, our shared joy, plunged into Hannah’s body, has made my desires wither up and disappear.

I touch my clitoris again and it buzzes hopefully beneath my finger. It’s no good. My flesh might still be willing, but my spirit is crushed. I get quickly out of bed and wash away all that hot arousal in the shower.

Despite being unable to satisfy my body’s evident longing for an orgasm, I can’t shake the sense of luxuriousness. I had a very worthy day planned, one of cultural sightseeing in the art galleries and museums, and I’d planned to wear sensible clothes and sneakers and take a picnic lunch with me so I didn’t have to eat in a high-priced tourist-trap cafe. But today, I don’t feel quite in that frame of mind after all. In fact, the huge department stores along Oxford Street keep appearing in my imagination. Just a few days ago, when I arrived, I would have been far too intimidated to consider going in to such places on my own, but now something has subtly changed.

I chatter to De Havilland as I make some coffee and put some cereal in a bowl. In response, he saunters over to a scratching panel that Celia has put on a cupboard door and spends a happy few minutes ripping it to shreds with his claws while I bore him with my witterings.

‘Do you think London is really making me brave again?’ I ask him, as he digs in and then tears out his claws. ‘I used to be brave, believe it or not. I went off to uni on my own, knowing absolutely no one and ended up making loads of friends.’ I think wistfully of Laura, a fellow student who became my closest pal. She’s travelling in South America, spending her last few months of freedom there before starting a job in London with a management consultancy company. She promised to send me emails whenever she passed an Internet place, but I haven’t picked up my emails for a while now. It’s strange that I’ve barely thought about them either. Usually I’m glued to my laptop, surfing the net, catching up with what everyone’s up to, getting gossip. Now it’s sitting abandoned in a bag in the bedroom and I’ve forgotten all about it.

Today I’ll see if I can get a connection, or at least take the laptop somewhere I can log on. Every cafe has Wi-Fi these days, after all.

As I get dressed, I wonder what Laura would make of my break up. She’d be sorry for me and sympathetic, but I know that, deep down, she’d be glad. She tried to like Adam for my sake but when they’d met on the one occasion Adam had visited me at college, staying over in my shared student house, she’d not taken to him. I’d seen that look in her eyes while they talked, the one that showed she was barely keeping in her irritation. Afterwards, she’d tried to bite her tongue, but eventually she’d said, ‘Don’t you think he’s a bit . . . a bit boring, Beth? I mean, he talked about himself all night and never once about you!’

I defended him, of course. All right, Adam could be a bit egotistical, he could ramble on a little – but he loved me, I knew that.

‘I’m just worried that he doesn’t love you quite enough. He takes you for granted,’ she said, concern in her eyes. ‘I don’t know if he deserves you, Beth, that’s all. But if he makes you happy, then fine.’ Laura hadn’t said any more about what she really thought of Adam, but when a third-year law student had shown a bit of interest in me, she’d urged me to spend some time with him and see what happened. Of course I hadn’t. I was taken.

Thinking about Laura makes me yearn for some company. I’ve been alone for a while now and I need some interaction. Instantly my plan takes shape. As for wandering alone in galleries – well, that can wait for another day.

‘Oh, that looks wonderful on you, really wonderful!’

I’m sure it’s just sales patter – the assistant says it to all the customers, I expect; no doubt everyone looks marvellous in her company’s clothes – but there’s something frank in her gaze that makes me believe her.

Besides, if the mirror can be trusted, I do look surprisingly good in this dress. It looks like nothing on the hanger, and even on it’s a fairly ordinary black dress, but it seems to bring my hidden charms to life in the way it fits so well across my bust and follows the curve of my waist and hips in such a perfect smooth line down to my knees. The fabric is some kind of silk mix that means it’s clingy but substantial at the same time, with a subtle shine.

‘You’ve got to get it,’ breathes the assistant, hovering at my shoulder. ‘I mean it, it suits you soooo perfectly.’ She smiles at my reflection. ‘Is it for a special occasion?’

‘For a party,’ I lie recklessly. ‘Tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ Her eyes widen. She senses some kind of interesting story of why a girl would be shopping for a party dress on the very day of the event. ‘Are you having a makeover day?’

I stare at myself. The dress is so pretty. I feel amazing in it, sexy and sophisticated. What’s bringing it down is my bare face, undone hair and lack of shoes. A makeover day? How much would something like that cost?

I’ve always been a prudent person, careful with my money. I’m not exactly a splurger and I’ve never shopped for recreation. In fact, unlike most of my fellow students, I came out of university with no debt on top of the usual student loans, and my savings still in a healthy state.

Why not live a little?
asks a voice inside my head.
Why not be reckless for once?

‘I suppose I could,’ I say slowly.

The assistant claps her hands with glee. This kind of thing is clearly right up her street. ‘Ooh, let me help you. First, you’ve got to get the dress, and I’m not just saying that. You look beautiful in it. You can leave it here and I’ll look after it. You know we’ve everything you could possibly need in this place – beauty spas, treatments—’

‘Let’s not go too far,’ I say hastily.

‘—the hair salon, the nail bar.’ Her eyes are shining at the thought of moulding my imperfect body into something worthy of the dress. Then her expression becomes concerned. ‘But they might all be booked up. I’ll make some calls for you, I’m sure I can pull some strings.’

Before I can stop her, she’s hurried to the sales desk and picked up the telephone. I semaphore that I don’t want any beauty treatments but she waves me away and books a facial. ‘You’ll love it,’ she says confidently as she dials another number, ‘and I was thinking your skin is fabulous but it’s looking a bit dry. Do you use night cream? You should, I know a lovely lush one that will really restore inner moisture and replenish sub-epidermal hydration.’ Before I can say anything, she’s connected to the salon and is making me a cut and blow-dry appointment, her gaze flicking over my hair as she says, ‘I do think a few highlights would help, actually, Tessa, if there’s time.’

By the time she’s off the phone, I’ve got several appointments, the first of which is only a few minutes off.

My assistant is clearly in her element and having a whale of a time. She gets someone to cover her till while she takes me down the lower ground floor and the treatment rooms. It’s all so good-natured that I’m carried along on the wave of enthusiasm, and when I’m handed over to Rhoda in the beauty centre, I’ve surrendered all control over my day. Before long, I’m lying on a bed with Rhoda massaging my face, spreading some kind of clay mixture on it, putting cool discs on my eyes and leaving me to bake for a while. It’s a wonderfully relaxing experience, the kind of thing I’ve always assumed is meant for other people and not for me, but as the gentle fingers begin to wipe away the mask and anoint me with unguents and creams, I think:
Why not me? Why shouldn’t I have this?

‘All done,’ Rhoda says, handing me a sheaf of complimentary product testers. ‘And you look great.’

I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror as I pay – it’s not exactly on the house, even if I have had some strings pulled for me – and I do seem to be glowing. Or is it my imagination? Who cares? The whole experience was amazing.

‘You’re expected on the top floor,’ Rhoda informs me. ‘For your hair.’

A short lift ride and before I know it, I’m ensconced in a high chair, a black nylon cape clipped around my neck and a pile of the latest glossies in front of me. A slender young man in a black T-shirt and with an improbable swoop of blond hair over his forehead talks me through what we might do with my hair. I’ve experimented with colours and cuts in the past but for the last few months, I haven’t bothered. The result is that I have a gradation of colour, from dry straw at the ends to dark mouse at the roots, and any attempt at a style has long since grown out into shaggy ends.

Cedric takes me in hand. With practised ease, he paints my hair with the contents of some little plastic dishes, and folds it into tin foil, then leaves me with a magazine to amuse me while I cook under a revolving neon disc. After half an hour, he passes me on to a girl with delightfully soft hands who rubs and rinses and massages all the chemicals from my scalp and replaces them with something that leaves my hair slippery smooth and smelling of coconut.

Cedric reappears, brandishing scissors. Now it’s time to comb and snip, and he chats away as he lifts long dark ribbons of hair and slashes into the ends with the slender blades. I watch myself in the mirror, wondering what is going to greet me at the end of all of this. When the cutting is done, Cedric sprays my hair with something, picks up his hairdryer and says, ‘How glam do we want to go?’

I look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Glam.’

In my mind, I’m meeting Mr R for dinner. Tonight, he doesn’t want that woman I’ve seen him with. Tonight, he’s going to see me and gasp. ‘Are you the girl from Celia’s apartment?’ he’ll say, amazed, unable to believe his eyes. ‘That little girl from the fifth floor opposite my flat? But you’re . . . you’re . . .’

I’m lost in a happy dream as the dryer roars around me, burning the tips of my ears bright red and singeing my scalp. Cedric is busy now with a spiky brush, rolling my hair hard, pulling it tight, blasting it with hot air and then releasing it with a twisting movement that leaves behind a loose ringlet. When he’s worked his way all around my head, I have a halo of golden, glimmering waves. He sprays hairspray into his palm, rubs his hands together and then scrunches my hair, smoothes it, pulls it back and releases it. I have a long bob, a fringe that sweeps down over my face and falls seductively over one eye. It’s a rich, shimmering gold.

‘Do you like it?’ asks Cedric, stepping back, putting his head to one side and examining his work critically.

‘It’s . . . beautiful,’ I say, a little choked. I’m remembering what I looked like only very recently, when I stared in my bedroom mirror after a fit of crying over Adam, and saw a lank-haired, puffy-eyed, dull-skinned girl with nothing left of her sparkle. She seems very far away now and I’m relieved to see the back of her.

Cedric smiles. ‘I’m thrilled, babe. I knew I could make something of you. Now . . . apparently you’re due on the ground floor. You’ve got some make-up and nails coming your way.’

I don’t care, I don’t care what it costs,
I think recklessly as I hand my debit card over at the till. They’re all being so lovely to me. They don’t have to, but they are. And it’s bloody fantastic.

When my lift arrives on the ground floor, I feel like royalty. Someone is there to meet me and take me over to the make-up counter that’s been selected for me. Then a whole other session begins. A young make-up girl, looking old beyond her years in the store uniform and the obligatory pancake-thick cosmetics, gets to work. She moisturises my skin, applies serum and sprays my face with ionised liquid, then begins with tinted moisturisers, foundations and secret concealers. All the while, she murmurs compliments about my skin, my eyes, my lashes, my lips. It’s all I can do not to believe that I’ve somehow become one of the most beautiful women on earth, but even while I retain a healthy scepticism, it’s a seductive feeling.