The Stand In

by Alam, Donna

  Probably a slap, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

  I wonder if she waxes. Not that it matters because I already know she’ll taste sweet. I wonder about her colouring. Soft reds and silky pinks are my guesses. I wonder about the noises she’ll make because she will make them for me.

  ‘I think I might need something stronger than this,’ I say as Heather watches me from over her coffee cup.

  ‘You looked very deep in thought. I was expecting a tear or two.’

  ‘Well, I have prayed for escape. And I’m seriously considering dropping my napkin to the floor. Do you think anyone would miss me?’ I pull at the floor-length table linens.

  ‘I don’t see . . .’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it. No one would see me if I hid under there.’

  ‘But you’d still be subjected to this.’ She tilts her head to the top table to whoever is speaking now.

  ‘But I’d have something else to concentrate on. I promise it would alleviate your boredom.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Her expression twists as she places the coffee cup down, popping the accompanying petit four into her mouth.

  ‘Babe, I guarantee you’d enjoy it.’

  ‘I meant I wouldn’t let you. Can I have that?’ Her cheeks are more red than pink as she points at the petit four lying on the saucer of my untouched coffee.

  ‘What’ll you give me in exchange?’

  ‘Come here.’ We each lean closer to the other when she raises her hand to my face, rubbing her thumb across my cheek.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your wickedness is showing.’

  ‘You have no idea how wicked I can be. But you could find out.’

  ‘I think we should go and mingle soon.’ She steers away just as surely as she tries to steer away the conversation.

  ‘So, we weave our happy tale?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Remind me what’s on the agenda next? It was a dance or two, when the band starts, right?

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what I said, but it’s not as if we—’

  ‘I think it was the ceremony, then eat,’ I begin to count the items off on my fingers. ‘A dance once, then be out of here by eight.’

  ‘It wasn’t set in stone,’ she says, her brows lowering.

  ‘Except the bit where we fuck like bunnies, right?’

  ‘Leave them all green with envy,’ she says with more determination than relish.

  ‘Anyone would think you were in charge of this little deception,’ she murmurs, pushing back her chair.

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ I answer with my best estimation of a wolfish grin. ‘Because I’m not the one with no knickers on.’

  13

  Archer

  We make the rounds, speaking to those faces we recognise. Heather takes particular attention to be sure that Allison sees us talking to the big boss. Dressed in his morning suit, he really does resemble Sir Topham Hatt more now than ever. And he’s weirdly pleased to see Heather. Maybe she has chocolate in her bag?

  I introduce her to the faces from E11even that I know, and though Heather smiles, it’s not hard to see how others have labelled her has standoffish. Only the most observant of people maybe would realise her reticent nature is actually anxiety.

  ‘Do you think they believe us?’ She whispers the question in my ear as we wander from another table.

  ‘Why wouldn’t they? I’m besotted with you.’

  ‘Be sensible.’ The way she dips her head to my shoulder probably looks like affection from the outside looking in. In actuality, it’s a reprimand, and the nearest she’ll come to headbutting me in public.

  ‘It’s true. And you’re treating me mean—’

  ‘Not helpful.’

  ‘—to keep me keen.’

  ‘How does that even work?’ she asks, bemused.

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe you should ask Haydn.’

  ‘Urgh. Speaking of that devil, do you think he’s left?’ Her gaze cuts anxiously to mine.

  ‘I doubt it. At a wedding like this, there’s always a bunch that escape to the bar. He might be with that lot. Shall we add them to our list of people witnessing our love?’

  ‘Do we have to?’ she asks forlornly.

  ‘It’s up to you, but if you want to be certain everyone is singing the same tune, we should probably have a drink with them.’

  ‘Urgh. Okay.’

  ‘And if you want to be really sure, we could always up the ante a bit.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I don’t have any underwear left to bet.’

  This I already know. When this dress comes off tonight, there’ll be nothing left between my eyes and her skin.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ I take her hand, pressing it to the crook of my bent elbow as we make our way out of the ballroom. ‘I meant we should kiss.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s not happening.’

  ‘You’ll slip off your knickers, but you won’t kiss me to help our story?’

  ‘Our story?’ she repeats, her expression amused.

  ‘It’s as much a part of my E11even experience now as it is yours. From here on out, I’m the guy you’re either dating or you used to date.’

  ‘I didn’t think about it like that.’ Her gaze dips momentarily. ‘I could only see my problems, and how you could help me solve them. Sorry.’

  ‘C’mon. I like it better when you’re being mean to me.’ As she begins to pull her hand away, I press my fingers over hers. ‘What I mean to say is, you might’ve just invited me instead of demanding I come along. But now that I’m here, the how you got me here means a lot less than I thought it would.’

  ‘Really?’ Is that doubt or mistrust she’s looking at me with?

  ‘Though you should know I had all kinds of payback plans.’

  Why does she look almost relieved?

  I realise we’re heading in the direction of the bar I’d grabbed a drink at when I’d arrived earlier, the kind you often find in country house hotels; a mahogany top that’s seen lots of use, dark furniture, tweed wing back chairs and deep cushioned leather couches. A bookcase fills an alcove with heavy leather-bound tombs, and a grand looking fireplace dominating one wall, a dour portrait of someone long dead glowering down.

  ‘That sounds worrying. Do I need to worry?’ Her gaze slides to mine, her grey eyes so solemn.

  ‘No, not anymore. So, back to that kiss. It’d help our story.’

  ‘Good try,’ she says, laughter lightening her voice. ‘Besides, not all couples are demonstrative. Some, like us, are very much private.’

  ‘You’re not very observant, are you?’ We come to a stop, and I turn to face her. ‘All day, I’ve hung onto your every word. Unable to keep my hands to myself.’ The words are little more than a rasp, the line between truth and playacting blurring further as I slide my finger down her bare arm. ‘I’d say that makes us the demonstrative kind. The passionate kind. And you, my little sugar puff, are mad for me. Even if you wouldn’t let me under the table.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not that good of an actress.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been faking it if I’d been between your knees.’

  She inhales sharply, shocked by my dark tone and words. As I start to walk again, she’s a step behind me.

  ‘You know you want to kiss me,’ I add as she catches up with me. ‘And so you should. I’ve been a perfect date.’

  ‘That’s a little assuming.’

  ‘I guarantee a kiss would bring it closer to perfect.’

  She gives her head a playful little shake.

  ‘Ah, well, you can’t blame a man for trying. You look gorgeous today. Did I tell you that already?’

  ‘No.’ She dips her head, the words vibrating with mirth. ‘Thank you. But I’m still not kissing you.’

  The drone of conversation and clinking bottles and glasses spills from the bar as we near the double doors, left open in invitation. I slow my steps, bringing us to a stop at the
threshold, her arm slipping from mine as I turn to her again.

  ‘Heather, are your eyelashes real?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Her head rears back a little, as though the change of conversational direction is a little like verbal whiplash.

  ‘Your eyelashes. Do you have those, erm . . .’ I wiggle a finger as though I can’t recall. ‘What do they call them? Extensions?’

  ‘No,’ she replies, affronted. Or maybe still confused.

  ‘They must be,’ I add, cleaning closer to gaze into her wide grey eyes as though the answer to my deepest desire lies there.

  ‘It’s just mascara. See?’

  Her eyelids flutter a little before they close, lying like inky half-moons above her cheeks. She really is quite lovely. Especially when she’s not glaring at me. And maddening, and not just because her underwear is in my pocket.

  ‘They’re so long,’ I murmur, taking her face in my hands as though to examine them better when, in reality, I’m staring at the temptation of her pink, lush mouth.

  What was it Shakespeare wrote? Lips like blushing pilgrims.

  As was always my intention, I lean in to deliver the kind of soft kiss that I hope makes her forget everything else. About Haydn, about E11even, about our playacting, her presumptions of me. As our lips meet, Heather sucks in a tiny gasp at the surprise of it. I anticipate her tension and expect her to pull away, fully prepared to deepen my kiss as a way of keeping her there. But then her mouth is already yielding to mine, her lips parting not with a gasp this time, but a sigh. Her hands grip my wrists, her thumbs pressed against my thudding pulse as she leans into my kiss. Allowing me to taste and tease, she accepts the slide of my tongue into her mouth as though it belongs there.

  A breathy moan and I’m done for, stifling the vibration by deepening my kiss. Suddenly, I’m burning for her, desperate to press her back against something solid, to mould my body to hers. Because I don’t want to end it here, and I don’t want to play pretend anymore.

  Then from somewhere else, maybe another dimension, catcalls begin.

  ‘Get a room.’

  ‘Put the poor girl down.’

  ‘Jesus, I think I’m pregnant just from watching them.’

  Now she stiffens, then tries to pull away, but if not for her pride and my hands on her cheeks, she’d probably be in the carpark by now.

  ‘You did that on purpose,’ she murmurs, her lips just a breath from mine.

  ‘My sin is purged,’ I find myself answering.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not sorry.’ Because how can I be sorry when a kiss with its origins in deceit leaves me feeling like I’m in a state of fucking grace. ‘My only sin is kissing you for the wrong reason.’

  ‘You really aren’t making any sense.’

  ‘I know. Just go with it.’ I lower my hands, sliding one around her shoulder to bring her body into mine as we face the crowd in the bar.

  ‘You two kept that quiet,’ someone calls.

  Another says, ‘I think I need a cigarette!’

  ‘It looks like our secret is out,’ I whisper sotto voce, pressing my lips to her head for good measure. ‘Let’s get a drink before we go and sit with the miscreants.’

  At the bar, we order a couple of vodka tonics. The glasses no sooner hit the bar than she’s downing hers, without adding tonic to the remaining ice, then reaching for mine and throwing it back.

  ‘Urgh, yuck.’ Her body is wracked with a shiver. ‘Dutch courage,’ she says as she adds tonic to my now empty glass. ‘You’re not allowed to judge.’

  ‘I didn’t say a thing.’ But I do wonder what she’s building up to. I decide not to order two more because, whatever she has in mind, I’d like her to be able to remember it.

  ‘I can feel the alcohol warming all the way to my toes. It’ll loosen me up, you know.’

  ‘How loose are we talking?’

  ‘Not the kind of loose you’re thinking about,’ she answers, laughing.

  We make our way over to where a group of E11even staff are sitting, my hand wrapping around her hip unconsciously, a thrill coursing through me as I realise there’s so little between my hand and her skin.

  The last of the sun’s rays bathes the corner they’ve commandeered where a couple of leather sofas and a number of the wing backed chairs are arranged around two of the low tables laden with empty glasses.

  Greetings are exchanged, and most of the faces are familiar, though I don’t know them all by name. I’m not sure if its serendipitous or an omen that Haydn is sitting in the middle of the fray.

  ‘Budge up and make space for two little ones,’ I say, already stepping over outstretched legs, heading for a spare chair. When I sit, I realise Heather is still standing at the edge of the crowd clutching her drink.

  ‘Babe.’ I hold out my hand as though upset she hasn’t followed, then pat my knee as though the idea has only just occurred to me, when in fact that’s why I’m here. I figure her being pissed off at me is better than being frozen with fear. ‘Come on. The cat’s out of the bag now. It’s no good pretending anymore that we’re not a thing.’

  ‘You guys are a thing?’ one of the women sitting to my left pipes up. She doesn’t appear to have followed the invitation unless she plumbed for the disco era in her attempt at retro. I’m pretty sure they call the type of dress she’s wearing a bodycon. It’s a total misnomer, by the way, because there’s nothing that dress could con. Everything is out on display.

  ‘Did you not just see them playing tonsil tennis?’ the bloke sitting next to her says.

  ‘Yeah, but they might just be hooking up.’ She brings the straw in her drink to her lips, shooting me a less than subtle wink.

  Before I have a chance to let it be known my heart belongs elsewhere, Heather begins to climb over knees and outstretched legs, somehow catching her heel on the calf of the girl with the wink—who complains loudly—before she lands almost sprawled against me.

  ‘Aw, did you miss me?’ I purr.

  ‘Obviously, or I’d be sprawled across someone else.’

  ‘Funny. You’re so cute it kills me,’ I say, pecking a kiss to her nose.

  ‘Don’t make promises you have no intention of letting me keep,’ she murmurs as she turns, forcing me to squeeze her hip in warning. Which just makes me as hard as a pole again.

  But it might not be her cute factor that eventually kills me as she seats herself across my thighs a little more respectably. Proper and acceptable for her, torturous for me as she begins to wiggle as she straightens her dress to safeguard the flashing of thigh. And it’s that sliver of thigh that her boss is fixated on.

  ‘Babe, look, there’s Haydn.’ At the sound of his name, his head whips up, his expression murderous.

  ‘Yes, Archer. So I see.’

  ‘Archer?’ the woman disco diva squeaks, our introduction scuppered. ‘I thought your name was Archie.’

  ‘That’s my middle name.’ I readjust Heather’s lovely arse a little farther away from my crotch when she frowns down at me, then wiggles back.

  ‘Archer Archie?’ the woman repeats, taking me seriously. Seriously?

  ‘Yep. Tell her, babe.’ I find myself nuzzling Heather’s neck, and I’m not a nuzzler, but if there was space in her dress for me, I’d be in it.

  ‘Pay no attention. He’s teasing you.’ Though I now know this sentence, this short collection of words, has taken some courage to birth into the world, those whisky and cigarette tones of hers hide any sign of insecurity. She has the kind of voice that would make her a Pied Piper of men and the enemy of women, judging by the look Double D is giving her. Double D, the disco diva. And yes, also Double D because of her tits.

  ‘What is his middle name, then?’ Hers is the kind of delivery that says Double D is a bit of a bitch; the queen of the clique. Take away her makeup and a few years and you can see her hanging around the park after school, still in her school uniform, the skirt rolled short, her gob like a washing machine as she chews a wad of gum. The ki
nd that’s all defiance and bad attitude. I don’t know, maybe I’m judging her unfairly. Maybe she’s just a nice girl, and Mai Tai’s just make her mean. But what I do know is, I wouldn’t screw her with Haydn’s dick, no matter how hard she’s interested.

  ‘Middle names? We haven’t quite gotten that far yet, have we?’ As Heather slides her fingers through my hair and I find that I almost purr.

  ‘Oh. I get it. You’re not serious.’ Subtle she is not, though she manages not to clap her hands.

  I wrap my arm around Heather’s tiny waist so she doesn’t fall from my knee as I lean forward.

  ‘Feel this here.’ I hold out my arm in front of Double D. ‘You know what they call this?’

  ‘I used to work Harrods, so I know what that is,’ she answers smugly, laying her hand on my sleeve. ‘It’s Givenchy.’

  It’s actually Armani, but that’s not where I’m going with this.

  ‘This is prime boyfriend material,’ I reply, pulling my arm away and wrapping my arms around Heather’s waist. ‘And it’s all for this girl. We’ll get to middle names someday, right?’

  ‘If you’re a good boy.’ The way she’s looking at me makes me want to be a really good boy. Or a bad boy. Hell, I’ll be exactly the kind of boy she wants me to be. ‘And you stop distracting me.’

  ‘Then you need to stop being so gorgeous. Joking—never stop being you.’

  ‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ someone coos. Someone not Double D.

  ‘And I mean, it’s not as though I don’t know your family, right? Little Lavender and Primrose. Leif and Dan . . .’ Possibly.

  Double D’s smile drops, and she throws herself back in her chair, allowing me to continue to be sickeningly sweet to Heather for as long as she’ll tolerate it. And she does tolerate it well. Tiny touches, and whispers, my hand linked with hers. In fact, she appears to be lapping it up. And speaking of laps, there comes a point when, for the sake of blood flow, I have to adjust exactly where Heather is sitting.

  ‘Want another drink?’ More nuzzling. More whispers in her ear.