by Helen Lowrie
An hour later we were shut inside her hotel room and I was reaching down to unzip Brooke’s dress while she fumbled with the buttons of my shirt. She was even shorter than I’d thought with her heels kicked off and I started to wonder if we were going to be compatible – I didn’t want to hurt her. In between kisses she giggled repeatedly like a schoolgirl, the sound becoming irritating. I eased her backwards onto the bed and then struggled to maintain my balance as I bent to remove my shoes, socks and trousers. My head was foggy with alcohol and part of me just wanted to crash out and sleep but I made sure I found a condom before tossing my wallet aside.
‘Mmm, you’re really cute,’ Brooke purred, writhing on the bed as I straddled her and returned my mouth to hers.
I didn’t reply but instead focused on working kisses down from her face to her chest.
‘Eeek that tickles!’ she squealed, before lapsing into more giggles. Her breasts were silicone-enhanced, perfectly shaped, unnaturally pert, and immobile as I rubbed my hands over them and I found myself wondering how much they had cost to create. Mentally shaking my head, I told myself to focus on the task in hand – I wasn’t even hard yet.
Sitting back on my haunches I eased her thong down and she raised a petite leg so that I could remove it completely.
‘Say something English,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Y’know, with your sexy accent; say something really posh.’
I gazed at her for a moment as her request sank in and then closed my eyes, sighing in defeat. Who was I kidding? This wasn’t going to work; this just wasn’t what I wanted. ‘I’m sorry, Brooke; I can’t do this,’ I said, getting to my feet and reaching for my clothes.
She gaped at me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m too drunk, sorry. I’m just going to go.’
She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at me from the bed as I pulled my clothes back on and shrugged into my jacket, jamming my wallet into my trouser pocket and my feet into my socks and shoes. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Sorry,’ I said again, ‘You’re a lovely girl and I never meant to –’ I stopped speaking when I registered the hostile look on her face. ‘Bye,’ I muttered slipping out of the door and hurrying away down the corridor.
It was entirely fitting that it was pouring with rain when I stumbled out on to the pavement – I was a complete arsehole and deserved nothing less. Turning my collar up around my neck, I thrust my hands in my pockets, hunching against the deluge, as I set off down the road without any destination in mind. As I walked I tried to shrug off the shame and discomfort of what had just happened. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing; I’d never see Brooke again, I’d made no promises and she’d get over the rejection soon enough. But it still bothered me.
My feet squelched in my shoes as I kept walking, cold rainwater battering down relentlessly and soaking into my suit which now hung heavily from my bones. With every step I felt myself sobering up, restless with some unnamed emotion. What had got into me? Sure, Brooke wasn’t perfect, but she was attractive, lively, friendly enough – and I needed to get laid, dammit; the last time I’d had sex must have been with Jasmine, back in March, more than two months ago. What was wrong with me?
The rain had begun to ease by the time I finally stopped under a street lamp and lifted my gaze. By coming here I’d answered my own question. The skeleton market stalls stood empty and exposed and Vic’s Cafe sat in darkness. I shifted my eyes to the flat above, searching the barred windows for signs of life but, although there was a gap in the curtains, there was no internal light on, no movement detectable in the shadows. This was what was wrong with me – Rina: a married, older woman that I barely knew, living in a city I’d just moved out of.
I must have slept with more than fifty young women over the years – most of them while I was at uni – but I had always been faithful, always tried to treat them with respect, and they had all been single – unattached and available – each and every one; a fact I was proud of. So why was I even entertaining the idea of sex with Rina?
Because of that kiss.
God, the memory of that kiss kept me awake at night. Nothing had ever felt so right: the heat of her lips, the soapy scent of her smooth skin, and the warm weight of her body as it softened effortlessly into mine: as if we were two halves of something, reunited and made whole again. And it wasn’t just the physical chemistry between us, though Lord knows that was powerful enough. Rina had infected my mind too – I’d never experienced anything like it. I thought about her all the time, wherever I was, whatever I was doing. I’d always assumed that attraction as powerful as that was a myth; a fairy tale; an elaborate lie designed to sell perfume, lingerie and condoms, one which ultimately made most people feel inadequate. But now that I’d met Rina I wasn’t so sure. For some reason that I couldn’t explain I felt compelled to be near her, as if she was somehow fundamental, essential, to my well-being. It was deeply disturbing.
Chapter Nineteen
Vic stumbled into our bedroom, drunk as usual, temporarily blinding me as he switched on the bright fluorescent overhead light and cursing as he stubbed a toe. I stayed still and kept my head down, breathing through my mouth to avoid the sour stench that now permeated the air. It was raining heavily outside and the moisture looked clammy on his sallow skin. Through slitted eyes I watched him getting undressed, the sight of my husband’s stringy, anaemic-looking body leaving me cold as usual. Time, along with Vic’s rash lifestyle, was not being kind to him. Dispassionately I eyed his scrawny arms and legs and the spreading bloat of his gut, all the while alert to any subtle shifts in his mood. As he turned he tripped slightly, his arm swinging out towards me, and I sprang up and away, out of reach, on primed reflexes.
He glanced at me in surprise and chuckled darkly as I hovered by the bed. ‘Relax you stupid cow – I ain’t interested in you. Wouldn’t fuck you even if you begged me, you miserable bitch.’ Lifting the duvet he clambered underneath. ‘Not that I ain’t entitled to of course but you ain’t worth the bother.’ He settled comfortably on his side of the bed, his tattooed arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. ‘Turn out the fucking light,’ he muttered on a sigh.
Keeping my back to the wall and my eyes trained on him, I felt for the light switch, listening to his breathing slow and lengthen as the room filled with street light and shadows. As his breath morphed into snoring, I relaxed, wrapping my arms around my middle to keep myself warm. According to the glowing digits of the bedside clock it was 3 a.m. Now that I was awake I took the opportunity to use the bathroom, quietly relieving my bladder in the dark. The rain outside was easing, the hammering on the roof lessening and the splashing overflow of the blocked gutters subsiding, to leave behind the steady drip, drip, dripping of water from the vacant market stalls below.
Standing in shadow in the living room I gazed out through a gap in the curtains at the street below. A tall, lone, dark male rounded the corner, head down, shoulders hunched and hands thrust in pockets. He was well built and wore a smart-looking suit, his polished shoes slapping the wet pavement as he strode. But something about his long-legged gait was familiar. As he reached the lamp post directly opposite he stopped and glanced upwards and I stopped breathing. James.
His dark eyes searched the building, sweeping over me without seeing me, as I stood rooted to the spot, drinking in the unexpected sight of him. He looked cold, soaked to the skin, moisture dripping from his hair, the clean-shaven planes of his face and his cuffs. He had turned up the collar of his jacket, which reinforced the strong angle of his jaw line, but his shirt was casually unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a dark, tantalising smudge of exposed chest hair. He looked serious, sultry and sexy as hell – as if he’d just stepped out of the pages of a high-end fashion magazine – and I felt like I was dreaming.
But what was he doing here in the middle of the night? Surely he wasn’t here because of me – because of the kiss we’d shared two days ago? What was he go
ing to do? As panic and confusion swept through me I started to tremble all over. He wouldn’t try anything stupid would he? Not with Vic lying in the bedroom like a sleeping grenade? Wide-eyed I stared at the man across the street as he stood quietly gazing up through me, lost in thought. He shivered slightly and a wave of longing broke through me. I wanted to go to him, to comfort and warm him, to dry him with a towel and feel his mouth on mine. But I couldn’t. He was only across the road and yet he was a million miles away, in a separate life, in another world, across a line I could not cross.
At last he withdrew his hands from his pockets, rubbed his face and shoved his fingers through his wet hair. Straightening his back, and with one last lingering look up at my window, he strode away out of sight. For a long time I stood staring after him, disappointed and relieved and burning with unanswered questions.
Chapter Twenty
My irritation grew as I sat impotently in a tailback on the A1, the June sunshine beating down on the van’s windscreen, the engine idling and approximately five hundred quid’s worth of plants wilting in the back. I needed to see Rina. It was wrong of me to kiss her last week and she was right to ask me to leave but – even if she’d meant it when she’d told me not to return – I had to. I needed to know that she was safe, that I’d got the wrong idea about her husband, and that I hadn’t made things worse for her. But what then? She was still married – she still could not be mine.
With my fist I thumped the edge of the steering wheel in frustration, inadvertently beeping the horn. The woman in the car in front glared at me in her rear-view mirror and I mouthed an apology but she just rolled her eyes, unforgivingly.
Last night I’d finally managed to speak to Jasmine on the phone and her high-pitched outrage still rang in my ears. I was tempted to stick the flat on the market while she was still living there – except that Jasmine would probably retaliate by sabotaging the property, or the viewings, or both. At least a bank loan had been approved to tide me over in the meantime and I’d been able to give the builders, friends of Liam’s, the go ahead on the new extension – they were scheduled to start in July.
Unfortunately Liam and I still hadn’t managed to track down his girlfriend, Cally. I found it hard to believe that Liam could have done anything to hurt her but, whatever her reasons, and whatever she was up to, Cally didn’t want to be found. And Liam had finally admitted defeat.
Retreating into himself he now spoke even less than usual. I felt useless in the face of his rejection and pain – somehow moral support just didn’t seem enough.
My search for Kitkat had hit a wall too. It was two months since I’d left my first message for the Plumleys. I’d left three more since then and nobody had called me back, not even to let me know I’d got the wrong number. I was at a loss as to what else to try. I wanted to talk to Rina about it – sometimes it felt like I could tell her anything – but after what had happened between us last week would she want to listen? And anyway Kitkat … I never spoke of her, never – some things were just too personal; too painful; too deeply embedded in my soul.
It was later than usual by the time I’d reached the market and unloaded the van. I barely heard a word Gary said to me. As I entered the cafe through the open door I took a deep breath. For once there were absolutely no other customers and I took it as a good sign, as if the world was granting us some space to talk. She stood at the sink with her back to me, her shoulders stiff with tension as she brusquely dried a mug with a tea towel.
‘Rina?’
She set down the mug and bowed her head. ‘You shouldn’t have come.’ Her voice was heavy with emotion.
She turned towards me and, encouraged, I moved around the counter and approached her but she backed away. By the time I’d caught up with her we were in the larder out of sight of any passers-by. I wanted to tell her that everything was OK, that I wouldn’t hurt her but, before I could speak, she was kissing me. Her eyes were dark with anger and her skin flushed, as if she longed for me the way I did for her and resented it. I revelled in the sweet, eager taste of her mouth, her lips scorching mine, her fingers raking through my hair and holding me close. As the blood throbbed in my veins, my hands roamed across the contours of her back, her tiny waist, the curve of her hip bones, and the swell of her bottom – just savouring the feel of her.
Loosening the ties on her apron I edged my hand up under the hem of her shirt. As my fingers made contact with the smooth, warm skin of her back, my whole body buzzed as if charged with electric current and she gasped and tipped her head back to look at me, her eyes wide and lips swollen.
‘Oh God,’ she moaned.
I kissed her again, muting her raw words with my mouth before moving on down to taste her jaw, her ear lobe, her neck, all the while caressing her skin from her shoulder blades down to the soft hollow above the waistband of her jeans.
‘No,’ she panted. ‘Just stop.’
We stared at each other for a moment as I tried to steady my breathing. She was so beautiful, so compelling. ‘Leave him,’ I said. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on mine. ‘Yes. Leave him and come and be with me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. People do it all the time –’
‘No, you don’t understand.’
‘Explain it to me,’ I said, stroking the delicately flushed pink of her cheek with my fingers.
‘I can’t.’ She pulled away from me.
As she re-tied the strings of her apron it occurred to me that, despite the warm weather, despite the heat of working in a kitchen frying things all day, Rina wore long-sleeved shirts with the sleeves rolled down. In fact I’d never seen her bare forearms. On instinct I reached out, took her hand in mine and eased her sleeve back with my other hand, unsure what I might find. She yanked her arm away from me, quickly drawing her sleeve back into place, but not before I’d clocked the faded yellow bruises where someone had grabbed her with brutish force.
A surge of rage swelled up inside me. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to find this husband of hers and make him suffer. ‘Where is he?’ I bit out as I turned towards the passageway. ‘Upstairs?’
‘No, please, James, don’t.’ Rina clutched my arm.
I tried to shrug her off, trembling with fury.
‘Just stop and listen to me.’ I turned back to her stalled by the steady steel of her voice. ‘You don’t know me; you don’t know the life I’ve led, the things I’ve done. I’m not some innocent little maiden that needs rescuing.’ Her eyes blazed at me, determined.
‘Tell me then; you won’t change my mind. I can’t just let him keep hurting you.’ I meant it but at the same time I wondered why I wasn’t just walking away. Did I really want to get involved in someone else’s marriage?
Her eyes softened and she reached up and cupped my cheek, a fragile smile on her face. ‘OK, I’ll tell you.’ Reining in my anger and confusion, I leaned into her palm and released a heavy breath. ‘Sit down; I’ll make you a coffee.’
Doing as instructed, I left the kitchen area and took up my usual stool on the other side of the counter, my body already missing and craving her touch. As she poured my drink two men from the market wandered in and ordered some breakfast. I tried not to think about the bastard in the flat above my head while Rina calmly chatted to her customers and served their food. Eventually the men moved away to sit in the window and Rina began wrapping pairs of cutlery neatly inside paper napkins. I focused on the fluid movement of her long fingers in an attempt to keep my emotions in check as she spoke in a low voice.
‘I didn’t have a very happy childhood,’ she began. ‘I don’t want to go into it but I’m sure it was completely different from yours. I didn’t have any family to rely on.’
My chest tightened. Should I set her straight? Admit to my own unhappy start in life? As a rule I didn’t divulge it to anyone, not even to my closest friends. Not Jasmine, not even Liam, knew that I’d been abandoned as a toddler. In fact, now that Dad was dead, no one left in my life
was privy to the shameful truth. Should I confide in Rina? Could I? The idea made me feel sick and yet I wanted to know everything there was to know about her.
‘By the time I was seventeen I was living on the streets,’ she murmured. ‘I had nothing; I was nothing.’
‘No.’ I searched her face but she wouldn’t look at me and just continued as if she hadn’t heard.
‘I got a bad kidney infection and almost died. I ended up in the hospital. They removed one kidney completely; it was too badly damaged.’
Overwhelmed with sympathy I had to refrain from vaulting over the counter and crushing her to my chest. Instead I reached out to touch her hand but she pulled away, her eyes darting nervously to the other customers.
‘Vic was the only person to visit me while I was in the hospital,’ she said. ‘He was the nearest thing I had to a friend. He offered me a way out – marriage, a home and a job. For someone like me it was too good an offer to refuse.’
I shook my head. ‘But if he won’t let you go out, if he hurts you –’
‘He isn’t always violent. He’s been good to me; he saved my life. I owe him some loyalty if nothing else.’
‘But, Rina, surely you’ve more than repaid him by staying with him this long. No one deserves to be treated like a, a slave.’
‘He’d find me,’ she said quietly.
‘How? He doesn’t know me and –’
‘He’d ask around, he’d work it out and come after me.’ ‘You could change your name –’
‘He’d kill us.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
‘We’ll go to the police and –’
Floorboards creaked overhead and Rina glanced at the time in alarm – it was almost midday. ‘It’s late, you have to go.’
