Tainted Touch

by Lucy V. Morgan

  Rich leaps up, puts the iPad on the counter, and slips his big hands into green oven gloves. A proud grin creeps across his face as he pulls open the stove door. “Here’s Johnny…”

  An hour later, Drew and I are watching Come Dine With Me while Rich puts the finishing touches to the cheesecake–a layer of melted milk chocolate, followed by a heap of strawberries. This is Vicky’s absolute favourite dish; if this doesn’t hook her in, nothing will. I just hope to God she gets home in time and doesn’t disappoint Rich because rehearsals are keeping her back later and later every night.

  “Now see, if I was on this show,” Drew says from the opposite sofa, “I’d just do burgers. You can’t beat burgers. Bacon, onion rings, bit of lettuce…”

  “To make them healthy?”

  “You read my mind.” He chuckles. “But yeah. Why bother cooking a load of random crap that half the people don’t like anyway, when everyone’s happy with a burger?”

  I fiddle with my iPad cover (still stained with blueberries. Classy). Am trying to stay away from the photos of Art’s ex that Rich warned me about, but it’s hard. “Because you’re meant to cook something a bit fancier? You’d get marked down for lack of effort.”

  “But here’s there other mistake, see–they never provide enough booze. You want people to be happy and not notice shit food? You have to get them drunk. Like, majorly.”

  “The show lasts for a whole week, though. By the end of it, they’re all trying to limit their drinks for fear of the massive hangovers,” I point out.

  Drew leans in on his elbows, eyes wide and playful. “Which is why you spike the fuckers.”

  “Right. Spike people’s drinks on a national television show. Of course.”

  “Stealth spike. Turn a single into a double, that kind of thing.”

  “Can you imagine what the narrator would say about that?” I choke down a laugh. “And on Sue’s menu tonight we have prawn cocktail and lemon, followed by horse tranq surprise.”

  Drew clicks his tongue and points at me like a cheesy gameshow host. “Epic shame for dessert.”

  It’s no good. Morbid curiosity slaughters any shred of self-preservation I have left, and I load up Art’s profile. Skip to the university album. And then the Contests one.

  Rich was right…I really didn’t want to see these.

  While Drew hoots at the television, I drink in shot after shot of a beautiful, lithe-limbed Indian girl draped over Art. Her black hair is shiny and poker-straight, pouring down her back; her lips are painted a dark, glossy red. Despite her casual clothes, there’s an air of elegance to the way she holds herself, and throughout the photos, she and a younger Art exchange deep looks and thrilled smiles as if they can’t believe their luck at finding each other. And they do find each other, again and again–in a student union bar, in parks, out with friends. In a yoga studio where she poses in tight red clothes, her back bent to a perfect arch and her hands clasped above in an act of prayer. He’s taken pictures of her lounging about on the bonnet of his car in a barely-there beaded bikini, the sun bouncing off her expensive sunglasses and her hair blending into the black paint like oil.

  The Contests album is the worst. There he stands post-match, his nose bloodied or eye bruised, and she cups his face in her palms or drags a hand through the sweat on his chest. Desire flies from her gaze like ribbons in wind; a jagged edge of possession swells his pupils. They’re in the picture, but they aren’t really there because they’re too busy being lost in each other.

  Few of the pictures have comments, but every now and then, she leaves a little smiley face. And he winks back. The intimacy they so obviously shared makes me nauseous. I shouldn’t have looked.

  In most of the photos, she’s tagged, and I hover over her name with a dry throat and a thumping pulse. Priya. Priya Jhadev. They obviously aren’t together now, and haven’t been for some time; do I want to put myself through looking at her profile? She’s so beautiful, so graceful. Holds herself with the kind of confidence I’ve never possessed. Art told me he went to India after a friend who did yoga told him about it, and Priya is so obviously this friend. Did he visit with her and just not want to tell me?

  When Dominic and I split up, I knew there was another girl but had no desire to research or confront her, pixels and all. I felt so defeated, as if the battle was already over–but this is different. This has just begun.

  I have to click. I have to know more about her, before…Vicky puts her key in the door. Bah.

  I lower the iPad, unsure whether I should be relieved or annoyed at the disturbance. Hell, if cheesecake can’t make me feel better about this, I’m not sure what can.

  Something clatters in the kitchen; Rich swears. The fridge slams shut and then he hurries into the living area, chucking himself at the sofa and attempting to look casual. Then Vicky clomps through the door on her heeled boots.

  She dumps her keys with a jangle, and starts talking.

  “Cait! You have news for me, you jammy–oh.” She appears between the sofas, casting doubtful looks between Rich and Drew. “Hey.” Her wavy hair bounces in its usual ponytail, and black liner is smudged effortlessly around her eyes.

  “Hey,” Rich says quickly, trying very hard not to look bothered. Only I notice the way his foot taps against the leg of the coffee table.

  Drew smiles innocently. “Good day?”

  “I’ve had better.” She unzips her boots and tosses them into the hall before coming to sit beside me. “Cait never said we were having company.” At that, she throws a sharp elbow into my ribs.

  I have to cough so I don’t yelp. “Bit of an impulse thing.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “Cait’s teaching us to bake, see,” Drew announces. “We made a cheesecake.”

  Rich looks up from inspecting his nails. “With chocolate. And strawberries.” He gives me a brisk nod. “She said that was a nice combo, so…thought we’d try it.”

  The look on Vicky’s face is comical. She knows something’s up, but can’t quite put her finger on it (frankly, I don’t think Rich would care where her finger went so long as it was on him).

  “It should be just about chilled enough. Shall I plate up?” There’s probably a touch too much enthusiasm in my voice, but I don’t care. This whole thing is kind of…sweet. Without waiting for a response, I leap up and head into the kitchen.

  Vicky isn’t far behind.

  “Cait!” she hisses, crowding over my shoulder. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Making you a cheesecake.” I slide the confection from the fridge, and present it to her with a sheepish smile. “There’s no telling him, apparently.”

  Vicky’s eyes narrow, but as she assesses each layer–crisp biscuit base, thick layer of cream cheese goodness, melted chocolate, crimson strawberries–the crease in her brow disappears. “He made that just for me?”

  “Yep.” I step from foot to foot. “Well, Drew did the base and the topping. Everything that involved smashing or chopping, he wanted in on.”

  “But you told him I wasn’t interested,” she says, quizzically.

  “You know what men are like.” I clear my throat. “Some men.”

  “Oh, speaking of which–!”

  “We’ll talk about Art later, okay?” I set the cheesecake on the counter and duck to fetch plates from the cupboard. “Promise. You go wait with the boys and I’ll bring this through.”

  She tips her head, hair spilling over her shoulder. “Why would I want to wait with him? I mean, them.”

  I shrug. “To be polite?”

  “Oh, fine. Fine.” She pretends to huff as she wanders off, but there’s a flush to her cheeks that wasn’t there before, and a spring in her step that I haven’t seen in a while.

  So I take my time slicing the cheesecake. I listen in on Rich gingerly questioning Vicky about her performance, asking if he can get tickets and how she’s feeling about the first night. And Vicky starts to really talk to him. Even Drew keeps quiet, his usual lewd in
nuendo dialled down.

  Not long after I’ve deposited the first plates on the table, my phone goes off in my pocket and a message from Art pops up.

  It’s a new photograph. He and Bea sit either side of a mahogany kitchen table. Powdered sugar dusts its surface and a heap of white icing in the middle has been crafted into a familiar shape. Bea’s grinning mouth is smeared with green and pink, no doubt from the Smarties they’ve been using to decorate, and Art has bits of icing in his dark hair. Do you wanna build a snowman? xxx he’s written.

  That’s my favourite kind of snowman, I reply. One made of lard and sugar x

  He responds a minute later: not the messiest thing I’ve eaten today ;) xxx

  Best. Monday. Ever.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Mills isn’t replying to my texts.”

  There. I’ve said it. Sure, she can take a few days sometimes, especially when she’s on a roll with her Sims or has coursework. And maybe I’m being paranoid because of her mini-breakdown at the weekend, but it’s bothering me, prodding with dark fingers that smell musty, like an old lighthouse.

  Art, who is kindly having a last ditch attempt to fix my back, spends a silent moment rubbing oil into the sore muscle beneath my shoulder blade. The sun pokes through the leaves of his plants to paint his clinic in frothy mint-green light.

  With my face pressed into my arms, I let off a little whimper of relief. Of all the things I have to worry about these days, making a sex noise in front of Art isn’t one of them. In fact, in his absence, I’ve had more than one dirty fantasy about his massage chair.

  “Have you checked in with your mum?” he asks.

  “No. Probably should.”

  “You know, just a casual thing. Don’t make her worry more than you have to–she’ll only pass that on to your sister.”

  “Yep. That is precisely what she’ll do.” I bite my lip as his thumb finds a sore spot. “Red.”

  “Oh. Sorry, lovely.” He eases away, and then sits back to squeeze more oil into his hand. It makes a squelching sound as he warms it between his palms. “When did you last hear from her?”

  “Nothing since we dropped her off on Saturday. So like, what, five days? I sent her a message on Monday, but nothing.” I sigh. “She does take a while sometimes, but the way she way on Friday….ugh. I’ve never seen her like that. I know it’s a cliché, but she’s always been the stronger one. The coper.”

  He lays flat hands across my shoulder and lifts gently, testing its mobility. “How’s that?”

  “Not bad. Normal, I think.”

  “You’re a lot better than you were. It won’t be long.” Two firm thumbs draw up either side of my spine, knitting together to graze each vertebrae. He lets out a long breath. “Cait. I know it’s hard, but this could’ve been going on with Millie for a while. Depression’s clever like that. Invisible. You don’t even know it’s there sometimes until it splits you right down the middle. All you can do is keep an eye on her.”

  I peer back at him. “You talking from experience?”

  He looks up, catches my eye. Amber irises flare in warning. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Art.” When we were in London, he and Millie went out for coffee alone…is this what they talked about?

  “It’s okay.” He taps an oiled finger to my neck. “Turn back around, madam. Don’t strain yourself.”

  “Apologies, Doctor Lyons,” I tease.

  “Oh, my parents would’ve loved that.” He gives a bitter bleat of a laugh, and in that moment, I know why he’s sitting on the massage chair behind me instead of doing the rounds on a ward. Eighteen-year-old me poured over enough university programs to know that you need the same grades for physiotherapy that you do for medicine, if you want to get into a good course. And though he didn’t finish, Art got into one of the best in the country.

  He could’ve been a doctor if he wanted.

  But he didn’t.

  Mostly, I’m guessing, because that was exactly what his parents wanted him to be. There’s always a void when he talks about them, as if some integral part of his heart is missing. No wonder he’s so attached to his siblings.

  “You’ve gone awfully quiet,” he says.

  “It’s easy to do, with your hands on me like this.” I smile to myself in my dark cage of arms.

  “Huh.” He strokes slow, ebbing circles along the base of my left buttock, and the pressure is firm. “Kind of different from Sunday. And Monday,” he adds, an edge of glee lifting his voice.

  It’s been two days since we’ve seen each other. Two days since he woke up in my bed and did things to me that Vicky, as I’ve learned, most definitely heard. It’s mean that he makes me straddle a seat when I’d much rather have him between my legs.

  “Don’t tempt me,” I mumble.

  “I’d get closer,” he breathes, “but I’d get oil all over my shirt. It’d be rather obvious.”

  I start to laugh. “Imagine Hazel’s face.” In fact, imagine Rosalie’s. Baha.

  “I’m up to my eyeballs tomorrow. Have to go to the New Forest again. But you free on Friday?”

  “Um…” He keeps working on the circles, trading a hard touch for light, and it’s rather hard to concentrate. “I have a meeting about my dissertation at three, but I’m done afterward.”

  “Come to my place? I want to cook for you.”

  I love the ease with which he says that; his words are full of lovely assumptions.

  “Ooh. Sounds promising.” Especially the part about his empty house.

  Art bends forward and feathers a string of light kisses along my bare neck. “What are you thinking of doing for the dissertation, then?”

  “Mmm.” I wait for the kisses to end at the glossy spread of oil across my shoulder. “Not sure yet. I wanted to analyse the growth of fast food restaurants–you know how we passed through my home town, and I was talking about the new ones?”

  “I remember.”

  “But I’m not sure how much mileage there is in that. I went through it with Drew the other day and he said it sounded more like sociology. I still want to do something with food, though.”

  His breath is warm and light on my shoulder. It heats the oil, diffuses the faint scent of herbs and makes the whole room feel fresh and green. “You should do something about Instagram. You spend enough time on it.”

  My elbow jerks back slightly, threatening to collide with his ribs.

  “Okay, okay.” He chuckles. “You know what I mean. Loads of famous people use it though, right? And loads of people use it for food stuff. There’s got to be something in all that.”

  “It has a lot of marketing potential.” I tap my bare foot on the wooden floor. “That’s not a bad idea, you know.”

  “You can thank me on Friday. Preferably twice.”

  “Hmm…” Now I’m the one making throaty little declarations of desire.

  With a sigh, he sits back, hands resting just above my buttocks. “All done here, lovely. I’d spend longer, but I have a client in ten minutes.”

  “So what’s your professional opinion? Am I all better?”

  “No such thing with a muscle injury.” He strokes one fingertip along the affected area, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “Swelling’s gone down, and your mobility’s improved. But you need to take it slow if you don’t want to end up with another injury. Give it a few days, maybe try the pool–go easy.”

  I arch back into his touch. Only a few weeks ago, I fled from it, even at a chemical level–it feels like a lifetime ago. “What about combat? I miss that.”

  “Oh, I’d give that another week at least.”

  “Meh.” I pout as he climbs up to fetch my clothes. “After the car park incident, I feel like I should be practising the roundhouse a little more regularly.”

  Art puts my bra and shirt beside me on the chair, and gives me a concerned frown. “I’ll be there next time. There won’t be another incident.”

  Cool air hits my bare chest as I swivel around. For a second,
my hands dig into the padded seat while I swing my legs, but then I feel his gaze on my breasts and a flush blossoms across my collarbone. I reach up to cover myself on instinct.

  White teeth sink into Art’s bottom lip. His voice drops to a rough whisper. “I love it when you go all shy like that.” Standing against the vertical blinds, bright light sucks at the edge of his profile in flickers and he looks as if the sun spat him out sideways.

  I don’t know why I even get embarrassed around him; he’s seen me naked and completely undone, pushed his tongue into places I don’t let people see. Perhaps it’s an offshoot of accepting his touch, a wariness that pervades the suspicion he’s just playing a big game. Art balms my issues, but they aren’t dead yet. They’re just smothered beneath his playful smiles.

  “Here.” He gestures for me to stand, and takes my black lace bra in his hands. “Let me help with that.”

  I do what comes naturally: obey him. We stand in silence as he slips the cups over my breasts from behind. His fingers don’t waste the opportunity, and they take their time tucking me in, pulling the band straight, smoothing the straps along my shoulders. The clasp is fastened with a light tug and then he runs his palms back around again, weighing my breasts over the fabric. A heady world of sighs and sucks us together, me reaching behind to clutch him close, him bending to press his mouth to my throat again. This time he suckles, bares his teeth. Bites. A riot of buried blood spits forth to mist my skin like a bruised strawberry.

  “Shit.” He tips my jaw, inspects the mark. “I’m sorry. Shit.”

  “It’s alr–”

  “No, it’s not. I’m sorry.” He brushes his lips over the soft sting, kissing it better. “Cait. It won’t happen again.”

  I twist in his arms, come to face him. “Hey. Maybe I’ll give you one on Friday, mmm?”

  For this, he has no words–only rose gold flaming across the strong line of his cheekbones and the cautious dip of his amber eyes. My poor Fist Candy, smothered in want and the shame of wanting. I have no words for this either, so I tuck a tuft of hair behind his ear with a feather-light finger, and stand on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his bottom lip.