Tainted Touch

by Lucy V. Morgan

  “I should see you out,” he says eventually.

  I feign a pout. “Suppose I should put my shirt on, then.”

  “Probably for the best.” A lopsided smile climbs half his face, deepening his rose gold blush. “Although if you want to walk around my house like that on Friday, it’s all good with me.”

  “Maybe I will. Heh.”

  He holds up the shirt, and I shrug back into it. Though most of the oil was worked into my skin, the fabric clings to patches and I have to shift to unstick them before doing up the buttons.

  “There.” I shake my hair out over the back of the stripy shirt. “Do I look decent?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  I gather up my coat and bag, slip into my shoes, and start toward the door. Art takes my arm and pulls me back a little.

  “I really am sorry,” he says earnestly.

  The mark on my neck stutters to a throb; my hand flies up to stroke it. “This? Art, seriously–it’s fine.”

  “Not the point, is it?”

  “Stop it.” I don’t know what’s brought this on, but the downcast look on his face whips my stomach to a cold storm. “Is this about Dominic? Because trust me, you’re nothing like–”

  “No.” He tries to laugh, but it stutters and stops and doesn’t quite happen. “Not that. Look…come kiss me goodbye, okay? And I’ll stop. Like you asked.”

  This, I can give him, and when our mouths meet, his arms bring me up at the waist with unusual strength and his hunger floods in on the taste of mints and coffee. It’s more of a clinch than an embrace, less a kiss and more of a collision. In my bed, he was passionate, but there’s more to come–the smoke and sparks, the punch bag, the quiet fury kindling in his amber eyes. Whatever it is that he works so hard to contain, it won’t stay hidden for long. And then what…?

  They didn’t judge me, he said. But only because I lied.

  “Come on,” he murmurs, his voice heavy. “I’ll walk you out.”

  As Art takes my hand, the photographs he took of Priya flash into my line of vision–the graceful silhouette in the yoga studio, the dark, sultry girl stretched across the bonnet of his car. Envy is a damp caress, but something else tears its clammy palms away: curiosity, ravenous in the face of a girl who knew his body as I do, perhaps knew it better than me. I almost wish I could talk to her. Get some answers.

  We emerge in the busy lobby, Rosalie’s eyes trained on us with a brief leer of surprise. I throw her a smile and a shrug–I know, he’s beautiful, and I just can’t get rid of him. Poor, pitiful me. The girl has no idea what to do with this and evidently didn’t expect it, so she just twists toward the computer and pretends to flick through the screens.

  I let Art help me into my coat. “So. Friday?”

  “Friday. Come see me as soon as you get off. And let me know what your mum says about Millie.”

  “Will do.” We can’t kiss out here, but I lean back against his torso for a second, and he finds my hand for a brief squeeze. “Have a good day.”

  “You too, babe. Talk soon.”

  But I don’t feel that we ever stop talking. Touch is a language and it reaches through walls, past roads, down alleys, chemical fingers clutching at tissues that ache in the absence of him.

  ***

  Deja vu is alive and well at the cathedral, where I’m once again battling the wind to call my mother. Sunday’s rain has made a mush of the turf, and I balance on a musty bench to keep my shoes out of the mud. Mom picks up after five rings.

  “Hello, Caitlyn.” He voice is curt as ever.

  “Mom. Hey. How’s things?”

  “Fine.” Her tone curves up with suspicion; she knows exactly why I’ve called. “I take it you and Millie enjoyed yourselves at the weekend.”

  “It was great, actually.” I scoop a chunk of wind-teased frizz back behind my ear. “Is Mills at school?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  I gulp. “I dunno. I just, you know….wondered. If she’s okay.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” she says sharply. “I’ve made her an appointment at the surgery, although lord knows if she’ll take it. Maybe you could have a word?”

  “Yeah. About that.” I squint up at one of the stone kings, but if there’s any sympathy left in him after all these years, I think Art got the last of it. “I did try, but she–”

  “Yes, she’s very stubborn. Insists nothing’s wrong.”

  “I think we need to stop talking about Cambridge, Mom. I know it’s what she wants, but maybe it isn’t what she needs.” That wasn’t what Mills said, exactly; she said she knew what she wanted, but wasn’t sure if it wanted her. Perhaps she’s afraid of the other interpretation…we all want to count the grains of sand, but we’re never going to get the time.

  Mom begins The Huffing. “She’s been working up to this her whole life. Of course the pressure is stifling–and she’s hardly thriving under it–but do you honestly think she’ll be satisfied with anything less? Cait, she tests in the top three percent of the country. She’ll be absolutely wasted–”

  “Why? Why would it be a waste if it’s what she wants?”

  “And what is it she wants, if it isn’t Cambridge? Hmm?” Static smogs the line as Mom exhales, long and hard. “Has she told you anything?”

  “No,” I say meekly.

  “Well then. I’ll get her to the doctor, and we’ll go from there. Maybe she needs to be medicated until her exams are over.” I hate the way she says this, as if it’s inevitable. She doesn’t like it any more than I do and would probably be the last person to advocate solving a problem with pills, but this is the only option right now if Mills refuses to talk.

  “Can you tell me what the doctor says?” I ask.

  “Of course. Provided that she agrees to go.”

  “When’s the appointment?”

  There’s a shuffle as Mom walks to the calendar in the kitchen. I can picture every step she takes along our faded mustard carpet. “Monday. Earliest they could do.”

  “At least it’s not long.” I pull my phone back to check the time; I’m meeting Rich and Drew at four to work on our dissertation proposals. “Shi–shoot. I have to run, Mom.”

  “Will we see you soon?”

  “Yeah. I’ll work something out.” Maybe next Friday–I could go on the train, just be around for Mills. Watch out for lighthouses. Coax her out into the waves before one of the concrete bastards hunts her down.

  ***

  Thursday is a rushed mess of Crap Breakfasts, digital marketing seminars and accounting demos. I promised Vicky I’d be home early so we could walk to her first performance together–I get to hang out backstage and everything.

  But when I get back to the apartment, the place is silent. No television crackle, no blast of the nineties house music she favours to get her energy levels up. No hiss of a boiling kettle or clatter in the kitchen.

  “Vick?” I call, yanking off my shoes. “You still here?”

  A soft sob rises from the direction of her bedroom, and I hurry towards it, dumping my bag as I go. When I barge in, another weeping sniff fills the air, and Vicky huddles on her leopard print bed, knees to her chest, eyes ringed red. A thick bunch of ivory roses and foamy baby’s breath lies beside her, its cellophane wrap crunching as she shifts about. The whole room reeks of fresh flowers and salted tears.

  “God.” I pad over to Vicky, stepping across the usual detritus–a half-stuffed gym bag, empty water bottles. Laundry tied in knotted heaps. I reach the bed and lift the flowers on to my lap to make room for my arse. “What’s happened? Aren’t you meant to be ready?”

  Vicky’s jaw creases and wobbles, and she swipes a wilting tissue across her wet cheeks. “R-read the card.”

  “What card?”

  She gives the flowers a nudge. A white card tumbles from the foliage. Its embossed weight is like suede in my fingers, and the stark black handwriting is awfully familiar.

  Good luck, gorgeous. You’ll be awesome. Love Ri
ch xxx

  I gape between my friend and the card. “Oh, Vick.”

  A smile threatens to cross her lips but then another sob wins out, drawing her shoulders up to shudder. “He’s such an arse,” she blurts. “Look at me. I’m a complete state.”

  I nod, pressing my lips together. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I agree. An arse if there ever was one.”

  “I mean it, Cait.” Vicky gestures to her pyjama-clad self with an aggressive stab, and another thick tear appears on her flushed cheek. “I–I’m too bloody fat for anyone to send me flowers. What’s he playing at?”

  “I don’t believe he thinks that for a second,” I say gently. “Want me to get you another tissue?”

  “Please.”

  In the bathroom, I grab a handful of tissues. Then I pause in the kitchen area to pour her a glass of water and chop a few slices of cucumber from the fridge. Salad: it’s good for something.

  “I’ll bring a vase through for the flowers in a sec,” I say as I walk back in. “In the meantime…clean your face up, and shove these on your eyes.” I hand her the tissue and a wad of kitchen roll that contains the cucumber.

  She peels the slices off, winces at them, and then pats them over her swollen eyes. “I’m not putting them in water,” she mutters.

  “Don’t be silly, Vick.” I give her knee a pat, surprising myself at how easy it feels to comfort her with more than a repressed nudge. “You should never waste good flowers, even if you don’t like him.”

  Silence.

  Oh, my goodness.

  “You do like him,” I say slowly. “Don’t you?”

  “Only because he’s making me,” she hisses, “with his stupid cheesecake and flowers and hanging around.”

  “Damn pesky moral support and consideration of your feelings.” I feign disapproval with a tut. “The nerve of him.”

  “Don’t patronise me.”

  The words sting and I slump away, unsure of how to make things better. Some things, you can’t fix with sarcasm. Which is probably why you can’t get it on prescription, huh?

  She pulls up one cucumber slice to look at me, and sniffs. Her tone drops low and guilty. “I’m doing that projecting thing, aren’t I?”

  “A bit,” I manage. “I know what that’s like, you know.”

  “But you’ve got your boxer hottie now. You’re all fixed up.”

  The leopard print cover blurs in my vision; I blink three times to get it back into focus. Kaleidoscope patterns swivel to pulp. “I wish it were that simple.”

  “Precisely. So Rich can take his flowers and shove them up his arse.” She swallows a newborn sob. “Roses are a fucking cliché anyway. Hey.” She prods at me. “What the hell happened to your neck?”

  Crap. My collar must’ve slipped down. “Over-enthusiastic boxer hottie, apparently.”

  She rolls her bloodshot eyes. “Of course.”

  “You can be as insecure as you like, but Rich has seen you naked and he still wants to give you baked goods and floral declarations of awesomeness. So either your blow jobs are legendary, or you’re worrying for nothing and he just really likes you.”

  “Huh.” She lowers her legs against my back and reaches blindly for the flowers. I deposit them in her lap with a brisk crunch of cellophane, ribbon and an explosion of disturbed perfume.

  “Also, I’ve had to listen to him go on about you for weeks. So I know he likes you. And you look good together, you and him. Same kind of style.” Between his metro mandigan chic and her quirky dresses and trainers, they’d look like a couple on an indie magazine cover. Or a Gap ad. I’m ninety-nine percent sure this isn’t lost on Rich–he’s probably drooling over the selfie potential.

  “Well then I’ll be the cliché,” she mutters. “He’ll think I was just playing hard to get, or whatever. Stringing him along. I don’t want to be this shrinking little violet that says no all the time when she really means yes.”

  “Bollocks. You’re allowed to change your mind.”

  Vicky finally cracks a smile. It’s cynical and edged with suspicion, but still there. “He did like the blow jobs, I suppose.”

  “There was more than one? You were only with him for a night!”

  “What can I say?” The cucumber slices shiver as she lets off a filthy laugh. “He smelled really nice.”

  The alarm clock lets off a little beep to announce the turn of the hour, and I give Vicky another poke. “We seriously need to get going. You’ll be late.”

  She sighs. “Give me five minutes? I should probably, y’know, get out of the jammies. Put some concealer on so I don’t scare people.”

  “Five minutes.” I grab the stem of her bouquet. “And I’ll put these in water. He’s going tonight…he’ll be around.”

  “Right.”

  “So you can talk to him. Work out whatever this thing is that you have,” I hint from the doorway.

  She yanks the green slices from her eyes and pulls her arms up in a stretch. “Maybe.”

  “Vicky. Do not fuck with the universe–it’s given you that lemons thing.”

  The cucumber shines in her palm, still moist and shiny. “It’d be really wrong to eat these, wouldn’t it?”

  I shoot her a glare.

  “Okay, okay,” she mutters, another laugh pulling at her tearstained features and wrinkling the corners of her eyes. “I’ll snack on the way out. And lemons, yeah. Noted. Thank you, universe, for the penis you have bestowed upon me. Aw, Cait. Only you could have me smithing through the pain.”

  “I’ll give you pain if you don’t stop fannying around. Get a move on.” I jab the flowers toward her. “Your adoring public awaits.” Along with her adoring boy, but she’d punch me if I added that bit.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Number of minutes until I’m on Art’s doorstep: four, roughly speaking.

  Number of outfits I tried on before I left: three. Plus five different underwear combinations. Priorities, people.

  Number of times I checked my phone for Dominic-related crap: zero. Am so proud.

  His little house sits right at the end of a terrace in a corner street outside the town gates. The buildings are crammed together in an archaic, higgledy-piggledy mess of mismatched old brickwork and wonky roof tiles; old wrought iron fences line the front gardens that have yet to be paved in the wake of cars. On my way up the hill, I walk around the clutches of early Friday customers outside black-and-white beamed Vaults pub, waving smoke from my face and avoiding cracks in the old sidewalk. Weeds grasp at my heels, jagged leaves for teeth grating like sniggers.

  I recognise Art’s car before I identify the house number–same shiny black AUDI, same business card stuck in the back window. Same bonnet that Priya lounged all over while…ugh. I must stop this. She was four years ago, and none of my freaking business.

  The wind is behaving–or at least sitting in the corner like a naughty child–so I can tentatively bestow Good Hair Day status. Beneath my coat, my green dress clings down to my waistline where it flairs out to a flirty little skirt. And its deep neckline puts Art’s smudge of a lovebite on display in all its bruised peach glory–I want him to know that it doesn’t bother me. Besides, it’s been a while since I wore such an outfit with confidence. Art’s easy admiration of my body sends adrenaline spewing whenever I crack open my wardrobe, and reminds me that I have pretty clothes, that they must come out and play. I even looked at fishnet stockings on the internet last night–Vicky wears them with this kind of ironic punk feel, and maybe I could pull that off. I want to try.

  Art answers the doorbell almost instantly. He stands in the doorway, all casual and rugged in his jeans and long-sleeved black tee, grinning with pleasure at the sight of me. It sets my nerves to that delicious brand of pre-sex panic.

  “Evening.” I can’t help grinning back at him with my painted red lips.

  “Same to you.” He steps out a little and lowers his voice. “I didn’t know you’d be quite this early…should probably warn you.”r />
  I frown.

  “I have another lady here.”

  “What?” I’m about to spit a load of verbal bile at him when a small blond hurricane whips down the hall, tackles him around the knees and nearly knocks him flying. My heartbeat dwindles with relief. “Oh. Um…hi?”

  Art, now braced against the doorframe, shakes Bea off his leg with a look of dubious apology. “Busy. Stop molesting my knee, cheers.” He ruffles her hair, and she peers at me from behind him, her blue eyes wide. “We were just on our way out, actually–I’m dropping her home. Want to come for the ride?” He nods to his car.

  “Oh. Sure.” I offer Bea a hesitant smile.

  She glances between me and Art with a curious look on her face, as if trying to calculate some innumerable equation.

  Art tugs the car keys in his pocket and tosses them to me. “Let yourself in. I’ve just got to grab her school stuff.”

  While he disappears back into the house, Bea lingers in the doorway, eyeballing me. The engaged part of my brain makes me adjust my collar, lest she witness the evidence of what her big brother does to me behind closed doors.

  “Art showed me your snowman,” I tell her. “It was cool.”

  She gives a sage nod. “He let me eat the head. But not the body.”

  “Ah. Did he eat that part?”

  “No.” Bea’s shrug and sigh are so theatrical, Vicky would definitely approve. “He says icing’s bad for you so we had to throw it away.”

  “I bet he only wants to look after your teeth,” I say.

  She pulls her lips apart, revealing a huge gap where her front teeth should be. “Mine are already falling out. See?”

  I bend forward, my hands tucked between my thighs. “Yikes. You could get a straw through there! Shall we get in the car?”

  “Will you sit in the back with me?”

  I usher her out, and press the button on the keyring to release the car doors. The lights flash momentarily. “If you like.”

  “When you and Art have a baby,” she says matter-of-factly, “then you can go in the front, and the baby can go next to me. In a special seat just for babies. Or if you have twins–”