Tainted Touch

by Lucy V. Morgan

  “I’ll see what comes in the post, then, shall I?”

  “Wouldn’t it be awesome if God could actually send you a credit note for an excellent shag?”

  But he’s more than that. Always has been. He makes me laugh; makes me feel peaceful; makes me feel good about myself. When I met him, it was like our bodies sifted through a hundred wavelengths and found one made just for us.

  If this is really the end for me and Art, I need to find the off-switch for that wavelength before the fists that feather up my spine drive me mad.

  “What are you doing for the rest of the day?” she asks. “Want to come shopping?”

  “Need to finish off my dissertation proposal. After that…why not?” It’s preferable to rotting in my bedroom, I suppose.

  Vicky gives a nod of approval. “We’ll medicate you with shoes.”

  ***

  Monday. Still no word from Art. My body has started to prepare for rejection on a chemical level, building up to it the way you do an exam or horrible medical procedure. All my nerves are shredded, and when I make my morning cereal, my hands tremble around the bowl.

  Screw this–my back’s better. I’m going to hit the pool.

  Art doesn’t work on a Monday, as far as I know, so there’s no chance of an awkward meeting. If I’m lucky, I can probably avoid Hazel too. I’ll take it easy since it’s my first time back after my injury, but I have to burn off the ravenous adrenaline somehow.

  The pool is dead when I arrive, around eleven; the last dregs of an aqua class lounge in the Jacuzzi, perms bobbing as they chat about holidays and the weather. I catch words here and there as I shower before diving in. The water, all cerulean and clear in the pale sunshine pouring through glass wall, is a welcome relief to my muscles. Before I know it, I’m shoving my way through thirty aggressive laps. Blood pounds in my ears, dulled by the crash of water. I overtake two other people in the lane.

  I’ll be sore later, but no matter. This is my therapy.

  Can’t face the steam room. There are too many memories of Art in there–it’s where we first talked properly, and where he asked me out. So I settle for a long, hot shower instead, shampooing my hair twice and scrubbing myself down with coconut soap. I even put on a bit of makeup after I’ve braided my wet hair. If this is how rejection feels the second time around, maybe I’ll be okay about it. I have coping mechanisms in place now, and Dominic strengthened me up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and all that crap, right? So why do I look so tired and miserable when I stare into the mirror…?

  I’m barely out of the lobby when my phone rings. In a panic–it could be Mom, it could be Mills, it could be Art–I jerk around, trying to locate it in my bag. The name on the screen makes me fall back against the wall.

  Art.

  I’m so relieved, I could cry.

  “Hey,” I say into the receiver, shielding it from the wind with my hand. “I–”

  “Guess what you’re doing in exactly twenty minutes?” says a familiar voice. A voice that isn’t Art’s.

  My heart plummets into the soles of my shoes and squelches, wet and rotten.

  “Um…Aidan?” What the hell?

  “Fortunately for you, yes,” he says in his sing-song voice. “You wouldn’t want to talk to Artemis at the moment. He’s doing his best Jonathan Rhys Meyers broody face as we speak.”

  “What are you doing on his phone? In fact–why are you here?”

  “Ringing you. Obviously.” He snorts. “And telling you to meet me at the cathedral in twenty minutes. Come on, Cait. We covered that. Keep up!”

  I frown. “Why would I want to meet you at the cathedral?”

  “Because Artemis has something he wants me to give you, and he’s adamant that it has to be there. So drop whatever incredibly important thing it is that you’re doing and get a move on. I’ll even buy you a doughnut.”

  “Oh, well now you’ve sold it to me,” I say dryly. “I’ll do my best.”

  So Art has something for me. I’m going to pin all my hopes on it being something random I left at his house, and not a magic spell to fix our beasts. They only exist in the Disney versions.

  The cathedral, like the pool, is quiet. Such is the misery of a Monday. Each of the stone kings seems to watch me as I walk in–their eyes follow me, scraping about in rock sockets. Here she is again. Aidan waits at a table in the cloisters, beside the cafe; he nurses a flat bowl of coffee and fiddles with his phone, looking out of place somewhere that isn’t a slick London flat or a packed bar. His striped pink shirt and pale trousers have a sophisticated but rumpled cut to them, as if he rolled through Ted Baker and had to be chased out.

  “Cait!” he calls, waving at me.

  I wander over, pulse throbbing, and go to pull out the metal chair opposite. But he holds up a hand.

  “Stay there…” A pale pink gift bag and a white envelope are propped against the wall, and he hands the envelope to me. “That’s for you.”

  I stare at it. Weigh it in my hand. It’s not a card, as far as I can tell; there’s a softness to it. A pillow of thin, folded paper. “From Art…?”

  “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it won’t self-destruct after you read it.”

  “That’s very reassuring. Cheers.” The line of pillars that forms the cloisters doubles up in my vision. I stare between Aidan and the envelope, unsure as to whether I’m meant to open it here, and then drag a nail across the gluey seal.

  “Wait.” Aidan springs up, and takes my wrist in his cool palm. I have little choice but to look at him. “He wants you to go in there to read it.” He nods toward the entrance to the cathedral itself. Steps closer. Lowers his voice. “Cait…a lot of the stuff in there, I’m the only other person who knows. Be careful, yeah?”

  There’s the hand in my chest again, grasping to twist. My grip on the envelope tightens, and I want to shake free of Aidan’s hand on my wrist, but it seems rude. “Why can’t he just tell me this stuff himself? Why the big performance with you, and this, and…?” I throw my free arm out, gesturing to the old building.

  Aidan releases me with a shrug. “Just read it. You’ll see.”

  My footsteps echo louder than usual. My boots scrape along the stone floor. It takes forever to walk through the nave, arches climbing high above me; I find a spot on the edge of an empty pew, right near the back, stained glass colours refracted across the wood. My gym bag makes a soft split in the silence when I drop it on the floor.

  The envelope trembles in my fingers. Suddenly, all I can think about is the picnic he brought here for me, the sleeping bag, the champagne. The confession. How special this place is to him, and how he found peace here, just as I do. Are the contents of this envelope so bad that I’ll need such safety? Or comfort, perhaps. This is his way of letting me down gently…if there can be such a thing.

  Then I remember how, while I laid across his massage chair, he told me I made him nervous. I feel his fingers work across my skin without oil. Deeper work. Every muscle in my back twinges.

  Enough of this. I bite my lips together and tear the white paper open. Several folded sheets spill out, all scrawled with familiar handwriting–blue biro, beautiful cursive style; I’ll blame the posh grammar school for that. It seems that Art has a lot to say to me, but my heart’s so far up my throat that I’m not sure I can see straight.

  Christ, Cait. Pull yourself together.

  Something rustles behind me. I jerk about to see a volunteer in a smart blue suit, sleek grey hair, maybe in her early sixties. She gathers splayed leaflets from the pews behind me and gives me a warm smile. Her flat shoes squeak softly as she heads back to the entrance.

  Well. Here goes nothing.

  Cait,

  I’ve been wondering how to tell you these things for a while. The truth is, I still don’t know how to say them. All I can do is write them down. I don’t know what you’ll think of me when I’m done, but please know that I care enough to trust you with all this. It’s the best I can do.
/>   I should start at the beginning. So I will.

  I met Priya during Fresher’s Week. That was it for me, really. As soon as I met her, there was nobody else, and she felt the same way about me. We were together for about eight months in total. Our relationship ended when I found her overdosed in her bedroom on Tuesday, June 6th. 9:42AM is the time they tell me. I never did bother to check.

  She wasn’t the first girlfriend I’d ever had, but she was the first that I loved. And she was the first after all the crap with my dad blew up in the media. I had a lot of personal shit going on, a lot of guilt over the fact that I’d had, all things considered, a very comfortable life…only to find out I had a big brother who’d spent most of his life in and out of foster care. All I ever wanted was a sibling, and then that happened. It messed me up. I thought he’d never want anything to do with me, that he’d hate me for having things he didn’t. I hated myself for the same reasons, but Priya helped me to forget.

  See, she wasn’t exactly “together” herself. She came from a strict family and uni was her first opportunity to really let go. I look back now and realise how much of a rebellion I was for her–you know, being a boxer, who my dad was, all the usual crap that might come from different backgrounds like ours–but at the time, it felt like we fit. I had so much anger, and in the beginning, she had this inner peace thing going on. I never met her family because they wouldn’t have approved; I only knew what she’d told me. And it turned out that she didn’t tell me a whole bunch.

  I wasn’t completely useless. I knew she was on anti-depressants and it should have been a red flag, but hey, I was on them as well. So were half the people I knew, at one point or another. What I didn’t know was that she’d been missing psyche appointments for months, or that she’d started to skip her meds. I didn’t even know she was meant to have psyche appointments in the first place. None of her friends did, either, although by the end, they were few.

  Months passed. I started to get an inkling that things weren’t quite right. She missed loads of lectures, stayed in bed a lot, got clingy. I was training for contests and she became almost obsessed with the boxing, to a point where things get a bit hazy because what began to happen was wrong. And that is my fault. I will never be rid of that.

  I’m not proud of myself, Cait. And I really couldn’t have told you this and looked you in the eye, but you deserve to know about it.

  She liked things to be rough. In bed. It was fun at first, but then she would ask for things I wasn’t comfortable with. Things that were rougher than I’d have liked. I loved her. I gave her what she wanted. These things seemed to fix her for a time, and when we got back from my matches, all hyped up, it was like making a connection again. If I got angry or got upset over the shit with my dad, she told me to take it out on her. To let her carry it, too. It felt wrong, but seemed right to her, and she was the only person I cared about back then. I didn’t know how to make it stop.

  I didn’t hit her. EVER. I never drew blood or broke bones or anything like that. I told you I’m not like Dominic, and I meant it. But Cait, when they came for her on June the 6th and when they examined her body, they asked me about some bruises on her arms. I knew exactly how they’d got there, but how could I tell them that? I was so terrified they’d implicate me in something worse, and I was already devastated. I felt responsible for what she’d done. I still do. But I lied, and I told them it was probably something from a yoga class.

  Now you see what it is that I am.

  I wasn’t even permitted to go to her funeral. Her family were not impressed to discover me, and wouldn’t allow it.

  I couldn’t box competitively after Priya. She’d twisted it, and all it did was remind me of the horrible things my hands could do. I couldn’t stay at uni, either, because of what had happened there. Instead, I went to India, where she’d been due to go for marriage at some point. She always said she wanted to see the country with me first so she’d have the memories. And I suppose, in my own way, it was my funeral for her. Everything had caved in at that point and I just didn’t know what else to do with myself.

  You’re upset about the tattoo. I understand why you feel that way, and why it has hurt you. I know how it looks. But let me tell you why I got it in the first place–now you know about Priya, it will make more sense.

  You’re right that I have a slash for each year. I do count them off. After Priya died, I lost everything–boxing, my career, a lot of my friends. And I felt like I’d lost a brother, even if I’d never met him. People kept telling me that “this too shall pass”–it just pissed me off, and I was like, well, WHEN? When will it pass, exactly? So I decided, fuck it. I was going to record the years until the bad ones were done. One day, surely they would, and when times got rough again, I’d be able to look in the mirror and be reminded that however bad things got, they passed. Like Churchill said: “when you’re going through hell, keep going.”

  When I went to London, things got a bit better, but not entirely. I qualified as a therapist and I met Aidan, and I made some great new mates. But I wasn’t happy. And I bet you can sense the big, cheesy cliché coming a mile off, but like I said: when I saw you, I just knew. And I wanted it to be perfect. The more I got to know you, the further I fell. You make everything seem like it’ll be alright, Cait. You’re my chance to do things right and be happy.

  You asked me if I’ll get another tattoo in June, and the truth is, until I met you, I was going to. I was booked in. I cancelled the appointment last Monday after we spent the night together. It was actually one of the best days of my life, and all because I woke up beside you. Then I wake up a week later, and you’re not here. It crushes me.

  As for Millie…I wish I’d seen that coming. Again. I feel so fucking useless about that, but I’d have sounded so paranoid if I said I thought she’d do it (and truthfully, I didn’t. I suppose you never do, even if you’ve already been through it). I didn’t want to scare her–I just wanted to warn her. Just in case.

  I should have been more honest. I’m so sorry. But this time, I just wanted things to be perfect.

  For the record, you’ll always be perfect to me.

  All my love,

  Art xxx

  Tears. Big, fat, wobbling hailstones of tears, dropping all over his letter.

  Lovers are like flowers; feed them your tears and watch them grow into strange shapes. Oh, Art…the shape you thought you’d made her.

  I sit at the pew for a long time, just re-reading his words. The bite mark he left on my throat throbs, though it’s almost faded to nothing; I reach up and drive a thumb into it, wanting an outlet for the waves that build in my belly. That rise up to lick the uneven chunks of my spine.

  After a while, I become aware of the shadow pouring over the pew. Aidan stands over me, his arms folded and his face soft in stained glass light. I raise my eyebrows to him, still sniffing, and he strides around to sit beside me, the gift bag thwacking against his leg. The bench braces with his weight.

  Aidan puts a big, lightly tanned hand out; I press the pages into it. One by one, he tears them to shreds and stuffs the remains into his pocket.

  “Do you understand, now?” His voice is a low bubble of an echo, a whisper to the arches above.

  I stare at my knotted fingers.

  “He’s not a bad person,” Aidan says. “I didn’t hate him for a second, you know.”

  I snap up. “You read this?”

  “Hell yeah. Like he wouldn’t ask for my opinion?” He squares his shoulders, managing to look smug and serious at the same time. “I came down here last night, when he told me what happened.”

  “Aren’t you meant to be on stage, or something…?”

  He nods. “But look at me. I’m disgustingly ill.” He fakes a cough. “Syphilis. Probably.”

  “Right.” I blot tears away on the palm of my hand. “I know he isn’t a bad person. I never thought that.”

  “But you think he’s too hung up on Priya to love you.” Blunt words, fired
right into my jugular.

  I flinch. “Maybe.”

  “But your past is perfect, of course. No skeletons there.”

  I shift about, press my knees together. “Not exactly.”

  “Everyone’s got skeletons. You should see the state of my closet.” He cocks an eyebrow. “Why do you think I had to get out of it in the first place?”

  At that, I can’t stifle a dry laugh. “Very clever.”

  “I’m serious. If you judge that boy by his past, you’d be doing him a great disservice.”

  Art’s voice pours into my ear at that moment in a flicker of memory: this place is old, and it’s seen so much. I figured it must have known worse. Wouldn’t judge me for what I’d done. Of course he sent me here; he wouldn’t have sent me anywhere else.

  “He’s not that kind of beast,” I say quietly.

  “Non-sequitur! Kinky.”

  “You think everything’s kinky.”

  He shrugs. “It almost always is.”

  “Huh.” I kick the heels of my boots into the paved floor, trying to find some sort of pattern in the rhythm. Relief infuses my cheeks with a dissonant flush. “So…what do I do now? After he told me all of that?” How the hell would I go about even approaching the weight of what Art has confided?

  I’m starting to see why he was hesitant to tell me at all. Here I am, wary of touch, and he’d demonised his own. No wonder he took so long to kiss me that first time.

  “If I were you, I’d blow him. Although–” He runs his tongue along his top teeth. “That came out very wrong.”

  “Yes, yes, it did.”

  “Translation, then: get your skeletons together, and put him out of his misery. Please. For my sake, if not his.” He gives a pitiful groan. “There’s only so much Finnish death metal I can stand, but he’s hardly in the mood for K-pop.”

  “First world problems, huh?”

  “Yeah. Almost as bad as your problem with my smokin’ hot brother. How will you tolerate his affections? Bad times.” He snakes an elbow into my ribs, and leans in, smirking. “Belle.”