Tainted Touch Read online

  “So what you’re actually saying,” I go on, “is that she took advantage of you…?”

  “Uh. I never thought of it like that.” He brings a hand to his chin. “Maybe she did, I don’t know. But it wasn’t as if I didn’t, like, participate.”

  “We all like participating.” It’s been too long since I participated with anybody. The way Fist Candy turns my muscles to mush is excellent evidence of the fact. “Don’t feel bad about it, okay? I forbid you from feeling bad.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  “Have more cake. Always helps.”

  He pouts at me. “Feeder. I’ll be twenty stone and on some Channel Four documentary, and Doctor Christian will be standing on one side, reading out my diet plan…you’ll be on my other side, stuffing me with swiss roll and wiping the crumbs off my mouth.”

  “That’s awfully visual. You won’t really suit the skinny jeans and satchels then, eh?”

  He brightens, curls bobbing as he cocks his head. “Oh, but I suit them now?”

  “In your sweet metrosexual way. Absolutely.” I catch sight of the heap of applications I haven’t even started to load. “As much as I love our girly chats, Rich, I should probably do some work.”

  “Anyone would think you needed the money.”

  “Let them think it. Really, I’m just here for the mental stimulation and priceless boost to my future career.” I press my lips together in a vague attempt at a smile. “Assuming I have one.”

  “If all else fails, you can peddle your cake crack on the streets.”

  I supress a laugh. “Cheers. I think.”

  “Heh. What time do you get off? Need a lift?”

  “Nine.” I pause, though I don’t mean to. “And thanks, but I’ve got one.”

  “Ah, okay. Catch you on Monday?” He holds a hand up for a high-five, which I oblige him, our palms meeting with a cool slap. The impact feels like it splits the tiny hairs along my skin.

  “Monday. We’ll figure out a time for your first lesson.”

  “You’re awesome. Did I tell you that you’re awesome?” He gives me a lopsided grin.

  “Twice. But pretty sure it’s three times a lady.”

  He snorts as he backs toward the door. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  Thing is, I don’t have a lift, and I don’t know why I just lied to one of my best friends about it.

  Well. That’s not exactly true. It’s more that the knowing doesn’t make me any less embarrassed by my predicament. The gym is fifteen minutes’ walk from my flat, which is nothing in summer when the evening hours stretch pale light towards ten PM. But we’re not in summer; we’re barely into spring, and my walk home is dogged with flickering street lights and deserted narrow roads and heart attacks when a guy walks too close to me with his hood up. None of this was an issue when Dominic was around to pick me up, but now he’s not. Rich and Drew know this. They also know I can’t afford a car and they think I get home safe every night thanks to a mystery “lift,”– all because I’m too proud to accept their offers. I hate the idea I might be messing up their evenings, and I know they’d never take cash off me for petrol; new, confident Caitlyn still cringes at the idea of someone putting themselves out in order to treat her well. Kindness…it gets my back up, tugs on strings my heart doesn’t appear to have.

  Maybe it’s the memory of Dominic waiting outside in his dad’s old blue Vectra, drumming his fingers on the dashboard and cursing to himself while I hurried to collect my things. Maybe it’s the feeling that still turns my stomach sometimes, the one I got when I climbed into that car and was swallowed whole by bitter cloud of his resentment. He didn’t want to be there every weekend, picking me up–and God knows, I told him he didn’t have to–but it’s what boyfriends do, isn’t it? And he wouldn’t be seen to not care in public.

  Dominic saved not caring for when the door was closed, where he treated me the same way he did the empty creatures he called friends.

  I’d like to think that Fist Candy is different; that he’d tell me I deserve to be taken care of, even if I twitch at the thought. But that assumes I deserve an idealistic version of a boy, and no matter how many Hans classes I suffer through, I don’t.

  All I know is that I’m not that kind of girl–you know, the kind who gets a Happy Ever After. I’d bake one, but I’d only end up giving it to my friends.

  Chapter Three

  My shift may end at nine, but the gym itself doesn’t close until ten–which leaves time for a therapeutic swim in the deserted pool. (It also leaves an hour to avoid my walk home, pathetic as that sounds). It only takes me a few minutes to throw on my swimsuit, shower off the stiffness of standing over the reception desk, and plunge through the tranquil skin of the pool.

  Belgrave Gyms are high class places, and the water spa areas are no exception. The pool is housed in a huge glass hall and as the night spills in, coloured lights bleed into the inky atmosphere to cast pastel shadows on the water. It’s gorgeous, and at the end of a long day, irresistible; it calls like the voice of a siren, luring me towards my own personal Northern Lights.

  Hardly anyone’s here at this time–the entrance is barred at nine PM sharp, and most clients have far better things to do on a Saturday night. So it doesn’t matter how hard I swim or how aggressive my stroke becomes as I work off the day. I never get stuck behind that one person who shouldn’t be in the fast lane. Late at night, I don’t count lengths–I just throw myself up and down the pool for fifteen minutes before I chase it with ten minutes in the steam room, and ten in the Jacuzzi.

  In the dense cloak of steam, you forget everything–what you look like, how your skin feels, how you smell. The small space is dark and damp and fragrant, tea tree oil zipping through my nostrils to dull the traces of stale coffee and chlorine that coat my tongue. I fold in on myself, let the sweat set in and the war seep out. Here, I feel lighter. Brighter. White.

  I’ve barely been settled a moment when a shadow shifts behind the glass door, a flash in the steam around me. My pulse jumps. It’s rare for me to get company, this time of night…and yet here he comes, easing the door back so the faint watery echo of the pool seeps in around him. He is a silhouette, familiar in height and shape; though I can’t see his face behind the vapour, I notice the neat taper of his ribcage, the wide spread of flat hips. And I know, then, that this is Fist Candy–because these are the parts of him I seem to recognise first.

  Question is…does he recognise me?

  For a second, I pray that he doesn’t. While he sits on the ledge to curl broad forearms over his thighs, I wind back into my own flesh, let sweat creep across my collarbone and into the creases behind my knees. We take it in turns to swallow lungfuls of sweet, hot air, and soon a playful rhythm erupts between us, breath on breath and sigh on sigh. There’s a musicality in it; a bastard mockery of a fuck. I keep my eyes closed, desperate to pretend it isn’t happening but painfully aware of every hushed sweep of a limb.

  I’m good at guessing the time in the steam room. There’s no clock and no way to see through to the gym, so the only way to be accurate is to check regularly or time yourself well. Yet tonight I feel the seconds melting together, converging to a shivering hulk of minutes I waste by being afraid. I should open my mouth. Talk to him. Hell, Hazel introduced us–me to him, anyway–it almost seems rude to ignore his presence. But I can’t–

  “Cait, isn’t it?” he says. His shoulders roll, a gentle slide from one direction to the other.

  I gulp. In fact I almost choke. “Um…yeah. Art, right?” Of course it’s right. And it’s Arthur, technically speaking. God, I hope he doesn’t know that I read his file.

  “Right.”

  Our sly tease of a rhythm returns. I have little experience of sexual chemistry. The closest I’ve come is a light ripple on eye contact–God, it’s never been this. All I know is that my bones have turned to liquid, that the space between us tenses and cracks. Surely he feels something. Anything. This is too three-dimensional to
be exclusively mine.

  On that realisation, a bravery licks me. “So…how was your induction?”

  He breathes out, deep and slow. “I spent most of it doing health and safety questionnaires on the computer. Oh, and the towels. I learned how to fold the towels.” He sounds curiously pleased with himself, and I can’t figure out if he’s being sardonic or is just one of those guys who lives at home with Mummy and can’t even work the microwave. “At one point, I was tempted to chop off my left ball and just give it to Hazel on a plate. But it would’ve clashed with all the health and safety crap, and we can’t be having that, mmm?” He leans back, bringing his hands behind his head. “That answer your question?”

  “Th-that covers it.” I’m so glad my voice echoes in here, and almost masks the stammer.

  “Still. Learned about the towels.” He laughs to himself quietly. “Every day’s a school day.”

  “I learned that Hazel really likes cake,” I mumble.

  I think his eyes narrow, but I can’t be sure. “Was there meant to be cake in my induction pack? Because all I got was a lousy pen. Oh, and business cards. Is it wrong that for about ten seconds, I pretended to be Patrick Bateman?”

  I chuckle at that, and the sound surprises me. Grates on my ears. “I bet the Belgrave card holder’s pretty sweet.”

  “One hundred percent pure tin, I’m guessing. I give it two months before it’s rusty as fuck.”

  Our chit-chat is jagged. He’s making small talk out of awkward bursts of air, and I’m just riding along with it like a simpleton. He’s barely five feet from me and almost naked; it’s a blessing I can’t see more. And that he can’t. My plain black swimsuit is hardly cut for flattery.

  “You like working here?” There’s something about his tone: smooth and blunt at the same time. Short and sharp and alert, as if his interest is genuine and I’d be impolite if I didn’t oblige.

  “I…yeah. I mean, it gets a bit quiet and boring, but it could be worse.”

  “Could be McDonalds?”

  I shrug. “I’d do McDonalds if I had to.”

  Another cursory nod. “Ditto.”

  “You could massage the buns.”

  A beat. I think he’s going to laugh again but then he doesn’t, and I panic. Stupid, stupid thing to say! Thick ribbons of adrenaline shoot down my arms to curdle at the pulse points of my wrists.

  “Cait?”

  “Mmm?” I mumble, eyes closed to the steam.

  “Floor’s really interesting, huh?”

  I take a deep breath and let my gaze roll up to find him…grinning. He’s a bag of stifled guffaws, his chest bouncing in the effort to contain them.

  “That was awful,” he manages. “I spend enough time trying not to crack up at all the innuendo in my job as it is, and a professional has to keep a straight face. So throw me a bone here, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whisper, stifling my own smile.

  “I mean, look at me.” He gestures to his palm-print swimming trunks. “Fucking professional.”

  “You’re missing the shirt. Best keep to uniform standards.”

  “Oh. So I am.” He shrugs, still grinning. “Shame, eh.”

  I’ve never flirted like this before, but now I’m back in the hall by the vending machine, drinking him in shamelessly, chancing a look here and there. I feel older. Sexy. There’s catharsis in the nerve of it, though I know I’ll pay later. He’ll leave, and I’ll stand alone in the shower as the acid in my stomach plummets to nausea.

  But until then, here we are.

  Dancing.

  “I’ve never met a male therapist before,” I say. “A massage therapist, I mean.”

  “People say it’s not what they expect.”

  “And what do you say to that?”

  His tongue flicks out to lick lips already damp. I follow it with startling focus, a low burn coaxing shivers in my belly.

  “I tell them it sounds like a challenge.”

  Another beat. I try to pull words together, but he’s up on his feet before I succeed.

  “Better make a move before they lock us in here. Nice as it is…” He gestures to the ceiling, where fairy lights fade in and out. “I’d like to wake up in my own bed, if you know what I mean.”

  Oh.

  Yes.

  “You coming?” he asks, reaching for the door.

  “I’ll be out in five.” I can’t bear to slip out next to him; not with my skin this flushed or frankly, my nipples this hard. If I need anything, it’s a blast of cold water to exorcise the filth.

  “Nice chatting with you.” The door opens, and beneath the draft, pale moonlight rushes in to frame him in sticky shadows.

  I flex stiff fingers. “Night, Art.” I like the way his name feels in my mouth, like the ease with which I say it. Too much.

  “Night.”

  I think he drags a bit of me with him, limp and bloody across lukewarm tiles.

  ***

  The only thing worse than being woken by your alarm is being woken by someone else’s. The fact that this occurs at half-bloody-seven on a Sunday only adds insult to my injury.

  Vicky’s a horror for this. I’ve asked time and time again–why can’t she just use a phone app, like a normal person? Why must she use that awful nineties clock alarm thing that blares loud enough to raise the dead? I swear, we’ll wake up one morning to the staccato thump of Walkers hammering the windows, random bits of flesh hanging from rotten teeth, and when they break through, they won’t eat us. They’ll go straight for that effing alarm.

  I stagger through the living area, where the glass dining table is decorated with an array of fast food trays. Judging by the acrid smell, somebody fell into the Chinese on the way home last night. Then I ease Vicky’s door open; how she sleeps through this bleating racket, I’ll never know. Her room is always a tip, and I have to shift heaps of laundry with my bare feet to reach her bedside table.

  “Vicks,” I say through gritted teeth, bashing her snooze button to no avail. “It’s not even working. Christ. Vicky!”

  She rolls over, the pillow half-peeling off her face. Said pillow now bares an echoed mess of makeup amid its loud paisley print. “Whuh?”

  “Your freaking alarm woke me up again. Do you even know what time it is?” The moan of the clock gets too much. I give up with the faulty snooze button and throw myself across the table, feeling around the wall for the plug socket.

  “What time is it?” she mumbles.

  I find the switch. Victory is mine! “Half seven. On a Sunday. What the hell?”

  “I…have to be at the theatre.” She smacks dry lips together. Her eyes are still closed. “Practise. At ten.”

  I roll her body sideways using both hands, and plonk myself on the bed. “Whereas I don’t have to be anywhere until two, and was hoping to enjoy a long stretch of that thing called sleep.” I prod her with an accusing finger. “Anyway. I have beef with you.”

  “You have beef.” She snorts, still half-buried in her pillow. “Really.”

  “I have beef with who you’ve been porking.”

  Now she titters to herself. “‘Tis excellent word smithery for someone so exhausted.”

  “I smith hard, what can I say? But you know what I’m on about.”

  A pause. She clears her throat as loud as that dicking alarm, and I hear the night out she swallows, all smoky club and thick night air. “Maybe.”

  “I wasn’t going to bring it up, you know. Figured it wasn’t my business.” It being the fact I caught Rich sneaking out of her bedroom around this time, two weeks ago. When he clocked me, this mortified expression contorted his face like his mum had walked in on him mid-wank. “But he likes you, Vick. He’s gone all simpering and confused because you haven’t talked to him again.”

  Vicky groans through her teeth and falls flat on her back, slamming a hand to her forehead. “Men.”

  “Man, technically.” I cough. “Unless you had both of them.”

  “I’d be lying if I said it n
ever crossed my mind.” She peers at me through her fingers. “But I’m pretty sure there was just Rich.”

  “You could never have sex with Rich and Drew at the same time. They’d spend most of it arguing.”

  “Ah.” Her face lights up. “So you’ve thought of it, too.”

  “Hey. I–”

  “Oh, no judgement here.” She gives my forearm a lazy pat. “I quite like the idea of them arguing either side of me. All that tension…it’d be hot.”

  It probably would. They’re good-looking boys. It’s bad enough that I clam up like a frightened tortoise when they go to give me a hug.

  “Cait. This disapproving silence thing you have going on is a lot louder than my alarm.”

  I realise then that my lips are pursed so tight, my jaw aches. “Now who’s smithing hard?”

  “We both know you want to ask me about his penis.” She gives me a sidelong glance. “I’m assuming you’ve never seen said penis.”

  “Never.”

  “Right. Well–”

  “No!” I slap my hands over my ears. “Seriously, keep it to yourself.” I can’t deny I’m not an eensy bit curious–you know, just because–but she’s just trying to change the subject, and I won’t be broken. “I need to know what you’re going to do about Rich.”

  Vicky does this thing with her mouth where she rolls closed lips across her teeth, left and right. Like a llama deciding where to spit first. “I did do something. I did him, in a manner of speaking. What I don’t remember is signing a contract, or accepting a proposal or anything.”

  “You know full well that’s not what I mean.”

  She sighs. “What am I supposed to do, then? You’re talking like I’m obliged.”

  “I’m not asking you to oblige anything. I’m asking you to be kind to my friend, whether it means putting him out of his misery or blowing his brains out while you simultaneously bake him a pie.”

  “The second one is logistically flawed.”

  “Well then.” I rest my chin in my palm, defeated. “Looks like it’s misery.”

  “Yeah. Except that option involves him giving me an opportunity to actually say no, and he hasn’t. I can’t just drop on to his Facebook and write, FYI, thanks for the shag, but no chance of a repeat performance. That would be rude. And weird.”