Tainted Touch Read online

  I make patterns in the grain of the carpet with my bare toes. Feels ticklish. “You know what’d be simpler? If you’d banged Drew. Future reference: please bang Drew.”

  “But he’s so overbearing,” she complains. “I hate that. Never translates well in the bedroom, does it?”

  “Wouldn’t know.” But I think of Dominic. Fingers of nausea meet in my belly, knuckle grating on knuckle as they form a tight knot.

  “Look,” she goes on, finally sitting up. The duvet pools in her lap. “I’m sorry if it’s made stuff awkward for you. I didn’t think–”

  “It’s not about me. And I’m not angry with you. It’s just…like you said. Awkward.”

  “If you’ll let me finish, Kanye, I was going to apologise anyway. Because I should’ve had a bit of foresight about it all. Ah, I dunno.” She shrugs. “Just…we were both a bit drunk, and he smelled nice, and it felt good to…” She exhales.

  I know what she means, and she knows I know. This moment is a fat, wet mess of knowing. And despite it all, I think about Art in the steam room last night, all glistening and smirking and smithing hard like the tease he is; it would feel so good to trail off about him. With him. The sick fingers ease in my belly, stirring muscles lower down.

  Vicky’s eyebrow lifts in suspicion. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I shift about beside her. Everything about my posture suddenly feels misaligned. “I think.”

  Chapter Four

  The kitchen has been Rich’d. It’s tidy.

  I’ve never seen the top of the cooker actually sparkle, but now, I swear it does. He’s even put this weird rinse through the dishwasher that makes it smell less like a rotting carcass.

  Now he stands back–fortuitously beside the trashy nude firemen calendar–and surveys his handiwork with an expression of satisfied relief, fists tucked neatly into the pocket across the front of his apron. Because yes, he brought an apron. It’s from Urban Outfitters and it says FROST YO’SELF.

  I loiter in the doorway, trying to breathe through my mouth so I don’t choke on the Cillit Bang fumes. Then I just give up and fan furiously with one hand. “Have you quite finished?”

  “I think so.” He turns to me. “We are officially ready to bake.”

  I shoot him a sulky pout. “I was ready to bake two hours ago.”

  “So was I…until I saw that oven. Seriously, Cait–there was syphilis growing in there, or something.”

  I shrug. “You call it syphilis. I call it the overspill from some rather majestic cheesy potato waffles. God, you make us sound like a pair of disgusting cat ladies–we do clean, you know.”

  “I’m sure you do.” He attempts to tuck a strand of his mad hair behind his ear, but it springs back again with force. “Just…maybe get an eye test. Soon?”

  “Screw you.”

  Drew breezes in, his upper lip twitching at the stench of cleaner. “Pretty sure that’s Vicky’s job.”

  “Dude. We have had that conversation.” I land a swift elbow in his ribs, and he pulls away, groaning. Then I glance at Rich. “You remember, right?”

  Rich lowers his eyes to the (now spotless) wooden floor, and his voice goes all quiet. “Yeah.”

  Yesterday, Vicky and I agreed that I’d talk to Rich about the situation–namely because he hadn’t given her an opportunity to, but had to me plenty of times. And since I had it from the horse’s mouth–so to speak–there was no point letting him stew in his own crush. I had a vodka and lemonade, gave Rich a call, and explained that Vicky had once again stated her lack of interest in a relationship. All things considered, I thought he took it well.

  But here he is, learning to bake anyway, because he’s a man. And he doesn’t know when to quit.

  “I can’t believe what an epic fail you are as a housewife.” Drew leans back against a counter, folds his arms, and shakes his head at me in mock disapproval. “Also, I can’t believe my brother is a housewife.”

  I snort. “Do I look like a housewife to you?”

  Rich stares between the pair of us, disgusted. “Stay-at-home partners perform important socio-economic roles. Do you know how much it would cost to pay someone who effectively manages an entire home?”

  Drew fiddles with the collar of his polo shirt. “Is this your fancy-schmancy new way of telling me to go fuck myself?”

  “No,” Rich says. “But feel free to do it anyway.”

  Drew waits until his brother turns to the sink, and then flips him the bird on both hands, waving them around gleefully. “Oh yeah. I’m goin’ old school.”

  This is just how Drew and Rich are. Frankly, I’d be worried if they were nice to each other. They take the whole brotherly bravado thing and ramp it up to ridiculous heights, and the more revolting they are, the greater the level of affection expressed. Apparently.

  Rich clears his throat, his voice taking on a lilt of sarcasm. “All this from the guy I caught using my moisturiser earlier, eh, Cait?”

  I grin. “L’Oreal. Because he’s worth it.”

  Drew gapes at me. “Bollocks, did I. I don’t use mansturiser. It leads to manstruation and all sorts of other girly shit. In fact I was reading the label–that’s what I was doing–and it actually said, warning: can cause episodes of wearing a skirt.”

  Rich is grinning now too, and his teeth flash white in the spring sun spilling through the window. “And baking?”

  “Like Cait said–man’s gotta cook if man’s gotta eat.”

  Because yes. Drew is also learning how to bake. I bring these things on myself, really.

  He wrings his hands together, looking more like a caveman about to slaughter a mammoth than a dude about to…whisk eggs. “So what are we making? Because I was thinking something chocolate, with like, five layers of–”

  “Cupcakes,” I cut in. “Plain vanilla ones.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “You have to start somewhere. And if you start with five layers of chocolate, the only place you’ll end is face-down in your own vomit.”

  “But that’s the mark of a good night out.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “For you, maybe. You alkie.”

  “Fine,” he huffs. “Maybe I’ll let you pair of ladies do the baking, then. I’ll make dinner.” He puts on an exaggerated Jamaican accent. “Rice an’ pea.”

  Rich glares at him. “Don’t take the piss out of Grandma.”

  “Oh, like she’d be bothered!”

  “Also, you can’t make dinner. We only just had lunch.” My phone vibrates in the pocket of my jeans, and I peel it out. Facebook message…probably Hazel, because she’s professional like that. “One sec.”

  “Ooh!” Drew leaps across the little kitchen and grabs Rich, spinning him around. “Instagram? I want a shot with this fucktoad in his ridonkulous apron.”

  “It’s not ridonkulous. It’s ironic.” Rich looks annoyed, but he’s posing anyway, leaning into Drew and pulling his best hey, lil’ mama grin. He thinks it’s coy and flirty; I think it’s bordering on psychotic.

  “Not Instagram.” I scroll through the app until I find the message. Then I click on it, and it’s from–

  “Are you taking this photo, or what?” Drew whines. “We haven’t got all frickin’ day.”

  Dominic. It’s from Dominic.

  Hey Cait. How are you keeping? x

  How am I keeping? My vision blurs, and I have to fight to hold my hand steady, to re-read the words just to make sure I’ve actually got this right.

  Hey Cait. How are you keeping? x

  Seriously, and a kiss on the end, too? What the fuck?

  “Must. Stop. Smiling.” Rich lets out a long, laboured sigh as he gives up posing. “My face actually hurts.”

  Drew clutches at his jaw. “Mine too. Oh shit. Instagram-related injury. It’s like a sore wrist from porn wanking, only–”

  “More metrosexual,” Rich pipes up smugly.

  “Oh, fuck off already.”

  I should probably rejoin the conversation, but my little
corner of the world just imploded and I can’t catch my breath. I haven’t heard a peep from Dominic since our breakup last July, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure he went straight on to another girlfriend. Things ended badly between us–like, really badly–and we’re not friends. We never were. Why is he dragging up emotions I’ve fought so hard to bury? Hell, why does the mere sight of his name in pixels have my muscles soaked in lactic acid? My calves are cramping like a bitch. Nervous energy is the worst kind of drug; it bleats like a siren, violent until answered.

  “Cait?” says Drew from very, very far away.

  I don’t even look up. “Mmm?”

  “Are you talking to a boy on there?” Drew says suspiciously.

  “Oh.” I jerk up, shoving the phone back into my pocket with clumsy fingers. I have to force the thing down about three times. “I…uh. I wish.”

  He gives me his yeah, right face, which consists of comically wide eyes and a swift dip of a scowl.

  “Really,” I go on, my voice wavering. “It’s just my boss.”

  “You have to go to work?” Rich clutches a wooden spoon in his fists. “But…but cupcakes.”

  I don’t. I really don’t.

  And yet the promise of sweat calls in a soft, distant voice; exercise is my therapy. God knows, I’m not sure I can stay here right now without bursting into tears. Rich and Drew would be all nice–would want to hug me, pat me, ruffle my hair–and I’d get all abrasive and unpleasant, and end up pissing them off.

  “She needs me to cover a shift. Someone hasn’t turned up,” I hear myself saying. There’s a blank, unapologetic tone to my voice. One I don’t quite understand. “Would you guys mind if we reschedule? I’m sorry.” I glance between their crestfallen faces, guilt twisting in my gut. But it doesn’t lessen the urge to run far, far away from here, and I’m already headed to my room when Rich calls a reply.

  “Well yeah. We’ll cope. Cait…?”

  I drag my gym bag out from the wardrobe and begin to toss in the necessary–workout clothes, swimsuit, water bottle, towel. Shower kit. Then I sit on my bed to pull on trainers, but my stupid fingers are shaking–God, the state of me, and all over six little words. I’m cursing under my breath when Drew puts his head around the door.

  “Come on then,” he says, shaking his car keys. “I’ll drop you off.”

  “Cheers, but I’m fine to wa–”

  “I’ll be waiting in the car. See you in five.” Off he goes, striding down the hall without so much as a mutter.

  Bless him. And fuck him. Drew knows full well I’m not really going to work.

  Finally, I manage to get my laces done up by focusing on them so hard they make my temples ache. On my way out, I call back into the kitchen to catch Rich, who’s found something to wash up and is arm-deep in a sink full of bubbles. (We’re not allowed to touch the dishwasher for a day, apparently).

  “You going to be okay?” I ask. “You can hang out here, if you want.”

  “I’m gonna watch TV while I wait for Drew,” he says. We both know he’s going to clean the bathroom.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  “It’s okay. We’ll do this soon, yeah?”

  I nod, and he presses his lips together in a small, rueful smile.

  Then I hurry out to the car park, skipping down the stairs two at a time. My pulse rises in a frothy gasp of exhilaration, and in my pocket, the phone burns with quiet fire, a flattened bullet against my hipbone.

  When I reach the car, Drew sits behind the wheel with the engine already running. He taps his fingers along to the radio spilling from his open windows–the wind is cold, whipping his curls about, but he always has the windows rolled down regardless.

  I yank the door open and fall into the passenger seat to fumble with the belt. “Thanks for this,” I mutter.

  He gives a swift nod and begins reversing. “Never a problem.”

  Thank God for smarmy radio DJs; they stamp out what would be a silence sharp enough to cut glass. Without them, it would be just me and Drew and the stench of pine air freshener…and Dominic, smirking in the mechanical depths of my phone. I imagine him sitting back in a big leather chair, fingers steepled like a Bond villain.

  “So,” Drew says finally. “‘Sup?”

  Great. ‘Sup. It’s never really a question. In the grand tradition of Drew being as subtle as a sledgehammer, it’s more like a command. TELLMEWHATISUPRIGHTNOWMMMKAYORELSE.

  I trace the pulse of my wrist in wavering circles. “Nothing.”

  “Aww. C’mon, Cait.” He turns out on to the market square, gritting his teeth to hiss at the traffic. “How dim do you think I am?”

  “I think all that hair eats into your brain cells.”

  “That was meant to be rhetorical.”

  I cock an eyebrow at him. “Now who sounds like Rich?”

  “Stop trying to change the subject.”

  “I’m not.” I rest a fingertip on my pulse a second, measuring the gentle throb of it. “There’s nothing wrong.”

  “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  My pulse jerks beneath my finger. “What?”

  “Dom. Dominic. The ex.”

  He’s never an ex, or your ex. He’s always the ex. The one who got away, pushed me away, wrecked everything. And yet here I am, still hanging in there. Moving on. This shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it is. The fact simmers quietly beneath the low hum of the engine.

  I click my tongue against my teeth. “Maybe.”

  “Whatever he’s done to upset you–it’s not worth the hassle. You were too good for him anyway,” Drew says bluntly.

  “Uh. Cheers.”

  “I mean it. He had one of those smarmy faces, you know, like he’s trying to pretend he’s all charming and not an arsehole, when he actually waits until he thinks nobody’s looking and then picks his nose. Or…murders small children.” Drew gives an indignant shrug, as if trying to shake off something horrible. “Gave me the creeps.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumble. And I wouldn’t. But then that’s half my problem, isn’t it? I didn’t see the real Dominic until it was too late and even then, I saw right through him like a quivering shadow because there was no “real” Dominic at all; just a series of choreographed performances to mask a very sad little boy. A sad little boy I’d fallen in love with.

  You don’t get a clean break from that kind of dependence. It’s the twig you snap, only to see the halves clinging together by that last sliver of sinew. Dominic, in his own twisted way, is attempting to connect us again…but I can’t be drawn into it.

  It will break me. It will slice me clean in two.

  Chapter Five

  On entering the gym, I learn an important life lesson: they put all the shitty classes on after twelve. Arse biscuits. There’s nothing good on until six…which leaves the open gym, my least favourite place in the world. The uneven thrum of my heartbeat spits blood in my ears and informs me I have little choice in the matter–either I work off some nerves, or stew in them until they embalm me.

  Gym it is, then.

  I hit the treadmill first. The big screens by the windows are playing some chat show, but dance music blasts over it so I’m left to lipread the unglamorous gaggle of contestants. As I move to the cross trainer, I watch Charmaine run her mouth over a paternity suit, and while I’m on the weights machines, it’s Pete and Terry and some argument about getting into debt with their mom. They gesture comically and I count reps. They pull each other’s hair and I huff for breath. They are separated by burly security guards and I sweat, sweat, sweat. I imagine Dominic and me going on stage, how he’d sit there with his weird blank expression, fold his thick arms and shrug at everything I’d say to him. How the big-nosed host would get right in his face, and the resentment would light up in his eyes like a barbed wire Christmas tree. She changed, he’d hiss. I don’t even know who she is anymore with all these stupid new clothes.

  But my phone, tucked away in a locker, can’t touch me here. And ne
ither can he.

  A half hour later, I stop by the water fountain and catch sight of myself in the wall of mirrors. Yeah, I’m about as much of a state as I thought: face like a peach, almost flushed to purple and yellow bruising. The whites of my eyes are strangely bright, but my full lips are pale. I kinda look high, actually. My black workout gear sticks to me in gluey patches, and I reek of powdery deodorant.

  I should be tired by now. My limbs should ache, muscles should complain. But I’m raring to go at least another round–in fact my twitching body demands it. I wander back through the labyrinth of equipment, past all the OAPs in velour tracksuits who tend to populate the studio at this time of day, and get settled on the mats by the free weights, where the music is quieter. I will crunch out myself out of this mini breakdown, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll plank until the veins in my forehead bulge (just like Hans taught me, the bastard).

  I’m about ten crunches into my third set of reps when I become aware of the shadow pouring across the mat.

  “You’re coming forward a little much,” says Art, who is suddenly crouching beside me. “Pull forward from the waist, rather than the neck.”

  A vague shriek of oh fuck brews in my belly, and then it all crescendos at once–I short circuit. A blush hits my already boiling cheeks, and my boards are completely fried. Then I realise I’ve been holding myself taut mid-crunch for the best part of ten seconds–which hurts, Jesus Christ–and I collapse on to my back, just blinking at him.

  “Or…you could just do that,” he says, his mouth soft with amusement.

  “Hi,” I croak.

  He looms over me, all dishevelled dark hair and neatly ironed green shirt. His amber eyes, so bright and pretty, remind me of warm spring evenings where the sun shoots through a glass of cider. Which is distracting.

  “You’re working pretty hard,” he says.

  God, I’m sweaty. I must look like such a mess. And he’s hunched right over me, which is awfully…intimate. “Isn’t that the point?”