I noticed Larry had my ex's knack for turning any statement into an accusation. Switching hands, I tried to
unhunch
my shoulders. Both Sean and Joe had crossed their arms across their chests. I didn't know who made me angrier, this obnoxious estate agent or the two Stone Age men who'd suddenly appeared in my kitchen.
'As it happens,
Mr
, um -'
'Larry.'
'Larry. As it happens, Marianne mistook the situation. I'm not currently available. Marianne, on the other hand, is - and finds you quite attractive, I might add.'
'I'm not interested in Marianne.' He rolled her name off his tongue as if it were something nasty. 'Look, you're not married, are you?'
How dare he? He should be so lucky to find an uninhibited woman like Marianne. 'Look, Larry,’ I said, giving his name the same disparaging intonation. 'My marital status has nothing to do with it.'
I guess he
realised
he wouldn't endear himself to me by insulting my friend, because at once he was full of apologies.
Thirty seconds into his
backpedalling
, Sean grabbed the phone. 'Hey, dick-head, the lady's not interested.' And he slammed it down with a flourish.
I stared at him, astonished by his gall.
Amusement tugged the corners of his mouth. 'Breakfast was getting cold. Come on. Sit, you two.'
Against my better judgment, I sat. I accepted the toasted bagel half Sean handed me, but I wasn't forgetting what he'd done. 'You had no right to do that, Sean.'
Completely unperturbed, he poured a glass of juice and pushed it to my elbow. 'Why not? You wanted to get rid of him, didn't you?'
'But you were rude.'
'So were you.' He passed the honey-walnut cream cheese. 'I just got rid of him cleaner.'
I couldn't deny that, though I wanted to. Feeling vaguely in the wrong, I knifed a smear of cream cheese across my bagel. 'Well, next time, let me handle it.'
'So long as you do.'
'You do not dictate who I see, Sean
Halloran
.'
Joe inhaled sharply at that statement, but Sean didn't bat an eyelid. 'Baloney. We all know this
cosy
arrangement goes to hell the minute one of us decides to two-time the others.'
'I agree,' Joe piped in. He reddened when I cocked one brow at him but he didn't back down. In fact, he seemed disappointed in me. 'You have to agree it's safer this way.'
Chastened, I dropped my gaze to my plate. 'I didn't actually intend to sleep around.'
'Then it's settled.' Sean flaunted his victory with a flash of teeth. 'All for one and one for all.'
I said nothing. A knot of stubbornness tightened in my chest, the same perverse love of resistance for resistance sake that had made me struggle against him in the back room. I wanted, no, hungered to humble him. He knew it, too. His grin widened. 'You and whose army?' he mouthed, throwing my words back at me.
'What?' Joe asked, sensing the hidden currents.
I suspected Sean preferred them hidden, so I answered. 'I'm going to take him on, Joe. I'm going to see him on his knees to me.'
'Who?'
'Me,' Sean answered, still grinning.
Joe laughed - until the steely set of my face stopped him. 'No, really, Kate.'
'Yes, really.'
'But why?'
'Because he needs it,' I said, and exulted in the flinch Sean couldn't quite hide.
'In your dreams,' he said. He ate in silence after that, chewing angrily and casting the occasional dark look from under his golden lashes - sometimes at me, sometimes at Joe - no doubt trying to predict how sides would form up for the coming battle. That battle was inevitable. I'd upped the stakes with my challenge and, worse, my claim that he secretly wanted to submit. He'd have to devise a truly devious response. The prospect quivered like mercury through the folds of my sex, icy-hot and dangerous. Getting the best of him wouldn't be easy.
I smiled to myself even as Joe tried to cover the tension with idle chatter. He needn't have bothered. I knew I'd revel in Sean's revenge as much as I'd revel in my own eventual victory.
The woman appeared near closing time. I was working in the coffee bar on the balcony so I had a perfect view of her show-stopping entrance. Everywhere I looked, patrons - male and female - gaped at this living goddess.
She had to be six feet tall. A mouth-watering ivory suit draped her hour-glass figure. Its thin velvet lapels swooped over the ski slope of her breast, and its mid-thigh-length skirt bared a pair of lean, seemingly endless pins. Her hair swung towards her chin in a 1920s bob, mahogany-brown and patent-leather shiny. Behind its teasing sway, I caught a glimpse of full red lips and huge, long-lashed eyes.
She glided to a halt beside the Hot New Authors table and paused to survey her temporary kingdom. Intuition told me Sean had sent her, so I was not surprised when her gaze climbed the second storey and locked on mine. My heart rolled over with a funny hiccup. I didn't usually react to women this way, but she was so beautiful it was like meeting a famous fashion model outside the dry-cleaner's. The shock sent my normal barriers crumbling.
Along with everyone else, I watched her spectacular legs mount the spiral stairs.
'Hello, there,’ she said when she finally reached me. She leant across the coffee bar. Her silk blouse released a whiff of
Chanel
No. 19 - my scent. Somehow, I didn't think the choice coincidental.
'I'd like a tall
mochaccino
, double whip,' she said, her eyes never leaving mine. She had a slight Southern accent. Her voice was rich and sweet, not unlike the coffee she'd ordered.
'Not worried about insomnia?' I teased, my hands admirably steady on the machine.
The woman shrugged with an insouciance that requires either years of practice or being born French. 'Whether I sleep or not, I'm always entertained. Aren't you?'
'Things have been looking up lately.'
Her painted lips curled at my admission. She tapped her perfect red nails against the black marble counter, then nodded at me. "Those are lovely, dear. By far the prettiest I've seen.'
Out of reflex, I looked down at myself. I wore a grey cashmere V-neck and jeans, and no
jewellery
. I couldn't imagine what she might be complimenting, but she soon enlightened me. 'Your breasts,
darlin
'. They're nice and full, but they hang perfectly.'
Her words unnerved me. Besides the fact that they were uttered by a woman, they seemed so familiar.
Now she tilted her head to one side. Her shiny hair brushed her shoulder. 'Now don't get agitated, dear. I'm not here to pick you up - though, believe me,
nothin
' would please me more. No, I'm just here to deliver an invitation from a friend.'
'A friend named Sean?' I slid her foam-topped coffee across the marble.
Her laugh tinkled like the proverbial silvery bells. The bearded gentleman at the corner table closed his eyes. 'Precisely,' she said and, with a coyness worthy of a
Hollywood
screen legend, withdrew a note from her cleavage.
She pressed the folded slip of paper, now warm and fragrant, into my palm. That's when I noticed the back of her hands were shaved. My eyes flew to hers and she laughed again, a throaty chuckle this time. 'That's right,
darlin
'. She's a he.'
Her mission complete, she/he tossed what I now
recognised
to be a very expensive wig. He wiggled his elegant manicure as he backed away. 'Don't you be late - and have some fun for me, you hear?'
Boy, I thought, when Sean planned a scene, he really pulled out all the stops. Curious, I unfolded the invitation. I found a
'Nine o' clock sharp,' ordered his imperious scrawl. 'Be there or be square. P.S. Tonight's safe-word is "Uncle".'
Apparently, whatever the little devil had planned required safe-words. Trust Sean to choose the one I'd choke before saying. When I was a kid, crying 'Uncle' during a game was the ultimate expression of surrender. But we'd see who'd surrender tonight. I slipped the note into my back pocket and took a fortifying sip of the mocha cappuccino his gender-bending friend had failed to collect.
Insomnia, be damned. I had a feeling I'd need all the fortification I could get.
The address occupied the basement level of an attractive brownstone house. Intimate Notions said its discreet, hand-lettered sign.
The windows were dark and a closed sign hung in the door. Nonetheless, I was sure of my welcome. I descended the four concrete steps and peered through the glass. A small blue light burnt in the back, revealing nothing but shadows. I felt both foolish and excited, which was probably what Sean intended.
Determined not to quail before I'd crossed the starting line, I jammed my thumb over the buzzer. Before the grating echo faded, an invisible someone opened the door.
'Come in,’ said the shadow, a diminutive female shadow. She closed the door behind me and pulled a filmy curtain over the glass. 'One moment,’ she said. I heard high-heeled footsteps moving quickly across a carpet, and then a teardrop chandelier filled the room with a soft, sparkling glow.
Red struck my eyes: lush, venereal red. It lacquered the walls of the octagonal salon. It upholstered the plump, satiny chairs. It swirled across the savage Chinese carpet, and swayed among the rails of
multicoloured
silk confections that obviously formed the shop's mainstay. Camisoles and teddies hung from ribbon-padded hangers, along with morning gowns and corsets and brassieres of every imaginable style.
At the centre of the room a headless mannequin stood. She wore a matching bra and panty set with the nipples and crotch cut out. I choked back a laugh. I'd always found that sort of get-up ridiculous, a dirty old man joke; not something a woman would choose for herself.
Or so I thought.
'Dear me,’ clucked the woman who'd admitted me. 'I can see I've got my work cut out for me.'
For the first time I turned to her. My jaw dropped. She was a little doll, a spun-sugar, sweet-as-cherry doll, round where a woman ought to be round, and slim where she ought to be slim. Her bright blonde hair framed her innocent face in thick,
marcelled
waves. Her rosebud mouth barely looked large enough to hold a spoon. Celestial blue eyes widened at my lengthening stare, but I couldn't restrain myself.
Again, I sensed deliberation in Sean's choice of accomplice. What evil genius had led him to pick the two women in all of
Philadelphia
who would tickle my erotic fancy? Or was I kidding myself about the set-in-stone nature of my preference? Was that the humbling message Sean meant to convey?
To my relief, the delectable cream-puff wore ordinary business clothes - a black angora turtleneck over tapered beige trousers.
'Come,’ she said. 'I need to fit you.'
At once, I pictured her fitting me, her soft white thigh pressed between my own, her pink cheeks hollowed to suckle my nipples to aching points.
Shuddering off the image, I followed her through the opulent, overheated salon. Gold accents glittered about the room. They danced on a floor-length mirror framed in rococo gilt, on the chain from which the chandelier hung, on the -
My hand flew to my throat as I noticed a gold-plated phallus twirling from a wire above the entrance to the changing room. Feathery wings, also gold, extended from the gleaming prick's sides - the shop's guardian angel, I supposed. My body responded to the flying dildo with a rash-like prickle of heat.
Sean's accomplice turned her kittenish chin towards her shoulder and winked at me. 'My name is Amy,’ she said. She blew the phallus a kiss as she passed beneath it.
Resisting an urge to do the same, I entered the changing room. The curving space was divided into separate cubicles, all
doorless
and all mirrored. Here, blue struck the dominant note,
colouring
the carpet, the walls and the scroll-backed cafe chairs. The ceiling was lacquered a rich indigo and stars were spangled over it. To my right loomed a Chinese-style ebony and brass cabinet. Amy turned to it and opened its folding doors, exposing a multitude of tiny compartments.
'You can strip off now,' she said, occupied with the contents of a drawer.
Well, really, I thought. But I did as she asked.
"The centre cubicle,' she specified, when I would have chosen another.
I could think of only one reason to choose this cubicle over the others. I studied the mirror. Though the lighting was artful, a hint of smoky indistinctness revealed its two-way nature. Tiny hairs stood in an icy wave along my arms. Aside from that, however, I don't think I betrayed my knowledge that others would watch me disrobe.
I undressed without any special grace, the same as if I were alone. I didn't bother to ask if I should remove my underwear because I knew I should. Once naked, I gazed at my reflection, outwardly dispassionate, inwardly seething - and not with anger. I saw my body as a stranger might: the mixture of lean and soft; the pleasing arrangement of my bones; the arrow of hair that pointed to my secrets, a darker auburn than my head but just as curly. I saw that I was beautiful and that others would desire me for no better reason than that. The knowledge did not displease me. I would take them, or not, as the spirit moved me. I was the master of my flesh.