Red Grow the Roses (2 page)

Netta sighed. ‘Me neither.'

They made their way to the door – and there he was, Number Twenty, bathed in the magenta strip-light of the Bar Trattoria sign, chatting amiably to the bouncer. His eye fell on Sophie. ‘Hey there. You going before I can buy you a drink? I'm Ben, by the way.'

She blinked. Face to face with him once more, she couldn't believe there was anything weird about him. Not that the teeth thing had actually worried her: she'd assumed that was just a trick of some sort. ‘Um. We thought we'd head out somewhere else.'

He glanced questioningly at Netta, who looked very pleased indeed. Plump and pretty, she always made the most of her capacious cleavage and now Sophie saw her swing it into action, turning those orbs on Ben like twin lamps, in the hope of dazzling him.

‘I'm Netta. Short for Agnetha – my mum was a big ABBA fan.' She giggled. ‘We work at the same place, Sophie and me.'

‘Ah … the art gallery?'

‘That's right.'

‘Well, can I buy you both a drink then?'

‘I don't see why not.'

Sophie shrugged and nodded, pushing any lingering disquiet aside.

‘You want to go to a club?' suggested Ben. ‘How about the Rose Garden? We could skip the queue: I know the guys on the door.'

‘Sounds good,' said Netta.

‘Yeah,' Sophie agreed. The Rose Garden was expensive and she'd never been there.

He held the glass door open for them both and followed them out on to the street. Netta took the chance to catch Sophie's eye and mouth ‘
Hot
!' at her. Sophie wanted to ask her if she remembered him from the speed-dating line-up now, but she didn't have the chance.

He didn't let them down at the Rose Garden either, marching them straight up to the bouncers and inside, after a nod and an exchange of greetings. He made sure he paid too, and bought the drinks at the bar, slipping an arm round each of their shoulders as he stood between them and ordered, encouraging them to choose the fanciest cocktails they could find on the bar menu. The dancefloor wasn't yet packed as it was relatively early in the evening, so there was plenty of space for the three of them to go on and dance together. He was a good mover, Sophie noted, though his eyes only really lit up when they played a remix of some jangling 60s hit by a group she was too young to be able even to picture. He flirted with both of them, paying each equal attention and obviously enjoying their company, wriggling up against Netta with a cheeky twinkle during a dirty song, dancing away insouciantly a moment later with an ironic wink at Sophie. Every move he made proclaimed: ‘I'm having fun and I'll take the fun as far as you like but I'm not after anything heavy.' His grin gleamed under the UV light, but his teeth were completely normal. Well, Hollywood normal.

Taking a break, they retired to a quieter corner to rest their feet for a few minutes. Netta went off to the toilet then. Normally Sophie would have gone with her, but they had a fresh batch of drinks on the table before them by this point and she wasn't going to be so naive as to leave them unguarded, not with the stories you heard these days. Ben seemed nice, right, but … they didn't know him. Not yet. You had to be careful, didn't you? So she sat and they made light talk and that was when Ben kissed her, leaning in and brushing his lips softly to her own.

All the noise of the club seemed to fade to nothing.

Oh, thought Sophie in the sudden silence inside her head: Oh, I like this. She was flushed and warm from the dancing; his lips felt cool, yet the flicker of his tongue-tip hinted at a deeper heat. She could taste the tang of the lager he'd been drinking. His stubble was softer than she'd expected on her skin as his mouth moved over hers, swallowing her breath. And oh, his hands – one arm around her, smoothly, like she might startle: the other now on her knee, his fingertips the lightest of caresses, not at all intrusive even as they slid up the inside of her thigh, over the lace patterns of her black tights. His cool fingers sketched pointillist pictures of sensation on her skin as they played over the tiny holes in the lace, and Sophie felt a sly seep of moisture within her, a secretly avid response to his touch. And how she wished she'd worn stockings now, as he reached the hem of her skirt.

Ben's tongue was in her mouth now, smooth as cream liqueur and just as sweet. Not boorish, not greedy. She wondered what it would feel like between her pussy lips and, catching herself at that thought, she squirmed beneath his hand and broke the kiss with a little gasp. His teeth caught her lower lip, gently, and she froze.

He let her go. He looked, with a faint but pointed smile, down at his hand on her thigh, as if surprised to find it there. She looked down too and they both watched as her legs eased apart to grant him narrow passage between thighs barely illuminated by the distant flicker of the dancefloor lights. Slowly his hand disappeared under her skirt, following that warm cleft. His cold fingers tickled their way, like water running underground, to the mound of her sex. His nail caught on the threads as he flicked it, quite accurately, over the hidden spot where her clit burned – and Sophie nearly left her seat, trying in vain to mask the spasm of her arousal. Ben scraped his finger up and down on the coarse weave, and smiled as he looked into her eyes. Sophie couldn't grin; her mouth went slack instead as he played with her, her eyes glazing over.

Then he stopped and sat back, without haste. Sophie shook herself from her trance and realised that that faint bloom of light had been the door of the Ladies opening and closing, that Netta was on her way back over to their table. For cover she lifted her cocktail to her lips and sipped from the glass, crossing her thighs. There was a bubble of heat between them that glowed as she squeezed her legs together.

‘This might be a flash place but they've still run out of hand-towels in the loo,' announced Netta cheerily as she sat down.

Ben casually rubbed his fingertips together and lifted them to his face as if inhaling the bouquet; the gesture was smooth and almost unnoticeable. ‘Hey, it's always best when the girls are a little … damp.' The weak joke made Netta squeal and pretend to slap him and he played along.

‘My turn then,' said Sophie, rising. She'd had more to drink than she thought, it occurred to her as she staggered slightly. Or maybe it was just that her legs were wobbly.

‘Careful, love.' Ben placed a hand lightly on her thigh to steady her. It didn't help.

In the ladies' toilet there was chill-out music playing and a row of mirrors a mile long for the customers to examine their make-up in. Sophie larded on another layer of lip-gloss and stared at her reflection, wondering if Ben was making a pass at Netta while she was away. She wouldn't put it past him; he seemed the sort to try anything and his flirting was aimed in every direction. A critical examination of her reflection didn't make her feel too bad, though. She was slimmer than Netta at least, though she'd never manage to match those fabulous tits. With a slight frown she undid the top button on her dress and tucked the cloth down to reveal more of the valley between her own, imagining Ben's head nuzzling between them, his tongue lapping at the silky skin of her breasts. Even the thought made her wetter. God, he'd turned her on. She wanted more of that. She hadn't particularly come out to get laid tonight – she didn't count herself as
that
sort of girl – but now that it was looking like a possibility her pulse was running faster. She didn't want Netta to snatch him from under her nose – and Netta was so much brassier than her and more likely to get what she wanted.

Maybe Ben was hoping to pull both of them, she thought suddenly. In the mirror her reflection blushed and her eyes snapped. ‘Oh,' she mouthed with her bright fresh lipstick. That sort of implied he had a place of his own, if he was planning anything that elaborate. She'd never done it before but the novelty had a certain trashy sort of appeal – and she and Netta were good enough friends that it might work. They'd seen each other undress often enough, and talked about sex without any restraint. She wouldn't be embarrassed in front of Netta.

It could be fun. Ben looked like, no matter what, he would be fun.

Making up her mind, Sophie returned to the toilet cubicle and pulled the skirt of her dress up so she could grab the top of her floral lace tights. It was a warm end-of-summer night after all. She could go barelegged.

By the time she left the Ladies she was wearing nothing beneath that short skirt at all.

Back at the table, she wasn't surprised to see that Netta was sitting up close to Ben's side and that his arm was resting down the back of the padded bench behind her shoulders. Nor was she surprised at his cheeky smile. But his words weren't what she'd expected: ‘I was telling Netta here that I have a friend who's an artist. A really good one. Sculpture mostly. You want to see his work?'

‘Now?'

‘What – don't you mix work and pleasure?'

‘I just … well … it's pretty late.'

‘Oh, he'll be in his studio. He likes to work late. It's not far, if you want to take a look. And he's … a really interesting bloke. You'll like him. He'd like to meet you two, I'm sure.'

Oh, thought Sophie: that's how it is, then. He was pulling on his friend's behalf too. She tried not to consider whether she was disappointed or not.

It wasn't actually all that late by the time they emerged from the Rose Garden; not that late if you were out on the lash on a Saturday night, that is: late for everyone else. Bars and takeaways were doing a booming trade but the only vehicles on the streets were taxis and buses and police vans. Ben slipped an arm around each of them.

‘Ooh,' said Netta: ‘you're cold.' She was right, thought Sophie: he wasn't icy, but there was none of the heat she'd been expecting from his body. That white cotton T-shirt might as well have been draped over a mannequin's torso: toned and unyielding and cool.

‘Yeah, I am. I need you two to keep me warm.'

Netta giggled and pressed herself up against him in a hug that only looked innocent.

So Ben walked through the night streets with them flanking him, his arms around their shoulders, their arms about his hard waist. He steered well clear of loud and dangerous-looking revellers, but kept to the lighted main roads as if to reassure them. And he kept up a stream of chatter all the way, all about Warhol and Lichtenstein and other names Sophie knew she should have paid more attention to on her art-history induction course, until they crossed under a flyover and followed the road in a curve and there were suddenly trees and a big black building looming over them. A church. It stood in a little island in a whirlpool of main roads and it wasn't floodlit like some of the city-centre churches. Victorian Gothic in style, its stones were black with soot dating back to the Industrial Revolution and it was close-grown with big dingy sycamores.

‘Here we are,' said Ben, suddenly grabbing their hands and skipping them across the road under the nose of a taxi. They reached the pavement beneath a white streetlamp that made the building beyond look even more shadowed.

‘A church?' asked Netta, pulling out of his hand. She wrinkled her nose. ‘It looks derelict.'

‘It's an artists' centre now. Naylor's studio's inside – see the light?'

They peered into the gloom, and Sophie was relieved to see that there was a glow high up in one of the tall stained-glass windows – though it barely showed through the encrustation of soot and the thick protective wire lattice over the exterior of the glass.

‘Looks spooky,' muttered Sophie.

‘Looks like a place for freaks to hang out,' Netta grumbled.

‘Aw,' he mocked softly. ‘Are the little girls scared?'

Netta cast him a sharp glance. ‘Hey – how old are you?' she asked. It sounded like a change of subject but Sophie knew where she was coming from. She'd assumed all along that Ben was their own age or thereabouts: mid-twenties at most. That's how he'd looked under the indoor lights. But out here under the harsh white light of the streetlamp he looked suddenly older. It wasn't wrinkles; he didn't look wrinkled. It was something less definable, something about the way the shadows fell or the look in his eye as he derided their squeamishness. Something about his eyes, for sure – as he turned his face down to them he looked almost blind for a second.

‘How old do you think I am, love?'

‘Thirty? Thirty-five?' Netta was being deliberately nasty, trying to get a reaction; Sophie could hear it in her voice. But Ben didn't reply. He just smiled, and it was a different sort of smile to the others he'd used upon them. Secretive and coldly amused.

Netta readjusted her bag on her shoulder. ‘It's getting late,' she said in a hard voice. ‘You know, I think I'm going to go back. My mum's coming over to visit tomorrow and I need to get up early to clean the flat.'

Sophie was surprised and dismayed. So, their hot date had turned out to be a bit of a cradle-snatcher – but did it really matter how old he was, when he was this fit? Wasn't Netta over-reacting?

‘Don't you want to meet Naylor?' he asked.

‘Maybe some other time.'

‘You'd like him, I promise.'

‘Like I said, it's late.' Netta looked sharply at Sophie. ‘You coming then?'

‘I think I'll stay.' She saw the spark of shock and outrage in Netta's eyes, the look that said: You can't stay on your own. You stick with your girl friends whatever. That's the rules.

‘Sophie!'

‘You go home if you like,' said Sophie, nettled. She wasn't letting an opportunity like this pass. ‘I want to see these sculptures.'

Ben folded his arms, counting himself out of the discussion. For a moment the two girls glared at each other. Sophie could hear the unvoiced accusation: On your own?

‘Suit yourself,' said Netta with a sniff. ‘See you Monday.' Unspoken was the sneer: Don't come crying to me if it goes wrong. With an irate bounce in her step she marched away up the street, toward the neon glow of a Chinese takeaway sign and the taxi rank beyond. Sophie watched her go, then turned to Ben, who was waiting with eyebrows raised.