Any Way You Want Me Page 13

  ‘Ding-dong,’ I said glumly.

  ‘There,’ she said, spinning me round so that I could see my reflection. ‘Whaddya think?’

  I gulped at the sophisticated-looking woman who was staring back at me. Cat had really done the business. She’d put my hair up in a neat twist at the back with an elaborate cross-over pattern on the top of my head – the sort of thing that I would need five hands in order to accomplish. Then she’d given me smouldering Catherine-Zeta-type eyes, shimmering cheeks and a perfect coral pout.

  ‘Wow,’ the glamorous stranger said in the mirror. ‘Is that really me?’ I giggled in a most unsophisticated way. ‘God!’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Alex gulped when I swished down the stairs and into the kitchen, two minutes later.

  It wasn’t just the make-up he was ogling, it was also Cat’s black Chanel dress she’d lent me. ‘Fifteen quid from Portobello,’ she’d said, ‘and it’ll look great on you.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Alex said, coming over to run a hand over my bottom. ‘Let’s stay in instead. Cat – you’re dismissed.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked in delight.

  He laughed. ‘No, you idiot, I was only joking.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Taxi should be here any minute,’ he said. ‘Get your coat, love – you’ve pulled.’

  I hugged Cat goodbye, feeling even more twitchy inside. I really didn’t want to go, especially now I was looking so dolled up. Mark might think I’d done that for him – and of course I hadn’t. ‘Come on, then,’ I said to Alex, hearing a faint beep from outside. ‘Let’s go.’

  The taxi roared up Acre Lane and towards Chelsea Bridge and town. As we crossed the river, I looked at the black water, sparkling with reflected headlights, and shivered. No going back, Sadie. Uncharted waters straight ahead.

  The Laurel Tree was everything Becca had excitedly told me. Slippery leather sofas, Philippe Starck bar stools, beautiful androgynous staff with Prozac smiles and hundred-pound haircuts, and, most impressively, designer toilets that had probably cost more than our house.

  The place was buzzing with people when we arrived. It was the leaving do for Bob Saville, some legend or other from the sports desk, and there was a display of his best articles up on one wall. I recognized a picture of Gazza crying, and one of David Beckham being sent off against Argentina, but that was about it.

  Alex whisked me into a group of people and started introducing me to some of them. Jenny, one of the international writers – bad perm and no chin. Paul, political affairs columnist – sharp suit and fox-coloured hair. David, Westminster diarist – jowly and heavy-set. I smiled and nodded blankly at them, and tried not to sigh.

  ‘Right,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll just get us something from the bar. Back in a tick.’

  The git. Was he seriously expecting me to make idle chitchat about Bush’s current fiscal policy with these political boffins? Not likely.

  I glared at him. ‘I’ll join you,’ I said, treading on his toe with a carefully placed spike heel. ‘Nice to meet you all. Bye.’

  The bar was heaving with women in expensive, plunging dresses and men in their best shirts, some that had even been ironed. I couldn’t see Mark anywhere but it was hardly surprising, with the current body count. The bar was three deep – something to do with the free-drinks element, at a wild guess. I suddenly felt tired and old and past it. My feet were killing me in my heels and it was only half-eight. And my bloody G-string was wedged right up my arse – it was all I could do to stop myself hoicking it out.

  ‘Christ, we’re going to be here all night,’ Alex said. ‘Tell you what. You carry on queuing here; I’ll go to the downstairs bar, see if that’s less hectic.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly, not wanting us to be separated, but his back was already turned, and seconds later he’d been swallowed up in the crowd.

  I sighed. Typical. We’d only been here two minutes and I’d lost him already. This is what happened every time, at these work dos of his. We arrived together but then seemed to get instantly separated until the end of the evening. Still, it had been far, far worse all those times when I was pregnant and not drinking, I comforted myself. At least there was a free bar here and I could get lashed without remorse.

  Someone elbowed my side, and I whipped round with a glare. A skinny blonde in a black trouser suit, jacket buttoned in the middle, no shirt underneath. She didn’t even notice me.

  The bar staff were busily pouring champagne, pulling beer bottles from the fridge, uncorking wine, lining up tequila shots. I watched one of them, a girl with glossy hair so black it shone blue under the neon lights, like a raven’s wing. She was wiggling to the music, laughing, singing as she shook a cocktail, looking for all the world as if it was her private party she was hostessing.

  Then, I felt someone pressing up behind me. A familiar spicy tang made my breath catch in my throat. A hand brushed the side of my leg lightly before the fingers started sliding around to my bottom.

  Mark.

  ‘No,’ I said stiffly, trying to sidestep him. There was nowhere to go, though. The crowd was all packed together like sardines. Oh no, you don’t! I thought. Not here. Not here!

  ‘Hello again,’ he said in my ear, his voice low and gruff, his breath hot on my neck.

  I shook my head, hoping he would get the message. But oh . . . feeling him so close behind me was making me giddy. His hand was still on me. It was all I could think about. His fingers on my dress, sending shock waves right through me, radiating out from each finger, like ripples on a lake.

  My mouth was dry. I needed to break away. I had to get out of this crowd right now, and find Alex in the downstairs bar. Right now.

  I didn’t move. I stood in the middle of the bar throng, people around me on all sides, and shivered with anticipation, my heart missing several beats as his fingers lightly roamed my black dress.

  What should I do? What should I do?

  Go – quickly! Just go! Find Alex!

  But . . . oh, the way his hand was slipping forward, up, onto my waist, his fingers harder on me.

  I took a deep breath. I wanted him. That was the problem.

  I put my hand over his. I touched his skin, ran my fingers over his knuckles and felt a throb of excitement.

  He was pressed right into me. I could feel his hard-on through my dress. Oh my God. This was really happening.

  There was still time to go. Still time to say, sorry, no, I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m not that kind of . . .

  But I was hypnotized. Bewitched all over again. Without any permission from my brain, my own hand was stretching slowly, slowly back behind me, over his trouser leg, to stroke an experimental finger over his groin. His whole body stiffened. I heard him gasp.

  Now he was running his hand down the front of my legs, pulling up the material, gathering it between his finger and thumb. One swoop and he was underneath, discovering my stockings, moving up, up . . .

  ‘Sadie! Over here!’

  My head spun round as if it were on a string being pulled. Alex. Oh Christ, Alex, at the side of the crowd, triumphantly holding up two glasses of something or other, and beaming.

  I smiled and waved back. Still I didn’t look behind me. I walked over to my partner, to the father of my children, the man I had loved for years, with my knickers made wet by someone else’s touch. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ I said as I made my way through the crowd of thirsty hacks. ‘Can I just . . .? Thanks. Cheers.’

  I could feel Mark’s eyes on me all the while. I didn’t dare turn round to look at him. Fucking hell. Fucking hell!

  ‘It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?’ I said when I reached Alex’s side. ‘Phew.’ I fanned my hot cheeks – mentally thanking Cat for slapping on so much foundation – and drank my drink. Champagne cocktail. Delicious. I couldn’t look Alex in the eye. Betraying him under his nose, with all his colleagues in the room. What sort of a bitch did that to her man?

  We went and stood with a load of the news hacks and I did the dutifu
l partner thing, smiling in the right places, polite and friendly, not saying anything offensive. I couldn’t concentrate on a word anyone said, though, just kept pouring booze into myself. All I could think about was Mark’s hands on my body. I wondered where he was, if he was still watching me. And where was Julia, anyway? Presumably not at the bar with Mark when I’d been there. I prayed she was with him right now, whisking him away to introduce him to some important people who’d keep him busy for the rest of the party.

  A tall bespectacled journalist in the middle of our group was saying something about a scandal concerning the Department of Health, and hospital waiting lists.

  ‘And of course, that’s exactly what they promised wouldn’t happen, according to their election manifesto,’ he was droning.

  Christ on a bike, did they all have to talk shop? It was meant to be an office party. Why weren’t people discussing who fancied who, and EastEnders, and where they bought their outfits? Wasn’t anyone going to get pissed and get a conga going?

  I drained my cocktail in a gulp, felt it fizz through me. ‘Back in a minute,’ I said to Alex.

  He nodded absent-mindedly, listening to and nodding at a middle-aged woman with a sparkly shawl who was quoting NHS statistics as if she’d been up all night revising them.

  ‘Up twenty-eight per cent on last year, whichever way you look at it . . .’ she wittered.

  I made my escape, struck out in the direction of the loos. I was feeling quite drunk now and wobbled precariously on my heels. Oops! I just knocked somebody’s drink with my elbow. Oops! I just bumped against one of the whitewashed pillars. Bloody hell! Get yourself in the loos fast before you go flying arse over tit, I told myself sternly.

  I had a great time in the ladies’, working out how to use the flush, admiring the stand-alone sinks and mosaic tiles, then helped myself to all the free hairspray and other cosmetic goodies on offer. I smiled at my flushed reflection in the enormous mirror, checked for lipstick on my teeth and tried to repair the damage to my Catherine Zeta Jones eyes, which were looking rather smudged by now.

  I walked out of the toilets and there was Mark, waiting for me by a pillar, blue eyes fixed upon me. Just like I had known he would be.

  Shit. This is serious, I told myself. Time to get a grip. Should I stop to talk to him? Or should I keep on walking, back to Alex?

  ‘Hello again,’ I said, feeling my pulse quicken at the sight of him. He had a dark blue shirt on, well-cut black trousers. I stopped for a second, and found myself rocking back on my heels. Bloody hell! Why had I let myself get so drunk?

  ‘Here, I’ve got you a drink,’ he said. ‘Champagne.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking it. Our fingers touched and I looked up at him. He had felt it too, the electric shock of contact.

  ‘You look amazing,’ he said.

  I tried to be flippant. ‘Well, I was going to wear my running gear, you seemed to like me in that, but . . .’

  Oh, no. That sounded really flirtatious. And I shouldn’t be flirting with him. I should not be flirting with . . .

  ‘I like you better in Chanel,’ he said. That crooked smile again. And how did he know it was Chanel? Did that mean Julia had the same dress? I bet hers hadn’t come from Portobello Market, I thought drunkenly. ‘Actually, I think I’d like you with anything on, Sadie,’ he said. He took a step closer to me and the space between us became an intimate one, our heads bent towards each other. ‘Better still, with nothing at all.’

  I felt as if I couldn’t breathe in. The music seemed to have stopped. I couldn’t see anyone else in the bar, only him. Everything else was a blur.

  I knew I had two distinct options ahead of me, lying like two long paths stretching out into the distance. In one, I walked away from Mark and his hard-on, went back to Alex and lived happily ever after. Hopefully. In the other, I abandoned myself to some glorious sex – and it would be glorious, I could just tell – with Mark, and . . . And what? Then what happened?

  I swallowed, almost dropping my champagne glass. ‘Where can we go?’ I asked. I couldn’t help myself. The words just came out of me – and at that moment, I didn’t regret them.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him, towards the far end of the room. There was a door marked ‘Private – Staff Only’ on the back wall. He pushed it open, led me in, and slammed the door behind us again.

  We were in a brightly lit, white-painted corridor that stank of cigarettes. Music thudded from the other side of the wall. I gulped, suddenly uncertain, but as he slotted his arms around my waist, and bent his head down to kiss me, I breathed him in, felt his mouth upon mine and it was right, so right.

  His hands were on me, pushing up my breasts, squeezing them hard, running his fingers down to my waist and then up again, back up to my breasts and pulling the shoulders of my dress down so that he could . . . oh, so that he could slip a hand in, around the side of my bra, searching for my nipple. There. Oh yes.

  I was gasping, eyes squeezed shut, mouth on his, one hand in his hair, the other trying to undo his flies.

  Now he’d discovered my suspenders and was running a finger around the top of my stocking, letting it snap back against my thigh. Up his hand went, and up, now pressing a palm into the black satin triangle of G-string, sliding a finger along the top, now moving his hands out to grip my bare bottom and groan into my neck.

  I fumbled with the zip, feeling how stiff he was inside his trousers. Oh God, I just wanted to do it there and then under the strip lights, back to the wall, legs curled up around him . . .

  ‘Excuse me – this is a staff corridor. Excuse me – you’ll have to go back into the bar. You’re not meant to be in here.’

  I turned my head away from the voice – young, nervous and male – not wanting to see. My heart thumped hard. Mark’s hands had stopped moving on me.

  ‘Right. Sorry, mate. Just give us a minute,’ he was saying.

  I waited until our intruder had gone, then looked up at Mark. Colour flooded my face. Oh God. We’d practically had sex in the corridor. ‘We’d better get back,’ I said, suddenly stricken with guilt at being there, away from the party.

  He was shaking his head, eyes dazed-looking. ‘Christ, I can’t bear it. I just want to . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Me too. But we can’t. We mustn’t.’

  ‘We can,’ he said. He put both hands on my breasts, pushed me into the wall, kissed me again. My hair clip dug into the back of my head and tears started to my eyes, tears of sudden pain and of something else I couldn’t quite name.

  ‘Monday night,’ he said. ‘Outside the Albert. Sixish.’

  He was rubbing circles around my nipples and it was too much; I had to pull away. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Ten

  Dear Sadie,

  Sounds like you’re really busy with work. Did you get your programmes finished on time? What are they, anyway? Let me know so I can look out for them.

  Life in the shop is going well. It’s an independent record shop I set up with a mate, Vic. We specialize in dodgy old punk, your favourite. If you’re serious about me selling your album, I will. How long do you reckon it’ll take me to shift it? I give it two weeks, tops. Still lots of Smiths fans in Manchester.

  I’m going to be down in London for my mum’s 60th soon (last week in March). You suggested ‘doing lunch’ but I was wondering how you felt about a pint instead. What do you reckon?

  Love Dan x

  Oh, Danny boy. From being a mad moment of escapism, he was becoming a complication. There was a brief ten seconds or so while I wondered if Vic was male or female before realizing I didn’t actually care. And now he wanted to go out for a pint with me . . . Hmmm. Could I really carry my bluff off, in person? Did I even want to? After all, there were other irons in the fire right now. In fact, the fire was liable to burn my hands if I wasn’t careful.

  It was the Monday after the Saturday before, and the secrets of Saturday night had beaten their wings insid
e my chest like caged birds for the whole of Sunday.

  I hadn’t seen Mark for the rest of the evening. It was as if he had been spirited away by Julia, or the whole thing had been a mere delusion, a wildly erotic dream I’d had that seemed more and more fantastical every time I thought about it.

  I had spent a good ten minutes sitting on one of the loos, my mind in utter turmoil. Drunken slut, I chastised myself. Drunken idiot! So much for sticking to Alex’s side all night! I’d all but had sex behind the scenes at Alex’s work do – I mean, what sort of a person did that? How could that have happened?

  I’d been pissed, sure, but I hadn’t been comatose. I still could have pushed him off me, click-clacked away from him as fast as my heels would carry me. And I should have done.

  But . . . God! It had been electrifying! It had been utterly primitive – an animal lust. Just his touch had bewitched me. I’d been completely under his spell. And when I was with him, it felt incredible. It was only when I was apart from him that the thump of guilt kicked in. And boy, what a kicking I’d taken ever since.

  Alex hadn’t noticed my prolonged absence or my dishevelled appearance when I had rejoined him. Hadn’t smelled desire on me, or noticed the nervous fiddling guilt of my hands. He had smiled at me, and then gone straight on with his story about bumping into John Prescott by the lifts the other day. At least the conversation had moved on to celeb spotting anyway, even if it was only John Prescott. That was some small thing to be grateful for.

  We had gone home after a couple more hours of free booze and polite chit-chat. I’d packed Cat off in a taxi with drunken, stumbling hugs, and then, for the first time in, well, ages – I literally couldn’t remember when – I had instigated sex with Alex, had pushed him flat on the bed, climbed on top of him, and eased his trousers down. He had looked dazzled, as if Christmas had come ten months early, when really it was only guilt walking the walk.

  ‘I’ll have to take you out to more swanky bars if this is what it does to you,’ he’d said afterwards, smirking all over his face.