Wedding Games by Karen S Smith

Author:Karen S Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448133468
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

10 A Cut-Throat Razor

AS I WAITED for Kit on the corner of the street, I smelt the first edge of autumn in the air. The evening was still warm, but a trace of frost was sharp in my nostrils and the musty scent of dying leaves came faintly on the breeze. Though it was barely seven o’clock, a ruddy sunset was spread across the sky, silhouetting the chimneys and roofs below. My bare legs, feeling the cool air, told me the summer was nearly over, the hot, lazy afternoons behind us for another year.

I saw my car pull round the bend in the road and I watched Kit park it expertly a few yards away. We were fast becoming the couple we had pretended to be at Eric’s wedding, preferring each other’s company to our own and using each other’s vehicles – though most of the bikes I had been enjoying all summer were borrowed ones, not Kit’s own battered machine. I surprised myself still, hearing my own voice say things like, ‘I don’t know – I’ll have to see what Kit’s doing.’

Luckily for me, Geoff had got another film quite soon after our discussion at the Soho café and I had been spared my explanation while he was away. We never stayed in touch very much when he was working, though I still got the typical Geoff postcards: front bearing a photo of some tropical paradise, back listing the explosions, fireballs and plate-glass windows he’d been through that week. When he came back, I knew things would be pretty clear: Kit was a big part of my life now.

It wasn’t just habit and companionship, I thought, as I watched Kit struggle with the temperamental lock on the driver’s door. There was still an electricity between us that was irresistible. Other men had set my body alight, so their slightest touch would drive me to a frenzy of desire, but Kit had reached into my mind. Seeing him walk towards me along the pavement, I felt a frisson of anticipation. It would be hours before I was alone with him, but every moment we spent together was part of our long game, our exploration of the furthest borders of ourselves.

He put his hands on my head and kissed me as soon as he reached me. His face was cold: he’d been driving along with the window open, as he liked to do, trying perhaps to emulate the breeze of the motorcycle. I wanted to take him straight back to the car and home to bed, but I knew this evening had been difficult enough for him to arrange.

‘You’re early,’ he said with evident pleasure. ‘You’ll have to wait while Eddie cuts my hair now.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I answered as we walked up the street, ‘I can watch. I was finished early and I thought I’d come straight here.’

The blinds were down on the barber’s shop and the sign on the door read closed, but Kit knocked on the glass.

‘Does Eddie normally open out of hours?’ I asked as the lights in the shop flickered to life.

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