Avril Tremayne - Kiss Don’t Tell

‘So she’s not exactly desperate and dateless then. Or she wouldn’t be if she just loosened up and looked around. Any man would be up for a little experimentation.’

Sarah raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Really? Because it seems to me you’re being dragged kicking and screaming in protest over your fate.’

‘I— That’s … different.’

‘Is it? Seems pretty similar to me. And just so you know, that guy didn’t ask her out in the end, he gave up. They always do, you know. They give up because they see what you saw tonight: the outer shell. The ice, not the fire.’

‘Yeah, well the fire’s got its work cut out for it—if it really is under that glacier-like coating of hers.’

‘You just wait and see. I know Lane. If she says she’s going to learn something, she’ll learn it. She’s never failed a course yet. She’s going to cram seven years of sexual experimentation into as short a time as she can get it done.’

‘I still say she could get laid seven nights out of seven by going to a bar and choosing a guy, any guy. She won’t even have to pay for a drink; she’ll be picked up before she even orders one.’

‘Ah, but she doesn’t look at her arrangement with you as paying for sex. What she’s really paying for is skills transference, and confidence in her abilities. It’s no different from when she signed up for private Mandarin lessons, you know. She decided to specialize in the Chinese economy and thought the lessons would help her. And they did, too. They clinched the job at the bank for her.’

‘So I’m the sexual equivalent of Mandarin classes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fucking fabulous.’

‘With you, she’ll get the lessons she needs, all private and confidential, using a timetable she’s set for herself, and it’s all under her control because she’s paying for it.’

Adam gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Ah, my secret fantasy—a control freak who doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

‘Yes, well if your initiation into sex had been as bad as hers and was broadcast to half your workplace besides, you might understand her need for control over subsequent experiences.’

Adam paused in the act of pouring more Scotch. ‘Initiation? You mean the douchebag was her first?’

‘DeWayne Callaghan. First and only, and the miracle is she’s willing to try again after him. She went out with him the day after her mother dropped the first “give me grandchildren” hint.’

Pause, as Sarah gave him a speculative look. ‘You know, I’d say I’m surprised she told you about him, because she really found the experience intensely humiliating … but oddly, I’m not surprised at all. She’s like that—she never hides from the truth. She’ll tell you whatever you need to know if it helps to get her where she needs to be.’ Another look. ‘Did she tell you that despite DeWayne only lasting two minutes and forty seconds, he had the nerve to score her performance?’

‘No.’

‘He gave her one point five out of ten. And obligingly posted it on Facebook for all their colleagues to see.’

‘Shit.’

‘ I would have torn his heart out and fed it to the seagulls at Manly Beach along with a bag of hot chips, right after tweeting his premature ejaculatory effort to the world! But not Lane. She was so valiant in the face of what he did to her. Just took it on the chin and didn’t say a word. It was as though she thought she deserved it for not being good enough. So she just kept going to work, not rebuking DeWayne even when their paths crossed in the corridor, until she found a new job where she could start again with a clean slate.’

Adam found that he was shaking with fury. DeWayne. Douchebag. Fucking, fucking bastard . He tossed back his drink, reached for the whisky and repoured, just in case things got worse.

Sarah was looking intently at the liquid in her glass, still not drinking it. ‘I wanted to shake the calmness out of her, make her rage and curse and slap that mongrel down. But I knew deep down that that veneer of calmness was saving her, that it was only a veneer, that she wasn’t calm. She was mortified, devastated , and hiding it, the way she hides it when her mother and brother make her feel like she’s coming up short of their expectations. But never in a million years did I think she’d dream up the idea of a sex contract.’

She looked up. ‘Can you imagine how terrified I was when she announced that plan, as though she were announcing she was going to start taking a new vitamin supplement? I had nightmares last night, imagining her swiping right on some psychopath and ending up and being cut into little pieces!’ She lifted the whisky at last and threw it down her throat, and then shuddered, gasped, wheezed.

Adam reached over and gave her a few slaps on the back, laughing.

‘Not. Funny,’ she huffed.

‘I’m not laughing about the psychopath, I’m laughing at you,’ Adam said, still laughing. ‘I thought you were never going to shut up long enough to drink that.’

She was beating a hand on her chest, in time with his back slaps. ‘Needs Coke,’ she croaked.

Adam stopped slapping and tried to take the glass off her. ‘Coke? Heathen! Give that back. Let me get you something with an umbrella in it instead.’

‘Hit me again,’ she said, handing over her glass. ‘I mean the whisky. Not my back, because I’m probably bruised from that assault of yours. I just need another drink.’

Adam poured her another measure of whisky and passed it to her, and they sat and sipped in silence for a long moment.

And then, Sarah sighed. ‘I love her you know. And she … she needs people to love her, because she can’t see anything inside her that’s worth loving. So I’m going to trust you with her, on that basis. I know you’ll do the right thing.’

‘Hey, whoa, step back from the edge, Sarah. This isn’t a romance, or a psychology session, it’s a sex contract.’

‘Just promise me you’ll do better than DeWayne.’

‘I won’t be “doing better” than DeWayne; I’ll be wiping him out of existence.’

‘Hmm. Don’t overpromise until you know what you’re facing. Remember the fire under the ice—maybe that’s why DeWayne got there so fast. She was too hot for him!’

‘Talking about ice, the stuff you’re standing on is getting thinner, Sarah. A lot, lot thinner.’

‘I guess the contract will work just as well for you as it will for her, though,’ Sarah said, slanting an interested look at him. ‘Sex on tap for three months, no strings—gotta love that, right?’

‘I already have sex on tap, no strings.’

‘Well, this one comes with a nice, bloodless breakup at the end, which should suit you to a T, Mr Love-’em-and-leave-’em. No histrionics. No stalking. No drunk texting.’

‘Shut up , Sarah.’

‘I just hope I haven’t oversold your abilities.’

‘The ice is cracking,’ he warned.

‘Although I’m sure Lane has non-performance covered in that contract of hers.’

That startled a laugh out of him. ‘As a matter of fact, she does.’

‘Well don’t tarnish the family name, please. I’ll never be able to hold my head up if you don’t go the distance.’

Adam gave her a look of acute dislike.

She laughed, but then stopped and winced. ‘But God knows what Erica’s going to make of all this,’ she said.

Adam slammed his glass down on the table between them. ‘Okay, I think I’ve heard Erica’s name a time too many, and I also think it’s time for you to bow out of the business. Not one word on the subject from you, got it? Not to me. Not to Lane. Not to Mum. Not to bloody Erica. It’s going to be hard enough to get through it without being instructed from the sidelines by the fucking coven.’