The Masseuse. Marianne Brun

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СКАЧАТЬ and pushed against him as he wriggled his ass, and a continuous “Mmm” moved from his mouth onto her back.

      When he let her go, she faced him. They both smiled. There was no unease and she had no qualms about what she wanted to do next. He pulled up his trousers, and she took him by the hand and led him upstairs.

      * * * *

      Now it was hard for Kate to believe she and Colin had started the way they had. She was wondering if she would someday be unable to trust that memory when she heard the garage door opening. She sat up and listened to her husband enter their house and take the steps to the bedroom, where she waited, already dressed for the party with a book in her hand.

      “Hi, Kate!” Colin’s footsteps were heavy on the staircase. When she felt his presence at the bedroom door, she turned. He took off his tie, his face blank. He didn’t look at her light blue dress. It had once been his favorite.

      “Where were you?”

      “At the office. I talked to you.” He moved toward their en-suite bathroom as he unbuttoned his shirt.

      “I rang back straight away and they told me you were gone.”

      He didn’t miss a stride. “I told them not to accept calls from anyone. I was in the middle of something.” He smirked during his last words.

      She wanted to step closer, sure she could smell sex in the air. But her doubts kept her feet rooted to the floor. “I said it was your wife.”

      “I said, ‘anyone.’”

      The bathroom door closed between them and she heard the shower start. So that’s who she was—just anyone. She had known it for a while.

      Eventually he came out with a towel wrapped around him and put on jeans and a fresh shirt. When he finished dressing, he finally looked at her. “Okay, you ready?”

      She stood. Her hair lay across her shoulders and was pulled back from her face. She wore a little makeup that enhanced the brown in her eyes, and a pale lipstick softened her full lips. She nodded, hoping he would notice her effort.

      He smiled back, too quickly, hardly seeing her. “I left the wine in the car.”

      Kate waited after he’d gone, watching the door of their bedroom and hoping to see his body rewind to the space he had left, so she could get a second glance at his smile and let it fill the part of her stomach that had dropped.

      “You coming?” he shouted from downstairs. “Kate, come on!”

      Colin’s impatience brought her back to the present. The light had shifted, filling the room with shadows. He waited at the front door and opened it with her approach. She threw a light blue cardigan over her shoulders. He stepped outside and waited for her to follow. As Colin took her hand, she imagined the shadows coming out to play.

      * * * *

      A year after their first date, Colin took Kate to the beach near his house. They’d brought a picnic and a blanket. It was a warm spring day, the sky a bright lapis blue. They laughed trying to put the blanket on the sand with straight lines as the breeze kicked under it.

      Kate sat first and became aware of his still-standing form after a few seconds. She had to shield her eyes when she looked up, until he moved. She smiled then because he was large enough to blot out the sun.

      She remembered his dark silhouette going down on one knee. His smile was shaky. She loved his nervousness that day as much as the romance, loved the way his eyes widened, as if the way he would view life from now on depended entirely on her. The sun seemed to take a step backward, as though the world had started to revolve around them. He reached for her, but his hand was hard to focus on. She went back to his face instead.

      “I can’t be without you, even for a day.” His smile gained confidence with her silence and remained on his face as his grip loosened around the box. “Kate Giovanni, will you make me the happiest man on this earth and be my wife?”

      She didn’t have to consider it. Her arms around his neck made him fall back, laughing.

      * * * *

      A dark-haired woman opened the door of Jeanne’s house and smiled at them. Kate felt Colin’s grip strengthen. Light flicked across the woman’s eyes and made Kate hold her breath, as if that sparkle had taken something off her. She thought, with the tightening of her husband’s fingers and the easy lolling tone of his “Hello,” that the woman was enjoying the effect she had on Colin, building energy like a bulb just plugged in.

      The night turned out just as Kate had imagined it. She hated every minute. Only Kate and Colin and one other couple, Camilla and Ian, had been invited. Camilla knew Jeanne’s husband, Frederick, through working at the art gallery in town. She was an older, very sexy woman with dark curly hair, brown eyes and wide hips.

      The men all got slightly drunk on whiskey as Kate and Camilla helped Jeanne with the food in the kitchen. “So how are you?” Jeanne had asked.

      Kate nodded, unable to find her smile. “I’m fine, thanks.”

      “I do hope so.”

      Kate wished she had something to rebound this consideration back to Jeanne. She wanted to shatter the tough, annoying resolve of the woman it came from. When they finished setting the table and joined the men in the living room, Colin was sitting on the couch with his elbow on the armrest. He leaned forward and nodded at Kate before his eyes roamed up and down Camilla and his smile broadened. Kate felt her heart stop.

      Her neighbors’ false sympathy and Colin’s lecherous looks kept Kate’s confidence at a low, though the next day, when her first client started to take off his clothes, she couldn’t help thinking of Jeanne’s hand on her back and her caring, plastic smile.

       Chapter 3

      Jade walked into the reception area with her satin slip clinging to her and smiled at the appreciation she saw in the client’s eyes. The small Italian man stood upon her entry. He had brown eyes, a scrunched-up face and thin red lips. Dark stubble made up for his receding hairline. She knew he would pick her when closing the door. She saw his eyes had not left her and he had not sat.

      A few minutes later, she followed her first client into the dimly lit room, where music played on the intercom. He undressed and threw his clothes on the ground with a gesture of impatience that worried her. She took her time, slipping the straps off her shoulders. She had wanted to believe she would enter those dark rooms and become a different person, suddenly having the desire of Arlene, the confidence of Michele or the vixen-like ways of Nikki. She imagined the sensual music and the smell of sex would engulf her, releasing a new woman like a caterpillar from its cocoon. She would waltz out the door with the grace of a butterfly after holding a man’s penis and making him come.

      It didn’t happen like that. The Kate side of her came out in full force, though at one stage Jade felt her curiosity spark. When her client made his request to touch her, there was hesitation. For a second, she imagined what it would be like to say yes.

      The slip slid down her smooth body and revealed her breasts, small and pert. Her nipples were erect from nerves and the kiss of air. The light fabric went past her black lingerie to the high heels and she kicked it off. Then she removed her final defense: her g-string. She left her high heels on. Jade СКАЧАТЬ