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There was no point in looking over her shoulder, hesitating… there was no one there to see her go… no one to care that she was going.
She felt cold and calm, her body almost weightless, her thoughts and emotions all suspended in the relief, the release of knowing that there would be no more indecision, no more worry or anxiety…
* * *
It hadn’t occurred to her to ring Kenneth to warn him of her arrival, and she could see the startled surprise in his eyes as he opened the door to her.
‘Sally…’
She saw him glance uncertainly, uneasily almost, past her as though concerned that someone might have seen her, before he ushered her inside.
The stairs lay ahead of her, bleached and bare; they seemed to rise up steeply in silent, jeering challenge, mockingly aware of her weakness and apprehension.
As Kenneth closed the door she started to climb them.
She heard Kenneth saying her name, his voice sharp and anxious, but she didn’t stop to respond to him. If she did… if she tried to explain… She dared not let anything break the fierce wall of concentration she had built so protectively round herself.
Joel had been her only lover and it was her nature to let him be the one to take control sexually, to approach her… To know that she was the one inviting, initiating sex was something that she could not consciously allow herself to acknowledge, and if she stopped now to talk to Kenneth…
She heard him climbing the stairs behind her but she still didn’t look back.
Several doors led off the landing; she automatically headed for the closest and pushed it open. The bedroom beyond it was furnished just as starkly as she had imagined, its décor reminiscent of pictures she had seen of interiors of monasteries, she decided absently.
Kenneth had followed her inside the room.
She stopped at the foot of the bed and turned round to face him.
He looked different somehow, his features sharper, clearer, unfamiliar in some odd way.
Slowly she started to unbutton her dress, keeping her eyes fixed on his face. She could hear the sound of her own breath, shallow and nervous. Her mouth was dry, her body icy cold, apart from her face which felt burningly hot.
The room was airless, a vacuum that seemed to suck up and drain all the emotion from her, so that she felt she was just a collection of bones and muscles and flesh, that this woman carefully removing her dress was not really her but someone else.
Once the dress was unfastened she took it off, carefully folding it neatly and putting it on the bed.
It was time now… Time to do what she had come here to do… time to…
She froze as she heard the sharp, ragged indrawn sound of Kenneth’s breathing, her body tensing in anticipation of his touch, of his sexua
l arousal and need, even though she had come here expressly so that they could be lovers. Nervously she waited for him to come to her, to hold her, to cover her nakedness and vulnerability with the warm protection of his body… to drown out her doubts and fears with the heat of his desire.
‘Oh, my God… no…’
She heard the words, but her brain, her awareness, was several seconds late in translating their real meaning, several seconds during which she simply stood there waiting, not recognising that the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice signified not passion but revulsion.
At first she couldn’t believe it… couldn’t accept the evidence of her own senses, couldn’t understand why he simply stood there and stared at her in a white-faced mixture of anger and disgust, looking at her as though her body, her nakedness, her availability was something shameful and embarrassing.
‘Kenneth…’ Her voice was a cracked, shocked, pleading protest expressing her need and fear, but he ignored her, shaking his head and turning towards the door.
‘Please get dressed,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got a colleague coming round in fifteen minutes. He mustn’t find you here… like this…
‘My God…‘ he demanded as he reached the door and turned round to look at her. ‘How could you? How could you come here dressed like some cheap joke of a tart, soliciting sex? I thought you were different… I thought you…
‘Why couldn’t you wait?’ he asked her almost sorrowfully. ‘I had it all planned… It would have been so perfect between us, so aesthetic and pure, not coarse and vulgar like a cheap harlot selling her wares, gross and demanding… My God, look at you…’ Sally saw him shudder with distaste. Her throat was thick with tears, her body cold with shock.
Trembling violently, she pulled on her dress. The knowledge that she had been sexually rejected burned her skin like acid; the look she had seen in Kenneth’s eyes was something she would never, ever forget.
She felt cheap and dirty, choked almost on the sterile, thin air the house seemed to possess.
