And Baby Makes Two - Dyan Sheldon [14]
“Let me give you a back rub,” he’d whisper. “Let me just see you naked, I swear I won’t do anything.”
I, of course, was all coy and shy.
“Oh, I don’t know … what if someone comes … I feel so embarrassed…”
Les was quiet and gentle.
“Don’t be,” Les said softly. “I’ll help you undress … I’ll stop whenever you say…”
I got as far as him sliding his hand behind me to undo my bra, but then I stopped. I didn’t want to ruin the best part for myself.
After my bath, I spent a couple of hours getting dressed and made-up. I wanted to be provocative, but subtle. Which meant I had to wear something that would have the effect of a miniskirt and stilettos, but that wasn’t so obvious. In the end, I found inspiration in the cinema, as per usual. I wore my tartan boxer shorts and bra, with one of Charley’s white shirts over it. I think it was Ellen Barkin I saw dressed like that, and it was incredibly sexy.
I borrowed some of Hilary’s Opium that she bought when Charley took us to Disney World. It was old, but it smelled OK, and she had tons of it left because she only wore it for very special occasions and she didn’t have many of those. While I was in her room I also borrowed herlarge gold hoop earrings and her thinnest gold chain. Ellen Barkin always wore gold, and our hair colour was almost exactly the same. At least sometimes.
It was just as well I knew Les was going to be late, because after I was ready, it took me ages to get my bedroom ready.
The first thing I did was take Mr Ted, my teddy from when I was little, off the bed. I’d never spent a night without Mr Ted that I could remember, but I didn’t think a stuffed bear was really appropriate in a seduction scene. Plus, it would’ve been strange fooling around with Mr Ted sitting there with his one eye. I put him on my shelf, facing the wall.
Then I went through the whole flat and got every candle I could find: night-lights, Christmas candles, garden candles, the big candles in glass jars with saints painted on them that Charley brought back from Florida, the candles the two of them had in the kitchen for when they went camping, the beeswax candles I made in primary school that Hilary never bothered using, even the special round candle that looked like stained glass when it burned that Charlene gave me. In films, someone’s always filling a room with dozens and dozens of burning candles. I wanted my room to look like that. Candles are really romantic. I don’t know who lights all those candles in the films, but I bet it’s more than one person. I didn’t have more than twenty candles, but it took me hours to get them all going. I’d light two or three, and the first one would go out. Or I’d get six going on my chest of drawers, and half of them would be blown out when I walked past. By the time they were all lit, the room looked like there’d been a gunfight in it and the first few candles had gone out again.
I was spraying a little more Opium into the room, to get rid of the smell of sulphur from all the matches, when the doorbell rang.
I raced into the hall, took a deep breath, and smiled.
“Hello, babe.”
Les leaned over me from the doorway. His gaze was like a sponge sucking up spilled lotion. “Is that a bikini under that shirt?”
He had the glazed eyes and fixed smile of a man watching a dancer in a topless bar. I could feel myself flush. God bless you, Ellen Barkin!
“Sort of.”
Half of me wanted the neighbours to see me getting off with him on the doorstep, but the other half of me knew that if they did, one of them would blab to Her Majesty sooner or later.
I gave Les a tug to pull him inside, and he sort of tripped past me.
I tossed my head so he could see my earrings. Dangly earrings are very sexy.
“You look like you had a good time,” I teased.
Les propped himself against the entrance to the living room, grinning like a Hallowe’en pumpkin.
“Videos,” he mumbled. “We watched these videos…” The pumpkin smile turned into a leer. “It would’ve been better if you’d been there.”
My blood began to bubble. Les had never leered at me before.
“Really?” I purred.