wondering whether any of the girls in massage parlours were actually qualified masseuses. And if so, which skill did they consider their forte? Did they look in the vacancies section of the Job Centre or local paper under ‘masseuse’ or ‘sex worker’? She wondered whether they started off with a cursory shoulder rub to somehow legitimize what came next. Saul always claimed he didn’t really rate massage. Is that because he’d never had a good one? Or did he just tell the girls to forget the neck rub and go straight to his dick?
Thea looks down at Mr Sewell. He has a nice back, smooth and slightly freckled over the shoulders. It tapers becomingly to his waist and his legs are muscular and with just the right spread of hairs to be attractively masculine rather than unappetizingly hirsute. Turning deaf ears to the small voice warning her that she’s mad, that this isn’t going to help, that this is a very bad idea and fundamentally the wrong thing to do, Thea trails her fingertips down Gabriel’s spine, just as she had on Peter. And then her hands start to caress his legs, interspersing strong strokes to the hamstrings with a feathered caress of the inner thighs. But at the point where Peter had objected and bolted away and left Thea feeling wretched, Gabriel spreads his legs slightly and Thea finds the signal a horrible but undeniable thrill.
Where else, Mr Sewell, she says silently to herself, what else can I do for you today? She is fingering the seam of his jockey pants blatantly. ‘Turn over,’ she murmurs. God, this is easy.
Mr Sewell’s erection is impressive. In fact, it is so impressive that the very sight of it simultaneously excites but appals Thea. The shape of it leers up behind his pants. As bemused as Peter had been, Gabriel is now lying there, proudly tumescent. He is obviously, and quite literally, up for it. He is rock hard and eager and Thea can see his cock twitching expectantly, skewed slightly by the constraint of his underwear. She doesn’t know whether to be shocked or titillated that this man, right here, would fuck her right now. He’d be quite happy to pay, there’s no doubt about it.
‘But I don’t even particularly like you,’ Thea thinks to herself as she looks down on his expectant body, ‘you’re not my type at all. You’re surly and non-communicative and cold.’
‘Miss Luckmore?’
Thea is horrified to see that while she’s been deep in thought gazing at his penis, he’s been staring at her intently.
‘Miss Luckmore,’ he repeats, ‘is it à la carte – or can I order off menu? What, may I ask, are the specials today?’
Thea is catapulted from her safety zone into dangerous territory. She doesn’t like it. Quick. Think of something. Feign innocence. Ignorance. ‘I could do you an Indian head massage?’ she suggests.
Gabriel smirks, his hand now lolling arrogantly over the mound of his cock. ‘I assume that involves giving me head, then?’
‘Pardon?’ Thea flusters.
Gabriel snaps back to his more usual curt self. ‘Look, are you up for it or what?’
Thea wants to cry. She feels mucky. ‘I don’t date clients,’ she mutters. ‘The ethics of my job discourage it. Sorry.’
‘I wasn’t talking about a date,’ Gabriel says, ‘just a blow-job or something. Whatever. Never mind. I’ll try the head massage. Come on.’
I’m going mad. I’m not thinking straight. I’m losing my grip. I need to think but I can’t. It’s like I won’t let myself. I have to decide what to do but I’m incapable of making decisions because I can’t think about them. I have less than two weeks before I move out. But how can I think of packing when I don’t know where home is any more? I’ve suddenly acquired so much baggage. I can’t move under the weight of it all. Maybe I’ll just shove the lot into storage and run away.
Thea didn’t cancel her Pilates class that evening though her head throbbed and she was utterly exhausted from her unbelievable day. However, she knew she was best off devoting an hour to shutting out all that tormented her; indulging in an hour tuning into her own body; centring herself, focusing on breathing, concentrating on all she really was – a skeleton swathed in muscles, joints and ligaments, assembled intricately but logically. She wouldn’t be able to think about Peter or Gabriel and what had almost happened, she could forget all about Saul and what had happened. Respite, even for just an hour, was what she craved.
Alice wasn’t at Pilates though she’d confirmed their session over lunch. Ultimately, Thea was slightly relieved – she actually didn’t want to receive Alice’s kindly glances and supportive squeezes and concerned whispers for her welfare. Thea didn’t want to workshop her problems and woes over chips and wine after the class. She certainly didn’t want to reveal to Alice her bizarre behaviour that afternoon. Thea just wanted to think about her body, about inhaling and exhaling, about maintaining neutral. It was nice, though, to see Sally, and Thea eagerly accepted an invitation to a light supper at the Stonehills’. It would be good to be in Sally’s company, she theorized, to have no reason or recourse to talk about ‘it’. It would be constructive to simply chat, to natter on topics other than how prostitution and her future seemed inextricably bound. Sally’s invite was also a good reason not to go home and have to think about packing and it provided a bona-fide excuse not to see Saul for another night at least. Ultimately, Thea rationalized that to be surrounded by the Stonehills’ perfect domesticity would be comforting and affirming.
In Highgate, Sally could harp on all she liked about sleepless nights, the sorry state of her sex life, the demise of her social life and language skills, and the destruction of her clothes by baby puke. However, for Thea, the scent pervading the Stonehill house was uplifting and restorative. Drying laundry. Baby shampoo. Flowers from husband to wife. Home pride. Everything smelt so warm and clean and cosy and complete and grown up. It was a fragrance Thea acknowledged she had always wanted in her life. Just then, she wished she could bottle it. Just in case.
Don’t let Sally see me sad. Stop it, Thea, get a grip.
‘I wonder where Alice was today?’ Sally said, passing Thea tomatoes to slice while she spread oven chips on a baking tray.
Thea shrugged. ‘She said she was coming when I saw her at lunch.’
‘Have you two buried the hatchet, kissed and made up then?’ Sally probed.
‘God, yes,’ Thea said, busying herself with tearing basil into slivers.
‘You’re like an old married couple, you two,’ Sally laughed, trying to shave parmesan with a potato peeler. ‘Talking of marriage, how’s Saul? Richard’s playing squash with him tonight. He’ll be back home soon – he’ll give you a lift home, if you like. Providing he managed to stick to just the one post-match pint, of course.’
The door-to-door distance from the Stonehills’ house in Highgate to Thea’s flat in Crouch End was less than a mile and a half. Just long enough, Richard would have thought, for a quick chat about how the purchase of the new flat was progressing.
‘Can I ask you something, Richard?’
‘Sure,’ he said, presuming his professional capacity as an architect was required.
‘Have you ever paid for it?’ Thea asked him outright.
‘Me?’ Richard asked. ‘No – we tend to use each other in our company.’
Thea’s mind-set was so rigid that momentarily she didn’t realize Richard had not grasped her question and she fleetingly imagined a bacchanalian orgy of architects. ‘No,’ she corrected, ‘not architect stuff. Sex. Have you ever paid for sex?’
Richard stared in amazement, wondering if he’d just heard right. Fortuitously, the traffic lights between Archway Road and Shepherd’s Hill turned red. Thea repeated the question. ‘No,’ he replied decisively, ‘I haven’t. But I do know plenty of blokes who have.’
‘Who