Asking For Trouble (12 page)

I had half a mind to give Ilya a ring, not to speak to him – I had nothing to say – but just to hear his voice, answerphone or otherwise. I could find out if he was at
home. He wouldn’t know it was me. I could just hang up. But I resisted. I thought it was too loopy.

Instead I just loitered and drank in the sight of all those whores touting for business, some with professionally printed cards; others with just handwritten squares of paper. One had a felt-tip drawing of a sun next to the phone number, its caption
SEASIDE SEX
.

It didn’t help much in terms of what I ought to buy, but it gave me a buzz of sleazy energy. And sleaze, I decided, didn’t have to be soiled with solemnity like the cream-coloured sex shop. Sleaze could be brash and bold, trashy and twinkly.

My sleaze-buzz got tarnished with squalor when I made my way under the bridge of Trafalgar Street, recalling Ilya’s fantasy of fucking me in the doorway. As usual, someone was slouched there, lethargically begging for change. It was just too grotty.

Putting it from my mind, I headed for the North Laine, Brighton’s pulsing rainbow heart. It’s a grid of terraced streets, dotted with pubs, and the seam that runs through it is a heaven of quirky shops and cafés.

I was slightly jittery about bumping into someone, because the North Laine is big bumping-into-someone territory. It’s the place you go to get your ethnic tat, your retro clothes, your alternative cred or your second-hand books. If you want your clit pierced, a pair of seventies platforms, an obscure remix on vinyl or some exotic Chinese spices, then you go to the North Laine. Even if you don’t want anything, you still go to the North Laine, and preferably with your mates.

I wanted to look like a whore, and I did not want to meet anyone with time to kill who might fancy tagging along.

I browsed my way along Sydney Street, checking out shops selling fetish wear, kinky boots and glitz. But it was either too dominatrix or too damn good. I wanted to
look tawdry and cheap, although not too tawdry and cheap – not like something the cat had dragged in.

I moved on to Snoopers Paradise: a jumble of second-hand stalls under one big roof. After getting distracted by some angle-poise lamps, circa 1950, I anchored myself in the clothes bit.

I browsed at leisure, rifling through decades of fashion: the good, the bad and the downright ugly. When I saw it, I knew I had to have it, not just for me-as-whore but for me-as-Beth. It was a plastic leopard-print mac – twice as fake as the real thing.

In a flurry of excitement, I held it to my body. It was mid-thigh length and just my size.

Buoyed up by my purchase, and churning with images of myself, I stepped out into the sunlight. My plan was to go in search of a bad-girl dress and some slut-undies.

But I never made it. Because when I merged into the slow-flowing crowds outside, I spotted Ilya. Or, rather, the back of Ilya’s head.

My heart jumped. Of all the people I’d feared bumping into, he was not on the list. Seeing him in public felt weird; he didn’t seem to belong there.

I had a moment’s panic: I didn’t want to exchange chit-chat with him in the middle of everyday bustle; I didn’t want to meet him when I was clutching item one of my whore wardrobe.

But he was several people ahead of me. He didn’t know I was behind him. He wouldn’t know if stayed behind him, perhaps followed him for a while – just to see which sort of shops he went into, just to get a bit of detail for that mental shoebox of mine.

I dropped back a few paces, screening myself with people while keeping a sharp eye on his shorn head. Where was he going? To the Cheese Shop for some fancy cheese? To the Kensington for a drink? No, he passed them by. Moments later, so did I, keeping my head low as I skirted past the pub, fearing there might be someone
sitting at the outdoor trestle tables who would call my name and ruin everything.

Ahead of me, Ilya took a left turn. Damn, I’d been hoping he would go straight on to Sydney Street. A left turn meant not many shops, and rapidly thinning crowds. Should I take a left? At the end of the street, I stood amidst a bottleneck of people and dithered.

I watched Ilya take a second left – going back the way we’d just come but along a quieter street. What excuse could I give if I followed him and he saw me? Upper Gardner Street: that meant boxy terraced houses and a few antique garages, some tatty, some posh. I could always say I was furniture-hunting. And of course I’d seen him ahead. Hadn’t he heard me calling his name?

I did a left and a left, dawdling along so Ilya was about half a street ahead of me. Where was he going? And why had he more or less doubled back on himself? Was he a bit lost? Maybe he hadn’t lived in Brighton long and he was simply exploring. Oh, there were so many things I wanted to know about him.

Ilya walked the full length of the street and took a right turn, disappearing from my view. I rushed to catch up, scared I might lose him. North Road next. I could always say I was en route to the Post Office.

Then it was another right into Queens Gardens. This was some zig-zag journey he was taking.

Queens Gardens: that meant a row of pale cottages. I could always say . . . what? That I was heading for Trafalgar Street and I was taking the scenic route?

My potential excuses were becoming more and more implausible. Maybe I should quit.

Yes, I’d just take a quick look down Queens Gardens then get back to shopping. I’d forget all about playing detective. It was a stupid idea anyway.

I turned the corner.

Ilya was there. I almost ran into him. He was just standing still, next to the picture-framing shop. He was
facing my direction, waiting for me. He looked pretty pissed off.

‘Oh hi,’ I said brightly, willing myself not to blush. ‘I . . . er . . . I saw you just back there. And I was wondering if, maybe . . . if you fancied a coffee or something. Do you? Do you fancy going for a coffee?’

‘What are you doing?’ he replied sternly. ‘Why are you following me?’

‘Following you?’ I exclaimed with a laugh so artificially flabbergasted that my cheeks ached. ‘I’m not following –’

‘You’ve been following me since Kensington fucking Gardens,’ he said, his blue-green eyes narrowing viciously. ‘What’s going on here? Have I landed myself with some kind of weirdo obsessive? Are you going to turn into a fucking stalker?’

‘Christ,’ I said, trying to hide my shock with another feigned laugh. ‘Of course I’m not. Get a grip.’

The thought that he had similar fears to me was reassuring and yet deeply disturbing. Was I a weirdo obsessive? Maybe I was. Hadn’t I recently considered phoning him in order to hang up? Hadn’t I just been trailing him halfway around town? Was that normal?

Was my perspective warped? Or was his perspective warped? Maybe we were both crazy.

‘Look,’ I said, attempting to calm the situation. ‘It’s nothing. Stop overreacting. I was just trying to catch up with you. I was simply wondering if –’

‘Well, don’t,’ he said in a tight-mouthed snarl. ‘Don’t ever try and catch up with me. OK?’ I saw the hands at his side clenching and unclenching.

‘Jesus,’ I said, no longer bothering to conceal my amazement. ‘Whatever you say.’ An instinct for self-protection made me clutch my carrier bag to my chest. ‘It was only coffee.’

There was silence, then Ilya’s expression softened and he nodded at my bag. ‘Been shopping?’ he enquired, putting on a gentle smile.

‘Yeah,’ I said, wrapping the bag tighter.

‘Anything special?’

I shrugged, my eyes downcast. I knew I looked sulky but I didn’t give a damn. However wrong it’d been of me to follow him, I didn’t think I deserved such aggression.

‘Are we still on for Friday?’ he asked. He reached his fingertips to my chin, tilting my face so I was forced to meet his gaze. His smile broadened and his eyes sparkled roguishly under their heavy lids.

He was trying to make amends. He knew he’d been out of order.

And his raw, rough beauty was so devilishly sexy that I couldn’t help but crumble.

‘Sure,’ I said, attempting an easy smile. ‘So long as I’m richly rewarded, you bastard.’

Ilya grinned and bent to press a kiss to my cheek. ‘I’ll do my very best,’ he said. ‘Which direction are you going in now?’

I didn’t know if he was suggesting he might come along with me or suggesting I fuck off.

So I said, ‘The opposite direction to you.’

‘Fine,’ he replied. And we said our goodbyes.

My shopping spirit had vanished. I went home.

Friday night, and the small strip bulb above my bathroom mirror made my features seem shadowy and gaunt. I gazed at my painted face, at those darkly shaded eyes and those glossy, fat red lips – BJ lips one of my exes used to call them, as in blow-job lips because they’re very full and fleshy.

I hadn’t planned on wearing gloss, hadn’t even thought about the stuff. But when I’d first applied Tulip Red – not my usual colour – I looked too much like me out on the town, albeit me with brighter lips and trashier eye make-up.

I wondered if I should remove my nose stud but I liked the edge it gave me so it stayed.

Seeking inspiration, I clattered in the long-forgotten dregs of my make-up bag, and I found it – a real blast from the past: my lipgloss, once a much loved friend and now somewhat forlorn and cloudy in colour.

Nonetheless, I reckoned it might just be the finishing touch. I was glad I wasn’t an organised kind of girl who did make-up-bag spring cleaning. I unscrewed the top, loaded the sponge-tipped wand with goo and slicked it over my lips. They glistened deliciously, almost to the point of dripping. Perfect. Nice and sleazy does it.

I dug a few pins in my hair and teased it this way and that so it looked temptingly tousled. The roots were dark against the tawny dye. I was pleased about that.

In fifteen minutes’ time, I would cross the road to Ilya’s and, for one night, I would be his common little whore, flaunting my easy ways, giving him what he wanted. I was eager and nervous, my stomach full of butterflies; and I was excited and horny, my sex full of juices.

But my face in the mirror looked scared and drawn.

I poured myself a vodka, wanting to replace my anxiety with the buzz of frivolity. In my mind, I kept going over our little confrontation in the North Laine. The more I thought about it, the more over the top Ilya’s reaction had seemed. His flare of aggression unsettled me deeply. Could he turn nasty? Was he a paranoid soul? Or did he truly have something to hide?

Perhaps he’d been trying to shake me off because he was meeting another woman. Or perhaps it was something far worse than that, although I didn’t know what. Again, I wondered if he might be dangerous.

Oh Jesus, lighten up, Beth. It’s just a game. He’s OK. He’s even bothered to think of an opt-out clause: cuttlefish.

I sat on a stiff-backed chair, legs crossed. My lipstick left a cheap kiss on the rim of the glass and I imagined it
would smear sluttishly when Ilya kissed me. But then, I thought, will he kiss me? I’m playing the whore, and I don’t think they go in for kissing. Maybe I should say something when I go over there: ‘I don’t kiss, I don’t do anal and I don’t do anything without rubbers. Take it or leave it.’

I hoped I could do it without feeling self-conscious. The nearest I’d been to role-playing before was a few mild sessions of silk-scarf bondage. I’d feigned resistance, but there had been a playful, giggly edge to things. And that doesn’t really do much for my arousal. I know sex can be funny, but that doesn’t mean funny is sexy, not when you’re really getting down to it.

That’s why I like to keep my fantasies private: I don’t have to make them acceptable by sugaring them with humour; and when they’re safe in my head, there’s only one person who might find them comical and that’s me. And I don’t. I find them hot, especially when they’re crude and degrading. But Ilya seemed to be on my wavelength. He wasn’t laughing.

I smiled to myself, starting to feel sassy and brassy once again. I liked the idea of our sex being a transaction – no intimacy, no seduction – just up front and down to it, clinical and sleazy. And, instead of cash, my payment was pleasure – not the kind of pleasure I might receive from a caring lover, but the pleasure I would take from being debased and used, from being Ilya’s plaything – a worthless bit of trash he could abandon on a whim.

I looked down at my shoes, eyeing them with satisfaction. I’d borrowed them from Clare, much to her amusement. I didn’t tell her the reason I wanted them. I made up some nonsense about fancying a little practice at fuck-me shoes. Don’t think she believed me.

I’d bought an arse-skimmingly short, bright-red slip dress. It was deliciously tarty. The best thing of all was the zip that didn’t lie flat and the bit of thread hanging from the hem. I’d splashed out on a plethora of stockings
and sussies too, but they made me feel like I was in drag. So I opted for bare legs instead.

The dress was filthy-tight. It made me curve and splurge in all the right places and gave me a drop-dead cleavage, no bra required. My nipples poked through the shiny thin fabric.

Underneath I wore crotchless knickers – red gauze edged in black lace. They were scratchy, horrible things but I enjoyed the mild discomfort: it was a constant reminder that my undies were cheap and vulgar and, tonight, so was I.

Yes, I looked the part. I was sleazy and easy, a whore for Ilya’s taking.

I drained the last of my vodka, shuddered, then went to my windowless bathroom for a final mirror-check. Looking good, I thought, as I touched up my gloss-slathered lips.

Then I planted one high heel on the edge of the bath and gently dabbed a tissue into the gaping split of my knickers. All the anticipation had made me horny as hell. My vulva was booming with thick heat and I was far too wet to be leaving the house in an itsy-bitsy slapper dress and knickers that were hardly there. I didn’t want to drip my way across the road.

I was about to leave but a twinge of nervousness made me write down details of where I was, who I was with and our arrangement to act out a whore fantasy. Just in case. Then I slipped on my squeaky leopard-print mac, took a deep breath and left. It had just turned ten-fifteen.