LITMIR.BIZ

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my head to try to calm myself down. It doesn’t work. I press my palms against my hollowed cheeks like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Do I want to kiss Gustav? Is that it? Do I want him to kiss me? I don’t know. Not yet. I’m off men, remember? Too much going on in my head for that. So, no. I just want to get near him. He’s deadly, the way he pins you like a butterfly. I’ve followed him here without question, but what’s going to happen next?

       You’re just lonely. You don’t know anyone in town. Sad sack. Any old company will do.

      But Gustav Levi is not just any old company. I have the weirdest feeling that he’s picked me.

      The crazy reflection in the mirror shakes its head, and I bend to wash my hands.

      I step smartly into the small bar with its glittering wall of bottles, all brimming with the fuel of adventure. He is sitting on a tall stool, elbow propped on the bar, coat off, jumper slung round his shoulders, his long fingers turning a glass swizzle stick. In the soft lighting his face is sculpted with the rough promise of a piratical beard, so how does he still manage to look like James Bond under cover as an unshaven bandit?

      I pull my stomach in. This guy is waiting for me. This cool, sexy, scary guy.

      His long legs in dark blue jeans are crossed comfortably, one Italian loafer tapping out a tune on the rung of the bar stool. Those lovely legs. Just now they were standing behind me, pressed against my back as he tried and failed to groom me. My stomach kicks rebelliously at the memory. The hard evidence I felt of his maleness. The proof that being close to me aroused him. He’s not made of stone at all, even if it takes hieroglyphics to understand him. I may just be one girl amongst many, but I’m the one who’s right here, right now, and it’s me he’s waiting for.

      Look at him. That languid body the dark blue cashmere fits so well, skimming the muscular torso beneath, the run of muscle under his ribs, the subtle flex in his forearm as he twirls his swizzle up and down his fingers like a cheerleader’s baton.

      I stand at the door. I observe his air of elegant alienation. No Brit by definition can combine the two. Yet he’s so restless when he thinks no-one’s looking. His tapping foot, his long fingers twisting and clapping and explaining. The muscle in his jaw is going again. His eyes are lowered over his cocktail as if he’s a soothsayer examining the entrails of a goat. All I can see from his profile is the fierce jut of his eyelashes.

      He turns his head as if he senses a siren call and sees me leaning against the door frame. He nods as if I’ve just asked him something. His eyes lock onto mine for a moment, dark and persuasive, before moving easily over my mouth, my throat, the barely visible curves deliberately hidden under my sweater. My body tightens and resists my clothing. Something uneasy stirs. There’s something final in his study of me, as if this is the last time.

      I walk towards him and he pushes himself away from the bar to stand chivalrously as I approach him. I wrap my fingers round the cold glass.

      How many mobile phones have broken how many perfect moments? Mine buzzes impatiently into life just then, dancing about on the chrome bar. We both glare at it as if it’s a scorpion just scuttled out of a salad.

      ‘This is so rude, Gustav.’ I glance down anxiously to see who it is. ‘But it’s a text from my cousin.’

       Surprise! In town 1 nite only. Don’t worry, won’t invade space, staying with boyf, v late notice but party tonite, come quick here’s the address! Costume provided x

      A fancy dress party is the last thing I feel like tonight. I glance at Gustav, who is staring at the steamed window. Polly will be gutted if I say no.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Gustav, this has been great, but I have to go.’

      I waggle my mobile phone in explanation. I sound far too flippant.

      He hands me a cocktail glass with a clear liquid as if he hasn’t heard me. Now that his gloves and coat are off, I notice the chunky Rolex slipping on his wrist.

      ‘James Bond drinks in here,’ he remarks. His eyes, his face, are very calm.

      ‘You took the words out of my mouth.’ I take the glass from him a shade too quickly so the liquid tips in a mini tidal wave. ‘That sounds like the kind of code spooks would use at a meet.’

      He laughs. The laugh is reined in now, and I suspect that’s my fault for wrecking the mood.

      I stand beside the bar stool where he’s neatly folded my jacket, scarf and beret. I don’t sit down on the proffered bar stool. We chink our glasses very carefully. They look so fragile they could shatter with a sneeze. I can’t look at him. I’m afraid that if I stare into those pensive eyes I’ll never stop. So I stare down into the liquid, and the conversation dries up.

      The martini is exquisite. It flurries over my tongue and warms its way down my throat, prising the top off my head, lifting me instantly. I don’t want to leave. But I’m equally sure that I must.

      ‘And his tipple of choice is exquisite. I love this place. I feel as if I was born to sit here sipping cocktails. But it turns out a Halloween party does await me, after all.’

      ‘Of course it does. Go trip the light fantastic, Serena.’ He turns the stem of his glass and smiles, not at me but at the olive bobbing on the surface of his martini. ‘But don’t get abducted by the undead, will you?’

      I put my glass down and start to struggle with my jacket. My arm gets stuck in the sleeve as I’m halfway in.

      ‘Oh, blow it!’ I mutter crossly, my fist punching at the lining.

      ‘Stop struggling. You’ll rip it.’ When he stands to help me he seems taller than ever. He chuckles, hands me my blue scarf and catches it before I fling it messily round my neck and wraps it slowly round. We’re rewinding the earlier scene in the lobby, when he was close up behind me and I felt the swell of his excitement.

      ‘I can do it, thank you Gustav.’

      He shakes his head, his black hair falling over his eyes. ‘I beg to differ, signorina.’

      He bends to pick up my gloves from the pile. I stand there like a child, or like the child I would have been if anyone had ever bothered to dress me like this. I stick my fingers out stiffly. He smiles at my hopelessness and edges on the gloves.

      ‘Anything else I can do for you?’ he mocks, tugging at his forelock like a servant.

      Our laughter dies almost as soon as it starts. I wonder if he, like me, is remembering the quiet shiver of recognition when I pulled his glove off earlier, in the square, to take his bare hand. When he then took mine, and kissed my soft palm.

      Now he’s holding out my beret. How does this ritual look to the barman, the onlooker?

      Well dressed, handsome man settling in for a solitary brooding drink, disturbed by hectic, flushed girl. Rising courteously, dressing her up before bidding farewell. Is it obvious we’ve just met, or does it come over as the in-joke of a relationship? Any age difference only occurs to me now I can see him in the light. Ten years, maybe fifteen, but no older than an uncle or godfather, though my scruffiness makes me look like a teenager. We’re not joshing or familiar enough to be siblings or cousins, but none of the above would put gloves on for you, and all have the whiff of the verboten.

      What I want to know is, do Gustav Levi and Serena Folkes look like lovers, engaged as we are in this private, apparently perfected little sequence?

      ‘What about your costume?’ he asks suddenly, turning my beret over in his hand as if trying to decode a message. ‘Can’t go to a party without a costume.’

      I try to take the beret off him, but he tugs it back and starts to put it on, resting his hands on the top of my head.

      ‘My cousin has something for me to change into when I get there.’

      By now one or two people in the bar, as well as the barman, are watching us. Gustav doesn’t care, or notice. He tucks my hair behind the exposed

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