Our Little Secret (18 page)

When I look down in panic, to see if Marnie has noticed, I glimpse the full swell of her breasts in her open robe and my mouth goes dry.

Finally, after she’s put my feather headdress on, I’m done.

She claps her hands, surveying her handiwork. I can see my own reflection in the dark glass of the window opposite.

I can’t deny that there has always been an inner showgirl inside me. But my eleven-year-old dreams of one day being on the West End stage always remained a closely guarded secret. The gruelling dance lessons Mum took me to taught me that I would never have the stamina or self-discipline to make that dream happen. But standing here, all dressed up, I feel a remnant of inner hope coming alive. This feels like it might be the performance of my lifetime.

‘Now, it’s time,’ Marnie says, arching one eyebrow and staring directly at me. ‘You dance, right?’

And at that moment I realize that she knows. She knows everything. Because otherwise why would she ask in such a loaded way if I dance?

35

I fight down my panic and don’t look at her as she picks up the iPad.

I’m being paranoid, I tell myself. She can’t know, can she? if she did, she wouldn’t be this nice to me.
Would she?

The music changes. Marnie throws her hand up in the air and wiggles her hips, a coquettish Marilyn Monroe move that makes us both giggle.

‘Oh yeah. Here it comes, baby,’ she cries as music fills the room. It’s a bawdy tune I’ve never heard, all trumpets and trombones, sliding and suggestive. Its hip-bumping, boob-thrusting rhythm surges through me.

‘Go on, dance for me, baby,’ she shouts over the music. She grins at me and claps her hands.

I sigh and roll my eyes and flap out my hands. ‘I can’t. I don’t know how.’

‘Yes, you can. Fuck it, who’s here to judge?’ she shouts over the music. Thank God it’s so loud. ‘Do what comes naturally. Go on. Have a go.’

She shimmies her shoulders at me to encourage me. I see her breasts jiggle. I reach up and feel the length of the feather through the silk glove on my hand. I feel at once ridiculous and excited, and I can’t fight the power of the music.

I want to perform. I cock my hips out to one side. I run the glove down the smooth curve of my bum. Marnie wolf-whistles, slides back onto the windowsill and watches me. She claps her hands and laughs. ‘That’s it.’

I like it that I can make her laugh. I waggle my fingers in the glove and stretch my arm out, imagining I’m some sort of Wild West hooker. I’m performing as much to my own reflection as I am to her. I strip off my glove, then twirl it around my head and throw it at her.

The gesture is so confident, it gives me courage.

‘Oh yeah,’ she says. ‘Give me some high kicks.’

She whoops with joy as I high-kick, then turn around and waggle my bum.

She wolf-whistles again. ‘You’re one hot lady,’ she catcalls.

And I feel it. Slowly, with her encouragement, I start to strip. It feels brilliant to perform for her. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, and I’m certainly no Dita Von Teese, but I feel sensual and horny and in my power. I get it now. This is what Marnie is all about. This – this sexual, womanly quality that makes her so attractive. Because right now I feel like I have it, too.

And it feels great.

I run over to the chaise longue on tiptoes and twirl seductively on its seat, before putting one leg up and undoing my stockings. I’m hamming it up, but Marnie is loving it, and the more she does, the more I enjoy myself.

I dangle the stocking over her, running it along her face. It’s a ridiculous gesture.

‘Baby, you’re a natural,’ she says.

I nimbly skip, turn and flirt my way back to the carpet steps, then fumble with the front of the corset, still twirling along my carpeted stage, then I pull the open sides together and slowly reveal my breasts. I feel sexy, like I’ve never, ever felt.

Eventually I’m back as I was before, in just the thong and tassels, but now I don’t feel naked, or vulnerable. I feel clothed in something invisible. Something that’s womanly and powerful.

Marnie is standing before me now, staring at me. In fact she hasn’t taken her eyes off me, but I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel thrilled to perform for her. I like her seeing me like this. I know she gets what I’m feeling.

‘So what next?’ I grin. I’m out of breath. I look down at the tassels. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want this to end. And there’s something about the tassels. I’ve never really properly celebrated my breasts before, even though they are so fundamental to my sexuality. And here they are. Dressed up for Mardi Gras.

‘You sort of bounce on your heels,’ Marnie instructs. She stands in front of me to demonstrate. Her robe is open now, but still covering her. She’s only wearing simple black knickers beneath. I watch her ample breasts bounce, and suddenly I long to see them. I want her to be doing this with me.

‘That’s it,’ she laughs, as my nipple-tassels spin. ‘The trick is to do it in both directions.’

She sort of comedy-wiggles her shoulders, but I can’t. I stick my tongue out of my mouth, trying to coordinate my nipple-tassels swinging the other way, but it’s impossible. And very funny.

I’m laughing and Marnie is laughing, too. I’m stoned and giddy and dressed as a burlesque dancer, learning from my boss how to tassel-waggle. The absurdity of it couldn’t be funnier. And then I stumble forward on the step, just as I’ve got the tassels to go in a circle. I fall into Marnie’s arms.

She doesn’t pull away, and all I can see is her lips.

‘Hey, you,’ she whispers, suddenly serious.

And I can’t breathe. Because she says it like you’d say it to a lover. An equal. In those two words she acknowledges our nakedness, or sexuality, our attraction. She doesn’t pull away, and neither do I.

I feel a kind of thrilled terror of the kind I’ve never felt before. Because with those words, she’s made this real.

She’s made me hers. But I’m not.

But then her smile kind of freezes. And then I hear it. What she’s obviously picked up on first.

‘Marnie?’

The voice is faint, but it’s obviously Edward downstairs.

I gasp, coming to my senses. Edward is here and I’m in a sensual embrace with Marnie, wearing only the skimpiest of G-strings and nipple-tassels.

Marnie’s eyebrows shoot up.

‘Oh God. You look so funny,’ she says, registering my panic as I spring away from her. The nanosecond of serious intimacy is broken by her laughter. Like it never happened.

I grab my clothes from the floor, wrenching my jeans on and hopping into them. I pull on my hoodie, not bothering with the zip, and scoot for the door.

I can’t look at her.

I can’t bear this.

She lolls against the door frame as I charge along the corridor, like a frightened rabbit, to the service lift, praying that Edward is using the stairs.

36

I get to my room and press myself against the door. I’m panting, gasping for breath. I’m trembling all over. Marnie’s laughter is ringing in my ears.

I can’t believe that Edward is here and he nearly caught us just now in her room. What would have happened if he had? Why was Marnie so unflustered? Why did she think it was
funny
?

And that moment.

That moment.

Hey, you
. I can’t get it out of my head.

But then it was gone so fast, maybe I imagined it.

I feel sick with the thought that she might think I was coming on to her. That my seductive dance was somehow real.

There’s a whole load of lines that seem to have blurred, and my actions and feelings don’t make sense at all.

And that’s what makes me feel so angry. Because she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t care. She gets off on that kind of thing happening. She admitted it herself to me earlier. She’s an adrenaline junkie. She likes living on the edge. She made it very clear what makes her tick. She must have known all along that Edward was on his way home. She must have been smoking that spliff, knowing that any second she might get caught. She must have dressed me up and made me dance, knowing the same.

It’s all very well for her to live like that, but it’s not fair that she used me like that. For a thrill.

How fucking dare she
, I think, omitting a low growl. I’ve been duped again.

But it was
my
thrill, too. I went along with it, didn’t I? It wasn’t as if I checked where Edward was, or when he’d be back. I just got sucked into Marnie’s world, like I was this morning. I feel like I did when I was in the car, all over again. Sick and angry and cross.

I groan again and bury my head in my hands.

You look so funny
. Her taunt rings in my ears.

I’m annoyed that I feel like this. Like a fool for running out of there, like I’ve condoned her impression of me as a prude. She clearly enjoyed me being embarrassed, but now, having run away, I’m upset I reacted like I did. Once again, I feel completely wrong-footed by her. I feel stupid and young and immature, like I was only playing at being the kind of mature woman Marnie is.

Did she expect me to stay? Be cool about what was going on?

Clearly, the answer is yes.

I think of all the models she must have seen. All the private clients she referred to: world-class women who have the money and sex appeal to dress up in the classiest underwear money can buy. And here am I, scuttling around like an idiot.

Again, I think of the film I discovered last night. Now I know that Marnie smokes, I can’t help wondering whether she set up the film for me to find. She’s such an exhibitionist, I wouldn’t put it past her.

Is she testing me, I wonder? Could I really have carried it off, if we were found together by Edward? Edward saw me last night in that dress Marnie designed. He wouldn’t have been shocked to find me in her room helping her unpack, but now I’ve gone and made it a huge drama.

What’s happening now, I wonder? Is Edward in her room? Are they discussing me? In the silence I strain my ears, hoping for clues, but the house is silent. Or maybe I’m too low down on the list of things they need to discuss? After all, Marnie hadn’t even told me she was in this evening. Maybe the minute I was out of her sight, I was out of her mind.

Perhaps she’ll pretend it never happened. Knowing her, even just a tiny bit, I can imagine her right now, sweeping all the corsets into the crate, stubbing out the spliff, facing Edward after his day . . . where? Where has he been? I can’t even make the most basic of guesses, I know so little.

Or maybe she’s getting dressed up in a corset herself. She told me that Edward likes a girl all dressed up. Perhaps she’s seized the moment and is dancing for him to that music right now. Just the thought of it feels like a dull ache in my chest.

I go into the bathroom and move to the sink, washing my face in cold water. Away from the candlelit bedroom and Marnie, I feel dizzy and nauseous. I’ve smoked more in the last two hours than I have in my entire life. I shouldn’t have pretended I could keep up with her. I was showing off. Hoping to impress her.

But what will she think of me now?

I can’t stop thinking about how she looked just now in her gown. How sexy I found her. I’m so ashamed by how much. If Edward hadn’t called out right then, I might have kissed her. Is that what she would have wanted, too?

What’s happened to me? What’s happened to my self-control?

I get up and quickly change, ripping off the nipple-tassels and getting into my pyjamas, as if the whole act of making myself normal will distance me from the burlesque dancer I was just a few minutes ago, but it can’t.

I lie in the dark, shivering. My head spins, the repercussions going round and round in my head. I see Marnie laughing – her head thrown back, her red gown flapping. I see Edward in the gallery, remember his leg pressed against mine. I see myself shimmying whilst Marnie claps her hands, the feather on my head nodding. I see her eyes in the car, hear her crazy laugh . . .

Eventually I doze off, but in the dead of night there’s a knock on my door and I’m instantly awake. Is it him? Is it her?

I stumble across the carpet and fling open the door. I don’t know what to expect. What on earth will happen next?

37

What I don’t expect is empty space.

There’s nobody there. Except the bronze nudey man, who is shadowy in the darkness, although I know he’s still slyly grinning. I look down: on the carpet outside my door is a shiny cream box with a pink ribbon wrapped around it, on top of a package wrapped in tissue paper. Marnie’s tissue paper. The same paper everything was wrapped in. I step into the corridor and pick up the bundle, looking both ways, but the corridor is empty.

I slide the ribbon off the box and lift the lid. Inside is a cream card – the same card that came with the flowers from Marnie. The same handwriting reads:

I push aside the tissue paper and gasp.

It’s a vibrator. There’s a slim instruction booklet attached as a label. The front of it reads ‘Intimate Collection’ in pink script. So that’s what she meant. She designs sex toys as well as underwear. It makes sense, but I’m still shocked. Shocked that she’s so brazen about it.

Guiltily, I take the box back and the tissue-wrapped corset inside the room and lock the door. Then I run to the bed and put the box on it and pull out the vibrator. I let out an astonished laugh as I hold it in my hand. Marnie Parker, my boss, has given me a vibrator.

It’s not cock-shaped, as you would imagine, but kind of flat and curvy. Womanly, like I imagine the shape would be if you moulded a bit of wax against a female’s parts. It’s made of smooth latex and it’s warm and sensual, not cold and gaudy like the pink Rabbit that Tiff won at the hen-do.

There’s a tiny silver button on one end. I press it and the whole thing starts to vibrate with a low hum.

I stare at Marnie’s note, trying to fathom out its meaning: it
might help with how you’re feeling.

How does she know how I’m feeling? Because she’s feeling the same? Was she as turned on by what happened as me? Is she into women? As in
really
into women, I suddenly think? What if that’s her thing?