Killing Cupid by Mark Edwards, Louise Voss Read Free Book Online

upset. If he’s that upset, why did he dump me in the first place? It seems churlish to ask him, though.
    ‘Did you call me, by the way, after you left that night?’
    He looked surprised. ‘No. Did someone call? Bit late, wasn’t it?’
    ‘That’s what I thought. There was no-one there when I picked up.’
    ‘Probably just a wrong number then.’
    I nodded, although I couldn’t help thinking about the dark shape I saw moving behind the car. ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling low, Phil,’ I said.
    He bent down to kiss me but I moved my head away, and his lips connected with my ear. I felt a faint twinge of lust, but told myself to get a grip. I tried to be nice, to say again that I’d moved on – I even trotted out his own excuse and told him that we both wanted different things (a decent shag being top of my list). But he didn’t seem to be hearing me. Eventually I had to put it to him straight.
    ‘Phil. You’re a lovely guy and a great friend, but I really feel that we aren’t sexually compatible.’
    His jaw dropped and he blinked at me in amazement.
    ‘You never complained before,’ he said suspiciously.
    I made some excuse about not realizing it until last week – I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings that much – but Phil does have extraordinarily thin skin. He jerked away from me, grabbed his coat, and headed out the door. I followed him into the street.
    ‘Don’t go like this, Phil, please,’ I said, trying to keep my voice low so as not to give the neighbours a free show. This wasn’t Sex and the bloody City, after all. ‘I’m really sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I just don’t want to go back to where we were before. Please let’s stay friends. I don’t want to spoil that.’
    He looked at me, and I could see humiliation in his eyes. ‘I’ll see you around then,’ he said, without a trace of his habitual smugness.
    Men and their pride! Especially where it concerns their sexual prowess.
    Still, I don’t suppose I’d be overly happy if some ex announced that I was rubbish in the sack. Poor Phil. But I guess he’s really got the message now. And I really do feel OK about it.
     
    Wednesday
     
    Something very weird happened this morning. I’ve had this card, and it’s anonymous. It’s – well, it’s weird. I don’t know what to make of it.
    The post came, just as I was leaving to meet Dennis Tennis. I scooped it all up off the mat and stuck it in my tennis bag. I got to the courts on time, but Dennis was late, as usual. I tried to warm up by practicing my serve, but I’d only brought four balls with me, and after a few goes I got tired of having to run down the other end of the court to retrieve the balls and try again.
    Nobody else was around except a lone jogger doing circuits of the park, and a man in bright green dungarees digging up a flowerbed about a hundred feet away. He was listening to REM ‘Losing My Religion’, which was coming out of a flatbed truck parked next to him. I was quite glad Dennis wasn’t there – I was enjoying the feeling of being almost alone in a wide open space, the trees around me starting to change colour, squirrels bouncing along branches over my head, fresh air in my lungs.
    I went and sat down on the court, leaning against the net post, and pulled out the mail. Two bills, a postcard from Paula in Phuket, and this interesting-looking letter with my name and address typed on the front. A good, thick envelope.
    There was a postcard inside it, of a Gustav Klimt painting: Water Snakes I (Girlfriends). It’s one of his beautiful golden erotic ones, a woman on her back with that frowny, closed-eyed expression which is more likely to be orgasm than sleep. One naked breast is showing, and her arm is around another woman, who looks as though she’s sucking the other breast. The two look like one. It’s weird how he so often painted his women with their heads at ninety degree angles to their bodies.
    When I turned it over it had a few lines