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

printed on it, by hand. It said -
     
    I don’t think I can even write it. I’m not a prude or anything, but it makes me feel embarrassed because of the way it describes what somebody wants to do to me. It wasn’t signed. I’ll stick it in here when I find my sellotape – it’s not something I’d want to leave around for Mum to find.
    I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but Phil knows I like Klimt. And it figures that he’d be trying to dispel his bad rap in bed – although it’s not like him to go in for soft porn. I thought I knew him well enough to know that it’s just not his style.
    I was really shocked, actually. I didn’t realize how shocked until Dennis Tennis turned up, lolloping across the park like a daddy long legs, and when I stood up to meet him I sort of almost lost my balance. Dennis looked really concerned.
    ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, in his funny Wiltshire accent. ‘You look a bit pale’.
    Normally I’d never confide in Dennis Tennis; the 6’5” religious tennis-playing plumber. He carries his tennis racket and his Bible around with his toilet plunger and his spanners. Ours is a strictly tennis relationship, I have no idea where he even lives – but suddenly I just wanted to talk to someone, so I blurted it out. Not what the card said, of course, just that I was a bit taken aback by its content. And that I’d sort of finished with an old boyfriend, and was worried that he’d taken it badly. Dennis looked utterly mortified, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like he’d pray for me if I liked. I felt like saying, ‘No, that’s OK, just let me win at tennis for once.’
    Then I suddenly thought; what if the card’s from him? The quiet ones are often the worst.
    I dismissed this idea instantly. But then I thought, it can’t be Phil, either. I know Phil well enough to know that he's not that imaginative – I lived with the man for eight months. Not Phil, not Dennis, then.
    What about Poor Brian, gutted that I knocked him back? But no, how would he know where I live? And the same goes for Alex, too, my other potential admirer. It’s a picture of two women… couldn’t be from Kathy, could it? No - a woman wouldn't be anatomically capable of doing some of the things described on the card. I can’t think of any other ex-boyfriends who would suddenly come out of the woodwork. Why is it anonymous, if they did? It must be Phil.
     
    Needless to say, tennis was a disaster. I played atrociously, and Dennis thrashed me 6-1, 6-0, which irritated me beyond measure, even though I deserved to lose that badly. I couldn’t concentrate at all. My mind was like the ball, flying all over the place, everywhere except where I wanted it to go. I just kept thinking of those words, and seeing the rapture on the face of that Klimt woman with her long hair streaming down over her shoulders and mingling with the other woman’s hair.
     
    When I got home, I looked at the envelope again. It’s postmarked Kentish Town, so whoever it’s from is not far away. My hands were clammy as I took out the card and re-read it, holding it between finger and thumb like it was going to contaminate me.
    On second reading, I thought, maybe it’s not that obscene. It’s quite, well, erotic. It’s just the fact that it’s not signed that makes it so creepy. If I got that card from someone I was madly in love with, I’d actually be rather flattered. And turned on.
     
     
    Who fancies me enough to fantasize these things, and to let me know – albeit anonymously – that they do?
     
     

Chapter 6
     
    Alex
     
    Tuesday
     
    It took me almost an hour to choose the Klimt card, but once I’d bought it and got it home, I wrote the message in a feverish rush, letting my feelings spill from my pen and sealing the envelope before I could change my mind.
    I printed her address on the envelope then took it down to the postbox. I stood there, gripping it hard, not sure what to do. I wanted her to read it and feel