preferred it there, making it a long old slog to his old stomping ground in Southwark. And then when they had started to struggle to conceive, Alison’s pain had engulfed them both, weighing them down until the ability to enjoy themselves felt like a dim and distant memory.
Being here with Katy somehow took him back to carefree days and awoke part of him that had been dormant for some time. Boy did it feel good. A bit like when they brought back Dr Who and he wondered how he had coped without it for all those years.
And as for Katy, Christ she could still talk crap but it was like fresh air compared to his conversations recently with Alison, which were drenched in misery.
He would go to the loo and then leave he suddenly decided, the thought of Alison making him feel guilty. He knew she would not be pleased at the sight of him roaring with laughter with an old flame.
“Back in a sec, then I’d better go,” he said.
He staggered to the bathroom for about the fourth time since he had arrived. He looked across again at Katy’s oversized bath lined with a whole host of perfumes, potions and candles in a variety of elaborate glass holders. He couldn’t help but picture Katy in there, eyes closed and a smile on her face, relaxed and happy, maybe a hint of breast peeping up over the bubbles. He tried to wipe the image from his mind as he washed his hands and strengthened his resolve to head back to the hotel.
But then some kind of fate struck as the iPod started to play Going Underground , their favourite song on the Now That’s What I call Katy and Matthew’s Music tape. Granted the Shuffle mode in his experience often seemed to have some kind of inner knowledge that could play the right track at the right time but this was a bit freaky. Matthew half suspected Katy had programmed it while he had been out of the room, despite the fact she was sitting exactly as he had left her.
At the sound of the first couple of familiar bars Katy leapt in the air. “Come on, just dance to this and then go,” she cried, already jumping dangerously close to her mock chandelier dangling from the ceiling.
He laughed and let go, trying to savour the feeling of being just a bit crazy. Katy was laughing hysterically as she grabbed his hands and they jumped together, getting themselves into a “who could go higher?” competition. As the song ended they crashed heavily onto the sofa, their faces for the first time only a few centimetres apart. She had the biggest smile on her face, which made him just want to consume her and her joy in the hope that it would rub off on him.
And so he started to devour this surprise joy. Suck its face off in fact. They snogged like they were teenagers, mouths wide open, constantly revolving around each other’s faces like a well-oiled machine, tongues sliding in and out of each other’s mouths, over teeth and lips. And then the hands, unable to stay still, jittered all over each other, first in the hair, then up and down each other’s arms, then around the back and then tentatively up and down each other’s legs, each time edging higher and higher, wordlessly playing dare with each other.
For some time that was enough, to wildly explore each other’s bodies. Finally Matthew could bear it no longer and began to desperately fumble at the buttons down the front of her shirt until he was able to push it over her shoulders revealing a small cupid tattoo. It made him smile and he looked up to see Katy smiling right back at him. They both stared at each other panting slightly, the magnitude of the moment fizzing between them like an electric current. Then for the second time that night Katy made a decision to steer the course of the evening. She launched at him but this time her hands dived straight to the heart of the matter.
“Katy,” he gasped, somewhat shocked that Katy would do such a thing.
Then he closed his eyes, all thoughts banished from his brain until she stopped suddenly and pulled him
Learning to Kill: Stories