Original Skin by David Mark Read Free Book Online

mask, leering and lascivious, incongruous atop a fleshy body that makes no concealment of its desire.
    She is controlling herself now. Saying yes. Letting go. Feeling a warm, familiar hand in her own. Accepting permission like a blessing.
    She is on her back, weight upon her. Light making shadows of a grunting, thrusting face, given over to pleasure that could just as well be pain . . .
    She shakes it away. Forces the memory back. Pushes her features into a smile. Hides it. Hides her feelings, even from herself . . .
    Suzie is twenty-six years old. Petite. A little fleshier than she would like to be around the middle. Kooky, her bosses call her, when clients remark on her multicolored nails and chunky, homemade jewelry. Today she’s dressed in a short black skirt over footless leggings, a long-sleeved white top, and flip-flops. The fleecy Disney scarf around her neck covers the top end of a tattoo that her bosses at the law firm have deemed unsuitable for exposure. Her elbow-length lace gloves were considered more off-putting than the butterflies they obscured, so she has taken to wearing fluorescent wristbands. She expects to be asked to remove them as soon as one of the senior partners plucks up the courage. Her shoulder-length hair is dyed a color somewhere between copper and autumn, and today is held back from an unremarkable but pretty face by a pink band. Tiny hummingbirds dangle from the lobes of her multipierced ears.
    She is fun to look at.
    She makes people smile.
    The bells of St. Mary’s Church inform her it’s one p.m., although she does not need their help. She has always just reached this stage in her lunch when the hour chimes. She fears she’s becoming a creature of habit.
    Suzie wonders why there are not more people here. It’s a pretty spot, and she finds herself surprised on a daily basis to have it to herself. She’s five minutes from work and a stone’s throw from the relative bustle of the Old Town end of the city center, but in the three months she has been eating her packed lunch here she’s had to share this lovely little courtyard garden only a handful of times.
    She’s in the only green square to be found in the Museums Quarter, hidden away at the center of this pocket of gorgeous old buildings and cobbled streets, constructed two centuries before in the angle between the Rivers Hull and Humber. Here, between Wilberforce House and the Streetlife Museum, she has found a place of near sanctuary. Here, protected by red brick and sloping archways, she feels delightfully invisible, set back under the protective branches of a tree she has come to think of as her own.
    The spitting rain picks up its pace. The larger drops make a pleasing noise on the tree’s burgundy leaves. She spots one leaf bulging under the weight of collected droplets and reaches out with her left leg so that, when it spills the cold water, it will trickle onto her bare toes. The sensation, when it comes, is exhilarating.
    Suzie takes the iPhone from the pocket of her bag. It was an extravagant purchase, forcing her to live for a month on sausage rolls and biscuits from the office tin as a consequence of using her food budget for its acquisition.
    She logs on to Facebook. Two pokes from old school friends and a new post from her mum.
    A song thrush has fluttered damply down to the nearest flower bed. Suzie looks on the bench for a crumb to give it. She finds one in her scarf and chucks it to the bird, who ignores it and flies away.
    “Marmite. Either love it or hate it . . . ,” she says under her breath.
    She opens her e-mail account. Ignores the messages from the various websites that send her discount codes for music downloads and vouchers for chain restaurants.
    “What we got . . . ?”
    Two messages.
    She finds herself smiling. A tickle of excitement flits between her stomach and chest.
    “Still going strong . . .”
    He sent one midmorning, and another five minutes before she came out for lunch. A