Katie In Love: full length erotic romance novel Read Online Free Page A

me into the bathroom and sat on the loo to take a pee as I answered.
    'Hello, Tom.'
    'You found my phone?'
    'Did you leave it behind as a device?'
    'Subconsciously, I'm sure,' he replied. 'So, what about lunch?'
    I thought for a moment. 'Is this an invitation for lunch or a need to retrieve your mobile? I can send it in a taxi.'
    'How do you know my name?'
    'I know everything about you, Doctor Bridge. Why didn't you look at my finger?'
    'Not my field, I'm afraid, and I wouldn't want to interfere.'
    This man named Tom who worked in Sri Lanka and sent messages that were never frivolous knew me as intimately as a man can know a woman and yet now, in the daylight, across the invisible wires, he sounded shy, sweet, a nice man in a world where girls, some girls, me, always fall in love with bastards.
    'Do you remember the address?' I asked.
    'Indelibly.'
    'One o'clock.'
    'I'm always on time.'
    'I'm always late.'
    We disconnected. I put my fingers to my lips. I do declare: I was smiling. The pulse of my headache ran slower. I flushed the loo, grabbed my own phone and called my parents. In turn I wished them a Happy New Year. I couldn't make the Hurlingham, I explained. Something had come up.
    'Something interesting?' Daddy asked.
    'Potentially.'
    'Good. You deserve it.'
    'Do you think so?'
    'Absolutely, Katie, absolutely. How's your new flat?'
    'A bit squalid. I stole the rug from the attic, the one from Tibet.'
    'You're welcome to it, you know that.'
    'Thank you, Daddy. When are you going back?'
    'In a week or so. Will I see you before then?'
    'Absolutely,' I replied; he loved that word. He lived in a world without absolutes and sought them wherever he could find them.
     
    After taking off my clothes in the bedroom, I ambled back to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I leaned forward and shook my head. Misty green eyes above pale blue half-moons tender to the touch. Cheeks hollow. Nose winter red. I sniffed. Three glasses of champagne, a big glass of red wine, two shots. Never again, I whispered. Never. New Year. New Regime. A New Year's Resolution.
    'Work harder, worry less, be nice to Mother.'
    There, I'd said it.
    I stood back and continued the examination. Shoulders? Wide, clavicles defined above wells deep enough to gather coins in exchange for wishes. Breasts? Small but perky, fans of the uplift bra. I squeezed my nipples and a tingle raced up my spine that pressed boldly through the soft skin. Likewise my ribs, the keys of a harpsichord that tinkled with Bach's Concerto No. 1 in D Minor. I quite liked my hips, the way they jut out, the faint bulge of my belly that I stroked, wondering what it would be like to be pregnant. Long legs good for running away and revealing in short skirts; long feet with toes unembellished with varnish, long hands with a damaged finger. My pubes were matted. I stroked the hair and sniffed my fingertips. I adored being a girl.
    I spent ages under the scorching spikes of the shower, ridding myself of those lovely smells, turning myself back into a virgin. I then stood in the window willing unseen eyes to be looking back. I brushed my hair, a long dark drape, brittle as kindling, in spite of the orange blossom conditioner. I stroked my tattoo. It has no depth, no response to my touch. But it is there, like a shadow, a memory.
    When I was in my first year at university, I went one break with a friend to a tattoo parlour in Wardour Street, where she had two black butterflies engraved on the soft skin just above her left hip.
    'Why do you want them?' I asked her.
    'I don't know; it's just a bit of fun.'
    She shrugged and looked away. There is something sad about England on spring days with the rain beating against the window and the people in the street hurrying by with umbrellas turned inside out. Alice went with the tattooist into the clinic and I studied the display as the electric needle buzzed through the open door.
    It had never occurred to me to mark my body, but I suddenly understood