Free Love Your Enemies by Nicola Barker Page B

break.’
    Jane created her own scenarios; scrupulous and disapproving. Stephanie shrugged. ‘I don’t know where they were. Anyway, I could handle it. He didn’t turn nasty. I think he was surprised. I wouldn’t let him go.’
    Jane smiled. ‘You’re small but ferocious, like a terrier. Did he give you the socks?’
    Stephanie tried to smile back. ‘After a while, yes. He put his hand inside his jacket and produced the socks. He threw them on to the nearest shelf. The shop seemed so quiet. He was still smiling at me.’
    Jane wrinkled up her nose. ‘Yuk. Creepy.’
    Stephanie continued, ‘And then he started to apologize. I don’t know why. I hadn’t expected him to. He started to apologize like he’d offended me somehow. It was strange.’
    Jane nodded. ‘At least he had some manners. Did you let him go? I would’ve called the store detectives. I suppose it was too late by then though, but he shouldn’t have got away with it. Did he just leave?’
    Stephanie took a deep breath. ‘Well, while he was apologizing I realized that I still had my hand on his arm. We sort of realized at the same time. And then, and then …’
    Jane raised her eyebrows, ‘And then?’
    Stephanie bit her lip. ‘Then we, sort of, kissed.’
    Jane looked so shocked that Stephanie wanted to laugh, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.
    ‘What? A proper kiss? A kiss?’
    Stephanie nodded. ‘It just happened.’
    Jane fought down two competing impulses in her gut, the first of total disapproval, the second of total fascination. Stephanie watched this conflict translate itself on to Jane’s face and said, ‘It didn’t mean anything.’
    Finally Jane asked, ‘What sort of a kiss? A French kiss? What did you say after?’
    Stephanie blushed. ‘A French kiss. His mouth tasted of cough sweets and smoke. We didn’t really say anything. If he did say something, it was only to apologize about the socks again.’
    Jane frowned. ‘So what did you do? After?’
    Stephanie shrugged. ‘I … I suppose I put my hand under his shirt. He was wearing a T-shirt.’
    ‘You were looking for more socks? You were, weren’t you?’
    Stephanie burst out laughing. She had recovered from her earlier embarrassment. ‘No. By then I had forgotten about the socks. I was feeling his stomach and his chest. His chest was hairless, but surprisingly firm.’
    Jane was silent for a moment, trying to understand what this situation meant. Stephanie had never been a promiscuous person. She stared at her face across the table and looked for any perceptible signs of distress. There were none. After a while she said, ‘Why did it happen? You’ve never done this sort of thing before. I thought you were faithful to Chris. I don’t understand you.’
    Stephanie sighed. ‘I was trying to explain earlier. Of course I’ve never done anything like this before. It was strange, as though … like a compulsion. Inevitable. Dangerous but compulsive. I don’t know. I can’t understand it myself. It’s not as though we were immediately physically attracted. It was more the situation itself, the differences between us …’
    Jane interrupted. ‘I suppose it was only a kiss. Maybe it was just mutual attraction.’
    Stephanie looked momentarily indecisive and then said, ‘No, that’s the whole point. It wasn’t just a kiss. We had sex.’
    To fill the following silence she added, ‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it was just a power thing. There was something explosive about the situation, the confrontation, something strangely … well, strange. Erotic.’
    Stephanie looked down at her hands. She had never used the word ‘erotic’ before. Especially in front of someone like Jane. Using the word was almost as much fun as the sex had been. She felt like D. H. Lawrence.
    Jane was devastated. She looked at Stephanie and couldn’t understand her, she couldn’t contain what she had done in the relevant compartments of her brain. She wondered