Page 17 of The Love Game

Vi kicked off her boots on her way through the hallway, and then face-planted herself on the couch.

What the hell had just happened out there?

She’d never behaved like that in her life, she’d practically begged him to throw her over his shoulder and have his way with her.

She wouldn’t have stopped him. Maybe Keris was right; there was something about Calvin Dearheart that made him almost irresistible.

She’d gone from being concerned about the fact that he had a wife to not giving a stuff if he had a wife in every port, and all because he’d laid his hand on her neck.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled into the cushions, unsure if she was apologising to Cal for coming on to him, apologising to Simon even though they were no longer a couple despite what he said, or apologising to herself for jeopardising her chances of truly settling here in Swallow Beach.

Cal leaned his back against the door as he closed it, frustrated as hell.

It was one thing making a decision to keep things on a friendship level with Violet.

It was another thing altogether having to resist her when she asked him to kiss her.

Christ, he’d wanted to. Her mouth was full and warm under his thumb, soft and giving.

He bang his head lightly against the door to knock some sense in, he repeated a simple mantra he could only hope would sink in. I will not mess around with Violet. I will not mess around with Violet. I will not mess around with Violet.

As he got into bed, lonely and still frustrated, he tried and failed not to think about the girl sleeping, or not sleeping, across the hallway.

‘This place is even better than I’ve always imagined,’ Keris said, standing inside the birdcage on the end of the pier the following morning. ‘Our own tiny crystal palace, Grandpa used to call it. He made up stories for me about it, magical fairies and all sorts.’

It touched Violet to think that Keris had grown up with fanciful stories about the pier; she was glad, really, that at least someone had benefited, even if her own childhood had been bereft of Swallow Beach.

And how very Barty to bring life to the empty pier via stories.

How many other residents of the town included it in their family folklore and history?

‘Am I doing the wrong thing?’ she said suddenly, turning to Keris and Cal. ‘Is everyone going to disapprove?’

Keris shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

The truth was yes, it did.

Cal threw his more pragmatic opinion into the ring.

‘My mother is going to disapprove. Her bridge club will most likely join in her disapproval. The rest of the town though, I think you’ll find, will just be glad to see the pier come back into use again.

Last night’s jokes about it being a strip club aside, I don’t think you’ll run into much opposition. ’

Vi nodded, drawing strength from his words. ‘We’re legitimate business people,’ she said.

‘We are,’ Keris said, turning to gaze out at the sea.

‘Just because we cater for the more sensual side of life, it doesn’t make us illegal,’ Cal said, testing the lights.

It was an odd juxtaposition – checking the electrics whilst absently talking about sensuality, one that had Violet turning away and leaning her head against the cool glass for a second of clarity.

She and Keris had met Cal at the pier a little after ten, and although she’d woken up feeling slightly mortified about her behaviour and determined to apologise and laugh it off, now she was in close proximity again, one mention of the word ‘sensuality’ and she’d strayed straight down the same path.

Reel it in , she told herself, for God’s sake Violet, reel it in.

He’s just a man. Granted, a fairly spectacular-looking one, but also one with a lot of baggage. Wife-shaped baggage.

‘… I think this one’s Violet’s.’

She tuned back in, catching the back end of Cal’s sentence to Keris.

‘What was that?’ she said, turning back.

‘We were talking about which of the units to use,’ she said. ‘And Cal said he thought this one had your name on it.’

They were standing in one of the back units with the spectacular three-hundred-and-sixty-degree outlook. Violet’s eyes fell to the floor, however, to the rainbow and her name inscribed on the boards.

She nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ll use this one.’

They walked through the birdcage, assessing which spaces to use themselves and which to try to find new tenants for.

‘Six,’ Keris said, standing in the first room, soon to be her new shop.

They’d talked about it over the course of the morning, and agreed that, alongside her current stock, Keris would include Cal’s leatherwork and perhaps other lines from whoever else rented the other units.

‘That’s us three and three others. Any ideas? ’

Cal nodded. ‘I do, actually. I was at an adult convention a couple of weeks back and had a beer with an old mate there who works in a similar line of work. I know he’s looking for premises, this would be right up his street.’

‘Go on,’ Violet said, hoping he wasn’t going to say his friend was a gigolo or anything.

‘He’s an artisan metal-worker. Supplies a lot of the metal elements I use for collars and bondage gear, and some bigger stuff too.’ He looked away. ‘Cages, shackles, that sort of thing.’

‘Cages?’ Vi said. ‘As in … cages?’

Keris pulled a faux scandalised face, and Cal nodded, meeting Vi’s eyes again. ‘Yeah. Cages as in human cages. For adults that get off on being locked up.’

‘Oh.’

She couldn’t think of a single appropriate response to that. ‘Shall we start cleaning the windows?’

They worked solidly for the rest of the week, cleaning and scrubbing until their arms ached and their knees complained.

Even Barty got in on the action, paying regular visits to see how things were coming along.

They hadn’t put the word out officially about the pier’s new use for fear of incurring the early wrath of Cal’s mother – it would all be grist to her mill when it came to her proposed compulsory purchase application, and therefore best kept on a need-to-know basis until they were ready to open.

Word, it would seem though, got round as far as Melvin and Linda Williams, Swallow Beach’s resident sex therapists.

‘We came as soon as we heard,’ Linda said, tucking a stray dark curl back inside her silk turban. ‘We take a room over the chiropodist’s in the High Street at the moment, but between me and you the clientele can be quite unsavoury. Let’s just say hygiene isn’t always top of the list.’

She screwed her nose up to indicate that the smells coming from below their consulting room weren’t always complementary to their line of therapy.

‘Although, that said, feet can be terribly erotic to the right person. We had one man who orgasmed if he even so much as saw a painted toenail.’

Melvin nodded. ‘Terrible for him really, couldn’t leave the house in the summer.’

‘On account of all the sandals, you see,’ Linda said, inspecting Violet’s footwear, presumably to see if she was wearing accidentally orgasmic shoes.

‘All safe here,’ Vi said, wiggling her toes inside her plimsolls.

‘So we heard about this place, and straight away we thought, “Where else? Where better?” Didn’t we, Mel?’

Linda looked at her husband, who though slightly shorter than his wife, made up for it with his block-heeled boots and backcombed hair.

‘We did,’ he said. ‘We did. And look at this place!’

Violet preened, because now that the windows were cleaned and every inch of the birdcage scrubbed, it was starting to look pretty darn magnificent. She’d shown Melvin and Linda around, and they’d fallen in love with the smallest of the glass studios in the building.

‘I’m quite overcome.’ Linda brushed non-existent tears from her eyes. ‘This place has a good energy about it. Healing.’

‘That healing feeling,’ Melvin mused, handing his wife a tissue from his trouser pocket. ‘Come, let me take you home, Linda.’

He put an arm around his wife’s shuddering shoulders and turned to speak to Violet in hushed tones. ‘She’s a husk. I need to take her home and replenish her.’

Unsure what that might involve, Vi gave him a little thumbs up and a cheesy grin.

They were certainly going to fit in around here, she thought, watching them walk back along the deck towards the shore.

Then Cal wandered into the room and she wondered instead if Linda and Melvin could explain why her body twanged to attention whenever he appeared.

‘Drink because it’s Friday?’ he asked, a bottle of fizz in his hand. Given her ever-increasing predicament where he was concerned, she should say no.

‘Yes.’