Cleo

Carrying the tray with two tea bags cunningly concealed in a teapot and the cracked cup on my side I was surprised at the vignette in the living room. A purring Cleo wound herself through Philip’s legs, leapt onto his knees, climbed his shirt and applied neat licks over his chin. Never before had Cleo warmed so affectionately to a stranger.

“Sorry, I’ll put her away,” I said.

“No, she’s fine,” he said, tenderly running his hand over the mound of her spine. “You’re a good cat, aren’t you? So tell me about the kids.”

I stiffened. He had just blundered into No Go Territory. Of course I’d made no secret of the fact I had kids. They were as much part of me as my hands and feet. I couldn’t have hidden their existence even if I’d wanted to. Everything about the house screamed “Kids!” The living room was ankle deep in Lego bricks. Lydia’s fauvist playgroup artwork was taped to the kitchen cupboards. Rob’s school bag lay like a drunk on the floor outside his room.

The kids were the core of my life, so precious I’d tear my heart out for them. He had no right to ask about them. They had nothing to do with a potential one-night stand who was rapidly losing any chance of becoming one.

“So tell me about your life,” I replied. “Ever been married?”

He went blank, as if I was asking if he’d ever dressed up in fishnet stockings and lip-synched to Judy Garland.

“No.”

“Kids?”

He shook his head, his smile vaguely bewildered.

“So you’re having girlfriend trouble?”

Cleo, having finished with his chin, moved on to his ears.

“No, apart from the fact I don’t have one. How about some music?”

Music? He wanted to be interrogated to music? Without waiting for an answer he sifted through my record collection and put on my latest purchase and current favorite, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing “Can’t We Be Friends?”

Philip obviously had some kind of problem. Why else would he be here? I was going to have to muster all my journalistic skills to get him to unravel his woes, so he could pack up, go home and let us both get some sleep.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked.

“What?! Here?”

“Why not?”

Now it was getting silly. Still, if I danced with him he might be satisfied and go home. Standing up, I put my damp, flustered hand in his cool, dry one and lurched painfully over the Lego bricks. If I’d known the room would be transformed into a ballroom I’d have put the kids’ toys away and kept my shoes on.

As Ella’s liquid voice wrapped the room in a haze of sensuality I noticed his excellent sense of rhythm (years of marching on parade grounds probably had something to do with it). And his body, as it brushed offhandedly against mine, seemed to be encased in some kind of metal suit. Until I realized the curves were too well formed to be metal. They were made of a material totally unfamiliar to me—lean muscle.

“So how old are the kids?” he asked.

Oh no. What was it with him and the kids?

“Nearly three and twelve.”

Painfully, patiently, he dragged their names out of me, what they liked to do at weekends and how they handled having parents who were separated. I changed the subject, and we danced in silence for a while. He did have an exceptional body—but either he was clumsy, or he was deliberately moving closer. With the shrink’s words ringing in my ears, I didn’t flinch when he lowered his godlike head and pressed his lips onto mine.

The room whirled in a kaleidoscope of toys, cups and saucers against apricot-colored walls. Cleo looked on approvingly as I savored the magical kiss. Soft, damp and luscious. It was perfect, beyond perfect. Too perfect!

I stopped swaying to the music and straightened my spine. No, dammit! This wasn’t how things were meant to happen. The whole point of the night was that I was supposed to be running the show. This man-boy had no right to schmooze with Cleo and then ask me to dance. As for all that probing about the kids…

He froze, too. At least he was sensitive enough to notice my mood had changed.

“Shall we go to the bedroom?” he said softly.

For several moments, possibly six months or twelve hundred years, I couldn’t summon up a response. She the unshockable was—there was no other word for it—shocked.

“It’s not that I don’t like you…” I said, stepping backwards.

He tensed like a cardboard cutout doll.

“In fact, I’d probably sleep with you if I didn’t like you. At least that’s what my shrink says I should be doing…”

He was starting to look almost as horrified as he’d been at the sight of the Chinese pantsuit.

“The thing is, I like you too much to sleep with you…”

He stood stunned, like he’d wandered into a friendly camp and was suddenly under enemy fire. It was beginning to dawn on me that probably no woman in the multidimensional universe had ever turned down the opportunity to exchange bodily fluids with such a suntanned Adonis.

“It’s getting incredibly…late…and I don’t know about you, but I’m bushed by the end of the week.”