Too Fast For Love: Opportunist Encounters. Various

me again. ‘She’s just a girl.’

      The Game’s Afoot

      Rose de Fer

      ‘Jake? Aren’t you going to get dressed?’

      Lauren stood staring at her husband. He was slumped in front of the telly in baggy tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt he’d had since the 80s.

      ‘Break his bloody legs, the cheating bastard!’ he shouted at the screen. ‘Huh? What, babe? Aw shit, was that today?’

      He looked up at her with an expression of dismay that might have matched her own. She could see the effort it had already cost him to tear his eyes away from the match, could sense his horror at the possibility that he might actually have to switch it off and go with her to visit her sister.

      How should she play this? Insist and suffer his resentment all afternoon – and probably the rest of the week? Or let him off and pretend to be satisfied with the inevitable flowers and a promise of dinner at the weekend? Why did everything have to involve so much calculated manoeuvring? If she’d known married life would turn out to be an endless strategy game, she’d have stayed single.

      ‘It’s OK,’ she said finally. ‘Really. Maria and I can just –’

      She hadn’t even finished her sentence when Jake’s attention was reclaimed by the TV.

      ‘What? That was a fucking mile offside!’

      Lauren sighed. ‘Right, well, I’ll see you later,’ she said and turned to go. If he said goodbye to her, she missed it in the barrage of profanities that followed her out the door.

      She didn’t blame Jake for forgetting about the lunch date. Maria could be tiresome. All she wanted to talk about was her ongoing attempts to get pregnant and Lauren found herself secretly hoping it would never happen. She didn’t get on with babies and didn’t want to have to hurt her sister’s feelings by refusing to play doting auntie if and when the time came.

      After an interminable lunch, Lauren found herself resenting both her sister and her husband for spoiling her day.

      She wasn’t ready to go home and face Jake again. He’d either be grieving or celebrating and neither was likely to do anything for her mood. So she took herself to the mall, where she decided a little retail therapy would at least make her feel like the day hadn’t been a total loss.

      Her first stop was the bookstore, where she succumbed to the temptation of a three-for-one offer. She hadn’t finished the novel she was currently reading and she already had a teetering to-be-read stack on her bedside table. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her. How many computer games had Jake bought over the years that he’d never even played?

      She tried on sexy shoes and dresses as she made her way through the shops, but her heart wasn’t really in it. Where could she wear those four-inch leopard-print heels and clingy little black dress anyway? Dinner at the pub? There was certainly little danger of Jake taking her somewhere posh like the theatre. Or even out dancing.

      The last time she’d gone comfort shopping she’d picked up a slinky black lace nightie, hoping it would spur Jake into action. If he would put even half the energy into sex that he put into berating referees and players on the telly she’d be a happy woman. But after making a few initial noises of appreciation, he’d merely gone through the motions of sex as if performing a duty and then fallen asleep immediately afterwards. Lauren had resigned herself to a lifelong affair with her vibrator.

      What was the point? A pair of fuck-me shoes wasn’t going to save her sex life. With a heavy heart, she dropped them back into their box and left the shop. As she made her way towards the mall’s exit with only the books to show for her outing, she heard a voice behind her.

      ‘Excuse me, miss!’

      She turned along with several other women, but it was clearly Lauren who was being hailed.

      ‘Yes?’

      A willowy Japanese girl stood there, dressed in a vibrant purple silk blouse and a short, tight black skirt. She was strikingly beautiful, with long, glossy black hair and ivory skin. Lauren had never thought of herself as bi but there was something about the exotic beauty of Oriental women that had always appealed to her. And this girl was a vision.

      She made a little bow and Lauren instinctively returned the gesture. The people around them continued on their way, probably disappointed that they weren’t about to see a shoplifter apprehended.

      ‘Sorry to chase you down like that,’ the girl said, ‘but I happened to notice you trying on those shoes.’

      ‘Shoes?’ Lauren echoed.

      ‘Yes. The leopard ones.’

      ‘Oh, those. Yes, well, they were a bit over the top. For my usual night out, I mean.’

      The girl smiled, a little coyly. ‘Actually, it wasn’t the shoes that got my attention. It was your feet.’ Her English was perfect, an odd and appealing counterpoint to her strong Japanese accent. There was no chance that something had got lost in translation or that Lauren had misunderstood her.

      ‘My feet?’ she asked.

      ‘Yes. I’m from the salon over there.’ The girl pointed. ‘Beauty and Serenity. We’re doing a special promotion, you see, and we need a pedicure model.’ She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

      Lauren shook her head in confusion. Was this some kind of prank? ‘But if you saw me trying on the shoes, then you must have seen my feet. They look awful.’