Read The Lost Souls' Reunion for Free Online Page B

in.
    â€˜It’s like wearing the sky!’ she whispered.
    â€˜Ready?’
    Gomez parted the curtains and saw a slight woman with full breasts whose beauty had been hidden under hand-me-downs. Exposed now. A beauty he wanted in front of those mirrors. He walked up to the assistant and gave her a pound note to keep everyone out. She put the pound in her purse and the closed sign on the door. Gomez went in to Carmel and closed the curtains behind him. Carmel was not looking at him, but at the sky around her. He lifted the starched skirt, his hands on creamy thighs and buttocks.
    â€˜My Carmen.’
    She was cold to the touch and this was what he liked about her. Being inside her was like swimming in a night sea. With the hot ones you learned everything quickly – with the cold ones you would never be satisfied. A secretive woman.
    â€˜Mine,’ he said, pulling the neckline of sky away to expose a breast.
    Carmel looked in the mirror. She did not feel any of his touch until he placed his fingers on each breast and twisted the nipples hard so that she whimpered and then he emptied into her and took his tissue from his pocket and wiped her and himself before zipping up.
    â€˜We don’t take this one,’ Gomez said.
    Carmel did not smile and took it off and stood naked in front of the mirrors without the sky around her.
    â€˜We take another,’ Gomez said. ‘This one is used.’
    He picked a turquoise blue.
    â€˜You got to wear underwear now,’ Gomez reminded her, for she often didn’t. ‘You in London now.’
    He paid the assistant and the assistant thanked them both for their custom and snapped shut the till before going back to a magazine which told her all about the violet eyes of Elizabeth Taylor, and how to get them with new eye drops. She avoided the green eyes of Carmel and the brown eyes of Gomez.
    *   *   *
    Carmen. Gomez gave her things, new bright things that she had never had. Her hair was cut in the latest style, her nails were polished and her feet were dressed in pointed shoes that cut them to ribbons. She did not know if she needed or wanted them but everyone else who had these things seemed happy.
    All she had to do was give little and Gomez knew how to do things well. But he could not reach beyond her skin. When he was inside her, her eyes looked for Eddie’s.
    *   *   *
    Constance Trapwell’s successful business was going downhill. It was nothing to do with her technique going stale. But her clients were always somehow dissatisfied.
    She could look no further than Carmel. It didn’t do to have a better-looking maid. Nothing personal, lovie, but you’ll have to move on to where you’re going quicker. Remember what I said. He’s trouble. Bye now. Call anytime.
    And once more Carmel was on the street with a suitcase. Gomez was waiting.

6 ∼ Professional Love
    N O LOVING was in store for Carmel Moriarty, though it had begun well enough. When she had turned up on his doorstep Gomez had moved Carmel into his attic flat in Brewer Street without a word.
    Was she comfortable enough? Did she need any more clothes? Shoes?
    Over the days they bought more new bright things and then they went straight back home. No more dinners or going to the pictures.
    A bed and a wardrobe in one room; a bathroom in another; a stove, table and two chairs in the kitchen; blood-red linoleum and pale green painted walls with the marks of all the lives that had lived here. This was home.
    Carmel looked at the sky through a sealed skylight window, a sky so close to her now but no longer familiar. They were strangers to one another.
    Gomez brought a friend, a much brighter woman than Carmel, to help her with make-up. The friend used to work in theatre. She knew how to put a bit of slap on still, she told Carmel who did not utter a sound, who watched as a brush whispered against her skin. Her paleness was painted in and her