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dirty beige
wall we had to endure to justify the low rent we paid. I was leafing through a programme I’d brought home for the play I’d watched earlier. I’d actually counted how many I’d
managed to sell before the performance began and at the interval: a round thirty. Which was a bit of a surprise: like all theatre programmes, it was slim and unsubstantial and damn expensive. The
biographies of the actors consisted of lines of credits for other plays, TV shows or movies I’d never heard of.
    Iris tiptoed out of the bathroom. She was naked.
    Somehow the light shone on her sideways, a combination of the bare bulb on the bedside table and the flickering neon of the fish-and-chip shop across the road bouncing across our windowpane, and
her body was momentarily captured in a stage-like well of brightness that gave her a 3-D quality that I found entrancing.
    Her hair was still damp.
    ‘Can you pass me my nightie?’ she asked.
    I dug my fingers under the pillow on her right-hand side of the bed. The garment she’d requested wasn’t there. I explored deeper, checking under the sheets in case it had slipped
down the bed.
    ‘Not there.’
    Her lips twisted.
    ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I remember now: I put it in the washing this morning. It needed to be cleaned . . . And my other nightie, the black silk one, is also in there; we’re
overdue for the launderette.’ She sighed.
    I smiled.
    ‘Just come as you are,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll keep you warm.’
    Iris hesitated. She always made it a habit of wearing something in bed. Normally, I preferred to sleep at least half naked.
    She turned and stepped towards the dresser.
    ‘I’ll find a T-shirt instead,’ she said.
    ‘No . . . Please . . . Don’t . . .’ I pleaded.
    I wanted her nude.
    Close to me.
    Skin to skin. Where I could smell the receding echo of the soap she had washed with, the tinge of the toothpaste she had just used.
    She still appeared unsure. It was a cool English summer and arriving in the bedroom, with its open window, was a comedown from the steamy heat of the shower.
    ‘Promise I’ll keep you warm,’ I said.
    She shrugged and joined me, quickly pulling the top sheet all the way to her throat as she positioned herself between the covers and snuggled up against my side.
    ‘Friends again?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Iris replied, her voice just a trickle of sound, as if she were a touch unsure.
    I switched the bedside lamp off.
    ‘You’re not reading?’ she asked.
    I usually did before sleeping.
    ‘No, not tonight.’
    She turned, her bare back to me. My hand was caught between our two bodies, fingers grazing her buttock. Her skin was soft and silky. God, I thought, no man could ever be so smooth, surely. I
was harder, more athletic, in spite of the fact that I seldom exercised and was never much of a participant in sports back at school.
    Silence fell, punctuated by the slow, almost imperceptible in and out of her breath and the occasional confused mess of pop music from open-windowed cars racing by on the road outside the
building.
    Iris broke the tension.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘About earlier.’
    ‘No need to be sorry . . . Kiss me.’
    She rolled over, moved her lips towards mine until we were in alignment.
    My heart lightened.
    The peppermint freshness washing across her tongue was tempered by the now remote sweetness of alcohol and triggered a mighty flow of emotions inside me and I closed my eyes. I wanted to float
in darkness as my taste for her rose and we embraced, our bodies fitting together as naturally as a pattern of stars aligning in the night sky.
    My Iris.
    My sweet, delicate doll.
    Her hands shifted under the covers and moved over my waist, holding onto the jutting ridge of my hipbones. Her grip was tight, as if she was trying to pull me open. Our breasts touched. My tips
hardened. So did hers. I wrapped a leg around hers and Iris gripped my thigh and pulled me against her tighter, her fingertips