Prelude to a Kiss (Kissing Fish)

Left to my own devices, I sank back down on the couch and sipped at my wine, watching the ebb and flow of the people in the room and listening to the hum of the conversation, which was alarmingly lulling. I considered moving to a different room, if for no other reason than to keep myself from falling asleep. Also, I’d been sitting near the bar for almost two hours. They probably thought I was a drunk. Although to be fair, everyone else in the building was also drunk, so on second thought probably no one had noticed me. The couple next to me—one of whom was definitely married, and not to her—were rapidly moving from chatting to more intimate activity, which was something I hadn’t seen much since very drunk nights at parties at school.

“Mind if I sit down?”

The voice was familiar. I looked up, wondering why, and found a man standing in front of me, drink in hand. He was gesturing towards the empty spot on the couch next to me. He was tall, with dirty blond hair; a blue and gold mask covered most of his face. Clean-shaven. No ring, and no indication he’d ever worn one, either. Hmm.

“Sure,” I said, shifting to the left and re-crossing my legs.

“Friend of Sarah’s?” he asked.

“Aren’t we all?” I replied. Why did I recognise his voice? Rats, it was really going to bug me. It wasn’t Nate or Alex; I would have recognised their voices instantly, and besides, I was pretty sure that I would have recognised either of them even with a mask. I tried to get a good sideways look at him without being obvious, but pretty quickly worked out that I could have been gawking at him like an idiot and it wouldn’t have helped. The mask hid too much of his face for me to pinpoint any distinguishing characteristics, unless I was planning on whipping out a magnifying glass and identifying him by his mouth alone. Quite frankly I wasn’t that much of a detective. Also I wasn’t that creepy…

Although he had terribly nice lips.

“Yes, I guess so,” he said. It took me a minute to realise he was replying to my comment about Sarah. “I take it you’re not besties.”

Ah, the danger of conversations in which one doesn’t know the identity of the person with whom one is conversing. As much fun as it would have been to slag off Sarah, for all I knew this bloke was one of her friends, and that could only end badly. I hesitated, and then said carefully, “I’ve known her for a number of years. She’s dated a good friend of mine for a long time.”

“Ah,” he said. “But that doesn’t make her a good friend of yours.”

“Um. Not exactly,” I said, and then hastened to add, “Sarah and I get on just fine. We’re just not exactly texting each other constantly and ringing each other up to pour out our troubles.”

He laughed. “Well, I can’t say I blame you. Sarah can be great but she does have a habit of putting up people’s backs.”

“Hmm,” I said noncommittally. “So are you enjoying the party?”

Smiling, he said, “I suppose I am. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it—I told Sarah I wasn’t coming and then found myself unexpectedly at loose ends, so I popped over in the end.” He glanced around. “Now to just avoid the lady herself…”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why?”

“Oh, you know, she’ll scold me for not telling her I was coming. I’m sure it throws off her numbers or something.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I was going to leave anyway, but I saw you sitting here alone and thought I’d stop for a chat before I disappeared.”

“That was nice of you,” I said. “Can’t say I especially like sitting by myself and pretending I’m not bored!”

“I guess I’m not allowed to ask you who you are or what you do,” he said, his blue eyes fixed on mine.

“No,” I said, “I think that’s supposed to take the fun out of it.”

“Oh well,” he said. “Lucky for me, I don’t have to guess. I already know who you are.”

“What?”

His eyes lingered on my legs before sweeping back up to my face. “You’re not hard to pick out of a crowd,” he said. “Especially not when you know what you’re looking for. Besides, your fashion sense is better than most.”

“Um. Thank you,” I said, feeling off-kilter. “I think.” I held out my hand. “Well, if you already know who I am…”

He took my hand, but instead of shaking it and telling me his name, he stood up and pulled me with him, catching me as I stumbled from the unexpected movement. “Do you dance, Emily?” he inquired.

Well, damn, he did know who I was. So who was he? I snuck another look at his face, but although there were pings that told me I knew him, I couldn’t work out who he was. Aaaaaarg…

Nate didn’t dance—at all—so my dancing these days was limited to the occasional club foray with Faye, when we were both so pissed that “dancing” was probably a kind word for the bopping around we did on the dance floor. I’d always wanted to learn to dance, you know, to waltz and tango and swing dance, but Nate had refused point blank to even consider it aside from a party one time where Jemima had taught us all to drunkenly salsa. Sort of. And then Nate had got all huffy when I’d asked if he minded if I asked Alex if he’d go with me instead, so I’d dropped the idea completely. Although really, if Nate was going to refuse altogether it only seemed fair that I should be able to find another dance partner…

As this was going through my mind—along with entertaining images of Faye and myself bopping round like headless chickens, elbows whipping through the air like deadly weapons—the man pulled me through the throng of people towards the disco in the deli. I lifted my drink high and apologised repeatedly as I stepped on people’s feet, and then found myself abruptly crushed against the man’s chest.

“Uh,” I said, suddenly feeling very drunk indeed. I inhaled the familiar smells of Fairy laundry detergent, Sure deodorant, and Hugo Boss cologne and wondered where Faye was. “I don’t actually dance.”

“That’s okay,” he said, smiling again. “You’ll just have to let me lead. Might be hard, I know, but you can try!”

The dj was playing Katy Perry or Pink or something, some kind of music that one bopped around to—I wasn’t really sure how one followed a partner to this kind of music. I went to take another sip of my wine and discovered it was empty. Again. Well, rats… The man lifted the glass from my fingers and deposited it on the tray of a passing waiter.

“Here,” he said, draping my arms around his neck. “Your arms can go like that, and mine can go like this…” He slid his arms around my waist, and for the first time in a long time I felt a thrill of excitement run through me at feeling a man touch me, coupled with a surge of anxiety that he might think I was fat. No, that was silly. Nate thought I was fat. Everyone else thought I was just fine. Clearly this man though I was fine—he’d singled me out and was dancing with me. Right? It briefly crossed my mind that it probably wasn’t a good sign if I had to go to someone other than Nate to feel a thrill, but I pushed it away.

Nothing like denial…

I risked a glance up at him to find he was smiling down at me. He raised a hand and brushed a few tendrils of hair from my face.

“You have beautiful hair,” he said. “I like brunettes. I’ve dated a few blondes, but I’ve always preferred brunettes. And, if I’m honest, I’ve been trying my damnedest to get you in my arms for a long time.” He sighed. “I wish I could see your face.”

“I wish I could see yours,” I replied, feeling dazed. “I wish you would tell me who you are. I’m sure I know you, but I can’t figure out who you are. It’s not fair—you know exactly who I am!”

The lines around his mouth deepened, making him look suddenly serious—an effect strengthened by the tone of his voice when he spoke. “Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

“Well, you can’t be that ugly,” I said, and then blushed as I realised how horribly rude that would be if he actually was.

His mouth twisted. “Well, how do you know?” he inquired. “I could be hideous behind this mask and you’d never know.” He smiled briefly, but his tone suggested he had no interest in pursuing it further, so I dropped it and let my head drift forward until my cheek was resting against his chest. His arms tightened around me, and I pushed away the insistent feeling that this was familiar. Whoever this bloke was, I’d been in his arms before. But dammit, I couldn’t work out when, so I couldn’t work out who.

The next dance we danced like idiots, just like everyone else around us, and I was relieved he was just as willing to make a fool out of himself as I was. As the song came to an end, he suggested we step outside for a breath of air. For a moment it was lovely to escape the close heat of the crowd, but it was chilly outside and I shivered.

“Here,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it around me. “Better?” he asked.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling it tighter around me.

“You’re still cold,” he said, frowning. “Come here.” He pulled me towards him and put his arms around me. I snuggled against him for a moment, enjoying the feeling of warmth and security.

“Why did you seek me out?” I asked abruptly.

He looked down at me, his hands resting lightly at my hips. “You looked lonely,” he said.

“Oh.”

“I told you, I’ve wanted you in my arms for a long time.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” he said, and bent his head.

“I have a boyfriend,” I whispered, his lips inches from mine. “Practically a fiancé.”

“I know,” he said, and then he kissed me.

So I’m not sure which of us was more to blame, him given that he knew I had a boyfriend and kissed me anyway, or me for having the boyfriend and accepting the kiss and not pushing him away. I think I was hungry for something that felt like it meant something. My relationship with Nate had been so rocky lately, so lacking in any kind of passion, that I had been defensive when Faye asked if I was happy. It wasn’t that I was unhappy, really, it was just that nothing seemed particularly great anymore. It was all just kind of meh. And while I was perfectly conscious of the fact that in most relationships any heady passion tended to fizzle out after a while, leaving one with a comfortable relationship in which a couple had a secure and undemanding routine, the fact was that as far as Nate and I went, it had pretty much started with comfortable and skipped the passionate stage. This whole surge of passion that I was feeling with this strange man was a pretty new experience—I’d felt it with Alex, briefly, years before, but I’d always figured that that was a fluke. At any rate, I wouldn’t have said that my relationship with Nate didn’t mean anything; we’d been together for five and a half years, and that’s a long time to be together if it doesn’t mean something. But sometimes it felt like I could take it or leave it, and while everyone seemed to be expecting us to be moving to the next stage—buy a house, get engaged, get married, have kids—sometimes I’d catch myself gazing wistfully out the window while Nate or whoever talked about these things and wondering what if.

Not that I was thinking about any of these things when the man in the blue and gold mask kissed me. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really thinking about anything at all, which probably made me a bad person. Nate flickered across my mind as the man’s lips first brushed against mine, and then I forgot in the heady feeling of being held again.

Eventually he pulled away, but only far enough to rest his forehead against mine, keeping his hands at my waist. “I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time,” he murmured.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer, just bent his head to kiss me again.

But I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. My senses had returned to me by then, and I knew I couldn’t allow a repeat of the transgression, no matter what my libido was telling me. I stepped back, out of reach, and shook my head. “I can’t,” I said, trying to keep the regret from creeping into my voice. “I told you, I have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, his jaw working. “You didn’t seem that bothered about it when I was kissing you.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I said sharply.

“True,” he said. “But maybe it’s because you’re not happy with the man kissing you at home that you were so willing to respond to me.”

Ouch. I folded my arms tightly across my chest. “Yes, because you’re clearly so qualified to be judging my life,” I said. “What do you know about my life? You say you know me, but hell, you could be anyone. You’re hiding behind a mask and won’t tell me who you are, so forgive me if I’m not particularly inclined to place a lot of merit on your words. I don’t know anything about you, so for all I know you could have three girls on the go and a wife and two-year-old kid at home.”

“Oh, there we go,” he said irritably. “Up come the defences. ‘No, no, of course my life is wonderful. Of course there’s nothing missing.’” He shook his head. “You’ve got yourself trapped and you’re deluding yourself if you think your relationship with Nate is as perfect as you’ve managed to get everyone else to think.”

“Except you, it seems, whoever you are,” I said, annoyed. “And of course Nate and I aren’t perfect. No relationship is.”

“Ask him about his plans for the future,” he said. “They might surprise you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Really? That’s your play? Seriously, unless he suddenly announces that actually he’s decided to begin building weapons of mass destruction for the government and is moving to the moon, I don’t think his plans for the future are going to surprise me that much. We’ve discussed the future. We know what we’re doing.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. I bet you haven’t told him about St Andrews yet.”

I stared at him. “How the hell do you know about the St Andrews job?”

“You haven’t exactly made it a secret,” he retorted. “Except from Nate. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” I said. “This is a ridiculous conversation. I don’t need to be lectured on what I have or haven’t done by someone who won’t even tell me who they are. Go away and leave me alone.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged and said, “Fine. Have it your way.” He turned to walk away, and then stopped to say over his shoulder, “Give Nate my regards, by the way. Enjoy the comfortable, unsurprising life you’re building with each other.”

And then he was gone, and I realised I still had his jacket around my shoulders.

“Dammit,” I muttered, unconsciously pulling it tighter around me as protection against the chill in the air. Grumpy, I stalked back into the Staff Club and went looking for Faye. When I found her, she was occupied in the corner with someone and didn’t look like she especially wanted to be disturbed, so I headed out to walk home and sent her a text saying I’d left. Far be it from me to interrupt her conquest—especially if it would keep her mind off Simon.

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