Which means – my book now looks like the murder weapon.
Isn’t that what the policewoman had said? That the book I was holding was the murder weapon?
Is she right? Had someone taken it from my bag earlier? After all, like everyone else, I’d just left my bag in the spare room Veronica had set aside for coats and what have you.
But why, if the murderer had managed to slip it back into my bag, has he put it here once again?
And how did he take it from my hands without me realising?
Had I dropped it?
Why is he (if it is a he: it usually is, isn’t it?) trying to frame me for this poor girl’s murder? This fake Kate, who I’d never even met until tonight.
Is there some other connection between us, between me and this girl, other than Paul and her stealing of my name and identity?
Who is she really?
I’ve seen enough crime dramas to know you shouldn’t disturb the crime scene. But this is too important.
I have to see if I know her.
She’s no longer wearing her wig. I’ll also have longer to study her face. I might be able to recall seeing her at some other point in my life.
All I have to do is just carefully lift and push her body slightly on to one side. Enough to let me see her face. Then I can let her fall back into her original position.
Carefully placing my hands beneath a shoulder and her lower ribs, I lift a side of her off the bed. Where her face had been, the quilt is stained with blue squares of eye makeup, a heart-shaped kiss.
Good; without the makeup, she’ll be even easier to recognise.
Preparing my arms for the weight, I heave her up a little higher. At the same time, I bend my knees, hoping to get a good look at her face without having to move her any farther.
‘Aaaarrrrggghhhhhh!’
I leap back in shock.
This, combined with the way I involuntary raise my arms as I jump back, lifts the poor girl a little higher than I’d intended. Enough to flip her over onto her back.
That makes it even easier to see her face.
That makes it worse.
Because now I know I wasn’t mistaken.
I do recognise this girl.
She’s me.
The Kate Denham I used to be.
*
Chapter 22
Break the mirror of self-reflection
The Desire
My heart feels like it’s gaining in weight with every passing second.
Like it’s a crucible of fire.
Like it’s something alive, and trying to escape by pounding and pounding at my rib cage.
That’s one of the problems of going all out for external perfection.
Internal imperfection.
All your internal organs suffer when you go under the knife time and time again.
Your heart in particular.
Ironic, yeah, that you achieve your heart’s desire for a perfect beauty.
But it’s all at the expense of your heart.
Young and flawless on the outside. Ancient and decrepit on the inside.
Your body aged before its time.
Most people would say this a high price, too high, to pay for beauty.
Of course, I’m not most people.
I’m a one and only.
Those same people will no doubt also say that beauty is overrated. That it’s only skin-deep.
(Oh, the irony again, for in my case that is indeed true.)
It isn’t the real you. The real you is inside.
But when I didn’t feel attractive, the real me was unhappy, bitter, apathetic, lost.
I was ignored. Treated with disdain. Especially by those I wanted to love me.
Whereas when I feel beautiful, I feel good inside.
Everyone admires me, treats me with respect, with longing.
When you’re beautiful, people are prepared to put up with, even disregard, any minor personality faults.
Of course, if the inner you was truly evil, whereas a less attractive person’s inner-self shone with goodness, then the choice to be made would be clear, surely?
But are the differences between the beautiful and the less fortunate ever really so clear?
The girl on the bed, the real me; was she a better person than I am?
Is that what this is? Some form of divine punishment for what I’ve done to myself?
Is it my own spirit, haunting me? Admonishing me?
Yet even this girl, now that I look at her closer, isn’t the real Kate: the truly untouched, unaltered Kate.
Her hair has been dyed. Straightened a little.
She’s plucked her eyebrows too. Reshaped them.
And…I know why.
This is Paul’s idea of how I should have looked.
How, when we dated, he was constantly suggesting I could improve myself.
The real Kate wasn’t good enough.
Is it any wonder I ended up feeling insecure? Unloved for who I was?
This Kate; she changed to keep him.
For, ultimately, we all want to be desired, don’t we? At the very least, we want to be desired by the one we desire.
If the one we desire thinks we’re beautiful then yes, in most ways, we truly are.
Now, where did I read that? Or something like that?
Of course; the book.
The Desire.
The girl was asking for my help.
How could I have forgotten that?
I reach across the dead Kate, pick up the book. Flip it open.
She’s gone!
The girl isn’t in the illustration’s anymore.
In any of them!
The man’s still there. Still in each room.
Running. Chasing. Searching for her.
But…no!
One room, it looks like the office downstairs.
And the dead policewoman is slumped against the wall.
*
Chapter 23
Seeking understanding of the world, some withdraw into themselves
How foolish is that?
What do they know of the world?
Nothing
So first, admit you know nothing
Then reach out to the world
And become it
The Desire
The hearts on the dead girl’s dress grow redder and redder, pumping violently as if alive. I can hear them, pumping so hard, so quickly.
Then it dawns on me; it’s my eyes, my eyes have a bloody sheen of red.
My eyes feel like they’re pumping hard, painfully, within my skull.
Suddenly, the book is sent flying out of my grip, landing back on the bed. A thin hand grabs and wrenches tightly at my wrist.
‘That’s my book.’
The voice is surprised, hurt.
It comes from the dead girl.
She’s grabbed my arm. She’s staring at me, her eyes wide with confusion.
Where my heart should be, there’s more a sense of an exploding dark star. An unstoppably expanding blackness.
My legs crumple beneath me.
I slip limply, lifelessly, to the floor.
*
Chapter 24
Trace with your fingers
The indent of my breastbone
It rises, see – smoothly, slowly
Moving to the edges
Where now you can kiss
The Desire
Did I just see…?
Raising my head a little from the bed, I look over to where I thought I’d seen an angelic girl slump to the floor.
But I must have imagined it, because there’s nothing there.
I do feel strangely dazed, foolishly drowsy. I must have fallen asleep.
There’s a glass tumbler by the bedside lamp.
Ah, of course; I’d come here to take a headache pill. To calm down. After my argument with Paul
The back of my head feels clammy, a little sticky. I run a hand through the back of my hair.
/>
Yes, there’s something tacky there.
I look at my fingers. They’re red. Lipstick red.
Oh no! What a mess! How did I get–
Turning to look at the quilt I’d fallen asleep on, I see the crushed lipstick. The stick I’d placed in my dress to keep my heart-shaped lips pristine. It must’ve fallen out when I’d fallen asleep.
Fortunately, the crushed stick lies amongst the mass of red curls of my wig. None of it has gone on the quilt itself.
Just to one side of the wig and the crushed stick, there’s my book, The Desire.
What an idiot! I’ve got lipstick all over my book too! All over the corner. It’s ruined, ruined!
Looking back towards the bedside table, I see that I’d brought back and rested the tumbler on some bathroom tissue. Reaching for this, I quickly clean up the mess in my hair, try and carefully remove what I can from the book. Slip the crumpled tissue and lipstick into one of my dress’s many pockets.
The bedroom door jerks open. A boy and a girl, dressed as a demon and siren, just about fall into the room, they’re giggling so much. They’re unsteady on their feet too. Either because they’ve drunk too much, or because they’re so entwined no one’s really taking responsibility for making sure they’re perfectly balanced,
They both look surprised to see me in the room.
They swap knowing glances, grinning sheepishly, and break out into a fit of giggles once more. The boy at least attempts to apologise between his sniggers.
‘Sorry, sorry!’
It’s disconcerting watching a demon trying to excuse himself for breaking in on you unannounced.
‘That’s okay.’ I grin back at them, pick up my book. I can see that they’re eyeing the bed. They need a rest, right? ‘I’m leaving anyway.’
As we pass each other, me heading towards the door, them towards the bed, they act as if I’m already no longer there, their eyes and hands only on each other.
I flip open my book.
Last time I’d looked, as unbelievable as it sounds, the pictures of the girl had appeared to be changing.
Flowing, as if printed with an unsettling ink. One that refuses to dry, refuses to settle on one precise form.
Fortunately, the couple amorously slipping onto the bed are too engrossed in each other’s bodies to hear me gasp out loud.
The pictures have completely changed. Much more than I would have guessed, too. Even though I thought I’d prepared myself to be shocked: to find myself looking at something I would’ve once thought unbelievable.
There’s no sign of the beautiful girl. She’s not in any of the illustrations, any of the rooms.
The man’s there, the handsome man I’d originally taken to be her lover. They had held on to each other ever so tightly, so lovingly. As if never wanting to let each other go.
Now he’s angry. Storming from room to room to room.
Looking for her.
He’s anxious, yes: he could be a lover, wondering what could possibly have happened to the girl he loves.
And yet – he seems furious. Anxious in a different way.
Like he thinks of her as having escaped.
And he needs to find her. To bring her back.
To imprison her once more.
She’s there! Slumped against the office wall!
No, wait – that’s not her.
That’s some other poor girl. One bizarrely dressed in what could be a modern uniform.
There are other rooms, all empty but for the frantically searching man.
Then there’s a bedroom. A room like the one I’m just leaving
And an angel lies slumped upon the floor.
*
Chapter 25
Don’t touch, don’t even look – not yet – not there
Parts of me you want to touch, parts of me you think you should touch – but you shouldn’t – not yet
Don’t rush
Linger
Savour
The Desire
The picture is so photographically realistic, it makes me nervously glance back into the room before I step through the door: to check she really isn’t there, this angel.
She isn’t.
She’s not in the real room.
Only in the illustrated room.
But don’t I know her, this angel?
Didn’t I dream of her for a split second, just before I woke up?
I’d dreamt she’d been holding my book. That when I’d asked for it back, she’d collapsed onto floor.
Just like she appears in the picture. As if she really had slumped there.
But only in my dream. And in my book.
Which…surely can’t be connected, can they?
No; this girl is real!
I saw her earlier, at the party.
She was the one who’d approached Paul; the crazy girl, who’d insisted he knew her, that they’d been out together.
He denied it, of course. Of course, Paul would.
That’s why we’d argued. Why I needed to get away from him. One thing you can always be sure of with Paul is that he’ll always let you down.
Why I love him, well – I just don’t know!
But I do!
I love him.
Love the way he smiles at me.
Touches me.
Kisses me.
I hate it when I’m apart from him for too long.
And, sometimes, even a few minutes can be too long.
He’s not perfect, I know. But…maybe he’ll change.
Maybe I can change him.
Let him know what he’d be missing if I ever left him
If I ever left him.
Let’s face it, it’s far more likely that he’ll be the one who leaves me.
Where is he now, I wonder?
Worried that I stormed off? That I left him?
Hah, some hope!
He’ll already have found another pair of willing arms to wrap around him.
To hold him close.
As if it’s all a realisation of my very worst fears, when I step out of the bedroom, it’s like finding myself in an alternative world, an orgy set in Dante’s Inferno. Seductively dancing wicked contessas. Slavering werewolves. Gleefully shrieking harpies. Leching totalitarian murderers.
Bodies merging into each other’s contours. Bodies displayed, inviting caresses and kisses. Bodies wrapping around other bodies.
Long tails curl, touch and grasp as if as alive and malleable as arms and hands. Wings beat and throb, as excitedly as any heart. Lizard-like tongues lick and twist around arms, necks, legs. Talons rive at clothes, gently scrape at skins of scales, of fur, of green, yellow or scarlet.
Amongst it all, however, one girl stands out.
A girl more beautiful than any other girl I have ever seen.
The girl from the book.
*
Chapter 26
My eyes devour
My tongue touches everywhere
My fingers hear sighs of pleasure
My ears the trembling of your soul
The perfume of love
The Desire
She’s standing in the lower hall, looking up the stairs towards me.
Directly towards me.
She smiles. Like she knows me.
Like she’s been expecting me.
Yet, as soon as she spots me, she turns away, heads into the writhing, surging crowd.
The horde appears to part for her. In fact, it’s just the way everyone around her are naturally moving, their every unconscionable action almost consciously allowing her totally unimpeded access.
Following after her isn’t in any way near so easy for me. No one is moving even partially out of my way. I have to elbow my way past couples who strike back at me, lashing out with talons that rip my dress, scratch my skin, or snarl and spit in frustrated anger.
Yet I’m rushing, while she is graceful, unhurried.
I am catching up.
In fact, it’
s all happening so easily, I’m worried than when I catch her up, when I tap her on the shoulder, when she turns – well, then it won’t be her at all.
It will be some other girl. Some other girl I have to abjectly apologise to for mistaking her for someone else.
I’m about to call out to her when it dawns on me – I don’t know her name!
But perhaps I do know it!
Desire!
‘Desire! I need to talk to you!’
She ignores me. Her back’s still to me. She continues walking away from me.
Suddenly, a looming figure is blocking my way.
‘You?’ she says, aghast, horrified.
‘But you were dead!’
*
Chapter 27
As you kiss…you speak
Without words
Yet I sense the meaning
Through my skin
My body
My soul
The Desire
‘Should I really be so surprised,’ the evil queen says, looking about her, taking in with a satisfied sneer the sea of cavorting demons, witches and beasts, ‘that someone who was dead is now walking around my party?’
Her large horns now seem an indelible part of her, a sign of her increasing power. Rather than dreading the way they despoil her hard beauty, she appears to relish the fear they instil in any observer, the extra sense of magical power they grant her.
‘Dead?’ I’m bemused. Why on earth would this woman think I was dead? ‘Oh, you mean when I was asleep, upstairs! Dead to the world!’
Her already highly arched eyebrows rise even higher, a mingling of disbelief and amusement.
She chuckles.
‘Could I find someone for you? You seem so…alone!’
I shake my head.
‘No, no, thank you. I’ve already seen someone I’m trying to reach, a girl–’
‘Ah, yes, yes! I think I know the one you mean.’ She looks and sound impressed, a little enthralled, a tiny bit envious. ‘I saw her too, all on her own: and yet, a quite remarkable beauty!’
‘Er, yes, yes.’
I grin wanly, ducking around her, looking over the heads of the whirling, thrashing couples for any sign of the now vanished girl.
Now I’m searching for her, seeking her like the man was: angry, frustrated, anxious. I desire nothing more than to find her, to be with her.
That desire, like surging blood, floods though me.
Everything around me seems to slow. Quietens.
Only she, now, is moving at normal speed.
A still languid, blasé speed.
She stops, turns, smiles.
‘You…you escaped the book – how?’ I ask breathlessly. ‘Who are you?’