I know he is joking but there is no getting away from the fact that it is very tempting indeed.
‘No, if I were bringing you upstairs for nefarious nocturnal goings-on, you’d know it, Mr Cooper,’ I say in that ridiculously breathy Marilyn tone that I had the good sense not to use the first time I met him in the sauna. Good sense and I are normally on very close terms, but somehow after midnight that fucker always proves to be a fair-weather friend and has now clearly disappeared for the evening.
His eyes widen and my foot hits the top step. I stumble a little and try to right myself but not before he has reached out to steady me, his fingers splayed on my coccyx. To downplay the charge swooshing through me from my tip to my toes, I stand as a circus ringmaster does when he is announcing his finest acts and fling the door to the dressing room open.
‘Ta-daaaa!’
‘Wow,’ he says as he sees the room where Kevin has all his costumes.
It’s a fair response.
The heads and the wigs are there, creepy as hell, and I get a vicarious little thrill at watching Jay’s facial expression as his eyes walk along the top row, looking at head after head after head.
‘I know I’ve met Jinx, and I’m a fan, but are we sure she’s not a serial killer?’ he asks.
‘Ooh, my mother taught me to never make a promise I couldn’t keep so I’m afraid I can’t promise you that. It’s entirely possible. She could easily fit at least two bodies under her Scarlett O’Hara Southern Belle gown, one taped to each leg. So, who knows.’ I shrug my shoulders.
‘You’re alarming me with how possible that sounds.’
‘Hmmm,’ I say, ‘perhaps we should check through the rails for clues, cos you know...now you’ve said it...’ I grab a trilby and a cerise feather boa. The hat I plonk on Jay’s head, the boa I wrap around his neck and he twirls for me as I do so.
‘There, now you look the part,’ I say and he takes another twirl in front of the mirror and laughs.
‘This is not how I expected Cassie’s birthday evening to pan out.’
‘I bet it’s not what Cassie had in mind either. Take a selfie and show her,’ I say.
He doesn’t.
‘This is a work of art.’ He holds out a floor-length sequinned dress, lime green, and I jump up.
‘This is one of my absolute faves. Isn’t it something? It looks awful on the hanger but is drop-dead on. Now Jinxy always pairs this one with this,’ and I pull down a wig of gorgeous titian tresses and remove his trilby and pop the wig on him, taking the dress and holding it up against his frame. ‘What do you think?’
‘That it’s not really my colour?’ He laughs. ‘Will she not mind us going through her stuff?’
‘Oh God, no. She’s always encouraging me to play. Sometimes a whole group of us come back and do dress-up. She loves people getting pleasure from the things she loves, it’s that simple. She won’t mind at all, promise.’ And she won’t. She might get a bit hot and bothered at the thought of Jay being in her closet but that’s only because I caught her checking out his abs earlier this evening. To be fair, she made no secret of it.
‘Well, in that case –’ Jay picks up a sexy red Jessica Rabbit dress and with it still on the hanger drapes it over my neck and then grabs a curly brunette wig and plops it on my head ‘– tonight, Matthew, coming through those curtains we have...um...er...I know...we have Sinitta!’
He makes a drum-roll noise and mimes it with his hands as I grab a brush and sing, ‘Boys, boys boys...looking for a good time’ and then pop the brush by his mouth so he can sing. Still with his wig perched atop his head, he pulls strongman arms and starts to sing ‘So Macho’. Then he grabs my free hand and twirls me around as we both sing along. In the tiny narrow space between the desk and the rails we jive and spin and bump hips and it is so much fun.
I drop the brush.
We both bend to pick it up and the atmosphere changes as we start to straighten up.
The room is buzzing with energy.
I know I am not alone in sensing the chemistry here and somehow being in this space heightens it, the knowledge that my bedroom is but a few steps away raises the pressure. The room is so quiet and I feel my heart is booming so loudly that he must be able to hear it.
Our eyes are locked as we both straighten, our bodies in tandem. I can feel goosebumps popping all over my body and in this moment nothing matters to me like this man does.
My breathing is becoming ragged as we both stand tall, staring at each other. His pupils are huge and I note his chest is rising and falling as fast as mine.
He is feeling exactly as I am. He is as lost in this moment as me.
I put my foot forward a little, not all the way to his but close enough. I don’t take my eyes from him as I do so. Prickles of lust are shooting through me and I’m using all of my self-restraint not to push him back into the rails of clothes, lean into the furs, the sequins, the feathers, feel every inch of him up against every inch of me.
I have never been this turned on in my life. I know it will take the merest touch to make me explode.
