"Red Rose" an excerpt from "Mirror Secret Mirror"

Red Rose - pt A

This is an excerpt from the upcoming book ‘Mirror Secret Mirror’ – we’re posting the first 2 chapters online, over the next few weeks, in the run-up to publishing the book at the end of May.

‘So, I’m fucking your husband. I assume you know this.’

Katya stated it with a casual lack of emotion – harsh, Slavic tongue effortlessly cutting cold. Charlotte’s blue eyes widened in shock. Obviously she knew, but she hadn’t expected her husband’s mistress to just say it, out loud. Now dropping, her focus landed on the model motorbike sitting on the desk between the two women. One of few personal effects to adorn Katya’s otherwise spartan office: concrete floors; high ceilings; three windowless, white walls; one wall entirely sheeted in a giant mirror. Charlotte floundered, still staring at the motorcycle ornament. She knew Katya rode a bike – had seen her in riding leathers before. Although the mistress currently wore a slender business suit.

The wife had avoided looking at the red rose craning out of the glass beside the bike, but the mistress called attention to it.

‘He gave me that, today.’ Her sly smile never touched her lips. ‘It’s my birthday.’   

Charlotte’s gulp caught in her throat. She didn’t want to raise her head and make eye contact, but it was pathetic just sitting there. ‘Happy birthday,’ she found herself saying, sounding forlorn rather than bitter.

The mistress poised gracefully in her executive chair, sitting back from the desk but leaning forward slightly, fingers steepling loosely over neatly crossed legs. Her dramatic beauty always striking. Sharp, statuesque facial features – dark, sorcerous eyes. Jet-black hair matched the suit and contrasted fresh, white skin. Deep red lips and painted nails shocked like blood on snow. Glancing a reflection of the scene in the mirror-wall, Charlotte couldn’t help comparing herself unfavourably to her husband’s other lover. Shorter and more rounded – conspicuously normal looking. She regretted her boring choice of clothes: white top and tights with a light-blue skirt. Her soft facial features and curly, hazel hair seemed childish and plain in contrast to the mistress’ exotic splendour.

‘Do you know what is he like? What is he really like?’ Katya’s eyes fixed on Charlotte with the icy sadism of a toying cat.

For a moment, defiance blazed up inside the mistreated wife. She wanted to stand and shout: of course she knew him. They’d been married for years – he was her husband, for Christ’s sake! She knew all his little foibles and eccentricities. The habits and routines he ritualistically went through before going to bed. The anecdotes he liked to repeat about his worldly travels, or his time living in Japan. The silly voice he used to playfully mock her own (supposedly ditsy) inner dialogue. She knew so many things about him that no one else in the whole world knew. But then she thought about the part of him she didn’t know: the part she’d never known… and always wondered. But maybe better not to know. This wasn’t why she came here. Her brief surge of passion fizzled and dimmed.

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head feebly, then her well-spoken voice adopted a prim tone. ‘I should go. I really have to be getting on.’ Charlotte stood and made towards the door but lost the head start, flustering back for her bag. Katya rose and moved around the desk, cutting off her lover’s wife’s escape. Eyes narrowed, as if ready to pounce.

‘Don’t you want to know? What is he like?’ The Russian was advancing: a tall woman, even without those heeled boots. Pursuing as the wife backed away… drawing up nice and close. The distinctive smoulder of Katya’s perfume was painfully familiar to Charlotte; it smelled like her husband’s affair. The mistress loomed down to whisper in her ear. ‘Because he is not like that with you. He told me this.’ Lifting her hand to twirl a lock of hazel hair by Charlotte’s cheek and pausing to let the humiliation sink in. The wife imagined her tormenter pinching that round, white cheek until it reddened rose. Although in reality the mistress’ fingers just brushed against her, the skin flushing pink of its own accord. ‘Not like that with his sweet, little wife. No, not like that with you. But I will tell you what is he like. What he does. What he enjoy. He is bad man. Your husband is very bad man.’ Relish tickled in her husky voice.