A Wayward Game Read Online Free PDF

looking forward to
talking about the case here, and hope that other posters will
challenge my opinions. I believe that theories should be tested to
destruction before they are accepted.
     
    I click “Reply”
and type:
     
    Hello again, Phillip.
You’ve come to the right place if you want to be challenged,
believe me! We all do our bit to make sure that theories are tested
to destruction.
     
    It is bizarre,
perhaps, this business of introducing oneself to people one will
never actually meet. I don’t even know Phillip’s true identity, any
more than he knows mine. He might well be shocked if he found out
who I really am. The poster known as “Kittyminx” is, in fact,
Katherine Argyle, the journalist we have just been discussing. Like
many people, I find that my real life and the life I lead on the
internet are two very different things. A degree of deception is
sometimes necessary.
    By the time I
look up from the screen, the dull London light is streaming through
the window, along with the sounds of traffic, church bells, and
someone shouting in the street below. I glance at the clock, and
see that it is almost eight o’clock. It’s time to get ready and go
out and face the world that Diane will never see again. I shut down
the computer, get up, and go to the bathroom for a shower.
     

CHAPTER THREE

    I sit down at
the far end of the room, not taking my eyes off Neil. He stands
before me, his bright eyes and slightly parted lips the only
indication of his apprehension. He does not know what is coming
next, and it is this lack of knowledge that troubles him most.
    “Take off your
clothes,” I tell him.
    He hesitates,
just for a moment. I arch an eyebrow at him, and he begins to tug
at his shirt. He looks, not nervous now, but desperately
embarrassed. He is ill-at-ease with his own body, too acquainted
with its flaws and failings to love it as he should or see it as I
do. When he sees himself naked in the mirror, he once told me, he
sees only a pale and unprepossessing man with body hair and a
slight paunch: a sight vastly removed from the toned, buff bodies
held out as the masculine ideal in magazines and on TV programmes.
Every society and every Age has its own ideals of beauty, of
course, but in ours that ideal has become a constant, inescapable
tyranny. The perfect images that stare down at us from a thousand
billboards have become our dream selves, representing not a
soothing fantasy but an impossibly exacting standard. Women know
this feeling of inadequacy all too well, and perhaps it is
beginning to afflict men too.
    The light in
the room is soft and forgiving, at least. Dozens of candles flicker
around us, throwing a mysterious, wavering light over the scene. I
saw the question in Neil’s eyes when he walked in and saw them, but
I did not tell him what they are for; he’ll find out soon enough.
Uncertainty – the mind scrabbling for a foothold on the slippery
slopes of perception – can be a powerful aphrodisiac.
    He pulls off
his shirt to reveal a bare chest covered with dark hair, and lets
it fall to the floor. He crouches to untie his shoelaces, nudges
his shoes off, and then pulls off his socks, balancing awkwardly
first on one leg and then the other. Next he fumbles with the top
button of his trousers and undoes the zip, and then slides them
down over his hips and kicks them off. Standing before me in his
underpants, he hesitates, looking more embarrassed than ever, and
glances across at me. I nod, and he puts his thumbs in the
waistband and pushes them down, lifting his legs to unhook them
from his ankles. He stands up straight again, revealing a growing
erection, and looks at me a little uncertainly, as if seeking my
approval.
    To be naked,
especially before somebody who is clothed, can be a humbling and
intimidating experience. Clothes protect, conceal, and convey
messages to the beholder. They indicate wealth, status, and
sympathies. The black and scarlet corset, short leather skirt,
stockings