Sleight of Hand Read Online Free PDF Page A

begin to scheme how I might make it happen, but my horizons definitely broadened to include the possibility at that moment.
    If I had thought about it – which, again, I promise, I didn’t – I don’t suppose I would have bet on a suitable opportunity presenting itself anyway, but when she smiled at me at the graveside, when she squeezed under my umbrella for protection from the Bogotá rain, I became aware of what might now happen.
    Her name was Cristina, and she was the kind of dark, curvaceous beauty I have always gone for. She smelt of shampoo and Angel, a chocolatey aroma that instantly whisked me back to my first flat in La Candelaria, to a long lost summer of youth with the hysterical Esperanza – poor Esperanza, she killed herself, you know. Ironically, Esperanza had no hope, you see.
    So it was like being offered time-travel, and I thought,
Now how would that be?
Because though I had occasionally cheated on my girlfriends with guys, I had never done it the other way around. I had nevercheated on you Chupy – where would I have found the time? But with you now so far away, it was hardly going to hurt you, now was it?
    After the funeral we sat side by side at the meal, she the only single woman, and I the only single guy, and then Cristina asked me where I was staying, and I said that I was going back to my mother’s place, and she leant into my ear and asked,
Are you sure you want to be alone this evening?
    I said that I wasn’t – I wasn’t sure at all. That’s all I did, that’s all it took. Would you hate me for such a small thing? Probably.
    In the end we went back to hers instead, which I realised was a relief because, despite my bravado, I hadn’t been looking forward to a night alone at my mother’s flat.
    When I saw all the guy-stuff in her apartment, when I realised that she didn’t usually live alone, it all felt safer. I thought it would be all the more containable, because after all, we were both cheats now. Her husband was away on business and she was lonely and sad from the funeral and she needed a good screw. It suited her fine.
    She was soft and warm and she wanted to baby the little boy who had lost his mama, and what can I say? That suited me fine too. I know that you would rather I had denied myself the pleasure; I know you would rather I had chosen to remain sad and alone, and she horny as hell on the other side of town, but that’s not the way I’m made, babe and I think deep down you always knew that.
    I wasn’t feeling devastated, I can’t hold that up as an excuse, but I wasn’t feeling on top of the world either. You were on the other side of the Atlantic, and I couldn’t even phone you. I was missing you, and being held, being reassured that I was sexy,being reminded that I was still a good lay, seeing that I still had what it takes to send rivulets of sweat running down her sleek, smooth back – it was life affirming. Isn’t everyone’s reaction to death a desire for sex?
    Whatever … As you would say, it was just what the doctor had ordered. Of course you wouldn’t say that at all, you would call me selfish. At best.
    But I have always known what you need better than you know it yourself. I had seen from your time with Tom how toxic honesty can be and I had seen from the beginning that you needed a perfect monogamous relationship. Or failing that, the
illusion
of one.
    And I had decided from the moment we got together that if I couldn’t give you the first, I would give you the second, because I love you Chupy. I really do.
    And one way or another I decided to make sure that we would both get exactly what we wanted out of our life together. And if at times our needs weren’t compatible, if from time to time, a little sleight-of-hand was required, then so be it.
    I determined, by whatever means, to make sure that we were both happier than we had ever been before. Which despite