Under My Skin Read Online Free PDF Page A

the massage head. Maggots or mange-tout. Who cares? I thought limply.
    “The fact is we’re just taken for granted,” she said after a bit. “Unless things go wrong. And then we’re the ones who get the blame.”
    “What kind of ‘wrong’?” I prompted to see if I could tempt her into further indiscretion.
    “You wouldn’t want to know,” she said mischievously. “It might make you defect to the competition. Right.” She lifted the sponges off my back. “That’s one side finished. Why don’t you turn over now and I’ll do your tummy and your front.”
    I did as I was told. She poured more powder onto her hands and then rubbed it along my arms and over my breasts and stomach. At some point I must have flinched. She stopped. “Sorry. Are my hands cold?”
    “No, they’re fine.”
    “You feel a bit tense. I noticed it on your back. Why don’ t you try and relax?”
    But I already had. Had begun to like the feel of her hands on me. I let myself think about it some more. Once again her touch brought back another’s. How long had itbeen? Eight, nine months? That had been its own kind of therapy, too. Nick going out of his way to prove that not all men were the kind you meet in country lanes. Nice thought. Nice man. Wrong adjective for a lasting relationship. Shame really. I was about to start playing with other thoughts when I remembered how much I was being paid to keep my mind on the job. Martha had put aside the powder and started in with the sponges. I climbed back onto the end of the plot.
    “I’m sure you’re right,” I murmured. “About the workforce being important. In my experience people only do stupid things if they’re unhappy or angry about the job.”
    “Absolutely,” she said, busy with the sponge head on my thighs. “But if management don’t notice who’s upset or why, then what can you do?”
    “So should I be prepared for a mutiny or just the occasional individual act of violence?” I asked, keeping it as light as I could.
    She laughed. “Oh, nothing like that.” But she realized that she had probably gone too far. She worked in silence for a little longer, then ran the sponge head evenly down my left leg and over and along the bottom of my foot. A feeling to die for. I got the impression it was also a little added extra. She lifted the massage head off me. For a second she left me there, lost in my own pleasure. Then she said quietly, “OK. That’s your time up, Mrs. Wolfe, I’m afraid.”
    Oh no, please, say it isn’t so. I dragged myself reluctantly from the bed and started to dress. I could have done with another hour, or maybe a day. “That was fantastic,” I said, for the first time since I arrived really meaning it. “Is this your speciality?”
    She was busy detaching the sponge heads, not looking directly at me. “No, not really. We all have to do everything. I think I’m probably best on the massage table, though. I like it.” She wiped her hands down on a towel and smiled.“You know you can always ask for me again at the office. If, that is, of course, you want to,” she added, and this time her look had just a touch of the coy. Behind her the thank-you messages joined in the chorus of approval.
    Are the Kennedys gun-shy? “Thanks. I will.”

    My deforestation was booked in for four, which left me a couple of hours in hand. The treatment rooms were closed between one and three for lunch. I had a quick gourmet repast—two bowls of salad and half a dozen crispbreads—then slipped back to see if I could spot any unauthorized activity. In the sauna a tall girl with cropped black hair was picking up towels and pushing them into a black plastic sack. She looked pissed off, but that could have been the menial nature of the job, and she gave me polite but short shrift when she saw me there.
    I retreated to the poolside. Counting the girls I had seen but not talked to, I’d probably come into contact with twelve or thirteen of the twenty-four staff, but