Chameleon. Mark Burnell
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rose from her bed, pulled on a large black sweatshirt, and tiptoed slowly down the passage. The floorboards were cold against the soles of her feet. Boyd’s bedroom was over the kitchen. She opened the door. It creaked and she paused for a response. Nothing. Boyd was a man who heard whispers in his sleep; sure enough, when she put her head round the door, his bed was empty. She went downstairs and heard him in the kitchen. He was heaping coke into the Rayburn. She waited silently in the doorway. He sensed her before he saw her. He put the bucket down, stood up straight and turned around.
She said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Forget it.’
‘The way I’ve behaved isn’t the way I feel.’
‘You’re trained not to behave the way you feel.’
‘I know. But I don’t need to make any more enemies.’
She stepped forward and kissed him on the mouth. He neither embraced her, nor pulled away. When she broke the kiss and retreated, he said nothing.
‘I’ve spent all my adult life not talking about the things I feel.’
‘Stephanie …’
‘Are you going to tell me this is a bad idea? Because if you are, don’t bother. This isn’t some reckless impulse. It’s been in the back of my mind for the last four years. When we’re running through the middle of nowhere, you shout at me but I can hear that your heart isn’t in your voice. When you glare at me, your eyes give you away. Tell me it hasn’t been on your mind, too.’
When he spoke, she knew his throat was dry. ‘This is a bad idea.’
She pulled the black sweatshirt over her head and let it drop to the floor. It was warm in the kitchen, the heat welcome on her naked skin.
‘Is this some kind of game, Stephanie?’
‘It’s no game.’
‘What, then?’
‘We’re just two similar people in a situation. With nothing to lose.’
‘Nothing to lose?’
‘Do you know what I want more than anything?’
‘What?’
‘I want someone to see me as a woman. I want you to see me as a woman. I’m not a man masquerading as a woman. I’m not a robot, I’m not a killing machine. When Alexander looks at me, he sees a device. When I was Petra, the people I met looked at me and saw a threat. When I looked at them, all I ever saw was fear. That’s not what I want.’
‘Are you sure this is what you want?’
‘I want someone to know me.’
‘What about your friend in France?’
For a second, there was guilt. Then there was perspective. ‘Laurent was lovely. We had a good time but it was a casual arrangement. It could never be anything more than that because I could never show him who I really am. He didn’t know me at all. But you could.’
A silence grew between them.
Boyd hadn’t allowed his eyes to leave hers.
She said, ‘For Christ’s sake, look at me.’
He couldn’t.
‘I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I’m standing naked in front of you. Do something.’ She was amazed at how small her voice sounded. ‘Please.’
‘It’s not that simple. I … I … don’t know what to think.’
It seemed a strange thing to say. It made him sound helpless.
‘You’re not supposed to think.’
‘I’m not like you.’
‘Which is one of the things that makes it easier for me to like you.’
‘You don’t like me.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Stephanie insisted. ‘I do.’
‘If you saw me on a crowded street in a city, you wouldn’t see me at all.’
‘We’re not in a city.’
‘Put the sweatshirt back on, Stephanie.’
‘Make love with me.’
‘No.’
She felt the onset of panic. ‘Then fuck me.’
He winced. ‘No.’
‘Then let me fuck you.’
‘No.’
‘You won’t have to do anything.’
‘Go to bed.’
‘You’re humiliating me.’
‘You’re humiliating yourself.’
Stephanie took a step forward. Boyd stood his ground by the Rayburn.
‘I know you want me.’
‘I don’t want you.’
‘Liar. I’ve seen the way you look at me. When we’re running, when I’m stretching, when we’re both drenched to the skin. I know what you’re thinking. The same thing I’m thinking.’
‘Stop it.’
She moved closer. ‘Has there been anyone since Rachel?’
‘That’s enough.’
She was within touching distance. ‘Has there?’
‘I mean it.’
The Rayburn door was still open. She saw dark orange flicker across her stomach.
‘You don’t want me to go away. I know you don’t.’
‘Stephanie …’
She reached for his hand and pulled it close so that his fingertips brushed her pubic hair. ‘If you want to, you can pretend I’m her.’
The light went out in his eyes.
He snapped his hand free of hers. Stephanie lurched backwards, caught her hip on the corner of the table, and stumbled. She clutched the sink. The moment fractured, her nakedness felt clumsy and cheap. Boyd gave her a look that was as full of hatred as any she’d ever seen.
‘You’ve got sixty seconds to get dressed.’
They started along the track. By dark, it was treacherous. Then Boyd told her to veer right and they left behind the only relatively even surface for miles. It was a foul night; torrential rain, thunder, a piercing cold, flashes of sheet lightning. As the incline grew steeper, the grass began to cede to heather and rocks. They tripped and slid, jarring ankles and wrists, grazing shins, knees and palms. Only when she fell would Boyd allow himself words.
‘Up! On your feet! Get up!’
She tumbled down a grassy slope to a rocky ledge fifteen feet below, landing on soaking granite, winding herself. Boyd scrambled to her side.
‘Don’t just fucking lie there! Run!’
She tried to get to her knees. Boyd bent down, grabbed her by the hair and started to drag her over stones. Despite herself, Stephanie yelped. When she clawed at his wrist, he kicked back with the heel of his boot, hitting her on the elbow. She cried out again.
‘What are you squealing for? Isn’t this what you wanted?’
On they went, Stephanie losing all sense of time and location. Somewhere amid the confusion, it began to occur to her that Boyd wasn’t merely content to force her past the point of collapse; he wanted to force himself past it too.
They were climbing higher, the gradient growing steeper. They pressed along a ledge two feet wide, a slick wall