Ginger

       Rachel Randall

      The old-fashioned bell on the door sounds as Lila lets herself in, its tinkle overlaying the distant drone of hairdryers and the gusting October wind from the street she’s gladly left behind her. Warmth rushes to meet her, welcoming her in as she loosens her scarf with relief.

      There’s no one behind the reception desk, no sign of her, but as Lila shrugs off her coat onto the wrought-iron rack a woman calls, ‘Be right with you. Make yourself at home.’ Her voice is husky – hospitable, like the squashy sofa in the bow window, and unexpectedly dramatic, like the bowl of gaudily wrapped chocolates on the table with the magazines.

      Lila breathes in the chemical tang of the lotions and potions, along with the fading perfumes of previous clients. She absorbs the pleasurable familiarity of a well-kept hair salon, revelling in the anything-is-possible moments before she’s seated in the chair. And she reaches for the chocolates, because, after all, she’s here to be indulgent.

      Heels click on the varnished wood floor. Lila glances up from the frivolous trinity of Heat, Hello and Time Out to find that the woman who dared her to come is as striking as she remembers. Jeanne wears a scoop-necked black dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a hem that flirts with her dimpled knees. Her shoes are mint-green Mary Janes with a round wooden mid-heel, and she’s tied a matching scarf around her neck in a saucy side bow. The green is the right shade to turn her pale skin to peachy. And there’s lots of skin; so much of it, at that neckline, that it’s nearly, nearly enough to distract from the glorious cascade of her wavy red hair. The colours, her lushness, her magnetism, are such a contrast to the sterile hospital corridors where Lila’s spent most of this day that she has difficulty tearing her gaze away.

      Just like when they first met, last week at a pub in Marylebone. Lila was there with some colleagues from University College Hospital. There’d been a chorus of greetings to an acquaintance of an acquaintance – Jeanne – who’d shifted her own G&T to their table.

      Lila noticed her hair first. It was lit by fire from the autumn sun, and her hands itched to touch it. When Jeanne noticed that Lila’s hair was red too, though a more coppery shade, her polite smile turned mischievous. ‘I know exactly what I want to do with you,’ she said. ‘Come see me next week, same day and time.’

      Lila’s pulse sped at the note of collusion in her voice. She automatically took the offered card and noticed gold-embossed shears in a top corner.

      ‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked. Their knees brushed under the table as people shifted seats around them. She let the contact linger.

      ‘A private consultation.’

      Jeanne’s mouth curved in unmistakable invitation and Lila knew then that she would go, if only to feel the intensity of Jeanne’s attention on her skin like that again.

      In the here and now, Lila’s anticipation flares into something fiercer and more immediate. I remember you, Jeanne’s look is promising. I have plans for you.

      ‘Hello,’ Jeanne welcomes her, the syllables as warm and bright as the salon itself. ‘You came.’

      Not yet, Lila thinks, amused at her own lewdness, at her confidence about what’s going to happen here. She’s on edge, but pleasantly so. She’s sparring, enjoying herself; it’s been too long since she’s felt this instant connection.

      ‘Actually, I nearly didn’t make it,’ she jokes. ‘Not with the Conran Shop so near. There’s nothing I can afford there, but I always do like a good tease.’

      Jeanne’s smile reveals the little gap between her front teeth that Lila had been thinking about for seven days. ‘I know,’ Jeanne replies, ‘exactly what you mean.’

      Lila finds herself moving forward without conscious memory of standing up. Jeanne takes her hand, her shiny plum fingernails dragging slightly over Lila’s wrist before she releases her grip. Her face is faintly lined with laughter and about five years’ more Octobers than Lila. She’s beautiful – all beaming animation and expensive skin creams.

      ‘I see you’ve discovered my weakness.’ She arches a shapely brow at the pile of coloured foil discarded on the table before her blue eyes skim, blatant and interested, across Lila’s cream blouse and navy trousers. ‘My other temptation, I mean.’

      Reaching into the bowl of chocolates, Jeanne drops a few into the pocket of her low-slung leather utility belt, next to all her scissors and combs. She peels back the wrapper on one and pops the chocolate into her red mouth. Lila watches Jeanne lick her lips, chasing sweetness, and she has the vivid sense memory of the rich texture of the chocolate fondant on her own tongue.

      As she catches Lila staring, Jeanne walks to the door and turns both the latch and the sign to CLOSED. She jangles the tools in her belt, still smiling. ‘Ready?’

      The exposed brick walls of the salon are lined with tall, modern mirrors framed in gold. Lila watches their cascading reflections within them as Jeanne helps her on with a black cloak.

      Once comfortably settled on the stylish leather chair, Lila keeps her eyes fixed on Jeanne’s neck scarf. She traces the subtle pattern of the fabric up and down in its looping figure eight until these curves lead her to track the others on her stylist’s body. The lush spread of her breasts, for instance, held firmly in place from the front but spreading decadently under the dress at the side-view, as though her lingerie can’t quite contain them. Then on to