You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) by Sophie Ranald Page B

assure you it was worth the effort,” Jonathan said, running his hands over
my hips and kissing me. “In fact, we’ve got fifteen minutes and the children
are in bed…”
    He
pulled me close and kissed me again, pulling up the dress and stroking my
thighs.
    “Stockings,”
he said. “Is this some kind of special occasion?”
    “Just
felt like it,” I said. “You don’t look too bad yourself. Or smell too bad.”
    I
ran my lips over his neck, breathing in the freshly showered smell of him,
feeling the smoothness of his newly shaved skin. In my four-inch heels I was
tall enough to kiss him without standing on tiptoes as I usually did. I undid
the top button of his shirt, then the next one down and the next, stroking his
skin with my fingertips.
    Then
the doorbell rang.
    By
the time we’d let Carmen in, shown her where everything was, given her the
broadband password and checked one last time that the kids were asleep, the
moment had truly passed. Still, as we walked hand in hand to the restaurant, I
felt a gentle, fizzing undercurrent of excitement. I could feel the tops of my
stockings encircling my thighs, and the lace of my new underwear against my
skin, unfamiliar and slightly, pleasantly scratchy. The air was cool on my bare
spine where my dress scooped low over my back.
    The
evening felt full of promise, like a first date, only one with a person I knew,
trusted and loved. I knew that during dinner Jonathan and I would catch each
other’s eyes, perhaps brush hands, let our thighs press together under the
table, and know that we were thinking the same thing, engaged together in a
silent dance of desire. It felt good – I’d missed it.
    I
was even gladder of my new dress when I saw Zé, polished and stunning in a
silver-grey vest top that showed off her slim, sculpted arms. I couldn’t
compete with her – I didn’t have the time, the money or the raw material. I
wondered fleetingly how it must feel to be so fundamentally, unquestionably
beautiful, for it to be the first thing anyone ever noticed about you, the
first thing they thought when they saw you, even once they knew you quite well.
I wondered whether it was frightening for her to know that her looks would
fade, would slip away and leave her invisible, without currency.
    But
I didn’t have much time for such gloomy thoughts, because I were being
introduced to Rick, a silver fox whose tanned skin, perfectly fitting clothes
and Cartier watch shouted status.
    “Anton’s
running a bit late,” Zé said. “He said they’ll be here in twenty minutes, so
why don’t we have a cocktail while we wait? We’ve already ordered – I’m on the
pisco sours and Rick’s having something called a Blue Marine, God knows what’s
in it.”
    “I
always order the campest drinks,” Rick said. “I can’t help it, it’s a curse.”
    And
sure enough, his cocktail arrived bristling with pineapple slices, maraschino
cherries and paper parasols. He laughed, and I found myself liking him better.
Jonathan and I ordered martinis, and we all embarked on the kind of
conversation you have when the women know each other mostly through their
children, and the men through their jobs.
    We’d
covered the weather, the pleasantness of the restaurant, and were just skirting
cautiously around the results of the General Election. Then Rick turned to
Jonathan and launched into a diatribe about office politics, leaving Zé and me
to talk to each other, and I liked him a bit less again, and found myself
understanding why Zé didn’t mind him being at work all the time.
    Then
she glanced over my shoulder towards the door and said, “And here’s Anton. So
glad you could make it, darling.”
    “Zé,
my precious, you look wonderful.” Anton was fey and tiny, with sparkly blue
eyes and a waxed moustache that I imagined he’d sported since last time they
were fashionable, about sixty years ago. His outfit was similarly extravagant:
a velvet smoking jacket and a cravat. But I wasn’t