Black Lipstick Kisses by Monica Belle Page A

for her.’
    â€˜I really think you would.’
    â€˜Oh, I would, you’d better believe it.’
    â€˜That I have to draw. You in the throes of passion, underneath me . . .’
    â€˜No, on top, riding you with pride.’
    â€˜OK, as you like, naked.’
    â€˜No, not naked. Not stark naked, anyway. With some clothes on, a skirt and top maybe, but pulled up so that I’m hiding nothing.’
    â€˜Your knickers would be off though, maybe dangling from a piece of carving.’
    â€˜Perfect.’
    â€˜And her ghost rising from the tomb, maybe swirling up from under the lid . . .’
    â€˜. . . her face set in fury and shame and anguish . . .’
    â€˜. . . her fine clothes decaying tatters . . .’
    â€˜. . . her hands clawing at my body . . .’
    â€˜. . . but only bringing you more pleasure.’
    â€˜Yes, and the wilder she got the more pleasure we’d take, feeding on her rage and spite, until we came, together. That would banish her, and soothe the souls of all her victims.’
    â€˜Her victims?’
    â€˜Oh, she used to do some horrid things, all in the name of propriety of course. The Victorians were like that.’
    â€˜Yes, I’ve read Acton. It always seemed so sordid, nothing to really get a grip on for a story. I like the way you see it though. You’re an inspiration.’
    â€˜Just weird.’
    â€˜You’re not weird.’
    â€˜Trying telling that to my parents, the other kids at school and my teachers.’
    â€˜OK, you’re weird. So am I then.’
    He laughed, and I grinned in response, feeling closer still. Like me he was an outsider. Like me he knew how it felt not to fit in and to refuse to try. Like me he had never gone under, and was now free from all the stifling social constraints we had to put up with. I wanted to talk, to tell him everything, and to know about him.
    â€˜You had a hard time as a kid?’
    â€˜More odd, but yes, hard at times. I’m not complaining, because without it I’d never have the richness of experience I rely on for my work.’
    â€˜Tell me.’
    â€˜Well, I’m adopted, for a start, which didn’t help, but it was down to my mother, in the main. She’s one ofthese people who is always searching for an answer and is never satisfied with what she gets. My grandparents are quite sane, but she caught religion in her teens, a bad case. I can’t remember what it was when I was tiny, High Church Anglican I think, but I remember being converted to Roman Catholicism at about four, especially the candles, hundreds of them, burning in this huge church. Candlelight fascinates me, and I’m sure that’s where it comes from.’
    â€˜I’m Catholic, or I was, and I know exactly what you mean about candles. I still go to confession sometimes, just for the atmosphere. Do you?’
    â€˜No. I’m not a Catholic any more, I haven’t been for years, as such. I suppose I could be considered Christian, but only in the broadest sense. My mother changed her mind when I was maybe six. When we went to Scotland for a holiday she caught Calvinism. Suddenly nothing would do but we come to understand our basic wickedness, and all the candles and incense and stuff was so much popery and a sin in itself. I remember being made to feel dreadfully guilty for wanting to go into a church and light a candle to a great-uncle who had died, when just a couple of months before the same action would have earned the highest praise.’
    â€˜Confusing.’
    â€˜Just a bit. It happened again a couple of years later. I can’t even remember what to, but it was another Low Church sect, and even more severe. Then there was a brief spell as Mormons, some American thing she saw on TV with lots of shouting and waving our arms about, and an evangelical group largely dedicated to harassing people on Sunday afternoons. The last lot had a particularly strong anti-sex