She looked stunningly beautiful, this tall black woman who always seemed to me to have been fashioned deliberately for others’ pleasure out of some material more precious than flesh, her hard body encased in a long leather overcoat that framed her broad shoulders, open at the waist to reveal a black evening dress that shimmered slightly in the light falling through the open door. She wore shoes with long heels that stood her feet on the toes in a ballerina’s pose, with a thin strip of leather fixed high on each ankle in a tiny gold buckle. In heels she easily matched my six feet two. She regained her poise in a second, folded her compact together with a decisive click, smiled and slipped it back into the tiny evening bag she was carrying. She placed her hand on my shoulder, leant forward and kissed me on the cheek, exhaling slightly, raising the hairs along the back of my neck. Her body brushed lightly against mine as she moved through into my apartment. ‘I know I’m not s’posed to see you this weekend,’ she was saying as she made her way in, ‘but—’ She stopped in mid-stride, nonplussed for the second time in as many minutes, and found herself looking at Jessica.

There was the brief pause that always follows the unexpected meeting of two very attractive women, and I could feel them in the silence clicking beads on the abacus of status. The pause gave me a brief respite, and I marshalled the scattered armies of my thoughts for one final push. If I could interject now, and give some sign to Alysha, her natural discretion would handle the rest, and she could be out of my house in ten minutes, the two of us having laid the foundations for some alibi (stopping off to pick something up, a forgotten file from work) that would sustain me through an interrogation with Jessica. She was an intelligent woman and highly socially perceptive; it would not take much to give her the nudge. I had got so far in my calculations when I froze. I could think of nothing to say, inspiration tossed no lifeline phrase to my drowning brain, and I stood there in mute desperation as Alysha, her judgement made, slipped her coat gracefully from her shoulders and folded it over her arm. She put out a slender hand in greeting to Jessica, who took it without getting up. It seemed to me in that blissful moment that she had already taken the measure of the scene, and would save me from both embarrassment and my own incompetence.

‘Hi, I’m Alysha.’

‘Jessica.’

‘I love your pendant. Is that Tiffany’s?’

‘Yes,’ Jessica answered, pleased.

‘It’s lovely. Real nice. Can I touch it?’ Without waiting to be asked she reached out, and with her long glossy nails picked the silver bar from the skin between the tops of Jessica’s breasts.

The knot in my gut began to uncoil. I was going to get away with it. She placed the pendant back, and lightly pressed it in place with the palm of her hand. Jessica returned her smile, a little surprised at the intimacy of the contact. Alysha turned towards me. ‘James, I don’t know what you had fixed up with Laura, yeah? I’m happy to do couples this one time as your girlfriend’s a stunner, but I charge six hundred pounds. Is that OK with you?’