no change in the general classification nor the jersey wearers and no abandonments. Tomorrow, out of the original 189 starters, 180 would be heading towards their nemeses at altitude.
‘Finito!’ Cat exclaimed.
‘Are you on a mission or something?’ Alex probed.
‘Yup, Rachel and I are having a drink before dinner,’ Cat said, her eyes glinting, ‘so I’d better shoot. I’ll see you later, boys.’
Josh watched Cat all but skip out of the salle de pressé. He thought her to be ridiculously excited over a pre-dinner drink with a girl she’d had breakfast with that morning.
‘Rachel and Cat,’ Alex guffawed, nudging a bemused Josh for good measure, ‘kinky!’
‘You’re a prat, Fletcher,’ said Josh. ‘I’m going out for some air.’
And there was Rachel. And there was Ben.
‘Hey, Josh,’ Rachel called.
Josh approached them. ‘Cat’s just left,’ he said to Rachel, knowing instantly why Rachel looked momentarily puzzled. ‘You’re meeting for a drink?’ he said, as if reminding her kindly though he analysed her response. He glanced at Ben as if to say, my! aren’t girls dippy.
‘Oh yes,’ Rachel said, tapping her temples, ‘I’m losing my mind.’ She returned Ben’s shot glance in what she hoped was a legibly conspiratorial way.
‘I think she’s gone to phone her boyfriend first,’ Josh heard himself say before he allowed himself to check his words and consider his point. He was looking steadily at Rachel but he could feel Ben regard him abruptly. ‘Didn’t Cat say something about him coming out for some of the mountain Stages?’ Josh continued to Rachel.
‘Um,’ Rachel faltered as if pondering Josh’s query rather than wracking her brains for any clue that Cat had given her of a boyfriend back home.
‘Anyway,’ Josh said lightly, ‘that’s where she’s gone – her daily indulgence of long-distance sweet nothings.’
‘That’s nice,’ Rachel said distractedly.
‘I’d better shoot,’ said Ben, turning and walking away.
‘Me too,’ said Rachel, doing the same.
‘Yes,’ said Josh, ‘and me.’ He returned slowly to the salle de pressé hating himself but not kicking himself. What had he just done? Was he trying to protect Cat? From Ben? For her boyfriend back home? She so sparkled in the doctor’s company. Was he trying to keep Cat chaste? And if so, for whom? The boyfriend? Or himself?
Cat was waiting for Ben in her room. He was later than she had anticipated and she was so highly charged with desire that when he knocked, she flung open the door and greeted him with a torrent of kisses. She didn’t want him to use his mouth for an explanation, she didn’t need an apology. Kissing was all she required to come from his lips.
Ben, who was thoroughly disconcerted by what he’d just learned from Josh, had intended to ask Cat for some information and honesty. But her mouth was so sweet and kissing her was so tantalizing and her hands were running all over his body and his cock was responding in fine style. So, Ben allowed Cat to lead and she took to her role with relish, stripping herself first and then Ben. She went on top and held her position there. She felt fantastic to Ben and, as he came, his hands on her firm buttocks, his tongue deep in her mouth, his body thrust high into hers, their eyes locked together, he thought how he never wanted to let her go. As he left, he considered how she wasn’t even available for the taking.
STAGE 9
Pau-Luchon. 196.5 kilometres
Fen opened the door to her Kentish Town flat to find Pip clutching the Guardian and two cappuccinos in polystyrene cups. Pip had phoned not half an hour before and Fen had told her that she was working from home because she was desperate for no distraction. The fact that Fen was embroiled in a relationship with a colleague, as well as dithering over another man in Derbyshire, was distraction incarnate. Pip, who did not have a conventional job, never mind the choice of one man let alone two, assessed that if her sister was not physically at her place of work, or getting physical with a male, it meant she was at play and available for confabulation. The fact that Fen was visibly flummoxed, surrounded by papers and fluorescent Post-its, was of no relevance to Pip. She bustled in, removed the plastic lids from the coffee and licked each one clean. Fen, exasperated, motioned to her papers and files.
‘Very nice,’ said Pip, handing her sister a coffee, turning straight to Cat’s report on the procession down to Pau the previous day. ‘She’s very good, our baby sis,’ Pip murmured as Cat’s passion for the Tour filtered through the newsprint and infused the reader.
‘I’m dying to know what’s happening,’ Fen said, now enjoying the cappuccino and grateful for her sister’s intrusion.
‘Me too,’ Pip enthused. ‘Both Cat and that nice Paul Sherwen chap from Channel 4 say that the race starts in earnest now, in the mountains, that the challenge for the yellow jersey will be at its most intense and consequential.’
Fen stared at Pip. ‘All that – yes,’ she said, ‘and Fabian Ducasse is a spunk and a half, but I was referring to Cat – and the doc. Where do you think they’re at?’
‘Oh blimey, of course,’ Pip said, sitting cross-legged at her sister’s feet, ‘brawny Ben.’
‘Shall we phone her?’ Fen suggested, already dialling. Pip grabbed the phone from her, scooping cappuccino froth from the side of the cup with her index finger while waiting for Cat to answer.
‘Hullo?’ said Cat, sounding like she was just around the corner, sounding like she had just woken up.
‘Have you shagged him yet?’ Pip all but squealed.
Though she really shouldn’t have been startled by her sister’s trademark bluntness, Cat found herself answering with an affirmative giggle. While she listened to her sisters shrieking with delight in the background, Cat considered that, though she had indeed shagged Ben, that they had quite categorically fucked each other’s brains out, gorged on each other to satisfy a very base hunger, there had been an edge to it all. Right from the start. Sexual desire, yes, but something else, something more too. Merely confirming that she had shagged the man did both him and herself something of a disservice. It had been more than just sex, but what, exactly? Surely the sex could not have been so good without this enhancing extra layer of something or other? Physical attraction is one thing on but one level; to be mutually attracted to each other is something else and multi-faceted. And somewhat perplexing.
‘He’s lovely,’ Cat said to Pip’s ‘Come on come on come on!’
‘What was it like?’ Fen asked excitedly. ‘Was he good?’
‘It was great,’ Cat replied.
‘Where did you do it?’ Pip butted in. ‘When? How many times?’
‘I like him,’ Cat reiterated, thinking, deluded, that she was being discreetly noncommittal, ‘it was great.’
And then Cat changed the subject.
