Past Passion

‘So you won’t be taking little Miss Prim and Proper to the party tonight, then, will you?’ she heard Susan saying to Jonathon.

He laughed.

‘Hardly. I bet you’ve got something spectacular to wear, haven’t you, Susie? Something stunning and sexy...?’

‘You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?’ Susie replied provocatively, adding, ‘Of course, you could always come round to my place and have a private view...’

They were both laughing as they moved off down the corridor. Inside the stationery-room, Nicola remained frozen with misery.

It was true that Jonathon had not specifically invited her to partner him at tonight’s party to celebrate his father’s birthday, but she had assumed...had believed... She had even bought herself a new dress for the occasion. She had bought it at the weekend, having enlisted the advice and support of her mother, anxiously determined that Jonathon shouldn’t be ashamed of her.

The dress in question was prettily understated, in dark blue velvet with a neat round collar and long sleeves, and suddenly, bitterly she knew that in it she would look just as sexless and boring as Jonathon had claimed she was. Tears blurred her eyes. She felt sick with shock and a bitter, burning rage, possessed by a need to show Jonathon—to show everyone—that she was not the dull, boring person they obviously all believed her to be, that she could be just as exciting...just as glamorous...just as desirable as the Susans of this world.

* * *

LATER she was to wonder if she had been overcome by some kind of mental instability to have reacted the way she had; certainly she had never done anything like it before, and nor was she likely to do so afterwards.

All she could think was that the pain of knowing what Jonathon really thought about her, the trauma of coming down off her cloud and crashing painfully hard back to reality, had mentally unhinged her in some sort of way.

The celebration of the fiftieth birthday of the firm’s main partner was a major event within the small City firm. A room had been hired at a very grand city-centre hotel for the occasion. There was to be a buffet meal followed by dancing and, although she had tried not to show it, Nicola had been nervously excited about the event ever since Jonathon had started taking her out.

Both his parents would be there, of course, and his sisters, and in her cloud-cuckoo dream-world she had somehow or other envisaged herself being introduced to them...sitting with them...being accepted by them as Jonathon’s girlfriend. Now abruptly she was realising how idiotic those daydreams had been and, in some sort of confused way, she didn’t know now whether she hated Jonathon or loved him. All she did know was that she was determined to show him just how wrong his cruel comments had been, just how desirable she could be... Much, much more desirable than the likes of Susan Hodges.

All the staff were being given the afternoon off in order to prepare for the party. It was almost lunchtime now and, just as soon as she was sure that Jonathon and Susan were out of earshot, Nicola emerged from the stationery-room and hurried back to the typing pool with the copy paper.

For what was left of the morning Nicola’s thoughts were very far from her work. She was mentally busy making plans, taking decisions and, just as soon as she was able to do so, she collected her coat and hurried out into the street.

The firm’s offices were right in the centre of the City, in the banking and business area, within easy walking distance of the shops.

Thanks to the prudent teachings of her parents, Nicola already had a healthy bank-account balance, and luckily when she’d come out this morning she had brought her cheque book with her.

There was a hot, burning sensation in her chest, a fiery, driving sense of determination motivating her, pushing her... Without giving herself time to hesitate, she rushed into the very modern hairdressing salon which had recently opened close to the office.

It wasn’t a bit like the hairdressers at home—no pink, no frills, the décor all stark greys and blacks, the walls adorned with huge, blown-up, unrecognisable photographs which she presumed were of hairstyles.

The receptionist behind the desk had very short, very shocking pink hair, and a supercilious stare.

Before she could change her mind, Nicola told her what she wanted. Ten minutes later she was confronting the stylist, who was asking her thoughtfully, ‘You are really sure about this...?’

Nicola could feel herself starting to bristle, sensitively knowing what he was really saying—that he couldn’t see someone as dull and boring as her sporting such a modern, innovative hairstyle...

‘If you can’t do it...’ she challenged.

He frowned at her.

‘Oh, I can do it, it’s just that it is a radical change.’ He gave her an odd look, and said quietly, ‘Look, it’s none of my business...but you really do have very pretty hair. A little bit old-fashioned maybe—straight hair isn’t really in right now—but to have it all permed...’

Nicola gritted her teeth. She knew exactly what she wanted and she was determined to have it. She remembered seeing the photograph in the salon window on her way to work a few days ago. In it the model, dark-haired like herself, had sported a mass of tumbled, wild curls that had given her—even to Nicola’s innocent eyes—a sexuality that virtually hit the onlooker between the eyes. No girl...no woman with that kind of hairstyle could ever, ever be described as dull, boring...and certainly not as sexless.

‘I want it,’ she told the stylist desperately.

Three hours later, staring at her transformed reflection in the mirror, she felt her heart sink. She scarcely recognised herself, and as for what her parents would say... Was her face really so tiny, so small that it looked swamped by the heavy mass of her hair, its volume virtually trebled by the intensity of the perm?

The stylist was watching her gravely, but she refused to let him see how shocked and dismayed she felt.

Gravely she studied her reflection, ignoring the pallor of her face and the hugeness of her eyes.

Equally gravely she paid the bill and collected her coat.

Once out in the street she felt oddly queasy and light-headed, but she ignored this feeling, heading for one of the nearby department stores.

The girl in charge of the trendy make-up counter she headed for pursed her lips and studied her critically when she told her what she wanted.

‘Red lipstick...yes, definitely red lipstick...with your mouth it will look terrific. The look this year is for pale skin, so you’re in luck, but we’ll have to do something to bring out your eyes.’

Half an hour later, Nicola emerged from her hands and fought against the impulse to run her tongue over her lips and lick off the gooey lipstick that felt as though it was plastered on them inches thick.

As she caught sight of herself in a nearby mirror, she did a double-take, barely recognising the wild-haired creature with the dark eyes and glossy, pouting mouth as herself.

Sexless was she? she asked herself grimly as she took the escalator up to the clothes department.

Firmly she ignored the section where she would normally have shopped, heading instead for the store’s more ‘way-out’ clothes.

‘Minis are back in,’ the assistant told her when she explained she wanted a dress for a party. And she was lucky enough to have the legs to take them...and the figure to wear the stretchy, clingy number in eye-popping purple crêpe, which she assured Nicola was an absolute must for any girl hoping to be taken seriously as socially acceptable among her peers.

It was the same angry wave of bitterness and pain that had carried her into the hairdressers that carried her back to the flat armed with her new purchases and her new image, determined to prove to Jonathon just how wrong about her he was.

When she got back she discovered that she had the flat to herself.

Her shopping had taken rather longer than she had anticipated, and all she had time for now was a very quick shower and a bite of food.

Despite all her care, the bath seemed to leave her hair looking even more wild and tangled than it had done when she’d first left the salon.

She eyed it uncertainly, wondering if perhaps the perm hadn’t been just a little bit too much of a change, and then sternly forced herself to remember Jonathan’s cruel condemnation of her. No one looking at her now would consider her sexless, would they? She looked...and looked... A little uncomfortably, she decided she wasn’t quite sure what she looked like, other than it wasn’t really herself...

It took her a good hour and several unsuccessful attempts before she managed to reproduce something approaching the sales girl’s artistically applied make-up. The blue kohl pencil certainly did make her eyes appear an extraordinary colour, but she still wasn’t sure that quite so much lipstick—

Sternly reminding herself of what this was all about, she ignored her own feelings of discomfort and struggled into her new dress.

It was odd how something so insubstantial could make her slender body appear positively voluptuous, even if she wasn’t quite sure that purple really was her colour.

There, she was ready.

Even the driver of the taxi she had booked to take her to the party did a double-take when she opened the door. She lifted her head a little higher and gave him what she hoped was a cool stare.

Just wait until Jonathon saw her. So he thought she was dull, did he? Dull and boring and sexless... Well, tonight she was going to make him regret every single one of those unkind criticisms.

It was only when she was paying off the taxi driver outside the hotel and seeing her fellow employees arrive in groups, even worse, couples, that she realised that the very best way to show Jonathon just how wrong he was about her would be for her to turn up at the party with another man... But the problem was that she didn’t know any other men—not here in the city—and certainly none of her male friends at home could hold a candle physically to Jonathon.