Perspectives (2) - The Kiss

a

Just look at that slut! Been with us less than a week and already she's got her tongue so far down the boss's throat she's practically licking his arse.

What a bitch. - No. She's worse. She's evil. Her tongue is probably forked - I can't tell from here. But I can see her too-white teeth peeking through the Max Factor peach of her glistening, envenomed lips. They're supernaturally white, those teeth, the white of Hollywood smiles. And, to top it off, her long, lustrous hair is blonde all the way to the roots. All day long I fantasize about raking her face with my nails to mar its perfection, to destroy her unnatural beauty.

The sight of it makes me sick. I don't want to see this. I want to shut my eyes. I want to wake up from this nightmare. I want to scream.

Why did they have to come here? This is my place, my sanctuary, the place I come to for forty minutes' peace and a quiet cappuccino. Today, even, I treated myself to apple pie with cream of the non-aerosol variety, but looking at those two eating each other's faces I have lost all appetite. The pie is untouched, the coffee cold.

I hate her. I've hated her since Monday morning when she came for her interview. She breezed through the office in that off-the-rack floor-length sunshine-yellow dress, the goddess of T.V. margerine adverts. I half-expected to smell buttercups in her wake, but there was only the subtlest insinuation of Chanel - far too tasteful for a mere office assistant.

- It's odd about her clothes. They're obviously St. Michael's, and they all have those creases that clothes have only in shops, as though she buys them on the way to work. Maybe she does. Maybe she goes home in the evenings and sacrifices them to the god Armani.

I sigh with relief as their lips part. She smiles with the confidence of someone who knows her lips are unblemished. If it was me kissing the boss there I'd be checking my mirror and, inevitably, re-applying a fresh coating of seduction.

I hate her. I really hate her.

b

I can't help but smile as I catch sight of the divine Clarissa G., just as I can't help but pity the poor sod about to have his heart broken by the `evil queen of diamonds'.

I say `diamonds' because her heart is as hard as rock and as cold as ice. `Killer Spice' we call her, or sometimes `Double-Oh Sex', but never to her face. She's playing a bubble-brained bimbo, innocent and ignorant, but beneath the cornflower-blue knitwear is the body of a ballerina with muscles to match.

Counter-espionage is the game; counter-terrorism our trade.

The consummate professional, not once does she glance in my direction as, arm-in-arm, she guides her prey to Klavier Cafe where we have reserved the table by the window. Concealed behind the darkened glass of the van windows, my video camera and I track them.

According to the inch-thick file marked `Top Secret' back at H.Q. he is Robert Lowell, 41, a banker with a wife and three daughters, the eldest only 12. He is also in bed with the Russian mafia, having been recruited by the K.G.B. back in '81, while at Christchurch. While not particularly handsome, he has the aspect of an English gentleman and is courteous enough to pull back Clarissa's chair for her to sit. His dark suit is hand-tailored, not quite to Savile Row standard but well enough to suggest wealth.

Through the magnification of the zoom lense I can read Clarissa's lips as she teases him about his archaic mannerisms, and I marvel at the way her green eyes glitter with apparently genuine humour as he jokes with her. There is nothing about her performance to suggest duplicity.

As the conversation grows ever more intimate she leans closer to him, takes a bite from his carrot cake, brushes an imaginary crumb from his lapel; and of course he responds, drawing nearer to her until they are breathing each other's breath, talking in whispers.

Their lips meet, at first no more than a tentative touch, a declaration of intent, a ritual parley before battle, or a pause as though in surprise that the castle gates are unguarded - and then with a surge of mutual passion, whether real or counterfeit, the battle is joined and their lips engage in that age-old struggle for dominance.

One has to admire her dedication to duty.