The Last of the Stanfields(23)
Sally-Anne had learned out of sheer necessity—and often when dealing with men—that she sometimes had to put her ethics on hold. The deed was done: Keith had walked straight into Sally-Anne’s trap. Watching the man leap back into his work with an extra dose of fervor and energy almost made May feel sorry for him. But it was for a good cause, after all.
Keith certainly hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and his rugged upbringing had required him to be resourceful and make do with what he had. On the first Sunday he came to work, Keith tried to pull a cable from the main circuit breaker. It was after dark by the time he finally reconnected it, and the task had required a perilous climb to access the transformer on an electrical pole outside. It had taken him all day and a good part of the night. But in the end, they had electricity.
In the days that followed, Keith spent all his free time at the warehouse. Within a week, he had begun to consider the project a personal challenge. Keith would cart in truckloads of wood scraps he had collected at work, to use on the window frames, and decided to completely redo the hardwood floor from scratch. While the scheme was hard to keep under wraps and did not go unnoticed by his employer, his talent as a carpenter kept him from getting fired. By the end of the first week, Keith at last came to his senses, realizing that the task was far too vast for him to tackle on his own. He pulled together a scrappy little work crew consisting of friends who came aboard after they were treated to a few meals prepared by May and Sally-Anne. Apprentice plumbers, masons, painters, and locksmiths came in turn, to take care of the boiler and the pipework, to remove the cast-iron radiators, repair the decrepit walls, and deal with every last inch of rust-covered metal in the space. Nor did May and Sally-Anne sit around twiddling their thumbs. When they weren’t busy bringing drinks and snacks to Keith’s ragtag crew, they would help drill, hammer, paint . . . whatever needed doing.
There, in that lively, boisterous atmosphere, a subtle love triangle was unfolding. It was a bizarre game of seduction, with one player skilled, another sincere, and the third clueless.
Keith was growing on May more and more every day, and she found herself quietly watching everything he did and listening carefully every time he spoke. She made sure to be in the right place at the right time to lend him a helping hand. Their short exchanges, between his hammering and her vigorous painting, made it clear to May that Keith’s mind was just as appealing as his body. Meanwhile, Keith’s eyes would always drift back toward Sally-Anne, who was intentionally keeping him at arm’s length. May eventually began to believe that Keith might be helping out just for the chance to get close to Sally-Anne again, but she kept her suspicions to herself.
One month in, the game changed again when Keith started to pick up on Sally-Anne’s strategy. He decided to ask May out for dinner, taking her to an Indian restaurant on Cold Spring Lane. That he would choose such an exotic cuisine came as a surprise to his date. At the end of the meal, Keith suggested he accompany May back to the warehouse so he could put a second coat of varnish on the main door.
“That way, I can let it dry overnight and jump right to the next step first thing tomorrow,” he explained.
May once more thanked Keith for everything he had done for them. Did I do it for them . . . or for her? he thought to himself as he grabbed his car keys and led May out to his pickup.
“Feel free to put on some music if you want,” Keith said as they cruised along.
May reached out to turn on the radio, slyly hiking her skirt halfway up her thigh in the process. Her milky skin, impossibly smooth and peppered with freckles, came in and out of view with the light of every streetlamp they drove past, drawing Keith’s gaze every time without fail. It wasn’t long before his hand followed suit.
May felt a rush of electricity from his touch, like heat was radiating straight from his palm. After they parked, Keith let May lead the way up the warehouse stairs, his desire growing with each step of the steep climb.
May entered the warehouse and called out Sally-Anne’s name, secretly hoping she would be out. She could just picture Sally-Anne at some random bar on the other side of town, surrounded by young men undressing her with their eyes, or young women who either loved her or hated her, or both.
As soon as they were sure the coast was clear, Keith made a move straight for May. She backed up coyly and pressed herself against the window with a come-hither smile. Keith pursued, running a hand through May’s hair and closing in for a passionate kiss. She had been envisioning this moment for weeks, yet it was more tender and less frenzied than she had imagined. The nape of Keith’s neck smelled of wood and turpentine. His hands sent chills down her spine. He explored every last inch of her face, and May nibbled softly at his pioneering fingertips. Keith pulled her to him by the waist and opened her blouse, kissing her breasts as she unbuttoned her jeans. She could feel him pressing against her, leaving no doubt in her mind: Keith was all hers.
May knew she was cheating on Sally-Anne for the first time, but Sally-Anne’s grab-it-while-it’s-there approach to life seemed to allow room for Keith and others. In any case, she was helpless to resist. Meanwhile, at that very moment, Sally-Anne was sitting outside the warehouse on her motorcycle, calmly watching the window with May’s bare back pressed against it. Sally-Anne didn’t avert her eyes once, watching every movement, gazing at the small of May’s back as it curved each time Keith thrust. That particular dance was quite familiar to Sally-Anne, having experienced it firsthand herself. She could still recall how Keith felt inside her and the salty tang of his skin.