Page 42 of Of Socialites and Prizefights

But she wasn’t content to let Deepa win so easily. In a move befitting a wrestler more than a boxer, she wrapped her legs around Deepa’s middle and twisted to the side, effortlessly flipping Deepa off her and reversing their positions. Belly up, Deepa was no less dangerous, but Roz didn't seem concerned. She buried both hands in the thick, creamy fur of Deepa’s belly, where her leopard spots were loosely painted like watercolour petals.

“You’re magnificent like this, you know? The magic’s coming off you in waves. I can practically taste it.”

Deepa growled, not wanting the reminder, but Roz shook her head.

“It smells like you,” she promised. “All you. Like cinnamon and cloves. Better than any of those soaps and perfumes you wear. Your magic’s got a deeper layer to it than those, like the smell of your bedsheets in the morning. I love it.”

Leaning close, she put her face against Deepa’s throat, where her fur was shorter and impossibly soft, and breathed in deeply. Wrapping her paws around Roz’s shoulders to hold her close, Deepa inhaled her smell in turn: her simple soap, her men’s cologne, and her salt-musk sweat, committing it to memory before she returned to her human senses.

She wanted to keep Roz. Paradoxically, things were simpler as a leopard. Despite having the same human consciousness night and day, her feelings and desires seemed less complicated when she was transformed. At night, she wanted to give chase, and feel the thrill of victory when she caught her prey. She wanted topress her teeth to something soft and have it give way, and feel the earth under her paws, and stretch out in the moonlight and admire the tiny diamond stars and great sweeping arms of the Milky Way above.

She wanted to curl up with someone warm and solid, and feel Roz’s arms around her, and hold her in return. She felt possessive in a way she’d only ever felt about fine jewellery before. She wanted to keep Roz the way a leopard wanted to keep a cache of red meat, a broad territory to patrol, a dry den in which to sleep. Something and somewhere to call her own, where she would be safe. Roz could provide safety, her leopard instincts told her, contrary to her every human instinct looking for money and social security.

Laid out under the cherry tree that was just beginning to ripen with sweet, midnight-coloured fruit, with the moon caught in the branches above like a fat opal set in an intricate necklace, Deepa wanted to keep Roz like a leopard kept her mate.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IN WHICH MATERNAL MATCHMAKING IS UNDERTAKEN

The next morning, after Deepa had returned to her flat, she lay in bed against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. Her sari, she bundled in both hands to hold over her heart, thin cotton warmed through with body heat so it almost felt like there was another person in bed with her. The ceiling was mottled, and in the watery morning light, she could pretend she was staring up into a sea of clouds.

She felt things for Roz she’d never felt for anyone, yet the continuation of her curse said it wasn’t love.

Despite her foray into the world of sapphic sex, she didn’t feel changed on any fundamental level, but then, she rarely felt fundamentally changed by anything. Her first kiss at twenty hadn’t much changed her; neither had her first tumble with the first of her many men. She was, at heart, a player and a con artist, and she’d long told herself that in order to achieve all she wanted, love would prove a frivolous commodity that she could ill afford.

As there was yet some distance between herself and her goals, love must, by necessity, be kept far from her heart and mind. She had so staunchly avoided any possibility of love that now, when her curse-breaking depended on it, love shied away, rebuffed too many times previously to indulge her.

But something fluttered in the pit of her stomach, something bright and tentative like a swallowtail butterfly yearning to flit its way up under her ribs to make a nest in her heart. Heat flared at the memory of Roz's touch, even though she was entirely alone. Squeezing her eyes shut, Deepa blocked out the fantasy of clouds and tamped down on both the butterfly and her rising warmth.

She and Roz had kissed, several times over now, and nothing had changed. Whether she wanted it to be love was irrelevant.

But maybe…maybe their next kiss would be the one to do it. Maybe next time, love would stop avoiding her and the curse would finally break.

“Get a hold of yourself, girl,” she muttered.

The remonstration didn’t work.

???

At noon, Roz arrived to meet Deepa’s mother. She was dressed in nice taupe linen trousers, a matching jacket, and a tucked-in blouse of the palest blush pink. Her hair had a little wave to it, like she’d put extra effort into making herself look presentable. When Deepa greeted her at the door, she swooped in for a quick kiss on the cheek, warm all over at the sight of her.

“My mother is already here. I hope you’re hungry; she's brought enough food to feed a dance hall.”

“I can always eat,” Roz promised. “I brought — well, you didn’t say whether she drinks, but I brought a bottle of white anyway, and flowers, in case she doesn’t.” She presented a bottlewith a label Deepa knew, more expensive than she would have expected from Roz, and a bouquet of bright, speckled orange and yellow lilies, the paper wrapping the stems only slightly rumpled at the corners.

“She enjoys a glass now and then, and she’ll love the flowers. And so do I,” Deepa added, giving her another appreciative kiss. “And the wine, too; it’s one of my favourites. Now, come on, come inside.”

Tugging Roz along by the wrist, Deepa took her to where Cherie and her mother were seated around the kitchen table, making small talk about the weather and nibbling on the plate of almond biscuits her mother had brought.

“Mama, this is Rosaline,” Deepa introduced. “Rosaline, this is my mother, and you’ve met Cherie before.”

“Mrs. Patel,” Roz said, stepping forward and holding out one hand for a shake. The wine, she tucked under her other arm, still holding the bouquet. “Pleased to meet you.”

As she accepted Roz's hand, Deepa’s mother looked her up and down, from the tips of her freshly-polished oxfords to her short-shorn hair. Deepa held her breath. Her mother was a traditional lady in many ways, and Deepa wanted her approval.

Then again, maybe she needn’t have worried. After all, Elizabeth and Arthur ran a rather unconventional household, having invited Coxley into their marriage, and Deepa’s mother had never breathed a word against them. But then, there was a world of difference between judging the actions of her employers, who paid her wages, and those of her only daughter.

“It is lovely to meet you, Rosaline,” Deepa’s mother said genially. “Sit, sit. Tell me, how did you meet my Deepa? She says you do not go to her club. She says you work on motorcars.”

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