Read Online Original Cyn by Sue Margolis - Free Book Online

story.”
    Clementine soon established he wasn’t married and had no children. What he did have, Cyn couldn’t help noticing, was a broad, toned upper body and the softest, warmest brown eyes that were a perfect match for his short choppy hair. She was particularly taken with what he was wearing. His blokey, un-put-together look really appealed to her. Hugh would have recoiled at the battered suede jacket and jeans, but she liked it. She was less than keen on that magazine makeover look in women. In men, she positively loathed it.
    “So what brings you to therapy?” Clementine asked him.
    “You know, you really are giving this poor man the third degree,” Ken said, although it was clear to Cyn that Ken didn’t think Joe was remotely poor.
    “That’s all right,” Joe replied with an easy smile. “OK, why am I here?” He leaned his head back while he thought. Camper boots, Cyn noted. Nice. “I think I have a problem with emotional intimacy. I tend to keep people at a distance. It’s really affected my relationships with women. They’ve all been pretty casual. I tend to pick women who aren’t looking for commitment.”
    Bugger, why was it that all the good-looking men were either gay or damaged? It was a couple of moments before she remembered that she was in therapy and not out on the pull and that everybody here was meant to have issues.
    Cyn didn’t say very much for the rest of the session, not that she would have gotten much chance since everybody was focusing on Jenny, who was wittering on about how threatened she felt when a new member joined the group because she felt her position—such as it was—was being usurped.
    When Cyn got home, Hugh and Harmony had gone. She went into the kitchen to check on Morris Mynah. He had black feathers with flashes of white on his tail and yellow on his head. She thought he looked like a glitzed-up miniature crow. “Fuck, I need a shag,” he said in a perfect imitation of Keith Geary. “It’s been three months. Three sodding months since I last got my leg over.” Cyn giggled. She’d heard this nonstop for a week. Even though it was starting to drive her seriously round the bend, there was no getting away from it—Morris’s imitative ability was nothing short of genius. Even now he could still make her laugh. She was going to miss him when he went. Keith was due back at work tomorrow and they’d agreed (to be more precise, Keith had agreed) that the simplest thing (since it would save Keith having to make the twenty-minute drive to her flat) would be to do the handover at the office.
    “Morris, you need a shag. I need a shag. Join the club. Instead, all I’ve got to look forward to tomorrow is the Pickersgill double-glazing people coming in to discuss their new advertising campaign. God, Cyril Pickersgill’s a miserable, boring old duffer. He must be over seventy. I don’t know why somebody hasn’t had the sense to put him out to grass.” She checked Morris had plenty of food pellets and water and put a towel over his cage. The dark tended to keep him quiet. “Night, night, Mo. Sleep tight.”
    Realizing she wasn’t tired yet, she poured herself some wine and went into the living room. The video of
Working Girl
was lying on the coffee table. It needed rewinding, which meant Harmony must have won her arm-wrestling match with Hugh. She decided this was unlikely and that Hugh had let her win on purpose because she was feeling down.
    She picked up the tape. Like Harmony, she adored the way the spunky Melanie Griffith character, Tess McGill, sticks two fingers up at fair play and uses guerrilla tactics to get revenge against her slimy, duplicitous boss.
    Cyn wasn’t about to go all L.A. flake and start having an epiphany based on a mindless piece of romantic Hollywood tosh. Nevertheless she couldn’t help thinking that Tess McGill symbolized a missing piece of her emotional jigsaw—the disobedient wayward piece.
    She slipped the video into the machine,