9. Kim's game
It was the memory of the kiss and the thought of more to come that drove Kim. It had been a quick embrace while Lee checked the twins, just a few seconds, but Zoe’s lips had seared onto his with an almost audible sizzle to match the heat he’d felt.
It helped ease the pain of staying home alone while Lee had Zoe all to herself at the movies, in the dark of the cinema. It was a soothing, satisfying, scintillating kiss.
Kissing Lee had never been like that. Especially not recently. Lee was familiar and comfortable, Zoe was excitement and adventure. Lee was home and Campbell, Zoe was exotic and unreachable in Brisbane.
Seeing her name pop up in his email inbox got his heart pumping. If Lee sent him an email, it was about a bill, or a doctor’s appointment, or servicing the car.
Email from Zoe:
Hi, handsome! I’m just about to take a shower. Care to join me, big boy? Love, Zoe
Would he? Just the thought of Zoe, her red hair and her taut body slick with suds was enough to get him excited. How long had it been since he had a shower with a woman? Years.
Email to Zoe:
Z. Better make it a cold one. I’m hot enough to steam it up right now! K
Kim was playing with fire, he knew. If Lee ever found out what sort of thoughts he was having about her old schoolfriend, she’d be devastated. She’d lash out. He could just imagine his suits shredded, his BMW spraypainted purple with four flat tyres and a bucket of dirty disposables emptied over the driver’s seat. And his laptop computer with a carving knife plunged through its heart.
Lee wasn’t a violent woman, but she certainly would relish taking revenge on any betrayal.
He would have to be very quiet and careful about this. But that was his forte, wasn’t it? A quiet strength.
He was bright enough to pull it off. The weak link would be Zoe, especially given her closeness to Lee.
Another happy image hit him and he closed the email window, smiling while he opened The Canberra Times. The editorial page had the cartoon – lame humourless leftist rubbish as usual – and the letters to the editor, which were of particular interest at the moment.
The first whining complaints about the ASIO site were coming in, and each writer was a pawn to be played in Kim’s game. No kind words for the project, but that was entirely to be expected: nobody ever wrote to the editor to express a positive thought.
The sort of people who wrote these letters were self-important smart-arse know-it-all point-scoring wankers, each one trying to be cleverer than the last.
Two relevant letters today. The first one was from someone seeking to pin the blame for the project squarely on the previous government. Nice try, but the new government had had two years to kill it if they really wanted, quite apart from allocating hundreds of millions of dollars over the years ahead. John Howard might have planted the seed, but Kevin Rudd was carrying the baby to term.
The second letter was more interesting. The writer commented on the huge surplus of office accommodation in Canberra at the current time, and asked just why ASIO couldn’t expand into some of the nearby empty buildings, such as Anzac Park or the Edmund Barton Building currently being refurbished.
Kim carefully cut out the two letters, glued them onto a sheet of paper, wrote Canberra Times at the top, dated it, and added it to a file. Of course all these letters were available on the computer, cross-referenced by author, publication and topic, but it helped to have the hard copy.
Next he turned to the computer, calling up the letter-writers. As he suspected, the first writer was a long-time member of the ALP. Looking at his past contributions to print media, he was a spinner, seeking to turn black into white. His side of politics could do no wrong, the opposing team were never right.
Kim could relate to that.
The second writer was a Campbell resident. Sister Hazel, a nurse at the Erstwhile Garden Retirement Village on Monash Drive. Sho too was a serial correspondent, but her letters appeared to be aimed at pointing out the failures of government at all levels and of all political flavours, using common sense as her main weapon.
The failing of common sense was that it failed to take into account the many needs of an intelligence agency for a secure environment, the latest computer networks and equipment, and energy-efficient credentials. The buildings of half a century ago were as inappropriate for ASIO as a mediaeval castle.
But, Kim had to admit, Sister Hazel sang a good song, and would have many Canberrans humming along with her.
Time to get his public protest group into action. He looked at the file CAS had given him and dialled a number. A chirpy voice answered on the second ring.
“Kern here!”
Hello, Colonel,” Kim began. “A ummmm, mutual friend asked me to give you a call about this new building project at the end of your street.”
“Ah yes. Wondered when you’d get around to it. Far end of my street, actually. Not a great nuisance to me. But more than happy to help. We should meet. Discuss tactics.”
Kim named a place and a time.
“Good thinking! I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, Sir! Look forward to it. Bright’s the word.”
“Bright it is. Gold’s mine.”
Kim chuckled. “I won’t forget gold. Goodbye, Sir!”
He hung up. He had some work to do before the meeting, but it was all routine. He pulled his iPod out of his pocket, plugged it into a minidock, and selected Marc Moulin. The nu-jazz of the Top Secret album filled the office, a female voice chanting, “Now we step into the dark.”
His thoughts turned to Zoe. His mind wandered in that direction more and more nowadays. They shouldn’t. He had work to think about. And Lee. And the twins. If he got right down to it, just how sensible was this whole girlfriend thing? He could lose his family, his career, his friends.
On the other hand, he could gain a new and exciting partner. Plenty of men moved from one relationship to another. Women as well. And, well, it wasn’t like he was married to Lee, was it?
No, that was an unworthy thought.
His computer chirped.
Email from Zoe:
Kim, I’ll be back in Canberra at the end of the week. I know a place where we can get naked and sweaty. Have a shower together afterwards. How does Friday after work sound? Love you hunky, Zoe.
Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay