Реклама. ООО «ЛитРес», ИНН: 7719571260.
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Veronica Souter drove unhurriedly with the traffic to Surry Hills on the other side of, but close to, the city. She parked her car in the basement car park, beamed it locked, and made her way to the elevator. Inside the elevator she watched the numbers change above her, avoiding the mirrored walls, but really she was just watching the numbers change, as people did. Such animated electronic stimulation was a large part of the attraction of television, regardless of what the images meant. She smiled to herself but thought of Jack and her smile faded. He didn’t care much for television. Was that a bad thing when all his peers did? Or was it a good thing, showing some individuality?
Her office was on the seventh floor, No 15. She opened the door of 715 with a swipe-card and put her bag on a small hall-stand and walked into the single room, a bed-sit with en suite. She opened a laptop on the bedside table and as it booted up she took off her shirt and jeans and threw them on the bed. She chose a white camisole from the top drawer of a small chest and threw it on the bed and went into the bathroom in her underwear. She took out her makeup bag from the bathroom cabinet and re-did her makeup: more eyeliner, eye shadow this time, and darkened her lip-stick. She returned to the bedroom and clicked a few buttons on her keyboard. She checked her diary, confirmed her appointment, then checked her inbox before putting on the camisole, took a dark blue suit, skirt and jacket, from the wardrobe and put it on. From a high shelf in the wardrobe she chose a short dark wig from a collection of seven on old collectable wooden heads and once she had tied back and raised her shoulder-length light brown hair she covered it with the wig, adjusted it slightly, tugging at the forelock and tweaking the look. After buttoning the lightweight jacket she unbuttoned it again and tucked in her camisole a little further into her skirt, re-buttoned the jacket and checked the effect in the wardrobe mirror. She lightly tugged the front of the camisole so that it showed a little above the 'V' of the jacket but also revealed just a little of her cleavage. From out of the second draw of the bedside table she took a little black book-like object, turned a few pages and chose a small removable transfer, one from a page of identical transfers: a single red rose bud. She peeled off the cellophane, thought for a moment and then pulled the edge of her camisole down and to the left a little with her left index finger and applied the tattoo, with her right hand, to the inside mound of her left breast, down and under a bit. She held it there for twenty seconds, checking her watch on her left wrist, then slowly peeled off the transfer leaving the perfect rose bud on her pale skin. She returned the top of the camisole to its original place hiding the rosebud and ... no no no, the camisole didn’t work: it got in the way. She took the jacket off, removed the camisole, threw it on the bed, and put the jacket back on. Her cleavage was a little too obvious but it was better than having to deal with the camisole as well as the jacket. And it might actually help. She completed her preparation, including a fine gold chain, chosen from the third drawer. She clasped it around her neck and checked its effect. She turned off the computer and closed the lid, grabbed her bag, checked herself one last time in the mirror, paused, decided against and removed the single gold chain, avoiding her eyes of course, and left it, along with the discarded camisole, with her home clothes lying on the bed. She walked out and left the door to close itself behind her.
.....
“OK. I’m on my way to an appointment now” she didn’t say that it was just coffee with Diane, “so I could be there at about two. OK?”
“You don’t need to make an appointment. I don’t go anywhere. I’m always here. You can just drop in, you know.” Veronica knew that that was exactly what she couldn’t do: Why didn’t you call? You think I’m just sitting here waiting for you to drop in?
.....