The Cupid Effect by Dorothy Koomson Page B

heading for the imaginary finish line neck and neck. While she had eventually started to glow, rivers of perspiration washed down my back, making my top stick to me, oceans of the stuff cascaded down my face.
    â€˜What are you doing after your workout?’ Claudine asked, over the din of the treadmills. She spoke in her normal tone of voice, she could even breathe, the bitch.
    â€˜Whuh-huhow?’ I replied.
    â€˜Yeah. I’ll only be doing an hour today. I was wondering if you fancied going for a drink afterwards?’
    I tried to speak, my lungs refused (they’d gone on strike since that ‘piss off’ thing from my brain). I nodded, instead.
    â€˜How long are you working out?’ she asked.
    I gave up, slowed down. I’d never win against her in this race. I glanced down at the LCD display. Held up three fingers. ‘Three minutes.’
    â€˜You’re not doing anything else?’ she asked.
    I shook my head.
    â€˜You really should do weights as well . . .’
    Suddenly, things got nasty. Claudine’s mouth started spewing filth about more exercising. Workout, weights, swimming, muscle tone, endurance . . .
    Why don’t you just call me a whore and be done with it?
    The beer was divine on my tongue, in my mouth, sliding down my throat. I gulped at it the second the pint glass, cloaked in condensation, touched my bottom lip. Claudine did virtually the same thing with her glass of wine.
    â€˜See, isn’t that better?’ I almost said. I’d talked her out of that ‘workout’ nonsense and had flat out refused to sit with her if she ordered a soft drink.
    â€˜Bliss in a glass,’ I gasped, finally giving my drink a reprieve.
    â€˜You’re not wrong,’ Claudine said.
    We both sighed deeply at the pleasure that could be found in the form of alcohol, then sat in silence as we contemplated how easily pacified we were. She left the air between us silent for a few seconds more before she asked: ‘Were you really thinking about Pavlov in the gym earlier?’
    â€˜Um . . . yeah.’
    â€˜I see,’ she said, eyeing me suspiciously. She sipped more of her drink. ‘I suppose being a psychologist those things come to you all the time. Kind of like an occupational hazard?’
    There was that . . . there was also the fact it was a mad, scary world inside my head. I once spent the better part of a night thinking through the intricacies and possibilities of being battered to death with a teaspoon. I’d seen a news story about being battered to death by a hammer, the teaspoon thought process followed from there. Naturally.
    â€˜I teach contemporary and cultural studies,’ Claudine said.
    â€˜Oh. How long have you taught that then?’ I asked.
    â€˜Since I finished at The Met. My tutor said I should think about doing a PhD because I’d done so well over the three years. So I signed up for a PhD at All Souls and eventually, when they realised they couldn’t get rid of me, they gave me a job. I’ve done it properly for two years now.’
    â€˜Do you enjoy it?’
    â€˜Yes and no, like most jobs I’d imagine. There are good times, there are bad times.’
    â€˜I know what you mean. That’s why I left my job and London in the end. I found that the bad times were getting longer and longer and the good times were so few and far between that they’d virtually disappeared.’
    â€˜What made you decide to do it then?’
    â€˜No one thing. It all built up I guess. Then someone said something and I knew, kind of, what I had to do.’
    â€˜God, they must be pretty wonderful. Who was it and what did they say?’
    Claudine thought I was odd anyway, and I wasn’t trying to impress her, but she, like most people, wouldn’t understand the whole ‘Oprah told me to do it’ thing. And did I really want to still be repeating that line when I was