[Anh Ngữ] Because She Loves Me - Mark Edwards (English)

[Khổng Lồ Một Mắt]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 1

‘Look up.’
Over the past three months my eyes had been poked, stretched and lasered. They had endured brilliant light and foreign bodies, had air and liquid puffed and squeezed into them. They’d been stared at and discussed and invaded, clamped open and taped shut. They’d endured pretty much everything an eye can endure. So when the nurse asked me to look upwards so she could apply the drops, told me this might sting a little, I well, I didn’t bat an eyelid. This was nothing.

One summer night, I almost went blind. It was only the skill of a surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, where I sa now, waiting to be seen, that saved my sight. Even then, after the 2 a.m. emergency surgery, they told me it was unlikely the sight in my left eye would return fully. When it did, I saw it as the first sign that my luck was changing.
The second sign – or so I thought, in those breathless, heady first days of our relationship – was meeting Charlie.

----------

I was the youngest person in the waiting room by thirty years and the only person on my own. The white-haired man in the corner was accompanied by his wife, who kept reading out excerpts from her magazine, one of those real-life mags, full of stories about unfaithful spouses, child abuse and kids with cancer. There was a gang of three elderly ladies opposite me, hunched beneath the glaucoma poster, and an Indian man with a young woman who I assumed to be his daughter. Two old men in dark glasses walked past, one of them cracking a joke about the blind leading the blind.

There was no one I could have asked to come with me. I worked as a freelancer so didn’t have any colleagues. My sister Tilly was my only surviving relative, apart from an aunt and uncle in Sussex whom I hadn’t seen for years, and I didn’t have a girlfriend. I suppose I could have asked my best friend, Sasha, to accompany me, but she was busy and would have had to take a day off work. I didn’t like to ask.

I had barely admitted it to myself but I was, if not lonely, at least tired of being alone. In the days and weeks that followed the operation, I had sat around on my sofa trying not to feel sorry for myself and imagining how good it would be to have someone to look after me. If I hadn’t split up with Harriet, if I had a flatmate, if my parents weren’t dead. I despised self-pity but sometimes, during those days when I had to sleep sitting upright and my spatial awareness was so screwed that I couldn’t negotiate my way around my flat, let alone the outside world, I wished I had someone to laugh with when I bumped into the coffee table for the hundredth time.

Now I was better, but it was getting harder to kid myself that I enjoyed being on my own most of the time. I wanted a girlfriend – I wanted companionship and *** and love – and was on the verge of trying internet dating. It was going to be my New Year’s resolution: to find someone.

I picked up a newspaper from the table and leafed through it. Pages 4 and 5, along with the front page, were dedicated to a story I and most of the country had been following with grim interest: the trial of Lucy Newton, a care assistant in a nursing home who had been accused of murdering eighteen residents. The Dark Angel – that’s what the tabloids called her, the second most-prolific British serial killer of modern times, the new Harold Shipman.

Attractive, statuesque, icy, probably psychotic: she was a newspaper editor’s dream, and there were dozens of websites on which her supporters and detractors argued viciously about her innocence. But as I was reading about her testimony – she claimed she was being set up by her former neighbour – the drops started to work, my pupils dilating so I couldn’t focus on text or anything within arm’s length.

I wished I’d remembered to bring my headphones. Since my operation I’d spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks, each one consuming days. Instead, I was left to daydream and watch people as they walked past the waiting area.

After half an hour, I was twitching with boredom. There was a coffee machine across the corridor. I rummaged in my pocket, pulling out my phone, keys, several pieces of paper and my eye drops, before finding a pound coin. Standing up, trying to juggle the various objects in my hands – the three old ladies watching me with interest – I dropped the coin.

Stopping and swearing under my breath, I chased it as it rolled across the corridor – and collided with a young woman walking past the waiting area.

‘I’m so sorry. I—’ I stopped dead, the words – whatever nonsense I was going to come out with – stuck in my throat. Even though my eyes were dilated, I could see her clearly; more clearly, in fact, than I had seen anyone in a long time. She was beautiful. Red hair that hung just past her shoulders, cut with a fringe. Huge green eyes. Full, cupid’s-bow lips. A smattering of faint freckles. She was wearing a white blouse and a pencil skirt, and her NHS ID hun around her neck. Maddeningly, I couldn’t focus on the words so couldn’t read her name or job title.

She crouched and produced the pound coin from beneath her shoe and I could make out the outline of a tattoo on her ankle, a vibrant hint of colour hiding beneath her conservative black tights. I guessed she was a few years younger than me, about twenty-six, but she looked more grown up than I did in my scruffy jeans and cardigan.

Her eyes shone with amusement as she handed me the money. ‘I recommend the hot chocolate.’ Her voice had a soft northern lilt.

I stared at her. I can honestly say that if anyone had asked me before this encounter to describe my ideal woman, she would be it. A composite of all the girls and women who had moulded my taste: the girl who sat in front of me at primary school; the divorcee two doors down who used to come out to collect the post in a silky black robe; the lead actress in my favourite TV show; the first girl I kissed. Here she was, the perfect woman, standing before me.

‘The coffee is like cow’s piss,’ she said, her eyes shining with mischief.
I wracked my brain for a clever response while she continued to smile at me. Before I could think of one – to be honest, seasons would have come and gone before I’d come up with a good line – I heard a man say my name. ‘Andrew Sumner?’

Mr Yassir Makkawi, the baby-faced consultant ophthalmologist who had seen me on my visits to Moorfields since my operation, stood outside his room.

The red-haired woman gave me a final smile and walked away down the corridor.

‘Nothing wrong with your eyesight now.’

‘Huh?’

Mr Makkawi raised an eyebrow and I realised I’d been staring at the woman’s receding form. She turned a corner and vanished. I wanted to run after her.

Instead, I went into the consultation room and did as I was asked. I looked at Mr Makkawi’s right ear, then his left. I looked up and down, and at the coral reef of veins that lit up inside my eye.

The consultant examined his notes and nodded with satisfaction.

‘Very good. Everything looks excellent. I’m going to be able to discharge you.’

‘Oh, thank God for that.’

He put his hand on his chest. ‘I’m deeply offended, Andrew.’

‘Well, you know.’

He gave me a lopsided grin. ‘You’ve done very well. I know you may not feel it, but you’re very lucky. Extremely lucky.’

As I left his office, I pumped his hand vigorously. He looked taken aback, as if no one had ever done this before. But I felt so grateful and relieved. I wanted to rush to the gift shop and buy him a present.

I left the hospital with newfound strength. One of the darkest periods of my life was over. I forgot all about the red- haired girl in the corridor. All that mattered was that I was well again.

It’s hard now, after everything that’s happened, not to wonder about what, statistically speaking, should have been. If I hadn’t dropped that coin, if my consultation had ended five minutes later, if I’d popped into Starbucks when I lef the hospital instead of going directly to the station.

In this parallel version of my life, everything would be different. I would have gone on a series of internet dates. I would have met a nice girl. It would have all been very pleasant and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

In this alternative future, I wouldn’t be sitting here among the smoking wreckage of my life, wondering about what might have been.

Nobody would have got hurt.

Nobody would have died.

​

 

[Khổng Lồ Một Mắt]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 2

I walked down City Road to Old Stree Tube station. Silicon Roundabout – many of my clients were based here, a mixture of web start-ups and small publishers. The design agency that I did most of my work for is based a short distance away on Clerkenwell Green. I’m a web designer and although it sometimes feels like there are more of us in London than there are rats, I’m able to make a living from it. I even had a little money saved, although three months without being able to work had drained my bank account. I must call Victor, I thought, as I descended the steps of the Tube station.

It was late-December, just after five in the afternoon, and the station was packed with Christmas shoppers and office workers on their way home. I would send Victor a Christmas message when I got home, remind him of my existence. Fortunately, he’d been very understanding of my situation and had told me there should always be work for me. ‘At least until the next fucking recession comes along,’ he’d said on the phone, unable to resist the urge to say something gloomy.

I was so deep in thought about work, money and the Eeyore-like tendencies of my main employer that I didn’t notice her at first. The platform was crowded and devoid of festive spirit and I was tempted to turn back, go and sit in the pub until rush hour was over.

The train came and sucked hundreds of passengers inside, leaving those of us who weren’t desperate to get home standing on the platform. I looked towards the departures board to see how long I had to wait – and there she was.
The woman from the hospital.

I froze. This was it: my second chance. But I hesitated. A woman that gorgeous would definitely have a boyfriend. Several, probably. She was out of my league. I was hopeless at this sort of thing. Half a dozen excuses why I should leave it ran through my head.

If I hadn’t been in such an ebullient mood, I probably would have done nothing, regretted it for a day then forgotten all about her. Instead, I shouldered my way through the crowd until I reached her, trying to persuade myself that I was confident and that rejection would be better than not trying at all.

‘You were right, you know,’ I said. She looked up with surprise.

‘About the coffee in the hospital. It did taste like piss. Though I think it was more like horse’s piss than cow’s.’
Perhaps it wasn’t the best way to start a relationship, with a little white lie. I hadn’t tried the coffee. But it was the best opening line I could come up with. For a horrible moment I thought she didn’t recognise me, that she thought I was a random nutcase.

But she hitched her bag onto her shoulder and said, ‘No. Definitely cow.’

She was still wearing her ID round her neck and with my pupils returned to normal I could read it. Charlotte Summers. Her surname made me smile. Charlotte Summers and Andrew Sumner. It was a sign.
‘Charlotte,’ I said, sticking out my hand. This was so out of character for me but, like I said, I was on a high after getting the news from Mr Makkawi. ‘I’m Andrew.’

She returned my handshake with a firm grip, her hand dry and warm. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t run off yet. She actually seemed pleased to be talking to me. ‘I’m Charlie when I’m not at work Are you an Andy?’
‘You can call me Andy if you like.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Nah, I prefer Andrew. Sounds more grown up.’

The train clattered into the station and Charlie and I were propelled onto it by the surge of the crowd. We found ourselves pressed together beside the door, other bodies clustered around us.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘London Bridge.’

‘Me too. Then an overground train to Tulse Hill.’

‘Is that where you live?’

I nodded. ‘How about you? Are you one of those north-of-the-river types?’

‘Oh no. I live in Camberwell. Prope London.’

‘You don’t have the accent,’ I said. ‘I’d guess you’re from somewhere up north.’
She laughed. ‘Yes. That great wilderness beyond the M25.’ She stage whispered. ‘I come from a tribe in a primitive little village called Leeds.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve heard tale of it. You escaped though.’

‘Yes. Though my seventeen brothers are hunting me even as we speak. With specially trained hunter pigeons.’

We talked. Were we flirting? It definitely felt like flirting, though maybe she thought I was an idiot and was awaiting her first opportunity to get away. I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. She was even more stunning than I’d originally thought. She had a little chip out of one of her front teeth, and the heat of the Tube train had made the skin around her collarbone flush pink. I badly wanted to kiss her.

I told her I was from Eastbourne and she told me she’d been to Brighton, which is what people always say, and then we passed Bank and I became aware that we were about to get off the train and would probably get separated.

Forever.

‘I just had some excellent news,’ I said. I told her about being discharged.

‘That’s fantastic.’

We pulled into London Bridge. I was going to have to get off. I would never see her again. She appeared to be deep in thought.

‘So how are you going to celebrate being released from Moorfields?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Going to go out with your girlfriend?’ ‘I don’t have one.’

The doors slid open and commuters began to push past me. I stayed rooted to the spot, trying to prolong the moment.

I didn’t need to. Before I could gather the courage to ask her out, Charlie took me by the arm and pulled me off the train. We stood on the platform, jostled from all sides. Charlie stood firm, the other passengers flowing around her like water past a rock.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you a celebratory drink. You do drink, don’t you?’

Spoiler: Chapter 2

----​

We went to a pub off Borough High Street, an ancient place with twinkling Christmas lights hanging from the timber beams and dozens of workers sinking one last pint before going home to the kids.

As we entered the pub, a middle-aged couple stood up to leave and Charlie grabbed their table, attracting evil stares from a man and woman who’d been waiting at the bar. She ignored them.

‘Red wine,’ she mouthed at me.

I could feel the couple whose table we’d ‘stolen’ glowering at me but I was in such a good mood their daggers bounced off me. There was a mirror behind the bar and I caught my reflection. My hair, dark brown, stuck up at the back no matter how often I tried to flatten it down. I was still slim, despite my sedentary lifestyle, and I’d been told I had good cheekbones. I looked scruffy, though, and had bags under my eyes, though these were mostly obscured by my glasses. Spending so much time on my own, I didn’t worry too much about my appearance, but what would Charlie think? I assumed, from the way she’d asked me here for a drink, that she wasn’t horrified by what she saw.
I bought Charlie’s wine and a pint for myself, then sat down opposite her.

‘So, what happened to you?’ she asked. ‘Why were you at the hospital?’

I took a long sip of lager. ‘I had a detached retina.’

‘Nasty.’

‘I know. But it’s all better now.’

She downed half her wine in two gulps. ‘I feel all better now too.’ She put on a funny Eliza Doolittle voice, a mangled blend of Cockney and Yorkshire. ‘I’m only an ’umble project manager, so I don’t know much about eyes. What caused it?’

‘They don’t really know. Apparently, it’s something that can happen to people who are badly short-sighted.’

‘Really? Let’s see how short-sighted you are.’ She took my glasses from me and tried them on, instantly adopting the sexy geek look. ‘Whew! You really are blind.’

She handed my glasses back and asked me to tell her more about what had happened.

‘It was weird. First thing, I noticed a couple of floaters – you know, those little dots that sometimes appear in your vision and, er, float around. Then I saw this shadow that started here—’ I pointed to the corner of my left eye ‘—and slowly spread across my vision. I was trying to ignore it, thinking it was just something that would pass.’

‘Typical bloke.’

‘Yeah. I would rather die a slow, painful death than go to see a doctor. Eventually, I Googled it, learned about detached retinas, about how the retina peels away from where it should be, and how I could go blind if I didn’t get to the hospital straight away. That was when I called a taxi.’

We finished our drinks and Charlie went to the bar. The aggrieved couple were still there. They looked like they worked in the City, in their forties, wearing expensive suits and with expressions that said they weren’t used to being fucked with. They were talking loudly about how they were going to spend Christmas skiing in a five-star resort ‘away from the plebs and all our fucking relatives and their brats.’

When Charlie sat down I told her the rest of the story. About how I’d been rushed into surgery in the small hours of the morning, how all I could remember was being wheeled down the corridor, then waking up with my eye taped shut and a complicated prescription for eye pressure tablets and four different kinds of drops. I had a gas bubble in my eye which would keep my retina in place while it healed. All I could see out of my left eye was a big, wobbling bubble that obscured everything I looked at. I had to sleep sitting upright so gravity would keep the bubble in place.
I spent those first ten days listening to books or watching box sets with my good eye. The tablets bent my senses and made everything taste peculiar, especially alcohol, meaning I didn’t drink for two weeks, though when I went out my depth perception was so awry that everyone thought I was drunk.

‘It was a pretty shit few weeks,’ I said to Charlie, able to laugh about it now.

‘You’re lucky not to have lost the sight in that eye, then? Though I reckon you’d look good with an eye patch.’

I resisted the urge to put on a pirate voice.

Charlie said, ‘What’s your problem?’

It took me a moment to realise she wasn’t addressing me but the couple at the bar.

The woman was visibly taken aback and moved to turn away but the bloke she was with sneered at Charlie. He was drunk and I felt a prickle of concern that things might escalate into, if not physical violence, then at least the verbal kind.

‘You’re our problem,’ the man said. Charlie sat up straighter. ‘Oh really? Why’s that?’

‘You nicked our table.’

She opened her mouth with mock horror. ‘Oh my goodness. Did you hear that, Andrew? This is their table. I didn’t realise that, did you?’

‘Shut up, slag,’ the woman said. ‘Ginger minge,’ added the man.

Charlie looked shocked for a split second, then laughed. ‘Ginger minge! Wow, I haven’t heard that one for a long time. Since secondary school, in fact. Well, yes, it is ginger, as a matter of fact, not that I wear much hair down there. But colour-wise I like to go natural – unlike you.’

She looked pointedly at the woman’s dyed-blonde hair.

‘Perhaps rather than concentrating on us, you should keep an eye on your husband,’ Charlie went on. ‘If he looks at the barmaid’s tits one more time he’s going to go blind.’

The man’s face went crimson.

‘And mate,’ Charlie said, ‘you might be interested to learn that while you were in the loo, your bird here had a good look through your phone. Checking your texts, by the look of it. Doesn’t trust you – and who can blame her?’

‘You what?’

The man and woman glared at each other.

Charlie swallowed the dregs of her wine, grabbed my wrist and said, ‘Let’s go.’

As we left the pub, she turned back. ‘You can stick your bloody table up your collective arse.’

We ran out into the street, Charlie laughing and wiping her eyes. ‘Collective arse? What the hell was that?’

‘Oh my God,’ I said, panting. ‘Are you always like that?’

It was freezing outside and she exhaled mist as she spoke. ‘No, I’m usually a pussy cat. I haven’t scared you off, have I?’

The truth was, I’d found it mortifyingly embarrassing, but also exciting. ‘No.’ ‘Good. What do you want to do now?
Actually, I want to get out of these clothes.’ She laughed. ‘You should see your face. I mean, I want to get changed, Andrew. These are Charlotte clothes. I need to get into some Charlie stuff.’

She hailed a black cab and instructed the driver to take us to Oxford Street. She led me into the huge Top Shop and immediately started rummaging through the clothes racks.

With arms full of tops and trousers and skirts, she strode over to the changing rooms. For a moment, I thought she was going to ask me to follow her in, but she looked me up and down and said, ‘Do you want to get some new stuff too? Have you got any money?’

‘Yeah. OK.’

This was fun. I rode the escalator to the next floor and found a new pair of jeans and a party shirt. I paid for them then went into the changing room where I tore off the labels and put them on. With my scruffy old clothes in a carrier bag, I went back downstairs to find Charlie, who had done the same as me. Now, she was wearing a tight-fitting snakeskin dress that shimmered gold and green.

‘Not bad,’ she said, looking me up and down.

‘You look . . . amazing,’ I said. ‘Thanks. Actually, you look better than not bad, but I didn’t want to stroke your ego.’

‘I don’t have an ego.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Everyone has an ego, Andrew.’

She was right. It thrilled me to hear her say I looked good.

She grabbed a bottle of perfume and gave herself, and me, a quick squirt as we left the shop. We headed up Oxford Street and into Soho. I wanted to take her hand but didn’t dare. Actually, what I really wanted to do was grab her and push her into a shop doorway, pull her against me and feel her mouth on mine.

Instead, we went into a bar where we drank cocktails, then another bar, and then a walk through air so cold it almost sobered me up, to Leicester Square and a club, the name of which escapes me now but which was so loud it made my ears ring for a day afterwards, the drinks ludicrously expensive, the dance floor crowded and sticky underfoot, the toilets full of wankers snorting coke . . . But none of that mattered. I was drunk, I was high on Charlie’s company and I felt as if I was floating through the crowds of revellers.

There was a moment on the dance floor that will stay with me forever. A Calvin Harris track was playing, and Charlie was dancing in front of me, holding my gaze and smiling as she swung her hips and shoulders, the lights pulsing and throbbing, and I was aware, even as I lived it, that this was going to be one of the highlights of my life. When I was old this song would come on the radio and I would be thrown back in time to this golden moment, when I was young and dancing with a beautiful woman in the greatest city in the world and all my troubles were behind me and my life stretching in front of me. Then I stopped analysing the moment and melted into it.

We tumbled out of the club at two a.m. into the bitterly cold night. I put my arm around her and she didn’t protest. Her hip was bony and solid in my palm. I still hadn’t kissed her.

‘That was fun,’ she said. She yawned. ‘And now I’m pooped. I have work in the morning. The last day before the Christmas break.’

There were still a lot of people around. As we walked towards the taxi rank, Charlie flicked her thumb over her phone, texting someone.

A tall man was walking along the pavement towards us. He had a great mop of blonde curly hair. He had his head down, shuffling his feet. Then he looked up and the moment he saw us he crossed the road.

‘That was weird,’ I said.

‘Huh?’ Charlie looked up from her phone.

‘Some guy just crossed the road like we were a couple of terrifying would-be muggers.’

‘Ha – really? Well, you are scary looking, Andrew. I didn’t want to say, but. . .’

The tall curly-haired man had vanished into a side street.

‘Do you want to share a taxi back to south London?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it can drop you at yours first . . .’

‘You’re sweet. But I’ve just arranged to stay with a friend who lives around here. I’m sorry. I just can’t face having to make the journey back in tomorrow morning.’

‘No worries.’ I felt gutted.

‘Give me your number,’ she said, handing me her phone. I tapped it in and she saved it to her address book, then looked up at me. ‘I’ve had a great time helping you celebrate, Andrew Sumner.’

‘Me too, Charlie Summers.’ I didn’ want to say goodbye to her.

‘I’ll call you in a couple of days and we can do it again. Or something more sedate. How does that sound?’

My good mood returned immediately. ‘That sounds awesome.’

‘Like, totally, dude.’

‘Don’t tease me,’ I said, smiling. Which was when she kissed me.

Slipping her arms around my waist, she tilted her face upwards and we kissed. It seemed to go on for a long time. Someone wolf-whistled as they passed us in the street. It was the best kiss of my life.

She strode away, leaving me standing by the taxi rank, completely smitten. And the amazing thing was, she seemed to like me as much as I liked her.

​

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 3

‘What’s the matter, bruv? You seem distracted.’

It was Christmas morning and, as always, I was spending the day with my sister, Tilly, in her purpose-built apartment in Eastbourne.

She manoeuvred her wheelchair closer to my armchair, the glass of Buck’s Fizz on her tray sloshing dangerously. The room was full of presents and discarded wrapping paper; the fairy lights on the plastic tree flashed on and off and a boy band mimed to their biggest hit on Top of the Pops.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Feeling a bit sick after that huge dinner.’

‘You’re so full of compliments.’

I laughed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, sis. Come on, let’s go out, get some air.’

It had been six days and Charlie hadn’t called or texted, and no matter how many times a day I fiddled with my phone, making sure the volume was turned up, that I had reception, that I hadn’t missed a call, it didn’t ring or chime. Why hadn’t I taken her number? I didn’t even have an excuse to go to the hospital now I’d been discharged, though that would have been pretty sad anyway. I had to face it. She wasn’t going to call. We’d had one great night out together, a single kiss and that was it.

Time to move on.

The day before Christmas Eve I was sure I’d seen her near my flat. I’d been out to buy some last-minute presents and wrapping paper, feeling glum, willing myself to forget about Charlie and embrace the Christmas spirit. As I turned into my street, a long road with a mixture of Victorian and Edwardian semis and converted houses not far from beautiful Brockwell Park, I saw a red-haired woman turn into the alleyway opposite my building. Weighed down by shopping bags, I broke into a slow run. The alleyway led through to a new development which bordered the park.

There was no sign of her. I walked down the alley and over the fence into the park. Some kids were stomping in a pile of leaves and a man was talking enthusiastically to a cocker spaniel, but there was no red-headed women.

I shook my head. Great, now I’m hallucinating her, I thought.

‘You’re definitely not with it today, are you?’ Tilly said as I pushed her along the promenade.
The sky was battleship grey and the wind whipped in from the English Channel. There were some crazy people swimming in the foamy sea, their skin tinted blue as they emerged from the water onto the pebbles. The seafront was busy with children trying out their new bikes, families taking a post-lunch stroll and couples walking arm-in-arm, unwittingly making me envious.

‘I met someone,’ I said. ‘But I think she’s got away already.’

‘Ah,’ Tilly said. ‘She must have received my warning note.’

I told my sister about Charlie and about how she hadn’t called.

‘Her loss,’ Tilly said.

I sat on a damp bench beside Tilly and we looked out to sea, silence settling over us.

‘Do you miss them?’ she asked.

My eyes filled with tears and I clenched my teeth hard, swallowing the bruise in my throat. ‘I do on days like this. They’d be happy that we’re spending the day together, though.’

‘Undoubtedly. Pleased my big brother’s here to look after me.’

‘You do all right on your own, though, don’t you?’ I needed her to say yes.

‘Oh, of course. I’m an independent woman.’ She started humming the Destiny’s Child song.

‘You should audition for X Factor.’ ‘Go for the big sob story vote, you mean? There’d be a shot of me talking about the car accident. They could show photo-montages of us when Mum and Dad were alive while I sang “Tears in Heaven” in my wheelchair. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the country.’ ‘You’d win for sure.’

‘Nah, I’d get voted out in disco week.’ A couple wearing matching purple fleeces walked by, giggling like they were heading straight back to bed for some mutually satisfying ***.

‘So this girl . . . Want to talk about it?’ she asked.

I sighed. ‘No. There’s no point.’

‘I always thought you and Sasha would get together. She’s lovely.’

‘Sasha? She’s my best friend. Neither of us would want to ruin that. Plus we don’t fancy each other.’

‘What?’ She expressed mock outrage. ‘How could anyone not fancy you? That’s crazy talk.’

‘Well, yes. How about you? Is everything all right?’

‘I thought you were going to ask about my love life for a moment there.’

‘Oh?’

She smiled. ‘There’s nothing to tell, unfortunately. Though there is a very cute guy in the apartment next to mine. Biceps like grapefruit. Plays basketball . . . I might have to go along and watch him. Also, there’s this guy at work who I’m pretty sure has got the hots for me.’

‘I’m sure he has.’ Tilly was gorgeous. Light brown hair, almond eyes, cute like a children’s TV presenter. She had a lot more success with the opposite *** than me. She worked as an editor for a children’s publisher who was based here on the south coast.

‘I just wish he’d do something about it. It’s been months and I’m horny as hell.’

‘Tilly!’

‘Sorry.’ She held her hands up. ‘Big brother leaves his comfort zone. Well, if you know anyone who wants some hot *** with a girl who can’t run away, send him my way. As long as he’s hung like . . .’

‘Oh God, please.’ I covered my ears.

‘I do miss them, though,’ she said, lurching back to the original subject.

‘Just you and me, kid,’ I said, and I took hold of the back of her chair and walked on before I had to start pretending to have something in my eye.

The accident had happened when I was sixteen. The four of us were heading home after a weekend away at Center Parcs. I hadn’t wanted to go, thinking it was for kids, but we’d had a great time swimming, playing badminton and riding around on bikes all week. Dad had even let me drink, though Tilly wasn’t allowed, to her disgust.

‘It’s not like I’m an alcohol virgin,’ she’d muttered to me when our parents were out of earshot. ‘In fact . . .’

‘Tilly, shut up.’

She had always embarrassed me and made me smile in equal measure.

Mum and Dad had been arguing a lot before the holiday; she seemed irritated with him all the time and I’d been worried they were heading for divorce. But, apart from a couple of episodes related to his forgetfulness, they seemed happy and relaxed together and had even, to my teenage horror, kissed and held hands. Yuk.

‘I hope you’re lucky like me, Andrew,’ Dad said out of nowhere while he barbecued sausages behind our cabin.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, fixated on the sizzle of the meat, my stomach gurgling.

‘I hope you find a woman like your mum. Someone who really loves you and is good to you.’ I grunted.

‘But make sure you sow some wild oats first, eh?’ He winked at me and I shuffled away in search of the ketchup.

On the way home, a huge thunderstorm cracked the sky open as we hit the M25. Rain bounced hard off the windscreen and all the cars put their lights on as the world darkened around us. Dad was driving, leaning forward in his seat like being a couple of inches closer to the windshield would help him see through the torrents running down the glass.

Despite leaning forward, he didn’t see the lorry that swerved in front of us out of the slow lane until it was too late. All I remember is Dad yelling, Mum trying to grab the wheel, Tilly screaming and a great jarring screech of metal and smash of glass as the car flipped over like a toy.

Dad was killed instantly.

Mum died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

Tilly was crushed beneath the overturned lorry, her legs shattered beyond repair.

The lorry driver emerged with a single scratch, a bead of blood tracing a line from his forehead down to his lips.

And me: somehow, my corner of the car escaped the lorry. I suffered some bruising, mild whiplash, and I pissed myself with terror. But physically I was all right.

The lucky one.

On Boxing Day, which we spent eating leftovers and staring at the TV in the traditional manner. I went on a bit about my money worries and my need to find more work, but Tilly appeared preoccupied. She kept drifting off and though she smiled when she was talking to me, a couple of times I caught her reflection and saw she was frowning, anxiety creasing her brow. But she denied that anything was wrong so I left it.

Shortly before I was due to leave, Tilly’s personal assistant, Rachel, arrived at her flat. Rachel was the woman who helped my sister do the things she couldn’t manage by herself, a person who helped her live an independent life. There had been times when I had wondered if that person should be me and had even volunteered. Tilly had point-blank refused, saying that it would ruin our relationship, that she wanted me to be her brother, not her carer. I was relieved in a guilty way.
Rachel rode a huge black and silver Harley Davison and, according to Tilly, treated it like her baby, taking it to conventions, spending every spare minute polishing and tinkering with it. She was tall with sharp cheekbones and short black hair. She looked a little like she should be the guitarist in an early-eighties all-girl rock band and had well- developed arm muscles, from lifting Tilly, that I was envious of.

She came into the flat and dropped her crash helmet on the side, handing Tilly a wrapped bottle before noticing me.

‘Hi Rachel,’ I said. ‘Good Christmas?’ She half-smiled, her hand moving towards her lips. She had a habit of concealing her mouth when she spoke, like she was ashamed of her teeth, not that I could see anything wrong with them. ‘Pretty boring, actually. Mostly sitting around listening to my mum and dad bickering. Parents, they’re such—’

She went pink as she realised what she’d said. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tilly said and I smiled in agreement.

Rachel looked at my bag. I was going home by train. I wouldn’t drive on motorways. I didn’t really like driving at all and avoided it wherever necessary.

‘Do you need a lift to the station?’ she asked.

‘What? On your bike?’

Behind me, Tilly made clucking noises. ‘You’re such a chicken.’

‘I’ll need a helmet,’ I said and Rachel smiled behind her hand. ‘There’s one here. I got it when I took Tilly out for a ride.’

‘It was awesome,’ said Tilly, grinning at my surprised expression.

‘I guess I’ve got no excuse then. Actually, I’ve always wanted to ride a Harley.’

I bent to kiss Tilly’s cheek and said goodbye.

‘Relax, Andrew,’ she said. ‘I think you’ll enjoy it.’ She waved me goodbye. ‘Good luck finding work. You can always come and stay here if you can’t pay your mortgage.’

‘Thanks, sis.’

I straddled the monstrous Harley, all gleaming silver chrome and black rubber, and held on to the sides of the seat. The bike accelerated away without warning and for a moment I thought I was going to fly off the back, so was forced to cling on to Rachel as she roared through the traffic, heading into town, breaking every speed limit like the rules were designed for other, mere mortals. My heart was in my mouth, my mouth was dry, but it was exhilarating and strangely sexy, even if it was Rachel I was holding on to. I imagined what Charlie would look like wearing the leather outfit Rachel had on; pictured us racing along American highways with Charlie’s arms wrapped tight around me, the wind whipping her hair . . .

‘What did you think?’ Rachel said, flipping up her visor as I disembarked outside the station.
I was still shaking off the images off Charlie in black leather. ‘Yeah, it was fun. In a terrifying way.’
‘You can’t beat it,’ Rachel said. ‘When we all go out riding together, it’s the best feeling in the world.’

‘All?’

‘Yeah, I mean me and the rest of the chapter.’

I recognised the terminology. ‘You’re a Hells Angel?’

‘No, we’re not Angels. Not proper ones, anyway. It’s just a motorcycle club – we call it “the chapter” as a kind of joke.’

‘I see.’ I pictured the kind of men Rachel hung out with: long hair, beards, tattoos, attitude.

‘Andrew . . .’ She looked at the ground.

Uh-oh, I thought. When someone says your name like that it’s rarely good news. ‘Yes?’

‘Have you got five minutes for a chat before your train?’

‘Um.’ I checked my watch. ‘I’ve got fifteen, actually. What is it?’

She got off the bike. ‘Let’s go get a cup of tea and I’ll tell you. It’s about Tilly.’

She bought two cups of tea and we sat down at a greasy Formica table in the station cafe. Rachel’s expression and tone of voice had me worried. Was there something wrong with Tilly that I didn’t know about?

Rachel fidgeted with the zip on her leather jacket. When she spoke to me, she avoided eye contact, her focus slipping around the room. ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while. But I need your word that you won’t tell Tilly I’ve spoken to you. She’d freak out and fire me.’

Now I was really concerned. ‘I depends what it’s about.’

She fidgeted some more, her hand straying repeatedly to her mouth as she spoke. ‘I’m really worried about her. I’m sure you know that she’s always been prone to black moods, days when she is snappy and down and, to be frank, feels sorry for herself. But recently it’s been getting worse and worse. The good days are less common than the bad days now.’

I was shocked. I didn’t know that Tilly suffered from black moods, beyond the occasional grump that everyone in the world suffers.

‘I think the doctor has put her on a different antidepressant, but since Jonathan dumped her . . .’
I raised my palms. ‘Whoa. Hold on Antidepressants? And who’s Jonathan?’

She appeared genuinely shocked, meeting my eye for the first time. ‘I didn’t realise you didn’t know. I thought you and Tilly were close.’

‘Obviously not as close as I thought.’
‘I’m sorry. OK, the crux of it is this: about a month ago she started seeing this guy who she met at the pool. I take her swimming a couple of times a week.’

‘That’s Jonathan? Is he disabled too?’
‘Yes – he’s an ex-soldier, lost his leg beneath the knee when he stepped on a mine in Iraq. Anyway, Tilly was completely smitten with him. She talked about him all the time.’

Not with me, I thought.

‘He dumped her a couple of weeks ago. Out of nowhere. She thought everything was going brilliantly. She’s been distraught ever since.’

I drummed my fingers on the table. The pub was empty and silent apart from the burbling fruit machine in the corner and an old man talking to his dog.

‘Are you sure this is nothing more than her being heartbroken?’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m not saying heartbreak isn’t serious. But everyone gets down after they split up with someone they really liked.’

‘It’s more than that,’ Rachel insisted. ‘She keeps talking about how she’s got nobody, how shit her life is, saying she’s got nothing to live for. I think you should talk to her.’

What she had told me turned the blood in my veins to ice.

‘But without giving away that you talked to me?’

‘That would be ideal, yes. Like I said she’d be really angry. If you could do something to cheer her up . . . show her she has got something to live for. What with you being so far away—’

‘I’m only up the road in London.’ It was seventy miles away.

‘I know. But you don’t see each other very often, do you?’

If I hadn’t been so concerned about Tilly, I might have felt affronted by this woman, whom I barely knew, hinting that I was neglecting my sister. Instead, along with the chill of concern, the main emotion I felt was guilt.

‘I need to think about what to do,’ I said, after contemplating Rachel’s words for a while. Part of me wanted to go straight back to Tilly’s and talk to her, but I agreed with Rachel’s planned approach. It would be better to be subtle. Plus I was so surprised by what I’d heard that I needed time for it all to sink in.

‘That sounds wise,’ Rachel said, displaying a rare smile. ‘Thanks, Andrew.’

‘No. Thank you. Tilly’s lucky she has someone who cares about her so much.’

Rachel picked up her crash helmet and ran a palm over its smooth dome. ‘If only she realised that.’

Back in London, I stopped for a coffee then headed for my connecting train.

My phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognise. My hopes surged – was it her?

‘Hello?’

The call disconnected.

Annoyed, I switched my phone off. I needed to forget her. Get over it. I hadn’t been dumped, like my poor sister. It hadn’t even begun.

My flat is on the fourth floor of a Victorian terrace. Once upon a time, I guess it would have been an attic. It was cramped and the climb up the stairs was exhausting, but the view was fantastic. I could see the shining great transmitter in Crystal Palace, plus, in the other direction, I had a clear view across the park towards the Gherkin. The neighbours were nice. And it had been all I could afford. Both Mum and Dad had been insured and the money was put into a trust for Tilly and me. On my insistence, most of the money went to Tilly, to buy her apartment, but I’d had enough to put a deposit on this flat and pay for my education.

I carried my luggage up the stairs, chucked it on the bed and ran myself a bath. I thought about calling Sasha, see if she wanted to meet up, but remembered she was in Cornwall visiting her family. So I had a typical boring evening: I surfed the net, watched some TV, nuked something out of the freezer, played a bit of online poker.

At around eleven, I got undressed, ready for bed. My phone fell out of my jeans pocket and thudded on the floor. It had been switched off all evening.

As soon as I turned it on, it vibrated twice. I had a missed call and a voicemail. Both were from an unknown mobile number, though not from the number that had hung up on me earlier.

I listened to the voicemail. It was her.

‘Hey, Andrew . . . just going to wait a sec in case you’re screening. No? Or maybe you are and you don’t want to talk to me because I’ve been such a flake. Or maybe it was the kiss. Maybe you didn’t like it. Though I thought it was a good one. Very good, actually. Oh God, I’m rambling.’

A smile spread across my face.

‘So, yes, this is what happened: I lost my phone. I know, I know. Sounds like the oldest excuse in the book. But it’s true, I swear to God. I lost it and didn’ have your number because it was saved to my phone and not the thingy. I don’t know the technical word for it. The cloud, or whatever. So, anyway, I thought that was it, that you’d hate me forever, or maybe be hugely relieved that this annoying girl who picks fights in pubs was leaving you alone. And then I was back at work today
– no rest for the wicked – and did something a bit naughty. I looked up your details on the NHS database. Um, hope you don’t mind.’

Mind? I was ecstatic.

‘Give me a call. If you want to. I had fun the other night. Lots of fun. I’ll probably be up late so call me whenever. Wake me up, I don’t care. Bye!’

I punched the air.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 4

Charlie had arranged to come round at six. ‘Don’t worry about cooking me dinner or anything like that,’ she said when I called her back. I probably should have waited till the next day, or even the day after. Make her sweat a little. But I’m not very good at playing it cool.

I wished I was cooking for her, even though I am hopeless in the kitchen, because it would have given me something to do to distract me. Instead, I spent the day prowling like a polar bear at the zoo, watching the minutes tick by. I showered, agonised over whether to clean shave or trim my stubble, spent ages trying to decide what to wear, tidied the flat three times, tried to work out what music should be playing when she arrived.

I had never acted like this before. Halfway through the afternoon I sat down and gave myself a silent talking to. This was ridiculous. She was just a girl. I’d only met her once. Then I started worrying. What if we didn’t get on? What if she saw me and realised she didn’t like me after all? Or vice versa, though that seemed highly unlikely.

The doorbell rang at five minutes past six, after I had convinced myself she wasn’t coming.

‘Hello,’ she said, beaming at me and stepping forward to give me a hug. She smelled of expensive perfume and looked delicious, wearing a soft black dress and knee-high boots. ‘It’s freezing out here. Are you going to invite me in?’

‘Of course. Come in.’

‘If I was a vampire, you’d be screwed.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if you were,’ I said. ‘Well, if you want me to bite you . . .’

She laughed. ‘I feel a bit hyper. Sorry, I’m not normally like this.’

‘Me neither.’

A look passed between us and I knew that any fears I’d had about awkwardness or not liking each other had been foolish.

People talk about chemistry, about sparks flying between people, and that was exactly what was going on here. I had been strongly attracted to other women before, even thought myself in love, but I’d never experienced something as intense and fast as this.

I led her up the four flights of stairs and into my flat.

She handed me two bottles of wine. ‘One white, one red. I wasn’t sure which you prefer.’

‘I’m easy. But you’re red, yes?’

‘Hmm, yes please.’ Her eyes had gone over my shoulder, taking in the room. I left her to look around while I went into the tiny kitchen to open the wine. I grasped the worktop for a moment, telling myself to get a grip. Be cool.

When I returned she was looking at the computer, scrolling through my playlists.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

I handed her the glass of red and took a sip of mine. ‘Of course not.’

‘In the old days – or so I’ve heard – you could go round someone’s place and rifle through their record collection, take a look at their bookcases. Now you have to scroll through their iTunes or click on their Kindle. It’s not the same, is it? I’m pleased to see you have some real books though.’

She stepped over to the bookcase and ran a finger along the spines. A lot of my books are graphic design tomes and photography, with a small collection of novels.

She took out an Ian McEwan book flicked through it and said, ‘I love this. I can’t bear people who don’t read. I think they must have something wrong with them, don’t you?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Books, music, art, films.’ She held up her glass. ‘Good wine. It’s what life’s all about.’

I held up my own glass. ‘To books, music, art, films and wine.’

She had missed something off that list, but I decided not to mention it. It was in the room with us already.

We clinked and she crossed to the window. ‘Amazing view.’

‘I know. It’s even better from the bedroom.’

I realised what that must sound like but before I could speak she laid her hand across her breastbone and said, ‘Andrew. I’ve only been here five minutes. Oh, are you blushing?’

‘I think I might be.’

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Change the subject before it gets awkward.’

She sat down on the sofa and I had a moment of indecision. Sit next to her or in the adjacent armchair? I sat beside her and we turned towards each other, knees almost touching. I groped for something interesting to say.

‘When are you going back to work?’ I asked.

‘That is a change of subject. I’ve got a whole week off. Bliss.’

‘So you’re a project manager?’

She pulled a face. ‘Boring, huh? I jus happen to be very good at organising things and people. It’s not exactly what I want to spend my life doing.’

I waited for her to continue.

‘I did an art degree. That’s what I really want to be doing. Painting. But there are thousands of us out there and the world needs more painters like it needs more politicians. So at the moment I do it in my spare time.’

We talked for a little bit about her art, about how she was trying to get some of her paintings shown at a big exhibition that was coming up, and then we talked a little about graphic design, though I didn’t have that much to say about it. I mainly wanted to listen to her talk, to hear her melodic voice as she skipped about from topic to topic. She knew a lot about literature and music as well as art, and when she spoke, her passion for these things, for culture, for life, was infectious. She was funny too, and unusual. I had never met anyone like her.

I refilled our glasses.

‘You must be doing okay from being a designer,’ she said, ‘if you could afford to buy this place.’

‘Did I tell you I’d bought this place?’ I couldn’t remember much of the conversation.

‘Yeah, you said something about having a mortgage.’

‘Wow, Mr Interesting. But I can afford this place because of money I got from my parents.’

Charlie gave me another of her ironic looks. ‘Ooh, are you rich? Have I lucked out?’

I hesitated. I don’t really like to tell people about my parents straight away because I don’t want them to feel sorry for me, and it can be awkward. I certainly didn’t want Charlie to feel sympathy for me but, at the same time, I didn’t want to keep any secrets from her, so I told her, keeping my voice as light as possible.
‘Oh Andrew,’ she said, her eyes shining with compassion. ‘That must have really . . . sucked.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You could put it like that.’

‘I’d like to meet Tilly. She sounds very brave.’

‘Yeah, she is. But if you said that to her she’d tell you to fuck off.’

‘Ha. My kind of girl. And then you had your eye thing. Sounds like you’ve had a lot of bad luck.’

I took another sip of wine, surprised to find that I’d finished my second glass.

‘I’ve had some good luck too,’ I said. She raised an eyebrow. ‘You won the Lottery?’

‘No, I mean meeting you.’

She grinned. ‘Oh God, that is so corny.’

But she put her arms around me and kissed me.

It was even better than the kiss we’d shared at the end of our night out. She was so soft, and her lips so warm, and heat radiated off her body as she pressed it against me. It was like being a teenager again: kissing for its own sake, not only as a prelude to ***. Charlie made little noises in her throat, her eyes shut tight, one hand on my chest, the other snaking around my back, slipping up inside my T- shirt.

‘You’re a very good kisser,’ she said, breaking off for a moment. ‘Have you had lots of practice?’

I just laughed.

We kissed some more, music playing in the background, our empty wine glasses at our feet. She took my hand and put it on her thigh, her dress hitched up, and soon my T-shirt was lying beside the wine glasses.
‘Do you want to go to bed?’ she asked.

I nodded. When I stood up, the room swam. Drunk on wine and Charlie. I held her hand and helped her up, realising I needed a pee. Typical – my bladder was determined to ruin the atmosphere.

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I said. ‘The bed’s that way.’

My bedroom had a dimmer switch and when I got back from the bathroom I found that Charlie had turned the light low. Her clothes were on the floor and she was in the bed, the quilt tucked under her chin. I stripped, wondering for a moment if I should take everything off or leave my underwear on, deciding to go for it. I kicked my shorts across the room.

‘Fuck, your hands are cold,’ she protested.

‘They’ll be warm in a minute.’ We stopped talking.

I won’t pretend that our first time was amazing. I was too anxious about my performance, not yet familiar with her body, what she liked, what she wanted me to do. Our limbs knocked together, we both whispered apologies a couple of times. I had to concentrate hard to stop myself from finishing too soon, determined to make her come before me.

Not only that, but I was too aware that I was making love to Charlie, this woman who, in the few days I’d known her, had filled my head, knocked me out of orbit. It was impossible to sink into the moment, to become fully absorbed, because I was watching myself, recording the moment like someone taking a video on their phone at a gig, instead of enjoying the there and then.

Afterwards, Charlie lay with her head on my chest, her hair tickling my face.

‘Do you think I’m easy?’ she said, hoisting herself up and looking into my eyes. Her face and collarbone were flushed from her orgasm. She really was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

‘If you are, I must be too.’

‘That’s true. But there are different rules for guys, aren’t there?’

‘Stupid rules.’

She kissed me. ‘Can you see me without your glasses?’

‘Not much. I have to get really close.’ ‘They suit you,’ she said. ‘You’ve got that hot professor thing going on. You look cute without them too. Like a little mole.’

‘Oh, thanks!’ ‘I like moles.’

‘I like freckles,’ I said, touching hers. ‘Oh God, you really are corny.’

‘I know. I just made myself sick.’

She rolled onto her side, propping her head up with her elbow, her free hand tracing patterns on my torso. ‘How come you haven’t been snapped up already?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’

She grinned. ‘Plenty have tried to snap me up, Andrew.’

I must have looked worried, because she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not about to give you a speech about how I’m not looking for anything. On the other hand, I’m not going to ask you to marry me either.’

‘Phew.’

‘I do like you though.’ ‘Yeah, I can tell.’

She mock-slapped me. ‘Watch it. So, anyway, you didn’t answer my question. About why you don’t have a girlfriend.’

‘Oh. Well, I did have one until about nine months ago. We were together for a couple of years.’

The hand that had been drawing spirals on my flesh stopped moving. ‘What was her name?’

‘Harriet.’

‘Harriet! Posh.’

I stroked Charlie’s shoulder. ‘She was a little bit posh, yes.’

‘Did she have a pony?’

‘As a matter of fact . . . When she was a kid, anyway. I think she had a couple.’

Charlie was silent for a second. ‘So what happened with posh pony-loving Harriet?’

I shrugged. ‘Oh, there was no big drama. We were together a couple of years, we talked about moving in together, but then it kind of went flat. Fizzled out. We’re still friends though.’

Charlie’s hand had started wandering up and down my torso again. ‘Is that her picture out there in the living room?’

‘Huh? Oh – no, that’s Sasha. My bes friend.’

There was a photo of Sasha and me on holiday in Ibiza on the wall by the door. We were standing on top of a large rock, laughing. It had been a fun holiday, quite debauched, in fact.

‘She looks like a laugh.’

‘Yeah, she’s lovely. I’ll introduce you to her.’

‘Can’t wait.’

She kissed me again, wriggling closer, and the kiss grew more passionate and Charlie came closer still until she was on top of me. We made love again, and this time I was fully absorbed, not worried about anything at all, great warm rushes of happiness enveloping me as Charlie made me feel better than I’d ever felt before.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 5

At some point during the next couple of days, I told Charlie about Tilly and my conversation with Rachel.

‘So I need to find something to try to cheer her up,’ I said. We were lying in bed. We had been in my bed for almost forty-eight hours, only leaving it to go to the bathroom or to eat or grab drinks.

‘You think that’s a better plan than simply talking to her?’

‘Well . . . I think what I’d like to do is take her out somewhere and then talk to her, rather than turn up and say I want to have a word with her.’

‘You’re lovely,’ she said.

I liked hearing her say things like that. ‘What kind of thing does she like doing?’ Charlie asked.
‘That’s the tricky part. She’s really into sport – she supports Arsenal, for her sins – and she loves swimming. Other than that, normal stuff.’ I shrugged. ‘Stuff that girls like.’

‘Stroking kittens, knitting, cooing over babies. That kind of thing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Having their nipples slowly licked while their boyfriend slides ever so slowly into them . . .’

‘Actually, Tilly is the only woman I know who’s even ruder than you.’

Charlie smiled. ‘I’d love to meet her.’ ‘You will.’

‘And I’ll try to think of some ideas. You’re clearly a bit useless at that kind of stuff.’

‘True. Thank you.’

‘So. What I was saying about nipples. . .’

Charlie went home in the afternoon to do laundry and ‘some woman stuff,’ as she put it.

‘Not meeting your other boyfriend?’

She didn’t think it was funny. ‘I’m a one hundred per cent monogamous person. I hope you are too.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I pulled her against me. ‘Like I’d have enough energy left anyway.’

She kissed me softly. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

It was the first exchange we’d had that made me think that she saw us as boyfriend-girlfriend. Some men might have been frightened by this development but I was delighted.

When she came back later, she was carrying several carrier bags full of shopping. She produced a market stall’s worth of fresh vegetables from one bag – broccoli, red and yellow peppers, plump tomatoes, button mushrooms, a cauliflower smeared with mud – and a variety of spices and pulses from another. The third bag contained two bottles of wine. She opened one, commanded me to relax and have a drink and set about cooking what turned out to be the best curry I’ve ever eaten.

She rolled a couple of spliffs too, one of which she smoked with me while she was waiting for dinner to cook.
I wasn’t normally into drugs of any kind – hadn’t been since university – but the weed made me feel so chilled and giggly that I wondered why I didn’t do it more often. After dinner I laid the quilt on the living room floor and we made slow, stoned love to a playlist of old soul classics Charlie found on Spotify: Marvin Gaye

Donny Hathaway. Writhing in slow motion on the floor, it felt like we were making love for hours, the rest of the world eradicated by the intense focus of our desire for each other. It was extraordinary, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was like being in a fugue state, my whole body alive and humming, wanting to consume Charlie, to devour her, my mouth all over her, and hers all over me.

The trance was only broken when, in a stoned voice, I told Charlie her skin was ‘softer than kitten’s fur’ and she roared with laughter, and then I did too and within moments we were rolling about literally clutching our sides, barely able to breathe.

‘Ha, ha, bonk,’ I said, when I was able to get some air into my lungs.

‘What?’

‘It’s the sound—’ A convulsion of laughter stabbed at me. ‘The sound of a man laughing his head off.’

That set us off again.

Eventually, when we’d come down and calmed down, Charlie lay on her front beside me, legs crossed at the ankle, showing off the small mermaid tattoo on her right ankle, and said, ‘Can you get your sister to come up to London on Saturday?’

‘I expect so? Why?’

She laid her head on one side and smiled. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

Charlie asked me to meet her by the London Eye at noon. At Victoria station I steered Tilly through the vast crowds, many of them apparently heading to a football match. Tilly and I stopped en route to the taxi to grab a doughnut, my treat.

‘What’s all this in aid of?’ she asked in the back of a black cab.

‘The doughnut?’

‘The excursion! You don’t invite me up very often.’

Traffic was slow and I was concerned we’d be late to meet Charlie. No matter how much I’d begged, she wouldn’t tell me what she had planned.

‘Andrew?’ Tilly said.

‘I just thought it would be fun for us to spend a day together. Plus I want you to meet Charlie.’

‘Wow. You’ve only known her for two minutes.’

‘Yeah, but . . .’

‘Oh. Em. Gee.’ Tilly put on a silly voice. ‘My big brother is in el you vee.’

‘Stop it.’ But I knew my face must have gone pink. I groped for something else to say. Although Tilly seemed amused, I was worried that flaunting my new relationship, when I was supposed to be helping to cheer up my recently dumped sister, was going to have the reverse effect.

We sat and watched the scenery roll by, a thin mist giving the London streets a soft-focus Saturday morning sheen. The cab dropped us by Borough Market. We were early and I wanted breakfast, so I bought us each a bacon roll, which made Tilly moan with pleasure, before heading down to the South Bank.

‘Doughnuts. Bacon rolls. Is your plan for today to fatten me up and sell me to a hungry troll?’

‘Damn. Rumbled.’

It was bitterly cold by the river and the Thames was the colour of a bruise, but the icy wind was invigorating, a wake-up slap that made my nose run and my eyes sting.

‘Dad would have said this was brass monkeys,’ Tilly commented.

‘Are you too cold?’ I asked.

‘No, I like it. I always think I’m at my most attractive when my teeth are chattering and my nose is red.’
As we neared the London Eye, where Charlie had asked us to meet her, the morning crowds thickened. A street performer covered head-to-toe in silver robot make-up was setting up and the skater kids were already doing their stuff. Outside the National Film Theatre, early morning shoppers browsed second-hand paperbacks. Then, in the distance, I saw Charlie and my heart did this little skipping thing.

‘That’s her.’

‘Where?’ Tilly asked. ‘The beautiful one.’

Tilly pointed to a bag lady enjoying an early-morning can of cider on a nearby bench. ‘What, her?’
‘Yes. It was the scent of her crusty hair that first drew me to her.’

Tilly laughed. ‘Hey, do you remember that homeless guy who used to live in Eastbourne – what was his name? Bobby Pole?’

Charlie had spotted us. She waved and walked towards us.

‘Yes. Bobby Pole. Mum said she saw him once in the indoor market.’

‘When he stopped and shook his trouser leg.’

‘And a fossilised turd fell out.’

Charlie arrived. She was wearing a long black coat and was wrapped in a scarf with a green woollen hat completing the winter look. Spots of pink burned in her pale cheeks. She looked adorable. She grinned, showing the little gap between her two front teeth. ‘What are you two laughing at?’

I told her the story of Bobby Pole and Charlie laughed like this was the funniest thing anyone she’d ever heard. Tilly and I joined in. I had never laughed as much as I had the last few days. I didn’t know if my stomach could take much more.

‘Tilly, this is Charlie,’ I said when I’d got my breath back. ‘Charlie, Tilly.’

They shook gloved hands.

‘So you’re the girl,’ Tilly said.

‘Oh no, don’t embarrass me,’ I said. Tilly held up her hands, mock-innocent. ‘Hey, I’m not going to say a word.’

‘Please do,’ said Charlie.

‘So what are we doing?’ I asked, redirecting the conversation.

Charlie gestured behind her. ‘I’ve booked us tickets on the Eye to start with. Have you been on it before?’
Neither of us had. Tilly was delighted and wheeled herself along beside Charlie towards the big wheel, the two of them chatting like they’d known each other for years. Charlie gesticulated as she talked, her face animated. She looked like a movie star, the girl next door in an old American film, and I was struck by two emotions, one immediately following the other: joy, that she was with me; and fear, that at any moment she might disappear like she did after our first night out. I told myself to get a grip. Relax, enjoy it. She seemed to like me a lot. The way she looked at me reflected back the way I looked at her. And if she didn’t care about me, didn’t want to give this budding relationship the chance to bloom, she wouldn’t be here now, taking my sister out, would she?

The London Eye was even better than I’d hoped, the city stretched out before us, proud and ancient and alive. Charlie pointed out her favourite buildings and Tilly recounted the time she and ‘a load of other wheelchair kids’ were taken to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen Charlie had a related story, about how the Queen had come to their school in Leeds and they’d all stood outside waving flags, hoping she’d brought her corgis with her.

‘I’m not a big fan of the royals now, though,’ she said.

‘Oh, are you a republican?’ Tilly asked.

Charlie waved a hand. ‘Actually, let’s not spoil the day with politics.’

I knew already, from watching the news with her, that anything Charlie saw as injustice made her angry. I had listened to her rage against some new policy the government had brought in, the so-called bedroom tax, and halfway through her diatribe I’d had to calm her down, pointing out that I wasn’t the prime minister and couldn’t do much about it. I liked the fact that she cared so much, though. It was another sign that she was a passionate person.

After the London Eye, we went on to Trafalgar Square and looked round the National Portrait Gallery.

‘Charlie’s an artist,’ I pointed out to Tilly.

‘An aspiring artist,’ Charlie said.

‘I really want to see some of your work,’ I said.

‘You will. Maybe you can pose for me.’

I was taken aback and Tilly laughed. ‘If you get Andrew to pose for you naked, please don’t ever show me the picture.’

That set them off again and led on to a conversation about penises that got ruder and ruder as we walked around the gallery, the two of them giggling like schoolgirls and pointing at portraits of historical figures and rock stars.

‘Six inches, I reckon.’

‘I’d say he’s got a nine-incher.’

‘A disappointment.’

Finally bored of this game, Charlie went into the gift shop and came out with a present for Tilly: a print of the Queen.

‘Next time you meet her, you can ask her to sign it,’ she said.

After that, Charlie surprised us by announcing that she had booked us a table at the excellent restaurant upstairs. ‘I’m paying,’ she said and when Tilly and I tried to protest she told us she’d won some cash on a scratchcard and was feeling flush.

We spent the afternoon walking around Covent Garden, looking in the shops, the two girls browsing the sales. Charlie bought herself a black silky top and bought me a new jumper, 50 per cent cashmere, which was exactly my kind of thing.

Towards the end of the afternoon, Charlie said she was going to run back to a shop we’d looked in earlier, and left Tilly and me alone.

‘So?’ I said.

Tilly raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean, what do I think of her? She’s lovely. Amazing. Sweet and gorgeous and a real laugh. Where on earth did you find her? Did you make her in a lab like those boys in Weird Science?’
I was thrilled to hear this. ‘I’m worried she’s too good for me.’

‘Well . . .’ Seeing my face she added, ‘I’m only kidding, Andrew. The two of you look awesome together. It’s great to see you so happy.’

‘Thanks, sis.’ I paused. ‘What about you? How are you doing at the moment?’

‘Me? I’m fine.’ ‘Are you sure?’

‘Why are you asking?’

‘Oh. I don’t know. I just thought you seemed a bit down over Christmas.’

She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Did Rachel say something to you? Only, she was acting very suspiciously when she came back from dropping you at the station. Plus she took ages. I thought the two of you had eloped. And then she was ultra-interested when I told her I was coming up to see you today.’ ‘No. She didn’t say anything.’

‘Hmm. Well, I’m honestly fine. I was seeing this guy and was upset when he gave me the heave-ho, but I’m not depressed or anything like that.’

‘But . . .’ I decided to come clean. ‘Rachel told me you’re on antidepressants.’

Tilly’s face was stony. ‘Did she? For fuck’s sake. I wish she’d keep this,’ she touched her nose, ‘out of it.’

‘She was worried about you, that’s all.’

‘So you decided you needed to do something to cheer me up? The poor crippled charity case.’

I was mortified. Her voice was loud and people around us, in the street, were gawping. ‘Tilly. It’s not like that. Rachel told me you were down and I felt bad that I hardly ever see you. It’s not a charity thing. Come on, you know me better than that.’

She calmed down. ‘OK. But, listen Yes, I have been depressed. It happens. It’s not something you can fix with a day out, but it’s not a huge deal. I cope. I have medication which makes me feel better and I’ve actually been feeling pretty bright since Christmas. Looking forward to a new year.’ She gazed into the crowd. ‘And I really appreciate you trying to cheer me up. It’s been a brilliant day and, despite being a bit useless when it comes to emotional stuff, you are a good brother, OK? Now give me a hug.’

I stooped to embrace her. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. But you can’t fix me. You just have to be there for me.’

When I straightened up I saw Charlie standing a few metres away, watching us, a serious expression on her face. When she realised I’d seen her she came over.

‘I’d better be getting back,’ Tilly said.

We got a cab to Victoria and Charlie and I waited on the platform with my sister.

‘Please don’t sack Rachel,’ I said.

‘She cares about you.’

‘Don’t fret. I won’t.’ She looked up at Charlie, who was holding on to my arm. ‘Be good to my brother. He can be an idiot but he deserves to be happy.’

I expected Charlie to crack a joke but her response was earnest.

‘I’m going to make him happy,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 6

Hiya. Haven’t heard from you since Xmas. You OK? Been trying to call. Can we meet up? I need to see you. Call me! S Xx

Charlie and I were in bed, again. Since our day out with Tilly we’d barely left the flat, only popping out to buy takeaways and wine, along with condoms and candles, which Charlie had insisted on for the bedroom. She’d bought scented bath oil too and some new pink-and-black underwear that had a Viagra-like effect on me. A couple of times, she’d popped back to hers to get clothes, check her post and so on, and I’d made a few solo trips to the off licence when it was raining outside, leaving Charlie snuggled on the sofa watching reruns of *** and the City.

I felt drunk. When I closed my eyes Charlie’s face or body – her pierced belly button winking in the candlelight, t he mermaid tattoo, the little chains of freckles that dotted her flesh – would swim into my vision. My jaw ached from grinning so much. My muscles and skin felt alive in a way they never had before.
It was as if a chemical explosion had gone off in my flat, Charlie and I the willing, happy victims. She didn’t have to go back to work till January 4th, which was now only two days away. I was going to have to call Victor, start doing some work too. I was dreading it. I wanted to stay with Charlie in our little bubble forever.

My phone chirped and Charlie, who was closest to the bedside table, leant over and picked it up, passing it over. I read the text message.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, reading my expression.

‘It’s Sasha. She wants to see me.’ ‘Oh – is she all right?’

‘I’m not sure. Sounds like something’s wrong. I’d better call her.’ I kissed Charlie’s cheek. She smelled of fresh sweat and lavender soap. ‘I feel terrible.

I haven’t spoken to her all week. I didn’t even send her a happy New Year message.’

Charlie and I had been planning to go out for New Year but had spent the night inside instead. Charlie said she wanted to be making love to me at the stroke of midnight, that it would be the best possible way to start 2014, and I had to agree.

Charlie sat up and pulled on a long T- shirt. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

I sat up too. ‘Are you annoyed with me?’

‘No, of course not.’ She sounded irritated. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Oh, no reason.’ I smiled at her and watched as she left the room, worrying a little about her sudden change in mood. But I set the worry aside – it was probably just me being paranoid. Harriet was always telling me that I was too quick to guess her moods and try to fix problems that didn’t exist.

I called Sasha. She answered on the second ring. We arranged to meet that night.

‘So?’ Charlie said, when she came back into the room, damp from the bath, a towel wrapped round her.

‘What’s up with Sasha?’

‘Boyfriend problems, by the sound of it,’ I replied. ‘She’s been seeing this guy called Lance. He’s married.’

Charlie pulled a face. ‘Messy.’

‘Yeah, it is. Anyway . . . I’m going to meet her at seven in Herne Hill.’ I checked my phone. It was three now, just gone.

Charlie lifted the towel to dry her hair, giving me a full view of her naked body.

‘That’s cool,’ she said, rubbing her hair. ‘I have some stuff I need to do, anyway. Like ironing all my work clothes.’ She groaned. ‘I’ll get dressed and go now.’

I reached out for her. ‘Don’t get dressed yet.’

She looked hesitant, just for a moment. Then she pulled the quilt aside and slipped underneath with me, her damp hair cold on my hot skin as she trailed kisses down my torso.

Before she left, she walked round the flat taking photos with her phone: the rumpled bed, the kitchen, which was full of empty wine bottles, the sink piled high with washing-up, even the bathroom.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘You’re going to think I’m a real sap, but I want to be able to picture you here when I’m not with you.’

‘What, among all the mess?’

She put her arm around me and held the phone up to take a snap of us together.

‘Say sausages.’

She took the snap then told me she needed the loo before she went. I sat and flicked through the newspaper, becoming absorbed in the latest news about the Dark Angel serial killer who had been found guilty of the murder of twenty-three elderly people. There was a photo of the guy who had discovered what she’d done, a former neighbour of hers. He said he hoped she would rot in jail and then burn in hell. Not for the first time, I was glad my neighbours were agreeable.

Charlie came back into the room, smelling of perfume. For a moment, she was caught in the sunlight coming through the window.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked.

‘Just . . . because.’ I stood up and pulled her close to me, peering into her eyes, pretending to examine her. ‘Are you real?’

She squirmed away. ‘What do you mean, you idiot?’

‘You seem too good to be true.’

I had expected her to treat what I was saying jokily but she was surprisingly serious. ‘I’m really not that good.’

Apart from some of the more intense moments in bed, most of our exchanges over the past week had been light-hearted and playful. This new gravity took me aback.

‘I was only messing around,’ I said and, after staring at the carpet thoughtfully for a few ong seconds, she finally smiled.

‘I just want you to know that—’ she began. ‘Oh, this is crazy.’

I took her hands. ‘What is?’

‘Nothing. I’m being stupid, that’s all. Ignore me. I’m about to start my period and it’s making me feel a bit girly and emotional. Please stop me before I say something I regret.’

We hugged and I didn’t want to let her go. But Sasha needed me, and it was time I stopped being such a bad friend.

As I was about to leave, my doorbell rang. It was Kristi, my cleaner.

‘I completely forgot you were coming,’ I said.

Kristi was from Albania, a slim woman in her early twenties with black hair cut in a bob, dark eyes and a prominent scar that ran down her left cheek. Of course, I’d never asked her about the scar, though I wondered about it in the same way I’d wondered what she would be like in bed when she had first started working for me. I’d hired her during a period when I was crazily busy with work, last spring, and had got used to her weekly visits, during which she mostly did my ironing, half-heartedly. She wasn’t a very good cleaner, but I liked her and imagined a terrible background in which she sent home the pennies I gave her to a poverty-stricken mother, so I kept her on, always paying her slightly too much and telling her to keep the change.

‘You want me to go?’ she asked.

‘No, no, come in.’ I glanced around the flat. It was a mess and I noticed how Kristi wrinkled her nose. What did it smell of? Perfume? ***?

‘I will tidy up, yes?’ she said, frowning.

‘Yes please. Let yourself out, OK?’

I followed her gaze. There was a black, lacy bra on the sofa.

‘Um . . . Maybe just do the dusting and hoovering? I’ll tidy up later.’

I left her looking disapprovingly around the room. It was weird. Before meeting Charlie I thought Kristi was hot Now she looked rather plain and uninteresting.

‘Oh God, Andrew. Why am I such a cliché?’

‘You’re not. Well, you are, but these things don’t feel like clichés when you’re living them, do they?’

‘That’s almost wise.’

We were sitting in The Commercial, opposite Herne Hill station, pints half-full on the table before us.
I met Sasha at university. She was the girlfriend of a guy on my course whose name I could barely remember now. I got on with her much better than I did with him. We liked the same things – the same books, music, art, all the things Charlie had said made life worth living – and shared a sense of humour. We just clicked. But we didn’t fancy each other, even though Sasha’s boyfriend thought we did, and everyone said we should be together. It wasn’t like that, though. I loved Sasha, but in a purely platonic way. This wasn’t because she wasn’t fanciable, either. She was very attractive, with straight dark hair, trendy dark- framed glasses and a curvy figure.

‘If I was a bloke or a lesbian I’d be all over her like a rash,’ Tilly said. ‘Actually, she makes me come over all bi-curious.’

Yet another occasion when my sister made me cover my face with my hands.

Sasha was a web developer, a bit of a geek, who also loved science fiction and video games. She was recovering from a teenage obsession with Buffy and Angel.

The married-man thing was so unlike her. But this guy, Lance, was a programming genius, apparently, and had a touch of the Steve Jobs about him. Sasha told me she’d been unable to resist his advances, had tried not to think about his wife, whom he portrayed as a cold- hearted bitch who didn’t understand him.

It was clichéd, all right.

‘So what happened? Did his wife find out?’

She nodded glumly. ‘How did you guess?’

‘It had to be either that, or he decided he loved her and could never leave her.’

Sasha took a big swig of her pint. The lenses of her glasses were filthy, like they’d been splashed with tears.

‘She phoned me. The wife. Her name’s Mae. She said that if I went near her husband again, her brothers would track me down and, I quote, “cut off my tits and sew up my cunt”.’

‘Jesus.’

‘It was really scary. I’m so glad I don’t work with Lance anymore.’ Her lower lip wobbled. ‘I miss him, though.’

I trotted out all the stuff friends have to say in these circumstances: you deserve better, you need someone who really loves you. But I meant them, because as I said the words all I could think of was Charlie.

‘He was kinky,’ Sasha said, after she’d sunk another pint.

‘Do I want to hear this?’ I asked.

‘He liked having USB sticks shoved up his bum. You know, dongles.’

I spat out my beer. ‘Dongles up his bum?’

She creased up with laughter. ‘Yes. But the plastic end, not the metal USB end.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then. Anything else?’

‘Well . . . He liked wearing a nappy, and pretending to breastfeed off me.’

‘What?’

She smiled. ‘I’m joking.’ ‘Thank God.’

‘About the nappy part, anyway.’

I went to the toilet, checking my phone while I took a leak. A couple of texts from Charlie, one saying that she hoped Sasha was all right, the next telling me she missed me and had been thinking about me. As I was leaving the gents, my phone flashed again. It was a photo – a selfie, of a topless Charlie.

‘So what have you been up to?’ Sasha asked when I got back to the table. ‘Why have you been incommunicado?’

‘Huh?’ I was distracted, thinking about the picture I’d just received.

‘What’s going on with you?’

I stuck my phone in my pocket. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, what with your whole Lance thing. But . . . I’ve me someone.’

‘Wow. Really? What’s her name, what’s she like and does she have any interesting fetishes?’

I told her all about Charlie. Twenty minutes later, after I’d paused for breath, Sasha said, ‘She sounds . . . lovely.’

‘She is.’

‘She must be. I’ve never seen you like this before. You definitely weren’t like this with Harriet.’

‘Yeah, well, I never felt like this about Harriet. Charlie has completely blown me away.’

‘Your pupils dilate when you talk about her,’ Sasha said, leaning forward. ‘Uh-oh. You’re in love.’

I was about to protest, but maybe I was. Did you have to be with someone for a certain amount of time before you were allowed to be in love with them? It did feel too soon to say the L word to Charlie, but I didn’t deny it to Sasha.

‘Wow, Andrew. I can’t wait to meet her.’ She paused. ‘Oh, speaking of Harriet, did you see those photos she put on Facebook, the ones of her New Year party? It looked ay-may-zing.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve hardly been on Facebook recently.’

‘You should take a look. And while you’re on there you’ll have to change your status to In a Relationship.’ She gave me a big comedy wink.

My head was buzzing when I got back to my flat, which didn’t look any tidier or cleaner, despite Kristi’s visit. I needed coffee. While I waited for the kettle to boil I sat at my computer, the iMac that I used for work, and went on to Facebook to kill some time. Charlie had told me she wasn’t on Facebook, believing it to be a poor substitute for real life, which I didn’t agree with.

I remembered Sasha telling me about Harriet’s party photos, and scrolled through my friend list to find her. I had 251 friends, most of them old acquaintances from uni or school, or people I had encountered through work. Harriet appeared to be missing from the list.

I double-checked by searching for her name and clicking through to her page. I could no longer see her photos. It appeared that she had unfriended me.

I was surprised. As far as I knew I hadn’t done anything to offend or upset her. Then again, we hadn’t been in touch for a while and maybe she was having a cull of her friends. I knew people who did that every so often.

I went to bed without thinking any more of it.

In the middle of the night, when I was tossing and turning, I slipped my hand under my pillow and felt something hard.

Groggily, I switched the lamp on and pulled the object out. It was a small parcel, fastened with a red ribbon which I pulled open.

Inside was a little heart-shaped box, about four inches across and made of cardboard. I lifted the lid of the box and found a tiny photo.

It was the photo Charlie had taken of me and her just before she’d left the previous afternoon. There we were, smiling at the camera, heads pressed together. Or was I confused? I squinted in the photo in the half-light. Yes, I’m sure it was that picture. We were wearing the clothes we’d had on in the afternoon. How had Charlie managed to print it and sneak it under the pillow? Too tired to think about it, I sank back into sleep.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 7

I spent the next day catching up with life admin and looking forward to the night ahead. I hadn’t seen Charlie for twenty- four hours which, in my newly loved-up state, felt like an eternity. This was her last night before she had to return to work and she was alsospending the day catching up with laundry and paperwork.
I emailed Victor, my most regular employer, asking him if we could meet up this week, and he replied saying that I should come in the next day. I also, on a whim, emailed Harriet, wishing her a happy New Year and saying that I’d heard about her party. I didn’t overtly mention the Facebook unfriending. I wasn’t bothered about missing the party – it was in Buckinghamshire, where her parents lived, miles away.

She replied almost immediately.

Hey A!

Yeah party was wicked. I was going to invite you but thought you’d have more exciting plans. How are you? Any big news? We must catch up.

H *********

I couldn’t be bothered to reply, partly because I felt annoyed that she hadn’t invited me and could only come up with a lame excuse.

My and Harriet’s relationship had been one of those partnerships that came stamped with an expiry date, an uncomplicated and fun couple of years – we definitely went beyond our best- before date – that provided us both with someone to hang out and have *** with but was far from the love affair of the century. I did like her a lot and loved spending time with her. She was pretty and interesting and had loads of friends who became my friends while we were together. We used to say that we loved each other but, looking back, I think we said it more because we felt we should. It was an emotionally vanilla relationship.

The only times I ever saw her cry were when she saw animals dying on TV or when she dropped a bottle of wine on her toe.

Now that she had unfriended me on Facebook, which I was a tiny bit offended by but not enough to make a fuss about it, I guessed this would be the very end of our relationship.

It was six now and Charlie was due any minute. I went into the bathroom to clean my teeth. Opening the bathroom cabinet to get out a new tube of toothpaste I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: a bottle of Vidal Sassoon shampoo. Next to it, matching conditioner. Sliding the cabinet open further, I found a little roll-on antiperspirant, a small box of tampons and some Veet hair removal cream. There was a little brown jar containing some tablets too. The label told me they were codeine.

None of these items were mine.

Charlie must have put them there.

I sat down on the closed toilet lid and thought about it. A friend ofmine, Simeon, had once told me that his girlfriend, whom he was now married to, had moved into his flat by stealth: smuggling in her clothes, her toiletries, eventually so many of her possessions that there was no room in his wardrobe for his own clothes and they were living together. ‘It was when I found her vibrator in the drawer where I used to keep my underwear that I knew she’d properly moved in,’ he said.

Was that what Charlie was doing?

As crazy about her as I was, it had only been a week since we’d first slept together. A little soon to be shacking up, even if I was smitten with her. But part of me found it quite endearing and encouraging: she was expecting to be around here so much that she needed toiletries.

I made a mental note to ask her when she’d invite me to stay at her place.

I looked at my watch. She was late. Almost as soon as I thought this, she rang me.

‘Hiya,’ I said.

‘Hey.’

‘Are you all right?’

Her voice was thick with good humour. ‘I’m excellent. Why don’t you come down and see just how excellent?’

I opened the front door of my flat and peered down the staircase. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in the park, opposite your building. I’ll meet you by the lake.’

She hung up.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 8

To get to the park from my flat I had to walk through the new housing development on the other side of Tulse Hill. The gate was locked but there was a gap in the railings, partially concealed behind a shrub, which saved me having to climb over. I guessed Charlie had done something similar.

It must have been no more than a few degrees above freezing in the night air. The moon was almost full and the sky was mostly clear, but as soon as I moved away from the lights of the housing estate it grew harder to see where I was going.

Bare, gnarly trees scratched at the star- pricked sky, whispered to me of a thousand childhood fairy tales and adult horror movies. Harmless objects such as benches and waste bins loomed out at me from the darkness. Something darted into a bush as I passed, making my stomach flip over. When a stray cloud took its sweet time crossing the moon, I found myself in absolute darkness and I was forced to pause on the path, pulling out my phone so I could use its weak light to illuminate my way.

She was waiting for me by the lake, actually a pond, towards the centre of the park. During the day, overfed ducks gazed disinterestedly at children chucking lumps of stale bread into the water while dogs sniffed at the railings and each other. A few years previously, on a bitter winter’s afternoon when the lake was frozen over, a child had drowned in this pond after climbing the railings to attempt to rescue his Jack Russell which had leapt the fence and skittered across the ice. The outcome was predictable: the ice cracked, the boy got trapped, the dog survived.

At night, the lake was silent and motionless, the black water cold and uninviting. The ducks were elsewhere.

‘Charlie?’ I said, not sure why I was whispering.

She was standing beyond the fence, next to the water. She appeared to be wearing a long black coat – but when I got closer I saw that it was more like a cloak, thin and rippling whenever the wind caught it. The breeze licked at it now, lifting it, revealing a bare glimpse of white leg.

‘Come over,’ she said. Her voice was low but clear.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, climbing over the waist-high railing. I could see her clearly now. Only her face and hair were visible, the black cloak wrapped tightly around her.

I stepped towards her and into her embrace. She smiled at me and kissed me softly. This was surreal but exciting.

I tried to speak, to ask more questions, but she pressed her mouth against mine to hush me, and I understood that it was my role to stay quiet. She took my wrist and pulled my hand inside the robe, where it met naked flesh. I ran my palm over her ribcage, stroked her shoulder blade, then brought it back round to cup her breast, sliding my thumb over her erect nipple. I was aroused now, and I tried to press more firmly against her, but she stepped away.

She let the robe slip from her shoulders and to the ground. She was naked and part of me wanted to grab the robe, wrap her up and keep her warm. But before I could do anything, she stepped into the water.

‘Charlie!’

I couldn’t believe what she was doing. I watched, stunned, as she walked slowly into the lake until it covered her legs and then her hips. She turned to me and smiled. She looked like a water nymph, straight from that pre-Raphaelite painting. What was it? I looked it up later: Hylas and the Nymphs, John Waterhouse. A handsome youth, drawn to his presumed death by strange, beautiful women. Staring at Charlie now, pale and half- submerged, her skin catching the moonlight, I was torn between two urges: one, to get her out of there, out of the bitterly cold water, and take her home to the warmth of my flat; and two, to slip with her into the dangerous, icy depths, to abandon sense and, instead, embrace my senses.

She beckoned me and I hurriedly undressed, leaving my clothes and glasses in a pile, until I stood naked and aroused before her. I hesitated – this really was insane – and then stepped into the water. It’s hard to describe quite how cold it was. And even harder to describe why I kept going rather than leaping out.
It was Charlie. She magnetised me. But I also felt like she was daring me, testing me, that to stop would have made me less of a man. Plus I wanted her, was literally being led by my penis towards her. So I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the burning cold as I stepped deeper into the water. The bed of the lake felt slippery against my soles and I feared what might be down there: broken bottles, old cans. For a second I had a flash of that boy who had drowned here, picturing his body lying beneath the water, small hands reaching out for me . . .

I reached Charlie and she wrapped her arms around me, pressed her body against mine, kissing me deeply, her tongue in my mouth. She folded her hand around my cock and moaned. She was shivering; we were both shivering. She stood on tiptoe and positioned the tip of my penis against her.

‘Lift me,’ she said into my ear, and I did. She was lighter than I expected, and she wrapped her strong legs and arms around me and we both gasped as my cock pushed into her.

I came within seconds. I don’t think I could have held her much longer than that. As I gently put her down, Charlie started giggling.

‘I’m cold,’ she said. ‘My teeth are actually chattering.’

I started laughing too. What the hell were we doing? We splashed our way out of the water and I wrapped Charlie in the robe before hurriedly pulling my own clothes over my wet skin. I pulled Charlie against me and felt her trembling.

‘Let’s get—’ I began, then stopped.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

I stared into the trees that ringed the lake, peered into the shadowy spaces between them, and said, ‘Hello?’
Charlie followed my gaze, her eyes wide.

‘Did you see something too?’ I asked. When she shook her head I said, ‘I’m sure there was someone there, watching us.’

‘Oh please, don’t.’

Tentatively, I approached the trees.

There was no one there.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said. My whole body felt like it had been encased in ice for a thousand years, like that Stone Age man they found in the Italian Alps. And right now, I needed to get back to the warmth and safety of my cave.

I was still thawing out half an hour later as Charlie and I sat at opposite ends of my bath. A gentleman, I had taken the end with the taps and the plug. Soap bubbles covered Charlie up to her shoulders. She took a sip from her condensation-streaked wine glass.

‘I still can’t believe we did that,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘Me neither. It was fun though.’

I wasn’t sure if that was the right word. It was intense, unforgettable – but fun?

‘I wasn’t wearing a condom,’ I said.

She scooped up a handful of bubbles and blew them at me. ‘You’re such a worrier. It’s OK. I’m on the pill. And I’m trusting that you’re not wildly promiscuous, so your chances of having a disease are low.’

‘I’m definitely not, nor have I ever been, wildly promiscuous,’ I said.

She paused, took a sip of wine. ‘So, what’s your number?’ she asked.

‘You mean, how many women have I slept with?’

She smiled. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Seven,’ I said, after taking a few moments to count in my head. ‘Including you.’

I had expected her to say something like ‘is that all?’ because, compared to most of my friends and from reading survey results in magazines, mine was a low number. But she said, ‘I know Harriet already, and me of course. Who were the other five?’

I ran through the other girls.

The first had been Laura, my girlfriend when I was in the sixth form at school. We were both virgins and after many heated petting sessions, finally went all the way while babysitting a neighbour’s toddler. We stayed together for another few months after that, splitting up when we both went to university.
There were Junko and Helena, two one-night stands when I was a student.

Then I went out with Sarah for two years, starting in our third year of uni, before she left me for a guy she met at the office where she worked.

After a long period of involuntary chastity, I had a brief thing with a woman called Karen, ten years older than me, whom I had met through Victor. Karen and I both had meetings at Victor’s office at the same time and had got chatting while waiting in reception. Victor had found our tryst highly amusing and, until we split up, made constant jokes about being guest of honour at our wedding.

Karen was by far the best in terms of passion and technique, until Charlie came along. Karen and I had been an unlikely match: she was experienced, worldly, at ease in her own skin, while I was gauche and awkward. I’m still not sure what she saw in me. Enthusiasm, perhaps. Energy. She had recently split from her long-term partner and, even when we were having ***, seemed sad. Beautiful and sad. One day she told me she thought we shouldn’t see each other any more, and that was it. I ended our relationship feeling like a student who’d just graduated from a fun and rewarding course.

After that there was Harriet – who treated *** like a necessary bodily function – and then Charlie.

‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘My entire sexual history.’

She had been quiet as I had recounted my list. ‘And who was best?’ she asked.

‘You, of course.’

She didn’t smile. ‘No, I mean apar from me.’

‘Um . . .’ I told her it had been Karen. ‘The older woman. Are you still in touch with her?’

‘God, no. I haven’t seen her for years. It wasn’t that kind of relationship, where you stay friends afterwards.’
She cocked her head to one side, studying me with those big eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it was just . . . We met, we had a sexual relationship, then we split up.

That’s all that relationship was about.’ ‘Just ***?’

‘Yes.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I feel quite uncomfortable talking about it, actually.’

Charlie arched her eyebrows. ‘I find it interesting. I want to know everything about you. Don’t you feel like that about me?’ Beneath the water, she stroked my thigh, squeezed it.

‘I don’t know. I don’t really want to know your number.’

‘Really? Why not?’

The truth was, I didn’t want to know because I had this fear it would be too high. I knew that even if she’d had *** with one hundred men before me it shouldn’t matter. But I also knew that it would make a difference. That was just the way it was. I would rather not know. Then I wouldn’t have to care.
‘Because the past is the past,’ I said, resorting to cliché.

The bath water was growing cold and the candles that lit the bathroom flickered in the draft that crept in through the window.

Charlie was quiet for a minute or two, lost in thought. Eventually, she said, ‘OK. I understand. But I would like to hear more about your past. I love hearing you talk, Andrew. And I want you to tell me everything.’
She wriggled forward, our legs pressed tighter together.

‘But not now,’ she said. ‘Shall we go to bed?’

After we’d made love again, I remembered the things I had been meaning to ask her. Charlie had a way of sweeping the conversation along so that I’d forget everything I’d wanted to say. Like, she had never really told me about her background, her parents, where she went to school. Every day I resolved to get more information out of her – those were the parts of the past I was interested in – but some other topic always popped up.

I picked up the heart-shaped box that she’d left beneath my pillow. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked.

‘It’s lovely. But how did you do it?

With the photo?’

She tapped her nose. ‘Ah.’ ‘Come on, Charlie . . .’

‘OK. I’ve got a tiny portable printer. It’s in my bag now. I can plug my phone into it and print little photos. It’s really cool. I did it in the bathroom while you were waiting for me, then slipped the box under your pillow.’

So that explained that.

I wanted to mention the toiletries in the bathroom cabinet, but she yawned and said, ‘I really ought to sleep. I have to get up early for work.’ She groaned.

‘Do you dislike your job?’

She lay facing the ceiling, her eyes shut, bare shoulders just visible.

‘I hate it,’ she said. ‘It’s boring and stressful. Every minute I spend there is a minute of my life wasted. All I want is to be able to concentrate on my art.’

‘One day.’ I kissed her.

‘You’re sweet.’ She opened an eye. ‘Sorry, guys hate being called sweet, don’t they? I meant to say you’re butch and manly.’

‘I don’t mind being sweet.’

She closed the eye. ‘Then you’re even sweeter.’ She yawned again. ‘I really, really must sleep.’

‘OK.’

She rolled away from me. ‘Goodnight, Andrew.’

‘Night.’

‘I love you.’

I froze. Was I hearing things? We hadn’t mentioned love at all up to that point. We’d only been together just over a week.

‘Charlie?’ I said. But she was asleep.

I awoke at some point in the night from a dream in which I’d been drowning, small hands dragging me beneath the surface of an ice-encrusted lake, the green, rotting face of a young boy leering at me, flesh hanging in flaps from a grinning skull, an eyeball popping loose and bobbing towards me in the dark water.

I opened my eyes. I was shivering. I turned to embrace Charlie, seeking her warmth, and my heart skittered.

She was awake, propped up on an elbow. She was staring at me.

‘I had a horrible dream . . .’ I began, thinking I must have disturbed her. But as I started to speak she rolled over and appeared to drop off immediately.

My mind skipped about wildly: *** in the park with Charlie and how I’d been sure someone was watching us; Sasha’s problems with her married lover; memories of Karen and Harriet; niggling anxiety about money. And above all this din, hearing Charlie say that she loved me.

It was a long time before I managed to get back to sleep.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 9

Victor Codsall beckoned me into his office and shook my hand, gesturing for me to sit on one of the two sofas, flopping down on the other like he was unable to bend his knees. A stack of books, catalogues and magazines wobbled on the coffee table. Through the glass, I watched Victor’s staff at the design agency wander to and fro: bright, trendy young things who brought their bikes to work and wore T-shirts with ironic slogans. According to Victor, they were all sleeping with each other.

‘The whole fucking office is a festering Petri dish of disease,’ he once told me, gloomily. Victor said almost everything gloomily, hence his nickname: Eeyore. A sketch of the depressive donkey hung on the wall beside a framed, signed Tottenham Hotspur shirt.

‘How’s your . . . ?’ He pointed to his eye. Victor had found it hilarious that when I had my operation, the surgeon had drawn a black arrow above my eyebrow, indicating the eye to be operated on.

‘Much better. Actually, I’ve been discharged.’

‘Thank fuck for that,’ he said. ‘Not much call for blind designers round here. Although some of the shit this lot have been churning out recently, you’d think they’d all had detached fucking retinas.’

I didn’t tell him that, actually, since waking up I’d been bothered by a floater in my left eye, a tiny circle that drifted across my vision whenever I blinked. I was trying not to worry about it. Mr Makkawi had told me floaters were normal, that I should only be concerned if I got a lot of them together.

We made small talk for a few minutes before I said, ‘So I was wondering if you had any work for me? I’m available to work full time at the moment.’

‘As a matter of fact . . .’ He sighed, making it sound like he was about to tell me I had a terminal illness. ‘We got a new contract come in this morning from this e-commerce site. They’re planning some big new campaign – holidays, summer, beaches, young sexy people having fun and getting wasted . . . All that crap.’

‘Sounds great. What site is it?’ ‘Wowcom. Big fashion site, based not far from here actually.’ ‘Oh.’

‘Don’t tell me – you ordered some fucking red trousers from them and they sent you pink.’

‘No. It’s just that I know someone who works there. My friend Sasha.’

Not just that, but Wowcom was the company owned by Lance. It would be strange to work for Wowcom, given what I knew about the owner and Sasha. ‘That’s great. You’ve got an in.’

We spent the next hour going over the details of the brief and Victor made a call to Wowcom to arrange a meeting later in the week.

‘Sweet,’ he groaned, at the end of the call. I wondered if, beneath the moaning, Victor was actually happy. He clearly adored his wife and children and was running a successful business. He was a self-made man. Rumour had it that he had grown up on one of the roughest estates in North London and that many of his friends were career criminals, drug dealers and gangsters with minders, huge houses and trophy wives.

All through the meeting, the floater in my eye danced and bothered me. But it was a relief to have some work, especially as Victor thought the project would take at least a couple of months.

I got up to leave.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I forgot to mention. I saw Karen last week. She came to a dinner party round mine. She asked after you.’

‘Really?’

‘She’s still single. Maybe she’s getting the taste for young meat again. I reckon she’d be up for it if you gave her a call. Hey, what are you grinning at?’

‘I’ve got a girlfriend now.’

‘Oh really? What’s she like? Obviously she’s not going to be as hot as my missus – but hotter than Karen?’
I beamed. ‘Much.’

‘You’re kidding me. Got a photo?’

I realised the only photo I had of Charlie on my phone was the topless selfie she’d sent me when I was out with Sasha, and I wasn’t going to show him that.

‘So I’ll tell Karen you lied abou having a girlfriend because you don’t want to see her again?’

‘Very funny.’

He saw me out. ‘Actually, Karen was saying she needs someone to design a website for her. Just a personal site, a blog or something. Not a big enough job for me but maybe you should get in touch, earn yourself an extra couple of quid. Or who knows, she might offer payment in kind.’

‘The only time you don’t sound miserable is when you’re teasing me,’ I said.

He sighed. ‘That’s what I always say to my missus. Anyway, want me to ping her an email, ask her to get in touch?’

I hesitated. It might be awkward, seeing her. But the money would definitely come in handy.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘That would be great.’

‘So how does it feel being back at work?’ I asked.

Charlie rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather talk about something interesting. Like ***.’

We were sitting in Starbucks near Old Street station, close to Victor’s office. Charlie had suggested meeting for lunch. She looked great in her work clothes, with her hair neat and her crisply ironed clothes.

‘I think the man behind you heard you,’ I whispered.

She smiled naughtily. ‘I can’t help it. I want to drag you into an alleyway and have my wicked way with you.’ She popped a grape into her mouth and sucked it. ‘Why don’t we go into the toilet now?’

Beneath the table she pressed her legs against mine and I felt my cock grow hard. It was frustrating, not being able to touch her flesh. At my flat, in those ***- drunk days between Christmas and her return to work, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and didn’t have to. But there was something deliciously tantalising about having to wait, knowing that when she finished work she would come round to mine and we could take our clothes off.

A thought struck me. ‘How come we never go to your place?’

She pulled a face, like the grape she was eating was sour. ‘It’s horrible, that’s why. There’s no privacy. There, you wouldn’t be able to push me over the kitchen worktop and enter me while we were cooking dinner . . .’

‘Charlie!’ I hissed, gesturing at the man behind her with my eyes as he looked round, shocked. She was so bad.

She smiled and sipped her fruit juice. ‘I hate being Charlotte. I want to come home with you and be Charlie.’
I needed to change the subject before the urge to take her into the Starbucks toilet became too much. So I told her about the meeting with Victor and how it connected with Sasha.

She looked at her watch and grimaced. ‘I’ve only got five minutes.’

‘But you’ll come round later?’

‘Try and stop me. I’ll make dinner.’ ‘You don’t have to. I’m happy with a takeaway. Or I could make dinner.’

‘Are you a good cook?’

‘No, I’m terrible. Sometimes I have nightmares in which I’m forced to be a contestant on Masterchef. The whole nation could witness my humiliation. I once managed to set a pan of spaghetti on fire. Even my boiled eggs come out wrong. I’m probably the worst cook in the world.’

She reached under the table and squeezed my thigh. ‘You can’t be good at everything. I’d much rather you were good at cunnilingus than cooking.’

The man behind her almost fell off his chair.

‘It feels wrong, though,’ I said. ‘Having a woman come round and cook me dinner. I don’t want you to think I’m a typical sexist bloke.’

She stroked my cheek. ‘I don’t. Enjoy it, Andrew. I like cooking, I’m good at it, you’re bad at it. Makes sense for me to do it, yes? You can learn one day and then you can cook for me.’

We moved on to talking about Tilly. ‘How is she?’ Charlie asked. ‘Have you had any more clandestine cups of tea with her PA?’

‘No. Rachel texted me to say Tilly seems a bit happier and to thank us for taking her out. I meant to tell you. She says she’s keeping an eye on her.’

I went quiet for a minute and she asked what I was thinking about. I normally hate that question, but with Charlie I never minded.

‘What about your family? Will I get to meet them?’

She frowned. ‘That would be difficult. I don’t have any family.’

Taken aback, I waited for her to continue.

‘I told you that both my parents died when I was a teenager.’

I had no memory of her sharing this momentous fact. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing I’d forget. ‘No you didn’t.’

‘I must have done. My mum died of cancer when I was fifteen and then my dad committed suicide a year later because he was so heartbroken and couldn’t get over it.’

My insides had gone cold. ‘You definitely didn’t tell me any of that. Oh my God, Charlie. That’s awful.’

She looked up at me through her lashes. ‘But it’s something we have in common, isn’t it? We’re both alone.’
She stared at the table top then back at me. ‘We were both alone.’

I tried to think of something appropriate to say but before inspiration struck she said, ‘Right. I’ve got to get back to work. Back to being Charlotte again.’ She stood up, kissed me on the lips and told me she’d be round about seven.

All the way back to the Tube, I racked my brain, searching for holes in my memory. Had she said anything about her parents? Had I asked? I couldn’t think o a single time the subject of her parents had come up. She barely talked about her past at all. I knew she was from Leeds, and she had told me a few anecdotes about her childhood and stories from when she was at uni, like the time she’d fainted at a Green Day concert, how she and her friends went to karaoke every weekend, the day she crashed her car and wrote it off. There was a map of her body in my head: I knew her taste, her smell, how every part of her felt beneath my fingers. I could hear her speech patterns in my head as I drifted off to sleep. I knew what music she was into, who her favourite painters were, which varieties of wine she preferred. I knew all of that, but her past was a mystery.

I vowed to change that, to get her to tell me more about herself. After all, she knew most of my life story. I wanted to know everything about her. Because, and I knew this, felt this, even though I hadn’t told her yet: I was in love with her.

When I got home I had a couple of emails waiting for me.

The first was from Sasha, updating me on the situation with Lance.

It’s horrific. They’ve shunted me off to a different department, so I don’t have to have any contact with him – which suits me! But it’s like everyone in the office knows. The other girls are treating me like I’ve got some hideous contagious disease and the guys keep looking at me like I’m a nympho who will shag anyone. This creepy bastard called Jake who works in IT asked me if I wanted to go out for lunch, like if he buys me beans on toast at the greasy spoon at lunchtime I’ll give him a BJ in the stationery cupboard in the afternoon.

I need to see you!! Can we go out this weekend and get REALLY drunk?

I replied saying yes, of course, let’s meet up Friday after work – even though that would mean an evening apart from Charlie – though I didn’t tell her about Victor and the contract with Wowcom. I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it so would tell her when I saw her.

The second email was from Karen.

Hi Andrew,

How are you? It’s been quite a while. Hope you’re well.

Victor told me you might be able to work on a website design for me. It’s nothing special – I need a site to show potential clients, with a bio, a few articles, some testimonials, etc. Can you tell me how much you would charge and then maybe we could meet to discuss?

Thanks, Karen

She was an HR consultant, a person who went into businesses and told them how to manage their staff more effectively. That’s what she’d been doing when I met her at Victor’s office, though it turned out that she and Victor were old friends. I was glad the email was so businesslike and impersonal. I fired back a quick response, telling her my day rate and that I would guess such a job would take two or three days (really, it depended how fussy she was). Then I spent a couple of hours pulling together some preliminary ideas for the Wowcom job.

Before I finished for the day, Karen replied to my email saying my day rate sounded fine and suggesting a couple of times for us to meet, both of which were later in the week. We agreed on Friday afternoon, so I could see her before going on to see Sasha.

Waiting for Charlie to turn up, I opened a bottle of wine and had a sort through some of my photography books. The e m a i l conversation with Karen had reminded me of an exhibition she’d taken me to see on one of the rare occasions we’d been out together.

She’d taken me to see some work by the photographer Rankin, who specialised in portraits of the rich and famous, along with more explicit pictures including nude shots of his model wife. Karen had bought me a Rankin book as a present and I wanted to look at it now – not to ogle the nudes but because there were some photos taken on beaches that I thought might provide useful inspiration for the Wowcom project.
I couldn’t find the book. I searched the bookcase but it wasn’t there. It was a large hardback and it couldn’t have slipped behind the other books, and I was certain I hadn’t lent it to anyone or taken it anywhere.
But before I could think about it any more, the doorbell rang, then rang again and kept on ringing, urgent, insistent. I went out into the stairwell and ran down the stairs as quickly as I could. Someone
– Charlie, I assumed – was banging on the front door like she was desperate to get in.

I heaved the door open and she tumbled inside, panting.

She grabbed hold of me. She was cold but sweaty.

‘Someone’s following me,’ she said.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 10

I peered out of the door at the lamplit street, my heart beating fast. I couldn’t see anyone.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

She nodded mutely. She looked terrified.

I stepped out onto the street, Charlie imploring me to be careful, and looked up and down the road. Apart from an elderly lady walking her dog, there was no one around. I went back inside and shut the door.

‘Come on, let’s get you upstairs,’ I said. ‘You’re shaking.’

The first thing she said when we got into my flat was, ‘I need a drink.’

She took a thirsty gulp of the wine I handed her and I steered her over to the sofa, sitting beside her, rubbing her cold arm.

‘What happened?’

She hugged herself. Her face was very pale. ‘I took a shortcut through the park again. I know, I know – it’s a stupid thing to do. But I thought it would be fine.’

I waited for her to continue.

‘I got about halfway through, just past the big house in the middle, and then realised there was someone behind me on the path. It was like they were hiding by the house and came out when they saw me. It was so dark I couldn’t see him properly.’

I squeezed her hand.

‘He followed me down the path.’ The words gushed out. ‘I didn’t really want to look back but it was like he was gaining on me, going really fast, and all I could think of was that he was a rapist so I started running and he started running too and I just made it to the gap in the railings before him and I got through and he came through too and followed me down the street until I rang your doorbell . . .’

‘Charlie, sweetheart.’

She was almost hyperventilating, and she clung to me on the sofa, shivering and crying silently. I held her like that until she calmed down, kissed the tear trails on her cheeks.

‘We should call the police.’

‘They’ll just say I shouldn’t walk through the park at night.’

‘Maybe, but it’s still worth it. What if he attacks someone else?’

I walked across the room to get my phone.

‘Please, Andrew. I really don’t want to call them. They’ll tell me off for going into the park after dark.’

I weighed the phone in my hand. She was right: it was clearly signposted that you shouldn’t enter the park at night. But I still thought it was worthwhile in case this man attacked someone else.

‘Plus he didn’t actually do anything, did he?’ she said.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m going to phone them, say I saw someone go into the park, acting suspiciously. OK?’
She nodded.

While I waited for the police to answer I said, ‘I it was the same guy who I thought was watching us last night.’

Charlie hugged her knees to her chest. ‘Don’t say that. I don’t like the thought . . . that someone saw us having ***.’

I got through to the police and told them I’d seen a man in the park. They said they’d take a look but I could hardly see it being a priority.

She let out a long sigh. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. I need more wine, that’s all. And dinner. I popped into M and S and got us a moussaka and some salad. Is that OK? I know I said I’d cook, but I’m tired Work was blah.’

‘Perfect.’

She smiled at me.

‘Promise me you won’t do it again,’ I said.

‘What, buy moussaka?’

‘Walk through the park at night. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Put the telly on. I need something mindless to cheer me up.’

We ate dinner and drank more wine and pretty soon we were pulling our clothes off, doing it there and then on the sofa, Charlie on top. Afterwards I went to the bathroom and remembered the things Charlie had left in there.

‘I saw you’d put some toiletries in my bathroom cabinet,’ I said when I came out. She was wearing my towelling dressing gown, a fresh glass of wine in her hand.

She looked confused. ‘Huh?’

‘You left a bunch of stuff in the cabinet. Shampoo, conditioner . . .’

‘I didn’t put anything in there.’ ‘You must have.’

‘I did leave some stuff in your bedroom – I left it in there by mistake when I was arranging my bag the other day. I was going to ask you about it. But I didn’t put anything in the cabinet.’

‘Oh. It must have been Kristi then.’ She sat up straight. ‘Who’s Kristi?’ ‘My cleaner.’

‘You’ve got a cleaner?’

A programme I liked was starting on TV and I was half-distracted by it. Charlie picked up the remote and turned the television off.

‘You’ve got a cleaner?’ she repeated. ‘Yeah. She comes once a week, does a couple of hours. I guess she must have found your things and put them in the bathroom.’

Charlie’s whole demeanour had changed from tired but happy to tense and, seemingly, annoyed. I pulled on my clothes.

‘What’s she like? Some poor, middle- aged woman? A Mrs Mop?’

I thought about Kristi with her smoky eyes and killer cheekbones. ‘No. She’s pretty young. Albanian, I think.’

Charlie looked horrified. ‘Oh God.’ ‘What?’

‘It’s so exploitative. Privileged middle-class white male gets poor immigrant to clean his toilet.’

I felt like pointing out that, as far as I could tell, Kristi had never been near my toilet. Apart from tidying up, I still wasn’t sure exactly what she did. But I was dumbstruck by Charlie’s reaction.

‘I’m not exploiting her. She advertised for her services. I’m helping her out, actually. She needs the work.’

‘Really? How much do you pay her?’

‘I pay her eight pounds an hour.’ That was after the agency’s fee. ‘Though I usually round it up to ten pounds an hour because she never has change.’

‘What a hero.’

I couldn’t believe this. I felt anger rising inside me. ‘I’m not doing anything wrong, Charlie. I need a cleaner, she obviously needs work. I’m sure she’s got far worse clients than me.’

‘I don’t understand why you need a cleaner anyway. This place is tiny, you’re here all day. Can’t you do it yourself?’

I explained that I’d taken Kristi on when I’d had my operation and found doing most things difficult.

‘But you’re all right now, so you can get rid of her.’

‘I don’t want to. I’d feel bad. She needs the money.’

Charlie stood up. ‘Do you get off on it?’

‘What?’

‘Paying a young woman to degrade herself.’

I was aghast. ‘Charlie! This is insane.’ ‘Or maybe she’s too ugly for you to get a kick out of it.’

We were standing close now. This was crazy, but it was also exhilarating because, even as the blood heated in my veins and Charlie jabbed a finger at me, it didn’t feel real. Were we really arguing about this? This was our first argument, and it was about a cleaner!

‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘she’s really pretty. But you’re being ridiculous. She’s my cleaner, I don’t want to get rid of her, and I am not exploiting her. I’m not degrading her and I certainly don’t get a sexual thrill out of watching a woman vacuum my bedroom!’

She opened her mouth to speak again and promptly shut it. She closed her eyes too and inhaled deeply. I was pretty sure she was counting to ten beneath her breath.

‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’ve had too much wine and I’m still stressed after being followed. I just have a thing about people, women especially, being exploited.’

‘I’m not—’

‘I know, I know. I understand. It’s not you – it’s the injustice of the situation.’

‘I don’t think—’ I began, but she cut me off.

‘Can we talk about something else?’ she said. ‘Actually, can we go to bed? I’m tired, I’m a bit drunk and I don’t want to talk any more.’ She put her arms around me and kissed me. ‘Do you forgive me?’

‘Of course I do.’

She looked into my eyes. ‘I love you, Andrew. I know we’ve only been together a couple of weeks, but I . . .’ She trailed off, her expression shy. ‘I feel embarrassed.’

I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I feel the same way.’

‘But you won’t say it?’ she said with a little smile.

‘I’m very happy to say it. I love you, Charlie.’

And with that, the argument was forgotten, and a minute later we were making love again, in bed, slowly, the intensity of it white-hot and all- consuming, the most intense it had ever been, and as she raked her fingernails down my back, and kissed me so hard I felt my lips would be bruised, I told her again that I loved her, and she whispered it into my mouth just before she came.

Afterwards, she lay with her front pressed against my back, her arms tight around me, her legs entwined with mine. She fell asleep quickly but I lay awake for a while. My vow to find out more about her past had gone by the wayside. Tomorrow, I told myself. Despite the weird argument about Kristi, and the scare with Charlie being followed, I felt content. In fact, the protectiveness I’d felt when she was scared, and the release after the argument – which was based on principles I admired even if I wasn’t sure I agreed with them – made me feel even closer to her than before.

But I wasn’t going to sack my cleaner.