Free Next to Die by Neil White Page B

his way of dealing with it, though, rooting it in pleasure, but those few minutes trapped in fantasy were always replaced by shame and disgust. He called it the dead phase, when the passion had gone and all he had left was the panic of discovery or the sweep of remorse.
    Instead, he watched the slow spread of daylight across the floor, cold and harsh, the slow finger of judgement creeping towards him. He pulled his bedding over his shoulder and tried to curl up and get some moments of sleep, but as he stared at the wall, he knew the chance for sleep had gone.
    It was all so wrong, he knew that, and so he hoped that his memories would be enough to maintain him, but remembering everything wasn’t the same as experiencing it, where the need for someone new drove him on.
    He closed his eyes and tears tickled at his eyelids, his cheeks burning red. It was there again, remorse, that dark shadow that crept into his thoughts and eroded the pleasure. For every silky feel of hair, he remembered a screech of fear or panic. Struggles against the rope, the terror of the blindfold, until those final muffled moments, the fast thrash of the legs, and then stillness. He clenched his teeth as they came back to him. It hadn’t been about that, it never had, but how could they be allowed to leave when they would bring an end to it all?
    Loneliness would get him in the end, because there was no one to ease his pain, to provide the words that had helped him to function, the inspiration behind it all. Beautiful, tender, passionate love had driven him to it. Didn’t that make it better, that it wasn’t all about him?
    He sat up, let the bedding fall to the ground. He needed to be stronger. This was supposed to be the new beginning.
    The words seemed hollow. He wasn’t strong enough.
    As the strip of daylight widened across the floor, he clamped his eyes shut again and wrapped his arms around his head. He had got it wrong. He couldn’t do this.

Fifteen
     
    Sam was awoken by the buzz of his phone on the small set of drawers next to his bed. He glanced across at the clock. Only 5.30. He rubbed his eyes. Too early.
    He reached for his phone. He was about to click the answer button when he saw that it was another withheld number. He sat up and held the phone in his hand. It vibrated against his fingers. Alice stirred next to him, but still he left it, until eventually it fell silent as it transferred to voicemail.
    He lay back on the pillow and tried to forget about the call. It would still be there when he got up. It might be something else, a cold call about an accident claim or a fake computer virus, but he couldn’t turn his mind away from it, the thought of it like an itch, and the more he tried to resist it, the harder it became to ignore it. So he watched the day get brighter through the curtains, more awake with every minute, Alice’s slow breaths the only sound as he resisted the urge to check his voicemail, to see if it was the same message.
    He turned over and bunched the sheets under his chin, tried to get back to sleep, but his mind went back to the night before. It had ended sourly, but Sam couldn’t stay angry with Joe. They were brothers. That meant something.
    Alice stirred. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, her voice a drawl.
    He thought about not saying anything, but the way she propped herself up on her elbows, her tangled hair trailing on the pillow, told him that she would keep asking until she got an answer.
    ‘It’s nothing. Just work.’
    Alice didn’t respond for a while, and then she said, ‘Is it something to do with Joe?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You seemed a bit distracted when you came back from work, and you weren’t there long, but I thought going to see Joe would have shaken it off. It was your rest day but you came back even worse. You hardly said a word to me, and even when the girls were playing with you, it was as if you didn’t want to. That isn’t like you.’
    Sam didn’t know what to say to