Free Loving Susie by Jenny Harper

like Cal, but because she does. She picks up her cocktail and bends her face to the straw. She’s beginning to feel edgy about their relationship. Why is that? Because I’m scared , she answers herself. Scared you’ll get bored? No, not that, strangely, not this time. Be honest. That he’ll get bored.
    Callum McMaster is the latest in a line of nice boys she’s dated, each one of them sexy and smart and fun. Mannie likes men, she loves great company, but till now, at any rate, she has enjoyed the thrill of the chase more than the slog of maintaining a long term relationship. She gets a kick out of new-minted love. She has made a habit of adoring her latest man, delighting in the pure pleasure of discovering what makes him tick, what he likes to read, what music he listens to, whether he loves (as she does), going for long walks along the beach on a winter’s day or climbing Arthur’s Seat as the sun comes up. There’s nothing that gave her more joy than running her hands under his shirt for the first time, feeling the silkiness of the warm skin that lay beneath, or the hardness of the muscles of his chest.
    But there’s always a day when novelty palls and she discovers that the man’s mind is less agile than her own, that he likes olives and custard, which she hates, or drinks only claret and is disparaging about chardonnay. If exercise between the sheets is the only kind he takes, it dulls the edge of desire. Or if he washes his socks in the bath or doesn’t wash them enough, or – worst of all – if he is growing tediously possessive.
    Callum is different. Cal has a life of his own. Cal goes skiing with his mates, is a fanatical cricketer in the summer and footballer in the winter and he puts his sporting commitments above her pleas that she hasn’t seen him for ages. In short, Cal has managed to keep her interest alive for more than two years now, a fact that perplexes her greatly.
    I need to dump him, her built-in alarm system is telling her. Before he dumps me, is the uncharacteristic thought she’s trying to suppress.
    Mannie shares her mother’s need to be loved – her outward appearance of confidence can be misleading. She can be bossy, because she likes to be organised. And she’s ambitious – which, she’s well aware, many people see as pushiness. Underneath all of that, though, it’s important to Mannie that people like her. And Callum does care about her, she knows that, though he’s only casually demonstrative and not particularly vocal in the expression of his affection. She just doesn’t know how much he cares and, right now, she isn’t sure about how to answer him.
    Seeing her uncertainty, Cal answers his own question. ‘Just joking. I know you’ve been too busy to think about me.’
    ‘Wrong,’ she says teasingly, relieved a route has been opened up for her, ‘I thought about you all the time, about how hard it must have been giving up all that boring techie stuff just to ski down those mountains every day.’
    ‘I know,’ Cal nods seriously. ‘It was a difficult decision, but hey, someone has to do it or the ski resorts’ll go out of business.’
    ‘Slimeball.’
    ‘Gasbag.’
    ‘Thunderthighs.’
    ‘Gutso.’
    ‘Shut up!’ She says it with humour, but she means it. Mannie doesn’t have a weight problem – probably because she burns off the calories with her unceasing activity – but she does have a healthy appetite, eating voraciously and quickly. Sometimes she becomes embarrassed about this and Cal, who knows how to press her buttons, is never backward in using the trait to tease her.
    She likes this in him. She likes that he’s not deferential, that he feels comfortable in risking her possible displeasure, but somewhere there’s a niggle that he might actually mean it, that her unquenchable appetite is a turn-off.
    ‘I knew you’d be pleased to see me again.’ Cal drains his pint and gestures to his glass. ‘Another?’
    Mannie nods cautiously. ‘Why not?