Free Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards

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 sex?’
    ‘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 sex 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