Free Deception by Jane Marciano

little, huh, Fred?” He was in such close proximity that I began to feel a bit wobbly inside.
    “Without your portrait hanging on the wall to remind me, I forgot how pretty you are,” he said softly, his voice deepening.
    “I guess having Kristie around made you forget, huh.”
    He put his hands on my shoulders, but lightly, and gazed into my eyes. “Don’t be like this, Bailey. You don’t understand how it is with me and Kristie.
    “No, I don’t understand, and I don’t want to.”
    “She’s like a drug, a sort of addiction that gets under your skin.”
    “I told you I don’t want to know.”
    I could feel his breath warm on my cheek; he was that close, close enough for a kiss.
    Taking a deep breath, I took a step backwards to show him that that wasn’t the reason I was there.
    He’d made his choice, in no uncertain terms. The humiliation of it still rankled, no matter how attractive the man was physically, and I wasn’t going to play his game.
    “You know, I’m sorry it ended the way it did,” he said, pulling the chair over and balancing on it as he plunged an arm into the depths of the closet. Obviously the picture had been shoved way to the back of the cupboard, out of sight. Out of mind, too, presumably.
    “Oh really? How did you want it to end?” I said sarcastically. “How had you actually planned it to happen?”
    He looked down at me and his face creased. “I’m not sure I’d had anything planned , not really,” he said, frowning. “It just sort of happened. I’m not even sure that I wanted us to end at all. But, well, you know, you were there. Things got out of control.”
    “You think?”
    He jumped down from the chair, clutching a large, rectangular package wrapped loosely in brown paper held in place by string. He held it out to me, looking rather shamefaced.
    “Take it, Bailey, it’s yours to do with what you like, for what it’s worth.”
    Without a word I took the painting and put it under my arm. I began to wheel my suitcases over to the door.
    “She’s always been misunderstood and badly treated, you know,” Freddie said suddenly. “And needy. She’s very needy.”
    “Well, I hope you’ll both be very happy together,” I said, flinging open the bedroom door and dragging the cases behind me.
    Once more he followed closely on my heels, turning the L-shaped corner and then catching up and walking with me to the front door.
    “It doesn’t mean you and I can’t still be friends,” he said, his tone a caress.
    Halting in my tracks, I bent down and carefully propped the canvas on the floor against the wall, before turning on my heel to face him.
    “Even occasional lovers,” he added, with a grin, before I could say a word. “I’d really like that, Bailey.”
    With that I was rendered speechless, and in the sudden silence I heard a noise coming from the kitchen to the right of me. It sounded like a sudden intake of breath.
    I butted the door open with my hip, and there ahead of me stood Kristie Gillingham, standing motionless, a cup in one hand, and a soup spoon in the other. She was wearing a baggy old sweat shirt and jeans, and her long red hair was hanging loosely down her back. An opened instant cup-a-soup sachet was on the floor, by the toe of her trainers. She was looking straight at me, and to my mind, she looked almost feverish.
    Unable to meet the crazed look in her eyes, my eyes took in the unwashed pots and pans which stood on the counter behind her, the dirty dishes stacked pile high in the sink. A cut glass fruit bowl that I’d once bought on a shopping spree with Freddie now contained just one maggoty looking apple and nothing else. My beloved plants by the window sill, over which I’d once taken such care, now hung bedraggled and dying of thirst, their leaves either dried and dropping off or totally shrivelled on their stalks.
    Once it had given me great joy to prepare gourmet type meals and to bake cakes for my beloved in this kitchen of which I’d