by Mark Edwards
I increased my pace, feeling in my pockets for weapons. I had my keys and I supposed my phone could do someone some damage if you hit them over the head with it in the right way. The person behind me – I pictured him as a muscular, wiry youth, the ‘hoodie horror’ who stalks middle-class urban nightmares – was gaining on me. I was only a few minutes from home now. I could be there in one minute if I ran. But what if the hoodie ran too and was much faster than me?
Heart thumping, I walked as fast as I could. I didn’t dare look behind me, as if doing so would invite the hoodie to jump me. I had no idea how close he was now. Maybe I should call 999, tell them I was being followed. But I clung to the hope it was all in my imagination, that the guy behind me was an innocent heading home.
I could see my flat now. My keys were in my hand, ready. I broke into a jog, stealing a glance over my shoulder. The figure was nowhere in sight. Breathing hard, I reached the front steps of my building.
Someone jumped out on me.
I cried out with fear, my body flooding with adrenaline. I put my fists up, ready to fight, every muscle in my body tensed.
‘Andrew?’
I blinked.
‘Charlie? What . . . what are you doing here?’
Blessed relief washed through me. I looked around. No sign of the person who I had been sure was following me. He must have gone into one of the other flats on my road.
‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ Charlie said. ‘You look like you’re about to have a heart attack. What’s the matter?’
I didn’t answer her question. ‘You told me you were in bed.’
She smiled impishly. ‘I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.’ She took hold of the front of my coat, pulled me against her and kissed me. I was too freaked out to respond properly but she barely seemed to notice.
‘You’re freezing,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you inside. I’ll warm you up.’
Before we went in I took one last look down the street. Where had the person following me gone?
Twelve
Over the next couple of weeks, Charlie and I fell into a routine – though routine is not really the right word, as it suggests the mundane, tedium, life progressing without incident, each day another day closer to the grave. It wasn’t like that at all. Every day with Charlie was a mini adventure, even the days when we didn’t do much. She stayed at mine almost every night and the next day we would get up, have breakfast together, say goodbye as she went off to Moorfields and I settled at my computer to work, then meet up in the evening and go out to drink, watch a film or wander around London, exploring, following a book of walks Charlie had found in a charity shop that took us down river paths, across hidden marshes, through beautiful squares and into dark alleys.
Alternatively, we would spend the evening at my place, curled up on the sofa or in bed, or drinking wine in the bath. We drank a lot of wine, we watched silly TV shows and we continued to have a lot of sex. We were both insatiable, hardly able to make it from one room to another without pulling at each other’s clothes. Most nights, I would fall asleep with Charlie holding me tightly, so spent and exhausted that I thought there was no way I’d be able to do it tomorrow, that my well had run dry. But the next day, we would be at it again.
Looking back, it was like we had been gripped by a mania that went beyond the normal lustful fun that fills the early days of a relationship. I knew we couldn’t keep this up forever but, at the same time, believed that we would. We were having so much sex that I lost two or three pounds. My body looked more toned, my muscles pumped. I didn’t care about the circles that were beginning to darken beneath my eyes. Who needed sleep?
One night, lying in bed, a thought struck me. ‘You still haven’t shown me any of your art,’ I said.
‘I know. I will. But I haven’t had time to do anything lately.’ She poked my chest. ‘I’ve been distracted.’
The room was candlelit and cold outside the cocoon of the bed.
‘That makes me feel guilty. I don’t want you to stop doing what you love.’
‘You’re what I love,’ she said, her voice thick and sleepy.
‘Yes, but . . . You said you were going to do my portrait.’
There was no response. She was asleep.
The next day I had a meeting with Wowcom’s marketing director, who appeared thoroughly bored and unimpressed with everything I showed him, though Victor would call me afterwards and say, ‘You really wowed them at Wowcom.’ I could never tell if he was being sarcastic. They wanted me to keep working on the project, though, and Victor told me he had some other clients he wanted me to meet.
‘One thing,’ he said. ‘The client says your work is a little too sexy. I mean, sexy is good. Of course it’s fucking good. But this isn’t American Apparel or Playboy. You need to tone it down a bit.’
I was shocked. I’d used a few risqué images: young, beautiful people entwined, kissing on beaches. It was hardly explicit but there was, I had to admit, a lot of flesh on display.
Having coffee with Sasha after my meeting with the marketing guy, I told her what Victor had said.
She snorted. ‘Sounds like your real life is seeping into your work.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come off it, Andrew. You told me you and your flame-haired sex-bomb are like a pair of rabbits on Viagra. It’s interesting, because I would have thought that being sexually frustrated would make you more likely to produce sexy stuff. But with you it’s the other way round.’
‘I feel embarrassed.’
‘And so you should.’ She pouted, half serious. ‘I feel very neglected recently. I haven’t seen you properly for two weeks.’
‘I know. I’ve been busy.’
She gave me a look.
‘Why don’t the three of us go out. Me, you and Charlie.’
She forked some of her carrot cake into her mouth. ‘Hmm. As long as you promise to keep your hands off each other. I don’t want to be made to feel like a gooseberry.’ She laid her hand on her chest. ‘My heart is still healing, remember.’
I stole some of her cake. She jested, but I knew she was still cut up about Lance, especially as she had to work in his office every day. I also knew that she’d received a couple of threatening texts which she was certain were from Lance’s wife, Mae.
The first of these, sent in the middle of the night, read I hope you die of cancer bitch.
The second, again sent in the small hours, said I’ve got my eye on you.
I had suggested that she take them to the police. It had to be illegal to send threatening texts, but Sasha refused. ‘Number one, I don’t want to have to explain my love life to some smirking cop. Number two, I don’t think Mae would be stupid enough to send me nasty texts from her own phone. She’s probably using an unregistered pay-as-you-go.’ She had sighed. ‘All I can do is make sure I have no contact with him and wait for it to blow over.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said now. ‘You won’t be a gooseberry. When Charlie and I went out for the day with Tilly, we barely touched each other.’
‘I admire your restraint.’
‘I’m pretty sure you’ll like her. She’ll definitely like you.’
Sasha smiled at me, her mouth stuffed full of cake. She crossed her eyes and spoke with her mouth full, icing oozing from between her lips. ‘How could she not?’
When I mentioned to Charlie that I wanted her to meet Sasha, her face fell.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
Charlie had come straight from work and was sitting at the little table in my living room, a glass of wine in front of her. She was leafing through an arty magazine.
‘She won’t like me.’
I sat down next to her. ‘Of course she will.’
She didn’t look up from the magazine. She turned the page to a photo-shoot in which models posed as murder
victims, one stretched out in an alleyway with a slash across her throat, another tied to a chair with a plastic bag over her head. ‘Girls don’t like me.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘It’s true. Especially boyfriends’ friends. They never like me.’
This sounded daft to me. Paranoid. ‘Tilly liked you.’
Charlie glanced up from her magazine. She seemed tired, lacking her usual fizz and sparkle. ‘Tilly’s your sister. She’s kind of duty bound to like me. Or at least pretend that she does.’
‘But why do you think Sasha won’t like you?’
Her mouth was a flat line. ‘You’re quite naive sometimes, Andrew. I’d like to meet Sasha. I want to get to know everyone who’s special to you. But she won’t like me.’ She went back to her magazine. ‘Just wait and see.’
After dinner, Charlie brightened. Once our food had gone down, she said she was going to freshen up and disappeared into the bathroom, then the bedroom. She was in there for a while and I could hear her singing to herself. She was actually a terrible singer but I found it endearing that she didn’t care. She was singing a Katy Perry song, humming the lines she couldn’t remember. After a while, she called for me to come into the bedroom.
I found her sitting on the bed wearing lingerie I hadn’t seen before: expensive-looking, lacy and pure white.
‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ She nodded towards the chest of drawers. ‘We’re going to make a movie.’
A video camera sat on the chest of drawers, pointing towards the bed.
‘You mean . . . a sex tape?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She had a wicked smile on her face. ‘Something special, just for me and you. Don’t worry, I promise not to put it on YouTube. And you have to promise not to show it to anyone.’
‘I promise.’
This was exciting. I stripped to my underwear and joined her on the bed. After a long kiss, she jumped up and adjusted the focus on the camera, pressed a couple of buttons.
‘Action,’ she giggled.
I felt self-conscious at first, aware of the camera pointing at us, feeling like I was being watched not by an inanimate piece of technology but by human eyes, staring, judging. But as Charlie and I kissed and touched each other and I grew more and more aroused, I relaxed and forgot about the camera.
I think it would be accurate to say that neither Charlie nor I were in charge in the bedroom. There wasn’t one dominant party, one submissive. Sometimes, though, one of us would lead and on this occasion it was Charlie. She was the director here, and she prompted me with her lips, her tongue, her fingers. She moved her body so I would know what to do. She whispered for me to go slowly, faster, softer, harder. She ensured we were positioned so the camera could capture everything.
When we’d finished, when the tape was no longer running and we were both sated, exhausted, Charlie said, ‘I can’t wait to watch it.’
‘Hmm. Me too.’
She wriggled closer to me, warm and affectionate, her hair tickling my nose. ‘I’ve never done that before.’
I didn’t respond.
We were silent for a minute and then Charlie said, ‘Have you?’
I had been hoping she wouldn’t ask, and it would be so easy to lie. She would never find out, as I was certain the evidence had been erased and my co-star in the only other home sex movie I’d made was highly unlikely to tell. I didn’t want to lie, though, and didn’t think I had any need to.
‘Once,’ I said.
Charlie was quiet for a long time, so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep.
‘With Harriet?’ she said, just as I was about to drift off myself.
‘No. She wouldn’t have . . . She would never have wanted to do anything like that.’
From my position, with Charlie’s head on my chest, I couldn’t see her face, just the top of her head. But I could feel how tense she was. Again, I was tempted to lie. But I couldn’t.
‘It was with Karen,’ I said.
Charlie sat up rapidly. ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. She almost ran out of the room, naked.
When she came back, she sat on the edge of the bed, wearing my dressing gown. ‘I want to see it.’
I had been close to dozing off again. I squinted at her. ‘What?’
‘I want to see the tape you made with her.’
‘You can’t, Charlie. It doesn’t exist anymore. We made it as a bit of a joke, using her phone, watched it – not even the whole way through, because it was too cringeworthy – and then deleted it straight away.’
‘Are you sure she hasn’t kept a copy?’
I reached out for her but she shrank away. ‘I’m certain, sweetheart. I deleted it myself. And there’s no way I’d want you to see it anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie. If there was a tape of you having sex with another guy out there, it would be the last thing I’d want to see. Jesus.’
She didn’t respond.
‘Please, come back to bed. Don’t spoil the evening.’
But she wouldn’t move. ‘Do you ever wish you were still with her?’ she asked.
I laughed. But when I saw her expression I said, ‘You’re serious?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘You mean, leave you and go back to her?’
She nodded.
‘Why on earth would I want to do that? Karen and me – it was just a fling. It came with a built-in expiry date.’ I reached out for her. ‘We’re not like that, are we?’
Like a bubble bursting, her expression changed back to a smile. ‘Sorry. I was being an idiot.’
She slipped back beneath the quilt and cuddled up to me.
I told her that I loved her.
‘You swear?’ she said.
I laughed. ‘You want me to swear?’
She laughed too. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘OK,’ I said, holding up my hand like a Boy Scout, pleased that the conversation had swerved from serious to silly. ‘On my life. On my sister’s life. I love you.’
She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at me. She had stopped smiling and I felt confused. Were we messing about or was she taking this seriously? ‘Forever?’ she said.
‘Scout’s honour,’ I replied. ‘Until the day I die.’
In the middle of the night, I woke up needing the toilet. Charlie wasn’t in the bed. I got up and went into the dark living room.
‘What are you doing?’
I walked over. She was sitting, wrapped in a towel but goose-pimply with cold, staring at the little screen on the video camera. She was watching us having sex.
She looked up at me, her face flickering in the glow of the camera.
‘We’re perfect together,’ she said in a whisper, her eyes wide like she was telling me she’d just discovered that aliens really existed or that she’d found God.
I put my arm around her and took her back to bed.
Thirteen
I woke up late the next morning, having forgotten to set the alarm. Charlie was buried beneath the quilt and as soon as I saw the time – 10:20 a.m. – I nudged her.
‘Charlie, you’re really late for work.’
She made a low groaning noise. ‘I’m going to call in sick. I’m too tired to move.’ She groped for her phone and called the hospital, putting on a very convincing sick voice. I was impressed.
I knew I ought to get up and do some work but with Charlie sleeping beside me, and after such a weird night, I told myself I’d catch up later.
Charlie and I had lunch together, and she was trying to decide whether to go home or stay, when my doorbell rang.
‘Postman?’ Charlie asked.
‘I don’t know.’ But as I was going down the stairs, I remembered. It was Wednesday.
‘Hello Andrew,’ Kris
ti said, as I opened the door. ‘Oh. What is wrong?’
‘Huh? Oh, nothing. Come in.’
‘Am I late?’ She pulled her phone out of her bag and frowned at the screen.
‘No, no – it’s me. I’d completely forgotten you were coming.’ I noticed that she had a bruise on her cheek, and the hint of a black eye. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Why you ask?’
‘Oh. No reason.’ I didn’t want to pry into her private life. I followed her up the stairs, the smell of cigarettes wafting off her. As we entered the flat, Charlie was standing by the door, her bag on her shoulder.
‘Hello,’ Charlie said, smiling at Kristi. This was not Charlie’s genuine smile.
‘Hello.’ Kristi turned straight to me. ‘Andrew, you want me to do my usual?’
This was ridiculously awkward. ‘Yes, of course. We’re just going out. Let me give you the money now.’
I opened my wallet. It was empty.
‘How much is it?’ Charlie asked, opening her bag.
‘Sixteen pounds for two hours,’ Kristi said, looking around. The flat was messier than usual and probably stank of sex and the cannabis we’d been smoking occasionally. The bin was full of condoms and the bed wasn’t made.
Charlie handed Kristi £20 and told her to keep the change, as I always did. Then we left her to it.
It must have been zero degrees outside, the sky heavy with the threat of snow.
‘She looks like a model,’ Charlie said.
‘Who, Kristi?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Who do you think I’m talking about? A model who’s been beaten up.’
‘Maybe she had an accident.’
‘What, she walked into a door?’ Charlie craned her neck to look up at my flat.
‘What do you think I should do?’
Charlie sighed. ‘There’s probably nothing you can do. It’s a shame, though.’ She touched her own face, staring up at the building. ‘She really is beautiful. Shame she’s being exploited.’
