The Girl Before

My God, Edward says. But you? You’re quite sure it’s not too soon?

Impulsively I reach for his hand under the table and put it under my skirt. He looks surprised but goes with it. I almost laugh out loud. Made you look, made you stare. Made you feel my underwear.

I pull his hand deeper into my crotch, feeling his knuckles slide over my panties.

It’s definitely not too soon, I tell him.

I keep hold of his wrist, moving against it, rubbing myself on him. He pushes my panties to one side and slides a finger inside me. My knees come up and rattle the table, like a medium at a séance. I stare into his eyes. He looks transfixed.

We’d better go, he says. But he doesn’t take his hand away.

NOW: JANE

After we make love, I’m drowsy and sated. Edward props himself up on one elbow, examining me minutely, his free hand exploring my skin. When he gets to the stretch marks from Isabel I feel self-conscious and try to roll away, but he stops me.

“Don’t. You’re beautiful, Jane. Every bit of you is beautiful.”

His questing fingers encounter a scar under my left breast. “What’s this?”

“Childhood accident. I fell off my bike.”

He nods as if this is acceptable and continues down to my belly button. “Like the mouth of a knotted balloon,” he says, spreading it apart. His fingers follow the soft pathway of hair downward. “You don’t wax,” he observes.

“No. Should I? My last…Vittorio liked me this way. There’s so little of it, he said.”

Edward considers. “You should make it symmetrical, at least.”

Suddenly this seems hilariously funny. “Are you asking me to declutter my pubes, Edward?” I splutter.

He puts his head on one side. “Yes, I suppose I am. What’s so amusing?”

“Nothing. I will try to minimize my body hair for you.”

“Thank you.” He plants a kiss on my belly, like a tiny flag. “I’m going to take a shower.”

I hear the hiss of water behind the stone partition that separates off the bathroom. From the way the sound changes I can picture his body moving in and out of the spray, his sleek hard torso turning this way and that. Idly I wonder how the sensor recognizes him; whether he has some special privileges still registered on the system, or if there’s simply some universal, generic setting for visitors.

The water stops. When he hasn’t reappeared after several minutes I sit up. There’s a rubbing sound coming from the direction of the bathroom.

I follow the noise around the partition. Edward, a white towel wrapped around his waist, is crouched in the shower, polishing the stone walls with a cloth.

“This is a hard-water area, Jane,” he says without looking up. “If you’re not careful you’ll get limescale building up on the stone. It’s already noticeable. Really, you should dry the shower off every time you use it.”

“Edward…”

“What?”

“Isn’t that a bit—well, obsessive?”

“No,” he says. “It’s whatever the opposite of lazy is.” He considers. “Meticulous, perhaps.”

“Isn’t life simply too short to dry showers after you use them?”

“Or perhaps,” he says reasonably, “life is simply too short to live it less perfectly than it could be lived.” He stands up. “You haven’t done an assessment yet, have you?”

“Assessment?”

“With Housekeeper. It’s currently set to monthly intervals, I think. I’ll adjust it so you do one tomorrow.” He pauses. “I’m sure you’re doing fine, Jane. But having the numbers will help you improve still further.”

—

Next morning I wake up happy and a little stiff. Edward’s already gone. I go downstairs to get a coffee before my shower and find a message from Housekeeper on my laptop screen.

Jane, please score the following statements on a scale of 1–5, where 1 is Strongly Agree and 5 is Strongly Disagree.

1. I sometimes make mistakes.

2. I am easily disappointed.

3. I become anxious over unimportant things.

There are dozens more. I leave them for later, make my coffee and take it upstairs. I step into the shower, waiting for the luxurious cascade of warmth. Nothing happens.

I wave my arm, the one with the digital bracelet on, but there’s still nothing. A power cut? I try to remember if there’s a fuse box in the cleaner’s cupboard. But it can’t be that: There was power downstairs, or Housekeeper wouldn’t have been working.

Then I realize what it must be. “Damn you, Edward,” I say aloud. “I wanted a bloody shower.”

Sure enough, when I go and look at Housekeeper more closely I see the words Some house facilities have been disabled until the assignment is completed.

At least it let me have coffee. I settle down to answer the questions.

THEN: EMMA

The sex is good.

Good, but not spectacular.

I get the feeling he’s holding back, trying to be a gentleman. When actually a gentleman is the last person I want to share my bed with. I want him to be the selfish alpha male he’s so clearly capable of being.