The Girl Before

A few days after the restaurant episode, two packages arrive. One is a large, thin box bearing the distinctive W of Wanderer in Bond Street. The other’s smaller, about the size of a paperback. I lift the bigger one onto the stone table. Despite its size, it weighs almost nothing.

Inside, cocooned in tissue paper, is a dress. It drapes itself over my arm, the black fabric flowing silkily to either side. I can tell instantly how sensual and caressing it’s going to feel next to my skin.

I take it upstairs and try it on. I barely have to do more than lift my arms and the fabric falls into place around my body. When I turn, the material moves with me, almost playfully. Examining the weave, I see it’s cut along the diagonal.

It needs a necklace, I find myself thinking. And immediately, I guess what’s in the smaller package.

There’s a card, written in a beautiful, almost calligraphic hand. Jane—forgive me for being an insensitive fool. Edward. And a clamshell case that opens to reveal, nestled in the velvet interior, a three-row collar of pearls. The pearls aren’t large, but they’re unusual—pale cream in color, and not quite round, with an opalescent shimmer deep in the nacre.

The exact same color as the walls of One Folgate Street.

The necklace looks small—too small, I think when I first put it on: It’s tight against my throat, and for a moment I feel strangled by the lack of give, so different from the flowing, sensuous dress. But then I look at myself in the mirror and the combination is stunning.

I put my hair up with one hand to see what it looks like. Yes, like that, tumbling to the side. I take a selfie to send Mia.

Edward should see this too, I think. I forward the picture to him as well. Nothing to forgive. But thank you.

He replies less than a minute later. Good. Because I’m two minutes away and closing.

I walk downstairs and stand in front of the plate-glass window, facing the door, positioning myself for maximum effect. Waiting for my lover.

—

He takes me over the stone table, still in the dress and the pearl collar: urgent, direct, without preamble or small talk.

I’ve never had a relationship like this before. I’ve never made love anywhere but a bed before. I’ve been told I’m self-contained and aloof; and, by one man, sexually dull. And yet somehow, here I am. Doing this.

Afterward, it’s as if he comes out of a kind of trance, and the urbane, thoughtful Edward is back in charge. He cooks us some pasta, the sauce nothing more than some green olive oil from an unlabeled bottle, a smear of fresh goat’s cheese and plenty of ground pepper. The oil is called lacrima, he tells me, the first precious tears that rise to the surface when the olives are washed before pressing. He has a couple of bottles sent over from Tuscany every harvest. The pepper is from Tellicherry, on the Malabar Coast. “Though sometimes I use Kampot peppercorns from Cambodia. They’re milder but more aromatic.”

Sex and good, simple food. Somehow it feels like the height of sophistication.

When the pasta has been devoured he loads the dishwasher and cleans the pans. Only then does he take a document from a leather case. “I brought your metrics. I thought you’d like to know how you’re doing.”

“Did I pass?”

He doesn’t smile. “Well, your aggregate is eighty.”

“What should it be?”

“There’s no real benchmark. But we’d be hoping to see it come down to a fifty or even lower, over time.”

I can’t help feeling criticized. “So what am I doing wrong?”

He scans the document, which I now see consists of rows of numbers, like a spreadsheet. “You could do a bit more exercise. A couple of sessions a week should be enough. You’ve lost some weight since you’ve been here, but you could probably do with losing a bit more. Your stress levels are generally in the acceptable range—your speech rate tends to go up when you’re on the phone, but that’s not uncommon. You’re drinking hardly any alcohol, which is good. Temperature, respiration, and kidney function are all fine. Your REM sleep is adequate and you’re spending a healthy amount of time in bed. Most important of all, you have a more positive outlook on life. You have an increasingly high level of personal integrity, you’re more disciplined, and you’re managing to keep the limescale off the shower.” He smiles to show that the last bit, at least, is a joke, but I’m breathless with indignation.

“You know all that about me!”

“Of course. If you’d read the terms and conditions properly, none of this would come as a surprise.”