“If you can afford it, Beth.” Hm, he knows I can’t. “You will drink no more than two units of alcohol per day and you will not smoke. You will be home by eleven o’clock each night, at which time I will call you, using Skype, on your laptop.” He waits for me to protest, but I do not; I simply wait, pressing my lips together, for his next directive. “You will exercise for forty-five minutes a day; the choice of how to do this is up to you. I appreciate that you can’t afford the gym, but I daresay there are parks to run around, or tennis courts, or even a swim in the sea if you dare.”
I shiver. “Not at this time of year!” I exclaim.
“I have a list of assignments for you to complete. Some are simple reading assignments, some are written. Not all relate to your degree; some of them require you to find things out about the nature of a relationship such as ours. Of course, I will expect a daily progress report from you, which you will email to me each afternoon.”
I sigh. This is not sounding like much of a holiday.
“I will call you each morning at eight a.m. with a list of requirements for the day. These will cover your dress, appearance and any extra instructions I may have for you. During my evening telephone call, I will also have some duties for you to perform, but we won’t go into those now. I will be lending you my webcam for the purpose.”
I open my mouth wide. He wants me to be a cam slut! In my parents’ house! Have I mentioned that I adore this man? I’m not quite sure about all the other conditions though. Are they really necessary? Does he genuinely think I might forget him if he is not impinging on my consciousness with his demands twenty-four hours a day?
Is…hang on a minute…is Professor Eliot L. Sinclair, the university’s premier heart-throb, television hotshot and ultra-confident control freak insecure?
Here comes my answer.
“So will you be seeing…old friends…while you’re home?” he asks, appearing to squint at the label on the wine bottle, as if unconcerned by my answer.
“Of course.”
He turns his eyes to mine and they are hooded, unreadable. “Old…lovers?” he asks.
I half-laugh with disbelief. “Do you think…seriously…do you mean?” I can’t spit the words out; the notion is too preposterous to entertain.
“Well?” His tone is sharp now, hostility is in the neighbourhood.
“You don’t think I’d be unfaithful to you? Surely?”
(But why not? My own fear that he will leave me for somebody else is the big fat fly in my ointment of contentment too.)
“You’re young, Beth. And beautiful.”
“Oh, I’m not!”
“You are. There will be men around you wherever you go.”
“But I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
“They will try to persuade you…”
“And I’ll tell them to fuck off!” He frowns at me, but I persist. “You have to trust me, sir. I won’t ever, ever look at another man. I love you.”
He says nothing to that for ages and I want to hide my face behind my empty plate. Why did I say that? What an idiot! I was supposed to be waiting for him to say it to me, à la ‘The Rules’ or whatever. Finally he murmurs, “That’s good,” and my agony is complete. He didn’t even say it back. I am officially the world’s most clueless buffoon.
He takes my hand and says, “Let’s go, Beth,” and we leave for home, a long and desolate walk through an emotional wasteland. Have I just misjudged everything completely? Am I just a random fuck to him, a plaything, a bit of fun? I am too choked and fearful to talk to him and I wonder if perhaps, once I am out of his way, he will realise that I am not that important to him after all.
But when we reach the vestibule of the apartment, he pulls me against him, runs fingers through my hair, resting his bristly chin on the crown of my head.
“I’m not going to make a definitive declaration, Beth,” he says ruminatively. “At my age, one has usually learned the dangers of impulsivity. But if what I feel for you can’t yet be defined categorically as love, it is certainly as close as I have come to it in a very long time.”
“Really?” I say, my heart pounding fit to bring the skies down.
“I have something with you that I would absolutely hate to lose, Beth.”
“Oh God, so would I.”
He squeezes me tighter. “I’m grateful for that.”
“Will you trust me then?”