A Cure for Love

Lewis had brought the car to a halt. Both he and Jessica were, she realised, looking at her.

Shakily she told them both, ‘It’s…it’s…very nice.’

‘Very nice!’ Jessica scoffed. ‘Oh, come on, Ma, you can do better than that.’

Lacey gave her a wan smile.

Once long, long ago, on a hot summer afternoon, lying with Lewis on their bed, the heat pressing down on the small, narrow row of houses, she had dreamily described to Lewis the sort of house she dreamed of owning…the sort of house just right for the family she longed to have.

From its exterior this house might have been designed to fit that description, and she was unbearably conscious of the cruel irony that Lewis should own it.

Five years ago, he said he had bought it, plenty of time for him to have forgotten the house she had described to him all those years ago. She reached for the door-handle of the car, suddenly desperate for some fresh air, forgetting that her seatbelt was still fastened.

Jessica was already opening her door and getting out, and Lacey and Lewis were alone in the car.

‘I bought it because of you,’ he told her quietly. ‘I was driving past one day and I saw it.’

‘And it just happened to be for sale…and you thought, Oh, there’s a house like the one Lacey wanted.’ Her voice was choked with tears, bitterness thickening the words.

He was looking towards her, but she couldn’t bear to look at him…couldn’t endure him seeing the misery and unhappiness in her eyes.

‘No, as a matter of fact it wasn’t for sale…but the owners were an elderly couple and thinking about retiring to somewhere more convenient. I told them if they ever did decide to sell to get in touch with me.’

‘You wanted it that much?’ She was puzzled now.

‘I needed it that much,’ he corrected her, bending over her to release her seatbelt.

She could smell the scent of his shampoo, his soap; she could see the male graining of his skin. His head was so close to her that if she moved only slightly she would feel the warmth of his breath against her breast.

A deep shudder ran through her. Beneath her clothes her nipples peaked and hardened.

‘Lacey, I…’

His hand was on her shoulder, his voice low and urgent. She had the oddest feeling that if she looked at him now she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from begging him to kiss her.

‘Come on, you two,’ Jessica urged them from outside. ‘I want to see inside.’

INSIDE, THE HOUSE was perfectly proportioned, a real family home. It should have radiated warmth and welcome but instead it felt empty…cold…unlived in…its rooms bare and austere.

Lacey was appalled. It was like a hotel. No, it was far, far worse than a hotel. It had a lonely, almost institutionalised air about it, a lack of warmth, of life, of love. There were no pictures, no flowers, no small personal belongings. It was sterile…empty.

‘How many bedrooms does it have?’ she heard Jessica asking Lewis.

‘Five,’ he responded as he led the way upstairs. ‘And three bathrooms.’

A large house for a single man. Why had he bought it?

Upstairs the bedrooms were just as barren of any signs of homeliness as those downstairs. Outside the last door Lewis paused, and then said briefly, ‘This last one is my room. I don’t think there’s any need to show you in there.’

The door was slightly open, and as they walked past a current of air caught it, opening it still further, so that Lacey automatically glanced inside.

On the cabinet beside the bed she could see a silver photograph frame. It was turned towards the bed so that she could not see the photograph inside it, but immediately jealousy tore savagely at her. Now she knew why he hadn’t wanted them to see inside his room: it was because he still kept a photograph of her there—the woman he had left her for. His bedroom was obviously still a shrine to her…to his love for her.

As they walked downstairs, Lacey discovered that she was trembling, barely able to contain the intensity of her emotions.

She was a woman, for heaven’s sake, not a girl. It was ridiculous, humiliating…idiotic that she should still feel like this

It was bad enough that Lewis was still able to arouse her sexually, but this jealousy…this despair…this aching, yearning envy of another woman because she possessed his love—surely they did not belong to maturity, to wisdom, to common-sense or all the other things she felt went hand in hand with her age?