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I frowned. That didn’t seem right.
“Justin said something brutal happened,” he persisted.
“We’d been at a party to do with Gavin’s work. I’m not good with things like that. I can’t make clever spontaneous conversation with strangers. He was drunk and angry. He strangled me up against a wall. I couldn’t breathe. I thought he was going to kill me.” I took a deep breath, reliving the emotions of that day. I’d felt used, dirty and pathetic. Not wanting Aleks to associate any of those things with me, I just told him of the surrounding thoughts and actions. “I knew he wouldn’t seek medical assistance if I stopped breathing. I mean, he didn’t even like me. I wondered how he’d dispose of the body. But then, I managed to knee him and run. I had to walk all the way home. I’d left my jacket in his house, and my phone was out of charge. He’s been very keen to speak to me ever since, probably to tell me it was all my fault. Everything was always my fault.”
Aleks’s face was grim, though his hold had become more like cradling. “No one is hurting you like this again, my darling.”
With my face nestled in his neck, it was easy to believe that. He was safety. He was love.
“You have had many other boyfriends?” he asked a few minutes later.
“No, none.”
He lifted my face to his, as if disbelieving.
I sighed, more uncomfortable things about to be revealed. “I had an unrequited situation going on for a while, a long while, for someone who would never like me back that way. Gavin asked me out, and I thought it was about time so… But I wasn’t properly attracted to him, and I think he knew that. But enough about me.” I couldn’t ask the same question. It wouldn’t go well. There was one thought that might fester, however. “Michelle seems very cool and collected.”
He stiffened. “She is pleased with how things go. Eleven of you with reactions, is more than she expect.”
“I mean in general. I must seem like a mad, inappropriate creature compared to her.”
He breathed out fast as if in shock. “Never be comparing yourself to this one. She is cold and obsessive. She is the creature. Everything she does is to manipulate. I went along with it for a while. But you… You.” The pause was ominous. “Everything about you enchants me. You must know this. Your responses in love are so natural and so strong. You are not thinking of what shoes you are to buy the next day.”
“What? Who does that?”
He shook his head and smiled. “You make me feel so wanted.”
“You are.” I pressed my mouth to his ear and whispered: “I love you too.”
More words came out small and soft after that and continued on and on. It was the most whispery, talkative love we had ever made. ‘I love you’ was a happy novelty to say and hear, and trying to be quiet added the new element of laughter. But he was more than loved, more than wanted. He was needed, and that realisation had the potential to be frightening, but somehow wasn’t. With Aleks, big feelings were natural, manageable, and even easy. The need was mirrored in him. It was there in his kiss, in his body and breath, sex a blissful confirmation of our continued togetherness.
A little later, there was knocking. “You all right, Phi?” asked Justin, fortunately not opening the door.
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“Bad dream?”
“No.”
“You should try and go back to sleep, sweetheart. It’s early. And don’t you worry. We’ll be fine. Who needs men? Fuck ’em. Fuck the whole flaming lot of them. Now, there’s a dream.” He shuffled back down the hall to his room.
“Is nice, this relationship,” commented Aleks. “You look after each other. This is how we are becoming too,” he said, then getting out of bed. “Where is your bathroom?”
“Just through that wall. The first door.”
Once he was gone, I pulled my pyjamas back on, thinking to go and make coffee. Or maybe he should make it, so it would be good. I smiled at the thought.
He came back into the room and closed the door, leaning back on it as if traumatised. “I meet Justin.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “See, another reason why people wear clothes.”
“I will never be able to look him in face again.”
“What did he say?”
“Good morning, Aleks.”
Chapter 9
