I’m afraid he’ll get his way when I’m not here to do anything about it.
I’m distracted on the way home. I’m thinking about what happened when something starts bugging me.
Yes, I’d like to kill Grant, but am I really, truly, any better than he is?
When I’m alone, I try to remember how I behave when Penny and I are together.
Do I force her? Have I ever done anything against her will? I can’t remember, dammit, I can’t remember. The suspicion of having been – if not violent – too persuasive, of having ignored any refusal on her part, like I ignored her pain that very first time, makes me feel so bad that I get out of the shower, dripping, and go down to see her.
I can’t knock on her door because her grandmother would hear, so I head out the window and climb down the fire escape to her room. When she lets me in, surprised and frightened, I can see immediately that she’s been crying again.
For a man, admitting that he’s more of a bastard than his enemy is not easy, but I admit it: I suck more than Grant does. I pretend to deliver justice by wanting to get rid of him, but I’m worse than he is. You don’t have to be arrogant or outright violent to hurt a woman. I have violated Penny in a thousand other ways and I feel like shit.
But she denies it and keeps on defending me. My pride hopes it’s true, but inside I know I’ve done wrong.
Penny . . . I’ve been such a mess since you came into my life. Everything I thought was logical is turned on its head, and I’m left with some impossible puzzle. I feel like I’m walking on a wire suspended over an endless void. I don’t recognise myself and I’m scared to know what’s going on inside my own head. This is why I try not to think about it, just bury my head in the sand and ignore the words screaming in my mind. I don’t want to understand what’s happening. I want everything to go back to the way it was before.
In the meantime I look at her, want to touch her. She’s all mine, for now at least. We don’t need to rush tonight. Let’s take this slow.
We touch each other in silence so her grandmother can’t hear us. We do it in a different way, we’re less hungry about it, even though I’m as horny for her as ever, but the orgasm is the same, the orgasm shakes me from head to toe. When she touches me and looks at me with her sweet smile of near astonishment, my pleasure is amplified in a way I can’t explain, and I come in her white hand, on her virgin bed.
When we’re done, I put my arms around her. I want us to spend the whole night together, and this confuses me. I want to pull the covers up and sleep alongside her, and do it with her all over again as soon as I wake up.
But that would be going too far. OK, I admit that I like her way more than I expected, but I can’t just turn my whole life upside down. I can’t die and be reborn in a day. I can’t bury who or what I am quite so radically. I can’t do that for anyone or for any reason.
So, even if my need to stay is fighting like a storm in my chest, I put on my clothes and go back to where I came from.
21
Penny woke up to the deafening racket of hail on the windows, as if God were pelting sugared almonds on to the earth. Penny shivered, opening her eyes, and thought of Marcus, and how cosy it would be to watch the storm with him.
But it would also be foolish for her to hope that he might. Last night he’d given her something close to love, but Penny knew it was an imitation and not the real thing. She needed to keep her feet on the ground or she’d end up with a broken heart.
You already have a broken heart, baby.
So she sat alone and watched the hail come down.
Suddenly her grandma was at her door, trying to come in and finding it locked. ‘Penny? Are you OK?’
Penny opened the door and gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I’m fine. I was so tired last night I accidentally locked the door.’