Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KIT
I slumped back into the seat, closed my eyes and groaned in almost orgasmic satisfaction because red curry, pad Thai, and stir fried pork had a way of doing that to me. The low laughter across the table pulled my eyelids open, and my heart stuttered.
God, but Alex was stunning. It kind of made me wonder why he wanted to be with me.
“Good?” he asked, and I nodded.
The restaurant was packed, as it always was. Rickety chairs and tables, screechy Thai music crackling through ancient looking speakers mounted on wall brackets, and fading posters advertising long ago Thai boxing contests. I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
The bill was slapped on the table and a young, harassed looking guy stood over us with a card reader.
With a queue snaking out the door, it was our cue to leave.
I grabbed the bill before Alex could, doing my best to ignore the thunderous look he gave me as I tapped my card against the reader.
I’d always paid my way in life, and even though Alex had more money than I ever would, I wasn’t going to stop now.
Besides, it felt good doing something nice for him.
“And there was me thinking we could have dessert, followed by coffee and brandies. Thank you. Even if I am annoyed,” he said with a huff.
“Then you’ll just have to stay annoyed, won’t you. Come on, let’s go.”
Outside, I linked my arm through his as we made our way to my place, just a few minutes’ walk away.
I loved my little house, the development was well cared for, but the wider area was plagued by high crime rates, and not all of it petty.
I led the way, taking us the longer route rather than the shortcut known locally as Muggers’ Alley.
Fine during the day, at night it was pitch black and only to be used in an emergency.
I made the coffee we’d not had in the restaurant and took it through to the living room, along with a bottle of supermarket lable brandy I’d won in a raffle somewhere. I had my doubts about it, but it was the best I could do.
Alex had his back to me, and was looking through my slightly wobbly bookcase. He pulled a book out.
“How do you even begin to teach English to foreigners?” He held up a battered paperback that had been my Bible at one time.
“With difficulty.” I put the tray down, and picked up my coffee. I wasn’t sure I wanted any of the dodgy brandy.
“So, you took one of those teaching English courses and taught businessmen?” He pushed the book back into its slot and came and sat down.
I laughed. “No, on both counts. I pitched up on Koh Tao. It’s a small island known for its diving, but the thing was I didn’t dive.
Long story short, the owner of the place where I was staying made me a proposition.
She’d teach me to dive if I helped her two kids with their English.
They were already pretty good, they just needed lots of practice with conversation and their confidence boosted.
I think I got the better part of the deal.
” I nestled back into the cushions, my mind drifting back to that idyllic time; it was one of the happiest memories I’d brought back with me from Thailand.
“So it was a gap year.” Alex laughed. “An extended holiday.”
I clattered my cup down, spilling some coffee over the table. No, it wasn’t a holiday, never that.
“Kit? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I had no idea why his comment had got to me the way it had. Others had said much the same, when I told them I’d spent time in Thailand, but I’d always been able to shrug it away.
I sighed and closed my eyes as Alex’s warm hand settled on the back of my neck, his thumb sweeping backwards and forwards.
“Thailand was incredible,” I whispered. “The place was exactly what I needed.”
“Why did you need to go? Because needing something isn’t always the same as wanting.”
“No…” No to telling him why, or no as an agreement? In that moment, I wasn’t sure which.
With every brush of his thumb, he pulled the words from me. “I—I just had an opportunity, that’s all. You know, after uni and before getting a grown-up job.” I was still fighting, still pushing back down into the darkness everything I’d never told another living soul.
“You’re a terrible liar. But, I can’t force you to tell me.”
No, he couldn’t but if we were to become… something… if we were to be more, then shouldn’t I be truthful? I was standing at a crossroads, with a decision to make about which route to take. All I could do was hope to god I made the right choice.
I shifted out from his touch, because if I was to tell the tale I’d told no one, I had to do it with a clear head. “I ran away, I suppose, because I’d become involved in stuff I wasn’t proud of.” Jesus, what an understatement.
“What do you mean?” Alex rested his hand on the back of my neck once more, resuming the gentle back and forth of his thumb; I let him, and didn’t pull away.
“I’d got myself into a situation. Because I was so short of money. It seemed like a quick and easy way out. I thought I could handle it, but I couldn’t.” I turned to face him, willing him to make sense of what I was telling him without me having to spell it out.
“Life forces us to make choices. The rock or the hard place. But if that’s all there is, there isn’t really a choice.
” His voice was low, and his eyes, although trained on mine, seemed to dim and fade as though he were no longer seeing me but something else, and for a moment I wondered what secrets he kept hidden.
“Tell me, Kit. Tell me what made you run away.”
I hesitated. Could I do it? Push had come to shove.
He’d said he couldn’t force me to tell him why I’d gone to Thailand, but if I didn’t where would it leave us?
If we truly wanted to make a go of things, didn’t Alex need to know what’d had happened?
I only prayed he’d understand. He’d talked about choices, and right then I only had the one.
“University was a struggle,” I said quietly. “Not academically, but financially. I had loans. I worked two jobs. I couldn’t make ends meet. Living and studying in London was bleeding me dry. I even thought of chucking it all in, but I’d still have debts and no degree to show for it.”
I curled up into the corner of my sofa, a sofa I was so proud of because I’d bought it with my first month’s salary from my boring office job. It was a symbol, like the house and everything in it, that I’d pulled through.
“A friend of mine, who was always as skint as me, was suddenly flush with money and he helped me out a couple of times with no expectation I should pay him back.” The man whose wedding I’d attended, the man I’d cheered and clapped for when he’d kissed his beautiful bride.
“He’d chucked in his part time jobs but he had cash to spare and I couldn’t work out why.
” I glanced across at Alex. He knew, I felt it in every part of me.
Slowly, carefully, Alex pushed his fingers through my hair.
His touch was tender, soft almost, and I swear to god that simple gesture was all it took to open the flood gates I’d kept locked for so long.
“He introduced me to somebody. A couple of evenings a week, that was all I had to commit to. A smart hotel in central London, not some stinking alley or the back of a car. Hand picked clients, I was told.” The words rushed from me, clawing at my throat.
Alex’s fingers faltered, just for a moment, and fear gripped me that he’d take his hand away, that he’d withdraw.
His fingers resumed their regular, almost metronomic rhythm, and the breath I was hardly aware had caught in my chest released on a shaky sigh.
“That first time, I was so nervous. It was just sex, I told myself. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had my fair share of hook ups at parties and clubs.
I wasn’t some naive virgin. So I could handle it.
I could bank the cash, chuck in the minimum wage crappy jobs, and reserve my worry for making it through my course rather than how I was going to pay the rent or buy food. ”
“But it wasn’t like that.”
I looked at Alex, really looked at him. It had been a statement not a question. I shook my head.
“At first it was. Maybe I got lucky. After the first few times, I was able to read the men and figure out what they liked. Nothing kinky or weird. Nothing too demanding. Everybody got what they wanted out of the arrangement. Later on I had a couple of tricky encounters, which spooked me a bit, but they weren’t anything I couldn’t handle.
Because I could handle it, or that’s what I told myself, but underneath and if I really let myself think about it, I knew I couldn’t. Not really.”
I shifted around to fully face Alex. Everything I’d bottled up for so long, it was pouring out of me. A part of me wanted to stop, to press my lips into a tight line and not talk about it again, ever. But I couldn’t. A tap had been turned on and I couldn’t turn it off.
“When all this started, I’d had a boyfriend. It wasn’t anything too serious, we weren’t in it for the long term but I liked being with him.”
“Did he know what was going on?”
“No. There was no way I could tell him because I was afraid of how he’d look at me, that he might see the label rather than the person I was.
My extra curricular activities started to affect our relationship.
I couldn’t stand him touching me, or kissing me.
It felt wrong in a way it hadn’t before.
I made excuses. He didn’t push or get annoyed; he wasn’t like that.
I think he was confused. We’d been out one evening on another awkward date, and he kissed me.
I was caught unawares and went crazy; I completely lost it.
Needless to say, that was it between us because he ran for the hills and I didn’t blame him.
” I rubbed my hands down my face, the memories of those times I’d pushed so far into the darkness were rushing back to meet me.