Page 76 of The Elements

“So you probably have a girlfriend, right?” she asked, and I was uncertain how to respond.

Yes, I had a girlfriend. A girlfriend of two years.

But a girlfriend who never touched me and who I was afraid to touch.

I considered saying that my relationship status was complicated but couldn’t bear the sound of the clich é .

“There is someone,” I admitted cautiously. “But I’m not entirely sure what we are to each other.”

“Do you love her?”

No point in lying.

“I do,” I said. Because I did.

Beneath the table, her leg stretched out and when her right foot—bare, removed from her high heel—brushed against my calf, I knew that I was powerless. I wanted sex. Not just for the act itself but because I wanted to behave as other men my age behaved. I wanted to feel normal.

We drank some more, then went to another bar. Then to a club, where we danced. I think I surprised her by being quite good at it.

“Not just a pretty face,” I told her when she commented on this, enjoying this different version of Aaron that I was creating for her benefit. A confident Aaron. A desirable Aaron. A sexy Aaron.

We kissed, and during that kiss, the song changed, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” pounding insistently through the speakers, everyone on the dance floor bursting into a spontaneous La La La, La-La-La-La-La .

Kylie pulled away, looking at me in amusement, and asked whether I’d asked the DJ to play it.

I insisted that I hadn’t, pointing out that I hadn’t left her side since we’d arrived.

But I had, of course. I’d gone to the bathroom. And I’d requested it on the way back.

We danced some more, kissed some more, and then, at last, I glanced at my watch. Almost three a.m. The club would be closing soon.

“It’s late,” I said.

“Time for bed.”

I nodded, looking around, uncertain what to do. Having missed out on all the rites of passage that train people how to behave in such moments, I felt absurdly anxious. In life, I was seen as a successful, confident young man. But emotionally, I was still a stunted fourteen-year-old boy.

“You can come home with me if you want,” she said.

An image of Rebecca came into my mind. My feelings for her were deep and true.

I loved her, I wanted her, I longed for her.

But without sex, what were we to each other really?

And so I gave in. We hailed a taxi. In the back seat, we kissed some more.

I was conscious of the driver, who was tactfully ignoring us, probably accustomed to such late-night shenanigans, but didn’t like the idea of being observed in such an intimate moment so I pulled back, preferring to look into her eyes and talk quietly, stroking her cheek with my thumb.

When we reached her flat, my excitement was equaled only by my apprehension.

I wrapped my arms around her, enjoying the curve of her back beneath my hands.

I grew excited by the deep sigh that escaped her lips when I placed my fingers beneath her blouse to stroke her skin.

It occurred to me that I had never given Rebecca an orgasm and that for so long all of my own had been self-induced.

Another thing we had never spoken of. I was so stirred by Kylie’s arousal that I needed to pull back for a moment.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. I’m normal , I told myself. I’m normal.

“You look like a fifteen-year-old who’s about to lose his virginity.”

Normal. Normal. Normal.

“ Slow down, ” she said when I reached for her again. “Shall we have a drink first? A nightcap?”

“Sure,” I said, a little relieved as she made her way toward the kitchen.

“What would you like? I have wine, beer. I might have some whiskey somewhere if—”

“Maybe just a soft drink? I’ve probably had enough alcohol for one night.”

When she came back, she turned off the main light so only a table lamp illuminated the room with its soft glow. “Is a Coke OK?”

I nodded, and she handed the ice-cold can to me.

An image of Rebecca ran through my mind, as did the certainty that if I went through with this, I would surely repeat this behavior time and again in the future.

I would become a man that I didn’t want to be.

A liar. A cheat. A serial betrayer. But I felt such strong desire that I was lost.

And then I opened the can.

It must have been shaken somewhere along the way because it immediately exploded, Coke drenching my top.

“Oh shit!” she said. “Sorry!” I put the can down and looked at my shirt, now stained and sticky, pulling it away from my skin.

“I can help you with that,” she whispered, reaching forward to undo the buttons, and in that moment, I was taken back nine years, to Freya’s apartment, a wide-eyed schoolboy uncertain what to do as she told me that I couldn’t possibly go home with my uniform in such a state.

That I should take it off and she’d run it through the washer-dryer for me.

Won’t take more than an hour, Aaron. In the meantime, you can jump in the shower.

When her fingers touched me, I reared back, stumbling over the side of an armchair.

“Are you all right?” she asked, surprised by my behavior.

“I’m fine,” I said, looking around, trying to find the light switch. It was too dark in there. I was frightened. I couldn’t breathe. The flat was too small. I needed to get out.

“Where are you going?” she asked, as I grabbed my jacket and lurched toward the door. I fumbled with the lock, and she opened it for me, before stepping back in fear. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I do something to upset you?”

I shook my head, unable to answer, and ran down the staircase, only glancing back to see her face, bewildered and alarmed.

Not normal.

Broken.

Completely broken.

The following year, on a weekend break to Barcelona, Rebecca and I sat outside a bar off the Ramblas, and I asked her to marry me.

I expected her to say no. In retrospect, I think I wanted to provoke her into breaking up with me, for her to recognize that the three years we’d spent together, those wasted sexless years, had been a mistake but one that could be set right if we separated now.

After all, we were both still young enough to start over.

To my surprise, however, she agreed without hesitation, and that was it, we were engaged.

We celebrated for the rest of the weekend. With alcohol. With good food. With walks and sightseeing and selfies. But physically, with nothing more than the occasional chaste kiss.

I had gone to Spain with the deliberate intention of proposing, convincing myself that things would improve after we made this commitment.

Perhaps I wanted to lock her down, so she wouldn’t leave me, and I wouldn’t be alone.

A half-life was all I merited, I told myself.

I didn’t deserve what came so easily to other men.

Who, after all, would want to touch someone as soiled as me?

It would be quite a few years later before the possibility of something more would present itself and I would become overwhelmed by real desire.

Rebecca and I might have met in the most boring place possible, but when I first laid eyes on Furia Flyte, it was in a much more exotic setting.