Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards Page A

half-full on the table before us.
    I met Sasha at university. She was the girlfriend of a guy on my course whose name I could barely remember now. I got on with her much better than I did with him. We liked the same things – the same books, music, art, all the things Charlie had said made life worth living – and shared a sense of humour. We just clicked. But we didn’t fancy each other, even though Sasha’s boyfriend thought we did, and everyone said we should be together. It wasn’t like that, though. I loved Sasha, but in a purely platonic way. This wasn’t because she wasn’t fanciable, either. She was very attractive, with straight dark hair, trendy dark-framed glasses and a curvy figure.
    ‘If I was a bloke or a lesbian I’d be all over her like a rash,’ Tilly said. ‘Actually, she makes me come over all bi-curious.’
    Yet another occasion when my sister made me cover my face with my hands.
    Sasha was a web developer, a bit of a geek, who also loved science fiction and video games. She was recovering from a teenage obsession with Buffy and Angel .
    The married-man thing was so unlike her. But this guy, Lance, was a programming genius, apparently, and had a touch of the Steve Jobs about him. Sasha told me she’d been unable to resist his advances, had tried not to think about his wife, whom he portrayed as a cold-hearted bitch who didn’t understand him.
    It was clichéd, all right.
    ‘So what happened? Did his wife find out?’
    She nodded glumly. ‘How did you guess?’
    ‘It had to be either that, or he decided he loved her and could never leave her.’
    Sasha took a big swig of her pint. The lenses of her glasses were filthy, like they’d been splashed with tears. ‘She phoned me. The wife. Her name’s Mae. She said that if I went near her husband again, her brothers would track me down and, I quote, “cut off my tits and sew up my cunt”.’
    ‘Jesus.’
    ‘It was really scary. I’m so glad I don’t work with Lance anymore.’ Her lower lip wobbled. ‘I miss him, though.’
    I trotted out all the stuff friends have to say in these circumstances: you deserve better, you need someone who really loves you. But I meant them, because as I said the words all I could think of was Charlie.
    ‘He was kinky,’ Sasha said, after she’d sunk another pint.
    ‘Do I want to hear this?’ I asked.
    ‘He liked having USB sticks shoved up his bum. You know, dongles.’
    I spat out my beer. ‘Dongles up his bum?’
    She creased up with laughter. ‘Yes. But the plastic end, not the metal USB end.’
    ‘Oh, that’s all right then. Anything else?’
    ‘Well . . . He liked wearing a nappy, and pretending to breastfeed off me.’
    ‘What?’
    She smiled. ‘I’m joking.’
    ‘Thank God.’
    ‘About the nappy part, anyway.’
    I went to the toilet, checking my phone while I took a leak. A couple of texts from Charlie, one saying that she hoped Sasha was all right, the next telling me she missed me and had been thinking about me. As I was leaving the gents, my phone flashed again. It was a photo – a selfie, of a topless Charlie.
    ‘So what have you been up to?’ Sasha asked when I got back to the table. ‘Why have you been incommunicado?’
    ‘Huh?’ I was distracted, thinking about the picture I’d just received.
    ‘What’s going on with you?’
    I stuck my phone in my pocket. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, what with your whole Lance thing. But . . . I’ve met someone.’
    ‘Wow. Really? What’s her name, what’s she like and does she have any interesting fetishes?’
    I told her all about Charlie. Twenty minutes later, after I’d paused for breath, Sasha said, ‘She sounds . . . lovely.’
    ‘She is.’
    ‘She must be. I’ve never seen you like this before. You definitely weren’t like this with Harriet.’
    ‘Yeah, well, I never felt like this about Harriet. Charlie has completely blown me away.’
    ‘Your pupils dilate when you talk about her,’ Sasha said,