Cory began to draw close again, and I listened for some sound other than our rapid breathing. It didn’t have to be another human being; any old noise would do. Jackdaws cawing. Waves lapping. Trees creaking . . . I suppose the silence was because of the mist—the rain had softened and thickened at some point since I left the house—but it felt like an effect of Cory’s approach, as if the closer he got the more fragmented and faraway everything else became.

“Freya?”

He was frightened to touch me, even with his gaze.

“Please don’t leave me, Freya.”

I tried to kick him, but he went down on his knees and pressed himself against my legs, trapping my wrists with one smooth movement of his hand. My mouth felt dry. He looked up at me, his face a raised blur in the dusk, as if it were his fate that was in my hands and not the other way round.

“Everything is for you,” he said. “You are my inspiration. I love you. I need you.”

Blah, blah, blah, I thought. The great artist and his muse.

I wonder what he saw when he looked at me like that. A soft-focus dream, as kitsch as anything I’d ever indulged. A glittering spread of royal-red rooms; pictures in golden frames; hordes of admirers oohing and aahing over his genius. The two of us flitting from guest to guest: You must be so proud of him . . . You must be so grateful to her . . . and the whole house in high spirits, although there’s concern that the champagne is running low and we can barely make ourselves heard above the chatter. My father clapping him on the back and scribbling eager notes on a paper napkin. Your fortune is made this day, my boy.

Cory leaned into my knees. He began kissing my thighs and stomach, and with every nudge of his lips I remembered those days and nights at the end of the summer. I looked away, but the potholed drive was cold and dark, unilluminated by fantasy.

“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Let’s be like we were before. I didn’t mean to hurt you; it was a split second, a moment of madness.”

I think he was trying to hypnotise me—he said these things so many times and between so many kisses. If my hands had been free I could have stroked his forehead and fondled his rain-frizzled hair and forgiven his “moment of madness.” Or I could have dug my thumbs into his eyes.

“You’re such a liar,” I said.