And what about that lack of shagging? Didn’t they say where there’s a will, there’s a way? Why the lack of will, in that case? Did she just lose sight of it at times, on the road to and from that dark place? Or was she pushing him away, the scared part of her that believed he was too good to be true attempting to hasten his inevitable departure from her life, all the time preparing herself so that it didn’t shock or hurt so much when it happened?

She slowed down at an amber light. She would have been through it before it turned red, but there was congestion on the other side of the junction anyway. It was a sensible, level-headed decision, and she needed sensible, level-headed thinking. These were stupid thoughts. She was overanxious because there was tension between them, and it wouldn’t be outlandish to suggest that the lack of a damn good fucking wasn’t helping her own head state either. Drew had never given any indication that he was likely to do anything rash, far less that he was unhappy with his life. He was kind, solicitous, selfless and loving. He was hers. But she was still very glad he wasn’t staying in a hotel tonight.

View from a Dead End

Sitting in the front of the Land Rover, a vehicle as rugged and weathered-looking as its driver, Jasmine found her fear partially supplanted by a mortifying self-consciousness. She couldn’t decide whether it was being fuelled by her feelings of vulnerability, or the other way around, but either way she felt quite literally exposed as Ingrams drove her along the winding rural lanes.

Her mind had been on other things when she came out of the shower this morning, and it was only striking her now that the bra she had put on was one she normally wore under blouses and other looser-fitting items, as opposed to the part-Lycra top she had stretched over herself in a caffeine-deficient semi-trance. Her nipples were showing through the material; not in a transparent way, but their topology was vividly described. This was something that, in Jasmine’s experience, tended to be circularly reinforcing: once she was aware of it, it made her skin crawl with goose pimples, a tautening effect that had particular ramifications for her chest. She hadn’t been aware of it while with Rita, but up close in the front of this Land Rover she felt acutely conscious of the masculinity in her presence. It was mostly olfactory: a smell of the outdoors and of fresh sweat, masked by a receding hint of shower gel and deo.

She folded her arms across her chest, but by this point she felt so self-consciously conspicuous that she felt self-consciously conspicuous about doing that. She unfolded them again and tried to make herself appear relaxed, unworried, professional.