“Um, I was a bit spaced-out actually. Mainly, I was thinking that the numbers I was hearing were more money than I’d ever seen in my life, and half of it was mine. All I had to do was keep my nerve for a week.” Then I falter. “That all seemed pretty reasonable until Richard told me what happened to that other girl….”

He slips his hand over mine.

“Why did you come back to us, Charlotte? You went through that, after everything that had preceded it, and then James and I…. We…. You had the money. You could have started your life over, and never had to set eyes on us again, but you came back. Why?”

“Because I wanted to. Because both of you were honest about it; about what you wanted, and that you were paying me, very well, for it. The things we did… you were both so gentle, and kind, and careful with me. You never forced me into anything. I chose all of it.”

“Alright, so we didn’t hurt you. but that doesn’t answer the question. Why did you come back?”

“I came back, at first, because I simply wanted more, of both of you. Later, I realised I’d fallen in love.”

His face twists. “With James, not with me.”

“It took longer with you, that’s all. And it’s different with the two of you. It was only meant to be for a week, but later, the more I thought about what had happened during that week, the more I wanted to be back with you both. The two of you were my Master and my Golden Lover. I’d never had anything like it.”

“It didn’t bother you that we were fucking you for money? After what had happened to you in the past?”

“But it wasn’t like that…. Yes, you’d paid, but you never treated me like I was someone you’d paid. And you helped me. You gave me ways of helping myself, and then, later, after I knew I’d fallen in love, somehow…. there was never the chance, the right moment.... Michael…?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you pay? Was it both of you?”

“No. James made the purchase. But I joined in. I’m not feeling proud of myself.”

He looks pensive, drawing invisible doodles on the table surface with his finger.

“Charlotte, have you never had someone to talk to? To confide in?”

“When I was at the farm, there was a teacher at the school, Mr Kalkowski. He was wonderful. He taught me so much…. He let me use the school library, then he gave me the run of his own library. He let me use his telescope, showed me how to use it, taught me the constellations. And when I wanted to know more about it, he said he could only teach me so much, that I needed to go to college for more….”

Michael is listening intently, with a silence that swallows my words.copy right hot novel pub