‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she demanded, not understanding. ‘Last night—’
‘Last night was a mistake,’ Ran interrupted her curtly. ‘It should never have happened and I wish to God... Why didn’t you tell me you were still a virgin?’
‘I... I...’ Sylvie could feel her eyes starting to fill with tears.
This wasn’t how it should be—Ran aloof, cold and distant, almost accusing.
‘Ran, I love you,’ she told him shakily. ‘I want us to be together...married...’
‘Married? You’re a child still, Sylvie... Your mother...’
‘I’m not a child, I’m nearly twenty,’ she protested frantically.
‘You’re a child,’ Ran insisted, ‘and if I’d known... Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think that you and Wayne were lovers?’
‘I did tell you but you wouldn’t listen. I thought you’d be pleased...that you’d want to be the first...the only one...’ she told him pathetically.
‘Pleased? Oh, my God.’ Ran started to laugh, a harshly bitter laugh. ‘The only thing that could make this appalling situation any worse would be to discover that you’re pregnant...’
Sylvie’s face went white. Last night, lost in the throes of her love and their shared intimacy, she had craved the conception of his child, and to have to listen to him now, telling her that that was the last thing he wanted, that she was the last person he wanted, was the cruellest blow she had ever experienced.
‘I’m on the pill,’ she told him quietly, ducking her head as she explained, ‘There were... I had... My doctor recommended it for other reasons.’
It was the truth, and it made her blood run cold now to remember how unwilling she had been to take it. Thank God she had. To have exposed a child, her child, to the dislike, the bitterness she could see in Ran’s eyes and hear in his voice would have been more than she could bear.
All her dreams and her hopes lay in ruins around her, destroyed by Ran’s rejection of her.
‘Go and get dressed, please,’ she heard him demanding. ‘I have to leave soon, but first we need to talk.’
Get dressed!
Suddenly she felt as acutely self-conscious, as guilty as the first Eve must have done. As she tugged on her clothes in the privacy of her bedroom she knew that she had paid a heavy price for the intimacy of Ran’s lovemaking—the loss not just of her innocence, but the destruction of her love, her faith, her belief in herself as a woman. She felt as though she never wanted to see Ran again, as though she could never bear to face him again, as though someone had wrenched away a protective curtain. She saw that last night could have been nothing more to him than the mere satisfying of a sexual itch, that she had been nothing more to him than someone, a body, to relieve his sexual frustration with.
As she walked back into the living room he handed her a mug of coffee. Taking it from him, she was careful to make sure that not only did her fingers not touch his but that they did not even touch the mug where his had done. She felt scorched, besmirched, soiled from the experience of knowing just how little he had actually wanted her. What she wanted more than anything else now was to get him out of here, out of her flat, out of her life, out of her heart for ever.
‘Sylvie...’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Ran,’ she told him proudly, turning her back to him. ‘It happened. It was a mistake, we both know that, but a girl has to lose her virginity some time...’ She gave a small painful shrug. ‘Wayne will be pleased. Like you, he didn’t want to be the first...’
What on earth was she saying...implying...? Sylvie wondered sickly as her pride demanded, commanded, forced her to retaliate, lie and to convince Ran that he hadn’t hurt her, that he couldn’t possibly have the power to hurt her.
‘You begged me to make love to you so that you could have sex with Wayne?’
She could hear disbelief and something else in the harsh fury of Ran’s voice, but shakily she ignored it, holding up her head as she turned round to confront him.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she agreed.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ran told her flatly, adding grimly, ‘You said you loved me. You were even talking about marriage...’
Sylvie gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘Isn’t that what a virgin is supposed to do?’ She pulled an uncaring face. ‘How could I possibly love you, Ran? Why should I love you? All you ever do is criticise me. I want you to leave...’
‘Sylvie, you can’t just—’
‘Wayne will be coming round soon,’ she fibbed, adding carelessly, ‘He’s been telling me for ages to find someone to...to lose my virginity with. He’s very experienced and he likes his lovers to know...to know what sex is all about...Wayne’s the man I love.’