When she unlocks the doors to her house and throws them open, lets Spencer walk in before her, it is not emptiness that greets her, not the hollow echoes of her footsteps across the marble, no. The loneliness recedes before Spencer, a dusty cover lifted off unused rooms, and underneath it riches, spoils: light laughter, friendly teasing, a lingering touch, an unabashed smile.

When their laughter echoes against the walls of her bedroom, Ashley welcomes it, wants to trap it, turn it into a lullaby to set her raft adrift to every night, find her way back to in the morning. She knows it is too much to want of this new friendship, too much to want for herself, but they float towards each other with ease, helped by the undercurrents. She has been adrift, a small bit of flotsam among the waves, for long, so long she doesn’t remember what firm ground feels like.

She is sure, when she lets herself think about it, think about the ‘what ifs’, she is certain it has something to do with the fact that she can’t remember the last time her mother touched her. She receives air kisses, money, she receives stern admonitions from across the room or over the telephone, she receives gifts, clothing advice, but she cannot recall the last time her mother laid a hand on her. A touch, a caress, a slap – there were times when she tried to provoke either from her mother. She doesn’t know what hurts her more, that the most she could elicit out of her mother is an annoyed look, a barbed directive, or that even now, even after all this time she still feels that eagerness, that desire to please each time she sees her mother walk towards her. Walk past her.

Ashley learned to settle for the next best option. She has learned how to trade for physical attention with others; if I do this, touch me there. Hold me. Ashley knows the give and take of physical pleasure well, the measured exchange. A caress is a seduction, a touch an invitation. You pay in kind. Sometimes when she wakes, the pull of dreams abandoning her to another day, her arms are wound tightly around herself, a good-bye embrace. Sometimes it feels as though it’s the only kind she knows.