Damaged Goods by Helen Black

picked up her shirt. ‘If that is type stuff you want you don’t find here.’
    ‘What type of stuff?’ asked Lilly.
    Mandy covered her breasts with her shirt and leaned towards her camera. ‘I go now.’
    The screen went dead. She had locked them out.
    ‘Well, that’s it, she’s not going to talk to you again,’ said Miriam.
    Lilly smiled at her friend, a twinkle in her eye. ‘If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed …’
        
    Barrows watched his wife work the crowd. She shook hands with the party faithful and accepted their support and congratulations with aplomb. Hermione was the hero of the hour and she sparkled with a new sense of purpose, her smile broader, her step lighter.
    He waved to her and mouthed ‘well done’. She waved back, but when their eyes met he didn’t find warmth. Instead he saw something colder and darker.
    He reaches for a glass of water and gulps it down together with his fear. He’s being ridiculous, of course. She doesn’t know. How can she? In all the years he’s known her she hasn’t been able to work out how to programme the video recorder let alone the blackest recesses of his mind.
        
    Hermione curses herself as she walks towards the car. She had been taken over by the adulation and let her guard down. She had let her husband see beyond her façade, and he would now know that she saw beyond his. After twenty years of pretence they would have to confront the truth.
        
    Barrows drove his wife home in silence. The woman beside him, who he thought he knew, who he thought he controlled, was beyond his reach. Does she know?
    And if she did–what would she do now? Would she hand him over to the police? And ruin her newly ascendant star? He thought not. Even when he’d met her at Oxford she had lived life as if she were being watched. While the other students danced and drank with abandon, Hermione felt that what she wore, what she read, what she ate were matters of grave importance. She had waited her whole life to be somebody, she wouldn’t blow it now. Instead she would insist it stop, insist he give up the hobby.
    He pictured his life without it and rage began to swell in his temples.
    He sped faster and faster through the streets of Luton, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly they hurt. He considered unlocking her seatbelt and slamming on the brakes so she would hurtle through the windscreen. He’d seen it done in a film and knew he had the guts. He had never allowed anything to stand in his way before.
    He glanced at the locking mechanism. Hermione’s hand rested on top and held her belt in place. A coincidence, or could she now anticipate his every move? He imagined she could read his thoughts, then berated his paranoia.
    Eventually he swung the car onto their drive, a crunch of gravel beneath the tyres. He killed the engine and they sat for a few seconds, side by side, both staring straight ahead. His heart was pounding so loudly he was sure she could hear it.
    ‘Do you have something to say, darling?’ he asked, his voice stagey.
    Hermione took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think so, William.’
    Barrows was shaking but he had to know. ‘I disagree.’
    She spoke looking away from him, so that her voice sounded distant although they were only inches apart. ‘I have known for some time now about your other life.’
    He tried to sound surprised. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
    He wondered how she would put it. Would she use careful, deliberate language or the gutter expressions of the tabloids she loved to court? If she called him a child molester he would punch her until she could speak no more. He balled his fist, ready.
    ‘Cut the crap, William, we both know you’re gay.’
    Barrows didn’t speak, didn’t dare to breathe.
    Finally Hermione got out and turned to face him. ‘We’ll have to find some way to work it out.’
    As she closed the door behind her he let out an audible sigh of relief.
        
    ‘This is beyond stupid,’ said