The Girl Behind the Mask by Stella Knightley

university, where I could spend as much time with the boys as I pleased. How frustrating it must have been to know that the world beyond her father’s house might never be hers to roam? From her father’s house to her husband’s house without time to make a few mistakes in between? No time to explore. No time to fall hopelessly in love with the wrong person. I firmly believe that heartache is terribly important. How can we be kind lovers ourselves, if we don’t know what it feels like to be hurt?
     
    Where did that piece of cod philosophy come from? I asked myself when I reread the email before sending it. I almost cut the offending sentence out, but instead I took a deep breath and pressed send.

Chapter 16
    If being hurt makes kinder lovers, then I would be a world-class girlfriend next time round, because Steven Jones had made carpaccio of my heart.
    I first met Steven when I was a final-year undergraduate. He had recently gained his doctorate and was teaching the odd tutorial to earn his keep in the history department. Though it wasn’t love at first sight – Steven wasn’t exactly your classic Prince Charming in his rumpled shirts and ancient faded jeans – he was so clever and funny that I quickly began to fall for him. I found I wanted to be in his company all the time, so I signed up for every tutorial group and seminar he offered. My essays improved immeasurably as I tried my best to impress him. As Luciana’s diary was proving, every eager student should develop a crush on their teacher if they want to get ahead.
    I was over the moon to discover that the feelings I had for my tutor were mutual. After a boozy Christmas dinner with Steven and my fellow students, he walked me back to the house I shared with my best friend and kissed me on the doorstep. He told me he had feelings for me that went beyond simply wanting my body. He told me he thought we might be soulmates. That, however, was as far as we went for a while.
    He was so careful and courtly, taking his time, telling me it was important that we approached any potential sexual relationship as adults rather than as teacher and pupil. He reminded me he was ten years older. People would naturally think he was taking advantage. But he also said he had never been involved with a student before. What I should have reminded myself of at the time was that he was in his very first year as a teacher and I was his very first student.
    Finally, we could not keep our hands off each other any longer. I went for a private tutorial. We started kissing in his office and ended the day in his bed. I was wild with desire for him. At twenty-one, I had never before experienced such mind-blowing passion. I had certainly never before had an orgasm. If I wasn’t already lost to love for Steven when he kissed me, then the morning after we first made love, I would have given my life for him. Our sex life was a revelation. For at least four years, we made love every time we spent the night together. Then we moved into the same flat. But it was still good, if slightly less frantic, when we were under the same roof full time.
    Over the seven years we were together, the dynamic between us changed. Though Steven had insisted we enter our relationship as equals, of course at first I had looked up to him, older and more experienced as he was. As I grew more confident of my own intellectual abilities, however, I was less in awe of his.
    I remember vividly the first time I dared to argue with his opinion in front of other people. We’d been together for five years by this time. I was studying for a PhD and questioned one of his pet theories in a room full of undergraduates. He handled it with humour in the moment but later our disagreement spilled out of the seminar room and into our private life. When the seminar ended, he told me he was going for a drink with some friends. I sensed that I wasn’t invited. He did not come home at all that night, though the following day he was