I don’t know if it’s universal but her love for me feels unique. Certainly my situation is idiosyncratic. You see, historically I’ve always paid for love — one way or another, up front or in arrears, I always get given the cheque. Love meant pain, time and again, but, like air, I needed it to live. Though I didn’t live well. Breathing in a smoggy hell made from human machination, I never knew what purity was or that it only cost more love. Now I am spoilt, Midas in perpetuity surrounded by wealth I have to learn that I deserve.