“You are rather a wicked woman. Oh, and by the way, what was that with the Izzy?”
“It’s a terrible name from my childhood. Why do you think I changed to Bel? But Jane’s incorrigible. She’s known me since I was eleven and does it to annoy me.”
“So she’s allowed, but I’m not?”
“You’re not allowed to do anything without my consent. And tonight I want you in bed, here, with me. Understand?”
“Yes, Isabel. But be gentle with me. It’s been a long day.”
Isabel almost smirked with delight. Bryony stripped, pretending it was all a great imposition, and then walked naked into the bathroom to clean her teeth.
When she came back she saw Isabel had pulled out the tie from her dressing gown and was wrapping it round her hand.
“Get into bed, and put your arms up. I don’t want you thinking you can go wandering off again in the night.”
She tied up Bryony’s wrists rather too efficiently with the cord, and then lifted her arms so that she was caught flat on her back. The dressing gown tie was then secured round the metal bed head with a neat knot, worthy of the girl guides Isabel had never joined. She was not one for obeying any rules except her own.
Bryony had no choice but to lie there, exposed and let Isabel work out her physical frustrations and fantasies. This was a sex game which Isabel obviously enjoyed, and was well practiced at. She both hoped and feared it might involve some pain, for some weird reason she was actually fantasizing about that, another first in her sexual apprenticeship.
In fact, all Isabel’s assault began with her pulling Bryony’s hair back off her face, and drawing gentle patterns across her cheeks and forehead with one finger tip. Then she casually put another finger inside Bryony’s mouth and ran it along her inner cheek. Bryony’s chest heaved and she couldn’t stop herself sucking hard and almost pulling Isabel’s hand into her mouth, covering it with kisses.
“Sshh, just lie quietly, like a mouse. I’m going to make you feel so, so good. Trust me. But you must lie still and not make a sound. Can you do that?”
Bryony shook her head. “You know I’m a screamer,” she whispered.
“Well this is where I teach you not to be. If you cry out, I won’t let you come. But if you are a good quiet little lover, then I will give you a really, really good time tonight.”
“I don’t think you or anyone will stop me coming under your hand or your mouth, the way you kiss.”
“And that’s from a girl who thought she couldn’t experience orgasms only a few days ago? Whatever is the world coming to? Now, don’t distract me. I’m busy here.”
Isabel’s mouth followed her hand and she caught Bryony’s lip in a little nip, before devouring her mouth with kisses. She then kissed her inner arms held pinioned on either side of her head, and began to nuzzle and lick the sensitive areas inside her elbows. Bryony writhed on the bed beneath her. Tossing her head from side to side in an attempt to escape, she only seemed to enflame Isabel more. Isabel’s torture session grew more and more enthusiastic, but every time Bryony gave out an involuntary moan she ceased her activities, at one point even turning over away from her with a weary sigh as if to say, “You’re hardly worth bothering with.”
Bryony wriggled with frustration and tried to entice her mistress back. It was hard to keep her voice down, and she was genuinely frightened of waking their visitor and having her march into the bedroom to investigate the rumpus.
“Isabel, darling, please. Finish what you started. I’ll try to be quiet. And if you release me I’ll come down on you so sweetly you’ll feel like you’re in heaven, as well as me.” Her whisper was breathed against Isabel’s neck, and it tickled her into mock forgiveness.
“Oh, very well, if you put it like that.” She turned back, pressing her body tightly against Bryony’s and with one hand reached up to release the cords. Bryony’s arms slid free and she used them to cup Isabel’s buttocks and hold her tightly against her in the dark.
“Jane said I was a little puritan, didn’t she?”
“Yes, I will always love her, but she is definitely an idiot.”
“Am I special to you, just a bit maybe?”
“Bryony, you are my whole universe right now.”
“Love me?”
“No, of course not. Now, where was I? Oh, yes...”
It was another hour before they slept, and well into the next morning before they woke, but Isabel’s thoughtful catering arrangements with the bottles of real ale had done their trick and both of them were up and fully dressed before Jane emerged from her bedroom. Bryony was packing her rucksack for the weekend.
“I must run if I’m to catch the train to the University. Then I’ll leave for London in the afternoon. It’s a long trip and I have to change in Birmingham.”
“Give me your notebook and pen. I’ll write down my address and give you my key.” Isabel scribbled down the information, and Bryony realized she had never seen her write before. She had very distinctive handwriting which shot all over the place.
“There’ll be a ton of mail probably. Could you chuck out the circulars and bring the rest back for me.”
“Sure.”
“I’m really sorry, but the inside of the fridge might be truly disgusting by now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll sort it.”
Bryony took the door key Isabel gave her and tucked it away in her rucksack, and then she picked up the car keys and hurried towards the door.
“Hey!”
“Huh?”
“Not even a goodbye?”
“Of course, and I’ll call you tonight. I’ve written down your number from last week.”
“Come here. Keep safe. I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.”
They stared at each other, very conscious of Jane hovering in the background.
“Oh, come here!” and Isabel pulled Bryony against her and kissed her on the mouth. “Get off with you then. “ Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Don’t worry, I’ll explain to Jane.” Bryony felt herself grow hot and pink.
“Bye, Isabel.”
“Bye, my love.”
And they were parted.
Chapter 18
The train ride to Aberystwyth was somehow not as exciting as it had been the week before, and Bryony viewed the coming weekend with more than a little dread. She hated causing pain to anyone as nice as Aiden, and none of this was his fault, well apart from being so dense as to not see how unfulfilled she had been over the last two years.
But she switched on her powerful ability to focus, and spent a profitable day in the library. The American students seemed to have dispersed. Perhaps they were out on a field trip or something, as the cafeteria where she took her lunch was very quiet, but just as she was about to return to her favorite library desk, the blue-eyed girl from the previous week came round the corner into the cafe and stopped in front of her.
“Hi, how ya doing, Bryony?”
“Fine. It seems longer than a week since we met. How are you?”
“What’ll you have?”
“Oh, tea please.” She could spare another ten minutes. The girl ordered for her from the counter and sat down with her as she resumed her seat. The American had a large diet coke, and spent a long time regaling her with the study trips and seminars her group had been doing for the week.
“I’m so sorry; I’ve actually forgotten your name.”
“It’s Mel. Melanie. I remembered yours was Bryony.”
“Yes, sorry I forgot yours.”
“That’s cool. You know, you have amazing green eyes.”
Bryony almost choked on her cup of tea. The girl’s smile was contagious though, and she seemed guileless enough to be genuine.
“Thank you, though sometimes they’re almost hazel. But do you always come on so quickly to someone you have scarcely said hello to?”
“Only when I like someone. And I really like you. I’ve been thinking of you all week, hoping you would be here. Are you ga
y?”
This really was beyond the pale! Bryony was about to shout, “No!” but she hesitated and just said coldly, “That really is none of your business.”
“I knew you were. I have excellent gaydar. None of the other girls in my group are, which is super boring, and I haven’t even found any gay bars here yet, which is very disappointing.”
“I’m sorry; I must get back to my studies. I only have a few hours before I have to take the train to London.”
“Oh, don’t run away. I know I came on really strong, but I understand. I expect you’re in a committed relationship. But if it doesn’t work out, here’s my number. Call me. I’ll be here till September, bored, on my own, up for any mindless sex, you know!” She passed over a scrap of paper and actually waggled her bottom on the café chair, widening those large blue eyes. Bryony couldn’t believe she was for real, and the scene actually made her laugh.
“You’re crazy. You have no idea who I am, or what I’m like.”
“Maybe not, but you smell wonderful. What are you wearing?”
It was the same question Isabel had asked? Was she giving out some strange pheromone or something?
“It’s by Givenchy, just a sample. I don’t even know its name. Anyway this is too silly for words. Goodbye Mel. I hope you find someone else to have a good time with while you’re here, but it won’t be me.”
“You really spoken for?”
“Yes, I’m spoken for. Sorry.”
“But you are gay, I am right, aren’t I?”
Bryony sighed as she stood up to leave.
“Yes,” she said, “I am gay.”
Which was how Bryony Morris came out to a total stranger in a cafeteria in Aberystwyth. She almost ran back to her desk in the library, very oddly relieved that it wasn’t simply Isabel who knew the truth, and presumably her friend Jane by now as well.
What a strange metamorphosis was taking place within her. No-one had ever assumed she was gay before. She must look for the label on the little perfume bottle, and see what on earth it was called.
***
At the cottage Jane had been giving Isabel a furious dressing down as soon as Bryony had left the property.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”
“Of course you do. You’re up to your old tricks again, aren’t you? Seducing any poor female who falls in front of your wheels!”
“In my present situation, that’s not a very nice metaphor. You’re supposed to be here to be kind to me. What about breakfast?”
Jane banged a packet of cornflakes down on the table.
“Look, you can’t play games with me. I know it’s been a while since Carrie died, and I do know how cut up you were about losing her, but really, your young nurse? Whom you’ve only known a few weeks? What’s that all about? My God, you aren’t already sleeping with her, are you?”
Isabel looked down at the table, suddenly finding the pattern of the tablecloth oddly fascinating.
“You are! Bel, really?”
Isabel fought for the right words. “I...we...we sort of fell into it. It just seemed natural. She wanted to know if she was gay, and...”
“And what? Oh, no, you decided to seduce her so she could find out? You really are the giddy limit, Bel. Even when you’re in plaster, women are still in danger from you.”
“Stop it. You know I’m not some sort of female Casanova. All I know is that I felt almost dead myself after Carrie’s death, and even worse after the accident, and now I feel alive, that my shoots are green again. That I might actually have something to look forward to.”
“But she’s so young, and in your employ, and are you are telling me she has never had a gay relationship before?”
“She’s twenty-three! And yes, no, I think I’m the first. She learned quickly though. She’s a natural. She’s fun and she likes playing games.”
“Don’t be flippant. This is serious! And from what I can gather, she has now gone to London to break everything off with her boy-friend, her boy-friend remember, just on the basis of being fucked a few times by you?”
“Don’t be horrible. I think she’s been dissatisfied with him for months. ”
“Bel, dearest, don’t you see it’s you who’s being horrible? She probably thinks she’s in love, that this is the real thing, when for you it’s just like a sex pill, another therapy to make you feel good. Have you any intention of carrying on after the end of August?”
Isabel didn’t want to admit just how much Bryony had crept under her skin and was now nestled somewhere deep inside her heart.
“It’s not just down to me. She probably won’t want it to go on either. Now she knows what’s out there, what she can do, how she can choose, the world’s her oyster. I’ve just been giving her a few lessons in lesbian love.”
“More like, you’ll break her heart, and it’ll be me who will have to pick up the pieces, like I had to with those girls before, Sharon, and Rosemary, and what was her name, oh yes, Yvonne, or was it Yvette?”
“That was back in our twenties. You forget I was faithful to Carrie for almost twelve years, and we’d be together now if she hadn’t died.”
Isabel’s blue eyes filled with tears, and Jane, big sympathetic fool that she was, stopped shouting at her and went across to hug her.
“I know. I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. But look at it another way. I don’t think you are over Carrie, and you may not be, not for another five years, or even ever. Is it really fair on this new girl to string her along, when for you it’s only sex, and in reality you’re not the sort of woman she should be with. You’re far too complicated, too egotistical.
“Anyway, Bryony looks a nice girl, a straightforward girl, but also isn’t she a bit too stable and boring for you, a bit too scientific? Don’t you normally go for the emotionally crazy trapeze artist types?”
“Stability is something I’m finding I could do with more of these days. Besides, Bryony makes very good scrambled eggs, not too runny or too dry. Just right.”
“Bel, you’re dangerous. You ought to carry a health warning.”
Jane glowered at her friend, and planned to get hold of Bryony and give her some much needed wise counsel before things became even worse.
Bel was a charmer when she chose, but she could also be a witch, and she held a lethal attraction for nice, inexperienced younger women who were dazzled by her intellectual cleverness, her beauty and her virtuosity in bed. But in Jane’s eyes, she was, especially now, fundamentally unsuitable for anyone wanting a faithful lover and life partner.
She thought Carrie had only kept Isabel faithful by being even more crazy and brilliant than she was. She knew their long term partnership had been marked by regular spectacular rows and extravagant reconciliations, and was only held together probably by the fact that they had both travelled so much for their respective careers. Out of more than a decade, they had probably only been in the same place at the same time for about four years in total, and that time had usually been split into much shorter bursts of a few months.
Isabel decided she’d been told off enough. It stung when Jane accused her of being egotistical.
“Jane, that’s OK. You’ve made your point. Let’s drop it please. This is my summer sabbatical, and I need Bryony with me. She is a gift from the gods who until now, you must admit, have been savagely mean to me.
“I promise to do my best not to break her heart, nor let her break mine, but I’m sure neither will happen. We’re just working together on my book. That’s our main raison d’etre. But, whatever it looks like, it works. I’m happy. There I’ve said it. I am learning to take what each day offers as it comes, and today I am happy, OK?”
Jane grudgingly agreed, and dropped the subject. She organized breakfast for them both, and then suggested she took Isabel away for a car-trip.
“Let’s go up to Caernarvon. There’s a great big castle there, and I can push you round or
over the ramparts, depending on how you behave.”
“Oh, very well. I can’t work without Bryony here anyway.”
So they went out for the day, and Isabel was very relieved Jane didn’t mention Bryony again. Jane drove them down to the coast and then north round the great mass of the Snowdonia Mountains, standing like great bastions against the Atlantic, and then across the Menai Straits they could see the ancient and mysterious island of Anglesey, the last stronghold of the Welsh heroes who had fought off the English.
Caernarvon was packed with tourists, and the narrow streets were awkward with a wheelchair. Isabel had felt sure she could have managed with crutches, but without Bryony there to help she felt a little nervous. Jane was so strong and quick-moving she’d have never kept up. After viewing the castle, they retreated somewhere outside the city for lunch, and then drove home the long way round, across the mountain passes.
Isabel had bought a small guide book, with several other suggestions for places to visit, and realized she was spending most of her time imagining how it would be if she and Bryony could get out and explore North Wales together. She could not help thinking how stimulating and interesting that would be, compared to the pleasant, but uneventful day she had had with Jane.
She chided herself for dwelling on Bryony far too much, hoping her day had gone well, imagining her on the train, maybe reading, maybe sorting out her notes from the day’s research. She knew she wouldn’t make it to her flat until about 10 pm, but she hoped very much to get a phone call or at least a text message to say she was there safely. By the end of the evening she was feeling definitely fidgety, and decided to make the call herself.
***
Bryony had had similar thoughts about Isabel, especially when she folded away her notes and walked down to the railway station to catch a train. It took her more than four hours to travel to London, including a change in the great underground metropolis station of Birmingham New Street. While she was there, Bryony grabbed a bottle of water, and a Mars bar and found a window seat on the outgoing London express, where she could rest her head on her rucksack and get some sleep. The previous night had been altogether lovely, but not very restful, and she was now exhausted.
Isabel's Healing Page 15
