Chapter Five
Michael began moving faster inside Kate, his weight driving her down into the mattress and causing her to moan softly, partly in pleasure and partly to encourage him to greater effort. She bit into his shoulder, thrusting her hips up against his grinding pelvis and he growled in response and speeded up his rhythm again, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his reddened, contorted face. He craned his head down to suck one erect nipple into his mouth and Kate arched her back to meet him while her fingernails lightly scored his back, relishing the feel and weight of a man on top of her again after so long alone.
Michael began a regular low grunting and Kate felt his teeth close gently on the soft skin of her neck as they moved faster and faster together towards a climax, their bare bellies slapping together as their passion became uncontrollable. With a deep groan Michael came inside her and when she felt him spasm Kate’s pelvis jerked in response as she too reached a short, sharp orgasm, her eyes tightly closed and her mouth open in a soundless moan of pleasure. Michael slumped down on top of her and lay motionless for several seconds before rolling off her onto his back, wiping the sweat off his face with one hand and panting for breath.
Kate felt a momentary stab of depression, even revulsion, as he withdrew from her but she suppressed it, concentrating instead on the gentle waves of pleasure still suffusing her body, and trying not to think at all but simply to feel. Feeling was always so much safer than thinking. She certainly didn’t want to think about the disappointment of Michael’s unclad body, the drop she had felt and tried to conceal at her first sight of his pimply shoulders and pale, flabby midriff. With her libido flagging she had concentrated instead on his face and eyes and the way he made her feel, but even when desire had flared up again she had not been able to suppress the thought that he owed his tailor a great deal. But then, she had become accustomed to... She forced her mind not to form his name, instead thinking, Better things. I’ve become accustomed to better things.
She lay there quietly while Michael disposed of the condom, trying to hold onto the afterglow and perhaps unconsciously expecting him to return and envelop her in his arms with kisses and murmured endearments, as Peter would have done. But it was not to be; after he climbed back in beside her he rolled onto his side with his back to her. After a minute or so the sound of his breathing grew deeper and more regular and she realized, with a slight shock, that he had fallen asleep. She stifled any disappointment and kept her own eyes closed, willing herself to fall asleep too and above all not to think, but it was impossible. At last she conceded defeat by opening her eyes and staring at the dark ceiling above his bed, wondering what the hell she was doing there at all. This was not her, this was not her way, in spite of her recent loneliness. And sexual frustration, of course; never forget that. But it was her aching loneliness over the past few months that was the key. Loneliness for…
Kate slipped naked from the king-size bed and stood for a moment in the dark, looking down at the sleeping form of Michael Riordan. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, Oh God, what have I done? She moved quietly across the room towards the en suite bathroom, her slender form ghostly pale in the faint streetlight coming in through the open curtains. She slipped into the green-tiled bathroom and locked the door before switching on the light. She leaned over the sink and peered at her reflection in the mirror before screwing up her face in dismay; what have I done?
In the harsh fluorescent light she looked haggard rather than slim, and far older than her thirty-four years, her eyes were hidden in deep pockets of shadow and her lips were tight and pale. She stared at her reflection dispassionately for some time before dropping her gaze to her naked body. No problem there; after years of remorseless dieting and exercising in search of the perfect figure she could look at her body without a qualm and even with a touch of pleasure. Of pride in her hard work, if nothing else. It was only when she raised her gaze back to the reflection of her face that the problem began. She pushed her long hair away from her face and almost glared into the mirror. When she had set out that evening she had been young and at least reasonably attractive; now her eyes were too big for her face and she looked haggard and old. As old as sin, as old as guilt. She shut her eyes again; what have I done? And with my patient’s father!
She could never have imagined where the evening would end up considering the appalling way it had begun. She had met Michael outside the restaurant as planned but just as they were about to go inside Martin Wilson had accosted them. He had been very drunk and had roared abuse at her for invading his privacy and for “poking her bloody nose in where it wasn’t wanted”. Riordan’s Special Branch bodyguard had appeared as if by magic to grab his arm and bustle him away but even he could not stop Wilson shouting furiously back to her that George Meagher was innocent, and that she would regret it if she smeared his good name.
Almost dying with embarrassment she had muttered, ‘I’m most awfully sorry, Michael! I never dreamed that awful man would turn up here! I don’t know him or anything, he’s connected with my latest book, on sex offenders.’
‘Well, he doesn’t seem very happy about it!’ Michael had replied, smiling lightly at her and apparently not fazed in the slightest. ‘Still, even in these celebrity-mad times not everyone wants to be famous. At least, not as a sex offender.’ He had taken her arm and ushered her into the restaurant, not turning a hair even when Wilson began shouting from a distance, ‘You’ll be sorry, bitch! You wait and see! You’ll be sorry!’
Michael hadn’t asked any questions about Wilson either, and when she had tried to apologize for the scene had waved her explanation away, saying, ‘Don’t be silly; I’m a politician, I get worse shouted at me on a daily basis! I’m glad there weren’t any reporters about, though; there’s usually one lurking near me nowadays and I dread to think what they would have made of that little lot!’
Her mouth had fallen open in horror at the mere idea and he had laughed and reassured her, ‘Don’t worry, they generally only turn up when my press secretary tells them where I’m going.’ He had winked and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Officially I’m having a quiet night in!’
In spite of this inauspicious beginning she had enjoyed the evening, and found herself increasingly glad she had agreed to dine with him. She had also, as the evening wore on, found herself increasingly attracted to the immaculately dressed and coiffured Michael. She had even taken a certain proprietorial pride in the sidelong glances aimed at him from other women in the restaurant, foolish though that was. For one thing she had no claim on him whatsoever, and for another much of the attention was probably due to the fact that he was the most famous government Minster in Ireland.
He had been the perfect companion; witty, urbane, charming; he met every criteria perfectly. He had been able to talk fluently on just about any subject, either amusingly or thoughtfully, as occasion demanded. He was also, perhaps more surprisingly in a politician, able to listen. Listen with apparently genuine interest. So well did they connect, and so easily did the conversation flow, that the whole subject of his daughter had somehow been pushed into the background. How far a politician’s smooth, easy charm could be trusted was debatable but he had really seemed interested in her, and she had found herself falling deeper under his spell as the evening progressed. And look what that had led to. Oh, shit.
Even now she was finding it hard to believe that she had gone back to his apartment with him, ostensibly for a coffee, but with both of them knowing what was coming. He had said, with a little smile, that he had told his flat mate about her, and warned him to return to his work base in Cork a day early, and she had smiled in acceptance of his meaning rather than his words. She closed her eyes again; had she quite lost her mind? Getting involved with a patient’s father? She wasn’t sure if it breached her professional code of ethics –it was certainly nothing compared to sleeping with a patient- but it definitely breached her personal ethics. Why had she done it? Michael was attractive, yes, but that attract
ive? No. The bottom line was that she was lonely, not just for company but for physical affection, for the touch of another human being. Although she knew all about her fear of commitment she hadn’t realized that she was equally scared of being alone. Even though her life, before Peter, had consisted of a succession of short-term relationships, each of which served an immediate purpose without ever fulfilling her.
Kate smiled wryly at her own reflection; she couldn’t even blame the wine as she had only had two glasses. She flushed the toilet and brushed her teeth using Michael’s toothbrush, in spite of a sudden, unreasonable reluctance to touch anything belonging to him. After what they had just done together prudery over using his toothbrush was foolish, but she had to overcome a stab of revulsion nonetheless. She returned to the bedroom and looked down at the sleeping Michael, knowing that she could not now spend the night with him as she had intended. Not until she sorted out the confusion of her feelings. Because while she was being honest with herself she might as well go all the way; was tonight just her way of finishing with Peter once and for all? In her own mind, at least? She had told Peter it was over, and had not seen him in weeks, but this act was the decree absolute, wasn’t it? Because now there was no going back even if she wanted to.
Not that I did, she hastily told herself, I positively did not want to see him again. But that was not entirely true. Although she had definitely wanted to finish it a part of her had of course wondered if she was making a mistake; after being with him for so long she would have had to be more than human to feel any other way. And now at least she couldn’t go back.
As she began quietly dressing she felt no release, only a vague sorrow. Because this didn’t feel like freedom. Rather it smacked of a desperate burning of her boats, a way of ending her conflict without ever really confronting it. A cold hand gripped her heart as it occurred to her that her feelings for Peter might not be as dead as she had believed, as she had told herself. She put it all from her mind, refusing to think about it anymore; it could wait until the morrow.
She slipped noiselessly out of the still apartment and walked the empty streets until she found a taxi to take her to where she had parked, just off St. Stephen’s Green. It was only when she was back in her own car that her composure returned, and some perspective. She started the engine and drove away, a little too fast as usual, grimacing ruefully as she drove; the sex hadn’t even been that good. Pleasurable enough but certainly not worth all this agonizing. She was young, free and single, at liberty to do whatever she pleased, with whomever pleased her. Sleeping with a patient’s father was nothing to be proud of, but it wasn’t a crime either, and she needn’t beat herself up about it.
She was out of the quiet city now and well on her way to the two-bedroom basement apartment in Monkstown that she was trying to learn to call home. It was a nice flat, in a nice area, but in her mind home was still the house in Dalkey in which she had grown up. After her father had...been killed, her mother had brought her to live with her sister Josie and her family. Between Uncle George, her Aunt Josie and their four boys that house had been Kate’s -an only child- first real experience of what she had come to consider proper family life. Fights, shouting, mess, sharing, noise and love had poured over quiet, shy, damaged Kate like a warm tidal wave of uninhibited emotion, and within a few short weeks the chaos of the Turner household felt like home to her. Her cousins had made her feel like one of the family from the start, and as the only girl in the house -albeit a chubby twelve year old with braces- they had jealously fought one another for her attention.
Kate smiled to herself as she remembered how her first boyfriend, when she was sixteen, had had to run the gauntlet of her glowering Uncle and four equally hostile cousins, all of whom seemed to be waiting for poor Charlie to make the slightest wrong move before tearing him apart. Charlie hadn’t lasted long -had not unsurprisingly been scared off- and although furious at the time Kate now realized it was symptomatic of how deeply she had been cocooned in the warmth of their love and concern.
Her Aunt and Uncle had been marvelous right from the very beginning, possibly because they had wanted and been denied a little girl themselves. Certainly Kate and her mother had never once felt like interlopers, had never felt that they were imposing or were in any way a nuisance. Which said all that was necessary about the good-heartedness of the Turner family. Looking back later Kate often thought that the years spent in that house were the happiest of her life. As a child or an adult. And after her mother had died, from breast cancer detected too late, Aunt Josie had as good as adopted her, and had comforted her through her difficult late teens before putting Kate through university with her own four.
After Kate had left for England Uncle George had taken advantage of the ill-fated Civil Service relocation program to return to his native Cork, and easy-going Aunt Josie had agreed to the move without any great fuss, which was how she dealt with most of life’s crises. If they had not moved Kate would almost certainly be living with them now, thirty-four or not. Two of the boys, Sean and Oisin, had remained in Dublin but both were married with young children, so staying with either of them when she returned from England had been out of the question. Well, in Kate’s mind at least; they had seen things differently and both had tried to get her to stay with them.
What their respective wives would have thought of this arrangement Kate shuddered to think but she need never find out as she had of course declined. She considered them more brothers than cousins but wasn’t about to impose herself on them, or on women whom she had met only a handful of times before. And so in spite of living in the same city they had largely left her life. They certainly had not forgotten her, but with careers and growing families to occupy them Kate saw less of them than she would have liked. The house in Dalkey had long since been sold, too, a fact which hurt Kate almost as much as the absence of her Aunt and Uncle; that house was the embodiment of everything good in her childhood, the chalice of almost all her happy memories.
Thinking about it Kate shook her head ruefully, for there was an even better reason than sentiment to have kept the house; she could have lived there. Even with the housing bubble just a distant memory –and in spite of the royalties from her books- Kate had not been able to afford a place in Dalkey. At least, not without a mortgage, and there was no way she was tying herself down to one of those until she had a permanent job. And in any case there was no guarantee the banks would loan her the money; the days of them chucking money at customers, even professionals, were long gone.
After bypassing Blackrock Kate turned left onto Alton Road and then immediately right onto the quiet terrace of big old houses where she lived. She parked outside the large Georgian house that had been converted into apartments and made her way down the steps to the basement, her current domain and almost home.
Give it time, she thought to herself as she fumbled in her bag for the front door keys, What do you expect after only a couple of months?
She paused at the bottom of the steps, the unwonted darkness setting an alarm bell ringing in her mind; I left the outside light on this morning when I left...why is it so dark?
She felt a touch of fear as well as the beginnings of doubt. Could the bulb simply have blown? Are you sure you left it on?
She wasn’t, not a hundred per cent, but even so she fished the totally illegal can of Mace she had bought online out of her handbag before cautiously inserting her key in the lock. But there was no need to turn it; the dark-green, paneled front door swung inwards under the pressure of her hand alone.
Shit, shit, shit! I knew I left it on! And I sure as hell closed the front door when I left! Burglars! I’ve been bloody burgled oh God please don’t let them still be in there please let them have gone!
She screwed up all her courage and, taking a deep breath, pushed the door wide open and flapped frantically at the light switch. Bright light flooded the yellow-painted hallway and no one shouted, no one made a run for it or attacked her; all was still. Even so her hear
t was hammering wildly as she started inching her way up the hall towards the living room. The door was slightly ajar and she kicked it open all the way before stepping quickly back, but still nothing stirred. A wild hope burgeoned in her heart that they really had gone but even so she crept into the living room like a burglar herself, her can of Mace held high in a slightly shaking hand. In a sharp, stabbing motion she flicked on the living room light and once again stepped back, ready to flee, but she immediately saw that the room was empty. She blinked, for a fraction of a second surprised out of even her fear; the once pretty room had quite literally been turned upside down. A mélange of furniture, books and pictures was strewn all over the room in a chaotic jumble, with broken glasses and vases and even flowers scattered on top. Even the rugs had been flung aside and the broken telly was lying facedown on the floor.
A bright spark of anger flamed inside her, which had the benefit of damping down the fear, and she moved swiftly into the room and crossed to the far wall. She couldn’t face repeating this slow, timid investigation in the two bedrooms, the bathroom and the kitchen; there was a quicker, simpler way of finding out if any intruders were still there. Moving to the far corner of the room, well out of the path of either of the two exits from the flat, she opened her mouth wide and screamed as loudly and as piercingly as she could, for as long as she possibly could.
She ran out of breath after what seemed an eternity and stood very still, listening intently; there was no movement, no sound of running footsteps, no scrambling for the front door; it looked like the flat was empty after all. She let her breath out in a long sigh of relief; no burglar in his right mind would have hung around after hearing that scream, that was for certain.
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