Pathetic worm. You're a pathetic little worm, came the voice and, for once, she had no reply.
Oh God! What have I done? A hundred times she tormented herself with the question as she tossed and turned in bed that night.
He knew! He had seen it in her face and all over her, and she could not get up from the floor as she wriggled and squirmed on his piercing gaze. It made her want to be thrashed and a thrill went through her. She touched herself, like a young girl of long ago after school used to touch herself in her bed-room before going downstairs, prim and proper, for the family evening meal, radiating sweet innocence.
Thrashed. She saw the gleam on leather boots and the dangling crop, and eyes closed, caught the ever so slight creak of a straining, tight-leathered crotch. She saw again the look that crushed her and exposed her for what she really was. She belonged in a cesspit, and as crop and cock descended upon her, she writhed in filth, and breathed in deep. Complete filth.
‘Yes!’ she sighed in the dark, and rubbed harder, and harder.
Chapter 8. Day of reckoning
Almost suffocated. That was how she felt as she moved slowly through the cloying air in the library. The windows were all wide open, yet the building was becoming oppressive in this humidity. Her skin could not breathe and making the slightest physical effort, like putting books on the shelf, drained her dwindling reserves of energy. It needed a storm, she was sure. Something had to happen. She could not take much more of this. Even her dress sense had succumbed to reality as comfort, rather than looks, had become the priority in this continued spell of very hot, increasingly muggy weather. Today it could hardly be simpler: sleeveless cotton top, light blue, no bra, short black skirt, bare legs, and flip-flops.
Sod him! she thought. He wasn't worth it, trying to dress to please. Never here. Belgium is it, this time? Or was that where she told her he was off to next? Stupid, she thought, it was stupid still being here and suddenly she wanted to leave but then she only had a couple of hours to go. All that mattered now was home-time and the chance to strip and soak in a cool bath, switch off and float away into another world. Elgar's Serenade for Strings came to mind, second movement. She could flood the bathroom with it; yes, float into another world.
The presence in the doorway stopped her reverie in its tracks. It was him. She was not startled. He was calmly staring straight at her. Flip-flops. She thought of her flip-flops, and her nipples. Were they poking through her thin top? His gaze shifted from her eyes and moved down, pointedly, over her blue top, short skirt, bare legs and flip-flops, then back to meet hers. He was in a short-sleeved shirt with matching tie, loose at the open neck, and stone-grey cotton slacks, looking cool and comfortable in the sticky heat. Her mind went blank. Without taking his eyes off her, he spoke.
‘It's time you and I had a little chat.’
Slowly, he walked into the room. She braced herself.
‘You've been a naughty girl, Miss Day. You've been in my private room.’
Stunned. She was completely stunned and now was totally adrift. Her eyes looked down and she wished a hole would swallow her up there and then.
‘You have, haven't you?’
She felt sick, her legs went weak and all her life-force was suddenly drained from her. She was going to faint. Oh, God! Now he stood just several feet in front of her. She could not look up. A sickening terror came over her, she was trapped. Please! A tiny cry went out from her, silent, deep down within.
‘You have, haven't you?’ he repeated, putting his finger under her chin and raising her head until she was forced to look him in the eye. ‘Well, haven't you?’ this time more insistent. Silence, then, trembling slightly, her lips quivered.
‘Yes,’ she said, feebly, almost inaudibly, and looked away.
He went on.
‘Yes? Yes? And yet you knew it was private? You steal the keys and unlock a locked door? Prying, snooping on other people's privacy?’ His voice was rising. ‘Meddling in matters which are none of your business. Like a criminal, prowling in the dark, sneaking in behind people's backs. Abusing their trust in you. Who do you think you are? The heroine of some cheap, dirty novel?’
No! She cried out, silently. It wasn't like that! But he was going on.
‘Like a voyeur, gloating over what you know about others.’ She was burning hot inside and close to meltdown. ‘Still around? And why? Why?’
He gripped her chin and, shaking her head slightly, made her really look at him.
‘Still around - because you're rubbing yourself silly over it, aren't you? Aren’t you!’
He was almost shouting. She was rooted to the spot as a surge of guilt flooded through her. ‘Well, it's high time you knew your place.’
He let go of her chin and she looked away, stunned and reeling from his words. She was devastated, and could not take in the nightmare now enveloping her.
‘Sit down!’ he said abruptly.
Sheepishly, she moved over to her chair by the terminal and he followed as she sat down.
‘Get up!’
She looked at him, hesitantly and confused.
‘Get up!’ he barked.
Jolted, she slowly stood up, like in a dream, all her will drained from her.
‘On your knees!’ he ordered.
She could not move. She was paralysed.
‘Get … on … your … knees!’ this time, almost spelling out the words.
Slowly, mechanically, unable to believe this was really happening, she went down, stiffly, first on one knee, then the other. Like a tower, he loomed over her and she was suddenly aware that her skirt was too short and her nipples were showing, after all, through her top.
‘Now, say you're sorry.’
Her mouth was all dried up yet her palms were damp with sweat and it was boiling hot down on the floor. Silence. He was waiting.
‘I'm sorry,’ she said, almost a whisper.
‘I didn't hear you. Louder!’
‘I'm sorry.’
‘I said, louder!’
Crushed with the humiliation, she was blank, empty, helpless.
‘I'm sorry!’ she blurted out, surprisingly loud.
‘You will be! From now on, you will make amends. In future, I expect you to do exactly as you are told. Is that clear?’
This time, her response was quicker.
‘Yes.’
‘Is that clear?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ came the clear reply.
He ran his fingers through her hair.
‘Get up.’
She got back, awkwardly, onto her feet, her head bowed, unable to look him in the face, mortified and dazed. He gently, quite tenderly, raised her chin and stroked the back of his hand against her right cheek. The contours of his angry face softened and a warm smile lit up his words.
‘That's better, Catherine. That’s much better.’
He looked, lingeringly, upon her face, before resting his gaze on her eyes.
‘You know, has anyone ever told you, you really are quite lovely?’ and with that, he walked out, leaving her standing there, burning with heat and shock and shame, and stunned.
Sleep was impossible. The night closed in on her like a stifling veil over her face as she struggled to breathe more easily and calm her pounding heart. The window was wide open, the sheets pulled back and her naked body staked out on the bed like some sacrificial offering to the pitiless heat. This way, that way, she tossed and turned. She reshaped her pillow and, at intervals, got up and went to the window. Only there could she breathe comfortably, only there could she connect with the outer world where normal lives were lived, where scattered lights in distant blocks told of other sleepless nights, of other restless souls, others, perhaps tormented too, like her.
She did not know how she got through the rest of the afternoon and the journey home. Snatches came to her, again and again, hammering home the enormity of what had happened, of what he had done, what she had done. Images seized her racing mind and shook her imagination lik
e a rag-doll till she wanted to cry Stop! Words echoed in her head like the sound of a ball kicked around endlessly inside a marble dome till she wanted to scream and tell him he had got it all wrong.
It’s not fair, she cried to herself. I didn’t do anything. Just a peep, that’s all, and in all innocence. He’s the guilty one, and her, the pair of them. He had no right to do that, to say those things, no right! Such horrible things!
She turned from the window, cut to the quick as his words echoed round in her head. She sobbed quietly to the man who had hurt her so grievously, to the man to whom she had devoted so much of her days, and nights, in thought. To the man she had dared think of as her future.
How could he!
Grow up! came the voice from within. Get real! You’re out of your depth. These people laugh at you. You’re pathetic, do you know that? You deserved everything you got. He should have wiped the floor with you. She looked out into the night but saw nothing as the voice went on. Remember? Only last week, at this very window when you couldn’t sleep. You were leaving then, remember?
Rubbing yourself silly! His voice.
Then again, louder.
She moved abruptly from the window and touched the bedroom wall with both hands, as if to steady herself. He said it again and again, and she spun round, half-collapsing with her back up hard against the wall.
Do as you’re told!
His voice was sharper. She wanted it to stop, to shut it off, shut it out, anything …
On your knees!
She ran her hands down her thighs and felt her warm back and shoulders on the cool wallpaper and the soft curve of her bottom nuzzling against the wall.
‘And why shouldn’t I?’ she said, audibly. ‘Why shouldn’t I be like this? They’re like this! Only worse! And they dare to condemn me!’
She moved over to the bed.
‘Why should I be the bad one?’
She sat on the edge.
‘Why should it be me that has the guilt, never them? Me, that takes the blame? Me, that’s the problem?’
She was up, and now more agitated, moved round the bed.
‘Why can’t I be allowed to have my feelings? Why? Why?!’, and at once, she sat down heavily on the edge, almost thumping the mattress.
‘Hypocrites! And all those know-alls that write stuff, that come on the air with their opinionated views, with those … with those clever dick certitudes and, and … politically correct platitudes, and … all that claptrap about the real issues that confront women and, and … and the state of today’s women. Well, I’m a woman and I’m in a state, so what have you got to say about that, then, eh? And your… your ignoring of living, breathing women … real women, like me …’
She caught the audible tail of the rant as her voice trailed off in the room where she sat alone, scarcely holding back the tears. She sat there quietly for a while, staring blankly before her. The silence drummed on in her ears. She got up, with great effort, and looked toward the open window. She whispered to the night.
‘Oh help me. Please help me … Give me the strength to get back to where I was before all this happened, before I met him. Please help me. Give me the strength to leave. Please. Give me another chance. That’s all I ask. Please …’
The night hung on the stillness of the air, silent and black, and empty, like her own feelings suddenly now. She knew, deep down, she was trapped, and turned, forlornly from the window.
Slave to love, came the thought. Then, Slave to the whip!
The whip. Her mind went blank. Suddenly she felt the heat of the room again. It swathed her, almost carnally wrapping her in the sensuousness of her own naked body. She looked down at herself. Instinctively, she touched her hips and front of her thighs and then, softly caressing her breasts, she breathed in the heavy air. Nothing stirred in the dark, except her hands. They wandered up and down, more and more, all over her, and her earlier aimless gyrations in the room were now over as, purposefully, she eased herself onto the bed and began to take in the yearnings of her soft, supplicating body. Her breathing grew deeper, her movements more fervent as her mind entered fully into the dark.
The night clutched at her, pawing and tugging like a horde of starving beggars frenziedly pulling her this way and that. Then, from its deep caverns came a moaning like the murmurs of hell. Something else was moving in the darkness as her own tortured sighs were wrenched from her, body and soul. She writhed as the beast tightened its grip and dragged her into every corner of her own chamber of the dark. The bed twisted and groaned under the jack-knifing convulsions which near split it apart as she rocked in frenzy, faster and faster, until the very air grew red-hot with the fire that consumed her. Slowly, at last, sated in the mire of her deepest cravings, the beast wrenched itself off her contorted figure and returned, gasping, to the black depths of the night and the silence of her exhausted inner self.
Gradually she sat up, drained and spent, and came round to the presence of the room. For a while she did not move, could not think, just absorbed the feelings her senses were giving her. Then, like some picture coming into focus, the thought of demons, dancing and laughing. All earlier supplications to the night, all entreaties to the power of mercy, love and light, all that was good, wholesome and true – all of it, thrown back in her face and her very loins mocked her. But this time, there was no remorse, no pangs of conscience. A bead of sweat trickled down her eyelid and she realized just how wet she was, everywhere.
I love it. I love it, she thought, and I don’t give a damn what anyone says. I love it and I want it!
With that, she got up and, unsteadily, made for the bathroom.
Chapter 9. Induction
The lounge door was open slightly. She hesitated and was about to knock when Michael's voice rang out.
‘Come in, Catherine!’
She took a deep breath and in she went.
He was sitting in one of the two white leather armchairs in the bay-window, looking out into the distance.
The room itself was large and spacious, and she took in at once the gist of its content. In the centre was a long, matching white leather sofa, in front of which, on the bare polished floorboards, was a white rug, huge and luxuriant, and then a glass coffee table with some odds and ends on it. This arrangement was overlooked by an imposing flat-screen television fixed to the wall to her immediate right. She had only ever seen these expensive wide screens as those on display at Protheringay’s, the exclusive department store in town. Further along the wall was a large bookcase holding more a variety of ornaments than actual books. Her attention was grabbed by the huge mirror on the end wall stretching from the floor to most of the wall height and covering half of the wall. Further along from the mirror was a white grand piano and stool. On the wall between mirror and window-bay were hung paintings and a hi-fi speaker.
The wall to her immediate left had racks of compact disks and a CD player, and in the far corner facing her, below another speaker on the wall, a glass-fronted drinks cabinet. Of the paintings on the walls, the largest over the CD racks reminded her of a Canaletto she once saw in a book on the painter.
As she moved further into the room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror as if in a film sequence and her eyes switched to the big screen and the thought of Michael making his own videos.
‘That's largely for show,’ he said, watching her gazing at it, ‘I prefer to make my own entertainment.’
He sat there, perfectly relaxed, tie loose, in his shirtsleeves. She noticed the dark tan of his arms. His jacket lay draped over the sofa. She gave a nervous smile.
‘You sent for me,’ she said.
‘So I did, Catherine, so I did.’ He got up. ‘Shut the door.’
Here it comes, she thought, though had no idea what to expect. Slowly, he walked over to the glass coffee-table. There was a package on it, like a padded jiffy bag, the sort of thing the libraries send out books in.
Not looking at her, he said simply, ‘Take your clothes off, but lea
ve your shoes on.’
For a moment, she thought she had misheard him and just stood there.
‘I said: take your clothes off,’ and he confronted her with a look and stance that, at once, made her look away.
She unbuttoned her dress slowly. She had no impulse to refuse and silently began removing her clothes in front of him. She sensed him looking on intently and could not stifle the urge to strip beguilingly without making it look obvious. Down to her panties, she stopped.
‘Those as well. All but your shoes.’
She now stood awkwardly, and deeply embarrassed, in the flesh before him, her right hand clasping her left forearm, her eyes flitting between him and the room at large. Leaving her shoes on made her feel especially naked, more so than without them, and she sensed he knew it.
‘The bare truth, Catherine, that's what I like to see,’ and he smiled, obviously enjoying her very closely.
She was suddenly jolted by the reality of the situation. She could not believe how tamely she had complied. This is mad, she thought, as a surge of anger broke loose over the control she allowed him.
‘Stripped naked. Not so coy now, are we, my dear?’ and she could see he was having a field-day ogling her naked body. She was pinned to the spot, inwardly wriggling this way and that, but the more she silently protested, the more she felt electrified by her predicament, and the more obvious her discomfort, the more it seemed to please him.
He turned away from her and, hands in pockets, rocking on his heels and looking over to the window and beyond, he declared ‘You've got potential, Catherine, and it's high time it was developed,’ in a tone that struck her was more in keeping with a pronouncement at a board meeting. There was something almost smug about him. He turned round, and it vanished. He picked up the package.
Her eyes fixed upon it. It had already been opened and what he pulled out of it took her aback. For a moment, she saw a pink bundle in his hands, then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, with a flick of the wrist, it unfolded, cascading down from his hand with a flourish. A plastic raincoat.
Hard Rain Page 9
