‘OK!’ she said enthusiastically, ’You’re on! Tomorrow evening at 8 o’clock?’
‘Brilliant! I’ll book the table. See you there. Bye!’
Her feelings were suddenly alive and kicking, and a beaming smile shone back at her from the mirror on the wall. The programme had begun but she could not settle down to watch it. Thoughts of the past and the present could not suppress her excitement in the anticipation of seeing him again.
She entered the restaurant through the bar, ten minutes late. There was only one man there, sitting at the bar itself. She passed him and walked towards the dining area looking to see Paul already sitting there at a table, waiting. Someone called her name out gently, from behind. She turned. It was the man she had passed. Paul! but he looked so different now. No anorak. No trainers. And his hair was short. He was wearing a black leather jacket, blue denim shirt, light blue jeans. And - she could not believe it - he had a single stud earring in his left ear.
‘Paul!’ she said, amazed, ‘The earring, it suits you. In fact, it all suits you!’
‘It’s a black diamond set in white gold. I must have been mad!’
‘Oh no! You look so different now from when …’ and her voice trailed off.
‘And you look simply great - as always!’
He was beaming straight at her, and they both laughed, nervously. Suddenly she was looking forward to this, and the two of them hovered there at the bar for a moment, enjoying each other's compliments and the soft, gentle music piped through the room, bathed in the tender glow of the wall lights.
‘Hey, I’m forgetting myself! Would you like a drink?’ he asked.
‘Hmm, shall we go into the restaurant first and get settled at our table and we can order drinks and our meal and have a good chinwag there.’
‘OK!’ He grabbed his half-empty glass and they made their way over to the restaurant.
They were seated near the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio. The doors were open wide to let fresh air into the warm, muggy restaurant. Catherine could feel a storm brewing. I should have brought a mac, she thought, smiling to herself.
‘Tell me about Papua New Guinea!’ she said and then she noticed something else new about him in the light and her smile froze. ‘How did you get that scar?’
‘Oh, this?’ touching his right cheek near his ear. ‘I’ve got another on my back, but it’s not that bad.’
‘Oh Paul! What happened?’
‘It was earned rescuing a damsel in distress from some rascals in Port Moresby.’
‘You rescued a woman from a bunch of scallywags? What? Schoolboys? What on earth were they doing?!’
He laughed. ‘No! If only they had been a bunch of schoolboys! Raskols. It's spelt R-A-S-K-O-L-S. It’s the word there for the gangs of thugs that prey on women particularly and mug and rob them, or worse.’
‘You rescued a woman from some thugs?’ She was astonished. ‘So they were armed then?’
‘Knives, machetes,’ he replied, almost nonchalantly, ‘but, fortunately, no guns.’
The very thought shocked her.
‘Oh Paul! What happened?’
‘Oh, it's a long story,’ he said, as though bored with it, ‘I'll tell you all about it another time. What's more interesting, Catherine, is you,’ and, looking straight into her eyes, he drank from his glass.
‘Madam, Sir …’
It was the waiter with their menus.
The meals were delicious and Catherine was on her second glass of wine and had just finished giving Paul the expurgated version of the latest chapter in her life and her job at Blackthorne.
‘Mmm, what an unusual library job...,’ mused Paul. ‘So that's it? All work and no play? Is there anyone in your life then to counterbalance all that?’
She looked down.
‘Not really,’ she said quietly, ‘What about you?’
He shook his head.
‘Too busy. This new job at the British Council,’ but his voice was trailing off as they both gazed at each other in the flickering candlelight.
For a moment, Catherine could feel again his caress on that Sunday afternoon by the pond and those swans, and his hand in her hair as the breeze rustled the leaves in the trees.
‘I missed you, you know,’ he said, fingering the rim of his glass.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘I think we both went through an awful time then,’ and, hesitantly, ‘I still think about you at times.’ He looked up, the light catching his dark eyes. ‘Like the times my car breaks down or the washing machine goes on the blink,’ and they both laughed.
‘Ah!’ he said, in mock-relief, ‘I knew I was good for something!’
The laughter subsided and, there in the silence, they both smiled for a moment. She emptied her wine glass. As he filled it, he spoke softly.
‘Catherine, can't we start again? Take it one day at a time? I won't crowd you. You can have all the space you need.’
Her heart sank.
Same old Paul, she thought, unselfish to a fault.
Sometimes she needed to be imposed on, possessed. He was talking to her but what she was listening to was the sound of the rain that had suddenly started, as it came down hard on the patio flags only yards from their table. The waiter quickly moved over and closed the patio doors.
‘I could make things different, this time,’ he said, and although she knew, instinctively, he was a real catch for any woman, the mood had changed.
She glanced over to the patio and saw the rain dancing frenziedly on the stone flags and as it came down in torrents, suddenly, she thought of plastic raincoats. She wondered then what it would feel like to be out in it in a mac, hood up and naked in the plastic. What would it feel like to be spattered all over through the soft plastic, peppered with wet bullets, thrashed and caressed by a merciless downpour. She suddenly saw herself in the shower in her bathroom, in that pink mac that Michael had gotten for her.
‘Catherine? Are you all right?’
She turned to Paul and smiled.
‘Yes, Paul, why? I heard every word,’ and then, lowering her voice, ‘I'm sorry Paul but it wouldn't work.’
He looked stunned, and hurt.
‘But it would work!’ There was a note of desperation in his voice.
‘Actually there is someone,’ she said.
‘What!’ He was sent reeling.
‘Someone I've known for some time now.’
Paul gulped and fumbled for words.
‘I see,’ he said lamely. He looked crushed.
‘Yes,’ she went on, determined to kill it now. ‘Yes, a good friend actually, but these things happen, and things developed and, you know...’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see...’
‘You know … one thing leads to another, and now, well, he's a great guy. He really is. Loving, caring, decent, sexy,’ she said, with a put-on nervous laugh that Paul too joined in, and all the while, forcing herself to lock him out.
The rain was hammering on the patio doors and as all eyes in the restaurant stared at the deluge outside, she forgot what she was saying. Paul looked slightly sick. She gulped her wine. His rugged features looked tragic in the flickering light and the thought that she was mad shot through her. The pummelling of the rain on the glass, thrashing the glass, like a mass of whips from Michael, was forcing her to do this. Do it! Do it! And something feral welled up in her, like a dog obeying its master. A perverse thrill went through her as she submitted to the imagined will of her very own real master.
She took a deep breath. ‘I'm sorry. Perhaps it's best we don't see each other again,’ and looked down, then back at the rain
She felt the cuffs and chains as Michael shackled her to her fate, felt the door of the dungeon open up and beckon, felt the straps and gag that restrained her, heard the creak of leather boots, saw the tall, dark silhouette that bestrode the backlight from the doorway, and watched in silence as the door banged shut, and felt the shot of the bolts go through her as it was lock
ed, bolted, barred for good. She pressed up hard against her straps and sighed, sealed forever in the dark confines of her prison and longed for complete and utter enslavement.
‘Catherine,’ it was Paul speaking. ‘I can't believe this is happening. It's like a dream. No! A nightmare! You are shutting me out, bolting the door on me. Please. What's happened to you? I don't understand. It was you that wanted to see me. I can tell you still remember how it was, still have feelings...’
‘Please Paul!’ she interjected, ‘Please...’ and with that, she suddenly got up. He jumped up too, almost frantic with incomprehension.
‘I'm sorry,‘ she said, ‘I don't think it would work, even as friends. Perhaps it is best we don't see each other again,’ and, grabbing her bag, ‘I'm sorry, please forgive me. I shouldn't have come,’ and with that, she left, leaving Paul rooted to the spot, stunned, paralysed and devastated.
Outside, the torrents of rain came down in sheets, dazzling-white in the restaurant lights, and she dashed for her car. She was soaked long before she made it and, once inside at the wheel, surveying the sodden mess she was in, she felt, for a moment, it served her right. Regrets kicked in, and thoughts of Paul whom she had now grievously wounded. She was amazed at what she had just done. She looked into the mirror and as she surveyed the sorry sight and felt her wet dress cling to her all over and her feet squelch slightly in her expensive shoes, the face in the mirror changed. In the semi-light scattered by the deluge, the looking-glass revealed a faint smile and, as she started the engine, the thundering rain drowned out a single word uttered in the half-dark. ‘Good,’ and she drove off into the night.
Chapter 11. Prize exhibit
She startled when the phone rang and nearly dropped the books she was filing. No-one ever rang that phone. It must be a wrong number, she thought. She put the books down on the kick-stool and went over to the desk.
‘Hello,’ she said, tentatively.
‘Catherine. Come to my study now.’
Michael! A sudden pulse of fear and excitement shot through her.
‘OK,’ she said, almost mechanically, and he was gone.
She took a deep breath. Calm. Keep calm. She relayed the tone of his voice to her racing mind. Angry. No, strict. Commanding? No, threatening. Yes. She was in trouble. She just knew it. But for what? What have I done now? A deep sense of foreboding came over her and, with a growing feeling of guilt over what she might have done, came a thrill with the prospect of punishment and a sudden surge of excitement elsewhere. She quickly made her way down to his study.
She had not been in his study before and pulled up sharp outside the huge, panelled black door. She was breathless and not composed.
Oh God, she thought, why do I get in this state? I'm a grown woman.
You're pathetic, came a voice within, and - more contemptuously - Now get in there!
With a heavy sense of fatalism, and already as if she was sleepwalking, she knocked lightly on the heavy bulk of the door.
Silence.
She waited, rooted to the spot, her mind blank and her clenched fist hovering in the air as if frozen. Still no sound.
Harder, you tart, came the hissing voice again, Knock harder!
She rapped her knuckle on the hard wood, the sound echoing up and down the corridor and shocking her into the realization of what she had done. Too loud, like someone frantically needing to be let in. The response was immediate.
‘Come in!’
Like an automaton, she turned the handle and entered.
Instinctively looking down, she was aware of his figure across the room, standing in front of his desk, gazing at her. She closed the door quietly and firmly and, bracing herself, turned round to face him. For a moment she took in his stance and demeanour and the hint of his pleasure at seeing her. She sensed no anger, rather something, in fact, of a good mood about him. Her tension evaporated. Suddenly, something moved over to her left and she gasped.
There, seated and turned sideways on the couch near the wall, was Anne, and Anne as she had never seen her before. No, not quite. As Catherine had sort of seen her before, only...only...her mind went numb. There, perched on the edge of the black leather settee, speechless and head turned emphatically away in obvious embarrassment, sat her boss, her arrogant, stuck-up snob of a boss, that fine-feathered bitch of a cow with her airs and pretensions...but something pulled Catherine up short as this swell of vitriol came over her. It was shock. All that had flashed momentarily through her, at once gave way to confusion as she took in the reality of Anne's presence and appearance.
The woman was basically naked, dressed in a soft red, translucent plastic raincoat, perhaps the one she had originally glimpsed her in, belted tightly round her waist and her full, rounded breasts plainly on view through the stretched plastic that clung to her clearly tensed-up body. Under the mac, she was wearing only a black suspender belt and sheer black stockings. On her feet were expensive-looking, black high heels. Even in humiliation, she managed to dress in style, and humiliation it was, for right at the outset, Catherine had noticed that Anne's wrists were tied behind her back and her ankles also bound. Despite the initial shock and now a surge of pleasure at this unexpected exhibit laid on by Michael, Catherine felt extremely embarrassed for her and instinctively looked away.
‘Good. Very good!’ said Michael, with an obvious look of glee in his face. ‘Very good girls. Splendid!’ and he rubbed his hands as if he had just done something profoundly clever.
Catherine turned away in a ripple of disgust.
This is not funny, she thought. It was all so tasteless and she was extremely uncomfortable in front of Anne. She wanted to leave.
‘Say hello to Catherine, Anne,’ came his jaunty voice.
Catherine grasped the door handle, about to quit the room.
‘What's she doing here? Get rid of her,’ hissed Anne.
Catherine froze.
‘Now, now, Anne,’ tutted Michael, ‘That's no way to greet our new little playmate.’
‘What!’ exclaimed Anne, ‘That insipid creature! That pathetic drip! Just look at her!’ Catherine recoiled under this outburst, cut to the quick, and looked aghast at Anne. ‘I can see through your game, you sneaky little creep, you shitty little cow!’
‘Anne! That's enough,’ interjected Michael, but Anne was beside herself.
‘You come in here and pry and spy behind people's backs and meddle in none of your business. You scheming bitch!’
Catherine reeled under this torrent, spinning in the throes of its sheer invective.
Anne was now shouting.
‘You think I don't know what you're up to, prowling around in your oh-so-cute flip-flops and with your tits in his face and that sweet, little Catherine look that fools no-one but your own pathetic self!’
The two women's eyes met but Catherine's could not sustain the hatred that pierced them from across the room.
‘Well, do you?’ bawled Anne, startling Catherine to the quick.
She was reeling, she could not take in what was happening. The room was caving in on her.
‘I'm sorry!’ blurted Catherine, as if to apologize for having hurt Anne so much, but she was abruptly cut off.
‘Sorry! For what? For being a miserable little gold-digging cow?’
‘That's enough!’ barked Michael, and before Catherine could regain her wits, he had moved quickly over to Anne and produced suddenly from nowhere a small buckled contraption of straps in his hand which prompted a look of alarm on Anne's face.
‘Please, no, Michael!’ was all she could say, twisting away from him. But it was futile.
He pulled the mac’s hood up over her head, tugging the drawstring and tying it, then pulled the contraption over her head and face, thrusting the large rubber gag into her mouth, and, amidst the muffled cries, the rubber was pulled in hard and tight, and the straps swiftly buckled. Anne was now reduced to bleating helplessly as she struggled frantically, looking suddenly so small on that big leather settee
, no longer strident like the arrogant, stuck-up woman she just was.
Catherine was riveted to the spot. She looked on silently and took in the bizarre spectacle that now dominated the room. This time, however, there was no impulse to go. She gazed upon her enemy, now red-faced and clearly agitated as she struggled to free her wrists and still continuing to emit grotesque animal sounds deep from within her tightly-stuffed mouth. A ripple of pleasure trickled through Catherine as she looked long and hard at the unbelievable sight in front of her, as if she wanted to remember it forever.
Anne was now looking hot and distressed as she was twisting and turning this way and that, writhing and wriggling in frenzy. The more desperately she struggled, the more the plastic seemed to cling even tighter to her, and, the more her figure became accentuated, the more she was transformed into something strangely fascinating.
But it was not just the sight of her that gripped Catherine. It was the outlandish racket she was making at the same time in her grotesque gyrations there on the couch. A bizarre cacophony was going on as her stifled cries mixed with the loud creaking, squeaks and squeals from friction between the leather sofa and her tightly plastic-wrapped bottom. Catherine was spellbound.
She glanced at Michael. His eyes were glistening bright and his smile was bordering on utter joy as he savoured the spectacle ecstatically, like some great sculptor, knowing he had just produced his finest work.
‘There! You silly girl!’
He had stopped smiling and was trying to regain his composure.
‘If you can't hold your tongue, then it will have to be done for you!’ and he looked, with a mollifying smile, at Catherine, as if like some kind of gentleman, he was intervening out of genuine consideration for her.
‘Sorry Catherine. She didn't mean it. She was just being bitchy. You know what women can be like,’ and with that, he looked back at Anne.
Hard Rain Page 11
