by Pippa Croft
Alexander hands her the backpack and suddenly she flings her arms around his back. He hugs her tightly and they linger for a few seconds. She says something to him and he kisses her briefly and then she’s off, marching up to the front door where Allegra has appeared.
He climbs back into the driver’s seat and rests his hands on the wheel, watching as Allegra lets Emma inside.
‘Everything OK?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. Emma’s behaving strangely. She’s up and down like a yo-yo, even more than usual.’
‘Isn’t that understandable? It’s still early days.’
‘Yes, and she’s always been hard to fathom but she seems to be on edge about something and I don’t think it’s all due to losing Dad. Maybe I shouldn’t have risen to the bait and wound her up about her inheritance in the restaurant but I’m worried about what will happen to her in the future. There are plenty of bastards out there who would do anything to get their hands on a fraction as much as she’s worth. I feel responsible.’
He’s under huge pressure, and I guess occasionally lashing out and behaving unreasonably is understandable. I can also see through his relationship with his sister that he is really a good guy, that there is substance there, that he is troubled and hurting and sometimes unbearably arrogant, but fundamentally he’s a decent guy. I find myself wondering for the first time since I arrived back in the UK whether Alexander and I really could actually make a go of it. I’ve not been able to stay away from him, that’s for sure, but up till now, in my head, it’s just been sex. Perhaps I’ve been kidding myself about that anyway, because I’m becoming increasingly addicted to him and I’m not sure I could walk away even if I wanted to now, despite all the tangles that make my head ache just thinking of them.
He stares thoughtfully at the manor house and as he speaks, I am jolted out of my thoughts. ‘At least I know she’s safe tonight.’ My stomach lurches; surely I have to tell him she’s going to see Henry. He grips the steering wheel. ‘I’d kill anyone who hurt her.’
A lump settles in my throat, knowing I’m damned if I do tell him and damned if I don’t. I think I’m going to have to somehow get Emma to tell him herself because hoping she’ll drop Henry is the coward’s way out.
‘I don’t mind helping Emma.’
He turns to me. ‘You’ve done your duty today and now I’m going to drive you home and take you to bed.’
‘It isn’t my duty. I like her.’
And it is true: I do like her, she’s feisty, bright, doesn’t want to conform to what people expect and I understand that so much, but she’s also vulnerable.
He frowns as if he can’t believe I’m serious, but then says, ‘I love her but I’m out of my depth with her. I’d rather have a whole platoon to deal with; none of them ever give me the trouble Emma does. I thought my father had no idea how to deal with her but now it’s all my responsibility, I think I might be doing an even worse job of it.’
‘I’m sure you’re doing ten times better than other people would …’
He puts his finger on my lips. ‘Enough, Ms Cusack. Not another word unless it’s about the blow job you’re going to give me when I get you back to Oxford.’
‘That’s beyond presumptuous, Mr Hunt.’ I pretend to be outraged.
‘However, it is accurate.’
‘You are just …’
‘Right?’ He raises a sexy eyebrow.
‘Arghh.’
OK, scrub that about him being a gentleman – and I can’t hit him because he’s in the process of reversing out of Allegra’s drive. No matter how outrageous he is, however, I can’t deny I’m relieved to have the distraction of a little sparring.
Now, back in the warmth of his bed, there’s nothing in my head but the gentle rasp of his tongue on me and the sensations radiating through my body while I dig my nails into his sheets, my resistance in shreds. He’s going down on me, in return, he says, for me doing the same to him.
Even if I wanted to stop him, I can’t because my wrists are bound with curtain cord to the posts of his half-tester bed. Being tied up is a new experience for me, and I confess I got a swishing feeling in my stomach when Alexander suggested it, even though I’d fantasized about it when we were in the kitchen the other week. It’s hardly perverted but it is my first foray into kink, although not, I suspect, Alexander’s. Yet I can’t deny the incredible sensation I have now, lying here, totally helpless to stop him doing whatever he wants to me. He varies the pressure of his mouth on me, skimming his tongue over my swollen nub and teasing me until I beg for mercy.
‘Please …’
He glances up from between my legs. ‘What was that again?’
‘Please … Alexander!’
‘Please stop or please go on?’
‘Yes, no … I don’t know … Oh …’
He renews the assault on me with his mouth and I can’t do a damn thing about it. The bonds looped around my wrists aren’t that tight but I don’t think I can free my wrists and so I clutch the cord in my palms and writhe against the bed. The insistent lapping of his tongue is a torture, and my climax ramps up to a new level. I’m a mass of nerve endings, electric … I close my eyes.
The pressure has stopped and Alexander is kneeling now, one thigh either side of my legs. While I’m still tied to the bedposts, he edges inside my slick heat and then plunges into me. I want to dig my nails in his butt and urge him in but I can’t. He’s so tight, so big, that the pressure of his penis on my sensitized clit is enough to send me over the edge. I hold on while he drives into me, the rhythmic pulsation of him inside me and the rigid muscles of his neck tell me he’s out of this world. I hope he enjoys watching me come as much as I like seeing him lose control completely. It makes me feel powerful and mysterious, even though I know it’s just biology.
Smiling to myself, I lie still with him beside me, clearly too whacked out to move. I can’t see him but his fingers creep over mine and squeeze them.
‘I hate to say this but I do believe you’re good for me, Ms Cusack.’
Thinking of Emma, I’m not sure I am, so I reply with something that is true. ‘And you’re bad for me, Mr Hunt. But somehow I can’t seem to stay away.’
He laughs and for the first time since way back in last term, he sounds happy again. So what if he thinks I’m joking; I’m not about to change that.
Chapter Nine
Almost a week has passed since we went to the V&A. I haven’t heard any more from Emma. I haven’t dared ask Alexander how she is too often, in case he suspects I know something he doesn’t. However, I can tell he’s quietly pleased when I do ask after her, which makes me feel even guiltier, but I know I have to try to put her love life to the back of my mind and get on with my work.
It started snowing in Oxford not long after we got back on Saturday evening, although the streets are now thick with grey slush. Alexander has been in lockdown since then, desperately trying to catch up with the work for his course. He’s been offered a dispensation by his tutor, but he’s adamant he doesn’t want any special treatment. He hasn’t had to go back to Falconbury again nor, as far as I know, has he been summoned by his regiment again, so I hope now that things can settle down between us.
I’ve also needed the time to get some of my own work done. Professor Rafe has been cracking his whip, taking apart my essays ‘for my own good’, he says, and suggesting huge piles of reading, journals and pieces to study in the Ashmolean and Modern Art gallery. I think his strategy is to leave me with no time for anything other than work; maybe he hopes I’ll be too exhausted to shag Alexander. By the time Friday morning comes, I’m trudging back from the Faculty of Art History, wondering if I can get away with taking Saturday off from working, when my phone beeps.
So has Alexander given you one yet?
I x
I roll my eyes at Immy’s message, then again as I almost do the splits outside the Lodge. Slush on top of sixteenth-century flagstones is a lethal combination.
Not
in the way you think.
Has Skandar put anything in
your pigeonhole yet?
Moments later, I get a reply.
Yes, *and* I got an enormous card.
I text back:
See you outside the JCR in 5. L x
En route to the JCR, I decide to check my pigeonhole in the Lodge, not because I’m expecting an enormous card or an enormous anything (other than the obvious) from Alexander today. Valentine’s Day is not a big thing for me, and it definitely won’t be for Alexander, so I’m not the least bit envious when I see a friend called Isla picking up a huge bouquet of red roses from the porters’ desk.
‘Wow. They’re beautiful.’
‘Aren’t they? Not that I was expecting anything, of course,’ she says in her cute Scottish accent. ‘But my boyfriend’s in Edinburgh and I do admit I’ll miss him today.’
Just then, her face changes and suddenly she shrieks, bursts into tears and rushes off, leaving the roses on the desk. When I turn around, she’s launched herself at a guy carrying an overnight bag.
The Head Porter shakes his head and smiles like he’s seen this scene a thousand times.
‘I expect you’ll have tons of cards,’ he jokes, as Isla and her boyfriend walk off, hand in hand.
‘I doubt it,’ I say and it’s then I realize that, no matter what I tell myself or anyone else, part of me wouldn’t be too heartbroken if Alexander did send me a card. Which he won’t, because he hates any kind of vulgar commercialism, of course, and you know what? I don’t need a giant teddy bear or a bunch of overpriced roses anyway, and all that pressure to plan the perfect romantic evening is ridiculous. In fact, I thought I’d be able to avoid the whole Valentine’s craziness we get in the States, with gifts and cards in the stores on New Year’s Eve. However, having seen the stores full of what Immy calls ‘pink tat’ for over a month, I realize it’s almost as bad here.
I slither along the Back Quad at Wyckham on my way to the JCR. Against one wall, in a stray patch of sunlight, tight buds of crocuses shiver in the wind. They look too terrified to open yet and I shiver as the raw chill seems to clutch at my bones.
‘Lauren!’ Immy is standing in the JCR porch in crimson Hunters, a huge scarf wound around her neck. Her cheeks are ruddy from the sharp air but she has a warm smile on her face. ‘Hi there. Are you still on for tennis later?’
‘You are kidding me? In this weather?’ I lift my soggy boot from the snow. ‘I think my toes are about to drop off.’
‘Yes, they’ll have cleared the courts by lunchtime. Should be fun.’
‘I … um …’
She eyes me suspiciously. ‘You’re not going to be a wuss, are you?’
‘Of course not. What time?’
‘I booked the court for two-thirty but we need to allow a bit extra for cycling while the roads are so dodgy. Meet you at two in the Lodge?’
‘Sure,’ I say, as a wet patch seeps through the toes of my tights. ‘I can’t wait.’
‘Great. Want a quick coffee?’
‘OK.’
We find a corner of the JCR that’s not obscured by dismembered newspapers and sit down. ‘So what have you and Alexander got planned for tonight?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not even seeing him, as far as I know. He’s been burning the midnight oil trying to catch up with his work since we got back from London. He called me last night but he didn’t say anything about going out tonight.’
‘Typical, but maybe he’s planning on cooking you a surprise meal.’ Immy uses the tone of someone condoling me on a bereavement.
‘To be honest, I need to work too, unless you want to go and see a movie and get away from it all?’
She looks sheepish. ‘I would have loved to but Skandar booked a table for dinner at a restaurant. Sorry. I know it’s a bad night to go out, the service will be terrible and the place will be full of loved-up people sharing spaghetti and paying a fortune for the Prosecco but …’
‘Hey, don’t worry. Valentine’s is even crazier in the States. It’s a wonder they don’t dye the Potomac pink. People send cards to their friends, family and even their teachers. Yes, I used to do it too.’
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh. Last year, one of Todd’s co-workers even sent a barbershop quartet to his girlfriend to serenade her at her workplace. Mind you, it was a law office.’
She pulls a face. ‘Eww. That would be too much. I don’t feel quite so guilty about getting a card and adding to the restaurant owners’ bank balance now.’
‘You shouldn’t. Go and enjoy yourself. I never expected Alexander to even remember the day. He’s so wrapped up in his work, worrying about Emma and the estate, and I have more than enough to do. I have another of these mini presentations to do for my seminar group tomorrow and I should be working on that.’
Immy finishes her coffee. ‘We could go and see a film tomorrow. There’s a director’s cut of Shame at the Phoenix and there won’t be people snogging everywhere. We could go to Po Na Na afterwards.’
‘That sounds cool.’
She dumps the empty cup in the bin next to her and sighs. ‘I’ve got a tute with Dr Scary before lunch. You know, the one who called me a bimbo when she found out I’d taken my eyelash curlers and bikini on a field trip?’
I laugh. ‘See you at two. I’ll just go look out my thermal underwear for the game.’
When I get back to my room, I fire up the laptop and check my emails, knowing it’s only a displacement activity before I start actual work. There are a couple of messages from girl friends, and one from my mother to tell me ‘a mysterious parcel’ has arrived, with a message not to open until her birthday. That must be the prints I bought on the day Valentina ‘dropped in’ on Alexander. I make a note on the iMac to set up a Skype chat on my mother’s birthday. There’s also a message from Professor Rafe, entitled ‘Italian video to watch before next tutorial’.
Sigh. Is this something about Il Conformista, the movie he wanted us to go to see together? I click on the link, waiting to be gripped by the scenes of Fascist architecture and interior decor.
What I actually get are two naked people writhing on the screen, moaning and groaning.
Instantly, I close the window. I’m going to have to go to the Dean with this. Rafe has sent me a link to a porn site and it cannot be an accident unless his email has been hacked. And yet … the subject line – ‘Italian video to watch’ – is so specific.
My finger hovers over the delete key, and then something makes me re-open the window and replay the video.
It can’t be. It’s not possible. My heart thumps like crazy. Surely I’m mistaken. Surely.
My fingers are trembling as I sit back in my chair, dizzy with shock.
When I open the link again, the naked woman tied to the posts of the bed with curtain cord opens her mouth and groans. Her long black hair spreads over the pillow. The guy, also nude, is kneeling beside her on the bed. He has his back to me but I don’t have to see his face. I recognize the scar on his shoulder and the powerful glutes. As he leans forward to go down on her, and she turns her face to the camera and smiles in triumph, the bile rises in my throat.
The moans and shrieks grow louder as the clip runs and I can’t tear my eyes from the screen.
With Alexander’s head between her knees, Valentina shrieks, ‘Dammelo, Alexander!’
Even with my limited grasp of the language, I can tell she’s not asking him for a fucking pizza.
‘Ah, sì, bene cosi va …’
I dry-retch into the bin, while the groans and shrieks and a string of Italian expletives spew from the laptop. When I stagger back to the screen, Alexander is astride Valentina. I stand there, my hand over my mouth.
‘Ah, sono proprio arrapato per te. Succhia la mia grilletto.’ What happens next, while she is still tied to the bed, is so inevitable yet so horrible that I slam down the lid of the laptop. I stand in front of it, shaking like a leaf yet
unable to move a muscle.
It’s no good. I can’t ignore it. Maybe I’m dreaming, or high or something, but when I open the lid again, the clip is still running and Alexander is still screwing Valentina as she writhes on the bed and wails like a banshee. Do other people really make that kind of noise when they’re having sex? Do I?
And then the killer. Alexander thrusts himself into her and cries out, ‘Ti amo!’
Abruptly, the clip ends, with Alexander’s bare butt a frozen blur and Valentina’s mouth open so wide in a scream of ecstasy and triumph that you could do a tonsillectomy on her.
I should delete the video; I should run out of my room and not stop until my legs collapse from under me. I should rush out into the quad and scream at the top of my voice – but I don’t.
I click on the clip again.
I’m like a junkie, compelled to OD on the thing I know will hurt and torment me, and yet I have to burn the images into my mind. I have to make myself believe that what I’ve seen is real and not some nightmare or hallucination, even though watching it feels like a cold hand squeezing my stomach time after time after time.
I don’t know how long I’ve lain here, curled up in a ball on my bed. There’s a lead weight in the pit of my stomach and a numbness in my limbs.
There’s a knock at my door.
‘Lauren! Are you in there?’
Immy. Oh fuck. I forgot I was supposed to be meeting her in the Lodge to play tennis. I can’t go now. I just can’t. I can’t even cope with seeing her now. I’m a mess.
The door panel trembles. ‘Lauren, open the door or tell me to piss off. Just let me know you’re alive.’
‘I … don’t feel too good. I can’t come to tennis.’ My voice is croaky with crying.
Silence, then an anxious voice. ‘OK, don’t worry. Is there anything I can do?’
