by Donna Alam
‘Well, there’s no need to be so . . . crass.’
‘And there’s no need for you to keep beating yourself. Not when you have me nearby.’ My smile is feral. I mean it to be—for distraction, if nothing else. ‘You’ve got to be the biggest masochist out there.’ In a certain sense.
‘That’s not helpful.’ I can see she’s struggling not to cry as she pulls the bedding up to her chin.
I want to pull her into my arms, but something tells me it’s the wrong thing to do. Instead, I place my hand on her hers, stilling her. ‘Are you going to tell me what this is about? Why now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replies, her words bubbling. ‘It’s just every now and then, I know I shouldn’t. Not like this.’
‘Shouldn’t fuck?’
‘It’s not that. It’s the bits between.’
‘When we have dinner? Eat brunch? When I eat you out?’ I keep my voice light, trying to make her laugh. To no avail.
‘How? How can I like it?’
‘Because I’m very good at it and, well, just look at me. I’m what your friend would call a bit of a sort.’
‘You’re what my therapist would call an abuser.’
Slowly, I sit up straight, my voice taking on a cold edge. ‘I suggest you tread carefully. Think very clearly about what you say next.’ Is she trying to offend me? Lashing out? Whatever her reason, I take this very seriously.
‘I’m sorry,’ she replies quietly. ‘That wasn’t fair. Truthfully, I don’t know how she’d label you.’
‘How would you define me?’ I keep emotion out of my tone and my body very still. Tension—fight—whatever this is, seems to drain from her immediately.
‘How would you define us?’ This is dangerous territory.
‘I don’t think there’s a label big enough to define that.’
‘This therapist. This is someone you’re seeing currently?’
‘No. Before. At home.’ She inhales, air expanding her lungs until they could accept no more. When she exhaled, it’s all words. ‘I have issues with intimacy and control. I expect she’d say I’ve gone from one extreme to another this time.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘I never commit, and I like to hold the relationship strings. Do what I want, unlike now. Although you do kinda do what I want you to,’ she adds sheepishly, trying not to smile.
‘Not quite true. I do to you what I want.’ This is ridiculous; the chicken and the egg argument. ‘You’re a little uncomfortable in your own skin, I know. I’ve no issue warming it up for you.’
‘I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to maintain some sense of control. According to the good doctor, it’s to take back what was lost during my childhood. To recover what my father took from me.’ Beside her, my body becomes taut. ‘No, not like that,’ she adds quickly. ‘My dad is a control freak. Obsessive, overbearing, with rules like the military. One of God’s fucking soldiers!’ She doesn’t often swear and looks on the verge of tears again. ‘He’s controlled my mom and his family our whole lives; what to wear, what to study, how to conduct ourselves. The opposite to how you are with Hal. His dirty feet, the puddle of milk and cereal.’
‘When you first met him?’ When he’d brought himself over to meet Daddy’s play date? Or rather, when Belle sent him.
‘Never in my whole life have I been anything but pristine. Except when I’m with you, when you fuck me messily.’
It’s like even the words are difficult for her. I begin to wonder if a little homemade aversion therapy might help, restraining an inappropriate smile at the thoughts of Louise splodging. Jelly and ice cream. Cake and cream.
‘I never got to make mud pies or be covered in paint,’ she continues. ‘As a teenager, I swapped out wild, awkward, and funny for worried and sedate. I got out of that house as soon as I could, and now I’m the living, breathing mockery of my suffering. He belittled me to control me. You demean me because I want you to. I’m sick; can’t you see?’
Underplaying her reactions, I stretch out my limbs like an overindulged cat. ‘If the hair shirt fits . . .’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘So tell me.’
‘My father. He . . . he’s a religious man. He found out. About me. From Brad.’
‘Brad?’ The boyfriend I teased her about? ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Brad dumped me,’ she says on a cry. ‘He said I was broken. Disgusting. That I’d never be right.’
‘But you’ve had therapy—you said he was your first boyfriend? While feeling blindsided, I also feel something is off.
‘No, you’re right,’ she says, swiping her hand under her eyes. ‘But that’s only half of it. He told my father and he—he sent me to camp—to pray the gay away I didn’t have.’
‘A what?’
‘A camp, you know, like a church camp or summer camp? Only this wasn’t just for homosexual kids. No, this one was for all kinds of sinners and sexual deviants. All those needing to be led back to “God’s path”. There was no path leading to God in that forest.’
I’ve heard of such things. Of course, I have. But truly, they seem like something off TV, and unprepared, I have no idea what to say.
‘What did they do to you?’
‘Nothing too horrendous,’ she admits, her eyes falling to the bed. ‘Pray. Sing. Trust exercises. How to repent. But I wasn’t their usual type of sinner; I didn’t meet their remit. I was too much of a freak for even them.’
‘Darling, you’re not sounding very sane. This is the first I’m hearing of this. You’ve loved what we’ve experienced together. You’re an adult, and what happened was misguided and disgusting and wrong, but—’
Louise springs from the bed angrily, bending to retrieve her discarded jeans. ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ she growls at the floor, yanking the fabric up her legs.
My movements are as swift as hers, my hands landing on her hips. I pull her into me, my mouth at her ear. ‘There’s no correlation here. No need for further therapy as far as I can see. Liking a bit of kink doesn’t make you sick. What you are is a double masochist. You want me to demean you so you can beat yourself up about it later. You want me to hurt you while I love you, so you can hate yourself a little more.’
As I tighten my arms, Louise lets her body go slack.
‘We can even play daddy if you like.’ I pitch my voice as like a growl. Probably despite herself, she laughs.
Nothing more needs to be said, so I pull her back to the bed.
Later in the kitchen, we make tea. I stand behind her, my hands splaying her stomach before she turns to face me.
‘I can only guess at your experiences growing up with a father like yours. And a camp to cure you? That’s fucked up beyond my comprehension. But, darling, whatever happened during that time should have no bearing on how you live. You let me do these things because you need me to, and because you trust that I’ll keep you safe. But these feelings you have—these convictions—are keeping you tied down tighter than any binding I could fasten to your wrists. Darling, it’s time to trust yourself.’ I kiss soft and slow before pulling away as the kettle begins to sing.
I know I need to tell her, but that day isn’t now. She needs to make peace with how she feels first.
LOUISE
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
I’d put those experiences behind me so long ago and at great expense. I’m shocked they came out this way. I’d tried to hold back the deluge, thinking I’d maybe find a new therapist. Work some things through again. Try a reboot? But to no avail; my tide of insecurity has come in anyway. And I almost drowned him in it.
Dan’s reaction, though maybe not typical, was perfect. It was good to decompress that way, almost like flipping the bird to my experiences. And then his kind words in the kitchen . . . this man is so much more than I ever expected. I’m thinking he’s pretty damn near perfect until he insists I come along to collect Hal from his play date, and
I feel like a teenager again. I don’t wanna! I go, but stay in the car as he walks to the door. No way I want to be introduced as the new girlfriend.
I also don’t want to be not introduced that way. Go figure.
Our trio go for pizza afterwards, his little boy happily smearing himself in tomato sauce as I begin, ridiculously, to panic again. I can see weekends mounting before me; Saturday and Sunday spent as a pseudo family, the next weekend spent fucking in bed. Could I do that? Would I be able to walk away from Dan, from his son, at the end? And it had to end. Visas only last so long.
‘Mummy always has a salad when we come for pizza,’ the little boy states, eying my plate of spaghetti. ‘She says pizza and Pilates, never the t-train shall meet.’ He swallows a mouthful of orange juice, asking, ‘What’s Pilates, Daddy?’
Dan tries not to laugh, responding with the explanation that it’s a sort of exercise session. Torturous, he says.
‘That’s what Mummy said yesterday to Charles using her very loud angry whisper. Why don’t grown-ups use proper voices when they’re angry?’ I can almost see Hal’s eyes cast into the back of his head as he tries to recall the exact words. ‘She said his bed was tor . . . torturously boring, and that she might have to use yours instead. Are you getting a new one, Daddy, so Mummy can have your old one?’
Dan kept his eyes trained on his pasta as he prods it around the plate. While his hooded expression mightn’t have hidden his thoughts, he can’t quite conceal his growing smirk. ‘I think Mummy was probably just having a bad day, H.’
‘I think Mummy has a lot of those lately.’ The little boy sighs. ‘Maybe that’s why she tells Charles she has too many headaches. She says it’s all his fault.’
Dan laughs then; one loud bark from the depths of his chest. I suppose this is divine payback for screwing around.
No longer concerned by his mother’s frame of mind, Hal springs into a conversation about the family cat. Half listening, my thoughts turn down Jealousy Street. From debating a vague future and contemplating his domestic scene to a growing realisation that Dan is mine as much as the other way around.
Later, once Hal returns next door and is presumably tucked up in bed, I find myself snapping and snarling at Dan’s every suggestion, yelling at one point I’d fuck off home if he didn’t stop asking what was wrong.
When did I become such a fickle fuck?
‘Would you mind giving me back my head? What has gotten in to you tonight?’
‘What? You’re concerned we’re going to turn out like boring Charles and the missus next door?’
His eyebrows rise to the top of his head. And he utters nothing, save for a telling, ‘Ah.’
‘Ah? Ah? What’s that supposed to mean?’ I snarl, poking him in the chest with a pink-painted finger.
As a flicker of amusement ripples across his face, I lift my hand with the intention of wiping that smirk off his face. In my life I’ve never struck anyone, other than my brother, and I can’t quite believe my reaction once my hand is in the air. I’m not sure if it’s my shock or if he catches my raised hand, but we stand locked in the moment endlessly.
When Dan eventually speaks, his tone is even but steel-filled.
‘Don’t.’
‘Then don’t you mention her ever again!’
It’s a ridiculous demand—we can both hear it.
‘I didn’t,’ he replies calmly. ‘Hal did, but I’m pleased it’s provoked some kind of emotion. Jealousy definitely suits you, darling.’
‘It’s an emotion I could do without,’ I growl, unsuccessfully trying to pull free of him. I move the hair that has fallen across my cheek with a savage gesture of my free hand. ‘I don’t want to feel like this. I didn’t want to get involved!’
‘What are you shouting at me for? That’s not my fault,’ he replies, no less amused.
‘I didn’t say it was your fault, but I am blaming you!’ With that, I cut off any answer. Curling my fingers around the back of his neck, I seal my mouth over his. I kiss him hard, our joined hands still absurdly in the air. After a stunned moment, Dan responds in kind. Teeth clash and lips bruise as our hearts pound against the other’s skin.
‘I blame you,’ I say finally, my breath laboured and raspy. As my gaze levels on his, his eyes flare like a lit flame. And at that very moment, I want nothing more than to throw myself onto the pyre of him.
As Dan’s grip loosens, I rest my hand flat on his chest, the other still knotted in his hair. I push my body against him, walking him backwards until the sofa hits his calves, as I kiss and tease his lips with every stumbled step. Pushing him down hard, I climb onto his lap, my legs straddling his. Fingers pull at clothing, each of us frantically wrestling for control and possession, though neither of us quite manages it, and neither of us keeps score this time.
My back arches as I feel the length of him through his jeans. I exhale a ragged breath, pressing my hand over his mouth as he begins to speak. Grinding myself against him, I’m desperate to get closer, to climb under his skin. We stay like that—Dan beneath me, covered by my fingerprints and need. I rub shamelessly against him until the point I come when my movements become as jagged as my breath.
We end in a tangled heap on the floor, breathless though eventually sated. Grazed and definitely sore. Wordlessly, Dan carries me into the bedroom, placing me on the bed as though I’m someone to be worshiped. Someone he adores.
Streetlamps light the room, playing shadows of trees against the walls. Dan climbs on the bed pulling me closer—pulling my hands above my head. With his mouth against my ear, he whispers softly, ‘Darling, come blame me some more.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
DAN
Breakfast was a quiet affair, the holiday Monday meant Louise didn’t have to be at work. The radio plays quietly in the background, a station she’d never have chosen. One I hadn’t chosen, either, come to think of it.
‘Can I expect The Archers anytime soon?’ she asks, gesturing to the radio with her head.
Pulling a mock indignant face, I shook out the newspaper in an exaggerated motion before covering my expression with the sports section.
‘The Archers and Earl Grey. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time.’
I don’t answer, instead collapsing the paper and reaching for my cup. I sip, then hesitate before placing the cup down, all the while studying her, making her feel the weight of my gaze.
‘You object to the station?’ I ask eventually.
‘Part of the pipe and slipper brigade?’ she responds sugar-sweet. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
My eyes slide to the Bose system from where the classical music emanated. I rarely have the radio on, the current channel either random or one of Belle’s choosing. ‘It’s just background noise,’ I reply. ‘Turn it off if it offends you. It’s just a station. Not my choice.’
I probably should’ve qualified that. Though for shits and giggles, I don’t.
Louise sighs and begins destroying her toast with her fingers, crumbs mounting on the plate.
‘Don’t play with your food,’ I say without menace, though my tone may have been a little hard.
I turn back to the sports section when a sizable crumb bounces off my shirt. She wants my attention. So I give it to her by way of the lift of an indolent brow.
‘Sorry,’ she murmurs, lowering her gaze. ‘Promise I’ll be good . . . sir.’
My cock twitches, and my response is in the air without thought.
‘Don’t play with your food, and don’t play with me. Not unless you mean it.’ I tilt my head to the side, considering. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to goad me into action.’ Given how she felt yesterday, I’m relieved to see she’s all play. And that she appears to mean it.
Louise’s brow furrows, eyes falling to the plate in front in an unsuccessful attempt to hide her growing smile.
‘And if I were, hypothetically speaking, trying to goad a reaction,’ she asks, dusting the cr
umbs from her fingers before raising her head. ‘How would that . . . what’s the expression? Go down?’
‘Going down is always welcome.’ I smirk, folding the crushed newspaper in half. Leaning back in my chair, I fold my arms. ‘At the risk of sounding trite, are you trying to be a naughty girl?’
Hers is an instinctive response. ‘No, not at all.’
‘I’m mildly disappointed,’ I purr.
Hands knotted in her lap, her secret smile is back. ‘Then maybe I am. Just a little,’ she admits, pinching her forefinger and thumb together in a sign of tiny measurement.
‘How naughty?’
‘Whatever level constitutes a punishment where you take me back to bed.’
I watch her, my expression one of consideration with the intent to put her on edge. I stand quite suddenly, the chair grating against the floor, and hold out my hand, my smile disarmingly wide.
‘You dislike my taste in music. I’m going to punish you for that first.’
Throwing a hand to her cheek, she adds fluttering lashes for further effect. A distressed damsel she is not.
‘Oh, no! Whatever will I do? Stop!’ She might invoke a little Penelope Pitstop, but excitement added to her breathlessness, I can tell. I begin to stalk to her side of the kitchen table.
‘Shall we start the bargaining, then?
‘Bargaining?’ She looks suspicious. Not really surprising; she’s already called me a devil from time to time.
‘The desired punishment,’ I reply as though this is perfectly apparent. ‘My expectations might not meet yours. Where shall we start the bidding, love?’
‘Bidding on what?’ She sounds bewildered. It’s hard not to laugh.
‘Bids are not on, but rather for. You’re not that gullible. Come on, you’ve got your desired reaction. I’m going to punish you. What’s your master plan?’
‘I haven’t got one. I just thought I’d, you know, get you to take me back to bed.’
‘I don’t need goading into that.’ I shrug for effect. ‘Oh well, too late to go back on it now, but we can get to fucking later. For now, what will it be?’
