The Gift of Shame

by Sophie Hope-Walker

  Stooping to pick up Helen’s shoes and dress from the deck, he turned with them in his hands to look out across the glistening waters of the lagoon and tried not to imagine what was happening behind the screening shrubbery. His mind in conflict, he tried to rationalise what he had done and imagine what might have happened had he objected to Helen going ashore. Her words, spoken just hours ago, resonated in his mind: ‘Those that do …’ fought for pre-eminence with another, half remembered, maxim: ‘A man will never know what he truly owns until he gives it away.’ The question remaining was – would he ever regain her?

  Standing at the rail on this warm sub-tropical night, Jeffrey recognised that it was the most important question he would ever ask himself.

  Rounding the promontory of rocks and shrubs that separated her from the beached boat, Helen hesitated. She could see the man in the light spilling from his stern lamp, looking one way and then the other along the beach, looking for her and wondering if she were still on the island or on the yacht. What, she wondered, had brought him back to the island when he must know it was, given the presence of the yacht in the lagoon, more than likely she would be on board. How could he have sensed that she might do exactly what she had done – thrown caution to the winds and come, eagerly, to his side?

  In considering his motives she was also forced to question her own. If she were to believe Jeffrey’s forthright denial of his being married then she, Helen, could no longer excuse herself on the grounds of inflicting punishment on him. The anger and frustration she had felt alone on the island with Qito was also no longer any kind of justification.

  So she was left with pure lust. Lust for a totally unknown, silent man who came and went with the tides. In her dilemma she felt she was two separate personae. Her hungry body urged her forward but her mind whispered caution. The choices were there in stark contrast. The bright glare of the primitive gas lamp on his fishing boat was in front of her while, by turning her head, she could look back to the riding lights of the anchored yacht. She had also to ask herself why she had hesitated. How simple it would all have been, had the impulse that had caused her to dive from the yacht’s deck been enough to carry her forward to the man’s waiting arms. Rationality, she considered, was the ultimate passion killer. Either that, or the comparative chill of the waters had sobered her up somewhat. She had come to prolong the ‘wild child’ freedom of her days on the island but knew that it would be only for this one last night and as ephemeral as making a grab for a ghost.

  Her indecision mounting to be almost physically painful, she had started to turn sadly away when there was a movement in the bushes to her immediate right. Looking there she saw the man’s face gazing, expressionless, directly at her. For a moment they stood facing each other before Helen felt forced to speak.

  Unsure even of which language the man spoke or understood, she tried communicating with the universal shake of the head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice shaky with indecision. ‘I only came to say goodbye.’

  If the man understood he showed no sign of it and came forward to face her directly. Looking at the fine definition of his muscular body, the quietly confident and totally impassive face, she wanted to turn and run from her own bodily urges.

  ‘He knows about you. They all know about you,’ she offered, and then as confusion engulfed her, pleaded, ‘They’re going to punish me if I stay.’ Mentally she added: ‘And even if I don’t’, and suddenly everything was excitingly clear to her. She had licence. All was possible – everything permissible. This magnificent man before her was to be had at a price and she had only to decide if the price was worth it.

  The man, though so close she could feel the heat of his body, made no move to reach out for her and was making it clear that if there was to be a first move then it was going to have to come from her.

  Perversely angered, as she always was by being made responsible for her own actions, and even while wishing he had resolved her dilemma by simply taking her, she reached out to take his ever-readied magnificence, first into her hands, and then, as it flickered and convulsed like a live creature, gently lowered her lips to him in supplication.

  The man towering over her groaned his protest and reached to lift her to her feet and again she was forced to fight him off. ‘No!’ she told him as sternly as she could muster but, when he knelt, wrenching himself from her, and bore down on her shoulders, there was no protest that could be of any avail. Furiously she tried to roll clear of his grasp but it was hopeless. His sheer animal strength pinned her down, spread her and soared deep into her. Now able to tell herself that she had no other choice, Helen was able to surrender with dignity.

  The man, suffering no such inhibition, went about seeking his own satisfaction and played her like the accessory to his own pleasure that she revelled in knowing she was. Her protests gave way to pleasured gasps and cries as he created turmoil in her, thankfully deadening all thought of right and wrong, as the sand played mattress to their heaving bodies.

  Her body, writhing with satisfaction at finally getting its own way, hushed her mind, but it fought back with vivid images of Jeffrey – and Carla – as if they loomed over the writhing wanton bodies and smiled in satisfaction of the dreadful price they would demand for re-entry into rationality.

  ‘I’m to be punished for this!’ she gasped into the uncomprehending face of the man who ravaged her. ‘Beg forgiveness! Humiliate myself!’ but even as the thoughts lashed her she knew they were only adding to the pace of her rising climax. Soon she was screaming in orgasm as the relentless man thrashed on inside her. On and on. No longer caring whether she was willing or not, he brought wave after wave of exquisite torment, until she felt she could stand it no more and started beating her closed fists against his stone-like chest. She had never felt more helpless as he effortlessly picked her up and, standing, still locked deep inside her, carried her into the lapping waters where her extreme vulnerability to the man was apparent. To quiet her highly vocal protests he simply bent her backwards until her head went underwater.

  Panicked, she felt herself swallowing water even as the fire between her legs intensified. When he lifted her gasping from the water and allowed her to breathe, she used much of the breath to beg mercy, but he held her transfixed and pounded even deeper into her.

  Sobbing, even as the fire within her grew more intense, she had a massive orgasm as she imagined herself fighting for her life where only his pleasure could save her. When he relented and waded them both back to shore, she was once more borne down onto the beach where the sand welcomed her by forming a perfectly shaped base to their final debauch. Still lodged deep inside her, she felt him surge, felt him throb and begin to move and, desperate to contain him this time, wound her legs about him, but to no avail. Once more he was pumping his warm seed onto her belly, leaving her feeling distraught and cheated.

  Exhausted, she lay for a moment, eyes closed, and awaited his comforting embrace, but when, not feeling him close, she opened her eyes, he was already walking away towards his boat. ‘Damn you!’ she screamed after him. ‘Go to hell!’

  The man didn’t bother to look back to her until, standing in his boat, his hand already on the rope that would raise the sail, he waved her to come forward. Not knowing where he might take her she came forward and climbed into the boat, looking up at him wide-eyed and feeling entirely bereft of free will.

  The sail, once raised, immediately filled with the offshore breeze and the tiny dinghy moved smoothly forward into the night waters of the lagoon.

  Looking round she saw, not without a pang of disappointment, that he was returning her to the yacht. Looking back she saw him pointing into the moon-silvered waters. ‘Shark!’ he said. ‘Dangerous to swim.’

  Suddenly terrified, Helen gazed down into the clear waters which she now saw as filled with menace. ‘Sharks?’ she asked the man, hollow voiced, and then swallowed hard as she saw him nod. Aware that only thin wooden planks separated her from a nightmare, she wished away the distanc
e between the frail craft and the safety of the yacht.

  As that extravagant craft loomed larger she saw this return as almost a metaphor for her own state of mind. Out here, distanced from civilisation, was a primitive and savage world while the yacht now took on the aspect of sanctuary and safety. Only her stomach quelled at the price she might be expected to pay for readmission.

  When the boat nudged gently against the lowered gangway of the yacht, she scrambled for it half expecting the menacing shark to leap up in the tiny gap between the bobbing dinghy and the gangway. So intent was she to put distance between her and the monsters of the deep that by the time she turned to wish her mystery man farewell she saw his dinghy had already slid away and was headed for the gap in the reef.

  She was startled to hear Jeffrey quietly calling to her and, turning, saw him leaning anxiously over the rail just above her head. ‘I was watching for you,’ he said, as he helped her up onto the decking. ‘I meant to bring a boat for you when you were ready to come back. Did you know a shark was spotted in the lagoon this afternoon?’

  Staring at him her mind was doing loops. Was this to be the only question he was going to ask? ‘You knew?’ she countered. ‘You knew and didn’t tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know until after you’d reached the beach. I was worried as hell that you might try to swim back.’

  Knowing that Jeffrey must have seen the fisherman, she felt embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘What I did was an act of madness.’

  ‘The swim in shark-infested waters?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Going at all. I’m sorry.’

  Relieved to see the smile that lit his face, she went on. ‘It’s over now,’ she murmured, as she went gratefully into his welcoming arms.

  ‘Not quite,’ he murmured. ‘There’s still your forfeit to pay.’

  17

  THE DISCREET VIBRATION of the ship in motion woke Helen. It was close to midday as she rose from the bed and drew back the blind that masked the long windows to look out onto the startling close passage of the water. Seeing the ocean at almost window level, and understanding that where she stood was actually below the sea level, reminded her of the shark in the lagoon, which changed her perception of the ocean from a thing of amorphous beauty into a viscous mass, masking the frightening savagery within its depths.

  Pressing her head hard against the thick glass of the screening window she craned her head to look backwards, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the island. But there was nothing to be seen but the swell of the ocean as the yacht carved its disdainful way forward. Just for a moment she felt uneasily undecided which of John Milton’s titles might best express her feelings – was it Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained? Only the day would tell.

  As she showered and dressed, the intangible uneasiness she had felt on waking grew in her. There was a feeling of absence. Tsai had not come to attend her, she had seen nothing of Jeffrey and, as she emerged onto the main deck, she could almost imagine she was alone on the yacht. It was only the ever-attentive Korean stewards who welcomed her into the dining room that reassured her that the yacht had not become another Marie Celeste.

  Having brought her a chilled, delicious melon, satayed prawns and a green salad, she was still savouring the heavy white wine and craving coffee when a totally naked Tsai came padding silently to her side. ‘You must come with me now,’ the girl spoke in a voice so soft it had been almost a sigh.

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘I must prepare you for this evening.’

  Tsai’s use of the word ‘prepare’ left little doubt about what she was to be prepared for. With the promise of excitement came also the darker shadows of doubt. ‘Where’s Jeffrey?’ she asked of the girl.

  Tsai shook her head in a gesture that might have been meant to convey that she didn’t know or had been instructed not to say. Suddenly the earlier expectation of coffee had become a craving along with an alien urge to smoke a cigarette – a habit she had only experimented with in her early teens and then, she imagined, dismissed from her life. Now it was back, searing her tongue and coating her throat, unsummoned from wherever childish impulses are consigned. The reason became apparent when she reached for the table bell that would summon the stewards, and saw her hand shaking. Excitement, like warmed molasses, had seeped into her blood and was causing her heart to race along with her mind. ‘I want some coffee,’ she told the waiting girl.

  Tsai again shook her head. ‘All the men crew have been sent below and must not come out again until tomorrow.’

  This news caused a convulsive shudder to pass from head to toe and, standing, Helen looked around the ship even more aware of the ‘absence’ she had sensed earlier. While the yacht clipped smartly through the ocean there was no sign of the ever-attentive deck crews. Pausing, uneasily aware of the unique isolation surrounding her, she felt the welcome onrush of helplessness. Knowing she could do little to protest at whatever might be about to be done to her, rendered her guiltless. Standing there, Tsai anxiously awaiting her reaction, she realised the care with which she had been prepared for this moment. It was as if Jeffrey had known from the outset that she was going to be presented with this test and had gently accustomed her to accept it when the time came. She turned to look into Tsai’s porcelain face and finally smiled her acceptance of that which she was now convinced was inevitable. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  Beaming with relief, Tsai led the way from the dining room and down the stairway that led to the main stateroom deck. Confident that she was to be taken to her own cabin she was a little surprised when, at the base of the stairs, Tsai turned left instead of going straight on.

  Tucked away, almost under the stairs, was another stateroom.

  Tsai opened the door and stood aside to allow a now curious Helen to precede her.

  Stepping into the darkened cabin the first word that came to Helen’s mind was incongruity. The room was furnished more like a medieval chamber than a space on the modern hedonistic machine that was the yacht. Chains and leather lined every wall, while the whole place was lit with what, at first, seemed guttering candles but turned out to be cleverly disguised flickering lamps. None of these accoutrements to bizarre pleasure took her eye more keenly than the human element in the room. Strapped naked to a wooden cross was the yacht’s owner – Martinez. His eyes, hugely rounded, were fixed on Helen as she stood staring at him but, she saw, his silence was explained by the leather thong that gagged his mouth.

  Propelled forward by an instinct she recognised as having been instilled in her during her visit to Madame Victoria’s, Helen came to stand immediately before the man with his deliciously desperate eyes. Between her and this man, with whom she had barely previously spoken, sprang an immediate affinity. The light sarong that was all she wore became constricting so, tugging at the knot that held the sarong, she loosened it and let it slip to the floor where Tsai immediately moved to pick it up. The widening of Martinez’s eyes as he looked on her honey-coloured body was all the goad she needed to go further.

  Looking directly into his eyes her hands sought out his hardening flesh. ‘Have you been whipped?’ she heard her huskily toned voice ask and, when she saw his nodded reply, felt enveloped in an intensity of excitement that scorched her body and threatened her soul. Reaching forward she kissed his gagged mouth, then his throat. An explosive grunt escaped his constrained mouth as her lips sought out the matted hair on his chest and nipped affectionately at his nipples.

  All consciousness of another world – even of her surroundings, and the excited, cautionary, protests of Tsai – fled from her mind as her hands gave him pleasure, so paying tribute to their companionship of pain. Even as she worked and teased she understood that once, before finding total freedom on the island, she would never have dared do this without Jeffrey’s prior sanction and she was engulfed in a soaring sense of triumph.

  Standing before this helpless man she was her own arbiter, with no need of excuse or alibi to expl
ain her self-indulgence. This too, she appreciated, had been gifted her by Jeffrey, but what followed, as Martinez erupted convulsively into her manipulating hands, came, unheralded, from some dark resource of her own mind.

  Carefully conserving and guarding every drop of him in her hands, Helen rose and looking at Martinez squarely and without shame, directly into his eyes, offered up his cock’s harvest to his lips. ‘Clean them,’ she told him. The act seemed to pleasure Martinez enormously. His eyes closed in sublime acceptance while his grunts were far from protests.

  A kind of madness gripped Helen as shock-waves of arousal sought out every last nerve in her body. She trembled with excitement as she reminded herself that a man stood helpless, his eyes pleading for savagery. It was as if she could read his mind. How well she had been taught the joy of submission – of surrendering free-will to the whim of another. She knew that Martinez’s mind would be racing with expectation of the surprise and shock of her inflicted pain. His silent demands begged not to be disappointed. Still looking directly into his eyes she found herself wondering by what avenue Martinez had come to this knowledge. She knew only too well her own guilt and her own needs and was, conversely, angered.

  ‘Bring me a whip,’ she murmured to the attendant Tsai.

  For a moment Tsai hesitated and Helen knew the Chinese girl was about to protest but seeing Martinez’s eyes lit with expectation she spoke again. ‘Do it!’ she insisted.

  Tsai moved to the display of instruments pinned to the walls and, after a momentary pause, returned with a long pliable stick of many tails. The moment Helen’s hands closed about the leather stem a surge of live power raced upwards from her closed fist to lay siege to her quaking body. At the same moment she was assailed by the knowledge that having come this far, having raised expectations, she must not disappoint and her confidence wavered. Needing sanction she spoke to Tsai. ‘Loosen the gag,’ she told the girl and was momentarily relieved of the oppression of his eyes, so full of pleading.