by Jaye Peaches
“Not at this point. I hadn’t anticipated that you would discuss this, but I can understand why you have brought it up early on.”
Clara turned her attention away from Jason and gave it to Gemma.
“My sister was a manager of one of those high street sex-shop chains. She used to work here in London, but she moved to Manchester a few years ago to work in a different area. I would help out sometimes; the work was quite fun. Of course, she was well aware of her clientele, who bought what and why. She would tell me about those who experimented in the bedroom and would come in embarrassed to buy their toys. With the rise of Internet shopping that side diminished, the books were the first to go, I read a few out of curiosity then the more exotic toys. She did parties for a while. Going into people’s houses or attending fetish events to try to sell directly. So you see, that is how I know about what you two do. Not from personal experience,” she added hurriedly. “Not my cup of tea.”
Gemma recovered her poise listening to Clara speak. “I don’t think it will be a problem, Clara. To be honest, during the week you’ll probably see very little of Jason. He’s a busy man, and I just want company and help. We needed to know, that is all.”
The conversation drifted on to other areas, Clara’s pay and conditions, the hours she could work, travel costs, and the like. Jason managed the contractual aspects of her employment with his usual impersonal approach. There was nothing more to do but offer the post, which he did, and she accepted without hesitation. She would start work for them two weeks after the baby was born. Jason would be with Gemma for the first fortnight.
Clara had helped Gemma to her feet in the sitting room. The assistance said loads to her. Clara was going to be her companion and helper, not his. The last thing that happened before she left was the nondisclosure agreement. She took the time to read it through carefully, another tick on Jason’s list for establishing trust.
Trust was a word buzzing through Gemma’s head as she let Clara out of the front door with a warm handshake and smile. Gemma stormed back into the sitting room. He hadn’t budged, as if waiting for her backlash.
“You didn’t tell me! Martinson found out more than what you told me, didn’t he?”
He crossed his legs and pointed at the floor. She scowled and made her way to be at his feet again, this time facing him.
“Martinson dug into her divorce. It turned out her ex ran off with a colleague of her sister’s. Hence, we knew about the sex-shop connection. Her husband used to call by a little too frequently, and her sister guessed and exposed the affair. That is probably why she jacked it in and went north. Clara used to help out when she was between nanny jobs. She put it on her resume as retail work, but it was obvious what she did. I like her. What more could you want from a nanny: pragmatic and honest. She’s been handed to us on a plate. So why are you cross with me?”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. She might have looked good on paper, but you might not have connected to her. You were so miserable last week after that pathetic girl turned up on the doorstep. You should know to trust me. I wouldn’t have taken the time off work if I didn’t think she was worth it.”
“Trust. Don’t fucking talk to me about trust. You didn’t trust me to deal with this and made me look an idiot—” She hammered the armrest with her fist.
He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from repeating the action then let her go. “You didn’t look idiotic. You looked quite happy. She could see that. There was nothing contrived for her, your submission was spontaneous and genuine. It convinced her.”
Jason went to stand up and Gemma couldn’t stop herself. “I don’t care if I behaved as you expected me to—”
“Enough, Gemma,” he snapped. “You wanted me here. What did you expect? That I would sit back and let you dance around the issue interminably, indecisive, and embarrassed to ask? You should be grateful I took the time to find out about her. Helped you. What I’m not seeing is respect or faith from you. Am I? I’m hearing an angry tirade from a silly woman who should know better.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Sorry. I apologise. I am grateful that you helped me this morning,” she blurted. She gave him her contrite face: watery eyed and imploring. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
“Very well. I have to get to work. Lines, Gemma. A hundred of them on my desk at Blythewood by the time I’m home tonight: I trust my Master and will be respectful to him at all times. Got it?” He stared down at her.
“Yes, Sir.” She tried hard not to sigh.
Corporal punishments were no longer an option for Jason, but he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to correct her with humiliating childish lines, something to calm her down. A thought crossed her mind, and her lips curled upwards slightly.
“Handwritten, Gemma. I saw that.”
She spent the rest of Friday Christmas shopping with only Gibson to keep her company. It reminded her that in a few weeks she would have a baby in a pram and a new nanny for company. She arrived at Blythewood with enough time to see the housekeeper before she left for the weekend. They discussed menus for Saturday and Sunday. Gemma’s brother, John, and wife, Andrea, would be visiting. They were recovering from the sadness of a recent miscarriage. Andrea had conceived not long after their wedding in September, which had been a beautiful day, autumnal and pleasantly mild.
~
Gemma’s parents loved the church. A Norman structure filled with fresh flowers, and the sun, for a brief poignant moment, shone through the stained glass above the altar of the small parish church.
At the hotel before the ceremony, waiting for the car to collect her, Gemma’s mother kept touching her waist, adjusting the bridesmaid dress with trembling fingers. Below her belly button, a bulge, not rotund, but the ambiguous rise of a belly that confused people into wondering if she was pregnant or not.
Her original bridesmaid dress had had to be abandoned and replaced with a custom-made one. Her mother remained in a state of perpetual excitement about the baby, her grandchild. Gemma rang at least once a week with an update.
The wedding day went without a hitch. Andrea glided gracefully up the aisle with her father, her chosen ivory dress sensational and her red hair bouncing about. If she was nervous, it didn’t show. The biggest surprise for Gemma came not from the happy bride and groom, but Jason. Being a church wedding there were hymns, and her husband sang. She listened to him deliver the lyrics with little reference to the hymn sheet, as if his private school upbringing had been reactivated without his noticing. A divine voice, as his mother had once told Gemma. A clear, unwavering tenor with an easy pitch and tone. She gazed up at him for a while, agog, and he caught her eyes. His ears turned an unusual pink.
“Don’t stop. Please,” murmured Gemma and returned her gaze to the minister in the pulpit. She didn’t want to ruin the moment. She composed a vision of him singing lullabies to their baby. Perhaps, if she weren’t in the room, he would do it for the child, if he didn’t want to sing for her.
John didn’t stop smiling all day. To Gemma, he looked like a younger version of their father, except with broader, more youthful shoulders. Conversations with John in the weeks before the wedding had been full of positive news. His plans for starting up his gardening business had transformed from the back of an envelope into something tangible and feasible. Jason’s suggested business advisor buoyed up John, and he’d worked hard at filling in all the gaps in his plan. From time to time, he sent Jason a copy to review, and Jason would return it with constructive comments, much to Gemma’s delight. John’s grand scheme was shaping up, and he hoped to resign from his existing job in the New Year.
The wedding reception was low key. A buffet in the barn with a small disco. Gemma danced, and since it was a family affair, there was no reason for Jason to baulk at her frivolity. She danced with her brother, the best man, cousins, uncles, and, lastly, with her father. She requested a melodic slow waltz and her father beamed throughout. She w
anted to cry, having him hold her so close for the first time in years; instead she rested her head on his chest, and he whispered, “Well done,” in her ear.
By the end of the evening, she felt shattered and her feet had grown in size. She took refuge in a seat next to Jason while her more energetic relatives carried on cavorting and drinking. Having been banned from drinking alcohol, other than the champagne to toast the happy couple, she discovered she didn’t miss the intoxicating effects. Being pregnant and in the company of Jason, nothing else mattered. Her family, her second cousins in particular, failed to hide their curiosity about her husband, pointing their fingers at him and nudging one another as he sat in his tailored morning suit. Gemma made a concerted effort not to gloat or appear smug, as it wasn’t her special day.
A few cousins approached, after downing a few pints, and asked personal questions.
Had he met the prime minister? Yes, came the answer, at a civic function attended by many others.
The Queen? No, he would be honoured, but, as yet, he hadn’t been invited to tea.
Gemma suppressed a giggle because Jason was a closet Republican, which was at odds with his educational upbringing.
Did he know how to fly? No, he would rather have a professional pilot.
Why did he not live abroad in a tax haven? Because he was British and proud of his heritage.
Would he go on Dragon’s Den? No, but if he ever had done, he would give them a hard time, or else where was the fun?
Gemma ducked her head, seeing the gleam in his eye when he made his last remark. She could envisaged the inquisitor at work, pressing the poor souls for facts and figures, belittling their feeble attempt to impress him then dismissing them with no compunction.
She took off her shoes in the car while Jason drove them to their nearby hotel. The relief, in having the exhausting day finished exhibited itself in a long mellow sigh, which slipped out of her lips while Jason patted her leg. The hotel was mediocre by their standards, but suitable for late-night, gentle lovemaking—Jason on top and Gemma sunk below in a blissful state.
Andrea’s miscarriage came out of the blue. The newlyweds hadn’t announced Andrea’s pregnancy. Seven weeks gone and she bled out one night, spending the next day in hospital, recovering. Gemma didn’t know what to say to Andrea as her own bump grew. Was she offering platitudes instead of real sympathy? Level-headed Andrea reassured Gemma she was dealing with it all—she didn’t cry down the telephone. Their loss made Gemma worry about her own pregnancy. Having the 3D scan comforted her, and she stared long and hard at the image, trying to convince herself her baby was fine.
~
Sitting at Jason’s desk, Gemma found a sheet of paper and began to write her lines. The tedium set in. She thought of her idea to use a computer and it reminded her how in a previous job, when she was bored, she would write words or lines in different screen fonts to spice up the document. Once finished, she would switch it all to the standard generic font, but, for a short spell, while she was being creative, she would work her way down the list of available fonts and experiment.
Finding a pen on Jason’s desk and with her ingenious idea in mind, she wrote the first line in block letters. The next in lower case. She mixed the next line up with joined-up or printed letters. Then she got into the spirit of it and tried sloping in different directions. With an italic ink pen, which she found in her hobby room, she wrote long, sloping letters. She mirror wrote some lines and another lot upside down, switching to columns on the back of the sheet for a couple of dozen inverted lines. She drew letters, curving them into patterns and coloured in different parts. To finish, Gemma did the last line in code and added the key at the bottom. A simple alphabetical-letter swap, the kind school children would reproduce.
She left the pages on his desk and went away quite happy to make the evening meal with the baby kicking in conjunction with her positive mood.
She greeted Jason in the hallway, as had become customary. A lingering kiss of welcome and he went off to his study to deposit his laptop case. The summons followed soon afterwards and she found him sitting in his leather office chair, feet on his desk, examining her lines with a broad grin on his face.
She rested her arms on the desk while he slipped down her slacks and knickers. Her lines lay on the desk under her as she stuck her bum up and he fucked away in her rather wet hole. He pressed his palm on the nape of her neck and her belly hung down in front of desk, unimpeded. The other hand wrapped about her hair, somewhere to tug and pull without distressing her sensitive state. Fingers tangled in loose strands, and her scalp tingled and buzzed as if she’d discovered a new erogenous zone. She loved it and thanked him for reaching into her, finding her submission.
“Please, may I come?” she asked, on the brink of exploding with a tremendous orgasm.
“You may.”
Jason’s voice, so controlling and liberating to hear, made Gemma thrash about with the intensity of her orgasm. He had to support her, holding her up underneath the hips. Her heart palpitated and stomach tightened almost painfully, making her catch her breath. He spurted into Gemma not long after as her belly relaxed back out from its pseudo contractions.
“I love you, Gemma. You kinky girl. Even your lines are beautiful,” he murmured as she rested her bulky form on his lap. “You’re also getting bloody heavy. Off. Tidy up and make me food!”
***
By Christmas, the construction of her atelier was complete. She and her mother christened it by doing some painting on Boxing Day, both of them admiring the frosty view out of the vast window. Gemma loved it: her perfect place. Over the previous weeks, she had been in and out of the pool next door, popping into the atelier to soak up the ambience. She considered swimming the best form of exercise for a pregnant woman, although she told Jason she felt like a wallowing whale, heaving her body from one end of the pool to the other.
She’d assumed Jason would take her for a fuck in the atelier, way of stamping his mark on the space, but he didn’t.
“Sex? In your atelier?” His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Dinner remained the key time to raise any important issues, his undivided attention guaranteed.
“Yes,” she squeaked.
“No,” He put the fork down. “I wouldn’t touch you in there, not like that. It’s your space. I thought that was what you would want?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Okay.” He returned to his meal, shaking his head slightly. “In any case, I assume I will be at work while you’re in there.”
For a while afterwards, she felt disappointed, She’d harboured a few fantasies about him having sex with her in the room. However after considering his opinion, she agreed. She needed a space away from him. The potentially suffocating power he had over her required respite and room to think, to be her own creative person.
Christmas and the New Year came and went in a blur and, by the final month of Gemma’s pregnancy, she quit work. There were cakes, cards, and presents, which when unwrapped revealed baby clothes and soft toys. She hadn’t told Daniel she didn’t plan on returning, but she thought she’d dropped enough hints for him to guess. His merger plans progressed, and in the few months, his company would cease to exist as an independent small business. Gemma was glad to be out of it.
Just as she found sex unappealing and hard, antenatal classes started at the maternity clinic she attended, led by a rather talkative midwife. She went to most of them with Jason. The breathing exercises, panting or taking deep breaths—all came naturally. She’d practised them for years during other painful activities. They would sit on beanbags on the floor doing the exercises and, for a brief while, they were an ordinary couple about to have a baby. Jason wasn’t the slightest bit dominating or controlling. He was what Gemma needed him to be: her supportive birthing partner.
Gemma created her own birth plan. The birthing pool sounded very appealing, as she enjoyed swimming in the warm indoor pool at Blythewood. She ran through her list of requirem
ents with Maggie, and the two discussed options, never touching on the issue of intervention or drastic measures.
The next time she met Maggie was at Blythewood House. Hugh came, too. Gemma had plucked up the courage to invite the couple to the country house. She wanted Hugh to see the atelier. Anxieties hit her the night before, when she decided she was being presumptuous asking an eminent academic to see the workshop and paintings of a rank amateur with no qualifications. If she hadn’t been pregnant, Jason would have spanked her into a better frame of mind. In its place, he gave her an ego-boosting talk and reminded her that she had sold quite a few of her paintings and she should climb out of her pit of low self-esteem, yet again, and demonstrate her self-confidence.
Hugh belonged to the old school of charming gentlemen. Older than Maggie with greying hair and a slim build, he wore the clothes stereotypical of an academic: a knitted Argyll jumper over grey-flannel trousers. If he didn’t appreciate Gemma’s work, he was an excellent liar. He complimented her on the compositions and eye for detail. As she waddled around the atelier, he admired the collection she had painted from her memories of the cruise—in particular, he praised a picture of a lone gondola on a Venetian canal with the gondolier leaning on his pole, waiting for a customer.
There’d been other paintings from the cruise, but Gemma hadn’t been as pleased with them and had left them unframed or off display. As he admired the workshop, Maggie took note of the play area, partitioned off by an interior wicker fence with a small gate. The wooden floor was covered with soft rugs laid out ready for the baby to lie and kick.
“Lovely, Gemma. You’ve created an idyllic environment.”
During the evening, Hugh rambled on about the study of art and how to target worthy recipients for Gemma’s scholarships.
“I need criteria for judging who should obtain my grants.” Generous grants. She anticipated many applicants.
Hugh made various suggestions, including talking to other funding bodies for their input. Gemma made mental notes.
