by J. D. Chase
‘That’s his sister,’ Veuve whispers. ‘Or I think so, pass the binoculars.’
I pass them and wait. I’d mentally filed an image of the woman. I need Veuve’s positive ID.
‘Yeah, that’s her, the miserable cow.’
I nod and take back the binoculars. The gates are now swinging closed.
The dogs don’t move as a youngish bloke gets out of the van, goes to the back of the van and retrieves a holdall. He carries it into the house and she closes the door behind him. The dogs move forward and sniff the van before wandering off to lay down once more.
I watch the house and see movement in an upstairs window. Thierri’s room, one would presume. I assume the young guy is a nurse, here to change dressings and administer medication. Twenty minutes later, he comes back out, puts his bag in the back of the van and drives out once the gates have opened.
I can’t see whether the dogs have access all around the perimeter of the building. I’ll come back alone and recce the back of the property another time.
We sit here for another half an hour but there’s nothing of any interest happening. I reach behind the seat and bring out a chocolate bar and a flask of hot coffee.
Veuve smiles. ‘Takes you back, does it? Getting into the spirit of things?’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, because we sat in luxury with flasks of coffee and bars of chocolate, not to mention a sexy femme fatale to keep us company.’
She smiles but I can see that sitting here is triggering thoughts that are bringing her down.
‘Tell me about him. You never know what might prove to be useful. The more I know about the man, the easier it might be,’ I say. There’s truth in it but I also think she needs to talk about this.
So, over coffee and chocolate, she begins to tell me about the man who won’t leave his East End roots but builds a place more secure than some national security centres. It sure raises an eyebrow. I’ll find out what my contact in the local constabulary makes of the man tomorrow.
‘I first met him when I was just a kid. I was eighteen I think. Certainly no more than nineteen. He owned a club like Vouloir but in the Midlands.’
‘You frequented a BDSM club as a teenager?’ I ask but it’s more of a statement. I’m just so surprised. From what I know of Veuve, that would be around seventeen or eighteen years ago. You just didn’t hear of such things in those days . . . although I was a bootneck by then so what do I know?
She nods. ‘Yeah. My first proper adult relationship was with an older man.’
I almost spray coffee everywhere when the mouthful I was swallowing gets confronted by my gasp. ‘You . . . and Thierri?’
She laughs. ‘No. Not that much older. Thierri’s old enough to be my dad. Easily. No, it was a guy I met at work. I’d first met him when I took a temping job with the firm during my college summer holiday when I was seventeen. I covered for his boss’s PA when she went off on a fancy cruise. I’d noticed him. I didn’t think he’d noticed me. He was nine years older than me. He made me feel like a kid, just when I was trying to make everyone think I was a mature adult.’
Something about the way she’s speaking tells me that he’s important. Her posture is almost rigid and her voice is subdued, although the words flow well. I think learning about him may be just as important about learning Thierri’s story.
‘Tell me everything . . . from the beginning,’ I say. “Any of this could help.”
She looks reluctant. Very reluctant. I can see her brain at war with itself. I don’t push her. I know better than that. She sighs heavily.
‘When I finished college, I was offered a job there immediately. The same PA had handed in her notice. It wasn’t what I wanted to do—I wanted to go to university to study law but it’s a long, laborious, expensive process. They made me a financial offer I couldn’t refuse so I thought I’d do it for a year or so and save up for uni.’
I nod. ‘Sounds like a good plan.’ I don’t tell her that I can picture her as a sultry secretary.
‘So I started there as soon as my course ended. It was the week of May Day because I remember getting paid for my first day at work and it was a day off. It was an engineering works and there were quite a few young apprentices that I’d seen around college. Very soon I was out most nights of the week but I found boys of the same age—I was still just seventeen—to be immature and annoying.
‘When this guy, let’s call him Paul—’
‘Why?’ I ask.
She shrugs. ‘Because it’s his name. I was going to pretend that it wasn’t his real name. Anyway, I started to see him around when I was out most nights. One of the secretaries who worked in the large office next to mine told me that he’d been asking her about me. Of course, that emboldened me and I began to try to catch his eye—in the office and in pubs and clubs. He always seemed to be around but he didn’t pay me any attention.’
What a fool. That’s all I can say. I think she read my mind because she gives me a melancholic smile.
‘Until the day I turned eighteen. The ladies in the office made a bit of a fuss and so did some of the engineers. It was a Friday and they insisted we go straight to the pub when work finished. We finished early on a Friday—well the office staff did—the factory staff were treated differently. There was a horrid white and blue collar divide, something that I found inherently unfair.’
I nod, willing her to continue.
‘Towards the end of the night, Paul came up to me. He just said he wanted my number . . . not a can I have . . . ? It was ‘I want your number.’ I was more than a little tipsy but I managed to write it down for him. Then he said he’d be calling me the following afternoon at four to find out my address because he was taking me out for dinner afterwards.’
‘What did you say?’ All I can think of is cocky fucker!
‘What could I say? I was a kid . . . all the secretaries fancied him. He was six four, blond, had the most stunning blue eyes, played rugby—a powerhouse of a prop—and was a rising star within the company. He was already a chief engineer by the age of twenty seven. I think I squeaked more than spoke. I managed not to blurt out ‘yes please’ and played it cool just by nodding. He left then and I went over to Hayley, one of the secretaries that I was closest to, and almost peed my knickers with excitement. She did a bloody happy dance before digging me in the ribs and calling me a lucky bitch.’’
‘And did he call you?’ I know the answer. Of course he did.
‘Yeah. At four on the dot. He arranged to pick me up at six thirty. He was bang on time. He told me to be ready and come out to the car when he pulled up.’
‘Were you living at home with your parents?’
‘Yes. I don’t think he wanted to meet them. Something that he managed to achieve,’ she says. She sounds increasingly distant and I’m suddenly unsure whether sending her head into the past is a good idea. Not after what happened last night.
‘He was the perfect gentleman. He was confident and charming. By the end of the meal, I was in no doubt that we were now an item. He dropped me off with a chaste kiss to the lips and was gone. I didn’t hear a thing from him the following day. He’d withheld his number so I couldn’t call him if I’d wanted to.
‘Monday came around and the place was buzzing with the news that Paul and I were together. I’d only told Hayley about his asking for my number—that was all. He ignored me for most of the day until I bumped into him when I was coming out of the ladies. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of a fire escape before demanding to know why I’d told the whole world we were together. He scared me, just a little—he seemed so angry and he was hurting my wrist.
‘I told him I hadn’t. I fibbed and said Hayley had seen me giving him my number. That was all. I blamed the secretaries and the way they gossiped. I told him he was hurting my wrist but he didn’t let go. Instead he leaned in and kissed me. I mean really kissed me. I was eighteen . . . I’d never been kissed like that before. It was . . . demanding, possessive and rough. My knees buckl
ed and my head spun. I forgot about my wrist. And so it began.’
She pauses and I suspect she’s allowing me to work it out. He was controlling. Possibly abusive. I get it.
She sighs. ‘He could be utterly charming and very protective. But soon, the belittling began to creep in. He urged me to take my driving test for several reasons. Driving to mine and back to his was an hour round trip. He did that to pick me up and then he had to take me home again later. He said it was a huge drain on his time. He also couldn’t have a drink, though I found out later that he frequently did. He was determined to avoid my parents too. He began to make comments about the area in which I lived. It was nothing special. Nothing bad. He lived in a picturesque, little village where the neighbours all envied one another and games of one-upmanship would ensue on a regular basis.
‘So I passed my test and bought a car—although I was supposed to be saving up for uni. Something else he didn’t agree with. I think he liked the fact that he was better educated than me. I think that he liked being better than me in many ways . . . for example, his parents lived in a better neighbourhood than mine, he was better educated and had a better job than me and, the old chestnut—he was older, and therefore wiser, than me. More experienced and less naïve. That part was certainly true.
‘I was just a kid. It took many months before I realised that having a nice house in an exclusive location, a good job, worldly experience and age in your favour, does not mean you’re a better person. Or a nice person. I can’t lay all the blame on my tender age . . . there’s no saying he wouldn’t have been able to mess with my head, had I been older. Who knows?
‘Even looking back, I can’t see how he did it. But he got inside my head and, the first time he lost his temper—shouted at me and threw a few things—I was upset and afraid, of course I was. But, once he calmed down and apologised, we would fuck—no, that’s wrong. We usually fucked—hard and fast and often. When he was apologising, we would make love—I suppose that’s what you’d call it. More gentle intimacy. Kissing. Caressing. It was completely different. He’d be more attentive and it would be more for my pleasure than his.
‘But that’s when he did it. Looking back I can see it. At the time . . . ’
She shrugs and gives a wry smile. ‘Maybe I didn’t want to see it. Maybe I wanted to believe that he loved me.’
She stares out of the windscreen and quietens, lost in thought. I don’t want to interrupt but I’m worried that she might go back to that awful place in her memory again. I never want to see that again, although Gabe says the episode I witnessed last night is nothing compared to some he’s seen.
‘What did he do?’ I ask softly. I’m not even sure she can hear me. I think she’s going back there but she turns to me with a sad smile on her face.
‘He told me that he was sorry he’d lost his temper but that I shouldn’t provoke him. At least that’s the earliest reference I can recall. It started subtly and escalated once I was under his control. As his control increased, so did the severity of his outbursts. Oh, I haven’t told you, sorry. He was a Dominant. I didn’t know for some months—maybe he wanted to introduce me to the scene gradually, when I was ready or when he was sure I was worthy of an introduction to his peers, I don’t know.
‘When he first took me to the club, I was in awe. Shock, fear, arousal, excitement . . . I felt every emotion you can imagine. I was eighteen and this is way before BDSM was mainstream as it seems to be now. I didn’t know what a Dom was . . . what it involved. I quickly learned what it looked like, on the face of it but I didn’t realise the implications of what I was potentially getting myself into. It was never explained to me.
‘So yeah, I dabbled. It pleased him. If he was happy, he was the most loving, kind, attentive man I could have wished for. He was lusted after by so many subs at the club but he ignored them all. He only had eyes for me when we were there. Can you imagine the power of that in my eyes? I was blinded by it and allowed myself to be drawn in, deeper and deeper. I watched what the subs did for their Masters and the pleasure they both received as a result. I could see the loving bond between them.
‘It was intoxicating and I wanted it. I was a kid—I guess I still believed in fairy tale endings. My early conditioning went well. He was pleased with my progress. It felt weird but he explained that it would do—it’s different from the norm and you get out of it what you put in. So I threw myself into it. And like I say, when he was happy, there were no temper tantrums. His moods seemed to revolve solely around me. If he had a shit day at work, he didn’t take it out on me. If I fucked up—in his eyes, not necessarily in mine—his mood would darken.’
I feel like stopping her because she’s no longer relating the tale from a distance. She is being drawn in. As she speak, emotions flit across her face and affect her voice. But I need to know this. And I do believe that it’s good for her to get it off her chest. She’s not managed to build a wall around her past that’s impenetrable like I have. Her defences are weaker although I suspect that’s not true. I suspect it’s because her past is more menacingly evil and impossible to contain. Because for some reason, she’s still running scared.
‘You can stop, you know. If it gets too much,’ I say.
She looks at me gratefully but then shakes her head. ‘If I end up needing you to be my private security guy or bodyguard, call it what you will, you need to know this stuff. You need to know what you’re dealing with . . . although my knowledge is somewhat outdated. Maybe things are different now.’
She says the words but both of us know they’re not true. I can see it in her eyes and besides, I know—once a monster, always a monster.
‘He persuaded me to move in on the pretence that he was away on business regularly and needed me to look after his house. It was in a fairly rural location and he worried that it would be targeted by burglars. Not that there was much worth stealing. He only had the house for status. He had very few visitors—me and a few family members. He didn’t waste money on fancy furnishings and artwork. He was more concerned with appearances than appliances.
‘His house, his flashy car, his Armani suits and shoes . . . all purchased for effect. He got lucky with the house—it needed a complete renovation and he bought it just before the housing market exploded. He got it cheap and had it tarted up on the outside. Only the essentials were done on the inside. And I knew this—I wasn’t that naïve. I knew he was a snob but he worked hard to earn his money—who was I to judge how he spent it?
‘Anyway, I moved in to look after the house when he wasn’t there and intended to move out when he was back. No chance. The mere suggestion of that brought about the biggest temper tantrum yet. It was the night he returned from the first overseas trip with me keeping house. We’d been out to the club and had both had a few drinks after we’d played for a while. We didn’t do much at the club—he preferred that we were home for that. He began smashing up anything within reach when I said I’d move my things back to my parents the following day.
‘I tried to leave. I couldn’t drive as I’d been drinking but I needed to get out of there. He stopped me by physically restraining me. Then he forced himself on me, fucking me against my will. We’d had some rough sex but that night . . . ’
She shudders at the memory. I want to put my arms around her to tell her she’s safe. But I can’t. I know it would be the wrong thing to do. Don’t ask me how, I just do.
‘Afterwards, he cried. I’d never seen him cry before. He apologised profusely and seemed genuinely horrified at his actions. He blamed alcohol and fear. The fear of losing me. He said he wanted me there. No, needed me there. Then he turned it around on me saying that I mustn’t love him enough to live with him. He promised that these outbursts would stop if I gave him the security of being with him permanently. All the time, he cried. Fat, noisy sobs. He was a hulk of a man . . . sobbing like a baby.’
‘So you relented.’ I didn’t mean to say it aloud but the consequences were predictable.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, what a stupid cow, eh?’
‘You weren’t much more than a child. And I know your retelling is a simplified version. I’ve no doubt there was much more to it than that. I’m not your judge or jury. I just need to know.’
She looks at me with grateful eyes and tries to smile but I know she’s struggling to hold back different emotions. She looks so young, sitting here telling her story. She appears to have shrunk back into the seat as much as she’s beginning to withdraw into herself . . . into the past.
‘The really stupid part was allowing him to use that night against me.’
He used it against her? After he’d raped her? The man’s a fucking psychopath. I feel my fists clench.
‘Everything was good for a while, once I’d moved in properly. Better that good; it was perfect. Then he began to say he was worried about losing control again because I wasn’t making enough progress with my training. It was frustrating him and I needed to knuckle down and learn to submit to him. Being subservient wasn’t enough. He spoke of subspace. He intimated that everybody at the club was talking behind my back, sneering and judging me. I was failing him and myself because I couldn’t enter subspace.
‘I’ve never liked losing. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t walk away in those first twelve months when I had the chance. He made me feel that I was a failure whenever I did something he didn’t approve of or when I didn’t do something that would have earned his approval. Life became a game of treading on eggshells and jumping through hoops. I felt like an Olympian when I won. Like an oxygen thief when I didn’t. And sometimes, it seemed there was no pleasing him.
