She's Mine

by A A Chaudhuri

  Daniel’s got your looks, but he can’t hold on to a girl because he has trust issues. You let him down, the primary woman in his life. He doesn’t trust you, and if he can’t trust his own mother, how can he trust another woman? He can’t, and he won’t, and he’s scared of getting close to a woman for fear of being let down by her, the way you let him down. And that’s why he drinks too much, why he’s taken hard drugs in the past, ended up in hospital having his stomach pumped. I’m worried he’ll never find contentment in life, because he’s not content with himself.

  Ella’s the same; forever trying to escape her past, who she is. Donning that fake mockney accent around her fashion-school friends like some pretentious pop star. You were never there to guide her when she needed you most. When her hormones were raging and she needed advice on girls’ stuff like boys and make-up and periods. You have no idea who she’s slept with, what her first time was like, whether her heart’s ever been broken, whether she’s ever taken drugs like Daniel or got in with the wrong crowd – normal things I know my sister’s gone through with my niece – because you were too afraid of getting your own heart broken. I can never forgive you for how selfish you’ve been. And, of course, she’s never opened up to me about any of those things because you don’t talk to your dad about stuff like that. Even though I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering what she’s been up to, whether she’s safe and being treated OK. Like Daniel, she has trust issues and I worry that she’ll never be a mother herself because of the way you were with her.

  The woman I’ve been sleeping with for the last six months is called Amber. She is young, single and incredibly hot, and I get hard at the mere sight of her naked body. She turns me on like you used to, but she’s also dirtier, more risqué than you ever were. And that excites a man of my age beyond belief. There’s something mysterious, almost wicked about her, and I can’t stop myself from going back for more. We meet at the same hotel and have mind-blowing sex; sometimes we don’t even make it to the bed, just go at it against the door or the wall. And when I am inside her, I forget everything. All the pain and sorrow that has amassed in me these past twenty-three gruelling years. It’s exhilarating, a fantastic, heady release, and I tell myself I’ve earned it because you lost our child, because you couldn’t be a proper mother to our remaining children. Because you threw it all away.

  That’s my excuse, even though, when I think about what I read just a few hours ago, my excuse feels less watertight.

  You’ll probably be cross with me for talking to the police without talking to you first. But there it is, I’ve gone and done it now, so there’s no turning back. Right now, DI Phillips is on his way here. We can’t handle this alone; we need help from those with the expertise to determine whether the note might be genuine, and therefore give us reason to hope.

  I deserve to have hope, don’t I? Despite the fact that I’ve been screwing a woman half my age behind your back. Wake up, God damn you, we need to talk.

  Chapter Twelve

  Amber

  Now

  The first time I saw you, Greg, I felt nothing but contempt. You were the ultimate cliché. Middle-aged man with a receding hairline. Boring navy striped shirt. Dull matching blue tie loosened at the collar. Hand clasped around a beer with a whisky chaser on the side as you sat at the bar of a familiar City haunt filled with clones of you. Washed-out, sex-starved losers, whose only solace at the end of a dog-eat-dog day lies in enough booze to give them the courage to face yet another one tomorrow.

  You were prime meat. A target I couldn’t possibly fail to hit. I love a challenge, and you were almost too easy.

  The bar was located near Liverpool Street Station, not far from your office, and as I walked in, loud pop music was playing. So loud, it made any kind of conversation hard, particularly for strangers like us. But I was prepared for this. I’d done my research. I had a game plan. I hovered a while at the door, just to make sure you were alone, and then I went for it. Strode up to the heaving counter and waited behind a couple of smug-looking City traders dressed all too predictably in pinstripe suits, with too much gel caking their hair and already too much alcohol in their overtaxed systems. I looked hot, I knew that, because that’s the look I was going for. It was August, so I could get away with a white skirt suit, its single-buttoned blazer accentuating my tiny waist and tight-fitting blouse, the skirt resting mid-thigh and showing off my slim, toned legs to perfection. My hair was styled in loose tumbling curls and I’d gone for a deep red lipstick that emphasized my full lips and oozed sex. The look was completed with two coats of black mascara and neutral eyeshadow, because it was all about the lips, and I was aiming for the sexy, domineering look, rather than cheap and tarty.

  It wasn’t long before the traders, standing beside you as they ordered a round of beers, noticed me. No surprise there. I virtually felt their dicks harden as they did.

  One of them leered at me over his left shoulder, and within seconds his friend predictably followed suit. ‘Sorry, we’re in your way; just waiting on our beers,’ the first one said. ‘Can we order you something while we’re here?’

  He followed this up with a cheesy grin that turned my insides, as did his beer-laced breath, but I kept it together, smiled politely and said, ‘No need to apologize. That’s very kind of you, but I’m fine, thanks.’

  But the twat persisted. ‘You sure? We’ve got a table over there.’ He gestured with his eyes to the back of the bar, but I didn’t bother to follow his gaze. The last thing I wanted was to lead him to believe that I might be remotely interested in spending time with him.

  You still hadn’t looked up from your drink while all this was happening, and I couldn’t help but feel a little affronted. I mean, every straight guy in the bar had surely noticed me by this point. But I guess you were so caught up in your sad little life, so lacking in confidence where women were concerned – because of her and the way she’d treated you for so many years – you’d become blind to the opposite sex.

  I gave both twats – who, amazingly, still seemed to think they were in with a chance – a steely look and repeated, politely, but with a palpable tartness to my voice, ‘Really, I’m fine.’

  Just then, their beers arrived. Finally, thank God, I thought. Looking sorely put out, they grabbed them and left (although I heard one of them mumble ‘Stuck-up bitch’ under his vile breath), allowing me space to reach the counter and make eye contact with the dishy bartender. Very fuckable, but sadly I wasn’t there for my own pleasure. I was there on a mission, and nothing was going to stop me from keeping my eye on the prize. I ordered a gin and tonic and inched a few centimetres to the right where you were sitting, my hip almost touching yours, your hand gripping your shot glass.

  Finally, you noticed me. I caught your gaze in the mirror behind the bar, watched it veer left, first down to my hip, then up to my face. My chance had arrived. I reached inside my handbag to retrieve my purse to pay for my drink, then ‘accidentally’ dropped the purse on the floor, just by the leg of your stool. I made to pick it up, but you were already there, having pushed back your stool, and you said, ‘Allow me.’ So polite, so harmless, and so very pitiful. You bent down to pick up my purse, and then I watched your gaze travel up my leg as you rose to a standing position.

  ‘Thank you,’ I gushed, my intense coffee eyes penetrating yours. You blushed like a pubescent schoolboy, and again I pitied you. Not out of sympathy, but out of scorn, because I knew all about you – who you were, what you’d done, or rather, had failed to do, despite having had every opportunity.

  I still pity you, but the nature of my pity has changed. Now I do feel sorry for you. You don’t deserve all that you’ve suffered over the years. You are a victim. And when I screw you, I do so partly because I feel something for you, and I want to help you bury your pain, block it out, if only for a short time, before you wake up the next day and it’s there again. Relentless. Interminable. But mainly, I screw you to hurt her. Because when she finds out, it will hur
t her, and it will be payback for what she did.

  You said it was no problem, then smiled and sat back down again. The stool on the other side of you was free, and so I took my chance, said, ‘I’m Amber. Mind if I sit down?’

  The look on your face was priceless. As if I’d asked whether you fancied a blow job. There was the same intense blush, and I could tell that your heart rate was off the wall. I also knew there was no chance of you giving me a straight no; you were too polite, too English, but I did worry that you might bail on me out of fear, perhaps use the excuse that you were late for dinner or had a train to catch. But you didn’t.

  ‘Sure,’ you said, your face a picture of bewilderment, and inwardly I sighed with relief.

  I sat down, took a sip of my drink, told you I’d been stood up. You gave me an incredulous look, as if you didn’t believe me.

  ‘All I can say is that you’ve had a lucky escape,’ you finally stammered, ‘because whoever he is, he must be insane to have done such a thing.’

  It was sweet, in a pathetic sort of way, and so I smiled coyly, then enquired what you did for a living, even though I knew exactly what you did. In fact, I knew your whole life history. But you told me readily. And gradually, you started to relax, and I could tell what a release it was for you, being able to talk about yourself for once. How invigorating it was for someone to take an interest in your life, because nobody had done so for such a long time. Because that’s human psychology, isn’t it? We’re a naturally conceited species. We like to talk about ourselves, we like to feel special, valued, that we have a point, otherwise what is the fucking point? Before long, you bought us another round of drinks, and then I told you I was in marketing, which was bullshit, of course. By then you’d removed your jacket, and so had I, and we proceeded to talk about all manner of things. All except one crucial subject. A glaringly obvious one.

  Your wife, together with the tragedy that had hung like a heavy black cloud over much of your adult life. You never attempted to hide your ring; why bother? It had been sitting on your finger when I walked in, and a hasty removal would have looked too obvious. Also, sad, desperate. But it clearly bothered you, and I could tell that you wished you weren’t wearing it from the way you kept twiddling it between your thumb and forefinger.

  In no time at all, the alcohol had well and truly loosened your inhibitions, and the barman was calling last orders. Your glazed eyes lingered on me as you said, ‘I have to go. It’s late, and I have an early morning meeting.’

  ‘OK,’ I replied, holding your gaze and undressing you with mine. ‘What station are you headed for?’

  As it turned out, we were both headed for Liverpool Street. Go figure. You helped me with my jacket from behind, and I knew what you were thinking at that moment. You were a lonely, sex-starved male in your fifties, and I was in no doubt that you badly wanted to fuck me. It was the only thought running through your mind: my young, hot body and what it would feel like to run your hands between my legs, thrust your neglected dick inside me, and release all that pent-up sexual frustration that festered in you like a malignant disease. There was no time like the present. I just needed to take advantage of that, engineer the right moment.

  We ventured outside, into the chilly night air, although after the heat of the bar, it was refreshing. ‘I know a quick way to the station,’ I said with a twinkle in my eye, taking your hand, our first physical contact. ‘Follow me.’

  I didn’t give you time to protest, even though I knew you couldn’t say no to me. We practically skipped into a backstreet, and you chuckled like a carefree teenage boy.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ you asked. And then I stopped to catch my breath against a wall, tossing my hair back, bending my knee ever so slightly so that more flesh was on show, tracing my index finger across my chest, hot from our exertions. There wasn’t a soul about. I watched your eyes, hungry and animated, travel over me, emboldened by alcohol and the bond we had forged in the bar.

  And then you couldn’t help yourself. You came over and pressed yourself against me, then closer still, pressing me into the wall so that there was nowhere for me to go. I felt the heat, the desire radiating off you, saw the excitement in your eyes. You were gagging for it, gasping for it, I knew that from the hardness of you as you pressed tighter still. I could tell you’d never done anything like this before, that it wasn’t in your nature, and that’s what made it so arousing for you. I grabbed your hand and guided it up between my thighs, and although I didn’t fancy you, because I am a highly sexual person the heat of the moment made me wet. I steered your fingers underneath my panties, running them up and down me, and then you took over, rubbing me faster and faster until I came, and my pants were soaked.

  We were motionless for a while, recovering our breath, but then, with your face still buried in my neck, you said, ‘When can I see you again?’

  * * *

  And that was the start. You still can’t get enough of me. We have sex at the same hotel two, maybe three times a week. You told me you’re married, unhappily, but not why. You will tell me soon, though, because you need me. You can’t hold off much longer, especially in light of recent events.

  I am your release, your addiction, and I pity you because you really don’t deserve what’s coming to you. It’s not your fault, but you are a necessary instrument in the game of torture I am playing with your wife. A game I intend to win.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Christine

  Now

  Greg opens the front door as I hover behind him in the biting February air, cold, tired and groggy from the pain medication the hospital gave me. My head still aches from the fall, despite the co-codamol the doctor prescribed for me. I fell hard and caught the edge of a tile, cutting my head open quite deeply. They used glue stitches to seal it, an ingenious invention I am familiar with because Daniel needed them a couple of times, once when he was six and fell off a climbing frame, gashing his forehead badly, another when he was playing rugby and split his knee open. Greg took him to hospital on both occasions. He was much better at comforting Daniel than I was. Even now, I am amazed how a thin strip of glue can seal the deepest of cuts, leaving minimal scarring, and without the pain of stitches. Daniel is quite proud of his war wounds, but mine won’t even show, covered by my hair. Not that I really care about my appearance these days.

  Right now, all I can think about is the note. When I read it, it was like being knocked out by a tidal wave. For so long, although my heart didn’t want to believe it (it still doesn’t), the rational side of me accepted that you were gone. Although the police file on you was never closed, as the days, weeks, months, years passed, my hopes of ever seeing you again faded to nothing, despite the occasional trouble-stirrers claiming to have seen you. But now we get this, twenty-three years after you went missing, and from someone claiming to be the kidnapper. Why?

  We’d always assumed it was a random abduction. There’d been nothing to suggest otherwise in the previous leads we’d followed, the police having questioned and eliminated friends, family, colleagues. But this note suggests otherwise. It feels personal. Like the sender knows about my past – what I’ve done – and therefore took you out of spite, to teach me a lesson. But who is he or she? There’s only one person I can think of, but I bought her off years ago, and my instinct tells me it can’t be her. Or can it? Perhaps buying her off wasn’t enough? After all, she was infatuated.

  The thought of what I did back then coming out terrifies me. I should have told Greg the truth long ago, but now too much time has passed, and it’s too late for that.

  * * *

  When I woke up in the hospital around eleven last night, Greg was sitting by my bed, staring at me. Still in his suit, no tie, he looked dead beat. He told me what he thought had happened, and I nodded.

  ‘Is this really happening?’ I asked him. ‘Can we really have reason to hope after all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said gently, shaking his head. ‘It could j
ust be another sicko stirring up trouble.’

  ‘But it might not,’ I said. ‘Somehow, this feels different.’

  ‘I know what you mean. But we still need to take things one step at a time. There’s a police inspector on his way right now, Detective Inspector Ryan Phillips. I told him about the note, and he wants to have a chat about it.’

  Greg rushed this last bit, as if afraid I was going to cut him off mid-flow. Cross that he’d gone to the police without consulting me first. But I didn’t cut him off. I knew I’d given him enough grief over the years, and in any event, he’d done the right thing. We need the police. We don’t have a hope of tracing the note’s author without them. But there’s also a part of me that’s afraid of them doing so, lest my secret should come out. I can’t bear to think about how many people it will hurt.

  Finding you, or keeping my secret? The choice should be simple, but it’s not.

  * * *

  It’s 10.30 a.m., and the temperature has dropped well below double figures; punishing weather for my skeletal frame. As I enter the house, I feel frozen from head to toe. Last night, I told Greg it would be no problem for me to get a taxi home from the hospital. But he insisted on picking me up, and as we pulled up in front of the house, he announced that he intended to work from home today. It’s sweet of him, the kind of selfless gesture I’d expect from Greg, but I would much rather be alone. I’m used to my own space, especially in the daytime, and I don’t want him to feel that he has to check up on me every few hours like some kind of carer. How sad is that, that I should feel so uncomfortable about my own husband looking after me?