Chapter Twelve

DISORIENTATED, I WANDERED about the house for a good few minutes before I got my bearings and remembered the location of that little cloakroom where all my clothes were stashed.

From somewhere not far away I heard Kat’s screeching voice, then Damian’s, lower but getting louder and louder until a door slammed.

My heartbeat was too intrusive, pounding in my ears, interrupting my thought processes. A primitive need to escape was the only real item on my agenda. All the processing, reasoning, brooding and analysing could come later.

I found the room and fell on my knees before the velvet banquette, lifting its seat to peer inside. The interior was divided into little sections. My belongings were tucked into the slot at the far right. I dipped my hand in. The first thing I found was Patrick’s necklace.

I couldn’t move. I could only stare at it. Then I held it up to my cheek, bent over into a foetal position and wept my heart out.

There was no way I could ever have Patrick. He was too good for me. I suppose I had known this all along, and chosen to deliberately ignore or misread his signals accordingly. I just didn’t deserve him. And I should probably resign from my job as well. How could a mindless slut like me be a suitable role model for children? Especially the troubled children of St Sebastian’s. Everything was hopeless.

The door handle turned and my shoulders froze mid-shake. I gathered a shuddering breath, preparing to tell whichever jeerer or mocker it might be to take a running jump.

But the voice, when it spoke, was soft.

‘Thought I might find you here.’

‘I’m going. Just getting my stuff.’

My head was dull and achey from all the sobbing and my eyes were sore. I didn’t want him to see that I’d been crying. I held my position.

‘Yeah, looks like it,’ he said with a small chuckle. I heard his footsteps move towards me. He crouched down by my shoulders; I could see the shiny tips of his chauffeur boots, smell the leather and polish. He put a hand on my back. My spine sagged.

‘Damian …’

‘C’mon, doll, get dressed and I’ll drive you home.’

I braved the raising of my face to his, hurriedly dashing the wetness from my face with the heel of my hand.

‘Is that a good idea?’

‘Is anything we’ve done here a good idea? How else are you going to get back? Hitch a ride? You’ve no idea where you are.’

In the extremity of my angst I hadn’t considered this. He was absolutely right. My best guess was somewhere in Wiltshire, but it could as easily be any of six or seven other counties.

‘Well, where are we?’

‘The middle of nowhere, sweetheart.’ He sighed. ‘Malmesbury’s the nearest town.’ Score! I was right. ‘You’d need a taxi. There’s no railway station and no bus service back to the coast. You’ll have a fucking nightmare, darling, not to mention the snow’s played havoc with public transport anyway. Let me take you.’

I was too tired to resist, plus his apparently pathological flirtatiousness always hit something squarely at my centre.

‘Is it safe to drive?’

‘Snow’s starting to thaw. If I take it slowly, we’ll be fine. If the worst comes to the worst we’ll book the nearest hotel room for the night.’

‘God, Damian, what about your wife?’

‘Even she wouldn’t cast a lone woman out into the frozen wastelands. Besides, all that’s over now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was on the cards, love. Don’t blame yourself.’

I snorted. ‘I don’t! I blame you.’

His hand patted my shoulder. ‘There. That’s better. No more weeping and wailing, eh? Get your kit on.’ He chuckled. ‘Never thought I’d say those words.’

He helped me to my feet, then inhaled sharply.

‘Ah, hang on,’ he said. His hand brushed down my spine, landing firmly on my bottom. I felt a weird sensation, then squealed as I realised what it must be. He had tweaked the flange of my butt-plug. The butt-plug I had somehow completely forgotten I was wearing. ‘I think we need to make sure we don’t leave with any of His Lordship’s property. Imagine if we were pursued all the way to Portsmouth by cops investigating the theft of a butt-plug.’

Despite my woe and shame, I giggled at the image.

‘Hmm, bend over, Miss Delaney,’ he growled. How could my clit throb at a time like this? How? The use of my real name instead of the fictitious Delray made it all the sweeter. I bent, grabbing the edge of the banquette.

‘Do you want one quick yank or a slow screw?’ The man was incapable of saying anything without making it sound filthy. Actually, this was kind of filthy, wasn’t it? He was gearing up to pull something out of my arse. Does it get much filthier than that? ‘It’s probably going to feel a little bit uncomfortable, darling, either way.’

I screwed my eyes shut. ‘Make it quick, like ripping off a plaster.’

‘Good decision. I promise I won’t damage you. I’m an expert at this.’

He put a steadying hand on my coccyx, holding me still. My knees trembled. He hooked two fingers underneath the flange and spent a few seconds twisting it gently.

‘I’d love to do this under happier circumstances,’ he murmured. ‘Pulling it out so I can replace it with my cock, for instance.’

‘Do you ever stop thinking about sex?’

‘No. OK. Are you ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’

He pulled it out, swiftly and seamlessly. My sphincter muscles contracted in confusion and tried to clench it tight, but Damian’s sure technique outfoxed them and I was empty before I knew it. All the same, I needed a few moments to pant and squirm while he wrapped the thing in a handkerchief and tossed it into the banquette.

‘Come on, then,’ he said with a brisk smack of my bottom. ‘Get cracking. I want to be out of here before midnight.’

It seemed unfair to expect Damian to chat whilst trying to negotiate endless twisty-turny snow-filled country lanes in the pitch dark, so we sat in near-silence for the first half hour of the journey, the car’s purr only interrupted for the occasional, ‘Shit, was that a deer?’ or ‘Christ, it’s deep here.’

Once we pulled out on to a main road where the shovellers and gritters had been at work, though, I made a tentative gambit.

‘Is the car yours?’

‘Yep. I bought it off His Lordship a few months ago. In some ways, it feels like I’ve been planning for this day, though not really consciously.’

‘Aren’t you upset? About Kat?’

He flicked his eyes briefly towards me. ‘No. She’s impossible. I don’t want to go into it all, if you don’t mind, but we’ve had issues pretty much from day one of our relationship. She’s in love with His Lordship anyway – oh, for fuck’s sake, why am I calling him His Lordship? Marcus. She’s in love with Marcus. We haven’t fucked since October.’

‘Really? Why is she still so possessive of you, then?’

‘Because that’s what she’s like. Not saying I’m blameless – I’m not. But I’ve never made out like I own her, or she has to have my permission to sleep with certain people.’

‘Perhaps that’s what she wanted you to do.’

He sighed. ‘Perhaps. But I’m uncomplicated and I don’t play mind-fuck games. We just aren’t right for each other.’

‘How did you get together? Do you mind me asking?’

His lips curled into a rueful smile. It felt wrong to be finding him as sexy as I did after all the furore, but my pussy couldn’t be reasoned with.

‘I followed her up the escalator at Waterloo station. She had the pertest little arse I’d ever seen and she was waving it in my face, in this tiny denim miniskirt. When we got to the top, she looked over her shoulder at me and gave me the most blatant come-hither I’ve ever seen. She made me follow her all the way across the station concourse, wiggling that booty all the time until we got behind a shelf in Tie Rack and she said, “I bet you want to smack it, don’t you?” I said, “Among other things,” and she said, “Go on, then,” and bent over there and then. How was I meant to resist an offer like that?’

‘Wow,’ I said, impressed. Damian was definitely an arse man, if I’d been in any doubt whatsoever. ‘So you spanked her in the middle of the Waterloo branch of Tie Rack?’

‘Yeah. And then I got her number and then I had to get my train. But things went from there, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘And just thinking about that has got me horny. Or hornier, I should say, since I’ve been thinking about how much I want to fuck you for the past twenty miles.’ He turned his face to me, suddenly anxious. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. Sorry, that was inappropriate. You must be all over the place. Forget it. The last thing I want to do is put you under pressure.’

‘No,’ I said with determination. ‘Sod appropriate. A really good hard fuck might clear my head.’

He put a hand on my thigh. ‘You’re a bloody marvel. Why didn’t I meet you at Waterloo station that time, eh?’

We found a layby and got ourselves laid in it while the car heater pumped out noisy warmth. I reclined on the reclining passenger seat and pulled up my skirt. As on the journey to His Lordship’s house, I had no knickers to worry about.

Damian, trousers around his knees, cock out and proud, slid above me, wetting the tip of his tool in my juices.

‘Mmm, you don’t need warming up, do you, love? You’re soaking wet already. Why’s that, then? You need cock that bad?’

I forced a hand between our pelvises and wrapped it around his good hot stiffness. Oh, I was ready for that. More than ready. We had only fucked a few hours ago, and yet it seemed like days and days since I last had him.

‘Yeah,’ I gasped. ‘Please.’

‘Oh fuck, this is good. If you were mine, I’d never let you wear knickers. I’d have you ready for my cock at a moment’s notice, always.’ He rubbed his tip round and round my clit while his hands groped beneath my dress, stimulating my nipples. ‘I’d fuck you by the side of the road every day of the week.’

‘Want you to …’

‘Yeah?’ He aligned his blunt cockhead with my well-lubricated cunt. ‘What do you want, babe? What do you need?’

‘Filled up. Ridden. Hard.’

‘Mmm.’ He was inside, stretching me, gliding into the space he’d already occupied that afternoon. I felt a profound, base-level joy, as if I was where I should be. ‘You will be, doll. Hard as. Mmm, and you’re still so tight, even though I was in here before. You fit me like a dirty little glove, don’t you, babe?’

‘Oh God, yes.’ He had started to thrust, urgently, bearing down so that he moved that fraction closer to my G-spot with each foray.

‘That’s it, babe. Ride it. Take it in. Feel it.’ His litany of filth poured into my ears, provoking me to heights of erotic abandonment. I bucked my pelvis upwards, wanting to be impaled as deeply as possible, I grabbed his arse and dug in.

His ferocious tempo and technique drew an orgasm from me almost immediately, but he wasn’t finished, not by a long way. He meant to make me take this ride to the end, until I was steaming and broken and yanked out of shape.

‘Get those legs wider, I want your ankles around my ears,’ he ordered, slamming into me, lifting my hips high so that my toes scraped the car roof.

I thought sparks might be struck from our skin. His cock plunged in and out in a blur; the windscreen behind him was opaque with condensation.

‘You won’t be walking far tomorrow,’ he vowed, and my G-spot erupted into a fountain of wild celebration. He ploughed and ploughed and roared his climax into me, his red hair slick and damp, his pale eyelashes dark with sweat.

We lay, fused together by heat and perspiration, limp and used up for a long while, listening to the cars on the main road swish by, churning up the slush.

‘I like you,’ he said at length.

‘Yeah, I like you too.’

‘If things were different …’

‘I know. It’s not a good time for me either.’

‘You’re hung up on someone else?’

I shifted beneath him, looking him in the eye.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘The way you were hanging on to that necklace earlier.’ He put a finger to my throat, tugging the fine silver. ‘What’s he got that I haven’t?’ he said with a wink.

I couldn’t answer, didn’t want to.

‘Yeah,’ he said with resignation. ‘Your heart. OK. We should get back on the road.’

He hauled himself off me and began putting his clothes to rights.

I had little to do in the way of dressing, so I simply tilted the chair back up and smoothed my skirt back down over my lap.

‘Keep it up,’ said Damian suddenly, flipping it up my thighs. ‘If you sit on it, you’ll stain it. I can just wipe the seat clean, no problem.’

‘How, er, practical.’

‘Nothing practical about it,’ he said, pinching my thigh. ‘Just like the thought of you, naked and oozing my juice over there. It’ll add a certain something to the rest of a tedious journey.’

‘Pervert.’

‘Pot, kettle, black.’

He turned the key in the ignition and crawled to the end of the layby, easing out on to the quiet road again. Pleasantly exhausted now, and relieved of all the angst-related muscular tension of earlier, I threw my coat over me and shut my eyes.

When I opened them again, it was nearly midnight and we were in Portsmouth.

‘Christ, was I asleep all that time?’ I jerked upright and looked through the windscreen at Albert Road, decked out with snow and Christmas trees and staggering drunks – a heartwarming scene indeed.

‘Sleeping Beauty,’ confirmed Damian. ‘I was going to wake you with a kiss, but you’ve spoiled my fun now.’

‘I’ll go back to sleep,’ I offered, scrunching my eyes.

‘I’m going to kiss you anyway. Might as well stay awake now. Your place is only around the corner, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, second right.’

The huge Victorian villas split into flats loomed against the flat, dark sky until we reached mine. Unusually, there was space to park outside and Damian pulled up, took off his chauffeur gloves and said, ‘Well, then.’

‘Well, then.’

‘This is where your adventure ends. Alice has left Wonderland.’

‘More like Blunderland. And who are you, then? The King of Hearts?’

He smiled, a little sadly. ‘Off with her head,’ he said, reaching out to stroke the back of my neck.

I didn’t know how to leave him. Actually, what the hell was I thinking?

‘Surely you aren’t planning to drive all the way back there tonight?’

He shrugged.

‘Stay the night at mine. You’re more than welcome.’

‘Are you sure? Would that be OK?’

‘Of course it would. Seems like the least I can do, after you’ve brought me all this way in the dark and the cold.’

All we did that night was sleep, after a tot of whiskey each and a bit of snogging on the sofa that we were too tired to take anywhere.

We even forgot to eat, and consequently I was awoken the next morning by the rumbling of Damian’s stomach, which my head had somehow ended up right beside.

‘Breakfast?’ I asked him, popping my head out of the covers and catching him in a huge yawn. About three seconds after suggesting it, I remembered that I had no bread, milk, or anything, having expected to be enjoying His Lordship’s hospitality for the whole week.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Damian, but instead of demanding a fry-up he reared up, pinned me down and slithered his way along my body until his mouth found my pussy.

He feasted and gorged on me, laughing a dark laugh every time I came, which was three times in total, before moving back in for more. I could barely see straight to return the favour, but by the time we thought of showering I had swallowed a substantial mouthful of his juices, while mine glistened all over his chin.

‘I’m sorry, I can only offer black coffee,’ I told him when he appeared, dressed and washed but gorgeously ruggedly unshaven in my kitchen. ‘I can pop up to the Co-op on Albert Road if you must have milk –’

‘It’s OK. I should get going.’

‘Oh.’ I couldn’t quite mask my disappointment. ‘Lots to sort out today, I guess.’

‘You said it.’

‘Well, good luck with it.’

He was behind me at the kitchen counter, wrapping strong arms around me and clasping my hands in his. He kissed my cheek and then my earlobe.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll need it. I’d love to stay on but … Well, y’know.’

‘I know.’

I twisted my neck up to him and let him kiss my mouth, a long, sloppy smooch that melted me all over again.

Breaking away, he took the pen off the magnetic strip of my kitchen organiser pad and wrote down a phone number.

‘I’m not going to try and compete with Mr Necklace,’ he said. ‘But if you ever find yourself fancy free and footloose, give me a call.’

‘I will.’

‘Do you promise?’

‘I wouldn’t dare disobey.’

He growled a little, pulled me close and patted my bottom.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘See that you don’t.’

There was more kissing and maybe a few tears from me and then he left.

It was all over.

What next?

What came next was a trip to the Co-op, breakfast and many, many cups of strong coffee.

And after that, I switched on my computer.

In my inbox, the most charming email from, presumably, Kat.

‘Bitch, we know your name now and we know where you work. We are sending photographs to your headteacher, your board of governors and your local newspaper.’

I shook for a few minutes before firing back. ‘I know HL’s real name too. Tit for tat, anyone?’

I didn’t know his real name, of course, apart from the Marcus part.

The reply came ten minutes later.

‘You don’t know HL’s real name. I don’t believe you.’

‘Try me and see.’

Nothing more after that.

I sat in my armchair for two hours, neither moving nor reading nor watching TV nor listening to music. All I could do was stare ahead.

A text message tone from my phone made me jump. Christ, it was from Patrick.

‘Good Xmas?’ Neutral enough.

‘Interesting.’

‘Are you still on the Isle of Wight?’

‘No, back home.’

‘Would you like to meet up?’

‘Yes. Something I must tell you.’

‘Really? I’m intrigued.’

‘Don’t be. It’s not worth being intrigued by.’

We texted back and forth, arranging eventually to meet that afternoon outside the castle.

The common was still knee-deep in snowdrifts and I watched as a giant ferry made its stately progress up the Solent towards Bilbao or Le Havre or some other foreign port that seemed a better place to be than here. Perhaps that was what I should do. Get on a boat, be an anonymous woman in a busy city, teach English as a foreign language or something. It was one plan, and the best I’d come up with so far.

It was cold, so cold. I stamped my feet and huddled, but the wind whistled along the sea front until I considered giving up and going home. As soon as I turned, I saw him, hurrying through the slush in Hunter wellies. Was he a gardening man? I wondered. Not that it was any business of mine. Not now, not ever.

‘You must be perishing,’ he greeted me, grinning and puffing out steam. ‘Why didn’t you choose an indoor place to meet?’

I supposed I felt I deserved to suffer.

Drawing closer, he reached towards me, noticing the necklace.

‘You’re wearing it,’ he said. He was very close, too close.

‘You’ll probably want it back.’

‘Oh?’

We began to walk, across the common towards the boarded-up funfair at Clarence Pier, a place that looked as desolate as I felt.

‘I’m thinking of leaving teaching,’ I said.

Patrick stopped in his tracks and put hands on my arms, spinning me forcefully to face him.

‘You’re what?’

‘I’m not the right kind of person for the job.’

‘But … You’re … Cherry, you’re exactly the right kind of person for the job. You’re competent, caring –’

I cut across the bluster. ‘My private life isn’t compatible. I’m a bad person.’

He shook his head, so stunned that I wanted to pull him close, tell him I was only joking. Could I pass this off as a joke? No.

‘Somebody tried to blackmail me today,’ I said, more gently. ‘It made me realise that I could expose you and the school to scandal. I don’t think they’re going to do it really – but if they did …’

‘For God’s sake.’ He took my elbow and marched me over to the garish blue and yellow façade of the funfair.

Below the trashy plastic awning, a sad-looking greasy spoon café was open for business against the odds.

Patrick ordered us two teas and sat me down at a Formica table. I picked up a tomato-shaped ketchup dispenser and began picking at the green plastic frill around the stalk mouth.

When the tea arrived, steaming and more welcome than any other cup of tea in the history of history, Patrick leant down low and said, ‘Now, what’s this nonsense?’

I wanted to cry. He sounded so – oh, so everything I’d ever wanted. But then I shifted on my chair, feeling a residual burn that reminded me of all the sex I’d had with Damian over the past 24 hours. I wasn’t worthy, and I was never going to be.

‘I have an unconventional sex life.’

He blinked, shook his head again, but quicker this time.

‘What’s that got to do with leaving teaching?’

‘Oh, don’t be naïve.’

‘Are you telling me you’re a paedophile? A necrophiliac? Anything else illegal?’

‘God, no, of course not. Jesus, Patrick.’

‘Well, then, if it’s no business of the law, it’s no business of anyone else’s. Is it? Or am I missing something?’

‘I joined this sex cult. Well, no, that’s not how it was at all. Sorry, that sounds really lurid. What I did was … I surfed the net for people who shared my interests. Then I met up with a few. We did stuff. But it all got a bit elaborate and there was emotional fall-out and people got hurt, so … I feel awful and shit and like the worst human being ever.’

Tears were coming. I derailed them with a big gulp of tea.

‘Oh, Cherry.’ Patrick didn’t sound shocked. He didn’t even sound disappointed, or not much. ‘Listen, I …’ He looked around the room, as if the peeling paint might give him a clue what to say next.

‘I might understand a bit more than you expect,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done, whether it’s swinging or dogging or whatever, but as long as you can keep it out of school, I really don’t give a toss. Well, I do give a toss, obviously, because I did have a few hopes, but don’t mind me. Don’t mind me.’

‘I do mind you.’ This was worse than shock and horror. He was writing me off, setting me free. I didn’t want that.

‘Thanks. Thanks for minding me, but please don’t give up teaching. Though if you want to leave I’ll understand … I’ll give you a glowing reference. But, on the other hand, please don’t go. Look.’ He drew himself up, visibly manning up after this rather shambolic speech. ‘OK. Tell me. Tell me the worst. What was this bizarre sex thing you were into?’

‘If I tell you I’ll have to find a new job. I won’t be able to face you every day knowing that you know.’

‘I’ll take the risk. I’m just wondering …’ He seemed about to make a grand confession, but he pursed his lips instead.

‘It was SM,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘You know. Whips and rubber and that. Just always been a bit drawn to it and thought it would be fun to experiment. Experiment got out of hand.’

Patrick swallowed. He put a hand through his hair, disarranging the perfection of it.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right. I see. And you, er, did the whipping, or …?’

‘No, the other way round.’

‘And you met people over the internet?’

‘Yes.’

He sat back and stared up at a cobweb on the light fitting for ages.

‘I want to tell you something, Cherry.’

‘Oh?’

‘After I applied for divorce, I registered with a website. I’d always wanted to explore this certain side of myself, but Lynn wasn’t interested and I certainly wasn’t going to force the issue.’

I put down my tea and let my eyes pop.

He smiled tightly, his eyes troubled.

‘The site was called MasterMe dot com. I called myself SecretSadist.’

I squealed.

The tabard-wearing woman behind the counter stopped wiping down the tea urn. I apologised to her, flapping my hands, then pointed to myself and whispered, ‘AtYourService.’

He put his hands over his mouth and caught his breath before removing them and mouthing, ‘Seriously?’

‘That was me! That was you? God, I loved you! You were amazing! Why did you disappear on me?’

‘I was scared, Cherry. I’ve been in the local press so much. I was worried I’d be recognised and, well, you know. You’ve had this same dilemma. I can’t believe it was you. I’m just …’ Whatever he was just, he couldn’t express it, except by shaking his head even more.

I put the ketchup dispenser down.

‘Oh, the irony,’ I said.

He looked up at me, eyes tired and bloodshot.

‘If you hadn’t buggered off,’ I explained, ‘I would never have got involved with the scene I ended up in. If you’d held your nerve, we could have got together and none of this would have happened.’

‘You still haven’t told me exactly what did happen.’

I looked over at Tabard-Wearer, who was feigning obliviousness to our conversation very badly.

‘I don’t really want to talk about it here. Can we go back to my place? Or maybe yours?’