Chapter Five

 

 

“Are they ever gonna let me take a shower?” said Splash to Johnny as she shovelled horseshit under his supervision. He laughed, but not unsympathetically. It was early the next morning; Louise had taken Glory for a ride, and had left Splash to muck out.

“Depends how the boss wants you to smell,” said Johnny. He spoke casually, but with the mention of Mr Lovedrool a degree of curiosity came into his manner, as he leaned against the stable wall, his massive forearms folded together. “Did he hurt you last night?”

“He gave me an aspirin.”

“Louise took you to his room. I carried queer-arse to his and she brought Pauline. They weren’t half sick when they woke up.”

“Yeah,” said Splash. She loaded her spade with another two or three pounds of manure. As the muck was disturbed it gave off a fresh wave of its pungent stink, smack into Splash’s face. Thank Christ this job’s almost done.

“What’s America like?” asked Johnny, starting up the conversation again.

“It’s full of Americans. Anything else you wanna know?”

“Don’t get snotty with me,” he said, offended. “It’s not my fault you’re here, is it? I’m only trying to talk with you.”

“Well, don’t.”

A clear, freezing night had turned the snow in the courtyard to ice: there was a beaten track from the stables to the kitchen door, but its surface was slippery for even booted feet. It was safer to stamp and crunch through the virgin snow on either side. As they got into the kitchen, a bell was ringing. “What the fuck’s he doing up?” grunted Johnny. “Didn’t he take his pill last night?”

“Maybe he doesn’t need to when he’s come.”

Two more rings, quick, sharp, bad-tempered rings. “All right, you old twat, I’m coming,” said Johnny, in a low voice even though they were far from the sitting-room. He pulled Splash roughly after him, by a pair of reins clipped on to her restraints.

There was no answer when he tapped at the door and still no answer when he tapped again. He let out a soft grunt of annoyance, but didn’t venture to put his feelings into even muttered words. He tapped again; still no answer and after a moment’s hesitation pushed the door open.

Splash was just behind him. His broad back blocked most of her view and his head and shoulders were a long way up. She couldn’t see anything of what happened next; she heard a swift, high-pitched whistle, a vicious crack of something striking flesh and a scream of pain from Johnny. He staggered back and she realised another blow had landed. He fell over and she couldn’t get out of his way. They were both sprawling on the passage floor; one of her elbows had hit the polished wood. For ten or twenty seconds everything else reached her consciousness through a screen of sheer agony.

Lawrence had sprang out of the sitting-room, Lawrence dressed all in shining leather and studs: a short dress, a belt as wide as the one Splash was locked into, long studded gauntlets and huge leather waders with studs in rows around the tops. He wielded a whip with a short, thick tail and a big heavy metal handle; he’d lashed Johnny in the face as he opened the door and then clubbed him with the handle. As Johnny lay in the passage he clubbed him again and again, taking care to hit him around the temples. Neither of them spoke a word.

Splash rolled aside to avoid being trodden on. Johnny raised his hands to try and guard his head, but it seemed Lawrence had been waiting for him to do that; there were a pair of handcuffs on his belt and he swiftly clicked a cuff on to one wrist, twisting the arm around, behind Johnny’s back. For a few seconds they wrestled, but Lawrence was on top and had all the advantages of treachery. Johnny’s hands were cuffed together behind his back.

Lawrence stood up, panting for breath. He looked about him for the whip, retrieving it from where it had dropped. “Right ... Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” each snarled repetition of the word helped to drive home a blow, either a lash from the whip or a kick from a boot, distributed to Johnny’s face, back, crotch and legs, where the blows landed being seemingly unimportant now that he was helpless.

Then Lawrence began kicking him repeatedly in the backside. “Get up! Get into the sitting room!”

Johnny kicked back, catching his knees and calves. “Get off me, you fuckin’ queer-arsed bastard!”

Lawrence grabbed his feet and withstood a few hard kicks while he unlaced Johnny’s boots and dragged them off. He threw the empty boots aside with force, they flew yards before hitting the floor with a noise that resounded down the passage. He dropped to his knees, between Johnny’s legs and caught hold of the flies of his trousers. “Get offf meee!” bellowed Johnny.

Lawrence laughed. “Enjoy it, baby.” He dragged Johnny’s jeans and shorts away, both together. “After all, who are you calling a queer? Nobody’s ever been up my arse! Do you know that, Splash?” he said, laughing down at her. “Father fucked him! He enjoyed that! He can’t do anything with girls! I can and he can’t.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” shouted Johnny, louder than ever, as if he was trying to drown him out.

“I can and you can’t! I can and you can’t!” jeered Lawrence. “Get up!”

Hands cuffed, naked from the waist down, his face bleeding from that first surprise cut, Johnny struggled to his feet under kicks and whip strokes. Lawrence drove him into Mr Lovedrool’s sitting-room. Mr Lovedrool was evidently not there: as she sat and leaned against the passage wall, Splash could hear furniture being knocked over.

She sat up. The pain from her elbow was wearing off. It came to her that for the first time in three days, she was neither immobilised by bonds nor under somebody’s eye. She got to her feet and moved away down the passage. A deep, terrible scream came loud and clear through the wide open door of the sitting-room.

Splash broke into a run and left the noise behind, until the silence of the house was disturbed only by the thudding of her own biker boots. She ran on.

She reached the kitchen unopposed; probably Mr Lovedrool was still in bed and Pauline was still recovering from last night. The back door stood wide open and let in an icy draught, but it was a welcome sight. Splash’s arms were chained to her body at the wrists and elbows, she was alone in a foreign country, she was wearing nothing under a thin cotton dress and outside it was sub-zero, but if she got outside the grounds of the house she’d run and run and thank God.

And then she felt sick.

There, maybe a hundred yards away, somebody had just come out of the stables and was coming over, striding confidently up the slippery path. Louise was back from her ride.

Splash flung herself backwards into the kitchen, knowing she’d escaped being seen immediately. But in less than a minute Louise would be there. She looked wildly from cupboards into corners, searching for someplace to hide, but there was nowhere safe enough because she didn’t have the nerve to stay. There were three places to go: back the way she’d come, to the daytime rooms, to the laundry room, or to the dining room, where Louise was least likely to walk in first thing. She fled up the connecting passage.

By daylight the big hexagonal room was dim and shadowy. Splash closed the door gently behind her and put an ear to one panel. “Johnny!” called Louise from the kitchen. “Johnn-ee!” she called again, affectionately. The thought of meeting her eyes made Splash want to wet herself.

There was no sound of footsteps approaching the other side of the door, but there was no telling whether or not Louise remained nearby. If she’d been certain that Louise was gone from the kitchen quarters Splash might have ran back, to get out into the open at all costs. As it was she stood there and kept quiet, paralysed by uncertainty and the awareness that a wrong step could be disastrous. Time went by; she wanted to move, but didn’t dare.

“You vicious little bastard, you’re gonna come with me and you’re gonna look for her!”

It was Louise again, coming back from somewhere, screaming with rage. Lawrence spoke in reply, a few quiet words of contempt.

Oh Christ, how long would it take them to find her? The big round table was the only substantial object in the dining room. Splash almost obeyed an impulse to duck beneath it and wrap herself around its solid stem; but with her mind freed by the urgent need to act, she remembered that there was a better hiding-place ready to hand. She stole across to the corner, the one where she’d sat tied up in the chair.

She found the special carving on the wall, the one that turned. The concealed door opened, and Splash slipped through. She was left in the dark once she was shut in the secret passage, but that didn’t matter.

Somebody came into the dining room. “Well, she’s not here,” said Lawrence as if stating the obvious. “I tell you, it’s a certainty she’s bunked out of the house. She was willing to go without her things before.”

“Who helped her that time?” spat Louise, her boots stamping across to the other door. Lawrence followed. They were gone and Splash breathed more freely. She slid to the floor, doing her best to sit down without moving the upper part of her body, burdened as it was with noisy chains. Her eyes grew used to the lack of light and pure black broke up into a shifting mosaic of grey dots, in which floating shapes could be discerned and strange faces like the man in the moon. But the unheated air chilled her as she sat without moving and her ass was frozen where it touched the floor. It got to ache under her till she had to shift for a moment’s relief, though the chains clinked softly. No watch, no task to engage the hands or brain, no sound; it was safe, but it was hard to endure. She curled up into a ball to keep warm, knees pressed against her breasts, clutching the tops of her boots. Her mind filled with colour and texture as she recalled the contents of her bag she’d left on the back of her cycle: shoes, clothes, diary, personal stereo ...

Voices were speaking all at once, feet were treading: Splash distinguished the click of Pauline’s heels. They were all out there, arguing: Louise shouting, Lawrence laughing, Johnny growling, Pauline murmuring but evidently not masked.

“Be quiet, all of you!” roared Mr Lovedrool.

A silence fell. “It’s all his fault,” said Louise sullenly.

“What does it matter if she has gone?” said Lawrence.

“Just you wait, Lawrence. It won’t be long before you get out of the mood for that gear and then me and Johnny’ll have you.”

“Quite right. One ought not to confuse the magical powers of costume with one’s own innate strength. On the other hand, Louise, when Lawrence loses the thrill of power and cruelty, he gains the sensuous delight of suffering at the hands of others. He will want you to hit him harder, tie him more tightly, insult him more brutally. In practical terms, it’s very difficult to punish him, so I don’t try anymore.”

“Splash might be hiding somewhere,” said Pauline.

“Where, fart face?”

“It’s possible,” said Mr Lovedrool. “We shall search the house systematically, from top to bottom - beginning at the top, as it’s likely a fugitive would be drawn by all those empty rooms. Do you not agree, Louise? Come on, children.”

 

*****

 

A tiny spot of light had appeared, somewhere up above Splash as she sat on the floor.

She’d been left undisturbed in the dark for a long, long time, most of that day she was sure. She had a plan, now: simply to wait until it was so late she could be sure they were all gone to bed and then emerge from her hiding-place. If they were going to find her here they’d have done it by now, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they? The calculating, reasoning part of her mind said that her chances were good and getting better; but to wait in uncertain hope is hard on the emotions, even in comfort and warmth. When the light came on, her first reaction was alarm; it was unexpected, it was a sign of danger.

But it wasn’t. Crockery and cutlery rattled, Louise grunted orders to Pauline, Splash’s vision of the secret door being thrown open and the whole bunch of them looking down at her faded. They were getting ready for dinner. There was a spyhole into the dining-room, through which the electric light shone now that it was turned on. That tiny bright spot drew Splash’s eyes upwards, irresistibly and her mind, starved of visual stimulus for so long, gradually began to entertain a dangerous, unnecessary, but attractive thought: get up and look at them! Even as she told herself not to be so stupid, she calculated how slowly and carefully she’d need to move in order not to make a single sound and clutched her chains tightly in her fingers. She got up.

As she did, she almost gasped aloud at the cramp in her unbent knees and back. She had to stand on tiptoe. But it was worth it, because the solitary star in her darkness came nearer, turned into a hole, a little round hole which held a lens that gave your eye a full view of the room.

They were all sitting down to dinner. Lawrence was still dressed in leather and grinning behind his makeup. Next to him, Pauline was still unmasked and grinning too. By contrast, Louise’s mouth was turned down into a scowl of undischarged anger. Johnny sat with his shoulders hunched and his chin against his collarbone. An ugly reddish-brown slash of a mark ran diagonally across his face, from above his right eye across the bridge of his nose and down his left cheek. Mr Lovedrool sat between the two couples. “There’s a matter that has to be settled and I’d like to discuss it with you all,” he said.

“What’s that?” asked Pauline.

“It’s the question of what should be done with Susan’s belongings. She has left us, but almost everything she brought remains here. I thought it would be pleasant and may help to reunite the household after today’s unpleasantness, if we were to divide them amongst ourselves, each of us taking some particular item. Has anyone any especial claim to make?”

Nobody spoke. “Very well, here is how I would distribute them. Since she’s taken a dress belonging to Pauline, you, Pauline, ought to receive her clothes, most of which will fit you. Have you ever worn leather trousers?”

“Ooh, no!” giggled Pauline.

“Well, now you shall. As well as clothes, her bag contained a diary, which I have been reading and shall keep for mine. A pity she’s gone, I was going to interrogate her about the people and places mentioned in it. She also owned a personal stereo and a selection of cassettes, which I thought would make an agreeable gift for Louise and a rather beautiful religious medal and some solid silver bangles, which I think would look well on Lawrence when he’s in a gentler mood.”

“I don’t mind,” said Lawrence.

“I don’t want her fucking tapes,” snapped Louise.

“And last but not least - far from it - there is her motorcycle, which I believe is an excellent machine of its kind. Certainly its value outweighs that of all her other possessions put together, but I’m sure none of us would harbour any jealousy on that account; on the contrary, let it be a gift from all of us to Johnny.”

Mr Lovedrool concluded with a magnificent wave of his hand and all eyes, including Splash’s eye, turned in Johnny’s direction. He didn’t raise his head, but glanced up and nodded clumsily. “Thanks.”

Louise touched his arm. “Come on, Johnny, it’s a motorbike.”

He nodded again and mumbled, as if apologising for his inability to show pleasure.

“You’ll be able to ride out on it when I go out on Glory. We’ll have fun.”

“A whole new experience,” agreed Lawrence. “Something throbbing between your legs.”

Pauline giggled again, Johnny cringed and Louise spun round in fury. “Tell him, dad! Tell him to shut up!”

“You’ve won a victory today, Lawrence. Why not be merciful?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in mercy, father.”

“Hoist by my own petard. Very well then, shut up,” smiled Mr Lovedrool. “Johnny, the motorcycle is yours and I’m sure you’ll be in more of a mood to enjoy owning it tomorrow. Tonight, let’s raise our spirits and heal our discontents by dancing.”

 

*****

 

The turquoise record player and armful of scratchy old LPs were brought in and some other things; with a jolt of recognition, Splash saw the clothes she’d worn when she came to the house and her bag, taken from the back of her cycle. Louise shuffled through her cassettes, dismissing most of them as ‘crap, tossing them aside one by one, each hitting the table with a loud plastic clatter. Mr Lovedrool was disappointed to learn that you can’t plug a personal stereo into an old mono record player so that everyone can listen. Pauline got half undressed in front of the assembled company and pulled on Splash’s leather jeans; Lawrence unlocked her ankle straps so that she could take off her shoes. Having fetched the things, Johnny sat in a chair by the wall and wouldn’t speak; Mr Lovedrool gave him a couple of commands, but when they went ignored he passed no remark. Louise put an arm around his shoulder. “Come on, baby. Lawrence didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Oh, yes I did.”

“We all hurt each other. It doesn’t matter. Don’t be like this.” She bent down - a girl of average height wouldn’t have needed to bend - and kissed him, but he twisted his head away from her lips.

Louise put her arms around his neck and dropped to her knees in front of him. “Don’t, baby, please ...”

“Fuck off, can’t you,” said Johnny.

“Johnny ...” Her voice sank to a soft murmur, as if trying to shed its natural harshness and stridency. “My little baby ...”

He struggled free of her hold and pushed the flat of his hand into her face. “Fuck - off.”

Forced backwards on her knees, Louise almost fell over, but managed to stumble to her feet. With her arms tightly folded, she stalked into a corner and stood with her back turned to everyone; everyone except Splash, for she was coming straight towards the spyhole. She came nearer and nearer, till her face and shoulders filled nearly all Splash’s field of view. Her complexion was red with anger and distress and as she stood, tears began to leak from her eyes and work their way down towards her cheeks.

Mr Lovedrool took the personal stereo headphones from his ears. “Dear me, I’m in the mood to dance, but there’s a distinct shortage of partners. Lawrence ...?”

“Forget it.”

“Pauline?”

“No.”

But at last the dishes were cleared away, the record player was closed, the lights were put out and they were gone. In total darkness once again, Splash ran her hands over the secret door and found a small brass knob, the handle that Mr Lovedrool had used to open it from the inside the night before last. She held on to the knob that would let her out of her retreat, not tightly, but fondling it almost; she was waiting for the moment.

It wouldn’t be for a while yet, not for a long while, not until she felt totally certain they’d all be asleep. Especially Mr Lovedrool; in her mind Splash saw him gulping down his sleeping capsule and lying back in bed, letting it take effect. Then she’d be safe.

At long last, but suddenly somehow, the moment came. It was frightening but it was a relief, to allow her hand to grip the knob firmly. Click of wood. The way was open.

Within a couple of steps her boots were creaking, the way leather always creaks, but incredibly loudly, like they were yelling hey, there’s someone here. She leaned against the wall and lifted first one foot, then the other, to remove them. Her bare feet were clammy with two days’ dried sweat and smelt; she’d kept the boots on just about all that time, even when she went to sleep, in that freezing room upstairs.

She stole across the dining room, boots clutched in one hand, trying to keep her arms still by her sides so the chains wouldn’t rattle. She’d feared the door through to the kitchen might be locked for some reason, which would mean she’d have to find another way out, but it wasn’t and it came open silently almost.

She dropped the boots and gave a scream of terror which was choked into silence by somebody grabbing her neck chain and yanking on it. A big torch was beaming a spotlight full in her face from maybe a foot away. She was dragged into the passage, but struggled insanely; then Johnny gave her a backhand slap across the face. His hand was so big and hard that it knocked all the fight out of her. She collapsed in his grip.

She could see him now, in the torchlight. The long fresh scab cut his features in two. “Where were you hid?”

Utter, bottomless despair overwhelmed Splash’s heart. Mr Lovedrool must have guessed all the time where she was, in a moment Johnny would call him, probably the whole family would come, perhaps they’d all join in hurting her; she’d be tied, gagged, smothered. There was no escape, no hope of escape. A quiet sob of misery came from inside her, grew and swelled up, until she burst into snivelling, wretched tears. She couldn’t speak, there was nothing to say. She just cried like she hadn’t cried since she was five years old.

Johnny didn’t speak, either and his hold stayed just as tight; but with one hand he got his fingers inside her collar and pulled the chain loose from her throat. “Is that easier?”

Splash nodded.

“He said to take you up to his room. We all thought you were gone.”

“I was going when Louise just got back,” whispered Splash, still crying.

“Where did you hide?”

“In the wall. There’s a secret door. He spies on you all. Pauline and Lawrence, you and Louise-”

“He watches me and Louise?”

Splash nodded, frightened by the angry surprise in his voice.

Then he pulled at her arm to lead her away and she struggled again, spurred by the thought of being dragged into Mr Lovedrool’s presence. He stopped and shook her roughly. “Stop crying. Be quiet. I’m not gonna take you to him.”

“You’re not?”

“No. Pick up your boots,” he said. “If he sees them he’ll know you were here.”

Confused, helpless, not knowing whether to hope or fear, Splash let him lead her through dark, silent passages. They climbed a narrow stairway somewhere at the back of the house, that turned upwards in tight, blind turns, until they were at the top floor. Dust hung suspended in the torch’s beam. “We can talk here.”

“What is there to talk about?” said Splash, still crying, softly and weakly.

“I wanna talk with you, that’s all!” He stroked her face and spread warm salt water across her cheek, but he was trying to be gentle. “I know he’s a bastard.”

“I must look repulsive.”

“You’re all right,” he said. “You’re just upset.”

“You were really upset tonight, weren’t you? Was it just because Lawrence hit you?”

“It was what he said. I hate him. I hate the way he dresses. I’m not queer,” he said savagely.

“I never thought you were.” Play along with him, say what he wants to hear. “Louise is your girlfriend, that proves you’re not queer.”

A look of rage came in a spasm over his face. “She’s not my girlfriend! She’s ... I - “ He was going to say something, but it seemed as if his tongue refused to form the words.

“What is it, Johnny? You can say it to me.”

“I can’t do it with her. My dick won’t stand up.”

Splash understood. “How does it feel when you think about me?” She reached down and touched his crotch. “You’re a big guy, but ...”

“Nothing’s happening. I want it to, but it won’t.”

“This isn’t a really nice place to get it on, standing in the middle of a corridor.”

“There’s a room with a bed in it ...”

“Take me there. Come on. I’ll help you if I can. You’ve been good to me.”

A bed was all the room contained, except for an empty fireplace; there weren’t even curtains on the window and the light of a full moon threw a glistening rectangle on the wall. “Christ, it’s cold. How’s anyone meant to get it up?”

Johnny had let her go and sat down on the bed. “There’s a fire in Louise’s room. It doesn’t help,” he said miserably.

Splash folded her arms and looked at him. “Have you ever had sex with a woman?”

“No.”

“How about with a man? Is it true, what Lawrence said? You don’t have to lie to me, Johnny.”

He nodded. “I didn’t want to.”

“Then you’re not queer. You just need stimulating. Would you like to see me undress?”

“You can’t, with them locked on.”

He was right: the leather girdle around Splash’s waist and the cuffs on her biceps and wrists made it impossible for her to remove Pauline’s frock. “Here, Johnny, unzip me.” She turned her back to him. “As far as you can, down to the belt.” She pulled the loosened dress forward, off her shoulders, until her breasts were fully exposed. “I can do that much for you. That’s right, look at me. I don’t mind, it’s what guys do. You could even touch them. Just reach out ...”

He laid a hand upon her right breast. His thumb circled around the nipple, as if to explore the tactile contrast between aureole and skin. “Anything happening?”

“No.”

“You get undressed. C’mon, we’ll wake up the sleeping giant. Gimme that ...” She dragged a heavy woollen sweater over his head and a thick cotton shirt came away with it. “Now lift up your feet while I take your boots off.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll do that.” Naked to the waist, he bent down and unlaced his boots. His bare skin was pale and grey, but his muscles rippled. Splash sat next to him on the bed and felt tiny. “Lie back. Lean up against the wall. Go on, leave the rest to me.” She unfastened his flies and pulled down his jeans and shorts.

His naked penis wasn’t out of proportion to the rest of his body, but it lay soft and unexcited between his legs. Splash surveyed it thoughtfully. “What do you and Louise do?”

“Not much, really. Necking. She likes me to spank her sometimes.”

“And you don’t get a hard-on? Doesn’t she ever touch it? Like this? See, I’ve gotta use both hands to hold it up and pump it! You oughtta be able to get a hard-on out of this thing, Johnny, it’s a monster dick. It should be able to shoot bottles of the stuff ...” As she spoke, Splash rolled his foreskin back and forth and tickled his balls; but despite the combination of gross flattery and erotic massage there was no surge of blood, no resistance to her touch, no hardening.

She kept hold, but relaxed her grip. “Do you feel anything?”

“A bit.”

Try getting him to talk. “What’s your ideal woman, Johnny? Every guy’s got an ideal woman and he thinks one day maybe he’ll meet her and that’ll be, like, the best sex or the biggest love affair of his life. Tell me all about your ideal woman.”

“Are you a prostitute?”

For a moment Splash stopped masturbating him, even as the cylinder of flesh twitched in her hands in an unmistakable sign of life. “What makes you ask me that?” she said and gently took hold again.

“Old Lovedrool asked and you never give him a straight answer.”

“Is that your ideal woman?”

“I just wanna know.”

“Well ... Yes, Johnny, I have been. You can make a lot of money and most of the people you meet are okay. Some of them are really nice.”

“D’you do it often?”

“Lots of times. With all kinds of guys. I do whatever they need to please them.” She held him aloft and squeezed with one hand, stroking up and down with the other. “It’s what I am - a prostitute, a hooker, a slag, a whore, anything you wanna call me. I’m dirty, I’m nasty ...”

Johnny shook his head. “No, you’re all right,” he sighed. “Have you ever been in prison?”

“No. Have you?”

“I absconded from a detention centre.”

“All guys? They’re really savage places, right? Did anything happen to you there?”

“Not there, cause I was always the biggest. That happened when I came here. I was on the run and I broke in here, and they caught me. Old Lovedrool held a gun on me and got Lawrence to tie me down on a table and then he gives Lawrence the gun to hold while he fucked me. It was like a punishment for burgling. Then they locked me up in the cellars - “

Splash had lost the rhythm of her task again, but she regained it with sharply increased speed and force. “Feel that? You’re getting hard, Johnny, you’re really getting hard, bigger and harder! Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah ...” His body was shifting on the counterpane, and his legs gave convulsive, undirected kicks at the air, accompanied by deep grunts of pleasure.

“I never knew there was a gun in the house,” said Splash in a low, casual voice. “Tell me all about it. Guns turn me on. They’re like cocks, you know?”

“I never saw it again. It was a double-barrelled shotgun - ohh - ohhh ... urrr.” His struggles subsided, and Splash could feel the life going out of his erection, with nothing to show for it. She pumped harder still, but it was no good. “Shit ... Maybe you need something special? What do you like thinking about? I mean, when you do it by yourself?”

“I don’t.”

“You do. Everyone does. I do. It’s fun.”

“Nothing happens if I try. So I give up.”

Splash grunted noisily. She rested her head on his stomach and contemplated his prick, half-erect in the moonlight. “Let’s see ... How about bondage? You’ve seen plenty of that here, but it’s no fun if you don’t play the part you wanna play. Maybe you’d like me to tie you up? I’d spread your big body out on this bed, baby ...” She broke off.

“Doesn’t do nothing for me, all that.”

Splash could see it. “How about ...” She extended her tongue and gave the very tip of his penis a gentle little lick, and another. It stirred. “That’s better. I’ll lick you all over. And I don’t just lick, I suck. The whole thing, right up to the pubes. Guys love it, and if they wanna come in my mouth, that’s okay. C’mere.” She would have taken him in her mouth, but he reached down and caught her shoulder.

“I don’t want you to.” He pulled her upwards. “Just lie down here.”

Her waist encircled by his big strong arm, Splash lay down beside him. “I don’t like these things,” he said, referring to her restraints. “They’re cold.”

“Yeah,” agreed Splash, with a shiver. “It’s the only way to get warm here, lying together.”

He drew her closer, on to his chest. “I’ve been sucked. Old Lovedrool found out I couldn’t get hard - I thought Louise must’ve told him, but if he’s watched us, maybe she never,” he said reflectively. “He made a big thing about it one night after dinner, kept saying how ashamed he knew I was and he’d sort me out. I was tied up in a chair and him and Louise took it in turns. Lawrence wouldn’t. Pauline hadn’t come here then. I hated it,” he said bitterly. “Him most of all, but Louise too. I wanna get away from this place.”

Splash wondered if he could feel the quickening of her heartbeat, vibrating from her breast to his. “So do I, Johnny.”

“They give me your motorbike. What about you and me? Riding off together?”

In answer, Splash ran her hands over his skin, up and down, with a sensuous enthusiasm. She climbed astride him, and wrapped her arms around his neck and plunged her open lips down to meet his. He gripped her waist in a bear hug, but the tighter he held her, the tighter she held him and all the while their tongues writhed together.

He’d let go of her waist and grabbed her skirt, pulling it up. Splash felt him clutching at her bare ass, pulling the buttocks apart. She opened her legs and let him roll over so he was on top.

But nothing happened. She felt the touch of an enormous, hard prick, ready for anything; but its full excitement was only a momentary state and even as she knew that Johnny was ready for it he collapsed back into softness. He was on top of her, he was grunting fiercely, he was even going up and down, but it was all motion and no meat.

He gave up and his full weight sank down on to Splash. She took it without complaint and stroked his torso. “Do you wanna try again?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t feel bad. It’s this place. It’s cold and it’s got so many bad vibrations. I could take you so many places where everything’d be different. If we got away from here,” she whispered.

He nodded in the semi-darkness, but didn’t speak. He was very still. If he wouldn’t talk, it was no time to put pressure on him. Splash said no more, but shifted slightly, the easier to breathe while Johnny went to sleep on top of her.