Chapter Thirteen

EVIE’S FEET WERE bare and her hair streamed out behind her as she ran along the path to Palmers Barn. Sultry June had turned to scorching July and the grass verges were slowly changing from lush green to yellowish and tickly.

When John emerged from the well at her summoning, he was on magnificent form, looking hale and hearty as a spirit could.

‘You performed the sporting rite?’ he said. ‘I know you must have done. I am closer than ever to my flesh.’

‘Yes, I did it. All was well. But, John, I still fear for the vicar.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s happening too fast, too soon. And the Shields woman has warned me.’

‘Warned you of what?’

‘That he can’t wait another two months. He won’t wait. He is too close to self-destruction. He’s even talked about killing my other lovers.’

‘Well, I know how he must feel. If they didn’t keep me alive, I would contemplate their murder myself. It is a paradoxical position for a man to find himself in. Come here, my Evangeline. Embrace me.’

In his arms, she continued to speak, her voice low and anxious.

‘Shields thinks I should leave the village for a while, and I can see her point. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. If I write to him, I can keep him on the string without him going over the top, d’you know what I mean? And I’ve got a chance to go and do a film shoot in the south of France. Seb and Kasia want to do a beach orgy movie. So that might work really well for me. What do you think?’

‘The Shields woman – I wonder at her motives. None of her kind has ever been on our side.’

‘I know. She wants him for herself. But I don’t think he wants her. He’s dying for me, John, I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t go after Julia Shields, no matter how much she flaunted herself in front of him. He’s a vicar, ain’t he? He’ll be faithful and chaste and all that kind of thing.’

‘No man can be chaste when he sees you in his visions. You have already driven him into a fever of lust. I see the quandary, however. A fever of lust is a dangerous thing and cannot be kept at a simmer until the harvest. Perhaps it’s as well if you do go away. Perhaps it will give him time to let his emotions steep. When you return, he will be at your mercy.’

‘So I’ll tell Seb and Kasia yes, then?’

‘Perhaps you should. And now, put the preacher from your mind and unbutton my breeches.’

When Evie told him she was going away, Adam tried to change her mind.

She was sitting on his desk, swinging her long brown legs, eating an ice pop. The ice pop was purple and it stained her lips, making him picture himself smearing blackberries over them.

‘Where are you going?’

‘France. Nice, I think. Nice in Nice, ennit?’ She grinned at her own wit.

‘Who are you going with?’

‘Seb and Kasia.’

He felt his facial muscles tense into a ferocious scowl.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a work thing. Got to earn the crust, ain’t I?’

‘When you come to me, you’ll have to give all that up.’

‘What, my job? What if I don’t want to?’

‘I’m a vicar. I can’t be married to a porn actress.’

Evie stared.

‘Married? You’re a bit previous, ain’t you?’

‘I’m not going to live in sin with you.’

‘Hark at him! Living in sin. So, come on, then. Where’s my proposal?’

Adam, caught out and forced into action, looked around the room as if for an escape route before taking the ice pop from Evie’s hand and pulling her to her feet.

‘Evie Witts,’ he said, dropping to one knee. ‘Will you marry me?’

He felt ridiculous, a character in a play. This couldn’t be reality, proposing to the beautiful woman who had slept with every man in Saxonhurst except for him.

She giggled. ‘I really think you’re serious.’

‘Yes,’ he said, a mite crossly. ‘Yes, of course I am.’

‘Of course you are. You always are. You’re very sweet, Adam, but can I think about it? I’ve never really thought about marriage.’

‘Marry me and I’ll get you away from all this.’

‘All what?’

‘All this sordid reality. Having to do these things for Saxonhurst. Who chose you for this? Who is making you do it?’

She tried to tug her hands out of Adam’s grip, her face suddenly scared.

‘Nobody. Let go of me. Nobody pulls my strings. I do what I want.’

Her voice was defiant, but Adam saw the unease in her expression and knew he was close to the truth.

‘You could just tell me and it would all be over. We could leave this place together, go and live somewhere far away. You could be yourself and I could love you.’

‘You already do,’ she said tauntingly. ‘Or else why are you proposing to me?’

‘Say yes,’ he urged. ‘We could leave today. I’ll take you to France.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me to. Let me go and I promise I’ll think about it. Please?’

Reluctantly, Adam loosened his grip on her and rose to his full height again, feeling foolish, wishing he could take back the past few minutes, or weeks, or months. In fact, if he could just avoid ever coming to Saxonhurst, that would be perfect.

‘I’ll write to you,’ she said softly. ‘Or something. Have you got Skype?’

‘No.’

She tutted. ‘Luddite. You’ve got email, though?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll email you then. I should go. Got to pack.’

‘Evie,’ he put out a hand, preventing her attempt at a flit away. ‘How long will you be gone for?’

‘About six weeks, Kasia said.’

‘I’ll miss you.’

‘Aww. I’ll miss you too, love. I won’t be gone long.’

He couldn’t remove his hand from her shoulder. Surely now, surely she must kiss him?

‘Evie.’ He bent his head towards her, his heart beating faster with each inch of distance covered. ‘Let me kiss you.’

‘I can’t. I can’t. If I do, it’ll all be too soon.’

She snatched up the melting ice pop and shoved it into her mouth, twisting and turning under his hand until the only way he could keep her still was under duress.

He took his hand away.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why will it be too soon?’

‘I’m only asking you to wait.’ Her voice was high and a little panicked now. 

Adam watched her make her escape. Once she was at the door, she softened.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Wait for me. I’m on my way to you. I just need a little time.’

She left and he turned to the desk, where a puddle of purple juice dripped on to the carpet.

That night, the dream returned.

Tribulation Smith stood outside his bedroom door, turning a key in a lock. Inside the room, he heard the weeping of Evangeline.

‘You cannot keep me prisoner here. Let me go.’

‘You are my wife. You cannot leave me.’

‘I bear you no love. There is nothing I can give you.’

‘You will give me yourself.’

A pause.

‘Is there nothing I can do or say to sway you?’

Tribulation shook his head, although she couldn’t see him.

‘You are mine, and will ever be.’

‘Then I cannot fight the will of God. Come in. Come to bed.’

Was it then so easy to gain her capitulation? Surely she sought to sweeten him for some further assault. Yet her voice, so seductive and low, beguiled him beyond reason.

He opened the door.

Evangeline sat on the bed in her nightgown, holding the taper that had lit her way to the chamber. As soon as she saw him, she smiled and dropped the lit candle on to the bed, where it quickly set fire to the cover.

‘Evangeline!’ He dashed forward in alarm, taking the pitcher from the bedside and emptying it on to the smouldering linens. In the time it took him to do this, Evangeline had gone.

Out of the house he ran, seeking her shadow, listening for the tread of her foot. Where had she run to?

Not to the old crooked house she had shared with her kinswomen, nor to the church, nor to any of the darkened, shuttered cottages huddled around the village green. She must have taken one of the footpaths though the fields.

He bellowed her name, hearing it echo around the timber frames of the village. From behind a cloud, the moon appeared and with it a flood of silver light. In that light, he caught sight of something, no more than a movement, but he followed it, along the footpath that led from the northern end of the village.

It was a lonely, little frequented path, for the southern road led to many more destinations. The grass grew high, almost obscuring the little dirt track. His legs swished through the vegetation, gaining on the figure ahead.

Past an old well, she ran to a shack, a tumbledown, hastily constructed affair that could not have been there long. He watched her enter and slowed his pace. She had not realised he followed her. He would retrieve her with ease. But was she alone, or did this shack house someone? The lover who had taken his bride’s maidenhead?

He stole up, as quietly as he could, keeping low out of the moonlight.

Soon he heard voices, Evangeline’s shrill and weepy, blending with a male voice that rose in anger.

By the time he reached the shack, the voices had stilled. The place had no windows to peer into; all he could do was creep around to the entrance and try to fit his eye to the many gaps.

Inside, there was low light from a candle. A bed of rags in the corner was occupied by Evangeline, who lay in the arms of a man.

‘We shall leave for Taunton as soon as you are ready,’ he said. ‘Now that you have come to me, nothing holds me in Saxonhurst. Besides, the witchfinder will be back, and this time he will take you too.’

‘What of my husband?’

‘Call him not your husband.’ The man spat on the floor. ‘The preacher, you mean? What can he do? He is already a laughing stock for marrying a witch. He will be too proud to pursue you.’

‘I do not know that you are right. He is close to madness, John.’

‘You are enough to drive any man to it.’

He kissed her. Smith’s fists clenched.

‘He will seek us out. I shall never feel safe.’

Smith carried a blade in his belt, the legacy of the civil war when no man was safe from sudden assault. He took it now and unsheathed it, holding it up to the moonlight. This, beyond doubt, was the man who had deflowered his Evangeline. This was John Calderwood, coven master and fugitive.

Before he had considered the consequences, Smith forced open the door. Evangeline screamed and hid behind Calderwood, who rose to his feet.

‘Speak of the devil,’ he sneered.

‘It is you! You who are the devil,’ blustered Smith, beside himself. ‘You are the evil influence on this village and you must be flushed out.’

Calderwood swaggered up to him until their faces almost touched.

‘Say you? Evil? It was not I who caused innocent women to swing. It was not I who forced a maid to wed against her wishes.’

‘It was not against her wishes. She consented.’

‘In fear of her life, yes.’

‘She is my wife.’

‘No, Preacher, she is mine. We are wed, perhaps not in a ceremony you would recognise, but a true knot was sealed, some months ago.’

‘You have not wed her, you have simply violated her. That is not a marriage in the eyes of God.’

‘You have no claim on her.’

‘She is mine.’

‘Shall we let her choose? Shall we make that Evangeline’s decision?’

‘It is God’s will that she be mine.’

‘Who do you choose, Evangeline?’ Calderwood tossed the question over his shoulder. ‘Only you can end this quarrel.’

‘You know I choose you. I choose John Calderwood.’

Smith made an incoherent sound of mingled rage and pain. The blade he clutched recalled itself to him and he drew back his hand.

Calderwood saw it too late.

‘Now this is not –’ he said, but he never finished the sentence. For the blade plunged deep into his heart, putting an end to all words.

It seemed to Smith that he took a long time to die. Evangeline rushed to him, screaming and sobbing, putting her hand over the wound, trying to stop the blood that pumped everywhere, including all over Smith.

All he could do was watch. The world had slowed down. Perhaps it might even stop and there would be Calderwood, suspended between life and death forever while he, Tribulation Smith, experienced an eternity of the knowledge of his mortal sin.

After an age of mourning and wailing and blood, Calderwood hit the dirt floor, all the light out of his eyes, the shell of the man who had stood there seconds before.

I have killed a man.

Evangeline looked up at him once and he shrank from the anguish and hatred in her eyes.

‘You have killed the father of my child,’ she said.

Smith, unable to bear the implications of her words, took flight.

His hands stained with blood, his limbs moving only mechanically, as if beyond his own agency, he threw a rope over the strongest limb of the yew tree …

Adam woke up, shouting words he didn’t understand.

The dream was more horrible than he could process at first. He needed to get out of bed, to pace up and down, to go to the kitchen and make tea, before he could settle his thoughts.

The clock read 3.47. He couldn’t go back to sleep. He was afraid to go back to sleep.

Instead, he dressed and walked into the churchyard, shivering with horror as he passed the yew tree.

At Julia’s flat, all the lights were off, unsurprisingly, but he rang the doorbell all the same.

There was no reply, so he rang again. Still nothing.

Perhaps she was afraid to answer her door at this time of night. He took out his phone and rang her, standing on the doorstep with the mobile to his ear, marvelling at how profoundly dark the village was at night.

The call went to voicemail. He shrugged, sighed, and made his way down the path, back towards the village green. Perhaps a walk … But nowhere near Palmers Barn, which appeared to occupy the very site of that shack in his dream.

It was as if the whole village had switched itself off. Not even a cat prowled, or a fox menaced a chicken coop. The night was so still he thought he could hear the snores of the sleeping villagers behind the curtained windows. All dreaming, all except for him.

Memories of his nightmare occluded his thoughts, turning the tranquillity of the village into something more sinister. His skin prickled and every corner seemed to turn to John Calderwood’s shack.

He stopped at the manor house gates and looked bleakly through them, thinking of the earlier building and what had taken place there. Witch trials, abductions, torture. He shuddered and turned away, but his attention was caught for a moment by light in one of the upstairs windows.

He looked harder and detected a shadow of somebody in the room.

But they had all gone to France, hadn’t they? Taking Evie with them.

Maybe a housesitter, he thought. But he was uneasy. He had spoken to Sebastian before they left, just a light conversational exchange outside the shop, and he had mentioned that the house would be empty.

Here was something to chase the dream away. An investigation. Taking a deep breath, he walked on to the spot where the wall curved round into the woodland and followed it round, knowing where to find the little broken-down section that could be climbed. The thicket was intensely dark and eerily quiet. Adam felt something ancient and primitive in the air, something he would almost describe as evil. It was if unseen eyes watched him. Once or twice, he almost called out in bravado, but he persuaded himself that the dream had put him in a strange frame of mind and he should ignore his errant thoughts.

He blundered his way through, snapping twigs and tripping on roots, until he found that part of the wall he had climbed over before. He was quick, weaving through the trees until he arrived at the moonlit back lawn. The pool was empty, its cover spread over it, and the tennis court had no net. The gardens were still fragrant, though, and the swinging chairs lazed on the veranda, waiting to be occupied by lascivious bodies.

All the curtains were drawn across the French doors, so he couldn’t see inside, but he walked slowly around the perimeter of the house, trying to find a window he might peer into.

It appeared to be a fruitless task. Even at the front, great wooden shutters were drawn against the outside world.

He looked up again at that lit window. The light was still on. Had he imagined the figure? Perhaps it was just for security.

He marched up to the front door and rang the bell. If it was thieves, he could disturb them, at least. He imagined them haring over the back lawn, arms full of computers and film equipment.

The lit window opened but by the time he’d looked up, the face had gone and the window was shut again.

His heart thundered. He was close to solving a mystery. He hoped the solution would be a benign one. He stood on the step, looking out into the night, until he heard footsteps behind the door and he turned back. The noise of locks carried on for some time, but eventually the door swung open.

‘Julia!’

She smiled delightedly. ‘Adam, it is you. Do come in.’

‘But what are you doing here?’

‘At four o’clock in the morning, I could ask you the same question.’

She stood, grinning from ear to ear, in a silk bathrobe and satin slippers.

He looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and followed Julia into the entrance hall.

‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’ she asked in a conversational tone. ‘I meant to go to bed, but I found all this stuff in one of the spare rooms and I couldn’t resist a look. I’m afraid I’ve been in there all night.’

‘Stuff?’ said Adam vaguely, walking into the main reception room after her.

‘You know. Sex toys and equipment and all sorts. Fascinating. I’ll show you.’

‘Oh, you needn’t bother,’ he said, suddenly aware of how tired he was. ‘Look, what are you doing here? Did Seb and Kasia invite you to housesit?’

‘God, no. They wouldn’t be so stupid. They know that they’d never get me out, once I was in.’

‘Julia, please tell me you didn’t break and enter.’

‘Of course I didn’t. I kept back a set of keys.’

‘That doesn’t make it legal.’

‘It’s not right that this house is theirs,’ she said, eyes narrowing as she sat down on a cream leather sofa, beside Adam. ‘It’s not right that they’ve filled it with all this awful furniture. It looks like some stupid soap opera set now. I want all my dark wood back, my antiques, my beautiful ormolu clock and my Victorian escritoire.’

‘Julia,’ he said gently, ‘you don’t own this house any more.’

‘Morally I do.’

‘No,’ he said, more firmly. ‘Morally you don’t.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ she said. ‘Never. This is the seat of the Shields. They’ll have to kill me and carry my body out in a coffin.’

‘Julia, for heaven’s sake!’

‘I mean it. Don’t try and talk me out of it. I won’t listen. Anyway,’ she said, turning to him, ‘why are you here?’

‘I saw the light.’

‘Marvellous! But I thought you vicars all saw the light long ago. Sorry. I shouldn’t tease you, even if you are so beautifully teasable. So you were out for a walk in the dead of night, were you?’

‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘I was looking for you.’

The way her face brightened at his words was both wonderful and mystifying to Adam. 

‘You were? Darling, I know you’ve been confused but now, with Evie gone –’

‘I had a dream. I think you can explain it to me.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Tribulation Smith killed John Calderwood and then committed suicide. Am I right?’

Julia nodded.

‘Just my luck,’ she drawled. ‘Dream lover comes to me in the middle of the night and wants to talk about 17th century history.’

‘Yes. It’s history,’ he said fiercely. ‘But why am I dreaming about it? Why is it happening to me? And so vividly. Every detail … And the girl is Evie. And Smith – well, Smith is apparently me. Why is it happening, Julia?’

‘How should I know? That book of Lydford’s. Vivid imagination.’ She shrugged, but her eyes were guarded.

‘Where is the book of Lydford’s? I want to read it to the end.’

‘You can’t. He never finished it.’

‘I still want to read it.’

‘I don’t have it. Look,’ she said, speaking over Adam’s increasingly frustrated expostulations. ‘I can tell you all about it. Are you sitting comfortably?’

He grimaced, but leant back in the sofa as if ready for story time.

‘Then I’ll begin. Saxonhurst has always had its rituals. The one you saw, for Robin Goodfellow, is one of the earliest. Nobody knows how far it goes back, but it certainly pre-dates the Civil War. For centuries, people left Saxonhursters alone to our funny little ways. There was, I believe, always an “Evie” – a village girl at the heart of the rituals.’

‘Why did it all start?’

‘I’ve told you. Nobody knows. Presumably it used to be more widespread, but gradually died out everywhere else. Now it’s only us carrying it on. I don’t know if it’s behind our amazing harvests, but I don’t think anyone wants to test it.’

‘It’s ludicrous.’ Adam shook his head but Julia shushed him.

‘So it seems, to a modern mind set. But we’re not big on modernity here in Saxonhurst. And neither are you, are you, darling? But your archaic attitudes are different to ours – that’s all.’

‘Mine are from God.’

‘You keep on telling yourself that. Anyway, this was Saxonhurst, carrying on in its merry little way until the Civil War happened and we had Puritans and witchfinders crawling everywhere. You know how that affected us. Saxonhurst was deemed a village of witches and heathens. Tribulation Smith was sent to clean it up, but he couldn’t do it alone and the witchfinder was called in.’

‘Who was John Calderwood?’

‘An ancestor of mine.’

‘Of yours?’

‘Yes. He should have been lord of the manor, but his father disinherited him after some scandal or disgrace. He set himself up as a coven master and tried to start a cult of some sort. Obviously the Cromwellians took a dim view.’

‘He said he was married to Evie.’

‘I suppose they did some daft binding ritual or other. She was pregnant by him, though, and eight months after all the business with Tribulation Smith, she gave birth to a daughter.’

‘And was she all right? Was her life – all right?’

‘I don’t really know. I suppose the village rallied round. They look after their own, in Saxonhurst.’

‘I see. She looked exactly like Evie.’

‘That whole clan does – the women, anyway. Have you met her grandmother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Exquisitely beautiful woman. She did all the ritual stuff before Evie.’

‘So she’s doomed, by her blood, to be this village – sex toy.’

‘Ah, you’re going to start all that salvation stuff again, aren’t you? Hasn’t your dream taught you anything?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You can’t save Evie. She doesn’t want to be saved. She has a Calderwood of her own, and you’re their pawn.’

‘I don’t understand you. What Calderwood of her own? Who?’

Julia rubbed tired eyes with her fingertips.

‘Listen, darling. Bad things happen to vicars who get involved with Evie and her forebears. Take it from me. You don’t want to follow in their footsteps.’

‘What bad things?’

‘J.E. Lydford. He went mad. Ask Evie’s grandmother all about it. She knows.’

Adam could only stare.

‘That Victorian missionary. It was him who was killed at Palmers Barn. Another Evangeline was right there at the scene.’

‘I had a dream about him too,’ muttered Adam. ‘Earlier. He was teaching her about the Bible …’

‘Just like you and Evie, eh?’

‘So, look, what you seem to be saying is that if I continue to pursue Evie, I will die. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m afraid it is. And I really shouldn’t be saying it. But I want to warn you, even if it makes me seem insane and simply sends you running far away from me. At least I’ll know I tried.’

‘Why shouldn’t you be saying it?’

Julia sucked at her bottom lip as if unsure whether to say anything more.

‘Let’s say I might be in for some unpleasant dreams of my own. My ancestors won’t be happy with me.’

‘They haunt you?’

‘Yes. They do. They’re very good at it too. They certainly worked their magic on my parents. And my husband.’

‘What?’

‘The really clever thing is they used me as their vessel. When I was a child. They made me drive my own parents mad with fear. Isn’t that cunning of them?’

‘Julia …’

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘Have you ever had proper grief counselling?’

She laughed, a high-pitched shriek that did nothing to reassure Adam’s doubts about her sanity.

‘Oh dear.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘Grief counselling. That’s a good one. You’re so sweet. So innocent. Despite my best efforts to corrupt you.’

‘Ghosts, though. There’s no such thing.’

‘Oh yes there is. It’s why I daren’t go to sleep while I’m here.’

‘Nightmares.’

‘Will you stay with me? They might not come if you’re here.’

‘I can’t control your dreams.’

‘You can keep the ghosts away. They won’t want you to believe in them. If you believe in them, they lose.’

‘I don’t begin to understand this, Julia. But you’re really afraid, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve upset them enough already. Losing the house – marrying who I did … And now I’m telling you, when I shouldn’t be. I don’t know what they might do.’

Adam considered this for a moment.

‘Perhaps if you came back to the vicarage with me.’

And tomorrow I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment.

‘No, I have to stay here. I have to do that much for them. Now that the pornographers are gone, I stand a chance.’

‘But they haven’t gone for good. They’ll be back.’

‘They’ll have to get the police to evict me. I’m not moving.’

‘Julia, this won’t work …’

‘I don’t care.’ Her agitation was physical now, her hands trembling. 

Adam took one of them in his, wanting very much to drive the demons out of her. He felt a tenderness for her that threw him, since it wasn’t part of his plan. This woman was the spanner in his works, but a rather nice spanner all the same. If it wasn’t for his all-consuming passion for Evie …

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with you. Look, it’s half-past four. If we’re going to get any sleep at all …’

‘The birds have already started. The sun will be up in an hour or so. Come up.’

The bed was a huge wrought iron number with fur-lined manacles attached to the headboard.

‘Not mine,’ said Julia shortly. ‘I suppose they film in here.’

He noted also the mirror on the ceiling and the intense faux-Victorian décor.

‘It’s a right tart’s boudoir,’ she said, putting his politer thoughts into words.

She turned to him, smiling through her fatigue.

‘Are you going to get undressed?’

She untied her robe and let it drop to the floor, revealing instant nudity.

Adam, taken by surprise, coughed and tried to look away.

‘Oh, don’t,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen it before. Look, see these nipples? They’re hard. That’s because you’re here.’

‘Julia – get into bed.’

He took off his jacket and draped it over a chair.

‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have given myself a trim.’ She ran her fingers over the fuzz at her pubic triangle. 

While Adam unbuttoned his shirt, she dared to move closer, reaching out for him. He took her wrist in one hand and held it firmly, keeping her at arm’s length.

‘I have not come here to fornicate with you,’ he said with purpose.

‘I know. But now you’re here …’ She put one hand beneath her right breast and squeezed it, lifting it to better show off the rosy little nipple.

‘Get into bed.’ He tried to push her away, but as soon as she was free she leant on the bed post and dipped a finger, infinitely casually, between her thighs.

‘Have you ever wanted to taste?’ she asked, licking it. ‘Mmm. Try it.’

She stepped up to him again, proffering the finger.

He took her by the elbow, smacked her bottom and pushed her on the bed.

‘I won’t tell you again,’ he growled.

Julia, thrilled, slipped under the sheets and pulled them up to her chin.

‘Oh my goodness, slap and tickle!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are kinky. I thought you might be. Just wait till you see what they’ve got in the store room. You’ll love it. Whips and paddles galore. The things you could do to me …’

‘I shall leave,’ he said, swallowing. ‘I shall walk through that door and go straight home, if you don’t shut your eyes and go to sleep now.’

She lay down and screwed her eyes shut.

‘Gosh, you’re so masterful. At the most inconvenient times.’

‘Good night, Julia.’

Down to his underpants, he laid himself down at the extreme edge of the bed.

‘Good night, Adam. Sweet dreams.’

The dreams were not sweet, nor were they disturbing, for none came. Adam was enveloped in a pure blankness that carried him pleasurably through to the moment he was awoken by …

Was that a hand on his cock?

His eyes flew open, to find Julia smiling lazily into his face, her warm, naked body pressed up against his, her hand, yes, on his cock. His erect cock.

‘What are you doing?’ he gasped, the words not coming out quite right in his haste.

‘What’s the story, morning glory?’ she drawled. ‘Thought you might like a hand with it.’

‘You’re a – a sex pest,’ he accused, but the touch of her fingers sent a message of fatal weakness all the way up his nervous system to his brain.

She took them off and rolled over, presenting her back to him.

‘Oh dear. Wouldn’t like to be a sex pest. Certainly not.’

She pushed her bottom against his groin. Somehow his hand landed on her hip and held it there while his cock pushed against the yielding flesh.

‘Mmm, that’s nice,’ she said. ‘Now put your other hand on my breasts.’ She did it for him, and he was once more powerless to resist. How did she do it?

He felt it imperative that he put his lips on her neck and kiss it, long and lasciviously, pushing the tip of his tongue into the skin, testing it for flexibility. She seemed to enjoy this, and he enjoyed the passage of her moans through her throat, feeling them vibrate beneath his lips.

‘Careful, you’ll give me a love bite,’ she warned, but she continued to encourage him in all his works, rubbing herself joyfully against him.

Slowly and inexorably the hand he’d placed on her hip began to creep round in front, heading for the heated core between her legs. He needed to feel that warmth and wetness on his fingers, he needed to know how plump and full her clit was for him. And he needed to know, ultimately, how ready she was to accept him inside her.

His body knew what it wanted. His body had the upper hand over him this morning.

‘Oh yes, touch me right there,’ said Julia, grinding against his fingers. People gave the impression that the clitoris was hard to locate, but they were wrong, badly wrong. It bloomed under his touch, an obtrusive, fat thing, slippery with juices. If he rubbed it a bit harder, Julia seemed to melt against him.

If sex was sin, why did it bring such pleasure for both parties? Why did women have a clitoris, such a superfluous little thing if one considered the purpose of copulation to be procreation? Adam thought about this as he continued to stimulate Julia until she panted. Why would you give someone the means to masturbate, if you considered masturbation to be wrong? 

He took his fingers away, much to Julia’s chagrin.

‘Don’t stop.’

‘No, I just want you to lie on your back. I want to see what I’m doing.’

She obliged him, spreading her thighs so he could make closer inspection.

What he saw between them was both the same as that oft-scanned biology textbook and different. The patterns were familiar, but the glistening, vivid colour and the intoxicating scent were not. He needed to breathe the scent in, to receive its full impact. He bent his face towards the spread folds and inhaled. It was like a drug, a perfumed steam that entered his senses and bewitched them. 

Now that he could see her clit, peeking from the centre of the complex of whorls and swirls, he saw the best thing to do with it. Much better than touching, surely. He bent his head closer and put out his tongue.

‘Oh God, you’re a marvel.’

His instincts had been correct. He licked on, following every little pathway around that central focus, lapping and tickling while Julia grabbed his hair in great handfuls. How would he describe the taste? He pondered this, while his tongue investigated. It was a delicate flavour, almost overwhelmed by the strength of its scent. And the feel of those soft undulations beneath his questing tongue certainly added to the piquancy. 

While he thought about this, he decided to push his fingers inside Julia, the way he had done the last time. She had enjoyed it then and she seemed to enjoy it now, for she was easily accessible. His fingers slipped in without encountering resistance. She felt tight and hot and gloriously wet. 

His cock throbbed. He wanted to put it where his fingers were. He wanted that very badly indeed.

‘Oh Adam,’ gasped Julia, pushing her cunt into his face. ‘Oh yes. Fuck me. Please fuck me.’

How could any man be expected to resist such a plea?

He gave her clit one last salutary lick, then he rose up on his knees, looking down at Julia’s ravenous face.

‘You’re going to, aren’t you?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘Right, you’ll need one of these.’

She reached for the bedside drawer and scrabbled blindly inside it, never taking her eyes off Adam, until she retrieved a box of condoms.

‘I bet you’ve never put one of these on before,’ she said, removing a foil package and tearing at it with her teeth.

He shook his head. He remembered some of the boys at school filling them with water and throwing them down the stairwell in the science block. Detentions had resulted.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ she said, sitting up, brandishing the circle of latex. ‘Gosh, good thing I bought the large size, isn’t it? That’s quite a boner you’ve got going on there. Making up for lost time, eh?’

Adam frowned at her, feeling himself the butt of her sly humour.

‘Do you want it or not?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Oh. You are a fast learner. Talking the talk now.’ She popped the ring over the tip of his cock then skinned it on with a certain degree of difficulty. ‘Sorry,’ she said, grimacing. ‘I haven’t done much of this.’

‘Haven’t you?’ Her touch felt exquisite, even with the sheath of rubber separating her fingers from his cock.

‘Not since – you know. There hasn’t been anyone else.’

Adam almost wanted to ask questions. Almost. But his overriding desire to sink his cock inside Julia’s tight and willing cunt soon made its presence felt and the questions fled his mind.

‘Do you know what to do?’ Julia whispered, lying back down.

‘I … In principle. I think so.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll help you.’

He took his cock in his hand and bent over, guiding it towards the place his fingers had prepared. Julia lay with her legs bent and her bottom slightly raised, making his target easier to penetrate.

He let the tip nestle in the shallow basin, preparing for a move forward that he could only assume would hurt Julia. He seemed too thick, too wide, for that tiny little entrance. He knew there was yield inside, but was there that much?

‘You’re big, but you’ll fit,’ she said reassuringly. ‘You won’t hurt me. I can’t wait to feel you inside me. I think you’re going to fill me up so beautifully.’

He had to stop and hold himself still, her words arrowing with deadly accuracy down his hard shaft to his straining balls. Just the thought of it was almost enough to bring him to orgasm. He was so close to that moment, that sweet, mad moment when he would be inside her flesh.

Julia’s flesh.

Suddenly, the image of Evie, brown-skinned and wanton and laughing, flashed into his head. It should be her flesh, on their wedding night. This was wrong. It was not meant to happen this way.

But it was too late now. It was going to happen this way. He couldn’t turn back.

He braced himself over Julia on one arm, the other hand still holding his cock at the root and made that first tentative nudge forward.

How easily she widened and gave way, as if welcoming him in. It couldn’t be this simple, could it?

He edged in slowly, wanting to feel every tingle, every iota of friction, every second of warm, velvety cling as he glided up the passage. It was so good, better than he even imagined it could be. So good that he worried he would not be able to hold himself back for long.

‘How does it feel?’ asked Julia, her voice far away and contented. ‘Your first time?’

‘Heaven,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, heaven. Please. Don’t move. I must keep still for a moment.’

She chuckled and ruffled his hair.

‘You sweet thing. I understand. You feel divine, you know. You’re a perfect size and length. I could keep you in here for ever.’

‘Oh.’ He shut his eyes and tried to control the blood that pumped so wildly through him. He was connected, physically, to another individual, a woman.

He was no longer a virgin. He was her lover. Her sinful, fornicating lover.

And he didn’t care.

Once he was sure he had a grip on himself, he drew back and then thrust forward. How many times could he repeat that motion without climaxing? This was the question of the moment.

He kept up a languid pace, keen not to disappoint Julia, though she seemed anything but disappointed. She had put her fingers on her clit and was stroking it. The sight of her, abandoned to her pleasure, did nothing to hold back his threatened orgasm.

He couldn’t help himself. He began to speed up. His brain was beginning to blur, his self-control flying beyond reach. Julia put her other hand on one of her breasts and pinched a nipple. He bent down and kissed it, and she moaned, loudly and ecstatically. Was she finished? 

‘Adam,’ she said, stretching out the final “m” for miles. He felt a spasm, a convulsion around his cock. Yes, that had to be it. She had come.

Now he didn’t have to wait … But if he came, then it would be over, and he didn’t want it to be over … But his cock would have its way and it plunged him into the darkness, followed by the starburst sky of orgasm. Lights flashed behind his eyes and the force of it was like being flung from some precipice. He poured himself out, all his lusts, all his repressions, all his fears, into Julia. She took them all.

He collapsed on top of her.

‘My little virgin,’ she crooned, stroking him. ‘All grown up now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

‘God, why? You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Come on, love. Look at me. Lay yourself down and catch a breath.’

He pulled out and climbed off her, flopping down on the bed on his back.

‘Come on, what’s this nonsense? Sorry? What for?’

‘I’ve … I shouldn’t have.’

‘Yes,’ she said, irritation in her voice. ‘You should have. You’ve given me the most wonderful time. You’re a terrific lover, a natural. You should be sorry you didn’t fuck me before. Very sorry.’

‘I’ve opened Pandora’s box,’ he said to himself.

‘My name isn’t Pandora. It’s Julia. Stop being so daft.’ She kissed his forehead.

‘How will I be able to stop, now I’ve started?’ he asked, feeling a sense of panic. He was going to become one of those sex addicts. He could see it in his future.

‘I hope you won’t,’ she said robustly. ‘My doors are always open to you, sweetheart. You know that. You can stay here and shag me until the cows come home.’

‘Or the legal owners.’

‘Don’t start that again. Honestly, Adam, if sex is going to make you tetchy and navel-gazing, perhaps we should see about getting your dick removed.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ he said bleakly.

Julia sat up, shaking her head.

‘I should have known there’d be remorse. I wasn’t expecting it to kick in so quickly, though. What’s good for sexual remorse? Tea?’

Adam could barely see through the fog of exhaustion swirling behind his eyes.

‘Sleep,’ he suggested. And that was the last word of the conversation.

Somehow, Adam couldn’t leave the house. He thought about staying away, about giving Julia a wide berth, but every night of that sultry July, he ended up back at the manor, in her bed.

What was it he felt for her? He couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t think it was love, because when they were apart, he barely thought of her at all. Indeed, at his desk in the vicarage, all his thoughts were of Evie, of what she might be doing in France, of how they would be together when she returned.

She sent him emails every day and he treasured them, although they were no more than little notes, full of trivial detail about her days. She never referred to her promise that they would be lovers. Perhaps she had forgotten she ever made it.

He would read and write sermons and visit the sick and tend to his other parishes and eat the tea Mrs Witts had cooked for him. Then, as soon as the sun began to sink in the sky, something would draw him out towards the manor house and Julia.

Nobody seemed to realise she was squatting, for she lived there completely undisturbed. He spent every night in her bed; she taught him every position imaginable and some that weren’t. He was an eager learner, somehow able to sublimate the guilt for as long as he was with her, though it always hit him with ugly force as soon as he was outside the manor house gates.

His skills were considerable now, in the last week of July, days before Evie’s return. He knew where Julia’s G-spot was and how to stimulate it. He knew the best positions for deep penetration. He had explored endless variations on where to put his hands and his mouth while his cock was sunk deep inside her cunt. He could identify the first stirrings of her orgasm, and he could facilitate it or frustrate it at will.

Her initial control of the situation was waning. He knew how to give to her, and he knew how to take away. She, it seemed, was quite under his spell and he enjoyed the power of it.

Climbing over the broken section of wall for the last night before its rightful owners’ return, he pondered the possibilities. They had ransacked the toy room and tried out the vibrators, massagers, probes, plugs, paddles, shackles in various combinations over the last fortnight. Adam had gone from a man who didn’t know what clover clamps were to a man who knew exactly how to apply pressure to the most exquisitely tormenting effect during the course of their use. He pictured them on Evie’s fat brown nipples while she stood on tiptoe, suspended by fine chains from a ceiling hook. He would have a riding crop and smack it down on her bum while she twisted and moaned. Then perhaps he would fuck her with it until she came, multiple times in succession. Her eyes would roll like Julia’s did and he would kiss her body all over and take her down and carry her to the bed, setting her down tenderly before rubbing in more of that cream.

He was hard before he reached the door.

He pushed it open, finding it on the latch, and peered around the hallway.

‘Julia.’

He took a few steps inside, then suddenly a figure leapt on to his back from behind and slipped a blindfold over his eyes.

‘What on Earth … Julia …’

‘Yes, lover.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Surprising you.’

‘Consider me surprised. Can I take this off now?’

‘No, keep it on. It’s the last night before those impostors come home and I want to make the most of it. I want to feast on you. Take me upstairs.’

‘I can’t see,’ he objected. ‘You’ll have to get down.’

‘Oh.’ She climbed off his back and took him by the hand, leading him away. ‘I’ve got so many treats lined up for you tonight.’

‘Are you really going to leave tomorrow?’ he said hopefully, dreading a huge scene between Julia and the pornographers.

‘No, I’m not. But I suppose you will. I’ll miss you.’

Adam was silent as they walked along the landing towards the room Julia had reclaimed as her own. Things were going to change. This peculiar idyll was drawing to its close.

He heard her shut the door behind them, then she pressed herself against him and fed him with her kisses, which he devoured without second thought. Her hand reached for his dog collar, ripping it off, exposing his throat. He let her undress him, still joined at the lips, and made no demur when she laid him backwards on the bed.

She warmed him up with a thousand little tricks of fingers and mouth on his straining cock, until he bucked upwards into her face, begging to fuck her.

‘I want to tie you up first,’ she said.

‘You? Tie me?’

It had been done the other way around, but Julia had never tried to restrain Adam, being too keen on the unrestricted movements of his hands upon her.

‘Yes. For a change. I’ll drive you wild with desire and you won’t be able to do anything about it.’

‘I’m not sure …’

‘Please, Adam. Just this once. Then you can do it to me. Is that a deal?’

‘All right. You won’t hurt me, though? I don’t like pain.’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

He held his arms still while she wrapped black silk ties round and round his wrists, then attached them to the bed posts. He had never felt such on such high alert, everything much keener and sharper than he usually felt it. Her fingers on him made him shiver now, with a kind of apprehension, for he would not be able to stop whatever she decided to do.

She repeated the process with his ankles until he lay spread-eagled and helpless, unable to see, but certainly able to feel how straight and tall his cock stood in the middle of it all. And now she would tease him again, kissing the shaft, flicking her tongue over the tip, squeezing his sac and stroking his perineum, even poking a finger against his tight-shut anus.

‘Julia, have mercy,’ he pleaded.

‘Poor baby,’ she crooned, but to his immense relief, she began to wrap the condom over his cock, then she straddled him. He felt her lower herself slowly, a gorgeous gush of warmth over his rubber-clad length, moving downwards, silky smooth and tight. He tried to thrust, but his capacity was limited and she held all the cards. She established a slow rhythm, grinding hard then pulling back, while her fingernails grazed his nipples.

‘We’ll do this my way,’ she gloated, almost removing her cunt entirely from his cock. ‘You’re my boy tonight and I’m not letting you get away.’

Adam’s heart thudded. What did that mean?

He decided she was talking only about the sex. That was all. She meant to take her pleasure from him one last time before they had to part company.

‘Ride me,’ he said faintly.

‘Oh, I’ll ride you all right. Let’s go.’

She set a merciless pace then, as if she intended to wear his cock out, gripping his shoulders tight, digging her fingernails into his firm flesh. The friction built rapidly and he knew he wouldn’t last long.

When she bent right down and sucked his earlobe, he lost control and let her milk his orgasm out of him, enjoying for that delirious moment the additional element that his bound helplessness brought to it.

‘Oh, I knew you’d like it, deep down,’ she taunted, popping a finger into his mouth. ‘I knew your rampant cock would like to get used while you were tied up. Well, perhaps we can try that again sometime.’

‘Again?’ He shook his head. This was the end for them. Tomorrow Evie would be back.

‘In the meantime,’ she continued breezily, ignoring his confusion, ‘I need a little help. You were a bit ahead of me there.’

She climbed off him, letting his softened cock lie. 

The next thing he knew, a waft of her heat and scent hit his nose. She was going to sit on his face.

‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she wheedled, squatting over him. ‘Use that lovely tongue of yours.’

He never missed an opportunity to taste those secret, hidden parts and he satisfied her whim with a will, licking her clit and sucking at it, pushing his tongue up inside her just-fucked cunt, until she could take no more and her thighs quivered at the sides of his face.

‘Oh, that was nice.’ She bent her head to his and kissed him, tasting herself. ‘Now you could do with a little rest, I expect. I’ll leave you to it.’

‘What?’

He tried to sit up, but of course, he couldn’t.

‘Where are you going? Julia!’

But she had shut the door.