Fools for Lust (21 page)

He sent her an email, telling her it was all right, he forgave her, but still wanted to be friends, stay in touch.

She didn't answer.

A second email, which he had configured so that he would be informed when she picked it up, remained unopened in her box.

He rang her once more. By now, his thoughts were frantic, the Rachel scenarios racing through his brain, taking over his life, causing him to miss work deadlines because of the profound upset. This time, her mobile number was no longer functioning and all he got was a message in French informing him that the number had been discontinued.

One more email.

It bounced back to him. She had closed her server account.

Rachel had disappeared from the internet and his life altogether.

For weeks, he mourned quietly as he began to pick up the pieces of his life again. But just couldn't understand. Why? Why? Why?

The sorrow turned to anger and he carefully composed a message which he posted on the bulletin board of the forum.

Has anyone here recently been in touch with Rachel Stewart McKenna? If you have
,
contact me on 106562.2021. Discretion assured.

He doubted there would be any comeback. As it is, he seldom even looked up the messages there himself, restricting himself to the chatroom, as did the majority of users and visitors who were content with hot chat or anonymous flirting.

He had to leave London for a few days and didn't take his laptop along.

When he returned, there were six messages in response to his enquiry.

All from other men who had been in regular contact with the elusive Rachel.

He began corresponding with all of them.

The sky fell.

For CK in Milton Keynes, she had been a banking executive based in Brussels. Single and without child, For months already, they had been having torrid cybersex, the best he had ever had, on a daily basis and had been planning to meet in Los Angeles a few weeks hence for a dirty weekend which had been planned in the minutest sexual detail. Thinking how reserved Rachel and I had been online, I blushed and cursed CK silently. She had cuckolded me with him. Virtually, at any rate.

For D (m-NYC), Rachel was an attorney in Boston. Childless, divorced, lonely. They had also been scheduled to meet up in real life very soon. He was reluctant to furnish more details about their online relationship.

For Lestat, she had been a bartender in Omaha. And a very hot chick.

For Ian, real-life location unknown, she had also been living in Paris but was a student and a nymphomaniac who enjoyed providing exhilarating details of her casual fucks with the men she would pick up in the Latin Quarter cafés and hinted at a future threesome if he could make the journey there.

For Michael in San Diego, she was an actress living in New York who could only get her kicks from anal sex and loved to reminisce about cocks she had known and been invaded by.

For Responsive (Paris), she had even been in London, a lecturer at the local French Lycee in Kensington and was planning a visit to him by Eurostar soonest, with delightful hints of common pleasures on the occasion.

And, all the while, for me she had just been Rachel, demure, pretty, quietly unhappy.

If six had answered my call, I reckoned there must be at least as many others who hadn't even seen my message! It seemed Rachel, a great actress in the making, had juggled us all with dexterity and wit.

And disappeared from the forum at the same time, promises unfulfilled, bathed in mystery and possibilities.

We all missed her in different ways.

We had all been sent her photo and been captivated by her. It sounded as if it was the same photo, but I couldn't be sure. Vulnerable soul, whore, teaser, splendid creature somehow conjured by our imaginations and our personal obsessions, she had been all things to all men and briefly made us happy by providing hope of sex, friendship, lust and even love.

I was no longer angry at her. At least, it appeared I was the only man she had given her telephone number to and actually spoken to. And I knew, from the dialling code, she was genuinely living in Paris. So maybe my version of Rachel was the real one. And all the others were playful, ersatz versions of her, cruder, ruder.

I couldn't stop admiring the girl.

Sitting there at her keyboard, surfing forums with gay abandon (who was to say she didn't also roam other forums on other servers, up to her confounding tricks?), pulling our strings like a master puppeteer.

Marti? Oh yes, London, middle-aged, falling in love with me. Thinks I'm a single mother going through a difficult divorce.

CK? British businessman who likes it dirty, scenarios full of bondage and rough sex. Believes I'm single, unattached and always willing.

Lestat: likes me to talk filthy and pretend I'm masturbating. Omaha barmaid, with big sexual history.

And on and on.

Maybe she even had a little black notebook, with all of us carefully filed away, with our tastes and idiosyncrasies. If it's Monday, it must be Marti, be shy. If it's Tuesday, it must be Michael, be outrageous.

She juggled with our lives and feelings with the talent of a magician, knew what made us tick, watched us dance before her playful eyes, but did she find the circus pleasurable, I wonder? Why did she do it? Was it really only a game?

Two years later, I still have no answers and wonder daily what has happened to her. Did she retire or is she playing the same old games on some other forum, in some distant chatroom I know nothing of?

She was good, I have to concede that. Give the gal an Oscar.

But if you're reading this, Rachel, my internet queen, please get in touch, I'd still like to talk, meet.

Please?

He had pursued me relentlessly. I gave up and surrendered. Out of guilt, out of lust, and sheer lassitude.

I had betrayed him a few years before and I felt I had no other choice now but to insist he punish me as he saw fit. Repentance must come, I reckoned. To purge the evil of my cold heart. To wash the past away in one quick swoop.

‘The first hint of your infidelity,' he had explained to me, ‘was when you came to me smelling of cigarette smoke, of dead ash. You put your lips against mine and the damn tobacco was all over your breath. I was breathing in another man as I kissed you.'

I lowered my eyes, fluttered my lashes.

He knew.

We parted ways.

There were other men. Minor, unfulfilling adventures. But none could erase his spell over me, the look of sheer danger in his eyes that kept me feeling ever wet on the inside.

I suppose that in the time we spent apart, he also came to know other women. The female form is his major weakness. But I can forgive that. Because all the while he kept shadowing me, writing, threatening, phoning. Loving me in that crazy way of his.

So, one morning in March, a few days before that damn Trade Fair I just couldn't face attending once again – year after year of pointless negotiations with Eastern European entrepreneurs who just had no clue and had no subtlety whatsoever trying to get their paws into my underwear and thought taking meaningless options and inviting me for drinks at their hotel bar was the epitome of sophistication and seduction – I walked over to his building early. Half an hour or so before I knew he usually arrived. Stood by the door and waited. Wondering all the time whether I was doing the right thing.

He arrived. Didn't even blink when he saw me there (later, though, he confessed that his heart just dropped 20 fathoms when he realised it actually was me).

‘I'm back,' I said.

‘You haven't changed,' he said quietly.

‘Yes, I'm the same,' I answered.

His hand stayed in his coat pocket, fingering his keys.

‘Back for good?' he asked.

‘For ever and again,' I promised.

‘Good.'

We went inside and he fucked me unceremoniously on his office floor. We didn't talk. Just did it. It was good. As it always had been. Time and time again, he got hard. And harder. Ploughed me. The phone rang on and off throughout and we blissfully ignored it. Every time, he plunged deeper into me, extending my legs over his shoulders to ensure further penetration and I knew only too well that with each successive thrust he was trying to hurt me, but I bit my tongue and let him take his revenge. I was the guilty party. The betrayer. His fingers in my rear stretched me, tore me, impaled me, but it was all right. It was fine. He had to get over his anger. And the pain he was causing also excited me like I never thought it could.

Later, I told him:

‘I have done you wrong, I know.'

‘Yes, oh yes, you have, my love,' he said, pensively. ‘Two bloody years of longing, of constant ache inside, of sleepless nights that went on and on with no end in sight. Christ, you did make me suffer. But, you see, there was also hope against hope. That one day I would get you back ... That somehow the impossible would happen. I never really gave up totally, even when things were at their darkest.'

‘I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Truly, I am,' I babbled.

‘You hurt me so,' he said, now with tears in his eyes.

‘So punish me,' I told him.

‘No. Now is surely the time to bury the past, forget the whole damn mess, start things anew.'

‘I insist, you must punish me,' I heard myself saying. ‘I deserve it all. Do to me what you will, my dark-haired lover. Anything.'

He looked at me strangely. Smiled gently.

‘Are you sure?' he questioned me.

‘Absolutely,' I answered.

‘Fine,' he said.

So my lover took me to the castle in Milton Keynes. One hour or so up the M1, travelling with no rush in the middle lane. I couldn't see anything. He had carefully placed a black silk scarf around my head, fastened it tight, covering my eyes. He said it was Milton Keynes. I believed him. We'd spent the right amount of time driving up the motorway. But I suppose it could as well have been Blackheath, Finchley, Hendon or even Scarborough for all I knew or cared. It didn't matter. Castles all smell the same, I reckon.

As I stepped out of the car, I sort of thought this was all very silly, was I really ready to star in the Milton Keynes version of
The Story of O
? Why had he allowed me to retain my underwear? In the book, that hadn't been the case. Was the feel of the leather car seat caressing my bare buttocks an experience I had ever fantasised about? Would it initially have been cold against my flesh, then gradually warmer; would the fabric stick to my skin, would I sweat, squirm? And now I wouldn't even experience that.

I wore my grey tailored power suit, the one with the stripes, made of quality wool. A white opaque cotton blouse completed the demure display, black sheer nylon stockings, my best, and matching bra, knickers and suspender belt set, black also. But right then those particular details were my secret. My lover didn't know; he hadn't watched me dress. I knew how he loved it when I wore stockings the old-fashioned way. Made my long legs look even longer, he would always say.

So the castle door opened. Well-oiled, it didn't even creak in the slightest. Just a normal English spring day, a light breeze fluttering around my ankles and neck, not even a gothic day.

He guided me in, one hand on my waist, our steps echoing around the hall.

Then, I stopped feeling his faint touch against me. Was he still there, harbouring in the silence, or had he departed the premises altogether? This was already the first sign of emotional torture: I wasn't to know whether he was ever present while all sort of terrible things would be done to me, to my body. Something inside me wanted him around, for my mental comfort, I suppose, but on the other hand, what would he think of me, react to the spectacle of my body being defiled, would I ever be the same for him ever again, thereafter?

Not knowing, that was the worst sort of punishment.

A voice – not his – said:

‘Stay where you are and spread your legs apart.'

I obeyed.

Still the faint trace of an echo, bouncing between stone floor and high ceiling.

Standing in silence, trying to guess how many pairs of eyes might be watching me, male and/or female.

Something – a cane? a whip handle? – brushed against my left cheek, tracing the faint line of my scar. Cold. I shivered briefly.

Then a hand took hold of my jacket, pulled on the sleeves and manoeuvred my arms out of it. Another brief moment of silence and inaction, while I tried to listen to all the minute sounds, murmurs of nearby voices, distant chirping of birds outside, almost inaudible scraping of material against material, against flesh? Was there another woman nearby, also wearing stockings?

‘Stand still,' the male voice reiterated. I was sure I hadn't moved.

I opened my lips, ready to say so.

‘Jeezus ...' A sharp, sudden smack on my rear, before any sound could even escape.

‘You may not speak,' the unknown man said, severely.

It didn't hurt, but I had been completely taken by surprise.

‘Spread your legs wider apart,' another deep male voice instructed, almost angrily.

The material of the grey skirt was tight against my thighs. It was awkward to assume the desired position without moving the rest of my body, which I knew they would disapprove of.

I felt the thin object against my knees, then it moved up my right leg, grazing the fabric of the stocking, slowly, lazily upwards, reaching mid-thigh when it moved into the empty triangle below my crotch. I shivered again, expecting its next movement. It made contact with my knickers, right where my sex was. I imagined a surge of electricity bolting through my body and felt the first wetness inside my cunt, and my sex lips engorging and opening slightly, pressed as they were against the silk of my underwear.

‘Good,' one of the men said. ‘Stay like that.'

Then, nothing happened for some time. I stood uncomfortably listening to muffled noises all around. There were some more people arriving, chairs being arranged, seemingly in a circle around me. I was about to become the main attraction. Right there, in the hall. Looked as if I didn't even get to graduate to a traditional gothic dungeon. Like in the books. Like in the movies. I must have smiled.

Another violent whack on my buttocks. This time it hurt.

‘What's so funny, bitch?'

‘Nothing,' I summarily replied.

This time it was a whip and it struck suddenly twice, once on my shoulders and then immediately again on my breasts.

‘This is your last reminder, woman. You may not talk.'

I bit my lips as the pain and the adrenaline subsided quickly.

Took a deep breath.

Some were talking in low voices, but it was too indistinct for me to really hear anything. But some of the voices were definitely female. And one was certainly my lover's.

Behind the dark piece of cloth that obscured my vision, I closed my eyes. Tried to picture him with another. Was she sitting on his lap? Where was his hand? Was she also blonde? Was his cock hard, was she holding it as she laughed at me, standing there helpless, ready and willing to be ravaged by their combined obscenities?

Warm breath against my cheek. An intriguing smell, sweetish, a complex fragrance half-human, half-artificial, a remote smell of lemon-grass. Male, I knew, as he moved closer, examining me, brushing against my back. Hands touching my breasts through the blouse, feeling them, cupping them, weighing them. Then his hands moved to my chin, to my lips, a finger slipped inside my mouth, a nail grazing my tongue, withdrew, out again the humid finger passed over my cheeks.

I could hear the sound of the unknown man's breathing and the warmth radiating out from his body.

Goosebumps.

The hand retreated from my cheeks, neglecting my eyes and forehead. To be quickly replaced by the cold feel of metal against my throat. A blade.

I knew this was a test and was careful neither to move nor utter a single sound.

The sharp metal edge drew a slow line down from my neck, over my white blouse between the valley of my breasts, then further along past my stomach, over my crotch and disappeared into the open triangle of my stretched grey skirt. It reached the lower edge of the garment and I felt the zip being pulled, either by the person wielding the knife or another protagonist. The skirt came loose and fell to the ground. The tip of the knife moved up and was inserted behind the taut elastic band of my black knickers and swiftly cut through the material like butter. The underpants were pulled from my body to facilitate the journey of the knife through them from front to back. The bisected knickers were then swiftly pulled away from the suspender belt, leaving me bottomless.

The cold air moved against my bare genitals and posterior.

A long, thin finger, certainly a woman's, journeyed through my pubic curls and brutally pushed past my lips and entered my vagina.

I swallowed hard and held my breath as the finger explored my innards, drawing moisture as my body reacted uncontrollably, lasciviously, to the intrusion by releasing its natural secretions. She moved her finger around inside, enjoying the warmth and the growing humidity, her nail brushing slowly against my clitoris. My whole body trembled and I knew my cheeks must have turned red for all to see.

‘Thirsty?' the woman's kindly voice enquired.

I nodded, careful not to say anything.

‘Good,' she replied.

Almost simultaneously, a man's voice, hard and authoritative:

‘Hold your arms up,' it ordered.

I stretched my arms toward the invisible ceiling, my face still hot and red because of my embarrassing posture, standing there as if crucified, my bare bottom thrust outwards at the unknown spectators, the woman's digit still burrowing inside my cunt, my juices accumulating inside, ready to pour out shamefully over my thighs once she pulled her finger out, no doubt.

Both my hands were seized and manacled to pulleys which had been lowered down from up high in the hall. At first, the traction on my wrists was slack, but someone quickly reduced the slack in the ropes and I was forcibly pulled up and my feet barely adhered to the ground in my high heels.

The mockery of being crucified.

The woman's finger retreated out, soaking with my juices. My lower lips remained wide open, dilated, sticky.

‘Drink.'

A plastic bottle was placed against my lips and up-ended. It was only lightly carbonated mineral water. Couldn't quite place the taste. Not Perrier; another brand.

Initially, it was welcome and refreshing, cooling down my dry mouth before gurgling down my throat. Then it was enough, but the bottle wasn't moved away and I had to swallow the liquid faster to avoid choking as the water swam rapidly through my lips and straight down my throat. As soon as the bottle was empty, it was replaced by another. And yet another. The third bottle was Badoit; I could recognise the chalky background of its taste. They allowed me a minute or so's break before emptying the fourth bottle inside me. I felt ill, now. My belly was bloated. I must have looked as if I was a few months pregnant, held there on display, the ropes imposing such an undignified stretched-out position, open, vulnerable.

What's all this water in aid of, I wondered, as the final drops from the fourth bottle travelled past my tongue in a direct trajectory to my stomach?

I expected another bottle to be placed against my lips, but this was it. No more.

The silence returned.

I was forced to move my body slightly as cramp was reaching my left foot, and the water inside me sloshed from side to side.

Christ! I realised what they were up to. And the moment I did, there was nothing I could do to stop it. Or slow it down.