The Gift of Shame (2 page)

She took her nagging guilt with her to the shower. There – never having learnt the trick – she couldn’t avoid getting her hair soaked and so had to hunt the hairdryer out from where it had, inevitably, hidden itself.

She sat on the base of the bed and watched herself drying her hair in the mirrored closet doors.

She remembered going with Kenneth to buy them, both feeling wicked because they reflected the full length of the bed and the erotic possibilities they offered. She remembered those images and, bitterly, the images they would never show.

Switching off the dryer she had the feeling that the telephone had been ringing for some time. Thinking it would surely be her mother with some more last minute instructions she lay across the bed to reach for it and spoke her ‘hello’ a little wearily.

‘I didn’t wake you did I?’ Jeffrey asked.

Startled, she sat up, reaching for a bath-robe to cover her otherwise naked body. ‘No. I just didn’t hear the telephone, that’s all. My hair got wet and I was just drying it. I’ve got a very noisy dryer.’

She cursed herself, even as she spoke, for this overlong
explanation
. Why hadn’t she told him she was naked? She’d mentioned everything else!

‘I was wondering, somewhat forlornly perhaps – it being Christmas Eve – if you would be free for dinner tonight?’

‘No. I’m sorry. No. I’m going down to Eastbourne tonight.’

‘Tonight? What time?’

‘Well. Usually I like to drive down and get there before dark but I overslept so that isn’t possible.’ Why was she going on at such length like this?

‘Suppose we met for an early dinner?’

‘No. I really would like to get away as early as possible. I hate driving at night.’

‘I could drive you down there.’

Suddenly she was vulnerable. He was pushing too hard and she felt she ought to mind but found she didn’t.

‘To Eastbourne? No. That would be ridiculous. Besides I need my car down there.’

‘I could drive your car.’

‘And what would you do then?’

‘Take a train back.’

‘They stop running early on Christmas Eve. There aren’t any on Christmas Day.’

‘Then I could take a cab.’

‘From Eastbourne to London? You must be mad.’

He paused and she found herself hoping he could think of something more acceptable.

‘Look,’ he finally said, ‘I’m only about ten minutes from your place. Why don’t I come round. I really would like to see you before you go away.’

Aware of the unmade bed, her own nakedness and wrecked hair she tried to put him off.

‘I’ll only be gone three days. We could meet when I come back.’

‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘I’ll give you half an hour.’

She laid down the phone and stared at it. Was she really going to allow this? What was the point? What time would they have? None. An hour at the most and then she would have to leave. This was insanity. This time yesterday she didn’t know of his existence and now he was making assumptions and invading her life.

Hurrying back to the bathroom she stared at herself in the mirror. What would she wear? How could she get her hair into some semblance of order? Should she try and rush to make up her face?

Settling for a vigorous brushing, a smear of foundation and a sweater and jeans, she was still feeling harassed when he rang the bell.

‘I really don’t have time for this,’ she told him as she opened the apartment door to him.

‘I’ve been up most of the night thinking about you,’ he told her.

‘Me?’

He came to stand intimidatingly within her space. ‘You needed me last night and I walked out on you.’

‘“Needed” you …?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said and, reaching, made his arms into an embracing arc and brought her tight against his body. The move had been so sudden, even if half anticipated, that she made no protest.

That first real kiss had unnerved her. Swept along, without thought or protest, she had come to be naked under him, feverishly rising to meet his every harsh, cruel, thrust.

Her brain, protesting her libidinous body’s betrayal, had sought to transmute pleasure into punishment. His powerful thrusting had caused her to thrash helplessly from side to side, blocking protest, preventing contrition, denying resistance.
That
first time her eyes had been tight shut to block out the contempt she was sure he must feel for the abandoned person under him. A woman now so crazed and out of control that she heard her own voice begging for pain, then sobbing and screaming as his fingers responded, digging deeply, painfully, into her buttocks. It had hurt and it had been punishing, but it had also thrilled and intensified her pleasure.

Then came the moment of her body’s final betrayal as she felt the clenching throb of her own orgasm against his. It was a mutuality she had never achieved with Kenneth in a thousand tries, but which had ceded to this man on his first assault.

When he had exhausted himself she had not resisted the downward pressure on her head but had gone to greet the fallen, sullied, warrior with an enthused mouth that sought only to bring him back to full erection so that he might plunge into her again.

And he had.

And she wanted to die of shame.

Now, barely minutes later, she lay listening to him in the shower and wondered how she could face him. He must have known, Millie would have gossiped about her, that he had made her change from resolutely virtuous widow to voracious wanton in less than a day. Could any man respect such a creature? How was she going to bear the lash of his contempt? She lay in wretchedness, a hollowed, empty victim awaiting the inevitable humiliation.

When he finally emerged, smiling, naked and even half erect, she wanted to hide. Certain of his scorn, she was even more shamed when he took a firm hold on the pillow with which she had covered her face and, looking down into her wide, defensive eyes, had gently kissed her full on the lips.

‘That was marvellous.’

She braced against his contempt, lay still and frozen. She had heard only the words she had expected and not those he had spoken.

Looking down at her widened eyes, and still lips, he was puzzled. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

‘Please go.’

His brow furrowed even deeper. ‘Go? I thought we’d agreed I’d drive you to Bournemouth?’

‘Eastbourne,’ she corrected him.

‘Wherever. Didn’t we?’

‘It’s not a good idea.’

‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ he said, and his hand sought out her traitorous loins that both burned and flinched at his touch. ‘I have lots of excellent ideas.’

Summoning the will to move she thrust aside his hand, swung her feet to the floor and raced to the bathroom. She would have closed and barred it to him but he was already there gently preventing its closure.

‘You don’t regret what just happened, do you?’

‘No. But please leave the door …’

He pushed against it even more firmly. ‘No. I want to watch you shower. I haven’t seen you properly naked yet, you know.’

Now close to tears she turned to begging him to leave her alone, and he, looking wounded and puzzled, finally relented and let her close the door on him.

Feeling safe for the moment she turned to confront herself in the full-length mirror which Kenneth had installed so he could watch her face while he took her, fresh from the bath, from behind. Now she could only beg its forgiveness.

Standing in the shower she felt her legs weaken and had to hold onto the pipes to allow the water to do its best to wash away the dirt and the guilt. Guilt that rose not so much from
what
she had done but from recognising just how thoroughly it had excited her.

She was still there when she became aware of the hammering on the door. Turning off the water, she called out angrily.

‘It’s the telephone,’ he called through the door. ‘It just keeps on ringing and I thought I’d better not answer it.’

Illogically angry at him, Helen wrapped herself in a towel and opened the door to hear the phone still ringing. He stood back to make a respectful space as she crossed the room to answer it.

‘Darling!’ cried Millie. ‘I was sure you’d gone off without thinking to call me back!’

‘Not now, Millie. I’m all in a rush. I’ll call you from my mother’s.’

She hung up, careless that Millie would be offended. The call had brought her out of hiding and now she was face to face with him, with nowhere to hide.

‘What are you so guilty about?’ he asked.

‘It shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let it happen.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Had he said any more she might have been able to summon up anger, but he hadn’t. She cursed silently as she felt herself weakening towards tears. Without warning they engulfed her and she found herself wrapped tight against him, begging for comfort.

She cried herself out for some minutes, pleased to be within his warm embrace but hating herself for seeking this unsafe and dangerous sanctuary.

‘Do you want me to punish you?’ he asked in a soft, gentle tone that belied the enormity of his words.

Thrusting herself away from his body, made suddenly chill, she stared at him.

‘What did you say?’

‘I asked if you wanted me to punish you,’ he said again in patient, even tones.

The words were plain but their meaning, to her at that moment, obscure.

‘What for?’ she finally asked.

‘Whatever is haunting you.’

‘Are you mad?’ she asked, throwing out one last desperate lifeline towards sanity.

‘Not at all. You seem upset about something. Guilty, even. Guilt left unpunished can fester.’

She stared at him, not wanting to believe what she had heard. There was only one possibility – of the many which raced through her mind – he was insane.

‘I think you’d better go now,’ she said as evenly as she could manage.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m driving you to Eastbourne.’

Aware that the towel was the only thing between them she felt suddenly vulnerable and went to walk round him to the relative safety of the bathroom. She didn’t make it. He caught her arm, reached for the towel, stripped it from her and threw it aside. In an attempt to minimise the feeling of vulnerability that now consumed her, she sat down on the bed, staring up at him through tear-stained eyes.

He reached for her, turned her naked body onto its stomach and, holding her down firmly, slapped her repeatedly on the soft flesh of her buttocks.

Wriggling for freedom from his firm grasp, yelling to be let up, she felt the heat from the blows suffusing her entire body.

Still angry, she was flipped onto her back as easily as if she were a pancake on a hotplate, and looked up at him in fear as he loosed the belt from the loops of his trousers.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Something you need badly,’ he told her.

She watched mesmerised as the belt was flipped up into the air and then brought down across the bed within millimetres of her tender flesh. Yelping with sudden fear she dived from the bed and made for the bathroom. He caught her wrist and lashed at her calves and buttocks – anything that was presented to him.

Now she was yelling, sobbing and protesting all at the same time. Next she felt her burning, outraged body thrown to the bed, where she could do nothing to prevent further invasion of her spreadeagled self.

The fire that had played about her buttocks and loins was now being pressed deep inside her. He felt huge against her inner flesh, as, desperately hating herself, she found her nails digging into his back which he answered with sharp digs into her buttocks. Effortlessly he held her hips high as he drove even deeper into her again and again.

She felt flames licking her every nerve as she abandoned herself to the inevitable orgasmic climax.

He knew. Oh, how humiliatingly well, he knew how abandoned and lost she was. How easily her wanton body dismissed her protesting reason, how readily her thighs rose to answer his every sortie with greedy, clenching attack. She had surrendered everything of herself and now only regretted she could find nothing more to give.

They lay exhausted on the bed for a long moment before she could bring herself to articulate the one word that had resounded in her head since her climax.

‘Bastard!’ she breathed with an intensity born of real hatred.

He had smiled, she had lain her head down on his belly and, with the heat of the beating still burning on her flesh, felt the need to assert herself.

* * *

‘Now I’m going to screw you,’ Helen had said and then, as she sat astride this man, almost still a stranger, she knew she was venting months of guilt and frustration on his body but, also, that it was directed mainly into her own soul.

Assertive and positive he might have been, but now he was passively submitting to the slow tortuous pleasure she wrought out of him. He had even, at her urging, placed his hands behind his head while she used him.

Then something snapped inside and she realised she was losing control. Her body was taking over, insisting she increase the pace and its pleasure. Violently now, she started to move on him, beating her pelvis into him with punishing force, finding she could no longer protest when his hands reached for her, dragged her down and forced her to receive his gushing tribute, spread helplessly on her back. ‘Yes!’ they screamed in unison and knew that this was right.

There was an appalled silence during which it seemed even the walls of her bedroom held their breath, until, raising himself on one elbow to look deeply into her vulnerable eyes, he spoke. ‘I have no intention of letting you go,’ he said. ‘You’re mine. I’ve claimed you.’

‘I have to go to my mother’s,’ she said, hating the intrusion of a little girl’s tone into her voice.

He nodded. ‘But afterwards …’ he said.

‘Afterwards,’ she agreed, and felt inside her the first real happiness she had known since that soporific afternoon in the Caribbean.

They were half way to Eastbourne before she noticed the car following them.

‘Isn’t that
your
car?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘Luckily I managed to get Turner at home and he agreed to follow us so that I’ll have my car for the return journey.’