The Gift of Shame (5 page)

She came gently enough but lay gasping for breath as she fought for control of her own thumping heart. As her more
rational
mind took over from the wanton that lived inside her, she marvelled at what this man had done to her. He must have known at a glance what she was – what she craved. He had even known she wanted to be beaten. She would have been appalled if anyone had suggested it instead of, like him, just done it. She was startled to realise that, since meeting him, she had been in a constant state of arousal. Even in Eastbourne she had known that, deep inside, it had been still simmering, unacknowledged, within her.

Just seeing him brought that simmer to the boil. If any man could take her by the hand and lead her to paradise then it was this man. A man she must cherish and satisfy, no matter what the cost, for fear of losing him.

Her secret fantasies had always been extreme. Here was a man that would drag those fantasies from her subconscious and uncritically watch her play them out in life.

The thought liberated her. She had beside her a man who had taken her beyond anything she had ever before imagined and, she knew, would take her even further. She only needed the determination, and the courage, to go with him.

She imagined herself standing beside him on some formal occasion wearing the gown as she had today and knowing that at any moment he could reach out, tweak those buttons, and leave her naked. She trembled at the thought of so delivering herself into his hands knowing she would never be able to refuse him anything.

Nothing was impossible – no fantasy beyond his imagination or their mutual exploration. She was free of constraint, of the need to pretend that she was anything other than a newly liberated, decadent, totally filthy-minded wanton – something which, until now, she had only ever admitted to herself in fantasy.

He
was a fantasy made real and the thought frightened her a little.

Finally, she reached up and drew the top light cover gently over them both and immediately felt secure.

If she felt herself precariously on the edge of an abyss she also knew that, should she fall, she could be confident he would be there to catch her before she hit the rocks.

Smiling with contentment, she finally slept.

3

SHE HAD WOKEN
early and stood at the foot of the bed looking down on his sleeping face, filled with a sense of wonder.

He looked so vulnerable in repose. No sign of that energy that could prompt searing orgasm in her. She had never imagined such intensity of feeling existed. With Kenneth their love-making had been tender, only pretend daring and adventurous but always neatly compartmentalised, tagged as something the mind turned to at bedtime. Never had she imagined that there could be a passion so all-consuming that she wouldn’t be able to rid herself of it even when asleep.

Acknowledging that her abstinence since Kenneth’s traumatic death had created an almost unbearable pressure, she knew that this was more than the sudden, and finite, the release of a bursting dam. Jeffrey had, she suspected, tapped a deep resource and opened her to a continuing, renewable flow.

As she watched him sleep she was afraid that he might wake and find her wanting. What he had to give was so precious it should be given as a tribute to perfection and that, she knew, she was not. What she needed was artifice and the good luck not be found out too soon.

It was as if all that had gone before had been simple preparation. In his presence she had found a fierce pride in her body. Until now it had been appreciated, tenderly kissed and caressed, but never before had she felt it so openly worshipped. With this man she could go confidently naked. With this man she could be openly wanton.

Then, aware that his eyes were open and watching her, she straightened her back, put back her shoulders, and made the best of her pose.

‘Come,’ he said, throwing back the covers to show his risen flesh.

Like a supplicant approaching a holy relic she crawled onto the bed and gratefully did as he wanted.

First she licked, nuzzled and kissed him, and then, carefully, alert to any contrary instruction he might give her, raised herself to straddle him and, reaching down, guided him into herself.

His intake of breath was all the encouragement she needed. Now he must be ridden like the thoroughbred he was. First the trot, then the canter and finally the gallop.

It wasn’t until he cried out and grasped her that she realised the flame that had been heating her had come as much from his hands, rhythmically slapping her buttocks, as from the reliquary buried deep between her thighs.

Feeling him gone from the field she lay beside him and wished away the time that would pass before his next arousal.

‘What am I to do with you?’

‘Anything you want,’ she told him.

‘You know that I can’t let you go?’

‘I’ve nowhere I want to go.’

They lay silently exchanging caresses for a moment before she found the agony of him not being inside her more than she could bear. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ she asked.

‘I insist,’ he said softly, and added a kiss to the breast closest to his mouth.

She reached for his head as tiny darts of flame came from his lips through her nipples to the pleasure places in her brain.

‘Coffee,’ he said bringing her from her tantalising fantasies.

Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and, in a reflex born of custom, reached for her robe.

‘No,’ he told her. ‘I want you naked.’

She felt inclined to tease him. ‘I was always told a woman’s body looked better if she was wearing a little something.’

‘A man would have to be mad to acquire a perfect Ming vase and then want to cover it with a cloth wouldn’t he?’

‘Am I your “Ming”?’

‘You are exquisite and very precious and beside you Ming is commonplace.’

She felt liquid with the release from months of remorse and self-denial. She wanted to rush at him and re-pledge herself but, instead, feeling that she was exercising super-human control, she turned away from the extravagance of his compliment and went into the kitchen.

As she went through the mindless ritual of coffee-making she wished she had something more exotic, something undreamt of, to offer him. But, she wistfully understood, there was only herself – and that, too, was soon to be found out. She had an uneasy feeling that they had started too quickly and, too soon, gone too far. She feared that anything travelling at this velocity must surely come off the rails at the first curve.

Towards noon he was to surprise her yet again.

Ordering her to stay as she was, he produced a pencil and a pad of notepaper and started sketching her. At first she was happy enough to have a reason to stay still for a moment and expected his sketches to be no more than amateur crudities. So she was pleasantly surprised, when he handed them to her, to see a vibrant, naked young woman – one who just happened to have her face – drawn with great economy and directness.

‘You’re an artist?’

‘An early ambition, quickly squashed.’

‘What happened?’

‘My father. I wanted to go to art school but he insisted that I should study something more vocational. The closest to art he would allow was architecture.’

He placed her in another pose and, as he worked, she thought she had found the first weak spot in his until now apparently impregnable armour.

‘Isn’t it a little unusual to give up art to become a property tycoon?’

‘In the first place, I haven’t given up art. Secondly, I became – what you are pleased to call – a “property tycoon” by accident. The same father that denied me my earlier ambitions left me a seedy, run down, rambling apartment block whose only asset was a good address. I used my newly acquired architectural skills to refurbish it. Everyone told me I was crazy and that it didn’t make economic sense, but I couldn’t stand owning anything that was that shabby and that ugly. Then the controlled rent laws were changed. I had moved it up market and it became the collateral asset from which I spread upward and outward.’

‘And what happened to the art?’

He shrugged off the question and only the sound of his pencil spoilt the absolute silence until he heaved a huge sigh.

‘It’s time you knew about me,’ he said.

Allowing her only a raincoat and a pair of shoes, she found herself being hustled out of her apartment to feel the chilly December wind invading parts she would never have normally exposed to the winter chill.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To my place.’

They got to a street corner and he hesitated. She didn’t notice
his
concern at first. She was too busy eagerly scanning the faces of passers-by trying to judge whether or not they could sense she was naked under the coat. She found it particularly thrilling when she understood that no one was noticing. Either that or they just didn’t give a damn!

His cursing brought her back to the present reality.

‘The bloody car’s gone!’ he exploded. ‘I wasn’t sure at first but now I distinctly remember parking it there outside that shop.’

‘Stolen?’ she asked.

‘What else? Come on, we’ll have to get a cab.’

He was one of those people for whom taxis miraculously appeared on cue. It was in the cab that she was reminded that he loved to play erotic games.

He urged her to move from the rear seat to the jump seat directly in front of him. Aware of the taxi driver just a foot from her back, she understood the point of the game and moved her thighs apart, allowing the coat to fall away from her legs, fully exposing herself to him.

He mouthed to her that she should play with herself and, for the first time in his presence, she hesitated. The cab driver couldn’t see but she feared other passing drivers – especially those sitting high in trucks or buses – might.

‘Do it!’ he said in a loud authoritative voice that made the cab driver think his words had been intended for him.

‘Not you, driver!’ he yelled back. ‘I was talking to my whore!’

The cab driver chuckled but she was mortally offended. Snapping her legs together she carefully drew the coat back over her thighs to cover herself. She found she couldn’t look at him.

‘That …’ he said in a soft even voice, ‘… was very naughty of you.’

Still refusing to look at him, she stared instead out of the side window.

Minutes later the cab drew up in front of the prestigious address that was his flagship property and she sat tight, undecided whether by going home directly she would be punishing herself more than him. It was then she realised her predicament. If she took the cab home she would have nothing to pay the man with and, then again, wouldn’t it be silly to take the one cab driver in London who might guess at her condition and lead him to her home so he would know where she lived?

When Jeffrey turned to offer a hand out from the rear of the cab, she took it, telling herself she had no choice.

She still didn’t feel like talking to him but was, despite herself, impressed as they crossed the refurbished, somewhat kitsch, lobby towards the elevators.

The receptionist called out a greeting, as did the man in a porter’s uniform who hurried from some back room as if anxious to look alert in his employer’s eyes.

Once inside the elevator she couldn’t help noticing the Yale key he used to unlock the mechanism before it would respond to the PENTHOUSE button. She noted she was with a man who valued his security.

The elevator moved swiftly up but she kept a hurt distance. She felt pained that he made no attempt to break the silence and ask her what was wrong. She knew he didn’t have to – that he already knew precisely at which moment the deep freeze had set in and why.

The doors opened onto a small lobby and he had to use a magnetic key on a second set of heavy double doors before they would open.

When they did she was treated to an apartment of, literally, breath taking proportions. It had the dimensions of a hotel
lobby
but there was little evidence of the over-zealous symmetry which some interior designers imposed. Instead, the main living room was split into groupings of furniture with a profusion of potted, semi-tropical plants that reduced the vast expanse to human proportions.

There were several messages on his answerphone so, in response to his invitation to have a look round, she started on a self-conducted tour.

Everywhere she looked there was evidence of abundant affluence. Its corollary – bad taste – was totally absent. Jeffrey had managed to make a display that avoided vulgarity and ostentation. Although it was demonstrably impossible she got the feeling that this apartment had been here for some long time. There was no questioning its modernity but he had gifted it permanence.

She remembered being told how an aristocrat had made a ‘put down’ remark about someone he considered a parvenu. ‘He’s the sort of chap that buys his own furniture.’

Jeffrey had done that but avoided being too precise, too matching. She couldn’t help noticing that the bed would accommodate four people with comfort. She wondered how many times it had.

When she returned to the living area she heard him telling a girl, his secretary, surely, about the stolen car and asking her to make the necessary steps, including informing the police. Did this man do nothing for himself?

When he laid the phone down he turned to her.

‘It’s a beautiful apartment,’ she said.

‘So! You’ve found your voice again!’

‘You shouldn’t have called me a whore!’

‘I didn’t,’ he said, ‘call you “a” whore. I called you “my” whore. There’s a difference.’

‘Well I’m not.’

He shrugged. ‘You’re free to leave,’ he said.

She was standing in front of him, separated from the desk by two metres of velvety carpet. His words had stunned her. She even felt tears beginning to threaten her composure.

‘Are you tired of me, then?’ she said.

‘No, but if you want to play then you play my rules.’

‘Don’t I get any choice?’

‘Only when to stay and when to go. Do you want to go?’

‘You know I don’t.’