The Gift of Shame (6 page)

He nodded, stood up, and closed the space between them to stand directly in front of her.

‘Get rid of that coat and bend over the desk.’

Angry at him and herself for knowing that she would accept this humiliation, she tried to protest, but he cut her short by grabbing her, turning her and almost literally ripping the coat from her body. As she yelled desperately at him he propelled her forward to the desk and forced her face down to crush her nose into the smell of polished leather.

She opened her mouth to protest again at this treatment, but the word became a cry; then she felt him firmly entering her. Suddenly all protest seemed superfluous. Anger turned to excitement as his words battered her ears.

‘You disobeyed me in the cab, didn’t you?’

‘Yes!’ she yelled.

‘Are you sorry?’

‘Yes!’

‘Are you going to be my whore?’

‘Yes!’

‘What happens to disobedient whores?’

‘They get fucked over desks!’

‘Wrong!’ his words seething into her ears like liquid lava. ‘They get punished!’

‘Yes! Punish me, screw me! Do anything you like to me!’

And then, in unison, they came.

Later that evening she stood tied loosely between two posts. Her feet firmly on the ground and though not strained she was, nevertheless, tethered, as immobile and fearful as any creature awaiting an unknown fate.

He had come to her and, without explanation, tied her wrists together with a silken cord. Then, leading her to stand between the posts, had first tied her and then gently fed a knotted bandana into her mouth to silence her.

Without a word of explanation, not a look, nor a backward glance, he had left her among the ornamental plants that crowded for space in his heated solarium as if she were just another passive ornament among the many. The worst moment came when he turned off the lights in the solarium, leaving her with only the incidental light escaping from the living area.

She had been there for what seemed to her an eternity. Her thoughts were confused by the dull ache that had started in her raised arms but one message repeated and repeated until she was sure it would become engraved on her throat. She hated him. Hated this. The moment she was released, it was over. How dare he do this to her? How dare he assume that there could possibly be any pleasure for her in such humiliation?

If he had stayed, if he had watched her, it might have become marginally supportable, interesting even, but she could hear him somewhere in the apartment making phone calls – arranging to go to a New Year’s Eve party – and then, worst of all she could hear the drone of the TV.

Deep in her discomfort she tortured herself with the thought that she knew very little of this man … that wealth did not
prevent
someone being mad – only from being locked up. Suppose he was a maniac and intended to kill her? There was nothing she could do about it!

Hate him! Hate this! It’s over between us!

She saw him coming and watched, her face muscles tensing, her vocal cords rehearsing the invective she intended showering on him. Punishment? He didn’t know the meaning of the word.

‘So, are you suitably chastened?’

His fingertips reached out and gently touched her nipples. It was as if he had touched her with heated needles.

The hands moved outward and encircled her breasts. His lips nestled to her throat, a clinch from which she couldn’t escape. His hands circled her belly and then, gently, with the subtlety of a soldering iron, touched her most vulnerable bud of flesh.

Then a switch was thrown and a gear moved in her body. She found herself moaning, pressing herself against his caresses, and desperately wanting him. But please, God, she thought first, please, set me free!

‘I love you like this.’

God. No. Not like this! Please don’t let me come!

His fingers returned to her nipples, now extended and sensitive. Gently at first he tweaked them then, increasing the pressure, he bit his nails into her tender flesh.

Using one hand he reached up and loosened the silk gag, and threw it from them.

‘I want to see you smile,’ he said, increasing the nail-given pain.

She was breathing too hard, her throat too constricted to say anything.

‘If you smile for me and tell me you love me then I’ll set you free.’

Her uncertain eyes managed to still his swimming image
and
she saw his eyes – those eyes! Then, straining every muscle in her face, she managed to smile. ‘I love you,’ she said.

It was late evening before they spoke of anything other than their pleasure.

‘Why did you do that to me?’

‘You deserved it.’

‘Why did you just leave me there and walk away?’

‘I had things to do.’

‘I hated you. You know that, don’t you?’

He smiled to himself and, by so doing rekindled the anger he had washed away with a gesture.

‘I think I still hate you.’

‘That’s healthy. Hate is closer to love than any other emotion.’

Earlier he had shown her the tanning lamps built into the solarium to bring a touch of summer to even the dreariest winter’s day.

They now lay side by side enjoying the counterfeit sun.

‘Are you frightened?’ he asked her.

‘I’m not sure. I think I am but it’s like a recurring nightmare. You know it will come at you in the night but it doesn’t stop you wanting to go to sleep.’

‘I have a technique for destroying nightmares. What you do is turn and face them. Stops the pursuing horror dead in its tracks. When you know your fear you can face it.’

‘That’s how I feel about you. Unknown. And yes, that frightens me.’

‘Sure it isn’t yourself that frightens you? Haven’t you found out things about yourself you never knew?’

‘Also.’

Even as she spoke she discovered something new about herself. She could lie here next to him and calmly, objectively, discuss things which would have, previously, shamed her in
any
context other than the throes of passion. Of course, the protective eye shields they were wearing helped. The past few days had taught her that direct eye contact can be the most excoriating experience between two people.

Warmed by the lamps, confident to be naked yet masked from the world, she felt totally relaxed.

‘What do you want of me?’ she asked him out of a lengthening silence.

‘To be allowed to worship.’

‘Worship what?’

‘You.’

‘Is that what you think you were doing when you tied me up in the solarium?’

In truth, she still harboured a hate of what he had done to her but also recognised there was emerging a perverse recognition that the price was worth it for the joyous aftermath. When he had finally released her, the pain, if anything, had increased. The blood rushing back into her veins had seemed loaded with liquid fire rendering her totally helpless – and therefore without responsibility – for what had followed – an unfathomable depth of pleasure.

He had stayed silent for a long moment. ‘Do you know how incredibly beautiful you looked?’

‘How could I?’ she asked with a degree of asperity.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘There should have been a mirror. Selfish of me. Next time. Promise.’

‘What makes you think there’ll be a next time?’

‘There won’t,’ he said. ‘Unless you want it.’

This struck her as a bizarre remark and left her feeling curiously bereft. Must she be forced to ask him to torture her? Did he imagine she ever would?

At that moment the timer that controlled the ultraviolet dosage clicked off and broke the mood.

Lifting the shields from their eyes they looked at each other as if for the very first time. Curiously, she even felt a little shy.

‘Say it,’ he said. ‘Say the words you have often thought but have never dared say to a lover.’

The challenge struck her to the core. The words were there instantly, known to her since puberty and although never spoken they were now brazenly echoing in her mind and insisting she give them life. Words that, if she spoke them, would be the most terrible of all her betrayals of Kenneth. Fight as she might she couldn’t stop them as they leapt into life from her lips.

‘Fuck me in the arse,’ she said and, unable to take breath until he answered, she listened, horrified, to the dying echo of the words.

Had he laughed, had he leapt on her and taken her cruelly in that place where she knew she would suffer, she might have been able to plead a moment of madness, but he didn’t. Instead he held her eyes for a whole heart-stopping minute then, standing, he reached down a hand to help her to her feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said softly.

Now quite frightened by what she might have started she padded beside him across the wide carpet and into his bedroom.

Throwing open his closets he indicated the rank upon rank of suits, shirts, ties and underwear.

‘If you are to be taken like a man then you will dress like one. You have one hour before I greet your identical twin brother.’

Turning, he left her alone with a heart-pounding dread at what she had done. Damn him, she thought. Why couldn’t he have just taken her? Why force her into this humiliating ritual and make her responsible for her own madness?

If she did as he asked there was no escape, no turning back, no excuses she could make to herself in some future sleepless night. She was alone with her own wantonness.

Finding a full-length mirror she questioned her reflection. ‘Shall you be his whore?’

After a moment’s pause the image in the mirror, eyes wild with light, smiled and nodded.

4

CONFUSION
.

Her mind was racing and outstripping her brain’s capacity to process the bombarding stream of thought.

His clothes. Where did she start? Choosing her own clothes for any occasion was stressful enough but deciding what to wear for her imminent sodomisation, with her immolator impatiently waiting, was the very stuff of which panic attacks are made.

Very few useful ideas were getting through to her oppressed brain.

Her body was not much help either. Her heart was pumping blood at a rapid rate. Her hands shook as they fluttered over the serried ranks of shirts and sweaters, while her breathing was audibly hoarse.

She was in no shape to go shopping!

Feeling the task had overwhelmed her, she turned away from the closets to sit down heavily on the huge bed, almost ready to let the threatening sobs break through and, head in hands, simply give up.

Either that or run away and hide.

What a good idea! Where would she go? Home? What would she use for clothes or money? Her decision had been made – forced on her – when she got out of the taxi. What would she do now? Put time on rewind and delete that decision?

Damn him!

Why couldn’t he have just done it?

Why put her through this hell?

Because he liked it, that’s why.

In retrospect she saw her predicament as the result of a carefully engineered plan.

Bringing her to his apartment wearing only a coat and shoes, he had ensured that she was his captive as surely as if he had bound and chained her. What initially seemed a spontaneous, mad caprice, she now realised was the first move in a diabolical plot!

Testing her, that’s what he was doing. Even now he was probably gleefully chortling at the prospect of her tear-stained appearance before him to admit defeat.

It then came to her that he might be expecting her not to go through with it. That would explain why he hadn’t just done it. He was counting on her cowardice! It was entirely possible, she thought, that his plot had extended that far.

Well, to hell with him!

Picturing him, confidently waiting for her capitulation, angered her. Out of anger was born resolution. She’d damn well show him she was not going to play his ‘little woman’. Now she was determined to call his bluff.

Returning to the closets she found her anger had calmed her. This was, after all, a simple, if unfamiliar task. Take it a step at a time and anything was possible.

First, imagine what her identical twin brother would have looked like. No problem. Exactly like her. Except, of course, for the hair.

Solution? Obvious. Find a hat!

She looked but there were no hats. A cap, then? Sports clothes. Not this closet. Try the next. No. Maybe he kept his sports gear, supposing he had any, in a different closet.

Looking round she could see none that weren’t already open.

Intending to look in the bathroom, she had started towards it when she noticed a closet standing between the bedroom and bathroom doors. In there she hit pay dirt.

Rackets for squash, tennis and a curious basket-like glove. Caps? Top shelf. Bingo! Baseball caps in profusion, a multi-coloured curiosity with a gold tassel on it, cricket caps, and then she saw it – a wide-brimmed panama. Perfect!

Going to one of the many mirrors, she piled up her hair and placed the panama on top. Untidy wisps showed through. She needed to wind her hair onto the top of her head and then find something to keep it there. Dismissing the possibility of finding any hair grips, she spotted a pair of his shoes. The lace from one of them would have to do.

Her hair bound into a bun, secured by the lace, wasn’t the perfect solution but it would do. Slamming the hat down over the piled-up mess, she smiled. Great! Next, a shirt.

She didn’t waste time on it. She took down the first silk shirt she could find. There was a momentary confusion with the left to right buttoning, but she finally got her clumsy fingers to work that out. Oversize and looking ridiculous but, with the sleeves folded back and a jacket on top, she thought it would be acceptable.

Underpants? Why not. In a bottom drawer she found some pretty exotic ones – not a whole lot unlike panties. An unworthy thought came into her head but, considering the determined stamina he’d shown in administering to her, it was immediately dismissed. However, some of his under-pants were little more than posing pouches. It was possible they were unwanted Christmas presents. Whatever they were they fitted snugly round her waist and hips. God knows what they did to him!