The Gift of Shame (7 page)

Now, trousers. This was an immediate problem. All his seemed to have been made to accommodate two of her, and
there
was no way her waist and hips could keep them up. She didn’t want her own brother to look like a baggy-pants comic.

Skis! She remembered seeing skis stacked in his ‘sporting’ closet, where there were skis there would be ski-pants. Tight, clinging ski-pants. Perfect!

After a moment’s search she found them folded neatly in a drawer. Pulling a pair over his suspect posing pouch she saw that they fitted well enough except for the inordinate length of the legs. Sitting down she found that by pulling and stretching she could fold the excess length up and into the bottom of the pants.

They were loose under the crotch but she took up that surplus by rolling the waistband in on itself.

How did she check out so far? Not too bad. She needed a sweater, loose but not too much, a windcheater, also loose, on top of that and things were taking shape. Socks obscured the bulge where she had rolled in the leg length of the pants. Shoes? Despair gripped her. There was no chance she could find shoes to fit.

Her own shoes! They were only medium heeled. They would do but the trouble was she had lost them while being taken over the desk. How could she retrieve them without risking him seeing her before she was ready?

Simple. Let him do something for once.

Crossing to the bedroom door she opened it a few inches and called, ‘Hello!?’

No answer. She opened it a few inches more and put her head out. She could hear his voice murmuring somewhere off in the distance. Cautiously, she slipped into the living room, darting from potted plant to potted plant, peering round them to make sure she wasn’t spotted.

As she got closer to his voice she could hear that he was on
the
telephone but, fortunately for her, at the far end of the apartment and not at his desk.

She found one shoe lying where she would have expected it, but no sign of the other. Thinking it couldn’t be far she started anxiously looking round. She had just spotted it partially obscured by the valance of one of the couches when his end of the telephone conversation impinged on her.

‘Yes, he’s quite young and inexperienced. I want the young lady to, you know, give him something to remember when he goes back to school.’

She listened, mouth open, and horrified. What was he plotting now? She had no doubt that the ‘he’ of the ‘inexperienced’ was meant to be her. She couldn’t believe he was hiring some kind of call girl.

She heard him winding up the call. ‘You can? Oh, excellent. Straight away? Fine. Yes, here’s the address.’

She listened, her mouth so wide open that it became dry, and as he gave his address she wondered what he was playing at.

Realising the conversation was coming to an end she scuttled back to the bedroom wondering why
she
felt guilty.

That he had some further complication to add to her already overburdened worry banks, there was no doubt. Just what it was she couldn’t imagine. Well, she
could
… but surely not ‘that’? If so the ‘young lady’ with her ‘memorable experience’ was due for a surprise of her own!

She pulled on the shoes and stood to look into the mirror. What she saw was a completely outmoded, expensively dressed, idiot. She looked like a boy who had got hurriedly dressed in a bomb-distressed ballet chorus dressing room. The panama didn’t go with the jacket. The jacket might have gone with the ski-pants – but nowhere she would have
wanted
to go. The shoes were the only familiar thing about herself.

What was she going to do? She looked a disaster and felt worse.

She was about to give up when she heard a brief tap on the bedroom door and, as she whirled round, ready to explode if he so much as smiled, saw him hesitate only briefly before breaking into an overly hearty greeting.

‘George!’ he beamed, ‘I was wondering where you’d got to! Come, I’ve got us both a drink. You
do
drink don’t you?’

Feeling that he must be either blind or more easily pleased than she thought, she followed him out of the room.

With a comradely arm about her shoulder he walked her across the expanse of the living area. ‘I’ve been looking forward to having a talk with you, George.’

Leading her to a bar which seemed to have been born out of a bookcase – the first hint of crassness she had found in his furnishings – he handed her a tumbler of whisky.

‘As you know,’ he was saying, ‘I’ve been seeing a great deal of your sister and quite frankly there are some things about her that puzzle me. I thought you might be able to help me with a pointer or two.’ Jeffrey paused and smiled with patronising indulgence. ‘Drink all right?’

She had gratefully taken a sizeable draught of the smooth malt but, still unsure of her voice, simply nodded in reply.

‘Good!’ he cried, leading her to sit on a couch opposite his own. Sitting himself down he beamed across at her. ‘I mean, frankly, she’s a bit of a tart, isn’t she?’

She frowned and conveyed her dissension as best she could without yet daring to try out her voice.

He seemed to pick up on her dilemma and sorted it out. ‘Now, George, I know your voice is about to break and you’re
embarrassed
about it, but you can talk if you want to, you know.’

‘She’s not a tart!’ she said positively.

‘Well, you would say that wouldn’t you? Being a loyal brother and all, and, of course, I respect that, but tell me, George, have you ever had a woman yourself?’

She reverted to a resentful shake of the head while waiting to see if this was going to lead to an explanation of the phone call.

‘No, I suppose not. The Old School keeps to its regime of cold showers and avoiding “evil” thoughts, eh?’ He paused and drew in a long breath as if contemplating the ‘good old days’, before going on. ‘Matter of fact I was reading the other day that cold showers actually
stimulate
the libido. Did you know that?’

She shook her head.

‘So you see, the Old School idea can lead to a lot of mischief in the showers.’ Idly picking an imaginary thread from his jacket sleeve, he went on. ‘Much of that going on still?’

Again she shook her head, aware that her ‘twin brother’ wasn’t being very good at this. Despite the sanctioning of her unmasculine voice, she still couldn’t speak because, having been reminded of where all this was supposed to be leading, she was scared to death. He
hadn’t
been bluffing!

Seeing Jeffrey in the role of an ‘old queen’ intent on seducing a ‘young boy’ was unnerving to say the least. He was just a little too smooth and convincing for her taste. An added concern was the knowledge that there was a ‘surprise’ on its way.

Perversely, she also resented him thinking that any brother of hers, imaginary or not, would fall for such a line.

Jeffrey, who had been watching her/him for some silent moments, now gave the most sickly smile she could imagine
before
patting the couch beside him. ‘You look so distant sitting over there. Why don’t you come and sit by me?’

Feeling sickened and revolted – Jeffrey was that good at it – she warily moved to sit next to him as he had asked.

Jeffrey, laying a careless arm along the couch behind her, smiled again. ‘Got a little treat on its way for you, George.’

A very real shudder of revulsion went through her body. ‘Really?’ she squeaked.

‘Yes. Possibly something a young lad like you has never seen before.’

Quite suddenly she felt she wasn’t there. It was as if her body had been invaded by another creature. Everything was suddenly unreal, even surreal. She really was starting to respond like a nervous schoolboy in the company of a disreputable uncle.

This was ridiculous. A waking nightmare. Could it be that she had been subtly hypnotised or even drugged?

When the arm, which had been ‘carelessly’ laid along the back of the couch, became a hug, she actually felt quite sick.

Abruptly, not quite sure where the impulse had come from, she found herself on her feet blurting out that she wanted to go.

Jeffrey was staring up at her, obviously taken aback. As they looked at each other in confusion the apartment door bell cut through the tension like a knife.

‘Not now,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Surely,’ he added, before turning away to answer the door.

She looked around for succour but none was apparent. She began to think she might be going mad when she strained to hear the subdued murmur of voices coming from the apartment’s lobby.

Now, in total confusion, she felt as if she was suffocating.
Her
brain had simply ceased functioning and the earlier ‘disassociated’ feeling grew even stronger.

The voices drew nearer and she turned to see Jeffrey returning accompanied by a tall slender girl wearing a full-length ‘gowny’ dress and, of all things, a feather boa over her shoulders.

‘This is my young nephew, George,’ he was saying to the girl. ‘George, this is Lesley.’

Lesley came forward with a graciously extended hand. ‘George’ found ‘himself’ awkwardly shaking her hand and not knowing where to look.

Lesley, fortunately, seemed oblivious to anything about her but her own appearance. ‘Darling,’ she said, addressing Jeffrey. ‘Put my music into a suitable slot, would you?’

Jeffrey, who seemed to be enjoying himself enormously, took a cassette from her and went off to place it in its ‘suitable slot’.

Meanwhile Lesley was casting an assessing eye around the apartment, which gave Helen a chance for a good look at her.

The hair looked as if it was fighting for its life under layers of lacquer. The face had been made up by an undertaker and the word ‘glitz’ had been invented to describe the dress. All in all, Lesley was what her mother would have called ‘extravagant’ and she would have called, enamelled.

Jeffrey rejoined them to be received by an anxious enquiry from Lesley. ‘My music, darling! Aren’t you going to play it?’

Showing her a black box he was carrying, he smiled. ‘Remote control,’ he told her. ‘Any time you’re ready.’

Casting another despairing eye about the apartment Lesley spoke again. ‘Yes, darling, but we’ll have to do something about the lighting …’ Lesley moved off around the apartment,
turning
off this lamp, turning that one on, until she came back murmuring, ‘I suppose that’ll have to do,’ and struck a startling, dramatic pose; standing in profile to them with one hand raised in the air and the other knuckled to her forehead.

Turning to ‘George’, Jeffrey indicated that she should come to sit next to him on the couch, as Lesley hissed: ‘My music, darling!’

Jeffrey hit the play button on the remote and, as the brassy show music filled the apartment, Lesley started making swooping, leg dragging movements about the space before the couches, only occasionally tripping on the hem of her gown in the deep rug piling.

Feeling that things were moving from the surreal to the preposterous Helen realised that Lesley was about to launch into a strip tease of the most excruciatingly embarrassing kind. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Jeffrey – on the other hand, she could barely tear her eyes away from the ludicrous Lesley – but she did begin to wonder when he had decided to turn their ‘affair’, if their relationship could aspire to so grand a status, into farce.

Mouth involuntarily open in stupefaction she watched as Lesley slipped out of the gown to reveal black stockings on a garter belt framing surprisingly good legs, then used the feather boa to play peek-a-boo with her undersized breasts.

Having thought that things couldn’t get worse she was appalled when Lesley started waltzing towards her, flicking the boa into her face. ‘Have you been a
really
good boy? Lesley
loves
really good boys!’

Fortunately, Lesley waltzed off into a series of crotch-probing poses, enabling Helen to stop herself throwing up on the glass table before her.

When was this nightmare to end? She had never felt more
shamefully
distressed in her life. Distress for the totally untalented Lesley who, somewhere, waited like a taxi to be summoned out to embarrass people.

The music was building to what had once been a show-stopping climax and she could pray that it signalled the end of this torture – a prospect which focused her mind on the horrendous potential the aftermath presented. Suicide would be the only rational response if Lesley were to be included.

Now their ‘dancer’ was dramatically sticking one long leg before the other as she advanced on ‘George’ with fixed gaze and malice aforethought. Then, throwing her arms and boa wide, she exposed her almost non-existent breasts as, looming menacingly closer, Lesley placed one leg on the glass table, threw her thighs wide to expose the diamante G-string, which ‘George’ realised, with horror, was about to come off!

It did! To reveal an even greater horror. There before her eyes was an unmistakably male penis! She felt unable to take her eyes from it as the music died away and total silence reigned.

‘Want to feel it, darling?’ asked the voice of ‘Lesley’. ‘It’s a real one.’

Mesmerised, she heard Jeffrey speak. ‘You have my permission …’

Slowly, she raised her eyes to the now grotesque face of ‘Lesley’ to see that he had whipped off the lacquered wig. As their eyes met Lesley spoke. ‘I don’t do penetration, darling, but if you want me to go down on you, that’s cool!’

She heard a silly, squeaky voice protest, ‘But I’m a girl!’

Lesley chuckled. ‘That’s all right, love. I don’t discriminate.’

Feeling as if she had been transmuted into a waxworks tableau, she could find no thought, no words, other than a
silent
prayer that somehow the floor would open up and get her out of this.

Her prayer was answered by Jeffrey. With a sonorous clap of his hands he stood up and spoke the first sensible words she had heard all evening. ‘Wonderful! Absolutely marvellous. Thank you Lesley, but, sorry, that’s as far as we can take it tonight.’

Afraid to meet anyone’s gaze Helen sensed Lesley immediately dropping out of character to fussily gather up her discarded props as Jeffrey shepherded her away.