Dark Sister (17 page)

TWENTY-NINE

"I
don't know what's wrong," said Alex. He buried his head
in
the pillow. Things
weren't going well for him. He was under pressure.

Firstly there was the constant stress of having to get
Amy ready for school and Sam to his full-time childminder, plus keeping them
fed, clean, clothed, and living in a house fit for human habitation. The
expense of paying childminders to look after Sam and to collect Amy from school
was starting to make work look like a waste of effort. And work itself wasn't
without its share of problems.

The archaeological dig at the
castle had resumed in January. Alex needed to produce results from his original
dig if he wanted the project to be extended. Funds were tight, as always, and
he had to fight for resources merely to erect a rain cover over the
diversionary Maggie dig. That small site had filled up with water over the
Christmas period and had to be drained before work continued.

Maggie herself was still refusing
to come home. The court hearing would be upon them in a few weeks, and that
would incur heavy legal fees. His financial worries alone were enough to drive
him to distraction. He was beginning to wonder if he were the one who needed a
psychologist. Except that psychologists had already demonstrated their dubious
abilities in the form of James De Sang. Alex was still fuming over that report,
and the accompanying bill. He was going to have to find a way to pay it. He
wondered if he could arrange some paid overtime at work.

But that raised the problem of
looking after Amy and Sam. And as for extra time, he could hardly claim it when
here he was taking extended lunch breaks for the occasional secret rendezvous
between the sheets.

Anita gave up stroking Alex's
flaccid cock. For her, too, it had been a disappointing session. She felt she
was losing him somewhere. Lately he seemed less inclined to make the effort to
see her. "Don't worry about it. Being anxious about it will only make it
worse."

"Telling someone not to be
anxious is guaranteed to make them anxious."

Anita was nettled. "Sorry,
I'm
sure."

Alex softened. "I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Do you think she knows about us?"

"Who?
Maggie?"

"Yes, Maggie."

"No, I don't think she knows about us."

Why did he lie to Anita? Was he
afraid she might want to stop seeing him? Or was he just trying to keep his two
worlds apart, so he could be a more accomplished liar should he have to face
Maggie's accusations again?

Alex thought hard about it. He'd been careful not to
do anything to arouse Maggie's suspicions, yet she'd confronted him
forcefully, directly, on the night she'd ravished him. Ravished him? She'd
comprehensively
fucked
him, before demanding to know what he was up to.
He was still slightly dazed. Never had he been so completely overwhelmed. He
couldn't have stopped it if he'd wanted to, no more than he could resist a
hurricane. The force of it had utterly subdued him. It was like being staked
out and flayed.

He didn't know that night whether something primal had
been given to or taken away from him. Perhaps, he reasoned, that's why the
affair with Anita had begun, because Maggie had in some mysterious way unmanned
him. Though there was, he admitted to himself, a disgraceful immaturity in the
notion that he'd done all this to reassert himself.

Rationalizing, he thought; it's all rationalizing
after the event! Just like Maggie's suspicions, powered by jealousy or maybe by
intuition, it was all unfathomable, emotionally based, unknowable. She didn't
know, she couldn't know. That's why he'd denied it, and went on denying it. And
now here he was rationalizing away his adulterous relationship with Anita, when
the thing had happened simply because she was
there.

She'd always been there. He'd always been deeply aware
of her. He scented her whenever she came into a room. It's simple. You observe
the contract to pretend it doesn't exist and then
bang!
one
day you're forced to admit it. It was a universal
contract, in operation every day between women and men, a Devil's Contract,
damned if you break it, damned if you don't. For there she was, coming round to
his house smelling like a lynx, and always at the times when Maggie seemed most
distant. Anita, shaking her platinum-and-golden hair; Anita, crossing and
recrossing
her long legs so that her nylons hissed, until
his head was full of thoughts of her wearing nothing but her animal perfume.

And always between them this astonishing, fragile
tension when they were alone for a few moments: the drying of the mouth, the
involuntary stiffening of muscles. Like a spring coiling and tightening.
So strong, this, and so dangerous to the two of them that it had to
remain unspoken.
Until finally it had to give.
Only one act could break it.

When, one lunch break, he'd almost collided with her
in the street, it seemed natural that they should decide to go to eat together.
Anita was magnificent, he decided. She was one of those women who wear little
or nothing in the way of rings, necklaces and accessories, yet who light up
like a jeweller's window. Alex had long nursed an archaeologist's fantasy of
gently uncovering fascinating layers of her perfumed clothing, ultimately to
reveal the golden trove, which he would kiss. That day she was wearing a black,
tight-fitting dress, black nylons and black heels. The sheen of her natural
complexion and the precious-metal highlights of her hair contrasted
provocatively with her carefully constructed lipstick pout. He wanted to eat
her.

So when a decent table couldn't be
found anywhere, at any price, it also seemed natural to go back to Anita's
house for coffee and a sandwich. And when Anita's back was turned in brewing
the coffee, Alex noticed her hands were trembling as much as his, so to stop
his own hands from shaking he took a deep breath and put his arms around her
from behind, letting his hands rest on her belly. Anita set down the jug she
was holding and went very still. Neither of them spoke. Then she let her head
tilt back on to his shoulder, and when he saw that her eyes had closed, he let
his fingers splay across her thighs. He reached his hands under her dress. She
moved to stop him, but ritually and without conviction. His cock was straining
through his clothes, stabbing at her bottom. He felt her underarms perspiring
heavily. She reached behind and pinched him savagely and he returned by probing
inside her panties with his fingers, sliding a finger into her up to the
second knuckle. Inside she was scalding. Then she grabbed his hand away and
lifted it to her mouth, sucking the finger that had been inside her. She turned
round, clasping her arms around his shoulders, locking her mouth against his
and somehow
climbed
onto his hips, fastening her thighs around him.

She kissed him ferociously. He struggled to carry her
that way—still kissing—through to the lounge, where he tipped her into an
armchair and ripped away her shoes, her tights, and her panties. There was no
archaeologist's fantasy of hidden
treasure,
it was too
urgent, too hot. He pulled her dress up around her waist to reveal her soft,
tanned belly, and when she loosed his trousers for him, his cock sprang out
angry and engorged, swollen like a bee-stung thing.

He put his tongue inside her
cunt
until he was dizzy with the smell of her. She grabbed a fistful of his hair,
drawing his head back, locking mouths with him again, as if wanting to taste
herself on his mouth.

She spoke through the kiss. "Come into me."

That was the first time. It had all
happened the day before Maggie had made her accusation. After that he'd met
Anita for long, searching lunchtime sessions almost every second or third day.
God, the potency of those afternoons, thought Alex wistfully.

Where had it gone?

He stroked Anita's hair.
"No," he lied again. "Maggie hasn't got it in her to
suspect."

"I'm not so sure about
that." Alex looked at her. "Bill's got the ... problem you
have."

"What problem? Can't get it
up, you mean?" He snorted. "What's that got to do with
anything?"

"I wonder if it's Maggie's
doing."

"What?"

"Something she's doing to me,
I mean. Something she's working. She knows about us. She hates me."

Alex jumped out of bed and buttoned
on his shirt. "
Hocus
. I've seen what she does.
Herb tea and a couple of joss sticks."
He thought about
Maggie's "dig here" prediction. He kissed Anita. "I've got to go
back to work."

That afternoon Maggie was at Omega,
unpacking new merchandise she'd ordered for the shop. Here she had a
collection of talisman jewellery—metal discs on thin chains, the discs
engraved with obscure glyphs and symbols. The silver bell rang behind her, and
she was surprised to see Anita, dressed, as usual, as if she was looking for a
seat at the opera. "Heard I'd find you here," she said brightly.

"Anita!"

"Haven't
seen you in ages.
Thought you might like some company."

Maggie flashed back on her flying
vision, saw Anita's pink rump thrust in the air. "You've taken me by
surprise." She found herself offering Anita a chair and a cup of tea, much
against her instincts.

"I've been worried about you,
Maggie."

"Why should you be
worried?" Maggie went back to unpacking her boxes.

"Not just you.
Both of you.
I saw Alex the other day and he doesn't look
well. You don't look well either."

"Really?
I feel great."

"I know he wants you back. And
he's been seeing rather a lot of that student from his dig, the one who—"

"Tania? Nice girl.
Looks after the kids sometimes."

"You should go back to Alex^
You
two were made for each other."

"To be honest, I'm enjoying
the space. I'm not sure I want to go back."

"But you miss the children
terribly."

Maggie bit her lip and opened
another box of talismans. Anita, at least, knew when to change the subject.
"They look interesting. What are they?"

"Talismans."

"Protective
powers?"

"No, you're thinking of an
amulet. Here, this is an amulet. But these are talismans. They're like
batteries. You wear a talisman to increase your powers; an amulet to ward off
powers."

"You're really into this,
aren't
you.
What's this one mean?"

"It doesn't 'mean' anything.
It's a love talisman. It's made of copper because that's the metal of Venus.
This is the symbol of the planet, and this one is of its guardian spirit."

"Charming.
Can I buy one?"

Maggie hadn't yet priced the stock.
She'd thought of selling them at around ten pounds. "Handmade.
Thirty pounds, seeing as I know you."

Anita took out her cheque book.
"Not cheap, are they?"

Over the site of the Maggie dig, Alex had finally
managed to erect a rickety shelter to keep off the rain, and to arrange for a
ditch to be dug, to drain the water from the new hole. Tania had been put in
charge of the Maggie dig. He didn't actually say it was a reward for
occasionally babysitting his children.

Meanwhile he had enough worries
over the original project. An unearthed wall had collapsed; vandals had
appeared one night and moved the markers on an entire section; and the dearth
of positive results of the project was clouding its future. Alex was scratching
his head, his mind not on the job, when Tania came up behind him. She was about
to say something when he asked her if she could baby-sit that evening.

"I can't do it every night, Alex."

"Sure. 1
know
. I mean, think about it,
will you?"

"I'll think about it. Anyway,
we've found something. You'd better come and look."

They'd excavated a length of narrow-bore
lead pipe inside the dagger circle. It was disintegrating, but so far it was
still in one piece. About three inches in length had been uncovered.

"Is it old?"

Alex looked closely at the white layer of
oxidation on the surface of the pipe. "Oh, yes," he said. "Oh,
yes. Let's have it out."

"Can
you give me a lift if I come round tonight?" said Tania.

"I'm still keen to learn a few things," Anita said after
Maggie had seen out a customer. She didn't seem to want to leave, and Maggie
couldn't think how to get rid of her.

"What things?"

Anita gestured at the rows of
shelves.
"These things.
Herbalism
.
Talismans."

"What do you want to
know?"

"Lots of
things.
How to attract someone.
How to repel someone.
How to know what
another person is thinking."

Maggie looked at her. Anita had some
question she desperately wanted to ask, but clearly couldn't. She gave the
impression she was waiting for Maggie to open the subject. Well, she could
wait.
"Not easy, those things."

"But you do have some knowledge."

"Very little."

"Don't bullshit me, Maggie
Sanders. I'm not completely without insight myself, you know." Anita's
eyes fizzed. "I know what you do."

Maggie's laugh was like the silver bell
above the door. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Alex is one thing. Bill is another. You'd better lay off."

Maggie dropped what she was doing and
turned round. "Anita, hadn't you better explain what you're talking
about?
Because I'm getting confused."