Obsession (21 page)

‘Say it,’ he said, watching her hand.

Say what? Oh God, she was going to make a fool of herself, she just knew it. ‘I want this part of you,’ she said.

‘Tell me you want my cock.’

Corrie felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but mustering her courage she whispered, ‘I want your cock.’

‘Where do you want my cock?’

‘Here,’ she said, shyly touching herself.

He didn’t look. ‘In your cunt,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me you want my cock right up inside your cunt.’

Misery engulfed her as her tongue recoiled from the words, but, feeling utterly naive and inept, she forced herself to repeat them. He was still speaking, so softly she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then he lowered his head again and watched his fingers massaging his penis.

‘Ask me to suck your tits,’ he moaned.

Corrie did, trying desperately to remind herself that he was a man of the world. Of course things would be different with him, his tastes would be so much more sophisticated than those of the men she’d known before, but she didn’t like this coarseness – she hated it. His eyes moved to hers and she felt herself tense even more. It was as though he was seeing someone else, or perhaps no one at all. His eyes were glazed, and his urgency seemed so contained, somehow so personal, as though this arcane foreplay was something he was doing for himself, and himself alone.

As he sat down on the bed a stream of unbelievable obscenities issued from his mouth. His hand was fumbling for her breasts, but he wasn’t watching what he was doing, his eyes were focused on his hand. He was asking her again to repeat what he was saying, but the profanities were coming so thick and fast from his own lips he wasn’t giving her the chance. ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me,’ he gasped. ‘Fucking tell me.’

Corrie didn’t know what to say, though for one horrifying moment she suddenly wanted to giggle. ‘Luke,’ she whispered tentatively, ‘don’t you think we should … Well, that we should use, you know, something?’

Both his hands stopped moving as he lifted his eyes to her face. She could see that he wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

‘A condom,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Do you have any?’

His lip curled with laughter. ‘Sure, if you insist,’ he said, and leaning forward he opened a drawer beside the bed.

‘Now,’ he said, as he rolled the diaphanous rubber lovingly over his penis, ‘let me hear you tell me how much you want my cock. How you’re going to take it in your mouth, up your cunt – up your ass.’

Corrie’s eyes rounded with horror. She didn’t want to be here anymore. She didn’t want him to think her unworldly, or a prude, but all this talk was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable – even afraid. And as he went on to describe in graphic detail what he was going to do to her, she said,

‘Luke. Luke I don’t think … I mean, well I’ve never done anything like that before …’

‘Easy, easy,’ he soothed, lying down beside her. ‘It’ll be all right. Mmmm, you are sensational,’ he murmured, running a hand over her belly. ‘I want you now. I want you right up here.’ His fingers were inside her, his lips
touching
hers. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.’

He rolled onto her then and kissed her so tenderly that her fears started to ebb. She felt his hand move between them, felt the tip of his penis start to penetrate her.

‘You’re so soft,’ he said, moving slowly in and out of her. ‘So soft.’

He started to move faster, not hard, just faster. There was none of the violence in his movements that there had been in his words and Corrie felt herself start to relax. Then his breathing started to quicken, and with surprise Corrie realized he was nearing ejaculation.

‘Tell me where my cock is,’ he groaned in her ear. ‘Tell me where it is.’

‘Inside me,’ she mumbled.

‘In your cunt. Say it.’

Corrie said it.

‘Again.’

She said it again, and again.

‘Holy shit!’ he choked, and ground his hips into hers as the semen flooded from his body.

‘Carry on like that,’ he said as he rolled off her, ‘and I’ll be making you more than a producer.’

‘What?’ Corrie said, not at all sure she liked the sound of that. ‘What do you mean?’

He chuckled softly and took her face between his hands. ‘Let’s just wait and see, shall we?’ he said.

Within minutes he was fast asleep. Corrie lay in the darkness for a long time, thinking back over the past half an hour. For a while she couldn’t be rid of the feeling that he had used her body to exact the price of her producership, but no, that was nonsense, she’d have slept with him anyway and he knew it. She turned to look at him and seeing his exquisite face so gentle and so vulnerable in sleep she started to smile. What an idiot she was to have been so shocked by the way he had talked himself – had got her
to
talk him – to climax, for that was all it had been – talk. He hadn’t hurt her, just as he’d promised, neither had he even attempted to make her do anything he’d suggested. It was merely the thought of it that had excited him. But then remembering what the prostitute Carol had told her about the sometimes uncontrollable power of fantasy she started to feel uncomfortable again.

But Carol hadn’t omitted to explain the importance of the imagination during sex. Very often, she’d said, a shared fantasy was the most erotic thing in the world. She had given, as an example, the number of women who fantasized about being raped. With the right man there was no harm in it at all, with the wrong man, when fantasy became reality, well that was a different matter altogether. No woman in her right mind wanted the actuality of rape, any more, Corrie guessed, than Luke had wanted to do the things he had spoken of. And as Corrie contemplated it now, as she voiced in her mind all the things he had made her say, she found herself becoming aroused by it too. She still, she realized, had so much to learn about her own body, her own fantasies, and what it might take in order for her to reach a climax.

It was just after one in the morning when the telephone rang. The answerphone picked up the call, but not before the ringing had woken Luke. The two of them lay there listening through the open door to Annalise’s slurred voice telling Luke that she knew he was there, that she had waited all night for him to call.

‘If you don’t ring me back in the next five minutes,’ she ended, ‘then I’m warning you I’ll swallow every one of these pills … See how you can live with yourself then, you bastard.’

The line went dead and Corrie turned to Luke. ‘Aren’t you going to call her?’ she asked when he didn’t move.

‘No.’

‘But you heard what she said.’

‘I did. And it’s the third time she’s threatened it this month.’

His voice sounded harsh, angry even, but Corrie could sense his anguish and didn’t know which of them she felt the most sorry for. It must be terrible to be subjected to that kind of blackmail, but wasn’t it even worse to be so desperately in love with someone that you could even consider killing yourself over it.

‘What if she isn’t crying wolf?’ Corrie asked.

‘She is, believe me. And I have no intention of letting her rule my life with her hysterical threats.’

‘But Luke …’

‘Sssh,’ he said, putting his arms around her. ‘She’ll probably have passed out by now, and if it’ll make you feel any better then I promise to go round and see her in the morning. Now go back to sleep,’ and snuggling her deeper into his arms he wrapped his legs around her. ‘Mmm, you feel so good,’ he murmured squeezing her, and Corrie could hardly believe it when only minutes later he was snoring softly in her ear.

It wasn’t until past three o’clock, when he had rolled away from her and Corrie was convinced he was fast asleep that she gingerly got up from the bed, picked up her teddy and crept into the sitting room.

Once she was dressed she scribbled a note, thanking him for a lovely evening, and saying she would see him on Monday. She didn’t know whether she hoped he would call her over the weekend, because she didn’t know how she felt. Except to say that the disloyalty she had shown Annalise was already weighing heavily on her conscience.

Whether or not he did call was in the end irrelevant, since, for the first time since she’d left, she summoned the courage to go home to Amberside. But before she set out on Saturday morning she called Annalise. The phone rang for a long time until finally a disgruntled voice came onto the line. It was clear that Annalise was struggling with a
near
comatose hangover, but Corrie didn’t regret calling, she had needed to reassure herself that Annalise hadn’t done anything stupid. She could go off to Amberside with an easy mind now, at least as far as her fears for Annalise went she could. As to her feelings for Luke … Not even now, in the cold light of day could she say what she truly felt, which was why she was on her way to see Paula.

‘I’m speechless,’ Paula cried, as she took in Corrie’s new look. ‘Absolutely speechless.’

‘Oh good,’ Corrie laughed, ‘that’s the kind of compliment I can handle.’

‘Isn’t she a picture?’ Uncle Ted, who had picked her up from the station, was grinning with pride.

‘You look bloody fantastic,’ Dave declared, as he embraced Corrie. ‘What’s happened? You fallen in love, or something?’

‘Or something,’ Corrie answered with a mischievous twinkle.

‘Dinner at our place tonight then,’ Uncle Ted said, getting back into his car. ‘Hattie’s looking forward to seeing you. Incidentally, how’s Annalise? You two hitting it off, are you?’

‘Oh, uh, yes,’ Corrie assured him, unable to meet his eyes. ‘Yes. Just great.’

‘Good. Now, we’re expecting you around seven thirty. Don’t for heaven’s sake be late, Hattie’s been preparing for this all day.’

‘You mean she abandoned the shop?’ Corrie gasped, with mock horror.

‘I was in charge today,’ Paula answered. She turned to Ted, ‘so tell Hattie from me that it’d better be a banquet she’s rustling up over there. I’ve been rushed off my feet.’

‘No?’ Corrie cried.

Laughing, Paula shook her head. ‘Same steady old flow.
Now
come on in, we’ve got your old room all ready for you.’

‘But that’s Beth’s room now,’ Corrie protested, trying to ignore the clenching of nerves in her stomach as she followed Paula into the cottage. It still smelt of Edwina and as Corrie looked around she felt a sudden rush of tears.

‘I guessed it might take you a bit like this,’ Paula said, hugging her. ‘But it’s all right to cry, you know. After all, she hasn’t been dead that long.’

‘In some ways it feels like a lifetime,’ Corrie sniffed. ‘So much seems to have happened in such a short time.’ She suddenly grinned through her tears and Paula looked at her curiously. ‘Boy have I got a lot to tell you,’ Corrie said.

It wasn’t until they had returned from Hattie and Ted’s and Dave had decided to go off down the pub for a last beer, that she and Paula were finally alone together.

‘Oh my God!’ Paula cried, when Corrie made her confession. ‘Tell me every detail. No, no. Wait! I think I’m going to faint.
Luke Fitzpatrick
! I can hardly believe it. What was it like?’

‘Well, it was … OK.’

‘OK?
OK
! You go to bed with a man as gorgeous as Luke Fitzpatrick … I was expecting fireworks at the very least.’

‘To tell you the truth so was I. But … Well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly what I …’

‘No, don’t let’s just say anything. Let’s have the whole story! From the beginning.’

Paula was listening with such rapt attention as Corrie told her about her night with Luke that it was all Corrie could do not to laugh. Clearly Paula was even more overwhelmed by it than she was. Though Paula did frown a little when Corrie told her about the telephone call from Annalise.

‘He probably did the right thing,’ Paula said. ‘I mean, what else
could
he do? You were there, and it wouldn’t have
been
very nice if he’d just got up and left you to go to see another woman, would it?’

‘I wouldn’t have minded.’

‘Liar.’

‘Seriously, I wouldn’t have. Remember, I got up and left myself in the end. Anyway, what do you reckon to all that dirty talk?’

Paula’s eyes rolled back in ecstacy. ‘Sounds like heaven,’ she drooled. ‘Mind you, I have to admit I’d have been a bit shocked myself, what with it being the first time. I mean, usually that kind of thing only happens when you know someone quite well. Still, if you move in those circles I guess anything goes. It must have blown your mind.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose it did in a way, but I still didn’t … Paula, tell me honestly, you don’t think there’s something wrong with me, do you?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Well, I mean, you read so much about sex and all that’s supposed to happen, you know the earth moving and all that, and I end up going to bed with someone like him and … Well, as I said, it was OK, but … I think I must be doing something wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘Well I don’t seem to be able to, you know.’

‘Come?’

‘Yeah. You don’t think all these women who write about these mind-blowing orgasms are just making it up do you?’

Paula shook her head.

‘I thought you might say that,’ Corrie said dismally. ‘So tell me where I’m going wrong.’

‘You’re not. It just takes time. It was ages before Dave could make me come, I had to show him how to do it.’

‘What!’ Corrie said aghast. ‘Are you seriously suggesting I tell Luke Fitzpatrick how to make me come?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’d die of embarrassment, that’s why not.’

‘No you wouldn’t. Once you get to know him better he’ll probably guess that you’re faking it anyway, then he’ll ask what it is that turns you on. You did fake it, didn’t you.’

‘It was an Oscar winner,’ Corrie lied, not wanting to admit that there hadn’t appeared to be any need for it. ‘Anyway, we might as well leave this conversation right here, because there won’t be a next time.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding! Why not?’

‘Annalise.’

‘Oh yes. Well, you know what they say about all’s fair …’

‘But I’m not going to war for it. So let’s change the subject because I’ve got some even more amazing news.’