Personal Protection (4 page)

This conversation was going nowhere. He said, “I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Keep me updated?”

“Always.”

“Ciao for now, then.”

“Ciao.”

I hung up.

Tori smiled at me, her bruised-looking eyes spoiling the image. “That wasn’t so painful, was it?”

“All right, I was acting like an adolescent boy. I’m sorry. Just kick me if I do it again.”

“No way! You might kick me back! And your martial arts training gives you an unfair advantage.”

“I’d never..!” I stammered, horrified.

She pulled me close and held me tight. “I know you wouldn’t. It was meant to be a joke. In very poor taste. You’d never do anything like that. I never meant to imply you
would.”

I never physically fight with my affairs. I don’t always know my own strength but I do know what I’m capable of. Even play-fights can degenerate into real violence. I never want any
woman to accuse me of that. Another reason why this crime was all the more heinous. That a woman might have done this.

Even my lovemaking tends towards the vanilla. I only penetrate a woman if that’s what she wants, and then I only use my hands. Or my tongue… And nobody gets to penetrate me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a stone butch. I like somebody to return the favour. There are just some things I won’t do. Fucking a woman with a foreign object is one of them.

I realise this makes me old-fashioned. I mean, what is a lesbian without her brightly coloured silicone strap-on? Put it down to age. If a woman wants cock she can be with a bloke. I’m in
sex for sex, not power.

Tori brought me out of my introspection. “Will you take me home?”

“We’re going to my place.” She was going to give me an argument if I didn’t nip this in the bud. “We don’t know whether they’ve found out where you
live. Perhaps they’ve staked it out, and are waiting for you to come back. I’m not happy with your security.” I’d been trying to persuade her to upgrade her alarm system for
weeks, without success. “I don’t want to be jumping at shadows all night and neither do you.”

“I wouldn’t with you there to protect me.”

“Low blow, babe. You know I sleep like the dead. If I stay, I’ll have to spend the night on a kitchen chair to stay awake.”

She sighed.

“I don’t want to wake up in your bed only to find someone trying to stave in my skull with a baseball bat.”

That was enough to convince her, so back to my place it was. My apartment is like Fort Knox: one of the benefits of working in the security business. Nobody gets in without the keys and the
codes.

She settled back into the seat and watched me drive. I was hard pressed to keep my mind on the road. Being stared at by someone who loves you and is undressing you with their eyes is a
wonderful, highly erotic thing. It’s also very distracting. I ran two red lights before she smiled and turned her face out of the window again to let me concentrate. The last thing we needed
was to be picked up by the traffic detail.

I don’t live in Cleveleys. I work in Blackpool, but live in St Annes, about twenty minutes away down the Fylde Coast, with high property prices and subsidence problems. One day, like
Venice, we’ll all wake up to find ourselves afloat.

I shared the top floor of a long low building off St Anne’s Square, in a quiet area near the park, with Ashley Hayes, (tall, blond, interesting, but male) a mature law student. He seemed
OK, but I often wondered how he afforded the place. Every student I’ve ever met either had rich parents or didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Maybe he had a nest egg
that allowed him to go back to school or something? Or perhaps his barrister lover, Cecily Richmond, was keeping him. He and I had only spoken in passing so my curiosity remained unsatisfied.

Cecily is one of my exes. Her flexible sexuality had as much to do with our break-up as her predilection for bondage and sadism, and we didn’t have an equable parting. Her taking up with
Ash had led to some ugly scenes on the landing.

Luckily my downstairs neighbour (and owner of the property) was more into security than Tori was. Persuading him and Ashley to find a third of the cost of the alarms and locks I’d
installed hadn’t been too difficult. If I could get him to chill out and cheer up (he was always banging on the ceiling complaining about the noise) the place would be perfect.

I installed Tori in my apartment and went back to the car for the quilt and her ruined clothes. I didn’t imagine we’d get any evidence from them, but Tori might want them, if only
for a ritual burning.

When I returned Cecily was blocking my way. Her hand came out to toy with my tie. The bitch once choked me into unconsciousness with a tie she’d bought me as a Christmas present. Waking
handcuffed to my headboard, because I wouldn’t fight back for fear I’d hurt her, to find her standing over me with a paddle, is one of the low points of my life. Sometimes my feelings
about violence towards women are as much a hindrance as a help.

“Hi, lover. Busy?”

“I’m always too busy for any sick little game you have in mind, Cecily. And I haven’t been your lover for a very long time, if I ever was. Get out of my way.”

“So butch! Grown a dick yet, have we?”

She reached for my crotch. I took an involuntary step back and almost fell down the stairs. She smiled as I struggled to get my balance.

She looked like the perfect designer dyke: long blonde hair and red lipstick, power suits and high heels. That was what had attracted me in the first place. (So sue me! I like high-maintenance
feminine women!) But her obsession with dungeon sex made my skin crawl then as much as it does now.

There’s some history between my past and present ladies. The lesbian population in this town is fairly small. Eventually you find a few girlfriends in common with your current beau. I
wasn’t sure what went on between Tori and Cess. Tori’s job meant she didn’t get out on the scene much, so where they met I had no idea. All I knew was it was around the same time
Tori started going out with me. Nothing came of it. Every time they meet the claws come out. It’s like being trapped between two sparring cats. All spitting and raised hackles. It would have
pissed me off if it hadn’t been so damn funny.

My encounters with Cecily were less humorous. I never knew what to say to her. I pushed past her and slammed into my apartment. The echo of her vicious laughter made my ignominious retreat
worse.

In the apartment Tori saw my expression. I turned away too furious to try and explain. She was having none of it. She plucked the bundle of cloth from my arms tossed it aside and caught my chin,
tilted my face up and back, then stepped away consideringly. “Cecily?”

Still beyond words, I exhaled noisily and nodded.

She came back and slipped an arm around my waist and pressed herself against me. “What am I going to do with you?”

She scraped a fingernail along my jaw. I shivered with desire. Her hand cupped my skull, fingers feathering through my cropped hair. She drew my mouth down to hers.

Her other hand dropped between us to unzip my fly. My eyes, which had closed when she kissed me, snapped open. I tried to pull away but she tightened her grip. Her eyes were open, watching my
expression, needing to know I still found her desirable, wanted to be touched by her, no matter what had happened to her. I stopped struggling. She slid her hand into my damp underwear. I caught my
breath. Her fingers began an insistent rubbing. I tried to hold her eyes but I couldn’t.

My head tipped back and my eyes closed, my breathing nothing more than staccato catches… Then I was somewhere else: a place of white noise and blood-red light, where the body I inhabit
every day was replaced by a single nerve ending, pure sensation that began and ended with Tori’s fingers. A throbbing pulse built and built until it reached a crescendo and carried me away.
Tori had to shift her hands quickly to hold me up as my knees buckled. I came, and came back to myself, drenched. She propped me against the door, kissed me, then licked her sticky fingers, zipping
up my fly as an afterthought.

“You looked as if you needed that, and I… I needed to know I still could.”

“Glad to be of service.” My voice was a hoarse croak.

She tried out a smile. It didn’t touch her eyes. “Are you OK to stand by yourself?”

“I think so.”

“Good, then if you don’t mind, I’ll take that bath. Perhaps you could find the gear I left here last time? Much as I like your clothes, they do smell of petrol
fumes.”

“Point. They’re heading for the laundry. I keep meaning to put them in a plastic bag but I never get round to it. Go ahead; I’ll bring your stuff.”

“I was rather hoping you’d keep me company.”

“Are you sure?”

“Randall,
you
didn’t hurt me. I don’t think you’re capable of hurting women that way. Right now the idea of soaking in a bath full of bubbles with your arms around
me has a particularly strong appeal.”

Shit, what can you say to that? I went for the safe approach.

“OK, I’ll be there. Go and get started. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve found your clothes.”

I only had a shower cubicle, toilet and wash basin in my bathroom, because of the size of my apartment. A couple of years ago I’d read an article on space-saving designs and the place now
had an almost unique feature. The bedroom area was on a raised platform with a false floor. The double bed slid sideways on runners giving access to a sunken bath. Tori was in love with the idea.
She thought it was great that she could spread the bed with a pile of bath towels so that we could go straight from the fun in the water to fun on land without having to get dry in between.

By the time I arrived with her clothes, the bed was awash in the deep white pile of bath towels. Candles added an intimate light to the room. The scent of some aromatherapy bath oil complemented
the aroma of the beeswax church candles. I felt the tension melt out of me. I was disarming the smoke detector when Tori came out of the bathroom wearing one of my robes, carrying a pack of
sanitary towels. Her eyes were dark holes in her face.

“You’re still bleeding?”

She nodded unhappily. I set her clothes down out of the way, hugging her again.

“Do you really want me in the bath with you while I’m like this?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I told her firmly. “‘Granny’ recedes in water. If it’s more than your period brought on early, we need to know. You’ll need to see a
doctor.”

She whimpered and curled into my shoulder.

I stroked her back. “We’ll give it a day or so. See what happens. If it doesn’t stop and it doesn’t turn into a conventional period, I promise I’ll come with
you.”

“I’m sorry to be such a child about this,” she sniffed, close to tears again.

“You’re not! In your place, I’m not sure I’d be dealing with this half so well.”

“You’d never get into this position in the first place.”

“I’ve been close! Cecily…

She looked up. “What?”

I shivered. “It’s not something I like to remember.”

“Please. It would help me to know that I’m not the only one. If it’s even happened to someone as capable as you…

Shit. Well, if it would show her I understood what she was going through. “OK. Get in the bath. I promise then I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Warm water lapped around us. I sat with my back against the enamel, she between my legs, facing the taps. I worked my fingers into the tension knots in her neck and shoulders. She allowed this
quiet pursuit for a time, then leaned back. I was forced to stop. Crushing my breasts pleasantly between us she said, “So tell me.”

Tori has an interesting way of sugaring the pill, I’ll give her that. I slipped my arms around her, cupping her breasts, stroking the buds of her nipples with my thumbs to temper the
bitterness of my memories.

I met Cecily two years ago as she came barrelling out of court number one at the Old Bailey. She was working for the Crown Prosecution Service, celebrating her first case and
her first win, having successfully nailed my former client to the wall. (I didn’t know he was a gangland king pin when I’d taken the job. Story of my life.) She had just thrown her wig
into the air with an unseemly whoop as the doors closed behind her. I caught the wig and her simultaneously. I set her back on her feet, took one look at her and knew.

My suspicions were confirmed when she allowed her hand to linger just a moment too long on mine as she reclaimed her wig. Then she openly checked me out. I was flattered.

“My chambers, half an hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied as she sauntered off, inordinately pleased with herself. Perhaps I should have taken the hint then, but damn it, I had just gone from being her prey in
the witness box to being the prey of a sexually aggressive dyke in the middle of a bastion of straight law. It was one hell of a turn-on. I could not refuse.

It took me forty minutes to find her office. The building was a labyrinth I was unfamiliar with. I should just have followed her after she’d propositioned me. But I didn’t want to
seem too eager.

“You’re late,” she snapped when I knocked and let myself in.

“So sue me.”

“I just might!”

She stalked around me, tracing appreciative fingers across my shoulders.

“And there I was thinking it was padding. I’m impressed.”

She dropped her gown. She wore nothing but her long blonde hair.

“I’m impressed, too.”

“Then perhaps you should show me how much.”

I did.

“We never really had a relationship as such. She’d just call me up whenever she wanted sex. Anytime. Middle of the night. Four in the afternoon. First thing in the morning. Lunch
time. I’d never had sex in so many strange places nor so publicly – you know I’m not an exhibitionist.”

“It must have been very exciting.”

“It was at first,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t satisfying. Don’t think you have to compete with her memory.” I hugged her to emphasis my point. Cecily’s
bizarre demands, unpredictability and desire for increasingly rougher sex had become too much. “It came to a head when she asked me to wear a strap-on and bugger her. I refused…