Thrill Seeker (3 page)

‘Hold me,’ I said to Liam.

From behind, Liam embraced me, strong arms tucked beneath my breasts. My heart was still banging at a rate of knots. I felt drained of strength. Liam’s arms reassured me. Cool rivulets trickled between our bodies and when he pressed his lips to my neck, it felt as if his mouth were melting over my skin. Water dripped from my hair and streamed down my spine. My silk slip clung to me. Beneath my feet, the slate steps were cold and wet.

A fork of lightning split the sky, a silent, jagged bolt
illuminating the world. A few seconds later, thunder crashed so hard it felt as if the ground were being torn in two.

‘It’s moving inland,’ said Liam. ‘Getting closer.’

I clasped his arms, making him squeeze me tighter. His grip crushed my ribs but there was nothing he could do to quell the thrill of my fear.

In my twenties, my father died, and shortly after that I embarked on a low-sex relationship that lasted for six years. Six sodding years! I wonder now if I was craving security after my bereavement and after what had happened with my piano tutor, Alistair Fitch.

Impossible to say. But crazy to think how long Jim and I stayed together in Dullsville. We met as students in Manchester, moved south together after graduating, and both thought we’d found ‘The One’. That’s a hard dream to let go of so, who knows, I might have clung on, irrespective of my past. During our last two years, Jim and I forgot how to fuck. We were practically pandas. We didn’t even kiss. I’d make a play for him in bed and he’d say, ‘Not tonight, Natty. It’s a bit much.’

I began to feel I was a bit much: demanding, over-sexed, irritating, and on top of that, unattractive. So I stopped trying. Difficult to see what Jim was getting from the relationship. He said he loved me but I think most of all, he loved an easy life.

When we broke up, I emerged blinking in the sunshine
with my desire and confidence in tatters. I was barely alive. For months I lived in a daze, too scared to rebuild myself in case I discovered I was made of nothing and had no foundations on which to build. My life was over. I was emptied out. Here lies Natalie Lovell, age twenty-seven, loving daughter, sister and medical curiosity, a woman made of meringues, cobwebs and shadows of the dead.

Then a woman brought me back to life. She was a gift from a friend. I lay on a massage table in a warm, dimly lit room, my face resting in the table’s hole. I was staring into the abyss, wearing a pair of paper knickers, and trying not to fret about being alone with a stranger. From the speakers came the faint twitter of birds, and in the air hung a cloying scent of spicy oranges. I was stiff and reluctant until she touched me. Her firm, oiled hands moved across my back and I remembered I had a body. For too long, I’d been living in my head and heart, all choked up.

With slow expertise, my life-saver stroked and kneaded, rubbed this way and that, told me my shoulders were full of tension. My skin hummed under her fingers, my nerve-endings drawing in sensation, synapses firing. She pressed and pummeled, making me wince in pain, but I liked it. I grew loose and floppy. When she smoothed her hands down the sides of my body, she skimmed the bulge of my flattened breasts. For the first time in months, I felt that old stirring in my groin. I imagined her continuing, rolling me over and paying as much attention to my front as my back. I wanted her healing hands everywhere. I barely knew this woman but it wasn’t her I wanted, just her touch. The touch of anyone who cared enough to give me pleasure.

I left the treatment rooms a different person. Nothing had happened, no funny business. But I’d re-established a
connection with my own body. I’d remembered the simple joys of physicality, of skin on skin, of silencing the chattering mind and taking pleasure in touch. Maybe I started to give off a different vibe after that, I don’t know. But a few weeks later, no major effort required, I was dating Grant, a guy who reminded me sex can be life-alteringly glorious and that getting off was no bad thing either.

On our first night, Grant blindfolded me, fixed my wrists and ankles to all corners of his bed, told me to relax and enjoy. I swear, I felt like paying him afterwards. He had massage oils, velvet gloves, warm breath, clever hands and, it seemed, all the time in the world.

‘What’s that? Ah, ah, what is it?’ I kept saying, frustrated by my sightlessness.

‘Doesn’t matter, just enjoy,’ he cooed.

‘Tell me, oh God. I don’t think I can cope.’

He laughed merrily.

At one point, I was pulling on the ropes, begging him to tell me what he’d done. He’d been kissing my shoulders, my breasts and then, from nowhere, one of my nipples was enveloped in a blanket of heat. It wasn’t a fiery, intense heat but a deeply comforting heat. My nipple glowed, the warmth radiating into the tissue of my breast. Then it happened to my other nipple, and I was lost.

‘Please tell me what that is.’

He chuckled.

‘Please,’ I cried. ‘I have to know. What are you doing?’

He’d capitulated on that one, telling me there was a glass of hot water by the bed. He’d been filling his mouth with the liquid then sliding his lips around each nipple. ‘And that’s all I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘No more questions. You’ll spoil it for yourself.’

I have to confess, after his explanation the sensation wasn’t as wild. Grant was right, I shouldn’t have asked. But gradually, I relaxed, allowing him to stimulate me inside and out. He didn’t seem to care about his own pleasure – getting his kicks, instead, from mine. To be honest, that aspect did get weird after a few dates. Soon, I was aching for him to lose control, to be so overwhelmed with lust he’d grab my hair, pin me to the kitchen counter and bang me six ways till Sunday. But no, ‘Just lie back, Natalie, enjoy.’

When he came, he barely made a sound. Sex was a polite, luxurious affair. I started to feel bad for wanting it badder. Harder, nastier, dirtier. Unfurling inside me was a craving for unfathomable, dark satisfactions. The nicer Grant was, the stronger my hunger for something other, for a sexual passion capable of dismantling me. Soon, I was wanting to re-live the lust that Alistair Fitch, with his sharp eye for vulnerability and his predatory guile, had drawn from me all those years ago in his cluttered, blue music studio. But this time, I wanted to seek my own pleasures, to taste them without dread, shame and confusion.

Was I kinkier than most people? Quite possibly. But ultimately I figured Grant had control issues and anyway, if I was kinkier than most, I simply needed to find others in my minority. A doddle, no?

Grant and I weren’t meant to be but I’ll be forever grateful to him for instilling in me the need to avoid that dead, sexless jail that had trapped me for so long. He made me take stock and, over time, I became deliberately bolder. I realised I had two choices. I could stick my neck out and start being honest about my desires, or I could suppress my feelings and remain in the closet, hoping someone would eventually find the door to let me out.

Basically, I could live or die; or at least, live a life not fully realised. Giving up on certain aspects of yourself, the parts others might find distasteful or threatening, is the easiest thing in the world. It’s the safest route, the path of least resistance. But I was starting to feel if I followed that track of inertia, my lost and abandoned fragments would return to haunt me. I’d end up restless and frustrated, hunting for the flawed, shining jewels shame and doubt had made me bury.

After my father was diagnosed, he said, ‘And I never got to see the Northern Lights.’ Everyone in the family insisted he still had time. We’d book a cruise for him and Mum, and he could sit on the deck, a tartan blanket on his lap, gazing up at the dances of a shimmering green sky. Of course, there was no guarantee the lights would show but at least we’d have tried. But stage four stomach cancer had other ideas and Dad left us, age fifty-two, with too many dreams unseen.

I didn’t want to be like that, ticking along and pinning my hopes to a future which fate could snatch away. I wanted my Northern Lights, damn it. If my candor scared some guys off, then clearly they weren’t for me. And I would never have met Baxter Logan if I hadn’t embarked on a policy of openness, although I’m not sure that constitutes a recommendation.

But now, after my home had been broken into, I feared I’d pushed it too far. Had I, in talking so freely about my fantasies and desires, become a bit much? Had I lost sight of what was appropriate? Safe?

Behind me in bed, Liam stirred. He rolled away from our spooning, his hand dragging sleepily across my breasts. My back was damp. I fought the urge to roll after him for comfort, instead sliding my leg towards his to maintain
contact with his body. My safety anchor. Tomorrow night, I would be alone. And the night after that.

No, Monday evening I had a date. If it went well, maybe I wouldn’t need to sleep alone. Oh, what an awful thought! I couldn’t go on a date in the hope of snagging an unsuspecting bodyguard. Besides, dates rarely went well for me, my first date with Baxter being an enormous exception.

I should tell Liam. He’d stay over if I asked. He wouldn’t want me to be scared.

But I didn’t want to involve Liam. He knew my kinks, more or less, and while he didn’t share them or feel able to cater to them, he was cool with what I wanted. But this was on a different scale altogether. We weren’t talking bondage and roleplay. Some guy I’d never met had found my address and broken into my house.

I lay on my back, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to get a grip. Regret kept lurching in. I’d been seduced by the intimacy of the internet, hadn’t I? I’d revealed too much with scant regard for who was on the other side of the screen. Without knowing who he was, I’d trusted him.

Too late now. You can’t unsay what you’ve said.

Damage limitation, then.

I could call the cops. That would be the sensible option but I knew I wouldn’t for two main reasons. One, nothing much had happened and if they were to take the threat seriously (and yeah, as if they would), I’d have to tell them about our emails and risk having my sordid, sexual fantasies used as evidence in an enquiry. Or worse, my words would get passed around the police station and they’d all be sniggering, thinking, ‘The dozy mare, what did she expect, telling that kind of stuff to a stranger? And whoa, what a slapper!’

No, I needed to keep this to myself.

But there was a second reason why I didn’t want to involve the law or mention anything to Liam: I liked this man being closer than I knew. I liked the threat. I’d told him I got off on the idea of being afraid and not knowing what lay ahead. And now it was happening, I liked the actuality of it too. Paradoxically, it made me trust him more. He’d tapped into the heart of my fantasies by making me vulnerable and afraid, by showing me he was capable of playing by uncertain rules. I remembered him saying, ‘It’s the psychological aspect I’m most drawn to.’ I guessed he was trying to mess with my mind.

It was a good start and a bad one. He’d breached my privacy, had over-ridden the need for a conversations where you negotiate likes and limits. I mean, I’m not exactly immersed in the BDSM scene but, hello? Safeword, anyone? Oh, he’d overstepped the mark on so many levels. Warning lights should have flashed but, romantic fool that I am, I thought his intrusive actions meant he recognised the need for a corresponding leap of faith from me.

Yup, this guy was so smart, so in synch with my sexuality we were practically telepathic. I could trust him to do the right thing, went my dubious, over-eager logic, because he was doing the right thing already. Besides, he was taking a major risk too. I could have called the cops. FancyFree, the dating site we’d met on, would be ordered to hand over his details, his ISP, or whatever it took to trace him, then
bam
!

But I didn’t call the cops, did I? I even hid the note from my friend and made out everything was fine.

Clever, crafty man. He knew I wouldn’t tell a soul.

I had to wait until Liam had left mine the next morning before I could check the break-in wasn’t a dream. I knew it wasn’t. I
hadn’t slept so how could I dream? So maybe everything was a dream, even this part now where I was going down to the kitchen to check it was for real.

The air was fresher after the storm. In the watery, late morning sunlight, my fears eased. I was careful to wear shoes in case we’d missed clearing up some glass. I opened the back door. Rory roused herself from the adjoining spare room and padded into the garden, white-tipped tail swaying loftily. I watched her tiptoeing among the foliage, tentatively sniffing plants as if the world were new to her and she needed to be on her guard. A puddle of water on the round table was molten gold, the sun caught in its mirror. Edging the garden walls, trees and ivy gleamed a deep, forest-green. Everything was calm and ordinary.

Leaving the back door ajar, I dug out a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink and removed from the cutlery drawer his note, with its old school, ransom-letter aesthetic. A few water droplets beaded the plastic covering. Awkward in gloves, I removed the sheet of paper and held it up to the window, looking for clues.

CLOSER THAN YOU KNOW

I slipped off my right glove and picked at the edge of one of the glued, newspaper letters. I didn’t want to add too many fingerprints of my own in case the cops ever needed to dust the document. Underneath the glued letter were words from an article. I sniffed the paper, trying to scent the adhesive or him. I examined at the underside. Nothing but fragments from newspapers showing faintly through the white paper. I returned the note to its plastic envelope and slipped it into the drawer where I keep foil, string, birthday candles, receipts, vouchers and other stuff I should bin.

I snapped open a tin of Felix so Rory would return and I scanned the garden. Empty. I locked the kitchen door and looked around me.

Window closed. Check.

Cat safe and sound. Check,

All alone in the house. Check.

I headed upstairs to the living room, switched on my laptop, sat on the sofa and logged on to FancyFree. Despite the warmth, my fingers were shivery on the keyboard. Would Kagami have contacted me?