Transgressions (33 page)

“Oh!” It was her turn to laugh. “Oh, that was what hurt, was it?”

“Did you fake it with him, too?”

She tossed the question away with an angry wave of her hand.

“I said, did you fake it with him, too?”

“No,” she said after a while, her voice as quiet as his shout. “With him it was for real.”

“So what was his trick? Did he ask your permission?”

“He didn’t have to. He just wanted me. As opposed to needing me all the time.”

This time he hit her. Not hard—he was a pro in such things—but enough to knock her backward onto the bed. He climbed on top of her, pinning her hips down. She stared up at him, then tried to move her pelvis. He slammed his weight back down into her. This time she froze. Something passed between them. They both felt it: heat as a kind of physical shock—desire and fear flooding into each other and fusing like a chemical reaction.

“So?” he said at last, almost under his breath. “Want rather than need? And how do I do that, eh?”

She shook her hair back onto the bedspread and lifted her hands up above her head in a deliberately provocative gesture of surrender. “Why don’t you use your imagination?” She paused. “And watch what you do with my hand.”

She kept her eyes on his face as he moved his way down her body, pulling away the clothes until she was naked apart from her panties. He used his tongue to massage her nipples, then ran slow fingers down over her stomach, tracing the arrow line of dark hair that ran from her navel until it disappeared under the edge of the elastic. He pushed a finger underneath. She shivered slightly. He removed it again. Then, moving the heel of his palm slowly over her panties, his hand reached her crotch, playing and probing until he located what he was looking for. He rubbed his forefinger over the material into the point of her clitoris. She started to move into his touch. He got into the rhythm, his gaze still hard on her face. She became moist through the silk. She let out a slow gasp and closed her eyes. He stopped. She opened them again, a question on her lips.

“You like that,” he said, the voice almost cold, a statement rather than a question. She nodded, a little unsure of this other Jake. “Then keep your eyes open, lady. I don’t want you fantasizing about somebody else here.”

His fingers started again, the material wet now beneath his touch. She felt the slow tension of orgasm building inside her. She made a move to reach up and kiss him, but he pushed her down again.

“You want me yet?” he said, watching her lips open and hearing her pull in an uneven breath. She laughed, then shook her head, starting to move herself up against him. “Then stay still.”

She let out a small moan. He played with her more, then as he felt her excitement accelerate he pulled at the top of her panties, yanking the material hard up into her slit. She gasped. He cupped a hand under her ass and lifted her buttocks off the bed, one hand holding her up, the other probing and rubbing. He watched her as she came, his face impassive, enjoying the power as much as her pleasure. Then he moved his head down and pushed the material of the crotch to one side, using his tongue.

This time when she climaxed the sensation was almost too intense to stay with. She broke free to get her breath back, curling up away from him onto her stomach, her damaged hand hitting the blanket as she did so. She let out a yelp of pain.

He reached up and pulled down a pillow. “Here,” he whispered gently. “Lay it on here.” She did as she was told. “And keep your mouth shut. I told you, I don’t want to hear your groans.” They both knew he was talking pleasure and not pain.

He slid his knee high up under her thigh, pulling her toward him until she was lying half across his lap, her hips off the ground, ass in the air. He slipped his fingers back into her from behind, in and out and over. In, out, over. She was so wet now they could both hear it. “Now that’s what I call an erection,” he said softly, as she pushed her clitoris hard against his fingers. “Come on, baby. Let’s do it again.” This time when she came her whole body was shaking. When it was past she tried to slide herself around to face him.

“Uh-uh,” he said coldly. “Not unless you’re ready for me.”

She gave a little moan.

He slapped her lightly on the ass. “Does that mean yes?”

“Yes.” The word coming out breathless as she began twisting her body toward him again.

But as she moved he held her back down. This time he stroked her before he hit her, once, twice, then again—sharp rhythmic slaps, hard enough to hurt. She gasped but made no move to pull away.

“So tell me. I want to hear you say it.”

The slap that followed was harder still.

“I want you,” she whispered, and this time they both felt her arch her buttocks off his legs toward his hand. He laughed as he caressed her ass. “Me or this?” And the next slap was loud enough to make her groan.

“Oh my God.” Her voice was hoarse with desire. He slapped her again, then slipped his fingers into her and shoved her up onto her knees until he straddled her doggie-fashion. And as his cock pushed inside her he felt a long shudder go through them both.

“Oh Christ.” Hard to know which one of their voices it was. It was over so fast it had them both gasping for breath. “Shit,” he said. “Shit. Sorry. Sorry.”

She threw her head back into his shoulder. “No. No, it’s fine. It’s fine.” And she laughed.

They lost their balance and fell sideways together onto the bed. He let out a huge gasp, then curled himself around her, hugging her tightly into him. She put out her good hand awkwardly behind her and tried to hold him. “See,” she said. “See. You don’t have to be old and wrinkled to do it properly.”

Outside, the clock chimed one. The beginning of a new day. Christmas. As good a time for a new start as any other. “So,” he said after a while. “Do you think I should try for a job in the diplomatic service? We could always live in Prague.”

She smiled. The locks were off now, on the doors of her heart as well as her body. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.”

He turned her over. “What? You think we’re going to sleep now?” And he slid his hand down toward her.

twenty-three

S
omeone threw a snowball against the windowpane.

The thud made her jump. She looked up, still dazed from their lovemaking, trying to separate herself from her words. From the back gardens she could hear the yells and shouts of children. She rose slowly from her seat. She felt dazed, her legs shaky, as if the moment of release had been shared and she didn’t want to be the one who got up to make the tea.

Pulling aside the sheet she saw the smear of melting ice crystals on the glass. A few seconds later another thump hit nearby. They were coming from next door. She could hear them all out in the garden: Mum, Dad, little Jonny (was that his name?), and friends, snow and laughter flying everywhere. She saw the child’s face again, pressed against the window. He’d be tired, having missed so much sleep. But it wouldn’t matter, the excitement would see him through. The same could be said of her.

She went to the computer and scrolled back to halfway through the scene. Their joint lust rolled out in front of her. Did she really write that? She tried to imagine him reading it. Could you fuck like that? She didn’t know who she was talking to. Him or herself. She read it again. It wouldn’t work. Despite its flirtation with dominance the pleasure was too mutual. Erotic violence wasn’t real violence. There was too much desire and not enough fear, not enough panic. She should try it again. Make it nastier. Make it hurt more. Either that or go back to the original. But that was dead prose, unthinking, traditional—the final rocks-off/I-love-you fuck for the man who had everything, including a wife turned on by his macho ways with a gun. He wouldn’t be attracted by that. It was even more sentimental than love.

No, this was what she had written and this was what he was going to read. Anyway, what point was there in offering him another rape? He could get that any night of the year. What he wanted was the stuff he couldn’t have. The cocktail of fear and complicity. You’d better be sure, she thought. You’d better be sure. On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me . . . five gold rings, two turtledoves, and a garbage bag full of discarded lovemaking. This present wouldn’t even need a label.

She pushed the print button and watched while the screen notched up the page numbers. Seven, eight, nine . . . Could sex really take that long? Her eyes picked up the odd sentence.

“—this time they both felt her arch her buttocks off his legs toward his hand. He laughed as he caressed her ass. ‘Me or this?’ And the next slap was loud enough to make her groan. . . .”

Was this really what she had intended? Or had this been the booze talking? If she put the scene to one side now and took a nap, she would have sobered up and changed her mind when she woke up.

The last page hummed its way smoothly out of the printer, the pages still warm from birth. At least the invitation was clear:

“Outside, the clock chimed one. The beginning of a new day. Christmas. As good a time for a new start as any other. . . . The locks were off now, on the doors of her heart as well as her body. . . .”

No, after a nap it would feel like the composition of a madwoman, demented courage and no brains. All the more reason for doing it now.

Across the back gardens his window was dark. Sleeping like a baby, no doubt, secure in the knowledge of the pain he had caused. She picked up the papers and stuffed them into a used brown envelope. Then on the front she wrote in big scrawled letters: “Jake and Mirka. Last scene, first draft.” Just another method of filing text. When you got to the final revisions you threw the first drafts away. How were you to know what kind of perverts go through your rubbish bins?

She did it immediately, afraid that her courage would desert her if she hesitated. Outside, daylight and a hundred dirty footmarks had taken the shine off the snow. A middle-aged woman was casting salt like biblical seed along the sidewalks while the road had become a sled run for half a dozen children old enough to be let out without fear of abduction. She opened a black bag that was already full and laid the envelope along with some loose pages of script casually on the top.

She kept up a surveillance point from the front window. An hour or so went by. She was beginning to feel the need for sleep. A couple walked by with a baby in a stroller followed by a man in a raincoat and a gaggle of teenagers. Nobody stopped, nobody looked at the garbage. Why should they? If he walked by now, would it be the first thing he saw? Or would it, perhaps, look too contrived? She imagined him standing by the gate, eyes darting into the bins, spotting it there so tidy and inviting. Would he read it on the street, or wait till he got home? Would he know it was for him?

Of course he would. Phone messages, visits, pet mutilation. They were having a relationship, why pretend otherwise? In which case, why bother with the garbage? If she wanted him to read a letter, she should deliver it to his front door. How else could she be sure he’d get it in time?

She threw on a jacket and walked quickly out, head down into her collar, lest anyone should later be able to recognize her. She needn’t have bothered. She passed few enough people on the street, and those she did were more interested in staying on their feet than checking out the traffic around them.

The steps up to his house showed the faint imprint of his boots, overlaid with a fresh covering of early morning snow. He hadn’t gone out since his return. She placed her own feet in the existing prints, sliding her soles about to blur the patterns. Amazing what you think of when you have the time. Is this what policemen do—find themselves playing the game even when there’s no game to play? She held the envelope up and was just about to push it in when she realized that it didn’t have his name on it. Of course he would know it was for him, but what would happen if someone else got there first? She hesitated. Was this caution or cowardice? If you want this guy to visit you, you have to invite him in. Only make it too obvious and he might not come. The letter stuck to her fingers, refusing to make its way through the box. She turned on her heel, her shoes making careless new marks on the snow, and headed for home.

Her heart was still thumping when she turned the corner into her street and saw the figure outside her front door.