The impact makes me shudder and my breath catch in my throat. My mouth opens in a soundless cry. I draw a breath quickly. Prepare myself for the next swift thrust of pleasure. It comes before I am ready. This time I cannot help it, I utter a strange cry, but my muscles are already clenching him and sucking him even deeper into my body.
He sets up a rapid pace. Every wild plunge into my depths has me jerking in response. Slowly I am lifted higher and higher until I am standing uncomfortably on the tips of my toes, my hips tilting higher and higher, wanting more and more of the gloriously thick invasion. My thighs and calf muscles are so tense they start to ache and my heart is beating so fast I feel it thudding like a drum inside my ribcage. My sex becomes a greedy, hungry mouth sucking at him.
I force myself to hold my body in the same position while he hammers into me until, with one last painful thrust that I register at the base of my womb, he calls my name and finds his climax. His cum is slick and hot inside me. For a second his nose nuzzles in the crook of my neck and then he rouses himself and pushes away from me.
I don’t turn to face him, but slowly set my heels down to the ground and push myself away from the wall. I will gather myself a tiny bit more before I turn again to face his condemnation. I feel weak, raw, bruised, abused, vulnerable, but…satisfied. I should have felt shame, but I don’t. I love this man.
I turn around slowly.
He is dressing quickly. While buttoning his shirt with his back to me, he says, ‘I will get Laura to send you a morning after pill.’
A stray thought. A bit late for that, mate. If he knew. If he only knew. I say nothing, suddenly feeling my nakedness. Soon he will be dressed and I will be the only naked one in the room. I begin to walk to the bathroom.
‘Wait,’ he orders. I long to cover myself, but I do not. He cannot humiliate me. I will not allow it.
When he is fully dressed he turns and looks at my exposed body. It is masked well, but it is still there, the hunger. Still now. When he has just been satiated. So much remains that my eyes widen. It is the same for me: I want him again. I am just as helpless to the call of his body.
But he turns away from me.
I watch him go to the side cupboard and pull out a book. It is covered in leather. Looks like a journal. He tosses it on the bed next to me. ‘This is for you. I want you to keep a record of everything I do to you.’
‘Why?’ I whisper.
‘For my reading pleasure?’
‘That’s just sick. I’m not doing it,’ I say.
As if I am a life-size doll he picks me up and tosses me on the bed. I land on my back with a bounce, but I stare up at him defiantly.
He stands over me. His face is hard and forbidding. Very gently he touches the necklace.
‘You’re nothing but skin and bone,’ he says, almost to himself. His hands reach for my ankles and lifting them up he opens my legs into a V. Turning his head to one side he kisses my right ankle and runs his hot, velvety tongue along my calf. My breathing quickens. At my knee he stops and sucks the tender skin at the back of it, and then that cunning tongue licks on to my inner thigh.
‘How much do you want me to taste you?’ he whispers.
As an answer I moan and try to push my sticky legs further apart.
‘No, ask me nicely.’
‘Yes, please,’ I beg.
‘Please what?’ he asks enjoying his dominance and control. His finger lightly circles my wet opening.
‘Oh God…please, please… Taste me,’ I beg shamelessly.
‘Will you write your journal?’
‘Yes, yes, I will.’
He straightens his arms and holding my trembling legs open wide he looks at my sex, swollen and drenched with both our juices, a glistening treasure.
‘Cunt,’ he dismisses, and letting go of my legs leaves the bedroom.
I had heard him tell Tom to wait downstairs, so I knew he was not going to stay the night, but I still flinch when I hear the front door shut. I cup myself between my legs. Slick and sore and unsatisfied. I want more.
Ten
That night I dream of my mother. In my dream we are in a shop. It is very similar to Madame Rêgine’s boutique, but it is full of wedding dresses. My mother points to a long dress that is ripped in half. ‘That’s perfect for you,’ she says.
‘But it’s torn,’ I say.
‘That’s how Victoria likes it,’ she says sadly.
I wake up disturbed and unhappy. I have never spent a night away from Sorab and I miss him terribly. It is four in the morning and it is dark outside. I get dressed in the jeans and T-shirt that I arrived in and leave the apartment. I exit the lift and the night porter nods at me. I return the gesture and open the doors.
The air outside is crisp and fresh. I walk along the side of the block, cross the road and enter the park. Then I begin to run. There is no one else around and I run until I am breathless and so weary I can barely walk. Then I stumble onto a park bench and watch the sun come up. My thoughts are jumbled. I refuse to put them in order. I am actually afraid of them. Afraid of the future.
A man and his German shepherd come into the park. It is off the lead and it runs at great speed up to me.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he shouts. ‘She won’t harm you. She’s just a puppy. She wants to be friends.’
She jumps up on my knees and starts licking my face. Her exuberance is such that I break out in laughter. Oh, if only life were so simple. I look into her gold-brown eyes and run my fingers through her silky coat feeling the wild life that is coursing through her body. In contrast, I feel drained and jaded. As if I am a husk left on the mill floor. After a while the man whistles and she bounds away, but the exchange has left me lifted as I walk back to the apartment. The night porter is getting ready to go home. Soon Mr. Nair’s shift will begin.
I stand in the shower for ages. When I come out my mobile is double blinking. Fleur has left a message that two racks of clothes, shoes, and accessories will be arriving at 10:00 am. I am to choose whatever I want and somebody will come and pick up anything I don’t want at 5:00 pm. I am to call her if I need any help. I text back to thank her. Then I text Billie.
Are you awake?
Billie calls back. ‘Hey.’
‘Oh good, you’re awake,’ I say, happy to hear her voice.
‘Yeah, the little monster got me up early.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Shouldn’t you be asking me if I’m all right?’
I laugh guiltily. ‘Hey, you want to come around about tenish. Fleur is sending some clothes for me to try on. You can help me decide which to keep.’
‘That’ll be fun.’
‘I’ll call a minicab for you for ten.’
‘Got to go. The creature has just started wailing again,’ she says. ‘But see ya tenish.’ I hear Sorab’s cries in the background just before she terminates the call and feel a sharp pang of loss. That should have been me. That’s my life. Not stuck all alone in an empty apartment. I know that Billie is enjoying her time with Sorab. With her, true affection is masked by insults. Hello, Repulsive, she will say to her lover. I realize that I already miss him too much. Maybe tomorrow I will tell Blake it is my turn to babysit Sorab. And have him with me for two days.
At nine thirty I invite Mr. Nair up for a coffee. He comes through the door holding his I’m the Boss mug, his eyes bulging with curiosity.
We sit at the kitchen counter. ‘What happened to you, Miss Bloom?’ he asks.
‘I had to go to Iran suddenly.’
‘Oh! No wonder. Poor Mr. Barrington. You broke his heart,’ he states, enlarging his eyes dramatically. I watch him bite into a biscuit. Crumbs land on his jacket. I look at them, but my mind is spinning.