‘For me?’ She is frowning.
‘Yup.’
Her eyes are narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘I think he hates Sorab’s godmother to live on a council estate. He was kind of put off by the syringes and the smell in the stairwells.’
‘What do you mean by for me? What happens when your 42 days are up?’
‘You still get to keep it.’
She breaks into a mad grin. ‘A flat right in the middle of classy Little Venice just for little ole me? Wow. You know what, if he hasn’t been straight as a die in all his dealings with you from the moment he met you, I’d never believe it.’
‘Well, it’s in my name at the moment, but as soon as our business picks up and you stop being on the dole, I’ll transfer it into your name.’
I hand her the papers.
She looks at them. ‘Wow, who’d have thought?’ She lifts her face to mine. There are tears in her eyes. She blinks them away proudly.
I smile at her. ‘And you know what is even more exciting? Blake has agreed to pick up the decorating tab. You have carte blanche to decorate it in any way you want.’
‘I just don’t know what to say, Lana,’ she says suddenly.
‘Is it worth messing your nails for?’ I tease.
‘Can you put that child down for one moment,’ she asks gruffly.
I put Sorab into his stroller and she envelops me in a bear hug. ‘Thank you, Lana. I know you don’t pray, so every day I get down on my knees and I pray that everything will work out for you,’ she whispers in my ear.
I pull back. ‘You do?’
She nods solemnly.
‘Thank you,’ I say, and smile. Grateful that she is my friend.
Twenty-three
Day 17
He made me lie on the bathroom floor and gave me a hot coffee enema. Twice he administered it. It was uncomfortable. And twice I sat on the toilet until there was no more to void, and I felt strangely light and cleansed.
At the edge of the bed he pushed me back and holding onto my thighs he spread my legs wide and pinned them on either side of my head. My lower body rolled up to accommodate his needs. Now nothing was hidden from his eyes. Completely exposed to him, I looked into his hooded eyes,
He laid his palm on my open sex.
‘You are very damp,’ he said, and immediately after sank into my wet cunt.
He buried himself deeper still. I cried out, but he only said, ‘You were made for me. This body was made to take me and only me. When I am finished with you there will be no part of your body that I will not have been in or on. Every fucking inch of you is mine and mine only.’
He pulled out of me and without taking his eyes off me smeared his thumb with lubricant.
‘Now lie down on your face and present yourself to me.’
I turned over and lay down with my cheek flat on the mattress and my butt rounded and pushed up towards him.
‘Spread your legs more for me.’ I obeyed and he slowly inserted his thumb into the ring of clenched muscles.
‘I own this,’ he said, dipping it in and out. In and out.
Strange, but not painful. Pleasurable even. I knew what he was doing. He was stretching me. Touching the sensitive walls, pressing on vital nerve endings until my body began to move restlessly on the bed. Now he knew I was excited and ready.
He covered his erection with jelly and began to press it against me.
This time I cried out in protest. A sharp, unfamiliar pain. A frisson of panic in my lower belly. He is too big. I won’t be able to take him.
‘You have to relax,’ he said. ‘Let me in… Pain has possibilities, holds a different kind of pleasure.’ His voice was low, seductive.
I wanted to take him in, but my muscles remained clenched, uncooperative. He could not have moved an inch further.
‘You have to trust me, Lana,’ he said and reaching under me began to stroke my clitoris. I began to tremble. Taking advantage of my distracted state, he pushed suddenly into me.
The pain was immediate and sharp, and I screamed out, but he had become motionless, to allow my body to absorb the foreign intrusion, the strange sensation of hot fullness. When he judged my body had come to accept him, he pushed all the way in.
I moaned restlessly.
There was still pain, but more than the pain was the pleasure of being taken by him. In that position that I should have considered debased and humiliating I found decadent pleasure.
He began to move inside me and I couldn’t help the strange animal sounds that came out of me. Firmly gripped by my rectum and the foreignness of what we were doing he came fast, spilling his seed deep inside me, crying out my name. He buckled against me, but he did not pull out of me. Instead he reached over and began pleasuring my clit.
‘Clench your muscles,’ he said and I obeyed.
The unfamiliar sensations of pressure and pleasure coursed through my body. I climaxed, shaking and trembling, as quickly as he had. For some time he remained inside. When he pulled out of me I was sorry. I wanted him back inside me. He belongs inside me.
Every part of me cries for him when he leaves.
I put the pen down and close my journal. Nowadays, I write without resentment, eagerly, because it is the only real and honest communication I have with him. I feel him distant. Moving away from me. Something is bothering him. The days pass away in a haze of sex—it seems to me more like a desperate desire to physically meld with me, to forget for a while whatever is troubling him.
Once he woke up, drenched in sweat, shouting hoarsely, almost sobbing, ‘Not her, please.’
When I touched him, he turned to me with wild eyes, and recognizing me, fell into the crook of my neck gratefully, and hugged me so tightly, I whimpered. But when I asked him about his nightmare, he whispered in my ear, ‘Just don’t ever leave me.’
As if I would ever leave him. As if it was me that set a limit of 42 days on our time together.
Twenty-four
Billie calls. She wants me to drop Sorab off for the afternoon. She is lonely. She misses him. I leave Sorab with her and go to Sloane Square. I want to buy a pink shirt for Blake. It’s a sort of joke. He thinks pink shirts are sissy, and I think they are a turn-on—only really macho men can carry them off. I find the shirt I want and I am about to return home when I suddenly stop in my tracks.
Rupert Lothian.
There are two men with him, business types in dark suits. He must have just had lunch with them. For a moment we are both so surprised neither of us speaks, but he is first to recover.
‘What a lovely surprise,’ he says smoothly, and lays a heavy, proprietary hand on my arm. And grasps it. I try to shake him off unobtrusively, but he tightens his hold. He turns to the two men and tells them he will call them later. They call out their goodbyes and leave together, and Rupert turns his attention to me.
‘I was wondering, just the other day, what the devil happened to you. How’ve you been, gorgeous?’
‘I’m fine, but I’m late and I really must be going. It was nice to see you again, though.’
‘What’s the rush? Come and have coffee with me,’ he invites. His voice is genial and wheedling, but I still have the memory of his oyster-flavored saliva pouring down my throat, his finger digging into my crotch, seeking rough entry. If only I am big enough and strong enough to be able to say, ‘Don’t stop, don’t look at me, don’t touch me. Walk on by.’ But I am not big enough and I remember the sheer male strength of his rugby player’s hands as he pinned me against the wall and abused me.
‘Perhaps some other time.’ I take a step back, but he refuses to relinquish his hold on my hand. ‘Are you still with him?’