‘He was mine, though, Oz; he was my bastard. Wasn’t he?’
‘No, Susie,’ I told her truthfully. ‘He was his own; or he thought he had to be; that’s why he did what he did. He saw a chance to have it all, and he took it.’
As she gazed at me, her face creased with a wicked smile. ‘If it was good for him, then, it’s good for me.’
Lightning fast, she threw an arm round my neck, closing the space between us, and kissed me. I was taken by surprise, and I was off balance, so I couldn’t prevent myself from being rolled on to my back. She slid on top of me, way up on top, reaching down with her free hand. At first, I thought she was trying to rip off my boxers, but there was no need. They were no impediment at all.
I know that I could have picked her up and thrown her across the room, even as she thrust me inside her; no, I know that I should have done just that. But some things happen so suddenly and so unexpectedly that you don’t react logically, or morally, or anything else. . you just react.
In this case, I can only remember feeling myself getting bigger and harder, until I seemed to explode, at the very moment that she started to come on top of me, thrusting and gasping, drawing her orgasm from my life-juice as it pumped into her. Then, with a last, climactic shout, she collapsed, spent. It must have taken only seconds, that was all, the whole frantic act; yet the sudden violence of it left me stunned.
For a long time, afterwards, Susie couldn’t look at me. She just lay there, astride me, as I slowly subsided, clutching me tight, with her face buried in my chest, baptising me with her pent-up tears, which had finally found release. I lay there, numb, looking up at the ceiling. I felt like an idiot, which I was. I also felt something I had never even imagined before. I felt like a victim.
There was no point in acting like one, though. She slid off me eventually, down on to the bed once more, her back to me this time. She was still shaking with her silent sobs. I heard her whisper something.
‘What is it?’ I asked her.
‘I’m s-sorry,’ she cried out. ‘I told you I was a selfish, manipulative wee bitch, didn’t I?’ Whether she was or not. . and Prim would have agreed with her, that’s for sure. . she wouldn’t have been helped by me telling her that. I put my hand on her shoulder, the one she’d hurt in her fall, and rubbed it gently.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said, quietly. ‘You’ve been through a terrible time, Susie love. You’re not going to make me call you names.’
‘Make love to me again, then,’ I heard her mumble.
‘No, I’m not going to do that either.’ Instead, I put my hand between her shoulder-blades and eased her over until she was lying face down, turned away from me still. I could see that the muscles of her back and neck were bunched and tight, and so I began to massage them, slowly but firmly, drawing the tension from them. There was a bottle of her body lotion, unpacked the day before, I assumed, and lying by the side of the bed. I picked it up, squeezed some down her spine, and began to rub it gently into her shoulders, her back, her buttocks, her legs. As I worked, she began to moan softly, as if I was soothing more than her muscles.
Once I had worked my way down to her feet, I turned her over, with her arms spread wide. She didn’t speak at all; she just lay there, eyes closed as I oiled her shins, her thighs, her belly, her big full breasts. All the time, she continued to make her sound of pleasure, and to move, very slightly, beneath my touch, matching its rhythm.
When I was finished, she opened her eyes, and looked up at me for the first time. She looked cleansed; that’s the only way I can describe what I saw in her eyes. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, and she smiled.
Lazily, she stretched her arms above her head, then brought them down to rest on top of her thighs, her hands framing her diamond of bushy red hair. As I looked at her, I felt myself stirring again; and my lower brain began to engage itself. Then something caught my eye, something I had missed until that moment.
Susie’s skin is porcelain white, like that of most natural redheads. On each arm, just above the bicep, I saw a wide purplish mark, round, almost like a bracelet. ‘What are those?’ I asked. I must have sounded sharp, for her smile vanished at once.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed, and lifted her right arm, gently. I leaned down to look at the mark, then drew her over on to her side so that I could have a better look at its twin. ‘Sit up, Susie,’ I said. She did, awkwardly, her back bent forward. I looked at the marks again. ‘Now stand up for a minute.’
Again, she did as she was told, looking puzzled but without a word. I stood behind her and put my hands on top of the marks, fingers reaching round her arms; then I gripped them and lifted her up on her toes.
‘Ouch,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s sore.’
Curiosity got the better of her at last. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
I relaxed my grip, lowering her, but kept my hands in place. ‘In the last few days, has anyone touched you like this, lifted you up in this way?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Aye, but somebody has, wee one. You’ve got bruising on your upper arms, nearly all the way round, just where I’m holding you. Someone, or something, has grabbed you hard enough to leave marks.’
‘Could it have been you last night?’
‘It wasn’t. I picked you clean off the floor, remember.’
She looked over her shoulder and up at me, puzzled. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m not certain yet.’ I slapped her gently on the bum, in a way that would have to cease and desist from now on.
‘You go and have a shower, and get yourself dressed. I’ll do the same. I have to think about this.’
21
I thought long and hard about the whole business as I stood in the shower. Okay, she’d been hurt, she was dazed, she was frightened and, if she’d been sleepwalking, I’d been right to share her worry about her safety, but for God’s sake, there’s looking after, and then there’s looking after. .
I guessed that Susie had been giving serious thought to what had happened as well. Her face is oval, strong-featured, and cheerful, normally, but when she came into the kitchen it was almost tripping her. ‘What do you fancy for breakfast? ’ I asked her.
She looked at me as if I’d offered her a choice between hanging and electrocution; maybe it was just the start of a hangover after all. ‘Coffee,’ she said slowly. ‘Just a nice strong cup of coffee, that’s all.’ She was dressed in tight tan trousers, and the same red sweater she’d worn the day before, a hell of a long way from sackcloth and ashes. As for me, if I’d had a hair shirt I’d have put it on, rather than my Ralph Lauren polo.
The old-fashioned percolator was completing its simple steam-driven process, even as she spoke. I filled her a mug, handed it to her, and pointed to the fridge. ‘Milk’s in there,’ I told her, as I poured my own.
We sat on either side of the breakfast bar, letting the heavy silence build up as each waited for the other to say something. I cracked first.
‘Aye,’ I muttered, ‘the things you do for your friends, eh.’
She looked into her mug, as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to start crying again, so I let her off the hook. ‘I’m sorry, Susie. I should never have put us in that situation. I should have known better, but when you asked me to stay with you, I thought, well us being pals and all, and you being scared, well I thought …’
Her eyes came up and held mine. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and when I wakened up and saw you there with your dong hanging out of your boxers, I just thought well, us being pals and all. . Don’t tell me you never shagged a pal before.’