Sam was due to look at a house owned by a woman who had been
recently widowed. She had culled his number from Yellow Pages, and he envisaged
a clearance job, most likely. Nothing very fancy, but possibly one or two
interesting bits to ice the cake.
He ate a sparing lunch, a green salad followed by a black
coffee, to ensure he would be alert and free from any alcohol or food smell -
he was fond of garlic, but found that it sometimes turned prospective customers
against him. He felt brisk, and on form, a man of 45, in the prime of his life,
tall and slim, single and a touch predatory since his divorce, a man with an
easy professional charm, prosperous in a comfortable sort of way.
The house was quite large, set back from a quiet suburban road
in its own garden. Victorian perhaps, or turn of the century, and a good
prospect. He licked his lips expectantly. It was the kind of house that might
well yield up any number of unexpected thrills. He parked in the drive, and
smoothed his hair, practising his very best smile, before locking his car carefully.
The driveway was still and silent, lined with rhododendron bushes, but one
could never tell. He always counted security as a top priority.
The front door of the house was a primrose colour, possibly not
long painted, smart against the toning magnolia rendering. The small electric
bell rang distantly, and he glanced at his watch. He was dead on time, but
prospects were often rather less punctual. He rang again, fidgeting a little
impatiently.
The door opened. A woman stood facing him, about his own height
and age, with an oval, rather severe face and cool eyes, and a mass of auburn
hair piled into a bun that strayed in places as wayward golden tendrils. She
was dressed simply, in a sand coloured shirtwaister cotton dress, pinned at her
left shoulder with a gold cobra brooch.
"You've come about the furniture?" Her voice was both
question and confirmation, as cool as her eyes.
He nodded, sizing her up.
She smiled neutrally, in polite formality. "You'd better
come in."
The hallway was bare, a long space leading to a flight of stairs
rising to a small landing and a passage to the back of the house, with buff
fitted carpeting and magnolia walls sunlit by the landing window. Somebody had
already taken several small floral watercolours down from the walls and stacked
them neatly against the hallway wainscoting.
Sam glanced at them casually. Nice colours, nicely carried out,
perhaps a fiver or a tenner apiece to buy, possibly fifty apiece in his pocket
at auction.
The woman pushed a door open, and he followed her into a
drawingroom with a sofa and two armchairs pushed together into a group in the
middle of a fairly interesting carpet, and fenced about with a small writing desk,
an accompanying upright chair, two quite large pictures in gilt frames,
Victorian portraits by their appearance, but none too brilliant, and a small
bookcase. The rest of the room was empty, barring only more buff coloured
fitted carpeting, buff linen curtains, and a telephone perched awkwardly on a
windowsill.
"My husband died suddenly, I'm moving to a smaller
house." The woman spoke in a detached sort of way, as though talking about
events quite outside her.
Sam nodded sympathetically. So far he was up to somewhere
between a grand and a grand and a half to sell, maybe three hundred at a pinch
to pay. Good solid stuff, but nothing very thrilling. He glanced at the woman
out of the corner of his eye. She had a prosperous look about her, no shortage
of cash. Perhaps a hundred and fifty, or else a couple of hundred, might carry
the day. He licked his lips again.
"I'll show you the diningroom and then the kitchen, then we
can go upstairs." She gestured towards the door, but he waited politely
for her to lead the way. Courtesy frequently sowed blessings in his dealings
with women.
She smiled faintly again in acknowledgement, and he realised
that she was really quite goodlooking in her severity. There was something in
the way she moved ahead of him, a certain lithe grace in her body that sparked
a small fire in him. But he suppressed his desire. He was here to appraise
furniture, and drive a good bargain. Warmer thoughts could wait.
The coat stand stood in a recess off the passage, under the
stairs. He made to pass it almost without thinking, and then stopped,
delicately sniffing the air.
He could smell the scent of toy balloons. A rubbery, outdoor
smell, the smell of mackintoshes popular in the Fifties and early Sixties. It
was an odour that aroused him sexually, a secret trigger. He put his hand out
and felt the satiny texture of a raincoat hanging on the stand, pushed his hand
a little further, and found his fingers sliding along a cool, smooth lining,
and for a moment he was lost.
He could feel desire, some deep inner force, calling him into
the recess, a desire to bury himself in this scent and these textures, and it
was an urge almost too powerful for him to resist. He hesitated momentarily,
ears tensed for observation, listening for the woman, and looked along the
passage. But he could see and hear nothing. The passage was empty, the woman
must have walked on. His mind whirled, conjuring images of fetish dreams, and
he leaned forward, resting one hand on the stand, to bury his face in the
mackintosh for a brief attempt at fulfilment.
Then he heard a light cough, and pulled himself back. The woman
had returned, and was watching him. He looked at her quickly, and then down,
feeling himself flush, avoiding her eyes. He could feel her assessing him, and she
was now the appraiser, and he was her booty. He realised that he was still
holding onto her mackintosh, and hid his hands behind him as though they had
committed some crime.
"I see you're interested in more than my furniture."
The woman's voice was even, but it held a slightly mocking tone.
He nodded reluctantly, not looking up. "I'm sorry. It came
over me suddenly." He felt trapped, and his mind whirled in confusion. Why
had the woman spoken? Was she encouraging him, leading him on? Was she offering
him a sexual encounter? He was engulfed by doubt, with the purpose of his
visit his only certainty. He took a
deep breath. He must pull himself together, before some foolishness could tempt
him, and pave a way to thoughts of abuse, assault, and worse. He had a vision
of the woman pursuing him out of the house, screaming on his heels, clearances
quite forgotten. He was here to cut a deal, and make himself a bob or two, no
more, no less. He must remain calm, and free.
They surveyed the diningroom and kitchen in silence. He held
back, a step or two behind her, and could sense himself cringing. Now he was a
puppy at her heels, and he knew that he would have to pay her far more than his
original assessment. He would be a victim, rather than a winner, and he would
surely bleed.
Neither diningroom nor kitchen held much excitement - an
indifferent table, a set of unremarkable chairs, a couple of prints and the
common utensils of a modern household.
They returned along the passage, and he held himself deliberately
away from the coat stand in the recess. Discovery had bereft it of its secret
appeal, and made him look a fool. Now it was something for his memory to
suppress.
The woman stopped at the foot of the stairs. "Do you want
to make me an offer?"
Her voice held the same
slightly mocking overtone, and for a moment he felt himself tempted almost
irresistibly by a need for confession
and expiation. He was swamped by a desire to explain his moment of weakness, to
justify himself, fall on his knees, and beg the woman's forgiveness. But he
knew that he was thinking nothing but foolishness.
He looked around wildly, seeking some tangible salvation.
"What about upstairs?"
"Upstairs?" She echoed the word thoughtfully.
"I'm not sure you want to go upstairs."
Something in her voice signalled that they were quitting a
conventional world for some strange new territory. He wondered for a fevered
split second of time whether the house had more secrets, and felt an excitement,
the challenge of something unknown, and yet perhaps desired, but knew as well
that he was seeking too much. He counted rapidly in his mind, assessing margins
and marketability, and focussed on a figure.
"I'll give you three hundred and fifty for the stuff
downstairs. Maybe upstairs would make it a bit more."
Now the woman laughed. "Everything downstairs?"
He felt himself redden again, and they stared at each other,
each taking measure.
Then the woman nodded. "Perhaps you're right. I'll show
you."
The landing on the upper floor of the house was prim and a
little severe in the same buff and magnolia tones as the ground floor, with a
second small stack of floral watercolours stacked against a bannister. Two
bedrooms and a bathroom echoed propriety in subdued shades of pink and green,
and he knew with a sinking feeling as he inspected them that none would add
more than marginally to his profits.
A third door was shut. He tried the handle, to find it locked,
and realised that the woman was watching him closely, with a strange, almost
obsessive, concentration.
She started, as though she had been far away. "Do you want
to look in there?"
He nodded. Now he knew that the house had more secrets.
"You will have to go in." She spoke distantly, as though
setting out a rule for some kind of game. "You will have to stand in
there, and be in there."
He nodded again. Now he was curious with an overwhelming
curiosity, and he knew that his curiosity must be sated.
She held out a key.
He opened the door slowly,
half in fear, half with a kind of inexorable fascination. The room was without
light. But it reeked of the same toy balloon smell as the ground floor
passageway recess.
"The light is on your left." He could sense the woman
standing just behind him, very close behind him. He raised his hand, and
touched the wall, and realised that it was covered with a cold smoothness,
slippery to the touch.
The light came on as a dim golden glow, and he could see that
the room was windowless, or with windows hidden behind the wall covering, with
a bed in the centre of the room covered in sheeting reflecting the glow,
together with what appeared to be a rail of garments, and a chest covered with the same sheeting as the
bed, and the bed and the garments reflected themselves dimly through large
mirrors facing each other across the room into a myriad reflections.
"This was my husband's secret room." The woman's voice
was low now, even reverential. "He liked to be naked in here."
Sam trembled. He was filled with desire, but his desire was
unformed and uncertain how to secure its fulfilment.
"I think you must be naked as well." The voice behind
him was quiet, and even, but pressed him inexorably. The woman had closed the
door to the outside world, and he could feel her breath on his neck.
He undressed slowly, lifting his shirt up over his shoulders
before unfastening his belt. At one point he paused, and made to turn, but the
woman's voice cut him short.
"No."
It was a sharp reprimand, and he did not try again, bending
awkwardly to take off his socks, making a small pile of his clothes on the
fitted carpet. He straightened, and a hand touched his spine, fingertips
tracing gentle nail tracks down to his buttocks.
"Now you can turn round, and undress me."
The woman had closed her eyes, and her face was as impassive as
that of a statue. Sam began to unfasten the shirt buttons on her dress, and
felt her tremble slightly, like a nervous horse. She was prettily formed, with
small rounded breasts cupped in the soft fabric of her bra, and he stroked his
fingers softly under the material, feeling for her nipples, to rub each lightly
between forefinger and thumb.
Then he moved closer to her, and kissed her.
The woman trembled again, but she did not open her eyes. He
kissed her again, and he felt her lips part, and the tip of her tongue dart out
at him, and he pressed harder on her mouth, willing her to respond to his
rising passion. But she maintained her coolness.
He raised his arms to encircle her, but she pushed them away,
and he pushed her dress down to her waist, and down over her hips, and her
pants with her dress, and now he was erect and rampant, and his penis was
pressing against her. He took one of her hands, and encircled her fingers around
him, but she took her hand away, raising both her hands to his shoulders, to
pull him down gently, until he was kneeling in front of her, with his face
close to the hairs at the meeting of her legs, and she was leaning against the
wall behind her, and he was pushing the tip of his tongue into her vagina.
After a moment she pushed him away. "Now you will dress
me." Her voice was still even, but now it held a note of hoarseness.
She walked to the rail of garments, to pick off a long hooded
cloak in a gold satin, handing it to him. The cloak had the same cold smooth
touch of the mackintosh on the coat stand, and he held it gently as she slipped
it over her naked shoulders, watching as though mesmerised as she fastened it
at her neck and pulled the hood over her head.
She reached out to touch him, taking him by the hand and leading
him to the bed. Then she opened the cloak, pulling him against her and closing
it again behind him, so that they were enclosed together in a hot, breathless
sauna of skin on skin, and sweat running together with sweat. She was now
breathing faster, panting a little, and they fell back together on the bed, and
he searched with his fingers for her vagina, imperative to enter her, but she
twisted away from him, sweeping a latex sheet over him, making a cave around
her body, and he could feel her mouth on his penis, and her tongue on it, and
her teeth gently surrounding it.
Her teeth tightened a little, so that they were enfastening him,
and he tried to pull back, but they gripped him firmly, hard enough to prevent
him pulling free, hard enough to cause pain. He twisted in a bid to free
himself, but he was held beyond escape. He could feel fear mounting in him,
coupled with a peculiar elation. Now she was hurting him, but the pain held a
cutting edge of ecstasy, holding him captive on a knifedge between joy and
terror.
"Make me come." Her voice was a hoarse whisper, a
command from the depths and ultimate of passion.
He began to lap at her like a cat drinking milk, probing with
his fingers into her warm wet smoothness, seeking a key spot where his
stimulation might unlock his release.
The woman moaned a little, writhing beneath him. But she did not
lessen her grip. He tried to pull free again, but her teeth tightened on him,
and her tightening brought even more pain. He lay still, and her grip eased a
little, and he probed with his index finger at her anus as he lapped, caressing
the edge with small circular movements,
and he could feel her tensing in expectation, and suddenly she jerked upwards,
moaning again, unbiting him and releasing him, and he was free.
He could feel her limp and sated beside him. He swung his body
round, struggling with the sweaty stickiness of the latex sheets enclosing him,
and raised himself to position his body over her. Now it was his moment, and he
would match the pleasure he had given her by taking a pleasure all for himself.
He drove his body down towards her. But suddenly she was gone. He
was alone on the bed, pressing himself impuissantly into the sheet beneath him,
and he heard a mocking laugh.
"You have more to do yet." The woman had rolled
sideways out of the bed, and was now standing about a metre away, enclosed in
her golden cloak. He could not see her face, but her voice had returned to its
even coolness, and it was plain that she was playing some kind of game with
him.
He lay panting, somewhere between fury and frustration, and
gathered himself together in his stickiness. Two could play games.
"You think you were cheated, don't you?" She laughed
drily. "It is not always a man's world."
Now she was standing over the chest, and lifting the lid. Sam
wondered if she wanted him to take her by force. He was not a violent man, and
he had never struck a blow in anger. His greatest display of emotion in twenty
years of married life, before his divorce, had been one single shouting match,
just before the end, when he had learned that his wife had been having affairs
with two of his best friends. The affairs had apparently been common knowledge
to everyone but him, cuckolded to provide others with laughs, and the pain of
ridicule had pierced him deeply. But he had given up and walked out, preferring
calm to wrangling, and Alice had gone to live with Mark, leaving him the house.
He had weathered the storm, and perhaps he had gained from his loss.
He pushed his naked leg tentatively out of the bed. The woman
was not far from him, merely a jump away, and it was a challenge. He could sweep
himself free from the latex sheets and hurl himself at her, overpower her and
take her by force on the carpet. He tensed himself.
The woman took something from the chest and turned to face him.
She raised her arm suddenly, thrusting her golden cloak back from her shoulder
so that she exposed the right side of her body. He could see the curve of her
breast and the line of her leg, and she was holding something long and thin,
like a narrow rod.
He heard a whistling sound. The woman had brought her arm down
sharply, and the sound was the sound of a cane, something he had not heard
since school, and had never thought to hear again.
"You want me, don't you?" She held the cane in front
of her, pointing it towards him. "I can please you, but it must be on my
terms."
Sam hesitated. He could still hurl himself at her, but he knew
that he would destroy all opportunity by so doing, unless he tried to rape her,
and succeeded in taking her by force. But rape was beyond the rules of the
game, and would not only put him at major risk, but would also jeopardise all
his potential profit.
He swallowed.
The woman shook her head slightly, and the hood of her cloak
fell back. She raised both her arms to the back of her head, her cane hooked
around her wrist, and shook her head again, and her hair fell free on the
golden satin. Now the cloak was hanging behind her, secured by the fastening at
her neck, and her litheness was a provocation and a challenge.
"How about like this?"
Sam could feel himself engorging again, and knew that he could
not deny himself. He bent his head slightly in submission.
"Good." She came a little closer to him, raising the
cane to touch his navel gently. "You must kneel in front of me and pay me
hommage."
He knelt awkwardly, tensing himself, but nothing happened.
"Now bend forward and kiss my feet."
He bent forward slowly, placing his fists on the carpet,
balancing himself on his knuckles, pressing his lips gently on one foot, then
on the other. The cane whistled softly in the air, and stung at the base of his
spine. It was a light blow, a mere symbolic gesture, but he clenched his teeth
as his flesh enflamed.
"Now straighten up." The woman's voice was harder now,
and commanding.
He came up slowly, waiting for her to strike again. But nothing
happened.
She stepped closer, lifting his chin with the tip of her cane so
that he was looking up at her. Her body was merely a matter of centimetres in
front of his eyes, and he could smell the rubber scent of her cloak, sickly
sweet in a room wholly and completely suffused with sickly sweetness.
She smiled down at him. "Now we are nearly there. You must
be brave."
Sam closed his eyes. He felt the woman's body press against his
face, and damp hairs against his mouth. He opened his mouth, waiting for a
fresh command, but suddenly she was gone.
The first blow caught him across his shoulders. It was not hard,
but it was a progression. Then a second burned into his back, and two more
caught him at the base of his spine and across his buttocks, and each blow was
harder, in an escalation of pain. He clenched his teeth again, to prevent
himself crying out, and he was back at school, suffering punishment to create
some savage joy for another, and his only imperative was to suffer in silence,
and not cry out, to show no weakness and yield no surrender.
The room was silent. He remained tense, eyes shut tight, on his
guard, prepared, and felt a hand touch his shoulder gently.
"Did you find that exciting?"
He realised that he was still engorged, and that his pain seemed
only to have heightened his expectations."
"I was rather brutal." The woman's voice had shed its
hardness. Now she sounded gentle, even apologetic. "Do you want to take
your revenge on me?"
He opened his eyes. He had no wish to do anything but fulfil
himself, to penetrate, and to be satisfied. He shook his head.
"Ah." Her voice was a sigh. "But you want
me." Her words were both question and affirmation, and he felt her hands on
his back, tracing the welts she had made. Her fingertips were soft and
soothing, caressing him.
He got to his feet. His back was a mass of dull fire, embers of
her burning, but it was a pain in the past, and now he was due his suffering.
The woman had dropped the cane and stood waiting for him, her
eyes on his. He reached out to touch her breasts, cupping them in his hands,
and she was motionless. He bent forward to kiss her, and her lips parted with
his lips, and her tongue was a servant to his desire.
He pressed forward on her, and she stepped back towards the bed,
gathering her cloak around them, to sidestep as they reached the sheeting,
standing at his side.
"Lie down, and I will pleasure you." Her voice was
just a whisper of sound, a frail breath in the heavy atmosphere. She unfurled
her cloak to place her hands on his shoulders, pushing him down, until he was
lying on the bed, and then lowered herself to sit beside him, making a tent of
her cloak again as she bent over him to take his penis in her mouth once more,
cupping his testicles with her hands and caressing under them just as he had
caressed her breasts.
He felt her tongue on the gland of his erection, and her teeth
encircling him, biting him gently, and then she took him further into her
mouth, biting harder, and a little harder, until she was almost, but not quite,
causing him pain, and the small movements of her tongue and the fractional
tightening of her biting were exciting and alarming him at the same time, so
that he stayed at the threshold of full pleasure, never quite bursting the
barrier.
Then she stopped and lifted her head, shaking her cloak away,
and he could see that she was smiling down at him.
"I think it's time now - if you want to enter me."
He moved to raise himself, but she shook her head. "Let me
take this off first." She reached up to unfasten her cloak and shook it
away from her. Then she lay back, lifting her right leg and bending it at the
knee.
"Come into me from underneath. It will be easier for you,
and you won't drop out if you go limp."
Sam closed on her slowly, gently. He could feel her fingers
guiding him, and then he was sliding into her, and he was enclosed in her
warmth, and it was a pleasure of all pleasures, and he caressed her breasts and
nipples as he pushed up into her, and she curved her body and pulled him
against her so that their mouths came together again, and the movement of their
tongues echoed the movement of their bodies. He made to withdraw a little, to
establish a rhythm of penetration, but she grunted, locking her legs to hold
him in place, and he was hard against her, and she was rocking herself on him,
and it was a rocking that could continue forever.
She began to grunt again, and move her body faster, and her voice
rose in a sharp keening, and he began driving himself hard to match her rhythm,
and suddenly they were both spent.
They lay side by side, each lost in their own minds. He reached
out to caress her, but she rolled away from him.
"I must have a shower." Her voice was once more
matter-of-fact and cool and even.
"That was nice, really good." Sam spoke for the first
time since entering the room. It was a plea for continuation, for further joy.
But the woman merely sniffed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She
got to her feet. "You can shower after me." It was plain that the
game had ended.
Later he spoke again, when he had dressed, his back still aching
from the pain she had inflicted, asking her permission to return. But the woman
shook her head. She was dressed in her sand shaded dress again, with her hair
neatly piled up once more.
"No." She smiled, but her eyes were unyielding.
"You can come back to collect the furniture, and pay me. But that is
all."
Her voice made it plain that she considered him an inferior,
that she had used him and had done with him.
Sam hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. He was not a man
to beg twice. He followed her to the front door, and stepped out into the late
afternoon sunshine, walking to his car without turning back. He never returned.