He holds my hands tight to calm me.
‘Let go of me! I need to punch something! I’ve been waiting all my life to let rip. I never could when they were alive, otherwise I’d have killed them both!’
‘Then you’d be my murderess, as well as my temptress.’
He catches me off guard with his laughter.
‘OK!’ I shout. ‘So how about I punch you instead!’
He ties my hands together with the silver chain.
‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.’
‘What?’
‘King Lear. They kill us for their sport.’ He tests the tightness of the chain. ‘It won’t be me who gets hurt, Serena. But if pain is what you want, pain is what you’ll get. I’ve seen this coming a long way off, and believe me, I can’t wait to get my hands on you. It’s going to do me the power of good, too.’
He ties my bound wrists to the legs of the oversized sofa by the fire so that I am forced to sprawl on my front, my face buried in the cushions.
‘I don’t see how tying me up and spanking me can help you.’ I wriggle and kick furiously. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to work! This isn’t what I meant!’
‘This is exactly how it goes.’
‘No! I feel stupid. I’ve changed my mind!’ I scream, kicking my legs out to try to catch him. ‘I just need you to give it to me straight, Gustav. Why can’t you just fuck me, like any normal man!’
The obscenity sears the air. There’s an electrified pause.
‘Believe me, Serena Folkes, I would give my right arm to do that right now. Hard, and fast, preferably, and rough as hell, to shut you up. I’ve wanted nothing else since I first set eyes on you. But there’s method in my madness.’
‘Shakespeare again!’ My voice is muffled.
‘I don’t go about things like a normal man. In any case if I gave my right arm I wouldn’t be able to do this.’
He tests the strength of the silver chain.
‘Untie me and give it to me!’
He really laughs out loud this time. He leans on my legs to quell the kicking. He’s heavy. I can’t move.
‘Such an unquenchable spirit despite everything they laid on you.’
‘I don’t want analysing, doctor. I just want some good hard loving!’
‘As if you knew what that was.’ His hands just press down harder. ‘All this wild beauty. They were jealous of it. That was their problem. Or the woman was jealous. And they must have been frightened, too, because no-one knew where your beauty and spirit came from.’
‘No more psycho-babble!’
He weighs me down with one hand on my velvet bottom. And then he slides his other hand under me, walks it down my stomach, lower, until his fingers brush through the strip of hair and feel the wetness of me. I stop struggling, as he knew I would. My thighs part eagerly for him, even though my legs are shaking. I tilt myself into his familiar fingers. They pause, then trace the folds, the soft opening.
‘See how creamy you are? This always works to shut them up.’ His breath so warm on my neck, my hair. ‘You’re such a horny little devil, aren’t you?’
I groan hopelessly. ‘Those bloody diaries. I don’t want to remember that horrible house on the cliffs, or the girl who lives there.’
His response is to jerk on the silver chain again. ‘We’ll burn them on a massive bonfire.’
I am quieter now. His words are like gentle fingers, stroking my hair, my forehead. I want to curl into a ball. But I can’t, because my hands are tied and he’s leaning on my legs. I press my face further into the cushions.
‘Go ahead, but if you want to know all about me you’ll have to read them.’
We are both very still for a moment. There is music playing somewhere, violins, a melancholy cello. The wind is getting up again outside in the garden. Otherwise all I can hear is the snap of a stick in the fire, and the heavy ticking of the grandfather clock out in the hall.
‘You’d give me permission to do that? That’s very intimate.’
‘Look at me. I’m lying here on your sofa. I’m tied up with a silver chain, and I’m not wearing any knickers. I’ve sucked you off, and I’ve asked you to have your way with me, and you’ve refused. Doesn’t get much more intimate than that. Read them. I don’t care. I told you, I’m not that girl any more.’
‘You can’t kill her off completely. She’s here, with me.’ His fingers comb through my hair, undo another pin.
His words are so strong, so comforting. I twist round to look at him. He’s let go of my legs, and is sitting with his hands dangling between his knees, his handsome profile highlighted by the fire. I want him to put his hands on me again.
He taps his hands together. ‘Time to put you in front of the camera instead of hiding behind it.’
‘You’re going to film me? What if I say no?’
He laughs, and starts to push my skirt up. ‘Says the uppity little voyeur herself! You really are my girl. The gift that keeps on giving.’ He leans over me and blows his laughter into my hair. ‘You won’t even know it’s rolling. Are you ready?’
A drape of white cloth falls over my face and he ties it over my eyes. Then I hear the little pop of what must be stoppers coming out of little ointment bottles. Here come his hands again, pushing my dress up and massaging sweet smelling oils into my legs. He’s being gentle, but the lotion is setting my skin on fire. I can almost hear it crackle like burning paper, and when he comes up to the space between my legs I screech out loud.
‘What the hell? Is there chilli in there or something?’
‘No more talking for now.’
He pushes my legs open and goes on massaging the cream right in, up and in. Every sense is magnified. There’s the warmth from the fire down one side of me, the coolness of the room on the other, the heat and scent of these creams soaking into me and wafting perfume through the air.
I can see nothing but silky darkness. My heart beats faster. I’m not afraid. I’m powerless, and free at the same time. There’s no more to be done, and it’s wonderful. I am blindfolded and tied. I can do nothing to change what’s happening.
I know he’d let me go if I screamed loudly enough. Or at least, I think he would. But I’m still totally at his mercy. And with the blindfold, everything else that has troubled me, my trip to Devon yesterday, reading my old diary, all the misery flooding back, the agitation I felt looking at those photographs, that film of Crystal, the euphoria when I realised that’s what I needed, the secrets he has yet to tell me, it’s all blotted out as well.
If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.
Hiding in the attic, under the stairs, the places they thought they’d looked, the stamping feet, the shouting voices, the broken toys. I was very good at hiding.
Gustav is silent. His long fingers swipe and wipe, the cream covering every fold and crevice until the whole area is alive and throbbing, burning bizarrely. I feel stoned. My head feels as if it’s floating away like a balloon. Far removed from the rest of me, that’s for sure, because all other senses are zoning in on that one secret part of me, sizzling like bacon, that bright beacon flashing a message. I’m here. I’ll open up for you, Gustav, when you’re ready. When you want me so much you won’t be able to hold back.
He’s stroking my bottom