Living Death

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I could murder a steak. Oh, sorry. That wasn’t a very tactful thing to say that to a detective superintendent, was it?’

  Katie backed out of the car park and turned into Old Station Road. ‘I’ll tell you where we’ll go then, Isaacs, on McCurtain Street. I haven’t been there in donkey’s.’

  Actually, the last time she had eaten at Isaacs was with John, the night before he had left her and gone to San Francisco. Perhaps if she had supper there with another man, it would do something to erase a memory that still hurt her when she was least expecting it. That evening, John had made her feel that she was letting him down, and that her job was more important than his happiness.

  She parked on St Patrick’s Quay and took a sneaky short cut on to McCurtain Street through the office building at the back of the car park. She and Conor walked along the street together arm-in-arm, so that they could both hold the umbrella. It was dark now, and the road was glistening with reflected lights.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, as they reached the front entrance of Isaacs restaurant and folded the umbrella, and shook it. ‘Off duty, you don’t have to call me “Detective Superintendent”. I’m Katie.’

  ‘All right, then, Katie,’ said Conor. ‘I like that. And off duty, I’m not “hound lover”, I’m Conor. Or Con, if you prefer.’

  ‘What does your mother call you?’

  ‘She used to call me You Little Whelp, but that was a long time ago. Now she calls me Con, or Connie-boy when she wants me to do something for her.’

  They went inside. Isaacs was brightly lit, with shiny parquet floors and small tables and bentwood chairs. Some of the walls were rough stone because the restaurant had been converted from an eighteenth-century warehouse. A waitress found them a table in the small room at the back of the restaurant where there was less likelihood of Katie being recognised. It was still early, so only three or four other tables were taken, but Katie knew that it would be crowded later, and it was the kind of restaurant where many of the diners would know who she was.

  She could have done with a drink now but she was driving so she ordered only water. Conor asked for a glass of Malbec.

  ‘I’ll be absolutely truthful with you, Katie,’ said Conor. ‘If I had been introduced to you without knowing that you were a senior officer in the Garda, I would have guessed that you were an actor.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Katie. ‘And what would have made you think that?’

  ‘To start with, you’re very confident – very sure of yourself. You don’t um and ah when you speak. Also – you’re watching people all the time, which is what actors do. They’re forever making a mental note of other people’s facial expressions, and the way they carry themselves. I know that because my Uncle Liam was an actor. He even had a part in Glenroe.’

  The waitress brought their drinks and asked them if they had decided what they wanted to eat, so Conor paused for a moment. When she had gone, he said, ‘You’re also incredibly attractive.’

  Katie said, ‘Ha! Lots of female gardaí are incredibly attractive. Look at Noirin O’Sullivan, and she’s the Commissioner. You can’t say that she’s not a handsome woman.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. It’s just that I think you’re handsomer. And, like I say, I would have guessed that you were an actor before I would have guessed that you were a detective. Or maybe a TV news presenter.’

  Katie had ordered a warm chicken salad and Conor had asked for the seafood chowder. As she started to eat, Katie said, ‘You’re flirting with me, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Conor. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  Katie shook her head while she finished her mouthful. Then she said, ‘No. I like it.’

  As they ate, the restaurant gradually began to fill up, so that by the time Katie was eating a rhubarb and apple crumble, every table around them was taken, and the conversation level was so loud that whenever Conor said anything she had to lean forward and ask him to repeat it. But it didn’t matter if she could hear him or not. She knew what he was telling her, and she felt the same way about him.

  It was still raining when they left Isaacs shortly after 7:30. This time, as they walked together back to the car, Conor held the umbrella and he and Katie held hands.

  As they passed the Everyman Theatre, Conor nodded towards the playbills outside and said, ‘There – Sisters of the Rising. That would have been just the part for you, if you’d been an actor. Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell, one of the women who made Ireland what it is today – the same as you have.’

  Katie laughed. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘You can flatter me as much as you like. I don’t get too much of it at work, I can tell you.’

  They drove up Summerhill until they reached the Gabriel House guest house. It was a large four-storey period building, painted white, with a grey slate roof and window-boxes at every window. Katie pulled up outside and said, ‘There. You can take the umbrella if you like. I have plenty more at home.’

  Conor looked at her intently and for the first time this evening he wasn’t smiling. He took hold of her hand and then he leaned across the car and kissed her – first on the right cheek, then on the left. Then he kissed her on the lips.

  Katie closed her eyes. The kiss went on and on, and became deeper and more urgent the longer it went on. Conor’s tongue tussled with hers, and then he licked her teeth and pressed his lips against hers until she felt that she was going to suffocate with pleasure.

  The kiss ended, and they both sat back with their eyes fixed on each other.

  At last Conor said, ‘I don’t want to borrow your umbrella. I want you to come with me.’

  Katie turned her head away and looked up at the lighted windows of Gabriel House. Conor said nothing but waited for her to make up her mind.

  After a few seconds she switched off the Focus’s engine, released her seatbelt, and opened her door.

  25

  Conor’s room was at the very top of the guest house. Katie climbed up the steep white-painted staircase with its blue floral carpet and she could hear Conor right behind her, his shopping bag rustling and knocking against the banisters. She felt as if what was happening to her now was unreal, and that perhaps she was an actor, and this was nothing more than a play. Yet she was completely sober, unlike most of the first times that she had been with men. She was climbing these stairs because she wanted him – she wanted Conor, and for no other reason.

  He unlocked the door of his room and let her in. Before he switched on the lights she walked over to the windows and looked out. She could see almost all of the city centre, from Kent railway station to St Finbarr’s Cathedral, and all the streetlights glittering, and traffic crawling along the quays like fireflies. And of course the River Lee itself, black and black-hearted.

  Conor turned on the bedside lamps rather than the main light. The room was comfortably furnished, red-carpeted, with a king-size bed and gilt mirrors and antique-style chairs, and it was warm.

  ‘I have to make one call,’ said Katie. ‘I have a girl at home who’s dog-sitting for me. I have to tell her that I won’t be back.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Conor. He came over and helped her out of her raincoat, and then he took off his own coat and carried both of them over to the wardrobe. ‘We have to take care of our four-legged friends. What is he? Or she?’

  ‘Barney’s a boy. An Irish setter. And he’s pure smart. I don’t think he even realises that he’s a dog.’

  She rang her home number, and Bridie answered, ‘Detective Superintendent Maguire’s residence. Bridie Mulligan speaking.’

  ‘Oh, Bridie, this is Katie. How’s the form?’

  ‘All quiet, Katie. Nothing to report. Himself had a sleep this afternoon and now he’s watching the telly. He’s looking forward to you coming home.’

  As she was talking, Conor came up behind her and eased her tweed jacket off her shoulders. She changed hands with her iPhone so that he could slide the sleeves off. He took off his own jacket, too, and laid both jackets on the nearby chair. />
  ‘That’s the thing, Bridie,’ said Katie. ‘It looks like I won’t be able to make it back home tonight. We’ve had an emergency here and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to deal with it. Is it all right if I ask you to stay over? You can sleep in my bed if you like, and you’ll find a clean nightdress in the press and clean towels on the shelf in the bathroom. I’ll make it worth your while.’

  ‘That’s no bother at all, Katie. I always fetch my toiletry bag with me, in case I have to stay late.’

  Conor lifted Katie’s hair and kissed the nape of her neck. The soft brushing of his beard against her bare skin sent a tickling sensation all the way down her spine.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about Barney,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is feed him in the morning and make sure his water bowl’s always topped up. Mrs Tierney will come around in the morning to take him on his walk.’

  ‘What about himself? What do you normally give him for his breakfast?’

  Now Conor took hold of the hem of her sweater. When he started to lift it, though, he uncovered the holster attached to the waistband of her skirt, and the black synthetic grip of her Smith & Wesson Airweight revolver. He backed away immediately, both hands raised, as if she had caught him in mid-felony.

  Katie turned around and smiled at him.

  ‘I’ll come quietly,’ he whispered.

  ‘A couple of boiled eggs and a cup of tea will do,’ she said. ‘Maybe some toast and blackcurrant jam if he wants it. Thanks, Bridie. I’ll see you tomorrow so. Give him my best wishes, won’t you?’

  She put down her iPhone and went up to Conor and put her arms around his neck. ‘That’s that sorted,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve never been out with an armed woman before,’ he told her. ‘I’m not sure what the protocol is when it comes to undressing. Do I have to have a firearms licence?’

  ‘Well, it’s straightforward enough. I take off my holster and you carry on where you left off.’

  She unfastened her gun and laid it on the side-table next to her iPhone. ‘There.’

  ‘That’s a fierce unusual breakfast for a dog,’ said Conor, coming up close to her again, and taking hold of her sweater. ‘Two boiled eggs, a cup of tea, and some toast if he wants it. With blackcurrant jam? I mean, none of that will do him any harm, but—’

  ‘I told you,’ Katie interrupted him. ‘Barney doesn’t realise that he’s a dog. He’d be smoking cigarettes and trying to drive my car if I let him.’

  She stood on tiptoe so that she could give him a flurry of little kisses, to distract him. Even though she was wearing her thick-soled lace-up shoes he was six inches taller than her, at least. He kissed her back – a long, slow kiss, with his brown eyes open, looking directly into hers – and at the same time he started to lift up her sweater.

  Katie raised both arms so that he could take her sweater off. She was pleased that she had put on one of the new Heidi Klum bras that she had bought last week from Brown Thomas, with fuchsia pink flowers on it, and that she was wearing the matching thong, too. Most of her underwear drawer needed sorting out and throwing out, and she hardly ever managed to wear underwear that matched.

  ‘I love that perfume you’re wearing,’ said Conor, as he reached around and unfastened her bra, sliding the catch open one-handed.

  ‘Obsession. It’s what I wear to work to intimidate my superior officers. The men, anyway.’

  He took off her bra and dropped it to the floor. Then he held her breasts in both hands, gently rolling his fingertips around her nipples. They kissed even more deeply, and as her nipples stiffened, Katie began to feel more than just attraction, she felt hunger. She began to kiss him so hard that she was almost eating him. At the same time, she started to unbutton his thick blue mouliné shirt, pulling it off his shoulders. His chest was hard and muscular, with a V-shaped arrow of dark brown hair on it, and his stomach was taut – the stomach of a swimmer, or a man who exercised every day.

  Once she had wrestled off his shirt, she unbuckled his tan leather belt and opened his trousers, tugging them down to his knees. He was wearing navy-and-white striped boxer shorts, which did nothing at all to conceal how stiff he was.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Sit on the bed.’

  He sat down, prising off his shoes with his feet. Katie knelt on the floor in front of him to drag off his trousers, and then she pulled down his boxer shorts. His penis was huge – much thicker than John’s. Its head was swollen to a dark mauve colour, and it was already gaping at her with a glistening drop of fluid. Conor had trimmed the hair around it as neatly as his beard, which told Katie that he was vain about his appearance, but which also suggested that he was aware of what women liked in bed.

  She grasped the shaft of his penis tightly and rubbed it slowly up and down. Then she closed her eyes and touched her fingers of her left hand to her forehead like a clairvoyant.

  ‘It’s telling me something,’ she said.

  ‘What’s it telling you?’

  ‘It’s telling me that it feels exposed out here, without any trousers on. It needs to find somewhere dark and warm and slippery to hide in.’

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him with a mischievous smile on her face and both of them laughed.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Conor. ‘Jesus. I won’t bother to say a word in future... just let the flute do the talking for me.’

  Katie stood up and he unzipped her skirt. She kissed the top of his head while he took off her pantyhose and then her thong. When he had done so, he kissed her between the legs, and gave her a quick lick with the tip of his tongue, too, which made her shiver.

  They climbed together on to the bed and kissed and caressed and stroked each other. Katie had made love to only one man since John had left her, and he had been rough and preoccupied with other thoughts, even when he was on top of her. But Conor was giving her all of his attention now, massaging her breasts and running his fingers down to her hips to make her shudder with pleasure.

  ‘You have…. the most extraordinary face,’ he told her. ‘You look like one of those beautiful women in a mediaeval painting. I’ve never met a woman who looked so willing and yet so sure of herself, both at the same time.’

  ‘Well, you’re not so bad yourself, Mr Hound Lover,’ said Katie. ‘When I saw you walking into the station there, I thought you looked like one of those Vikings that used to come into Cork in a longboat, looking for a bit of rape and pillage.’

  ‘I promise I won’t pillage,’ said Conor. ‘I don’t want to be seduced and arrested, all on the same night.’

  Katie reached down and cupped his balls in her hand. They were hard and tightly wrinkled and she gently played with them as if she could tell his fortune from those, too.

  ‘Your breasts are beautiful,’ he told her, although he sounded a little breathless because of the way that she was fondling him.

  ‘Too big,’ she said.

  ‘They don’t look too big from here. It’s your perspective. You’re closer than I am, so they look too big to you, but they’re not.’

  Katie couldn’t help laughing again. A man had never aroused her so much and yet so amused her at the same time.

  ‘Mother of God,’ she said. ‘You sound like that episode of Father Ted. “Big, near... small, far away.”’

  With that, she opened her legs wide, and took hold of his penis, and guided the head of it between her lips, so that it nestled there for a moment. She kept a tight grip on it, though, so that he couldn’t push himself forward and penetrate her, and she looked up into his eyes and kissed him and said, ‘It’s talking to me again.’

  ‘What’s it saying now?’

  ‘It says it wants me, but the question is, do you?’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘There’s a whole rake of difference, Conor. Your cock turns me on all right, but I don’t go to bed with cocks. I go to bed with men. What I mean is, once your cock is satisfied, and shrinks away, will you do the same? I’m not
asking you for commitment. I’m simply making sure that I’m not just another notch on your bedpost.’

  Conor smiled. ‘There’s only one way to find out, Katie. Try me and see for yourself. And will you tell the flute to shut up for a moment? I want you, the same as he does. In fact, right at this moment, about a hundred times more than he does.’

  Katie laughed again, and released her grip on Conor’s penis, and he slowly pushed himself into her. She had always been quite tight, but Conor was the first man who had ever made her gasp when he entered her. He felt enormous, as if he were stretching her apart and filling up her whole pelvis. She closed her eyes and clung on to him, digging her fingernails into his back, while he entered her right up to the hilt, and she could feel his neatly clipped hair prickling against the smooth bare lips of her vulva.

  Now there was no more laughing. Their lovemaking became powerful and rhythmic, with Conor plunging into her again and again, faster and faster, with both of them panting like a duet.

  She was beginning to feel the warm dark tension of an orgasm rising up inside her when Conor suddenly took himself out of her, and sat up on the bed with his back straight.

  ‘Let me be true to my name,’ he breathed.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’ Katie asked him.

  ‘Turn over,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turn over. I’m a Hound Lover, let me love you like a hound loves his bitch.’

  Katie turned over and knelt up on her knees and elbows. Conor parted the cheeks of her bottom with both hands and gently entered her vagina from behind, sliding all the way in. He then began to make love to her again, not as quickly as before, but very deep – so deep that he kept touching the neck of her womb and making her flinch.

  She couldn’t remember when she had last felt a sensation like this. She stared down at the pillow and all she could think of was the ever-increasing tightness between her legs, and Conor’s penis slowly but relentlessly pushing its way into her body. She felt her muscles ripple inside her, and then the darkness rose to overwhelm her and she was quaking and quaking and crying out loud, and even though she was crying out loud Conor kept pushing his penis into her again and again until she thought that she was going to go mad with the ecstasy of it. Stop, oh God, don’t stop!