Change Partners

by Cathryn Cooper

  ‘So I did to him something which he used to do to me.

  He moaned - almost gratefully - as I pushed him more fully onto his stomach so I could better fasten his wrists and ankles.

  ‘As quickly as I could, I tightened the restraints that would keep him there whilst I took my revenge. I even stuffed his open mouth with his own underpants. He opened his eyes then and struggled once he realised what was happening to him. I was glad no one could hear him yell. How could I take revenge otherwise? One swipe of his body wouldn’t be enough to punish him for taking liberties with me.

  ‘Then I looked for something to use on him - something with a sting!’

  Sharaz laughed against Mariana’s ear. It evoked an immediate response. Mariana just had to cuddle more fervently against her, just had to kiss her cheek and nuzzle her ear as her hand explored the smooth, dark flesh.

  ‘What did you find?’ laughed Sharaz.

  ‘A length of rope that was tying the curtains back. I wound some of it around my hand, then, with all my might, I raised it up and brought it down on his behind. His back arched, and his arms pulled against the restraints, but I knew how strong they were. I knew he wouldn’t be able to get away.

  ‘Again and again I beat his backside until it was red instead of brown. The more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. Strange that you can achieve an orgasm just from excitement. But that’s what I did. Isn’t that amazing?’

  Sharaz giggled and cuddled closer to Mariana’s breast.

  She closed her lips over it and shut her eyes as she began to suck like some oversized baby.

  ‘I’ll always remember that night,’ Mariana went on in a faraway voice, her eyes half closed as she enjoyed the pleasure Sharaz was giving her. ‘I enjoyed that orgasm, and I also enjoyed leaving Ahmed quaking and sweating with fright.

  ‘That night altered my life. From then on it suited me to subdue men rather than have sex with them or love them. They had let me down badly - both my father and Ahmed. My father had shut his mind to my problems. He only wanted a pretty daughter to show off to his friends. And Ahmed had abused me and undermined my mother’s affinity to me. I never forgave men for that. I swore I would always want to be in control. That’s why I married Jamie, but I’ll tell you about that some other time.’

  Chapter 20

  Just as she always did - as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened - Mariana parked her car in the drive, then went in through the back door. With a gentle thud and an accompanying rattle, her keys and bag landed on the kitchen table.

  She hummed as she went upstairs and undressed, and she was still humming and thinking of Sharaz as the spray from the shower soaked her hair and her body. As she soaped herself with a moisturising gel, she took deep breaths and her body seemed somehow cleaner, smoother - newer - beneath her hands.

  Sweet-smelling lather frothed over her breasts, dripped off her nipples, and ran over her belly. Warm fingers of water ran between her legs.

  She stretched her arms above her head and let the water wash the soap away - just like Sharaz had cleansed the past and what she had been from her body.

  She turned off the shower and shook the last drops of water from her fingers. All the time she hummed and all the time she smiled.

  Dreamily, she wrapped the bulk of a white towel around herself and cuddled it to her as though it were a person surrounding her, holding her close.

  She wrapped another towel around her head, then paused as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  Who was that fresh-faced, almost youthful person she saw there. Her skin was gleaming. Her nose was shiny.

  She wrinkled it, then laughed, tossed her head and headed for the stairs.

  She got herself a magazine from the drawing room and a drink from the kitchen. Then she sat herself in front of the television, picked up the remote control and flipped from one channel to another until she found a film that looked interesting.

  Intermittently sipping her drink, she glanced from magazine to television. Neither held her attention for long. Along with her thoughts, her gaze wandered. What was that Sharaz had said? What was that she had done? Each minute, each second she had spent with the dark young woman was relived and re-analysed in her mind. As she thought about her, she sighed and, as she sighed, the room, the television and the colour-packed magazine seemed to dissolve into a nothingness of existence; the elementary things that are there but not noticed.

  A mellowness came upon her. Smiling to herself, she let the magazine fall into her lap, then she folded her arms across her chest and cuddled herself.

  Supper was not wanted, but tiredness was descending on her fast. She was eager to get to bed, keen to close her eyes. As she touched herself she would pretend they were not her hands but those of Sharaz.

  Yawns were forcibly increased in frequency and intensity. Bed and the possibility of dreams - half truths of reality - beckoned.

  She bounced from the sofa and turned off the television, the heating and the lights. She climbed the stairs, her eyes bright with excitement and looking forward to reliving the afternoon all over again.

  Still lost in her spell, she used the bathroom, then in the bedroom she took off her white cotton bathrobe and followed the curves of her body with softly caressing fingers.

  Thrills of pleasure made her make sweet, soft sounds, like a cat does when it dreams by a glowing fire.

  Cautiously, as if determined to hold the dream, she pulled back the covers on the bed.

  She paused, blinked as reality hit her. All hint of dreams and softness left her face. There before her eyes were her black satin pyjamas. Next to them was her husband’s more dubious attire.

  ‘Shit!’

  Dreams of the delicious Sharaz were temporarily put to one side as she remembered where she had left Jamie. She sprang to where the wardrobe covered one wall and opened the middle door.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, as the wriggling form of her bondage-crazed husband came into view. Silently, she watched him. How ridiculous, she thought. Then she shook her head and ran her fingers through her damp, tousled hair. ‘You silly cow!’ she said to herself. ‘What are you saying sorry for? He can’t bloody hear you!’

  She reached for the buckles that strapped her husband’s wrists together. Her fingers actually touched the cold metal and harsh leather. She paused. A questioning look came to her eyes. She frowned. Did she really want this man beside her in bed tonight as she dreamed of her new love, her new life?

  Her hands retreated, and so too did her mind. Still frowning as she asked herself why this had ever started, she stepped back and regarded the man before her.

  As he wriggled against his bonds, she covered her mouth with her hand, then moved it as she reminded herself that he could not hear her laughter, though, of course, because she had touched the buckles, he would be aware of her presence.

  What went on in his mind, she asked herself, when he was bound up like this? What went on when she was ordering him about or beating his backside? Sexual thoughts?

  She began to laugh. There he was, a black leather hood covering his head, his wrists strapped together and bound above him. His ankles were fastened in a similar fashion and, to finish it all off, he wore a leather belt around his waist that had thinner straps coming off of it and diving between his legs. Another strap came from those two and divided around his sex.

  Mariana’s laugh got louder. Not that Jamie could hear or see. The mask covered his eyes and his ears. He was in a world of his own.

  Mariana began to rock backwards and forwards from the waist. Tears ran from her eyes and her shoulders shook with mirth. As she laughed, she tried to speak, but had difficulty doing so. At last it came out.

  ‘You look bloody ridiculous!’ she cried. She went on laughing. It only diminished when she at last took a good long look at her husba
nd.

  Suddenly she was seeing both him and herself anew. ,j

  The laughter in her throat bubbled to a halt. She wiped at her damp eyes, then, as her last chuckle turned to a sneer she shook her head and her expression was full of regret.

  ‘What the hell am I doing with someone like you?’

  For the first time that day, the past came back to haunt her. Turkey and Ahmed came to her mind and her sneer changed again. A deep frown creased her brow. A scowl came to her mouth.

  ‘Stuff you, Jamie! Stuff you all!’

  Grabbing the wardrobe doors with both hands, she slammed them shut, turned her back and leaned against them.

  ‘That,’ she muttered with a powerful sigh, ‘is that!’

  As she rested her head against the wood, she could hear the muffled wrigglings from within. Normally, Jamie would be in there for two or three hours. That was the time span he preferred. So far he had been in there for seven hours and would now be in there until the morning.

  ‘My choice,’ Mariana said with an air of finality. ‘Not yours.’

  With a final pat for the wardrobe door, Mariana went to bed. In the darkness of the wardrobe Jamie wriggled like a maggot on a hook.

  Chapter 21

  As though he would really miss her, as though he would kick his heels around an empty house when she was gone, Michael made a big show of kissing Josie goodbye.

  It almost made her feel as though she was the most important woman in the world to him, but of course she knew it wasn’t true and so did he. But the truth was not a barrier between them, only an unspoken treaty that they each had their lives to live. True they had mutual ground, but their sex lives, their other lives, belonged to them only as individuals and not as a partnership.

  She was boarding the train to Penzance where yet another exhibition of her work was being staged and she was likely to be away for a few days. That was the story she had given him and that was the one he had accepted.

  It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the truth and that she was going to stay away from him for four days with her lover. He never questioned her about her relationships and she never went into detail.

  Unlike him, of course. He had always fostered a need to unburden himself of the reasons why he had seduced April, taken Emma away for the weekend, or phoned the girl in the florists because she had a pretty face and an even better behind.

  Sex with those women usually became infused with fantasy in the retelling. Perhaps that was why he had always talked about them to his wife. That was his need - to talk about his conquests, as if by telling her he was reasserting his own sexuality.

  But still he fussed over her as though he would really miss her; as though he was in no hurry to get back to the house, open the wine, and prepare himself for Crystal - the greatest lay of his life.

  ‘Now you have your tickets, darling.’ He didn’t ask her, he told her. ‘And you will be sure to phone to let me know you arrived safely.’

  ‘The moment I get there.’

  And, the moment she got there, she had indeed phoned him. He made all the usual sounds of endearment, but not once did he ask her for the telephone number of the hotel she was staying at. Neither did he ask her its name and, when she got back, he wouldn’t even ask her for details of where the exhibition was. One thing Josie gave him full credit for was that he never enquired about her life.

  At the other end of the journey Thomas was waiting for her. Crystal had not asked where he was off to, and neither had she been around when he left. Crystal took advantage of his absences rather than worrying about who he might be with.

  Joy lit Josie’s face when she spotted her lover. His eyes lit up as he smiled.

  Like some couple from a black and white movie, they embraced, kissed, and exuded a warmth from their bodies and faces that needed no shallow words or half-meant platitudes.

  ‘Our usual room?’

  Josie did not ask him this until she was sat beside him in the car.

  After changing gear, his hand covered hers. ‘Yes.’ Their eyes met and, as always something vaguely electrical and spine-tingling swept over them both.

  Anticipation glowed on their faces. Thoughts and impressions whirled in each mind whilst those first tense tremblings of erotic sensation ran over their bodies.

  Josie was imagining being alone with him again. Not just for a few snatched hours, long enough to make love without having to worry about getting home or about anyone finding out. This was for four days. In that time they could observe the formalities and talk to each other at breakfast, lunch and dinner. So ordinary those meal times, yet each a continuing progression from morning to evening. Each marked a certain facet in an ongoing relationship, the progress of a day.

  Breakfast was taken a few hours after the last lovemaking of early morning. Lunch was a. meal when mutual understanding and interchange of thoughts would help get them through the day.

  The first sparks of licentious intent would begin in late afternoon. The wine and rich food of dinner would be like a form of foreplay, a taste of things to come.

  Town buildings, walls and traffic gave way to the winding lanes where high banks of grass and wild flowers hid the land they bounded.

  Josie pressed the button that opened the window and breathed in the smell of freshly cut grass and the tang of sopping seaweed.

  They left the sea behind them at Penzance as they travelled eastward between the earth banks. Here and there leaning chimneys of crumbling brick poked up at the sky. Within a few miles, the sea was before them again at Falmouth.

  When they arrived, a mist lay like white meringue over the calm bay and hid the horizon. It looked as though the world had been set in glue and could not move. The utter stillness was short-lived as a grey shape slid through the whiteness.

  Moby Dick, thought Josie, come to seek vengeance on a latter-day Ahab.

  Without its source being seen, the sound of rigging rattling against aluminium masts mixed with the wail of a fog horn and the shunting snuffles of struggling tugs.

  ‘What a wonderful scene,’ said Josie softly as Thomas took their baggage from the car. ‘And a wonderful sound. It’s like you might suppose a dolphin makes when it’s looking for a mate.’

  Thomas put down the luggage, put one arm around her and hugged her close. ‘If I practise that sound, will you take notice of me?’

  She turned and smiled up at him. ‘You mean, will I be your mate?’

  He nodded. There was sincerity in his eyes; and gentleness, and all the other things she had always wanted to see in the eyes of a lover.

  ‘You bet!’

  He laughed and hugged her tighter so that her head rested on his shoulder and her red hair spread in a silky fan against the navy blue of his jacket.

  He shrugged his shoulder against her cheek. ‘Come on.

  Let’s find our room and we can be as matey as we like.’ Within the hotel, they walked a maze of corridors and laughed as they followed arrows, got lost, then backtracked.

  Footsteps muffled, they trod the narrow passageways which went straight then opened out to places where old clocks, oak chests and ornate chairs gave character to the opulent atmosphere.

  Their room was dominated by a huge bay window that seemed to be made of nothing but glass. If merely glanced at, it made the scene appear as if it could be walked into.

  Josie walked straight to it. ‘What a view!’

  ‘What a view!’ repeated Thomas as he came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed the back of her head.

  The details of the bay and the moored boats were muted by the covering of sea mist. Above the hill on the other side of the bay, the sun was attempting to pierce the cloak of shifting whiteness.

  Still gazing straight ahead, Josie covered one of Thomas’s hands with her own.
His lips briefly grazed the nape of her neck.

  Josie shivered with pleasure. The warmth of Thomas’s chest was against her back. She shifted her weight so that she might be closer to him.

  ‘I ordered champagne,’ he said softly, and jerked his head to the white cloth that covered the bottle and bucket more efficiently than the mist covered the scene outside.

  Josie turned her head away from the window, raised her arms and put them around him. She looked lovingly up into his eyes.

  ‘Let’s make love first. Never mind lunch, tea, champagne or dinner. Let me have your body first.’ She half closed her eyes as their lips met.

  Their embrace and their kiss became more intense. She pulled him more tightly to her and his palms were firmer and hotter against her back as he pulled her close to him.

  There were no more words then.

  As Josie’s long fingers pushed his coat from his shoulders, undid his tie and his shirt, Thomas slid her jersey top away from her skin.

  As he slipped his arms out of his jacket and his shirt, he bent his head and kissed the silky softness of her shoulder.

  She held her arms tightly to her side as he slid the sleeves of her jersey top down to her wrists and off. Her hands were on the waistband of his trousers when his were on the hook of her bra. They kissed deeply as both were undone.

  He sighed as he touched her breasts. It was a long sigh, a sound of undreamed of pleasure. Her breasts were soft skinned but firm fleshed, gentle but responsive. Her nipples thrust unashamedly into the palms of his hands. He tensed as he resisted the urge to squeeze them.

  No, he told himself. Take it slow. Take it easy. We have; four days. There’s plenty of time. No need to rush.

  The sound of his zip being undone sliced into his mind.

  He moaned appreciatively as her fingers followed the... line of crisp dark hair that ran over his stomach and down to his groin.

  Cries of pleasure were on his tongue, and yet he did not want her to hear them. He wanted no sound to infiltrate this fusion of senses, this act of sensual love.