‘Did you know that Maria thought we were having an affair?’
‘What?’ she had almost shouted down the phone.
‘She thought we were having an affair,’ I repeated.
‘Where did she get that idea from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then why would you think that?’
‘She left a letter.’
‘A letter? Accusing us of having an affair? I can’t believe it. I’d like to see that letter.’
‘No,’ I refused. I didn’t want her to know that Maria had referred to her as that two-faced, long-titted, no nipple, skinny-assed, cock-sucking, cum bucket.
She went silent.
‘Did she seem colder toward you or change in any way?’ I insisted.
‘No. We were best friends. We told each other everything,’ she denied, suspicion creeping into her voice. She was beginning to doubt the existence of the letter. She was like all human beings—she would rather believe a lie than accept that she had been so thoroughly fooled.
We ended the conversation on an uneasy note.
I called her other close friends. Did she say anything to you? The answer was always the same. No. No. No. No. I phoned her brother. He put the phone down on me in disgust.
Often I dreamed of my children. We were in a garden or a schoolroom. There were other children playing there with them. I called to them and they came running to me. I picked them up and held them tightly, relief pouring through my veins.
‘Thank God! Thank God. It was just a nightmare. I dreamed you were both dead.’
‘Like Grandma and Grandad?’ they asked me.
‘Like Grandma and Granddad,’ I told them, laughing and crying at the same.
‘But we are not real, Daddy,’ they told me solemnly. And then I woke up with tears pouring down my face. Wishing I had not woken up. Convinced they were still alive in another dimension.
Weeks later after the furore had died down, and after the hospital foundation had used words like ‘regretfully’, ‘untenable’ and ‘tarnished reputation’, the great thaw arrived. And with it came rage. How I cursed her. Bitch. Fucking stupid cunt.
It was so bad all my breaths became gasps of anger. I had to stop seeing friends. I was seriously at risk of totally, completely, unequivocally and corrosively losing my shit if another one said, ‘God wanted his little angels back so he called them home,’ or some other similar crap.
I wanted to spit at them. ‘Oh right! Is that why he chose to burn them to death? God didn’t do this, you fucking moron!’
During that period I opened the letter often and ended up slamming my fist on my desk so hard I eventually broke the damn thing. I was so furious once I decided to burn her letter in the fireplace, but my hand shook as I tried to throw it in: I couldn’t destroy something I hadn’t yet understood.
Months later I was carefully unfolding her letter and finally trying to understand my part in it. I no longer raged against her or her abusers who had turned her into a monster. The season of guilt had come. It was worse than the rage. Far worse. Oh the guilt. How it ate at my insides! It was all my fault for being so blind and so caught up with my own success that I never saw it. Not once.
Ever seen the way a team of termites can utterly decimate a tree until it is nothing but a shell?
That was what my guilt did to me. I walked around, an empty shell. I walked, I talked, I ate, I worked, but inside I was dead. There was no way to atone for what I had done. She was gone and she had taken my innocent children with her.
Olivia was gone, but her scent still lingered on my skin. I held the letter in my hand and it felt lighter somehow. Because for the first time I understood.
I held up a page:
When I am gone I will watch you and I will remember us. Our bodies spilled together. The light slanting into the room. The coffee cups with dregs. The croissant crumbs on the plate. One plate. We shared it remember?
Your breath on my skin. Your hand on my breast. Your leg thrown over mine. Your flesh. My flesh. Joined. Stuck. Forever. Forever.
Do you hear me, Dr. big shot Marlow Kane?
Forever. No matter who you touch. Who you fuck with that great, big, dirty cock of yours.
I know what big daddy long dick likes. I know all your secrets.
You think I don’t know how many cunts you have entered. Do they feel as silky as mine? Do they call your name when you are fucking them in the ass?
You like that, don’t you?
You start at the mouth, after a little while you move to the cunt, then when that insatiable cock of yours is nicely coated with pussy slime, you plunder the ass. And then you bring that shitty cock home and put it in my mouth.
You asshole, you! I’m still dripping with your fucking semen.
There was much more, four pages of the same insanely jealous, crude, totally baseless ranting—I was always faithful to her—but I won’t go on. You get the picture. I was a careless, blind fool who never understood that she had loved me with an intensity I did not feel or even guess at. I had loved her, but not the way she had loved me.
Wood only understands what it is to burn when it meets a flame. Olivia was my flame. She made me burn. She made me understand what poor, damaged Maria had felt: that all-consuming passion to possess someone so completely that renders death preferable to not having it. I never had the ability to miss anyone. Until now. Now I missed her the moment she left my presence.
With sadness I remembered the times Maria had said, ‘Come back to bed.’ And I had kissed her lightly on her forehead and hurried away to immerse myself in my work. She had rightly construed that as a lack of emotion. If Olivia asked me to come back to bed under no circumstances would I be heading off in the opposite direction.
For so long I had kept her poisonous letter. As if I deserved to suffer. Deserved to read her crazy lies. Now, I went to the fireplace, turned the gas on, and watched the flames rise up. I dropped the letter into them and watched the orange flames lick around the edges of the papers. Browning, curling, and finally consuming them until they were blackened ashes that fell into the grate. It was poetic.
The cremation of Maria’s letter.
As I watched the ashes began to fly into the room and for the first time there was no guilt or rage, only a lingering sense of profound loss for my children and for their loss: they would never experience kindergarten, get high behind a bicycle shed, fall in love, get married or know the great joy of having children of their own.
‘Time is the greatest healer. It will be less painful,’ everybody said, but time had made no difference. At night I still saw the flames reflected in their eyes as I ran in slow motion toward them.
I hurt as much today as I ever did and I guess I always will.
20
Olivia
Though we had sex, twice, before I left Dr. Kane’s home that morning I longed for him all day, and even knowing I had an appointment with him the next day I found it impossible to wait another night, another morning and another afternoon before I saw him again. So I phoned Beryl and she told me his last appointment should leave about five thirty so if I would come around about that time she’d slip me in.
I spent a long time getting ready. I wore my new perfume and because I knew Marlow liked playing with my hair, stroking it, twisting it in his fist, I washed it and brushed it until it shone. Then I pushed a blue velvet Alice band on my head to keep it away from my face.
I put on a red dress that I had bought that afternoon. It was not something I would normally have considered. It was a bit fast with a zip that went from its plunging neckline all the way down to its immodest hemline. I slipped on a pair of high heels exactly the same color as my Alice band, also acquired that day, and I was ready for Marlow Kane’s pleasure.
Underneath the cheap red dress I was nude.
When I arrived, Beryl whistled at me and made me blush. We chatted for a bit before she packed up her bag to leave. After I heard Beryl close the door, I t
ook off my coat and I opened his office door. I closed it behind me and posed against it. I had interrupted him in some deep thought because it took a moment for his eyes to stir and quicken with desire.
I unzipped the fast dress all the way down. His eyes never left me. I let it fall to the ground and walked slowly, my hips swaying exaggeratedly, over to his window. I kicked my shoes off and leaning forward laid my palms on the windowsill. I could see the street below. There were people and any one of them could have looked up and seen me naked. I didn’t care. With my legs spread wide I pushed my naked bottom out invitingly, and turned my head to the side to look at him.
He was only a few steps away, his face full of pure lust. He stood and came forward and bent his head toward me. I felt his breath, hot and urgent, hit the side of my neck, and then his fist was twisting in my hair…and tugging. My head jerked back. I stared up at him. His face was dark and his eyes blazed with need. A hand was caressing the curve of my bottom. He slapped it.
‘What is it you want, Lady Olivia?’ he asked quietly.
I felt excitement like a tingle on my skin. Staring into his eyes I formed my words. ‘I want your big cock in my ass, Dr. Kane.’
Marlow
My reaction was to become so completely still that it was the opposite of a reaction.
Her face paled, then reddened with shame. Her pliant body stiffened. ‘Sorry. Have I overstepped the mark? Was that too disgusting?’ Her voice faltered. Poor thing, she tried to laugh it off, but she was humiliated.
My hand was still twisted in her hair. Maria’s words were ashes in my mouth. There she was again taunting me. You start at the mouth, after a little while you move to the cunt, then when that insatiable cock of yours is nicely coated with pussy slime, you plunder the ass. And then you bring that shitty cock home and put it in my mouth. You asshole, you! I’m still dripping with your fucking semen.
But it was completely untrue. I didn’t do that to her. To start with I was never unfaithful to her. Not even straight sex, let alone anal sex. And I was not crazy mad for anal sex either.
Twice in four years we had anal sex. Both times she initiated it. I guess I just didn’t particularly want anal sex with her. I looked down at Olivia, her poor crumpled face and her innocent offer in tatters all around her.
And I smiled. A slow smile. The difference is, Maria, I didn’t want your ass, but I, oh God, how I want to be in Olivia’s.
I wanted it so bad Maria’s taunt was almost true. Never again was I going to allow her to ruin the special thing I had with Olivia.
Here’s the reply to your repulsive letter, Maria.
Fuck you! How dare you blame me, you selfish, psychopathic murderer, you? You killed my kids. I never deliberately tried to harm you, and it’s not my fault that I didn’t love you the way you loved me. That’s just life. Tough. Get over it.
And guess what else? When I finish fucking Olivia’s ass I plan to hold open her ass cheeks and watch my semen drip out of it. And you know what else? Maybe I’ll even lick it all up. Because I’m dirty. Far, far more than you could ever have imagined.
Olivia
‘Without lube?’ His voice was a growl.
For a second there I was terrified that he was angry or disgusted. He was definitely shocked, but then the desire came back into his eyes, burning stronger than before, and I pushed my bottom against his hardness and said, ‘I’m lubed and ready.’
‘Well, then. On your toes.’
I obeyed instantly. His hands grabbed my hips and roughly slanted them upwards so my sex was tilted right up and screaming ‘mind the gap’. He got to his knees and, holding my butt cheeks apart, buried his face in my exposed sex. I felt his nose part my folds as his tongue ravished my clit. The position was dirty and sexy and blood rushed up to my head. ‘Ah,’ I groaned as a thick finger dipped into my slick wetness and immediately found its way inside my ass. Slowly it rotated, stretching and preparing me.
‘Rock your hips,’ he ordered and I could feel his breath hitting my clit.
I rode his jutting tongue. The double sensation was incredible, almost…hypnotic.
‘Faster,’ he commanded.
I obeyed instantly, rocking and frantically fucking his mouth and tongue until every cell in my body melted like butter in a hot oven and I was no longer the strange girl without any memory, but a liquid pool of indescribable pleasure. I had never felt so fulfilled. So utterly satisfied. I had hardly returned to the state of being Olivia again when he moved away from my body.
‘Wait here,’ he instructed. I saw him pick up a cushion from the long sofa at the other end of the room and come back with it. He held it in front of me and with a hand on the small of my back he guided me forward until the pillow was wedged between my groin and the windowsill. I heard his trousers fall to the ground and felt his hard cock push into my slick sex.
‘Oh, Doctor,’ I breathed, shuddering with pleasure and pushing myself onto the deliciously thick shaft. Leisurely, with total control, and without any urgency, he fucked me a few times, then withdrew and rubbed the bulbous head of his cock, now thickly varnished with pussy honey, over the puckered entrance of my butt.
‘This is my beautiful ass,’ he said. ‘I fucking own it. I don’t need permission from you or anyone else to fill it. I’ll slide in whenever I feel like it and stay for as long as I want. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ I groaned. ‘Oh God, yes.’ I ached to be filled by him.
Behind me I felt his body shake with hunger. I didn’t need to be told. I relaxed my body and waited while he very slowly, inch by inch, stopping every now and again to acclimatize me to the intrusion, forced himself into me, invading and stretching the tight passage where a man should not be, until he was so deep in my bowels I could no longer think.
When he finally became still I exhaled with relief. He used that opportunity to push himself even deeper into my body. The muscles in my legs quivered and strained. Having him so deep in me was strange but terribly exciting. I could feel him pulsing and throbbing inside me.
I turned around and looked at him.
His eyes were hooded and dark and his jaw was clenched tight with pure lust.
‘You’re so fucking huge,’ I whimpered.
His answer was to pull back and slam back inside.
I cried out with the electric sensation of pain, but the first flush was almost instantly replaced by wanton pleasure as he continued to slowly pump in and out of me. I found myself melting around him. I could no longer see our reflection in the windowpane. It was white with the heat of my pants. There was so much sensation coming from his cock that I felt almost dizzy. The only thing that mattered was this. Me giving him pleasure.
I clenched the shaft of meat inside me hard, as hard as I could, and he growled. It felt good to know I could do that to him. It made me feel powerful. He increased his pace. The movement was making my clit grind against the little cushion he had wedged between the edge of wood and me.
His thrusts grew more frantic and my blood-engorged clit rubbed more and more relentlessly against the cushion. I was going to climax again. My body began to tighten. As if his cock understood my body, it swelled inside me. But I could not concentrate on it anymore—the sensations that had started at my core were tearing through me like a hurricane.
I swirled out with it into a whirlpool of pure wonder. Juices gushed out of me and trickled down my thighs. I cried out over and over as he lunged into me until he erupted inside me.
Shattered, as if I had been dropped from a high place, I held onto him with my muscles and listened to the sensations inside my body. They were all subtle. They didn’t want him to leave.
Slowly he pulled out.
I sighed.
He bent down and licked my sticky thighs. That was just the beginning of what he licked that night.
—Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide—
21
Marlow
/> She lay peacefully in a deep trance in my zero gravity chair. I looked at her face, innocent and utterly trusting, and felt a fierce instinct to protect her flash through me. I had experienced it before, but never for a woman.
The first time was when my son was born and the nurse had given him to me wrapped in a blanket, a wrinkled, mottled, red and, quite frankly, ugly little thing—more changeling than human. His eyes and fists were tightly closed, and the first sensation that flooded into me was not one of joy or happiness, but stark fear.
Would I be able to protect him from this cruel world long enough for him to be able to take care of himself? The feeling had gone as quickly as it had come but I had never forgotten it. The crippling panic. It was back now. The terror of not being able to protect her until she was strong enough to protect herself. I stilled it. I knew I could get to the bottom of this mystery. I knew it was not by accident that Ivana had chosen me.
My intention that day was to return her to the day her mother died, but I wanted to take her to a safe memory first. Something she could come out with and point to as another successful session in remembering the past.
‘You are safe from all harm, Olivia,’ I said quietly. ‘There is nothing that can harm you. You are six years old today and it is bedtime. Where are you?’
‘In the tower,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve had a lovely day. There are presents all over the floor. Ivana says I can have them strewn about today but tomorrow they will all have to be put away neatly.’
‘Is she there now?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled, child-like.
‘What is she doing?’
‘Ivana is reading me a story. “Why is Cinderella’s stepmother so cruel?” I ask her. “Stepmothers are often portrayed like that in fairy tales,” she says.
‘“Why?”
‘“Because they can’t help being jealous of their stepdaughters, I suppose.” I frown. “But you’re not like that?” “No, I’m not,” she says, and breaks into a cheeky grin. “But I would be if I didn’t love you so much.” I nod. It seems to make perfect sense to me. “Ivana?”
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