Saxonhurst Secrets

by Justine Elyot

  In an agony of desire, he managed to cough out the word, ‘Yes.’

  ‘If I was thinking straight, I’d have put on a nice loose dress today, but somehow I wanted to wear these instead. Pulling ’em up over my bum was agony, though! And now I’ve got tight, rough denim rubbing over those marks, making ’em sting all the more. It feels so hot and uncomfortable.’

  She put her hands on her buttocks and stroked them slowly up and down while Adam watched transfixed.

  ‘Tell you what, vicar, have you got any cream? E45 or similar? Just I’m not going to be able to concentrate with this burn behind.’

  ‘Right. I’ll have a look.’

  He darted out, relieved to be away from her, and went to check the bathroom cabinet. When he returned with the tube of salve, he waited outside the study door for a moment, gathering himself, imagining a giant obscene orchid standing in the middle of the room, radiating toxic scent that would overpower and knock him out. That’s what Evie was. A beautiful flower with monstrous properties. He needed to be on his guard.

  He opened the door and held the tube out to her, but she shook her head, hair hanging over her eye coquettishly.

  ‘Oh, vicar, I was hoping you might do the honours. Can’t really reach down myself, or see where the marks are. Would you mind?’

  Already she was unbuttoning, then she turned her back to him and eased the shorts with infinite care and gentleness over her rounded bottom, revealing her thong and the angry reddening welts the denim had aggravated back into full throb.

  ‘It’s not … I can’t. I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Please.’

  Her heartfelt purr undid him. He uncapped the tube and smeared some of the pale cream on to his fingers, then moved towards where Evie had bent herself over his desk, soft globes presented, perfect legs pressed together.

  ‘Look, Evie …’

  ‘Oh, it’s so sore, please put some on me.’

  As if his fingers were magnets heading for the field of attraction, he placed his fingertips at the end of one particularly cruel-looking criss-cross of marks and pressed the cream in. It felt so hot. The cream evaporated instantly, turning to colourless grease that made the red patches shine.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s nice, more please.’

  He began to treat her welts in earnest, gently circling her buttocks with cream-tipped fingers, waiting for each treatment to soak in before applying more.

  Fatal weakness travelled from his fingers through his wrists and up his arms as if her allure had entered his bloodstream. He caressed each raised red line with infinite care, wishing beyond everything that he had been the man to inflict them, that he was performing this act of tenderness after beating the devil from her, and that she was bent over now sobbing with remorse and eager to make amends for her sin.

  How magnanimous he would be, how protective and nurturing of her newly minted virtue. She would accept his proposal and become the model vicar’s wife, baking Victoria sponges in a floaty dress with flowers in her hair.

  They could be happy. God would show them how to be happy.

  Evie coughed and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘Hello? Vicar? Are you with us?’

  He came to with a start, realising that he had paused in his ministrations and his hands rested on Evie’s bottom, as if warming themselves on a radiator.

  ‘Oh! Yes. I, er, had an idea for my sermon. Sorry.’

  He removed his hands and rubbed the shining grease into his palms.

  ‘That was lovely,’ said Evie. ‘Real lovely. You’ve got such a nice touch. Wasted on the church, it is. You should be a masseur or something.’

  Or your husband.

  ‘I’m not sure God has called me to the massage parlour,’ said Adam dryly, then, ‘For heaven’s sake, pull those shorts up.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Temptation? I’ve got two apples – not just one. Eve’s got nothing on me.’

  She pulled the shorts up, still unable to contain a wince, but claiming to be much more comfortable now.

  ‘So what are we up to tonight, vicar?’ she asked, leaning against the desk, still unwilling to sit. ‘The Ten Commandments again? I’ve broken most of ’em. Especially the one about coveting my neighbour’s ass. I covet my neighbour’s ass all the time.’

  She giggled and Adam wanted to grab her and shake the profanity out of her. He would do it. That day would come.

  ‘I want to discuss your conduct,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘That ain’t in the Bible.’

  ‘No, but there are exhortations to chastity and condemnations of fornication that you would do well to heed.’

  ‘Are there?’ She blinked. ‘I’ll take your word for it, since I understood about three words of that.’

  ‘You are ruining yourself. Do you set no value on yourself at all?’

  Evie pursed her lips. ‘This again? I think we’ll have to agree that we have different ideas of what that value is. My self-worth ain’t tied up in my fanny and I don’t know why you think it should be. If you carry on with this, you and I are going to fall out. Now, let’s do some proper Bible stuff. Some of that’s quite interesting. Can we do the bit about Sodom and Gomorrah?’

  But Adam made her sit down and squirm over the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians instead, with particular reference to chapter seven.

  ‘It is better to marry than to burn,’ he quoted, looking Evie directly in the eye.

  ‘He had some funny ideas, that St Paul,’ she said, but her voice was soft, lilting. She held his gaze, never looking away, until Adam’s hand trembled on the page.

  ‘What he means is, if you can’t control yourself, you should get married. Then it doesn’t matter. You have a person available to satisfy your – needs.’

  ‘He thought everyone should live like a monk. He sounds hung up to me. Where does he think the next generation of Christians is coming from?’

  ‘Look at it, Evie – he accepts not everyone is cut out for monastic life. That’s why he recommends marriage. It channels the sinful urges into a productive outlet.’

  ‘Yeah, very productive. All the kids those poor cows had to churn out.’

  He essayed a weak smile. ‘Well, things are bit different now …’

  ‘No thanks to St Paul. He’s the type to think contraception’s wicked.’

  ‘He was a man of his time, Evie.’

  ‘Yeah, well, his time sucked.’

  ‘But many of his ideas, many of his recommendations hold good today.’

  ‘Like marrying off the girls like me?’

  ‘“The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.”’

  ‘So if I marry a, I dunno, a godly man – I get saved. Is that it?’

  ‘It’s what Paul implies.’

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that, vicar?’

  ‘I’m not aware that I’m … Like what?’

  ‘Like a man with a plan. You know I’m beyond redemption, don’t you?’

  ‘Nobody is beyond redemption.’

  ‘Shit, is that the time? I’ve got to go. I’ve got a date down the pub. Thanks for the cream, lover. Ciao for now.’

  Her escape was so rapid that Adam almost reached out to stop her, but she had gone before he could rise from the desk.

  He sat rigid and sweating, for a long time. His moment had come and he’d let her ruin it. Still, the idea was there, a seed planted in her mind. He had pointed out an alternative path to her. Now he had only to convince her that reformation was in her best interests, and that he was the man for her.

  But what of this date?

  He got up, seized his jacket and headed out.

  The sun was setting and there was a smell of barbecue smoke in the air. From the Fleece, at the far side of the green, came the sounds of laughter and outdoor carousing.

  He was obstructed in his path by a prostrate figure, clutching a gate post and groaning faintly.

  Crouching down
to investigate he saw that it was Julia Shields, very much the worse for wear.

  ‘Julia,’ he said, putting a hand on her upper arm. ‘Julia, are you all right?’

  ‘Wassit look like? Don’t go drinking with journos, I tell you. You’ll lose.’

  ‘You’ve been in the pub since I saw you this morning? Hold on to me. Up now.’

  He managed to pull her to her feet and supported her swaying figure along the lane to the small new-built flat she now rented on the outskirts of the village.

  She fumbled for her keys for so long that eventually Adam took her handbag and extracted them for her. She collapsed on to her sofa, face in the cushions.

  ‘I’ll get you a glass of water,’ said Adam. ‘Then I’ll leave you to sleep it off.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Sorry?’ He placed the glass on the coffee table. ‘I can’t stay, Julia.’

  ‘You on a mission again?’ she slurred. ‘That’s you. Mr Missionary. Go on, stay with me. I think you’re …’ She hiccupped and subsided back into the cushion.

  He tiptoed away, then stopped by a bookshelf, his attention captured by a huge, leather-bound volume entitled Saxonhurst: A Village of Secrets.

  He turned to the almost insensible Julia.

  ‘Do you mind if I borrow this?’

  But her only reply was, ‘Awful cute,’ followed by another hiccup.

  He held the book to his chest and left.

  The Fleece wasn’t terribly busy – yesterday’s May Fair lingered in the livers of the villagers – so Adam was easily able to find a secluded alcove table in the snug. He set down his bottle of tonic water and his book and peered around the sparsely populated room. No sign of Evie. Had she been lying about her date?

  His fingers drummed nervously on the hand-tooled cover of the book he’d borrowed. Only the village’s most dedicated imbibers could be seen propping up the bar. Perhaps she was in the garden.

  He strode over and peered out of the door. A large group of middle-aged people, non-villagers, possibly walkers, sat with their pints of real ale at the favourite tables. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anybody out there.

  Oh no! Oh, what was that? At the top of the children’s climbing frame, two people all wrapped up in each other, snogging fit to wipe each other’s faces off.

  He sidled closer, taking care to remain at an angle that wouldn’t be visible from the play area. The girl’s legs were bare, in ribbon-tied espadrilles, and that mane of curls gave her away immediately. It was Evie all right.

  But who was her beau? He looked familiar. Clothes you’d never see the village lads dead in – a fitted blazer, very tight jeans, a fringed scarf round his neck. And an expensive camera at the top of the slide! It was that London journalist, Travesty, or whatever his name was.

  Adam kept out of sight, sipping the tonic water in the gathering dusk, avoiding the attention of the walking group as best he could. It would only take one villager’s cheery cry of “Oi! Vicar!” and Evie would know he was stalking her.

  He pretended to take an interest in his book, but read the frontispiece over and over again until, half an hour later, Trevelyan and Evie slid down the slide, entangled and shrieking, and picked themselves up at the bottom.

  ‘You staying here, then, Trev?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He was obviously enormously pissed, but he held it better than poor Julia Shields. He was able to walk and his speech was only marginally slurred. ‘Nice room. You wanna see?’

  ‘Too right, babe. Is your bed comfy?’

  He laughed and swung her around in a bear hug.

  ‘Come and find out.’

  Eyes narrow with rage, Adam watched them enter the pub. For a moment he stood looking after them, trembling, drawing some low-voiced comments and laughter from the walking group.

  Then he turned his eyes back to the climbing frame and saw the camera, still there, hanging from the frame by its strap now.

  He retrieved it and made his purposeful way to the pub staircase, finding nobody on duty to stand in his way.

  At the top he paused to look around. Which of the four old oak doors would lead into Trevelyan’s room?

  A sudden earthy sigh and a thump had him scurrying straight for the furthest door. He had to bend his head in order not to bump into the low-slung beams. When he reached the door, he knelt and tried to look through the keyhole.

  He was in luck. The key wasn’t in the door.

  He could see the edge of the bed. Evie was bent over it, her face buried in the covers, presumably unwilling to put her bottom in contact with anything potentially frictive. Trevelyan had removed her shorts and was kneeling on the floor, her legs over his shoulders, his eager mouth breathing alcohol fumes on to Evie’s spread pussy.

  Adam saw Trevelyan’s tongue reach out and lick the upper portions of Evie’s thighs, then he buried his face in them, snuffling like a stupid fashion-victim dog.

  Evie’s gorgeous tanned flesh jiggled, the bottom he had touched only a couple of hours previously now in the hands of another man. It was unbearable.

  His urge to burst in and disturb them battled with his urge to keep watching Evie’s mesmerisingly beautiful body. What if he never saw her naked again? What if this was it?

  He held his breath, waiting for Trevelyan to start licking Evie out properly. It was torture, knowing what she looked like undressed, knowing how she fucked, knowing what she sounded like when she came, yet never having done anything to her himself. When would he be the man to make her whimper? When would he be the man to make her eyes roll back in her head?

  What did this bastard journalist have that he didn’t?

  Trevelyan fitted his tongue into Evie’s groove, licking sloppily and without decorum.

  He isn’t even sober. I would never go to her drunk. I would see that I was fully aware of what I did to her.

  Evie’s limber legs kicked and flexed over Trevelyan’s shoulders.

  ‘Ohh, keep going, lover,’ she said softly. ‘Lick me nice and slow.’

  Adam watched, shaking as if in a fever, until Trevelyan had been feasting on her juicy cunt for five long minutes. Then, just as Evie began to make those tell-tale sounds he’d heard so many times as she writhed under other hands, he knocked loudly at the door.

  ‘Fuck!’ he heard them both exclaim.

  He smiled, despite the obscenity, his heart gladdened by the ruin of their moment.

  ‘What?’ shouted Trevelyan. ‘Who’s it?’

  ‘I have your camera.’

  ‘Adam? Is that you?’ called Evie.

  Through the keyhole he saw her slide under the bedclothes and bury herself in them.

  ‘Who’s Adam?’ Trevelyan asked. ‘Better not be your husband or, y’know, shit like that.’

  ‘He’s the vicar,’ Evie mumbled from under the duvet.

  Adam straightened up, abandoning the keyhole when Trevelyan’s shambling body filled the view.

  The door opened a crack and a bloodshot eye looked out.

  Adam held up the camera.

  ‘It was on the slide,’ he explained.

  He heard Evie’s feet patter up behind Trevelyan.

  ‘It is you! What you doing here, vicar? Getting wasted?’

  ‘I was just passing. And, while I’m here, perhaps I should call you a taxi.’

  Evie hooted with derision.

  ‘Taxi? In Saxonhurst? You’ll be lucky. They have to come all the way out from Parham, and they don’t like it.’

  Trevelyan opened the door wider and took the camera.

  ‘Saw you earlier, didn’t I?’ he said, squinting. ‘With that one – wassername – you know her.’

  ‘Ms Shields. Yes.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said, urgently, backing away from the door. ‘Gonna puke. Bye.’

  ‘Didn’t realise I tasted that bad,’ Evie called after him, then she took his place in the doorway, an unfriendly look on her face.

  ‘You been following me, Adam?’

 
; ‘As I said, I was …’

  ‘Just passing. Right.’

  ‘Why do you want to stay with him? He’s incapably drunk.’

  ‘When I could be at home doing embroidery?’

  ‘Evie, you are worth so much more.’

  ‘Save it, vicar. G’night.’

  She slammed the door in his face.

  For a moment, he contemplated thumping the door even harder, refusing to leave until she accompanied him. But, on reflection, that was a good way to get himself arrested. So he took his big book of Saxonhurst secrets and went home, his loins tight and his heart heavy.

  Back at the vicarage, he brewed himself some strong coffee and betook himself and his book to the most comfortable armchair.

  ‘The village of Saxonhurst,’ he read on a page overloaded with illuminated script, ‘nestles in that idyllic corner of England known as the Vale of Parham. Abundantly fertile and green, this lush land grows much of the fruits and vegetables that fill the baskets of the nation. It is noted for its fine Norman church and an ancient hostelry that draws visitors interested in heritage. But there is another side to Saxonhurst, and it is this side I endeavour to explore in this volume.

  ‘For Saxonhurst has secrets.’

  Adam took a sip of his coffee and muttered, ‘Oh, you noticed that, did you?’

  He looked again at the front cover. The author was one J. E. Lydford. He had heard that name before. Where?

  He shook his head, unable to make the connection, and turned back to the book.

  ‘This picturesque village gives the modern visitor no clues to its violent and dark past. It is one of many places laying claim to the title of Most Haunted Village in England.’

  Not just the most godless, then, noted Adam.

  ‘Now, in the mid-20th century, an array of ghostly figures are said to walk the quiet streets of this sleepy hamlet. At the crossroads, a spectral coach and four thunders past on moonlit nights, while a white lady is abroad at the manor house.’

  Adam raised his eyebrows, wondering what effect a white lady might have on the village’s resident pornographers. He couldn’t imagine she’d approve of what was going on.

  But ghosts aren’t real, he told himself sternly.

  ‘In the churchyard, the figure of a hanged man has been spotted swinging from the branches of an old yew tree.’