by Donna Alam
‘I have no clue. No idea what you’re talking about,’ she replies, looking a little perturbed now.
‘Come now,’ I purr, sliding my hand to the metal buckle of my belt. ‘Don’t pretend not to know. What happens if I want to, say, smack you with my belt?’ I shrug again as though this is a reasonable request. She obviously hadn’t thought of this as a consequence.
I watch her gaze sink down to the Italian leather wrapping my waist. What was in her eyes? Was it anticipation or fear? It’s hard to tell.
‘I suppose that’d be okay,’ she replies quietly, though she doesn’t sound convinced. ‘Let’s just go to the bedroom. Fool around a little first?’ It almost sounds as though she was building up to the belt. Excited. A little scared.
‘A fine plan, but it’s not really a punishment then, is it? And I doubt we’d get to the belt in the end.’
‘Good.’ Her eyes flick southward again. ‘Looks like it’d hurt.’
I laugh. ‘Maybe, but isn’t that the point of punishment?’
‘Doesn’t sound fun. Or warranted.’
‘But you know you’d enjoy it; that delicious sting right there at the end.’
Her expression seemed to say, not as much as you, by the look on your face.
‘How about I whack you first, just to be sure. You can tell me how it feels?’ God loves a trier, so they say. Not that her attempts are working here.
Ignoring her bravado, I push my hand under her arm, helping her to stand.
‘You’ll endure it,’ I whisper. ‘Of course, you will. For me.’
Sitting on her vacated chair, I pull her between my open knees, splaying my hand across her collarbone and moving it steadily south until it’s insinuated between her legs.
‘Pick a number,’ I say softly, watching her face as I rock my palm against her clit. As I rub my fingers along the denim seam between her legs.
Her legs begin to tremble, her response little more than a needy rasp.
‘Five.’ Her hips jerked, reckless and vulnerable.
‘Higher,’ I demand. ‘And you can do the maths. Add your misdemeanours up.’
‘The math,’ she corrects. ‘Not plural.’ Her forehead creases as she prepares her answer. ‘Five for throwing toast and five for insulting your choice in radio.’
‘And five for making my breakfast go cold. And another five for using the word math wrong.’ She opens her mouth to protest, closing it again as I cut her off. ‘And a forfeit. You’ll make breakfast again, afterwards. Entirely naked.’ As I stand, I remove my hand, sliding it to her hip to turn her around. ‘And because you want this too much, I won’t use my belt, I’ll use my hand instead.’
My arms around her waist, I begin loosening her jeans from behind. She trembles so hard, I worry her legs might give way. Jeans and underwear at her knees, I place a hand between her shoulders, bending her body down across the table as I sweep the breakfast dishes away.
Her head on her hands, she stares out of the window as I slap her arse. We’ll call it a warm-up.
‘Don’t forget to keep count.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
LOUISE
‘Louise, those projections are in. I dropped them off upstairs, and I can tell you they’re none too happy about the figures.’
‘They need to take off those rose-tinted glasses.’
I hadn’t meant to answer her, other than to offer the blandest of deflections. Barbara has to be the most indiscreet PA I’ve ever known. But she’d caught me off guard, lost to my thoughts. Okay, dirty thoughts. I was busy replaying the highlights of yesterday through my mind.
My core flares as I recall my hipbones grating against the table with each thud of his hand. They’re still a little sore today, to be honest. The sting in my cheeks eased when he placed both palms against me as he’d bent to kiss my ass. The sensation of his fingers trailing my ear as he’d gathered the hair draping my face. The flare of absolute need as he’d knotted it hard at the base of my skull. The deliciousness as he’d pushed inside slowly, push against pull as he held my hips and my hair.
He’d taken me slowly—he’d had to. There hadn’t been much leverage due to my position and clothes. Somehow, this had added to my desperation and the taint of hurried dirtiness sitting at the edge. Recalling the slow sensation of him behind me—filling me, taking me—sent waves of remembrance between my legs.
Taken. What a cliché, but taken me he had, further and further down into the seductive rabbit hole until I’d come hard. Bent across the table with my jeans and panties pulled tight and digging into my open legs.
And afterwards, as Dan helped me stand, I’d taken his face in my hands and kissed him. We’d never reached the bedroom, fighting each other through our kisses and falling hard against the sofa. Fierce kisses turned to tenderness, and we’d fallen asleep, almost curled around each other like a pair of cats. For a little while, at least.
Back in the office, I come back to my senses, wet, my ears hurting due to Barb’s excited squeal.
‘You’re thinking about a man, aren’t you?’ The delight in her voice is obvious even without the screech.
‘What? No!’ I begin immediately. ‘I was thinking about the projections.’ And I was, but not the work kind.
‘Oh, have you a beau? Will we meet him at the McCartney opening? Just wait till I tell the girls! We thought . . . well, you know . . .’ Her words trail off as she caught herself.
‘No, I don’t think that I do know.’ Fleetingly, I wonder why I was even asking. Who cares what they thought? But all of a sudden I’m determined to discover what Barb meant.
‘Well, you’ve no man. A powerful job . . .’ Barb moves her hands in a weighing motion. ‘No interest in the lovely single men working here. And, well, you’re just so . . . masculine.’
‘Masculine?’ I repeat, shock colouring my tone. Fucking hell. Barb is right. As in, hers is a name that fits perfectly. Why am I surprised? I’ve heard her barbed gossip before.
‘Well, not exactly masculine,’ she wheedles. ‘But not exactly feminine, either. Dominant!’ she exclaims as though she’d only just located the word.
I almost laugh . . . almost. ‘It’s called professionalism.’ My voice matches how I suddenly feel. Ice-cold. I know my reputation precedes me unfairly. I’m considered a bit of a cold fish, perhaps even a little unfriendly because of how I’ve chosen to conduct myself. I’d also been labelled the Ice Queen, but that had to be sour grapes and bruised egos, because the gibe had come from a man.
It seemed my own sex had now joined in the fun.
‘So,’ I begin, ‘are you going to tell me what people think or do I have to run a poll?’
‘Well, it only . . . see, people assumed you were, you know, batting for the other side?’
This time I do laugh, not sure about batting, but I was battered, all right. For pleasure. But gay?
‘No. Not gay, Barb. Just choosy. And yes, I do have a man.’ My words are overtly careless but pink rises in my cheeks anyway. ‘And I might just bring him along to the opening. I’ll get back to you on that.’
But even as the words left my mouth, I was mentally talking myself out of them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
DAN
‘But darling, you’re just so good.’ Belle sucks in her lower lip for a second, releasing it pink and wet. As I turn, I can feel her eyes on my arse.
I pause for a beat but don’t halt my task, the top rack of the dishwasher almost empty now.
‘Go home, Belle.’
‘Do you remember when—’
I glance down at the wooden spoon in my hand, remembering how the shape of it had stayed on her pale skin for almost a week that first time.
‘No.’ Not if I can help it, I don’t.
Sliding the offending item into the drawer, I frown as I also remember reassuring Louise that I’d purged the house after Belle.
It’s just a spoon, for fuck’s sakes, I think, slamming the drawer closed.
‘Not even for old times?’ Not a question I can answer. ‘Where did it all go so wrong, Danny?’ Not an answer I would know where to begin.
Straightening, I run a distracted hand through my hair. ‘There are no good memories, Annabelle.’ I chuckle humourlessly. It feels alien. ‘All were obliterated the moment I found you fucking someone else in our bed. But if you’re looking for a reason, perhaps you could start there.’
‘Maybe if I’d known you’d feel so passionately about it—damn it! Did you ever stop to think why?’
‘A million times!’ I yell back, finding her fragile shoulders in my hand. ‘A million fucking times.’
I push a lock of hair behind her ear, bending my face towards hers. Tiny any day of the week, she wasn’t wearing shoes. But I’m not a fool. Not these days, anyway. She’s obviously hoping to remind me of how small she is. How malleable she could be in my hands. Like old times. Easy to fuck against the wall, her whole weight balanced on my hips or forearms. Easy to bend into all kinds of shapes.
I sense rather than hear her sharp intake of breath as my mouth came down on the crown of her head. I place my lips there. Hardly a kiss. More something to stop me from shouting again.
‘A million times,’ I repeat softly as I pull away. ‘But not anymore.’
My phone skitters suddenly across the butcher block, Belle reaching it before I can get to it. She prods the screen.
‘The code is still our anniversary.’ Her voice sounds like triumph, eyes gleaming with, could it be, unshed tears?
‘Give it to me.’ I hold out my hand, my words not a request, my molars feeling the brunt of this.
‘Why? What are you going to do about it?’ Belle purrs, sliding along the row of cupboards, hands trailing the worktops as I follow suit. ‘You’ll have to catch me if you want it back.’ She feints left and slides under my arm, her pealing laughter following her along the hallway.
I move to follow her, muttering a hard ‘fuck’ as I recognised the light pitter-pat of her feet on the stairs.
In the bedroom, Belle prowls along the far side of the bed, sunlight catching the highlights on her expensively coloured head.
‘The text says she wants you to help prove to her colleagues that she’s not gay. I wouldn’t have thought desk fucking with an audience was your thing, darling. What happened to there’s a time and a place for everything?’ She mimics me with a bass tone. ‘But maybe you’ve changed. Maybe you’ve learned to accept some people just desire being the centre of everyone’s attention.’ Despite her nervous giggles, there’s an edge of accusation there.
‘Give me the phone, Belle.’
‘Why don’t you make me?’ comes her sultry return.
So I did. Reaching for her as she allowed me to. I throw her against the mattress, a breast heaving, eye-shining mess. Her dress wraps her waist, deep pink silk lingerie on view.
‘They’re new.’ There was an almost breathless quality to her words, her fingers dancing tantalisingly across the soft material.
Frozen to the spot, my eyes seem glued to where her fingers touch. I come awake to my actions with a snap, taking one, deep breath before my knees made a dent in the mattress next to her.
‘A bit like those,’ Belle whispers, her gaze sliding to the cuffs dangling from the wrought-iron headboard. I imagine it’s not that she’s surprised to find them there, just that they aren’t, well, ours. Her eyes return to me as I straddle her legs. ‘You know, I cried when you destroyed our bed,’ she says more candidly than anything she’s said today.
She said she’d watched from next door, watched from an upstairs window as I’d taken an axe to the expensive wooden frame of our marital bed less than a week after she’d moved out. My anger she’d seen as a sign of hope, a sign that all wasn’t lost. She wasn’t close enough to see my expression. If she had, she wouldn’t have such delusions.
‘Darling, let’s start afresh.’ Words spill from her lips, raw and hopeful.
I don’t answer, just leaned towards her, drawing a finger up between her legs, not quite touching where she needs it, though my touch does resonate as she shivers. With an ease borne of experience, I flick her dress loose against her chest. Tilting my head to one side, I examine her pale, pale skin.
Belle stretches languidly for my view, arms reaching above her head in a silent plea. I follow the invitation, supporting myself with one hand against the mattress, the other sliding along the side of her body, trailing the sensitive but exposed underside of her arm, drawing the tips of my fingers . . . to the phone she still holds in her hand.
Anger, betrayal, and shame wash through Belle’s face as the bed creaks when I stand. At the bedroom door, I pause but don’t look back.
‘Pull yourself together, Belle. Get out of my house and don’t come back, not without an invitation. Understand I think of you only as a fucking slut.’
I didn’t look back, her screamed response following me down the hall.
‘I used to be your fucking slut!’
I grab my jacket from the hallway and car keys from the bowl on the hallstand, leaving the door unlocked as I take off on the garden path at a jog. My need to get away from her malice is great. The need to clear the scent of her skin bigger still. Belle stirs up too many memories. The good along with the bad.
As I drive, I recall images of parties with like-minded couples, the air filled with a sense of need and superiority, bodies fuelled by egos and drugs. We were professionals, she and I. Tied together by marriage. A mortgage. A child. But like so many of our contemporaries, we’d decided society’s expectations wouldn’t define us. Such middle class lives we’d lead in other ways. We often spent Fridays in the office before hitting the club, waking Saturday morning with someone else’s wife’s juices plastered to one or both of our mouths.
Now we have only a history, one I’d gladly ignore. And Hal. Sweet, funny, and by the grace of God, a well-balanced child, despite our fucked-up parenting.
It isn’t long before I find myself on the banks of the Thames, phone in my hand.
‘I’m outside your building. You wanted me to come and bend you over your desk?’
Louise laughs, hanging up without speaking a word. I begin to worry she hadn’t believed me at all when the glass revolving door produced her. She beckons me inside with a wave of her hand.
‘You’re too late. It’s gone six. Everyone’s gone home.’
I turned, gesturing to the glass door I’d just walked through. ‘Come back tomorrow, shall I? Just be sure to clear the surface of your desk. Save us both some time.’
‘Wasn’t quite what I had in mind,’ she said smiling. ‘But I’m glad you’re here.’
I pause, my gaze on the space beyond her shoulder. She’s never mentioned this part of her life; no talk of colleagues during dinner, no mentions of the stress of her day. I only know where she works because of that fateful business card.
Now what? She’d thrown me a line, and I’d found myself taking the bait. Should it offend my dominant sensibilities? The ones I have on pause these days? The truth, though I don’t care to examine it at length, is probably Belle. I’m frightened by how easy it would’ve been. Rattled that she can still tempt me after all she has done. I wouldn’t have. Not really. I just hate that I loved her at one time.
‘Hey, you okay?’ Louise’s hand touches my arm, seeking to catch my attention.
‘It’s nothing. Just a ghost. Walking over my grave, you know?’ Thoughts snake down my spine, curling in my gut, and I shiver under Louise’s touch.
Turning, she waves at the security guard. I wonder if I look like a terrorist or just a little mad.
At the bank of elevators, pausing with a key card in her hand, she mentions it probably wasn’t strictly professional for me to be here. It seems like an admission; something she hasn’t done before. But then, she does prefer to think of herself as a good girl.
She seems distracted when she suddenly adds, ‘Hey, what says dyke about me today?’
I
return her look, though confused. As the doors chime open, Louise seems to be examining her clothes.
‘I’m not sure I understand, love.’
‘Someone said . . .’ She shakes her head, stepping inside the glass box. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does,’ I reply, holding out my hands in not quite a shrug. ‘Because here I am.’ I make a slow perusal of her clothing—her body, fingers at my chin. My eyes flick over her, almost critically. ‘So, lesbian, you say? Butch or fem?’ She looks slightly dubious as I blunder on. ‘It’s a difficult one,’ I say, now cupping my chin. My eyes travel over her grey shirt dress and linger on her heels. ‘If you were gay, straight men everywhere would be devastated.’
As the lift rises, the sound of her laughter fills it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
DAN
Her office could’ve belonged to anyone. Bar the certificates on the wall bearing her name, nothing denoted that she spent most of her week there. No photos from home, no potted plants, not even tennis shoes for the commute.
We sit on compact leather sofas almost at right angles to the other, chatting with inconsequence. As we do so, I realise I hadn’t kissed her in greeting. Hadn’t taken her in my arms. Crowded her space. In fact, I hadn’t laid a finger on her. And that was wrong.
As our small talk petered to an end, an awkward silence begins to grow. Then lengthen. And consume. Louise excuses herself to go to the bathroom.
While Louise was up to whatever in the bathroom, I walk to the window, enjoying the view over the Thames. The sun is setting, though from the grey, dreary skies, it’s almost hard to tell. I have a sudden urge—a longing—to feel the heat on my skin. Maybe I need a holiday, a break from everything. Fleeting images filter through my head; Louise draped across a monstrous bed, swathed in white linen, the bottom half of her bikini discarded on the floor as I push the other half up over her chest. She’d be sun warmed, sweat glistening, and sugar-sand coated. Only, as my eyes rise along her body, I can’t picture her face. I can only see Belle.
Collapsing back into a chair in front of the desk, I run a hand down my face as my mind slips unbidden to our very first holiday. It had been a few months after our relationship had begun. Was it Tenerife or Ibiza? The crux of my thoughts don’t so much centre on the country, but the destination we’d reached in that very bed. It has been a defining moment—crystalline, if you will. We were already fucking—her legs wrapped around my waist as I’d pounded her into the mattress—when she’d opened her eyes and whispered something I couldn’t quite comprehend.