“I’m thinking of you, Miranda.” His voice entered her head so thoroughly that, for a moment, she thought he was beside her on the plastic seat. She spun her head around to face an elderly woman in a turban, piles of carrier bags filling her ample lap.
“Sorry,” she muttered, though the woman had said nothing.
Inside her mind, John laughed.
“Don’t panic. They’re nice thoughts. Very nice. Your body laid bare for me, quivering and eager. Your perfect hair all mussed, your makeup smudged, legs spread good and wide so I can see everything that’s coming to me. Everything I mean to take and use and own.”
Mimi didn’t realise she was shushing aloud until the woman moved to a seat across the gangway.
“I’ll take it, I’ll fill it, I’ll give you a ride to remember. You’re going to wake the dead in Highgate Cemetery with your screaming tonight. You’ll limp into work tomorrow and everyone will wonder who’s been giving you what for. At any rate, they’ll know it isn’t Liam!”
The name woke Mimi from her sensual reverie. She sat up straight and looked around her, sure that she must have attracted attention from her fellow passengers, but nobody looked up from their iPods and Evening Standards. Of course, she reflected, you would have to start lobbing grenades about to raise an eyebrow in central London.
“Please…” she silently begged, and he seemed to hear her plea, leaving her alone to read about a new production of A Doll’s House until the bus reached Belsize Park.
At the top of the stairs, Mimi paused, running her hand over and over the polished knob at the end of the banister.
She tried not to let the thought crystallise into words that Stone could interpret, but too late, it was in her head.
“There must be a way to break the link. If I get rid of my mobile…”
“Get in here! Now!” came the instantaneous response, and Mimi let her shoulders droop and her head hang low, traipsing towards the cream door beyond which she would be altered, turned into Stone’s creature in some sick mating ceremony.
He was sitting, languidly cross-legged, in a plush bedroom armchair, his strong, compact physique draped in a robe of heavy burgundy damask, tied at the waist with a gold sash. The open bottle of cognac and pair of brandy balloons on the walnut side table turned him into some cartoon representation of loucheness, every element present from the embroidered slippers to the rapacious gleam of his eyes.
“I thought you might like a drink before we proceed,” he said, pouring rich gold into one of the glasses. “Take the edge off any…performance anxiety. Well, don’t just stand there, Miranda. Come here.”
He slapped a thigh, making it clear that he expected Mimi to join him on the armchair. She hesitated.
“Take those trousers off first though. You never wear trousers—why did you put them on today?”
He knew fine well, Mimi thought crossly, that she had chosen the neglected linen crops precisely because it would make Stone’s planned seduction less easy. Again, she baulked at his command, feeling she ought to put up more of a fight.
“I’d prefer to keep them on.”
“No you wouldn’t. Take them off, or I’ll take them off for you.”
The low-level aphrodisiac in the air around them magnified, suddenly and intensely, precipitating a flood of wetness to Mimi’s crotch. The linen would stain if she didn’t get them off. She hurried out of the ill-fated pants and kicked off her ballet flats into the bargain, left standing in a short-sleeved silk blouse and her biggest, least see-through pair of knickers.
“Did you wear knickers like that at school?” John taunted. “Gym knickers? Did you think they would put me off? On the contrary, I look forward to pulling them down. Now get over here.”
Mimi trudged towards John’s beckoning finger. With each step, the air around her thickened and grew rich with sensuality, heating her skin and making her wetter than ever between the legs. By the time she arrived at John’s armchair, she craved his touch and she slid easily, gratefully, onto his lap, sighing with relief at the feel of him against her.
He enclosed her with one arm and passed the glass to her with the free hand.
“No, that’s awkward.” He frowned, taking the drink from her again. “Let’s do it this way.” He took a sip, and held the liquid in his mouth, seemingly taking the measure of its full-bodied flavour, then he tilted Mimi’s chin up, signalling that a kiss was coming her way. Before she knew it, he had her lips prised open and his tongue inside her mouth, while the stream of fiery brandy seeped from John to her, his taste mixed with alcohol, turning her chest and stomach to flame. She moaned and pressed closer, giving in to fate, understanding and accepting that his strength surpassed hers and the fight was lost.
The lascivious imbibing continued, sip after sip, kiss after kiss, John rubbing the silken blouse against Mimi’s nipples as he fed her until her body passed beyond her control, weakened and inflamed at the same time, a vessel in which to pour his desires.
Her buttons were undone, one by one, slowly but deftly, and when the glass was empty, Stone took the soft flesh of her neck between his teeth and sucked at it, hard, a vampire smelling blood, a satyr smelling sex.
Mimi ground her bottom into his crotch and let her legs fall open, wordlessly begging his hand to move lower. He took her hint and used the hand that was not kneading her breasts to attend to her knickers, diving down inside the elastic and finding the luscious slickness within. Mimi’s first semicoherent thought since landing on his lap was, A man who can find the clitoris without even looking, he exists. She began to push herself onto his wicked fingers, jerking and grunting, giving herself to him.
“You’re going to come,” whispered John, exerting the perfect amount of pressure on the greedy swollen bud. “For the first time of many tonight. Do it, Miranda, come for me now.”
Her spine stiffened, then sagged as the orgasm of her life took her over, mind, body and soul. Tears fell, her helpless cries poured out and her ears were still pounding minutes later.
Except that wasn’t just her ears.
“John, I think…there’s someone at the door.”
The hammering started again, loud and insistent. Then a deep voice, unfamiliar to both, through the letter box.
“Mr. Stone. Police. Please open the door.”
“What the fuck?” John cursed, tipping the still-depleted Mimi from his lap and scowling down from the window. “Two coppers. What’s happened?”
“Has something happened to Anna?” Mimi asked with urgency, buttoning up her blouse and joining him at the window.
“No, no, I’d know. The psychic link. Anna’s fine. She’s safe.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, shouldn’t we find out?”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Miranda.” He flapped the curtain fiercely shut and began pulling on pants and a shirt. “I suppose I ought to go. Luana won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Police aren’t her thing.”
“Is she an illegal?”
“Shut up. Wait here.”
Barefoot, in open-collared shirt and unbelted trousers, John sped out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Mimi, unable to obey this command, pulled on her trousers and followed him, hanging back just far enough to be out of his earshot.
She watched him pull open the huge front door and stand, arms folded, head cocked to one side.
“Officers? How can I help?”
“Mr. Stone? John Stone?”
“I am he.”
“We’ve had two separate reports of domestic incidents at this address—both callers expressing concern for your wife. Can I ask if everything’s all right, sir?”
“Everything’s fine. As you see. If it’s my sister doing the reporting, you should know that it’s malicious.”
“I can’t comment on our sources, sir, but we do need to come in, just briefly, to eliminate any concerns.”
“Come in? Do you
have a warrant?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then I’m afraid the answer’s no. Listen—” He lowered his voice to a confidential tone, “—my wife and I were…busy. She’s waiting for me upstairs.”
“Is that your wife?” piped up one of the officers, having spotted Mimi clinging to the newel, eavesdropping.
John spun round, catching a guilty Mimi and tightening his mouth to indicate his disapproval.
“Why did you get out of bed?” he demanded.
“So this is your wife? Do you mind if we have a word? Mrs. Stone…”
Mimi swallowed hard and stepped forward, defying John’s wrathful glare.
“I am Mrs. Stone.”
John stared, eyes popping, on the verge of explosion.
“Is everything okay, madam? We heard that some people were worried about you. Just need to check it out.”
Mimi’s voice was thick, so much so that it almost seemed to be resisting her as she spoke, but the words got there eventually.
“No. Everything’s not okay. Not at all. I’m afraid of him.”
“Don’t do this! You don’t know what’s at stake! Don’t do this to me, Mimi. You can’t…”
Deliberately, she avoided John’s eye.
“Please arrest him. He’s a danger to me. A danger to himself. A danger to everybody. He needs to be put away.”
“You want to file a charge, madam?”
“Yes, I do. Assault. I want him done for assault. At least that.”
“Right. Mr. Stone, I’m going to have to ask you to accompany us to the station—a little bit of cooperation here will save a lot of trouble.”
But John was already trying to shut the door in the officers’ faces, reaching out blindly for Mimi, who threw herself out onto the front step, into the safety of the policemen.
“It’s all right, you’re safe,” one of them said, and it was only then that stiff-upper-lipped Mimi realised she was crying.
“This is all a mistake. She’s overreacted to something trivial,” Stone was saying, trying his best to keep a lid on the rage Mimi could see behind his eyes.
“No, it isn’t,” she cried. “He is evil. I’ve never thought that of anyone before—but he is.”
John took a pair of shoes from the rack in the porch and accompanied the officers with as hard a veneer of amused inconvenience as he could muster.
“She’s deluded,” he hissed, passing Mimi, sending out a message to her while the psychic link still held. “You will be to blame when it happens. It will be your fault. The death of humanity—do you want that on your conscience?”
She blinked through tears, staring at his back on the way to the police car. What on earth did he mean by that?
“We’ll need a statement,” one of the officers told Mimi while the other assisted John into the police car. “A female officer will call round a bit later on. The main thing for now is that you’re safe and he’s contained.”
“Who called you?” Mimi asked, suddenly realising that she would not be able to press charges against John without incurring accusations of false representation. She was not, after all, John’s wife.
“Friends,” said the officer with a smile before leaving to join his colleague in the vehicle. Mimi watched dully as the car moved off, taking John away to be processed. Then a figure appeared at the gateway, staring after the car in shocked dismay.
“Anna! Thank God you’re okay.”
“Mimi.” Anna looked desperate and confused. “What’s happening? Why are you here? Where’s John?”
“Come inside.”
“Don’t invite me inside my own house.”
Mimi froze in her tracks, surprised by her friend’s unusually assertive tone.
“What was that police car doing? Where’s John?”
“John’s been arrested.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he’s an awful man, Anna. Wasn’t it you who called them?”
“No. It was Liam.”
“Liam?”
“Oh, I asked him not to! I have to go to him. I have to tell them it’s a mistake.”
Mimi reached out for Anna’s wrist, stopping her from racing out to the street.
“It’s not a mistake. He does mistreat you. He’s…mesmerised you. You need to get away from his influence.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me—”
“He doesn’t care about you. He just wants the baby, for some reason.”
“You don’t—” Anna stopped, her eyes wild, moved closer to Mimi and sniffed. “Oh my God. I can smell him on you. You! You’ve been having an affair with him. Oh my God, I’m so stupid!”
“Anna, calm down.” Mimi dragged her friend up the steps to the porch. “Listen to me. This is why you have to get away from him. We both do. I don’t want him, Anna. But he forced me.”
“What? Are you saying he’s a rapist now?”
“I…think I am. Yes.”
Anna sat and leant her head on a pillar. It was impossible to miss her wanness, the air of exhaustion about her.
“We have this chance to get away from him,” murmured Mimi. “To go back to normal.”
Anna stood up and faced Mimi, her shoulders slumped in defeat. “There’ll never be a normal again. Not after John. I have to see him, Mimi. You can’t stop me.”
“I wish I could—” Mimi began, but she was interrupted by a peculiar noise, partly a hiss, partly a fierce clicking, coming from the doorway.
It was Luana.
“Go to him,” she urged, her tone so harsh and guttural it was barely human. “You go to him now.”
“I’m going to,” Anna said.
“Help him. Or there trouble. Terrible, terrible. Go to him.”
It was beyond Mimi’s power to prevent Anna’s flight from the house. She watched the girl go and turned to Luana.
“You know what’s going on, don’t you? What is all this? What is he doing all this for?”
“You go to him,” Luana repeated. “He tell you.”
At the front desk of the custody suite, John was handing over his Cartier watch and his Montblanc fountain pen, essaying some light banter with the duty sergeant, when he heard a familiar voice drift in from the reception area beyond.
“I need to see him. It’s all a mistake. Let me see him.”
“That’s my wife,” he said. “She wants to withdraw the charge. Anna!” he called loudly.
“She can’t come in here,” the sergeant declared. “Hold on a second and I’ll see what’s happening.”
When he put his head around the door to the public waiting area, there was a young woman, sobbing against the bosom of an older one who held her close, soothing her.
“Everything all right out here?” asked the concerned sergeant.
“Fine,” the older woman replied in clipped tones.
“Why would he cheat on me? With my best friend,” the younger woman wailed.
“Because he’s ill, Anna. We know it. And you and I are going to see to it that he gets some help. We can afford the best private clinic in the country. He’ll be the John we know and love before you know it. We just have to make sure the police know that he needs care, not legal action.”
“I’m sorry, this is John Stone you’re talking about?” the sergeant queried.
“Yes, we’ve come here to ask about getting him a psychiatric assessment.”
“Ah. I think you need to let me know a bit more.” The sergeant sat down beside them, ready to listen.
“I need to ask you a few questions, John, if you’re up to it.”
“I’m up to it. And it’s Mr. Stone to you.”
The narrow room contained no more than a cot with a plastic mattress and a small table and chair. The only window was high up in the wall and didn’t open. Around the wall, messages were scrawled, last words for the world, in different-coloured biros. Mainly names and dates, though some were pleas, some were curses, most were snippets of disturbed thought. The room was n
ot clean and it smelled of desperation.
“Okay.” The psychiatrist wrote something down. “Mr. Stone. Why do you think you’re here?”
“For a holiday. I’m going to complain about this room though. Where’s my free fucking Wi-Fi?”
The psychiatrist looked up. “You were brought here by the police. They don’t generally get involved in people’s holidays.”
“Are you married, Dr. Empathy?”
“No.”
“Try and keep it that way. Then you won’t find that your penniless, orphaned young wife tries to take you to the cleaners by having you fraudulently certified insane.”
“Nobody’s certified anything. This is an assessment, that’s all.”
“Well, let’s see if you can assess this. I’m a millionaire. I married a girl who had nothing. Within weeks of the wedding, she has started shagging some eager young buck from her office. She doesn’t want me, but she wants my money. What do you think she might do about that?”
“You think she has orchestrated this? Set you up?”
“That’s one assessment, isn’t it? And that is the problem with assessment in general. One person’s can be quite different from another’s. I’m as sane as you are.”
“Well, the referral wasn’t only from your wife, to be fair.”
“My sister has seen me twice in a year.”
“She says that’s out of character.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yes, busy making a machine to repair the ozone layer. I’m wondering about your scientific background…?”
“I’m wondering about your qualifications, actually. I’d like to see written proof. How do I know you’re a psychiatrist? If you’re retained by this dump, you can’t be a very good one. I demand to be moved to a private clinic.”
“You’re just here for the initial assessment.”
“Well, I reject your capacity to carry it out. I’m not talking to you. I want a female psychiatrist. Do you have one of those?”
“You can’t specify—”
“Lalalalalala, not listening to youuuu,” John sang. “Get out of my space. Bring me a female doctor. I only speak to women. That’s the new rule.”
Under His Influence Page 15