Intimate

by Donna Huxley

  He shrugged. 'You're hopeless,' he sighed. 'What difference should it make to you, anyway? I like having a drink with May. She's cute, and fairly witty. Besides, I'm lonely. You're never at home, since you're always working nights. Why shouldn't I have a little amusement?'

  'That sounds funny coming from you,' Anna said bitterly. 'You're the one who's never home. My work is the only distraction I get.'

  'And speaking of personnel files,' he added, ignoring her words, 'I think an investigation such as the one you suggest would show that our May has nothing to hide. I'll say one thing for her: she's a very straightforward woman.'

  'Good for her,' Anna retorted. 'She sounds well suited to you. Perhaps you can take a more permanent interest in her after we separate.'

  'I doubt it,' he drawled. 'May has a good head on her shoulders, but she's a bit too candid. Never holds anything back. Wears her heart on her sleeve. No, Anna, she's just not my type. I like a woman with a little mystery.'

  'You're fooling yourself, Marsh,' Anna snapped, her growing anger fueled by weeks of resentment. 'Any mystery you might have attached to me has been of your own imagining. I told you the whole truth about myself long ago. If you want to see a mind that gets pleasure out of putting suspicious constructions on everything, just look in the mirror.'

  'I don't think so,' he contradicted her blithely. 'It seems to me that everyone who comes in contact with you has some inkling of your aversion to the truth. For instance, your current employers at the restaurant— are they aware that you used to work at N.T.E.L.? How about your old friend Debby? Does she know why you're working outside your old career? And, of course, there's always me. Why, if I weren't a lawyer, and trained to put two and two together, I wouldn't even realise you sent your famous personnel file back to your old Vice-President.'

  'So,' Anna fumed, 'you haven't changed your ways. You're still spying on me.'

  'Not at all,' he said mockingly. 'Just using the things I already know to speculate on what's going on behind my back. After all, I'm not in the habit of expecting you to keep me informed.'

  'Why should I?' she rejoined. 'Whatever I might say would be greeted with disbelief.'

  'You have a point there.'

  Anna avoided his mocking gaze, her eyes scanning the cityscape outside the windows. Struck dumb by his cruel words, she fought to control her emotions.

  'In all these weeks,' she said at length, 'you've never forgiven me for something that wasn't even my fault. You have no pity, Marsh.'

  'I wouldn't say that,' Marsh shook his head with infuriating suavity. 'I do pity you, Anna. I simply live with you in the only reasonable manner. In a way, I'm the perfect husband for you. A good lawyer is trained to take what people tell him with a grain of salt. He proceeds on the assumption that everyone has something to hide. Since you're a person of whom that is true to an exaggerated degree, I can relate to you quite well by simply assuming that whatever you tell me conceals something unspoken.'

  'Wonderful,' Anna snapped. 'I'm glad I'm good for something, even if only for sharpening your professional instincts.'

  'The day I proposed to you,' Marsh went on, 'I said you were a woman who needed watching. I had no idea how right I was.'

  'I don't think I'll be needing your surveillance any longer, Marsh. To be quite frank, I've had enough of you and your reproaches and your silence. Once you're free, you're welcome to seek out another mysterious woman, if that's what gives you a thrill. Personally, I don't care what you do.'

  'I'm grateful for your blessing,' he mocked. 'But I won't hear any talk of divorce. Not now, anyway.'

  'Why not?' she asked. 'You yourself admit that our marriage isn't working, that it's a mistake.'

  'Not working, I'll agree,' he said. 'A mistake? I'm not sure. Time will tell. There may be residual benefits to a life without trust. You've forfeited your right to any confidence I might have in you, but there's always this, my love.' He rose abruptly from his chair. 'You're still my type.'

  A mischievous grin curled his lips as he advanced towards her. Suddenly Anna realised she was dressed only in her robe. Before she could move to defend herself, he had crossed the carpet in one lithe stride and curled his arm around her back.

  'You're good-looking,' he said harshly into her ear. 'You're very sexy, in your own way.' His powerful arms held her like an iron vice, and he pressed himself brutally to her.

  'Why consider a divorce?' he said, his hands beginning to caress her back, her hips. 'We have a good time together in bed, don't we? And your sister is taken care of, isn't she? And I only ask one thing of you, don't I?' His questions were like little contemptuous slaps which wounded her pride, even as his hands and lips quickened her pulse with tiny spasms of growing desire.

  'Your part of the bargain isn't all that bad, is it?' he whispered, his lips caressing the tender hollow of her neck. 'You've got your job, your independence, your privacy. And when the witching hour arrives,' he added, his muscular chest grazing the taut tips of her breasts, 'I give you a pretty good time.'

  Anna wanted to cry out, to push him away, and never to forgive him for the humiliation he was inflicting upon her. But already her treacherous body, tingling with insidious sensations, responded to his seductive touch with a shudder he was all too quick to interpret correctly. Glorying in his ability to arouse her against her own better judgment, Marsh laughed against her flesh.

  'A bargain is a bargain, my love,' he murmured. 'Why not let yourself go, and enjoy the benefits?'

  From the depths of her memory the echo of Porter Deman's cruel words resonated forth to join those of Marsh. It was the same cruelty, the same joy in prostituting her, in coveting her body at the expense of her self-respect. 'Why don't you let yourself go…?'

  With an athletic quickness that took him by surprise she whirled in his grasp and slapped his face with all her might. For an instant his black eyes gleamed dangerously down at her. Then, with amused admiration for her aggressiveness, he grasped her more firmly.

  His lips claimed her own with brutal intimacy, and she heard herself gasp in consternation at her own excitement. His hands had stolen expertly under the fabric of her robe to explore her nakedness, their subtle, knowing movements driving her to fearsome heights of desire. Slowly, with powerful expertise, his arms manipulated the weight of her body, shifting its centre of gravity, now supporting, now letting go, so that she was lowered naked to the carpet, as vulnerable as an insect around which a spider spins its imprisoning web. And all the while Marsh's deep, probing kiss held her in rapt immobility as he stripped off the last shreds of fabric separating her from him.

  In a trice he had slipped out of his own clothes, without releasing her from the intoxicating, stunning contact of his body. She felt sullied to her depths, mocked by his arrogant sensuality, degraded by the disrespect with which he had stripped her, pulled her to the floor. What made it all worse was that in his perverse triumph over her unavailing resistance, he felt and knew the strength of the tie that still bound her to him.

  She could feel an invisible smirk of victory in the very movements of his limbs as her lips returned his kiss, her flesh burned against his own, and a little groan of helpless pleasure stirred in her throat.

  Without haste he prepared to come to her, for her body's shuddering responses made it clear she was ready to accept him, right here on the carpet, in the warm, still air. A hand rested confidently on her breast, the palm a mocking touch against the poised hardness of the nipple. He brushed the sleek flesh of her stomach with a kiss that sent a great shiver of yielding through her. His hand closed over her shoulder, pinning her to the floor like a living, breathing doll, an inanimate object brought to sensual life by his touch.

  As she felt the hardness of his body settle luxuriantly over her, she decided to let him have his way without a struggle. She would oppose her passive resistance to his selfish pleasure, spoiling through her pliant coldness the intimacy he sought. But it was no use, for already her nerves tingled with inv
oluntary delight at the warm, sliding touch of his skin on her own.

  So she gave up all resistance, and accepted her role as his prostitute, the plaything of his desire. A perverse little voice whose echo stole over her throbbing flesh told her to enjoy herself, to sink into this sensual mire of humiliation, to allow herself to be titillated by the novelty of this experience, by this delight in sex without love. And perhaps her very acquiescence would punish him, she thought vaguely, for he would know that she also could take pleasure in his hard body without asking or receiving any human tenderness from him.

  But her resentful thoughts were brushed away like gossamer in the wind by the tumult of involuntary ecstasy which overcame her. The last remnants of her self-respect seemed borne into oblivion as Marsh held her tighter, closer, as her traitorous body arched shamelessly and pressed itself against him, languid, delighting—and all gave way suddenly, all burst and relaxed into a wave of overwhelming passion. He had had his way, for he knew her too intimately to be checked by her defences.

  And even now, lying faint in his arms, her eyes closed, Anna looked inside herself for the unforgiving woman who must live without him forever, and it was his black eyes that seemed to look out at her, holding her imperiously with their penetrating gaze.

  She stood before the mirror, combing the tangles of sensual rapture out of her hair, having washed the traces of Marsh's assault from her body. He was in bed, reading. The eyes in the glass were tormented, exhausted. Her reserves of initiative seemed at a low ebb, and she felt defeat in every corner of her soul. There had been no love in his touch tonight. He had somehow extinguished it through the cold force of his resentment. And her will had reached its final paralysis, for her senses had actually delighted in being sullied by him.

  In her cheeks she saw the pallor that Debby had noticed. Anna alone had suspected the real reason for the changes her body had undergone recently. Tomorrow or the next day she would know the results of the tests. If it was true, she was lost. Pregnancy would mean the end of life as she had known it, and the beginning of a time whose perils she could not even imagine. Married without trust, a mother without a real husband…

  But why worry about the future? It would only be more of the same. Time seemed to have ground to a halt, stopping in one hollow instant which spread and expanded, consuming past and future alike. Only this awful unhappiness remained, diffusing itself like a gas, filling up the world, leaving no air to breathe. To think of repairing the damage caused by these weeks of angry silence was a futile thing now. She herself no longer trusted the husband whose confidence she had lost long ago.

  There was nothing left but to go on, to endure. Let him enjoy her body, then. If it pleased him, let him have his way. She might as well enjoy him, too.

  Or leave him, she thought as her mind jumped from one extreme to another. Go back to living alone, and working at Ariel. Raising her… her baby. Could it be? She was to telephone the doctor's nurse tomorrow. Her mind burned with an anticipation from which all joy and courage had been banished.

  The pale face in the mirror swung and disappeared as she turned towards the bedroom.

  CHAPTER NINE

  'Mrs Hamilton, is it?'

  'That's right.'

  'Can you hold the line a moment? I believe we have the test result.'

  Anna sat in anxious silence in the empty living room, her eyes darting sightlessly across the urban horizon outside the window. No sound came across the line; the nurse must have put her on an electronic hold.

  With a shudder she glanced at the space of carpet beside the couch. Only last night Marsh had taken her there, brutally, abruptly, without affection. And now she was to find out whether she carried a new life in her body. The strain of the contradiction between the pain of her marriage and the joy of childbearing seemed intolerable. How could she presume to bring a new baby into the world, when her own life was in chaos? A child needs security, and that can only come from a strong relationship between its parents. Without that bond of understanding between mother and father, the infant would be little better than an orphan.

  There was only one way out. A single parent would be better than two parents who were at each other's throats…

  'Hello? Mrs Hamilton?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, we have the result, and it's positive.'

  There was a silence as Anna tried to cope with the reality announced by the voice on the line.

  'Are you happy with the result, I hope?' The nurse's voice was hesitant, friendly.

  'Oh… yes,' Anna assured her, 'of course I am. Thank you very much.'

  Placing the receiver gingerly on the phone, as if afraid to upset some invisible balance of nature at this critical moment, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

  A child! She was to be a mother. For a brief, wonderful moment the thought of the gentle, tiny life within her body banished all other ideas. Whatever the tribulations she had endured these past months and years, only a few months now separated her from the miracle of bringing into the world a tiny boy or girl destined to grow into a real person. A separate personality, possessed of its own unknowable destiny, and yet bearing the wonderful and mysterious traces of the parents who created it. Whom would it resemble? Would it be a boy or a girl? What would be the sound of its little voice as it grew? What would be its interests? Anna's mind was thronged by all the joyful thoughts that come with a first pregnancy.

  She stood up and walked the apartment aimlessly. As the couch, the bedroom passed before her eyes, her happiness began to give way to the desperate thoughts brought on by last night's scene with Marsh. Clearly he had lost what remained of his respect for her. He had treated her like a sexual slave. She shuddered anew as she recalled the echo of Porter Deman's cruel, manipulative words on Marsh's own lips. Never had she dreamed him capable of such arrogant cruelty.

  She had endured these many weeks of silence in the waning hope that the resentment poisoning her marriage would dissipate with the passage of time. But it had obviously grown worse. Marsh left no doubt that he neither expected nor intend to give real love to his future relationship with Anna. As far as he was concerned, his worst suspicions of her own motives in marrying him had become the only reality of their life together. It was a marriage of convenience, cemented only by mutual self-interest. The blitheness with which he welcomed this existence without affection or trust had been the final blow to Anna's hopes.

  It had been one thing to contemplate a divorce for the simple reason that life with Marsh was unhappy. It was quite another to imagine this loveless arrangement as a basis for bringing up a vulnerable child. Marsh's arrogant refusal to consider a separation could no longer be taken seriously. Anna's pregnancy lent a new urgency to the situation.

  She must leave him, and soon. Her first step must be to effect the separation she knew to be inevitable. At some point, depending on the extent of Marsh's recalcitrance, a divorce would follow. In the meantime Anna would muster the courage she had left, and start a new life for herself—and for her baby.

  For a brief, pained instant she pondered the tragic fate of the marriage which had once promised such a happy future. Deep within her remained a bond with Marsh which would never be severed. Whatever the bitterness that had overtaken her feelings for him, she would never be able to forget those first days of heady excitement in his company, of boundless confidence in him. It was nearly unbearable to think that her prideful silence about her personal problems had had such catastrophic consequences.

  But it had happened. The clock could not be turned back. Marsh's faith in her must indeed have been frail from the outset, if he was able to abandon it so quickly. And perhaps her own pride, which would not allow her to beg him to reconsider his mistrust, indicated a secret lack of commitment on her own part.

  In any case, there was no point in lingering over the complexities of it all. They had failed to make a life with each other; it was as simple as that. In future Anna would retain one precious link
to her stormy tryst with Marsh Hamilton: the baby she now carried. Nothing could take that away from her.

  Or could it?

  A great fear blossomed within her, and was answered by the fierce protectiveness of motherhood. She would need money to bring up the child. What about her job at Ariel? How long would it be before her pregnancy forced her to quit? Would Mr Radier allow her to take time off to have the baby, and then return to work? Wouldn't Mr Foucault be confirmed in his suspicions of female employees, and insist on letting Anna go?

  How would she find another job? She dared not cite N.T.E.L. as a reference; that career was over. Her current bosses might give her a reference, but would she be able to earn enough to support a child?

  And what about Sally? If Anna left Marsh, she would have to take on Sally's tuition payments again. How could she possibly earn enough for both Sally and her baby?

  Unless she accepted alimony and child support payments from Marsh. Money to pay for her child. His child.

  An angry chill shot through her body as she contemplated the ultimate danger. If there was a divorce, wouldn't Marsh demand custody of his child? A child not yet born… Marsh was himself a lawyer. Wouldn't he claim that Anna was not capable of supporting the child adequately?

  A welter of confused fears threatened to take possession of her. Wouldn't Marsh cite the false pretences under which she had married him, and characterise her as an unfit mother? A scheming, mercenary woman who had married him for money while hiding the truth about herself…

  Losing control of her thoughts, she imagined him supporting his claims by producing the damning N.T.E.L. personnel file in a divorce court. She saw herself vainly trying to protest her innocence before a judge, after already having failed to convince her own husband of it. She saw herself attempting to explain why she had never acted to disprove the file's charges, to regain her job, to clear her name… Was she not a security risk? A woman who had tried to use her sexual favours in order to avoid prosecution for her crime?