Kissing Toads

by Jemma Harvey

  ‘All you have to do is say no,’ he said.

  Unfair. Totally, unscrupulously unfair.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Um . . . no . . .’

  He dumped Fenny on the floor and got into bed with me. My powers of resistance had gone wherever powers of resistance go at these times. He moved on top of me, undoing buttons, getting stuck with them the way men always do. His erection was pressing into me with only the thin silk of my PJs in between and the big word was filling up my thoughts until I couldn’t think about anything else. I said shouldn’t we have the light off but he said no, he wanted to see me, and then he was gazing at my breasts like a tiger at its dinner.

  ‘No silicon . . .’

  ‘It’s all me.’

  ‘God, I’m going to fuck you,’ he said slowly, in a furry sort of voice that went to the X-spot like the touch of his hands. In his mouth, fuck wasn’t a swear word, it was sexy and dirty and straight to the point. ‘I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before. I’m going to fuck you and fuck you and fuck you till you beg for mercy, but I won’t stop, I’ll fuck you deeper and deeper . . .’

  I couldn’t say anything any more. I just whimpered. He was tugging at my pyjama trousers and I was wriggling out of them, and then I felt his knob pushing at me, pushing into me – no preliminaries, no foreplay – and he was fucking me like he said, fucking me so deep, and I was helpless and melting and creaming myself at the feel of him, at the hardness and the deepness and him, Harry, Harry inside me, Harry inside me all night long . . .

  Much later, when we came up for air, I asked him, ‘Did you seriously expect this to happen when you came in with the drinks?’

  ‘Yes. I made up my mind it would.’

  The conceit of the guy! ‘What if I hadn’t ordered anything?’ I said cunningly.

  ‘I’d have turned up anyway. Or left it till tomorrow. No longer. My self-restraint was running out.’

  ‘And if I’d said no?’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I did – sort of.’

  ‘You said no when I asked if you meant no,’ Harry said. ‘Double negative. Doesn’t count. Anyhow, I knew you wouldn’t.’

  ‘How could you know that? Up till two days ago, I was supposed to be getting married.’

  ‘Alex is a prat,’ Harry said dismissively. ‘You were wasted on him. I wanted you the first time I saw you, when you got out of the car and looked at me so snootily. I thought: What she needs is a good shagging. When a bloke thinks that, what he means is he intends to be the one doing it. I didn’t like you at all, but I wanted you. As competition, Alex rated rather lower than Fenny.’

  ‘I was engaged to him! He’s rich and classy and much better-looking than you—’

  ‘All true. Tell me, did you fuck him even once after he got here?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. ‘Yes. Yes, I did . . .’

  ‘Liar.’

  I collapsed. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Chemistry,’ Harry said briefly. ‘You and I had it. You and he didn’t. Simple.’

  ‘Weren’t you even a little bit jealous?’ I knew I sounded peeved, and I didn’t like it.

  ‘Nothing to be jealous of.’ He stroked my cheek with one finger. ‘Why don’t you just give in and go with the flow? Stop trying to fit me into your formulae.’

  ‘Relationships always follow a formula,’ I said. Mine did; I saw to that.

  ‘Not the ones that matter. That’s what bothers you, isn’t it? No formula, no control. That’s scary. Good. Be very, very scared . . .’

  He started to kiss me again, but after a moment I pulled back an inch. I was still picking over everything he’d said. ‘Do you like me now?’ I said.

  He smiled – not the grin but a smile, softer, more intimate. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Just sometimes?’ I said furiously. It’s difficult to be furious with someone when you’re in bed with them, naked, within a few millimetres of penetration, but I did my best.

  ‘All right. I think you’re a terrific person – you’re brave and loyal and generous and loving. You’re also selfish and spoiled and in need of regular beating. And – yes, I like you. Right now, I like you a lot.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I snapped, trying for sarcasm. ‘Well, you are—’

  ‘I’m more selfish than you and less generous, or I wouldn’t be here with you.’ He looked oddly serious. ‘I don’t expect you to like me. Just enjoy the moment.’

  He was nuzzling my ear – the line of my throat – the swell of my breast. Lifting it to his mouth, biting my nipple – so hard I cried out.

  ‘Sorry . . .’

  ‘No – it’s okay. Don’t stop . . .’

  He bit me again, more gently – the tiger with his dinner – then worked his way down, all the way down, till he reached the X-spot.

  He knew what to do when he got there.

  Oh God . . . oh shit . . . oh bliss bliss bliss . . .

  Oh bloody hell.

  I woke up. It was morning – the daylight behind the curtains was a dead giveaway. I thought of Romeo and Juliet (I’d done the play at drama college): ‘It is the nightingale and not the lark . . .’ But it was no good. Morning had definitely broken and I was crashing back down to earth, face to face with reality in all its grim ghastliness. I hadn’t even been pissed – the lack of hangover knocked that idea on the head. I couldn’t plead mitigating drunkenness on any level: my sole glass of brandy still stood on the bedside table with half an inch of liquor in the bottom. I was responsible for my actions. The balance of my body had been disturbed, but not my mind. There was nothing between me and the Awful Truth.

  I was in bed with the butler.

  He lay beside me, half on his side, half on his stomach, one arm thrown across my chest. A chunky, muscly, bristly arm like that of a gingery gorilla. Oh God – could it be . . . I was into rough trade? You heard of cases – gorgeous upmarket women and sleazy downmarket guys. Next it would be the plumber, the gas man, one of those sexy couriers in black leather with his motorbike throbbing at the curb . . .

  Oh shit.

  Harry rolled over, still half asleep, pulling me into his arms. The melting process started all over again . . .

  With an effort of will I dragged myself away and sat up, hugging the duvet against me by way of protection. Harry lay exposed in all his skin-coloured nakedness, big and solid and much too hairy for my refined taste. Part of his anatomy was far more awake than he was.

  ‘Harry,’ I said. He opened an eye. ‘Winkworth – you have to go now. You should go back to your room and . . . and do whatever you have to do, and—’

  ‘Winkworth? We have a night of wild sex and you’re calling me by my surname? Well, Dacres, if that’s how you feel—’

  ‘That’s Miss Dacres to you!’ I flashed, determined to stay on top of the situation.

  He glanced from his erection to me, pointedly. ‘Miss Dacres, may I . . .’

  ‘Last night was a mistake,’ I said hastily. ‘It shouldn’t have happened – it didn’t happen – you took advantage of me when I was emotionally vulnerable and if you ever tell anyone –’ dear God, the tabloids – ‘I’ll deny everything and I’ll sue the shirt off your back and—’

  ‘This shirt?’ He held up the one he wasn’t wearing.

  ‘Any shirt! Just wipe that big fat grin off your face, because if you breathe a single word about this—’

  ‘You’re right about one thing,’ he said, losing the grin and groping for his clothes. The erection was still in place, large as life and twice as distracting. Bugger . . .

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘It was a mistake – possibly the biggest I’ve ever made.’ He was watching my face, which fell. I could feel it. I stared at him. ‘So . . . you don’t want me to come back tonight, then?’

  ‘No! Absolutely not.’ What kind of game was he playing? ‘Anyway, if it was such a big mistake . . .’
>
  ‘It was the best mistake I’ve ever made,’ he said. The erection was out of sight now, tucked into his trousers. ‘I could make it again, no problem.’ He leaned over and kissed me, mouth to mouth, no tongues. The kind of kiss that means something, though I didn’t know what. ‘See you later.’

  When he had gone I lay down again, telling myself that as we had the day off I could go back to sleep. But it was no good. My emotions were fizzing away like a bottle of champagne in an earthquake; I felt as if the cork would fly out any minute, though whether I would laugh or cry or scream blue murder I had no idea. Under those conditions, I believe men go and play squash, or golf, or beat someone up, if they’re that way inclined, but girls don’t. We have a far more effective emotional outlet.

  Girls’ talk.

  I rolled out of bed, despatched Fenny to go walkies with one of the maids, and went to wake up Roo.

  Ruth

  Delphi, as I may have mentioned, is not a morning person. Yet since we came to Dunblair – perhaps because she was going to bed much too early for both her health and mine – it always seemed that she was the one waking me up, especially on mornings when I was due for a lie-in. That Saturday, the pounding on my door dragged me from a sleep so deep that in the confusion of returning to consciousness I wasn’t immediately sure who I was, let alone where. I’d locked the door out of some obscure instinct of self-preservation, but it wasn’t doing me any good. The pounding was accompanied by a voice. ‘Roo! Roo! For God’s sake wake up and let me in!’

  Roo. Yes, that was me. I tried hiding my head under the pillow, but the thumping still got through. In the end I surfaced, reluctantly, scrambled out of bed and staggered to the door. The lurid throw over the duvet came halfway with me, caught inexplicably round my leg. I unlocked, let Delphi in, and tottered back to bed, groping for the phone even as I subsided into the warmth of my nest.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ Delphi was saying.

  ‘I need tea – coffee – any combination,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ll ask Harry—’

  ‘NO!’ Delphi yelled in capital letters, snatching the phone from my grasp.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘You mustn’t – you don’t understand – you mustn’t ask Harry for anything ever again. Especially not now.’

  Delphi had clearly gone completely bonkers.

  ‘Look, whatever it is you want to tell me, I’ll listen much better when I’ve got some tea or something. Calm down and give me the phone.’ Her insane panic was really waking me up, which is not a pleasant experience without coffee in support.

  ‘Wait, please. The problem isn’t the tea, it’s Harry.’

  ‘I thought you’d decided you liked him after all,’ I said. Delphi, I knew, had always resented Harry being a normal sort of guy instead of the stone-faced fantasy butler of Georgette Heyer novels and The Remains of the Day. And Harry, being a normal guy, hadn’t been able to resist making fun of her resentment. It all seemed harmless enough – except that there was that strange business of the ‘deal’ they had made to get rid of Roddy . . .

  ‘I don’t like him,’ Delphi declared with a passion out of all proportion to the sentiment. ‘I loathe him. He’s the most disgusting excuse for a man – or a butler – I’ve ever met.’

  ‘What’s he done?’ I said. It was too early for me to think clearly.

  ‘It isn’t so much what he’s done – at least, it is, but . . . it’s what I’ve done!’ She flopped on to my bed, looking tragic. Delphi is an actress of questionable talent, but at that moment her mien – she definitely had a mien, rather than just an expression – would have done credit to a Siddons.

  ‘Well . . . what have you done?’ I asked.

  ‘I – I – I shagged him,’ she said, tragically.

  ‘Uh . . . ?’ I stared at her, temporarily at a loss for words.

  Delphi and Harry???

  One: although Harry is an attractive guy with an agreeable grin, he doesn’t have the classic good looks or the aura of glamour that has always done it for her. Two: without being precisely a snob – okay, she’s a snob, but she isn’t precise about it – Delphi’s taste in men runs to upper-class types with Eton accents and lots of money in the family. Even Ben Garvin, the local ne’er-do-well, had been the son of successful surgeon, and his tough-guy image (Triumph bike and leather jacket) had been paid for by Daddy. Harry was evidently intelligent and well-educated, but also indefinably blokeish – and though that said nothing about his background, it wasn’t Delphi’s style. Delphi’s men were guys, or possibly chaps, cool and sophisticated and very, very pretty. She didn’t do blokes.

  ‘You . . . you shagged Harry,’ I repeated, trying to visualise it and backing off hastily.

  There are places where the imagination should not go.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When? Last night?’

  Delphi nodded.

  ‘Once, or . . . ?’

  ‘All night.’ After a pause, she added: ‘Not this morning, though. It took huge amounts of will power, but I pushed him away.’

  ‘Will power . . .’

  ‘I’ve got lots of will power, honestly. I’m very will-powerful. Roo, what am I going to do? How will I face him?’

  ‘The usual way, I suppose. But . . .’ I fumbled for a single question among the hundred or so that leaped to mind . . . ‘how did it happen?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’ She shuddered artistically.

  ‘Well, all right, if you don’t want me to . . .’

  ‘Don’t you dare not ask!’ She relinquished the shudder, and then the whole story came pouring out. The ‘deal’ over Roddy, the kiss – ‘I never even agreed to it! He just forced it on me’ – how his kindness over the business with Alex had lulled her into a false sense of security. And then last night . . .

  ‘So . . . um . . . how was it?’ I asked.

  Delphi looked more tragic than ever, as if smitten to the heart by some dreadful stroke of doom. ‘It was fantastic,’ she said wretchedly. ‘It was the best sex I’ve ever had. It’s so humiliating. First Alex cheats on me with two lumps of silicon and a brain cell, and now this. It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been bad. At least I’d have felt in control of things. But I lost it completely. Roo, what’s happening to us? You pull an international megastar and I shag the butler. It’s all the wrong way round. I mean . . .’

  I laughed. ‘I know what you mean. You’re right, too: we’re both acting wildly out of character.’

  ‘What do I do?’ Delphi reiterated. ‘How do I behave towards him? What’s the – the etiquette when you’ve shagged the butler?’

  ‘Tip?’ I suggested.

  Delphi was in such a state she insisted on shutting herself in the bathroom after I ordered tea so she wouldn’t have to see Harry. However, it arrived with one of the girls, Margaret I think her name is, and Delphi reappeared afterwards looking as near sheepish as she would ever allow. ‘When are you getting up?’ she asked me. ‘I can’t go downstairs without you. I need a chaperone.’

  ‘I thought I’d have a bath,’ I said hopefully. A long one. ‘Why don’t you have one too?’

  Eventually, we went down to the drawing room around eleven. HG was the only person there, listening to music, presumably enjoying having his home almost to himself for a day or two. However, he looked pleased to see us, smiling a welcome and turning the volume down with the remote. Delphi glanced around warily, as if waiting for Harry to pounce.

  ‘Who’s left?’ I said after commenting on the quiet.

  ‘Nigel’s gone to Leicester,’ HG said. ‘Dorian went online last night and came up with some Dagworthys living there who’re direct descendants of Elizabeth’s aunt. I’m not sure how he did it, but apparently you can find out anything with the Internet these days. Much better and more efficient than leaving it to the papers, or so Dorian says. I’m the wrong generation for this sort of thing.’

  ‘And Nigel’s hot on the trail?’

  ‘He phoned them first thing and left about an
hour ago. Looks like it’s just us now.’

  ‘Where’s Ash?’ I said, trying to sound non-committal.

  ‘Last seen talking to Morag. I didn’t know, but evidently her mother was a Craig. I think he’s sounding her out on her family history.’

  ‘Didn’t they say she was the local beauty once?’ Delphi volunteered. ‘I know it seems unlikely, but perhaps the Scots don’t wear well. It comes of being dour all the time. Although you’d think that they’d have heard of Crème de la Mer even here.’

  ‘Vanity is one of the seven deadly sins,’ Harry said, arriving with fresh coffee. ‘Morag doesn’t do sin.’

  ‘Too right,’ said HG. Delphi, completely unnerved, had lapsed into silence. ‘She just enjoys deploring them in everyone else. I expect that’s why she works for me. I must have the whole set.’

  ‘I can never remember what they are,’ I said, feeling mischievous. ‘Except for lust. I know lust is in there somewhere.’

  Delphi glared at me. Harry, my target, gave me a look which said: Touché.

  ‘Any news from the village?’ HG asked him.

  ‘Dirk phoned. He says three sinister strangers have arrived at the pub.’

  ‘Lochnabu is crawling with strangers,’ HG retorted. ‘The not-so-gentlemen of the press. How sinister?’

  ‘Dirk says they’re not press,’ Harry explained. ‘Under the circumstances, that’s sinister.’

  ‘I could go and check them out,’ I offered. ‘I’d like a walk.’

  (‘You can’t leave me!’ Delphi hissed.

  ‘Don’t be idiotic,’ I hissed back.)

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ HG said. ‘The hacks will be after you like vultures as soon as you set foot outside the grounds. If you want a walk, stay on my land.’

  ‘I’m not famous,’ I argued. ‘They might pester a bit but they won’t mob.’ I didn’t feel like curtailing my activities because of the bloody press. I couldn’t see why I should have the disadvantages of celebrity without even being one. ‘Anyway, I want to find out about the sinister strangers.’

  ‘Dorian can go with you,’ HG said, clearly determined to look after me.