Kate padded barefoot into the lounge, adorable in his too-big jumper and jogging bottoms. Alex was sitting behind the coffee table in the centre of the curl around sofa. Set out on the table was a veritable feast compared to the scraps she salvaged from the food bank at the supermarket. An enormous pizza, slices of toast smothered in baked beans, a steaming mug of tomato soup, and dessert: lemon yogurt brimming with chunks of banana. There was an empty soup-stained mug and a plate with crumbs and bits of chutney on it which she took to be the remnants of his rations. She burst into giggles when she saw the state of his face.
He gave her his best shy look, ‘What is it?’
‘You look so funny!’ she said, falling about.
He tried to keep a straight face. He loved it when she smiled. She made him happy.
‘What makes you think I look funny?’
She ran an index finger over her upper lip, from dimple to dimple, stroking her fine hairs.
‘You’re wearing a soup moustache.’
‘A what?’
‘A silly soup moustache,’ she chuckled, ‘It makes you look so old! Like me to lick it off?’
Before the young man could object, she’d joined him on the sofa, and drawn his lips to her lips with her slim hand. He felt her lips part, her mouth open, he felt the tip of her wet tongue lick the smear of soup off his lips, felt his resistance crumble, as she aroused him: opening his mouth to hers, letting her tongue slide into his mouth – for their very first kiss.
For a moment, afterward, neither of them could speak, such was the frisson, the euphoria swelling in their hearts, the thrill of scintillation coursing through their bodies, their love.
It was Alex who broke their silence, her spell, admitting, ‘I’ve never kissed a girl before.’
She squeezed his hand, so as to reassure him, ‘I wanted to thank you for all this,’ she said, casting her hands over the food, ‘for being so kind to me. I couldn’t find the words, so, I thanked you in the only way I could. I left my love in you.’
No-one had ever spoken so lovingly to him. She’d left her love indelibly stamped in his heart: life without her would be unbearable. He felt her release his hand, sat, and watched her eat every single morsel. He told the girl his name was Alex Baird. She said her name was Kate, just plain old simple Kate. He studied her face: the girl seemed embarrassed.
‘I don’t have any other names,’ she said, standing, ‘I’m tired. I’d like to go to bed, Alex.’
That night, he dreamed of holding Kate in his arms as they stood on the sandy beach: she wearing just her roses dress, he sporting his gaudy Bahama beach shorts, peeling the dress off her, letting her pull off his shorts, kissing her as they lay naked in the sand. The games she’d play for him in his secret room: dancing round her pole on the podium wearing just her leash, her studded kitten collar and laced-up black leather girdle. The games he’d play with her, his stray damp kitten, as she danced and stripped for him in the heat of the night.
The dream changed to a sun-bleached veranda, the stifling, steamy heat, his body dripping wet, as he lay inert on the lounger watching Sarah and Kate writhe naked on the splintered wooden floor. He tossed and turned, his body pouring sweat, caught in a flooded torrent of unbridled, lustful, desire. His pyjamas were soaking wet. Frantically, he pushed back the sodden duvet with his clammy feet, and peeled them off.
*****
He felt her touch, felt her climb into his bed, her warm nude body curling into the foetal position, cowling his buttocks. He heard her soft whisper, her breath tickle his hairy neck.
‘I couldn’t sleep. Can I sleep with you?’
He didn’t answer her. She understood. She needed him. She showed a desire, a hunger, a passion borne out of her primal need: to breed, ‘Would you like me to make love to you?’
‘I can’t, I…’
‘I want to make love to you,’ she insisted, ‘Now, look at me.’
He turned to face her. She ran her fingers over his damp face. She kissed away his tears.
‘Lie on your back,’ she said, murmuring sexily, keen to encourage him, ‘Try to keep still.’
He did as he was told. She climbed onto him, rubbing her moist cleft along his limp tool, constantly probing him with intimate questions, such as, ‘How does that feel then, good?’
‘Incredible,’ he gasped, blushing scarlet, a naughty schoolboy caught in the act with a girl on his first date. He rose for her, erecting, hardening, stretching, his chest and abdomen sheened with sweat. Held captive by her, pinioned, unable to resist, he felt her, letting her slide up his body, hearing her quaint rustic voice say, ‘Would you like to kiss my breasts?’
He nodded his assent. Kate squatted on his stomach, leaning forwards, teasing his craven mouth with her corky teat, feeding her virgin lover her milk, as he clung to her breast with his mouth, her baby, licking her engorged nipple, her areola: her ring of colour, relishing her salty flavour. Feeling between her slick, wet thighs, she took his rigid love shaft deep inside her, making impassioned love to him with a sublime intensity, always encouraging.
‘Put your hands on my bum,’ she suggested.
He slid his hands down her slender back, as far as her hips, gently caressing her soft skin.
‘Not there! My bum.’
She felt his hands grip, then part, her small, taut, doughy buttocks, sighing so pleasurably.
‘That feels so good,’ she bore down on him in a frenzy, sliding her lubricious vulva along his rigid tarse, clenching his viscid girth, his throbbing, sensitive nub with her strong birth muscle. She kissed him deeply, tasting his saliva, licking the roof of his mouth, making him gag with her straining tongue as she teased his throat. Her kiss came to an abrupt end.
He heard her murmur, ‘want to have your baby,’ his body shuddered. He went into spasm! Unable to control, or constrain, himself any longer, he ejaculated, prematurely, spurting copious dregs of his fertile semen, his manly life-juice, into her swollen, liquid, love-hole.
‘Oh, God!’ she cried out, her slick body rippling, in ecstasy, coating his stalk in her girlie jus as she came, riding, wave-after-wave of rapturous orgasm, ‘love you, Alex, love you!’
He held her tightly as she came, running his fingers thru her saturated hair, proud of her, caressing her, loving every bit of her. Her voice trailed off. Her glorious climax subsided.
Kate fell asleep in her man’s arms, her body entwined in her tender lover’s embrace: safe, content, happy, fulfilled at last, sure in the knowledge that she would never be poor again.
*****
She kept a terrible secret. Her chance to run away and escape only came about as a result of a freak accident. An accident that she was complicit in, the result of her morally wrong activities. She shut her eyes, and thought of them, writhing in agony in bed as they died…
Her home, Stone Cottage, hidden away in the dark forest on the slopes of the great downs, was more than off the beaten track. It was off the map. The cottage lay at the very end of a dirt track, a track that was frequently reduced to churned-up ruts of mud in rainy weather and blocked by fallen trees in the storms. At the front of the house grew clumps of privet and willow, windbreaks for their black, green and brown wheelie bins, mail box on a post, and the underground septic tank which men with a long pipe, pump and tanker lorry came to empty every five years. In this way, by placing all the amenities in front of the cottage, the woman, Hazel, and the man, Blaise, could carry on their strangest lives undisturbed.
The cottage was built into an eight-foot high stone wall which enclosed a walled garden: flower beds, wild plants, roses, shrubs and fungi mainly. There was no arched door in the wall or access to the garden other than through a heavy oak door at the front of the house. The lop-sided red slate roof sloped downward, back-to-front, shading the two lead glass windows – giving the grey stone building the aura of intense seclusion, mysterious depths, and enforced privacy Hazel and Blaise needed to carry out their pagan rites, their rituals.
The door opened inwards to a single downstairs room with an open hearth fire surrounded by worn brown leather armchairs, a case crammed full of ancient books, and nest of tables at one end. A solid oak trapdoor in the flagstone floor – covered by the fireside rug – led down to the cellar. At the other end of the room lay their kitchen: a cooker, sink, solid pine kitchen table, three sturdy chairs, the door to the outhouse, the woodshed and garden. The winding wooden staircase in the very middle of the room led up to their bedroom, its modest double bed mounted on a traditional wooden frame, a bathroom with a toilet, a bidet, basin, a bath tub standing on a set of impressive set of clawed metal feet: Hazel’s sacred waters.
A printed, posted, laminated sign, beside the chalkstone path leading to the cottage, read:
Ramblers are welcome to use the track to pass us, but please, don’t stray onto our land.
Hazel and Blaise were country folk at heart: primal naturists who danced naked around the garden bonfire at night, and rose at dawn to worship the rising of the sun. The cottage, cut off from the outside world, allowed them to perform their sacred rituals unhindered, with no television, radio or internet and, rarely, any mail to distract them- just a landline.
By day Blaise, a simple man of little learning, worked as a labourer at the local pig farm, feeding the pigs, mucking them out, birthing the piglets, keeping their sties clean and tidy. While his wife read – and cleaned the house, tended the garden, chopped firewood for the hearth, washed then ironed his clothes, cooked their evening supper – for after her weary husband had caught up on his sleep. Being impotent, dense, and unwilling, her man was unable to give his fertile woman what she desired most: a baby girl to love and to cherish, and be brought up to be a pagan – just like her.
After dark, Hazel dressed in her finest clothes, put on make-up, sprayed herself with scent, kissed her husband goodnight, their four-wheel crawled its way up the track, and whisked her off to the room above the antiques shop in the old town, to make love with other men.
Kate was Hazel’s child, her mother’s little pride and joy – a blessing her husband resented.
Hazel kept her daughter in the cellar, out of harm’s way, until she was sixteen, old enough to look after herself, clean the bath, bidet and toilet, scrub the floor, make the beds, do the laundry, cook the meals. The abused child never forgets. Kate set out to exact her revenge on Blaise and his unnatural wife in the only way she could: breakfast in bed for the pair of them on a Saturday morning with grilled bacon, fried eggs, fried bread, pork sausages, fried tomatoes, baked beans, black pudding – and freshly picked poisonous fungi from the garden compost heap.
*****
Alex woke to the sound of church bells tolling in the village. Blearily, he checked his mobile for the time: 10am, brunch time. Kate had stolen his virginity, draining him of his shyness, his fear of sex, growing him out of a boy into a man. He had never felt so happy in his life.
She dwelt in the doorway, wearing his too-big woolly jumper, clutching the loose jogging bottoms at the waist, bearing a large floral wooden lap tray with an embroidered cushion. It was crammed full of food.
‘I made you breakfast in bed,’ she said, beaming from ear-to-ear, ‘It is Saturday morning, after all.’
He sat up in bed, drawing the soiled duvet as high as his chest. The sheet was rucked, wet from where they had made love, the window was steamed up, and the whole room reeked of a man’s sweat. He’d put a wash on – after they had taken a sexy bath together, of course.
‘That looks amazing!’ he shouted, not that anyone could hear him there, inside their walls.
‘Did you hear the wedding bells, Alex?’ she asked, with a delightful twinkle in her eyes.
‘I did,’ he said tearfully, ‘I heard them loud and clear.’
Kate set the lap tray down on his lap. It was a feast fit for a king. He eyed the tray hungrily as she proudly recited the menu, as if she were a waitress in a high class fast food eatery.
‘There’s grilled bacon, fried eggs, fried bread, thick pork sausages, fried tomatoes, baked beans, black pudding, oh, and I picked you the mushrooms off the garden compost heap.’
Alex daubed the lot with barbecue sauce, picked up his knife and fork, and began to eat.
‘My stepmother wants to meet you,’ he said, slicing through a sausage coated in sauce.
‘Already?’
‘Already.’
‘But we’ve only known each other a day.’
‘You made love to me last night,’ he said, his voice tinged with pride, ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘I suppose you told her all the grisly details?’ she said, at her most arch.
‘Hardly. She lives on the other side of the world in Bali. We send each other texts, is all.’
Her face lit up, full of childish delight and surprise, ‘The other side of the world? Bali?’
‘It’s a beautiful tropical island off the coast of Java in the Indian Ocean.’
Kate didn’t speak. It was all too much. Only last night, she was struggling to stay alive in a freezing cold subway. She had never left the downs, let alone travel to a far-off island on a journey of a lifetime. Other than her roses dress, she had no belongings, no life at all until she met him. He didn’t finish his breakfast. He put the tray on the floor and spoke.
‘I told her I’d met a beautiful girl. I told her I’d fallen in love with you. You must come.’
She slumped onto the bed beside him, breaking down in tears, ‘You saved my life, Alex. I will never forget what you did for me. But you barely know me. I’m a love child, a girl bastard, a child of sin daughter who ran away from her living hell. I don’t deserve you.’
Girl bastard, child of sin? Shocked, yet intrigued, by her outburst, her confession, he held her sobbing head to his chest, gently stroking her silken hair, ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘My dad couldn’t have sex, couldn’t give my mum what she wanted more than anything in the world: a baby girl. So, she cheated on him. She had sex with strange men above an antique shop in town – she kept all this a secret from me until I was sixteen. As soon as she fell pregnant, he knew the baby couldn’t be his. He let her keep her treasured baby girl – she warned him: she’d leave him if he didn’t – but resentment built up inside his heart, an ugly tumour. He took out all his spite on me when I was a girl: the beast touched me – down there. He plunged his filthy, dirty, hands inside my pants, and rubbed me hard.’
‘Don’t, please, don’t!’ Alex revulsed at the disgusting act. Last night this poor girl made intimate love to him. She’d taken the lead, teasing, seducing him until he was erect, ready for her to mount. How many other men had she slept with before she used him? He felt stupid for not wearing a condom, he felt he’d been tainted by her. Still, he was hopelessly obsessed with her.
Kate felt his grip on her intensify, his body tense, regretting going into such explicit detail.
What must he think of me?
He attempted to change the subject, ‘Did your mother know about this?’
‘Mum caught us in the act on their double bed, she threatened to leave us if it didn’t stop.’
‘And did it?’
Kate studied the rays of sunlight dancing on their bed. It would soon be Spring: life would be renewed once more: life, her new life, her baby girl. If only she’d kept her mouth shut.
‘Kate, did it stop?’ he asked her again, gripping her wrist, until she squirmed, persistently.
Her voice was flat, devoid of any emotion when she answered, ‘No, no, we couldn’t stop.’
The inexperienced young man was appalled, ‘We? I can’t believe you encouraged him.’
Kate burst into tears, ‘It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand. Men never understand!’
He held her sobbing head to his chest, protecting her, frightened the beast might return to haunt her, attack her, hurt her.
‘I was scared,’ she protested, ‘Scared he’d kill me. If I told my mum. If I didn’t play his filthy games.’
His games? Alex recalled his vivid dream, the dirty secrets he kept hidden behind the play room door. His stomach heaved, he dry-retched, his throat wanted to be sick, but couldn’t.
‘What happened?’ he asked her, his voice flat dull monotone, ‘How long did it go on for?’
‘Hazel, my mum, caught us having sex on my little bed,’ she mumbled, ‘This time, I was punished by her, for my own good, punished good and proper, to absolve me of my sins.’
‘Punished? You didn’t do anything wrong! You were scared he’d kill you, for fuck’s sake, only trying to protect yourself from him. What about him, the bastard? Was he punished?’
Kate turned away from him: the dark, turned to face the window: its light, ‘In a way, yes.’
‘In a way. What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He was denied me. Hazel and my dad, Blaise, were simple pagan country folk who lived by Nature’s rules. They agreed, for all our good, that I should be denied him and he should be denied me.’
Intrigued to learn she was pagan, he acted mystified, ‘Denied you, how were you denied?’
‘I was locked in the cellar, by her, as my punishment,’ she said acidly, as if she was trying to rid her mouth of a bad taste, ‘I was only allowed out to play in the garden when he was working on the farm. It was a high walled garden with a locked gate. She kept the key on a chain around her neck: there was no way I could escape. Mum did teach me how to read and write, and do my ‘rithmetic, tho.’ She wasn’t all bad. She wasn’t bad at all, I suppose.’
She stopped crying, and twisted to face him. He stared at her sad face, streaked with tears. He took her in his arms, struggling to contain his disbelief, ‘How long did this go on for?’
She didn’t answer.
‘How long, Kate?’
‘I managed to escape, to run away,’ was all she said, ‘to find you: that’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘I guess so,’ he replied, sensing there was far more to her story, ‘I love you. Come here.’
She lay with him in their soiled bed, talking, kissing, cuddling, making sad, sweet, love.
Wondering where the world would take her next.
*****
Frightened yet exhilarated at the same time, she gripped her man’s hand as the plane left the runway, gazing out of the rear seat port hole as they soared up into the clouds. Calmed, if subdued, by the sensation of flying for the first time in her life, she reflected on how far she had come since he found her lying in the freezing subway, and changed her life.
‘I’m a different girl now, unrecognisable from the malnourished waif I was, fatter yet still beautifully slender, ruddier in complexion yet paler than I was when he rescued me. The effects of the short winter days I spent with him, recovering from my ordeal in the stone cottage – from my parent’s abuse – luxuriating in the warmth of his strange wagon home.’
She squeezed his hand in gratitude for all that he’d given her so far: the food, the clothes, a lovely country retreat to live in, the money: a life beyond her wildest dreams – the baby girl he had yet to give her. They made love every day, everywhere: the bath, on the kitchen carpet, in the lounge, to music. When normal lovemaking failed to make her pregnant, he confessed his secret fetish to her, and threw open the play room door. There, she obliged him: dressing for him in her black girdle, her see-thru sheer lace panties, black stockings and a ruby red suspender belt; mounted the podium then pole-danced for him, peeling off her clothes to the sultry erotic strains of Bolero, teasing him, arousing him to bursting point. As soon as she had stripped naked, he tethered her to her leash, fitted her neck with a studded leather collar, led her: his kitten, to the cat litter tray, where she cocked her leg for him like a poodle, then led her out of the playroom to the double bed, and fucked her.
The days grew longer, the weather warmer, they became grounded in reality: his financial investment consultancy gaining a reputation for honesty and trust in a challenging global market, requiring him to work long hours alone at his bedroom desk. She managed their home, applying her freshly acquired computing and accounting skills, assuming control of planting out and tending the allotment in the walled garden, creating healthy dishes to keep her man well-fed. Having used the cold months to learn from her loving, giving, man, she no longer felt inferior to him. She was, at least, his equal. He adored her, there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for her. They took to making love in the garden. She’d crouch on all fours for him, wearing a lamb’s wool jumper and knee-length socks to keep herself warm, until he tugged them off. He’d mount her from behind, ensuring her deepest penetration, hopeful of inseminating her. Still no baby came. Fearing he might be infertile, like her father, that she might never be able to bear the baby girl she desired, they agreed to take a complete rest: their holiday of a lifetime with Sarah, his commere.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.
They left the wagon nestled, like her secret, in its enchanting walled garden, in good time that afternoon. He made her haul her suitcase for miles to the station, despite the sick state she was in, telling her the fresh air would do her good before she was cooped, his pigeon, in a cramped economy seat at the rear of the aircraft. Her man could be frugal at times: he drove her mad when he pinched pennies to save a pound. Still, she supposed, our seats are nearest to the toilets, no bad thing for me in my condition on a fourteen hour flight.
The train ride into and out of London took ages. They finally arrived at the airport at six-thirty ready for a light Pret Caesar salad, a filling cup of tomato soup, his favourite. She licked the silly soup moustache off his smeared face with her tongue, kissing him deeply. He bought himself a pair of luxury trainers, her a gold zip-up purse for her to keep her bits in, he told her, as they strolled around Duty-Free. There was no end to her man’s generosity. It seemed he could afford any gift she wanted, any gift – except her baby girl.
After they’d checked-in their cases, he took her to a bureau de change, drew out his wallet, passport, and bought currency. As he explained to her: a hundred dollars was to pay for their visas on arrival in Bali, two hundred pounds were to be exchanged for four million one hundred and fifty-two thousand one hundred and twenty-eight rupiah – their spending money. She had never seen so many bank notes. Their flight to Singapore Changi took off on time at exactly five past ten.
‘I need to pay a visit, Alex,’ she told him, taking her gold purse out of the handbag stored under the seat in front.
He’s sound asleep, bless him. Kate pinched his bare hairy inner thigh underneath his khaki shorts, just to make him stir, mind.
‘Sorry, what?’ he said, sounding groggy.
‘I need to go to the loo.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Move then!’
‘I’m sorry, he said, lamely.’
He slid out of his seat into the aisle, took off his trainers, and slid them under the seat in front. The fasten seatbelt signs were still lit above their heads. The cabin crew were busy asking passengers to pull down all their shutters, so as to mimic the darkness of the night.
There was a short queue: five, six women waiting for the toilet. It took her ten minutes of extreme discomfort before she could lock herself safely inside the cubicle. She breathed a sigh of relief, ‘I’m on my period, I feel heavy,’ she crouched over the loo and removed her bloodied tampon, ‘I flush it away, flush it all away, my hopes of ever bearing my baby girl, insert another one, inside me, hoping my nightmare quest for a child to love and care for will soon come to an end, like this bloody curse.’
She consumed two high calorie meals, then cried watching We Live in Time, a little bit of Titanic, too excited to sleep. The Boeing 777-300ER aircraft hit severe air turbulence over the Bay of Bengal, rousing her man from his deep slumber – then slowly made its descent.
‘Cabin crew prepare for landing,’ they heard the pilot announce in calm, measured tones.
‘Did you sleep well,?’ she asked, holding his hand as her ears popped, as they fell, down.
‘Like the dead. You?’
‘I didn’t sleep a wink, Alex…’
The plane dipped suddenly, falling like a stone, an urgent announcement, ‘Brace! Brace!’
Panic broke out. Everyone screamed at the same time: a loud, shrill, persistent, scary wail.
Instinctively, Kate bent forward, clasping her hands around the back of her head, feeling the love of her life, her saviour, shudder with fear, falling, cringing, slumping, beside her.
She screamed, ‘Are we going to die?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’
‘Brace! Brace! Brace for impact!’
‘I love you, Alex,’ she shouted at him above the appalling din.
‘I love you, Kate,’ he said, crying softly, as the aircraft smashed into pieces on the ground.
