She had opened the door for a delivery one day, a parcel to sign for. It had a torn corner, and well, she’d sort of torn it a bit more — mildly curious; he must have some inner life!
Transfixed by the picture on the cover of the DVD — a young girl, naked, tied, being whipped, it seemed, by a fat old biker in leather shorts. Heart thudding, pink-faced, she’d panicked, gone running for tape — something, anything — to mend the tear, to return to ignorance, pretend it was a nothing.
Her main feeling was embarrassment — to be caught snooping. She didn’t know what to think about what she’d actually seen — so she didn’t think.
He’d arrived home as she was making a hash of the repair — all fingers and thumbs — the tape had got twisted, stuck in the wrong place, and in pulling it off, terribly flustered to be discovered peeking at his mail, she’d ripped the whole package, and all three DVDs had spilled onto the floor in front of him.
She scrabbled to pick them up, even clumsier, dropped them twice.
“Leave it.”
She hadn’t dared look him in the eye. His voice surprised her — she’d have expected him to sound nervous — discovered — ashamed; either that or angry, loud, full of bluster — but in fact he is more firm and direct even than usual — clearly intending to calm her, leave her no space for uncertainty. She is conscious of feeling grateful.
Then; “You’ll have to go.”
He is very clear. It sounds so final, so that she knows he means he wants her to leave the house for good. He’s not cross, or punitive, or ashamed. Just calmly certain.
Shocked, a lurch in her belly — she doesn’t want to leave — it … it’s safe here. She likes it; likes him, although they don’t have much interaction. Likes the routine they have settled into. She hasn’t felt safe, much, before, in her life. Not like it has been, here, these last months. She looks up. He looks calm — she suddenly thinks she must look a fright; face white, trembling, expression panicky — and tries to calm herself.
How can he look so ordinary? This is strangely important to her. It’s as if she’s never really looked at him before.
“You’ll have to leave. Pack and leave.”
He’s said it again;
“No! No, please … it … I’m … I’m sorry. So sorry! I … I did wrong … it … it was already torn, but … but I …” she tails off.
He’s actually smiling at her; a soft, almost friendly smile — a little sad.
“You will have to leave.”
“But … I’m so sorry, please. Why? I … I …”
What can she say?
“I’m sorry, too,” he says — and it sounds genuine;
“I am really very sorry. But it won’t work. Not now. It’s a shame. I’ve gotten used to the cello, every evening. But I want you to go and pack, now. I’ll go and sort your deposit out. And I’ll pay for a hotel for a week, in lieu of notice. You can leave anything big here — I’ll pay for one of those storage places for you until you’re fixed.”
She’s crying now, soft tears. Why is he being so nice — and yet throwing her out?
“Please. Please I … I really don’t want to go. Please. If … if you can tell me what … what you mean by — it won’t work — maybe … maybe I can think of something that might help?”
He looks at her. She is really seeing him now. He seems firmer, stronger than her usual mental image of him. Maybe it’s just because she’s in pieces. He looks at her, steadily, and she makes herself look back. It’s as if he’s calming her, reassuring her. Again, being so nice — nice in ways she couldn’t imagine an old, fussy man like him being capable of — particularly in the circumstances.
At last, it seems he has made a decision.
“Come through” he says.
She’s only been in his sitting room twice in months, and never been invited to sit before. Perched on the sofa, horribly nervous, she suddenly remembers the naked young woman in the picture. Is he — looking at her? Thinking of her — like that? She begins to feel very strange.
“My dear, it won’t work. That’s why you have to go. And not because you snooped; although I don’t like it, it’s natural enough, given what you said.”
He stops, and she sits, bolt upright, skin crawling — he’s about to tell her she can stay if he can whip her — she knows it!
“No, it won’t work, because you won’t be able to get those images out of your mind. One way or another, they’ll have an effect — and if you stay here, you’ll always be wondering — do I have more — what else do I have? What else do I do? Other thoughts. It will be unbearable. For both of us.”
“When you leave, and leave soon, you will never see me again, and so you can have a nice simple mental picture of a sad old pervert, that gave you a little fright — but that you got away safe. Much better that way. For both of us.”
It was as if a spring had been released — all her tension suddenly went, and tears returned. Only soft tears this time, tears of remorse, and words tumbled out of her, unprepared;
“Oh! Oh …Mr… Mr Jones … I … I really, really don’t want to leave. I … I only just realised, properly … just now, how … how much I like it here, how much it means to me to be … safe … here. With … with you. And … and I won’t feel like that! I won’t. I … I trust you, and … I … I have … funny … feelings, sometimes, too, so … so I … I don’t want to think you’re a … a p-pervert… I don’t. So please … please … let me stay. I … I’ll be better with the bathroom, and … and be quieter on the stairs in the morning and … and I’ll remember the vacuuming, I promise, only … only please — please don’t send me away.”
He’d leaned back a little, looking straight at her then, and once again she’d made herself look back, trying to show him how serious she was.
It was a long silence, and she bit her lip, knowing she had probably said more than enough. He didn’t enjoy long speeches, she had learned.
At last he said; “We’ll talk in a week.”
A very strange week, it had been, too; avoiding talking, but at the same trying trying to be normal. Trying not to think about … about that stuff … and not being able to stop. Thinking about that stuff. Stopping herself, finding those images in her mind’s eye again. Stopping herself.
Feeling strange at night. Thinking about whether he might try to come into her room. Knowing he won’t (although, might she have him wrong — is he maybe a rapist — and a good actor, too?). Wondering what she would do, say, if he did. Trying to forget it, failing.
Round and round. Having no clue what to think, unable to think, because she had to keep stopping herself. And an endless niggling turning itself over, not loud, not insistent, but always there, never quite still; deep, deep in her groin.
And then it was a week, and it was time to talk.
Again, it was her that had been nervy, tense, uncomfortable, him that had been calm. He’d made tea, bought some biscuits, and again she was invited to sit in the front room, on the sofa, across from his easy chair.
“Ask me questions.”
She’d quivered. She couldn’t! It wasn’t as if she didn’t have questions — of course, he’d been 100% right, she’d been thinking again and again about what those videos meant. Of course she had! But she couldn’t admit that — he’d make her leave! And if she knew one thing, it was that she did like it here, and that, pervert or not, she — sort of — trusted him. In a way more than before.
“Don’t pretend. I know what I know. You’ve been wondering — all those things I said. How could you not? Ask questions. Or we’re not going to manage this, and you will have to leave.”
There he was again — being wise and kind, and strong for both of them. She was pink, she knew it. She’d felt it would be rude to go for this talk in her usual jeans, so she was wearing her one daytime dress. She wondered if he thought she was pretty.
“I mean it, Lucy.”
Bright red now, she blurted;
“OK, yes. Yes … I … I have …”
And so she had asked; slow, blushing, very little, frightened questions, often incomplete.
But he had helped her, completed her questions, checked that was what she had meant, then answered — and so, she had heard.
He’d never whipped a girl — or a boy, never had anything like that with his wife — a very simple sex life. Yes, he’d had fantasies about it. Since early adolescence. No, he didn’t know why. When his wife had died, seven years ago, he’d needed something — he knew he wasn’t the type to find another partner. He’d grown bored of his own imagination, hence the videos. He didn’t trust the internet. The videos were generally very poor, silly. Embarrassing; horrible, often. Sometimes they did the job.
And then, after an embarrassed silence, he’d asked her about the orchestra, and they’d had a sort of ordinary-ish conversation, until she’d calmed down. Until normality seemed to have resumed service. Again, his kindness and thoughtfulness in deliberately making this happen struck her strongly.
“We’re OK for another week, I think,” he’d said; “But I think we should do this every week. Or things will fester.”
And she’d nodded, pink, very definitely pleased, but very definitely not calm.
Pleased, she thought later, to be invited to talk with an old man about his sexual problems. Really? But she was just putting herself on. She was pleased. She liked it. And she thought he had liked her dress, too.
And so it became a regular thing. She dressed up — just a little; they had tea, and sometimes cake, and talked. But he never let her start without asking him a question about ‘the sex thing’, as she thought of it.
And this was, she realised, genuinely him, determinedly making certain that nothing ‘festered’ — that whatever questions she had in her mind were answered — sometimes with painful honesty, mostly with just enough detail to satisfy honour, without unnecessary crudity invading their precious session. She had wondered, at first, if he was trying to get her used to it, and then demand that she let him treat her that way — do those ugly, perverted things to her.
But it seemed not. He liked having her around, he said — would be genuinely sorry to see her go — but they had a problem now, and they had to manage it.
And they both began to regard the weekly event as a special thing. Their thing. There was no longer any mention of her leaving.
Until one week, she asked, blushing hot for the first time in weeks;
“Would … would you like … ahum; would … would you like to … to whip … me?”
She looked down, crushed with embarrassment, but as quickly looked up again, needing to see his eyes — his eyes that she now trusted so well. And her heart melted. Because he was blushing — for the first time. No matter what the taboo quotient of anything they’d touched on, he’d seemed calm enough — not weirdly icy calm, just on an even keel. This, though, this meant something. Something that meant something to him; something that was about her. She liked to know this, she discovered; liked it very much indeed.
The words he said next, though, shattered her bubble.
“I’m … sorry you asked that.” he said; “Very sorry. I’d really hoped you wouldn’t.”
Silence, until she couldn’t stand it.
“I … I’m so sorry. Really — I … I didn’t mean to … to upset you.”
Silence again, that she has to fill, words tripping over themselves;
“But … but why? It … it’s just a … a question, isn’t it? Like … like we always do?”
He looked at her; “Except, Lucy, that I don’t think it is ‘just a question’ — is it?”
He was glaring at her now — eyes hard, as they had never been before — not even on that first awful day. And she knew that she had to be honest, that if she lied now, covered up, that this really would be it — it would be all over; and if she hadn’t wanted to leave then, well now — now it would be ten times harder.
But it was so hard! She felt she would rather she had never come here than to have to tell him, honestly, now, what was in her mind. He knew! He knew already — or else why act like this! So why make her say it?
Except that she knew exactly why, and knew that she owed it to him.
Her voice, when it came at last, was very small and breathy, and she couldn’t make herself look him in the eye;
“Um … ahm … I … I’ve been think…thinking that … that it … that it might be good … good for you to … to … you know …”
Silence. He’s not letting her off the hook. They both know she’s only said half of it, and the tension in her builds until she finds the strength, squirming a little in her pretty, girly dress, to say it, say the truth;
“I’m sorry … I’m so-o sorry if … if I’ve said the wrong thing but … but …”
“You were right, of course. I … I do … can’t help myself … thinking …”
“Thinking about it … and … and wondering if … if you might … might want to do it — to me.”
He is passive, calm, looking at her, paying real attention — no-one ever pays attention to her unless she is playing the cello. No-one but him. It breaks her heart to think that she might have ruined this. Ruined it for herself. And for him. But there’s nothing to do now, in the face of his quiet attention, but to continue, to get it out.
“And … and wonder what … what I … whether I … “
“What I … what I would do if … if you tried to …”
A long, long pause; she is bright read, trembling, voice quavering as at last, she says it;
“So … so I … I think it … I think it’s important that I say this. I want to stay here. I like it here. You are the first person for … for a very long time that has looked at me, seen me, that is interested in me, listened to me, asked me things.”
“I want to stay here. I … I really want to stay here. With you. But … but you are right, were right. Of course. I can’t … can’t stop thinking about that … that stuff, and it’s driving me crazy. And so … so … so … you have to do it.”
“Do it to me. All of it. So that I know.”
“It … it’s not that I want it. Well … well …”
She tails off, beet red, mumbling ;
“Sometimes … sometimes I think … but … but that’s not the point. The point is, it has to be OK. OK for me to know what you … what you are like, what you … what you want … And for you to … to do it — all — to me. And then. Then it won’t be a mystery, any more, won’t be scary. We’ll know. Both of us. And … And either … either you’ll send me away , or you’ll let me stay, and then …then I can decide if I will. Stay. And … and if I do, then … then I guess you’ll carry on with … with it. And that will be what I knew was going to happen, and I’ll have … chosen it … and … and I’ll be happy to stay where I want to be … with you, and it will be … OK. OK for you to do … do that stuff … do it to me. Whatever you want.”
And then she’s half laughing, half crying, looking at the floor, dying of shame but at the same time exultant, breasts and belly tingling, suddenly hoping he can see her cleavage, wondering if she moved a little … looking up, to see him flushed again, face red.
But his voice is well under control as he says, very clearly, quite softly, but without doubt;
“This time, lovely girl, you will, really, have to go.”
He looks so sad, that she panics, which comes out as a laugh, half hysterical (he’d called her lovely girl — he had!);
“No … no — don’t you see? It’s all right! I … I want you to. You … you can …” she can hardly believe she’s saying this; “take … take off my clothes and … and whip me. And … and do … do it to me. Any … any way you want.”
He is staring at her, calm and ordinary looking again — just as he had been that first time. He looks and looks for a long time, looking at her so directly it’s frightening. But she knows, knows deep down, that if she looks away from him now, if she cannot hold her nerve, show him that she means it — despite the fearful pounding of her heart, the panic rising in her at the thought that she might actually be going to let him whip her and … and fuck her — knows that she must hold on, or it will all be over — that he’ll send her away.
And then, at last;
“Very well. You’ll go up to your room now. We’ll have a very quiet week, please. And then we’ll discuss this next Friday. You will wear jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Keep out of my way. Don’t talk much. But I warn you, I don’t think this can work; I’d start looking for another place if I were you.”
It had been a horrible week — she’d cried herself to sleep several nights, and hated feeling she had to scurry to be out of his sight as he moved about the house. They had been getting on so well — she’d been cooking for him several nights a week, they’d been eating together, she’d practiced her cello in his room a few times.
But whenever she told herself she regretted saying what she had, she knew it was a lie. It had needed saying. He wanted to. He wanted her — she knew it. And she … she couldn’t live with the not knowing any more. Did this slow, twisty feeling between her hips, deep in her gut, mean that she wanted it, too? Or was it simply the wondering, the uncertainty? She didn’t understand why, but he was right, it had gnawed away at her since that first argument; she’d pushed it back, down, out, away, ignored it, pretended it was something else, laughed at herself, told herself off, consulted websites and tried to practice mantras.
But still it was there. That image — the young girl, the old man, hurting her, she submitting; letting him do terrible things to her — things that she hated — but still, letting him do it to her.
Why? How could that be? How could she let him?
That was it — she wanted to know, at least know, for sure — what that would feel like… What it would mean, to have him have her — like that. To suffer, suffer terribly, at his hands, knowing that it was her who had given him permission to hurt her. To degrade her. To shame her.
She made herself rehearse these thoughts, these crazy upside-down logics, over and over. So that she would be ready. Because, in the end, whatever was said, she was certain of one thing; that she wanted to stay, and that she could not stay without him hurting her.
And so — impossible to think, yet unavoidable to accept, if she is to stay — she needs to be ready to be hurt; to … to be fucked; to be degraded … to be shamed. And live with herself as a girl who would knowingly offer herself to be used like that.
What would that mean? What could that mean — for her?
Both of them looked pale — maybe he hadn’t been sleeping well either!
She waited, unsteady with pent-up nervousness, in her baggy sweatshirt and old jeans, until he had settled. No tea, no biscuits. She’d brought flowers as usual, but they looked sad in their little pot.
There was no small talk, just a silence that was intensely lovely, she discovered - both of them honouring whatever it was that they had built together, through these little sessions, both of them knowing that, whatever the outcome, things were going to change - rupture. Neither of them eager to begin that tearing, both of them knowing it must be done.
It was him that was brave, decisive — of course; his voice was as calm and steady and certain as always;
“I won’t lie to you. I do have quite — insistent — thoughts about hurting you. About properly hurting you. No play stuff.”
He was being deliberately blunt, she could see, wanting to warn her off, and she suddenly knew that she loved him, poleaxed by the sensation breaking out in her chest as he continued;
“I have been thinking about it since — since we began. I … I should have told you. Honesty was the name of the game after all. But once I had kept it back a few times, I … I didn’t dare tell you. I was sure … sure that you’d run a mile.”
She’s smiling now, smiling through happy tears, thinking it will all be alright, hyperventilating a little — thoughts of being ‘properly hurt’ not easy to sit with. God, so mixed up! But alright, alright — they’d work it out!
He’s continuing, though, something harsh in his voice now;
“But it won’t do. When you said what you said last week, I knew it wouldn’t do. We have to stop this. Right now. I’ve booked a man with a van for later this evening, and got you a room at the Crown.”
She cries out, on her knees now;
“No! no! Why? That’s no explanation — that’s just words. Why? Why? You … you want it! You do! You just said you do. And … and I … I want to stay, so much, and I … I asked you to … to do it to me! I did!”
Suddenly she’s pulling the sweatshirt up, over her head, revealing a very pretty brassiere, low cut, and her flat, soft belly.
It’s tangled up behind her, and her wrists are caught in the sleeves as he says, fiercely;
“It won’t do, girl, because I could never be satisfied with the odd session with you.”
Something about this grabs her deep in her belly and shocks her into silence, into stillness;
“What … what do you mean? I don’t understand?”
Her heart is banging in her chest, she can hear her pulse; her chest rises and falls heavily, her breasts swell in the bra, deliberately bought one size too small. It is appalling and wonderful to be half naked like this in front of him — but to be met with denial, rejection is terrible. Is she so ugly, so unattractive? So un-sexy?
He is staring at her, still incredibly calm — but now she can see the signs of what effort this is costing him. He likes her — likes her body — he does! And he’s still protecting her!
At length, he says;
“If … If I … have … you. I will … have you … completely. Own you. Control you. Absolutely. Whipping … will be just … just a part of it.”
And he closes his eyes, as if exhausted, defeated.
She kneels there, her wrists still trapped behind her, chest heaving, mind in turmoil,
What did that mean? To be ‘owned’, ‘controlled’? He couldn’t say that, could he?
And then she heard herself laugh. A little, soft, wondering laugh, but a happy one. For the moment, at least, she had no doubts — everything seemed perfectly obvious, perfectly clear to her;
“OK.”
It hung in the silence, both of them still, both of them unsure what it meant. Until she said it again, clearly, deliberately, wonderingly, not knowing what she means, but knowing that she really does mean it — putting that sincerity into her voice, wanting him to know. Needing him to know.
“OK.”
He looks up, and she sees a flash of something in his eyes that frightens her, badly, shakes her, reminds her that this is real pain, real shame, real abuse that is being promised — not pictures on a screen, not stories, but her body, his body. Messy reality. No ‘back’ button.
And the fear is welcome. Welcome because it’s not as bad as her imagination. Because it means this will be real between them, whatever this is. And she wants real so much that she lets the fear in, and lets him see it, and lets him see that she has not changed her mind, keeping her eyes on his no matter what the cost.
He sees her fear, and sees her accepting it, too — accepting him. It’s the first time he’s ever let her see the pent-up force that is in him, the first time he’s let himself frighten her, and something in him exults. She will be frightened of him. With good reason.
Frightened or not, she repeats herself then, making it unambiguous — slow and clear;
“Okay. Yes. Please. Let … let me … be … yours.”
Again, the look between them is what matters, not the words. He is making his face as blank and stoney as he can, while hers is wildly expressive, no matter how desperately she is trying to show him that she knows what she means, knows what she wants, means what she says. That she wants to be his; on his terms. She can’t bear it, but he is testing her, she knows — and so she makes herself bear it, understanding, with her body at least (her mind has pretty much shut down), that this is a small foretaste of how it will be, if she stays. If he lets her stay.
And so she bears it, and lets him see her bearing it, as best she can.
Until at last, his chin lifts a little, and she braces herself;
“It starts now, then” he says.
She nods. She’s trembling so violently, it seems, that it takes all her effort not to slump in a pathetic heap on the floor. His eyes on her, the idea of his eyes on her, the importance to her that he judges her worth looking at, that he will like what he sees, is what keeps her upright; nothing else could.
