Hearts and Diamonds (22 page)

His weight on her increased her temperature and made her stickier than ever, but she couldn’t have cared less. The place could have been consumed in a fireball and she’d still have nothing on her mind but the guilty, blissful feeling of him inside her, working at her, building up the friction until she had no recourse but to dissolve into her orgasm.

She lay, flattened and content beneath him, waiting for him to fill her with his own climax, longing for nothing more now than to sleep in his arms.

But of course, they would not be able to do that.

Jason withdrew and got to his feet again mere moments after pumping his seed into her, pulling on his pants and suit trousers with a hurried air.

‘Thought I heard the door go,’ he said as she peeled a cheek from the leather bench to level an unfocused gaze on him.

She blinked and tried to bring her exhausted brain and body back to life.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. Lindo’s back. Come on.’

He laughed fondly and kissed her forehead, apparently amused by how out of it she was.

‘Do I have to carry you?’

‘You might.’

But she managed to remove her dead weight limbs from the bench, sinking first to her knees on the planking floor before gathering enough energy to pull up her knickers and skirt. Her shirt was now virtually transparent, the white dobby cotton sticking to her curves in a very unkempt manner. As for her hair . . .

Still kneeling, she dragged her handbag over by its strap and took out her brush and mirror. She couldn’t get it quite back into her usual chic style, but she could at least stop it from looking as if it was plastered to her head. And her make-up . . .

Emergency blotting and reapplication was necessary, during which Jason paced the room, looking out of the yellowing roof glass at the thick skies outside.

‘You’re going downstairs into a workshop, not along the red carpet,’ he scolded, teetering at the top of the ladder. ‘Come on, for fuck’s sake.’

‘He’s going to know,’ she said with certainty, snapping her compact shut.

‘Well, of course he is. Look what we brought up here.’ Jason waved the paddle at her.

‘I don’t think I can face him.’

‘Don’t be daft. Come on.’

He came across to take her by the elbow and propel her towards the ladder.

‘The bench,’ she panicked, breaking away and scrabbling inside her handbag for the mini-pack of baby wipes she kept.

Jason waited, rolling his eyes, while she wiped down the leather, desperate to free it of any lingering traces of what had passed.

‘Now are you ready?’ he asked, long-sufferingly.

‘Bad manners to leave bodily fluids on other people’s furniture,’ she replied primly.

‘Georgina must have forgotten to mention it,’ said Jason with a sardonic smile. ‘Perhaps you ought to tell her. Next lesson.’

She jabbed him between his shoulder blades as he reached the ladder in front of her.

‘Yeah, I will,’ she said.

She was relieved that Jason entered the main workshop floor first. He would have to deal with whatever was found there.

Lindo was sitting in the rest area, reading the paper.

He folded it up, smiling, as his company revealed itself.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’ve poured you each a glass of wine. Got a lovely, cold, crisp white, as it seems to be the weather for it. Or perhaps I should have gone for fizz?’

He looked at Jenna, who realised that he was referring to her fame, making the assumption that she lived a champagne lifestyle. He certainly did recognise her then.

She overrode her little impulse of dismay by making a beeline for the wine and saying, ‘Oh, no, a nice cold white sounds perfect. Thank you.’

‘So then?’ said Lindo, with a delicate throat-clearing sound, once everyone was seated with a glass.

Jenna and Jason exchanged a glance.

‘Do we have a verdict?’

Jason put the paddle down on the table.

‘Class,’ he said.

Jenna looked down at the pale liquid in her glass.

‘Did it perform as you hoped?’

‘Yeah, it did. Just the result I was looking for.’

‘That’s excellent. And . . . were you favourably impressed too?’

Jenna forced herself to meet his smile.

‘It was good,’ she said.

‘The first time with a new implement is always exciting for me,’ said Lindo. ‘And when it’s one I’ve made myself . . . well . . . that’s a thrill beyond describing. To feel your own work turned against you. What a unique feeling.’

‘It must be,’ said Jason.

Jenna was curious now.

‘Does your wife ever tell you what to make?’

Lindo’s eyes took on a dreamy quality.

‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Though she never goes into detail. But some mornings she might ask me if I have a lot of work on, and if the answer’s no, she’ll place an order. She might say, “I need a good, thick strap for my collection, one that will make a proper red stripe.” Or the other day she asked for “a thin-handled whip that will leave marks”. I made both, and there have been others.’

‘What’s your favourite?’ asked Jenna impulsively. ‘And your least favourite?’

‘Well, I can take quite a lot of pain, so I’d say my favourite was the cane. It really hits the spot when I want more than sensation play. My least favourite – oh, I don’t have one. I love them all. Every single one has its good points. Yourself?’

Jenna had not expected the question to be turned back on her.

‘Oh. Well. There’s a lot I haven’t tried. I don’t think I’d like any of those thin, whippy things. For pleasure, I like one of those light flogger things. They don’t really hurt.’

‘Ah, you see, for me, that would be a disappointment,’ said Lindo. ‘What about you, Mr Watson?’

‘I like ’em all,’ said Jason equably, after swallowing a mouthful of wine. ‘Paddles are good cos she squirms so much. I like to see a good squirm. But, yeah, we’ve got a few others to try out yet, before I pick a favourite.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Lindo. ‘I sometimes wish I could go back to the days when it was all new and I had no idea what to expect. These days, we work like a well-oiled machine, but there’s something about that genuine anxiety of the first few sessions . . . Ah. I do miss it.’

‘How long have you and your wife been together?’ asked Jenna.

‘Twenty-two years,’ said Lindo. ‘It wasn’t our kink that brought us together – it took a few years for that to come out. What a piece of luck when it did.’

‘It must happen the other way too,’ mused Jenna. ‘Two people who love to be the one in control getting together, for instance, or two submissives.’

‘If they love each other, I suppose it doesn’t matter,’ said Lindo, shrugging.

‘If they love each other,’ echoed Jenna. For the first time in days, she found herself thinking of Deano. Perhaps that was their problem. They had been too alike. If she had asked him to be more dominant in the bedroom, what might he have said?

She couldn’t imagine it. How, then, could she say she knew him well?

‘Well, then,’ said Jason, draining his glass with a cavalier flourish and banging it on the table. ‘Cheers, mate. I’ve really enjoyed this afternoon. Learnt a lot. Might open my own workshop.’

‘Oh, I don’t want competition,’ said Lindo, smiling.

‘Nah, just for my own personal use,’ he said with a wink. ‘You can keep your customers.’

Jenna was glad to get out, back into the sweaty jumble of London. She’d had the feeling that Lindo was constantly on the verge of revealing too much information and she didn’t want Jason to feel obliged to join in.

‘Nice bloke,’ said Jason, as she called for the car.

‘Good craftsman,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Like me. What do you think? Shall I start knocking my own stuff up? I’d like to do that. I mean, painting is great, but I love all that hammering and sawing and stuff. Made me feel proper manly, you know?’

She laughed. ‘You don’t need a hammer and nails to prove
that
, my darling.’

‘Not to you,’ he said, digging her in the ribs. ‘But to myself.’

‘You seem obsessed with proving yourself just now,’ she observed. ‘It’s OK to take things slowly. You don’t have to do everything at once.’

He leant back against the wall, exhaling into the clammy air.

‘If not now, then when?’ he said, turning his eyes to her. ‘I’ve dossed about for too long. Feel like I need to make up for lost time. And there’s so much to prove. Prove I’m an artist, prove I’m a decent bloke, prove I’m a
man
.’

Jenna laughed. ‘Who doesn’t think you’re a man? It seems pretty clear to me.’

‘To you, babe,’ he said, reaching out to tickle the back of her damp neck. ‘In the bedroom, yeah. But I mean outside the bedroom. In the other places where it counts. In the house, in the street, at the bank.’

‘Ah, money again. It will come,’ she said seriously. ‘It might take its time at first, but it
will
. In the meantime, if you like, you can consider everything I pay for as a loan. I know you’ll pay it back. I believe in you.’

‘Yeah, you do, don’t you? Weird.’

‘Not weird.’ She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Perhaps if I do it hard enough, you’ll start to believe in yourself.’

LATER ON, IN
the bedroom at the hotel, the diary came out again.

The air conditioning was switched to blissfully cool and they lay in a post-shower sprawl, Jenna in a silk robe and Jason in boxers, appreciating each other’s scented skin.

‘Tell you what, we haven’t read about the wedding night yet,’ Jason prompted. ‘I want to know if Harville’s a dirty perv. I bet he is.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so insistent a middle-class Victorian lady is going to want to write porn,’ said Jenna, tutting.

But she took the book from the bedside drawer and turned to where they had left off – the morning of the wedding.

March 11th

I write these lines as Lady Harville. My name has changed, but that is not all. So much has changed, in the time it took for our hands and hearts to be joined for all time, that I can scarcely catalogue it.

I have risen in station to a place of elevation I never dreamed I could occupy. A humble governess, the daughter of a failed businessman, I now prepare to conduct the rest of my life as a lady of quality. The penniless girl may now order whatever she desires without second thought. I have leapt from mutton pudding to veal à la Béarnaise; from calico to silk. I may not feel it yet, but in name and in fortune, I am now an aristocrat.

I have changed also, from single young woman to wife, and what a momentous change that is. I have been accustomed to pleasing only myself, but now I must please another, and put his wishes at the forefront of my awareness. It will not be easy to make this alteration in my very heart, but I am sure I will strive to do my duty and make my husband the happiest man I can.

Another change, and one of which I am apprehensive, is my transit from governess to mother. How will I ever replace the parent those girls remember so fondly and so sadly? I fear they will never take me into their hearts and I will remain always outside their sphere of confidence, branded an outsider and hated for it. I have pledged, all the same, most solemnly, to do my best for Maria and Susannah, in hopes that the day will come when we might be dear friends.

Another delicate distinction is that between servant and served. The staff still look upon me coldly but they must know that to do so for much longer will result in their being replaced – for I will not hesitate to insist that they seek another place, if they cannot treat their mistress with the respect she deserves.

Finally, another change, a most private one, and one I blush to mention. But I intend to be fearlessly honest here in my diary, and so I must not gloss over it.

‘Now we’re getting to the good bit,’ said Jason, putting his chin on Jenna’s shoulder to better view the book’s contents.

‘Anyone’d think you were sex-starved,’ said Jenna dryly. ‘Which we both know not to be the case.’

‘Yeah, but it’s interesting in all this oldy-worldy language. I want to know how she describes it. I bet she cops out and says something sketchy like “it was like opening up to the sun”, or something. Girls can never call a spade a spade.’

‘Don’t be sexist. Anyway, let’s see, shall we?’

I awake a new person, a woman experienced in the duties of marriage. When I came into this bed, I was a mere girl, trembling in ignorance of what awaited me. I had heard that, to get a child, a husband must ‘couple with’ his wife in some way, but I had no fixed idea of what such coupling might entail.

Now I know it, and what knowledge! David came to me, his eyes burning with a strange light that made me shiver. He would not let me keep on the beautiful nightdress from Paris I had made especially for my trousseau. Instead, he made plain that he wished to see me unclothed and unadorned. I nearly burned up with the shame of it, for none has seen me naked since I was a small child, and I had hoped to evade any such embarrassing necessity. But my mother had advised me to follow his lead in all respects – the only advice she gave – and so I clung to this tenet as if it would save my life. After all, he had been married before and knew what he was about.

He sat down in a chair across the room and made me stand before him and remove my nightgown there. I wanted to cross my arms, to cover myself, but he told me, quite calmly and gently, that this would not be permitted.

He told me I was beautiful, that such a beautiful body should never be covered, but exhibited in its glory, for the delight of he who possessed it.

This was a strange thought, to think of my own flesh and skin as belonging to another. Yet it is how my Lord is pleased to view our union, and I suppose all men are so. He told me I must cease thinking of my body as my own and clothe and adorn it always to his taste, in the full knowledge that he would only look at me with the thought of removing all such clothing and adornment in the bedchamber.

‘He seems a bit intense,’ commented Jenna.

‘Knew it. What did I tell you? Raging pervert.’