PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (16 page)

“You
have been ill?” she asks, wiping her eyes, keen to repay the unexpected
support.

“Not
exactly,” I say with a cheeky grin on my face.  She smiles immediately.

“Oh,
Charlotte!  Congratulations!”  She is crying properly now and reaching out to
hug me.  Both reactions are unnecessary, but I play along.  I think of Gregory
at home and his ice cold exterior and lack of interest in our baby.  I wonder
if Dana has left and if he is alone with Ishiko enjoying a quick fumble.  He
expresses greater interest in fooling around with our maid than he does
nurturing the life that is growing inside of me.  “That’s wonderful news.” 
It’s time to leave.

“Thank
you.  But it is hush-hush, ok?” I say putting my finger to a set of pursed
lips.

“You
have my word!”  I am already getting up and placing my mug back in the plastic
bag and into my pocket.  She watches me closely and I am quite sure she finds
my actions strange, but she is so wrapped up in the excitement of genuine
happiness she lets her concerns slide.  I reach over for my coat which I had
discarded on the side of the settee.

“OK,”
I say moving towards the door.  “We’ll speak next week once you are back.”

I
wave as I leave the house and she is still smiling, wiping away tears.  I fear
that she is still watching me as I open my front door, gripping on to the
thread of friendship that I have offered out.  I flew into her life like a
white dove, an olive branch in my mouth.  She has forgotten all about the time
constraints of Mary Wexley’s return, drunk on connection and friendship.  It’s
an intoxicating pull, I know.  It is one I have felt only a few times, never
more so than with Gregory on the night that I first saw him.  I didn’t see any
of his annoying habits that night, he was simply a perfect representation of
the dream I had been courting my whole life.  He offered so much promise, a
life full of smiles and belonging to another person.  A real person that
wouldn’t leave me. 

I
throw my coat and scarf onto the end of the stairs and wander through the
house.  Silence, other than the clatter of crockery as Ishiko empties the
dishwasher.  I see her in the kitchen bending down and then up, plate in hand. 
Always one at a time.  She never rushes.  There is never a hint of anything
other than relaxation on her face, even when faced with my husband naked in the
shower.  I walk through the hallway and find Gregory sitting in the drawing
room, contemplating his nemesis, the bulk of water trapped in the land. 

“What
did Mrs. Sedgwick want?”  I take a seat in the chair opposite him and wait
until I am worthy of his response.  It takes a while.  I begin counting and
breathing.  I only get to twenty.

“She
wanted to ask me about the Ladies of Windermere raffle tonight.  She needed a
confirmed list of prizes.”

“Ladies
of Windermere?”  It took until the count of twenty before he could talk to me. 
It took that long before he could bring himself to talk to me.  I remember our
first night together, when he spoke to me before I said anything, when he spoke
to me before I even knew of his existence.  Then, he could breathe the same air
as me, we could sit curled up in his Queen Anne chair that we once filled
together but now he manages to make appear full on his own.  Back then he could
touch me, hold me, push me down and kiss me in places that were private before
he even knew my last name.  Now it takes until the count of twenty to muster
the strength to talk to me about our neighbour.  I could die of insignificance
if everybody wasn’t so determined that I live.  I must go to my appointments this
week.  Look willing.  It might inject a bit of faith in him.  A bit of spirit. 
“Is that the charity that we are supporting tonight?”

“Not
really,” he says as he stands and walks towards the piano.  He leans against it
like a gentleman with one elbow lodged on the top for no particular reason, circa
1920.  If I was on a chaise longue with a cigarette in a holder the scene would
be near perfect.  This is his idea of perfection.  He remembers his grandfather
here, reclining and contemplating as a gentleman should, not engaging himself
with other less meaningful tasks.  This is what the brandy is for.  If he
wasn’t asthmatic he would add in cigars.  I am surprised he doesn’t just get
one out and rest it in an ashtray for effect.  He has tried before.  Cigarettes
are OK, they don’t bother him much, but only in private.  Cigarettes are not
for show.  They are to be hidden away, like he wishes he could do to me, but
instead is forced to do to Ishiko.  “They will be hosting some sort of baking
day in a couple of week’s time.  Raising money for disabled children.  They
want to have it announced tonight, get some attendees.”  He speaks about it
dismissively as if helping isn’t really on his agenda.  He understands charity
in quite a different way from most.  For him it is a route in, a route higher,
and a way forward.  He never just gives for the sake of it.  Never just to be
nice.  I know he couldn’t care less about the disabled children of our town. 
He couldn’t care less if they get to go kayaking on the lake.  He doesn’t care
much for the lake.  Not since I drowned his beloved boat.  How I could have
done it, he doesn’t know.  He cannot understand why I would have taken
something precious to him and destroyed it like that.  How could I?  What a
terribly inconvenient method of attempted suicide I chose.   How thoughtless. 
“I think she will be asking you to attend.”  He is looking at the photograph
that I have glued down. 

“OK,”
I say, taking off my gloves, hoping that he doesn’t decide to pick it up.  “I
don’t mind that.”  Ishiko glides in like an angel carrying a tray with a glass
and an ice bucket with a tiny set of tongs attached, inappropriately sized for
his fingers, perfect for his air of delicacy.  Part of me wants him to touch
the photograph, the aggressive side of me that still bargains I was right to
take the boat is willing him to try to grab it.  But the other half of me? 
Definitely not.  I wonder if they know it is glued down yet.  If they do they
must realise who did it, and can at least proffer a guess about why.  Ishiko
sets the tray down on the occasional table and scuttles away like an apparition
might shift into smoke or dust, leaving me uncertain if she was ever really here.

“Well
she will be very pleased I am sure,” he says, walking back over and pouring his
ridiculously expensive brandy into the crystal tumbler and plopping in few ice
cubes, me a mix of relief and disappointment.  It is a little before two in the
afternoon.  He is obviously not planning for anything this afternoon.  He takes
a seat in his chair that was once for two and is now for one and returns to his
contemplation, occasionally sipping on his brandy.

 “Shall
we eat some lunch soon?”  I fidget my feet underneath my chair, pick at my
fingernails.  I want to tell him that tonight we should announce the baby.  I
don’t want to talk about lunch.  I don’t want to think about Ishiko.  I want to
be a pregnant woman, a pregnant wife, somebody who was desirable enough to be impregnated. 
“We could ask Ishiko to make us something now.”

“Are
you hungry?” he asks me, surprised.

“A
little.”  I am not really hungry, but I see no natural break in the afternoon
so far and I have already tired of lounging.  Lunch will provide an interlude
to the boredom, and a way to pass half an hour that is not entirely unpleasant. 

“We
could eat something.”  He appears to be taken by the normality of my question, and
he refolds the newspaper before he has even started reading it.  Just two
people enjoying a normal day it seems, turns him on a little.  He doesn’t want
excitement, he wants normal.  He is smiling, so I push it further.  “Then relax
together and do nothing in particular.”  The grin extends, and I hear a little
breathy giggle sneak out.

“OK. 
Why not.  Ishiko!”  He stands and I hear Ishiko walking towards us.

“Yes?”
she says as she arrives in the drawing room to a scene of erotic normality.   

“Ishiko,
be a dear would, you?  Rustle us up some lunch.  Nothing fancy,” he says as he
turns to me and winks. 

“Of
course, Mr. Astor.”  She turns to walk away.

“Oh,
Ishiko,” he says reaching over to the occasional table where his brandy and the
newspaper sits.  There is a small drawer in it with a keyhole and he pushes the
edge of newspaper aside to get access to it.  He pulls a small key from his
pocket and inserts it into the lock and pulls out a few pieces of paper that
look like letters, and a couple of white envelopes.  “File these papers, would
you.”  He hands her the things he took from the drawer and she leaves before he
shuts it, leaving the key in place.  He chats to me about the deck at the hotel
and how difficult it was to get the work completed before the reopening last
week.  I sit and stare out of the window in the same direction he stares.  I
think he is talking to me, but I don’t make any sound for the duration of
sitting here and he continues to speak regardless, so he could just be thinking
out loud.  I watch the water, rippling along as the occasional boat sails
past.  I notice that when I see a boat he closes his eyes.  It must be
intolerable to think about what he has lost.

Within
twenty minutes we are sat together eating a small homemade tart, cheese, onion,
creamy and delicious, all served on a bed of balsamic dressed leaves.  It was
like something from the hotel.   I admit it was very good.  For the duration of
lunch we have spoken without interruption or silence.  I purposefully left the
subject of the baby out of the conversation, but purposefully filtered in my
plans for next week’s session with Dr. Abrams.   It was as if I offered him Christmas. 
He reigned himself back in a few times, I could sense the wary retreat, keen
not to push a delicate situation beyond its natural bounds, but by the end of
lunch I dared a stretch of the fingers across the table and he didn’t even
flinch when I touched him.  His arm remains cold and limp but at least it is there. 
He feels able to be touched, rather than forced to withdraw.

Afterwards
we sat in the drawing room again, separate chairs, but still together and only
feet apart.  For a while he watched the lake, and I gazed past it to the
forest, remembering his words from this morning. 
To see the beauty of the
forest, we must first look beyond the expanse of the water,
so that’s what
I did
. 
Even though the sky is perfectly blue today and you could almost
mistake it for summer – you wouldn’t because it’s a little pale for a summer
blue - the trees demonstrate none of their actual colour.  Today the forest is
just an expanse of black, the green washed away by the damp dew of winter.  Before
lunchtime I thought for a while that the day had been lost, but here in this
moment I feel like it was just about as good as I could possibly have hoped
for.  It was a start.  In fact, I was so relaxed I dozed off. 

I
woke up at what must have been little over two hours later because the first
thing I noticed was that it was darker outside.  My second thought was that it
was darker because the window was being blocked from view.  At first I wasn’t
sure what I saw, until my eyes finally opened properly and I found that it was
Gregory stood over me, blocking the light.   I had slumped down in my chair and
I began to push myself up.

“Gregory,”
I breathed, as I felt his hand against me.  He was running the tip of his
finger across my shoulders, circling it across my breast bone, teasing me that
he was going to trace all the way down to my nipples.  He was grinning.  I shot
round, looking towards the door.  Shut.

“Already
thought of that,” he said, and for a moment I got a glimpse of the cheeky face
that I first encountered, the one that wanted me, that desired me.  Slowly his
tracing got harder.  One finger, two fingers, then a squeeze, a flick of the
nipple, and I felt myself flush.  I was aware of the blood rush between my legs
and in the time it took for me to complete one breath I was awake and scared. 
Scared that he would touch me and not find what he wanted.  Scared that I
couldn’t compare to Ishiko.  Scared that his body wouldn’t remember mine and
the awkwardness would last beyond the moments of physical connection. 

He
pushed his hand up my jumper and reached out for my bra, pulling at it until I
was exposed.  He ripped up my jumper and squeezed at my left breast, awkwardly
falling out because the bra is too small now with the swelling of pregnancy.  It
hurts as he squeezes me and I can’t help but wince, but he mistakes this as a
good sign and so it does nothing but encourage him.  His other hand was
fumbling at my face, his fingers pushing in and out of my lips like some sort
of orgy, none of which were delicate or careful.  I licked him back and he got
more excited and pushed his thumb into my mouth until the rest of his hand was
pushing against my cheek and my head was turned into the chair so that I could
no longer see him, but instead just the door.  My head was throbbing, my scar
pulsating.

It
only took him a second to flip me over, and the intrusive hand that was once in
my mouth is now behind my head.  I could taste the cushion.  Lavender.  Old
lavender.  It left dust on my mouth and my tongue.  He undid my trousers quite
expertly with one hand and shuffled them down.  Within seconds it was over and
I felt his weight on my hips.  He stroked my face.  Once.  I heard him zip up
his trousers.  He sniffed a lot.  His nose was runny.  I remember as I watch
him pull a handkerchief from his pocket that is was always runny after sex.  I
feel his hand on my back.  It wasn’t loving or erotic.  It was a signal that we
had finished.