Spirit (15 page)

Matt looks truly baffled. “Planned it? You’re saying you thought Mick and I planned to have him turn up when I wasn’t there and do Christ knows what to you? That’s insane. Why on earth would you have believed that? How could you imagine that, even for a moment?”

“I didn’t believe him, not really. Even after I found your, your equipment, I still didn’t believe him. He was just mad, babbling. But, you’d left your phone behind, remember? I had it in my hand. I’d been intending to call you, but I didn’t have your work number. After he’d gone he texted you. I saw the text, I read it. And the ones from earlier too.”

“Okay. Look, I don’t have the same phone any more and I’ve changed networks since then anyway. I don’t have the texts any more so you’ll have to help me out here. What did they say?”

I take a moment to think back, not that I need to concentrate too hard. The comments made in those texts will live with me for ever. “The first one, straight after he’d attacked me, was so normal. It was scary, as though he’d no idea he’d done anything wrong. He thought he might have upset me and asked you to apologise to me if he had.”

Matt nods. “Yes, I do vaguely remember that now. You’d disappeared without trace and he was the last person to see you, so I asked him if you’d seemed alright. He told me you’d been a bit prickly, and that he didn’t stay long. He said you’d been okay when he left.”

“Yeah. Okay as in not dead. Not raped.”

“Fucking hell, the bastard! I should have quizzed the little shite more. Why the fuck didn’t I? Christ! It never occurred to me that he might have had anything to do with you leaving. What an idiot I was.”

“There were more texts, from earlier. You and that cretin were mates, I could see that. You made arrangements to meet up.”

“I wouldn’t have said we were mates exactly. We’d go for a drink occasionally. In London if I was there on business, or in Leeds sometimes.”

“It was more than that. He knew about, about your toys and, and…” My words trail off, the recollection of Matt’s obvious preferences still just as confusing to me now as they were then. I’d felt threatened, vulnerable, and strangely fascinated. I still do.

“Beth, what? What did he know?”

“He said I was your new subbie. Submissive. That’s what that means, isn’t it? That’s what all the stuff in the bedroom was about. You like to beat women up as well.”

Matt doesn’t answer. Not at first. He just watches me, his eyes narrowed. Then, “No, at least, not unless I have their permission. And never in the way you’re implying.” He leans back and heaves a long sigh before he turns to look at me again. “Beth, you and I need to talk.”

Matt stands, paces to the window and leans against the pane for a few moments, staring down at the busy streets below, the frantic hustle of Leeds city centre on a weekday afternoon. He doesn’t turn to face me when he speaks, preferring for the moment to address the clear glass a few inches from his nose.

“I’m a dom. But I think you worked that out already.”

“Yes.”

“And you know what that means?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound to be especially perturbed by that knowledge now, though from your reaction six years ago I’m guessing you weren’t always so relaxed with it.”

“I’ve… I’ve had time to think. And anyway, it doesn’t concern me, does it? Not now.”

“It didn’t concern you then, either.”

“It did. Of course it did. We were sleeping together.”

“We were fucking like bunnies, but you had no idea about my kink, and I would have kept it that way. You were too young. Vulnerable.”

“I was eighteen, an adult.”

“Eighteen going on ten. Like I said, too young, too vulnerable. I wasn’t looking for a new submissive, and even if I was, it wasn’t a relationship you would have understood. I don’t take advantage of naive, infatuated girls.”

“You fucked me.” I can’t keep the note of indignation from my voice. “And you did mention it. Occasionally, as a joke.”

He turns, his grin wry. “Exactly. I would never have made a serious move on you. I’m no predator, Beth, but neither am I a monk. You came looking for me that night as I recall. You were very persuasive.”

I’m aware of the prickle as my face flushes. He’s right of course, there was no way I would have taken no for an answer that night. But even so… “You didn’t take that much persuading.”

“I imagine not. You were fucking gorgeous. Not my usual type, but still, I found it hard to keep my hands off you. I would have managed it though, but for your insistence. Be under no illusion about that. Getting into your knickers wasn’t the first thing on my agenda, even if you were a randy little madam with one seriously peachy little arse.”

Peachy little arse? Me?
I process that for a few moments, fail utterly to make it fit into any personal paradigm I might have, so resume the matter at hand. “So, what was? On your agenda, I mean?”

“Sorting you out, I suppose. Getting you off the streets. I wanted to help you.”

“Why?”

“Because I liked you, and I cared about you. I felt responsible for you. I wanted to know that you were alright. Fucking you was an unexpected bonus, and one I feel not especially proud of. I thought I’d somehow scared you off.”

“Why would you feel that? Like you said, it was my idea.”

“You disappeared into thin air. I had no idea why or where you’d gone. Or what was happening to you. Christ, I was sick with worry over you, girl. Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might be?” His expression has hardened, become fierce suddenly. He strides across the room to tower over me. I shrink into the sofa, intimidated. I don’t recall he ever affected me like that before.

“Yes. No. I don’t know, I didn’t think…”

“I did. I thought all sorts. I thought of you lying in some skip somewhere, frozen to death. Or seduced by some pimp who’d sell that luscious body of yours for whatever he could get. I thought about you abused, murdered, hurting, scared.”

“You’re scaring me now.”

“Yeah, well what goes around comes around. Maybe we’re even.” He turns on his heel and heads back to the window.

Long, silent moments pass, the tension in the room crackling between us. I’m first to break the silence.

“I never meant that. I didn’t want to worry you. I just… I just—panicked.”

He turns from the window and goes back to his desk, easing his long legs under it. “You panicked. You found a few sex toys and you had some sort of meltdown? Am I supposed to believe that?”

“You said it. I was young, and naive.”

“Not that young, not quite so innocent. And anyway, we were close, or so I thought. How could you have thought I had any intention of making you do anything you didn’t want to?”

“You were on at me to get a job.”

“That was bloody different and you know it. In any case, I got the impression you wanted a job. Money. Independence.”

“I did. And you said you wanted to take me to a club. Mick mentioned the club too, he said I looked too young to get in.”

“Club? You mean a fetish club? A BDSM club?” He puts his head in his hands and groans. “This would be fucking hilarious if it wasn’t so bloody tragic. Christ, you couldn’t make it up.” He turns to face me again. “Beth, I intended to take you to the New Year’s Eve party at Headingley Cricket Club. It was just down the road from my flat. I’m a member there. At one time I was opening batsman for their third eleven. Shit, you even used my bat as a weapon.”

“A cricket club? Headingley? Not a sex club?”

“No, of course not a fucking sex club. For God’s sake, Beth, why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“I was scared. Confused. All those things in your bedroom, the kinky sex…”

“You could have told me if that stuff bothered you.”

“And you’d have stopped?”

“I never started. Not with you. And I wouldn’t have. If—when—I needed to get my kink on, I already had a submissive. Megan. You remember her, surely?”

“Megan? Who on earth is Megan?”

“Was. Megan was my submissive. You met her that night I brought her back to the flat.”

I stare at him as the memories cascade back into my head. Yes, I do remember now. And I remember being twisted up with jealousy. I was confused and bitter, I hated the thought of him with her and that was partly what drove me to come on so strong, to throw myself at Matt. And he chose me. Didn’t he?

“You stopped seeing her though. When you and I started…”

“It’s true I didn’t see her during the time we were sleeping together, but that was only for a few days. And I didn’t see her for a while after you left either, because I was so caught up in looking for you. Eventually though, I had to face the fact that you were gone, that you weren’t coming back.”

“So, you moved on?” I can hardly blame him, but even so. “You and Megan got back together?”

“Like I said, we never really split. She was a good sub, eventually. We had a lot of fun. I liked her too, as a person. I respected her. At one time I even convinced myself I loved her. I wouldn’t have married her otherwise.”

He couldn’t have shocked me more if he’d thrown a bucket of ice water over me. Married! Matt’s married, and to Megan, my old nemesis.

And nothing has changed. As if I was still that confused eighteen year old who sneaked into his bedroom and into his bed, my jealousy resurges anew, rampant, red hot, blinding, throwing everything now into sharp focus. Clarifying my tangled emotional state.

I want him. I want him now, still, every bit as much as I did then. Nothing has changed, except perhaps that Megan has won. Like the gullible idiot I was, I stepped aside and let her have what could have been mine.

Or did I? Could he have been mine? On what terms? We’ll never know now.

“You married Megan.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yes. About a year later. Come to think of it, she always loathed Mick too. That’s why I stopped hanging out with him.”

“I… congratulations.”

“On my wedding or on the fact I stopped being mates with Mick Rosen?”

“The wedding, I think.”

“Well thanks, but it hardly matters now. We were divorced two years after that. Megan moved to Wellington. New Zealand.” He adds the final point, perhaps under the impression my grasp of geography is as tenuous as my understanding of what constitutes good manners. I never should have left without a word. I owed him that, at least. My fears and blind panic seem so trivial now, though they were real enough back then. I’ve grown up a lot in the six years since. Matt is not the only one to have matured. But still, despite everything he’s telling me, sharing with me at last, something is amiss here. I heave in a deep breath.

“You say you wouldn’t have suggested that I, that we…” On this occasion Matt doesn’t step in to help me out. He waits for me to find the words. “You say you wouldn’t have tried to make a submissive of me.”

“No. Even if that were possible, which I don’t believe it is, I wouldn’t have tried.”

“But, you texted Mick. You told him something like, I was promising, inexperienced, but it was early days.” I don’t recall the exact words, but it was something along those lines.

“No I didn’t. I would never have said any such thing to him. I never discussed you with him at all. Apart from when I went to see him after you’d gone, and I wanted to know if he could shed any light.”

“That’s not true. I saw the text. I read it, on your phone. I remember you’d sent it to him just after I moved in with you. You did say that.”

Matt frowns, his expression one of intense concentration. He looks straight at me, his eyes steely, narrowed.

“Did I mention you by name?”

“No, but still…”

“It was Megan.”

“Megan? What was Megan?”

“I was talking about Megan, not you. I remember now, Mick used to quiz me sometimes about the lifestyle. He wasn’t into it. Or so I thought. But he was fascinated, always asking questions. If I mentioned anything about a sub in a text to him, it had to have been Megan. I wasn’t playing with anyone else. He mistook you for her, he must have. You said he referred to you as my subbie. Why else would he say that?”

I stare at him, horrified as the implications of that simple, silly mistake sink in. Mick’s assumption, and my blind acceptance. I took it at face value. All I needed to do was ask Matt, check with him. Even though I had it wrong, even though I’d believed him to be all sorts of an arrogant bastard, he’d have set me straight. Instead, I panicked and I ran.

Oh. My. God. Six years. Six fucking years.

“I’m sorry. So sorry… I can’t believe I let that happen. I should have asked you, should have said… Christ, I feel sick.”

“Help yourself.” He gestures to the discreet door in the corner, which I assume is the way to his private, chief executive’s facilities. I need the respite so I accept his invitation.

Ensconced in Matt’s private loo I gaze at my reflection in the wall mirror. The ramifications of my mistake ricochet around my skull. Mick had met me at Matt’s apartment and just assumed I was the submissive he’d heard about, a genuine mistake and understandable I suppose. I know now, with chilling certainty, that the comments made by Matt in his earlier texts referred to Megan, not to me. And with Megan in the mix, the fact that Matt owned a bunch of sex toys makes perfect sense. And he’s right—that had nothing to do with me. Not then. Not now.

I go back out into the office, ready to face the music. Ready to accept my mistake and the consequences of it. Matt is still at his desk, staring at the window though from this angle all he can be watching is the antics of displaced starlings on the opposite roof, seeking a perch despite the anti-bird netting which has been put there by the Council to protect the architectural heritage of Leeds’s past.

“I feel a fool. I was so stupid.”

“Yes.” His tone has hardened, that old and so familiar thread of sternness woven through it. “Why didn’t you just talk to me? I thought we were close, that you trusted me.”

“We were. I did.”

“Not enough.”

“No.” I drop my gaze again, remembering the mindless, frantic confusion that simply consumed me that day, robbing me of logic, obliterating any attempt to think through the implications of what I had discovered, to gain any perspective at all. And the overwhelming fear that drove me to just cut and run without ever facing Matt.