Teach Me Dirty (21 page)

He smoothed my hair under the water, teasing out the lengths before grabbing a bottle. He lathered shampoo into my scalp, then carried on down, frothing me up with body scrub that smelled of tea tree and citrus. I enjoyed the moment, moving wherever he guided, as he washed me and stroked me and pressed his lips against my wet skin. His fingers felt like heaven as they soaped my breasts, tweaking and coaxing until I could feel myself rolling into him. I gasped as his hand slipped between my legs, but he was so gentle, soaping me up and washing me down, leaving no part of me unclean.

But I didn’t feel self-conscious.

I felt loved.

I wanted to do the same for him, but he was tall enough that he had to crouch for me, and I was giggling all over again. His hair was surprisingly long when it was wet, curling down around his shoulders. I loved the feel of it around my fingers.

I loved the feel of his wet skin against mine.

He was hard again as I soaped him, and I wondered if he’d take me again, but he didn’t. He pressed me against the tiles and planted his mouth on mine, and kissed me, and I kissed him. And I wanted to pinch myself, over and over again, just to make sure this was really happening.

Finally, when we were a sud-free zone, he kissed the top of my head and turned off the faucet.

He reached for a towel and wrapped me up, and twisted my hair up into a second towel.

And then he sighed.

“I can’t believe I have to get ready now.”

“Get ready?”

“I’m signed up to clear up the function room at the Three Friars. We left it in quite a state.”

I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Can’t you stay? Do you have to?”

He brushed my lip with his thumb. “I don’t want to let the others down.”

“But it’s a Saturday… it’s…”

“Shitty and ill-timed, I know.”

“Can’t you ring in sick? Tell them you’re ill?”

He laughed at that, and then sighed. “That’s really not my style, Helen; I don’t like letting people down, even though the idea is tempting.” He hugged me to him, kissed my forehead. “Look, the sooner I get there, the sooner I’ll get back.”

I accepted defeat, party over. “Ok, I’ll get dressed.”

But he pulled me back as I went to leave, and his eyes were dark and serious and made my tummy flutter.

“Don’t,” he said. “You can stay… you can wait for me…”

“Stay here?!”

“Why not? I’ll only be an hour or two. Believe me, I’ll be hurrying back.”

“You want me to stay?” I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Yes, Helen, I want you to stay.” He grabbed a towel for himself. “If you can, of course, if you have to get home, I understand.”

“My phone is probably dead, but I could Facebook Mum, tell her I’m still at Lizzie’s.”

“I’ll sign you into the laptop downstairs.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

“And I’ll hurry back.”

***

I stood in the doorway as his car pulled away, wearing nothing but an oversized white shirt and a pair of black ankle socks. I looked like an idiot, but he hadn’t looked at me that way. He’d looked at me like I was the sweetest fruit in all creation, and I’d loved him all the more.

If that was even possible.

I waved him all the way down the drive, even after the car was out of view, just in case he could still see me. And then I breathed in the fresh morning air and twirled on the spot at my good fortune and blew a kiss at the beautiful sky.

The garden was cold and fresh and alive with winter frost, surpassed only by the panorama of the countryside. This place was a haven, gorgeous and reclusive and rural. And perfect.

Perfect for a man like Mr Roberts and perfect for me, too.

I forced myself back indoors before I caught a chill, and wiggled the mouse to reawaken his laptop. I logged into Facebook and fired off messages to Mum and Lizzie, then took advantage of the alone time to explore my obsessive speculations of years gone by.

I was in
his
house. In
his
space. A whole building full of secrets, and insights, and strange little quirks and preferences that I’d have only dreamed of exploring.

I flicked through the art magazines on the sofa, and poked at the ash in the grate, and then I sought out his art studio. The door was hidden behind curtains at the rear of the living room, but it wasn’t locked. My heart thumped as I crossed the threshold, and I was excited, as though I was trespassing into his very soul.

Maybe I was.

The view of the landscape was breath-taking, but not so much as the room itself. A stack of old patio furniture was piled at the far end, but the rest of the room was filled with easels and brushes and canvases at various stages of completion. A heavy workbench in the centre of the room housed a collection of sprays and varnishes and palette tools, and underneath were pull-out trays of paints, in all the colours of the rainbow, perfectly arranged and at odds with the random arrangement of everything else in this place.

I looked through a stack of finished abstract pieces, and the colours and depth made my heart sing. An interpretation of the world through the window, in twilight, could have been hung in any posh gallery going, it was so rich, so alive, so skilled.

The other easels were facing the opposite direction, and I had to step further into the room to appreciate them.

Oh… my… God…

My cheeks burned, even though he was miles away, and I fought the urge to scurry away, to the safety of his bedroom where his sheets were still covered with us, and sex, and the rush of last night.

I felt like an intruder here, but I was transfixed, compelled to walk further, closer to the girl in the painting.

The girl in the painting was me, she had to be me.

She had my hair and my eyes and my nose, and she was posed like me, the way I posed myself in
my
paintings.

I flipped through more box canvases to the side, and they were more of the same… a woman craving release, shackled, or tied, or held down by strong hands.
His
hands.

Oh God, they were beautiful.

They were so beautiful.

All those nights of dreaming and hoping and rubbing myself to orgasm weren’t just idle fantasy.

He was real, and he was dark like me, complex like me, tainted and perfect and everything I ever wanted. And my heart had known it, even when my mind hadn’t.

I was looking for more when I saw another pile in the corner, but these were different.

The brushwork was exceptional, razor-sharp and skilled, with a lattice effect of cross-hatchings to govern the overall appearance. This was special art, art that gave you butterflies and artist envy. I brushed the dust away from the signature, and made out a clear AR.

Anna
.

I found a picture of her on the mantelpiece, and she was just as beautiful as a teenage weirdo like me would fear. Her dark hair was bouncier than mine and she was curvier, prettier, lovelier.

And dead.

She was dead.

I felt like such a horrible, jealous little cow.

I closed the door on the art room, and decided to stick to the safe option.

The laptop was still signed in, and I was about to log back into Facebook and mind my own business when a directory icon caught my eye on his Desktop.

Anna Mark Private

Private
.

What is it about the word private?

I didn’t want to look, I really didn’t, but I was guided by some morbid fascination that took control of my fingers and tapped that double click, and the directory contents window sprang up in front of me.

Pictures. Loads of pictures.

I scrolled down.

Videos, too.

I caught a flash of nakedness, and looked away with my heart thumping in my throat. And then I knew I was doomed.

Oh shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

This was really none of my business. It was absolutely, definitely, one million-billion percent none of my business.

But I couldn’t stop myself clicking Play.

***

Helen

Anna had beautiful dark eyes, and there was a sadness in them that reminded me of open fields in a rain shower. I could almost feel the rain on my skin. She was a proper artist, I could tell. One of those people with sadness in their soul, that hear the lonely song in everything.

Like me. But I wasn’t a proper artist.

I was just a kid, and seeing Anna Roberts on camera just hammered that home to me all over again.

She was lying on the same sofa I’d been sitting on the night before, but it looked newer, and wasn’t covered in magazines. She was staring at the fire in the grate with her feet resting on the arm of the chair, dressed in white satin that crinkled across her breasts and showed almost everything. There was a lot to see, too.

The cameraman moved closer and knelt at her side and her smile filled the screen, so dazzling, and happy, and in love.

She was so in love with him, and it knocked the air from my lungs.

Mr Roberts’ voice was still the same.

“How is my beautiful wife?”

“She’s tired.”

“She should go to bed.”

“She should go to bed with her beautiful husband.”

I felt a flash of guilt, as though I’d been in her place, trespassing in someone else’s sheets.

Who’s been sleeping in my bed?

Bad little Helen Palmer.

The screen showed the side of Anna’s face as she leaned forward, and I heard the press of lips, and then the camera moved, and pictured them both. Mr Roberts looked so much younger. His hair was longer, past his shoulders but just as curly and with no grey, and he was clean shaven. And happy.

He looked so happy.

He kissed his wife as the camera watched, and he brushed her cheek with his fingers and I knew how that felt and my skin tickled, too.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed into his mouth and I knew how that felt, too.

“I’ve been thinking about you…” she breathed. And her hand moved to her chest, pulled down the satin. “I painted a roomful of strangers today and every single one of them was you.”

“And how many of those strangers made you wet?” There was something in his voice, something I hadn’t heard before. Something dark, and dangerous that made me shy, even though I was all alone.

“All of them.” Her eyes widened as she stared at him.

I heard a rustle off camera and she gasped.

“You touched yourself…”

She grinned and it was beautiful. “Many times…”

“You know what this means?”

She nodded, and her eyes twinkled. “Yes, sir.”

“Have you forgotten your manners, Anna?”

“I think I need reminding, sir.”

The screen went dark and all I could hear was my own breath until the picture resumed. The camera was on a stand of some kind, and it looked like the art room, the same big workbench without all the clutter. And there was Anna, and her wrists were bound and secured somewhere out of view. She was naked, and her arse was positioned on the edge of the bench, her thighs lolling out of shot, and her hip bones pronounced as she tensed and arched her back. Mr Roberts was naked as he came into view and I burned up at the sight of his erection. He was more wiry in the video, leaner somehow, and his expression was dark and full of lust, and I felt that hurting jealousy again.

He lit up a candle.

“Such a beautiful canvas,” he said, and lit another, a red one. And then one in blue, and then green, and purple, and he lined them up in a row on the bench beside her and their flames looked so pretty dancing in the darkness at the edge of the screen. “Show me…”

She moaned and wriggled.

“Show me that naughty little cunt, Anna…”

And she moaned again, and I did too and my stomach tickled.
He said the C word.

He pinched and groped her thighs and she squirmed.

“Show me what’s mine…”

She pulled her legs up, and spread them wide, and there was no hair between them, and she looked so swollen and soft. I was burning up, and my heel was tapping, my eyes flicking to the doorway even though I knew he was miles away.

“Keep them spread…”

She murmured, and turned her face to the side and her breath turned ragged as he picked up the green candle.

“My beautiful, beautiful canvas… my beautiful wife…”

She groaned as he tipped up the candle, and wax splashed her thighs. It dribbled as she squirmed, and her toes curled.

“Ow…” she hissed. “Oh, Mark… ow…”

“More.”

It wasn’t a question, and she groaned again as he splashed her again. And he squeezed her, and pinched and smeared her, dribbling pretty rivers of wax all over her legs, over her stomach, and she wriggled and she gasped and sometimes she even flinched, and tensed up and dropped her legs until he’d order them back up again.

I felt dizzy, and the flutter between my legs wouldn’t stop, I sat forward in my seat and rocked a little, imagined it was me.

Different colours, bleeding together and snaking over her skin, and he directed it all like a man consumed, his canvas alive and breathing and hurting for him. She whimpered as he spiralled red wax around her breasts, closer and closer until big, hot drips splashed her nipples. And he pinched them, and scratched them, leaving jagged streaks in the pattern until he covered her up with more.

Her skin was marbled and splotched and pretty with wax, and she was smiling, moving towards the heat, towards his hands, towards his touch.

“So pretty…” he said, and kissed between her legs. “So pretty and soft… and vulnerable…”

She gasped as he pushed his fingers inside, and so did I, because he pushed in three and he wasn’t gentle, and she made a little squeak as he pushed in another. I felt heady and my mouth was dry.

“Oh yes, Mark, please… please… please fuck me… Oh, Mark, fuck me…”

I slipped my fingers between my legs, and it felt so wrong but I couldn’t stop.

She squealed and rocked her hips as he dripped wax onto her pussy, and it was so pretty, the pattern he was making, the beautiful marks on her skin.

And I wanted that. I wanted him to look at me the way he was looking at her.

I wanted him to push his fingers inside me, and cover me in wax until I squirmed… and use the C word… and make me feel so bad…

I wanted him to tie me up, and make me spread my legs for him… and make me feel so dirty… teach me to be so dirty…

“
Fuck me, Mark… please…”

And he did.

Oh God, how he fucked her. Not softly like he’d taken me, but hard and brutal, slamming into her. He pressed her knees to her breasts and his tummy slapped against her skin and she struggled in her bonds but moved nowhere.

I loved the noises he made, familiar yet alien, and the way he used her body and made her his.

“
I love you like this, Mark… I love you… I love you so much it hurts…
”

And so did I.

I came before the video was over, and the guilt hit me as soon as I was done. I wriggled in my seat as I caught my breath and in panic I closed out of the video.

No more
.

But there were so many pictures to look at, of them together, of them kissing, and naked, and making love. Of him taking her. Of him loving her. Of him sweaty and ragged and collapsed on top of her body.

I closed out of the whole thing and I felt sick. I walked about the place and wondered if he’d be able to tell I’d looked. If he’d know I watched. Maybe even know I’d played with myself as I watched him fuck his dead wife.

How could I ever explain that?

Maybe he’d even ask? Maybe he already knew? Maybe it was a test?

A test of what? Purity? A test to see whether I’m really as dirty as the pictures I showed him?

A test of trust
. Of privacy.

And I’d failed. I’d snooped around his private memories and I’d soiled them and used them and felt jealous over them.

And that was disgusting.

I was disgusting.

Maybe he wouldn’t know?

But
I’d
know.

And that would never do, because I’d always feel weird and icky and bad. I’d always feel like I’d betrayed him and let him down.

I’d feel like a fraud.

I dropped on the sofa and pulled my knees to my chest and my heart was thumping and my mouth was dry.

And I waited for him.

***

Mark

“Helen?”

It felt so weird calling a woman’s name as I crossed over the threshold, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant at all.

I kicked the door closed behind me and made my way through the house, elbowing some jars aside to clear space on the countertop for my shopping bags.

“Helen?” I fired up the hob, took down a pan from the wall and set it on the heat.

She appeared in the doorway and she looked pale and tired, just as I expected she might. I gestured to the bags and smiled.

“I hope you like a full English. We’ve got bacon, and sausage and eggs and mushrooms, all from the butchers up by the Top Cross.” I held up a loaf. “From the bakery. Smell. It’s so fresh.”

She took it from me and held it up to her nose, and I took the opportunity to pull her to me, and squeeze her tight and cover her neck in kisses as she giggled.

But she didn’t giggle. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her body to mine, but she didn’t giggle.

I tipped her face up to mine. “Everything alright?”

She nodded. “Just… I dunno.” She smiled but it was nervous. “You got all this for me?”

“I suspected you wouldn’t have snooped hard enough in the kitchen to locate the muesli.” Her eyes widened and I laughed. “I was joking. How do you like your eggs?”

“However they come.”

“Much of a hangover?”

She shook her head. “Not so bad.”

I flicked on the kettle and grabbed some mugs. “Sorry, Helen, I don’t even know how you take your coffee, or tea, do you prefer tea?”

She blushed a little. “I don’t… I don’t like either…”

I pulled a face. “You don’t drink tea or coffee? Extraordinary girl.” I reached for a glass instead. “I’m assuming you like juice?”

She nodded. “I like juice.”

I handed her a drink and busied myself with breakfast, browning the sausages off before adding the bacon and eggs, and toasting the bread just enough to crunch.

“We’ve got so much of this to cover, Helen. So many likes and dislikes, and food preferences and pointless trivia.” I flipped the bacon. “What’s your favourite food?”

She propped herself against the wall. “Potato waffles.”

“Potato waffles?”

She nodded. “With baked beans.”

I soaked her in like I’d never seen her before, seeing her youth through clear vision, and it was pure and intoxicating… and addictive. There was such beauty in her innocence, in the simplicity of her answers, without pretence or front or any kind of showmanship. No pompous detailing of quail’s eggs and truffles to sound like more of a grown-up, just
potato waffles
, because that’s the truth of it.

“I’ll cook you potato waffles,” I said. “It can be our first dinner together.”

It made her laugh, but just a little. “You’ll cook me waffles?”

“I like waffles,” I lied. “It’s a good meal.”

“You’re a rubbish liar.”

I pointed my spatula at her. “That’s very true, so I rarely bother. And by rarely I mean, I don’t. Unless I’m trying to save someone’s feelings from unnecessary anguish.” I plated up the food. “So, if you have any questions of me, please always ask, and the answer you get will be the answer I mean. You don’t need to ponder my intentions or second guess me, Helen, they’ll be exactly as I express them. I find that’s by far the best way to a healthy relationship.” I handed her her plate, and she was pale as a ghost. “Are you feeling alright?” And then it dawned on me. “Are you regretting things? I should have given you more space, I know it’s a lot to take in, and reality can be so different to fantasy…”