The Gift of Shame (25 page)

‘Yes!’ she cried as naked lust forced her body to rise to meet his every thrust. As he savaged deep into her their cries rose into the night canopy, stilling those of the other night creatures who, it seemed, had paused to lend an indulgent ear to the human intruders so noisily locked together on the floor of their domain.

‘Yes!’ she screamed again as the now familiar surge laid siege to her breathless body as he led her to all-consuming completion.

After the mutuality of climax they lay in each other’s arms, he still lodged deep in her, and the rasping of their desperate lungs fighting for breath was now the only sound in the quieted night, until she spoke. ‘Annabel told me you were married.’

‘Annabel lied,’ he told her.

Immediately assailed by two conflicting reactions – relief and a flood of guilt at her precipitate ‘revenge’ – she groaned. ‘Oh no!’

Jeffrey raised his head to look at her. ‘You’re disappointed?’ he asked.

Everything she had done since fleeing from him flashed before her with lightning speed and explicit detail. ‘Not with you. With me,’ she murmured. ‘Why would she lie about something like that?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘You had an affair with her?’

‘No. It seems that for years she’s been having an “affair” with me. Purely mental, I hasten to add. I sensed it but ignored it. I have a strict rule never to mix business with pleasure.’

‘She just invented it?’

‘Not entirely. I
was
married. We were students – I was in a state of depression. The whole thing was madness. The marriage barely outlasted the honeymoon before we both agreed it had all been a terrible mistake. We waited the statutory two years and got a no-fault divorce by mutual agreement.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘That’s all,’ he answered flatly.

Feeling that ‘madness’ was the word to describe her own state of mind since running away from Paris, she fell into a morose silence.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

Pushing him from her she rose, only now aware that her back had been pressed into a patch of prickly thorns, and shook her head. ‘There’s things I have to tell you,’ she murmured.

‘Confessions?’ he asked.

Only able to muster a nod in reply she turned away desolate in the knowledge that she had behaved badly – at the very least, foolishly – and terrified in case he would not forgive her. As they stumbled through the night towards the campsite she sought to divert her fear-filled mind. ‘You still haven’t told me how you got here.’

‘Annabel confessed what she’d done and showed me the fax. I called Carla on the yacht, heard where you were, and took the next plane.’

Mention of Carla and the yacht made her realise that her idyll on the island was at an end. Attempting to make light of it she said: ‘I suppose that means I’ll have to put some clothes on,’ but inwardly she felt she was losing a great deal more than that.
It
was wildly impossible but she had a longing for things to stay just as they were – she left to wander primitively naked, visited at night by an undemanding lover, and leaving the complications of civilised relationships to others less enlightened.

Coming to the campsite she saw the yacht’s crew had all but dismantled it, leaving little of the tranquil sanctuary she had known.

Tsai Lo, appearing out of the shadows, came forward with a broad smile, holding out a sarong for her to wind about her body. Looking into the girl’s porcelain beauty she was reminded to add her name to the list of confessions she would have to make. Suddenly the thought of returning to the sophistication of the yacht overwhelmed her. Turning to Jeffrey, aware that her voice was tinged with desperation, she asked, ‘Couldn’t we stay on the island tonight? There’s so much to talk about.’

‘But they’ve taken everything away,’ Jeffrey protested.

‘It doesn’t get cold at night. We could sleep on the beach.’

‘You’re nuts!’ he told her, smiling. ‘Besides the Captain’s anxious about a hurricane warning and wants to sail immediately. We can talk on the yacht
and
sleep in a bed.’

Defeated, she allowed herself to be handed into the waiting launch and silently, morosely, even, watched the boat’s growing wake stretching back to the island like some umbilical cord that must inevitably snap. The sense of impending loss caused a shiver to run through her.

Thinking her chilly, Jeffrey put his arm round her shoulders. ‘I have a confession to make as well,’ he said.

‘You do?’

Jeffrey nodded. ‘I find your interest in my marital status highly flattering.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘Could it be that your thoughts have wandered in the same direction as mine?’

Feeling that he had broken into her mind and was rifling through her innermost thoughts, Helen reacted defensively. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she told him, adding hastily, ‘and I don’t think I want to.’ When his response was merely to chuckle she felt infuriated. ‘Anyway – we have yet to talk.’

The launch was coming alongside the anchored yacht and she took the opportunity to distance herself from further discussion by standing up as if preparing to disembark.

Jeffrey didn’t let her go that easily.

‘What will we talk about? Carla and Tsai? Qito? Your fisherman?’

Shocked that he knew about even that, she was pleased to note he had left out the two pilots from the roll call. ‘Among others,’ she said tartly and got perverse pleasure at seeing the surprise on his face.

At that moment the launch crew turned to hand her to the lowered gangway and she stepped out of the small boat and climbed to the deck. Not waiting for Jeffrey, she made her way aft to the stairway that led down to the stateroom deck.

Coming into the stateroom she felt overwhelmed with a sense of claustrophobia. The walls seemed to be closing in on her. She felt an almost panic-stricken impulse to turn and run before it was too late. Too late for what, she had no idea. Could it be that after only three days without walls she had grown unaccustomed to being in an enclosed space?

When Jeffrey followed her into the stateroom she felt a spasm of resentment at his presumption. Staring at him as if at an intruder, she felt confused. ‘Who told you about the fisherman?’ she asked, even though it was blatantly obvious.

‘Qito saw you.’

Perversely aware that she had him at a disadvantage, but not sure why, she insisted, ‘Saw us doing what?’

‘According to Qito you were enjoying yourself.’

‘True.’ The word exploded from her. ‘And I hope you realise that it’s all your fault!’

‘
My
fault?’

‘Certainly. If it wasn’t for you I would still be a virtuous widow.’ Seeing his stunned silence as an opportunity for a good exit, Helen turned on her heels and went into the bathroom, where she firmly locked the door.

Unwinding the sarong, which though light seemed suddenly constricting, she was about to turn on the shower when she caught sight of herself in the mirror and came to an astonished halt. She barely recognised the honey-coloured creature reflected there. Hair wild, eyes savage, breasts more prominent than ever above slimmed-down ribs and belly, even she could find herself exciting.

‘You’ve changed,’ she told herself.

When there came a knock on the door she assumed it must be Jeffrey and called a caustic ‘Go away!’ only to hear Tsai’s voice.

‘Miss Helen?’ asked the melodious voice. ‘Do you need anything?’

Crossing to the door, Helen looked beyond the smiling girl to see no sign of Jeffrey. ‘Come in,’ she told her. ‘I feel like being indulged. You can wash my back.’

Tsai’s eyes rounded with pleasure. ‘You have such a beautiful colour,’ the girl smiled, stripping herself of her cheongsam. ‘Afterwards I will give you a beautiful massage. Yes?’

Standing under the shower with Tsai’s expert hands soaping her back, she found it titillating to imagine Jeffrey’s face, should he come upon them both just as they were now. So titillating that she found herself turning, without inhibition, to present her naked breasts to the soothing caress of Tsai’s hands.

Very
titillating, she decided.

When Jeffrey returned it was to find Helen stretched naked on the massage table and the subject of Tsai’s expertise. Watching him reflected in a mirror above her head, she was amused to see him hesitate and, thinking himself unobserved, take a moment to admire the sleek lines of Tsai’s body. Thinking she had given him more than enough time, she turned on to her back and pretended to see him for the first time. ‘Jeffrey, you’re just in time! There’s a phrase running through my head and I can’t remember where it came from – perhaps you’d know?’

Looking puzzled Jeffrey came a pace nearer the table and looked down on her. ‘What phrase?’

‘I don’t know if I remember it exactly but it goes something like: “Brave are they that dare to do what others scarcely dare to dream.” Do you know it?’

‘No. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.’

Sitting up, and for no good reason feeling extravagantly pleased with herself, she put out her arms to Jeffrey who, awkwardly, came to the side of the table and returned the embrace. ‘It’s true though, isn’t it? We “dared to do”, didn’t we?’

‘You make it sound as if it is over.’

‘Not “over”. Perhaps a little different.’

‘In what way?’

Lying back on the massage bench, Helen allowed herself a long, deep reflective smile. ‘Who knows?’ she asked as she took Tsai’s hands and led her to stand at her head then lay her hands on her breasts. ‘Did you have something to tell me?’ she asked a startled, completely engrossed Jeffrey.

‘Yes,’ he said, then seemed to hesitate as if his mind, centred on the sight of Tsai’s hands moving over Helen’s breasts, had wandered from the subject.

‘What?’

‘What?’ he echoed as if looking at the two naked girls had completely distracted his thoughts.

‘What is it you have to tell me?’

‘Oh!’ cried Jeffrey, flushing guiltily. ‘Yes. The Captain’s decided not to sail. Apparently, the hurricane is skirting the area just out to sea and he thinks it might be dangerous.’ Jeffrey’s voice was trailing away as his highly eroticised thoughts centred on Helen’s openly naked body.

‘So we could have spent the night on the island?’

‘Sorry?’ asked Jeffrey, as if he hadn’t heard a word she had been saying.

Delighting in the distraction she and Tsai were providing, Helen laughed. ‘Come here,’ she said, waving to a place at the side of the bench where she could reach him. Jeffrey obediently moved to one side of the bench where, reaching out, Helen felt him standing erect under his linen trousers. ‘Darling!’ she cried, as if delighted by the discovery. ‘Is that for me or for Tsai?’

Jeffrey flushed with embarrassment as Tsai failed to totally smother the giggle that had come to her throat. Jeffrey, totally distracted, looked from Tsai to Helen in confusion as she sought to unzip his trousers and bring his risen flesh into view. ‘Helen!’ he protested. ‘We’re expected for dinner!’

Her fist firmly encompassing him, she murmured, ‘You didn’t answer my question …’

‘What question?’ Jeffrey asked, embarrassment giving edge to his voice.

‘Is your cock hard in tribute to me or Tsai?’

‘That’s a ridiculous question!’ Jeffrey protested.

‘To us both, then?’ she insisted.

Forcibly removing her hand, Jeffrey turned away, attempting to stuff himself back into his trousers, until Helen’s ringing voice caused him to hesitate. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, darling.’

Turning, Jeffrey looked startled. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You have to be punished,’ she said with a bright smile.

‘Punished?’ he asked. ‘What for?’

Noting that he had asked only the reason for his impending ‘sentence’ without questioning the principle, Helen, much emboldened, went on: ‘For spreading false information that deprived me of another night on the island.’

Jeffrey’s expression froze as he stared at her while, apparently, searching for a suitable response. ‘We’ll discuss this later!’ he said firmly and made a dash for the bedroom door. Delighted to see him retreating in confusion, Helen let her laugh follow him as he called from the bedroom. ‘You’d better hurry up. Dinner will be waiting.’

Feeling that she had won an, as yet, unquantifiable victory, she lay back and looked up into Tsai’s serious, slightly puzzled, face.

‘I’ve definitely changed,’ she told the puzzled girl.

16

THAT NIGHT DINNER
was a noticeably subdued affair. Helen, sensing that Jeffrey was wary of her, felt filled with a wholly new self-confidence, while Carla’s unusually subdued mood and constant assessing glances, made Helen feel that she had, somehow, moved to centre stage in this glittering company. Martinez, the yacht’s owner, paid particular attention to her every request and Qito was positively beaming every time he looked her way. Further confirmation that Carla saw her as a threat came from the total silence of Carla’s ‘creature’, Jimmy, who reflected his ‘mistress’s’ mood by sullenly avoiding eye contact with anybody.

‘Qito tells me he has created a masterpiece,’ Carla’s voice, laced with ice, rang down the length of the stateroom table to Helen. ‘You must have offered a great deal of “inspiration”,’ Carla added with barely disguised sarcasm.

Helen smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t know about that. I just did what I was told.’

Carla’s response was heavy with threat. ‘What a good little girl you must be,’ she said.

‘I do do my best whenever possible.’

‘And so generous, too,’ smiled Carla with all the warmth and affection of a cobra about to strike.

Jeffrey’s voice, unusually hesitant, broke the silence that followed. ‘Are we going to be permitted a sneak preview?’ he asked.

‘There is still work to do,’ said Qito. ‘Perhaps tomorrow night – after dinner.’

‘How lovely!’ cried Carla. ‘We must make it an occasion.’ Then, surprisingly turning to Martinez, she added: ‘Musn’t we, Carlos?’

Martinez looked a little uncomfortable before murmuring, ‘If you insist, Carla.’

Carla nodded. ‘I do,’ before sipping on her wine and challenging Helen with a direct stare. ‘I’ve already seen the result of Qito’s devotional labour and come to
my
conclusion. You will all have the chance to play at critics for the evening – and, afterwards, come to your own verdicts,’ before adding with a gay laugh, ‘along with plaudits and punishment, of course.’