Authors: Justine Elyot
Flipp looked up boldly. “Philippa Jane Rhodes.”
The two local officers looked at each other, eyebrows high, then looked at Rhodes.
“No relation?” the sergeant asked mildly.
“No,” said Rhodes, at the same moment Flipp answered in the affirmative.
The officers exchanged a further bemused look.
Flipp, full of bravado now she knew that Rocky was alive, spoke again. “I’m his wife. He forced me to marry him. I was only sixteen and I didn’t have any parents living for him to ask consent. My aunt was my only living relative, and she just wasn’t that bothered what happened to me. He kept me like a pet. He abused me. I haven’t committed any crime. I’m innocent of everything except escaping from him. Please believe me.” Her pleas turned to shrieks as Rhodes’s grip on her upper arm, already tight, became agonising.
“She’s a fucking liar,” he said, with a failed attempt at suavity.
“I’m sorry, sir.” The officer in charge frowned. “I really think I need a word with my chief super. Would you give me a moment?”
The sergeant was left to entertain Flipp and Rhodes while further advice was sought. He passed the time making an inventory of Flipp’s few possessions and keeping a close but subtle eye on Rhodes, who seemed about to overboil into a seething vortex of rage.
“Let me go, Pete,” said Flipp. “You can’t get away with this.”
Before Rhodes could answer, another policeman entered the custody suite, dragging a protesting woman by the arm.
“Oh.” Flipp turned around in surprise. “It’s you. Mind out, officer. You might harm her unborn child.”
“Oh, do fuck off,” said Laura loftily before turning back to her captor. “My father will fuck you up, you know. He’s a good friend of Commissioner McRae. I really advise that you let go of me.”
“What’s the charge?” sighed the desk sergeant, envisaging an endless desert of paperwork ahead of him that day.
“Obstructing a police officer in the course of his duties,” the constable snapped. “She made off with my bloody hat. I was standing guard in A&E at Goldsands General.”
“Right. And the bloke you were guarding?”
“Shit.” Laura’s policeman clapped a hand over his mouth, realising his dereliction of duty.
“That’d be me,” said another voice, its owner lurching through the double doors into the suite as if drunk.
“Rocky,” gasped Flipp and Laura ecstatically.
“Oh, what the
fuck
?” raged Rhodes. “Thank Christ I don’t have to work down here. You’re all bloody clueless.”
The chief super and the officer in charge appeared amidst the confusion to be subjected to a clamour of information. From the hail of conflicting stories, they managed to pick up the very strong possibility that Flipp had been framed for the attacks and was the reluctant, runaway wife of Peter Rhodes, who had come to abduct her back into his clutches.
“Look,” said the chief super, looking long-sufferingly at each person in turn. “You do understand that we have very little to corroborate any of your stories. Mrs. Rhodes, your fingerprints are on the weapon.”
“Call me Flipp,” she said, pouting. “And haven’t you noticed that my wonderful husband has been wearing
gloves
all this time? He’s a fucking detective. Who better to commit a fit-up? Come on.”
The chief super turned to Rhodes. “You have to admit,” he said, almost apologising, “it does sound fishy. You understand I’ll have to look into this further.”
“You’ve got nothing. Not a shred of evidence. You can’t keep me here.”
“Who gave me this, then?” demanded Rocky, tapping the side of his head. “Flipp’s hardly going to do it, is she? And I’d swear on the Bible that she didn’t have a gun when we went down on to the boat.”
“What’s your word worth?” Rhodes wondered aloud.
“He’s got a point,” Laura added unhelpfully.
The chief super put a hand up to his temple and massaged it. “You might as well all sit down. It’s going to be a long day.”
“He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s very weak. But he has regained consciousness. I’m not sure he’s up to visitors, though.”
The nurse’s voice was low and soothing.
“I’m his fiancée. We only got engaged last week. Please let me see him.”
“Well…all right. But you mustn’t overexcite him. He needs to rest. He’s not out of the woods yet.”
Michelle walked past the police officer guarding the private room and stood in the doorway for a moment, breathing deeply, before entering.
Cordwainer. The biggest, baddest bad guy in town, the man she had loved.
How surreal it was to see him lying, helpless and weak, in a hospital bed.
Michelle’s heart disobeyed her strict injunction to remain hardened, and she found herself rushing to his side and crouching at the level of his closed eyes.
He opened one, then shut it again and moaned.
“I’m hallucinating,” he muttered to himself.
“No, Charles, you aren’t,” she whispered. “I’m here. Michelle. Miss Object. Except I’m not your object any more. I’m my own woman.”
“Right on, sister,” breathed Cordwainer, sardonic even this close to death’s door. “Here to finish me off, are you?”
“No.”
“You should. I would. If I were you.”
“You aren’t. You don’t understand what it is to care for people, and I’m sorry for you. You might die without knowing how it feels.”
“I hope I do. I hear compassion sucks.”
“You have the chance to do something good for somebody. One chance. It could be your last.”
“Oh, please.” He tried to lift a hand to the call button, but his arm failed to complete the task. “Go.”
“There’s a policeman outside. I’m going to tell him you’re up to giving a statement. And you’re going to tell him the truth.”
“Why?”
“Why? I could give you a hundred moral and ethical reasons. But I know they wouldn’t appeal to you. So I’ll give you this one instead. If you tell the truth about who shot you, I’ll go to the
Gazette
and tell them that everything I said was a lie. All done in revenge, from a rejected lover. Even the papers I gave them—I’ll say I forged them. I’ll take every word back.”
“If I’m dying, it scarcely matters, does it? Besides, I was going to come and get you and force you to do that anyway.”
“This is easier, though, isn’t it? You don’t like complications. Let’s keep it simple. You tell the truth about Rhodes—because you aren’t particularly implicated in any of that—and I’ll go to the press. Even if you do die, your reputation is salvaged to some extent. But you won’t die. You’re immortal. You’re untouchable. The unsinkable Charles Cordwainer, right?”
His mouth twitched. “Right. Well, why not? Rhodes is a liability anyway. He’s one sacrifice I don’t mind making. Get that policeman in. I’ll talk.”
While Rocky was being interviewed, Flipp and Laura sat at distant ends of the waiting area, watching Rhodes pace the floor, looking like a man in the throes of demonic possession.
“Wedded bliss,” drawled Laura, looking up from her plastic tea. “Bet you’re glad I got you back together.”
Flipp gasped. “It was you. You bitch. Rocky doesn’t want you, you know. He never will. Deal with it.”
“Rocky will be going down for a very long time if I get my way,” snarled Rhodes. “Forget about him. You’re my wife.”
“I want a divorce.”
“You aren’t going to get one.”
“This isn’t Afghanistan, Pete. Of course I can get a divorce if I want one.”
“If anyone should be filing for divorce, it should be me. You’ve cuckolded me. You’re an adulteress.”
“So divorce me, then. I don’t care.”
“What, reward your behaviour with half of my income? I don’t think so, love. Where I come from, bad girls get what’s coming to them.”
“Where you come from? Where’s that? Misogynyville?” Flipp appealed, despite her instincts, to Laura’s better judgement. “For God’s sake, Laura, even you must see that this man is a fucking psycho. I’d help you, if it was you he’d come for. Don’t you feel at all bad?”
Laura fidgeted with her empty cup, peeling the shiny plastic into sharp strips.
“What can I do?” she asked eventually. “I don’t have any power.”
“I suppose not.” Flipp slumped back, turning her face to the wall.
“Once this bunch of muppets have finished pissing about, we go straight back to London,” Rhodes vowed, still pacing. “Straight back home, for a proper reunion, eh, Phil? A tender moment, husband and wife together again.”
“That’s not the way I’d describe rape and false imprisonment, you delusional freak.”
“She’s joking,” Rhodes told Laura. “That’s her sense of humour. Sick. You see what I have to put up with. But I do it ’cause I love her.”
“Aww,” said Laura mechanically.
Suddenly a flurry of detectives burst through the room, towards the interview suite where Rocky was being held.
“What’s happening?” Rhodes wanted to know, but they ignored him. He turned to the desk sergeant, who was pretending not to eavesdrop. “Cordwainer must be dead. Must be a murder rap now. I’ll sort it out for you, Phil. You’ll be okay. It was self-defence. I told them that. You’ll get bail.”
“Pete, stop it. Just tell the truth.”
Flipp leaped to her feet as Rocky emerged from the interview room flanked by police officers.
“What’s happening? Are you okay?”
He nodded and tried to stand by her, but Rhodes leaped between them, until one of the detectives stepped in front of him and held up a hand.
“Peter Rhodes, I’m arresting you for attempted murder, assault, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.”
Flipp clapped her hands and whooped, flinging herself into Rocky’s arms so hard that he staggered.
“What the
fuck
?” bellowed Rhodes, over the rest of the spiel. “You can’t do this. You just can’t do this.”
Rocky spoke quietly into Flipp’s ear. “They had a statement from Cordwainer—he told them Rhodes pulled the trigger, and he was the one that knocked me out. We’re cleared. We’re free.”
Flipp gripped the lapels of Rocky’s leather jacket, digging her nails in hard.
“It can’t be true. I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it, darling. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
“You’ve seen the news, I take it?” Laura threw the morning’s
Gazette
down on the breakfast table, where Jeremy sat, head in hands, staring at a piece of cold toast.
“Of course I’ve seen it.” He took in the headline—Dockside Drama: Local Businessman Critical After Gun Battle—and replaced his forehead in miserable palms.
“The inside. Michelle Roberts taking everything back.”
“Yes. I know,” Jeremy wailed. “What I don’t know is what the hell I’m going to say to my editor. He’s called me in for a meeting later. He is going to want to throttle me with my own intestines. I’ll be lucky if I come back alive, let alone in gainful employment.”
Laura put massaging hands on Jeremy’s shoulders. “You’ll be all right, Jez. You were just using your journalistic instincts. The editor will understand. You’re a brilliant investigator.”
“Cordwainer will sue for millions.”
“If he lives.”
“Yeah. I suppose there’s always that silver lining. Though when the only thing you’re holding out hope for is a man’s death, things aren’t looking great, are they?”
“It’s not your fault, Jeremy. It’s that crazy bitch from the hotel. You weren’t to know she’d drop you in it. Though I have to say, she did strike me as a little…volatile.”
Jeremy sighed. “Volatile. I wonder what Cordwainer said to her. I wonder if he offered to chain her up to his wall again till death do them part, or something.”
Laura wrinkled her nose. “I heard there was something like that going on between them.” She swallowed down a lump of bile, remembering her father’s part in the perverse arrangement. “Perhaps if he pegs it, she’ll come good again. At least Daddy is delirious with joy this morning. Went off to the building site singing.”
“At least somebody is benefiting from my downfall,” grouched Jeremy.
“Oh, lighten up,” Laura said, taking her hands off his knotted shoulders and dismissing his concerns to pour herself a coffee. “You’ll be fine.”
“Will you still stay with me? If I lose my job?”
“I won’t stay with you if you keep the job, Jeremy. I want you to move on. Work for a national, perhaps get into television. I like your ambition. You shouldn’t be stuck here in Goldsands. I was planning to come with you. I wasn’t planning to stay here until the salty fucking sea air kills my complexion stone dead.”
Jeremy laughed despite his anxieties. “I wish you were my editor. I wouldn’t mind getting hauled over the coals by you.”
Laura’s Crimson Petal lips widened into a feline smile.
“Okay. Let’s do that. I’m your editor. You come and confess to me. A little practise run won’t go amiss, I’m sure.” She turned her back and swung her hips into the living room, throwing a saucy glance over her shoulder before shutting the door.
When Jeremy knocked, she was reclining on his sofa, legs crossed, pretending absorption in her mobile phone.
“Enter,” she said. She tried not to smile. She mustn’t smile—it ruined the effect. But this was such a luscious bonus for a postapocalyptic Wednesday morning—how could she help it? Besides, it gave her the perfect opportunity to punish her lover for failing to split up Rocky and Flipp. Not that that seemed particularly relevant anymore. She and Rocky were history, and that was that. Time to dust off, pick up, start again. With Jeremy.
“Ah, Weill.” She sat up as a hangdog Jeremy slunk into the room. “We have things to discuss, don’t we?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeremy said, trying to stand tall and brazen this uncomfortable interview out.
“What do you have to say to me?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I thought—”
“Sorry is not quite good enough, is it?” barked Laura, bringing her shoulders forward as if preparing to spring at her unfortunate cub reporter.
“The source gave me the information in good faith. She had paperwork. She had a convincing story. I’m sure she was telling the truth, but she’s been got at—”
“Good…faith?” Laura spat. “A tissue of lies, libellous in the extreme, but she gave them in good faith? This is a huge error of judgement, Weill. One I cannot possibly overlook. You do understand that you need to be punished, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” whimpered Jeremy.
“And you need to be seen to be punished. I can’t have any of my other reporters thinking that I am the kind of editor who lets this kind of slipshod behaviour pass. So you are going to open the office door, Weill, and leave it open, for the newsroom to hear. Go and open it, please.”
“Ma’am.” Jeremy trotted over to the living room door and let it slightly ajar.
“Wider, Weill. I want the sound to carry farther than a few inches.”
He pushed it half-open and checked for Laura’s reaction. She gave him a stern nod.
“Remove your belt, Weill, and hand it to me.”
Jeremy fumbled with the buckle, agitated with excitement, and pulled the leather from the loops, handing it sheepishly to Laura, who was standing now, watching him, grave-faced.
“Thank you. Now you will lower your trousers and pants, please.”
Jeremy obeyed, revealing a coy semierection, hardening with each brisk command that came from his lover’s lips.
“What’s that, Weill, you disgusting little pervert?” She pointed derisively at the tumescing cock.
“It’s my penis, ma’am.”
“It’s what
you
call a penis, Weill. Not sure if I’d call it that. Ugh, turn around and grab your ankles. You’re getting a good, long strapping for your journalistic sins, Weill. Let it be a lesson to you—and to the rest of the newsroom.”
Meekly, Jeremy bowed, gripped his ankles and presented his rear to Laura’s mercies. She doubled the belt and let it travel slowly around the muscular buttocks, drifting down the crack so that he twitched and almost fell forward, flicking it against the backs of his thighs so he had to part them just enough to stroke the smooth leather against his tightening balls.
“Don’t expect me to go easy on you,” Laura warned, and with that, she closed her fist around the end of the strap, swung it back and let it whip down, squarely in the centre of Jeremy’s bum, drawing a thick red line from edge to edge.
Jeremy released a fluttery little sound from his throat that could be interpreted as pleasure or pain.
Not hard enough
, thought Laura.
I can fix that
.
She put more muscle into the next stroke and laid it directly over the first. Jeremy grunted and rocked a little on his heels. Better.
Laura’s native sadism kicked into action, and she decided to concentrate each blow on that same strip of skin, plying the belt over and over, watching the weal redden and deepen, trying for a louder, more frightening swish and crack each time she pulled back her arm. Jeremy began to snuffle and yelp, then he began to breathe deeply, low sighs accompanying each exhalation, but Laura did not want to stop until he was begging, crying, blubbering for mercy.
“Ahh, not there again,” he finally relented when Laura aimed yet another stroke at that stripe of unfortunate epidermis. “Please.” He thrust out his bottom farther, as if encouraging her to aim lower, just to grant some relief to that poor sizzling strip.
“Here instead?” Laura found the spot directly below her purpling handiwork and decided to paint that a similar colour, laying the strap on again and again until once more Jeremy pleaded for a change of location.
It took five minutes, perhaps longer, for the entirety of Jeremy’s bottom and upper thighs to be flushed a uniform deep crimson, hot to the touch and presented to Laura’s satisfaction.
“Thank me,” she ordered, reaching out with a weary arm to check the temperature of his skin.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he managed, his breathing rough and voice uneven.
“Properly. On your knees.”
He did as he was told, prostrating himself at Laura’s feet.
“Better,” she sniffed, prodding him with the toe of her patent leather boot. “I think the whole newsroom heard that. They’ll know why you’re squirming on your ergonomic chair while you type your apology for tomorrow’s paper later. Won’t they, Weill?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And they’ll know you deserved it too, won’t they?”
“Yes’m.”
Poor Jeremy. His cock was harder than granite. Still, she wasn’t sure he’d suffered enough yet. Release was still a distant prospect for him.
“So, you’ve been punished. Now you need to show me that you’re serious about making amends. I think you know how to do that.”
Laura sat back comfortably on the sofa and eased her skirt up her thighs, exposing her thong-covered pussy.
Jeremy was indeed familiar with the drill, and he shuffled forward, eager to please his beloved mistress. He kept his hands behind his back and let his face slide between Laura’s long, slender legs, taking deep lungfuls of her scent.
Laura lay back and prepared to enjoy the service. Soon Jeremy’s devoted face was burrowing into her thighs, his hot breath dampening the satin stretched over her clit. His nose pushed and his tongue dampened the fabric. Laura thrust her hips forward, grinding into his hungry face, showing him what she wanted next.
He received and understood the message, and his tongue’s wet tip foraged a path under the elastic, tasting the tangy juices within, lapping them up.
Laura abandoned herself to the pleasuring, feeling the slippery muscle tangle itself in her lips and suck at her clit. The way his face bumped and rubbed in her crotch was more than even the tightest-strung mistress could resist and, one by one, every nerve ending in her body gave itself over to the sensual stimulation.
She made him work, wore that tongue out, rubbed his face down until she could hold out no more and she granted him the favour of her orgasm, purring contentedly and rotating her hips, pushing his head down until he half suffocated in her copious flow.
“Mmm,” she said, letting him up for air. “Now, then. Stand up.”
He rose unsteadily, his cock still a thick pole, longing for a dip.
“Look at you. Poor boy. You need it bad, don’t you?”
“Please,” he whispered.
She shook her head and he groaned. “Fetch me the cock cage, Weill.”
He hobbled over to a chest of drawers and withdrew a leather-and-ring contraption, moaning and whimpering as Laura fitted it over the hard erection, restraining it in the silver hoop.
“Now the butt plug.”
He bent over obediently as she lubed him up and slid the large rubber plug into his twitching arsehole. Then he was ordered to pull his underpants back over his tender bottom and dress himself for the office.
“Now, then, my darling.” Laura stood and held him close so that the trapped cock dug into her pelvis. “You are going to the office like that, and you are giving your editor your resignation. When you come back, you will apply for jobs in London. And then, if you’re a very, very good boy, you might get to come. How does that sound?”
“I can’t…go to the office…like this…” Jeremy gasped, staring down at his incriminating trousers.
“Yes, you can. You will. It’s not as if you’re going back there, is it?”
“What about my reference?”
“You’ll get your reference. I’ll get on the case. Don’t worry.”
Jeremy, strung so taut with frustrated lust that he could barely speak, flapped hands at Laura. “You’re not…that influential…are you?”
“Oh God, Jeremy, really. For a journalist, you don’t know much, do you? Lawrence Francombe was my first boyfriend, you know.”
“My editor?”
“Oh yes.”
“But he’s…”
“Old enough to be my father, with grown-up children and a wife on the council? Yes. That’s why he likes to do what I tell him, darling. If I ask him for a reference…”
“Christ, Laura. You’re…”
“Incredible? Yes, I know. Now get yourself down to the office. And tell Francombe I sent you.”
Jeremy fell to his knees and kissed Laura’s shiny feet with grateful passion.
She reached down to ruffle his hair.
“You know, I hate to say it, but perhaps that Flipp creature did me a favour after all.”
“How’s your head, soldier?”
“How about you come here and I show you?”
“Sounds like an offer.”
Flipp edged over to where Rocky crouched, checking the oil on his bike in the car park of the Travelodge where they planned to spend the night.
He reached a gloved hand back for her, capturing her wrist and bringing her down onto the tarmac where they wrestled briefly until she was overpowered. The natural next step was a kiss, but their matching motorcycle helmets foiled nature.
“Perhaps we should check in?” Flipp suggested, giggling as their rounded heads clashed.
“Is that a euphemism?”
“No.” She flapped a hand against his leathery chest, then allowed him to pull her up off the ground and into Reception.
The room was basic but still more luxurious than anything either of them had experienced for some time. Flipp’s tiny bedsit had reeked of mould, while Rocky’s flat was dark and full of flimsy rickety furniture. In the Travelodge, the bedding might be threadbare, but it was clean, and it clothed a full-size, comfortable bed.
“So here we are,” announced Flipp, putting down her bags and bouncing onto the mattress. “In a Travelodge, miles from Goldsands, miles from Cordwainer and Pete, miles from all our troubles. Weird feeling. I don’t know if I can get used to it.”
“Freedom,” Rocky mused, sitting down next to her and taking her hand. “It’s new. To both of us. What shall we do with it?”
“Shag.” Flipp grinned as she laid her head in Rocky’s lap and looked up at him.
“Not sure there’s much money in that, sweetheart. Unless you were thinking of doing it professionally. Which I wouldn’t be best pleased about, if I’m honest. I mean, I’m not a prude, but I don’t like to share.”
“I know you don’t, greedy boy. But I don’t want to think about practicalities right now.”
“We’ll be fine. I’d like to get a bit of work as a bike mechanic. You could go to university, like you planned. It’ll work out.”
“Yes. It will. We’ll have each other, and that’s all that matters now.”
“Yeah. And we can go anywhere we want.”
“Anywhere?” Flipp tickled his chin, then ran her fingertip down the tempting curve of his neck, enjoying the slight resistance from his incipient stubble on the way. “This bed is looking good right now. Though I suppose it might not be adventurous enough for you. It isn’t a public beach or a fairground ride or a waterslide. Perhaps we should do it on the window ledge instead.”