The Silver Chain (33 page)

The passion flares in his face then seems to settle, as if he’s reached a long overdue decision. Is that a warning, or an awakening? Perhaps it’s lightning reflected from above. Then I hear it. The swift unzipping of his jeans.

I kick and struggle against the silver chain as his hand moves downwards. He’s so powerful. He’s pinning me down with one hand. Taking hold of himself with the other.

Sex as punishment. This should be the answer to my prayers.

I’m damned if I’m going to show him how much I want him despite everything, despite her, despite it all. It’s this ferocious desire that’s consuming me. I twist about with a new strength, tortured by the surge of dark energy still coiling inside me.

Thunder rumbles outside as I try to bend my knees for leverage to kick him off, and that’s when the lightning zig-zags across the skylight and I see his face in sizzling clarity. His hair is thrown back. His eyes are burning, his mouth a cruel line. He’s looking at me as if I am his deadliest enemy.

One more superhuman effort to rouse him from this stupor, remind him who he is with. I kick out with my leg and he suddenly catches my flailing leg, holds it akimbo in the air and then slaps me, hard, on my buttock.

I squeal and writhe as the sting finds its mark and the renewed sharp heat follows, radiating and spreading through my body, melting my defences. And then I catch sight of myself in the mirrored ceiling above. The white flash of my flailing leg, the stretch of my bound arms.

The dark shape of Gustav leaning over me, his shoulder blades sharp through his black shirt. He spreads his strong thighs to keep mine open.

‘I won’t let you go! I won’t let her take you away from me!’

He keeps hold of my leg, slaps me again. I wriggle and struggle, taking furtive glances at the reflection above me, and perversely the more futile the resistance proves against his iron grip, the more I’m fired with strength and energy.

He watches me intently, his fingers gripping my leg. As soon as I gather more strength to kick out at him, he slaps me hard and each time his arm goes up and that smack lands on me, my resistance translates into wild, wanton desire.

A final slap and my bottom bounces off the bed. He’s too quick for me, too strong. He grabs my ankles and hooks them round his hips. My arms are tied tight. Nothing else I can do. I’m raised like an offering.

And then he opens his fingers to display what he’s got for me.

In his free hand, extending from the shy V of his zipper, the big beautiful length of him. Made hard by the sight of me dressed as a dominatrix whore, the whore stripped bare. It worked like a charm, and now I’m the subdued sex slave. I’ve no more fight, pretend or otherwise. There is a phrase trying to assemble itself in my head to explain the calmness overtaking me as I surrender to him. To treacly languor. And now he’s here, pushing inside me. He finds me wet and ready. Lust is forged in the furnace of his eyes. I tighten my legs around his bottom and give in.

This is where he should be.

I venture one last look up at the ceiling, see how our bodies are poised. I’m shy of my own reflection. Briefly I wonder how that reflected pose would look in a photograph, the black jeans, black shirt, black hair of my lover contrasting with my white legs wrapped round him.

I focus on him again. Our eyes are locked together. He’s watching. Always watching me. No words. I grip tightly, wait, wait, and then he propels me into that lovely movement. Slow, slow, fast, faster, our bodies meshed together.

A faint chill ripples through me. Is this as it should be, though? Is he seeing me, or her? Someone else? Am I an object to him, the dotted line on an agreement? Something to be used, now that it’s all coming to an end, now he’s got me where he wants me?

He falls forwards onto his hand. He lifts me higher with the force of his passion, the silver chain biting and gnawing my wrists as our bodies battle. His fine features are more beautiful than ever, even as they start to blur. His black eyes, narrowed and steady, the mouth working silently. My eyes half close, my head falls back on the pillow. Waves wash over me as I try to understand what I’ve just read in his face.

Gustav Levi is calm for the first time. A ship that’s been hurled by the storm into harbour. He’s where he wants to be. He is finally inside me, taking full physical possession. Fucking me. He increases his pace, thrusting once, twice more, his pleasure, my pleasure, this wonderful new calmness and belonging, then as the storm crashes over us, over the chalet, battering at the mountain, we come together.

He collapses across me, his face in the pillow next to my shoulder, his body heavy, crushing the air out of me, but I don’t care. I am just relishing the heavy thump of his heart against mine, the rushing of hot breath against my shoulder, the slow relax of his limbs as our breathing, and the storm, subside.

I run my lips over his cheek, but he shakes his head and rolls away from me. Now the crisp closure of his zipper sounds so bitter and final. Shutting me out again. Not only that, but now that his warmth is removed I start to shiver, outside as well as within. The storm has given way to hail now, white stones crashing onto the skylights like someone chucking gravel to attract attention.

There are all sorts of things I should say now. Things he’s never heard before. This is my chance to find the right words to make him mine.

But what I actually say is, ‘My wrists are hurting.’

He kneels up quickly and unties the silver chain, his face troubled again. He rubs my arms as he releases them, running his finger round the inside of the bracelet where it has been branding my skin. I can barely move my arms. They are stiff and sore with all the tension, the straining to escape, welcoming yet fighting the sexy struggle.

He remains hunched above me, shaking his head. I let my hand fall onto his back where his black shirt is sticking with sweat. Trace the shoulder blades, the bumps of his spine. The inflation of his ribs as he tries to calm his breath.

A residual, satisfied moan escapes me.

‘I’m a monster. You see?’ He moves away from me, running his fingers over the silver bracelet before standing up. ‘All I ever do is hurt people.’

And then the lights go out. The room is plunged into frightening darkness, only a few squares of sickly moonlight coming through the ceiling and gleaming on the wall of mirrors.

Gustav wraps the Spanish shawl round me, gathers me into his arms and runs from Margot’s chamber of horrors, down the spiral, down into the big warm salon. He drops me onto the big sofa with the fur rugs and I roll helplessly into the deep cushions, the shawl tangled around me as he lights banks of church candles with a gas taper.

‘That’s better. Much better.’

As each wick springs into fiery life the hardness leaves his eyes. Those long lashes are half-closed, trying to hide whatever fondness or farewell has replaced the fury.

I’m so stunned, so sated. Every sinew feels stretched and strained with post-coital exhaustion. So thorough. So bone-deep. I feel so womanly, so meaningful, so equal to him now. I know the meaning of rough now, and he can be as rough as he likes. I’ll always want more. I welcome the danger, the threat, and what else did I expect from him? To be handled like a snow-white virgin?

He stokes the fire. I watch his lean body, the black jeans clothing that beautiful manliness. The black shirt untucked, still sticking to his back, showing me the muscled torso beneath. The jeans still half-zipped.

The thunder outside has calmed a little, but over the mountains thick clouds scud erratically about the sky like horses stampeding across the moors, not sure which way to go.

‘Serena.’ He clears his throat and comes to sit on the coffee table in front of me with a bottle of Merlot and two glasses. His head hangs. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t break the spell, Gustav.’ I look away from him, out over the lake. I’m scared I’m going to cry. ‘Sorry means you wish that hadn’t happened.’

‘Yes. No. You’re so beautiful, Serena. You blow my mind, and you deserve better. I had no right to take it out on you just then, but any hint, any shade of that woman and I’m possessed all over again. You’ve seen my true colours. Being forceful with a woman is the only way I know. And that is my true confession.’

He’s staring down at his glass of wine, but his lips are curling as if he’s tasting something nasty. I drink from my glass and relish the blood-warm Merlot seeping through me.

‘You didn’t force me. I’m not a fragile little flower, Gustav.’

He puts his hand up to hush me. His eyes are searching, always searching. ‘I want to try to explain it to you if I can, and then never speak of this, or her, again. This is how we lived. She seduced me like Eve with the forbidden fruit. If Eve was a witch.’

I’m trying to understand. ‘Like the Snow Queen of Narnia seduces Edmund with Turkish delight.’

‘Exactly. Except that I was an adult. If I wasn’t so hooked I could have stopped it. I became this brute.
Her
brute. All harmless at first, the insidious poisoning you don’t even notice. Same as any drug. I was this cocky young man about town when we met, she was the sexy older woman. But she wouldn’t let me touch her without all the paraphernalia. She taunted me that it was the only way I could turn her on. I know now that that was her fault, not mine. But I was only flesh and blood, Serena. I was enslaved.’

He winds his fingers so hard around the glass I’m afraid he’ll break it. I look away from him, over the pretty lights sparkling beside the lake. The clouds have thinned now and a wedge of moon is peeking out between two low crags on the other side.

‘Our lifestyle became our drug habit. Her demands were like those medieval racks, always turning, always tightening the pressure. More equipment, more participants, more pain, becoming professional, bringing it into the house despite her promises, then the exhibitionism, finally the filming. And I ended up as an extra.’

I hold my glass out. ‘I can’t imagine you doing anything you’re not totally in control of, Gustav.’

‘I was a different man then. That’s what addiction does to you.’ His face is hollow with strange sadness. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have been able to tell from the outside. I was a stone or two heavier, maybe. More pompous. Ruthless about building up my business. In fact work was my saviour. But behind closed doors all was chaos. That’s why I’ve become such a control freak.’

I take another deep swallow of wine.

‘How did you end it?’

‘Someone else ripped the wool from my eyes.’ He rubs his eyes, leaving his eyelashes matted. ‘My brother was the one ray of sanity. He kept me focused. He gave me the strength to put an end to it. But then he saw things in that house he shouldn’t have done. Maybe you can guess what things. He was disgusted. His respect, his love for me nose-dived. She pounced. Poured pestilence in his ear. It all backfired.’

There is a long, long pause. I remember Crystal’s words about his brother being his Achilles heel. Being brainwashed. What did he see? Gustav whipping Margot. Or worse. Margot whipping Gustav. I feel sick. I can’t ask about it. Not now.

I kneel up against the back of the sofa and rest my chin on my hand to stare out at the serene scene spread out beneath us, so different from the turmoil up here.

‘And the others? The other women? Were you a control freak with them, too?’

‘You make me sound like some kind of stud. There were only a couple, and they didn’t hang around for long.’ He laughs bitterly. ‘But yes. No-one could handle me.’

I remain staring out of the window, watching the stormy sky settle down. Trying to make sense of his words.

‘Enough now. It’s me who should be saying sorry. You brought me here to help you, but I’m afraid I’ve made it worse.’

‘No you haven’t. You couldn’t make it any worse. But what you have done with all that play-acting upstairs is deflect me from my immediate plans for this weekend. I was going to take you out to my favourite wine bar.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Maybe later. The Bottegone del Vino can wait. There’s something else I want to sample much, much more.’

He slides off the coffee table, comes to sit on the sofa behind me. He reaches up and pulls the pins from my hair so that it tumbles round my face, then he starts to stroke it over my shoulders, down my back. I can’t see his face but my skin shivers under his touch. I pull my thighs together tightly because the ache of desire is starting to throb all over again.

‘I was furious with you when I saw you standing in her room of pain, I can’t deny that, but your disobedient, crazy, naïve actions have chased it all away.’ He runs his hands under my hair, finds the dog collar and finally unbuckles it. You could say he’s unbuckling my last defence. ‘In fact your curiosity has done me a favour.’

‘Has it killed the cat?’

He winds my hair round his finger and tugs my head backwards. ‘You’re my breath of fresh air, Serena. Don’t you see? You’re the only one who can handle me. And look how I’ve repaid you. By smacking you, and ravishing you.’

‘I only ever think of you as a true gentleman, Gustav.’ I rest my head in the palm of his hands. ‘Whatever you do to me, however you do it, I’ll love it just the same.’

His hands stroke the skin under my hair and then I feel them plucking at the Spanish shawl and slowly peeling that down my body. He pauses, waiting for me to cover myself again, but I don’t resist. I want to be bare before him. I feel his warm, damp lips running down my spine, and I tilt my head back, stretch my arms along the back of the sofa, sending him my message.

I mean every word. Take me.

He attaches the silver chain to my bracelet and I hold it up to the firelight to see it sparkling as it joins us.

‘Did you ever give this to anyone else?’

‘Never.’ He flips the chain as if it’s a harp string. ‘It’s unique. Yours and mine.’

Then his hands part my thighs, stroking up and down the soft skin there, up into the secret places where he’s been before. First his fingers. Then the rest of him. He owns me. I shiver with renewed pleasure. His breath is hot on my hair. He is nibbling and biting me, his morsel. It’s easier not looking at him. Like being blindfolded. I can feel everything that more intensely for not seeing.