Twisted Love and Money (13 page)

“Piss off,”
Dorothy hissed, pulling Paul along as she continued to link
him.

“O.K., O.K.,”
Jeremy said, “only joking, I was going to offer you three to one
odds for a bet,” and he ran to catch them up.

He still had
his wallet in his hand. Angrily Dorothy snatched it and extracted
three twenty pound sterling notes. Then she handed back the
wallet.

“Up those
steps,” she instructed.

“Where?”

Dorothy let go
of Paul and grabbed Jeremy by the elbow and pushed him up the steps
of one of the Georgian houses. During the day this was a beautiful
square where Surgeons had their rooms and professional firms were
proud to have their offices.

Anxiously, Paul
hung about at the bottom of the steps. What were they doing up
there?

A car came by
slowed down alongside Paul and then sped away. They think I’m a
male pro, Paul thought, I’m getting out of here. But he could not.
He had to stick to Jeremy or Clifford would have his guts in the
morning.

Then they came
down the steps.

“What were you
doing up there?” Paul asked as innocently as he could muster.

“Just clearing
up a bet,” Dorothy said, sticking the twenty-pound notes in her
wallet.

They all linked
up again and walked along. Paul noticed that Jeremy’s shirt was
sticking out of his pants, but he said nothing. He was
disgusted.

“Have to go,”
Dorothy said as their walk brought them along the bottom of Grafton
Street. She had preceded her remark by hailing down a passing taxi
and now she proceeded to get into it.

“What?” Paul
asked feeling a sense of rising panic, where she going?

“Be a good boy
now Jeremy. I’ll be in touch,” Dorothy said and closed the Taxi
door. She rolled down the window. “Bye Paul,” and blew him a kiss,
said something to the Taxi driver and was gone.

Somehow Paul
was surprised that Jeremy let her go. As the Taxi disappeared Paul
stood on one foot wondering what to do next.

Conversation
was difficult. Paul felt tense, not knowing what might happen next.
He borrowed from Dorothy’s technique and began to ask Jeremy about
himself. “Are you married Jeremy?”

“No,” Jeremy
said with ponderous seriousness. The drink had now taken him beyond
wild aggression to a tired depression. Jeremy became oppressively
serious and Paul began to feel bored.

“I never seem
to know about myself,” Jeremy went on, “am I AC or DC. Know what I
mean?”

“Not really.
What’s your fancy? Dorothy looks really well.”

“Bitch,” Jeremy
said venomously.

This introduced
a silence.

“I wanted to be
a priest,” Jeremy said seriously, almost piously, after the
silence, as if he was wrestling with a confession.

“What
happened?” Paul enquired.

“I made too
much money.”
“That should not stop you.”

“What do you
know? You know nothing.”

Sensing it was
still the drink talking, Paul did not rise to this aggressive
response.

“I have to go
to the Loo,” Jeremy said when they reached the restaurant.

No sign of
Jeremy. Probably getting sick down the loo, Paul thought as he
waited some five minutes later.

“Your friend
has left,” the headwaiter said.

“Good I’ll have
a steak.”

Meanwhile
Jeremy wandered back towards Fitzwilliam Square. The whores were
still doing business. They all seemed to be female. He felt
repelled by their sexuality, dirty, he thought. The drink was
beginning to work as a depressant and he felt very serious.

God, he had
gone off the rails. What a night. If his David had seen him. The
way he had treated that Architect. Was it only because his name
upset him? He sighed, it was still a good deal, and he could make
up with them tomorrow. George would help. Business was business.
They needed him.

But he had too
many personal problems. And Dorothy the bitch, what a bitch, the
way she had taunted him in Fitzwilliam Square. But he had enjoyed
it. She was so masterful and he was so weak.

Jeremy leaned
against the railings of the Square. He began to get sick. The
whores watched him dispassionately. Another drunk. Sick drunk, Yuk.
No business there, and they turned their attention away.

Jeremy was
alternately hot and then cold with a cold sticky sweat. The drink
came up. He began to feel clearer, better. He felt the clearness
that comes in the immediate aftermath of getting sick. He looked
down. He had splattered his shoes and jeans.

Cleansing, that
was what he needed. He was a dirty sordid son of a bitch.
Forgiveness. He needed Dorothy to forgive. He would go to Dorothy.
With unsteady step he made his way back towards St. Stephens Green,
looking out for a Taxi. He would call on Dorothy this very minute.
Still half drunk but rapidly sobering up he hailed a Taxi. It
pulled in. Jeremy flashed some money and the driver nodded to him
to get in.

Chapter
fifteen

Dorothy was
drinking a whiskey when the doorbell rang. She was still wearing
her coat, still fuming at Jeremy. How could he be such an
antichrist? What had happened to the nice man? What was wrong with
him? But in her heart she felt she was the cause of his anguish and
this pleased her, but she was still angry.

Angrily she
went to the door, thinking, who the hell at this hour. It was
Jeremy. She pressed the buzzer for him to come up to her flat.

“Sorry,” he
said.

“Sorry?” she
shouted, “You fat little bastard. You humiliated me. You were
despicable.”

“Sorry,” he
said again. He looked as if he might cry. Dorothy was
speechless.

“Sorry,” he
repeated, “It was too much for me. David, my David is coming to
Dublin. I don’t know what to do. I feel so guilty, so mixed
up.”

“Guilty. Yes
you were fucking guilty tonight. Where did you ever learn your
manners? If that is what drink does to you should stay on the
wagon.”

“I…”

“Jesus, come
in,” she cut across him, “you stink, did you get sick on yourself?
Get in out of the corridor before a neighbour sees you.”

“I feel all
right in England,” he stammered. “But in Ireland, it’s a sin, it’s
dirty.”

“What is?” she
snapped.

“Homosexuality.”

“Rubbish, not
these days. Not if you have genuine feelings,” Dorothy
contradicted, a little surprised at herself.

“Since I met
us. I can’t handle David. I’m a mess.”

“You are a
little bastard. Get in, we can’t talk out here.”

Dorothy stood
back and Jeremy came slowly in. She shut the door firmly behind him
and pointed the way in through the small lobby to the living room.
“In there,” she instructed.

“Will you
forgive me?” Jeremy asked while Dorothy fixed herself another
whiskey. She did not offer Jeremy a drink.

“Why should I
forgive?” Dorothy demanded. “Jeremy you were an antichrist
tonight.”

“An antichrist?
What do …?”

“I mean a shit
and a bastard,” Dorothy cut across him angrily.

“Forgive me,”
he asked contritely.

“Go to
confession Jeremy. Maybe a priest can forgive you.”

“Dorothy I
could not confess. I feel it is wrong, but it is right. But not
that, tonight I mean. Tonight is what I want you to forgive. I was
out of control, off the rails. I’m sorry.”

“A priest would
give you a good penance,” Dorothy suggested frostily.

“A penance, you
give me a penance Dorothy.”

“I’ll forgive
you if you let me cleanse you. You should be cleansed if you are
coming into my life. That is your penance.”

“A
penance?”

“You are
repeating yourself.”

“Anything. I am
worthless Dorothy. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

“What about
your mother?”

“My mother? She
would disown me if she knew I was gay... She would take the ash
plant to me.”

“The ash
plant?”

“Yes.” Jeremy
managed a small smile, “When we were bold when we were small kids,
my mother would send us to the local Hardware shop with a penny to
buy an ash plant. It was a cane made from the ash tree. When we
brought it back home she would give us a whipping. Nothing
sadistic, but it hurt. Then she would forgive. It was rough justice
but we knew where we stood.”

“And how do you
want me to forgive?” Dorothy asked in a deceptively quiet voice, a
glint in her eye.

Jeremy
shrugged, “Forget tonight happened. Let us take up again from our
cinema date.”

“That’s not
good enough Jeremy. You come here stinking of your own vomit asking
forgiveness.”

Suddenly
Dorothy grabbed Jeremy by the lapels of his jacket. She pushed him
over the back of the couch, so that his head was down to the seat
and his backside in the air.

Jeremy
submitted to the pushing and shoving without protest. His eyes did
not meet hers, he kept them submissively looking at his feet.

Dorothy reached
around and opened his trouser belt. With a jerk she pulled down the
zip on his flies. Then with a flick she pulled his jeans and
underpants down exposing his backside to the room. She pulled off
his shoes and then removed all his clothes without letting him
change position.

“These are for
the wash,” she exclaimed crinkling her nose at the smell of vomit
on the ends. “Don’t you dare move an inch Jeremy?”

Jeremy stayed
in his undignified position while Dorothy put his jeans into the
washing machine and ran a wash.

“What are you
going to do to me?” Jeremy asked with a tremor in his voice as he
heard her return to the room. He looked at her from his upside down
position, but made no attempt to move.

“Don’t move,”
Dorothy said firmly and went into her bedroom. When she emerged she
had a riding crop in her hand.

“I use this on
my horse when he misbehaves,” Dorothy said, slapping the crop
against the flat of her palm. Jeremy squirmed, but said
nothing.

Measuring the
force of her blow to strike firm and hard, but not viciously,
Dorothy laid the crop across Jeremy’s bare behind. He jumped and
squealed a little but held his position folded over the back of the
couch.

Carefully
Dorothy slowly measured out five more blows, letting each have full
impact before following with the next. Each blow left a red line
across his buttocks. At each strike Jeremy squealed and wriggled,
but did not attempt to stand up. At the fifth blow, Dorothy grabbed
his jacket and pulled him up.

“Get up and
kneel,” she instructed firmly

Jeremy slid to
his knees, still not looking at her face.

“Should I
forgive you or give you five more?” Dorothy demanded, grabbing his
hair and forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Please don’t,
please. Enough is enough.”

Dorothy pushed
him down, letting go of his hair. “Please, please,” he grovelled at
her feet.

“Whom do you
belong to?” Dorothy demanded.

“Belong to?” he
asked.

Dorothy hit him
again. She was feeling a rush of power and strength.

“Ouch,” he
squealed, “You Dorothy, I belong to you.”

“That is much
better. Now we will cleanse your soul and body Jeremy.”

Dorothy grabbed
Jeremy by the hair and dragged him through her bedroom into the
bathroom. He struggled to keep his balance and half crawled half
walked after her, bent over as she held his hair a waist level.

“Undress
completely,” she instructed.

While Jeremy
undressed Dorothy ran the shower. She made sure it was good and
hot.

“In,” she
instructed.

Jeremy stepped
into the shower, helped by a backhand from Dorothy’s riding
crop.

“It’s hot,” he
protested.

“Shut up, it
has to be hot to cleanse you off.”

“Cleanse me
off?”

“Yes. All your
sins. All your men. Start soaping yourself.”

While Jeremy
applied the soap Dorothy slowly undressed. When she was ready she
got the brush from the holder beside the toilet. Then she stepped
into the shower.

Meticulously
she began to scrub Jeremy with the brush.

Dorothy spoke
not a word and when she was finished she switched off the shower,
stepped out and threw him a hand towel. The bath towel she used to
dry herself. He looked at her passively as he dried himself. He
seemed almost at peace. The physical treatment and the scrubbing
had given him an erection and he seemed almost surprised as he
looked down at himself.

Before he could
speak Dorothy grabbed him and pulled him behind her out of the
bathroom and into the bedroom.

“Sit!” she
instructed, pointing at the bed. She went into the bathroom.

When she
returned Dorothy put a contraceptive on him. A yellow and blue one,
from a fancy pack she kept in the bottom of the cupboard.

Then she
lowered herself onto him and began to rock back and forth while
gently holding him to her breasts. She kissed him tenderly and
murmured Hmm. Hmmm.Hmm, softly to him, and repeated, “that’s my
baby, that’s my baby” As she rocked she used the handle of the
riding crop, rubbing up and down.

He came into
her juddering and trembling in a climax, almost crying as he
whimpered in pain and pleasure. Slowly Dorothy felt her climax come
and consume her passion.

“Jeremy,
Jeremy,” she moaned. “ I think I am in love with you.”

“Dorothy I’m
not worth it. I’m worthless.”

“Do you want
another whipping?”

“Please
no.”

“Then tell me
who you belong to.”

“To you
Dorothy.”

They continued
to hold each other in warm silent embrace.

“Let’s go to
sleep then,” she said after a while.