Текст книги "Falling from Grace "

Автор книги: Annabel Chant

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Three

fag British public (boarding) school institution (now allegedly out-dated), whereby a junior boy is in service to a senior boy. A fag’s chores could include anything, from making tea and taking messages, to more demeaning tasks, such as polishing shoes, depending upon the fag master and his whims. An honourable fag master would also look out for his fag; by protecting him from bullies, etc. Fagging did not usually have sexual connotations.

I saw her again on the news, that lunchtime. My morning hadn’t started well, but she seemed to be having a worse day even than me.

‘Poor kid,’ I murmured to myself, watching her come out the front entrance of Ffyvells. She was just as beautiful, even with her make-up smudged and that tight, wan look. It was no surprise she was with a Premiership player, even if he was only in one of the lower teams. She could’ve had one of the stars just as easily.

She was so delicate; slim and fine-boned, with huge, shocked eyes that peered out from between locks of her hair. It looked as if she’d deliberately pushed it forward, to afford herself some protection. Long tendrils of it twisted across her face, and the sun caught it as she gazed around her, turning it to copper and gold. She looked hunted. Beautiful but defeated. It was a marked contrast from the defiant Amazon I’d confronted in Max’s office, who’d just dared me to look at her after Max had yelled at her like that.

I’d been furious with him, even though she’d clearly pissed him off somehow. He’d had four calls while I was in with him and, looking back, they were obviously something to do with her. After the third, he’d seen her through his window, and shouted for her like she was his fag at school. I’d hated it then, and I hated it now.

He’d never had to fag. He’d had acne, when we’d started school together, and none of the older boys had wanted him. I hadn’t been so lucky, and when I’d taken on a fag of my own, I’d known how to treat him.

Max had ridden roughshod over his, and hearing him yell like that had thrown me back twenty years. I could almost feel the roughness of the starched white collars and the frock coats; taste the vile muck that passed for dinner; smell the musty, echoing classrooms. He hadn’t changed. He still treated his underlings as fags.

I’d tried to smile at her, there in his office, let her know secretly that I was on her side. She’d been too proud to take my pity. She’d just glared. She didn’t need my solidarity. That girl – perfect as she was – I could have forgotten. She was a match for Max. She could fight her own wars. This broken version was a different matter.

As the cameras played on her, she stood on the front steps of Ffyvells, gazing around at the bustle of Lombard Street as if she were seeing it for the first time. She seemed dazed…like she was wondering what the hell was going on. She seemed to have no clue why the reporters were there, how famous she was…or how beautiful.

She’d also been drinking. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I owned clubs. It was second nature to me to spot when someone was vulnerable, and she might as well have had it stamped across her forehead. As far as I was concerned, it was a cry for help.

I almost turned away from the screen at the thought. No more. I’d had enough. She had a friend with her, anyway; beautiful too in a black-haired, emo way and oh-so-fierce, leading her by the elbow and pushing her through a wash of reporters to a waiting taxi. And even now, despite everything, she was holding her head proud and erect. With her burnished locks, her startling blue eyes, and her haughty air, she was perfect camera-fodder. The mascara down her cheeks was a story in itself. Fucking journos. Parasites, to a man.

Or woman, I reminded myself, casting my eye towards the door of my bedroom.

It was ajar. Charlotte was still asleep in there, sprawled naked across the silk sheets, an open invitation to some men. Not to me. It was the whole vulnerability thing again, and it was the reason I’d finally agreed to train her in the first place. She’d have ended up hurt, if not dead, if she’d carried on the way she’d started. At least I’d saved her from that. Not that it hasn’t completely backfired on me, I thought ruefully, chopping fruit, one eye still on the news.

I’d locked her in when I’d gone to see Max, just in case, but I needn’t have bothered. I wondered when she’d finally wake up. She was so still and peaceful, she could almost be dead. It was the way with subs sometimes, after an intense night of play. Not that it had been that intense. I’d gone through the motions; tying her, punishing her, teasing her submission from her, but my heart hadn’t been in it – never had, really, with Charlotte. It had ended abruptly, too, when she’d begged me to fuck her.

I’d called an immediate halt to play. She’d known the rules from the start, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t do that.

Damn Alex. If he’d agreed to take her on, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But he was right. He was busy enough as an overseer, not to mention the numerous other roles he took on for me.

I’d found it strange, even so, that he’d turned her down. It wasn’t like Alex to decline a beautiful face, or a perfect body. She had both. She was the complete package, in many ways, with long, soft hair that dripped down her shapely back like melted caramel, and eyes to match. But he’d been firm. There was something not right about her, he’d said. She was just too eager to learn, too full of questions. I wished now I’d listened to him.

When I’d refused to fuck her, she’d whined so much that, in the end, I’d agreed to let her stay over. That never happened. Absolutely never. But I was exhausted. I’d been in a shareholders’ meeting most of the day, and our session – intense as it wasn’t – on the back of it, meant I simply didn’t have the strength to argue. So I’d let her cuddle up to me, as I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how the hell I’d let her invade my personal time.

It was such an unusual sensation – her soft, bare skin pressed up against me, her hot breath on my neck – that I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there, wondering how I was going to call time on this whole thing. She didn’t need further training. She needed a Dom of her own, one that would take care of her, keep her safe from predators and weirdos and, most of all, from herself.

I must have drifted off at some point, because I remember coming to, feeling her rubbing at my cock through my sweatpants. I’d changed out of my suit, once it became apparent she was going nowhere, but I wasn’t sleeping with her naked. She was staying for comfort, not for a fuck, and I’d made that perfectly clear.

I struggled to wake up, but my mind was heavy, drugged with sleep. Even in that hazy half-state, I was aware of my cock stiffening, involuntarily. Charlotte gave a moan of delight, and began licking at it over my sweatpants, cupping my balls with one hand, while the other pulled at the top of my pants, inching them down across my hips.

I woke fully at this and pushed her head away. She gave a low moan of disappointment… or was it anger? I couldn’t tell until she sat up, fury etched into her face.

‘Why not?’ She pulled the sheets up around her, hiding her nakedness. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘I can’t,’ I said, pushing myself up onto my elbow. I felt a complete bastard. ‘I could, but I won’t. I don’t do this. Ever.’

‘Am I not submissive enough for you?’ Her hair, still tumbled from the session earlier, fell in sensuous tendrils across the swell of her breasts. I had to stop myself reaching out. She was doing nothing to ease my aching cock. Judging from her body language, I didn’t think she’d welcome it now, not after my refusing her, and it would have complicated matters beyond belief. I had to keep my self-control. It was who I was.

‘It’s not you,’ I said. ‘Really.’

‘Is that the best you can do?’ She gave a harsh laugh, and went to get up. ‘Well, if it’s not me, who is it? Is there someone else?’

Christ, she still didn’t understand even the most basic tenets of our relationship. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t spelt it out often enough. She’d been warned about becoming too close, opening herself up too much. She was in training, but not for me. She was being trained by me. To help her find a Master. No self-respecting Dom would’ve touched her before. She hadn’t been submissive. She’d been a push-over.

I sighed impatiently. Surely she hadn’t let herself fall in love with me? How could she? She didn’t even know me. Not that she hadn’t tried. No one had tried to crack me open like Charlotte, but her endless questioning had been in vain. She had no idea of what I was really like, or she wouldn’t have tried it on like that.

She stood up, the sheets trailing after her and slipping to the floor.

‘There’s no one else,’ I said, as she walked out of the room. She didn’t turn around.

She’d gone into the bathroom. I could hear her running the shower. I looked at the bed. It looked like we’d fucked after all. The sheets were hanging off the bed, spilt like milk across the oak flooring, and her pillows were ravaged. I leaned across, pulling them back to rearrange them. It was when I pulled back the bottom one that I saw it, nestled there like a smoking gun.

A video-camera.

Not just an ordinary one, either. This was specialist equipment. It must have cost some. A hell of a lot more than a secretary would want to spend, anyway. And it was set to record.

I left it – didn’t even touch it – and sat there, my mind running over the implications. Damn fucking Alex. Who’d he hired to check her out, anyway? It couldn’t be one of the usuals. They didn’t make mistakes like this. Hell, security was everything. We all knew that. Without it, everything could come unravelled. Lives could be damaged – destroyed, even. It didn’t bear thinking about.

I slipped out of bed, and padded over to the dresser. I took her bag and twisted the snap, softly, carefully. Inside were the usual things you’d expect to find in the bag of a woman who cared as much about her appearance as Charlotte did: keys, hairbrush, make-up – Clinique, Estée Lauder, nothing cheap – cash. No credit cards, oddly, but – right at the bottom – the real smoking gun.

It was a slim metal box, rectangular, almost hidden in the folds of fabric at the bottom of the bag. I knew what it was on sight. I had a few of my own – white gold, mainly – that I’d been bought at one time or another by various well-meaning, but essentially unimaginative, relations. I didn’t use any of them.

It was a business card case. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t give. I prised at it with my fingernails…I had to get it open. It wouldn’t budge. It was clearly a cheap one, and the mechanism seemed to be fucked. I tried again. Still nothing – not even enough play to indicate I was doing it right.

Finally, it snapped open, revealing a clutch of bright white cards, a red and blue logo emblazoned across them. I knew I had to get one. I tried to tease them out, but they were wedged in.

Just then, I heard the shower stop, and the door of the shower enclosure swung open with a creak, spatters of water splashing onto the marble floor. I tried again to get a card out of the box, but there was no way. It needed a woman’s fingers. I tossed it back inside her bag, snapped the clasp together again, and positioned it carefully back where I’d found it, on the dresser.

I moved back to the bed, grabbing the sheets and billowing them across it. I slipped back under them, and leaned across to take the camera from its hiding place. I turned it off, and tucked it into the hidden compartment in the unit next to my bed. I’d have to get her laptop bag in the morning. I knew exactly where it was, in the living room, next to the sofa. Anything she’d previously downloaded could be on there. I smoothed the pillows over again, and lay down.

Just in time. She sauntered back in, towel drying her hair as she came. She stopped, when she saw me looking.

‘So, this is what you want?’ She turned to where her clothes lay, hanging across the back of a chair.

‘Yes,’ I said, watching as she started to get dressed.

Fuck it. I couldn’t let it end like this. I knew this would be the last time I’d see her and, whatever she’d done, I felt sorry for her. She really was fucked up. Anyway, I needed time to think. ‘No. Come back to bed, Charlotte. Let me hold you.’

One more time. I didn’t speak the words, but they lay heavy across my heart. The bitch was a journo. It was almost unbelievable. I hadn’t been able to get her business card out, but it didn’t matter. I knew the logo, better than I’d have liked. She worked for the City Herald, and I was her story.

She dropped her clothes where she stood, and slipped back into bed beside me. I opened my arms to her, and she draped herself across me, her skin warm and still slightly damp from the shower. Her hair smelt of sage and mint; a manly scent, but she was all woman and, at this moment, as trusting as a child. Soon, she was asleep, I was sure of it. Her breathing came sweet and shallow, her slim, smooth shoulders rising and falling in rhythm with my chest.

But could I really be sure? I wasn’t sure of anything now. I lay there awake all night, wondering how best to deal with her. None of the options seemed attractive.

Four

I’d finished chopping the fruit, and the news had finished with Grace Anderton and the inestimable shit that was Leo Sparkes. For the time being, at least. I scraped the fruit off the chopping board and into the juicer, still thinking about her. That face; an enchanting blur of tears and cosmetics, haunted me. Why were footballers such pricks? It seemed to be written into their contract. Which reminded me…

I turned on the juicer. It was supposed to be quiet, but it was anything but, and I knew it. For the first time that day, I heard movement in the bedroom. A minute or so later, Charlotte was standing in the doorway. She’d thrown her clothes on – hadn’t even buttoned her shirt. She was wild-eyed with panic.

I turned off the juicer. ‘Breakfast?’

‘I…I’m late for work.’

‘Really?’ I poured juice into two tall glasses. ‘I thought you lot kept your own hours.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her eyes widened briefly, and she couldn’t hold my gaze. I could tell I’d unnerved her.

‘I mean, since you were working all night, I thought you’d be okay to lie in this morning.’

She didn’t reply, just turned and ran back into the bedroom. I could hear her rummaging through the bed clothes. I followed her in. She was on her hands and knees, looking under the bed.

‘Now, really, Charlotte.’ I couldn’t help but be amused. ‘There’s no need to grovel. The session ended last night.’

‘Where is it, you bastard?’ She jumped to her feet, almost panting. I thought she was going to hyperventilate.

‘Where’s what?’

‘Don’t…’ she took a deep breath and looked like she was about to cry. ‘…do this.’

‘Do what?’ I shrugged. ‘I’m doing nothing.’

‘Don’t come all high and mighty with me.’ Her voice wobbled, and I was half tempted to go over to her, to comfort her, but she’d brought this on herself. ‘You got as much out of this as I did. Don’t pretend you didn’t.’

‘I got nothing out of this, Charlotte.’ I turned away from her. ‘Except peace of mind.’

‘You arrogant prick.’ She pushed her feet into her shoes. ‘Did I mean nothing to you?’

‘On the contrary, your safety meant everything to me.’ I stood at the door, and watched as she buttoned her shirt.

‘My safety?’

‘You were out of control, Charlotte.’ I didn’t want to remind her of how we’d found her. She’d come such a long way since then.

‘Out of…’ She gave that harsh laugh again, and walked into the living room. ‘Entrapment, dear.’

I shook my head. I’d been had. We all had. It was hardly worth asking – I knew the answer – but I couldn’t help myself. ‘Why?’

‘Because of who you are, of course,’ she said, simply. ‘It was a guaranteed story. I’d heard enough about you to know you fancy yourself as some kind of knight errant. The preux chevalier of spoilt little rich boys. I wanted to get behind the myth. Find the real story. And, boy, what a story it’s turned out to be. I went round every Dom in Dominion, trying to get on the inside, to get a story. I never thought I’d end up in the confidence of the Kingpin himself.’

‘Always the fondness for the melodramatic, Charlotte,’ I said, watching her hunt around the sofa for her laptop. She could look all she liked…it was in Max’s office, in his safe. ‘How did I not guess before you were a hack?’

She looked up at me, suddenly. She looked taken aback for a moment, then she seemed to collect herself. ‘Well,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘I got a good story.’

‘You got nothing,’ I said. ‘You were never in my confidence. You’ll have to write lies, because I’ve told you fuck all.’

She didn’t say anything, just looked down at her nails with a secretive smile. She seemed so sure of herself that I almost felt alarmed, but I had my ace card at hand. ‘Whatever you think you know, you signed a confidentiality clause. I witnessed it myself.’

‘That?’ She picked up her handbag, wielding it like a weapon. ‘Worthless. It’s not even my real name.’

I cursed inwardly. I should’ve kept that business card box. Maybe I should even have fucked her. She’d fucked me anyway, in her own way. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘Well, I’d almost convinced myself to drop the whole thing.’ For the first time, her resolve seemed to weaken and something approaching a sob escaped her lips. ‘That is, I thought…’ She looked up at me, her eyes softer, almost appealing. ‘But now…’

‘Now?’ I returned her gaze, but without softening mine, without conceding at all. I had to know the worst. What was she planning to do? I raised my eyebrows, waiting tensely for her to reply.

‘Now I think the whole world needs to hear about you and your sleazy network. You… filth monger.’

I actually laughed. It was half in surprise, but half because I couldn’t believe that was what she really thought. Did she understand so little – even after all this time?

I put my arm across the doorway. ‘I’d take a long, hard look at yourself before you take your story anywhere outside these four walls.’ I looked at her, standing there so proud and defiant, and almost pitied her. ‘You haven’t a shred of evidence.’

‘Then I’ll find some,’ she said. ‘If it kills me.’

She pushed past me, still brandishing her bag, as if she thought I’d try to restrain her. It just showed how little she knew me. I never restrained women…not without their explicit consent.

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I murmured to myself, as she slammed the front door behind her.

Five

My sainted sister, Helen, had already told my mum when I got home. No mean feat, considering Mum lived in Nice, with her latest beau, and wasn’t exactly an early riser. She’d left a message on my answerphone.

‘Darling… oh, it’s too awful… Give him the benefit of the doubt, though, won’t you? You know what those girls are like.’ She paused, at this point, and yawned. ‘He’s a good looking lad – well, you know that – and he must be surrounded by temptation. I know what it’s like with Mike, God help me, and he’s in his fifties. Don’t throw your perfect life away over some little scrubber, darling. Love you, sweetheart. Call me.’

Good to know she was on my side. My perfect life. Her voice was heavy, groggy with sleep, and I guessed she’d been out the night before. Mike, her latest, was a musician, and played guitar in a band in some of the bars in the old town. I wondered if I should just get a flight out there, get away from everything for the week, but the thought of spending so much time with the pair of them, especially feeling the way I did, made me feel worse. She’d be dragging me out to all Mike’s gigs and I couldn’t face the thought of it, being amongst all those tourists and travellers, living it up while I struggled to hold it together.

Just then, my mobile rang. It was Helen herself.

‘Grace…Oh dear. I don’t know what to say…’

I took a deep breath and waited. She’d know exactly what to say, and I knew it. She was twenty four – barely a year younger than me – and already married with two loud toddlers, and opinions to match.

‘I told you… I did… don’t get mixed up with a footballer. They’re bad news, the lot of them. Can’t keep their pieces in their pants for love nor money.’

I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to. She carried on for a good five minutes, railing against the immorality of the world at large, and footballers in particular, until I put the phone down on the kitchen table and left her, talking to herself.

I went and lay down on the bed, but I couldn’t settle. It was our bed, Leo’s and mine, and now there was no more us. I couldn’t believe he’d done it to me. My head was aching from the wine and all the crying I’d done in the staff restaurant. I knew Liv meant well, but I really didn’t think the drink had helped. It just made me feel even more maudlin and bereft.

I thought back to what I’d read in the City Herald. Leo and some of the others – I couldn’t even remember who – had taken some girl back to their hotel room and taken turns on her. In fact, they hadn’t even taken turns. She’d taken them three at a time, several times over.

‘How can they possibly know that?’ I’d asked Liv. I hadn’t been able to take in what I was reading, and was still convinced, at that point, that it was all some kind of mistake.

‘You’re not going to want to hear this, hon,’ she said, reluctantly. ‘But it was a sting.’

‘A what?’ My mind was simply not computing. I couldn’t take it in.

‘A set-up, hon.’ Liv poured me another glass of wine, and I knocked half back in one go. ‘They got it on video. It’s doing the rounds online. Pixellated her face, of course. Not theirs, though.’ She winced visibly.

It was then that the tears started, pricking at my eyes, then coursing, silently, down my cheeks. It was true, then. He couldn’t persuade me it was a stalker, or an ex out for revenge. None of the things he’d tried in the past. What a fool I’d been to trust him.

Liv didn’t try to say anything – just passed me some tissues out of her Mary Poppins bag. It always seemed to contain whatever was needed. At that moment, I wished she’d pull out something to deaden the pain that was clawing at my heart. Something other than wine. Pills or something… preferably lots.

Was it my fault? I’d had that fantasy again. I’d flirted with Mr Arrogant in Max’s office. I was hardly whiter than white. Had I brought it upon myself? In some ways, it would’ve made it easier to deal with, but I couldn’t really believe it. This had been Leo, on his own, carving out our path to destruction while I was stuck at home, feeling rough. If only he’d come home on the Sunday, straight after the match, it would never have happened. God, who was I kidding? It was probably the whole reason he’d stayed.

I paced around the flat for an hour or more. I think I was trying to get away from the pain, stupid as it sounds. In the end, I perched on the edge of an armchair, and simply sat there, shaking. My chest felt swollen inside, as if the anguish had expanded it, filling it to bursting. I couldn’t stop trembling. My whole body shook, and I sobbed until I was too exhausted to sob any more, and simply sat there, shaking, and sniffing, and staring at nothing, with tears still flooding my face and neck.

When he finally came in, later that evening, I didn’t even hear him.