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Authors: Susan Howatch
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did replace the frame on the chest of drawers.
“You ever consider a career as a dominatrix?”
“Grow up, Blake!” I moved into the hall as smoothly as possible, but my ankles felt flimsy, as if my feet were having trouble connecting with my legs. “Can’t you think of anything but sex?”
“Well, you’re not thinking of much else, are you? That’s why you refused to see my pics—you were scared shitless they’d turn you on!”
“I absolutely and totally deny—”
“Okay, forget it. What does your bloke do for a living?”
“He’s a novelist.”
“
A novelist?
Shit, what kind of neurotic creep are you shacked up with? He’s probably bi if not gay!”
“What utter crap!” Turning my back on him in fury I marched—or tried to march—to the front door. I was in such a state, heart pounding, skin sweating, blood roaring, everything below the waist knocked silly by the adrenaline rush, that all I could manage was not a march but a totter, but luckily Gavin was backtracking as if he realised that the revenge he was taking for being deprived of Richard’s photo had gone too far.
“Okay, okay!” he said hastily. “The bloke’s as straight as a Mills and Boon hero, but why are you so reluctant to discuss him? Does he drink, do drugs? Is he refusing to marry you? Is your life being blighted by Fear-of-Commitment Phobia?”
I was so shattered by this last question that I dropped my bag, which burst open to shower various objects onto the floor. With a curse I knelt to shovel everything back, and quick as a flash Gavin sank to his knees beside me as he pretended to give me a helping hand.
“It’s all right—I can manage—
I can manage,
I tell you—” I was almost screaming.
“Relax, love,” he said amused. “I’m not going to rape you, although you’ve as good as begged for it by deliberately dropping your bag to make sure we both ended up together on the floor, but let me ask you again for a date. Monday through Friday I don’t do chicks because I need all my energy for work, but weekends I’m neat testosterone, all revved up and ready to go. So how about it?”
I lurched to my feet. “No way!”
“Ah, come on! Listen, you and I could do things Mr. Scribble-Scribble can only write about. You and I—”
“Shut up!” I yelled. I was by this time so infuriated not just with him but with myself for being so mindlessly vulnerable to his smash-and-grab behaviour, that I could hardly get my words out, but I did manage to gasp: “You’re pathetic!”
“No,” he retorted without a second’s hesitation, “I’m not pathetic. I’m a bright, tough bloke who’s made a big success of his job, but you’d like me to be pathetic, wouldn’t you, because if I was pathetic I wouldn’t be churning you up to such an extent that right now you don’t know whether to slap my face or beg for a fuck!”
“Wrong!” I shouted. “I’m in no doubt whatsoever! I’m going to slap your face!”
He laughed. “Okay, hit me—do it, do it, do it, as they say in the TV cop-soaps! Give me the excuse we both want to get you spread-eagled and ready for mounting in no time flat!”
I wrenched the front door open and blundered out, eyes burning with tears of rage and humiliation, but then I realised I couldn’t rush away down the stairs. I had to wait to lock up. I groped for the keys, and as I did so I realised, to my intense relief, that he was switching off the hall light and preparing to leave. So long as I was no longer alone with him in that flat—
“Mounting’s a fun word, isn’t it?” he was musing lightly, underlining his control of the scene by making a smooth attempt to steer the conversation onto a civilised pair of rails. “Sort of Regency—or do I mean eighteenth century? Can’t remember when Fielding wrote
Tom Jones.
” Closing the front door he took the keys from my unresisting fingers. “Here,” he said kindly, “let me lock up for you.”
The moment he turned back to
“You ever consider a career as a dominatrix?”
“Grow up, Blake!” I moved into the hall as smoothly as possible, but my ankles felt flimsy, as if my feet were having trouble connecting with my legs. “Can’t you think of anything but sex?”
“Well, you’re not thinking of much else, are you? That’s why you refused to see my pics—you were scared shitless they’d turn you on!”
“I absolutely and totally deny—”
“Okay, forget it. What does your bloke do for a living?”
“He’s a novelist.”
“
A novelist?
Shit, what kind of neurotic creep are you shacked up with? He’s probably bi if not gay!”
“What utter crap!” Turning my back on him in fury I marched—or tried to march—to the front door. I was in such a state, heart pounding, skin sweating, blood roaring, everything below the waist knocked silly by the adrenaline rush, that all I could manage was not a march but a totter, but luckily Gavin was backtracking as if he realised that the revenge he was taking for being deprived of Richard’s photo had gone too far.
“Okay, okay!” he said hastily. “The bloke’s as straight as a Mills and Boon hero, but why are you so reluctant to discuss him? Does he drink, do drugs? Is he refusing to marry you? Is your life being blighted by Fear-of-Commitment Phobia?”
I was so shattered by this last question that I dropped my bag, which burst open to shower various objects onto the floor. With a curse I knelt to shovel everything back, and quick as a flash Gavin sank to his knees beside me as he pretended to give me a helping hand.
“It’s all right—I can manage—
I can manage,
I tell you—” I was almost screaming.
“Relax, love,” he said amused. “I’m not going to rape you, although you’ve as good as begged for it by deliberately dropping your bag to make sure we both ended up together on the floor, but let me ask you again for a date. Monday through Friday I don’t do chicks because I need all my energy for work, but weekends I’m neat testosterone, all revved up and ready to go. So how about it?”
I lurched to my feet. “No way!”
“Ah, come on! Listen, you and I could do things Mr. Scribble-Scribble can only write about. You and I—”
“Shut up!” I yelled. I was by this time so infuriated not just with him but with myself for being so mindlessly vulnerable to his smash-and-grab behaviour, that I could hardly get my words out, but I did manage to gasp: “You’re pathetic!”
“No,” he retorted without a second’s hesitation, “I’m not pathetic. I’m a bright, tough bloke who’s made a big success of his job, but you’d like me to be pathetic, wouldn’t you, because if I was pathetic I wouldn’t be churning you up to such an extent that right now you don’t know whether to slap my face or beg for a fuck!”
“Wrong!” I shouted. “I’m in no doubt whatsoever! I’m going to slap your face!”
He laughed. “Okay, hit me—do it, do it, do it, as they say in the TV cop-soaps! Give me the excuse we both want to get you spread-eagled and ready for mounting in no time flat!”
I wrenched the front door open and blundered out, eyes burning with tears of rage and humiliation, but then I realised I couldn’t rush away down the stairs. I had to wait to lock up. I groped for the keys, and as I did so I realised, to my intense relief, that he was switching off the hall light and preparing to leave. So long as I was no longer alone with him in that flat—
“Mounting’s a fun word, isn’t it?” he was musing lightly, underlining his control of the scene by making a smooth attempt to steer the conversation onto a civilised pair of rails. “Sort of Regency—or do I mean eighteenth century? Can’t remember when Fielding wrote
Tom Jones.
” Closing the front door he took the keys from my unresisting fingers. “Here,” he said kindly, “let me lock up for you.”
The moment he turned back to
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