Aqua Domination (3 page)

Mary did not step into the bath. She took a deep breath, lying on the cool tiles face down at one end, and then she slid forwards into the warm water with her arms stretched out in front of her, and she looked down at the scarlet bottom of the bath, and she felt the shiny steel rail at the end of the bath stroke her whole long body, and then all of her was inside the hot, sensuous caress of the water, it enveloped her body like a warm wet giant’s mouth, and all she could hear was the murmur of the water from the tap falling into the bath, a sound that was an interference to stop her thinking too much, a womblike reassurance like the sound of her mother’s blood from a time before Mary had been born, a time when she did not have to live in the world with all its complexity of choices.

Laughing, she rolled over and floated on her back. How good it was just to float!

Obviously she had to come again. She put on long black plastic gloves and admired herself in the mirror. How strange she looked! Yet that was the real her, her in David’s bath, more real than she could ever be in any office or anywhere else. Now she was stronger. Now she could do anything she liked, because she made the most difficult decision any human being can make: she granted herself absolute and unconditional freedom.

Embracing and caressing and supportive, the sensuality of the warm water flooded her body and soul as she lay back in the bath with her feet toward its glittering taps. Mary stroked her body all over, loving the feel of the plastic gloves sliding over her skin, so well-lubricated by the bath foam liquid that turned the hot water so deliciously slippery. What was sex in a dry bed compared to this exotic, scented, luxury of heated, wet slipperiness?

How long and wide that scarlet bath was! So long and wide that even a tall woman like Mary could float there without any part of her body touching the sides or ends.

Fantasies of being tied up and helpless danced in Mary’s mind as she rolled around in the deepening water and thrust out her tits and arse, just as if David were there and she was striving to distract him from punishing her by presenting her body like a sex slave. She masturbated with crazed vigour, splashing and jerking about like a fish trapped in a too-shallow pond.

Pain and pleasure in alternation: that was what Mary granted her flesh now, like an empress graciously bestowing favours on her wretched, quivering subjects. This was what David had revealed to her as her soul’s greatest delight, it was what he had given her with a patience and skill that might have been insane, but was also thorough and convincing. He had rarely given her quite enough pleasure to make her come, so that in the end she was taken over the brink by pain.

Pleasure and pain until Mary was torn apart by orgasms of sickening force, orgasms that were not so much a delight as a psychic devastation. David had given her this addiction. After that, what use could simple fucking and sucking be to Mary? Now, in David’s bathroom again after so much time had passed, what else could she do but strive in solitude to recreate past pains, pleasures, and horrifyingly exquisite humiliations?

‘Do you know what your trouble is, you stupid cunt?’ she said to herself quietly, her other self there in the mirror. ‘You’ve always been afraid that you’re different from other people. And you are! But stop being afraid of it.’

She glanced at the ceiling, seeing the two small mirrored panels and thinking of the cameras that David had sometimes put there to film secretly through the two-way mirrors. Was he filming her now? Mary doubted it, but she wondered if, despite his manner, he could still show some interest, some redeeming remnants of voyeurism and sadism.

Lust renewed itself in her strong and healthy young body, as she looked at all the great stuff in David’s collection. So many strange items for her to play with!

Looking up from the leather, rubber, plastic and metal items designed for the sexual subjugation of human beings, she saw through the window how the vivid green trees moved tremulously in the light wind, their branches shivering, as if chilled, as birds came and went with their hungers and disputes, while overhead sailed huge fluffy white clouds like mountains in flight to an unknown paradise.

How beautiful all the world was if seen in the right light, thought Mary, her body and soul still suffused by her own inner light of ecstasy. Why was it that nearly everybody was bad, stupid or confused, even though they were living in a world where every tree, bird and cloud could show its own radiance that sang of beauty and goodness?

After thinking about it for a minute, Mary decided she did not know, so she might just as well masturbate.

By the time she was satisfied, the sun was setting, and the tops of trees burned golden green, such a delicious light that she felt she could taste it on her tongue, a warm sweet and sour. She emptied and cleaned the bath, then carefully dried all the gear she had used with such pleasure. She got dressed and she left that haunted bathroom where she had both exorcised and exercised her personal demons.

Mary carried three bags of domination gear back to the living room where David was still watching TV, or at least was sitting in front of it. Even the half-eaten sandwich at his side had an air of apathy and defeat. As for the fourth bag of gear, Mary carried it outside and put it in the boot of her car. From her bag she took a hairdryer, and then she went back into David’s kitchen and dried her hair. After that she knew she had to leave even though she would rather have stayed until David lost his temper, if he still had one to lose.

‘I’m going now,’ she told him, making herself sound casual and bright. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Though you don’t look very disturbed. Unfortunately. I was in a bad mood, but I feel much better now after masturbating in your bath and playing with some of your gear. We could go out to dinner now if you like.’

David shook his head slowly.

‘OK,’ Mary continued. ‘I can see you want me to just go away now. But despite that, I’ll just go away now anyway.’

David stared at her, and the faintest hint of a weary, sad smile appeared in his eyes and mouth. It was nothing really, hardly even the ghost or the memory of the radiant, childlike smile she had once been warmed by, but all the same it made his face less of a barrier, and it made Mary remember. She did not want to remember, but she was weakened by the feeling that had haunted her for months, that human souls were separated by vast distances and locked inside the cells of their bodies in solitary confinement.

She remembered, despite herself, what good company David could be. Used to be. How funny and nice he had often been even though he was a fetishist and sadist.

‘You’ve got guts, Mary,’ David said slowly, and quietly. It was as if he were not only trying to remember how to talk, but also feeling far from sure that he should even be trying. Mary was certain that for a long time he had been living, if living was the word, buried deep in silence and solitude. ‘You’re honest. That’s everything.’

‘Don’t start praising me.’ Mary laughed. ‘If you’re going to start being nice, that’s not fair. I can stand anything except you being nice.’

‘Always do the unexpected. First rule of a cruel master: keep them guessing, keep them off balance. What crap, really! Thank goodness I’ve given all that up.’

‘You’ve given it up, but you don’t exactly seem to have found peace of mind.’

‘Oh, I’m OK,’ David insisted wearily. ‘So, why did you come back anyway? Looking for some kind of closure?’

‘I suppose so. Whatever closure means. I don’t really know, it was some sort of impulse thing. I’ve been very angry lately. Maybe I hoped you’d annoy me, and then I could’ve beat up on you and felt better. But you haven’t insulted me. Yet.’

‘Life is full of disappointments, Mary.’

‘You’re a difficult man to hate now that you’re so down. Look, can I cook something? You don’t look like you’re even eating properly. I could cook dinner and I promise I’ll leave after that.’

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ said David, clearly worried by Mary’s friendly offer.

‘You want me to go quickly. I see.’

‘Don’t be offended.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve lost the urge to hit you.’

‘Can you keep it lost? No, the thing is, I just want to be alone. There’s nothing personal in my wanting you to go.’

‘I believe you. Well, I might as well be off.’

David saw Mary to his front door and they said polite goodbyes. She got into her car and told herself not to feel sorry for him. It served him right to be depressed.

*   *   *

As soon as she arrived at her parents’ home, two hours later, Mary wondered why she had bothered to come. She told herself that they were able to fully understand and appreciate her. In theory. Besides, she was feeling confused and surprised after losing both her job and her boyfriend Jack in the last ten days – why not try to stabilise herself by checking out her roots? She wondered if she had decided to visit her parents to give herself an excuse to drop in on David, whose home was on the route from her small apartment to her parents’ place – well, it was more or less on the route, if you decided, very sensibly, to take a scenic, unhurried, roundabout route instead of a straight line. Mary told herself that it was only natural to have some slight curiosity about David. What other feeling could she have? She refused to listen to her inner voice of unreason.

‘How’s work?’ Mary’s mother, Jill, asked at once.

‘I quit,’ Mary replied. It was not quite a lie.

‘You’re so wilful! What will you do now? Why did you quit?’

‘Why not quit?’ Mary shrugged. ‘It was just a boring routine office job.’

‘It was paid work! You always want to take it easy, have fun. Most of life is boring and routine, but that’s life and you have to accept it.’

‘No I don’t,’ Mary insisted, with a cold calm certainty. ‘I want something better. I’m never going to have a boring routine job ever again.’

‘You’re so stubborn. If only you could be more like your sisters.’

‘Everybody should be themselves, not try to be like other people,’ Mary snapped. She could hardly believe that she had only just got here and already her mother was criticising her. Literally, she felt breathless and suffocated, as if she could not get enough air into her lungs.

Mary had been born when her mother was forty. It had been an accident, she guessed. Always she had felt unwanted, and always seemed to be the victim of unfavourable comparisons made between her and her two elder sisters, who her mother seemed to think were perfect.

‘Now, now, let’s not start arguing,’ said her father, a weary man in poor health since an accident had made him retire from the factory where he had worked for so many years. Now the factory’s site was a car park.

Next morning, Mary awoke in her old bedroom. It certainly had been a mistake to come here. David should have stopped her. Not that it was any of his damn business, but all the same, he should have stopped her. So that was one more item to add to the list of David’s mistakes and crimes.

Suddenly she heard Jack’s voice, and thought that she had finally begun to hallucinate. The way her life was going, it was only to be expected that she would go crazy. She went downstairs and there he was. Jack. He and Mary had argued and broken up after Mary had humiliated him with her bum.

‘I had to see you again, Mary,’ said Jack. He looked impressed by his own impulsive action. ‘Your friend Alice told me where you were going.’

‘Did she really?’ Mary sighed, writing off another friend. No more Alice.

‘Jack said he just had to come and see you right now,’ Mary’s mother gushed. ‘Even though he has so much important work, he dropped everything and came here. That’s so romantic! It’s like something in a film.’

‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘Unfortunately.’

‘Let’s go and sit down like civilised people instead of standing around here like antelopes,’ Mary’s father insisted. He was obviously a lot less impressed by Jack’s romantic action than his wife and Jack were. Part of Mary was a little impressed and flattered, but mostly she was annoyed.

The four of them sat down and had coffee in the perfectly clean and tasteful house that Mary’s parents had worked so hard for over the decades, driving themselves to exhaustion, enduring boredom, surrendering their freedom and embracing routine so that they could have this house to decorate and furnish and clean and clean and clean and then decorate again, acting as servants to the house while it devoured their money and their years. Mary could not see the point. It was like listening to a joke and not understanding the punchline.

She devoted a few per cent of her attention to Jack’s conversation with her father. Jack was taller, more handsome, much more communicative and currently more successful than David, Mary thought, and he had never scared the living daylights out of her. He would be a good partner for any woman, a fine father, and an all-round good human being. Jack was virtually perfect. It was obvious he was David’s superior in every way, especially now that David had burned out in depression, despair, apathy or laziness or whatever the hell it was. David was finished, he was history, a wreck. By God, Jack was boring.

How Mary wished David had come chasing after her instead of Jack! Then she could have had the satisfaction of saying no to David, no matter how he begged. It would have been a sweet victory.

No doubt David had wrecked himself attacking the barriers around the human mind and human sexuality. The odds had been too great for him, it had always been hopeless, all his exertions had been futile, he himself was doomed. His strength had given out, the barriers were too strong. He had tried to escape from the prison that most human beings spent their lives building and maintaining and strengthening around their souls, everybody a prisoner and at the same time a guard. David had tried to live, so, of course, he must die.

‘Why did Mary quit her job?’ Mary’s mother asked Jack.

‘So she can get a better one,’ Jack replied. His eyes met Mary’s and she knew he was proud of the way he was covering up the appalling truth about the day that Mary had gone mad, as everybody put it, in the office, in the sacred workplace.

‘We invited Jack to stay the night,’ Mary’s mother told her quietly when the two women were in the kitchen. ‘You’ll share a room with him, won’t you? Even your father says it’s OK.’

‘I am not spending the night with Jack. We broke up. It’s over.’

‘Why not? He’s a good man. At least think twice about him. Look at how good he is compared to that crazy David. Jack would never make you so upset you got ill.’

‘No he wouldn’t,’ Mary conceded gloomily. But she still slept alone that night.

Next day, Jack and Mary drove to the shops with her parents. Mary pretended to be good. That night, Mary’s parents went to bed early, leaving her and Jack in front of the TV. Jack soon started trying to persuade Mary that they should get back together, but when he put his arm around her, she thrust it away angrily.

‘Don’t touch me. You and I are finished, and the sooner you accept that, the better.’

‘I know what the problem is. David taught you to like kinky sex, domination or whatever you call it, and you’re angry with me because I’m not even willing to try it.’

‘Yes. It’s like saying you don’t like oranges when you’ve never even seen one.’

‘I admit I was wrong, OK? Let’s give it a try. Tomorrow we’ll go to a hotel. After a great meal, we’ll experiment with domination. You teach me. I’m willing to learn.’

Mary was shocked, not so much by Jack’s idea as by the surge of lust that filled her, rushing through her like a cooling wind on a terribly hot day.

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s try that. But nothing now.’ She already had the feeling that Jack’s idea would not work out, that in fact it would be some kind of fiasco. But she was strong enough not to be afraid of fiascos, which at least had energy and life. Besides, she was curious. Nobody had ever dominated her except David. What would it be like to be tied and teased by another man?

Next day, after lunch, she said goodbye to her parents with relief on both sides, and then Jack drove his Rover and she followed him in her Golf. Since they both lived and worked in Leeds, it was convenient to stop at a hotel near Nottingham, where they had stayed before, in the days before Mary suddenly realised that Jack was the world centre of boredom.

When they arrived at the hotel, Mary carried the black plastic bag of items she had taken from David’s collection to their room, and she refused to be embarrassed by the curious glances it attracted. Certainly it was an unusual item of luggage for that expensive hotel where everything was so carefully designed to create a subdued atmosphere of lifeless good taste. She also refused to tell Jack what was in the bag, which excited his curiosity, and instead hurried him outside again. They did some shopping, then went to a Chinese restaurant and enjoyed a good meal. Back in their hotel room, Mary felt aroused, more by the situation than by Jack.

‘Now will you tell me what’s in that bag?’ he asked.

‘Domination gear,’ Mary replied, and emptied it out onto the bed.

‘Oh, my God. That’s frightening. This is obviously stuff you and David used. It looks so cruel. It’s terrible.’

‘Yes, but we don’t have to use all of it,’ said Mary. Jack’s reaction made her a little ashamed of having used these items, and it was natural for her to transform her shame into irritation. ‘We can just use these cords to tie me to the bed.’

‘Tie you to the bed. It’s so strange.’

‘You suggested this,’ Mary snapped.

‘Yes, but I was so afraid of losing you. Now that it comes to the crunch, I’m shocked all over again. It’s awesome. I’ve always been shocked by perversity.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Mary sighed, and opened a bottle of strong cider. She poured a glass and drank it quickly, desperate for alcohol to numb her sense of sickening disappointment and cruel betrayal. ‘You’ve tricked me, Jack. That’s horrible.’

‘I didn’t mean to trick you. It’s just that I hate to take advantage of you. An obsession with sado-masochism is surely a symptom of childhood trauma and deprivation. Wouldn’t it be better to consult a good psychologist?’

‘You can’t imagine how bloody awful you are. Couldn’t you just tie me up and spank me?’

‘I could never hurt and humiliate a woman like that.’

‘Well, how can you hurt and humiliate a woman? I’ll take whatever I can get.’

‘The very idea is disgusting.’

‘You can’t dominate me? All right then, I’ll just have to dominate you.’ Mary did not feel she was making a serious suggestion. Rather, she spoke out of her exasperation with Jack’s disapproval of her deepest desires.

‘You’ll dominate me?’ said Jack. ‘Really? That would at least be easier. You’re the expert, so it’d be more logical too.’