Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission (16 page)

Then she realised, the beard was just a sign. The real change was in his eyes.

Again, on one level these were the same, odd, hazel eyes, one pupil larger than the other, that had always been there
—
but they had never looked at her as they did now. Sometimes there had been hostility towards her, but from the first moment that Daniel Logan had seen her there had always been a flickering of desire, desire that so often since had blossomed as flourishing lust.

They were necessarily cold or contemptuous now, but they were closed to her.

“What do you think?” he asked, rubbing his chin with his fingers.

It was her turn not to reply. She wanted to shout out: I don’t like it. Grow it back! But she couldn’t speak. Her throat was tight, constricted as she watched him.

With a shrug, he walked past her out of the bathroom. She followed him, and saw him walk towards the wardrobe. For a second, he pulled an almost comical look of concentration as he fished behind the large, wooden structure, then she saw him pull out a key. When he opened the door, she was now not entirely surprised to see that the wardrobe was filled with suits and much more urbane clothes than those he had worn during the previous week.

He smiled at her
—
but the smile was guarded, cautious.

“It was fun while it lasted, don’t you think?” he said, reaching into the wardrobe for a white shirt which he began to pull across his shoulders.

What have I done wrong? Kris cried silently inside herself. Should I have resisted you more? Not given you what you wanted? Would that have made you need me more?

“I... I don’t have to go,” she told him in a quiet voice. “I could go to Dalrigh, phone them at work, spend a little more time here...”

He shook his head. For a second she thought she saw sadness in his eyes, real regret. But then he closed down again.

“No, that won’t be possible,” he said, his tones clipped and even callous once more. “I’m afraid real life calls
—
for me if not for you.”

“I thought you said our desires were real.”

At least he had the decency to look embarrassed at that. “Well, necessity then.” He was pulling on dark trousers now, the fabric rich and much more expensive than anything she had seen him in before, followed by a jacket.

Standing before her, he appeared more or less the vision of the perfect model, the suit cut to his broad shoulders exquisitely, flared in a little to emphasise his trim waist and hips, his legs even longer in the dark material. And he looked utterly cold and unreal to her.

“I don’t... I don’t know what to say,” she started to speak, her mouth forming into a sobbing wreck.

He crossed to her quickly. His eyes were cold now, calculating. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You knew deep down this day had to come. Let’s get it over and done with now. Don’t make a scene. Please. For your own sake, not mine.”

He was now almost fully dressed, pausing only to take out a pair of brightly shining, black leather shoes. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put them and socks on his feet. Kris, still naked, her body crumpling in on itself slightly, her shoulders stooped forward and one hand unconsciously half-covering her breasts, the other across her pubis, watched him miserably.

“Is that old Land Rover of yours part of the act as well?” she asked.

“Not an act,” he said casually. “It’s more convenient here. But I’ll drive it down to Oban, leave it there before I fly on to Glasgow.”

“And where then?” she asked. He did not reply.

She paused. “Alfama,” she said, her voice low but the word pronounced loudly enough for him to hear her. Lacing up the second shoe, he froze for a moment and, for a second
—
less than a second even
—
his eyes flickered up and she saw something other than coldness in them. But then he returned his attention to his elegantly clad foot.

“Why on earth do you want to say that?” he asked.

“I don’t like this game,” she told him. “I want you to stop it. I want things to go back to how they were before.”

For a moment she was sure that his face reddened, but then he struggled to control his emotion. “It’s not a game. In any case, if you remember our agreement, the second time you used that word, things were over in any case. That was the law, remember.”

Then he stood up and walked past her, out of the room.

She wanted to scream at him, to shout at him, call him every name under the sun. Why are you doing this, you bastard? she wanted to howl. Why are you abandoning me
—
and why now? She was starting to collapse in on herself.

“You can leave when you’re ready,” he heard her call up. “Don’t worry about locking up. I’ve never used a key for Comrie. Nothing worth stealing here, and the place is far too desolate to appeal to your modern squatter.”

“Don’t go, please don’t go,” Kris said quietly. Her pride now would not allow her to call out, nor would it allow her to cry. Her eyes were burning red, but she refused to let her tears fall, for all that they seared her skin. Yet those few words could not help escaping.

Yet one tear did fall across her cheek, jolted from her when the front door suddenly banged and she jumped up. Running downstairs, she rushed to the front door and, still utterly naked, opened it to see Daniel climbing into the Land Rover. She was utterly torn then, her pride nailing her to the spot, preventing her from fleeing outside without any clothes on, flinging herself before the vehicle, humiliating herself completely, abjectly. Instead, she stood there and watched him drive away.

When, at last, the vehicle had crossed over the ridge that blocked any sight of Comrie from the main road, she turned and, utterly desolate, returned into the croft. She was crying now
—
could not help it. It didn’t matter in any case. There was no one here now to witness her absolute misery. She hated him for this, hated him and failed to understand how on earth he could behave this way.

Stumbling into the living room, she saw her keys placed on her drawing pad.

For an hour she had sat at Comrie, utterly miserable. For a while, she had even been unable to wash or dress, only covering herself when it was quite clear that Daniel wasn’t going to return. The love bites and scratches on her body, the bruises between her thighs where they had thrown themselves at each other, each of these marks now were accusations that all their passion was unreal.

Her tears had been brief. Anger and disgust were her overriding emotions now as she picked up the clothes she had brought with her, finally stuffing the pad into her bag and picking up her keys to leave. She had considered leaving it behind, but the drawings of the birdman, the swan and Leda, her own Loplop would, she suspected, become more important to her than this selfish, stupid man who had crashed across her life and then left. She could feel the old armour prickling over her body again, her limbs encrusting with their subtle defences, but it was not the same: more than anything now, she felt defiant. She had created, that was what was most important, and she would create again.

The return to Dalrigh was bittersweet. She had come to this place expecting nothing, and though she was full of indignation at the moment she also knew that she had received much more than she could fully realise now. It would take time and reflection to
understand
fully what had happened here.

She was grateful that the place was so sparsely populated. As she collected her things and packed up, she was sure that the few inhabitants around Dalrigh such as Mary would be full of gossip about the visitor from London and her disappearance, but then she never had to come here again. The only person who mattered had gone, and more than anything at the moment she hated him.

The journey to the ferry would, under different circumstances, have been a pleasant one. The day was bright, and even the one shower that burst over the boat as it crossed to Oban was fresh. Yet she was stiff and buttoned up inside herself now. Whenever she closed her eyes images of Daniel appeared before her, his muscular body, his hands grasping hold of her, taking her, penetrating her. Great, she thought to herself wryly. A new flashback to replace the one that had so fucked her up before. She understood entirely the meaning of this one, however: it would just be something that she had to deal with.

She did not rest on the way back to London, other than to grab cursory meals on the way. As such, the long, long drive was exhausting and she did not arrive back at her flat in north London until the early hours of the next day. She was strangely buoyant, however. This particular feat had pushed her harder and longer than she expected herself capable of, like so many things that had happened on the previous two weeks.

Not that she was particularly glad to be home. Her small apartment
—
with its solitary bedroom and poky living area and kitchen
—
was much smaller than Comrie, which itself was hardly palatial. Nonetheless, she smiled grimly to herself: because he was married, Mark had often insisted that they meet here (which fact did not prevent him making disparaging comments about her living arrangements). Before going to Scotland, she had mooned around the place, seeing him sitting in a chair or lying in the bed, waiting for her to bring him a meal. Whatever else the two weeks had done for her, they had revealed Mark Travis for precisely the little man that he was in every sense of the word.

She would still have to face him, however. She had one final day of freedom, time to sort out the mundane features of real life. Stripping off her clothes, which felt soiled with a more metaphysical than real dirt, she lay in bed and tried to sleep. It would not come for a long time, however. Instead, she turned from side to side. Her body ached
—
sometimes a yearning irritation in her limbs and also inside her, and despite herself she could not stop imagining Daniel’s fingers upon her, his arms around. Great. Now her bloody fantasies weren’t even tied to one location, but would accompany her wherever she would go. Eventually, however, after crying a little and then reprimanding herself angrily for being so stupid, she did manage to drift off. She was grateful that, this time at least, her sleep was dreamless.

Her limbs were truly stiff and
tingling
when she woke up. Rest had provided some relief, but she realised just how much she had pushed herself
—
and how much she had been pushed to the limits of her endurance
—
over the previous days. In particular, it really hurt when she walked and, when she sat down on the loo, her urine stung her bitterly. Damn! It was sore down there.

Kris was hardly sexually inexperienced, but for nearly two years she had only had sex
—
fitfully at that
—
with one man before her vacation. She had fallen out of practice. As she turned over some of the conversations between herself and Daniel over the previous days in her mind, she felt a sense of foreboding about some of the assumptions she had made about him. The truth was, she had very little real knowledge about him. Her old censor quickly closed in over her mind again: that was what she’d always been good at
—
blocking out unwanted thoughts.

A bath cheered her up considerably, and also provided much welcome relief to her body. Looking at herself in the mirror,
she saw that
the marks on her body were becoming slightly ugly brown blotches. Covering a couple of the more obvious ones around her neck with foundation, she dressed herself in a T-shirt and jeans and picked up Anne’s keys.

“How was it? Sorry! I know it was probably a mess. I’m such a slob, especially when I see how tidy you keep your place.” Although it was the middle of the day when Kris had knocked on Anne’s door, it was plain that her friend had only just stumbled out of bed, her makeup-less face bleary with sleep and her hair looking like a blond haystack. She made a cup of coffee for Kris, which
the other woman looked at
warily before she took a sip, more out of politeness than anything else. They had been friends at Saint Martins, and Kris had to admit that her friend, who had somehow managed to maintain something close to their earlier bohemian lifestyle, including working successfully as a freelance illustrator, sometimes caused her to feel just the slightest twinge of envy. Nonetheless, Anne was so generous with her friendship, it was impossible to maintain negative thoughts towards her for long.

“It was fine, really. It was just what I... needed.” As she spoke, a sharp pang stabbed Kris in the chest. It suddenly occurred to her that her lie hid a deeper truth. Anne, however, saw immediately that all was not well.

“Oh, sweetie!” she consoled, coming and sitting beside Kris on the sofa. “I can see that it didn’t sort everything out, but don’t let that bastard get to you!”

“Who?” Kris’s head shot up, her eyes searching Anne’s face for any knowledge she might be able to provide.

“Mark, of course!” At this, Kris had to stifle a laugh, which Anne misinterpreted as a choking sob. Pulling a tissue from a box on the table, she offered it to her friend.

“No, really,” Kris responded, gently resisting Anne’s kind hand. “It’s okay, really. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to deal with Mark. You know how these things are
—
they just take a bit of time, that’s all.”