Chapter 21

Wednesday 13th to Sunday 17th January 1971

We arrived at the Chesterfield Hotel in a taxi, and she gasped. “Really? This hotel? I used to pass it often when I was homeless, and now ... I never thought then...”

I signed us in and we took the lift to the top floor and to the suite. Again she was in awe of the opulence of the room, her eyes sparkling. I was glad that Colette had given half the cost, for it was a very expensive suite for someone on my money, generous though my salary was.

The room was indeed luxurious, with a four poster bed in the bedroom area, and a three piece suite in the living area, a small dining table for two, and a sideboard. The bathroom was huge and the bath sinfully ornate. There was a bowl of fruit and some canapés on the sideboard.

I gestured to her to sit on the sofa, and I took an armchair.

“You were coming here alone? To all this?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I was coming here with Colette.”

Her face fell. “You’d given up on me then?”

“Two weeks and I’d heard nothing. I’d phoned your house and your mother said you weren’t there. Obviously she wouldn’t tell me where you were. I was very depressed. Colette told me I needed a break. This was it.”

“Colette?” she said with worry all over her face. “She gave up all this for me?”

“Yes,” I said with a smile. “She had a contingency plan – a boyfriend with plenty to offer her in Sheffield, if you follow my meaning.”

Her smile told me she did.

“But can you afford all this?”

“Colette is paying half,” I told her, “She insisted. A sort of late Christmas present.”

I paused, “Connie, would you have phoned me? Written?”

“I really don’t know,” she said reflectively. “I was destroyed when Penny showed me the photographs. I’ve been abused so often and I’d trusted you completely because you were so different, and suddenly you were as bad as all the others. I couldn’t cope with that.”

“But your father?”

“He didn’t comment but we were only there one day and he was away again. All there were at home were Penny, Mother and me, and Penny and I came back on New Year’s Day so she could be ready for school starting. I told Mother I ought to phone you and finish with you properly, but she put a stop to that. She said she would come over and help me collect my stuff one afternoon, and then I could phone that evening to give you your marching orders. I was so upset I just went along with it. I know you said she hated you, but I never realised how much.”

“So you might have got in touch?”

She shrugged. “I was so torn. I hated all your lies and how much you’d hurt Penny, but on the other hand, I wanted you so badly I didn’t care what you’d done, so eventually I think I would have, probably after Mother had been over to help me clear my stuff.”

“Eventually might have been too late.”

“Graham I am truly sorry, and I don’t know how I can make it right again.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t think we need any more apologies,” I said. “Sorry’s been said, and I have accepted it. As you say, the problem is how to make it right again.”

“Colette said that it hit you as hard as it did when Penny cut you off,” she said.

“Yes, that’s true,” I agreed. “I simply couldn’t believe it had happened again. I couldn’t understand why you should behave exactly like she did, after all, even if what Penny believed was true, what had I done to you?”

“You know that it will never happen again, don’t you?” she said quietly. “I won’t care what anyone tells me about you, I’ll always know I can trust you, and you’ll always be honest because that’s who you are. The lies came from somewhere else. I won’t be taken in again. In a way, it’s made that solid.”

“I don’t mind you having suspicions,” I replied. “It’s remembering to talk first and act second. That’s what counts.”

“I will always talk to you, but I don’t think you’ll ever give me reason to suspect you of anything.”

Little did she know, though at that time neither did I!

“I need to be sure of that,” I said, “and it will take time for me to be sure, but Colette said it was obvious to her from how despondent and depressed I became when you did not come back. I reacted exactly as I had with Penny, and Penny had been with me for over a year. You and I had been together only a week! She couldn’t understand how I couldn’t see it, since it was so obvious to everyone else.”

“I’m sorry?” she looked puzzled. “Colette said it was obvious? What was obvious?”

“That I’m hopelessly in love with you Connie. And she’s right. I am”

She jolted upright. “Graham, did you just say what I think you said?”

“If what you think I said is what I said, then yes, I did say that!” It was my standard response and I was starting to feel it was time to give it a rest.

“Stop it, Mr Lawyer!” she reproved me, “Tell me again.”

“I love you Connie.”

“Again?”

“Don’t push your luck! You heard!”

“After all the hurt I–”

“I wouldn’t have been so hurt and depressed if I didn’t love you so much. Look, you made a mistake. You’ve told me again and again how sorry you are. We forgive one another, it’s part of being human, being a couple. It means we put it behind us and try to move on without it.”

Guess what happened then? Yes, if there were tears in her eyes before, now she began to cry in earnest. What can you do? She was happy; at least I hoped so.

It turned out she was happy; she was smiling through her tears.

“I don’t deserve you,” she said.

“True,” I said with superior smile, and seeing her outrage immediately followed by guilt, I hurriedly followed it with “For goodness’ sake, Connie, stop this self abasement! You’ve been through ten kinds of hell in London and after, and you’ve come out strong. I’ve not had anything like the suffering you’ve been through, apart from a failed love affair with your sister, which compared with what you went through in this fair city, was peanuts. So let’s give it a rest, eh?

“I don’t know about that,” she said, “but I know I love you very much.”

“It’s just after two. Dinner is at seven. What shall we do to kill five hours?”

At last. She smiled an open, guilt-free smile. She then stood, kicked off her shoes, slipped off her jacket, pushed down her trousers, unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged it off. Now she was in her cream lace bra and briefs, her suspenders and dark stockings, but there was no posing, she reached behind and unclipped her bra, allowing it to fall forward to the plush carpet, slipped off her knickers bending to push them to her feet, when she stepped out of them. Then she stood before me, wearing a smile, stockings and suspender belt, and waited.

I smiled, looked her up and down as lustfully as I was expected to do, then surprised her by going to the bathroom and bringing out a bathrobe. She looked puzzled.

Then there was a knock at the door. She panicked and reached for the robe, which I devilishly snatched it out of reach.

“Come in!” I shouted and gave her the robe, which she hurriedly put on, turning her back as the door opened and a waiter came in with a bottle of champagne and some nibbles to add to the petits fours on the sideboard. Perhaps he got the merest flash of a stocking top.

I passed him a ten bob bit (as the new fangled seven sided fifty pence piece was called then; it replaced the ten shilling note in 1969 two years before we went decimal in February ‘71) as an exorbitant tip and he grovelled his thanks, stole another glance at Connie, the underwear strewn over the floor, almost suppressed a grin, and left.

“You bastard!” she hissed as the man left the room. She was bright red with embarrassment seeing her bra and knickers on the floor with her other clothes, but she couldn’t help laughing. She dropped the robe. “You need to be punished. Get to the bed and strip.”

I went. I stripped.

“Now bend over the bed and lie flat.” she ordered after I had lost all my clothes, and my penis had already begun to rise. I did as instructed, laying my upper body on the bed while standing, presenting my backside to her. I twisted to see what was to happen. A woman dressed only in a garter belt and stockings was going to punish me somehow. Sexy!

“Lie straight!” she barked, “You have no right to look.”

Again I obeyed. Then her hands were on my back, stroking down from my neck, thumbs on my spine and fingers on my sides. Over my bottom cheeks and down my thighs and calved to my ankles. Then up again, but this time her hard nipples pricked the back of my legs as she brushed them upwards over the backs of my knees and thighs. Now I was hard and excited: it was an unbelievable sensation, especially as those sharp points got to my upper thighs and made their way over my buttocks.

I was just thinking If this is punishment bring it on, when her hand came down hard on my left bottom cheek. I mean hard! It was not breathtaking pain, but a sharp sting. I sucked in a breath.

“You do not,” slap to right cheek, “Expose,” slap! “me to people,” slap! “bringing champagne,” slap! “and nibbles,” slap! “to our room!” Slap!

The slaps came on alternate cheeks, each harder than the last, they really stung but never unduly painful: very arousing.

Then her body was on my back and her nips were pressing on my back.

“Punishment over!” she said gaily, “Now I think you ought to fuck me.”

She stood, allowing me to climb onto the bed and lie on my stomach across the bed, adjusting my hard cock under me.

“I’m too badly injured to engage in carnal pursuits,” I groaned. “I need medicinal treatment, can you open that big bottle of medicine the nice man brought?”

She left and I turned over to watch her naked form and especially her buttocks as she bent to pick up the bottle. She stopped and turned to me.

“How do I do this?” she asked, brandishing the bottle, which was dripping from the ice it had been steeped in.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“Daddy always did it, I never paid attention.”

“Take the wiring off the cork, then put the napkin over the top of the bottle.”

“OK,” she said, doing it.

“Now hold the cork tightly through the napkin and twist the bottle until you feel the cork begin to rise, then let go the cork. It’ll come by itself.”

She did as instructed and with a muffled ‘pop’ the cork came out.

“Now pour,” I said. “Put the open end of the bottle over the glass and tilt–”

“OK, smart arse!” she said with a smiling pout. “I think I can manage to pour.”

She poured and the fizzy, frothy wine overflowed the glass all over the tray.

“Oh!” she gasped.

“Oh, yeah?” I said. “So you can manage to pour it, eh?”

“You want punishing again?” she asked affecting a snarl.

“Promises, promises,” I retorted. “Just pour the wine, I was about to say – verry gently.”

She scowled at me, then brought the glasses over to me, setting them at the side of the bed on the cabinet.