Chapter 8

Instead of getting easier, coping with my demons became harder. Months passed slowly, and with time the secret guilt and less secret sadness seemed to escalate until they became too much handle. I kept on hitting rock-bottom, I was losing weight and spending all my time stoned or tripping. In rare moments of clarity, I realised I would have to find some form of psychoanalysis, or a stimulus that was both physically and mentally extraordinary, a sharp enough lesson, reminder, shock, to halt my decline. I couldn't specify exactly what I needed, and certainly not to anybody but myself, but I began to understand in principal what lesson it might be. I didn't want to admit I was going as mental as I felt, so I deliberately avoided the medical route, paranoid that they might try to get me certified.

Sarah had unlocked a deeply hidden part of psyche and exposed it to things that without her I could not have understood at all. I was able to recognise the strange, intense physical cravings that followed rather than preceded sex with Ed and his friends; even the druggie, near gangbang orgies I had begun to indulge in lately. Ed and I had always been a very sexual couple, and it seemed natural that with a large house and lots of money to play with, we would expand our horizons. Neither of us had a particularly jealous nature, and when opportunities came up to play with other sexy couples, or more often men, I was encouraged but not coerced to spread my favours. The shallow excitement off random stoned couplings distracted me from my troubles, but mindless hetero sex could barely touch and certainly not satisfy my desire for fiercer sensations to counter the numbness and despair. Sarah had found me out as a genuine submissive masochist and lesbian. Beneath the dollybird suburban Miss, she had discovered a pervy pain-slut, the punishment seeking greedy-girl who lived inside Jill Gaskell.

I became a willing courtesan, or to be brutal, groupie to Ed's growing coterie of rock music buddies, and because sex with men no longer worked for me on an emotional level, however much I indulged, it didn't even feel like I was betraying Sarah. I was just rather inadequately scratching an itch. Once sufficiently out of my head, I would readily suck cocks, swallow spunk, get fucked in ones, twos, threes and more; let them, even encourage them to bugger me at a time when anal sex was still an unmentionable thing, partly because of the pain element, partly because their thrill at doing me that way increased my limited excitement. All of which understandably made me much sought after at gigs and at parties, and fed the beast inside sufficiently for me survive, while doing terrible long-term damage to my self-respect.

Perhaps it was Ed's revenge on me for leaving him. He said he loved me, but he was keen enough to share my body with all and sundry. He said that I only had to say no, but 'no' was not a word that I used much or with any conviction. Just occasionally, when I was stoned enough and the sex was better than usual, it was good enough to blank out the pain of loss for a few hours.

We saw the 1960's out and the 1970's with a huge party, a last hurrah for my old family home before contracts were exchanged and I moved out of the house in which I was born. At midnight I heard Big Ben's bongs while I was on my knees in a dark corner of the lounge, a cock down my throat. By the time they were singing 'Auld Lang Syne, ' I was back on my feet swallowing a mouthful of spunk, and dancing. I was as mad as I've ever been that night. All I had to do was look at a man and crook my finger, and I was getting fucked again. At 1am, in a bedroom, I had two strangers inside me, at 2am I was getting a slap round the face from a jealous girlfriend. Instead of bringing me to my senses, the pain from the sharp blow made me worse.

"Is that your best shot?" I goaded the vengeful girl, and got another slap for my nerve. I loved it. It made me feel more alive than all the fucking and sucking.

"What's wrong?" Ed burst in, trying to save the day.

"Nothing's wrong ... she's just giving me what I deserve!" I told him, and thrust my face forward for another blow, which was forthcoming.

We were all so drunk and high it was suddenly like a whole new game.

"He was a crap fuck anyway," I said, spitefully, hoping it would lead to more pain. "Even you'd be better than him!" I got my wish; more slaps.

She was right inside my game now, and somehow she knew it. Our eyes were sparking and firing, hatred from her, desire from me.

"Why don't you fuck me too, then you'll be even Stevens," I laughed, tasting blood in my mouth.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Right, I bloody well will!" the girl exclaimed.

A ragged cheer rang out from those in the crowd who'd been paying attention. "Not here - upstairs," I said, pre-empting her doubts about a giving the lads a public display.

She was rough, unskilled and still wanted to hurt me. I didn't object. It was the best sex I'd had since Sarah. In the end, after she'd she made me come so hard I screamed - which rather shocked her - she became very sweet. I chopped out fresh lines of coke for both of us, and using my more experienced tongue and fingers gave her something else to think about too. Eventually, we went back downstairs and re-joined our partners, holding hands and grinning in complicity. She'd just told me I was much better in bed than her boyfriend, and we'd made a date to meet again, which I broke.

So that was how I came out as bisexual, halfway to the truth, though I didn't let Ed push me any further in that direction for a while. One drunken New Year's fumble was forgivable to my twisted morals, an actual affair with any other girl than Sarah was not, not then, even if it gave me more than all the men put together.

I knew I had to do something significant before I went completely mad, got the clap, or died of an overdose. The party set off a distinct train of thought. For one thing it had confirmed that I genuinely preferred sex with women, which together with my dark instinct for sexual perversion gradually gave birth to an idea that then festered in my imagination for many months. There were logical reasons to support my budding scheme, more than just sex. It would connect me with Sarah, in spirit if not in fact, it might conceivably establish a line of communication against the time when she freed herself from her parents. Almost exactly a year after my affair with Sarah had been abruptly severed, I made up my mind at last.

I would track down Margaret, the older woman, the cold-voiced dominatrix about whom my cousin had often spoken with marked ambivalence, who seemed to have resented her gentler affair Edie, but taught her how to stimulate me like no-one else ever had. Sarah had told me many things about Margaret that reached into my present pain. Margaret, with her floggers and ropes, her cuffs and dildos, was the only person I could think of who might be able to provide, or perhaps steer me towards the type of sex for which I furtively but ever-increasingly hungered. She was a woman, and she was a dominatrix, and in my increasingly perverted and wishful thinking, I persuaded myself that Margaret would want to punish me for what had happened, for interfering with her cosy little Sapphic idyll, and in the ensuing chastisement I might find some kind of martyred absolution. Failing that, she would surely know someone else who might help. Or even - hope forlorn - help me to get Sarah back! A silly, disturbed scenario, but soon I could think of little else

It wouldn't be hard to find her. I knew that Edie's surname was Parr, and that she lived not far from Sarah. A little simple detective work would surely lead me to her mistress. Ed had found me in France with far less information.

Once I had made my mind up, it became an obsession. As luck would have it Ed was going on tour to the US with the band he now managed. They had just signed a four album deal with Elektra and the tour could lead to live breakthrough. he'd be away for at least six weeks. Perversely I was sad to see him go, even though it freed me to carry out my plans, but the day he left I drove straight up to Cambridge, having already booked a week at the University Arms hotel near Parker's Piece, where Sarah and I had walked and laughed together last year. There were several Parrs in the phone book, but only one on Chesterton Road. A map of the town from a newsagent soon led me to Edie's parents' house.

I reasoned that even if she was at university by now, which was her parents' plan, it was summer vacation, and she would quite likely be home. I parked my Mini within sight of the Parr's driveway, and waited with a dogged patience I never knew I possessed. At about 5.30pm on the second day, I saw a small pretty teenage girl with feathery blonde hair framing her doll-like face, wearing a pink mini-skirt and strolling down the road swinging her handbag idly, then veering into the Parr's short driveway. She opened the front door with a key she took from her handbag. A middle-aged man drove a Wolseley saloon car into the driveway just after six o'clock. I waited until midnight before leaving. The girl was still inside, and she matched Sarah's description. Ergo, it was Edie. The following day I began to follow my prey; I learned her routine. She had a job in an architect's office on Hills Road, she took the mail to a sub-post office at four o'clock. As she did not leave the office at lunchtime, I deduced that she ate sandwiches.

Driving the roads that Sarah and I had walked last summer made me feel very strange. I longed for her so sharply that on the third day, while I knew Edie was at work, and later, after she had gone home, I drove the few hundred yards to Florian Avenue, and watched there too. I did it until I'd seen the entire family about their business, several times, except Sarah. The emptiness in my heart drove me back to Chesterton Road each morning.

On the fourth night of surveillance, Edie left home at about seven o'clock in the evening and caught the Wisbech bus. I dashed back to my Mini, and after a bit of reckless speeding caught up with it. About five miles from Cambridge, the bus halted at a lonely country crossroads, and Edie disembarked. I drove past as slowly as I dared, keeping sight of her in the mirror. She turned down the narrow lane that crossed the main road, signposted Elvestone 11/2, and began to walk briskly towards the shadow of some woods. I rolled on a couple of hundred yards and parked on the verge. Feeling scared and excited, I trotted back until I could see down the lane. Edie was in the distance, still walking. I climbed a gate, and scurried down the edge of the field, fortuitously hidden from the lane by a thick hedge.

I caught a glimpse of Edie's mini-skirt, sky blue today, as she closed a five bar gate across a rutted track into the woods on the other side of the lane. I spied through the leaves and twigs until she was out of sight, then found the nearest gate and followed her. There were tall, mature beech trees on either side of the track, with tangles of ivy on those most shaded. Clouds had covered the sun, and a premature dusk was falling. The canopy of summer-heavy trees made it darker still. It was a little spooky, and I shivered. Ahead, through the trees I saw the walls of small Victorian gothic yellowy-grey brick house protected by a high picket fence, nestled in a bare-earthed clearing. A wooden sign nailed roughly to a tree by the track enigmatically read 'Keepers'.

To the right of the house was a large, solidly built clinkered shed, or small barn. To the left a dark green Landrover was parked beneath a flimsy lean-to. I crept up the track to the edge of the clearing and hid behind a tree. A door closed. Edie was inside. I felt a premonitory quiver of arousal and knew in my heart that Sarah been here, this was where my beloved had come to learn those sophisticated, decadent, delicious games she had taught me.

After a while, I climbed over the gate and crept closer to the house, afraid that any broken twig might alert the occupants. The downstairs windows were shuttered heavily from within, but when I was as near as possible, I could just hear the murmur of voices. Then, as time passed I heard other noises too, muffled sounds and faint cries that penetrated my soul. I stayed near the window for a long time, listening, yearning moistly for unknown pleasures. After a while I retreated to the woods and waited, a hand down my knickers, teasing myself with the results of my fervid imagination.

Just before midnight, the front door opened, and in the waning moonlight I saw a tall figure supporting Edie to the lean-to garage. The woman, Margaret I could safely assume, assisted her charge into the passenger seat of the Landrover, and then I had to lay flat in the sharply sweet primeval smelling leaf mould as they drove away. The headlight beams swung around the clearing and thankfully missed me. Once the Landrover was out of sight, I ran like the wind back to my own car, suddenly scared of the dark and the encroaching forest, and drove back to Cambridge. The Landrover was now parked in front of Edie's house. I drew up around the corner, and crept quickly along the hedge until I was within sight of them. They were both still in the cab of the vehicle, I could see their heads moving as they talked. The passenger door opened, and I just heard Edie's tired slur.

"G'night, Mistress." I saw her lean across and kiss the driver.

Quite apart from the impact of the word 'Mistress', with all that it implied, the kiss lasted much longer than if one were just kissing a friend goodbye, and certainly if the friends were both of the same sex. Edie stumbled a little, but made it to her front door safely, and let herself in.

I returned the next day just before the time my target returned from work, and waited. She came home, went in, and stayed in. It was the same the next night. On the sixth day of my vigil, a Saturday, with my week at the University Arms coming to an end, she left the house at 2pm, on foot, by herself, and wearing an expression that was now familiar to me; of self-absorbed sexy excitement. She literally skipped towards the bus stop. I jumped out of the Mini and ran, catching her up in a couple of seconds, and thrust myself in front of her. She looked up at me, mouth open in mild surprise. I put up a hand to halt her, and looked into her eyes.

"Hello Edie, you may have heard of me, I'm Sarah's cousin, Jill."

She literally jumped, let out a little shriek and made as if to bolt. I grabbed one of her wrists tightly as she tried to scoot past me. I was like a desperate junkie scenting a fix. Waiting had sharpened my yearning to a scalpel's edge. I would do anything to get what I wanted. Anything! This was the girl who had read the signs in my cousin, who had seduced her, and introduced her to her own mentor. Close up, she was pinkly, girlishly pretty and petite, not my type - if I had a type yet when it came to girls - but with a definably sexual air about her. I wondered if her parents had any idea what their daughter got up to in her spare time.

"Oh Christ ... so you're the one!" She squawked, giving up her brief struggle. "Where's Sarah?" I couldn't help asking.

"She left home at Christmas, thanks to you. I ... I don't know where she is. And if I did I wouldn't tell you!" Replied Edie shrilly.

I suspected she was lying, and felt the brief mad urge to beat the truth out of her in broad daylight. Controlling myself, I reverted to the original plan.

"In that case, all I want from you is ... I need to see Margaret." I said roughly.

"Wh ... why?" she stammered, shaken, but not questioning that I knew about the older woman.

"Sarah told me ... about things Margaret does ... I need ... Oh fuck, I can't explain it to you, I just have to see her, OK?"

I was losing my composure, bravado melting as my imagination began to bully all thoughts from my head but those of humiliation, debasement, of sexual pain, of punishment and, just possibly, ecstatic redemption.

"She'll be ... I can't just ... She'll be so angry ... How dare you! Oh god, oh god, why did you come? Why did you mess everything up with Sarah? You spoiled it all! We hate you!" I very quickly deduced that Edie was the quick-tempered childish femme to Margaret's more controlled butch.

So Margaret hated me, just as I thought, and yet I knew I would offer myself to her. I would stand before her and beg her to do whatever she thought was fitting retribution for stealing their playmate.

"I don't blame you for hating me." I fixed her with my sincerest gaze. "As far as I'm concerned she can punish me all she likes for what I did. In fact ... I ... I want her to." I said, finishing suddenly, in a husky whisper.

"Oh ... so it's like that..." Edie responded, catching on at last.

Now her expression was different. As well as spite there was already a sensual curiosity, and I might have imagined it, some slight complicity too.

I drove us to the woods, parked in front of the Landrover, and shortly I entered Margaret's house, the house in the woods, for the first time, heart full of foreboding, fearful that I was making a massive mistake, but unable to stop myself. Whatever its original use; the house was now clearly the residence of an academic. There were doors to the left and right of the tiny hall, and the stairs rose directly in front of me. I was pushed through the left hand door into a long room, which seemed to have been made out two, and now reached from the front to the back of the house. The right hand wall and the chimney alcoves opposite were lined with books from red quarry-tiled, slightly sunken floor to plain white ceiling. There thick, brightly coloured ethnic rugs and a large open fireplace. Where the two rooms had been joined there was a heavy ceiling beam, with two slim iron supporting pillars. At the far end stood a roll-top desk and a pair of antique dining chairs. French doors opened into a backyard, or patio. My senses were so alert I took in every tiny detail.

"Margaret - this is the thieving bitch who stole Sarah!" Edie hissed. "Can you believe it? She held me up on the street like a ... like a mugger! And now she's come whining to you!"

A rangy female figure unwound itself from the deep leather sofa that filled the front window bay. She wore a beautifully tailored tweed two-piece suit and a crisp white blouse. I guessed she was in her early thirties, but there was something ageless about her. She looked like a smarter younger version of the archetypal female university Don. Her face was angular, severely attractive with high cheekbones, a long slightly Roman nose, and strong jaw line, all darkly framed by an unusual, boyish, side-parted hairstyle; the makeup she wore was discreetly applied, and subtly prevented her from looking too masculine.

When she rose, she was as tall as Sarah, with wide shoulders, thickish waist, small bust, and a large bottom. Her slightly stooping figure was not classic, but the cut of the suit seemed to balance everything. Her eyes drew and repelled me. They were a bright pale brown, fiendishly intelligent, as cold as I had expected from the brief exposure I had had to her voice, and utterly without fear or mercy. I could see immediately why she and Sarah had been attracted and why they clashed, they were two big strong women with entirely their own minds, even though one of them was still a teenager. I glanced at Edie; she was watching Margaret, lips moistened by the tip of her darting tongue, which she then lightly, sexily bit between sharp white teeth. There was a hectic flush on her cheeks, and adoration in her eyes. That was how I had looked at Sarah. I almost wept to recognise that kind of love again.

Margaret strode firmly to me on brogued feet, and stood just inches away, hands on her hips, looking hard into my face with her freezing hot eyes. I tried not to flinch. There was a sharp movement, blurred by speed.

Smack!

She had open-handedly slapped the left side of my face! And then, before I could react:

Smack!

My right cheek burned too. Hot tears sprang to my eyes as pain blossomed, but I stood my ground. For the first time since New Year's Eve, I felt a searing hot gush of intense arousal. Despite the all the sex I'd had with Ed and his pals, and even though I generally climaxed, it felt meaningless compared to making love with Sarah. Now I was teetering on the brink of great danger, and this time I fell eagerly, headlong. I moaned, lips parting slightly; tongue tip protruding, in unconscious imitation of Edie.

"So that's how it is," said Margaret, echoing her lover. She stepped back and steepled long, strong fingers under her chin. I could hear Edie's breathing, fast almost panting. I was into something I might very well regret, but found myself powerless to halt.

Margaret reached out, gently cupping my left breast, bra-less and tender in a tight t-shirt. The touch of her fingers was warm, and light, and infinitely erotic. She drew the fingers slowly together over the firm mound, and slowly squeezed my already stiffening nipple between forefinger and thumb. The pain began, and made me gasp, perversely leaning towards its source. Margaret did not let go but squeezed harder, and smiled as she began to cruelly pull and twist the sensitive flesh. Flushing hotly, a tiny moan escaped my lips. The gusset of my pants was now sodden.