‘Maybe one day. But not now. It’s too soon. I don’t know you well enough, and you obviously don’t know me well enough, or you wouldn’t have accused me of conspiring to ruin your life with Will.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He looked away up to the stars, his brow knitted tight. ‘I’m good at fucking up my own life, aren’t I?’
‘I didn’t say I wanted to leave you. I don’t want to leave you. I said I loved you and I do. I can’t walk away now.’
‘But you’re going to. You’re going to walk all the way to the South Coast pretendy-history place when you could come to France with me and load my clapperboard.’
‘I’d love to load your clapperboard, Jasper, but it’s not what I’ve always dreamed of.’
‘And fannying about in Victorian houses is? Yes. I know. You’re an
awkward little specimen, aren’t you?’
‘Love doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you know. You think that if I loved you I’d give up everything to be with you. But would you give up your directing career to be with me? Or would you try to find a way of doing both?’
He inhaled tetchily.
‘You’re so fucking sane,’ he said. ‘I can’t argue with you. OK, Sarah. Whatever you want. However you want to play this. Just as long as I get to keep hold of you. That’s what we’ll do. All right?’
‘You can keep hold of me for as long as you want.’
‘Well, that’s the best news I’ve had all day.’ He bent to kiss my cheek and we watched the fire die.
‘Better than …?’
‘The best,’ he repeated firmly.
He stood up and tried to pull me up after him, but his ribs obviously ached and he put a hand to them.
‘Christ, woman, you pack a serious punch.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You realise I’m going to have to punish you for that?’
I tensed my sore bottom. Not tonight, I hoped.
He chuckled at my dismay and patted my bum proprietorially.
‘I’ll leave it a few days, I think,’ he said. ‘Give you plenty of time for anticipation. And me plenty of time for creative thinking.’
‘Oh, God, I know all about your creative thinking.’
He opened the back door and ushered me into the house.
‘You don’t know the half of it, darling.’
One week later, I stood in one corner of Jasper’s bedroom with my nose in the spot where the two walls adjoined.
I’d been there a while, and my attention was starting to wander, my eyes sliding towards the window and looking out at the brightness beyond. It seemed strange to be standing here like this, with a bare bottom and a cane propped between my cheeks, when outside the oblivious birds were singing and a careless sun shone.
That cane was supposed to focus my mind and make me concentrate on what was to come. I was focused all right, but distracted too by the tight clutch of my corset and the way it pushed my breasts almost all the way up into my face. Despite my Victoriana fantasies, I don’t think I’d have coped with wearing one of these on a daily basis.
I had been listening for footsteps so long that my ears had tired, but every little tap or clock chime from downstairs made me jump. When he had placed me here, he had not said how long I would have to wait. Perhaps it would be hours. All I knew was that I was not allowed to move and that eventually that little crook handle resting in my cleft was going to be picked up and used in a way I wasn’t going to like. At the time.
My thoughts drifted to the week that had passed. There had been very little in the way of kink but a lot in the way of lying in each other’s arms and talking. And sex. Lots of that, if mostly of the vanilla variety. We were both exhausted and even Jasper’s imagination needed a sabbatical sometimes. But now it seemed it was back and firing on all cylinders.
My body had relaxed a little during this reverie, but an unmistakable creak of the stair brought it back to full alert. Stomach in, shoulders back, legs straight. He was coming.