‘I should have known there’d be remorse. I wasn’t expecting it to kick in so quickly, though. What’s good for sexual remorse? Tea?’
Adam could barely see through the fog of exhaustion swirling behind his eyes.
‘Sleep,’ he suggested. And that was the last word of the conversation.
Somehow, Adam couldn’t leave the house. He thought about staying away, about giving Julia a wide berth, but every night of that sultry July, he ended up back at the manor, in her bed.
What was it he felt for her? He couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t think it was love, because when they were apart, he barely thought of her at all. Indeed, at his desk in the vicarage, all his thoughts were of Evie, of what she might be doing in France, of how they would be together when she returned.
She sent him emails every day and he treasured them, although they were no more than little notes, full of trivial detail about her days. She never referred to her promise that they would be lovers. Perhaps she had forgotten she ever made it.
He would read and write sermons and visit the sick and tend to his other parishes and eat the tea Mrs Witts had cooked for him. Then, as soon as the sun began to sink in the sky, something would draw him out towards the manor house and Julia.
Nobody seemed to realise she was squatting, for she lived there completely undisturbed. He spent every night in her bed; she taught him every position imaginable and some that weren’t. He was an eager learner, somehow able to sublimate the guilt for as long as he was with her, though it always hit him with ugly force as soon as he was outside the manor house gates.
His skills were considerable now, in the last week of July, days before Evie’s return. He knew where Julia’s G-spot was and how to stimulate it. He knew the best positions for deep penetration. He had explored endless variations on where to put his hands and his mouth while his cock was sunk deep inside her cunt. He could identify the first stirrings of her orgasm, and he could facilitate it or frustrate it at will.
Her initial control of the situation was waning. He knew how to give to her, and he knew how to take away. She, it seemed, was quite under his spell and he enjoyed the power of it.
Climbing over the broken section of wall for the last night before its rightful owners’ return, he pondered the possibilities. They had ransacked the toy room and tried out the vibrators, massagers, probes, plugs, paddles, shackles in various combinations over the last fortnight. Adam had gone from a man who didn’t know what clover clamps were to a man who knew exactly how to apply pressure to the most exquisitely tormenting effect during the course of their use. He pictured them on Evie’s fat brown nipples while she stood on tiptoe, suspended by fine chains from a ceiling hook. He would have a riding crop and smack it down on her bum while she twisted and moaned. Then perhaps he would fuck her with it until she came, multiple times in succession. Her eyes would roll like Julia’s did and he would kiss her body all over and take her down and carry her to the bed, setting her down tenderly before rubbing in more of that cream.
He was hard before he reached the door.
He pushed it open, finding it on the latch, and peered around the hallway.
‘Julia.’
He took a few steps inside, then suddenly a figure leapt on to his back from behind and slipped a blindfold over his eyes.
‘What on Earth … Julia …’
‘Yes, lover.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Surprising you.’
‘Consider me surprised. Can I take this off now?’
‘No, keep it on. It’s the last night before those impostors come home and I want to make the most of it. I want to feast on you. Take me upstairs.’
‘I can’t see,’ he objected. ‘You’ll have to get down.’
‘Oh.’ She climbed off his back and took him by the hand, leading him away. ‘I’ve got so many treats lined up for you tonight.’
‘Are you really going to leave tomorrow?’ he said hopefully, dreading a huge scene between Julia and the pornographers.
‘No, I’m not. But I suppose you will. I’ll miss you.’
Adam was silent as they walked along the landing towards the room Julia had reclaimed as her own. Things were going to change. This peculiar idyll was drawing to its close.
He heard her shut the door behind them, then she pressed herself against him and fed him with her kisses, which he devoured without second thought. Her hand reached for his dog collar, ripping it off, exposing his throat. He let her undress him, still joined at the lips, and made no demur when she laid him backwards on the bed.
She warmed him up with a thousand little tricks of fingers and mouth on his straining cock, until he bucked upwards into her face, begging to fuck her.
‘I want to tie you up first,’ she said.
‘You? Tie me?’