The Mistress Contract

‘You’ve got a fever. I’m calling the doctor,’ Maisie said firmly.

She heard Maisie speak, but it was too much effort to answer, and it was the same through the doctor’s visit. She was aware of people in the room, but it was as though they were at the end of a long foggy corridor, and although she struggled to answer the questions put to her she wasn’t at all sure she was making sense.

‘Shouldn’t be left alone…’ The odd few words filtered through the pounding in her head. ‘…need me, don’t hesitate to call.’ She tried to sit up and protest that she would be perfectly all right if only everyone would go, but the room started to revolve into a spinning kaleidoscope of colour and sound that took the last of her strength with it.

The next twenty-four hours passed in a blur of images and weird disjointed dreams. She thought she heard Conrad’s voice at one point, and then Maisie, if not exactly shouting, then coming pretty near to it. She was conscious of trying to claw her way out of a deep abyss, but every time she thought she was going to make it it all got too much, and the world became narrowed down to a thick heavy blanket that drew her down and down…

When she did finally awake properly she lay for some moments without opening her eyes, aware that the terrifying headache was gone, along with the swirling voices and distorted images which had populated her head. She felt tired, she didn’t think she had ever felt so tired in all her life, but her mind was her own again.

She forced her aching eyelids open, and then blinked and shut them again as golden sunlight turned everything white for a moment.

‘Sephy? Sephy, it’s Maisie. Open your eyes again, love.’

Maisie? As her gaze focused on her friend’s face Sephy saw to her consternation that Maisie looked as tired as she felt. ‘What…what are you doing here?’ she asked through dry lips.

‘Looking after you,’ was the rueful reply. ‘You’ve been on planet Zargos for the last twenty-four hours, kiddo. Don’t you remember?’

‘A bit.’ And then, as her thirst became overwhelming, ‘Can I have a drink, Maisie?’ But by the time the glass was placed to her dry lips she was fast asleep again.

By Sunday evening Sephy had skimmed in and out of sleep several times, but was sufficiently recovered to sit up in bed and drink the bowl of steaming vegetable soup Maisie gave her at six o’clock. She didn’t feel at all hungry but she tried to please Maisie.

‘You had us going for a time there, kiddo,’ Maisie said breezily as she plumped herself down on the duvet. ‘The doctor thought it was this rotten summer flu, but I was beginning to doubt he knew what he was talking about. He said you’re absolutely knackered as well, which didn’t help. Asked me if you’d been burning the candle at both ends,’ she added pointedly.

‘And you said?’

‘Too right.’ Maisie grinned cheerfully. ‘I told him you’d got this rat of a boyfriend who’d been giving you the run-around.’

‘You didn’t!’ Sephy was horrified. ‘You didn’t, Maisie?’

‘I did.’ Maisie’s kohl-blackened eyes narrowed. ‘And I told the boyfriend the same thing, as it happens. He didn’t take too kindly to being told he was a git,’ she said with some satisfaction.

‘Maisie!’ The soup nearly went all over the bed.

‘Now don’t excite yourself,’ Maisie said imperturbably. ‘It won’t do him any harm in the long run.’

‘He…Conrad came round here?’ Sephy asked weakly. She had purposely been blanking that part of her consciousness until she felt strong enough to deal with the memory of their last meeting.

Maisie nodded. ‘I think he wished he hadn’t by the time he left,’ she said with some relish, the stud in her nose shining as she wrinkled her nose gleefully at the memory.

‘Oh, Maisie.’ She felt too weak to deal with this development.

‘Don’t “Oh, Maisie” me,’ the other girl said firmly. ‘From what you mumbled when you were delirious, I got the impression he’d chucked you. Right?’

Sephy nodded silently. Words were beyond her just at this point, with the picture of an angry, bristling Maisie facing the tall, remote figure of Conrad Quentin and giving him what for. She was one in a million; she was really.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ Maisie said comfortably. ‘So I told him he ought to be down on his knees thanking God or Buddha or whoever else he prays to that they threw you across his path. You’re special, Sephy.’ Now all trace of belligerence was gone as Maisie leant forward and gripped her hand hard. ‘Very special, and he’s a fool. I told him that as well.’

‘Oh, Maisie.’ She didn’t seem able to say much else, but the other girl’s fierce championship was making her want to cry. She had never been one to make close friends in the past, her inferiority complex as a child and adolescent had worked against her in that respect, but now she realised there was a whole realm of warmth and friendship open to her she had never guessed at.

‘Anyway, that’s enough of that.’ Maisie jumped to her feet, her psychedelic hair, bright green waist-length cardigan and tight rainbow-coloured skirt all—miraculously—blending into one very attractive whole as she said, ‘You’ve wasted enough tears on that rat; you’re not going to shed another one. You’ve finished the soup and now you

’re going to eat a chicken sandwich prepared by my own fair hand. Okay, kiddo?’

‘Okay.’ Sephy nodded obediently.

She only managed to eat about a third of the chicken sandwich before she found herself snuggling down in bed again and falling asleep, but an hour later when the buzzer went she was wide awake in an instant, as though she had been programmed.

She could hear Maisie speaking in a low voice into the intercom, although she couldn’t distinguish what was being said, but when the other girl popped her head round the bedroom door a few moments later Sephy was sitting up in bed with her eyes fixed on the door. ‘I heard the buzzer. Who is it?’ she asked nervously.