Seven Scarlet Tales

‘She loves you too much.’

‘Don’t you think it’s weird, though, Perry?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ he almost spat.

‘Sorry. I mean, that she’s fine with us being kinky together. She must trust us a lot.’

‘She trusts you. She knows me. She knows I’ll never settle down. I suppose I’m the safest option. If she doesn’t let you get spanked and the rest by me, you might find someone else, and then that dangerous thing could happen. Love.’

‘You’d never fall in love with me, I suppose?’

‘I’d never fall in love.’

‘You must have done, once.’

‘Once was enough.’

He looked away sharply, as if fascinated by the diminishing contents of his glass.

‘I’m sorry for you.’

‘Don’t be. Be sorry for yourself. I’m going to cane you for calling me Perry. Go and stand in the corner of the living room and wait for me there.’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘I know. But it’ll take your mind off things, won’t it?’

‘And yours.’

‘Perhaps. Go on, then.’

He sent her on her way with a cracking smack to her rear, loud enough to interrupt Tack in his enthusiastic fucking and make him stare, astonished, towards them.

‘Carry on,’ said Peregrine with a wave of his hand, and he did.

Love was a strange thing.

This thought occurred to Poppy, standing on the balcony of her Parisian apartment – the one that obstinately refused to look over the Eiffel Tower or the Seine or anything picturesque or charming. Even when it wasn’t what you thought it might be, it was the best thing imaginable.

For Peregrine, it was too complex and too dangerous to allow. Its theatrical representation was as close as he wanted to get.

For Emma, it meant this half-life, this standing in a corner waiting to be thrashed by a man she liked but didn’t love. Doing it for her, making him her avatar.

For Richard, Rob and Lucy it meant happiness, no more, no less.

And for Allyson, in her cell, it was pure torture and yet it was the only thing to get her through the indifferent food, and the boredom, and the endless bickering and jockeying for position and the loneliness, the godawful loneliness. Somewhere at the end of it all was love, and it had to be enough. It just had to be.