Chapter 30: Chapter 30

‘A Conspiracy of Ravens’

Part Four A Conspiracy of Ravens My morning walk with the dogs: there is a figure jogging towards me on the beach, a small dog trotting at his heels. I turn to walk the other way.

“Kirstie!” Ben’s voice carries on the breeze. “Kirstie....”

I ignore him and keep walking.

After a minute or so, there is panting and Ben appears at my side, breathing heavily.

“Kirstie, please….”

Perhaps I should find another place to walk….

“…. We need to talk,” he says.

“I don’t think so. I saw your idea of talking.” I keep moving, stepping up my pace a little, doing everything I can to discourage the conversation.

“Please, Kirstie. Do you want me to apologise? Alright, I apologise. Is that good enough for you?”

I stop, turning to face him. “What exactly are you apologising for?”

His face falls. “I’m apologising for losing my temper as I did. It came as a bit of a shock, everything that you said, that Michael said.”

“And for threatening Charlotte?”

Now he reddens. “I wasn’t threatening her.”

The dogs are picking up my mood, milling around me, jittery and nervous. Meg shows her teeth to Scruffy.

“You were screaming and shouting at her, Ben. She tried to get away from you, but you shoved her. I saw it. You temper looked pretty much out of control to me.”

“I wouldn’t have hit her.” He sounds sulky.

“Perhaps you should stand a little further away if you want me to believe that.”

His face drops and he backs away. “You don’t really think that I’m the kind of man that attacks women?”

I wave around me, indicating the dogs. “What do I make of you, Ben? Even the dogs are reading you, your body language. They’re not happy. I barely know you, but quite a bit of what I’ve seen, I don’t care for.”

“Well, there are things about you that I don’t care for.” he snaps. “You screw around, and you admitted to fucking my brother and him together.”

“There was no-one involved in that that wasn’t there because they wanted to be. No-one was coerced and everyone enjoyed themselves. And the same applies to Michael’s arrangements with James and Charlotte. It’s nothing to do with you.”

He stares glumly at the sand. “You didn’t have to call the police.”

“I didn’t do it. You heard James. He asked Francis to call them. If he thinks you’re a threat to Charlotte, on another occasion I’m not sure he’d bother with the police.”

He scuffles at the sand with a toe, then, “Do you really think I behaved that badly?”

I stare up to heaven. “I can’t believe that’s a serious question. Yes, I do. You’ve apologised to me, but I don’t think it’s me you should be talking to. I think you really should be apologising to James, Charlotte and especially to your brother.”

Glowering, he won’t look me in the eye, instead staring out to sea. He nods, a sharp down-thrust of his chin, and then jogs back the way he came.

*****

When I return home that evening, Ryan is waiting for me, sitting in his car, working on a tablet on his lap.

I tap on the window and his face lights up as he sees me. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Not at all. I was passing, so I thought I’d surprise you.”

“You have. Coming in for coffee?”

“If coffee is all I’m being offered....”

And right on cue, my panties are wet.

Inside, I go through the motions of putting water on to boil, coffee in cups and….

Ryan is standing behind me, his hands resting on my waist, his face close to mine as he nibbles at an earlobe.

He turns me to face him, stroking my cheek, the line of my jaw and down to my neck where he has placed his mark on me, his ownership; the velvet band I wear around my neck, his gift to me.

“Feeling horny, are we?” I ask.

With the smile of a fallen angel, “Oh, yes, and so are you. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

My body pliable in his arms, I curve into his embrace. “Coffee later, then?”

“Ah-ha,” he says. “I have a few ideas.”

“Ideas?”

In the bedroom, he waits quietly while I draw curtains and light a couple of candles, then he moves to stands closer.

And he makes his move:

He strips me. Whereas previously he has undressed me slowly, now I am almost unwrapped. My dress is a simple knitted jersey, skin-tight and clingy, showing my curves. He smiles appreciatively, running his hands over my contours, over my neck and chest. He slides his hands down to the hem, then tugs upwards, peeling it up and off me, leaving me in bra, panties and shoes.

And my body reacts to his mock-violence; I’m liquid and warm inside, readying for him.

“Do you trust me, Kirstie?”

My heart begins to pound. “Trust you? Why do I need to trust you?”

He smiles, clicks open his briefcase and produces silk rope, soft, pliable and, as he trails it over my skin, with a silky, sensual texture. “Are you willing to let me restrain you? To bind you? I did it before with my tie, but not properly. You don’t know me very well. Are you happy for me to do that?”

Am I?

Do I trust him?

I do….

“Yes, I think I am.”

“Good.” He kisses the nape of my neck, then roughly, I am scooped up, carried a few steps and dropped; simply dumped onto the bed.

Gasping as I land on the mattress, my hands are grabbed, the rope looping around, tying my wrists, and then pulled over my head. There are small metallic noises….

…. as he tethers me to the bars of the bedhead…

“Lift your hips.” I obey, and something is pushed underneath, a pillow.

“I considered simply spread-eagling you.” he comments, as he produces more rope, “but I decided that is not a position that gives me the access to your body that I would like.”

He reaches for my knees, looping the rope around, and then again back around the bedposts, drawing my legs open and back. My knees are lifted and splayed. He repositions the pillow, lifting my hips a little more, angling my pelvis.

As he adjusts my position, the bindings on my legs slacken a little and he readjusts the knots, spreading me wide.

“You tie those knots like an expert,” I comment. “I thought you said you were new to this?”

He grins. “Boy scout.”

I bet they never had a badge for this….