Wildwood Page 12

  ‘Avril …’

  The maenads had started to sing now: low-pitched inter-weaving lines of melody that rode the drumbeat. I couldn’t resist any more. At last I freed his cock from its flimsy wrappings. Compared to Ash, Michael’s member was inelegant and prominently veined, but so solid that I felt a sudden gush of wetness just at the sight. It kicked strongly in my hands. I drew back his foreskin and touched the engorged bulb revealed. ‘Yes. Come on,’ he urged.

  I prevaricated, still revelling in the sight of his body laid out supine beneath me. His body hair blended seamlessly into that at his groin. I’d never actually encountered a man who closely trimmed his pubes before; it made such a deliberate presentation of his cock that I was awed by his arrogance. Michael ran his hands up my thighs, framing my muff with his fingers before sending his thumbs in, questing for my clit. I twisted in his grasp; this was almost too much. ‘Oh God,’ I groaned, my breasts shaking as I writhed.

  ‘Come here,’ he answered on God’s behalf, pulling me down. He gasped my name again and surged beneath me as I sheathed his length deep within.

  As I rode him the women closed in, their hands caressing my back and thighs as he thrust up from the fertile Mediterranean soil deep into me. I couldn’t fend them off and I scarcely cared by now anyway. The primeval melody danced through my blood, tripping along my heartbeat and riding the thrusts of our fused bodies, voices and drums and bodies dissolving into a single rhythmic whole. My last glimpse before I came was of Michael’s ecstatic face surrounded by a halo of filthy hands.

  We didn’t talk as we drove back. I mean, in the circumstances, what was there I could say? In the glow of the dashboard light Michael’s face was only dimly visible, but I assumed he wore an expression of satisfaction. His white shirt seemed almost phosphorescent.

  He’d had a complete change of clothing and a first-aid kit waiting back at the car. He’d daubed his cuts and bites with antiseptic and they seemed to have stopped bleeding. No marks showed on the new shirt.

  As we drew nearer home he broke the silence to enquire, ‘Back to your place or to my hotel?’

  ‘You can drop me off at the bottom gate of the Grange.’ My voice was raspy with rage.

  He didn’t reply, but he took the turnings obediently enough and soon drew up outside the locked iron gates, pulling across the road to park in the little lay-by. He didn’t switch the engine off. The curve of the wall and the bars of the gate were the only objects visible; beyond the cast of the dipped headlights the night was totally black. I didn’t care; I’d far rather walk on my own across the estate grounds than spend any more time in his company.

  ‘You seem angry, Avril,’ he said as I grabbed for the handle.

  ‘Angry?’ I glared at him as the interior light came on. ‘What could I possibly be angry about? Well, I suppose there is the emotional blackmail. That’s the sort of thing that might make some people angry.’

  His expression was mild. ‘You had a choice. I promised you that.’

  ‘Yes.’ I slid down onto the road. ‘And I should have let them rip you apart.’ Then I slammed the door on him. But I was at a disadvantage; the estate gate was over on the driver’s side of the vehicle, and the road around here was all loose gravel chippings, so I had to stop and put my shoes back on. By the time I crossed in front of the bonnet he was out too, waiting for me. Half-blinded by the headlights, I nearly walked into him. He caught my wrists. I went rigid.

  ‘Avril.’ He was standing very close, so close that our bodies were nearly touching. I could feel the warmth radiating from his torso and smell his skin. He inclined his head so that he could murmur in my ear, and I felt the caress of his breath: ‘If you should have, then why didn’t you?’ His voice was soft and throaty and it made all the hairs stand up on my neck.

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t shrug him off or pull away, though my muscles were locked with tension. I let him take my ear lobe softly between his teeth and nip at my flesh. I let him put his finger on my cheek and then draw it along my jaw and then down my throat and breastbone, very gently. I couldn’t see him at all; the headlights were blinding, but I could feel his excitement. It was like electricity leaping the tiny gap between our bodies. Though I stayed rigid I let him turn me to face the front of the car and then, holding me from behind, put my hands on the warm vibrating hood. He moved slowly, with great deliberation. Giving me time to know exactly what was going on.

  See, I had the choice.

  ‘Spread your legs,’ he said softly. And I obeyed. I put my ankles apart. My calves were already taut in those unaccustomed high heels. Michael leant into me firmly, spreading my arms wider too, so that I was tilted forwards, my bum sticking out. I could feel the hard bulge of his erection nudging my buttock. Then he stood back, just looking at me. Granting me time to comprehend my surrender. ‘Good girl.’

  My legs were trembling. My heart was turning somersaults. You bastard, I thought.

  Then he lifted my skirt and laid it over my back, exposing my naked sex to the night. I could feel the breeze on my most intimate flesh. I could picture how I must look to him very clearly: all long legs and heart-shaped ass, my face and torso in shadow. Just my pert out-thrust cheeks and the dusky tear-drop of the sex that they framed, soft and sweet and defenceless. I wasn’t in the most pristine of states given our earlier activities; my placket was still puffy and slick with moisture. But as he stood there examining me I felt a sudden gush of new warmth and I knew that I was creaming up for him all over again. I was glad then that it was dark, because my face was burning with humiliation.

  Firmly, Michael cupped my pussy in his hand and squeezed. My juiciness was only too apparent. Still it did not seem to be enough to satisfy him; he spent some time adjusting my stance, spreading my bum cheeks with his hands, running his fingers up the deep cleft and over my buttocks and through the slippery petals of my sex. He stroked the tight iris of my anus until I whimpered, feeling myself yield. There was nothing I could hide from him and, when I heard the sound of his flies being opened, I knew that there was nothing I would not let him have.

  I wanted him to fuck me.

  I wanted his cock so much that when he put it to the wet lips of my sex and pushed bluntly into me I sobbed in relief. And Michael heard and understood perfectly: ‘Yes. There it is. It’s OK,’ he murmured. ‘You’re all right now. You’ve got it.’

  I had to bite my lip to hold back the tears of gratitude.

  He fucked me very thoroughly, his hands on my hips, his groin slapping into my backside. He made no attempt to touch my clit. This wasn’t about making me come, I understood: this was about him taking his pleasure of me and it was about me loving that. It was about restoring the balance of power between us to the place it had been at the start. Where he liked it.

  When I heard the sound of a car engine coming towards us I quivered and almost tried to break position. Michael put one hand on the centre of my back and pushed me down firmly against the hot steel. I didn’t fight, but sweat broke out all over my skin; inwardly I writhed. What if they recognise us? I howled inwardly. What if they’re local to the Grange and they know exactly who we are and they see me being fucked by my boss, fucked from behind, fucked like a cheap slut in my shiny high heels on a public road?

  Gradually the sweep of their headlights over the beetling hedges pushed back the night. They were going to come up on us from behind, I realised. There was no chance they’d miss us behind the bulk of the 4x4. They were going to pin us in their headlights and see exactly what was going on: Deverick’s hands biting into my bum as he rammed his meat rhythmic ally into my willing snatch. I whimpered and thrust back against him; he quickened his pace, his breath coming hard and shallow

  They were coming. There they were. The night was split asunder by light and the roar of the motor was suddenly on top of us as they emerged round the bend. As the headlights swept over us I saw for an interminable moment my hands spread wide on the bonnet and my face reflected in our windscreen, eye
s wide and mouth slack. The humiliation was too much to bear; I came, crying out. And as my sex clenched and my arse bucked Michael filled me to overflowing.

  Then the car had swept past us. For a moment its brake lights glowed a frantic crimson and, in the midst of the pulsations of pleasure and shame, I wondered if it were about to stop and the passengers leap out for a longer look. Then it was gone around another bend, and we were alone again.

  Without any hurry Michael withdrew, wiping his turgid prick on my buttocks before tidying himself away. I didn’t move. Not until there was a soft flash of light and he leant back over me to show me the screen of his mobile phone and the close-up picture he’d just taken of my rear. It was a small screen but the definition was good; you couldn’t miss the glisten on those plumped-up lips which made it clear this anonymous gash had just been well used. ‘For personal use,’ he said as he flipped my skirt back down over my bum.

  Perhaps he meant to be reassuring. There wasn’t really anything I could say to him. Dumbly I turned away, my heels wobbly on the granite chippings as I fumbled for the keypad of the electronic lock on the gate. I heard the engine growl as he slipped his car into gear and eased back onto the road, leaving me to open the gate and set off down the drive in nearly complete darkness. I welcomed it. I welcomed the silence. I wanted to be invisible.

  Michael’s calling card slipped wetly down the inside of my thighs as I walked home.

  I didn’t think about the possibility of bumping into Bull Peter or someone less friendly on my way. I didn’t think anything coherent at all, not until I drew close to the glow of the outside light on my cottage. My door, draped in exuberant wisteria, looked humble and inviting. But when the slab just outside the threshold rocked under my feet I glanced down and saw that on the step lay a bunch of flowers. I picked it up and stared.

  What a strange choice of blooms, was my first thought. No roses here; they’d clearly been gathered from round the estate, though even then I wasn’t sure how some of them had been found. The showiest were big magenta rhododendron blossoms; they far outshone the purple geraniums and the asters, the yellow loosestrife and the tickseed and the drooping strands of periwinkle. There were foliage plants in the mix too – bindweed and bracken and some twigs of blackthorn bearing unripe sloes – all tied in a bunch by a rope of bramble.

  Weird. But beautifully presented. There was a translucent scrap of pink birch bark in the centre which I fished out. Betula albosinensis, I thought absently. Ash would have got it from the Winter Copse beyond the pond. Inked onto the bark was the message ‘Please forgive me’.

  6: The Green Man

  ‘IS ASH AROUND?’ I leant on the top of the gate as I called to the young man with the juggling clubs. He’d had his back to me as he threw and my voice startled him, but he caught the clubs neatly as he turned. In his headscarf and waistcoat and cut-off trousers he looked distinctly piratical.

  ‘Ash?’ His eyes were wide.

  ‘Can I have a word with him?’

  Golden fluff graced his jaw; he was rather cute, I thought. But there was an air of confusion as he considered my words, as if I’d failed to stick to the proper script and he was racking his brains for an improvisation. ‘You want to see Ash?’

  ‘Please.’

  He regarded me blankly. ‘OK. Come on in.’

  I climbed the gate and followed him through the teepee village. Several other tree-huggers were about, not doing anything more active than lolling in the sunshine. They looked at me curiously. Pirate Pete led me to a fireplace surrounded by seating logs. There was a billycan of water hanging over the embers, and Ash was sitting on one of the stumps adjusting the can with the blade of a knife. His cool eyes lifted to study me as we approached.

  ‘The girl came,’ said my guide, and immediately walked away back towards the gate. I put my hands in my pockets self-consciously. Ash was as inscrutable as ever but his pale gaze made my skin prickle.

  ‘They’re not real, are they?’ I said, indicating the other activists with a twitch of my head. None of them were within earshot of my words; real or not, it would have been rude.

  He raised one eyebrow. ‘Real enough to fool the bailiffs. Real enough to kick up a fuss and get this place in the news, if necessary. They’ve got names, fingerprints, personal histories, family backgrounds – even previous convictions for trespass, some of them. It nearly killed me.’

  I blinked. ‘What happens if they’re arrested?’

  ‘The police find holding cells adrift with dead leaves next morning and the detainees gone. Very embarrassing. And … the attention of certain people will be drawn to this place before Deverick is ready for it. Which is why he’s staying back for the moment.’

  ‘Right.’ So, I told myself, one of them can summon the gods of Ancient Greece and the other can build hippie protesters out of dead twigs. I couldn’t complain that the men in my life were dull.

  ‘You got my flowers, then.’ Ash’s teeth grazed his lower lip.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you know. I acted like a complete tool.’

  ‘I’m the one who came to apologise.’ My face was burning all of a sudden, and Ash frowned. ‘I had no right to jump you like that. I … I just assumed you’d be up for it.’ I swallowed hard.

  ‘No. I overreacted. You took me by surprise.’ He winced at his own double entendre and we shared a rueful smile. ‘Literally.’

  I shifted my feet. ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘I think,’ said he gently, ‘that given the circumstances we need to be a bit more careful.’

  My shoulders sagged. Circumstances? He meant the situation with Deverick, did he? Or was he just saying he didn’t fancy me? That hurt. ‘OK,’ I agreed, determined to show no weakness. ‘No problem.’ I took a deep breath. ‘There was one other thing I wanted to talk about.’

  He pointed at a log. ‘Have a seat. How about a brew?’

  There were flecks of wood ash floating in the billycan along with green leaves. ‘Herb tea?’

  ‘Just mint.’

  ‘That’s OK, I’m fine.’ I sat down. ‘You asked if I’d help you against Michael. I came to let you know that, yes, I’d be ready for that.’

  Ash looked down at his hands as he turned the knife over and over between them, and did not answer for a moment. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘Personal reasons.’ I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of my voice and he looked up at me keenly.

  ‘Can I ask what?’

  ‘No, you can’t. But if you want to rain on his parade then I’d love to help. One condition, though.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘I want to know what’s going on. I don’t like blundering about in the dark and I don’t like being lied to. I want the real story. I want to see proof of what’s at stake. I want to see what it is you’re hiding in the wood.’

  He gave me a searching look and answered quietly, ‘You know there are serious problems with that, Avril. I told you before.’

  ‘Hey, don’t mess me about, not if you want my help. This is my employer you’re asking me to betray – and I’ll bet he’s not the forgiving type either. You can get into the wood, can’t you? Then logically you can get me in too.’

  ‘Logically, yes.’ He looked at the branches overhead. ‘You’re asking me to take an enormous leap of trust, you know.’

  I snorted. ‘You? What about me? You think I should get involved in some spat between freaky magic-wielding weirdos without even knowing what it is you’re fighting over?’

  Ash blinked. ‘You have a point. And you’re right, there are ways in. But I can’t see you agreeing to them.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Well, the defences are keyed to me, to my signature. It’s possible to fool them for a while, with the right materials.’

  ‘You mean like some sort of DNA key?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not DNA. Don’t go trying to make magic into science. Its rules and correspondences are those
of symbolism and significance and sympathy, not fact. Like affects like. The part is always connected to the whole. There are certain … body products … that are considered intimately connected to a person. You’ve heard of casting a charm using hair or nail clippings, haven’t you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘You can use someone’s body signature against them – yet there’s no complete DNA in hair or nails. Or in blood.’ He tapped the point of his knife against the tip of his finger. ‘Blood’s the really obvious one, though there are others. I could get you into the wood by painting you all over with my blood.’

  ‘Yuck,’ I said with feeling.

  ‘Believe me, I’m not exactly keen on the idea myself.’

  ‘You said there were others?’

  ‘I think you’d like those even less. Semen. Urine. Sweat. Saliva. Does it still sound appealing?’

  He was trying to freak me out. I stared at him as the light slowly dawned. ‘Is that why you were so worried I wasn’t going to swallow? Is that it? You thought I might take your … that I’d go running off to Michael with it?’

  Ash looked pained. ‘It was a distinct possibility.’

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or be horrified. ‘Christ, that is paranoid.’

  ‘I have to be paranoid.’

  My cool deserted me. ‘And gross! Oh, yeuch!’

  ‘Gross?’ He leant in to push the stub of log further into the fire. ‘Yes, we are. Gross matter: dust and slime. A little water, a little wind, the slow burning of chemical fires. That’s all, from conception to dissolution, until you take spirit into account. Revile it if you want. Matter is the human condition, and it makes us incredibly vulnerable.’