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All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Simon Lowrie
Marianne! A Journey Round a Golden Sun © February 2010 Simon Lowrie
eXcessica publishing
A Smashwords Edition
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Marianne!
A Journey Round a Golden Sun
By Simon Lowrie
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book was written because I saw a photograph. It is so beautiful to me, I will not describe it, but if you'd like to email me, I'll gladly share her. I can be contacted via simonlowrie.com and to hear from readers is always a great pleasure.
My first book, a Journey Round a Darker Sun, came out in 2000, and was later taken up by Doubleday as a hardback for their Venus Book Club imprint. It was intended as an introductory volume to a story, but due to stern criticism from some readers at Amazon, I wiped what I had of volume two from my computer and forgot about writing for many years. Right until, as I say, I saw a photo while browsing on the net. If Marianne! is liked to some extent at Amazon, I’ll finish off both her story and Darker Sun in a single volume containing two separate novellas – The End of Two Journeys perhaps. The other option would be to call it a day and see what’s on the telly.
This is a D/s romance about true love and true submission. People hoping for proper porn or proper romance may find it worthless, so if you leave this book without a single smile or pause for thought, then please forgive me. But someone may enjoy this story, and I aim to please a single reader just as I have always done. If it should happen to be you, then I’m glad. This present story is not a continuation of Darker Sun, but a wholehearted re-imagination based on some of the same themes. Both my novels are fictions inspired by the same set of true events that happened long ago, but their atmospheres are very different. Thank you sincerely for your time in reading Marianne! and I do hope you enjoy her company.
Simon Lowrie
this book belongs to Kendra
and all I did was write it
thank you dearest girl
for the treasure of your friendship
Chapter One
“I’m leaving him this time, Simon—I really am.”
I looked at Marianne in horror as she stood bedraggled at my door, at the black eye the bastard had given her, at the tears and mascara streaming down her face, curdling with the rain. It was over two miles from her place to mine and she had walked without a coat.
“In that case, darling, come in and start doing your cold turkey.”
I ushered her in, helped her out of most of her clothes, and dried her off with a towel. Our relationship being what it was, she kept her bra and knickers on while I used a hairdryer on them to melt away the damp. I turned the heating on full, and brought her one of my shirts and a jumper. She made them look magical. If I’d brought her a potato sack, she'd have made that look good, too. She was that sort of girl.
She and Craig had been on fire the past eight months. Some affairs are so wild and uncontrolled that excess steam and lava eventually block the channels through which the love can flow, and make it all explode. Putting it another way, the two of them had conspired in one of those acts of mutual madness most of us will never know.
But that night there was only the pain on view, not the dizzying glory. The bruises on her arms and thighs were, she assured me, matched as well as she could manage by deep scratches on his face.
“Good,” I said.
“My pleasure,” she replied.
I didn’t expect her decision to return to this cold planet to last more than a day or two. After all, none of her previous resolutions had ever done so. But, using me and all her other friends as a crutch, this time she somehow held on through the agony. I have never watched cold turkey before, and hope I never do again. Drugs, alcohol, love—they writhe in the blood like howling medieval demons, desperate not to be cast out. Poor Marianne was eating the walls out of her need for Craig. He might be a thug and a bully, but he was also every colour of her rainbow. She had lost the fabulous sex, the thrilling nights out, the aura of his money and career, the sense that life was an adventure, not a chore. Instead of dancing perilously on the top of his volcano, she was now sitting cross-legged in a mudflat looking at the pond life.
One night, a few weeks later, she made an observation...
“So at least I don’t get hit anymore. Whay. Whoopee. Let’s all light the fireworks and clap our hands together.”
The caustic burn in her voice was clear. Without the urgent application of handcuffs and a straitjacket, she might easily reach out for the phone and undo everything. I phrased an answer with my usual charm but, in effect, I told her to put a sock in it and keep eating the turkey sandwiches.
“Yum yum,” she said flatly.
If there were words to describe how intoxicating Marianne was, how bewitching and beguiling and impossible, then I’d use them. But there aren’t, so I’ll just say she was a woman. Suitors came, panting with excitement, and suitors left, sadder and wiser. A couple of them were even lucky enough to chalk up a one-night stand, and I bet they didn’t forget the taste and touch of her too quickly. A few months later still, she even saw the same bloke twice, and then three times, until it developed into a pallid affair of sorts.
“Yeah, he’s nice. He’s sweet. He’s funny and considerate and kind and all the rest of it. I really like being with him, but compared to what I had with Craig, it’s nothing, Simon, it's absolutely nothing…”
She and Mr. Nice kept adding damp kindling to the fire for weeks, but it never lit the sky and burned her house down like she wanted, and much the same happened with another few guys in the year that followed.
“Hey? What kind of Princess are you?” I asked her one night. “You don’t like the ogre and you don’t like Prince Charming. Get out of this fairy story at once and make room for someone else.”
She hit me.
She laughed, but she still hit me.
Then one day she rang my doorbell and I could tell at once something had happened. Her pupils were all big and shiny, and the smile she was wearing just shouldn’t be allowed out—way too naughty, too happy and excited. And, as for that magnetic shimmer of hers, which normally only radiated about ten feet from her body, it was more than any man who couldn’t make love to her should have to bear. But as ever, I was the lucky victim of her beauty.
Of course, I knew she must have met a man, so I duly waited to be rocked back on my heels by this astounding news. Marianne always had a sense of drama about her, and before she spilled a single bean, she insisted I fetch her the exact same shirt I had given her that wet and dreadful night some eighteen months before. She also wanted the same CD playing in the background. And so, to the theme of Roxy Music’s dance away she slowly dance-peeled to her bra and panties, superslow and superslinky, before putting on my shirt for the second time in her life. This time she was twenty-three, and managed the unthinkable by being even lovelier.
“He’s called Mark,” she said, smiling, knowing I already knew everything. Well, everything except his name and who he was and what he was like.
“And is he the ogre or Prince Charming?”
“Oh, Simon! That’s just it! He’s both!”
“Oh dear, a mutant. What rotten luck.”
She hit me again. It had long been an unfortunate habit of hers.
If you ever see a donkey dragging itself along manfully with just its two front legs, you’ll know it must have got caught up in conversation with Marianne at some stage. She told me about Mark without mercy, and every time I yawned or my eyes glazed over, she'd incrementally hitch her skirt to show me ever more of her phenomenal legs, adding progressively more of her panties to the mix as well, as she knew this was the simplest way to lead me down her road. When even this didn’t work and I threatened to go to bed, she was so keen to keep me, she stopped all pretence at subtlety and openly used her polyester trump card.
Rolling onto her tummy, she hitched the tails of my shirt right above her waist and let me feast my eyes on her. What can I say? Had I been both drugged and hit with a hammer, she would still have had my full attention until the sun came up. Fact is, knights of old had the holy grail—something elusive, magical, and impossibly lovely to chase after all their lives. I, on the other hand, had the unattainable perfection of her bottom as both my agony and bliss.
After all these years, I naturally can’t remember exactly how she described Mark, but it's fair to say the knees of bees, the pyjamas of cats and private parts of canis lupus familiaris were all heavily involved. In the patches through the mists of time, though, I do recall a couple of things...
“He sends electric shivers down me whenever he’s even close, just like the way you feel about me, and when we actually touch or kiss or make love, it’s not like anything I’ve ever known before. All I’d like now, to make things absolutely perfect, is to have Craig crawl back and beg for me so I could laugh in his face and show him Mark.”
And also...
“Mark’s got every good, decent civilized quality a girl could ever want, just like my recent blokes but ten times more so. But he’s also got that raw male firepower and bullishness I’ve been missing ever since Craig. Lots of men can satisfy parts of me—like you, for instance—but Mark’s a complete match for me, he challenges me and wakes up every inch of who I am.”
I asked her whether Mark was yet aware that, as well as being ravishing and sexy and wonderful, she was also contrary, maddening and totally impossible.
“Yup! We only met a week ago, but he already knows the whole sad story. Poor sod even says he’s going to straighten out my bad points and keep the rest, and who am I to stop a man from dreaming, eh?”
She winked at me and, to my astonishment, proceeded to tuck an inch or so of her panties in towards the middle.
“Oy? What’s that for, darling?” I asked plaintively.
“Honey, that’s because it’s gone two in the morning and I don’t want you falling asleep on me, okay?”
“Done deal. What’s the prize for staying up ’til four?”
“Well, you’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you, sweetie!”
But, in any event, I never did discover, as she crashed out half an hour later. I carried her upstairs to my bed, rewarded by sleepy little nuzzles to my neck as we went, and after tucking my drunken angel in all snug and warm, I went back down with an armful of duvet and expired unpeaceful on the sofa.
For the next fortnight, she was too busy having fun to see me, but I did get loads of extremely affectionate phone-calls. The girl was born too late to work for the Spanish Inquisition, but in her own way, she really did love me. And then, one evening, the doorbell rang and I had what I believe is called déjà vu all over again. The only thing missing was the black eye, as rain, girl and heartbreak were all present and correct.
“Triple vodka?” I asked her.
“Not tonight, Si. Just bring the bottle.”
“Don’t suppose you fancy wearing my shirt again, do you?”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
She went on to tell me Mark had done something unspeakable, something far worse than Craig had ever done, and if she ever saw the evil little toad again, she would either spit in his face or jump on his grave or preferably both. These considered verdicts were the opening trumpets of a force ten Marianne tirade, in which Mark's arrogance was analysed in depth and found unsatisfactory, as were his nerve and cheek. His failings in these areas were assessed, not just as merely sheer, but unbelievable and bloody fucking. On the plus side, though, I learned, to my relief, that Mark was not, in fact, her father.
I was told which year we lived in and, still more redundantly I felt, the century itself. I wondered whether he was insisting she join the Amish or man the rigging in an arctic whaler. She regretted his gall, and could find no silver lining in his outrageousness. Above all else, she talked of her intense curiosity to learn who he considered himself to be. I tell you straight— I never got a single chance to get a word in edgeways. About nineteen hours later, she stopped for breath, and wept.
“The love of my life is a pervert and a monster and a bully,” she sobbed, holding me as close as she possibly could.
“Yes, but what's he actually done, my poor sweet darling?” I asked, deeply concerned, as you can imagine.
“Oh Simon, just let me hold you, okay? Work that soothing magic on me you always do, and if and when I’m drunk enough, I’ll tell you what that bastard just did to me.”
Chapter Two
On the evening I’m trying to remember and share with you, Marianne was dressed way above what she would have worn if she had just been planning to see me from the get-go. Feel free to bring out your violin if this upsets you. Her whole outfit was a knock-Mark-dead and make-him-howl affair, all stops pulled until they begged for mercy. The girl was simply stunning from her hairclips to her toenails—a hat and skirt in soft crushed felt, both colour-matched in rich milk chocolate, a pearl silk blouse and super-classy linen jacket, all ornamented perfectly with self-suspending stockings and golden bits and bangles.
She had, in other words, effectively dressed up as a billboard. It read: HELLO, MARK? LISTEN UP! I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME A GREAT TIME TONIGHT BEFORE YOU TAKE ME HOME AND FUCK ME. GOT THAT? GOOD. Yet, evidently, this Mark chap, this complete and utter buffoon, had somehow contrived to find the one way through the labyrinth that would blow his night. I wondered whether he had been studiously practising beforehand, threading camels through a needle.
You can be sure I was intensely curious to find out what the dunderhead had actually gone and done, and if I am delaying telling you, dear reader, it’s only because I want you to feel just a fraction of the infinite patience I had to endure whenever I was with my fabulous Marianne. Before she fully opened up her secrets and emotions, she first had to be meltingly warm—my fuel bills were enormous. Next she had to be fed. Then she had to feel safe and snug and utterly trusting of me. Above all, she had to be plastered out of her head. As you can imagine, all of this took time.
So, first we cooked a meal together in my kitchen, as Mark had apparently decided to cancel the restaurant stage, preferring instead to drive her back home and sort out why their evening had flopped. We had some laughs as we rustled something up, as always. We ate whatever-it-was in front of the telly, half chatting, half looking at some moronic documentary. Then the box went off and the music went on. We settled down together on the carpet, smoked a few ciggies and drank a few shandies. And, as with umpteen hundred other nights of ours before, it was nothing special at all, except we made it so.
I’m happy to say she liked me a lot that evening, yet the first time she hitched her skirt up high enough for me to see her knickers, it wasn’t for one of the ancient traditional reasons—rewarding her clown for entertaining her, for listening to a long tirade without complaining, or for keeping her blues at bay—but because she wanted to show me a bruise.
“Did Mark do that?” I asked angrily, looking at the black and purple blotch at the top of her thigh.
“No. But it’s his fault.”
“I see. Voodoo of some sort? He was away at the time in the attic, sticking pins in your doll?”
“Nope. I got it running away from him—tripped arse over tit and banged into something.”
“Why were you running away from him?”
“Told you already—’cos he’s a slimy little toad.”
“Okay, so when did you grasp that he was, in fact, a toad, and that you’d made a species error?”
“When he started hitting me.”
This bombshell blew me right out of my mood. I was shocked and disgusted.
“Oh Marianne! I am so, so sorry. After all you’ve been through, and now you get this. Have you got any other bruises?”
She looked rather uncomfortable at this, though I couldn’t for the life of me think why. I mean, if she can show me one, why not the others?
“No, but that’s because he only managed to hit me half a dozen times before I ran away and came to you for rescue.”
“Hang on, Marianne. I must be missing something here. A full grown man hits you six times but you don’t have bruises? What, didn’t he have his glasses on or something?”
She snorted crossly.
“Huh! He doesn’t need glasses, sunshine. He aims just fine, I assure you.”
“Hmm...”
I pondered this like a cryptic clue in a crossword. The machinery duly chugged and creaked, and I reflected that all aims must have targets or they can't be aims. I then thought about suitable targets on Marianne, and voilà!
“Mari? Are you trying to tell me all he did was whack your bum?”
She blew out deeply, then gave a bitter and embarrassed nod. I'd never seen her blush so intensely in my life.
“But I’ll have a bit less of the all if you don’t mind. It was bloody scary and totally outrageous!”
“What made him do it?”
“No reason at all!”
On hearing that, it was my turn to sigh.
“Oh, dear. As bad as that, was it?”
“Hey! What d’you mean?” she huffed indignantly. But I was pretty annoyed about the song and dance she’d made, making me think she’d been chased round the room by some axe maniac, when all she’d got was a few wallops in the proper place. I decided I would rather lose a few short-term brownie points than sell out my principles, which had been firmly established even at the naïve and tender age I'd been when we’d first met.
“Well, it’s not rocket science, is it? ‘No reason at all’ in Mariannese isn’t quite the same as ‘no reason at all’ in standard English, you have to admit.”
She straightened up defensively, and tugged her wayward hemline primly back in place.
“I admit nothing of the sort,” she scowled. “What does it mean in your strange language then?”
“Well, in our primitive tongue, a loose translation of ‘no reason at all’ might go: ‘having been pushed past all human endurance, and having had my brain spun like a tumble-dryer by her pig-headed tantrums, I was eventually goaded to such a fever-pitch of despair that I went off bang in a controlled explosion.’”
You’ll never believe it, but the cow went and hit me. I think I may have mentioned this tendency of hers before. But when she finally stopped coughing up her vodka, she said something rather wonderful...
“Simon, you really are the most amazing friend I’ve ever had. Here I am, everything in total ruins, but right this minute, I hardly care. You make me laugh like a drain at something that was actually quite appalling, and somehow you manage to cocoon me from the whole sodding nightmare. Thanks to you, my wonderful boy, it won’t really hit me ’til I walk out your door and go home.”
You can imagine how proud I was. That’s the kind of thing you don’t forget, however many years pass by. Same goes for what she did next.
“Si—?”
“Yes, love?”
“Nip upstairs and fetch a pillow. The fattest one you've got.”
I scuttled off pronto.
* * * *
“Whwoh! That is a big pillow! That's okay though—I can handle it. Put it down here by me.”
Casual as you like, the love of my life then rolled over onto the oriental floor-plump and lay on her front, her hips and tummy now very generously cushioned. The gorgeous chocolate-felt skirt, and the sensational rump it harboured, were only raised by a few inches, but the difference it made to the whole architecture of her beauty was incredible.
I was just about to thank her for this staggering and totally unprecedented gift when, to my utter disbelief, she calmly started tugging up her velvety tight skirt, hitching it left and right, past her gorgeous stocking-tops, until at last she overcame the fierce resistance of her buttocks. In stupefaction, I watched as she carefully tucked the felted cloth above her waist, determined to reward her Simon with the best view of her panties it was in her power to give.
“How’s that, honey? Nice?”
Marianne wasn’t usually a fancy-pants, but evidently she'd considered Mark a special case. Just for him, her normal nylon tat had been exchanged for some expensive yellow primrose ones that made me think of butterfly wings, tapering in deliciously the further south they went. I looked at all the fabulous enchantment on display, and felt a bit too emotional and overwhelmed to carry on being flip.
“Mari, this is generosity far above what I've ever dreamed of or deserve. Thank you, darling, with all my heart.”
She winked at me with a twinkling oh-I-don't-think-so. And she was right. After all, she knew I must have dreamed of this a thousand times and of a great deal more besides, so it was hardly true to say this image soared above my Kodak Instaprint of Mariparadise. And, as for my being undeserving, well, tonight she begged to differ, though she definitely agreed I had good reason to be honoured. She respected I always took her panty-prezzies in the spirit they were meant, lapping up the heartfelt compliments and thanks I gave. But I had never called her bountiful before, not even during full displays, and this clearly touched and pleased her. It was her turn to flip off the flip-switch too.
“You’re completely welcome, my special darling,” she whispered softly as she watched me gasp in awe. “It's done to show how much I care, so just relax and enjoy a little bit of what that dipshit Mark is missing, okay? You help me. I help you. Both feel better. That's what friends are for, right?”
I agreed with her completely, and we held hands on it.
“Okay, honey, I want you to just sit here and look at me for a bit until you get your breath back, and when you feel ready, I want you to get the candles out and do your lovely thing with the perfume. Would that make it even more special for you?”
“Not just special but incredible. This will be the highpoint of my life. Thank you, darling, for your wonderful kindness.”
“Aah!” she said. “You totally deserve it, sweetie. And I really mean that, too.”
Only when I was confident my knees would work if I stood up, did I go to get my aftershave. I dabbed the bottle against a cotton handkerchief, then lightly pressed this to a glowing light-bulb. In case you ever give this a try at home, remember that it works homoeopathically, much like me and Mari did back then, with miniscule drops of something precious worth far more than pouring gallons. I then told the domestic time-machine that every home should have—known as 'light-switch' in some languages—to take us to the Middle Ages. As the heat transformed my scent to incense, bergamot and cedarwood suffusing and encircling us, I lit six candles round my Princess. This was my secular religion, had been since the day I met her, and here at last was its high altar—the golden sun of Mari's bottom, raised and pantied to perfection.
Neither of us spoke, just breathed the aura of the moment. We had the rain against the windowpane, the warmth of the gas fire, and all around us in the candlelight, the interplays and flickers of their shadows. Occasionally, I moved around the circle to get a new perspective on her beauty. Sometimes I stood right back across the room to take the whole view in. At others I sat and looked so closely at her primrosed buttocks my face was almost touching. She was a Rembrandt in a gallery, lovely beyond words and priceless. We both thought so. I felt blessed, while she felt privileged to be the one who gave the blessing.
“How d'you feel now, honey?” she asked softly, after allowing me ten minutes.
“I feel at peace, Mari. I feel renewed and honoured and at peace. All the little problems and the worries I had, you’ve made them go away. I'm thinking of the day we met, and the first smile you ever gave me when I helped you off the floor. Somehow we've gone from there to here, like a bridge. And what a bridge it's been, what a journey. This moment right now, as you give your beauty to me as a friend, means as much to me even as that very first one does. And one day, when it's my turn to leave and all the memories are flashing through as I fade down, I hope this one will be in there as well. I treasure you, darling. There's nobody I could have met in all the world that would have thrilled me as you do. So, since you asked, that's how I'm feeling…peaceful, honoured, very lucky.”
She reached out to stroke my face.
“Oh, my darling Si, I'm so, so glad. And I feel honoured too, that I can make you feel this way. I've never claimed to understand you and I never will, but I feel just the same about us—when I think how much we'd both have missed if we hadn't met, it makes me go eurghh! and shiver. But listen, much as I like being in church like this, I reckon we've had long enough to chill, and we need to pick up the pace here, okay? So honey, now that I have you instead of that gorilla to keep me company, I'm thinking all I need to be completely blissful is wine, tobacco and song. Give me all three and I promise you, I'll make it worth your while.”
“What? You're saying things could get even better ’round here? So how does that work precisely? Let's see…my ears have the rain, my fingers have your hair, my tongue has Glenlivet, my nose has cedarwood, and my eyes have you. The world just doesn't have any lovelier things in it, so I think you've promised a bit more than you can actually deliver. Think before you speak next time.”
“Look, I see your problem, Simon, obviously, and it's not like I said it would be easy. In fact, it really won't be easy for me at all, but for you I'm going to do it. So what you need right here and now is just a blind mad leap of faith. Well, that, and what I asked you for, of course.”
I pondered this. “Hmm…how about Leonard Cohen, a Balkan Sobranie, and the vintage Rioja I was saving specially for Christmas? Would this achieve the goal?”
It's strange, but after the first ten years or so, you start to know what people like.
“It would. It most certainly would. Come to think of it, anything less than class A deluxe would not have been appropriate. I mean—fair doo's and all that—the best deserves the best to keep it company, I quite agree!” And with this she naughty-flashed her eyes at me and gave her bum two little pats.
It has to be said, when I compared Marianne a few minutes later to how she was when she rang my doorbell, I didn't think I'd done too badly. She didn't smoke that much, but when she did, she always savoured it, drawing in deeply before making a face like a cat with its throat being tickled. The aromas of the New World and the Orient combined with the cedarwood, and the deep dark wine dripped with rich vanillas and ancient memories of oak. As the music started, she had that little shiver we all of us know so well, 'Aah!...this one...' She warbled the tail-end of the choruses with Mr. Cohen languidly, beauty and the beast in imperfect harmony. Mellow—that's the word I need.
“Honey,” she said as the third track closed. “What I'm going to do now is for being here for me tonight of all nights. It's for making me feel the way I do right now. It'll probably never happen again, so please don't ask. And it can only be fleeting. Think of it like a comet, maybe, that comes by surprise to brighten your life. Just appreciate it while it lasts, and when it's over, don't be sad, okay?”
“Okay, darling. Whatever it is, I understand completely. It will be exactly as you say.”
She gave that smiling shake of the head I'd seen so often.
“You see? It's because you can say things like that—not even ask what it is but just accept it and be happy, that I'm able to do these things for you. I know how much my panties mean to you, and I know why, too—of course I do. I haven't got a pillow under my tummy to give you some cheap thrill, but to bring us together, to share our love in our own special way and make sure we can always stay friends. So I want you just to wait for the next song to start, and remember it always.“
The current track was rather long, so we sipped our drinks and drank the ambience. Then came silence in between the tracks, and Marianne began to fold away her panty wings especially for me. Not casually as she had done a hundred times before, but careful to do all she could to maximise my viewing pleasure. Next she plumped the pillow up, and slid along it to ensure her dreamboat derriere achieved the greatest height. Then, after the final note had played, I watched her spread those wings again.
She was right, of course. This was not to do with sex or knickers. This was D/s sorcery in motion, and of the many branches of that tree, this one was the passing-strange erotic charge of abstinence, of No, of loving with the eyes alone. Less than lovers, more than friends. That makes neither, and it has no name. Since the very start of when we met, this No had been saving what we had from ruin. Or, as she used to put it to her folks and girlfriends, 'Loads of boyfriends, just one Simon.' For them, she used words like plenty, fish, and sea. But she never used such words on me. Before Craig had come along she used to stand them in a line and go through them like skittles. After Craig, she slowed right down to two or three.
Had she taken me to bed, there would be no division anymore, no more me-and-them, and I'd have had to take my chances with her wildly swerving bowling ball along with all the rest. Many times she had been sorely tempted to fuck my brains out, and many times I'd gamely raised my hand and volunteered for treatment, but we both knew that if that happened, she'd have to clunk me with her electric claw and add me to the bunch of at-risk uprights.
'What you long for is under here. But you cannot have it. So there we are. Make the best you can of it.' This is what her panties said, and why, for both of us, they were iconic. Their label said they could be spun and ironed, that they were part cotton, part polyester, and part cloth of gold spun by the gods for Helen, Sheba, Cleopatra.
We were in our private space now, each purring in the warm bath of the other. I'd been cherished and rewarded with a very special treat, so it was her turn now and she wanted her best friend of all to talk to. She pulled the pillow out from under her and smoothed her skirt back down. When I jokingly complained about withdrawal symptoms and said I might be going into shock, she gave a smiling shrug and hitched until I had a far more normal half-her-buttocks-showing hemline.
“Yeah, okay, two minutes then. Just so you can wave bye-bye. But that's your lot, buster. The show must end, the lights go out, the curtain falls, okay?”
That suited us both fine. We were well aware I couldn't be my normal self or think straight with such a lethal beauty overdose, but neither could I be my best if I felt that she was hiding from me, physically or any other way. Good relationships have different rooms, and you can saunter with your partner from playpen to the dungeon via the cathedral to reach the conference room or hall of mirrors in any way you choose. Mari and I liked all parts of our house, but I suppose our favourite was the toddlers’ sandpit.
It turned out her date had gone wrong early, and that Mark had hardly picked her up in his car than she got into one of her sulks. Every compliment he gave her, she inverted. Every suggestion he made got an indifferent shrug. Everything he said or did was read backwards in her crazy alphabet. He tried asking what was wrong. He tried asking how he could do better. He tried to cheer her up and bring her round with jokes and drinks and kisses, but she only got her poison bottle out, and drip-drip-dripped it in his lager.
“Why, why, why do I do it, Simon?” she sniffled, and a tear that had been building in her eye came close to falling.
“D’you want the short answer or the long one?”
“Let’s try the short one.”
“Okay. Because you’re Marianne. Next question please.”
“That’s no bloody good, is it? Give me the long one then.”
“Well, it’s all because you’ve been happy since the day you met him, deeply, truly, gloriously happy. And for you, happiness is boring. Or rather, it’s a relative state, like light and dark that can’t exist without sharp contrast. You’re young and beautiful and amazing, and so you can’t abide feeling the same thing day after day, even if it’s bliss. So you engineer a fall, you find a way to play the black keys on your piano and, because you’re a woman, in your own mind it’s all completely rational and makes perfect sense at the time.”
“Okay, Simon—maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. God knows we’ll have plenty of time to mope about it every single time I come round to cry on your shoulder—and I give you fair warning that after tonight's fiasco, I’ll basically be camping in your garden.”
I cuddled her tight, because although she was attempting and succeeding to stay brave and sassy and so on, the pain was so intense it was peeping through despite the strength of this evening's sensual anaesthetic.
“No, you bloody well won’t! If you think I’m letting you back on the Bernard Matthews diet for another six months, you’ve got another thing coming. You drink my booze, you eat my cheese, you don't put the toilet lid back up—you’re going back to Mark even if I have to drag you to his doorstep with a rope.”
“Oh yeah? Okay, Simon, where are your wild horses?”
“Which wild horses?”
“The ones you’ll need to drag me to someone who just forced me to his knee and tried to smack my bum. I suggest you get about fifteen—nice big ones from Montana or somewhere—any less than that, forget it.”
I picked up the receiver of my phone.
“Only one horse will be needed, thank-you-very-much, and here it is, saddled and stirruped and ready. Now then, climb upon your handsome stallion my lady, feel the swish of the crop upon your flanks, and ride away into the sunset.”
“Simon?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Be a dear and boil your head, would you?”
“Dear god—are you peckish again already? Look, what's the sense in me buying all this worm powder if you never actually use it?”
She looked at me bitterly, and knew her days of turkeydom were numbered.
“Listen, dogface, if I call him, d’you promise to jump in the nearest lake and not come up?”
"I’ll nip upstairs and get my bathing-trunks,” I said.
Chapter Three
Question: when is a promise not a promise?
Answer: when it’s made by Marianne.
Half an hour after I’d agreed to drown for the sake of her lovelife, the wretched girl still hadn’t picked up the phone and apologized to her new boyfriend. To shame her into action, I duly went upstairs and changed into my swimming-trunks as threatened.
“Hey! Simon! You’ve been working out, haven’t you?” she said approvingly as she gave me the once-over.
“Well, being your best mate is so stressful and demanding that I decided I’d better get into top physical shape to help me cope. In fact I’ll recommend to Mark he does the same.”
“Huh! Don’t you worry on that score honey-bun, the guy’s a natural athlete—absolutely scrumptious all over. I mean, I’m looking at you now and thinking to myself: ‘Hmm, I’ll take a slice of that and a cup of tea as well,’ but when Mark takes his shirt off, it’s ‘Phoarrr! Gimmie-Gimmie!’”
“Hmm. I’m not quite sure I needed to be told that, Mari, but never mind.”
“Oh! Sorry, pumpkin! You know I didn’t say it to hurt!”
At once she raised her haunches off the floor and hitched her skirt to show her stocking-tops, her automatic way to kiss and make it better, just as it had always been since three weeks into our relations. The earlier cushioned goings-on had been unprecedented, and weren't going to make the least impression on instincts as ancient and ingrained as those which motivate a giant lizard. Had she really put her foot in it and cut me to the core, she would have added lots of panty-viewing to her little dove of peace. These apologies of hers might last for just a minute, or for an hour if she forgot to readjust back down, but she never had the slightest doubt of my forgiveness, as she knew legs like hers could put a fire out.
“It’s just the way it is, that’s all—you know that as well as I do. I love you like crazy but I only fancy you a bit, otherwise I’d have dragged you screaming to the church the first day I ever met you.”
“I see. And if you’d then met Mark at our wedding reception, am I right in thinking I’d have had to call for a lawyer over the Tannoy, and take the tins off the back of our car?”
“Well, unless people actually expected their presents back, then yes. But you’d still have had a delicious slice of cake to remember me by, so I can’t see how it would have been half as bad for you as you’re trying to make out.”
“Fine. In that case, he’s obviously saved me a great deal of trouble and expense, so even though he’s done me out of a small lump of decayed marzipan, I think I like the guy already.”
“Oh Simon! I doooo hope you do! If the two of you hate each other, it’s going to make my life soooo fucking complicated! Please-please like him, please!”
She undid the top three buttons of her blouse as an incentive. L.B.D.T. rules applied though, same as ever. I’ll give out b-for-but and t-for-touch to everyone, while d-for-don’t should be unnecessary and is strictly for my dimmer readers.
“Hmm. What if I take this clown to the pub and buy him a beer? Do I get the fourth button?”
“Honey, take him down the pub and you get all the buttons.”
“Plus skirt round your tummy?”
“Round my ears if you want it, sweetie.”
“Bra or no bra?”
“Hey! Don’t push your luck, sunshine, or you’ll be back to staring at my knees quicker than Mark can grab my hair and whack my arse, and that means greased-fucking-lightning-speed, I’m telling you!”
“Huh!” I snorted. “Well, if you’re going to start using the nuclear deterrent on me, you beastly hag, then fine—I’ll back off! Keep your horrible little bra and see if I care!”
I rubbed the pain out of my arm. Making Marianne’s lungs collapse was always a dangerous business.
We settled down again. She sighed, and looked at me.
“Okay, hun—I know I promised, but do you really think it’s such a great idea to call him? I mean, wouldn’t it be better to wait and see if he calls me?”
“No. Because he won’t.”
“How d’you know? Honestly, Si—he’s loopy about me.”
“I don’t doubt it, but that’s totally irrelevant.”
“Huh? Strange—I always thought that when someone’s gagging for you so bad they can hardly breathe, when they can’t get enough of you in bed or out of it, then it’s not that uncommon for them to sort of call you up and want to see you. But hey—what do I know? Simon has spoken, and now I know better.”
“Sheesh woman,” I muttered. “You’ve got a tongue like a piranha with rabies and yet you still can’t believe why anyone could possibly want to flatten your backside. But believe me, pumpkin—if our boots were on the other foot, your arse would be sending up smoke signals every five minutes, and that’s a fact.”
She looked at me, thunderstruck.
“Oh my god! Are you telling me that not only is my gorgeous new man a creepy little perv,” she said icily, hoisting herself from the floor to remedy her skirt’s unfortunate mistake. “But that my best and dearest friend is also just as twisted?” One by one, the buttons on her blouse fell back into decorum “What the hell did I do in my last life to deserve all this?”
“Oh come off it, Marianne!” I spluttered, half-annoyed as I watched her cover up. “Twisted is digging up graves in the dead of night to have a quick cuddle, and pervy is high court judges wearing diapers. Wanting to spank the living daylights out of a girl like you, on the other hand, is not only as natural as sunlight, it’s probably the only way a man can actually stay sane.”
“Oh yeah? Then how come you’re not stark staring bonkers, eh? Answer me that one, Mr. Natural Sunlight.”
“Okay. I will. Fetch that pillow back again.”
“What? Tell me you are kidding! You won’t be seeing my knickers again this side of your pension.”
“Fine by me—bored to tears with them anyway. I just wanted to show you something.”
Suspiciously, she picked the pillow up and looked at me for explanation.
“Take the cover off,” I said. She did and found MARIANNE written in big felt-tip across the cushion.
“Ahhh! How sweeeet! You sleep with my name on your pillow every night. Bully for you—but what does that have to do with the price of bacon, might I ask?”
I preferred to demonstrate than speak. Holding it up with my left hand, I whacked it with my right.
“Oh. I see,” she said, looking a bit crestfallen. “So that’s how you stay sane, is it?”
I nodded quietly.
“I must admit, I’ve often wondered how you manage. It’s not like I don’t know I can be a bit irritating sometimes.”
I let the ‘bit irritating’ pass. After all, Mari and I were both English, and understatement—even understatement on such a cosmic scale as this—is supposed to be our bag.
She was thoughtful and reflective for a moment, but then quickly brightened up...
“Well, never mind. After all, the boot is on my foot, not yours, the nearest you’ll ever get to smacking my arse is walloping my name on a pillow, and I can make you eat out of my hand any time I like. In view of all this, I’ve decided to forgive you.”
“Oh yeah? I search my memory, but somehow nothing comes. Remind me, dear, when did I last chomp at a sugarlump from your outstretched palm?”
“Never—but only ’cos I’m much too nice to make you. I could easily do it if I wanted though.”
“What? You think a fluffy little bunny like you could dent the granite will of a man like me?”
“I sure do, popsie. Come on—I’ll prove it.”
She rose, took my hand in hers to hoist me from my chair, and led me to the sofa. She sat me down, then blew my mind. More soft and warm than a litterful of kittens, my lap was filled with Marianne. I looked down upon her wondrous skirted thighs and backside.