Chapter number – The Devil and Miss Jones
Norelle was sitting in the corner of the café at a small table, watching people go past and waiting. There was a couple at the next table, arguing; Norelle always thought that arguing in public was a sign of weakness. The woman stood up, all tears and cosmetics, ready to walk out, calling the man’s bluff. It worked and the woman sat back down, mollified for the moment – the man might as well have gone down on one knee and proposed there and then. But that was a whole other sign of weakness.
‘Hello,’ said a voice in her ear.
Norelle looked to her right, to see nobody, and then to her left – again nobody. She leant back in her chair, and arched her head straight backwards. It was Gordon, upside down. ‘Hello,’ said Norelle, archly.
‘Mind if I join you, then?’ asked Gordon, sitting down, uninvited.
‘Be my guest. What’s that you’re reading?’
‘Oh, my deep dark secret. I tend to read a lot of stuff about the occult.’
‘I see,’ said Norelle, smiling. ‘Well, hand it over then.’
A waitress appeared at the side of their table. ‘Same again please,’ murmured Norelle, biting on a thumbnail as she read the back cover of the book.
‘Long black, thanks,’ said Gordon, holding the gaze of the waitress. Gordon smiled, and the waitress looked away, discomfited slightly. Gordon, though not overly attractive, had a type of charm that could either make a woman feel uncomfortable or glamorous. Sometimes both. And it tended to depend on the woman, as to the response that Gordon would get. ‘And in case you didn’t hear that,’ Gordon smiled at the waitress again, and then threw a consternated look at Norelle who was still reading, ‘my companion here will have the same again. Which by the look of it, was also a long black.’
The waitress nodded and walked away to the counter.
‘So,’ said Gordon, leaning forward, ‘Good read is it?’
Norelle laughed and put the book down, shaking her head. ‘Sorry. Bit of a voracious reader, I’m afraid. I used to be the bookworm in school.’ She rubbed the back of her neck with the palm of her hand.
‘And now look at you, transformed into the beautiful butterfly,’ said Gordon, smiling.
Norelle raised an eyebrow. ‘Why thank you, I’m sure,’ she purred in a mock southern accent, and laughed. ‘So what brings you here? For this place, it can’t be the coffee, eh?’
‘I’ve been drinking your mother’s tea all this week, let’s just say I needed a change, shall we?’ Gordon looked up to see their waitress, no, his waitress, walking over with two white cups balanced precariously on tiny saucers in her hands.
The couple at the next table were arguing again. This was no split due to musical differences; due, more likely, by the sound of it, to a torrid affair with a colleague at work. The woman, mascara running dark rivulets down her cheeks, stood up from her chair and stormed out. The man, ridden with either embarrassment or guilt, stood up to go after her, the futility of his actions in his eyes. He backed into the waitress, and the two cups flew everywhere.
Norelle looked up, having escaped unscathed from the both the cups and their scalding contents, not knowing who to feel most for.
Gordon broke the sudden silence that ensued.
‘Are you sure you wanted that extra caffeine pumping through your system?’
‘Not entirely,’ said Norelle, looking at the mess, and the poor waitress, standing with two empty saucers in her hands, which were hanging limply by her sides.
The man started to apologise profusely to the waitress, and as he crouched down on the floor to help her pick up the pieces of the shattered cups, Norelle and Gordon stood up, and walked towards the door. Norelle left some money on the table as she left, which Gordon picked up and pocketed on his way past.
In bright sunlight, they walked down the street, passing the ex girlfriend who was still waiting for the man to come rushing after her.
‘He’s talking to the waitress,’ Gordon called out helpfully as they walked past. The woman, still teary, burst vehemently into tears again and kicked the wall with her stilettoed foot.
Norelle did a double take at Gordon. ‘Easy, there!’ she exclaimed, unsure as to whether Gordon’s comment had been irredeemably cruel, or excruciatingly funny.
‘So where to now, then?’ grinned Gordon, shrugging at her astonishment. He looked down at her.
‘Hmm, want to come back to mine? It’s about ten minutes from here. And I promise not to throw coffee over you.’
They walked on down the street in silence, both knowing what this would lead to, albeit one more than the other.
Norelle’s house was neither particularly cosy nor particularly large. The psychiatrist in Norelle favoured cool, clean, clinical surfaces, a minimalist. Norelle led Gordon through the hall into the living room, and he took a seat on a pristine chocolate brown couch, with chrome legs and a sheepskin thrown over the back in a vague effort to humanise it.
‘Ah-ah,’ said Norelle, as if addressing a small child or a cute but disobedient pet.
Gordon looked up, unable, like a cute but disobedient pet, to work out what he had done wrong.
Norelle shook her head, and beckoned to him to follow her, as she went into another room. Gordon stood up meekly and followed her into the next room. The walls were painted a deep crimson hue, and there was a huge bed against the opposite wall.
‘Strip.’ Gordon looked at Norelle expectantly. ‘Strip!’ she said again, frowning at him.
Gordon looked at Norelle again, who by now was sitting in the middle of the bed, leaning against the headboard, arms outstretched and resting on the back of the bed. Interesting, he thought, raising an eyebrow at her.
‘How dare you look at me like that!’ cried Norelle in quite possibly the sternest tone that Gordon had ever heard addressed to him.
Gordon slowly undid the buttons of his black shirt. He could feel his hands tremble slightly. In anticipation? He wasn’t even sure any more. This was not something that happened every day, to say the least. He looked up at her again. She was sitting with her legs stretching towards the bottom of the bed, one knee bent slightly, and he took a deep breath.
‘And the rest!’ ordered Norelle, sharply. Gordon took off his shoes and socks, and undid his trousers. Holding them up still, he looked over to Norelle, who raised a stern eyebrow expectantly.
Gordon, stripped naked now, began to feel very vulnerable, although rather more in a delicious than a bad way.
Norelle, still completely clothed, slid off the bed. She looked at Gordon, whose emotions were ranging from ‘Hey, this is great!’ to feeling somewhat small and pathetic. Both feelings were somewhat novel to him, as he was used to both the ennui of centuries and generally being the most superior being in any given place.
Norelle walked slowly around Gordon, looking him up and down as she did so. ‘Get on the bed,’ she snarled, and Gordon did as he was told. Norelle marched round to the far side of the bed, and grabbed Gordon’s right wrist. There was a clunk of metal, and Gordon looked over to see that his right hand was shackled to the corner of the bedpost by a pair of handcuffs he hadn’t noticed there before. Lying on the bed, he tried to sit up a bit more, but Norelle pounced onto the bed and put a bare foot on his chest. ‘No,’ she said sternly, shaking her head slightly, her eyes glinting like two cursed diamonds. She took her foot off Gordon’s chest, and placed it gently against Gordon’s jaw. She moved it slightly, forcing Gordon to turn his head from side to side. She giggled, and, stepping over him, jumped lightly off the other side of the bed. Firmly grabbing his left wrist, she wrenched his hand towards the corner of the bed, and again Gordon heard the clink of metal cuffs against the bedpost, and felt the cold steel encircle his left wrist.
He lay prone as Norelle walked to the bottom of the bed, watching his face all the while. She reached below the bed and picked up some rope. Gripping his left ankle, she tied first his left foot, then his right foot to the opposite corners. Gordon had no choice but to lie there, and as it happened, he couldn’t think of anywhere else in the world he’d rather be.
Meanwhile, Norelle hadn’t taken her eyes off him, watching him like prey, she circled the bed, slowly unbuttoning her shirt.
‘You’ve been a very naughty boy, haven’t you,’ said Norelle, breathlessly.
Gordon looked up, watching Norelle as she prowled over to a large candlestick in the corner of the room, lighting several candles. He tried to shrug, but the motion was lost in his tethers. She smirked at him. Norelle reached over to the wardrobe and picked up the corner of a chiffon scarf that was draped from the corner of the wardrobe door. Deep red, the sheer fabric trailed from where it hung, as Norelle languidly walked across the room, not even looking at it. Her arm outstretched over the bed, and she dropped the scarf on Gordon as he lay there naked. He shivered as the chiffon fell like a whisper on his skin. Norelle turned away from the bed, and Gordon breathed in sharply as her skirt fell to the floor. She turned around.
Walking towards the bed, she picked up the chiffon scarf, trailing it over his skin, as she walked up to the top of the bed. He gasped as she draped it over his face, and then she took one end, and, grabbing a handful of hair, she roughly pulled his head up from the pillow, and wrapped the scarf around his head, over his eyes. She tied it forcefully and tightly at the back of his head.
Gordon uselessly turned his head to look at Norelle, able only to make out vague shadows against the candlelight through the haze of the blood red chiffon. He could see the shadow that was Norelle but other than that, he was blind, and unable to move. The sensation of chiffon was once again upon his skin, lingering over his body, up his thigh, over his stomach, brushing his chest; he felt his nipple harden. Norelle grabbed his hair again; Gordon gasped, and Norelle tied the chiffon, gagging him. Too tight to be comfortable, too erotic to be painful. He felt her hot breath against his neck and shivered. ‘You’re mine,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t move, you can’t speak, you can’t cry out, you can’t see. You’re mine.’
Gordon could feel the warmth of her presence receding, and he could hear her soft footfalls in the corner of the room now. The next thing he knew was that she had something in her hand, and was draping it down his torso. This wasn’t chiffon. Whatever it was, it was brought forcefully down on his right thigh. A cat o’ nine tails. Gordon arched his back, and felt the force of the leather whip hit his left thigh. ‘You’re a very naughty boy,’ purred Norelle. ‘you want to be whipped, you slut, arching your back like that. You know that now I’ll have to punish you.’ There was a cracking noise, and Gordon’s cheek stung where she had slapped it. Then, soothing, the tickle of leather brushing so lightly across his cheek that he couldn’t be sure it had actually happened. His breathing was shallow now.
Wax
Camera flash
Come too soon
Turned on by the heat
