made room for her. “Please yourself,” he said with a smile as she settled herself in the gray water.
O’Byrne lay on his back on the clean white sheets, and Lucy eased herself onto his belly like a vast nesting bird. She would have it no other way, from the beginning she had said, “I’m in charge.” O’Byrne had replied, “We’ll see about that.” He was horrified, sickened, that he could enjoy being overwhelmed, like one of those cripples in his brother’s magazines. Lucy had spoken briskly, the kind of voice she used for difficult patients. “If you don’t like it then don’t come back.” Imperceptibly O’Byrne was initiated into Lucy’s wants. It was not simply that she wished to squat on him. She did not want him to move. “If you move again,” she warned him once, “you’ve had it.” From mere habit O’Byrne thrust upwards and deeper, and quick as the tongue of a snake she lashed his face several times with her open palm. On the instant she came, and afterwards lay across the bed, half sobbing, half laughing. O’Byrne, one side of his face swollen and pink, departed sulking. “You’re a bloody pervert,” he had shouted from the door.
Next day he was back, and Lucy agreed not to hit him again. Instead she abused him. “You pathetic, helpless little shit!” she would scream at the peak of her excitement. And she seemed to intuit O’Byrne’s guilty thrill of pleasure, and wish to push it further. One time she had suddenly lifted herself clear of him and, with a far-away smile, urinated on his head and chest. O’Byrne had struggled to get clear, but Lucy held him down and seemed deeply satisfied by his unsought orgasm. This time O’Byrne left the flat enraged. Lucy’s strong, chemical smell was with him for days, and it was during this time that he had met Pauline. But within the week he was back at Lucy’s to collect, so he insisted, his razor, and Lucy was persuading him to try on her underwear. O’Byrne resisted with horror and excitement. “The trouble with you,” said Lucy, “is that you’re scared of what you like.”
Now Lucy gripped his throat in one hand. “You dare move,” she hissed, and closed her eyes. O’Byrne lay still. Above him Lucy swayed like a giant tree. Her lips were forming a word, but there was no sound. Many minutes later she opened her eyes and stared down, frowning a little as though struggling to place him. And all the while she eased backwards and forwards. Finally she spoke, more to herself than to him. “Worm…” O’Byrne moaned. Lucy’s legs and thighs tightened and trembled. “Worm… worm… you little worm. I’m going to tread on you… dirty little worm.” Once more her hand was closed about his throat. His eyes were sunk deep, and his word traveled a long way before it left his lips. “Yes,” he whispered.
The following day O’Byrne attended the clinic. The doctor and his male assistant were matter-of-fact, unimpressed. The assistant filled out a form and wanted details of O’Byrne’s recent sexual history. O’Byrne invented a whore at Ipswich bus station. For many days after that he kept to himself. Attending the clinic mornings and evenings, for injections, he was sapped of desire. When Pauline or Lucy phoned, Harold told them he did not know where O’Byrne was. “Probably taken off for somewhere,” he said, winking across the shop at his brother. Both women phoned each day for three or four days, and then suddenly there were no calls from either.
O’Byrne paid no attention. The shop was taking in good money now. In the evenings he drank with his brother and his brother’s friends. He felt himself to be both busy and ill. Ten days passed. With the extra cash Harold was giving him, he bought a leather jacket, like Harold’s, but somehow better, sharper, lined with red imitation silk. It both shone and creaked. He spent many minutes in front of the fish-eye mirror, standing sideways on, admiring the manner in which his shoulders and biceps pulled the leather to a tight sheen. He wore his jacket between the shop and the clinic and sensed the glances of women in the street. He thought of Pauline and Lucy. He passed a day considering which to phone first. He chose Pauline, and phoned her from the shop.
Trainee Nurse Shepherd was not available, O’Byrne was told after many minutes of waiting. She was taking an examination. O’Byrne had his call transferred to the other side of the hospital. “Hi,” he said when Lucy picked up the phone. “It’s me.” Lucy was delighted. “When did you get back? Where have you been? When are you coming round?” He sat down. “How about tonight?” he said. Lucy whispered in sex-kitten French, “I can ’ardly wait…” O’Byrne laughed and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead and heard other distant voices on the line. He heard Lucy giving instructions. Then she spoke rapidly to him. “I’ve got to go. They’ve just brought a case in. About eight tonight, then…” and she was gone.
O’Byrne prepared his story, but Lucy did not ask him where he had been. She was too happy. She laughed when she opened the door to him, she hugged him and laughed again. She looked different. O’Byrne could not remember her so beautiful. Her hair was shorter and a deeper brown, her nails were pale orange, she wore a short black dress with orange dots. There were candles and wine glasses on the dining table, music on the record player. She stood back, her eyes bright, almost wild, and admired his leather jacket. She ran her hands up the red lining. She pressed herself against it. “Very smooth,” she said. “Reduced to sixty quid,” O’Byrne said proudly, and tried to kiss her. But she laughed again and pushed him into a chair. “You wait there and I’ll get something to drink.”
O’Byrne lay back. From the corner a man sang of love in a restaurant with clean white tablecloths. Lucy brought an icy bottle of white wine. She sat on the arm of his chair and they drank and talked. Lucy told him recent stories of the ward, of nurses who fell in and out of love, patients who recovered or died. As she spoke she undid the top buttons of his shirt and pushed her hand down to his belly. And when O’Byrne turned in his chair and reached up for her she pushed him away, leaned down and kissed him on the nose. “Now, now,” she said primly. O’Byrne exerted himself. He recounted anecdotes he had heard in the pub. Lucy laughed crazily at the end of each, and as he was beginning the third she let her hand drop lightly between his legs and rest there. O’Byrne closed his eyes. The hand was gone and Lucy was nudging him. “Go on,” she said. “It was getting interesting.” He caught her wrist and wanted to pull her onto his lap. With a little sigh she slipped away and returned with a second bottle. “We should have wine more often,” she said, “if it makes you tell such funny stories.”
Encouraged, O’Byrne told his story, something about a car and what a garage mechanic said to a vicar. Once again Lucy was fishing around his fly and laughing, laughing. It was a funnier story than he thought. The floor rose and fell beneath his feet. And Lucy so beautiful, scented, warm… her eyes glowed. He was paralyzed by her teasing. He loved her, and she laughed and robbed him of his will. Now he saw, he had come to live with her, and each night she teased him to the edge of madness. He pressed his face into her breasts. “I love you,” he mumbled, and again Lucy was laughing, shaking, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Do you… do you…” she kept trying to say. She emptied the bottle into his glass. “Here’s a toast…” “Yeah,” said O’Byrne. “To us.” Lucy was holding down her laughter. “No, no,” she squealed. “To you.” “All right,” he said, and downed his wine in one swallow. Then Lucy was standing in front of him pulling his arm. “C’mon,” she said. “C’mon.” O’Byrne struggled out of the chair. “What about dinner, then?” he said. “You’re the dinner,” she said, and they giggled as they tottered towards the bedroom.
As they undressed Lucy said, “I’ve got a special little surprise for you so… no fuss.” O’Byrne sat on the edge of Lucy’s large bed and shivered. “I’m ready for anything,” he said. “Good… good,” and for the first time she kissed him deeply, and pushed him gently backwards onto the bed. She climbed forward and sat astride his chest. O’Byrne closed his eyes. Months ago he would have resisted furiously. Lucy lifted his left hand to her mouth and kissed each finger. “Hmmm… the first course.” O’Byrne laughed. The bed and the room undulated softly about him. Lucy was pushing his hand towards the top corner of the bed. O’Byrne heard a distant jingle, like bells. Lucy knelt by his shoulder, holding down his wrist, buckling it to a leather strap. She had always said she would tie him up one day and fuck him. She bent low over his face and they kissed again. She was licking his eyes and whispering, “You’re not going anywhere.” O’Byrne gasped for air. He could not move his face to smile. Now she was tugging at his right arm, pulling it, stretching it to the far corner of the bed. With a dread thrill of compliance O’Byrne felt his arm die. Now that was secure and Lucy was running her hands along the inside of his thigh, and on down to his feet… He lay stretched almost to breaking, splitting, fixed to each corner, spread out against the white sheet. Lucy knelt at the apex of his legs. She stared down at him with a faint, objective smile, and fingered herself delicately. O’Byrne lay waiting for her to settle on him like a vast white nesting bird. She was tracing with the tip of one finger the curve of his excitement, and then with thumb and forefinger making a tight ring about its base. A sigh fled between his teeth. Lucy leaned forwards. Her eyes were wild. She whispered, “We’re going to get you, me and Pauline are…”
Pauline. For an instant, syllables hollow of meaning. “What?” said O’Byrne, and as he spoke the word he remembered, and understood a threat. “Untie me,” he said quickly. But Lucy’s finger curled under her crotch and her eyes half closed. Her breathing was slow and deep. “Untie me,” he shouted, and struggled hopelessly with his straps. Lucy’s breath came now in light little gasps. As he struggled, so they accelerated. She was saying something… moaning something. What was she saying? He could not hear. “Lucy,” he said, “please untie me.” Suddenly she was silent, her eyes wide open and clear. She climbed off the bed. “Your friend Pauline will be here, soon,” she said, and began to get dressed. She was different, her movements brisk and efficient, she no longer looked at him. O’Byrne tried to sound casual. His voice was a little high. “What’s going on?” Lucy stood at the foot
