Who Are You? (18 page)

Then, roughly, he pulls her head forward and unties the knot behind her head and pulls the sock out of her mouth. She draws on huge gulps of air and coughs, a dry, rasping sound. ‘Thirsty?’

‘Yes,’ she croaks. Then he grabs her ankles and unties the scarves. She stretches her legs out and groans with pain. Alex knows her muscles will be cramping and spasming after being in the same position for so long. But she’ll get over it. Then he shoves her onto her stomach and releases her wrists. She pulls her hands in front of her and starts rubbing at her skin. ‘Don’t tell me I hurt you? I wouldn’t want to do that, would I?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘I said “Would I?”’ She shakes her head.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘No, Alex.’ Her voice is rough and dry and she coughs again.

‘Don’t move!’ he orders. He goes into the bathroom and flushes some water into a tooth mug and then returns with it.

‘Drink slowly,’ he says. She tries to hold the mug, but her hand is trembling so much that she spills it. She holds it in both hands to steady it and then takes a sip, then a bigger mouthful, then more until she finishes it. She wriggles away from the dampness underneath her. ‘Stay there,’ he tells her.

He goes into the bathroom and puts the plug in the bath tub, then turns on the tap. He scans her bottles of scents and then, not finding what he wants, he opens the cupboard underneath the basin and squirts in some lavatory cleaner. The water turns a delicate, swimming-pool blue with the same cleansing smell of bleach. He returns to the bedroom where Juliet is now sitting up. There are tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Stand up,’ he orders. She wriggles to the edge of the bed, and then gingerly tips her legs over the edge and rests her feet on the floor. She tries to lever herself up but her legs are wobbly. ‘I said stand up.’

‘I’m trying …’ she snaps weakly.

Alex slaps her across the face. ‘Don’t answer back. Just do as you’re told. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Alex.’ She whispers.

‘I can’t hear you,’ he says.

‘YES Alex.’ Her voice cracks, and she stands up, watching him, rubbing at the new mark on her cheek, eyes filled with the wariness of a cornered animal.

‘Take off your clothes.’

She’s only wearing her thin pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt. He watches her face grimace with pain as she tries to raise her arms over her head. Then she strips off her damp bottom half and stands facing him, her hands resting in front of her pubes. ‘Put your arms by your sides,’ he commands.

She does so. She’s shivering. She looks so vulnerable and lost, he almost feels sorry for her. But almost is a long way from actually. This lesson is long overdue.

‘Into the bathroom.’

He follows her. She stands with her shoulders hunched, looking down at the rising water. Alex bends forward and swishes the water around. It’s barely warm, just the way he wants it. ‘Get in,’ he orders.

She puts first one foot in, then the other. ‘It’s cold,’ she says.

‘It’s perfect. Sit down.’

She grimaces, and lowers herself down, keeping her knees up, and her arms wrapped around them. Her shivering is becoming more violent. Alex splashes water onto her back and she recoils. Then he takes the other tooth mug and throws water over her hair.

‘Please, Alex, put some hot in,’ she begs. Her teeth are chattering. Alex reaches for the cold tap and turns it on. Juliet squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip. ‘More complaints mean more cold. Now lie back,’ he says.

She just looks at him, and then she slides back, very slowly, flinching as her flesh touches the cold water. Alex puts his hand to her neck and pushes her head under so that her hair is submerged. He splashes water over the dried blood in her hairline. Then he pulls her up and reaches for the shampoo. ‘Wash it.’

She scrubs hard, her hands working through her hair furiously, in order to try and get this over with as quickly as possible.

‘Harder. I can still see blood. Get it all out.’

She squeezes more shampoo into her hand and spreads it into her hair and starts rubbing and squeezing again. Then she lies back and rinses it away. Alex gets the soap and lathers it in his hand. ‘On your knees,’ he orders.

She gets hold of the sides and kneels. ‘Open your legs.’

She stretches her knees apart, leaning forward slightly so that she can keep her balance. Alex reaches between her legs and rubs his hand hard. ‘Ouch!’ she cries. ‘Christ, Alex, what are you trying to do?’

He gets the soap and shoves it into her mouth. ‘I said,’ he growls, ‘don’t speak.’

She spits, crying out. ‘Please … just stop … I’m sorry. Please …’

He starts soaping her back and her arms, and he lets his nails rake into her skin as his hands slide over her body. Somewhere inside him, buried almost too deep to acknowledge, is the feeling that this level of brutality is not just dehumanizing Juliet, but him too. But then he is not trying to like himself, nor even to rationalize his actions. He’s just trying to get his life sorted out, and if this is the only way to do it effectively, to control his wife and keep his son safe and with him, then the use of moderate force must be justifiable. Besides all that, he hasn’t felt as alive as this, nor so connected to himself since he was in Afghan.

He uses the shower attachment to give her a cold rinsing off, and then lifts the plug.

‘Stand up.’ He sees her eyes flick towards the white fluffy towel hanging from the heated towel rail. He gets hold of her arm and helps her step out of the bath, but he doesn’t get the towel for her. She is shivering uncontrollably and her teeth are chattering. Alex knows what it’s like to be cold, really cold. For your clothes to be soaked through and to have no way of warming up. To spend a whole night with your teeth clacking together so hard you think your jaw will disintegrate. She knows nothing.

‘Please, Alex – the towel.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’ll soon dry. He pushes her hair back and examines the marks that his hands have left around her neck. They’re red, with just the faintest hint of blue. She can wear a polo neck or a scarf. Then he looks at her head. The blood has all gone and there’s a red gash, but it looks clean enough. Her hair will cover that. His hand has left an angry red stain on her cheek, but that will fade. At least there are no black eyes or broken bones. He’ll have to keep his eye on her until the bruises fade. Get her phone, make sure she doesn’t take any pictures – but he could say those were faked, that she used make-up. His mind easily switches into strategic mode, looking for threats, evaluating the danger, taking the necessary action. Juliet has no idea just how good this is for him; you might even call it therapeutic. While she shivers in front of him, he muses on what he will do with her next. He’s had an erection ever since he put her in the bath. Her skin is milky white. Faint blue veins snake below the smooth skin of her breasts. Beneath them her ribs are visible, and then her flat belly framed by sharp hip bones curves down to where her legs meet in a triangle of dark hair. Long, slender legs, and frivolous splashes of red on her toe nails.

He pulls the soiled duvet off the bed and dumps it on the floor. Then he unzips his trousers and lets them fall to his ankles before stepping out of them. Juliet’s eyes have widened. She raises her hand to her mouth and she retches. ‘What’s the matter, babe? Don’t like what you see?’

‘Alex, don’t. You can’t treat me like this. Look at me properly, Alex. Remember who I am … Come back to me, Alex!’

‘I’m right here, my love. Now get on the bed, on your tummy.’

‘Alex, no. I beg you.’

‘Beg me, would you? Yes, I like the sound of that. You can beg me. Go on, say it – Please, Alex, I beg you to do what you want with me.’

She’s sobbing now, her body shivering, and great wracking sobs convulsing through her. Coughing and sobbing and begging.

‘Say it, bitch.’ He brings his hand down on her backside as hard as he can. She shrieks in pain. ‘I said, say it.’

‘Please …’ her voice is barely a whisper, ‘ … please do what you want with me.’

‘That’s better.’ Alex spits on his hand and rubs it over the end of his cock, then he spits on his hand once more and rubs the saliva over Juliet’s arse, and then he pulls her hips up towards him, positioning her against him. First he puts his finger inside her, and then he takes it out before ramming his cock into her. Juliet’s screams are guttural, choking, she’s sobbing and screaming for him to stop, her fingers raking against the sheet, struggling to climb up the mattress, to get away from him, but Alex holds her firm, shutting out her moans, and he fucks all his anger, his tension, his fear and his hurt into the body on the bed.

CHAPTER

12

Juliet lies on the bed, sobbing into the pillow. Alex has thrown the duvet over her and left the bedroom. He hasn’t locked the door this time. Perhaps he’s assuming, correctly, that there’s no way she’ll be venturing downstairs. She feels violated. It was rape; no other word for it. Her husband has raped her. She sobs harder, not only from the emotional trauma and the humiliation, but from the shooting pains in her rectum. Alex stuffed a tissue between her buttocks and she checked it to confirm that she was bleeding. The obvious thing to do is to call the police, to have him arrested, but that would mean her being examined. The shame of having to tell a stranger – or worse, that people she knows should know – that she has been anally raped by her own husband. She can already feel the fingers pointing. ‘Oh, she’s the one … the victim …’ Or worse: ‘She probably asked for it … wound him up … easily done after what he went through … poor fucking Alex.’

But apart from all that, and most important, was the fear of what would happen if they didn’t arrest him, or if they did and then they let him go. Wasn’t that what normally happened? Wouldn’t he be let out on bail? Knowing Alex, with his smooth tongue and his experience in security and God knows what, he’d be able to talk himself out of it, he’d probably know the right people who could ‘look after him’. Maybe he’d know the right people who could look after her. He’d seek some sort of revenge. It’s what he’s always said in the past, that he’d come after her; that he’d hunt her down. And it wouldn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to suppose that he’d recruit someone to do it for him, if he couldn’t do it himself. So dare she pick up the phone? If she did, there’d be no going back. Even if she backed down and decided not to press charges, the police could go ahead without her consent, provided they felt they had enough proof to stick a decent prosecution together. And if they saw her like this – the mark on her head, the bruises round her neck, the faint, but discernible marks around her wrists and ankles, not to mention her internal bruising … Oh yeah, they’d probably find that enough evidence to stick a charge on him. So why doesn’t she just pick up the phone? She takes a deep breath, and then another to try and calm herself. There’s a huge knot of fear in her stomach. She thinks about Ben and her responsibility towards him, about the future, or lack of it, that they will have with Alex. She summons all her courage and picks up the telephone and presses the dial button. It’s dead. She presses it again. Nothing. She replaces it on the base unit and realizes there are no lights active. She switches on the bedside lamp, but that isn’t working either. Alex must have turned off the fuse supplying the plug sockets. Her mobile. Where did she leave it? In the bloody kitchen where she left it last night, where she always leaves it, on charge. So she has no choice. There’s always tomorrow, and the next day. As long as she’s still alive by then. But the first thing she must do is bathe herself properly. There is nothing she wants more than to feel the soothing heat of a hot bath on her battered body. And then she must begin to plot their escape.

*    *    *    *    *

Later, much later, Juliet has cried herself to exhaustion and has been dozing fitfully, trying to escape from the pain gnawing through her body. Despite the hot bath, she shivers with an untouchable coldness. She hears the sound of Alex’s footsteps thudding on the stairs, and then the opening of the door. She pulls the duvet around her and curls up tighter, all her muscles tensed, and hopes he might leave her alone if he thinks she’s asleep. The room is pitch black, but when he flicks on the light she can feel it glaring through her screwed up eyelids. She hears the sound of something sliding on a tray. Perhaps he’s got some new mode of torture for her.

‘Juliet,’ he says, softly. ‘Come on, baby. I’ve got something for you.’ She flicks open her eyes and blinks unseeingly for a moment until they adjust to the light, then she sees a mug and a plate of something which Alex is carrying on the tray.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I thought you might be feeling hungry. And I’ve brought you a cup of tea – and one of Mum’s mince pies. You like those.’ The softness in his voice, such a contrast to how he was when he left her, makes her cry again. She doesn’t want to cry. She doesn’t want to show Alex any sign that he’s broken her, but she can’t help it. She is in so much pain. Her back passage feels as though it has had a red hot poker shoved up it, and every time she moves her legs a stab of pain shoots inside her. Her head aches and her neck and windpipe are severely bruised. What she wouldn’t give for some painkillers right now. She thought she had some in the bathroom cabinet, but they seem to have been moved. Perhaps Alex thought she might be tempted to end it all. She’s confused by the thought, because surely it would solve everything for him if she wasn’t around any more. He could have Ben all to himself, without the hassle.

‘Thank you,’ she says. Weird how manners can kick in at the strangest times.

‘That’ll make you feel better,’ he says, smiling at her with a soppy look which could almost be mistaken for sympathy. What she really wants is him on his fucking knees, begging forgiveness.

‘You hurt me, Alex. You hurt me so very badly.’ And he thinks a cup of tea and his mother’s mince pie is going to make her feel better?

‘Shhh, I know … I know,’ he says. So now she’s getting the soft soap. The loving, almost contrite Alex. It’s a familiar pattern, and she knows that it can’t be taken at face value. Every muscle in her body is tensed, wondering what he will do next. He is despicable. She despises him utterly. He hands her the mug and reflexively she wraps her hands around it. She looks at the mince pie on the plate and her stomach spasms with hunger pains, but she doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t want to give in to her body. She doesn’t want to accept anything from Alex, but her body is begging for it, betraying her. She takes the mince pie from the plate and eats it in two mouthfuls and then feels overcome with guilt at her weakness.