Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

She started to laugh, then winced and put a hand to her forehead.

‘Lie there,’ I said, ‘I’ll get a sheet to put over you, then I’ll carry you back up to bed. It’s safe to move you now.’

‘Don’t bother with the sheet, just help me up.’ She grabbed my arm and tried to haul herself into a sitting position, but struggled. I got my arms underneath her and lifted her clear of the floor.

She put her arms round my neck as I rose carefully to my feet. ‘You’re stronger than you look,’ she said, with a degree of surprise which hurt my feelings.

I carried her upstairs back to her room. The door was ajar, and the light from the hall let me see the bed clearly enough; the duvet was turned back, almost neatly. I laid her down and pulled it up to cover her. At once she rolled over, putting her back to me. ‘Undo that for me,’ she asked. She meant her bra. ‘I don’t think I can reach the catch with my sore shoulder.’

I flicked it undone quickly, expertly even. She slipped out of it, awkwardly, tossed it out of the bed, then turned towards me again, pulling up the duvet to cover her chest as she did.

‘Thanks Oz,’ she murmured. ‘Can I have a drink?’

‘I think you had enough last night.’

‘Go on, just a wee one. I feel really shaky.’

I gave in. I went downstairs, poured her some Le Panto from the decanter and brought it to her. She looked at me gratefully and took a sip. I sat on the bed, beside her. ‘What happened?’ I asked her.

She frowned, then winced from the pain of the lump on her forehead. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’ I asked.

She thought for a moment. ‘I remember you pulling my boots off, then I remember looking up at you downstairs. There’s nothing in between.’

‘You don’t remember getting up? I heard you in the hall.’

‘I don’t remember at all.’ Then she began to cry, for real this time. ‘Oz, I’m just so frightened. It’s so bloody diff icult.’

‘What is, love?’

‘Everything.’ She finished the brandy in a swallow. ‘Just everything.’

‘But you get through it.’

‘Do I? Do I really?’

I smoothed her hair again, and took the goblet from her. ‘You get some sleep now, kid. You’ve had a shock, that’s all; that and a bad fall. You’ll have a few bruises in the morning, but a few hours’ kip and you’ll feel better.’

I stood up, but she grabbed my hand. ‘Don’t go, Oz. I’m really scared; I think I must have been sleepwalking. What if I do it again?’

I had to admit that there was some logic behind that fear. So I sat down again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, plaintively. ‘I’m a wimp, I know, and it’s a hell of a thing to ask, but stay here with me, eh?’

Call me daft if you will. . and you will, I know. . but there was something small and fragile in her expression that got to me. ‘Okay,’ I conceded, crossing my fingers in the hope that Prim would understand. I went out to the hall and switched off the light, then closed the door and slipped under the duvet, beside her.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered. I felt the warmth of her as I lay there awkwardly in the dark, practically hanging off the edge of the big bed to make sure I didn’t touch her, listening to her as her breathing softened, and grew slower, in time with my own.

I hadn’t intended to drop off, but I’d had a few drinks too. When I woke, it was daylight. The room was warm and one of us had thrown back the duvet during the night. Susie was still sound asleep: she was lying face down, with her bum half uncovered. Her right arm was thrown across me, and her hand was inside my boxers.

I gave some thought to this predicament. In fact I was still thinking about it when she stirred beside me, and her eyes flickered open, registering instant amazement as they met mine across the pillows. I watched her as she remembered where she was and what I was doing there. It only took a couple of seconds, but her expression was priceless while it lasted.

She had barely surfaced before Mr Bendy. . it’s always had a mind of its own, and absolutely no self-control. . stirred and began The Change, under her hand. She realised where it was and drew it back quickly, then rolled on to her side and looked at me.

‘We didn’t, did we?’ she asked.

‘Naw. I think you must have been wandering in your sleep again, that’s all.’

She shot me a mischievous look. ‘Pity,’ she drawled. ‘That’s another of your hidden assets.’

I propped myself up on an elbow and glanced down. The way she was lying, and the way that my boxers were arranged, I saw that there were absolutely no secrets left between Susie and me. I pulled the duvet up again, quick. Naturally, I considered getting up and out of there, but walking to the door would have been awkward, or embarrassing, or both.

‘Just something that happens to us chaps in the morning,’ I said, lightly.

‘Wish it happened to us girls,’ she shot back.

‘You’re feeling better, then?’

‘I don’t know what I’m feeling. Well I do, but that’s not what you’re asking, is it? About last night, I still have no idea. I know that I was drunk as a monkey, but I’ve never chucked myself down a flight of stairs while I’ve been under the influence.’

I began to wonder whether she still was under the influence, thanks to that medicinal brandy I’d given her after her fall.

‘I do act funny when I have a drink, though. I get very randy for a start; the real me comes out.’ Her voice was higher than normal. A corner of her mouth twitched, and she blinked, several times.

‘I’m a selfish, manipulative, wee bitch, you know,’ she exclaimed, sounding just a wee bit strident. ‘At least that’s what Mike told me once, and he should have known. He was all of that, the bastard, and in spades, wasn’t he just?’ Her mouth was set hard now, and her eyes were narrow; there were tears behind them.

‘He was mine, though, Oz; he was my bastard. Wasn’t he?’

‘No, Susie,’ I told her truthfully. ‘He was his own; or he thought he had to be; that’s why he did what he did. He saw a chance to have it all, and he took it.’

As she gazed at me, her face creased with a wicked smile. ‘If it was good for him, then, it’s good for me.’

Lightning fast, she threw an arm round my neck, closing the space between us, and kissed me. I was taken by surprise, and I was off balance, so I couldn’t prevent myself from being rolled on to my back. She slid on top of me, way up on top, reaching down with her free hand. At first, I thought she was trying to rip off my boxers, but there was no need. They were no impediment at all.

I know that I could have picked her up and thrown her across the room, even as she thrust me inside her; no, I know that I should have done just that. But some things happen so suddenly and so unexpectedly that you don’t react logically, or morally, or anything else. . you just react.

In this case, I can only remember feeling myself getting bigger and harder, until I seemed to explode, at the very moment that she started to come on top of me, thrusting and gasping, drawing her orgasm from my life-juice as it pumped into her. Then, with a last, climactic shout, she collapsed, spent. It must have taken only seconds, that was all, the whole frantic act; yet the sudden violence of it left me stunned.

For a long time, afterwards, Susie couldn’t look at me. She just lay there, astride me, as I slowly subsided, clutching me tight, with her face buried in my chest, baptising me with her pent-up tears, which had finally found release. I lay there, numb, looking up at the ceiling. I felt like an idiot, which I was. I also felt something I had never even imagined before. I felt like a victim.