Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

She recalled how intense and sensual Gerard had been, the immaculate manners over dinner and in bed, so strong and yet so tender. He loved to undress her slowly, delicately, patiently; “Rushing love-making is as ungraceful as galloping through a fine meal,” he had told her in his lilting French, grinning boyishly, with his charm an essential ingredient of his being-rather than the often superficial tactic of the English. Effortlessly but with utter concentration, he would ensure her orgasm before he penetrated her-she remembered how she would involuntarily arch her back and raise herself into the air, and he would laugh, and kiss her, and continue to satisfy her, not ending until her series of orgasms, and her moans and shouting, had excited him sufficiently to reach his own climax. And then he would hold her closely in his arms, and say that he loved her, and she believed him then-and she believed him now, and would tell him so over and over again, in the most romantic language on earth, if only he were here…

She stroked her arms and then her legs, trying to stimulate her dying senses. Tentatively, she massaged her inner thigh. She had not touched herself like this since she was a teenager, and it felt good. All sexual thoughts had evaporated the moment she had been captured. Occasionally, and very weakly, they drifted back, but she tried to suppress them, for her only connection with humanity was her gaoler. She knew precious little about sadomasochism, yet she feared that new sexual stirrings might somehow be connected with him. She shuddered at such a depraved idea.

She willed the priest from her thoughts, and forced herself to concentrate on Gerard: his jet-black hair, his tanned limbs, the smile which reminded her of a schoolboy pirate, the little notes he sent her, the occasional bouquet of flowers, and always his sense of mischief and irreverence. And she spoke to the darkness: “Why did I stop seeing you? We never quarrelled, and there has never been anyone else, at least for me…if only I could reach out and phone you, to say I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch, and that I love you.” She had never been able to say it to Gerard’s face, but she could now.

Her struggle for sheer survival had dominated nearly all her thoughts, but her longing for human touch, physical contact, sexual passion, all overwhelmed her. Suddenly, and just for a moment, she needed sexual release more than anything in the world, and just as suddenly she decided on what she must do with her tormentor.

The opportunity arrived sooner than she had intended. It seemed like the middle of the night when Duval stormed in without knocking. The light blinded her for a few seconds and, as usual, she had no idea of night and day unless he told her. It was disorienting, as was being woken up so abruptly.

“Get out,” he ordered. “Get out, now.”

“I can go? Leave?” she asked groggily.

“You can leave your room and go to the corridor. The cellar door is double locked, so there’s no point in trying to get out again. Stay out there while I search your room.”

He seemed to go berserk as he threw her blankets on the floor and searched through her books. He removed her notebooks, then looked in every little cranny of the heater and wash-basin, and under her portable toilet.

Now fully awake and thoroughly alarmed, she asked, “What’s wrong, Michael? What are you looking for? I haven’t done anything. I haven’t got anything.”

His unshaven face was flushed with anger. “Shut up. Shut up! Don’t make me any angrier than I am.”

Petrified, she kept quiet, and retreated shivering to the end of the corridor near the large crucifix.

“Aha! Your little pigeonhole,” he said with an exaggerated note of triumph. Taking out a penknife, he edged the letters out of the air vent. With the notebook in his hand and her letters in his pocket, he walked out into the corridor.

“Get back in there,” he barked. “I suspected you were keeping a diary.”

He locked the door and turned off the light. It remained dark for an hour, then twelve hours and then, so she guessed, for twenty-four hours. She had a water bottle and the scraps of food she had stored, so she did not feel hungry for the first day.

He’s taking a long time reading my few notes and letters, she thought. Has he gone away?

Then, after what she estimated were two days, she wondered whether he had deserted her as he had deserted Denise-just leaving her to rot. It couldn’t be, not after all her stratagems of appeasement.

The heater had run out of paraffin, and the room temperature moved slowly towards zero. Putting on the cardigan he had allowed her, she wrapped the blankets tightly around herself.

She tried to think, despite the cold. “Thank God, I destroyed my original letters,” she told herself. “Those new ones should satisfy him.”

She wondered whether she had been plausible, because lying didn’t come naturally to her. She was pleased that she had taken precautions, but would he believe them? She had to be extra attentive to each nuance of his every mood in future.

She forced herself to relive good memories from the past: she was surprised how often Mrs. Violet Jenkins, from Wales but an inspiring teacher of English, surfaced in her catalogue of heroes. Schooldays hadn’t seemed so good at the time, but in retrospect Mrs. Jenkins had been very kind, very encouraging. She would be surprised to learn that her star pupil was reading the English mystics, and occasionally Gerard Manley Hopkins for light relief. The Cloud of Unknowing would certainly impress her, if only she could be told about it. If only. Marda’s thoughts involuntarily turned to school meals. They didn’t seem worth eating then, but her hunger pangs transformed them into bacchanalian feasts.

She began to pray, and surprised herself by quoting word perfectly from some of the prayers she had been taught by the monster upstairs. She questioned her sanity for the umpteenth time that day, or was it night? The black hole of timelessness was sucking her into madness. Finally, she drifted off into a nightmare in which she was transformed into a slave in some far-off time. She was chained in a medieval kitchen, forced to scrub and clean pots in a dungeon. She was beaten, but at least she encountered different tormentors; one or two even exchanged kind words and gave her scraps of food…

A sound came as if from a long, long tunnel, and she jumped when she realised it was a knock. On her door. A knock. That was a good sign.

The light went on and she managed to say, “Come in.”

He came in, trying, she thought, not to look in the slightest bit sheepish.

“Excuse my intrusion,” he said politely. “I don’t like reading other people’s private things, but I had to know. Were you telling the truth in your letters?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you write them?”

“I had to keep some-even imaginary-contact with the outside world.”

He snorted slightly.

“Are you hungry?” He said this almost tenderly.

“Yes, I’m starving. And it’s really cold in here.”

He turned his back to walk out and then spun around on his heels. He looked at her without speaking for a few seconds, seeming to take in the whole room, her whole subterranean existence. Finally, he said, “It’s Christmas Eve, so I wondered whether you would like a special meal. I have cooked a turkey. I don’t eat meat, but it seems right to offer you some on this eve of the feast.”

Marda thought: that’s as close as he is going to get to offering me an apology. “Oh, thank you,” she said appreciatively. “I’d like to help you. I’m not a bad cook, you know. I could help with the trimmings.”

Smiling, he said, “I can prepare it all myself, but thank you. I will lay out the table…upstairs…in the warm. I don’t expect to have any callers this late. I rarely have callers at all, especially on Christmas Eve. I will ask you to put on your handcuffs again, just as a precaution.”