Lynda Plante - The Talisman

Alex came with a shudder that shook the bed. He put his hands over his face, he didn’t want her to see the extent of the pleasure she had given him, but she pulled his arm away...

‘Now it’s your turn...’

Alex did not leave the bedroom the next day. They remained together, food was sent in, eaten, and then they were back to screwing again. Alex had never known such pleasure, he made up for all the lost years... until even Barbara was exhausted. He never stopped, this Englishman was more than she had ever bargained for...

‘You’re really going to leave me, go back without me? You can’t leave your baby, can you? Alex? You can’t leave me now, can you?’

He moaned and held her tight, her body slithering in his arms like an eel, and he kissed her. ‘I’ll take you with me.’

Barbara was determined she would somehow trap Alex into marrying her. Marriage to Barbara had, naturally, crossed Alex’s mind, along with the massive fortune that went with it. He certainly found her the most sexually attractive woman he had ever encountered, but then he had not had all that much experience with women.

He lay on the bed and thought about Ming, then his mind wandered back over all the years to Dora. He closed his eyes, let the memories flood through him, and he had a sudden impulse to see Dora again. He reached for the telephone wondering if the operator would be able to trace Dora’s husband with just the name Kinnerton. He couldn’t remember the man’s first name... On second thoughts he decided against it. He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom, where Barbara was lying in the bubble-filled tub. She flicked water at him, and sat up so he could see her beautiful breasts, the soapsuds around her like a cloud.

‘Tell me about your husband, what was he like?’

Barbara blew bubbles at him from her hand, but her eyes narrowed. Why did Alex want to know about her husband?

He sat on the side of the bath and gently soaped her shoulders. She caught his hand and kissed it, kissed each finger, sucking at them, and he bent down to kiss the top of her head. The damp, steamy atmosphere in the bathroom had made small curls form by her ears, and he twisted one around his finger.

‘I hated him, Alex.’

‘Not at first, surely?’

‘Oh no, I was sixteen, and he was very glamorous. He used to ride up to see Daddy, and he was always bringing me little gifts... But he was thirty-eight, married four times already.’

‘So, go on... you agreed to marry him?’

‘Daddy married us — wanted him to oversee some of his oilfields, and then they had this new pipeline running through Alaska or something, I don’t know. But it was more of a business deal. Contracts were exchanged.’

Alex looked at his nails. ‘And? Go on.’

Barbara was desperately calculating how much she should tell Alex about this part of her life. She remained silent, flicking at the soap bubbles with a fingernail. She had trailed after her first husband, panting after him like a chubby puppy. She had been as overweight as her daughter Selina, and so besotted with this handsome, debonair man that she had persuaded her father to somehow arrange that he marry her. At first her father had refused, but at the thought of how much business he could acquire by joining the two together he changed his mind and pressured Joe Taverner to marry his plump, spoiled brat of a daughter. Taverner had accepted the deal, and Barbara.

He had never let her live it down. In the first year of their marriage he tormented her, forcing her to beg to be taken into his bed. He found his young bride only too eager to act out his fantasies. She became a slave girl, a mute, a willing partner in every sexual game he could devise. For the first three years she lived with him, tied to his bed in chains, whipped in the stables, dressed in kinky leather costumes made to his own designs. He turned away from his many mistresses — his wife had supplanted them. She balked at nothing, and took him to such a sexual peak that his obsession inverted itself. He became the slave, the mute, and her fertile young brain devised many more perverted games — he became the one bound to the bed, tied up in the cellar, now he was the one to crawl and beg for her favours.

Taverner had always been a hard drinker, and with a wife whose energy was directed into nothing but sexual gratification, he spent more and more time at their ranch, drinking. Two daughters were born, and immediately handed over to nannies and nursemaids. The games began again as soon after the births as possible. Then Taverner made the mistake of introducing third parties. At first it was other women, but when Barbara had tired of that, he brought home men of all shapes, colours and sizes — paying them to screw his wife.

By the time she was twenty-one, Barbara had had more lovers than most women would have in three lifetimes. She tormented her husband with them and drove him to distraction. Her puppy fat had disappeared and, as though emerging from a chrysalis, she had been transformed into a stunningly beautiful woman, insatiable and obsessive in her desires.

Taverner lost control of his drinking and wrecked his business. Rumours of his wife’s behaviour were spreading — she was becoming notorious, not only for her sexual perversions but for her outrageous spending sprees. Having always had plenty of money, she had never known a moment when she could not have whatever she wanted when she wanted it. She threw parties, bought speedboats, yachts, racehorses, even a plane, and grew bored with them almost before the ink had dried on the cheques. Taverner, sodden with drink and broke, was cast aside. Barbara’s father threatened to cut her off unless she behaved herself, so she controlled her urges and limited herself to one man at a time in the privacy of her own home.

And this was what was lying in Alex Barkley’s bathtub, this beautiful sophisticated woman was more of a whore than any of Dora’s girls — even Dora herself. Barbara Taverner was a slut in thousand-dollar dresses with a billionaire’s daughter tag around her neck. The veiled looks that Alex had detected from Dallas society and presumed were envy, really meant ‘sucker’. They knew all about her, and they pitied him.

‘My husband, Alex, wasn’t a very nice man. He would subject me to horrible things, tie me up and beat me... It was terrible because I was so young, I had no one to turn to, no one. My father wouldn’t listen, and then when Joe got so drunk, so drunk he couldn’t screw me himself... Oh I can’t, I can’t tell you... I am so ashamed...’ Tears rolled down her perfect cheeks... ‘I hated him so much, and I could do nothing... Now you know, I am so ashamed, oh God, he beat me, and... Alex...’ She turned her tear-stained face to him, held out her arms. ‘Sometimes he even made me enjoy it. Help me, oh, don’t leave me, I need you, Alex, I would die if you left me... You’re everything he wasn’t. I trust you, I trust you so much, and you have made me respect myself again, when I never thought I could.’

He knelt and took her in his arms. She seemed so childlike, so desperately lonely. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. Barbara knew it was now or never, and she clung to him, held him tight. She became girlish and coy, nuzzling his neck, giggling. ‘I would be such a good wife to you, Alex, entertaining — and something I’ve always wanted is to be part of English society, you know, mix with the titles and meet everyone. I’d be such a good wife, I would — do you mind me being so rich? Is that what troubles you? But it mustn’t — think, darling, oh think what we can do together, what we can accomplish...’

She climbed out of the bath and danced around the room, putting on a plummy English accent, bowing and curtseying, then knelt at his feet and looked up into his handsome face. ‘I love you, Alex, I love you so much. Whatever you want I want, I love you.’