‘Come on, you’re not going anywhere. Why did you come home with me? Why agree if you didn’t want what I’m about to give you?’
She saw his hand move to the front of his trousers. He seemed to stroke himself there, just for a fluttering instant. Then she realised she could see a great bulge like a truncheon at his fly, and fear clamped round her like an invisible corset.
Run away
, she told herself. But she couldn’t move.
The next moment, he was making a strange noise in his throat and inching her towards the huge bed.
I know what’s going to happen
, she thought. Half her mind was gripped by fright, but the other half seemed to be extremely calm and removed from the whole event.
He’s going to do it to me. I wonder what it will be like. I hope it doesn’t hurt
.
Hundreds of thoughts flashed through her mind as the man pushed her down on the bed and lay down next to her, panting, holding her firmly with one hand as he began to
tussle
with her clothes. He seemed overcome with excitement and didn’t appear to know what to do first, pushing her skirt up round her thighs and scrabbling towards her knickers at one moment, then fumbling with the buttons of her shirt the next, desperate to get his fat fingers on her breasts.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be
, she thought, remembering all the ways she’d fantasised about losing her virginity.
‘You like this, don’t you?’ he muttered. ‘I knew what you wanted. You’ve been begging me for this, don’t think I didn’t understand …’
Then he pressed his mouth to hers, forcing her lips apart with his tongue. She became passive, letting him lever her jaws open so he could push himself into her mouth. She wanted to close her teeth on his tongue but she did nothing.
Why can’t I move? Why can’t I do anything?
But she seemed gripped by a strange sort of paralysis that meant she lay there and endured everything, with a calm little voice in her head offering her a running commentary all the time on what was happening to her.
How strange – he’s actually a better kisser than Freddie. He’s not thrashing about like a snake in a washing machine. And he doesn’t taste as bad as I’d expected, which I suppose I should be grateful for. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been drinking brandy too. Oh, he’s got my buttons undone at last, so … what now? Oh, of course
.
He left her mouth and pulled the cups of her bra down under her breasts so that they were pushed upwards, their soft pink nipples tilting towards him. She saw his eyes for a moment and understood for the first time how someone’s eyes could actually be glazed – his seemed only to be half-focused. He was still making that strange sound, in between panting for breath, then she felt her right nipple taken into his mouth.
Is he going to bite it?
But he sucked and sucked on
her
instead, pulling the nipple up into a tight peak. He grazed at it, rolling the little bud against his teeth. Something tingled within her and she moved involuntarily.
Oh, no, no … I can’t start to enjoy it
. She shuddered with revulsion at herself, which made him grunt and murmur, ‘Mmm, you like this, little girl, don’t you?’
No, I hate it
! she told herself, appalled at her own body which seemed to be reacting despite itself.
He moved on to her other breast, sucking at it while his hand crept back to her skirt, pushing up underneath it across her smooth thighs and sliding under the elastic of her knickers.
He released her nipple with a tiny popping sound and said hoarsely, ‘I cannot resist you, you are so beautiful. I must taste you.’
He moved down the bed, pulled her knickers down and discarded them, then parted her legs and put himself between them. ‘Ah, the great mystery,’ he said, ‘the garden of delights.’ He nuzzled into her small patch of fair pubic hair, inhaling hard. Then she felt his warm tongue dart out and touch the very top of her quim, where her small hard clitoris nestled inside its fleshy home. It sent an electric jolt through her, and she jerked. That place was always so sensitive, sometimes she could hardly bear to touch it herself.
He laughed throatily. ‘You see? You like it. Of course you do, it’s what you were made for. So delicious …’
His tongue came out again and began to lap at her, first tickling her around that unbearably sensitive place, and then lapping at her entire mound, pushing up inside her and rolling towards her bud. She had never experienced anything like it and couldn’t prevent her body responding to his skill. She didn’t want to enjoy it but it felt good.
So this is cunnilingus
, the calm voice in her head told
her
.
You wondered what this would be like and now you know. Freddie wanted to and you wouldn’t let him – now you’re getting it anyway
.
Each time his tongue reached her clitoris, it was as though she had been jolted: her legs jerked around his beefy shoulders.
‘Come on, little darling,’ he muttered, ‘I love the taste of your cunt. You English have good words for things, and, you see, I know them all …’
The feelings were too hard to resist. Even the little voice in her head was quiet, unable to speak against this torrent of physical sensation. It was rushing up over her like a wave rolling inexorably up a beach, an almost sick feeling of intensity that built and built until she wondered what on earth was going to happen next – when suddenly she was possessed by an extraordinary crash of pleasure that shook her violently: her head thrashed, she gasped and cried out and felt her body spasm with the force of whatever it was. It seemed to go on for a long time then subsided, leaving her breathless and confused. But at that very moment, something new happened.
She felt a crushing weight on her stomach and chest and realised that Monsieur Antoine was now lying on her. He’d freed his cock from his trousers, though she couldn’t see it. All she could feel was its great head pushing between her legs.
‘You’re ready for me,’ he whispered. ‘Beautiful and ready … ah, yes! There we are! There we are!’
The orgasm had left her slippery and accessible. He pushed his cock up inside her. She felt herself stretch to accommodate him –
Oh my God, it’s happening, he’s doing it, he’s doing it
– and then a resistance.
‘Ah,’ he crooned. ‘
Ma petite vierge
. Don’t worry, darling, just one quick push …’
He thrust hard and suddenly the resistance gave way in a rush of pain. Allegra screamed and tears sprang into her eyes. ‘Stop it!’ she cried. ‘Get off! Stop!’
Paying no attention, he started to increase his pace, pushing into her harder and harder, his eyes tightly closed and his breath coming hard and fast between pursed lips. It hurt horribly and she started to moan and cry, which only made him thrust harder until, with a little yelp, he withdrew suddenly and she felt something warm splatter across her stomach.
He rolled off her and they lay in silence for a moment. Then he sighed heavily and said in a satisfied voice, ‘As wonderful as I had hoped,
ma chérie
. You were made for pleasure. Do not worry about having a baby, I made sure you will be quite all right. Was that not good of me?’ Then he propped himself up and looked at her, his gaze smug. ‘And we both know that this is what you wanted, don’t we? I hope you’re not going to make up any silly stories about it, pretending that you were somehow unwilling. After all, you should thank me for that delicious little emission you enjoyed. Now clean yourself up. It’s time to go home.’
PART 2
Chapter 13
Oxford University
Autumn 2002
WHAT WOULD MY
life have been like if I’d been at Oxford without Allegra?
wondered Imogen.
She was sitting on a chair in her friend’s room in the Lincoln College buildings, not the gracious medieval quadrangle but a more modern 1930s house on Turl Street nearby that housed some of the first years, a mug of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other, watching a boy curled on the bed as he flipped through the pages of
Country Life
and remarked, ‘It’s so funny seeing one’s friends’ houses in here, isn’t it?’
‘If you say so, Roddy,’ Allegra said with a laugh. She was flicking through a gossip magazine while chain-smoking her Marlboro Lights and feeding her hangover with sweet tea and chocolate.
It was a silly question, really, because Imogen could never know it any other way.
I’d never get to go to all these glamorous parties if I weren’t with her
, she realised. Allegra’s pigeon hole was always stuffed with invitations to all manner of exciting things and they went to everything together – safety in numbers. It meant that Imogen’s social life took place almost entirely outside her own college: she was always in Lincoln with Allegra, or in a cocktail dress in
one
of the grander colleges, sipping sparkling white wine that aped champagne. The only person she knew in her own college was Nick, her tutorial partner, a soft-voiced, guitar-playing lad from Wales with a Kate Bush fixation. ‘I love hearing all about your high life,’ he’d say when she told him what she’d been up to the previous evening. ‘You really are living the Oxford dream, aren’t you?’
I suppose I must be
, she thought.
I’ve got a beautiful room in Christ Church overlooking the meadow. I have tutorials in an ancient set of rooms in Tom Quad, where my tutor plies me with sherry and talks about Dickens as though he were still alive. I eat dinner wearing a black academic gown and surrounded by portraits of Tudor monarchs, after listening to a Latin grace. And I spend most of my time gallivanting about in evening dress and hanging out with glamorous girls and Old Etonians. It’s just what they said it would be
.
And it was fun, there was no doubt about that. Allegra was her passport into a more rarefied part of Oxford life, a world away from sweaty JCR discos or table football and pints of beer in the bar. And it would be wonderful … if it weren’t for the way Allegra seemed to have changed. Imogen had noticed it at once, from the first day they’d met up in Oxford, when Allegra had knocked on the door of her room in the Meadow Buildings. Imogen had arrived early so she could settle in, but Allegra had been too cool for that: she’d turned up at her college at the last possible minute, and then knew everything and everybody immediately.
She had appeared late on the first afternoon of term, looking even more stunning than usual in tight dark jeans, a long tunic-style top, and with her hair stuffed up under a slouchy purple cap. Her skin was tanned golden, which made her blue eyes seem even more vivid. ‘Let’s go to the pub,’ she’d said, and they’d gone to an ancient low-ceilinged place in a side street behind the college.
Imogen had not been able to put her finger on exactly what was different about her: something a little abrupt, perhaps, and she seemed less ready to smile and giggle the way she once had. Something had come between them, but Imogen didn’t have a clue what it might be. After all, surely the darkest days of two years before were well behind her now …
‘Did you enjoy Paris?’ she asked a little tentatively, as they sipped their pints of lager.
‘What?’ Allegra said sharply.
‘Paris. Didn’t you go and visit Romily?’
‘How did you know about that?’
‘She told me.’
‘When did you talk to her?’ Allegra demanded tetchily.
‘I spoke to her a couple of times over the holidays.’ Imogen frowned in surprise. ‘She called just a few weeks ago and told me you’d been over to stay with her. She was asking after you.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing really – just that you’d been over and you both had a lovely time but that you’d not been terribly well by the time you had to go home. Was that why you weren’t at Foughton over the holidays?’ In fact she’d been mystified by Allegra’s absence. Her phone had gone unanswered for weeks, and texts seemed to vanish into the ether.
Allegra stared into her glass for a while then nodded. ‘Yes, I was ill. It was a shame. It ruined the stay. I went to Cornwall afterwards, to stay with my aunt.’
‘What was Paris like?’ Imogen leaned forward. ‘Does Romily live in unimaginable luxury?’
Allegra fixed her with a strange glance, something like anger sparking in the back of her eyes. Then she gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, yes. It was quite mad. They’re rich as Croesus, they really are. You should ask Rom if you can go and visit.
You
won’t be able to believe it.’ She paused and then said abruptly, ‘Actually, I think it’s a bloody shame she’s got so much. It means that she’s going to become just another bimbo with too much cash and nothing to occupy her mind. You can see it already – she’s more obsessed with clothes than ever, spending obscene amounts. It’s disgusting.’
Imogen was surprised by her vehemence. Romily’s wealthy background was no surprise to either of them and Allegra hardly came from poverty herself.
‘If you ask me,’ she went on, ‘Romily should get away from there as soon as she can, and do something useful with herself. And there are some horrible people in Paris.’
Did something happen between Allegra and Romily?
wondered Imogen, worried.
Surely Rom would have said if it had. It must have been her illness that ruined it for them
.
She didn’t mention the Paris stay again.
Roddy, one of Allegra’s new Oxford friends, seemed to like Imogen well enough but was always angling to get Allegra on her own, as though he wanted to manoeuvre Imogen away and bag her for himself.
Imogen had quickly learned to recognise Roddy and his ilk: they fluttered around Allegra, attracted by her title and connections. Some were cool, sulky-faced girls with long legs and outrageously posh voices who thought Allegra should be part of their social whirl; some were minor celebrities in their own right, sons and daughters of well-known people. Others were social climbers who had come to Oxford to live out their Brideshead fantasy and wanted to be friends with the daughter of an earl, or perhaps even marry her. Whoever they were, Allegra was always surrounded. At first, Imogen was jealous and possessive, fearing their friendship was going to be broken up, but Allegra soon put her mind at rest, laughing about the
climbers
but tolerating the ones she found amusing, and making friends with some of the haughty beauties and the society crowd. She insisted on Imogen being included in everything, though, and they went everywhere together, from college to library to pub to party.