Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission Page 4

  Only then did she cry.

  She removed her clothes and went through to the bedroom. Lying there, she placed her hand between her legs and pressed her thighs tight about it, not exactly masturbating but rubbing herself on her skin in an effort to comfort herself, the weight of her breasts squeezed on her side by her other arm which lay across her.

  She did not understand anything that she was feeling now, but it felt good to cry and when it came at last sleep felt like true relief.

  Nor was it dreamless. She was lying naked on the hills, her arms stretched out and a few clouds above her wheeling across the deep blue of the sky. Between the white, floating carapaces there wheeled a darker shape, wings wide and long, like a condor or an eagle, a huge bird far, far above her.

  It was late when she finally woke and the room was dark. Without the usual yellowing glow of streetlights, Kris was startled at just how black it was in the room and she fumbled for the lamp. She was still naked on top of the bed, and there was a damp patch half way down the top sheet, evidence of a different type of somnambulism to that which had affected her during her youth. Still, she felt better, and that was what counted.

  She could still see the giant bird from her dream. It hadn’t come close enough for her to make it out clearly, but it was still somehow vivid in her imagination. Dragging a dressing gown about her shoulders, she crawled out of bed and sat on the chair next to the table, pulling open the covers of her drawing pad.

  Her sketches were crude and rapid, capturing a sense of flight with charcoal in her left hand before it disappeared. None of the pictures were satisfactory, but that didn’t matter for the moment. All that did matter was that she caught something of that motion she had felt in her dream, long black wings spreading out over the virgin white, desecrating the paper but also bringing it relief at last, dirty lines thickening over the all-too-pure surface.

  Within half an hour she had dashed off—literally—some half dozen sketches, all of them a bird, black, massive, threatening that flew across the white pages. Though monochrome, there was something Matisse-like in the fluid motion of wings that danced before her, and while she was far from happy at the end result she experienced something close to a sense of relief that, at last, she wanted to create again, would be driven to create. Something inside her, finally, was breaking.

  She no longer felt the same urge to draw, but she was too restless to sleep. Still in her dressing gown, she went downstairs and opened the back door of the cottage that led into a small, private garden. Her eyes took a few minutes to accustom themselves to the darkness, and she was a little nervous at being out here in the night, pretty much alone and without the familiar, comforting light that accompanied civilised people wherever they went.

  The large, black hump of a hill obscured anything immediately before her, blotting out the sky, but as she raised her eyes up she gasped in astonishment at the night. She had never seen so many stars—never, in all her life. While she had been initially resistant to the raw beauty of the highlands, she had been expecting it and, out of some inner perversity, had prepared her defences against it. But this: this was utterly beyond any experience she had encountered before, and it entered through her eyes without any resistance whatsoever.

  For the first time she saw the Milky Way, a ribbon of stardust running its ragged course through a sky that was black with fringes of blue towards the horizon where yet the sun refracted through the crystal sky. Brighter points of light glowed and shone, the brightest diamonds she had ever seen made all the brighter for the darkness that surrounded her, and when a shooting star, and then another, pierced the night she thought that her heart would die from pleasure.

  Over the next two days, she regularly walked in the open air, climbing to the top of the hill before working on her pictures, sketching frenetically. She was always a little disappointed that she did not see the Land Rover again, and sometimes when she sat down at her table in the bedroom, looking out of the window towards the far off mountains, she struggled a little to banish thoughts of Daniel Logan.

  The bird she had seen in her dream on that first night did not return.

  She was glad that, at last, after so many barren years, she could at least draw something. Nonetheless, her work did not please her. For the first time since she had been at college she tried to draw what was in front of her, to capture something of the landscape—but it did not work. Kris was too much a person for whom art was a hammer rather than a mirror, a way for the emotions and turbulence within her to smash their way out. The dam inside her had begun to break—but it was, after all, only a beginning. Flotsam and jetsam from the blockage that had too long been flung across her emotions continued to bar the way.

  On the third day, she convinced herself that part of her blockage was simplicity itself—the realisation of the dreadfully embarrassing faux pas she had committed with Daniel Logan. She had, for a few brief moments, thought him a crazy man, but now she realised how she must have appeared to him, babbling and incoherent having only just driven up to his croft.

  She had a sensation of dread inside her, but what was happening to her now was far too important to allow for this folly to hang over her, prevent her from getting back in touch with herself after all. As she climbed into the Toyota, she felt a little sick, but still she pushed herself, driving along to the track that led to Comrie.

  When she arrived there, her emotions were even more mixed up. There was no sign of Daniel, outside at least (and in response to which she was unsure of her own feelings), but his Land Rover was parked beside the croft. Taking a deep breath, she let herself out of her own car and walked towards the door.

  She was dressed in jeans and trainers, an ill-fitting T-shirt hanging over her shoulders, her hair loose and long. This was more or less how she had dressed every day since arriving at Dalrigh—she gave no thought to her own appearance in particular, but her slender form and unconcerned air was probably more appealing than it had ever been before. Certainly she had no other explanation for the look in Daniel Logan’s eyes when he answered the door.

  He had stooped a little when he answered. Indeed, it was somewhat comical how his massive frame filled that doorway, and not for the first time did Kris wonder why on earth he had bought the croft. When he had last looked at her, his eyes had been cold, dead, shark-like, their expression making her tremble. Now he was cautious but also... again, she could not quite read the look in his eyes.

  “Yes?” he asked simply at last. He was curt now, rather than rude or dismissive, and for a mere second Kris was sure that she noticed the faintest flicker of concern in his eyes.

  “I... I must have appeared so stupid to you the other day,” she began to blurt out. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Yes,” he said again, more firmly this time. Kris was a little taken aback by this. No longer was it a question—more a statement, expressing his firm agreement.

  “I... I just wanted to apologise,” she continued again, faltering.

  “Apology accepted.” His words fell like lead, but still, she thought, his eyes scanned her face.

  “I just wanted to let you know.”

  “And now I know. Is that all?”

  Kris didn’t know how to respond. “I... I guess so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I... I think so.”

  At this, Daniel smiled. There was a warmth in his expression that gave her some relief, but now she really wasn’t sure about the look in his eyes. She had a flickering sense of the eagle again that she had seen in her dreams, or another bird of prey.

  Moving to one side outside the doorway, Daniel raised himself to full height. Once again, Kris cursed that her flat heeled trainers made her come only to his shoulders, and she trembled a little despite herself at his closeness. “Won’t you come in?” he asked, more kindly this time. “I think we still need to have that coffee.”

  Kris opened and closed her mouth but was unable to say anything. Instead she entered the croft, but th
is time turned immediately to the kitchen, avoiding the living area which still carried echoes of her previous embarrassment. Daniel followed behind her.

  The kitchen itself was relatively bare, with fewer amenities even than Dalrigh, though it was in a cleaner state than when she had arrived at her friend’s summer house. This gave some relief to Kris, although her heart was still beating a little.

  Daniel himself was in a shirt very similar to the one he had worn last time, and in jeans that were marked with paint and dust. She guessed that he had been working on the croft, continuing to renovate it, and asked him as much.

  He picked up the kettle and, as he filled it, looked around, nodding more to himself than in reply to her. “Yes,” he said at last. “It’s a little project, a side line. I come here from time to time, to escape.”

  “To escape from what?” Kris asked, watching his hands as they turned the tap and he moved towards the wood-burning stove. He smiled at this.

  “Oh, you know. The usual. Life. What’s your excuse?”

  She gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry,” she explained, her words gushing out a little more rapidly than she had expected. “Real life was what everyone always warned me would get in the way of my dreams. I’ve spent the rest of my time having to deal with it ever since.”

  Daniel frowned at this, but kept his gaze directed towards the cups where he carefully placed some powdered coffee from a jar. “And have you ever encountered it?” he asked after a while.

  “Encountered what?”

  “Real life.”

  “All the time, unfortunately. It’s what I have to put up with every day at work, and in my bloody flat, and whenever I struggle to pay the bills.”

  Daniel’s frown did not move, though now he was pouring water into the cups, the steam rising towards his face which, Kris decided, was becoming more and more handsome the more she saw of it, whatever the effect of the beard and the scars.

  “And is that real life?” he asked. He passed her a cup and, as she took hold of it, for a second her fingers brushed against his.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s quite alright,” she replied, thinking he referred to the fleeting touch. He, understanding what she meant, smiled. “I meant I’m sorry for the coffee—I have to put up with a freeze-dried abomination while I’m here.”

  Kris felt herself swallowing drily a little as she watched the curve of his lips in a smile. “It’s fine, I’m sure.” As she lifted the cup to her lips, she tasted nothing but simply scalded herself on hot water.

  Again embarrassed, her body quivering a little, she turned away from him and placed the cup on the work surface before her. “I better let it cool for a while,” she said, her head leaning forward slightly.

  She felt him come up behind her, standing silently for a moment there. She could feel the warmth from him, his body looming over her again. Her trembling grew more pronounced.

  “Why are you shaking?” he asked.

  “I’m not...” she could not finish the sentence, but rather gave a nervous laugh. She glanced up. Those eyes, looking directly down at her face, one pupil larger than the other. Direct. Unflinching.

  She turned away quickly, though her own eyes flickered sideways as he reached across her shoulder, placed his own cup on the work surface. “You are,” he said quietly. “You’re shaking.” With the cup now steaming before her, she watched his hand move back and saw, with something akin to horror, that it the large fingers did not continue moving further away but instead paused over her own hand before coming down to rest on it, gentle but also firm. Her mouth was dry again, and now she could not stop trembling at all.

  She felt his face move closer to the back of her hair, felt his breath on the back of her neck. Was it horror—was it just terror that she felt when his other hand moved to the other side of her, was carefully placed on the back of her clenched fist? His face now was brushing her hair.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked, quietly.

  “I... I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “What did you say the other day?”

  “I... I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” For a moment she flexed her arms to pull away, but his hands tightened about hers, vice-like.

  “What did you say the other day?” he repeated.

  For a few seconds she refused to reply. Then, at last, she whispered again: “Please don’t hurt me.”

  Now he lifted his right hand from hers, gently raised it to her hair and she felt him lift a few strands to his nostrils, breathe in her scent. She had closed her eyes. A momentary flash across her eyelids. Tied up. The belt. Pain.

  “I think that deep down, you really do want to be hurt, don’t you, Kris.”

  Her breath was uneven. “No!” she exclaimed. “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes! I mean—no!” her heart was beating faster now. “I don’t know.”

  He let go of her hair and leaned his mouth closer to her ear, brushing it very softly with his lips. “Don’t worry,” he told her very softly. “I won’t hurt you. Not yet. Not if you don’t want me to.”

  Kris’s breath was now coming in panicking spasms. She could have turned and left now—his hand had released its pressure on hers though the broad palm still lay across her tiny fingers. But she was frozen, unable to move. He still let his fingers rest on hers almost casually, and she stared down at that hand—huge, strong, immobile—on her own as she felt him bending behind her.

  She wanted to cry out, to protest when she felt his other hand sliding round her waist, fumbling with the button and fly, starting to pull them down. Her throat was too dry, and her heart was pounding in fear—fear and something more. When he pushed his hand inside the waistband of her jeans, forced the denim down across the curve of her buttocks, she whimpered slightly, but still remained frozen to the spot.

  Now both of his hands came behind her. She did not look backwards, but simply could sense that he was now crouching on his haunches as the heavy fingers tugged at her jeans, pulling them downwards so that her buttocks were exposed. She weakly protested as those fingers continued to her knickers, slipping and rolling the elastic down so that nothing now lay between his hot mouth and her naked loins. When she reached behind herself at one point with her hand, he easily slapped it away and she returned her clenched fist to the surface, bracing herself as his lips came into touch with her sex.

  Despite herself, she gasped and felt her vulva opening. His beard tickled, but the feeling of his tongue entering her was too much to resist and her body instinctively pushed back even though a tiny part of her mind continued to protest. He stayed there for moments, licking and searching inside her velvet walls with his tongue, an expertise to his motions that defied her original notions of some hillbilly lost among the Scottish mountains.

  It was not enough to make her cum, but her clitoris was hardening bud-like as he licked and teased it, and his nose pressed into her anus as he sucked her labia from behind before pushing his tongue once more into the folds of her slit. She became wetter and wetter with each motion, and when at last he stood up and leaned down to kiss the back of her neck, she smelt the tang of her own sex on his mouth.

  “We shouldn’t...” it was her final, feeble protest.

  “Shut up,” he told her quietly. “We both know why you’re here.” With that, while holding her about the waist with one hand, he reached down with the other and opened the front of his own jeans. Looking behind over her shoulder, Kris let out an almost horrified exclamation.

  “Oh God!” she cried out. “Oh fuck! My God!”

  She did start to struggle a little now, a panic reaction to the size of the thing she saw, though at the same time her hips bucked up instinctively, seeking it out. Daniel’s response was to lift the hand that held her waist and grab her hair, holding her still.

  “Don’t,” he ordered her. “It’ll hurt more. Unless, of course, that’s what you really want.”

  Whe
n he penetrated her, it did hurt—but that was more from the fact that she had simply never taken something of its girth inside her. More than pain there was intense pleasure, and she willingly fell forward, her arm sweeping out and scattering the cup and its contents to the floor.

  With each thrust, he lifted her from the floor, her jeans still halfway down her thighs, her breasts squashed into the hard surface beneath her. She could not open her eyes, and her position made her even tighter, her legs bound together when what she really needed to do was to open her thighs as widely as possible, spread herself apart fully so that he could enter her as deeply as possible.

  But she could not, and so as he held her down on the work surface, his hand pressed firmly but not unkindly into her back, holding her in place, so with each thrust of that huge length entering her it hurt her more than it should have. But it was the friction and pain that, finally, made her cry out in longing as she came.

  Chapter Five

  When she awoke, he was lying on his side, his back to her. For a few seconds, there was the sensation of panic, not knowing where she was, then the conflict between not believing what had happened and the ache between her legs.

  He was very still, and as she finally focussed her eyes on his back the first thing she noticed was the lattice of red nail marks that criss-crossed the skin. A few had broken through his dermis and formed tiny jewels of dark brown blood along the skeins where she had raked him. Very slowly, so as not to disturb him, she lifted her hand from where it had fallen on her breast, the bruises of his hard kisses darkening slightly against her own pale skin, and gently touched his back, feeling the undulating flow of his muscles beneath her finger tips.