CHAPTER TEN

      We’re back in the tall dark house in the quiet garden square. Dickson has brought my bags in, taken them upstairs. Lit candles and fires around the house. Set out a meal of rare steak and roasted vegetables dripping in olive oil, and tells us chocolate pudding is in the fridge. Two bottles of red wine are breathing on the white counter in the kitchen. And then he’s gone, and we’re alone.

      I’m wearing another dress that magically was waiting for me on the bed in the attic room. A vibrant purple number, velvet and medieval, very low at the sequinned bodice and cut on the bias so that it flares out from my hips and swishes round my bare ankles when I come back downstairs. I don’t put on any underwear. Whatever I put on will be wet in no time. I’m still on fire and I’ve got to get this over with.

      I eat the dinner as quickly as I can. We race at it like a couple of cavemen, tearing at the meat, tossing the vegetables into our mouths, wiping oil off our chins with the white napkins but then glugging red wine down our necks as if we’re in the desert.

      ‘Let the pudding wait,’ I say, getting up from the table and leading him, with the silver chain, into the drawing room. ‘I know why you showed me that collection today, Gustav. I know why you showed me Crystal being slapped by that woman. I didn’t get it at first. But it turned me on, just as you predicted. And now I want you to do that to me.’

      He stands in the doorway as I pace agitatedly around the room. He’s brushed his black hair back and has changed into a soft cashmere sweater in the same deep purple as my dress with a white T-shirt underneath. His black jeans accentuate his long legs and the hips I long to feel grinding against me.

      The silver chain tinkles and glints in the space between us.

      ‘Part of the game is that you seek punishment. What have you done wrong, do you think?’

      ‘You want me to play? OK. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ I squirm, clasping my hands together as if I’m in confession, winding the silver chain round my fingers, tight, so it bites white into my skin. ‘I was brought up in a house full of hatred. All my life I was told I was a nasty little runt. That I was worthless, good for nothing. Even the woman who gave birth to me tossed me away in a plastic bag. Drip, drip, drip into my ear, day after day, year after year. But my way of coping was to stop listening or even speaking. I became a difficult child, a surly teenager.’

      ‘Doesn’t really count as a sin.’ He steps closer, winding in the silver chain. His mouth has become dark with stubble. It would rub if he kissed me. ‘More like a virtue. You were strong, Serena. You rose above those pathetic bullies. Why should I spank you?’

      ‘I still need to do penance.’ I pace from side to side, warm and fuzzy from the food and the wine, but still revved up from what he showed me earlier. ‘It’s the only way to delete them. Crystal was purged of her problems by that dominatrix woman.’

      ‘You are a quick learner,’ he interrupts quickly. ‘Quick, swift punishment. So much more straightforward than years of wrestling with psychological warfare.’

      ‘So do it, before I change my mind.’ I shake him.

      ‘You won’t change your mind.’ His fingers are digging into my arms. He’s handling me so much rougher now. His piratical air is just the way I like him. ‘I knew what you needed as soon as I saw the photographs in your portfolio. The nuns, the whipping. You confirmed it with your rapturous talk at the private view. I know what I’m doing, Serena. I can banish your demons once and for all.’

      ‘But will it become an obsession?’

      ‘For me?’ He shudders. ‘My demons are still out to get me.’

      ‘I meant for me. Will I become addicted to it? Will I be like Crystal and beg to be whipped every time I feel I’m losing it?’

      ‘If you do, it won’t matter. You’ll be with me, and I’ll decide when and if you need punishing. Special perversions can always be saved for special occasions.’ He picks a pin out of my hair so that tendrils fall around my face, tickling me. His eyes are dancing tonight. ‘Crystal controlled her obsessions in the end and so can you.’

      I sway slightly with the lightness of his touch. He curls the tendril round his finger. ‘First, let’s go over what those bastards did to you.’

      ‘Do we have to?’

      ‘Yes. It will heal you in the end.’ He taps the end of my nose. ‘I told you. We’re exorcising your demons.’

      ‘They made me feel like a freak, Gustav. Always telling me I was an outsider. The unwelcome little cuckoo. That I would never belong anywhere.’

      ‘I thought you said they found you on a doorstep, and adopted you?’

      ‘Yes, and they regretted it the moment I opened my mouth and started to answer back.’

      His black hair falls over his eyebrows and this time I brush it away. ‘But foundlings are supposed to be magical beings, aren’t they? Like fairies.’

      The silver chain is twined round both of us now. Joining our hands like a rosary.

      ‘Goblins, more like.’ I shrug. ‘You’ll understand more if you read my diaries. I left them in the gallery.’

      ‘I