Belle - Lesley Pearse [177]
‘Don’t be so rough,’ she said weakly, but he was already pulling the skirt of her dress up as he knelt by her and with his other hand unbuttoning his trousers.
In the last two years Belle had thought she’d encountered every type of sexual technique, from the gauche first-timers to the skilful lovers, with all the hundreds of variations in between. She’d learned to lock away the memory of being raped – she had to or she would never have been able to cope with her new life at Martha’s. When she was with a man she didn’t like or who was incompetent and clumsy, her trick was to imagine she was with Serge and think of the bliss he’d introduced her to.
But everything about Pascal made it impossible to imagine anything pleasant or feel anything but disgust, for he was as rough and unfeeling as the rapists, more sickening than the worst drunk. He forced his tongue into her mouth, bringing with it so much saliva that she retched. He probed roughly at her delicate parts until she cried out in pain, and she knew the things he muttered in French must be vile and was just glad she didn’t understand. His penis was long and thin and as hard as a stick. She tried every trick she knew to make him ejaculate quickly, but without success. The ordeal went on and on and she felt violated in every way, for he bit her neck and breasts so hard she knew he must be drawing blood. He pinched and scratched at her thighs and buttocks as though he hated the female form and wished to disfigure it.
But finally, just when she felt it was never going to end, he came with a muffled sob. For a couple of seconds he lay panting on top of her, then suddenly got up and arranged his clothing.
‘I will show you the bathroom,’ he said curtly.
Belle had found that almost all men were softer after sex, but not Pascal. His face was sterner and colder than it had been before, his hair, usually so neat and oiled, was now ruffled and untidy, but that was the only evidence that he had been engaged in something out of character.
He caught her wrist and practically dragged her up the stairs, right to the top floor. ‘In there,’ he said, opening a door, and nudged her in.
It wasn’t a bathroom as she’d expected, but a small attic bedroom. She turned to him to point out his mistake, but he had already backed out and closed the door behind him, and she heard him locking her in.
‘Pascal!’ she yelled at him. ‘Let me out. I need the bathroom.’
‘There is a chamberpot there and water to wash,’ he called back. ‘You are staying there.’
She yelled and pummelled at the door, but she could hear him walking back down the stairs, calling out that there was no point in screaming because no one would hear.
For a few minutes she just stood there, too stunned to react. The room looked as if it was the maid’s: just a narrow iron bed with a faded flowery quilt covering it, a washstand with a ewer and basin and a chamberpot beneath it, a chest of drawers and a rag rug on the bare floorboards. There were shutters at the small window and she went to open them, only to find that there was no glass in the window behind them, only wood nailed in firmly all around the frame.
Suddenly the electric light went out, and she howled out in protest, realizing he must have turned it off somewhere downstairs. But aware he must have turned off the electricity for a reason, she fell silent and strained her ears. She heard his footsteps down on the tiled hall floor, then the sound of the front door being slammed shut.
Leaning against the door, she whimpered in fear. He was leaving her imprisoned here!
Chapter Twenty-nine
Gabrielle looked at the clock in the hall yet again. It was now two in the afternoon and still Belle had not returned. She tried to tell herself this was because her guest was with a man she really liked and maybe he’d taken her out somewhere today.
But no right-minded woman would go out by day in an evening dress and a fox cape. Gabrielle’s instinct told her Belle was