Pt. 04: Restitution

Part 4

Restitution

53

Sunday 25th May.

Kate woke to the sound of Oscar’s purring. Golden light flooding in through the windows suggested a late hour and a glance at the bedside clock confirmed it. Although feeling much better in herself, Kate reluctantly left the bed in desperate need of a visit to the bathroom. In the early hours of the morning her desperate need for sleep eventually triumphed over her active mind.

Attempting to remember back to the events of the previous evening seemed like trying to capture an elusive dream, knowing its subject matter but unable to pinpoint any detail. Was the whole episode a dream– or a nightmare? She hoped so. That first tentative look in the mirror confirmed the reality. Surely dreams didn’t leave puffy red eyes, and swollen lips.

There was something about the smell of hot coffee which always lifted her spirits, and the speed at which she ate the bowl of muesli reminded her of how little she’d eaten the day before. Relaxing with a second cup of coffee gave her time to consider the implications of her actions.

What would happen next? She didn’t know but she knew it was too late to change the events; they were in the past, fixed in history. Lloyd’s sneering face came to mind–the bastard. The whole thing was personal from the beginning; he just wanted to get his revenge, to beat her. He didn’t even want to use her, just humiliate her and destroy her. In her opinion he’d taken things to a new level, outside of slave humiliation. The bastard. What would happen to her now? She knew she’d be punished, but how severely? She hoped she could take it, whatever it was.

What had she done? She’d broken rule number one, the only rule. Shit, how stupid was that. She’d refused to let people use her body, and technically it wasn’t even hers: she’d signed it away.

Perhaps her punishment would turn out to be a good thing; a severe beating would leave marks to be proud of, necessary evidence of her desire to re-establish her slavery. When Richard turned informer and handed her over to The Colonel it worked out well. That experience did her good, perhaps this will as well.

Unable to draw any conclusions from her jumbled thoughts, Kate returned to the starting point. She could take the beating which she knew was inevitable, but what form would it take? It was a much greater transgression than last time; would the beating increase by the same proportion? She’d be more than happy to pay the price and move on but, of far greater importance, what of letting people down? Not Lloyd, he was a git. But she’d let down Richard, Oakham, The Colonel and herself. Her body would heal after the punishment, but she would always be left with the guilt of disappointing them all. Surely they would all see the unfairness of her treatment, Richard would, he loved her.

She rebuked herself; why didn’t she just do it at the time?

She spent a long time trying to convince herself that all would be okay. She was sure they’d take all the issues into account. She’d shown that she was different, that she’d broken away from socially acceptable behaviour and she’d always obeyed orders. It was Lloyd who was out of line, not her.

For years she’d hidden her dirty thoughts: her slave fantasies. Being sold at auction, being thrashed, being treated badly–she’d kept them all private. Of course she felt guilty for having the thoughts but they were useful masturbation material. The ironic thing was, that in recent weeks, she felt guilty for having normal thoughts. She felt guilty for doing what most people would consider the right thing in such situations. What a turn around.

The day dragged, and even though she finally got around to all those long neglected domestic chores, they still failed to take her mind off things. She took a long walk which was pleasant enough, but still failed to help her draw any comfort. She knew there was only one course of action–to wait.

Monday 26th May.

The telephone rang. Kate froze. Who was it? What would she say if it were Graham Weston? All of the speeches she’d practised deserted her.

“Hello.”

“Kate, it’s me.”

“Oh Richard, thank god.” What should she say? Does he know? Should she tell him?

“I’ve heard Kate, Graham called this morning.”

“Oh.”

“What were you thinking? You know you can’t do that–just walk out.”

“I know that, but there was more to it than there seems. Lloyd was a shit. It wasn’t a slave thing.”

“But why did you refuse?”

“That man they had…he was disgusting, and I wasn’t feeling well and…well what if he’d been on drugs or he had something, some disease?”

“Kate, they were challenging you, he’d been with them all day, he was tested in the morning. You know they wouldn’t do anything to endanger you like that.”

Shit, shit, shit, she thought, she should have trusted. “He was just filthy,” Richard continued, “they fed him and gave him a day to remember.”

“I think he’ll remember it alright, I certainly will. So what happens now?”

“I don’t know.” Richard said calmly. He wasn’t shouting or telling her off, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice-she’d let him down. She felt the tears trickling down her cheeks.

“Look, I’ll be back on Wednesday and we’ll decide what to do then, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got to go now, I’m due in a meeting, I’ll see you Wednesday alright? Bye.”

“Bye.”

He put the phone down. He put the phone down without saying he loved her, he always told her he loved her. The flow of tears increased. She hated that she seemed to have done nothing but cry since Saturday night. Why was it all her fault? Look at all she’d done, all she’d put up with, had done to her, and now just one mistake and she felt like shit. It wasn’t fair.

As soon as she walked into the gallery Helen knew there was a problem.

“Kate, what on earth’s happened, look at you?”

There was no reply, Kate couldn’t form sensible words. Her outstretched arms seemed to be the only method of communicating her distress. Helen locked the door and hugged her. After a few minutes Kate started to control her sobbing.

“I’m sorry; I’ve done nothing but cry lately.”

“What’s happened? Tell me.”

“It’s all gone wrong, just like you said it would.”

“Come on, let’s go in the back and you tell me.” Two cups of tea later and Helen had heard the full story.

“That sod was always bad news, now look what he’s done. I could kill him.”

“Whatever he’s done doesn’t seem to matter now, it’s me who’s got to pick up the pieces, not him.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, Richards not back ’till Wednesday and I haven’t heard anything from anybody at Oakham.”

“I know what you should do. I’ll look after things here and you go and see Elizabeth, she’ll understand.” Kate couldn’t hide the look of surprise on her face.

“How do you know about Elizabeth?”

“Oh Kate, I’m not stupid. I can put two and two together. Those meetings at the coffee shop couldn’t all have been about her artwork. Go and give her a call-now.” Helen passed her the phone and went to open the front door.

“Well, what did she say?”

“She’s here in town; I’m going to meet her in an hour. Will you be okay here?”

“Of course I will,” Helen assured her.

“I’d better go and sort myself out. Judging by your reaction to seeing me, I must look like shit.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, but you might try a little work on the eyes.” Kate smiled for the first time in days.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

After fixing her face as best she could, she returned to the gallery.

“That’s much better-the old Kate. Look don’t worry, it’ll all be sorted out.”

“Thanks Helen, you’re a real pal.”

The warm embrace conveyed her gratitude. At least Helen still loved her.

Over a large coffee, Kate relayed the events of Saturday night to Elizabeth.

“But why didn’t you just do it Kate, however horrible it might have been?”

“It wasn’t the thing itself, that was just the final straw. I had a splitting headache, and I’d laddered my last stocking, then there were the road works making me late. It just sort of all built up. Then when it turned out to be Sebastian bloody Lloyd, well…”

“The problem here is that the circumstances don’t change the facts, as they’ll see them. You walked out on an assignment.”

“I know but…”

“There is no but, Kate. We’re slaves, always slaves, that doesn’t stop when we don’t feel like it, our feelings are immaterial. We don’t play at it when we want to; we’re always at the beck and call of others.” Kate looked away, taking in what she’d said, and knowing it to be the truth.

“I’m sorry Kate; I didn’t mean it to sound so unsympathetic.”

“I know, and you’re right.”

“I can see that it was a personal thing and he was in the wrong, so they’ll be able to as well.”

“But besides that, the tramp was disgusting, he smelt awful.”

“But that’s not the point, is it. This isn’t all handsome blokes in dinner suits you know. If it was it wouldn’t satisfy that need you have to submit, your craving for meeting a challenge, it would be too easy. It would just be sex. No, picking and choosing would be too easy.”

“I can see that now-now that it’s too late.”

“You should have been grateful.”

“What?”

“You should have been grateful,” Elizabeth said again. “You were given a real challenge, an opportunity to really submit but you failed to live up to it.”

Why can other people make her see things so clearly? Elizabeth was right, she’d failed herself, failed to pursue the very thing she set out to achieve, her submission.

“But what now? I’ve given them everything so far, all the pain, my dignity, the lot.”

“That wasn’t what you wanted though was it, the pain and the degradation. You wanted to please, to make them proud, show what a good slave you could be. Tolerating the pain and humiliation were only the means of doing that, the way to get what you really wanted. The harder the challenge, the closer you got to achieving that dream.”

“I know what I’ve done, I need to know what to do about it, how to put things right.”

“I think the only thing you can do is go and see Graham Weston, make him see how you feel, that you know what you’ve done.”