I pushed open the gate and walked up the path, doing my best to avoid the nettles which drooped towards me on either side. I took a deep breath before knocking on the door, going over my speech one last time.
“Mr Atherton, I’m sorry to disturb you but I’ve come to ask a very important question.” Then push my arms together and shove my chest forward and he’d be putty in my hands. Hopefully.
I gave it about thirty seconds before knocking again. Listening, I couldn’t hear anything inside but there was a noise coming from the back of the house, a thudding sound that I couldn’t identify. Walking back to the lane, I took a few steps across to the gravel drive that swept around to the back of the house, not wanting to risk my tights on the jungle of his lawn.
I walked up the drive as the sound grew louder. In the back yard, I found the source of the noise. A topless man was chopping wood, an axe held high above his head as he brought it swinging down onto a log, splitting it in two. I had been about to say something but the sight of him brought me up short. He was more than six foot tall, his arms bulging as he gripped the axe, his chest nothing but muscle. Sweat poured down him as he leaned for the next log, putting it in place on a stump before lifting the axe again.
The sight of such a masculine figure made my heart skip a beat. My insides tingled as I looked at his arms, imagining them wrapping round me or perhaps holding me in his lap to spank me. I blushed at the thought, fanning my face as I took a step towards him, in awe at the sight of such rugged machismo. He was pushing forty but he had the body of a much younger man. Only the flecks of white in his hair gave away his true age. That and my maths skills at working out how old he had to be to have written his masterpiece twenty years before.
He brought the axe down again and as it split the log, a piece whipped through the air, slamming into my leg. I screamed in pain and he looked up, blinking in surprise at the sight of me standing there. “You,” he said, dropping the axe and striding over to the house.
“Hold on,” I said, limping after him, still rubbing my leg. “Where are you going?”
“Get off my property,” he snapped without looking back, his hand already on the door handle.
“Wait,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder. “I just wanted to speak to you. Hang on.” My mind whirled as it tried to work out where I knew that voice from. It hit me a second later. “You’re my hero.”
“What?” he snapped, twisting round to look at me.
I wanted to speak but having those dark eyes burning into me stopped my brain from working. All I wanted to do was submit to him, melt into his arms, let him sweep me into that house and do whatever the hell he wanted with me. “I…” I muttered, pausing before forcing myself to think, “I mean, you’re the man who helped me last night, right?”
“What do you want? Why are you here? I’m not a bloody mechanic. If there’s something wrong with your car-”
“No, it’s not that. I wanted to ask you about your play.”
His eyes narrowed. “You want to what?”
“I want to ask if you’ll give consent for me to perform it. That is, for my group to perform it. Not that it’s my group, of course. I’m getting this all wrong. There’s a drama group in town and they let me join and I wondered if you’d let us put on your wonderful play. It would be good for the town, you see”
“Listen,” he said, letting go of the door handle, turning to loom over me, his fists clenched. “I have no love for this town. I couldn’t care less what’s good for it. All I want is to be left alone. Now get off my property and don’t ever come back.”
“Or what,” I blurted out. “You can’t threaten someone like that just for asking.”
“It’s not a threat, it’s a warning.”
“Has anyone ever told you, you’re a very rude man?”
“All the time.”
He turned, pulled open the door and vanished inside, slamming the door behind him.
SIX
GEORGE
If I had done what I originally planned, I never would have seen her. I was supposed to get the wood chopped in the morning but I had woken up late and all my plans went to shit. I never woke up late. I was always up early.
But last night had been hell. I often struggled to get to sleep but this was different, this was worse. I was up until three, laid in the dark, trying to get the image of that girl out of my head. I shouldn’t have helped her. If I’d just driven away, I’d have been able to keep my desire under control. But I did help her. Pandora’s box was open. All the feelings that I’d learned to keep locked away and only let out at the club were bubbling up inside me. I kept picturing me stopping to help her, tearing her clothes off her, dragging her back here to become my permanent little plaything. The only thing that helped me to settle was a shot or two of whiskey, another reason why I woke up late.