Avenging Angel chapter 8 by Clarissa Hendry

RECUPERATION

The rest of that day and the succeeding weeks have remained with me as fragments, forming no recognisable sequence, islands of recollection like fleeting memories of early childhood. Some were dreams, some happened in waking life, but it was hard to distinguish which was which. Someone gave me the clothes I’d left in the Recovery Compound and I changed into them, kicking my brothel lingerie into a corner. I tried to make Katrina change as well but she’d fallen asleep and couldn’t be roused. She slept on as we drove into the countryside. People were talking to me, telling me things, but I couldn’t understand or respond. All my attention was on the wide lands and clouds that passed as we drove. How could I have forgotten how distant the horizon was, how high the sky?

I asked to stop so I could walk outside and breathe fresh air. The mobile home halted and I staggered to the door. Helen came with me, supporting me lest I stumble. Outside, under the sun and cloud, feeling the wind in my hair, I inhaled and inhaled again, my body rejoicing in the incredible odours of the beautiful world. Tears blurred the vista. Helen smiled.

“What do you most want to do, Clarissa? What would you like to do right now?”

“Wake Katrina, get her changed, then build a fire. Out there, near the edge of the wood.”

The driver was called Nils Bergstrom. He and Señor Ortega – Sergio – gathered wood. As the sun was setting and the cool of night started to creep across the world, they lit the fire I’d requested. As soon as it was well alight I made Katrina gather up the lingerie she’d worn in the brothel and throw it into the flames. Mine followed. As the symbols of our slavery were consumed we laughed and danced and wept and sang, and our friends joined in: Helen, Sergio, Nils, and Nils’s girlfriend, a strongly-built Englishwoman with flowing blonde hair. She seemed familiar. The men cooked food on the camp fire and brewed coffee and we ate and drank. Then Katrina was sick.

“Heroin,” I explained. “She’s hooked. They made… they made – “

“You?” said Helen.

I shook my head. Right to the end I’d eschewed drugs and, mostly, alcohol.

“I think you did not hear what we tried to tell you earlier, Ms Hendry,” said Sergio. “We leave it until tomorrow, or next day, when your mind will perhaps return.”

“We need to find help for Ms Müller,” said Nils. “There’s a clinic in Switzerland…”

Irish accent. Born in Dublin, I learned afterwards, of Scandinavian parents. The world remained wide but in many ways it had shrunk. National boundaries had grown porous. Europe’s greatest political invention, the nation state, had been spread across the globe two centuries ago. Our expanding empires had drawn lines on maps that had no meaning for indigenous peoples, and most of those lines still remained. Nevertheless, the nation state was obsolescent as a political entity.

Who’s Ms Müller? I wondered. Then I realised – I’d never heard Katrina’s surname. Or Helen’s until that day. When we were specimens we’d had no names; in the Recovery Compound we’d used only forenames; in the brothel we used our working names.

That night I dreamed I was Douglas Hendry. I woke with dawn light piercing the windows of the mobile home, panicking because I needed to be on shift… But Douglas wasn’t a prostitute, wasn’t a slave… I sat up in bed and struggled to focus. Was I Douglas dreaming I was Clarissa, or Clarissa who’d dreamed she was Douglas? Zhuangzi, I recalled; Chinese, third century BC. Dreamed he was a butterfly and awoke unsure whether he was Zhuangzi who’d dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.

I’ve had the same dream since, more than once. I wonder whether Zhuangzi had a similar recurring dream. Or whether the butterfly did. But over the restless nights that followed I had many other dreams, dark, confused and frightening. Sleep was fitful at best. Eating was sporadic, too.

– – – – – – –
It wasn’t until the following day, or the day after, or later in our journey across Europe, that I connected with my travelling companions. However, Katrina caused more concern than I did because of her withdrawal symptoms. We stopped in a small town and Nils returned with methadone. How he’d acquired it was a mystery, but it was an immense relief to the sufferer and thus to all of us.

Helen, I learned, had been recruited as a cleaner in the Recovery Compound. Many of the less attractive upgrades were given low-grade employment. Several went as cleaners to hotels and airports. It was another Olga Matveeva-inspired insult: educated, clever women like Helen were given menial work with no prospects.

“My life will improve again now, though,” said Helen, “thanks to… our benefactors. But being a cleaner wasn’t nearly as bad as what you and Katrina suffered. It’s made someone extremely angry.”

“Me, for a start.”

“Of course, Clarissa. But someone with power and influence, too.”

I told her about Jagoda’s suicide and Magda’s sale to an unknown purchaser. Apparently Sergio had already alerted the ‘angry person with power and influence’ and Magda’s whereabouts were being sought. As yet there was no news.

When I was able to listen to Nils’s girlfriend I discovered why I’d half-recognised her.

“Jennifer Matheson,” she said. “You’ll have seen me on film. Specimen Five that was.”

An upgrade who’d found a boyfriend! Perhaps Katrina’s dream could yet come true.

“Does Nils know your history?” I asked, remembering how enraged a man can become if his partner fails to disclose her past.

“Of course, quite a lot of it. One must be reasonably honest.” She smiled. “I went through the same purgatory as you, Clarissa, but I was rescued more quickly, so I was lucky. Luckier still when I met Nils. One thing I envy: the pioneering surgery on your larynx made your voice more feminine than mine will ever be. But there are things I must tell you. We tried the day we collected you but you were in no state to take anything in.”

True, I hadn’t been. I still wasn’t up to absorbing much. Like a wet towel.

Jennifer gave me a package containing a new passport and U.K. driving licence in the name ‘Clarissa Hendry’, each complete with photograph (how had they managed that?), a cheque book and bank debit card in the same name, with coded PIN, a bundle of British bank notes, a new mobile phone, the keys to my old flat, referral to a GP who’d keep prescribing my hormone pills, and a lawyer’s letter declaring that Douglas Hendry, believed to have died abroad while evading a police manhunt, had left his entire estate to his cousin Clarissa: flat, furnishings, bank accounts, royalties from publications, editing business. It seemed I’d bequeathed everything to my upgraded self without benefit of will and testament. The legal profession moves in mysterious ways but it can perform wonders.

Overwhelmed with surprise and gratitude I transferred the contents of the package to my handbag, but questions filled the space they’d vacated.

“How – ?”

“I’ve been the tenant of your flat,” said Jennifer. “Douglas’s flat, I mean. Remember, while you were Specimen Ten, being told your flat was safe in the care of a reliable woman? Everything’s fine, Clarissa. As nearly as possible it’s just as you left it. As Douglas left it.”

“But how did you get all – ?”

“I didn’t.”

Jennifer summoned Helen, who entered the living quarters carrying a cup of tea. She looked nervous. So did Jennifer. I said I owed someone, presumably everyone in the party, a very big thank-you, but I’d like to know who’d accomplished it and how. My two companions waited for each other to speak.

“It was Mandy,” said Helen, at last. “No, don’t blow a gasket, Clarissa. Mandy arranged everything. Paid to get you out of that bloody brothel, got the lawyer on side, arranged the passport and – ”

“Why? She’d set us up!” I spoke through gritted teeth. “She had us sold. What’s her game now?”

According to Helen, Mandy had ordered that none of the old ‘Dawn Chorus’ was to be sold to a brothel or anywhere else, but Olga Fyodorovna Matveeva had ignored the instruction and in Mandy’s absence she’d put us on the market.

“Mandy was furious,” said Jennifer. “There’s big trouble between those two. The same thing happened to me, Clarissa. Mandy said I wasn’t to be sold, and then she came back and had to buy me out of the brothel. She was angry then. More than angry now.”

Was she indeed, I thought. Can neither of you see the pattern? Mandy makes sure we’re established as women or at least reconciled to being women, buggers off so Olga-bitch can sell us while her back’s turned, waits a few weeks or months so we can suffer the trauma of forced prostitution, and then returns like a knight in shining armour to rescue us, making sure we’re supplied with everything necessary for our future lives so we’ll be eternally grateful. And of course I am ever so grateful to the double-dealing two-faced manipulative whore-mongering cow.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll give her a big tearful hug before I break her fucking neck.”

Helen and Jennifer tried to reason with me, but despite the gifts I’d received I wouldn’t relent. Mandy had lured my male self to the cinema and exploited his fantasies to induce an obsession with rape and castration. And what had followed? Drugging, abduction, torture, humiliation, castration and feminisation. No choice had been offered. Once feminised, I’d been sold to a brothel. Did Helen and Jennifer imagine Mandy to be innocent of those serial violations? And then the bitch had waited until I was inured to prostitution before launching her glorious rescue and providing me with keys to a future, not to mention the keys to my old flat.

Forget the tearful hug, I decided. I’ll just break her neck.

– – – – – – –
My emotions were fluctuating as they’d done when I was transferred from hospital to the Recovery Compound. One moment I wanted to chat and drink and laugh with Helen and Jen, and with Katrina as her craving for heroin declined, and the next I wanted to hide in a corner and sob. Acute stress disorder, I told myself. I’ve read about it. I’ll get over it. But so far it seemed intractable.

My memories of the brothel became vague and fragmented, less vivid than many of my dreams and scarcely less confused. Often, however, the world through which we were travelling, the friends beside me, the mobile home itself, seemed just as unreal. I felt detached, watching the life I was living through an unbreakable glass sheet or on a television screen.

“It would help if you talked about it, Clarissa,” said Helen.

I knew she was right but I couldn’t. Katrina couldn’t, either. Katrina and I were avoiding eye contact, fearful of triggering unwanted memories in each other. We were growing apart, which upset Helen. The three of us, the Dawn Chorus, had been so close.

One morning I found myself fretting about Jen’s future. If and when I moved into Douglas’s old flat, where would she live?

“You can stay with me as long as you like,” I told her.

She grinned.

“I’m going to live with Nils.” Her grin faded. “Clarissa, we’ve talked to Katrina about her future. Remember Nils mentioned a clinic in Switzerland? She’s agreed to go there until she can cope. We were wondering… Would you consider taking a room there for a few weeks, too? It would give Katrina – ”

“No, Jen, I must manage alone. If I can’t get over my traumas after all the wonderful support you’ve provided, I’m not the person I thought I was. It’s different for Katrina because of the drug problem.”

Jennifer nodded.

“Yeah. Thing is… I’ve been where you’ve been and I needed professional help. Look, Clarissa, I’ll be blunt. You didn’t become a prostitute by choice but there were moments you enjoyed and there were clients you’ll miss. That makes you feel cheap. What you did as a sex worker will stay with you. Even if nobody around you knows about it you’ll carry the stigma inside. Being unable to talk about our experiences isolates us. We end up lying, which puts a strain on our relationships. Also, violent clients frightened us because the owners’ protection was never watertight, and we don’t forget such frights. The way you feel about men after you’ve been a working girl has a lasting negative effect on your outlook. Overcoming it cost me a lot of hard work and Nils a lot of patience. You’ll go on feeling that those you meet in day to day life are trying to take advantage of you, especially men, so you risk becoming ultra-suspicious and paranoid. And the weird thing is that although your income as a prostitute was unpredictable, and you saw very little of the money anyway, you’ll be tempted to return to the business. It’s like an addiction, hard to get out of psychologically. Yet the darkness you’ve lived through has aged you mentally. And if you apply for other jobs in the future there’ll be a big hole in your CV. So – are you sure you don’t need professional help?”

I exhaled slowly and tried to stop trembling. Everything she’d said was true, though I wasn’t prepared to treat her final question as rhetorical.

“Thanks for that, Jen. Any good news?”

She grinned again.

“Yep. Nils and Sergio got your samples to a reliable clinic and the results are back. You’re clean. No STDs. Ditto for Katrina. So your health problems are exclusively emotional and psychological, not physical.”

I hadn’t even thought about STDs. I’d had no mental space for additional worries.

“Well, that’s great, isn’t it? As for the rest: I’ll cope, Jen. And if I can’t I’ll seek counselling in my own time.”

– – – – – – –
Brave words. I meant them, too. I knew the months of slavery had unsettled me, but surely I could restore my balance without outside help.
Nils and Sergio had kept their distance, always there to give practical help but leaving Helen and Jen to provide Katrina and me with emotional support. They were wise, though at the time I thought them cowardly because they seemed unwilling to confront our feelings. Yet they were the providers, obtaining food and drink and medicines and fuel for the mobile home, finding the right route, dealing with officials. I never thanked them as they deserved.

We’d passed through Switzerland, consigning Katrina to the care of the clinic Nils had recommended, and were heading towards the Channel Tunnel. Nils was driving as usual and Helen and Jennifer were cooking a casserole, the aroma rekindling my long-suppressed appetite. I was sitting in my bed alcove musing on Jen’s summary of the after-effects of sexual slavery. Had that period of forced prostitution really been hell for me, or had the earlier period of ‘specimenhood’ and castration been hell and the brothel work purgatory? Had my earlier life as a man been a garden of earthly delights, and was I now heading towards some kind of paradise? If all this was so, then perhaps Mandy was a heavenly choreographer of the progression earth-inferno-purgatory-paradise, not the amoral manipulator of innocent lives I deemed her. An avenging angel.

A gentle tap on the partition interrupted my reflections. Sergio peeped round the corner and asked if he could speak privately. ‘Speak privately?’ Right. No matter how decent they seem, men are men. My heart sank and my stomach chilled. Long practice enabled my face to welcome him.

“Sure,” I said. “What do you fancy? Straight fuck? Blow-job? Anything goes, you only need to ask.”

I started to strip but he shook his head and stopped me. He looked sad. I was puzzled.

“You misunderstand,” he said. “You are an attractive woman, Clarissa, but you have suffered terrible exploitation, and now you expect every man to exploit you; but I will not. I want only to ask your help with a problem. It has nothing to do with my personal needs.”

What you did as a sex worker will stay with you... An addiction, hard to get out of psychologically… The way you feel about men has a lasting negative effect… I flushed, cringed, straightened my clothes and hid my face in my hands. Maybe I did need professional counselling.

Sergio made no more of my embarrassment but spoke about the systematic exploitation of women and girls, his voice quiet and measured. I knew there was more than one online forum advertising prostitutes’ services, but according to Sergio, some were mostly devoted to sex trafficking. Why had he picked me as his listener rather than Helen or Jen? The answer dawned after a few minutes: Douglas’s career as editor and writer had given him, and hence me, professional contacts – including medical and financial ones. Could I use them to help Sergio?

“Backpage.com is a well-known example,” he said, “but there are others, owned by elusive private companies with headquarters that move daily. Mandy and I are trying to track down the owners and find out who’s financing – ”

“Whoa, hold on, Sergio! You and Mandy? You mean she’s…? Come on, most of the adverts on Backpage are placed by bona fide escorts, women who aren’t being trafficked or coerced or – ”

“I know, Clarissa, but as I said there are others… As for Mandy, she and I have sworn to combat the global exploitation of women. Believe me, she regrets what you’ve suffered as much as I do, but it’s given you first-hand knowledge of both sides. As a man you used prostitutes; as a woman you’ve been exploited as one. You’ve seen the worst of the sex trade and you’ve started to grasp how much money is involved. Please, will you help us? You have abilities, you have skills, you’d be… Not now, of course, not until you’ve recovered and you’re settled at home in your new life, but please?”

My head spun. Clarissa Hendry, investigating the controllers and financers of sex trafficking? Mandy as a colleague? The last point stuck in my gizzard. I reckoned I could work with Sergio, but her? He read my face and took out his phone.

“Mandy sent this text thirty-six hours ago. She found Magda a few miles north-east of Szeged in Hungary, near the Romanian border.”

I read the message. Magda had been savagely abused and was now in hospital. Mandy was paying for her treatment and the surgeons predicted a reasonable degree of recovery. As for the psychopath who’d bought Magda from the brothel and brutalised her, Mandy’s words resonated: Shortly after I arrived he suffered a fatal accident.

A cheer climbed into my throat. Maybe I needed to revise my opinion of Mandy Curtis. Again.

As we were driving north from Dover, Helen told me that Sergio’s calm exterior and even temper disguised a seething hatred of everyone who exploited women or committed violence against them. His sister had been gang-raped and murdered five years earlier while she was working for Médecins Sans Frontières in the Democratic Republic of Congo. My embarrassment at misinterpreting his intentions deepened.

“He and Mandy collaborate because they’re both committed to combating the trade in sex slaves,” said Helen, “and they’re both passionate about punishing rapists. Mandy thought Olga was on their side, too.”

I shook my head.

“She didn’t, Helen. She defers to Olga, that’s all. It’s mostly Olga’s money that keeps the Castration Festivals and Recovery Compound in business.”

“She isn’t deferring now, not after what happened to you and Katrina and the other women.”

Thanks to some lateral or oblique thought process, realisation dawned: at last I knew who’d murdered Sura Drilea. I’d been wrong to suspect Mandy.

That night I dreamed about Jagoda. She and Magda have featured in many of my subsequent dreams.

– – – – – – – –
A NEW LIFE

Eighteen months passed before I was capable of acceding to Sergio’s request. Picking up the loose ends of Douglas’s life took almost half a year; economy with the truth was regularly needed. One by one, Doug’s former customers agreed to try out my editing skills and most of them were satisfied with the results. I polished a few short stories and submitted them as ‘newly-discovered works by my cousin, the late Douglas Hendry’, and they were accepted. Two magazine editors suggested I submit pieces of my own. After a while I responded, with some success.
The view from my study window had changed. The cul-de-sac remained quiet and the cottages were just as they’d been in Doug’s time, except for new Sky aerials and UPVC window-frames, but the Council had cut down the maple tree. It had been interfering with telephone lines to the cottages. Only a stump remained. One dark night I crept out and planted oak and rowan saplings beside it. Maybe one of them would grow to provide shelter for a watching-woman.

The flat was impeccable. Jen had bought new saucepans, fluffier towels and a better vacuum cleaner, the bathroom had been repainted, some furniture had been moved, and one or two cups and glasses were missing presumed broken, but otherwise everything was as Doug had left it. I introduced myself to my neighbours, including the old man in the flat downstairs. Joe Hinchliffe said he’d hardly known Doug, who’d always kept himself to himself, but he’d been shocked when his upstairs neighbour proved to have been a murderer. He invited me in for a cup of tea, his eyes penetrating my jumper. I accepted, realising that unless I learned to tolerate men’s ogling I’d never go out. Joe and I became friends over the months that followed, but I’d have been uncomfortable with him if I’d worn a skirt.

Choosing the right appearance proved a constant challenge. By taking care with clothes, hair, makeup and accessories and selecting shoes that deflected attention from my feet, I seemed to earn women’s approval and my confidence improved. I tried not to attract men, but young women always draw men’s eyes unless they’re repulsive, and I was only thirty-one years old and not deemed ugly. Mostly I wore jeans and loose jumpers with black or navy blue boots or trainers (white ones made my feet even bigger), but sometimes more formal attire was needed. Then the mocking paradox arose: posing before the mirror in a crimson or royal blue petite wrap-front lace-top midi dress with matching shoes and accessories raised my spirits, and I relished women’s envy and approval, but men’s blatant scrutiny discomfited me. When I heard or imagined them muttering about my legs, bum and boobs I was offended, apprehensive and titillated. Even in mixed company at the theatre or concert hall I heard those voices, but if I entered a restaurant alone – or worse, a pub – they grew to a raucous crescendo and the eyes graduated from ogling me to stripping me. The shouts when I walked past a building site were explicit. Half of me wanted to shout back (“Nah, tell me when it grows to a decent size” or “What makes you think I’m wearing any?”) and the rest wanted to run and hide. On buses and trains a man would often stand or sit too close, pressing against me, touching or making it obvious he wanted to touch. I always looked out of the window and ignored him.

Maybe the attention was flattering in principle. As always, contraries were impressed on opposite faces of a clay tablet: admiration versus threat, fear versus arousal, the soft whiteness of falling snow versus the rotting greyness of slush, love-making versus rape, like versus dislike. The juxtapositions recalled my first meeting with Mandy in the hotel bar. She’d e-mailed me shortly after my return, wishing me well in my new life and assuring me she’d always be there for me. I’d sent a non-committal reply.

– – – – – – – –
Helen – Dr Bridges – had returned to London and was lecturing at one of the new universities, but every month or so one of us would visit the other so we could catch up. She seemed happy with her single life.

“I hate the man I used to be, Clarissa,” she said. “Will Bridges earned a good degree and was researching how individual human attitudes are established, but he dealt with dodgy people who stole his identity and emptied his bank account, so he decided to take revenge… Well, you know the story. I’ve taken up the attitude research and I’ll soon have enough to publish, and there’ll be no dubious financial dealings this time around.”

I told her I didn’t like my former male self, either. Helen’s male antecedent had been honest enough to admit he was committing rape, but mine had raped women and denied it. I patted her Yorkshire terrier, a tiny creature called Baskerville.

“I have a cat, too,” she said, “but he’s out searching for small furry creatures of nervous disposition that might make a tasty snack. Every single woman must have a cat. It’s the law.”

The cat, she told me, was called Rasputin.

Jen said her male antecedent, Martin Matheson, had been a college teacher who couldn’t keep his hands off young women students. He’d have been sacked and prosecuted if Mandy’s team hadn’t abducted him after he’d raped Virginia Mitchell. Jen was eternally grateful that Martin had been castrated and feminised. She was in regular touch with Melanie Siddall, the woman who’d castrated Martin (‘Specimen Five’), and the two remained firm friends. I could never warm to Melanie, though. The way she’d treated my Specimen-Ten precursor in the interrogation suite couldn’t be forgotten, but aside from that, something about the calculating look in her eyes made me doubt her honesty.

Jen and Nils had bought a bungalow on the new estate at the edge of town and they were now my closest friends. Over dinner and drinks, Jen and I regularly argued about interpretations of Shakespeare and debated the English Romantics. Nils shook his head, smiled, and went to his garage to tinker with vehicles. He was a mechanic by nature as well as trade. He often came to the theatre with us and appeared to enjoy himself, or maybe he just enjoyed hearing Jen and me demolishing the production in the bar and on the way home. She went to teacher training college and was soon teaching in the local comprehensive school.

Katrina had left the clinic and was living in Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt, with an engineer called Werner Schulz. They visited us a year after my return. She’d put on a little weight and seemed well recovered, though she still applied her makeup with a trowel. Werner was big, bald, loud and jovial. I saw no evidence of mischievous eyes, six-pack or sexy forearms and he didn’t play the guitar, but he had a respectable income and she seemed happy.

She and I stepped into Jen’s front garden to enjoy the sunset. The new estate was on a hill and the view to the west from Jen’s bungalow was glorious.

“Did you hear about Magda, Clarissa?”

“Not since Mandy rescued her and got her into hospital.”

Katrina stared at the sky, crimson with the memory of a summer’s day, and sighed.

“She’s dead. The monster – you know, he pushed a hammer into her and cut her, you know…”

She pointed to her boobs. I had an inappropriate thought: Magda’s were bigger than yours.

“Mandy said he’d met with a fatal accident,” I said. “Poor monster.”

She nodded. He’d maimed and killed other women, she told me. He’d hung up one by the ankles after beating her half-conscious, gagged her, and then drowned her by urinating into her nose. Another he’d cut open to see how many of her abdominal organs he could dissect out before she died. These vignettes seemed to fascinate Katrina. I couldn’t listen to any more. Memories of Magda weighed on my heart, and sorrow and anger filled me.

“You’ll give me nightmares,” I said. “I still dream about Jagoda.”

“Who?” said Katrina.

– – – – – – – –
I met May and Kathy through volunteering one morning a week in the Oxfam Shop. Within a month they’d talked me into joining the church choir; I didn’t rate my singing voice but they told me altos were in short supply. Doug would have laughed at the notion of a church choir being fun, but it was. Singing in harmony is exhilarating because you inhabit the music; you’re absorbed by it, rather than absorbing it as a listener does. The discipline of learning and practising puts demands on both the individual and the collective and it’s stimulating. That’s why you make friends in a choir. I wanted Jen and Nils to join as well but church music wasn’t to their taste.

Altos proved not to be so thin on the ground as tenors and basses. As with most social activities, women outnumbered men. It was the same in our local literature club (almost entirely women), among the Oxfam volunteers; indeed, everywhere. Where are all the men, I asked? In their sheds, May and Kathy suggested; in the pub, on the golf course, watching football on telly. Doug had never been one for joining groups, either, I recalled. Maybe women are more sociable than men. As for the choir, the tenors and basses were mainly past retirement age. They still had strong voices, though, and they were enthusiastic and committed, but we could have used more of them. The choirmaster was a lot younger and rather dishy: Ken Hargreaves, senior lecturer in music at Manchester University.

“He’s divorced, you know,” said Kathy.

“Oh, come through, has it?” said May.

I asked. They told me Ken’s wife had run off with another man two years ago. He was now living single in the Victorian villa he’d bought when they were married.

“So he’s up for grabs, Clarissa,” said May. “Us two already have husbands, worse luck.”

“He won’t be interested,” I said. “Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Oh, come on,” said Kathy. “Every man needs a woman. Wants one, anyway. All you need to do is – ”

“I know: let him know I’m available, but don’t be obvious so I won’t be irretrievably humiliated when he declines to play. Don’t think so, Kathy. Uncomfortable past.”

My companions nodded.

“We guessed you’d been hurt, otherwise you wouldn’t be single.”

– – – – – – – –
Ken took me to the Thai restaurant for dinner. I’d spent the afternoon trying on every outfit in my wardrobe. Top and trousers seemed inappropriate, but I didn’t want to show much leg. Bright colours could have seemed too assertive. In the end I borrowed a black maxi dress from Jen, white lace at the neck and cuffs; it was loose on me, but we’re the same height and my garnet-ruby ear-rings and necklace looked okay with it. Heels were required, though, so I had to hope my feet wouldn’t be noticed. I put on lipstick to match the garnets, painted my nails the same colour, applied a touch of eye shadow, and waited in trepidation for Ken’s blue Mondeo. As he opened the passenger door he raised his eyebrows and said I looked gorgeous, a compliment he’d surely confer on any woman. Conversation was uneasy on the journey. I fiddled with the strap of my handbag.

I relaxed over dinner, aided by a couple of glasses of wine, and he told me about his university work. Bet you’re a great teacher, I thought. The church choir was his main hobby, he told me. He needed it; his life was solitary. I used the opening to ask about his wife. He assured me he was divorced. I probed further and then wished I hadn’t.

“What it came down to, Clarissa, was that I wanted children and she didn’t.” Ken’s hand slid over the tablecloth and covered mine and his voice grew tender. “I still do.”

He had kind grey eyes and a firm-looking body and he dressed well and unfussily. My nipples hardened and there was a telltale warmth between my legs. I lowered my face, conscious of blushing, imagining he could see what was happening to my body; but disappointment quenched my arousal. Tears pricked my eyelids and my mascara threatened to run.

“I can’t, Ken,” I whispered. “Can’t have children, I mean.”

He asked why not and then bit his lip and apologised for the question. I shook my head and said it was okay; I just didn’t have the necessary working parts. The doctors had told me I’d never become pregnant. Nothing could be done about it. Yes, I was completely sure.

He squeezed my hand and said how sad it was, and what a sorrow it must be for me, and I withdrew from his touch and told him I wasn’t the only infertile woman on the planet so it was no big deal. My voice sounded sharp with sorrow and regret. I decided it would be best if I excused myself and took a taxi home, but with admirable tact and deftness he changed the subject and we talked about music and literature. I inspected at my hand for the imprint of his fingers but his caress had left no visible memory.

After dinner he took me back to my flat but wouldn’t come in for coffee. He’d enjoyed the evening but he was sure I needed to get to bed. Wondering how many men would pass up the opportunity to shag an obviously willing woman when there was no risk of pregnancy, I thanked him for a lovely evening and looked forward to seeing him again at choir practice. His goodnight kiss was chaste.

I drank coffee alone, then undressed, went to bed and masturbated, something I hadn’t done since I’d been rescued from the brothel. A clitoris isn’t essential after all, I discovered; the part of my body where cock and balls had once hung was wonderfully sensitive. During sex with Uta and even Geoff I’d believed I might cum some day, and this was the day; the night, rather. It was both like and unlike the orgasms Doug used to have: the same explosion throughout the nervous system taking over mind and body, the same gasps and grunts and hip thrusts, the same muscular collapse afterwards; but the sensory surge flowed (as it were) inwards rather than outwards, something that should have been obvious from anatomy, and filled me in such a way that aftershocks convulsed my body for two or three minutes after the climax faded. It almost scared me. Men don’t have such aftershocks.

I could experience vaginal orgasms with the right man, I thought. Then I heard Katrina’s voice: You’re turning into a genuine whore, Clarissa.

I knew it was nonsense but I turned on to my side, curled up in foetal position, and cried myself to sleep.

– – – – – – – –
“Oh, Clarissa love, you didn’t need to have it dry-cleaned!” Jen put her maxi-dress on a hanger, then tipped her head to one side and said “Well? How was it?”

I told her Ken was really nice and it had been a great meal. She inquired further.

“Nothing happened, Jen. He took me home and then left. Didn’t come in for coffee.” I met her eye. “He seemed interested but he wants kids so I told him I couldn’t. As you said: reasonably honest.”

She hugged me.

“Hey, big step, Clarissa. You were shitting yourself at the prospect of a man taking you out but you did it so now you can do it again.” Then she grinned. “No need for honesty on a first date.”

Knowing what could happen if a woman wasn’t honest I didn’t agree, but I didn’t say so.

That evening I e-mailed Sergio, apologised for the eighteen month silence, and told him I’d help with his investigation. He replied immediately: could he visit me the following Saturday to discuss tactics and could he bring Mandy with him? More than a little shaken I told Jen and Nils and Helen, who all said it was time I renewed acquaintance with Mandy so I should concur. They said they’d help with the investigation if and when they could.

I said nothing about it to May or Kathy, or anyone in the choir, or the literature group, or the Oxfam shop, or the gym I attended two mornings a week. One’s friends don’t need to know everything. In any case, you can’t tell anyone what you don’t know, and what I felt about the prospect of meeting Mandy again was too confused to articulate.
– – – – – – – –

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