‘Just as nothing I do will deter you. I am not a good deterrent.’
‘No, thank heaven. But now it’s you who’s changing the subject.’
‘Sorry. Go on. You were saying you had to have her there and then.’
‘Things just sort of took care of themselves. She tried to protest, but she was gagged. I was glad about that. Later, when I removed her gag, she tried to assert herself – take control, make me untie her and let her resume the familiar role of dominatrix. I didn’t listen. Afterwards, when it was all over and I had untied her, she began to give orders again. I could tell she was angry, but I like to think she was as angry at herself for enjoying the experience as she was at me for forcing her to enjoy it.’
‘It must have been funny seeing Harriet trying to make up her mind,’ Katrina said.
‘Yes, it was. But she made it up quickly. She decided that I had to be punished for my temerity. Among other things, she decided to send me into exile. She didn’t say anything about allowing me back. And she has continued to say nothing until now. The silence is sometimes thunderous.’
‘Well, we will have to think of some way to make her break her silence and open her door to you once again. And her legs as well,’ Katrina added with a laugh. ‘You must have a place to go when you fly back to London next week.’
‘I have my flat,’ Tom countered.
‘Yes, but it is empty. You need to be with Harriet. She wants you back, I am sure of it. We will have to make her admit that to herself.’ Katrina paused thoughtfully. The pause lengthened. Then her face brightened. ‘I have an idea. Several, in fact. But I will need a day or two to get things moving. Do you have to go back tomorrow? Can you stay a few days – one or two – in Amsterdam? You can stay here. My friend will not mind.’
‘Will you be able to stay with me?’ Tom asked.
‘No. I must go back home this evening. Ari is expecting me. Ari’s birthday is tomorrow, and I have to be there to give him his present. But I will be able to visit you here the day after, while he is at work.’
Tom tried to press Katrina for the details of her plan, but she would say nothing more.
‘Leave it to me,’ was all she said.
Throughout the early afternoon Tom aroused Katrina, brought her to climax, and let her subside for a time, before arousing her once more. And so the Sunday slipped away, until, in an interval of rest, Katrina whispered to Tom that it was time for her to go. She sounded regretful, but determined.
Tom regretfully recognised that the weekend was over. He didn’t relish the prospect of flying back to London and going home to his empty flat.
Katrina refused to let him feel sad, and reminded Tom she would see him again before he went back. ‘There are some things I must do about the birthday party, but I want to help solve your problem too. I will come to you again on Tuesday morning, when everything should be done, and we will say our farewells then.’
Tom had no reason to return immediately, and the prospect of seeing Katrina again before going back home was the strongest inducement to do as she asked. ‘But what do you plan to do?’ he couldn’t help asking again.
Katrina told him she would tell him what he needed to know when she returned. ‘I would like you to stay in this apartment. It will be nice for me to imagine you waiting here for me, in this place that I know well. And you will be comfortable. You can treat the apartment as a home from home. My friend will not mind you staying, and I can get in touch with you any time I need to.’
Tom agreed to stay in the apartment. As Katrina said, it was comfortable enough.
Katrina brightened up when he had agreed. ‘Good. Everything is settled. I will see you on Tuesday morning – about ten or ten-thirty.’ She kissed him goodbye and let herself out of the flat.
5
Alone in Amsterdam
Tom felt strange in the empty place, and he began to tidy his clothes up just to have something to do. Still restless, he moved into the kitchen and did the washing up. During the weekend neither he nor Katrina had been in the mood to deal with domestic chores, and the dishes had piled up in the sink. Tom tackled them methodically. It took him perhaps an hour and a half to do all the chores about the apartment, and when he was finished he was at a loose end: alone in a foreign city and facing a long Sunday evening. He had always hated Sunday evenings, with nothing in prospect except bed, and then work on Monday morning. Only after he had begun to live with Harriet had he begun to enjoy those times. Her assumption of control, and her inventive sexual games, had kept him alert and interested no matter what the day. He wondered what she was doing this Sunday evening.
He got dressed and left the apartment; he didn’t feel like preparing a meal and eating it in solitude. He missed Katrina’s bright presence and thought he would feel better among the crowds.
There were still many people on the streets, and as he strolled among them his spirits did indeed rise. He followed the canal to the first bridge and then turned right, heading back towards the centre of town. He hailed a taxi and rode to Leidsplein, where there was always a street show of some sort going on, and there were restaurants and bars on all sides if he wanted to eat or drink. He got out of the taxi at the Leidsestraat bridge, outside the Dikker en Thys hotel, and walked the short distance to the square. The fire eaters, jugglers and mime artists were beginning their performances, and he stopped to watch one of the acts. He had never been attracted by mime artists, but the jugglers were very skilled. He didn’t mind putting a few guilders into the tin when it was passed through the crowd.
The square was packed – wall-to-wall people, was how he described it to himself – but they were all good-natured, and the Brownian movement of the crowd ensured there was always someone new moving past him. Briefly he toyed with the idea of trying to pick up a woman. There were plenty about, but the weekend with Katrina had taken away any sense of sexual urgency. He wanted company more than a sexual partner, but that would be harder to come by. Tom made his way to the sidewalk cafe alongside the theatre and sat at a vacant table. He ordered a Heineken – the local brew – and relaxed to watch the crowds.
Tom ate a leisurely meal as the warm darkness grew over the square and the crowd milled about. He paid the bill and decided to walk back to the apartment. Amsterdam was a city that invited walking, and the night was going to be very long unless he did something to fill in the time. Leaving Leidsplein, he carried straight on until he came to Kalverstraat, the narrow alley which houses hundreds of shops selling everything from sex to sandwiches.
In the red-light district along the canal, he lingered longer. He approved of the Dutch attitude towards prostitution – everything in the open, only the price negotiable. He saw many men, and a few women, stop to speak with the ladies behind the plate-glass windows. Some shook their heads and continued walking. Others struck a bargain and entered the small houses and flats that lined the west side of the canal. In several windows Tom noticed women dressed as dominatrixes, some in leather gear but most in simple underwear. With these, only the display of whips or handcuffs in the window or on the rear wall indicated the nature of the services on offer.
He smiled as he imagined Harriet offering her services from behind one of these windows. But he thought she looked better than anyone he saw along the street, and he suspected that there were few among the self-styled dominatrixes who brought even a fraction of her dedication, invention and verve to the task. He wasn’t tempted to sample the ladies on the street. It wasn’t a matter of virtue; it was simply that he knew of at least one woman who was superior to all these. And, of course, he told himself wryly, the last two days had dulled his appetite slightly – enough to keep him from actively seeking more sex for the moment.
Two days later, however, he felt differently, and was pleased to find the light on in the apartment when he returned from a walk along the canal. Katrina was back.
He went into the bedroom. Katrina was waiting for him there, bound to the bed, her wrists tied to opposite sides of the head and her ankles to opposite ends of the foot. She was blindfolded and gagged. And wearing only her nipple rings. Tom felt his cock stiffen when he saw her. On the mirror, in lipstick, Katrina had written, ‘Fuck me now.’ As Churchill has often demonstrated, monosyllables are more effective than polysyllables. And there could be few more effective a collection of monosyllables than her invitation.
Katrina’s head was turned towards him, even though the blindfold prevented her from seeing anything. She made no sound, waiting for him to take her. Tom removed his clothes quickly, wanting to feel her body next to his. Her nipples were crinkly with excitement. She gasped when he touched her sex. Tom discovered that she was already wet. She must have heard him enter and known that he was coming to her. He mounted Katrina, guiding himself into her with one hand and taking his weight with the free one. As he slid inside her he lowered himself until her nipples were brushing lightly against his chest hair.
Tom lay still for a few moments, while Katrina writhed under him, moaning softly now, trying to mould her body to his. He took his weight on his elbows, twining his hands in her hair, holding her head steady while he kissed her forehead and throat and the sides of her neck. Thrusting slowly and evenly, Tom felt Katrina’s first climax as a tightening of her vaginal muscles around his cock. Her entire body was taut as she fought the ropes that held her, and she moaned more loudly through the gag. Katrina was trying to twist her head, pulling against his fingers in her hair. Tom held on, brushing her cheek with his lips as she bucked beneath him.
He was so intent on Katrina’s climax that his own crept up on him. He was surprised when he found himself coming with her, unable to hold back as he had intended. Katrina didn’t seem to mind. She thrashed and moaned as he came, and continued to do so for some time after he was spent. Tom held her until she subsided, breathing heavily after her excitement.
At length Tom got up, going to the bathroom for a towel and a basin of water which he used to wipe her body. Katrina lay quietly as he finished wiping her clean and removed her gag and blindfold. Then he set about untying her. When she was free, he helped her to sit up and took her in his arms.
‘Who tied you up?’ Tom asked.
‘A friend. It was a surprise for you. Now we will take a shower and I will let you wash my back. Then we will have something to eat. I want to talk about a gift for Harriet, and I will tell you what you must do when you get back to London. What time is your flight?’
‘I haven’t made the reservation yet. I’ll call before we go out,’ Tom said. He wanted to know what she had in mind, but she refused to be drawn.
‘Later. We have enough time to make plans. I will be here all day, and I will go with you to the airport when it is time for you to go. Come.’ Katrina got up and led him by the hand to the bathroom.
They showered together, washing one another and enjoying the touches and the closeness. There was no more urgency after the last lovemaking. Being close was good enough.
‘I have telephoned Harriet to tell her that she must take you back into her house when you get back,’ Katrina told him. ‘Also that she must make love with you. I told her that you have a great talent for sex – don’t laugh, it is true. She is very lucky to have someone such as you who wants her as you do. Now she will be thinking that I may be right, that she might be missing something. And of course she is. She will forget to be angry. She will remember the pleasure you gave her, both as her assistant and as her lover, even though it only happened once. Don’t worry. It will happen again. But you should have a gift for her. Have you chosen one yet?’
Tom shook his head. ‘I don’t have any idea what to get her. She once said that any time a man buys underwear for a woman he is really buying it for himself to look at, not because he thinks the woman will like it. And every time I have bought perfume for any woman, I learn that she has just gone off it and won’t use it.’
‘Poor men. Poor Tom,’ Katrina teased him. ‘Women are not that hard to please. They want to know that the man – or men – in their life wants to please them.’
‘You’re right, but women are damned bad at letting a man know what
will
convince them – at least as far as gifts are concerned.’
‘Never mind,’ Katrina told him. ‘I know what you must give to this difficult English mistress of yours. Let me get dressed and we will go back to the shop where the nice woman put these rings on me. We can both buy our gifts for Harriet there – use one stone for two birds, as you say. Then we can have the rest of the afternoon free for more of you and me.’ Katrina left the shower and went to get dressed.
An hour later, they arrived at the body-piercing shop. The same woman was there. She recognised them and smiled uncertainly. ‘Is everything all right with your . . . rings?’ she wanted to know.
‘Everything is fine,’ Katrina reassured her. ‘We like them so much that we have come back to pick out two gifts for friends.’
The woman looked happier at that, and began to set out trays of different rings and studs for them to examine. Some were heavier than the ones Katrina had chosen. Others were lighter. She and Tom looked over the selection and Katrina chose a pair similar to hers, but gold-plated.
‘Some people have a reaction to surgical steel, but very few have trouble with gold,’ she informed Tom. She set them aside. ‘Now let us choose the second gift.’ She looked directly at Tom as she spoke.
He understood that they were now going to select the gift he was to get for Harriet, but he didn’t see how another set of rings from him as well as Katrina would make any difference to her. But Katrina turned to the woman and asked her if she had any rings for men. The woman nodded and laid out another tray containing larger, heavier rings. Some were so heavy that Tom wondered how any man could tolerate them. But then, he reflected, there were all kinds of different tastes.