Crimson by Shirley Conran Page A

didn’t iron his shirts well enough, she cooked his favourite dish for dinner. Afterwards, her finger traced his cheek, her usual delicate signal to him.
    ,7 Billy frowned slightly and jerked his head away. At first, instinctively, Elinor wondered what she had done wrong. Then she wondered why she should feel guilty. There were, of course, no answers. Whatever the cause, his rejection of her timid sexual advance made her feel ashamed of being so forward.
    Billy grinned to himself. His disapproval always bewildered Elinor and always brought her quickly to heel.
    Some days later, when Elinor had had time to reflect on the incident, she decided to try the same thing with him. When Billy touched her breast, she flinched slightly; she wanted to see if his reactions were the same as hers.
    Billy laughed at her refusal. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Silently and deliberately he undressed her, button by button.
    Resolutely determined w resist him, Elinor would not be wooed. When he laid her on the sheet, she did not move, willing herself to be passively still.
    Kneeling, Billy slowly pushed his knee between her legs and forced them apart. He felt her, quivering and moist, beneath him.
    “You see, it’s no use,” he said.
    “I know when you want me.” He took her especially harshly that time, and when she whimpered, the face above her smiled.
    “You’ve got to learn who’s boss,” Billy said softly, pinching her nipples a little too hard.
    Although their erotic life was still one of intense passion, some of Billy’s requirements puzzled Elinor. In bed, Billy preferred a half-dressed woman to a naked one, and he liked her to wear thick black stockings like those of a schoolgirl rather than her best silk pair.
    One summer evening, Billy returned home with a gift box for Elinor. Inside, she found a white smock and a plain pinafore.
     
    “Oh, Billyl” she cried in confused disappointment.
    “Surely you don’t expect me to wear this! It’s the sort of thing I wore when I was a little girl and wore my hair in braids.”
    “Then braid your hair,” Billy said evenly.
    “But”
    “That’s enough! If you want to please me braid your hair.”
    “No, I won’t.”
    “Then I shall go to someone who will.” Billy left the room, whistling.
    He returned at six o’clock the next mo ming his step unsteady, his speech slurred, his clothes reeking of the sour, sharp smell of whisky and stale tobacco. On his skin, Elinor detected the strong scent of perfume. Her eyes registered a look of hurt and bewilderment.
    Billy laughed.
    “Well, you didn’t want me.” All day, Elinor hugged her baby to her and wept with shame and grief.
    Billy did not touch her for a month. During that month, Elinor’s nipples ached to feel him; her belly longed to feel his fingernails scrape lightly across it, before. his hand slipped knowingly between her thighs. Alone, restless, and unable to sleep, she tossed in their big brass marital bed; she banged pillows into shape, tortured by mental pictures of Billy doing all those private things to someone else.
    On the fourth Sunday evening of her enforced celibacy, Elinor timidly entered the living room and stood before Billy. She was dressed in the white smock, the pinafore, and the thick black stockings; her hair was in braids.
    “Do you like iff she asked him shyly.
    Later, she remembered her surprise at the passion unleashed by that pinafore as, on their bed, his hand groped beneath the tangle of her childish clothes.
    This seduction of innocence or the pretence of it 8o to be Ithe core of Billy’s sexual pleasure, providing energy that fired his loins with greatest power. Gradu- ‘ally their relationship grew from that of a man and a woman to that of a calculating seducer with a trusting child, for Elinor. was now also expected to behave like a submissive child bride outside the bedroom. In public, Billy now liked her to appear submissive and deferential; dutifully