1st March
A huge quantity of Sam’s books and papers had been salvaged from his house.
I had been working to clean the references and to catalogue them for most of the last five days. I estimated that I had completed about a quarter of the total.
I lifted another volume from the piles in Helen’s garage and used the vacuum cleaner to remove the worst of the brick dust and debris.
I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock at night. I had not finished as much work on the documents that evening as I had intended because I had been doing a task for Helen – I had spent an hour and a half wandering around the village, delivering leaflets about forthcoming meetings to members of her Women’s Group. Nevertheless, I concluded that I had completed as much as I could be bothered to do for the day.
I collected some books that I wanted to examine more closely, carried them into Helen’s lounge and placed them on the coffee table.
I sat down on the sofa and spread out the references in front of me.
Ideally, I was hoping to find the book and understand what it was that had obsessed Sam so much during the previous couple of years – and had led to his alleged predictions. I realised, however, that I was at a huge disadvantage. Many of the references were not written in English, and many were in unfamiliar scripts.
The Internet had allowed me to provisionally identify Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Russian and others – there were far more non-western scripts than I had ever realised – I had no idea, however, what the words meant.
Earlier, I had been speculating that in order to make any breakthrough in the search for Sam’s secret, the book containing it would have to be written in modern English and have a title of ‘Sam’s Secret Prediction Book (Yip, this is the one you’re looking for!)’ written clearly in large letters on the cover.
Oddly, something similar had turned up. It was a modern, A4, hard-covered notebook on which was handwritten the word ‘Predictions’. I had spent some time browsing through this earlier in the day. I picked it up again and opened it.
I heard a door open behind me, and Helen came into the room.
‘Any luck?’ she asked, walking to the back of the sofa and looking over my shoulder.
‘There’s this one,’ I said. ‘It lists events with dates and times. Some are world events like the death of a foreign leader; others are unpredictable astronomical events like the discovery of a new comet. As far as I can see, they’re accurate. The big question is about when they were written.’
‘What do you mean?’ Helen asked.
‘If these were genuine predictions, made before the events took place, then there will need to be some re-writing of the laws of physics. If they were recorded after the events happened, then we’re left with the astounding discovery that Sam read the newspapers.’
‘Are there any predictions for future events?’
‘Good question,’ I replied. ‘There might be. The word Betelgeuse is written here.’ I pointed to the reference in the book and then slid my finger along the line. ‘It’s followed by the only future date in the book – the thirteenth of September this year. When I spoke to Sam for the last time, he mentioned something about an event happening in Orion, and he said that it would happen sooner than I might expect.’
I had become so engrossed in the book that I had not looked at Helen until she sat beside me. She had dressed for bed, and she was wearing a long, white, cotton nightdress. Admittedly it covered her body more comprehensively than her normal day attire, but she looked utterly gorgeous.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You suddenly seem a bit breathless.’
I paused, wondering what to say. I finally decided to be honest with her.
‘It’s really brilliant living here at the moment,’ I began, ‘and I don’t want anything to jeopardise that. More importantly, I don’t want anything to harm our friendship. I can’t pretend, however, that I don’t find you extremely attractive.’ I looked her in the eyes. ‘You’re sitting next to me now with next to nothing on. I think my slight breathlessness was just my body’s way of noting that you look … well …’ I struggled for a word. I laughed as the word came into my head, but I had gone so far that I thought I would say it anyway, ‘you look so yummy.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Helen, ‘this must be really frustrating for you.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘that’s OK. As I say, I don’t want to risk our friendship or the opportunity to stay with you, so I won’t put you in a difficult position by making any unwanted advances towards you.’
‘I don’t want to make you uncomfortable though,’ she said. ‘I mean, if sitting next to you like this is frustrating, then this must be torture.’ She leant towards me and gave me a long, lingering kiss on the lips. ‘And this must be unbearable,’ she added, putting her hand under my shirt and gently stroking my chest.
She then suddenly pulled away, put her hands in her lap and looked down at her knees. ‘I’ve been a very bad girl arousing you like this,’ she said. ‘It would serve me right if you took my hand, led me to my bed and did whatever you wanted with me.’ She looked at me and smiled mischievously. ‘I certainly wouldn’t resist.’
~*~*~*~*~
It was nine o’clock on the following morning when I awoke. Helen was still asleep. I watched her beautiful, sleeping face for a few minutes. Then, she opened her eyes.
‘Good morning,’ I said.
‘Good morning,’ she replied. ‘That was lovely last night.’
‘It was,’ I said, putting my arm around her. ‘Can I still be your lodger though?’ I added, smiling.
‘Well,’ she replied with a stern expression on her face, ‘we haven’t really discussed rent. If you want to stay, you’ll have to make love to me like that regularly.’
I laughed. ‘That’s the nicest tenancy agreement I’ve ever heard of.’ We lay in silence for several minutes, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, a long train of thought led me to a question: ‘Before we went to bed last night, you said something about deserving it because you were a bad girl. Are you into a dominance/submissive thing?’
‘Not really,’ she answered. ‘John, my ex, was into that sort of thing though. I quite enjoyed being told to do things that I already wanted to, and I quite enjoyed giving the orders myself sometimes, but that’s as far as it went with me. John wanted to go further – get involved with other couples … you know. I wasn’t going to do that. I think my lack of enthusiasm made a major contribution to him leaving. He found someone else who better matched his preferences,’ she added with a hint of anger.
Helen thought for a few moments. ‘It might have been different if we’d have had children, but with just the two of us, the focus was always on our own lives. I guess we both got a little selfish.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Do you think that my little fantasies are a bit kinky?’
‘It sounds fun,’ I replied. ‘It would also be really convenient, ordering you to bed,’ I joked.
I thought back to my marriage to Julie. ‘Sex was never great with Julie,’ I said, ‘and towards the end, she was never in the mood. As you say, perhaps it would have been different if we’d have had children to focus our attention upon and share responsibility for.’
My mind wandered back to the present. ‘Do you have any particular fantasy scenarios you enjoy?’
‘I sometimes imagine I’m a member of a religious sect and have to fulfil all the demands of the sect’s leader. Sometimes, it’s the other way round, and I’m the leader of a sect with just male followers obeying my every command.’ Helen giggled.
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘You’re a sweetie,’ she said, smiling at me.
I rolled away from her and started to move towards the edge of the bed. ‘I think I’ll plough on with Sam’s books this morning,’ I said.
Helen’s arm reached over me and roughly pulled me back towards her. ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to get out of bed,’ she said sternly. ‘You’re still in arrears with your rent, and you’re not getting out of this bed until you’re totally up to date. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I responded, brushing her hair back from her forehead and moving into a position to kiss her.