Chapter 14: Seamus
The morning light came thin through the kitchen window, pale and grey the way Dublin mornings had of promising rain that never quite arrived. Seamus sat at the heavy wooden table with his tea, already dressed in his work clothes, a folded paper in front of him that he kept tapping with one thick finger. Javier poured himself coffee and took the seat across from him, feeling the particular hum of the house that came after a night with Roisin, the secret warmth of it still pooled low in his belly.
Roisin moved between the stove and the table in her dressing gown, setting down a plate of toast and eggs for Seamus, brushing a hand across Javier's shoulder as she passed him. The touch was light, almost nothing at all, but he felt it all the way down his spine.
"Right," Seamus said, pushing his paper aside. "I've got news. That project in Cork, the docklands job. They've finally sorted the planning permission, so I've to go down there Monday, be there a full week at least."
Roisin's hand paused at the butter dish. "A full week?"
"Aye. They want me on site to make sure the concrete pour goes right. It's a big contract, Roisin. Could set us up for the year." Seamus took a bite of toast, chewing thoughtfully. "I'll drive down Sunday evening so I'm fresh for the Monday morning site meeting."
Javier kept his eyes on his coffee, the pulse in his throat suddenly loud. A week. Sunday to Sunday, the house empty except for the two of them. He felt the weight of it, the possibility of it, and dared not look at Roisin.
"Well," Roisin said, and her voice was remarkably even, "you'll need your good boots. And that big coat. Cork can be damp this time of year."
"I know what Cork can be like, love, I'm from Cork." Seamus laughed, a warm rumble that filled the kitchen. "Will you have everything under control here without me?"
"Manus will be running to me if you don't bring him something from the English Market," Roisin said with a small smile. "We'll manage."
Javier swallowed. "I'll look after the house, Dad. Won't let anything happen."
Seamus looked at him with that fond, easy affection that always made Javier's chest tighten. "I know you won't, son. That's why I'm not worried." He pushed back from the table, gathering his keys. "Right, I'm off. Manus rang about delivery times." He bent and kissed Roisin on the cheek, gave Javier a clap on the shoulder, and was gone, the front door closing with its familiar solid thunk.
The house settled into a different kind of silence. The clock on the mantel ticked. Somewhere down the street a dog barked. Javier heard Seamus's van start and pull away, the engine fading until there was nothing left.
Roisin stood at the stove with her back to him, both hands braced on the counter. He could see the small tremor in her shoulders.
"Roisin."
She turned, and her face was a mixture of things he couldn't quite name. Wonder, mostly. A kind of awe, as if she couldn't believe what the week ahead meant. "He's gone."
"He's gone."
She crossed the kitchen to him, her dressing gown whispering against the floor, and when she reached him she simply sat in his lap, both arms around his neck, her face pressed into his shoulder. He held her, breathing her in, the rosewater of her shampoo and the warm scent of her skin.
"I thought," she said against his neck, her voice muffled, "that I'd have to live the whole rest of my life stealing moments. Slipping into your room in the dark. Sneaking kisses in the kitchen afraid of footsteps on the stairs." She pulled back to look at him, and her eyes were bright. "And now a whole week. A whole week of you."
"A whole week," he repeated, and the words felt like a promise.
She kissed him then, soft at first, tasting of tea, and then deeper. Her hands came up to cup his face and he gathered her closer, the dressing gown sliding open at her throat. It was still early, the morning light still grey, and there was nowhere they had to be.
"Come back to bed," she said against his mouth.
He stood with her in his arms, carrying her through the hall and up the stairs, her laugh muffled against his neck. The house was warm and quiet around them, all its secrets theirs.
His room still held the smell of the night before, their night, the sheets tangled and smelling of her. He laid her down in the middle of the bed and came over her, and it felt different in the daylight, unhurried, no hurry to get home or hide what they were. Her dressing gown fell open and he pressed his mouth to her throat, the soft swell of her chest, the beating of her heart beneath his lips.
"Oh, Javier," she said, and it was half a sigh, half a prayer.
He made love to her slowly that morning, with the light growing and the house silent around them. When she cried out beneath him, she pressed her face into his shoulder to muffle it, and afterwards she lay against his chest, her hair spread across his skin, tracing small patterns on his stomach with one finger.
"I love you," she said. "I've never said that to anyone and meant it the way I mean it with you."
He kissed the top of her head. "I know, love. I know."
Later, they made breakfast together, and it was a different kind of intimacy, something domestic and new. She wore his shirt, the biggest thing she could find, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and she moved around his kitchen, this kitchen that was not really theirs but had become theirs all the same, and he couldn't stop looking at her. She caught him at it and blushed, a girl's blush on a woman's face, and he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"You're going to starve me, looking at me like that," she said, but she leaned back into him.
"I could look at you all day."
"And what would I do with you all day then?"
"Whatever you wanted."
She turned in his arms, the spatula still in her hand, and there was something fierce and tender in her face. "I want everything," she said. "I want every day, every hour. I want to wake up with you and fall asleep with you and never have to let go."
"Then you'll have it," he said. "This week. I'll give you all of it."
The days folded into one another, soft and golden and full of her. He woke each morning with her warm and heavy against him, and made love to her in the pale light of dawn, and then again in the afternoon when the sun came in through the curtains, and at night he fell asleep with her scent in his nostrils and her heartbeat under his hand. She bloomed under his attention, laughing more, moving differently, as if some weight had been lifted from her.
On the third day, they were curled up on the sofa watching an old film, and she stretched out her legs across his lap, wiggling her toes. Her feet were small and plump, the skin soft from years of standing behind her boutique counter in heels and then soaking them at night.
"My feet are killing me," she said. "All that standing at the shop. I don't know how I do it."
He took one of her feet in his hands, cradling the arch, and began to work his thumbs into the sole. She let out a sound, a soft, surprised moan, and her head fell back against the cushion.
"Javier."
"Shh. Just relax."
He worked his way along the sole, finding the knots, easing them out with slow, patient pressure. Her toes curled, then relaxed. He pressed his fingers between them, over the ball of the foot, up to the ankle, and she made small sounds of pleasure that went straight to his groin.
"Lord, where did you learn that?"
"Boxing. You learn to take care of your feet." He moved to the other foot, and she sighed, going boneless. "You're carrying a lot of tension here."
"I'm carrying a lot of tension everywhere."
He smiled, rotating her ankle gently, then pressing his thumb into the pad of her heel. "I could do this all day."
"Don't you dare stop."
He didn't. He worked her feet for a long time, until her toes were curling and uncurling, until her breathing had gone slow and deep, until she was looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes. And then he lifted her foot to his mouth and kissed the arch, and she made a sound that was almost a whimper.
"Javier."
He kissed her ankle, the soft skin of her calf, and she shifted, pulling her legs under her. "Come here," she said.
He came to her, over her, and they made love on the sofa in the afternoon light, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands in his hair. After, she lay in his arms and laughed, a giddy sound.
"Thirty years," she said. "Thirty years with Seamus, and he never once touched my feet."
"His loss."
She tilted her head up to look at him. "It was. It's yours now. All of me is yours."
The nights were different from their days. At night there was no light of day to break the spell, only the darkness and the quiet, and she came to him with a hunger that felt older than her body, a hunger for something she had never been allowed to have. She whispered things in the dark, things about being his, about wanting to give him everything, and he held her and loved her and buried his face in her hair and told her she was everything to him.
On the fifth evening, she came into his room wearing something he had never seen before. A dress of black silk, so dark it seemed to drink the light, cut low at the neck and hugging every curve of her. High heels, black stilettos that made her calves stand out and her bottom rounder. Her hair was done, her makeup perfect, a deep red on her lips.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers, and when she walked in he forgot how to breathe.
"Well," she said, a little breathless, turning slowly. "Do you like it?"
He stood, and came to her. "Like it," he said, his voice rough. "Roisin, you're a goddess."
She laughed, pleased, and when he reached for her she stepped back. "No. We're going out. I've booked us a table at the Shelbourne."
"The Shelbourne?"
"It's a fancy place. You'll need a jacket." She smoothed his collar, which was still open, her fingers tracing the line of his collarbone. "I want to be seen with you. I want everyone in the city to see me on your arm, even if they don't know why."z
He kissed her, careful not to smudge her lipstick, and she pressed against him for a moment before pulling back.
"Get dressed," she said. "I've chosen the place, you choose the wine."
The Shelbourne was all dark wood and crystal glass and waiters in black waistcoats. Roisin moved through it like she owned it, her head high, her hand on Javier's arm, and the looks she drew were not the looks of a woman of fifty. They were the looks of a woman who was radiant, who was loved, who carried her pleasure like a private light.
They had oysters and a bottle of white wine, then lamb for her and steak for him, and she talked and laughed and her eyes glittered in the candlelight. She told him about the boutique, about the first shop she had opened when she was twenty-three, about the mistakes she had made and the ones she was proud of. He listened, asking questions, drawing her out, and she glowed under his attention.
"You make me feel," she said, pausing with her glass halfway to her lips, "like nobody ever made me feel. Like I'm interesting. Like I matter."
"You do matter. You're the most interesting woman I've ever met."
"You flatter me."
"I'm telling the truth."
She set down her glass and reached across the table for his hand. "Can I tell you something? I was frightened, when this started. Frightened of what it meant, of what I felt, of what you'd think of me. An old woman like me, dreaming of a boy your age." She squeezed his fingers. "But you've never once made me feel foolish. You've never once made me feel like I'm too much or not enough."
"You're exactly enough," he said. "You're everything."
Later, in the taxi home, her hand rested high on his thigh, and she leaned into him, her head on his shoulder. The city lights slid past the window, and the driver kept his eyes carefully ahead.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"For what?"
"For this week. For all of it. I didn't know I could feel this way. Like the world is new."
He kissed her temple. "There's more. There's always more."
When they got home, she kicked off her stilettos in the hall and laughed, unsteady with wine and happiness. He caught her, held her up, and she wound her arms around his neck.
"Carry me up those stairs," she said.
He did. He carried her all the way up, and when he lowered her to the bed she reached for him, pulling him down, her mouth hot and hungry against his. The black dress was silk and slid away easily, and she wore beneath it only her skin and a scrap of lace that he took his time removing.
"I love you," she said as he moved over her. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
He answered her with his body, with his hands, with every breath he had. And when she came, crying out against his mouth, he felt something in himself break open, and he held her through it, and afterwards he did not let her go.
They lay tangled in the dark, the city's glow soft at the window, and she traced the lines of his face in the dimness.
"We have two more days," she said.
"Two more days."
"I don't know how I'm going to bear it, when he comes back. Pretending. Hiding." She swallowed. "But I'll bear it. For you. For us."
"We'll find a way," he said, and he believed it, even if he did not know how.
He fell asleep with her in his arms, her heartbeat under his hand, and dreamed of her, of them, of a future he could not see but could almost touch.
The morning came soft and grey, and Javier woke with Roisin still in his arms, her hair spread across his chest, her breathing slow and even. He lay still for a long time, watching the light gather at the window, feeling the weight of her against him, and he thought that he had never been so happy in his life. The week was nearly over. Tomorrow evening Seamus would come home, and the house would belong to all of them again, and the secret would press back in around them. But today was theirs.
She stirred against him, her hand moving up his chest, her lips pressing a sleepy kiss to his collarbone. "Morning."
"Morning, love."
She stretched against him, a long, slow movement like a cat, and he felt her smile against his skin. "I dreamed about you."
"What did you dream?"
She was quiet for a moment. "The kind of dream I used to have. Before we, before this." She lifted her head to look at him, and there was something uncertain in her eyes, something she was holding back. "The dreams I told you about. When I disciplined you."
He remembered. The dreams that had haunted her for weeks, the cane, the punishment, the way she had called him her boy, her son, and he had called her mum. It had been the doorway into this, the thing that had unlocked them both.
"I remember," he said.
She traced the line of his jaw with one finger. "I never told you everything about them."
"What didn't you tell me?"
She was quiet, and he could feel the effort it took her to speak. "In the dreams, I was strict with you. Severe. I scolded you and I caned you and I spanked you until you cried, and I loved it. Not the hurting. The, the being in charge. The having you under my hand. The feeling that you were mine to correct." She swallowed. "I've never told anyone that. I've never let myself think it, outside of dreams. It felt like something wrong in me. Something that made me a bad person."
He cupped her face, made her look at him. "It doesn't make you a bad person."
"You don't think less of me?"
"I think," he said slowly, "that I want you to show me."
Her breath caught. "Javier."
"I mean it. I've thought about it too. The dreams, they weren't just yours. The things you did in them, the way you held me, the way you took control. I wanted it. I want to know what it feels like to be yours like that. To have you be in charge of me."
She stared at him, her eyes wide, and he watched the fear in them shift into something else. Something hungry. Something she had kept locked away for thirty years.
"You're serious."
"I'm serious."
She was quiet for a long moment, and then she moved, swinging her legs off the bed, rising to her feet in the grey morning light. She was naked, soft and round and beautiful, and she looked down at him with an expression he had never seen on her face before. A kind of authority. A calm certainty.
"Get up," she said. "Go and stand in the corner. Hands on your head."
He felt his whole body respond to the command, a heat spreading through him, a strange, thrilling submission. He got up, his legs slightly unsteady, and crossed to the corner of the room. He stood with his hands on his head, facing the wall, and he could hear her moving behind him, her footsteps soft on the floor. The silence stretched.
"Do you know why you're there?"
He swallowed. "No, mum."
"Oh, you do." Her voice was different now. Lower. Harder. The voice of a woman who had learned she could command. "You've been a bad boy, Javier. A very bad boy. And I've been too soft with you, haven't I? Letting you get away with everything. Running around with girls. Fighting in pubs. Worrying me half to death."
His heart was pounding. "Yes, mum."
"Yes, mum," she repeated, coming to stand behind him. He felt her hand settle on his bare back, light at first, trailing down the curve of his spine. "You've been needing a strong hand, haven't you? A hand that won't let you get away with a thing."
"Yes, mum."
"You're going to take your punishment now, and you're going to take it like a good boy, and when it's over you're going to thank me. Do you understand?"
"Yes, mum."
"Good." She stepped back. "Come and lie across the bed. Bottom up."
He turned from the corner and crossed to the bed, his legs carrying him on instinct, and he lay across it as she had told him, his legs hanging off the edge, his chest against the mattress. The position was helpless, exposed, and the helplessness filled him with a strange, giddy joy.
She stood over him for a long moment. He could feel her gaze on him, on the pale skin of his backside, and he heard her take a slow, steadying breath.
"You know what I'm going to do, don't you?"
"Yes, mum."
"I'm going to spank you. Properly. The way a naughty boy should be spanked." Her hand came to rest on his bare skin, warm and firm. "And you're going to count for me. Every stroke. And if you lose count, we start again from the beginning. Do you understand?"
"Yes, mum."
The first slap came without warning, a sharp crack that echoed off the walls. He gasped, his hands gripping the duvet, the sting blooming hot across his skin.
"One," he said, his voice strained.
"Good boy." She rubbed the stinging place, a soft, soothing touch. "That was for running off to the west coast in the rain without a word. Scaring me half to death."
Another crack, lower, on the soft curve where his buttock met his thigh. He cried out.
"Two."
"That was for the fight. For coming home with your face bleeding. My brave boy, but a bad one. You could have been hurt."
The third fell, and the fourth, and the fifth. He counted them all, his voice growing rough, his skin burning, and each time she soothed the heat with her hand before the next one fell. She was stern and unrelenting, her words a litany of his sins, real and imagined, and he took each one, surrendering to the rhythm of it.
By the tenth stroke his eyes were wet, the pain sharp and alive, and the feeling of being held under her authority, under her will, filled him with a tenderness he could not name. He was hers. Completely, utterly hers.
She paused, her hand resting on his burning skin. "Are you crying, boy?"
"Yes, mum." His voice cracked.
She made a sound, soft and satisfied. "Good. That's what I wanted. A boy who knows when he's been corrected." She rubbed the heat gently, soothing. "Turn over."
He obeyed, turning onto his back, and she stood over him, her face flushed, her eyes bright. She looked at him, at his tears, at the red marks she had left on him, and something in her face softened.
"You took that so well," she said, her voice tender now. "My good boy. My beautiful, good boy."
She knelt over him, straddling his hips, and she took his face in her hands and kissed him, deep and slow and full of everything she had just spent. He tasted his own tears on her lips.
"I've never felt like this," she said against his mouth. "Never. I've never felt so, so powerful, so, I don't know. So myself."
"This is you," he said. "This is the real you."
She kissed him again, and then she drew back, a light in her eyes. "Wait here."
She slipped off the bed and crossed to the wardrobe, and she came back with his belt, the heavy leather one he wore with his work trousers, folded double in her hand. He looked at it, and his stomach flipped.
"You've been very bad," she said, almost conversationally, stroking the leather. "I don't think my hand is enough for you. I think you need something stronger." She met his eyes. "Do you want this?"
He swallowed. "Yes, mum."
"Say it properly."
"I want you to belt me, mum. I want to take my punishment."
"Good boy." She stepped back. "Roll over again."
He turned onto his stomach, his skin still stinging from her hand, and the anticipation was sharper than the pain had been. He heard the belt whistle through the air, and then the crack of leather against his skin, and the pain was a white-hot line across the already-tender flesh. He cried out, a raw sound, and gripped the sheets.
"Count."
"One."
"Good." Another stroke, falling lower, across the top of his thighs. "You were late coming home without telling me. I always have to worry."
"Two."
Another. Another. The belt laid its stripes one after the other, her voice steady, her blows measured, and he counted through tears and gasping breaths. She was severe, unrelenting, a woman who had discovered something inside herself and was finding it with every passing stroke. And interspersed with the pain were her words, her scolding, her maternal severity that wrapped the punishment in a cocoon of care.
When she stopped, he was sobbing, his whole body trembling, his skin a map of red lines. She dropped the belt and came to him, gathering him into her arms, holding him against her softness, stroking his hair, his back, his burning skin.
"Shh," she murmured. "Shh, my darling. It's over. You've taken it so well. You've been so brave. My good, brave boy."
He clung to her, his face buried in her chest, weeping without shame. And she held him, rocking him gently, whispering to him, and the tenderness after the severity was the most profound thing he had ever felt.
"I love you," she said. "I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. And I love you like this, too. Like this."
He lifted his face, tear-streaked, and looked at her. "I love you. I love you so much, mum."
She kissed him, gentle at first, and then deeper, and then she pushed him back onto the bed and came over him, her body soft and warm, and the pain of his welts became a counterpoint to the pleasure of her, the sharp and the sweet together. When she lowered herself onto him, he gasped at the heat of her, and she rode him with a new confidence, a new ownership, looking down at him with possessive, tender eyes.
"You're mine," she said. "Do you understand? Mine."
"Yes," he gasped. "I'm yours. I'm all yours."
"I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to be so good to you. And when you're bad, I'm going to punish you. That's how it's going to be."
"Yes, mum. That's how it's going to be."
She came with a cry, her nails raking his chest, and he followed her over the edge, his whole body arching, the pain and the pleasure fused into a single blinding light. And afterwards, she gathered him into her arms and held him, and he lay against her breast and let himself be small, and the world outside the room did not exist.
The day passed in a haze of tenderness and punishment. She brought him warm tea and a cool cloth for his backside, and she scolded him softly while she tended to him, and he basked in the attention. In the afternoon they went out for a walk along the canal, and she took his arm and leaned on him, and passersby saw only a handsome young man with his mother, and the secret of what they were to each other glowed hidden between them.
That evening, after a dinner she cooked by candlelight, she led him upstairs again, and she took the belt from the wardrobe and stood over him, and the ritual began again. This time she was more severe, more confident, her scolding sharper, her strokes harder, and he took them all, grateful for each one, surrendering deeper and deeper to the current of her will. When it was done, she held him and kissed him and told him he was her good boy, her best boy, and she made love to him with a tenderness that erased the sting of the belt.
On the last morning, the seventh day, they woke in each other's arms and lay still, listening to the silence of the house. Seamus would be home that evening. The week was over.
Roisin traced the fading welts on his backside, her touch soft. "You'll have marks for a while."
"I don't mind."
"Will you think of me when you see them?"
He turned to look at her. "I think of you all the time. Every minute."
She smiled, a sad, sweet smile. "I'm going to miss this. Being able to have you like this. All of you."
"We'll find ways. Stealing moments. Like before." He kissed her. "And the dreams. We'll always have the dreams."
She laughed softly. "The dreams are what started all of this."
"I know. And I'm grateful for them. Every single one."
She lay her head on his chest, and they stayed like that for a long while, the morning light growing, the house around them quiet and full of everything they had shared. And when they finally rose and dressed and put on the masks they would need to wear again by evening, something in both of them had changed. They had found a new language between them, a new country, a deep and hidden place that was only theirs.
Seamus came home at six, full of stories about Cork and the site and the people he had worked with, and they sat at the dinner table and listened and laughed and passed the potatoes, and no one would have guessed the week that had passed in the house while he was gone. But under the table, Roisin's foot found Javier's, and rested against it, and he knew that this was only the beginning.