I Take You: Part 3 of 3

I Take You: Part 3 of 3
Nikki Gemmell

Set in Notting Hill, this modern day version of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, sees a banker’s wife awaken to the erotic possibilities of her life.Connie Carven is devoted to her husband, who is left paralysed from the waist down following an accident. But this is no less than he demands – in fact, he insists on Connie’s utter subservience to his every desire. But unable to physically satisfy his wife, Clifford is eager to explore new, strange and troubling avenues of passion. Connie, ever the dutiful wife, follows wherever he leads.And yet Connie is bursting with unfulfilled desire. Unfulfilled, that is, until the communal gardener enters, and their affair accelerates to its tense, shuddering conclusion.

I TAKE YOU

Part 3 of 3

Nikki Gemmell

Fourth Estate • London

Table of Contents

Title Page (#udcff1356-ba9c-5c21-b0c6-5f313d2f259a)

Chapter 43 (#uae3f46d0-72a5-5fa1-8a2f-939ece872a24)

Chapter 44 (#ud491cf33-85e6-5fcc-a091-57abbffbd777)

Chapter 45 (#u205740dd-588e-58f5-bbc7-39c1b11bf1e5)

Chapter 46 (#u600480e1-2b92-517f-9713-1b5bcc5908e8)

Chapter 47 (#u64f1bf26-25c4-52b4-a36b-5c046da582d3)

Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 63 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 64 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 65 (#litres_trial_promo)

Note (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Links (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

I Take You by Nikki Gemmell Published by Fourth Estate on 23 May 2013

This is Part 3 of a three-part serialization

43

There is no doubt in my mind, that I have found out how to begin to say something in my own voice

The intercom, buzzing in her bedroom. Insistent. Connie picks it up. Neither greeting nor warmth. ‘Prepare yourself. You have an hour. I’ll be in my office.’

The voice struts. Ah, the Cliff of old.

Connie’s hand reaches down, she is a different woman now, she has been hauled into a different life and her body blazes it. She is fuller and softer and looser, hairier; her body less brittle, self-hating, desperate. No, she will do this, reveal herself. It is the start of the new life and Cliff must know it. She stands proud in front of the mirror, marvelling at the fresh self. Reclaimed, returned to nature, the earth.

The intercom again. ‘Bring your trinket. I want to put it in. I want to snap it shut.’

Connie does not respond, cannot. The punctures would be closed up now, surely, faint scars all that’s left of her former life. The padlock lies somewhere lost in the dirt near the shed, claimed by the undergrowth. She mustn’t think how much it was worth.

Connie turns back the mirror, biting her lip; back to her new body and everything it signals about her release. Her husband waits. She will not shave herself, she will not give him what he wants; the fury will be incandescent. Connie is very still, for a moment, stuck. What is she doing? What will be the consequences? Is she mad? She suddenly feels like she’s standing barefoot on oysters, stranded by an incoming tide, can’t move but can’t stay, stuck.

She must go down.

Cannot be a fugitive in her own house. She showers, throws on the silken kimono, ties it languidly, ready for a slipping off. Pads slowly down, down the grand staircase, breathing measured and calm, collecting herself.

Shuts the office door behind her. The screen is down; it runs almost the length of one wall. So, a video, porn, right; and usually as she watches them with Cliff the liquid warmth plumes through her despite herself and she cannot help but succumb, despite herself, widening her legs on her chair and playing as Cliff hands across a vibrator, and another, as he toys with his Mont Blanc pen, the secret signal that begins it all and she is opening out, needing the coming, urgently, the next step. And she is greedy with the looking at these films as long as it doesn’t veer into anything too long, or monotonous; it is all the thrill, the anticipation that she wants.