Telling the Bees – Chapter 19
The Replacement
She had never particularly liked physical contact with strangers, and had grown self-conscious about her ageing body, its wrinkles, blotches, sags and blemishes. So Jim Barry’s suggestion of therapeutic massage was not one she had warmed to.
In the end, despair at the stiffening of her joints and the increasing severity of the muscle tremors drove her to acquiesce.
She wished that she had started much earlier.
Siân was a quiet little woman in her thirties whose delicate frame belied the strength of her hands. She had a gentle voice and calm manner which put Amélie at ease and peeled away her inhibitions about letting another woman see and touch her bare skin.
Their sessions became a weekly fixture that Amélie looked forward to immensely.
It was a disappointment, therefore, when Siân left a voicemail to inform her that she would be away all of February. No further explanation, but her voice sounded tense, worried. Some family crisis perhaps?
Happily, she left the contact details of a colleague, Janine, who would be able to take over for the duration.
It was a still, warm afternoon when Janine came to the house. Tom was brushcutting up around the top boundary fence, an exhausting but necessary task to reduce the fuel load in advance of the forecast early-autumn heatwave. They would have the house to themselves for the afternoon, which Amélie preferred for the intimacy of her massage sessions.
First impressions of Janine were pleasant enough. She was a tall, athletic young woman with olive skin and strong features. She wore her long, dark hair in a severe ponytail. They chatted about the weather and other inconsequential matters as she set up her table.
Amélie went to the bathroom to change into her robe, then they got started.
Janine’s technique was firmer than Siân’s: Amélie had to ask her to be gentle. The masseuse apologised and modified her approach. She was good at her job, Amélie noted with approval.
Slowly her stiff muscles and anxious mind relaxed as Janine worked on her. She found herself drifting off, as often happened with Siân. Outside the open window the bees hummed in the flower bed. Far away across the paddocks she could hear Tom’s brushcutter.
Suddenly the masseuse’s grip tightened and she found herself pinned down, face pressed to the hole in the table. This was a new technique and not one that she liked.
‘Hey,’ she protested mildly, ‘you’re hurting.’
‘Shh.’
‘Stop that immediately!’ She tried to wriggle free, but was pinned.
Her heart froze as she heard the door to the bedroom opening.
‘Who’s there?’
Footsteps on the wooden boards. The click of high heels.
‘Hello, Amélie.’ The voice was soft and familiar.
‘Louisa? What are you doing here? Get out!’
‘Just look at your poor old body,’ mused her neighbour. ‘So frail. So fragile.’
Amélie saw red shoes opposite the masseuse’s white trainers. Her flesh quivered in protest as the towel was pulled away from her loins, leaving her naked.
‘Please – don’t!’
A hand caressed her lightly, from the soles of her feet upward to the crown of her head as she struggled and sobbed. Slowly, tenderly, shamelessly taking possession: a gesture of complete domination.
‘Don’t worry, my dear. I’m not going to hurt you.’ The hand rested on her thigh. ‘Not this time.’
‘But you must understand. Your … busyness … is inconvenient to us. And so, so unnecessary.’ The hand squeezed and kneaded in gentle emphasis.
‘We know everything, sweetie. All about your little research project, your cute little theories. Such an imaginative, curious mind. It’s a pity you’re slowly losing it.
‘In fact, there isn’t a lot we don’t know about you. Maybe you should have been more careful with your internet security? But then, Boomers …’ she sighed.
‘We know everything from your tragic medical prognosis to your woeful bank balance. Everything from Tom’s erectile dysfunction after prostate surgery to the little indiscretion you had with your colleague – Alex wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right. Ten, nine years ago?
‘You naughty girl. I expect this was quite busy, back in the day.’
An affectionate pat on her buttock.
‘So I’m here to give you a friendly, neighbourly warning. You really don’t want to get involved. Be a good girl, mind your own business, stick to your side of the fence. Enjoy your final months of life. Don’t waste them on a battle you’ve already lost.’
Footsteps walking to the door.
‘Oh, and don’t make a fuss when Janine lets you up. She likes to hurt people and it will simply be put down to one of your funny turns. You’re getting quite a reputation for them of late, you know. Such a shame.’
The door opened.
‘Bye now.’
The door closed.
After ‘Janine’ had packed her things and left, Amélie made sure that the door was locked. Then she sat in her robe on the bed, staring at the floor.
What had just happened was so awful, so bizarre a violation that it seemed almost comical. She had been viewed, pawed at, humiliated. Her most closely kept secrets revealed, discussed, mocked.
She could let herself go now. She could scream and howl herself into a catatonic state, be utterly destroyed, annihilated as a human being. Tom would come home to find a gibbering something on the floor of their bedroom, shrug sadly and call for the people in white coats. She would spend the rest of her truncated existence in a comfortable haze of sedation.
Louisa thought that she had won. That much was clear.
Ah, the arrogance of youth!
Never pick a fight with someone who has nothing left to lose, young lady.
She would let her adversaries savour their victory. She would bide her time, such scant time as she could afford. Then she would strike them down.
In the meantime, she would shower, wash the shame from her body, the horror from her mind. She would wrap her naked, vulnerable flesh in a protective sheath of clothes. She would welcome Tom home from a hard afternoon’s labour with a smile and a pot of tea.
Tom probably thought her unusually quiet that evening, when he chugged down the Hill on the quad bike, Harris dozing in the tray behind him.
Mind you, they had not found so much to talk about of late, and the things that needed talking about could not be said.
The things that were not said between now and the next market day would never be said, she realised.
Perhaps it was better that way?
Three days.
After Tom had gone to bed – ‘I’m all done in, love,’ – she went to the gun room and cleaned and oiled her beloved Purdey. It was her grandfather’s gun, a beautifully balanced single-barrel trap gun, not a workaday farm shotgun at all.
It was far from ideal for the job, but the best tool is the one in our hands at the time of need.
It was also a gun that, in skilled hands, rarely missed its target.
Then she undressed, slipped between the sheets and coaxed her sleepy, surprised husband of thirty-eight years into making love.
One last time.
Next week in Telling the Bees:
Chapter 20: After Market Day
The final chapter!
Acknowledgement of Country: The Woiwurrung people of the Kulin alliance are the Traditional Owners of the land on which this story is set. I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Disclaimer: The people and events described in this story are entirely the product of the author’s imagination; they bear no intentional resemblance to real-life people and events. The locations are based on real places.
An evil masseuse. Yikes.