‘Suck me and fuck me hard. Use both hands,’ he commands, his voice clipped, foreign.
But I cannot. It is almost impossible for me to hurt him.
‘Harder,’ he growls, his eyes hard, unrecognizable. This time I obey. With both hands. As hard as I can. Only when I embrace his darkness… I see him straining with the pain and the undeniable dark pleasure. I know because I have already experienced it.
I suck so hard my lips and mouth start to hurt, but I know somehow this is very important. Once or twice he pushes so deep into my throat, I gag and choke. Finally, I see that he is near. He is coming. He starts to strain and clench. I increase my speed, and he is almost there. Always, at the point of climax he calls my name. This time he does not.
‘Don’t, Daddy,’ he cries instead. His voice is high and strange, that of a frightened child.
I freeze, my mouth full of meat.
Twenty-seven
So does he, but the climax is greater than us; his horror, his shame, his secrets, his pride or my shock. He buckles as hot seed shoots into my throat. I extract the vibrator out of him, and he pulls himself out of my mouth. He is moving away from me. But I catch his hand. He stops, still on his knees, and looks down on me. Hauteur in every line of his face.
‘Blake?’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. You wanted something I have never done with any other woman. You have it.’
‘No, I mean about your father.’ I still remember our conversation a year ago when he refused to condemn pedophiles, saying God made them that way and it was up to God to condemn them. ‘Your father sexually abused you, didn’t he?’
‘My father didn’t do it for sexual gratification.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘’He did it to cement his control over me.’
‘What?’
‘He has made me the person I am today. He had to teach me discipline. Our ways are different from yours.’
My mouth hangs open. Is he on the same planet as me? Teach him discipline? Our ways are different? ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Blake?’
‘You won’t understand.’
‘Damn right, I don’t. Your father raped and brutalized you when you were a child, and you think that is a form of discipline?’
‘My education was…vigorous and difficult, very difficult. I would not wish it upon anyone else, but without it I would not be fit to implement the agenda?’
‘What agenda?’
‘Without our banking services illegal drug trafficking would stop in a heartbeat. Without our economic policies there would be no poverty or starvation. Without our money wars would never be fought. By necessity we have to be cold and callous.’
For a few seconds my mind goes blank. These people are monsters who deliberate train their children to be monsters too. ‘Did your father discipline your two brothers too?’
‘Not Quinn.’
‘Why not Quinn?’
‘Quinn was never meant to lead. Only Marcus and I will take over the helm of the empire.’
‘Are you planning to do that to our son?’
‘No. Never.’ His eyes have become pained, but again, closed to me. The secrets are swimming on the surface. I cannot understand them. There is more. What the hell is he hiding?
I play my last card. ‘Is your father Cronus?’
The change in him is so instant and so violent I can hardly believe my eyes. He crouches on all fours, like a cat, his face very close to mine, and his fingers flat against my mouth, but it is what is in his eyes that causes me to feel the first real frisson of crawling fear. They are desperately pleading with me as he shakes his head. I understand the silent plea. Say no more. I begin to tremble with real fear. What is it that is so terrible that it has put that expression into his eyes?
What dangerous secrets is my lover hiding?
I remember again when he said in Venice the walls are thin and might even have ears. He is still looking at me with that same expression of anxiety that I might decide not to obey his silent plea. When I nod slightly, he says coldly, callously, ‘Meine Ehre heisst Treue.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘My honor is loyalty.’
And I know instantly that those words are not meant for me. The walls have ears. I frown. Trying to figure out what is going on. And then I grab my journal from the bedside table and scribble quickly on it.
Is this room bugged?
He shakes his head slowly and I understand that it is not an answer, but a reminder of his earlier plea. Say no more.
‘I’m tired,’ he says softly, ‘and the worse for wear. Let’s go to sleep.’ He lifts his fingers off my lips.
‘Yes, let’s sleep. Things always look better in the morning,’ I acquiesce, my voice shaky, barely a whisper.
He smiles at me. Gratitude. For what? Why? Then he kisses me on the mouth. ‘Goodnight, my darling.’
‘I love you,’ I mouth silently.
He smiles sadly and covers our bodies with the duvet. I fall asleep with his body curved tightly around mine, but I sleep badly. Dreams, nightmares. All broken and disjointed. I am calling for him, but he has his face turned away towards strong winds and jagged rocks. Always I am frightened for him. It is never me in danger, but him.
I wake up when Blake suddenly jack-knifes into a sitting position. Dawn is breaking in the sky. ‘I have to go to work,’ he says.
‘All right,’ I feel very small and lost.
I stand at the door of the dressing room watching him get ready for work.
‘Do you know that there are only ten days left?’
He eyes me in the mirror. ‘Yes,’ he says and carries on knotting his tie.
‘Coffee machine should be ready by now. Want one?’
‘Thank you,’ he says with a smile.
As I am putting the saucer under his espresso, Blake comes into the kitchen. Even today with my heart so heavy he makes my heart skip a beat. He looks a little pale, but he is so male, so gorgeous. I can almost forget what happened last night. That thin child’s voice, begging Daddy to stop. I watch the movement his throat makes as he drinks his coffee. It is amazing to think that inside this accomplished totally confident man lives a damaged child, right down to the eerie little voice. But today is also different from any other day for a different reason. He is changed. I can feel it. Not in the way he feels about me, but inside him. A steely determination. He finishes his coffee and comes to me.
‘What will you do today?’
‘I don’t know. Probably just mess about.’
He nods distractedly. Already he is elsewhere. Taken there by the steely determination. He kisses me. Then he opens his mouth as if to say something, but shuts it. ‘Do you trust me, Lana?’
The little question is loaded with meaning. ‘Yes, I trust you.’
He smiles tenderly. Then he is gone.
The day stretches ahead interminably. He will be gone for so many hours. I feel restless and oddly…frightened. I sit at the computer and Google Cronus. Is there something I have missed? A god who ate his own children. Father time. Another name for Saturn. What am I missing? I start delving deeper down the Google pages. Conspiracy sites churning nonsense start turning up.
I give up and type in ‘Blake Law Barrington early years’. Nothing. There is not a single photograph or piece of news about him. I try to imagine him as a child. A little older than Sorab and suddenly tears appear in my eyes. Poor little thing. I have never come across it. Where a child who has been abused by its parent grows up to be a man and protects his abuser in such a loyal fashion. As if what his father had done was right. Did his mother know? The thought sickens me.
I don’t understand what I am mixed up in.
I spend the morning and most of the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the apartment. The truth is I am stuck in an uncomprehending daze. I am even tempted to attempt contact with Victoria’s mother. But the memory of that shrill look in her
eyes frightens me. As if she is teetering on the border of madness. It is as if she is trapped in her own hell.
At four o’clock I hear the front door open. Blake is early. I run out gratefully to greet him. I have so missed him. I come to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor. It is not Blake standing just inside the door looking at me, but his father.
Twenty-eight
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes”
—Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of England, 1844
‘Hello, Miss Bloom.’
‘Hello,’ I whisper.
‘May I come in?’
‘You are already in.’
His mouth twists haughtily. ‘True.’
‘Blake’s not here.’
‘I didn’t come to see him.’
He passes me on the way to the living room, stops a few feet away, and prompts, ‘Shall we?’
I follow. I am so furious with this man that my hands are white knuckled fists. I actually think I hate him. In fact, this is first human being I have met that I could feel all right about killing. This is the man who attacked a child and molded him into cold, money-making machine. But I know better than to order him out or to show my fury. I recognize that he is at the end of the maze I am lost in.
He stops in the middle of the living room. He does not sit and I do not offer him a seat. ‘What do you want?’
‘You have taken something very precious to me and I have come to ask you to give it back to me.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t have anything of yours.’
‘Don’t play games with me, Miss Bloom. I haven’t the time or inclination. I want you to leave my son.’
‘What is it with you people? Don’t you think Blake is old enough to decide who he wants to be with?’
‘I’ve seen you. I’ve watched you beg my son to hurt you,’ he says softly. But the venom in his calm words shocks me far more than if he had shouted at me. I take a step back. His cold eyes are unblinking. They watch me like a snake does its prey. He takes a step forward. ‘This is the first time I have seen it. A woman begging a man to abuse her. I have to admit I enjoyed it even if my son didn’t deliver. Next time you want to be hurt, ask me. I know exactly how to make you scream.’
I stare at him blankly. The walls not only have ears, they also have eyes, Blake. You didn’t know that, did you? My mind scrambles for a way out of this nightmare. What has this man seen? He has witnessed me with my legs wide open, the black and orange dildo buried inside me. But I don’t feel shame or humiliation. I feel fear. To beat down the fear, I simulate courage. I raise my chin to a fuck you stance.
‘If you think your son shouldn’t be with me, why don’t you approach him directly?’
He looks at me strangely. As if I am a creature of very low intelligence that he is trying very hard to communicate with. ‘Because I don’t have to. I have what you want.’
‘I’d rather die than take a penny from you.’
He smiles. ‘I wouldn’t insult you with money. You are far too subtle for that. Rather I am giving you another opportunity to be selfless and do something wonderful.’
I stare at him wordlessly as he weaves the net that he hopes to catch me with.
‘I see a gloriously bright future for my son, but you are in the way. Your genetic imprint, your lack of education, your…your lack of social standing will eventually drag him down. What I am offering is a place in the countryside, near a good school, a beautiful home, a car, of course money, and introduction into better society than you have known.’
‘I can’t make that decision for Blake. He is old enough to choose what he wants.’
He holds up a hand. ‘Let me finish. I know you are in love with my son. And believe me, that is something greatly in your favor. I know how difficult it must be for you, but the consequences if you do not leave him are enormous, incalculable…for Blake.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you don’t leave him, I will destroy him.’
I laugh. A wild disbelieving laugh. ‘You would destroy your own son just because he doesn’t marry the woman you want him to.’
‘What good is a son I have no use for?’ he asks. His logic is so simple, so direct, so painfully sociopathic that I gasp.
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘I would. I would destroy him in a heartbeat.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Name me,’ he says conversationally, ‘a politician, a leader of a country, an important man in any sphere, and tomorrow I will turn him to nothing.’
‘I’m not going to be responsible for destroying anyone so you can prove your power.’
‘If you don’t choose I will have to, and that will be a little less spectacular for you because then you can pretend that I had not the power to destroy, but only knowledge beforehand of something that was already in the pipeline. Choose anyone. Of course, I would prefer it if you did not pick prime ministers or presidents of countries. It is always expensive and time consuming to maneuver them into their positions of power—and they are all, other than one or two, being good little puppets at the moment, but if that is what it takes to convince you, then so be it. Or perhaps you would prefer a billionaire who particularly irritates you. Bill Gates? Warren Buffet?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m not playing your game.’
‘Fine, I will choose. The head of the IMF has been displaying a little less obedience than usual. I choose him. Tell me what kind of disgrace you would like to see come upon his unsuspecting head.’
‘Nothing.’
‘In that case let him be accused of rape. Not just any rape but the rape of a maid in a hotel room. Let her be of Asian descent. Thai would be too common. Would you be happy with Burmese?’
I say nothing. Simply stare at him.
‘Now which newspaper do you choose to disgrace him?’
He is serious. He is actually going to ruin the career and life of an innocent man to make a point. I shake my head. ‘I’m not going to be part of this.’
‘What about the Guardian? Perhaps you’d like more than one newspaper to run the story? And a television channel? BBC? Or all of them?’
And suddenly my brain kicks in. He is bluffing. ‘The BBC. I want the story to be run by the BBC,’ I say. Surely he cannot have influence in the British Broadcasting Corporation!
But he smiles confidently. ‘Done.’
I shouldn’t have spoken. Now he knows he has me.
‘When the story breaks tomorrow you will understand the extent of my reach. I will do the same to my son. Here are the pictures that will grace the world media if you refuse to be reasonable.’
I realize that he has been holding an envelope all this time. He takes two steps towards me and throws it on the coffee table and it slides towards across and stops in front of me. He is so close now I notice his eyes. Eyes are usually called the windows of the soul, but in his case the windows are closed, or there is no soul to look out of them. There is not even a pencil of light from the empty interior.
I grasp the envelope with unsteady fingers. Photographs of me. With my hair tousled, my lips parted, my legs wide open. The photographs are clear and graphic. I look at them. The photos of that night when I taunted Blake into hurting me are so horrible I cannot go on. They do not reflect what really happened. They look like rape of the worst kind. I do not need to get to the end. I put them carefully back into the envelope and slide them back along the table top. My face is not flaming with embarrassment; it is numb with shock.
‘No, keep them for your album,’ he says.
Like a puppet I pull them back towards me.
‘There are videotapes too of you and…other women. I’m afraid my son was rather indiscriminate when you left him the last time. They will be released a few days later on the Internet as supporting evidence. My son will become a common criminal. A sexual predator.’
I need to think. I am blank.
My foe is too great. ‘What happens if I agree?’
‘You get to choose a leafy English suburb or if you prefer even another country. Perhaps you’d like to live in the sun.’ I shake my head. ‘No, well you get to choose. Somewhere like Weybridge, perhaps?’
‘What will happen to Blake?’
‘Absolutely nothing. He will mourn for you…for a while, then he will marry Victoria and have a family, and life will be good again.’
‘What if he comes looking for me?’
‘He won’t know where to look. You will be fitted with a totally new identity. You’ll have to give up your friends, of course. But you will make new ones, better ones.’
‘Why are you going to so much trouble to keep me away from him?’
Something flashes in his eyes. So quickly it is almost as if in my numbed state I have imagined it. But it makes my skin go cold. It is not as simple as he makes it out to be. There is more. Much more.
I clasp my freezing cold hands together. For a moment neither of us speaks.
‘There is another thing you must consider. My father was a banker, I am a banker, and my son will be a banker. ‘
‘What do you mean?’
‘May I see my grandson?’
I understand immediately and the fear of before is nothing compared to this. Oh God! He is referring to what he did to his son. He is implying that that is what Blake will do to Sorab.
‘Blake will never do that to his son.’
‘It is our way. If you choose to live in our world, then you must abide by our rules.’
I don’t want this man anywhere near my baby. ‘He is asleep,’ I push through frozen lips.
‘I will not wake him up. Just a quick peek,’ he says with a sick, lizard smile.
Outmaneuvered I begin to walk stiffly towards the door. He follows me into Sorab’s room. Protectively, I stand next to the crib. He stops a foot away from the crib and nods as if satisfied. Of what I do not know and do not ask. He turns away and I follow him, weak with relief, to the front door.
‘Look out for the newspapers tomorrow morning. I will be in touch later in the day.’ He opens the door.
Forty 2 Days Page 15
