Hearts and Diamonds

by Justine Elyot

  ‘I want to wash your beard,’ she said, easing Willow Bark and Echinacea into the soft bristles.

  ‘Don’t get it in my mouth,’ he flustered, trying to direct her hands.

  ‘Keep it shut then,’ she countered, laughing as he made a disgusted grimace. Apparently Willow Bark and Echinacea didn’t taste too good. She let her fingers swirl up behind his ears and let the lather bloom there. She had to reach up to wash his hair, so he bent his head down to her, keeping his eyes screwed shut against stray suds.

  It felt good to have his thick dark hair slip between her fingers, and to feel the firm surface of his scalp at the roots.

  She relished her work, enjoying his little sighs of pleasure as her fingertips probed deeper.

  He looked more desirable than ever once the shampoo rinsed out and left him standing, tall and shiny-wet, with heavy dark hair swept back from his high forehead. Little drops of water splashed from the ends of his long eyelashes, making his eyes seem to dazzle. His lips looked softer and more kissable than ever.

  She couldn’t resist, tiptoeing up for a smooch. He clamped her against him with a swift movement of his arms, his hands clapping down on her bottom.

  Warm water dripped sideways into her mouth and blinded her eyes but she could not have cared less. All she was conscious of was his tongue pushing into her mouth and his long hard body glued to hers by the strangely sealing property of the gushing jets. And there was something very insistent prodding at her hip now too.

  The problem with sex in a shower, she thought distantly, is the height differential.

  But surely a wet room was different. There was space for them to sit, or lie, or crouch, or kneel, or take up any number of different positions. And the floor, far from being knee-torturing ceramic, was made of soft rubberised tiling. The possibilities, in fact, were extremely promising.

  But first – conditioner.

  She tried to reach behind her to the shelf, but Jason had her too caught up in him and she had to break the kiss and explain, very breathily, what she wanted to do.

  ‘Don’t you think I’m in good enough condition?’ he teased.

  ‘You’re in tip-top condition,’ she said, ‘but I wouldn’t want that beard of yours getting too scratchy, now, would I?’

  He chuckled, running his fingers through it, stroking his chin.

  ‘Good point,’ he said, ‘considering where it often ends up. Wouldn’t want to go giving you any nasty rashes.’

  He let her smear the thick cream into his damp hair and beard, helping her to rinse it out afterwards.

  ‘Now the good bit,’ he enthused. ‘Or, the best bit, cos it’s all good.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, grasping his wrist halfway back to the shelf.

  ‘I want to rub that gel into you,’ he protested.

  ‘What’s the point in getting clean if we want to get dirty?’ she said pointedly. ‘Surely we should save the washing part for . . . afterwards?’

  He didn’t seem to cotton on at first, but a slow, wicked smile soon spread across his features.

  ‘Ah, I get you,’ he said. ‘You little minx. You want it, do you?’

  He braced an arm beneath her bottom and jerked her into his pelvis. His erection indented her lower stomach, making her squeal with the shock of it.

  ‘You were the one talking about doing it in the shower,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, I was, but I might have been joking.’

  ‘You, joke about wanting sex? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘OK, I wasn’t joking. Of course I want to have you right here under the waterfall. I just had a slightly different order in mind.’

  ‘You might have had. But I don’t think this did.’

  She inserted a hand between their lower torsos and wrapped her fingers around his shaft.

  ‘Mind reader,’ crooned Jason, shutting his eyes in rapture.

  ‘To be fair, it’s not your mind I’m reading,’ she teased, stroking the droplets off him.

  Before she had a chance to be shocked, he had taken hold of her round her waist and tipped her on all fours on the soft rubberised floor.

  ‘All right,’ he said, his face pressed next to hers while he crouched at her shoulder. ‘Let’s do it your way.’

  Within seconds, her way was being done.

  Jenna blessed the wet room designers for not installing a hard surfaced floor as Jason slipped inside her and began to thrust beneath the jets. How amazing it was to feel the massaging pressure of the water on her back, her scalp, her shoulder blades at the same time as Jason provided a similar but less escapable force within her. The water pooled in the small of her back and streamed down the crack of her bottom. She imagined it gushing over Jason’s cock as it sawed in and out. Not that extra lubrication was needed. This hard, hot, wet and sudden coupling had done its erotic magic the minute her knees hit the rubber.

  She ignored the drips off the end of her nose and eyelashes, shutting her eyes and glorying in what was happening at her hindquarters. She felt part of the shower, of a piece with its roaring gush and spray steam. She and Jason, too, were one. They were water gods, doing what came naturally in their element.

  It took longer to come than usual, perhaps because they were distracted by the extra attention needed to cope with the water, or perhaps because it was perversely anti-lubricating, and Jenna needed to rub at her clit for a long time before she began to feel the familiar stirrings. The water, maybe unsurprisingly, was actually a bit of a dampener.

  But they got there in the end, and lay afterwards in luxurious relaxation, letting the water pelt their spent bodies, lathering each other in expensive gel when they were able to think straight again.

  ‘We should get one of these,’ said Jason, once they had crawled beyond the water’s range and enveloped themselves in thick fluffy towels. ‘There’s enough bathrooms. Turn one into a wet room, yeah?’

  ‘You’re a convert, then?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘I’d like that. It’s officially on my list for the renovations.’

  Jason smiled briefly, then bit his lip and turned away.

  Jenna almost felt the breath of cold air from him. She wanted to ask him what was up, but she knew. Her house. Her renovations. Her list. She had graciously accepted his suggestion, and he hated that the final decision was not really his.

  Jason, she was understanding on a deeper and deeper level all the time, was a proud man. For all his playing at being the council estate dropout and dosser, he was intelligent and craved independence.

  He would get it, once the art career took off, of course he would.

  But in the meantime, he had no alternative but to depend on her. She knew it was difficult for him.

  She crept up behind him with the hotel-provided bathrobe and slung it over his shoulders, clasping her arms around his chest and burying her face in the soft fuzz.

  ‘The rest of the day is yours, to do with whatever you like,’ she said. ‘You lead and I’ll follow.’

  ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea where to go,’ he said. ‘Besides, I thought you said we were going for a walk in the park.’

  ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘I dunno. Would I?’

  She tired of his prickliness and stepped away, looking for the hairdryer.

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out, shall we?’

  Hyde Park was just across the road and they walked up towards the Serpentine, mingling with late afternoon crowds taking advantage of the summer heat. Most had escaped offices and lay on the grass, ecstatically unbuttoned with shoes kicked off. Some ate ice-cream, some read books, some snogged with abandon.

  ‘I could fancy an ice-cream,’ said Jason.

  ‘We’ll go and find one then.’

  Jenna felt light and happy to be back in London, suddenly loving all the people for not crowding round her or trying to follow her. People here were too wrapped up in their own lives to care about who was passing by. It was many years sin
ce she’d been able to take a simple walk in a park without at least one bodyguard. Perhaps Jason fulfilled that function, she thought. Actually, that could be an idea . . .

  By the time they reached the Serpentine café, she was feeling jumpier and had noticed several people, mainly young teenagers, trailing in their wake. The little train of followers led in turn to more attention being paid from the deckchairs.

  Her dream of a pleasant anonymous summer evening walk seemed to be over.

  ‘Jenna,’ called one of the teenagers, not aggressively, but loudly enough to be irritating.

  Jason wheeled around, thunder-faced.

  ‘Are you a mate of hers?’ he said, and the threat in his voice was evident.

  ‘Jason, don’t. We don’t want negative publicity,’ she demurred, but his work was done. The teenager shook her head, lips trembling.

  ‘Leave ’er alone then,’ he growled.

  The teenagers stopped following them, but Jenna felt that some damage limitation was in order. Seeing that they were all still lurking around by the edge of the lake, she bought them all ice lollies and handed them around, to their considerable excitement.

  ‘Sorry he was gruff,’ she said, ‘but we are trying to have a quiet walk by the lake.’

  They seemed to understand and a couple of them apologised in turn. A third wanted to know when she would be back on Talent Team, but she just laughed and shook her head before walking away.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ sniped Jason, watching them mooch off with their lollies.

  ‘Good PR,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s find somewhere shady and completely secluded and watch the boats on the lake.’

  They took their ice-creams to a hedge and sat in front of it, as inconspicuous as they could be.

  ‘You must get that a lot,’ said Jason.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Doesn’t it do your head in?’

  Jenna took a philosophical lick of her honey and stem ginger cone.

  ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘How could you get used to it?’

  She thought about it.

  ‘Actually, I’d forgotten what it was like,’ she confessed. ‘Perhaps it was naïve of me to think that this – a simple walk in the park – was possible. Back in LA, I never went anywhere unaccompanied. Always travelling by chauffeur-driven limo, flanked by my bodyguards on the way to meetings or parties or anything. Didn’t even go shopping unless the shops were closed to the public. It’s not the public you have to even worry about there – LA people are so used to seeing stars all over the place, they barely turn a hair. It’s the world press. The freelancers after something to sell to one of those woeful celeb mags.’

  ‘Like living in a bubble,’ said Jason.

  ‘It just seems normal after a while. It’s the ones with kids I really feel sorry for. Having to keep them hidden away in their walled mansions. I feel privileged – seriously, don’t laugh – that I grew up on the estate and I could ride my bike wherever I wanted and get into fights behind the shops. Better that than what these kids have to call a childhood.’

  ‘Is that why you and Deano never . . .?’

  She licked around the base of the ice-cream scoop, considering how to put her answer.

  ‘No, that’s not the reason. At least, it’s not the reason. It’s one of them, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you want kids?’

  Jenna shrugged. ‘The time’s never been right.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Yeah, work. And Deano.’ She paused. ‘I mean, he’s a kid himself. A thirty-seven-year-old kid.’

  ‘I’ve heard rock stars don’t make great dads. Not that I’d know what would. Great dads are in short supply where I’m from.’

  ‘Where I’m from too,’ Jenna reminded him gently. ‘Though mine was good. I really ought to go out and visit him in Spain one of these days. Maybe when the weather gets cold, eh?’

  ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘You could come too.’

  ‘Er, I don’t think so. I don’t do chit-chat with parents.’

  He looked anxious and she rubbed his arm.

  ‘They’d like you,’ she said, though she wasn’t really sure this was the truth.

  ‘No parent has ever liked me,’ he said. ‘Not even my own.’

  She scooped up a tongueful of luscious ice-cream and waited for it to slide down her throat before speaking again.

  ‘You don’t see yourself as a dad then?’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t even know what a dad is. I mean, I like kids. I prefer them to adults most of the time. But I’m not sure I could eat a whole one, if you know what I mean.’

  Jenna smiled. ‘It just seems unimaginable, somehow, doesn’t it? You see parents all around, yet their lives are mysteries to those of us who haven’t crossed into that realm of experience.’

  ‘I know a stack of dads,’ said Jason. ‘The estate’s full of ’em. It’s just that none of them ever see their kids. I don’t know how they can do it. How can they carry on, day to day, knowing that their own flesh and blood is so close – and not seeing them? I suppose it’s what I’ve always wondered about my own dad. Whoever he is.’

  ‘Why won’t your mother tell you?’

  ‘Sometimes she says she’s sworn to secrecy.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Goes to show how much she cares about what I feel. I’m not worthy to know who my own dad is. Then other times she just says she doesn’t know; it could be one of several guys. She has a different excuse for every day of the week. To be honest, she probably doesn’t know. Probably too drunk to remember.’

  He closed his fist around a clump of grass and pulled it up with vicious strength.

  ‘But she does love you,’ said Jenna. ‘And she’s proud of you.’

  ‘For what that’s worth,’ he said. He crunched down on his cone. ‘I’ve had enough of being angry all the time, Jen. I’ve been angry all these years, and look where it’s got me? Wasting my life.’

  ‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘Things are going to change for you. They’re already changing.’

  ‘I’ve got the one change I need, and that’s you,’ he said. ‘I don’t care about anything else.’

  He leaned into her and they kissed. Jenna shut her eyes and let it be all and everything. The sounds around them, of oars plashing on the lake, idle laughter, the dull thud of a bat and ball game, merged inside her head into a delicious fuzzy melange. Until another sound shook her out of it.

  ‘Jenna! Jenna! Is that your new man? Give us a smile. Give us a look.’

  Later, over dinner in the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, she was able to laugh about it.

  ‘Oh God, the looks on their faces when you got up and ran at them. It was as if they were being charged by a homicidal rhino. I’ve never seen a crowd scatter so fast.’

  ‘Homicidal rhino, thanks. I’ve had better compliments.’ He frowned at the soup, which was unexpectedly cold and had leaves floating on the surface. ‘What the fuck’s this anyway?’

  ‘Watermelon gazpacho. I thought it’d be refreshing on a day like this.’

  Mind you, the air conditioning seemed set to arctic, so maybe something hotter might have been a better choice.

  ‘Gazpacho? Sounds like a Mexican bandit. “My name is Gazpacho. You knew my father. Prepare to die.”’

  Jenna laughed at his hammy Spanish accent.

  ‘Don’t you like it? I can ask for more bread, if you’d rather.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. Just . . . a bit weird.’ He spooned some up, nodding his head as he swallowed.

  ‘There’s so much I want to show you,’ said Jenna. ‘So many lovely things in this world. Beautiful places to visit . . .’

  ‘Where you get mobbed,’ finished Jason wryly.

  ‘Well, some of them are private,’ she said. ‘But . . .’ She sighed.

  ‘Yeah, well, I want to earn some money of my own before we start jet-setting anyway,’ he said, swirling his spoon about in his soup.


  ‘You will,’ Jenna insisted gently. ‘But it might take some time, and initially cost us more than we make. But you’ve got my services and contacts for free, and that will be worth thousands. We need to organise the exhibition first, and then—’

  ‘No,’ he cut in, rather harshly, so that Jenna was shocked into silence. ‘No, Jen, you don’t get what I’m saying. I need to earn some money now. I can’t go on living off you. I’m not a ponce.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think of you like that! God!’

  ‘You might not, but everyone else will. All they see is me, living the life of Riley, whoever he was, in your house, in your bed, on your cash. I’m not going to be your kept man. It was different when I had no choice. But I’ve got a choice now, and I’m going to work for a living.’

  ‘Why change the habit of a lifetime?’ said Jenna, stung by shock. She regretted the remark before it was out of her mouth.

  He pushed away the gazpacho half-eaten and left the restaurant.

  Jenna, swearing under her breath, more at herself than him, followed him to their room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, slipping through the door after him. ‘All right? It just came out because you were being stroppy and I don’t really see why it’s a problem that your future brilliant career is funded by my money – just to start with. All the great artists had a patron, pretty much. It’s been that way throughout history.’

  ‘I’m not all the great artists,’ said Jason, standing by the picture window, looking down on London at sunset. ‘I’m Jason Watson. I’ve done nothing all my life and I think it’s time I changed that.’ He turned to face her. ‘It hurt me, what you said, because it’s true, Jen. I’ve spent twenty-eight years arsing around on benefits because I was scared to do anything with my life. I was scared. I’m not the kind of person who makes it. I’m not . . .’

  He broke off and Jenna rushed over to him, throwing her arms around his neck and crushing him to her.

  ‘It’s OK. Everything’s going to be OK. Come and sit down. Let’s have a drink.’

  The suite contained a huge cream corner sofa, on which they settled with a bottle of wine from the minibar and two glasses.