by Primula Bond
It can wait. All I want to do is sleep.
My head may be foggy, but my body is alive. For the last few days I’ve been fizzing all over with a mixture of arousal and anticipation, aching to be near Pierre when I’m not, to touch him when he’s absent, missing him when he’s at his therapy sessions, and now, lying here on this couch with nothing to do, nothing to think about, just a mass of nerve endings, my body seems to fold in on itself like some kind of soufflé.
Intact, but weightless.
Beneath this snowy towel I’m totally naked. But it doesn’t matter, because this guy is as clinical as a pathologist.
His moon-like, pocked face will be closed-in with concentration. Maybe I imagined the cock-rubbing moment, imagined his tangible excitement. He pulls the towel down, exposing my back. His muddy little eyes will be expressionless. I’m no more interesting to him than a cadaver.
‘Just as I thought,’ he mutters in his thick accent, squirting a spunk-like jet of thick cream on to my spine.
‘Thought what?’ My voice is low, and slurred.
‘Stress. You are like a cat’s cradle.’
‘Cosa?’
‘Knots. You are a mass of knots.’
He moves his hands up my body. He steps over the narrow couch so that he is straddling me. The towel slips further down. My bare bottom brushes the thick bulge in his trousers.
I’m so helpless that I couldn’t stop the guy massaging me, or worse, even if I wanted to. From the outside it must look as if, any moment, he is calmly going to mount me.
Not yet, though. The masseur is still working his fingers down my sides, counting my ribs, pushing in between each bone until I think he’s going to pop me like a balloon. Massage Mikhail is good at this.
I’m aware of the thick, growing shape lying along the crack of my butt now, nudging the cheeks apart. He starts to move his hips back and forth, in the same rhythm as his hands, but so gently you would barely notice. From the outside, that is.
From the inside my whole body knows it should be resisting this, trying to get away, but instead it starts tingling, yearning, aching to be touched. Not by him. But I want something big and thick and hot entering me, filling me.
‘Get off me. I want Pierre.’
The masseur pauses, then all at once his weight is gone. Cock, thighs, hands, everything.
I am floating high above myself now, somewhere near the ceiling, but the door must have opened because the hint of a breeze tickles over me. Maybe Mikhail has gone to get some more ointment. Or our session is over. I can hear splashing from one of the pools, faraway voices, before the door closes and everything in here is muffled again.
‘I think it’s best we stop now. I want to find my boyfriend.’
Those big hands come down on me again, this time on my thighs, pushing them open. What’s he going to do now? I’m heavy with sleep and the soporific aromas, my skin glistening with oil like something about to be popped on the griddle. Why is he opening my legs?
I can’t bear the unseen scrutiny. I squeeze my thighs together, feeling the juice trickling between them.
‘You need to stop,’ I moan like a drunkard. ‘You shouldn’t be touching me like this!’
‘I can touch you exactly how I like, signorina.’
That voice. Only a whisper, but enough to send all the nerves in my body racing up and down, trying to find satisfaction. There is no other sound above the soothing, trippy sound effects being piped into the room.
I try again to twist sideways to see him. My ears are singing. The music, sound effects, whatever, are so loud now. My brain has turned to mush, no, that’s not right, it’s been converted into bubbles, light, bobbing, see-through foam, it’s the incense, some kind of dope, Christ, what on earth is in that incense?
It’s like pure, extra-strong marijuana. And it’s making me stoned.
‘You didn’t have to drug me to do this, you know. I’m yours, Pierre. Always.’
I lift my head to show him I mean it. But it feels heavy, like a cannonball, my neck like a flower stalk, about to snap. I want to get up, get up on my elbows, but I can’t move.
‘I didn’t drug you. You fell fast asleep, honey. These aromatic oils are very powerful. They shouldn’t have left you on your own. The massage finished hours ago.’
Pierre’s face swims into view close to mine. I smell the salty freshness from his skin.
Pierre lifts my head, which is drooping again like a wilting flower, and swings my legs over the side of the couch. He bends to peer into my face. His black hair is flopping over one eye. His beard is black, and so are his eyes, but they are sparkling.
My skull is so heavy. My neck creaks and cracks as I try to straighten it. I can’t. I sink down again.
‘Just rest, Rosie. My turn to make you feel better.’
A blindfold is suddenly tied over my eyes, blocking out the light. Making the sounds and sensations all the more acute. I can’t seem to command the idea of movement between my brain and my limbs.
The music, sounds, effects, birdsong, crashing waves, piano notes, grow louder, making me dizzy. Hands are pressing on my shoulder blades. Strong and warm. They thrust me, too hard, down onto my front. The breath is pushed right out of me. I can’t draw any more in because my lungs are being squashed, trapped in the cage of my ribs.
I try to kick out as the air leaves me, and suddenly the pressure releases. And so does all my resistance. There is a pause, filled with heat and sound. Ice-cold gel is squirted on to my back, and then the heel, the palm and knuckles start to work on me, bone on bone. This is punishment, not pampering. So why do I feel such pleasure?
My cheekbones dig into the towel, my body rocking. The surface of my skin starts to tingle again. The oil slicks up and down my arms, back to my shoulder blades, and along the knobs of my spine. The blood starts to drum in my ears.
‘Are you ready for me?’
His lips tap against my ear as he speaks.
I don’t reply. I can’t. There’s hardly any breath left in me because he’s pushing down again, pummelling each of my bones in turn, pushing my skin up from the bottom of my spine to my neck. My skin burns, as if he’s trying to iron it.
There’s a brief respite when the hands move off my back. I take in a great, welcome gasp of air. I make a monumental effort to bring my knees up so I can get on all fours, roll off the table but I’m too slow, maybe I haven’t moved at all, because suddenly I’m yanked back to the end of the table so that my legs straighten, my feet hit the floor.
Everything is happening in slow motion. The towel drops away, and the hands are on my buttocks, pulling them apart again, running up into the dampness. When they touch my centre I jerk as if electrocuted.
The couch seems to be rocking like the deck of a ship. The incense is thick like a blanket. If I lift my free hand I could touch it, punch my way through it, but it’s smothering me, curling up into my nostrils, into my ears, suffocating me in a fog of shapes and voices and these strong hands, hurting me, pushing, kneading, no, not hurting me, they’re running down my legs and pulling them apart now.
His hands run over me, taking possession. He’s so strong now. And I’m so weak.
He checks the blindfold, and now I welcome the darkness and the helplessness. It stops me fretting. It keeps the world out.
His hands run back and forth over my hips, and down the backs of my legs. The oil seems to combust on contact with my skin. I can imagine a snake of fire streaking up as if I’m a stick of dynamite. And yet there’s no pain.
Warmth oozes through me. My body has become exquisitely sensitive. I try to clench my legs together but he pulls them further apart, stroking my sex, hitching my hips towards him and now there it is, that warm thick shape again, Pierre’s ready erection, nudging at me.
I groan, and squirm against the couch. I’m so wet now, honey running out of me. I give in to the sweet stickiness spreading through my body. I arch myself away because if I touch anything, any part of him, I�
��ll come.
His fingers are inside me. Fiery darts of pleasure jab at me. My whole body is prickling. My skin feels as if it’s bubbling like the surface of hot soup, but the real focus is on the part where his hand is pumping. His thumb plays on my little bud until I’m arching and bucking and the ecstasy is shuddering through me. I hear myself moan, that lowing sound again, but louder this time
‘What’s that you say, Rosie? You awake now? You want me to fuck you?’
He’s stroking my sweat-streaked hair back off my face, out of my eyes, out of my mouth. His hands so gentle. The rest of him so hard.
‘Yes. Fuck me. Yes!’
He laughs softly, and there it is, pushing into me, sliding in, deeper, deeper, and all I can do is grip the sides of the couch as he fills me, let him rest for a moment, getting his legs stable, this is a good position for him, standing over me, balancing on his feet, my body laid out before him like a feast. He pulls out a little, thrusts inside, paces it his way, all his way, he’s regained his power, he’s fucking me, and I’m lying here loving it.
My body rocks up the couch, he fucks me faster, faster, tilting me slightly so that I graze against his balls and the friction rubs me to a rising crescendo of pleasure, surf breaking over us both as he fucks faster, harder, deeper. He shouts as he bursts inside me.
‘I’ve come back, Rosie. My darling girl. You’ve brought me back!’
* * *
‘Take a good look, Cavalieri,’ murmurs Pierre a few days later, his weak left foot scuffing through the dust. ‘Can you see what all these people are up to?’
It’s early morning in downtown Pompeii, and the ruined city is everything I expected. I was supposed to visit it with Daniele last year. He promised to stop off on our drive down south, but then he was waylaid by that sous chef.
Never mind. I’ve got Pierre Levi beside me now. He’s astounded everyone at the spa with his recovery. Touring this ancient site in the midday sun would have been laborious and painful two weeks ago, but today he’s positively bursting with energy despite the vertiginous journey around the sea road to get here.
We’re making slow but steady progress around the Roman mansions with their mosaic floors and central courtyards, wandering along the ancient streets with the ruts down either side where the chariot wheels used to race.
Pierre has made huge strides, literally, but I’m the one aching all over. My nipples are burning sore. My mouth is swollen. Since that day in the massage parlour he’s grabbing me morning, noon and night, and we’re doing it every which way we can without hurting him. We’re still careful, but as we get more familiar, more ready to lose control, it’s getting rougher, harder, more intoxicating.
There’s nothing invalid about Pierre Levi any more. His hands are strong. His mouth is hot and firm. And his cock is rock-hard.
The silence and the rising temperature today are just right to create the doomed atmosphere, as is the way the sky is streaked with black smoke from a forest fire.
The darkness is looming inside me, too. Every day we are becoming closer, more intimate, which means that every day it gets harder and harder to tell him the truth.
That I’m not going back to London. And why.
Antonio has been texting me most days with details of dates and guestlists for my gig. Today he needs the time of my arrival in Rome. I’ve gone past the point of no return. I have told him that I will see Pierre and one of the nurses from the spa safely off at Naples then make my way to Rome.
I try to frame what I’m going to say, when I’m going to say it, as we potter around the ruined shops and bath houses and exclaim at the famous exhibition of distorted citizens frozen as they failed to escape the deadly ash and lava erupting from Mount Vesuvius.
But we’ve still got a couple more days. So not just now. Not just yet.
Pierre has dragged me into a small, low-roofed stone building away from the other sightseers, and we are alone.
‘What people? What am I looking at?’ I ask, wandering ahead of him through the warren of tiny chambers. ‘I thought this was a police station, or a bakery?’
‘The people on the walls. Look around you. This was a bordello.’ Pierre follows me through the warren of tiny chambers and then stops to sit down. ‘These were the whores’ boudoirs. These shelves, like the one where I’m resting my weary ass, were the beds where they pleasured their clients.’
The blood buzzes in my ears as I follow his raised walking stick, pointing round at the frescoes as if he’s a lecturer. I lean against the wall, limp with exhaustion and anxiety.
Pierre pulls me down to sit beside him. The smell of his sweat is mixed with fresh laundry as he points out the pictures on the walls. Warmth pulsates out of his body as I sit beside him, and sweat trickles down between my shoulder blades. It’s warm enough outside, but in here the air feels cooked.
‘It was called the lupanare. The frescoes should give you a clue.’
He takes my chin and turns my face to look upwards. Very faint, cracked figures, painted in terracotta and black, hover over the ancient bricks. At first they look as if they are dancing, or praying, but then I let out a gasp. The figures are copulating, rutting, humping, in every position under the sun. Here is a tough man gripping a slender girl’s thighs while she stretches out gracefully and he fucks her from behind. Just like me and Pierre.
A woman with elegant coiled hair straddles a man’s cock as he reclines on cushions.
‘It’s like a menu, see? All the services you could get for your denarii.’ Pierre snakes his arm around me and pulls me closer. ‘Or perhaps the pictures were just designed to get them horny.’
The heavy silence is a blanket thrown over us. I can imagine being sucked into the frescoes. A pair of lovers, or a client and his whore, kneel up and go at it face to face, togas slipping to the floor. A man displays his thumping erection to a kneeling girl. A young woman solemnly lowers her face into a man’s groin. A second woman waits her turn on the bed, staring directly at me.
‘Do you think they were still in here when the lava came?’ I lean against Pierre. He strokes my hot, damp neck.
‘The etchings are so delicate, yet so businesslike. Look, that girl looks a little like you, Rosie. Giving pleasure for profit. You could be selling your pussy, climbing on to a great quivering cock, lowering yourself onto its rigid shaft. Shit, talk about rigid shafts, Rosie. I’m getting stiff just looking at these erotic etchings.’
‘Must be the heat.’ I keep my eyes on the walls around me, trying to resist glancing at his trousers. ‘Were they petrified exactly as the lava found them, you know, in flagrante?’
‘Some of them, yes. But what a way to go.’ Pierre rests his hands on my hips. Tremors run through me, my body responding instantly. I’m too weak with heat and too feeble to resist as he starts to push my silky dress up my legs. ‘Coming to your favourite tart after work, fucking her senseless or getting her to suck you off, getting all tangled and hot on the bed, not a clue of the disaster outside these walls, just lost inside her, pumping your life away.’
‘Not thinking of me as one of your tarts, are you, Levi?’ I murmur, sinking against the stone wall as he lifts me on to him, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my butt cheeks, pulling me so roughly that my bare knees scrape on the bench on either side of his legs.
‘Sure I am. But you’re my favourite,’ he chuckles, opening my dress. My breasts are on a level with his mouth. My pussy is slick already, moistening my lacy knickers as my dress floats up round my waist. My breasts are bulging, honey dark in the half-light.
There are still people about. Footsteps scraping along in the dust outside.
‘They wouldn’t have stopped, would they, even if their hearts were clattering with fear?’ I arch my throat. My nipples harden. ‘They would have gone on and on, don’t stop until I come, whatever danger there is can’t touch us in here –’
Pierre scoops one breast out and kisses it.
‘That’s right. Safe insid
e the lupanare. Everyone doing what we like to do. Fucking like there’s no tomorrow.’
He eases my butt cheeks apart, and then his fingers are sliding up the damp crack, searching. I’m creaming myself, waiting for the moment. I am seething with excitement now, opening myself wider to grip him, grinding against his white shirt, staining it with my juices as I wind my fingers in his hair to smother him between my damp breasts.
He groans unevenly as his fingers release my urgent musk, driving me wild with wanting. I slide my hand down his stomach to find his cock, scrabble at his belt. His teeth easily tear my flimsy dress and nip sharply at the nipple sparking there.
Suddenly there are soft, questioning voices jostling in the doorway, the click of a camera, a gasp. A stifled giggle, another gasp and another click of the camera before the feet shuffle away.
Pierre lifts his head, lips wet with his saliva, and we stare at each other, eyes glittering in the suffocating gloom. I am quivering with the effort of gripping him between my knees with the ferocious desire to have him, right there in our hot whorehouse.
‘So now they have all seen us.’ He swears under his breath, his face so close to mine. ‘Chalk that up to an experience, Rosie. Who knows? We might even feature in their next brochure!’
‘Let them watch.’ I giggle, kissing him hard, pressing my mouth onto his gorgeous lips. ‘We can say we’re a living instalment.’
‘I’d like to go home now and practise every single position painted on these walls.’
Pierre laughs, then his tongue snakes hungrily around mine, my knees scraping as I unzip his trousers. There he is standing hard and straight, ready to greet me.
We are half slipping off this narrow shelf. How tiny those Pompeiians must have been. Pierre uses the strength in his arms to shift us both back against the wall. Our bodies are stuck together and here’s the round tip of his cock opening me up, the long, smooth shaft sliding in. I’m so wet. His cock is sliding in, so smooth compared with the rough stone of our makeshift bed. My arms and legs wind round him and his hands squeeze my breasts, pinch my nipples as he bites my neck. We pause to listen for any new audience, and then we rock together, his cock thrusting and bursting and filling me totally.
