Hypnotized

by Georgia Le Carre

  She laughed, carefree as a bird, and picked up another oyster. ‘Obviously not, silly. But from his point of view—once bitten, twice shy, and all that. I’d be careful, all the same, that you don’t go falling for him. He is attractive.’ She paused with a conspiratorial half-smile. ‘In an obvious, common sort of way, I suppose.’ The mollusc slipped noiselessly down her throat.

  The remark was so catty it took my breath away and the rest of the meal passed in a daze of gossip about people we knew. I answered all her questions automatically or nodded and shook my head where appropriate.

  The black cod marinated in sweet miso sauce arrived soon after and I consumed it without tasting it. I watched Daphne delicately nibble at razored vegetables and chow down Nobo’s signature dish, yellowtail sashimi fired with a slice of jalapeño in yuzu dressing.

  A waiter tried to get us to look at the dessert menu.

  ‘I couldn’t do pudding, but I wouldn’t mind the Suntory whiskey cappuccino,’ Daphne said sweetly.

  I picked up the bill and then we were outside kissing.

  The valet brought her car around and handed her the keys with impressive sucking up. She passed him a ten-pound note. He seemed happy with it.

  ‘Do you need a ride to your flat?’ she asked.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s a lovely day. I’d like to walk for a bit before I go back.’

  We kissed each other quickly on both cheeks.

  ‘Cheer up, darling. It might never happen.’

  I smiled weakly.

  ‘Will you be home for the weekend?’ By home she meant Marlborough Hall. Even though we both had apartments in London and spent more time there, we never referred to them as home. Only Marlborough Hall was ever called home.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I will,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Well, I’m off. See you at the weekend,’ she called and slipped jauntily into her Audi. I watched her drive away before I set off on my walk.

  It was a cold, crisp day and I turned my collar up and walked past the car showroom. They had a bright yellow Lamborghini in the window. I walked down Park Lane, crossed the road, and entered the park.

  The afternoon sun had come out from behind the clouds. The blades of grass looked as clear-cut and bright as jewels. I strolled to a bench and sat down. The park was peaceful with only a few people hurrying along the path. I looked at the bare trees waiting for spring to clothe them again, and sensed inside me a puzzled wonder.

  Why exactly was I so troubled by what Daphne had revealed?

  And then I knew. It pained me to think of him suffering. More than anything else, I couldn’t bear the thought of him in distress. The sun dipped behind thick clouds again and the temperature began to drop fast.

  I stood and left the park, now filled with lengthening shadows. I made a wide circuit round it and came out of the screen of fluted Ionic columns of Aspley Gate. As I hurried away the last rays of the weak evening sun flared briefly on the windows of the Hilton across the road. Then it was gone. I clutched the edges of my coat, and carried on past Green Park Tube station. Up ahead I crossed the street and entered the Ritz.

  The heat inside brought a delicious languor to my frozen limbs.

  Shaking my fingers to bring some warmth back into them I went up to the concierge’s station. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have a booking but…’

  ‘Lady Olivia,’ he greeted so loudly and obsequiously that people turned to look. ‘But of course we have a table for you.’

  He signaled to a passing waiter who escorted me into the splendidly lavish Palm Court with its walls of beveled mirrors, trellises, marble pillars and its apricot and cream palette. He led me to a table to the left of the elaborately sculptured gilded central fountain—Ivana’s favorite table, actually. With an effusive smile and a smooth flick of his wrist he lifted the sign that said RESERVED from the table and, pulling out an oval-backed chair, seated me in it.

  Some people I knew waved and nodded and I returned the gesture. I ordered high tea. It was the least I could do after they had given me someone else’s table. Tea was served in a silver teapot with a silver strainer. I poured it out and held the cup in my hands and sighed with the simple pleasure of its warmth. I took a sip and felt the scalding brew flush into my body.

  I planned on staying there under the lofty ceiling listening to a quartet play until my body warmed right through. Lord Merriweather and his wife stopped by my table.

  ‘Hello, dear. Are you here on your own?’ he asked, leaning heavily on his walking stick.

  ‘Yes. I thought I’d treat myself,’ I said, looking up with a smile.

  Both smiled back warmly.

  ‘How are Wombat and Poppet?’ Lady Merriweather asked.

  ‘They’re fine,’ I replied.

  Wombat and Poppet were my father’s and Ivana’s nicknames. We all had infantile nicknames in our circle. We were all Bow-wow, Cookie, Pip or Squeak or something just as babyish. The names were derived from our childhood days and carefully preserved through old age.

  So my father was Wombat, because his first name was William and when he was taken as a toddler to Australia he called himself Willie Wombat. Ivana was Poppet. She was not born a lady. She met my father when she was nursing my mother and it was his nickname for her, so when he married her after my mother died, everyone was so eager to please him they quickly adopted it.

  This immaturity generally served two purposes. Not having one would instantly announce you as an alien to our set. In fact, even the act of using another’s first name would imply a lack of intimacy, a suggestion that you met after their childhood days were dispensed with, and were therefore not of the same class. The second and more important purpose means an outsider could never become part of the set.

  ‘I’ll give her a buzz this weekend,’ Lady Merriweather said.

  ‘She’ll love that, Lilibet,’ I replied. Her nickname was Lilibet because she couldn’t pronounce Elizabeth when she was a child.

  After they shuffled away, I ate finger sandwiches of smoked salmon, cucumber, and chicken from the silver cake stand. They were delicious. I was hungry. Really hungry. Next I tucked into a warm soft scone that I generously filled with a thick layer of silky cream and jam. A rose macaroon followed that, and finally an inch of a sinfully gooey chocolate layer cake.

  When I could eat no more I was ready. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and no one was going to stop me. Least of all well-meaning, disgraced, horribly unhappy, silky-haired Dr. Kane.

  17

  Marlow

  If you want to hit a man in the chest, aim for his groin.”

  —Bat Masterson

  Beryl had just gone and I was sitting there staring into a glass of whiskey when the door suddenly opened. I looked up and there she was, a goddamn gorgeous goddess.

  For a moment we stared at each other. Me startled and with pulses racing and her with strangely gleaming eyes.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  She shrugged. ‘Beryl. I hope you don’t mind. I wouldn’t like to get her into trouble.’

  What are you doing here? I wanted to ask but I couldn’t. The whole world had faded away. There was only her, me and that office and we were hanging by a thread at the edge of the universe. I stared at her as if I was in a dream.

  She moved lazily, sinuously toward me: each step like a move from the dance of the seven veils. She unbuckled the belt of her mohair coat and shrugged it off in a careless movement. It slid to the floor with a soft thud.

  Underneath she was wearing a plain black shift. Her hands moved to the nape of her neck. I heard the sound of a zip grinding down. She pinched the material of her dress at her shoulders, lifted it off her body and let it fall. It puddled around her.

  I inhaled sharply.

  In the dim of my office, her body was so white it glowed pale against her black underwear. Everything about her warned. Expensive. Sexy. Mysterious. Forbidden. In fact, she didn’t seem real. As if after I left her in the conservatory
she really had turned into some sort of mythological water nymph. She slipped both her hands behind her and her bra popped open, then she allowed it to fall by the wayside. Her breasts were round and red-tipped.

  The instant I saw them I wanted them in my mouth.

  She hooked her fingers into her panties. Small as they were, they were the last bastion between me and all rational thought. Don’t, I wanted to cry out, but my throat was locked tight. I wanted to see what the scrap of cloth covered. Her hands lingered and my eyes shifted for a second to hers. She was staring at me. And looking into her eyes was like looking into a mirror. It was brimming over with raw lust. Just a pure, unadulterated, unapologetic, unquestioning need to fuck.

  This was a woman who didn’t get the meaning of a cock tease. She didn’t know what it was to play hard to get. Her truth filled the air and then her hands began to move down and as much as I wanted to follow them to the best kind of madness, I could not let go of her eyes. They were so precious.

  I kept her eyes as she moved closer. Until I could resist the madness no more. Then I looked down. And I fucking sighed at the sight. Beautiful. My eyes caressed the blonde curls at the apex of her thighs. Totally nude she came to me and with her shoe pushed back my chair. Then she slipped between the desk and me and popped herself up on it. She put her feet on either side of me and placing her palms flat on the table behind her, she spread her knees.

  Wide.

  My eyes opened like those of a schoolboy in a sweetshop. I stared riveted by the way her pretty little pussy had parted open and offered all its secrets, every single whorl of pink flesh was mine to look at, drool over, and…possess. As I watched, thick honey collected and slowly rolled down her sex. The insides of her perfect thighs were shimmering with it.

  Like a man in a trance I extended a hand and inserted my finger into her dripping hole. With a strangled sound she threw her head back, exposing the long, white curve of her throat. My finger curled and stroked the beautifully lubricated muscles inside her. They replied by squeezing my finger helplessly. I extracted the finger. She didn’t like that one bit. She whimpered restlessly and her hips slid forward slightly as if to give chase to my finger.

  I bent my head and put my nose in her blonde curls, and inhaled. It sent a shock of electricity through my groin. Ah, yes. The real scent of Lady Olivia. I ran my tongue along the slit. She tasted exactly as I knew she would—like heaven. I sucked her sex and felt her flesh start swelling in my mouth. She purred with pleasure. I took my mouth away and looked at her pussy. Reddened. Glistening. Begging for it.

  ‘I love your body,’ I whispered into her soaking flesh.

  ‘Fuck me … Dr. Kane.’

  She didn’t have to ask. My cock was throbbing and standing to attention like Nelson’s Column. I took my trousers off, let them drop to the floor, yanked my boxers down and stepped out of them. Then I opened a drawer and extracted a condom packet. I ripped the plastic covering open, fished one out, chucked the foil, and stretched it over my girth. I looked at her. She was staring at my dick, her mouth was trembling beautifully.

  ‘Lie back,’ I ordered.

  She immediately lay back on my desk, her blonde hair spreading out over the dark surface. I’d been wanting to suck her tits ever since she had dropped her bra. I leaned forward and sucked a red-tipped breast. Her flesh was soft and smooth and her nipple hard. She moaned and arched her back. Yes, exactly as I thought she would. I bit the nub in my mouth! She opened her eyes and stared at me.

  ‘Yes, I like that,’ she said in a shocked whisper.

  ‘I know,’ I muttered.

  I took her nipple back into my mouth, sucked it hard and pushed two fingers into her. She writhed under me. I lifted my head, took my fingers out of her and slipped them into her mouth. She sucked them obediently. I looked down at her. Spread open on my table. All mine to do with as I pleased. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do to her. I pulled her toward me until her butt was hanging off the table. To her credit she never protested or showed any fear. She allowed me to do as I pleased.

  I took hold of her ankles and crossed them while she stared at me with enormous dilated eyes. I bent her crossed ankles toward her face until her sex rose up and became a red, protruding mound of beckoning flesh between her thighs. She was incredibly flexible. I pushed her ankles so far forward I knew I must have pushed her to the very edge of discomfort, if not pain, but she bore it without complaint.

  I wanted to wait. I wanted to watch her expressive, eager face a little longer. I wanted to play with the swollen flesh that poked out from between her thighs, but my cock was twitching impatiently. I had a raging need to be inside her, pounding her, watching her cry with pleasure. I wanted to claim that pussy as mine.

  I wanted to obliterate all the other thoughts of the men who had used her.

  Her position meant I had to force my cock into the tightly clamped walls of her sex. Her mouth opened into a shocked O. Her toes curled. And still I fed more of my length into her. The O became a sharply indrawn breath. I pushed in deeper. She winced.

  But there was still more to go.

  I sank another two inches and a cry came from her mouth even as she pushed herself toward me, farther impaling herself onto my rod. Why, she was insatiable! No wonder she was in my blood, beautiful, spoilt, rich, fucking Lady Olivia. At that moment she spoilt all other women for me.

  There was still an inch to go, but I pulled out of her while she milked me by squeezing her muscles tightly. I hovered at the lips of her sex and then without warning I slammed into her. She cried out, her hands gripping the desk edge so hard the knuckles were bone-white.

  ‘Is this what you wanted?’ I growled.

  ‘More,’ she cried.

  It was surprising that she could even take this. How on earth was she able to ask for more?

  I pounded her sticky, greedy sex furiously, our pubic bones grinding until I came with a roar. It ripped through me with a shockingly violent force. At first the blood in my ears was the only thing I heard and then it was like lava pouring down a mountain, fiery, destructive, indestructible. No one and nothing could contain me.

  She must have been holding onto her orgasm because she climaxed a few seconds later. I watched her mingle pleasure and pain and come with an orgasm the like of which I had never seen. Her entire body convulsed and shook so hard I had to tighten my grip on her body. When it ebbed away she was left breathing hard, her eyes glazed and shocked. I eased out of her and guided the condom off. I pulled up my boxers and my pants, zipping them as I moved slightly away. Her feet hit the carpet.

  I looked out of the window. I could see us reflected in the glass. Two ghostly figures. Fuck! I had just messed up. Real bad. I heard her walk away and as much as I tried not to, I had to turn back to watch. There was an unsteady wobble to her legs as she walked toward her clothes. She bent to pick them up and I saw her sex, engorged and overripe. And I sensed my own restless, unsatisfied state.

  My cock felt agonizingly heavy and turgid. It seemed inconceivable, but I still needed to have more, much more of her. It was impossible to know why my desire for her was so strong or so unquenchable, but there was no more denying it. That was an experiment doomed to failure even before I had conceived it. She was pulling on her panties with her back turned to me.

  ‘Stop,’ I muttered.

  She turned slowly, her panties around her thighs, and looked at me.

  ‘I’m not finished,’ I said softly.

  She smiled. ‘Good. Because I’m thirsty.’ She pulled down her panties and walked toward me. She stood in front of me and her clever hands went to work. The buttons of my trousers popped open. Those clever hands. The zip tore down with impressive efficiency. She unbuttoned my shirt quickly and eased it over my shoulders. Her eyes moved quickly over my shoulders, chest and abs.

  Then she got on her knees in front of me, looking upwards, naked, an almost penitent expression on her face. She pushed her head slightly so the head of my cock rested o
n her pink lower lip, the weight of it making her pout. She appeared to be waiting for me to act. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, I gently pulled her back so her throat was almost perfectly aligned, a straight passage from her mouth to her stomach. Instinctively, she opened her mouth and my cock slipped in and rested on her tongue. She had a small mouth and the bulk of it seemed to surprise her to realize that her mouth was already full. Her lips stretched.

  I stroked her soft hair.

  Moving my hips I began to feed my shaft slowly into her warm, silky mouth, slipping across her tongue. It was a huge turn-on to see my dick slowly disappearing into her face as she gazed up into my eyes from her position of total subjugation. It was a high, a sense of control.

  As soon as I hit the soft wall at the back of her throat, I pressed into her tonsils and felt her throat contract about my head as she gagged. I pulled back, but it was only a small respite, because I went inward again, this time not content with slithering my way into the back of her mouth, but going farther to level her throat open and wedge myself into it. Again she gagged and instinctively tried to resist, but her submissive position made her attempts puny and I hardly registered them.

  I pulled her head down harder, and forced my hips forward. Her eyes widened with surprise. And then it happened. I didn’t have to train her. She was already well trained. Her throat surrendered and opened fully. My cock slid in unhindered, victorious. About an inch of me was inside that delicious tight, liquid-satin passage.

  Meticulously, I fed her an inch at time, feeling the delectable squeeze of her throat. Every swallow was a silken caress, a pleasant massage. Six inches in. Seven inches. She made no sound. Her eyes were frozen wide. When she thought she was choking and her tongue writhed against me like velvet, I stopped moving, pulled her head farther down still, and waited it out. Until her throat stopped closing and relaxed again.

  There was not a thing she could do to resist. To stop me. I could go as deep as I liked. Eight inches. And still I continued, an unhurried thick snake pushing into her throat until her face was pressed into my groin.