The Summer of Aphrodite

by Viva Jones

  ‘I’m not saying that!’ Tanya was fastening the tassled bra Dolores had provided. ‘Don’t take it that way. But I do have a day job, and I do meet wealthy and powerful types. What if one of them was there? I’d be so embarrassed, and I’d lose my job!’

  ‘It’s a shite job that only pays commission. And when your swanky complex is sold, what then? Tan, you’ll make fuck-loads more doing this. We’re a good act, you and me. Day and Night, Light and Dark, Good and Evil - they fucking love us.’

  Dolores had a point, Tanya thought. She had no idea what would happen once all the Odyssey units were sold. But still she felt uncomfortable. Something unnerved her about this particular evening. Remembering the oil that Nathalie had given her, she opened it and took a sniff before stepping out onto the makeshift stage that had been erected in the drawing room. There, she was astonished to see thirty, perhaps forty, people, both men and women, waiting for them.

  She and Dolores went through their moves. They had two poles, and used them to good effect. Tanya in white, Dolores in black, and each layer of clothing removed in time to the music. The two long gloves were the first to go. She couldn’t understand the bawdy shouts from the crowd, couldn’t make out which language they were speaking, but just hoped that her make-up was so extravagant that no-one could possibly recognise her. The little top she wore dropped off easily. Think of the money, she kept telling herself, as her skirt fell to the floor. There was a grand each bonus because of the short notice. She slid up the pole, pleased at how straight her legs could reach. She had a good body, and why shouldn’t she show it off? It pleased her, knowing that all those pairs of eyes were straining to catch a glimpse of her pussy through the crotchless panties she wore. She didn’t have to fuck anyone, either, although if she did, it would mean a lot more cash.

  Dolores approached her, and they started kissing, elaborate, tongue-probing, stage-kisses, playing with the tassles on each other’s bras, and slipping their hands inside the material. Then Dolores’ hand darted between her thighs, stroking her theatrically, and Tanya did the same, all the while kissing and gyrating to the music.

  Dolores pulled off Tanya’s bra - dark seducing light - and started to cup her breasts, bending down to give her nipples elaborate licks. This resulted in huge whoops of joy from the audience. Tanya did the same thing, licking seductively at her friend’s nipples, while turning to the audience, surreptitiously checking to see if there was anyone she might know.

  She didn’t spot the figure in the shadows, however, watching on with incredulity. He kept himself to himself, and was only there because of a last-minute invitation, a contact of a contact, a ticket that couldn’t be used. He felt his cock stiffen, and tried to get rid of it. He imagined a pair of old ladies’ knickers, well worn and rarely washed, falling out of a window and landing on his face, and as he pulled them off with disgust, he was relieved to feel his cock shrivel.

  Dolores was now kneeling down in front of Tanya, licking her pussy through the panties. She turned to the audience, indicating that she might remove them altogether. Encouraged by their enthusiasm she did so, pulling them down slowly and seductively, before burying her face in Tanya’s cunt, and licking and lapping and pulling open her pussylips with her fingers. When she paused this was Tanya’s cue, and she pulled her friend up and kissed her, tasting her own juices on her tongue, and then dropped to the floor and repeated the process, licking and teasing, at first through the panties, and then removing them and licking at Dolores’ wet cunt. She was so involved in the routine she almost forgot she was completely naked in front of these strangers but for a pair of stilettos, but strangers they were, and only the money mattered.

  The figure in the shadows had to concentrate on those oversized grey knickers falling onto his face again, and perhaps the owner calling down from above. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the blonde girl on the stage, and wondered how far she might go.

  The girls then began a soixante-neuf routine, licking each other’s pussies while stroking each other’s buttocks and thighs. Tanya was below, where she felt more protected, while Dolores was more exposed. A big man, fat and drunk, surged to the stage clutching a wad of notes and making it clear it was Tanya he wanted to fuck. Inwardly Tanya groaned and tried to let him down gently, and when he got angry, one of the organisers had to leap up to pacify him. He made a grasp for Tanya’s pussy, just wanting to touch it, to remember that feeling for the rest of his life, and as she leapt back the organiser manhandled him away, and the crowds started protesting, and more men tried to mount the stage, notes in their hands. Tanya felt genuinely frightened, backing away and trying to find a piece of material that might cover her, while Dolores coolly negotiated with a man she was willing to fuck.

  Suddenly Douglas was up on stage, having emerged from the shadows, and he put his jacket around Tanya’s shoulders and pulled her away, off the stage and towards the back, and she followed him mutely, still shocked by what had felt like an attack, and to all the people who tried to stop him, he just shouted: ‘This is my daughter, and I’ve come to take her home!’

  ‘Tan, what the fuck’s happening?’ Oblivious of her own nakedness, Dolores stormed into the back room where Tanya was gathering her belongings.

  ‘You stay away from her,’ Douglas snarled.

  ‘You can’t run out, not now. You can’t leave me! What about the bonus?’

  ‘She’s leaving, and you can come too if you choose. I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go.’

  ‘And miss out on a grand? You joking? Tan, you can’t let me down like this.’

  ‘Sorry, Doe,’ Tanya whispered. ‘I can’t do this any more. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who the fuck is this man, anyway?’

  ‘My neighbour.’

  ‘I’m a friend,’ Douglas insisted. ‘And a darn sight better friend to her than you’ll ever be. Are you coming with us or not?’

  ‘Fuck off, the both of you,’ Dolores spat. ‘I thought we were a team?’

  Without letting her reply, Douglas bundled Tanya outside and along the road to his waiting car. She stumbled inside, still naked under his jacket, and held her clothing to her like a comfort blanket.

  ‘What the hell were you doing in there?’ he asked once they’d sped off.

  ‘I’m such an idiot.’

  ‘You’re telling me. That was quite a show. Tanya, what were you thinking?’

  ‘Dolores persuaded me. They liked the double act. I didn’t really want to.’

  ‘This is where all your designer stuff’s been coming from, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m so ashamed.’ She started to cry.

  ‘I’ll get you home,’ Douglas said, his voice softening. ‘You have a hot bath and get a good night’s sleep.’

  Tanya remembered the oil the Nathalie had given her, and fished for it in her handbag. She took a deep breath. It didn’t smell so bad now.

  ‘Douglas, I’m so embarrassed,’ she admitted. ‘You won’t tell anyone will you?’

  ‘I give you my word that I won’t. I promise you.’

  ‘What you saw, it wasn’t me - ‘

  ‘It was far more of you then I’d ever bargained for.’

  She started to cry again, shivering despite the warm night air. ‘I feel I’ve let everyone down.’

  ‘Only yourself, Tanya,’ Douglas said quietly. ‘Only yourself.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘Rufus darling, don’t go near the pool,’ the woman was calling to her four year old son. Ginnie, bored with Mrs Andreas’s bedspread, looked on from the spare bedroom window. The latest visitor to Fig Tree Villas was lying there, reading a book, while her son wandered perilously close to the pool’s edge. What would happen if he fell in, Ginnie wondered? Would she risk ruining her hair to save him?

  ‘Lenka will be here soon, she’ll swim with you,’ the woman added
. ‘LENKA! Are you coming?’

  Ginnie strained to see a plump teenager emerging from the rental house with a baby in her arms, followed by a grey-haired man in his fifties.

  ‘Come on Rufus, let’s have a swim, shall we?’ he suggested, showing the boy the arm bands he’d brought out. The mother, Ginnie noted, returned to her book. The teenager, who had to be the au pair, started applying sun screen to the little one, who was sticking her podgy arms out towards her mother.

  ‘Yes, darling, Lenka will put on the sun screen. Yes darling, try not to get mummy covered in it, will you?’

  Ginnie was convinced she could see disappointment in the little girl’s face as the au pair lifted her away from her mother and placed her in her buggy in the shade. The father fastened the boy’s arm bands and lowered him gently into the pool, encouraging him to swim.

  ‘Mummy, look,’ the little boy cried.

  ‘Well done, darling,’ the mother called back, not looking up.

  ‘Mummy, LOOK!’

  ‘Yes, Rufus, I can SEE YOU! Well done!’

  Having missed out on children of her own, Ginnie had always persuaded herself that they weren’t worth the trouble. Little ones might be a delight, but all too quickly they turned into bolshie teenagers. She was better off without them. But inside, there was a part of her which deeply regretted her failure to have led a normal family life. Other people made it look so easy - they fell in-love, got married and had kids. Throughout Ginnie’s twenties and thirties, all that had seemed an impossible dream.

  Was she being punished, she’d often asked herself. For a mistake she’d made at the age of eighteen? She turned from the window, calculating. Her child would be thirty-five now. He or she might even have children of their own. Ginnie wiped a tear from her eye. Every year around this time she’d get a bit weepy, knowing that her baby would have been born mid-August. She would never have coped back then, she reminded herself; not that her parents had given her any choice. She’d brought disgrace on the family, that was all they’d been concerned about. Adoption would have been tough, though had Ginnie known then that that was to be her only chance of ever having a child, she might well have put her foot down. At least then she’d know that somewhere out there was a living, breathing person of her creation. He or she might even have traced her.

  Instead she was left with nothing - her punishment from the gods, perhaps, for having taken that tiny life.

  She watched as the mother by the pool purposefully ignored her own children, and felt the anger rise in her stomach. It was better, she’d decided long ago, not to be a parent at all than to be a bad one.

  Ginnie couldn’t stop herself. Didn’t Sheila’s geraniums need deadheading? She strode downstairs and marched towards her neighbour’s garden.

  ‘Aren’t you doing well?’ she called out to the little boy. ‘What a good swimmer you are.’ Someone had to encourage him.

  The father looked on with proud but exhausted eyes as his son splashed and kicked and giggled his way to the edge of the pool. He’d been through it all before once, over twenty years earlier, and had never expected to do it all again.

  ‘Lenka, why don’t you leave Tilly there and get on with some lunch? We’ll have a salad and some of that chicken, I think. Mashed potatoes for the children.’

  The au pair nodded and retreated inside.

  ‘Must be nice, having help like that.’ Ginnie couldn’t stop herself. She’d sidled up closer to where the mother lay.

  The mother looked up. ‘I couldn’t cope without her. I’m Isabel,’ she said, holding out her hand, which Ginnie shook. ‘You know, I’ve actually caught a couple of mothers at Rufus’ school trying to tap her up! Can you believe that? Nothing’s sacred these days.’

  ‘Are you here for one week or two?’

  ‘Oh, just the one. I couldn’t cope any longer than that with the children, to be honest with you’ she added with a guilty giggle. ‘Are you here on holiday, too?’

  ‘No, I live here.’

  ‘Gosh, do you?’

  She stretched out and lay her head back, as if to signal that their conversation was over. Ginnie went to the baby sitting in her buggy and had a little chat about the yellow duck she was playing with. She wanted to hold her in her arms and smother her with kisses. She would have been a good mother, Ginnie told herself. She would never have ignored her child like that.

  ‘Getting broody?’ Anna emerged from the car park carrying two over-stuffed shopping bags.

  Ginnie smiled sadly. ‘She’s a sweet little thing, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna replied with less conviction, trying to imagine one of her own. How did people cope with shopping and babies? She turned her gaze to the child’s mother, who was looking up at her with interest. She took an instant dislike to the woman, finding her too rich, too polished and too well-married for her comfort.

  ‘I’m trying for a baby myself,’ Anna confided.

  ‘Are you now?’ Isabel said. ‘Good luck. There’s nothing more rewarding. I keep pictures of these two on my desk and whenever I’m feeling stressed I just look at them and find myself calming down. It’s such a heavenly feeling, knowing that there are two little people in the world who love you unconditionally. It makes you feel so grounded. I know I’m a bad mummy and that I should probably be more hands-on, but even to know that you are so wanted, it’s an extraordinary feeling.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m that maternal, though,’ Anna admitted.

  ‘Me neither, to be honest with you. I have to give credit to Lenka. She’s my third nanny by now and undoubtedly the best. Start looking early, good ones don’t grow on trees.’

  ‘It’s so refreshing to hear that,’ Anna said pleasantly. ‘The world is full of damaged people, and most of them can point the blame firmly at their parents. At least your two will always know that you hired the best nanny possible.’

  Isabel stopped, not sure how to take this. ‘Well, I’m exaggerating, of course, aren’t I Tilly? We love our time together, don’t we?’ She swooped down to pick her daughter up in her hands, planting a big kiss on her cheek. ‘Shall we go and watch daddy and Rufus? Look at them, splashing around.’

  Ginnie and Anna exchanged glances, and Anna beckoned her inside number eight.

  ‘Maybe I’m being overly sensitive,’ she started, holding back her tears, ‘but I don’t understand how any mother can boast of being a bad mummy. I mean, if you’re not committed to being a good mummy, then don’t become a mummy in the first place!’

  ‘That nanny does everything,’ Ginnie added. ‘Have you ever heard of anything more selfish? How marvellous to enjoy all that unconditional love, without doing any of the work?’

  ‘Some women believe too much in the concept of unconditional love, if you ask me,’ Anna said bitterly. ‘She’s the kind of mother who’ll turn up in the evening, change her clothes and then sweep off to dinner, leaving nothing but a trail of perfume behind. And then if, God forbid, her children turn out to be just ever so slightly resentful of her, she’ll play them one off the other, she’ll play mind games and tricks on them and make their lives hell.’ She snorted into a tissue.

  Nathalie appeared in the doorway. ‘Is this a private rant or can anyone join in?’

  ‘We were just talking about that woman out there,’ Ginnie told her. ‘Prides herself on being a bad mother.’

  ‘She was playing with the baby just now.’

  ‘Only because we shamed her into it,’ Anna snapped.

  ‘And you know all this because - ?’

  ‘I know that type!’ Anna yelled. ‘She had kids because it’s the thing to do. She had them because she wanted the fulfilment of having them, and she wanted to experience unconditional love. But you know what? She’s set too much stock on the whole concept of unconditional love, she’s totally overestimated it. You
have to put some effort in, you can’t shower your children with indifference and then expect them to adore you back.’

  ‘Are we still talking about her?’ Nathalie asked.

  Anna slumped down on her sofa. ‘I got a call from my mother; she’s threatening to come out here. She’s found some cheap flights on the internet, apparently. And my mother was just like that woman. Children were meant to be seen and not heard. And it’s not fun, playing by yourself all the time and being treated like a second class citizen and mocked and scorned for getting something wrong or for putting on weight or for wearing the wrong clothes or marrying the wrong man or for living in the wrong country. It’s not fun hearing barbed comments and being scrutinised and patronised and told you’re not worth anything and what a disappointment you’ve been, I tell you IT’S NOT FUN!’

  She wept bitterly into her tissue, and Nathalie sat down to comfort her.

  ‘Why don’t I make some tea?’ Ginnie suggested, and when neither of them dissuaded her, she went to put the kettle on.

  Ginnie was trying not to cry, too. Suddenly she felt swamped by the injustice of everything. She’d wanted that baby. She’d turned herself into so many things since to fill the void, but what it all boiled down to was that she’d wanted to keep her baby. And she would have been a darned sight better mother than the likes of Isabel. Ginnie busied herself finding cups and sugar and milk in Anna’s kitchen. On reflection, she realised she’d never stopped busying herself since that day at the clinic.

  She dried her eyes. All this emotion, where was it coming from? It had to be the heat.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Look Doe, I’m sorry,’ Tanya pleaded with her friend. ‘It’s just not right for me, that’s all.’

  Dolores, who was at work, ignored her.