‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’
‘But what are they? You’ve been to them before, I gather.’
‘Private parties, kinky sex parties,’ he said.
I gave the room a nervous scan to make sure nobody had heard, but Jasper seemed unconcerned. Perhaps he really had decided to out himself.
‘I haven’t been to one in years. You heard what she said,’ he continued. ‘Not because I didn’t want to, mind you. Just that our schedules never synchronised, once my directing career took off.’
‘Too busy for bondage,’ I said.
‘Well, quite. You’re curious, aren’t you?’ he said, with a smile.
‘Anyone would be. What happened at these events, then?’
‘I’ve told you. Kinky sex. You know the kind of thing. Or do you need reminding?’
His smile was filthy now and he reached out to stroke my wrists, causing me to drop my menu just as the waiter approached.
We ordered starters – veal tongue for him, duck egg with morels for me – and I returned to the theme.
‘Who did you go with? Ava Rose?’
His smile vanished and impatience set into his brow.
‘No. I’ve told you, that was all top secret. Nobody knew about it. Well, until your charming boyfriend decided to steal my property.’
‘He was never my boyfriend.’ I regretted mentioning it now.
‘Your whatever, then, your friend with benefits. Your fuckbuddy.’
‘Shh.’ I looked around the room again.
‘He’ll always know about it now. The cat’s out of the bag. He says he won’t tell, but guys like that like the leverage, don’t they? I’d count on us hearing from him again sometime.’
‘Oh, don’t. He won’t say anything. Besides, who would believe him?’
Jasper chewed on his lip.
‘If this film comes out … perhaps plenty of people.’
‘You definitely want to make it?’
‘I definitely do.’
I poured myself some more water.
‘I still don’t think Will will talk. He doesn’t have the tape any more anyway.’
‘Don’t talk about him. I hate to hear you say his name. It makes me picture you together.’
‘You aren’t jealous, are you?’ I couldn’t fathom why on earth he would be jealous of Will. I was the one who should be insecure in this relationship. I was the nobody. He was the one who’d been to star-studded awards ceremonies with glamazons on his arm, not me. It didn’t make sense.
‘Obviously I’m jealous. I’m jealous of everyone who spent time with you when I didn’t know you existed. I resent every day I had to spend not knowing about you.’
‘Oh, Jasper.’ What could I say to that?
‘I’ve wasted years,’ he said. ‘I’ve wasted years on guilt and furtive goings-on and meaningless relationships, when what I want is this.’
‘This?’
He pointed his fork at me.
‘Sitting in a restaurant with a girl I’ve just fucked and want to fuck again immediately and repeatedly.’
‘Oh.’ That lost-for-words thing again.
‘A girl I can … God, sorry for coming over all Mills and Boon but … a girl I can share things with. Talk to. Feel myself with. As well as do terrible and wicked things to. Does that make any sense?’
The starters arrived and Jasper looked as caught out and distracted as I’d ever seen him. I felt a swell of love for him at that moment, a big sweeping wave, but I didn’t like being knocked over and I tried not to drown in it.
‘You said you wanted a girl,’ I said, prodding my duck egg.
‘Oh, yes, sorry, a woman, I’m a sexist pig,’ he said, irritable, stabbing at the veal tongue.
‘Because nobody could call you a boy,’ I said. ‘You’re thirty-eight. You’ve had quite a lot longer than me to figure out what you want.’
‘You’re telling me to back off. Fine.’
‘I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying, let’s enjoy this. We had that freakishly intense summer together but now we’re in the real world and it’s different and we have to get used to it.’
‘The spell is broken,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not the prince. I’m the frog.’
‘Jasper, don’t.’ I couldn’t help giggling at his self-identification, regardless. ‘You are the prince. You’re my prince. You’re my king. I want you and I don’t want anybody else, but I need to know you inside and out before I can –’
‘Love me?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. God, this is all coming out all wrong.’
‘I just wanted to make you feel cared for, Sarah. I’m laying my cards on the table. Just in case, after what we did in the alley, you were thinking I only saw you as a … ugh. Forget it.’ He sighed and stuffed a forkful of veal in his mouth.
‘Don’t be pissy with me,’ I entreated. ‘I’m so happy with you. I’m worried that I’m infatuated or obsessed or addicted, though. I’m trying to be sensible.’
‘Well, then, there’s your problem,’ he said with the air of Einstein proving a theorem. ‘You should never be sensible. Take off the safety catch, love. Surrender to me.’
He said the last in a fruity, over-dramatic way that made it sound like a joke, but I didn’t think he was really joking. The word ‘surrender’ stuck in my mind and looped around it for the rest of the meal. What would it mean to really surrender to him?
‘My heart says yes,’ I told him, determined to be honest and frank. ‘But my heart doesn’t always make the best decisions.’
‘On the contrary, your heart is a sage,’ said Jasper. ‘You should show it more respect.’
‘Do you respect me?’ I asked, really needing to know.
‘I only brutally subjugate women I have the utmost respect for,’ he said.
‘Please don’t … it’s a serious question.’
He pushed his plate away and held my eyes for a heart-stopping minute.
‘That was a serious answer,’ he replied. ‘Now, are we on or off?’
‘On, of course. God. We are, aren’t we?’
‘Entirely up to you, my love,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to force you. Like I said at the very start, if you want it, you’ll get it. If you don’t, you won’t.’
‘I want it,’ I said, reaching for his hands.
He gave them, linking his fingers with mine.
‘Good. Let’s stop talking in circles, then, and get on with things.’
Our main courses arrived – Cornish cod for me, roasted quail for him – and the mood lightened with them.
‘What’s this proposition then, if it’s not going to one of Miss Frost’s parties?’
‘Ah,’ he said, chewing, then swallowing. ‘Yes. My proposition.’ He laid down his knife and fork and leant forwards. ‘How would you like to be in the movies?’
A strand of samphire clogged in my throat and I succumbed to a coughing fit.
‘You what?’ I struggled to say, picking up my glass and drinking its contents down.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I want you to be in my film.’
‘I’m not an actor! I can’t act. I failed the audition for the university DramSoc’s production of Lady Windermere’s Fan. I’m hardly Hollywood material.’
‘You can act. You’re very good, in fact. That’s why I’m asking. But perhaps you’re one of those people who thinks acting is saying lines in a stagey voice.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘The other night, when you were being Walters … darling, you were Walters. You gave your all to that part. I could almost see your mind ticking away, working out what would be the most Walters-like thing to say or do. And you found the answers, unerringly.’
‘But … well, that was role-play.’
‘So what’s acting then?’ he said, his tone millimetres away from ‘duh’.
‘It’s not the same. Nobody was standing around filming me, for one thing. And it was foreplay too. Unless this film
is going to be flat-out porn, I don’t really see that it’s the same thing at all.’
He shook his head. ‘No, it won’t be porn. But there will be sex scenes. Not real ones, obviously. Keeping your bra on for the American censors and all that. Not your bra, mind you, because they hadn’t been invented yet. Your shimmy or whatever.’
‘I just … you don’t mean this. You can’t mean it.’
‘I do mean it. You were perfect the other night. I can’t imagine anybody else doing it better. You are my Walters.’
‘I’m not,’ I said decisively. ‘But, just out of interest, who would be my Cruel Bastard? Do you have any actors in mind?’
‘You can forget it if you think I’m going to get you into bed with Daniel Craig.’
‘No!’ But my face was hot. ‘The opposite, actually. I can’t imagine how I’d cope with doing sex scenes with some big-time heartthrob actor who was a complete stranger to me.’
‘He wouldn’t be a stranger,’ said Jasper with a wicked grin, enjoying his teasing. ‘I’d have introduced you by then. Perhaps in the hotel jacuzzi.’
‘Shut up! No way.’
‘Anyway, do you seriously think I’d let some famous handsome bastard anywhere near you? I’m going to cast the ugliest man on Equity’s books. Name me an actor who makes your flesh crawl and I’ll call his agent.’
‘Stop it. This is crazy anyway. I’m not going to be in your film.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Joking aside now. I was thinking of playing the part myself. Actor-director. It’s tricky but it’s been done, so it’s not impossible.’
‘You don’t mind baring all on screen then?’
‘Love, it’s an art-house movie, not a porn flick. There won’t be any money shots or close-ups of the mechanics of it all. What do you take me for?’
‘A raging perv.’
His grin made me shiver.
‘Fair point,’ he said softly. ‘I guess it takes one to know one, then.’
‘I’m not ashamed of my sexuality,’ I said, after a pause to drink in the delicious tension. ‘But I couldn’t put it on general release for all to see. I just couldn’t.’
‘Why not, if you’re not ashamed of it? And besides, the audience wouldn’t necessarily equate your role with your private life. Acting is a thing, you know. Most people have heard of it. Nobody thinks Anthony Hopkins is really a cannibal. I hope.’
‘No, of course not, but …’ I paused as the waiter refilled my water glass, then lowered my voice again, ‘I think the problem is that I would know how close to the truth it was. It’d be different if I was playing a lesbian or a swinger or something that I’m not.’
Jasper put down his fork and looked at me for a long time, so long that the cod in my mouth became extremely hard to swallow.
‘You think people would see that you were enjoying it?’
‘I think I’d die of embarrassment. I wouldn’t be able to watch it.’
‘You’ve watched that film I made of you tied to that tree in my garden. You didn’t die of embarrassment. You got pretty turned on, if I remember correctly.’
‘That was between us. It was private.’
‘But you fantasise about public humiliation all the time, Sarah. We’ve played scenes that revolve around it. When we watched that film, you were imagining it playing on a big screen in a cinema, remember? It made you so hot I had to pause it twice.’
‘Stop it.’ I was sure the people at the next table could hear us. Their conversation seemed to stall at the most awkward times. I looked down at the napkin on my lap and gripped my knees.
‘Are you sure you want to take that tone with me?’ he said, deliberately audible to the nearest tables. ‘Admit it, Sarah. You liked parading yourself in front of Miss Frost. You’ll think about it, when I’m not around to keep you busy. You’ll think about it when you’re on your own in bed.’
‘Jasper, don’t!’ But I was so hot and bothered I could barely see straight. I pushed my plate away.
His foot nudged mine under the table, then smooth leather ran up my calf.
‘You’re my muse, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Do this for me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘OK, let me change my offer.’ His foot was stroking its way up and down my leg, maintaining a close and inescapable connection. ‘We continue working through the scenes, blocking them and acting them out. But I film them – just using a static camera on a tripod, no third parties. That gives you a little more time to make your decision. If you still aren’t comfortable with it, I’ll hire an actress. Nobody will see these scenes – they’ll stay in our private library. But if you change your mind, we’ll have them re-shot properly by the crew. What do you say?’
‘So we just carry on doing what we were doing at the museum? Except you’ll be filming?’
‘Yes. I have to see it on film, Sarah, or I don’t know if it’s working. Please?’
‘As long as nobody sees it. You absolutely promise?’
‘Absolutely. The decision is yours.’
‘Well, all right. But I’m pretty sure I won’t want to play the part in the actual film.’
‘I hope you change your mind. You’re perfect for it. If our on-screen chemistry is anywhere near our off-screen … well …’
He put the last forkful of food into his mouth and fixed me with his eyes, their expression both playful and serious; a Jasper speciality. I’d never known a man who could do that before.
‘I’m just trying to imagine my parents’ faces,’ I said, with a sudden horrified laugh. ‘God. My Dad would kill you with fire.’
‘Would he now? What if they knew about us … do they know about us?’
I shook my head.
‘Why not?’
‘Well … it’s a bit soon, isn’t it? Do your parents know?’
How did we get here? This seemed ridiculously like reality, like the kind of concerns people in normal relationships had. I’d never considered that Jasper and I had a normal relationship, more a kind of very intense, concentrated connection.
‘I might have mentioned something to my mother,’ he said, sounding as if he challenged me to tell him that he shouldn’t. ‘She’s always on at me about when I’ll settle down with a nice girl, produce grandchildren, blah blah.’
More laughter burst from my lips. It seemed crazy that Jasper – mysterious and glamorous and gloriously sexy Jasper – had a mother who bent his ear about all the usual motherly things. If I could imagine his mother at all, it was a very jaded Norma Desmond type in a turban, lounging by a pool holding a small white dog. Famous auteurs who have had secret affairs with European royalty surely didn’t come from suburban semis with a swing set in the back garden.
Perhaps they did.
‘Am I a nice girl then?’ I asked, reciprocating in the footsie game, slipping off my shoe and sliding my toes inside his trouser leg.
‘You’re a very bad girl,’ he said, lowering his voice beyond the earshot of our neighbours, thank goodness. ‘But I think that’s nice. Like the old cream cake campaign. Naughty but nice.’
‘I’m only bad because you make me,’ I whispered. ‘You’re an evil influence on me. You make me do things I’d never have dreamed of.’
‘Oh, really? I’ve mesmerised you, have I?’
‘Yes, you have. You’re like a kinky Svengali.’
‘Oh, I like that. I’m that bloke off the telly talent shows with a riding crop.’
‘Please don’t!’ My half-horrified laugh drew attention to us once more. ‘I’m eating.’
‘Some people would find that image erotically arousing.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not one of them.’
‘Good. I’m a hundred times sexier than him anyway.’
‘A thousand,’ I confirmed, prodding the delightful springy flesh of his calf.
‘But seriously,’ he said, locking my ankle around his so I couldn’t move it. ‘I have mentioned you to my mother. You think it’s too soon. Why?’
; ‘Oh, well.’ I had to think about this. ‘I suppose … I can’t get my head around this being a thing. Us. Being real. Like … a relationship. It’s just been so strange and so … Well. Just so strange.’
It didn’t sound much of an explanation, I realised. It was hard to put into words. In a funny way, what I had with Jasper felt too precious to share with the mundane everyday world of family and friends. It was mine, a bubble that I had to hold in my palm and protect from the slightest breath of air.
‘You don’t think this is a relationship?’ Jasper’s face contorted with confusion. He looked a little offended. ‘What the hell is it then?’
‘Something more special,’ I said, trying to appease but feeling like a clumsy foot-in-mouth oaf. ‘Something so amazing that I’m scared of tarnishing it – like an incredible piece of plate or crystal or something you find in an antiques mart that you’re terrified of dropping or breaking.’
It was an analogy that appealed to both of us.
‘Oh, I see,’ he said, reaching for my fingers. He stroked them with something like reverence. ‘I see. You think of this as a fragile thing?’
‘I only know I’m scared of ruining it, because it’s like magic. It’s so close to fantasy. It just doesn’t seem real. I know I keep saying that …’
‘Sarah, it’s real. I’m real, you’re real. What we have has substance. Can you believe it?’
‘I want to believe it.’
‘What we do requires a closer and stronger level of intimacy than most of those oh-so-real and solid relationships you’re comparing us to. We have to trust each other absolutely. You don’t trust some fly-by-night, do you?’
I shook my head. He was right – on a profound level, I had trusted him from day one. How had I done that? Why had I done it? At that point, there must have been a strong likelihood that he was seducing me for the sake of a bit of kinky fun and nothing more. I should also have considered the possibility that he would turn out to be a nasty and abusive piece of work.
I must have known that he wasn’t. But I couldn’t make sense of how I had known. Was it instinct? Any agony aunt worth her salt would have warned me against getting too involved with him. Yet here I was. That old familiar voice in my head said that old familiar thing. You can’t analyse it. Just go with it.
By His Command Page 5
