by Primula Bond
And there’s such tenderness in his face. The tenderness I thought was reserved for me. His tongue is running across his teeth because he’s anticipating something really good to happen.
He’s enjoying all of it. Being tied up and blindfolded. That’s how he used to be.
There’s another pause. A pair of hands wearing black leather mittens appears from the side of the screen. They move over Gustav’s hair, stroke down his face, his jaw. My stomach tightens as a black leather finger runs across his mouth, pushes into it, lets him bite it.
‘They could walk in on us at any minute,’ Gustav mutters to his invisible companion, but the finger presses against his mouth to silence him. ‘Take these off, my love. I can do this so much better hands-free!’
Part of me prays that it’s not her. That someone else is in this film with him. Maria Memsahib, Crystal, any damn woman. Anyone would be preferable to seeing him with Margot.
As he pulls at the handcuffs, the camera focus is pulled back slightly and now we can see all of Gustav. He’s tied to a hook in the wall near the window, which is why he can’t brush the hair out of his eyes, and he’s wearing a business suit.
Also, he’s wearing a scarlet tie. It’s printed with tiny hearts in a darker red, so small you would only know they were hearts if you were pressed up close to him.
I gave him that tie for a belated Valentine’s Day present this year.
Now Gustav looks like a stranger. Distant and professional, like he did when I first knew him. I don’t know this man. He’s unutterably sexy. I know he has a beautiful, strong body beneath that formal exterior. But he’s not mine any more. He’s gone back to her.
Every one of my nightmares has come true. Every one of his promises has been broken.
Which makes my life over the last year utterly meaningless. Dashed by one malicious detail.
Margot’s hands are pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and touching his flies, kneading the warm shape she has found, closing round it to make it grow.
I fall forward on my knees to study the date that is blinking faintly in the bottom corner of the picture. I drop the little book just as the leather mittens start pulling off Gustav’s jacket. My fiancé grins and gives a theatrical shiver as his jacket flies off, followed by the tie.
This film was taken just ten days ago. The day he arrived in London from Paris.
The footsteps echoing on the tiled landing stop. Someone comes into the room, and when I see who it is I start sobbing with distress and relief.
‘Tomas! Help me! Something terrible’s going on! I need my phone and I’ve got to get out of here!’
‘You can’t go now! We’re just getting to the good bit!’
A figure slides out from behind Tomas, blowing a plume of aromatic smoke from a long thin spliff. Like all the other girls in the riad tonight, the woman is veiled, but even with her face covered I would recognise those nasty cat’s eyes anywhere. She pauses the video then bends to rip the cellophane off the discarded white shirt and drapes it over her arm.
‘Welcome to my pleasure palace, Serena! Gustav is going to love it when he moves in. But oh dear. We’re not looking after you very well, are we? You look absolutely dreadful. Gustav would be revolted if he could see the state you’re in.’ Margot drawls into the silence. ‘Want to take a look in my magic mirror? Puffy eyes, cracked lips, sweaty hair. Such a shame.’
I try to get up. My ankle bone digs into the silver anklet. ‘It’s that poison I drank.’
Margot pushes me back down and taps ash into a copper ashtray. ‘Nonsense. That was merely iced tea with a pretty vicious twist. Admittedly, Tomas was a little careless with the dosage. Those little trees in the courtyard? Those are daturas. I’ve been cultivating their sap for perfume while I’ve been living here. Lovely scent, isn’t it? But it can also be fatal. Mythology has it that witches used to take the drug so they could fly. But I prefer the idea of wronged wives using it to commit murder, which is why it’s known as the jealousy tree.’
I realise that my mouth is parched and I couldn’t get up even if I wanted to. ‘What do you want from me?’
Margot steps over me and arranges herself on the bed like some kind of multi-armed and multi-headed goddess. A clinging black kaftan is slashed low between her high, full breasts, and slit up the sides of her legs, which she folds into a lotus position. Her snaky black hair is hidden by the folds of an elegant black turban. I can see that from afar she is still mesmerising. If I can’t take my eyes off her, no wonder Pierre, and Tomas, and those other toy boys, are all in her thrall.
‘What I want, Serena, is for you to fuck off back to whatever little backwater you came from. I want you to get it into your empty little airhead that Gustav is mine, not yours.’
I grasp the edge of the table. ‘Gustav hates you, Margot. Really, really hates you for everything you did to him and his brother.’
‘And that’s just the way I like him. Full of healthy hatred.’ She inhales deeply then whistles another plume of herbal smoke straight at my face. ‘You wouldn’t understand, Serena, but there’s a fine line between love and hate, and he’s always crossing it.’
I lift my left hand. The diamond ring picks up the flicker of the little candles. ‘See this? We’re going to be married.’
‘You poor, deluded idiot.’ I see the sway of her high, round white breasts under her kaftan as she lifts the veil to relight the joint. Her red lips purse around the filter, wet with her saliva. ‘You think that ring is the answer to all your prayers, don’t you? But all it means is that Gustav went to a shop one day and bought you a trinket to keep you in his bed.’
I push my hands between my knees to stop them shaking. ‘That’s bullshit. I’m his future. You’re his ugly past.’
‘Not what this priceless little piece of film says. Give it up, why don’t you?’ Two smoke rings float towards me and then split into wavy question marks. I keep my eyes on her hands, bony and old, rather than the swell of her breasts and that cruel, sexy mouth. ‘That wedding’s never going to happen. Just admit defeat. You’re young. The world’s your oyster. There are cute red-blooded males right here in this riad who are primed and horny and yours for the taking. I know. I’ve road-tested them all. But you and Gustav? So wrong. The minute you’re separated you’re led into all kinds of temptation, and sure as night follows day, he walks straight back into my arms.’
I shake my head. ‘He would rather scratch his own eyes out than do that.’
‘Still she protests, when the evidence is right here? I knew you’d be difficult, you little bitch.’ She reaches underneath one of the pillows and tosses something across the table. ‘This is why you’ll never be speaking to him again.’
It’s a mobile phone. As the blood drains from whichever part of me is supposed to keep me breathing, I pick it up. The screen saver is my self-portrait, the one we have hanging in our apartment in New York.
‘That’s Gustav’s phone!’
‘Mine, now. But what a stroke of luck, eh? These phones store all the information these days, don’t they? That’s how I knew you were in Morocco. Which ashram. Delightful to discover that even my old protégée Maria was detailed to keep you safe, by the way, even though she’s singularly failed. And finally we knew when you were coming into Marrakesh. A combination of detective work, deception and devilry. Ears and eyes everywhere if you pay enough. Pierre made a big mistake to defect on me like that, but I needed someone he would talk to for information, and who better than his friend Tomas, who wandered into my Sapphix Bar one night.’
‘Tomas told me he hasn’t spoken to Pierre in weeks!’
‘These mobile phones. Amazing how they keep us all connected, isn’t it? One little call or text, and your world is, oh dear! Shattered! Once we’d located you in the market and organised that chance meeting, Tomas couldn’t resist telling Pierre he’d just got his hands on you! He’s not going to be cheated out of his prize this time. Pierre was going to set you up toget
her in New York, but he wimped out of that plan, as we know. So our Tomas is going to go where no Pierre has gone before, and just to make sure no one can stand around arguing the toss he’ll make a visual record of his own. We’ll make sure all the information, and the sexy footage we’re going to make of you and Tomas making out, will filter back to Gustav eventually.’
‘That’s not going to happen. Come on, Tomas. Why would you want me when you’ve got the gorgeous Chloe? This is all a crock of shit!’ I stare at Gustav’s phone and scroll through the incoming messages. ‘Look! Gustav sent me a text!’
‘Such defiance from the condemned woman.’ Margot runs a nail down Tomas’s leg. ‘You really don’t get what’s going on here, do you? Tomas will do whatever I tell him to do, especially when it means putting you in your place. He’s already hard just thinking about it. And as for Gustav trying to reach you, I’m afraid I sent you that text! Just to keep you off our backs.’
I stare down at the phone again. In my confusion I can’t remember exactly what Pierre said in that muffled phone call, but it was before I bumped into Tomas. So he was trying to warn me.
I scroll through my increasingly anxious, unanswered texts as if somehow Gustav will magically answer them. ‘No wonder he sounded so brusque. Oh, God, Margot. What have you done with him?’
‘If a little text message hurts you so badly, wait until I’ve finished telling you – sorry, showing you – how much worse his behaviour is when your back is turned. Your Gustav and I have been celebrating the old times, as only we know how.’
The candles and the paused television screen light up her grinning face. Even semi-veiled she looks like a terrible, beautiful skull, and now I can see that her eyes look even more slanted and catlike than when I saw her in New York.
I hold the phone so tight I can feel it heating up in my hands. It’s all I have of Gustav right now. That and the diamond ring.
‘I’ll do anything, Margot. Anything. Just tell me Gustav is OK.’
‘You have nothing to offer me. Just watch the film. Trust me, you won’t be offering yourself as any kind of deal or sacrifice for that man once you’ve seen this. You’ll want nothing more to do with him.’ She crosses one long, skinny leg over the other. ‘You’ll be begging to forget him. Maybe you’ll finally see sense and go downstairs to play with boys and girls your own size.’
There is a sudden chorus of muezzin over the rooftops, calling the faithful from their minarets, a kind of syncopated summons as each is slightly out of step with the next. The mournful sing-song echoes over the city and up into the sky. Oh, I’m so far away from home.
Wherever home is.
Tears are spilling out of my eyes. ‘All this time you’ve followed me?’
‘Such hard work. But see the fruits of my labours! He’s still so handsome, isn’t he? Gustav, I mean, not Pierre.’ Margot strokes Gustav’s crisp cotton shirt. ‘Maybe Pierre will get his heart’s desire after all, once you’ve accepted that Gustav is mine again.’
My head is whirling. Two weeks ago Pierre was assuring me that Gustav would never be unfaithful. Then he was telling me to get back to Polly and a place of safety. But surely he can’t have known how far Margot and Gustav had already gone?
‘All those times he sneaked out early in the morning. Those mysterious business trips. That night in Italy? Gustav was with you?’
‘Better and better! You had suspicions already!’ Margot wriggles delightedly on the bed. ‘So this video doesn’t altogether shock you?’ She runs the white shirt under my nose. ‘I’ve got all his old shirts, ready for when he gets here. Of course, this is my favourite, the one he wore when we got married, but all these years the missing cufflink has pained me. But no more. Gustav has returned its pair. The cufflinks have been reunited, just like him and me!’
‘He was supposed to be meeting the buyer of Baker Street.’ I cough to try to erase the sick quiver in my voice.
Margot flicks at the silver cufflinks. ‘Well, he did meet her. Because the buyer is me!’
Another mosquito must have found its way in here because she starts scratching her arm.
‘He knew you were the buyer all along? He told me he only dealt with the sale through agents.’
‘Details, details! No, he didn’t know I was the buyer at first. But since the two of you came bursting into my apartment with the feather it’s been so easy. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m even using the money Gustav gave me in the divorce to buy back my own house.’ Margot gives a sudden wheezy cough and takes a little bottle of pills out of some hidden pocket. I notice that she has a rash of midge bites up one of her arms. ‘I never wanted his money. Not really. I love that man. I loved that house. That life was ours, and we were happy. I want every single bit of it back.’
I try to stand, but Tomas comes and puts his arms round me, pulls me on to the bed.
‘You should watch this,’ he murmurs in my ear. ‘There’s more to come.’
‘Yes! Enjoy the show! Gustav Levi, in our old house, with me, enjoying himself!’ Margot gulps down a tablet with a miniature bottle of some colourless liquid. The Moroccan darkness seeping through the house is a smothering blanket. ‘I’ve got him tied up just like I used to, and he’s getting hard, just like he used to, see? That big wonderful part of him is about to be exposed. There’s no trickery, Serena. Gustav was alone with me, being aroused by me, by these very hands!’
She waggles them like a clown. Just like she did when she was mocking her puppet Pierre. The nightmare is crystallising around me. The tangle of Pierre, Gustav, Margot. The unholy trinity. No way in for anyone else.
Tomas squeezes me harder. My breath is coming in tiny bursts, like a bird that’s fallen out of its nest. My hands rest on the carved sandalwood table, stretched towards the television. I am alert now. The blood tingles in my fingers and toes, my hair prickles on my scalp. I’m not sweating now. I’m aware that the night is hot and stuffy, but my skin is extraordinarily cool. This is what the fight-or-flight instinct must feel like. But which is it to be? Fight for my fiancé, who’s already lost to me? Or flight? Back to – where?
Margot’s black eyes are glinting at me above her veil so intently my skin goes up into goosebumps.
‘I was going to let you watch the whole thing on your own, but I couldn’t resist seeing your reaction!’ Her eyes narrow triumphantly as Tomas plays the recording. ‘Watch this, princess!’
The hands on the video undo the trousers and yank them down. Gustav bites on his tongue, trying not to grin too widely. He doesn’t want to give too much away. He struggles with the handcuffs, makes a show of resistance, but he doesn’t flinch as the mittens come back and pull down his boxers. Quite the opposite. He goes very still, obviously relishing the pulsing pleasure as the hands massage him to hardness until it’s standing proud and stiff.
Nausea tips inside me to see the familiar softening in his face, his mouth murmuring something filthy at his companion that I can’t hear.
Pleased with their work in arousing him, the hands playfully smack his bare bottom and then they take hold of his hips and pull him back so that he is forced to bend slightly against the tug of the handcuffs. I must have lost concentration for a moment, because there’s a sudden sharp whisking sound on the screen, and although I don’t focus in time to see it land on him, there’s the unmistakable slap of a whip.
I stare at Gustav again. The smile has disappeared. His head whips back in surprise, and an angry shadow crosses his face. ‘For God’s sake! What are you doing!’
Thank God. He is going to put a stop to this in a minute.
But this is Margot’s cue to appear full-size for the first time in front of the screen, smiling and spinning in circles like a dervish for the camera before stopping dead and putting her finger to her lips as if I, the voyeur, am about to warn him.
She’s behind you!
Within those peeling and panelled walls, far away in London, Margot has stolen my fiancé. She’s dressed all in black leathe
r, including a cat mask, studded collar and the black laced basque I tried on once, when I was snooping in the chalet in Lugano last autumn.
The white expanse of her throat and ribbed chest is bare and bony, and then there are the cartoon breasts, perched up high and round like hard, unripe fruit, their unnatural roundness accentuated by the black pointed cups of the basque.
Still prancing for the camera, she produces as if from thin air the thin black switch she has just used, with its delicate tail of fine leather tassels. She flourishes it, as if this is a circus act.
And like a circus master, or a mime artist, she steps forward, her face huge in the lens as she adjusts the camera slightly and pulls the focus closer in. Then she dances backwards and curls her fingers to beckon it, us, to come nearer, and to watch some more. She steps behind Gustav, who is sideways on to the camera. She keeps her eyes on us, the viewers, to make sure we are watching as she turns his bottom towards us and we can see the faint stripe already visible from the first strike.
Then with the merest flick of her wrist, she brings the whip down on him again, so hard that we can see the flesh tremble beneath the blow. His head jerks back as the whip stripes its punishment across him and seems to sink down as if gouging into his flesh. What shocks me is that there is no shouting out or objection this time. His shoulders seem to sink, to submit to the whipping. There’s a slump in the line of his spine that I’ve never seen before.
On the film, Margot unpeels the whip from the dent it has made in his buttock and Gustav bites his lip, so hard that blood starts to ooze from his lower lip.
I moan out loud as a third strike comes down. Again the chiselled planes and angles of his face lie still, the white teeth biting again into the already bloody lip. Tomas leans forward and presses the pause button for the second time.
