by Primula Bond
‘That’s not his job. There’s only one person who can do that.’ Gustav took the packet from me and ripped it easily with his teeth. ‘But as far as the house is concerned, I would rather have sold it to strangers, if I’m honest. Anyway, I’ve asked them to edit that damaged film loop. It’s an almost completely different film now that they’ve deleted every single image of—’
He rammed a lemon wedge on to the end of his skewer and laid it with the others to sizzle on the hot griddle before washing his hands.
I flattened my hands on the white counter between us, and he pushed the griddle to the far gas ring. He folded his warm fingers round mine, fingering the diamond ring to calm himself down.
‘Say it. You can say her name, now that she’s gone.’
We stared at each other, waiting for the grinding weight of her presence to loom up and drag at us. But there was nothing. Not a flicker of dread or doubt inside me, and no fear or anger or hatred inside him either. I could tell from his eyes. Her shadow no longer flitted behind his face.
‘It’s like the clear, clean air after a lingering, destructive storm, you know? Knowing that she dropped dead in a prison infirmary before they could deport her. Necrotising fasciitis. A hideous flesh-eating condition, creeping through and destroying an equally hideous person. The symmetry with La Marquise and her smallpox is uncanny. They say she picked it up during one of those surgical procedures. Though I reckon it was one of those Moroccan mosquitoes. She never faced her comeuppance for trying to kill Pierre, but it’s the rough justice she deserved. Margot is dead.’ We both glance through the doors, which have been opened to let in some summer air. There’s the faint aroma of oregano, basil and thyme from Dickson’s herb garden, and the perfume of roses. ‘There. I’ve said it. Anything that belonged to her has been sold and given to charity. Now I want to forget she ever existed. She will never torment us, or herself for that matter, ever again.’
We watched the pale amber of the street lamps outside the garden wall glow into life as the late London evening took hold. After a few moments Gustav turned to tossing the salad.
‘Going back to the topic of paying for our next abode, there’s one thing you’re forgetting.’
I leaned forward and dunked a breadstick into Crystal’s home-made guacamole. I licked the dip off the tip of the stick, then slowly nibbled up the crumbling length of it, making Gustav’s eyes spark once more with amusement and desire, despite his exhaustion.
‘What’s that, my love? That you’re the sexiest, naughtiest, most fertile woman in the world?’
I laughed and poked at him with the stick, which snapped and fell into his glass of Chablis.
‘Not just that. I’m also an heiress from when I inherited the house on the cliffs, if you recall. I was a woman of means before I even met you! What I’m saying is, I have my own money. So with it all put together I’ve enough to buy a nest somewhere classy and warm.’
Gustav turned the kebabs over, releasing the aroma of lemon and thyme.
‘Great minds thinking alike. If you open that big envelope, you’ll see that I’ve beaten you to it.’
Inside was a glossy brochure showing a group of dove-grey houses with ridged red tiles scattered over a hilltop outside Siena. The bird’s-eye view shows the honey-coloured stone turrets and courtyards, the glittering blue rectangle of a swimming pool, sloping terraces of vines.
And stamped across it in red letters the word ‘sold’.
I could already feel the warm sun on my back, taste the Chianti. See the rosy sunset, smell the oregano and rosemary, hear cicadas and the church bells tolling over the fields.
‘You’re telling me those early-morning meetings and trips and the night in Italy were all about this? You’ve bought a villa?’
‘Not just a villa. An entire hamlet!’ He picked up a smoking kebab stick and pushed the cooked chicken off it on to a big white plate. We speared the chunks straight into our mouths. ‘An early wedding present for you, signorina. It was like a dagger in the heart when I realised that you thought I was cheating on you. My God what a year this has been! But I couldn’t keep it secret any longer, because I need you to cast your eye over it. It’s going to be a fantastic project. It can be an artist’s retreat, or a cookery school, or a wedding venue. Or if it’s going to be a home just for us, then we’ll need a lot more babies to fill it!’
I held one more juicy chunk in my mouth, chewing deliberately, licking buttery juices off my lips. ‘Hmm. And talking of babies—’
Gustav paused, his skewer held in front of him like a microphone. ‘What is it, cara? Too early for them to kick. Are you all right?’
I put my skewer down, slid off the stool and held out my hand.
‘Oh, my love. I am more than all right. That jet lag has miraculously cured my morning sickness. And made me horny!’
His black eyes glinted with amusement as he popped the last bit of kebab into his mouth and followed me through the kitchen and up the stairs.
Halfway up I leaned against him. ‘If we’re going to be leaving this house soon, maybe we should make sure we celebrate every corner of it.’
His arms were round me, tender yet strong, keeping me safe as we leaned over the banister to survey the red-lacquer-painted hallway and the pinprick spotlights edging the skirting boards.
‘Funny to think of that tangle-haired creature coming to the house for the very first time, last autumn, all wet from the rain.’ He breathed in the scent of my hair. ‘That was the first time you touched me. You danced for me, and then you sucked me, remember?’
‘On your orders. Yes, of course I remember. I wanted you almost as badly that night as I do now.’ I pulled him on up the stairs and across the wide landing into our huge bedroom. ‘I was furious that you didn’t seem to want me.’
Above the bed hung the sketch of my face that Gustav made at my first ever private view. He was watching me that night across the gallery while I talked about the concept of the exhibition. My face in the sketch is turned sideways, half smiling as I speak passionately about the nuns I’d spied in the convent in Venice.
I was relieved that my old self wasn’t staring at us now as I wandered over to the bed, lay down on the huge Oxford pillows, and started to peel open my kimono. Starting at my throat, the silk slithered over my breasts, setting up little shivers over my skin and tightening my nipples in answer to the desire waking up inside me.
‘I was a troubled soul who needed rescuing, but I wasn’t ready to throw myself over that particular cliff.’ Gustav’s dark face was flushed with lust as his eyes travelled slowly over my gradually exposed body. ‘But I’m cured. I want you now, signorina.’
I lay there for a moment longer, luxuriating in the dark gleam of adoration in his eyes as he slowly unzipped his jeans. He kicked them off along with his boxers, releasing the hardness that was already jutting forward impatiently. I smiled and crooked my finger.
‘Good. But I’m giving the orders tonight.’
He knelt on the bed, still wearing his shirt half-buttoned in his haste to get to me, and laughing softly I pulled it off his shoulders and tossed it across the room to tangle in the heap of my travel-worn clothes.
Then I opened my legs, the kiss of silk kimono still on my arms. I was soft and yearning down there, I could feel the moistness as I parted myself for my lover.
Gustav crawled over me, pushing my thighs wider apart. He didn’t just focus on what I was offering him. He looked over my stomach, studying my breasts, which no longer ached so much, but had swollen with pregnancy. Just his eyes on me made me squirm with longing for him, a kind of fierce, primal lust that must have been something to do with keeping my mate close to me now that he’d impregnated me. But I lay there, letting him worship me with his eyes, feeling like a queen.
Then he pinned my legs down, wide apart, dipped his head, and his lips closed around me, sucking my hot pussy.
He was doing something amazing with his mouth. Massaging my pulsing sex, and as hi
s lips squeezed and sucked, his tongue roamed up between the lips, insinuating up the tight wet crack and sliding inside, probing, tasting me, until he reached the tender burning clit.
I moaned and juddered violently as he tapped and flicked and then licked me. His hands came round and lifted my buttocks so that I was pressed into his face. So dirty and naughty and sexy, yet so reverential, too. Like he was supping a rare, delicate feast. I gasped in excitement and encouragement.
Gustav was worshipping me silently, holding me completely still on my bed. I watched him sucking me. He seemed totally mesmerised. His hands manipulated my bottom as he sucked, pressing my butt cheeks very lightly as if testing my ass for reactions, but even though I was supposed to be in charge, it felt more like a warning not to move. Hell, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was lying there being licked and pleasured, my head tipped back in a kind of melting ecstasy, my own tongue flickering obscenely like a porn star as he worked at me. The more I challenged myself to stay absolutely still, the more intensely every flickering sensation was heightened.
A wave of exhaustion took me by surprise just as my stomach coiled and tightened with excitement, but I roused myself. My self-control ebbed away, the climax gathering so close to the edge. Gustav was sucking, hard, and I bucked against his face, unable to stop myself, but I had to stop, I had to. I wound his hair in my fingers and tugged at his head. Eventually he pulled away gently and very reluctantly.
‘Fuck me now, Gustav,’ I breathed, and the order was soft this time.
His mouth released me with a delicious wet sound. As I slid down on to my back, he licked my juices off his lips.
His hands came away from my bottom and I placed them on my big aching breasts. My nipples pricked up hard with desire. I wanted to feel that gorgeous mouth sucking on them. He smiled and his lips closed round one sharpened nipple and the sparking flesh around it. I felt the nipple scrape on the roof of his mouth, and then he bit it, and it hurt, already hypersensitive, ready to feed those babies I suppose, and I screeched with delight and crushed his face into me, scrabbling to hold the other breast, heavy and warm as I pressed it against his cheek and rubbed the second nipple against his mouth until he turned to nibble on that one too.
I arched my back to push my breasts into his face and took hold of his big cock. I guided it to slide into the shadowy dampness. The sensations of his mouth and teeth on my nipples, the hardness throbbing in my hands, got me even hornier. If I hadn’t been so heavy with exhaustion, I would have made him do something really dirty like take me up the arse.
But there was all the time in the world for that. So instead I rubbed the blunt tip across my hidden clit, wet and singing from where his tongue had been.
Oh, God, I nearly came there and then at the touch. I was so worked up now.
I moaned and writhed, rubbing him again and again across me, feeling him bump against my clit, keeping the movement as delicate and slow as possible while his face disappeared between my breasts, his hands roaming, caressing, those lips kissing and sucking.
And then I wriggled down beneath him so that he pushed easily into me and thrust up inside, not grinding greedily and pumping but filling me, taking me in every sense of the word. Both of us, coming home.
I was so tired now that I just floated there, his hardness filling me and resting inside me. He’s perfect for me. The right shape, touching the right places in the right way. He was plugged into me, closing me in, not going anywhere. Yes, owning me. And he is all mine. I hovered there, squeezed him tight inside until I was ready to move. He didn’t move either, just waited, locked in there, lying on me, slightly raised on his hands so as not to squash me, and then he started – not to move exactly, or thrust, but to pulsate, to vibrate. God, this was something else. He wanted to be so gentle and careful with me, he was just vibrating inside me. Slight, tiny, imperceptible, shivering pulses, but steady enough and strong. Growing stronger, like a light burning brighter, keeping me alert, awake, in our warm dark bedroom
And so it took a while. Because this incredible vibration increased so slowly, and so slightly, and my body tightened round him so slightly in answer, we inched in sensuous slow motion towards our climax. He was rearing over me as he was overtaken by the shared ecstasy, dipping his mouth to suck on my nipples, then resting on his hands, watching my face as we grew wilder. My head fell back on to the pillows, my breasts rising proudly in the darkness as our bodies started to melt together. I was going faint with ecstasy and he had one more small surprise to rouse me, inching his finger between my buttocks and jabbing up into my ass. It opened softly to let him in, and, as his finger started pushing hard up there, I lay back, just gave in, limp, exhausted, yet on fire deep inside, and my fiancé took me harder, pushing me up the bed, into those pillows.
We rocked, faster, faster, and then the climax flared and bloomed, throwing us together, arms and legs wrapped round each other like limpets.
‘These babies,’ Gustav murmured, his voice tickling my ear as sleep pressed me into the pillows. ‘Who will they look like, do you think?’
I laughed softly and closed my eyes. ‘Like the puppies in Lady and The Tramp. The boys will look like you, dark and naughty and sexy, and the girls will look like me.’
‘They could never be as beautiful as their mother.’
And then we descended from the hurly-burly of the chaise longue into the deep, deep peace of the marital bed.
‘You say your life is about to change as if it’s a bad thing. You want all those people in the streets to get the bunting out? Bring on the dancing girls?’ Polly lowers the antique lace veil over my face. Now I’m seeing London through a delicate swirl of embroidery. ‘You’re the one who wanted to marry Gustav as quickly as possible. No fuss. You said you wanted to be able to count your guests on the fingers of one hand.’
‘All of which is true. I can’t wait to be Mrs Levi!’ I reply, taking her hand. Our joined palms feel a little damp in the lace gloves. ‘What I mean is, I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t me. I don’t mean to sound smug. And I don’t mean you, obviously. I mean I wish they could all have an inkling of what a happy day this is – how good this feels. I’m marrying Gustav Levi.’
‘Stop it. You’re getting me started.’ Polly dabs at her eyes and I turn away from the car window to look at her. On this hot summer’s day, she still manages to look like a snow leopard. Pale skin, white blonde hair grown long enough to plait the delicate gypsophila flowers through it, and all brought to life by the sapphire glitter of her eyes.
‘God, I’m selfish. Ever since you arrived from Marrakesh all I’ve done is fuss over altering the dress, packing for this secret honeymoon, wondering if I’m allowed a glass of champagne at my own wedding reception – I’ve barely considered your feelings. You weren’t anxious about seeing Pierre again, were you?’
‘Babes, I’m only human. I wasn’t wild about seeing him again. But I am in another zone these days, thanks to the ashram, and it was a good idea of yours to get us to meet up on our own the other day. I’ve accepted that he wasn’t some great love that I’ve lost. Me and Pierre were a flash in the pan. More importantly, he’s your brother-in-law. Which makes him something, and nothing.’ She breaks into a smile and tweaks my nose. ‘And not even I can feel threatened by a guy on crutches!’
I laugh. ‘He might realise what he’s missed, though, Pol. Maybe he’ll be bowled over by how sexy and gorgeous you look today!’
‘That ship has sailed, and while we’re busy gloating, I can tell you it feels bloody fantastic to be able to say that and mean it!’ She squeezes my fingers. ‘I’m different from that neurotic nutcase back at New Year’s, Rena. I’m a shining light of acceptance and calm. Angelique has taught me how to heal myself. She’s taught me how to lay my hands on others, too – oh, shut up, I don’t mean sexually, hey, stop giggling!’
But it’s too late. I’m clutching her hands and we’re half laughing, half crying as Dickson guides the car, bedecked with white ribbons, onwa
rds through the streets of Mayfair.
Polly taps him on the shoulder. ‘Time to get this bride to the church on time, I reckon, if I’m ever going to give her away!’
The only positive thing that still chimes from my childhood is the security of knowing that if I step inside a church or chapel I will know peace. Those people who called themselves my parents used to take me every Sunday, and although even as a tiny child I could see how breathtaking was their hypocrisy, I ceased to care, because it was the one time in the week that they had to be civil to me, and the one time, until I was old enough simply to leave home, that I could escape into my own spiritual world.
When I told Gustav this and asked if he’d mind getting married in church, he was overjoyed. He hasn’t stepped inside a church since his parents died.
The car glides up Mount Street and stops in front of the pretty Gothic façade of the Catholic church. As soon as it stops, I’m overwhelmed with the urge to rush inside. Dickson only just has time to leap round and open the door for me, and Polly only just has time to scramble after me to lift the train of my dress out of the dust, before we’re dashing up the path into the cool arch of the porch.
Inside the church I can hear the organ playing the soft strains of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.
‘I daren’t look, Polly. Is he here?’
She peers through the wooden door, then steps further inside to look. My sense of smell is still acute, though the sickness has subsided. Honey-flavoured French polish and candle wax waft from the interior, mingled with heavy incense being prepared in the thurible. The priest comes towards me to murmur a few words, the smell of fresh soap on his hands.
Then it’s just me and Polly again. She straightens my veil, fluffs up the white tulips and greenery in my bouquet.
‘My hair OK?’
‘Perfect. All these hormones have made it longer and thicker already. But I’ve put a serum in it so it’s brushed back and smooth as glass. You look like an absolute princess.’
