Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission

by M. J. Lawless

  “But it’s so dirty and chaotic,” he said. “Typical damn sardine nation: no discipline, not like all those efficient herring eaters up in the north.”

  “And that’s why I like it,” she told him. “We sardine eaters have to escape your dour impositions from time to time. And it’s not dirty. It’s romantic.”

  He had thus relented, and in any case she suspected that his opposition had been largely tokenistic. Although there may have been part of him that wanted to rest a few days from work by the sea (although she was already starting to realise that merely being away from his central offices did not mean a break from labour for the founder of Stone Enterprises), he was perfectly willing to spend some time in the capital itself. It may not have been London, but it was still cultured enough for him as well as her.

  When they entered the main part of the airport, a smartly dressed chauffeur was waiting for them who immediately came to collect their bags. The driver, Filipe, was one of Daniel’s regular employees in the country, and Kris understood entirely why he trusted himself to so few expert hands when it came to being transported from place to place—and why he never drove at all. Thinking of this, she gave his hand a squeeze as they sat in the back of the air-conditioned limousine and made their way to the broad, tree-lined avenue just north of the old city that stretched from Baixa across to Alfama.

  Merely thinking of that name made her feel a little strange now, and for the first time Kris wished she had picked another word, wondering whether her favourite city would thus become forever tainted by a failure in her life.

  Dismissing such thoughts, however, she gazed up in absolute pleasure at the high block of the five-star hotel that they were to stay in for the next two nights. Being here itself was something of a novel sensation for her. Her father had brought her to Lisbon several times in the past, though they had always stayed with distant relatives across the river Tagus, and when she had visited the city herself after leaving home her accommodation had always been rather flea-bitten hostels and cheap hotels. Luxury in the city was something very new.

  While Daniel checked them in, a small army took their luggage up to the penthouse: the amount of clothing and accoutrements looked rather excessive, but Daniel had suggested that, after some time in Cascais, she might prefer to stay in Portugal for a little while longer when he returned to London.

  Their suite in the hotel added to the overwhelming experience of luxury, and Kris thought she was going to die from bliss. When Daniel had dismissed the attendants, she had run from room to room, trying every small object and appreciating every moment of design before rushing back to her lover and, holding his handsome, scarred face in her hands, kissing him deeply.

  “Thank you,” she said, breathlessly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Indeed, so excited was she, that she insisted that they make love there and then, with her pressed against the window, looking down over the streets of multi-coloured roofs towards the hills overlooking the old city, the trees in the castle of Sao Jorge luxuriant against the stone walls. Bending down, he raised her skirt and held onto her buttocks as he entered her, her palms and cheeks of her face flat against the cold surface of the glass, her breasts rising and falling as they made love so far above the inhabitants of Lisbon far below.

  When she had showered and changed, she came through to find Daniel looking through one of her sketch books. It was a new one, but the first few leaves contained some of the mythical self-portraits she had begun to make of herself. She realised that she had not shown him any of this work—most of which still remained in her old flat in London (which, to his annoyance, she insisted on keeping on). She had not particularly thought of this, and it struck her as a little odd that she still maintained a degree of reserve with Daniel—but so it was.

  “Do you plan to do any drawing while we’re here?” he asked her, looking at her when she emerged from the walk-in closet dressed in a light pair of flowing pantaloons and a cream-coloured shirt that hung easily from her bosom.

  “Yes, I think so,” she said. “We’ll see how it goes, eh?”

  He closed the pad, realising that this was to be the most he would get from this particular conversation, and instead observed: “You probably know the city better than me. I tend to pass through it, so you can be my guide for the next couple of days.”

  “Oh,” she replied, “I’m not much more than a tourist. Dad used to know the place far better, but I’ve never really spent long enough here to know it inside out. We are close to Baixa, though, so I’d really like to go and spend some time on the terraces up there tonight, just taking in the atmosphere of the place. And anyway, I thought tomorrow we should go and visit Chiado Shipping. It is why we’re here, after all.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “What? You’re serious? I thought that was just a pretence to get here.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, I am serious. I told Guilherme that we would be with him tomorrow, just after eleven. No need to rush things after all, but he will be expecting us. Don’t mistake me for some bimbo, Daniel. I’ve kind of become caught up in this particular deal—even if had nothing to do with you anymore, I’d want to see it through to the end for myself.”

  Standing, Daniel crossed to her and embraced her so that her chin was resting on his chest as she looked up at his asymmetrical eyes. He was smiling, very tenderly. “The last thing I think of you as is a bimbo,” he told her quietly.

  During the evening as the sun slowly set across the estuary of the Tagus, they did not venture far but merely took a funicular tram to the top of Baixa, Kris leading Daniel by the hand to a small restaurant that she had found in the guide book. He had wanted to eat in the hotel, being sure that five star French cuisine would guarantee him the service he was used to, but she refused to travel to the land of her ancestors and endure an anodyne experience. As such, she cajoled and even forced him to sit among the hoi polloi who were enjoying the early autumn evening, still so much warmer than in England.

  As they sat on the terrace, Kris ordered wine and a coffee for Daniel, enjoying the opportunity to practice her rusty Portuguese as they gazed down towards the grid of the city that had been rebuilt near the sea following the earthquake in the eighteenth century. If she leaned out over the railing along the terrace’s edge (a precarious act that made Daniel more nervous than usual), she could just make out the huge statue of the Christo Rei across the river, while to the north of them was the lush growth of the botanical gardens and the wide, tree-lined avenue of the Avenida da Liberdade. The meal they ate was simple, as indeed was everything else about that experience that evening—but more than anything Kris felt that she had arrived at the still centre of her life, the sound of a Fado singer and his guitar gently floating across the night air.

  The next day, after a leisurely breakfast in the hotel, Filipe took them to the offices of Frete Chiado which lay near to the Ponte XXV de Abril and below the area of the city from which the company took its name. Overhead, the red metal frame of the bridge extended across the river to the enormous statue of Christ, modelled on that in Rio de Janeiro, and large industrial buildings reared up before them.

  Daniel had been uncertain that she would really want to go through with this meeting, assuming that, at the last moment, she would decide upon some other sightseeing activity (or shopping on the credit card he had made available to her). Kris, however, remained fixed on seeing through this part of the deal and so Daniel’s face assumed a determined, business-like expression as they drove to the shipping company, fixing instead on the work that lay ahead.

  Guilherme Escada greeted them as soon as they arrived, the driver Filipe having phoned ahead to advise them they were on the way. When he saw Kris, he greeted her warmly, embracing her as she spoke to him in slightly halting Portuguese, but she could see that he was slightly nervous when she introduced Daniel to him. After all, a great deal of Stone Enterprise equity was tied up in his venture, and she realised that Daniel’s purpose for sugge
sting this trip could be more than simple indulgence of her tastes and ancestry.

  Indeed, as Guilherme proudly showed them around the part of the port used by Chiado, her lover asked a series of searching questions about the company’s operations that revealed this was, after all, more than simply a holiday for him. Kris did not mind: if anything, it was a small source of pride to her that she had encouraged him to take an interest in this one cog in his empire. Although some of the Portuguese director’s responses were a little cautious, she knew he had little to worry about: she had spent enough time checking through the company’s books to know that everything was in order.

  “Impressive,” he told her when Filipe finally drove them away. “I wouldn’t have thought to take much interest in the particular details of Chiado, but I’m glad I did. Thank you,” he told her simply, with a kiss.

  She wanted to visit the castle—to view, as it were, the city from both heights—and so Filipe drove them along the main road that led alongside the river before turning through the narrow, winding streets of Alfama. Once they had arrived at the yellowing, stone walls of the Castello de Sao Jorge, Daniel bid the driver meet them in another couple of hours and they joined the queues of tourists waiting to enter the monument.

  Inside, he appreciated the mixture of shade and sunlight created by the dapping effect of the overhead cypress trees. Leading him by the hand once more, Kris took him to the parapet that overlooked the city, pointing down to the red bridge where they had been barely an hour before. Daniel smiled, but also looked a little tense as she stood next to the low wall.

  “What’s up?” she asked. “Don’t like heights?”

  “Not really,” he admitted, apologetically.

  “I’m surprised. I mean, your head is a good half foot higher off the ground than most people’s.”

  “Which is perhaps why I’m so keen not to let it rise too much further. Come on,” he said, drawing away without waiting for her assent, “let’s get something to eat.”

  “I was really surprised you wanted to go through with the meeting today,” he told her as they ate a few sardines and salad beside one of the old, stone buildings, converted into a restaurant. Beside them, peacocks slowly walked between the tables, one or two perching in the boughs of a particularly large cypress above them.

  “It was something that started in London,” Kris admitted. “When I was first trying to find out something about you—anything—I realised there was a connection between Stone Enterprises and HBS via Chiado. Not only that, but the fact that they were here... it seemed like an omen, a particularly good one, I hope. I must admit that I became obsessed. I wanted to see everything through: before I got to know you better, it seemed one way to connect to you.”

  “And you know me better now?” he asked, a slight smile on his lips, his eyes squinting in the sunlight.

  Kris looked thoughtful at this. “You want to know the truth?” she asked. He nodded.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever know you. I know lots about you, but... it still feels to me sometimes that the real centre of you evades me.” She shrugged. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  She considered it. The question, so apparently simple, deserved serious thought. Finally, she shook her head. “It bothered me at first—it bothered me a lot. But if you were simple to know, I don’t think I’d like you half as much.”

  He laughed at this. “The same applies to you, of course.”

  “Me?” Kris scoffed at the thought. “I’m very simple by contrast. Pretty much all you see is what you get with me.” Daniel, however, shook his head in contradiction.

  “No, that’s not true. After all, am I dealing with a young woman, or an ancient creature half bird? It’s hard for me to tell and that... intrigues me.”

  Smiling, Kris raised the glass of juice before her in a mock toast. “Well, here’s to complexity.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  They spent another two days in Lisbon before driving up to Cascais. Kris was a little sad to go, although Daniel had made it clear to her that after he returned to London she was free to spend as much time as she wanted in the city—as long as she joined him again in London before too long.

  As they drove the twenty miles or so to Cascais, passing the estuary and following the coast as it curved slowly northward, Kris enjoyed the view of the ocean passing to their left. The muddy, dark brown water of the Tagus was slowly transformed into blues and aquamarines. She had been to the small town of Cascais once before, and was intrigued to see whether it matched her memory, becoming more excited as they passed the long, sandy shores of Oeiras and Estoril.

  Filipe did not enter the town itself, but rather drove along a hill that looked down over Cascais. Kris gasped when she saw the white-walled, red-roofed villa that reared up above her. Daniel leaned forward, following her gaze with his own eyes.

  “Yes, a five-star hotel certainly provides some luxury,” he told her ironically. “But this is my home from home when I’m in this part of the world.”

  “This is yours?” Kris asked him, and then immediately felt stupid. Of course it was his.

  “Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, though. I always much preferred Cascais to the city. I’ve also got a property out on the Algarve in this part of the world, though to be honest I’m not really sure why I keep that one. It’s one of those things you’re meant to do when you’re wealthy, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” she replied, a tiny bit sarcastically. “It must be really hard for you.”

  The villa itself was set in wooded grounds, with a neat, almost English lawn set before the white walls of the main house and inside the sandy stoned perimeter that marked the edge of Daniel’s home. She could not help gawping a little as she came closer to the door, one of the maidservants having come forward to open the door while Filipe started to unload their bags.

  The house was clearly built in the grand tradition, and while not utterly massive compared to some of the residences she had seen in the hills about the place, it still managed an impressive six bedrooms, each more of a suite than a simple room, and a swimming pool. The entire villa was a self-enclosed paradise. Perhaps ultimately she preferred the chaos—the vitality, even—of Lisbon, but for a while she was more than prepared to indulge Daniel’s requirement for some idyllic stasis.

  “We can rest for a while,” he told her, “then I’ll take you down to my yacht later.”

  She shook her head, looking across the deep blue ocean visible from the bedroom window. “Why did I just know you were going to say that?” she asked.

  The marina in Cascais was delightful, set beneath an old fortification and running alongside the streets that led to the old town, part fishing port but also for a long time a summer retreat for the wealthy. Daniel, dressed in light trousers and shirt, led her to his yacht: compared to some of the other boats moored up alongside the shore, it wasn’t too ostentatious, she supposed, and he told her it was a weekend cruiser, with basic amenities suitable for staying aboard for a few days, but still simple enough for him to take it out on his own when he so desired.

  “No,” she told him as she climbed aboard and descended to one of the cabins. “Comrie was basic. This is luxury. Take it from me.”

  Half an hour later she was enjoying the wind whipping through her long hair, her sunglasses shading her from the sun in her eyes but her body covered only in a small, blue bikini so that her skin could soak up the rays. Daniel was behind her in the pilot’s cabin, taking the boat out further to sea so that they could enjoy some peace and relaxation.

  When he finally killed the engine and joined her, she told him: “This really is perfect. Why can’t we live here?”

  He laughed, bringing her a glass of white wine. “Yes,” he replied. “It gets me that way sometimes. Unfortunately, I don’t do enough business in Portugal to make it worthwhile, not permanently. Necessity and all that.”

  She sighed at that. “Yes,
I guess so. Still, it would be good to spend more time out here, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’ll say amen to that,” he said, sitting beside her as she sat on the deck of the yacht, watching the distant shore. She had one leg raised, her skin already beginning to turn golden after a few days in the sun, and his arm brushed against it. She extended her thigh sideways a little, opening her legs and turning towards him so that her face looked up to his. He raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her expectant face, her eyes hidden behind her shades. One of his hands brushed against her breast, then paused and returned to the soft fabric, pushing it aside so that her stiffening nipple was exposed.

  “It would be a very good idea to spend more time here,” he said quietly, lifting his body up as she slowly reclined on the deck.

  Over the following two days, she was enjoying herself greatly with Daniel. Something was not entirely right, however. They made love, they went out on his yacht, they enjoyed fine dining in the evenings. There was something that she could not quite pin down, however. When she tried, the afternoon after they had arrived, to draw in her pad, feeling that this would be the time to try and capture some of her thoughts, for some reason the inspiration didn’t quite flow.

  Nor was the fault entirely hers, for all that she remembered Daniel’s earlier admonitions that he thought she required more discipline. He had told her that he needed a few days’ break from corporate demands, but she caught him on the phone once in a rather heated exchange. He had not realised it was her coming up behind him at first, and when he had turned round she had been shocked to see the look of livid anger on his face. He managed to bite back the outpourings of vitriol he had prepared for her, no doubt believing her to be one of the house staff, but that look of contempt and anger had disturbed her.

  The serpent entered their garden of Eden much more quickly than she had expected, arriving on the evening of the second day at Cascais.