An acquaintance grasps my hand and pumps it. ‘Hey, Shane, how you doing? Let me buy you a drink?’
‘Thanks,’ I say with a smile, ‘but I’ve got one coming.’
He wants to talk, but I turn away from him and watch the door that leads from the toilets. My drink arrives and I take a gulp. The door opens. A woman comes out. The door shuts again. I am holding my breath. I let it go in a rush. Why am I behaving like this? My skin prickles, as if it knows something I don’t.
The door opens once more and she walks out. Her stride is still a slow sway, but up close she is even more breathtaking. And again I have the impression that she does not belong in this place. As if she is a shimmering water queen risen from a river, able to transform boredom into a feast of the senses.
As she gets closer I have the impression of something exotic. It could be her nose or the straightness of her eyebrows. But blood from distant lands flows in her veins. Her lips are full and painted some spicy color, a mixture of turmeric and chili. Her eyes are elongated and look straight ahead.
She would have passed by without noticing me if I had not shot out an arm and grasped her delicate wrist. Her reaction is strange because it is so deliberate. She stops walking and lets her gaze swing slowly from my hand wrapped around hers up to my eyes. This close, her irises are light green and liquid, the pupils flaring. They are almost ethereal. I have the weird sensation that I am waking her up from a dream. It is disconcerting.
Inside the circle of my fingers, her bones are as fragile as a bird’s. I stare into her deeply mesmerizing eyes. They make me want to know everything about her. About what has made her so fragile and otherworldly. They make me want to possess her.
‘And who would you be?’ I ask, flashing her my most charming smile.
She stares up at me for a few seconds longer. Then she frowns. ‘I’m probably not what you think I am.’
What surprises me is that she did not mean her answer to be provocative or flirtatious. That instantly makes her the most interesting woman I have ever met. My cock is pulsing and crushing against my jeans like crazy, so, naturally, I promise myself that I am going to fuck her. I’ll be damned, I can’t remember the last time a woman had me this strong. I widen my grin. ‘What do you think I think you are?’
Her lips move and words quiver out. ‘A random pick-up.’
‘Wrong. I think you’re the most beautiful woman in this club, and I’d like to take you out.’
‘Where would you take me?’ she asks curiously.
‘The woods.’ My answer irritates me. Bravo, Shane. You sound like a fucking serial killer.
But the first flicker of interest appears in her eyes. ‘The woods?’
‘Yes. I have an old chateau in France. It is very beautiful this time of the year. At night the fireflies come out.’
She inhales with surprise. ‘Fireflies?’
‘A sight to behold, they are. I never tire of watching them as they blink around the garden. There used to be more, but there are fewer and fewer of them now.’
‘I have never seen fireflies. They seem more like the stuff of myths. How magical to see them for real.’
‘Then you must come to Saumur.’
‘Saumur,’ she murmurs, tasting the name on her tongue.
‘I promise you’ll love it. There are crickets and bull frogs and wild boar, and occasionally a peacock looking for a mate will wander into the grounds.’
Her mouth parts with wonder. ‘Really?’
‘Scout’s honor.’
‘Will I have to sleep with you to see all this?’
I am still holding her hand. I stroke the silky skin on the inside of her wrist with my thumb. ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ I say.
She smiles slowly, sexily. When she smiles she’s as beautiful as a field of fireflies.
‘We can just be friends?’ she asks cautiously.
My eyebrows shoot up. That’s a new one for the books. I honestly don’t think anyone has ever said that to me. ‘We can be whatever you want us to be.’
She leans closer, her eyes suddenly alight with mischief. ‘Are you wearing mascara?’
I laugh. ‘No.’
‘You have very fancy eyelashes,’ she says solemnly.
‘I could say the same about you.’ I swear I have never had such a weird conversation with a woman before.
‘But I’m wearing mascara,’ she says with a grin.
‘Do you have a name, mascara-wearing babe?’
‘My name is Elizabeth Dilshaw, but everyone calls me Snow,’ she says as she gently tugs her wrist out of my grasp.
I don’t want to but I let go. ‘Really? Snow?’
‘Yes. I was born in India where almost everyone is dark-skinned, so when I was born so fair and with such a full head of midnight-black hair, all the nurses started calling me Snow White. The name stuck and I became known as Snow.’
I smile broadly. She did step out of a fairy tale, after all. ‘Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.’
‘And you are?’
‘Shane.’
‘Yes, I think I’d like to see the fireflies and have you as my friend,’ she says softly.
Izzy Azalea and Rita Ora’s ‘Black Widow’ is playing. There are people brushing past us; I can smell their perfume and cologne. They serve as a backdrop for her. Someone calls my name, but I don’t turn to look. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
She bends her head and shakes it, and her beautiful hair moves like a silky curtain around her face. ‘No, I’m with … friends. I have to go back to our table.’
I take my phone out of my pocket. ‘What’s your phone number?’
She lifts her head and tells it to me and I key her number into my phone. Not taking my eyes off her, I press the call button. A bird starts chirping from inside her bag.
‘Now you have my number too,’ I tell her.
‘Yes, now I have your number,’ she says slowly.
The moment is strange, surreal even. Full of undercurrents and deeper meanings, it doesn’t belong in the middle of a club relentlessly dedicated to the pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. All the clever words and witty remarks have deserted me. I don’t want to let her go.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I say.
She nods slowly. ‘Yeah, maybe you will.’
For some odd reason her voice is sad. As if this promise has been made before and never kept, even though I cannot even imagine a scenario where a man takes her number and does not call. She is impossibly intriguing. I resist the temptation to reassure her that I will call.
‘Well, then. Nice to have met you,’ she says and, turning, begins to walk away.
‘Snow,’ I call.
She turns around, one charcoal eyebrow raised.
‘I will call you,’ I promise. It has never happened to me before. I have never cared to reassure anybody that I will call. If I felt like calling the next day, I called. If I didn’t, well … c’est la fucking vie.
One side of her mouth lifts, and then she turns away and carries on in her path, again an incorruptible fairy tale creature. When she disappears from my sight I can’t stop smiling. I take a triumphant sip of my drink before tilting my body slightly so I have a view of her table.
And that moment is like that video of John Newman’s track, ‘Love Me Again’. Do you know it? Where a boy and a girl meet in a dreary club. They escape from her wannabe gangster boyfriend and run out of the back doors. Hand in hand, full of hope and excitement, thinking they have outrun the bad guys, they get out of a narrow alleyway and dash straight into an oncoming vehicle. The video ends abruptly on a black screen.
I guess you are supposed to infer that they die.
Snow’s table is Lenny the Gent’s table.
The fairy tale takes an unexpected and unwelcome turn. Lenny ‘the Gent’ is not the wannabe variety but a real gangster. What they used to call a mobster. They call him the Gent b
ecause he is always so fucking polite. He would say ‘please’ or ‘do you mind’ before he hacked off your face. The Gent is surrounded by beautiful, giggling women vying for his attention, but he gazes at Snow’s approach with the kind of hunger that makes me sick to my stomach.
Fucking hell. Straight into an oncoming vehicle!
Snow is Lenny’s woman.
When she reaches his table, he stretches out his hand. For a second she hesitates then she opens her bag and gives him her phone. He pockets it, and taking another phone out of his pocket gives that to her. She puts it into her bag and sits down beside him, and he places his hand on her thigh.
I try to make out her expression, but her face is as smooth as a statue. Like a man in a daze I start walking toward her. My mind is blank. Fortunately, I collide with a waitress.
‘Sorry. It was my fault,’ she apologizes.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I tell her, my hypnotic trance broken.
I stop where I am standing and look at Snow. She is staring vacantly into her drink, her numb face the perfect frame for her empty eyes. The emptiness is total. I recognize its significance instantly. Her frozen body and expression are an instinct to survive. She has locked herself away in a place where she cannot be corrupted by the baseness and degradation around her.
A nearly naked woman is writhing her flesh close to Lenny the Gent’s face, but, like mine, his eyes are glued on Snow.
There is only one way this thing is going to end. Badly. But I don’t care. I have always gone where angels fear to tread. The blood expands in the veins of my forearms.
Snow will be mine.
The second mouse will get the cheese.
Three
SNOW
Better keep yourself clean and bright;
you are the window through which you must see the world.
—Lucien Bernard Shaw
‘Are you ready to go?’ Lenny asks. As if it is ever my decision to stay or go.
I turn my head in his direction and feel like a deer that has stepped out of cover. It stops and stands, motionless, nose to the air, watching, smelling, ready to flee at the least sound. A million years of evolution has taught it how to sniff out danger.
He looks back at me, his eyes totally blank. It is the thing that I find most unnerving about him: how dead his eyes can be at certain moments. Then he smiles and his face fills with human emotions and I forget that momentary disquiet.
‘Yes, I’m ready to go,’ I reply.
‘I’ll be coming up with you tonight,’ he says, watching me for my reaction.
I become cold inside. The deer would have bolted, but I don’t. My face cracks into a smile. ‘Of course,’ I say quietly.
He stands and holds out his hand. I take it. At the next two tables men are standing up—his minders. We walk out of the club followed by them.
What a mistake it was to talk to that impossibly gorgeous man, to flirt with him and pretend that I could ever go out with one such as him. Shane. Beautiful name. But it was stupid and careless to walk back with some of his warmth still wrapped around my wrist and his cocky smile lighting my eyes.
Lenny knew straight away. He sees everything. Eyes like a hawk. I am his possession. He doesn’t use me too often, usually twice a week, sometimes thrice, but I am his, just as much as the hammock he uses only in the summer is. He will sleep with me tonight because he wants to exercise that ownership over my body.
He is actually furious.
We get into the rear of his Rolls-Royce and he leans back and runs his hand along my inner thigh. I inhale sharply. It is an involuntary gesture and his hand freezes. My gaze swings nervously to his eyes. With a cold, hard smile on his face, he moves his hand relentlessly upwards.
I suppose it is my fault, really. If I had not allowed the other man into my head. If I had not come back thinking of fireflies. If I had just been a little better hidden, he would not be doing this now.
‘Open your legs,’ he instructs.
I part them slightly. His fingers pull away the material of my panties and brush at the seam of my core. I flinch inwardly. Outwardly, my face is calm. I stare straight ahead as if nothing is happening.
‘Dry,’ he murmurs. ‘You’re always so damn dry.’
I swallow hard. ‘I have lubricant at home.’ My voice sounds suddenly panicked. I don’t know where the instinctive horror of him comes from. He has never hurt me—at least, not yet. Perhaps, the revulsion comes from the frightening emptiness in his eyes, or the smooth hairless skin on his back. Like a reptile.
‘Hmmm.’ He takes his hand away and I close my legs with relief.
The car stops outside my building and we get out. In the lift, I know he is watching me steadily, but I cannot look at him. Here the lights are too bright, God knows what he will see. The lift doors open and we step out onto plush maroon carpet. We walk down the corridor and he opens the door with his own key. It is a small one-bedroom apartment. I live here. He pays the rent and all the bills.
I put my purse on the sideboard and head for the little table that serves as my bar. If I’m going to have sex I will need a very stiff drink.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’ I ask politely.
‘Yeah, pour me whatever you’re having.’
I require a drink where I can put lots of alcohol into the mix and no one will be the wiser. ‘I’m having vodka and orange juice,’ I throw over my shoulder.
‘That’ll do me,’ he says, and slumps onto the sofa.
I’ve noticed recently that he’s changing right before my eyes. His moods are becoming darker and more frequent. With my back to him I prepare our drinks. Mine is three-quarters vodka and a quarter orange juice. I carry our drinks over to the sofa and hand him his. I sit next to him and take a gulp. Heavens, it is strong.
‘I have some of your favorite caviar. I’ll go and get it,’ I say, attempting to stand.
His hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist. My shocked eyes fly to his face.
His thin, cruel mouth twitches. ‘I’m not hungry … for that.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I mumble anxiously, and take another gulp of my drink. I steal a glance at him and he is watching me with the kind of coldness that chills me to the bone.
‘Will you need to finish all of that before you can do anything?’ he asks, lighting a cigarette.
I nod and push the ashtray toward him.
He looks at me through swirls of smoke. ‘Go on then. Fucking finish half a bottle of vodka before I fuck you,’ he says. His words are vicious, but his tone excruciatingly courteous.
So I do. I drink the whole thing and it seeps into my limbs and deadens them. My head gets fucked and I no longer care about anything. I put the glass down carefully and look at him expressionlessly. ‘I’m ready,’ I tell him.
He stands and, pulling me up, carries my limp body to the bedroom. As bedrooms go it is unremarkable. All the furniture came with the apartment and I have not added anything to it. But it is clean. Very clean. I couldn’t bear it if it was not.
He helps me undress and when I am naked he lays me on the bed. He doesn’t undress fully. Just his trousers and his underpants. His legs are oddly stick-like compared to his upper half, which is thickly muscled and bull-like. His penis is dark red, erect and ready. The sight gives me a twinge of distaste, but I damp it down quickly.
I know he’s not a good man, but I owe him my life.
I stare up at him dumbly as he opens the first drawer and takes out a condom packet. He rips it open and rolls it on himself. Then he reaches into the drawer again and takes out a tube of KY jelly. I watch him with detachment as he unscrews the tube, chucks the top carelessly behind the bedside cabinet, and squeezes a couple of inches of gel onto his finger. He places the tube back on the cabinet surface, and comes up to me. His finger is gentle as it slides in, but the jelly is cold, and my muscles contract in rejection.
‘Shhh … relax,’ he urges, thrusting his finger deeper into me.
Don’t wo
rry, Snow, the way he tells it, it will not be a long tale of the night. Just a little story. A quick in and out. I turn my face to the side, and he climbs onto the bed and lets his mouth crawl from my neck down to my breasts.
‘You’re so fucking beautiful. So fucking beautiful. Anybody tries to take you away from me, I’ll fucking kill him,’ he mutters as he pushes deep into me.
I don’t make any sound. I start to feel that familiar feeling of being almost weightless. I know it is actually happening to me, but it feels removed as if it is happening to someone else and I am just watching.
As his body slaps against mine, my mind floats away to my childhood days. I am six years old again. My hair is in two long plaits that reach my waist and there are jasmine flowers woven into them. I can smell their strong fragrance. My nanny, Chitra, and I are standing barefoot at the entrance of an Indian temple.
Together we start ringing the big temple bell. We do so because the priest has given us special permission to help. The bell is made of different types of metal. The sound echoes into the distance to welcome the god and goddess.
Chitra and I walk into the temple together with all the other devotees. We stand with our hands clasped and watch the stone statue of the goddess being washed and dressed. A flame is waved around her then brought to us. We hold our cupped hands a few inches above the flame and touch our warm palms to our faces.
The priest, his mouth stained red with beetle juice, smiles indulgently at me, as he offers me half a coconut filled with a small banana and some flowers.
Chitra and I fall to our knees and let our foreheads touch the cool tiles. While she prays, I turn my face to look at her earnest eyes and think how beautiful she is and how much I love her. I love her more than I love anybody else in the whole wide world.
Then we stand and she bends and kisses me. She never lets her lips touch my skin; instead she presses her nose on my cheek and inhales audibly. When she moves her face away, her breath rushes against my skin. That is her way of kissing.
Lenny climaxes, as he always does, with a shrill scream.
Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes) Page 2
