by Primula Bond
He opens his arms, inviting my admiration like a showman, then he falls back onto the bed, runs his fingers greedily over me again as if he’s just discovered me under the Christmas tree, over my skin, down over the negligee, over my breasts, lingers over my nipples till they harden in response, then his hands move on down along my thighs.
‘And she has this amazing hair. Long, and lustrous, like Rapunzel.’
His lips are in my hair, running across my cheek. My mouth meets his, so warm, such a lovely fit, his body so warm, too, heavy as he continues to stroke me.
Our tongues curl round each other, more suggestively than before, then his mouth moves away down my throat. His fingers pull the negligee aside, baring my breasts, and he kisses them too, reverently and softly. My nipples are instantly burning for him. I can’t help it. I moan and arch my back towards him. I’ve waited for this forever, it seems.
And there it is, oh God, his tongue, flicking across my nipples, circling them, his lips nibbling briefly on each sore point before his mouth travels on downwards. I can’t do anything. My hands are tied above my head with the silver chain. It feels so good, lying here helplessly like this, unable to do anything, direct him, guide him, pleasure him even, other than lie here and be the feast he will enjoy again and again.
‘Please, Gustav. Fuck me. I can’t wait any longer.’
I open my legs and stretch them on either side of him. Pause. Don’t want to scare him off. Then wrap them round the back of him and pull him close to me. He glances up at me, his mouth wet from kissing, then he walks his knees back up between my thighs, so pale in the moonlight. He strokes me again, down my throat, over my breasts, down over my stomach. I hold my breath. His touch is so tender.
‘Enough with the talking.’
He is leaning over me now. I know his face so well. The half close of his eyes as if the lids are too heavy, when he’s aroused. The pushing forward of his lower lip when he finally releases it, as if eager for a kiss.
‘I want to touch you all over, Gustav. Will you untie the silver chain? I promise I’m not going anywhere.’
He grins. ‘You can’t leave me, anyway. Not while I have some rather incriminating footage in my possession.’
‘Footage?’ I wriggle anxiously.
‘I have cameras in this house, remember? Mostly switched off, actually, but that night when I thrashed you with the little nun’s whip, it’s all on film. You wouldn’t leave without securing that, would you?’
I squeal and kick at him. ‘You bastard! Blackmailing me!’
‘You’re mine, young lady!’ He laughs, and slaps me, hard, on the bottom. ‘I can hold you to ransom for as long as I like!’
We wrestle, hard, my struggle getting weaker as he weighs me down with his hands. My head flops back at last, with one last yank at my shackles.
‘You like it, don’t you? Our silver chain? Being tied like this really turns you on.’
I lie there, waiting. He lowers himself slowly over me. Unzips his jeans. And there is my prize.
Dear God, I thought this moment would never come. It was hard and brutal the other night. We were both gripped by fury and fear. But tonight? Tonight I want the luxury of taking a good look. I’m rapidly becoming unable to live without it.
So. Stay still. Don’t break the spell. We’re facing each other this time. His fathomless eyes. His sensuous mouth. He’s going to do it this time like a lover. Gorgeous, powerful, weird, wonderful Gustav Levi.
In the window the moon has slipped sideways on its way towards morning, as if averting its eyes, or ceding us some privacy.
The weight of him on my legs pins me down. I hitch my hips invitingly, see his jaw tighten as he bends his face down to brush his mouth against mine.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ he murmurs hoarsely.
I pull him into me, my legs strong and determined, and at last, at last his stomach is going tight as he starts to push inside me, little by little, he’s so hard and hot. My body encloses him. My legs wrap around his hips and we tussle, he’s strong, resisting, I’m determined, pulling, my body wants him deep, deeper inside me but still he’s testing himself, testing me, holding back for as long as possible, and then we’re rocking and tilting together, the pillows soft against my back, my bottom lifted off the bed as he pulls me with him.
This is normal, hot sex. So normal. My man and me.
His dark head is steady above mine, eyes black coals burning. It’s the face that has been uppermost in my mind for the last month.
A thump and clatter down in the hall. So Dickson has found the key.
‘Ignore him, Gustav. I’m here. Look at me.’
Gustav settles into a kind of trance, still staring at me, his fingers stroking my sides as if he’s tuning a harp. Then he takes hold of my hips, lifts them easily towards his strong, lithe body. He starts moving again. He starts to push. He’s just inside me. I move with him. It’s all so natural.
Of course he’s focused. Gustav Levi doesn’t do anything by halves. He doesn’t alter his slow, sexy rhythm. We are moving together, in time with the heartbeat of the jazz music. My legs grip tighter as he pushes further, further, he fits so perfectly, I’m loving this so much, I want to moan and thrash, and pull him and kiss him and bite him.
But I don’t. Not tonight. I show him a woman who can remain silent and submissive.
I keep my eyes on him, take a good look before the moonlight slides away completely. He’s filled out, somehow, like a ravenous man who has finally eaten a square meal. There’s no spare flesh on him, his muscles are chiselled by some kind of workout he must be doing, but I like that he’s bigger, stronger, than when I first met him. His arms ripple and flex with new muscles.
I’m his square meal. His nourishment.
I must have moaned just then, because suddenly he shifts, leaning close. I arch my back again, I’m so impatient now. Does he want my yearning breasts?
To my astonishment he reaches above me and unclips the silver chain, releasing my wrists, spreads his hands under my bottom and flips me like a pancake up towards him. We are upright now, face to face, nose to nose, like medieval saints praying on a tomb. I am straddling his knees. I feel so young like this, so athletic and free. I love that he’s playing with me, experimenting with me. And I love that he is still fitted deep inside, angled right up to the hilt.
We pause for a moment, breathing fast into each other’s faces, taunting each other to see who will move first, testing ourselves to see who will crack and give in to this incredible moment.
His lips are moving silently as if he’s counting himself in, or praying. He pulls his haunches back and so do I. He’s not gentle. He slams his hips into me and I buck back at him. We pull back together, arching in rhythm as if rowing a boat, slam back so hard that we shudder with the impact of bone on bone.
His black eyes bore through me. I want to shut mine, but I fear he might vanish if I do. I’ve shut my eyes so you can’t see me. So I keep staring back, not blinking, as we grind and pause, so solid, filling, fitting me perfectly. My body grasping him like a tight glove.
An unearthly groan rumbles in his throat. Is this a first for him, too? This perfect fit? His body tenses up again. I ease myself across his thighs, no sudden movements to startle him or break him out of his trance. My muscles tighten around him, this I remember, this I can do, this I want to do, over and over, until I’m the world’s expert.
His hands loosen slightly on my hips as his face softens. We are totally enclosed in this circle of moonlight. So gentle, compared with the last time. So real. Just the two of us. He’s totally mine, and I’m his. Body and soul.
At last it’s me he’s seeing. Nobody else. His eyes glitter with fresh fire as he renews the rhythm, faster, faster, meeting me in a spiral of excitement until his expression grows dark with the effort of holding back, and then there’s no need to hang on any more, here is his release, his eyes blazing with sheer ecstasy, his gaze never leaving mine as my own climax ru
shes at me and I fling my arms round his neck and cling to him as if I’m drowning.
Downstairs the clock finds its voice and strikes three.
SEVENTEEN
There are two photographs left unsold. The buyers of the house on the cliffs have confirmed their purchase of the Devon series of sky and seascape seen through battered window frames.
Proud as I am of those naïve efforts, it’s a weight off my shoulders to know they will soon be gone. That house as I knew it will soon be gone. My photographs will provide the local colour.
I am jittery and nervous today. I’m trying to marry my professional pride with the new-found harmony I hope I’ve found with Gustav. Two nights ago he swung through the window like the man from those old Milk Tray adverts, and fulfilled every private dream I’ve had since I arrived in London.
But now that the night is over, our first full night together, and even though he made love to me again before he left for yet another business meeting, I’m still tortured, now that we’re parted, by a nervy exhaustion I’ve never experienced before. He said he’d never let me out of his sight, and yet I don’t know where he is. I know I should be concentrating on this show and what happens after it closes, but I can’t get last night out of my head. The peaks of ecstasy followed by the calm quietness, his touch waking me to do it all again, my tongue on his skin, tasting him, his on me, exploring a new place every time.
All of that has made me a fulfilled, happy woman. All that, except the remaining dilemma. He hasn’t said what happens between us when the exhibition ends. When we can terminate the contract. I want to sell, make money, be successful, but I don’t want to have to cut loose from him. Ever again.
I wish I could speak to Polly, but she’s not answering. Probably on the plane back to NYC.
When Gustav left it was so early in the morning that a milk float was humming across the square, rattling its bottles and crates. A group of schoolgirls with long legs and short socks pushed through the gate into the garden and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get to school. They stopped under the statue and stared at something on their mobiles, their faces lit by the light box of the screen. It could have been the stage set for a London musical. Any minute I expected a flower seller and a gaggle of chimney sweeps to tap-dance out of the wings.
The two remaining unsold pictures are totally unconnected with each other, which I thought would make them harder to sell. And now I don’t want them to sell. Because what will happen then? Where will I go? How will I decide which of the many flowering avenues to take?
Crystal has handed me a clutch of portrait commissions from private clients, some of whom live as far away as the States.
One of the remaining pictures is the first I ever took with this little silver Lumix camera. I saved up all my Saturday job money and bought it on my seventeenth birthday.
That birthday was the turning point. It was the day Jake kissed me for the first time, outside the camera shop. But they had followed us into town, and saw us kissing, and hauled me back to the car, Jake running after them shouting and swearing and eventually being arrested by an off-duty policeman. They drove me back to the house on the cliffs. Why did they keep dragging me back to the house if they hated me so much?
That birthday I grew up overnight. The man who said he was my father was getting sick then, and didn’t have it in him any more to hit me. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, smoking the fags that swiftly killed him. The woman went for me like a harridan, pulling out handfuls of my hair. My ugly orange hair, as she called it. I waited for her to stop for a moment, and then I punched her in the face.
You’ll never amount to anything. We know that, and you know that. No-one will love you. No-one will employ you. No-one will want you. You’ve always been a wicked, selfish girl with ugly orange hair, and now you’re a violent slut as well.
The picture is one I took in the shopping centre just after I bought the camera, Jake urging me to hurry up, and just before they came up and caught us kissing. It’s a picture of a very long, empty escalator, shiny and grey, the parallel lines like receding railway tracks, sliding endlessly upwards, up to the next level, up towards the glass ceiling, to the sky and clouds shut out above. It’s entitled Stairway to Heaven.
The other picture remaining is a self-portrait in monochrome that Gustav had enlarged to almost monstrous proportions. It hangs on the wall so that it faces punters when they first enter the gallery. It’s a close-up of me wearing my black beret. My face is white and my lipstick looks almost black, but my eyes are staring slightly away from the lens, into the future. It’s been used as a thumbnail for some of the publicity material, but that’s it. So a tricky ask. Why would anyone want to buy that?
‘You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?’
Crystal and I are sipping our double-strength Americanos and eating doughnuts at my desk in the gallery, looking out at the Christmas lights twinkling through the afternoon rain on the grey river outside and the slow circuit of the London Eye. I’ve been reading through the catalogue of my work, each piece crossed off neatly by Crystal as sold. It’s like reading a diary of the last month. I can remember when each picture went, who it went to, and what had happened to me that day, or that night. What Gustav had said, or done.
I glance sideways at her. ‘You a mind-reader amongst your other talents?’
Gustav isn’t the only one who has changed physically. Since I first saw her dominating the reception area downstairs Crystal has altered her image dramatically. Her hair has finally been unpinned, and is in a dead straight flapper-style bob. The flowing maxi dress has been replaced by a red mannish trouser suit complete with silver tie, pin, French cuffs and fedora.
Well, we’ve all changed. I wonder if even Polly would recognise me now. My scruffy jeans and hoodies have been ceremoniously disposed of by Crystal. I have become incapable of choosing anything to wear without her say-so, and today it is a bunny-soft white cashmere dress, lined with satin, draping off my shoulders and clinging to my legs.
‘You don’t have to be a mind-reader to see what’s been happening,’ she answers crisply. ‘It’s like you were both starving, and someone has stuffed you with several square meals.’
I gasp in disbelief. ‘You are a mind-reader! That’s exactly how I thought about Gustav. But it’s not a hugely romantic description of what love can do.’
‘We all need square meals, Serena.’
Over on the other side of the gallery the lift doors swish open.
Gustav steps out of the lift slowly, speaking quietly into his phone, apparently unaware of where he is. Now I know what people mean when they say the heart leaps. Mine is ready to fling itself out of my chest.
Crystal nudges me with her sharp elbow, and I nudge her back.
It’s like time has rewound. He’s wearing the overcoat he had on the night we met. The same thick red scarf wound round his neck. His usually pale, still face is animated. Almost hectic. My leaping heart argues with my anxiously clenching stomach.
He finishes the call then studies the exhibition for a few moments, putting his finger on each of the red dots as if detonating them. Stepping back to look at the pictures as if he’s never seen them before.
At last he turns. And the broad smile that warms his face when he sees me, lifts his mouth, his eyes, his brow, his cheeks, even his hands, is like the sun coming out after a long winter. He dangles the silver chain as if ringing a concierge’s bell, and I come to heel.
‘Crystal,’ he calls, as he calmly clips the chain onto my bracelet and leads me back into the lift. ‘I think we’ll be winding this exhibition up tonight. The last two pictures are reserved.’
‘Hey! Why talk to her about it? Why not me?’
I tug grumpily on the chain but he yanks it, and me, up close to him. ‘I had to give her some kind of instruction, didn’t I, to keep her occupied while I ravish you? The only reason I’m here is because I’m going to explode if I don’t have you right here. Right now!’
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br /> I giggle nervously, glancing round the lift with all its mirrors. I lift my hands and pull his face down. ‘I’m yours whenever you want me, Gustav. Why don’t you take me home right now?’
He runs his lips over mine, eyes half closed, brushing sensuously, instantly turning me on yet always, always holding back a little, doing his thing of breathing me in like perfume. ‘No time. No time. I have to be at the airport. And I’ve just come from putting the house in Baker Street on the market.’
I blink. ‘That’s pretty radical, isn’t it?’
‘It’s down to you, Folkes. You’ve opened my eyes.’
‘I think Crystal might have tried to persuade you to get rid of it?’ I murmur tentatively. ‘We’ve had a chat about it.’
He strokes my face calmly, winds my hair round his finger. ‘It earns me a fortune from the sado-masochist hunters with nothing better to do with their money, but I still have to divide the spoils with Margot. I want to chop off that final connection. It’s like mainlining poison. I should have disconnected that artery five years ago.’
We stare at each other in silence. His face is calm, and serious.
‘And in a couple of hours I’m leaving for the States.’
‘You’re leaving London? But you said you wouldn’t let me out of your sight!’ I drop my hands and step away from him. ‘What will happen to us, Gustav? When will I see you again?’
He punches a button and the lift stops. We’re up on the top floor but the doors don’t open.
‘At the weekend. I won’t tell you exactly when. But let’s not waste time talking now, Serena. I want you so badly, I can’t think about anything else. Do you want me?’
I squirm against him hungrily. ‘God, you know I do. All the time!’
He spins me round and pushes me down. ‘Forgive me if I hurt you, Serena. I’m going to blame you. You make me like this. If we were at home, in bed, I’d be gentle, so gentle, I want to worship you as you deserve, as you’re trying to teach me, but there’s no time, no time, and oh God you make me feel like such a brute!’
