by Primula Bond
‘Do whatever you want and be quick about it!’ I growl back. I fall onto my hands and knees. I let him manhandle me. Because this might be the last time. The illogical remnants of fear, so hard to shake off, still grip me. That he might not come back to me. But then the logical voice drowns out those fears. Of course he’ll come back. I know now that I am the chink in his armour. The light in his darkness.
‘Close your eyes. Imagine we’re somewhere beautiful, not stuck in a seedy lift.’
‘I don’t want to close my eyes. I want to see you.’
I stare at him, hanging above me in the mirror. And that’s the moment when I realise I love that face. I love him.
‘Even if I do go away, I can’t bear the idea of anyone else having you.’ He kneels down behind me and starts to push my dress up over my legs, my hips. His breath is hot against my hair. ‘Nobody else. I want to mark you somehow as mine.’
‘We have the silver chain?’
In the mirror his dark eyes flash at me, and he nods. The silver chain is our own not-so-secret code. He loops it loosely round my neck, and then goes on pushing at my dress. The soft cashmere whispers over my spine, raising every hair on my skin. I shiver as he pulls down my knickers, lets the cooler air skim my bare bottom. The zip on his trousers rips down. Pure excitement prickles through me. I’m wet already, my knees trembling and weak. I can’t wait to feel him, his fingers, his hardness. Any part of him is a taper to my flame.
His fingers move over my butt cheeks and ease them apart and I brace myself because I know what’s coming. Something new. I’m ready and willing. I’ll do anything he wants, because I want it too. I can see our reflections, our faces, my kneeling body, his big hands on my hips, moving in the stark light. I don’t feel low down kneeling here. I am elegant. Poised, my white skin in the white dress, my hair waved and fiery around my eager face. I’m kneeling, but I’m not bowed. And he’s not bearing down on me like some kind of rutting stud. He’s holding me safely in place.
‘Any which way, Gustav. I’m your lover today, even if it’s the last time.’
I do bow my head then, because tears are burning my eyes.
‘You talk too much, Folkes. Don’t even think. It’s easier that way.’
I give in to him. Give in to everything. When those last two photographs go, my career will be launched. But this part of my life will all be over.
He smears something cool up between my cheeks, and I subside into a kind of trance. This should feel crude, degrading, but it doesn’t. Gustav’s fingers on me, the cream, the slow, deliberate way he is rubbing it in as if anointing me with some kind of balm, is soothing and tender. That’s how things are between us now.
The cream is warm now, as if he’s heated it, and now his fingers open the way, and his hardness is there again, that lovely hardness, that lovely stiffness, probing at the private opening which closes like a fist against the intrusion. But he pushes so gently, it feels damp and welcoming there, and he is long and smooth, pulsing with warmth. My man.
I tip my bottom up higher without thinking because it feels sensational.
‘My darling little whore, inviting me in,’ he breathes, tickling my neck. ‘What have I created?’
I rub my cheek against his hard cheekbone, and giggle softly. ‘Yes, I’m inviting you in. I want to please you, Gustav, so that you can never let me go.’
He starts to push between my buttocks. My hair swings across my back as I arch myself a little more and he takes hold of it so that the roots tug gently at my scalp.
He groans and nudges inside my private space, pausing, pushing again, entering with a little pop, waiting again, and then he’s right inside, a tight fit, and we start to move. I rock on my hands and knees, wanting to scream out loud with dirty excitement. His hand is underneath me, cupping me, supporting me, and I rub against it, matching his rhythm behind me as we move together, opening that tight part of me to let him in, no clenching or resistance, just gripping him in there, chasing the hot tangle of pleasure way up inside me, his balls going tight as his pleasure rises, he’s thrusting now, sensations are sparking and radiating through me, how dirty can it get?
Gustav accelerates his rhythm, ramming into me. Not so gentle now. The fighter is back. Our breathing is hard and fast. There are voices somewhere, people who need the lift punching the buttons, and we both laugh softly even as we rock faster and faster, urgently, and then he’s calling out my name in a broken sob, and I love him, and I fall back, squeezing him inside me until he stops moving.
His hands drift off me and I pull my dress down over the stickiness. I reach over and zip up his trousers. He tugs the silver chain and pulls me close to him. He pushes my hair off my hot, flushed face and looks at me serenely for a long time before nodding slowly.
‘You and me, Serena. Sometimes it feels like dynamite. I’d like to have you in every single corner of London that means something to me. Every restaurant, every bar, every park bench. I’m so hungry all the time. I don’t know how I lasted nearly forty years without you.’
I hold my breath. ‘So tell me what’s going to happen to us, Gustav.’
He punches the button, and the lift doors open. A crowd of people are standing there, clutching phones, briefcases, and extremely puzzled looks.
‘I’m away to New York now but meet me here on Friday evening. OK?’
So there’s no time to say any more.
EIGHTEEN
The gallery has been stripped. The brightness from the window and the bare walls dazzle me as I step out of the lift. I wanted to wear a dress today, I wanted to dress to kill, but Crystal has styled me in an immaculately tailored white trouser suit, the twin of her red one, with a silk flower in the button hole, low-cut silk camisole, high heels.
It’s Friday evening, but Gustav isn’t here. And all the photographs have been carted away. All except the last two.
‘You never said it was being dismantled today, Crystal!’ I run around the gallery, banging at the bare walls as if somehow that will bring the photographs back.
‘Gustav’s orders. The pictures are all sold, so we need something seasonal now.’
‘A Christmas exhibition? Hardly his style, I wouldn’t have thought?’
‘We’re not talking Santas and elves if that’s what you mean. He’ll find a whole other face to fit the Christmas spirit, you can be sure of that.’ She takes out a hairbrush and starts on my hair with her habitual one hundred strokes which got forgotten this morning. Her mouth is spiky with kirby grips. ‘He’s always been infuriatingly restless. He wants to move on. He’s had it with London for now.’
‘The man who tires of London is tired of life. So where does that leave me?’’
‘Only he can answer that one. But you’ve both done extremely well out of it. Your first ever show’s a sell-out, Serena. How many artists can say that? You’ve learned so much on the job. So. Has he given you your cheque yet?’
We are distracted by movement at the window, and watch in astonishment as the sky tips snow over the city.
‘No. And I don’t know who bought the last two pictures, anyway.’
She combs my hair into a high ponytail.
‘You’re going to miss him, aren’t you?’
‘Like hell. But don’t tell him I said that.’
‘I think he already knows.’
‘I wish he’d give me a clue about what happens next, then. I don’t know if we’ve become genuinely close, or I’ve just thawed him a little.’
My fingers wander to the silver bracelet.
Crystal pats my hand. ‘He’s never given anyone anything as pretty as this. It’s an intimate gesture for him. And the silver chain? Pretty, but kinky.’
I blush and twist the bracelet round my wrist. ‘We’re supposed to be permanently attached by it. And symbolically or otherwise, I can’t actually take it off now even if I wanted to.’
‘Only he can unlock it, you mean?’
‘All I know is I don’t want to say go
odbye to him.’ I pick up my embroidered pashmina and fling it round my neck.
‘So find a way to keep him, darling.’ She arranges the pashmina around my head for a moment, making me look like a nun. ‘The oldest trick in the book. Women have always snared their man in the most obvious way. So do it your way, next time. Not his.’
I blush harder. ‘What do you mean? What’s in your crystal ball today, Crys?’
‘Crystal.’ She’s changed her image yet again today. Her hair is half up, half down, in a kind of artfully loose geisha girl’s roll, to go with her antique golden kimono. She ties the wide, obi-style belt more tightly round her tiny waist and trips round the desk in her geta shoes to study a new list of figures. ‘Use your assets, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘How can I, if he’s not here?’
I stand in front of the self-portrait, lit by its single spot in the huge expanse of empty wall. I follow the curve of my face and shoulders in the photograph. I took that in the railway station waiting room, just before I caught the train to London. The red spot in the corner of the frame catches my eye.
Who would want to buy a picture of me?
The lift doors open and my heart does that skipping, lifting thing. I deliberately remain in front of the picture. If I turn round he’ll see it written in my face.
But it’s not Gustav. Several burly blokes I’ve never seen before wearing blue overalls and plugged into iPods stagger out into the gallery carrying huge misshapen parcels which look like cadavers wrapped in bubble wrap.
‘What are you doing? What have you got there?’
‘Setting up for the next show, Miss. Sculptures made out of recycled coat hangers, or summat like that.’
I hurry to the desk to check who bought the last photograph. But there are no details of the buyer of the Stairway to Heaven and my self-portrait.
I glance at the figures on the balance sheet, minus the final sale, and the reality of my success heats me stealthily from the feet upwards. I am rich. No doubt about that. Even minus Gustav’s hefty commission, I am now a very successful, very wealthy young woman.
Right back at you, everyone who said I’d amount to nothing.
The phone makes me jump.
‘It’s for you.’
Crystal hands it to me.
‘Serena? Have you cleared out of there yet? We need the gallery space for the new exhibition.’
‘My pictures have all gone, yes. All except the last two which are still here, waiting for their buyers to pick them up. What’s going on?’
‘I meant your personal items. Everything needs to go. The entire gallery has been sold.’
Gustav’s voice is gruff and brisk and snatched away by traffic and voices and the outside world. I glare at Crystal, who shrugs a little shamefacedly at keeping this bombshell from me. I have to delay for just a little longer.
‘Where are you?’
There is a pause.
‘Bring the envelope with you.’
‘What envelope?’
Crystal hands it to me.
‘I’m over at the London Eye.’
I have come to think of this as my own private stretch of the River Thames. I’ve captured it on my camera at all different times of the day and night. Now snow is scudding thickly sideways as if a giant is blowing it, turning everything in its path to monochrome.
My eye follows the river westwards towards the elegant wheel. I imagine him standing there, tall and dark in his coat, his hand raised in the air as if he is drowning. The thick red scarf wrapped round his neck the only slice of colour.
‘You can’t see me, but you have about half an hour to get across to me.’
I bang my forehead against the glass, still holding the phone. ‘What am I supposed to do? Swing across the river on a trip wire?’
‘A cab will do for now.’ He laughs, a low, melodious sound I’ve never heard before. He doesn’t share his laughter with just anyone. Maybe it’s going to be alright, after all. ‘But one day I’d like to see you fly.’
He is standing like a sentry beside an empty, waiting pod. The rest of the London Eye is swathed in snowy swirls now, but this pod is brightly lit, belching out warm air, and furnished with a comfortable-looking low-slung seat set with champagne and chocolate truffles.
He ushers me inside and with a kind of princely bow hands me a glass of champagne.
‘What goes around, comes around,’ he murmurs enigmatically, as the doors seal us into our bubble.
I’m consumed with shyness. So is he, perhaps, because we are silent as the Eye rises slowly. From up here we can make out the gallery along the other side of the river, its huge riverside window lit brightly. The self-portrait is still hanging in there, alone in the expanse of whiteness unless Crystal has told those delivery men to take it down. They will have deposited the new exhibits and disappeared by now. Crystal must have gone, too. Serena Folkes’s oversized face will be the only sign of humanity in there.
‘Not even I could have predicted how quickly this exhibition would sell out. Something in your work hit the mark, Serena. The zeitgeist.’
It is getting warmer in the pod, and I am blushing like crazy. I unwind the pashmina from my neck. The silk of the camisole under the jacket is still cool where it lies across my skin, but it’s beginning to stick to my back and under my arms. My new boots click nervously on the floor.
‘I’m thrilled about the last photograph selling, but I didn’t want the exhibition to end so soon, Gustav.’ I look at him, but I’m not sure he’s heard me. ‘Our arrangement, I mean. I’m not ready to go it alone.’
He is staring out of the window, this time downriver towards Tower Bridge, his glass tapping against his chin. The snow is so thick now that it could be night time. It’s as if someone has dropped a white cloak over us. Landmarks and lights and shapes are muffled.
I get up and walk to the opposite side of the pod.
‘This is going to feel like a very long ride if you’re not going to talk to me, Gustav.’
We are floating in the sky now, over the spires and rooftops of London.
‘I forgot to put this on you.’ He is beside me now, tall and warm, lifting my coat off. He flings it onto the bench then takes my wrist to snap on the silver chain.
‘What’s the point of chaining me up now? I’m not going to jump out of the window,’ I remark a little coolly.
He nods, turning his mouth down a little sheepishly. ‘I admit it was meant to look like a lead at first. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Master and slave. Patron and protégée. And we’ve been all these things together, haven’t we? But it’s become redundant as a restraint.’ He threads it through his fingers thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it was more of a security chain for me.’
‘Well, it’s none of those things any more. I can hardly be chained to you when you’re vamoosing to New York, and I’ll be–’
‘Where would you like to be?’
His voice is soft, like silk in my ears, chasing away the awkwardness. He walks over to the bench, the little chain tugging me with him. He takes off his own coat. The chain goes taut but I stay where I am.
‘Not Devon. It won’t be the same here in London, if you’re going away. My heart is set on returning to Venice, but first I have new commissions to honour.’
‘That’s what I like to hear. You’ll need a new venue, of course, when you collate your next exhibition.’ He pats the bench next to him, pulling on the chain and smiling. ‘You have some new material?’
My feet are aching, unaccustomed to standing about on high heels. I sit down obediently.
‘If you must know it’s all about my new family. The Levi household. Windows and doors. I have some pictures I took at the chalet. In your house in the square. Dickson cooking. I went into the garden the other evening and took pictures of him and Crystal peeling vegetables through the steamed-up windows.’
‘Domestic bliss. Except Crystal tells me you’ve likened us to the Addams Family.’
I blush like a
schoolgirl. But he is laughing. He taps the tip of my nose. ‘Which makes you, who? Morticia or Wednesday?’
He pulls me onto the bench and we straddle it, face to face. Our favourite position. He slides me closer, pulling off my jacket. My skin rises in goosebumps, tingling in response. The silk of my camisole shivers over my breasts. My whole body yearns towards him. I put my hands on his long legs to steady myself.
‘Who bought the last two pictures, Gustav? Did you bribe someone to buy them so it would all be over and you could go on your way?’
His head is bent in concentration. He strokes the silk slip almost absently where it clings to my breasts, stopping just above my nipples. I hold my breath. Touch me there, oh please, touch me there.
He stops touching me, and picks up the white envelope.
‘You’ll get a lovely surprise when you find out who your last buyer is. But what does it matter who bought them? Have you seen how much money you’ve made?’
‘We’ve made.’
I open the envelope. There is a cheque in there, and another envelope.
‘You haven’t taken your commission, Gustav! This is the full amount!’
‘I’d like to take it in kind. My droit de seigneur.’ His hands are moving over my neck, squeezing slightly, feeling the pulse there. I stare at his fingers, moving so close to my breasts. ‘You haven’t forgotten that was part of the deal? Your idea, not mine.’
‘Oh, that’s so good,’ I breathe, my head empty of anything sensible.
He strokes my breasts. My hardening nipples tell him everything he needs to know.
‘Did we set a limit on how many times we could do it?’
He deftly unpins my hair and it tumbles down my back. He lifts a strand to sniff it.
I shake it off my face. ‘Not as such, no. I would have done it every night, every day, every which way, if you’d only come to me sooner.’
