One London Day

by C. C. Humphreys

  The ready lie he’d prepared slipped away. Kosher? It brought it back, all of it. The party he was missing, the synagogue, teenagers gyrating silently, Nate stubbing out his cigarette. “Could I have one of your cigarettes please?” he blurted.

  “Of course. Special or - ? ”

  “Just… tobacco. Please.”

  The fixings were on the coffee table. She took her time; her focused movements calmed him as they had before - and he realized, suddenly, quite clearly, that he was calm with her in a way that he wasn’t with anyone else now. It wasn’t because he’d touched her. The sex had been almost non existent, and such as there was, a failure. But she had this air to her, this Lottie, as if the world about her was… just there, supporting her, something to ease through, not confront. While he felt like he was running into a succession of walls, she was just… a breeze passing between hardnesses.

  She lit the roll up, dragged on it, passed it over. He was a smoker again, fuck, fourteen years since Rachel was coming. Well, his daughter was a woman today, and he inhaled again, gratefully.

  Lottie rose, then flopped beside him, close to him. “I think you need to tell me what’s going on, Joe.”

  He knew he couldn’t tell her too much. It could be contagious, what he was up to, and he didn’t want her infected. But she’d need to know a little. In case…

  In case. It was the first time he’d thought that. Everything had been easy before. No ‘in case’, nothing to go wrong. Until it all went wrong.

  He told her his half truths. Tapped the bag when referring to its contents. Books, to keep the figures out of the Cloud. A friend’s company, tax evasion, nothing too sinister.

  “ ‘Sticking it to the man?’ Isn’t that what you used to say in your hippie days?”

  “Hippie? How old do you think I am?”

  “Dunno. Fifty?”

  “I’m forty two! Christ!”

  “Ah, but you have an older air, Mr Severin. Especially today. The cares of the world?” She leaned down and tapped the bag as he had done. “And they’re all in here, aren’t they?”

  He hadn’t thought of opening the bag. Stash it. Leave. But her, her ease, her scent, the world out there. ‘In case…’

  “Look, there’s something else. I… I don’t know how to…I don’t know if I can explain but - ” he said, sighed, and opened the hemp bag.

  She saw the plastic bag from Tesco’s straightaway. Her eyes went wide. “My letters!”

  “Yes.”

  “You told me they were lost.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you just find them?”

  “No. I’ve had them all along. Since that first day, when you came to the flat.”

  “What? Then why did you…?” Her eyes widened and she leaned closer. “Wait a minute! Have you read them?”

  “Every one.” She took a breath to speak the outrage on her face and he rushed on. “I had to. I became obsessed. As soon as I saw your back. Then I read your words. Your wonderful, angry words. I couldn’t help myself. It was like,” he looked out the window, into the hot blue sky, “like someone had opened a door onto a world I used to know. The one where I… where I used to live.” He looked at her again, tried to read her expression. The anger was still there, but something else warred with it. Warred and won, and then she spoke.

  “The real Joe, eh? That one I’ve glimpsed, who comes and goes?” She shook her head. “I’m still pissed off…”

  “I’m so sorry…”

  “And yet,” she smiled, “you know the problem with ‘letters never sent’ which a couple of those are? If they are never read, what’s the point of them? What’s the fucking point?” She stood, reached down a hand. “Come on.”

  “What? Where to?”

  “The bedroom.”

  “Lottie. I - ”

  “No. Come on. The real Joe’s here. About time.” She took the fag, dead now, from his fingers, dropped it into the ashtray without letting him go, then tugged. “I think we need to take advantage of his visit, don’t you?”

  It was so different, their lovemaking. The other time, after the canal side pub, the fear in him, the guilt, had held him back. The lies too; and since these were mostly gone, at least to her, so were his restraints. He didn’t rush, didn’t feel the need, despite that world out there, its demands. And Lottie was different too. The teaser had left, the role she’d taken on, the tough young seductress with her roll ups, her hashish, her bravado, had left too. She opened to him, they opened to each other, touch was unplanned, positions unthought. All simply unfolded.

  Afterwards they lay there for a while, her sprawled across him as if she would sink every part of herself into him – her toes into his shins, her hip bone into his, her belly sunk into his, her breasts into his chest, her head tucked under his chin. And he took strands of her hair and ran his fingers through the knots, untangling them through a long, easy silence. She left only to get her tobacco, sat up to roll one and he watched her do it again, fascinated by the precision. Then she flopped beside again, placed an ashtray on his chest. They smoked, again in that content silence. Words, he thought, will just draw me back – like the words on the phone that had buzzed twice in his suit pocket, that he knew without having to see. Where are you? Get back here! But for the first time in an age, he was in no rush.

  It was Lottie who broke it. Sitting up, stubbing the butt out, pressure over his heart. “Listen, sorry, but I do have to get on. Someone’s coming over.”

  Another pressure, this time within. “Your boyfriend?”

  “I’m not sure that’s what he is.” She rolled off the bed, reached down for her cotton underwear, sat back to pull them on. “But I’m sure it’s over. Just need to tell him.”

  “Really?”

  He couldn’t help his smile. Which she saw, and her voice went back to what it had been, London-edged. “Wassat to you, mate?”

  “I… I don’t know. I - ”

  She stepped off the bed. “Well, we need to talk. But not now. You have… things to do, right?” She sniffed. “Wow! Smells like people have been having sex in here. Shocking!” She twanged her panties. “Best these come off again.” She reached down, ran her fingers through his chest hair, then picked up the ashtray and placed it on the side table. “Shower?”

  There was a clock on the bedside table. It read 4pm. Fuck. “I… don’t think I can.”

  She grinned. “I think you should, bra. I assume you’re going back to your daughter’s party? Probably best you don’t walk in smelling like a dead boar.” She raised her hand and slapped his chest now. “I won’t distract you. Go!”

  He knew words would screw it all up. Whatever they’d had, had passed. But as he rinsed quickly in the walk-in shower, he wondered if it could pass his way again, and what would be the cost.

  He towled, dressed, went out, found her on the balcony in a silk kimono, smoking of course, staring down at the street. “That yours?” she asked, pointing down.

  He looked. The traffic warden was just slapping a ticket on his windscreen. “Fuck,” he exclaimed.

  “So that’s the price of love!” Lottie said. “Sixty pounds to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.”

  She laughed and after a moment, he did too. “Listen, there’s something else,” he said, and put the envelope of money into her hand.

  “Woss this?”

  “Fifteen hundred pounds.”

  “Crikey, Mr Severin, I’m not that kind of girl.” She giggled. “And even if I was I don’t think I’d fetch that much.”

  “Can you keep it for me too? Just till Monday?”

  She turned to him, serious now. “Tell me, Joe. Just how much trouble are you in?”

  “Not much,” he said, too quickly. He took a breath. “Not too much, anyway. And it will be sorted by Monday, honest.”

  “OK.” She took the envelope and threw it onto the coffee table. “Don’t worry. I’ll tuck it away somewhere safe. And that bag.” She nodded to it on the coffee t
able.

  “Good. And I’ll see you… Monday.”

  “Ok. You’ll have to call first.”

  He’d lifted his jacket, paused. “Playing hard to get?”

  “I’ve been got, haven’t I?” She shrugged. “You’re not the only one with complications, Mr Severin.” Maybe it was something on his face but she smiled, relented. “But it would be good to see you.”

  He slipped on his jacket. His shirt was instantly damp again from the heat and clung to him, almost as close as she had. He turned at the door. “Monday too, we can, uh, talk. About us.”

  “There’s an us?” She dropped her hair over an eye. “Thrilling.”

  He wanted her again, suddenly, badly, right then, right there. But his phone buzzed in his pocket, and his two lives pulled him, the new and the old. “See you,” he called, as he walked to the door.

  When he reached it, she spoke. “I’ll be expecting the real Joe, mind.”

  He smiled as he left.

  13

  Sunday July 29th 2018

  Sonya had made a mistake.

  She knew it immediately, as soon as the second handcuff locked. Saw it in the john’s eyes, how they changed with the click.

  She’d always trusted her instincts. They had kept her safe, long before she became an escort, before the army even. From her childhood, her father. Unpredictable when sober he was doubly so when drunk, when his restraints dissolved and the meanness came. The professor of music vanished, the kid who’d starved on the streets of Leningrad during the siege returned. He had only survived the war because when an opportunity came to take what he wanted, he had. Later, in the army, she’d thought her father had been her first and best training course. Unarmed combat. Read the enemy, discover his weakness, use it against him. A few early losses to her father had taught her most of what she’d needed to survive.

  Desperation, she thought - as this man’s eyes changed, narrowed, and he went to the end of the bed, to his briefcase on the fold out stand there, and she pulled against the cuffs, the two pairs that held both her hands against the single wrought iron bedpost, hoping that one of them might somehow have failed to fully lock or that the post was weak within the frame.

  Neither was true.

  Desperation had made her careless. His offer had been high - £1500, and not even for the whole night. A quarter of what she still needed to make for Marushka’s operation, which had to happen faster now, her daughter’s pain greater, her movements slower, the drugs less effective - according to Georgiy, her husband, on his own edge, deciding whether to tumble off it into the warmth of his addiction. So she hadn’t tried to read this man deeper, had accepted the softness in his eyes as genuine. He also said she’d been recommended to him by Bernard, the one who mourned his wife and mostly only wanted to hold her in the night. She hadn’t tried to contact him, to confirm this Eric. You didn’t contact clients, they contacted you.

  She watched him pull a large, black rubber dildo from his case, complete with straps to attach it around his pelvis. Which he proceeded to do, dropping the white dressing gown from off his shoulders, wrapping the belts around his waist, below a small, bulging pot belly which was streaked in curly, greying hairs.

  She tried to keep her voice level, to keep the fear from it, to even make it playful. “What are you planning, Eric?”

  He started, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. Paused in his strapping, his eyes piggie-small, angry. “Planning, Eric?” he echoed, mimicking her accent. “Eric’s planning to fuck you up the arse, you fucking whore.”

  She didn’t mind the abuse. Most of her clients were nice, polite Englishmen. Some needed to be angry with her during the act, perhaps to justify it. Though afterwards they nearly always apologised, and tipped her.

  Not this one, she knew, she could see.

  They’d agreed a safe word. She tried it. “ ‘Bluebell,’ ” she said.

  He only laughed again and came nearer. He banged the dildo into her face.

  “Though of course Eric’s not my real name. My name’s Sebastien.” He smirked. “Ring any bells? Did dear Bernard never mention me to you?”

  It rang no bells. Bernard talked of no one except his dead wife. It did not matter anyway now, there was only one way this was going. Still, she had to try. “You will stop this!” she yelled at him. “Free me now or I will call the police.”

  “Police?” He shook his head, halting at the edge of the bed, the erect rubber rising toward the ceiling close to her face. “A Russian whore calls the police on a… well-known government servant. She claims assault, he claims blackmail. I wonder who they’ll believe? I wonder if your work permit, if you have one, permits whoring? I wonder if you want to risk that, and lose the chance to make the money you need for your brat’s operation.” Her eyes must have shown her surprise because he added, his grin widening, “Oh yes, Bernard told me. Wept as he told me about you, how you hold him in the night, help him forget poor dead Eloise for a while.” He laughed. “And I clucked, and poured him another whisky, and thought, ‘stupid cunt, she’s a whore, a fucking Russian whore.’ But that was before I knew you were something more than that. Or rather, in addition to that. Which is what you are going to tell me about now. All about how you met Bernard and your… intentions for him. All about Lottie Henshaw and Patrick Ogulu too. I assume you fucked them both last Thursday, hmm?” When she did not reply, he smiled. “Though I suppose the first question is this is: do I bugger you first, Sonya Ivenetza, and you answer me afterwards, or vice versa? Shall I toss a coin?”

  She still didn’t say anything. He shrugged. “Aren’t you the silent type? Learn that in the army, did you?” Her eyes widened a little and he smiled. “Oh yes, I now know a lot about you, Miss Ivenetza. Ex-forces, and,” he laughed, “I discovered this simply extraordinary fact - that you were once the fastest Kalashnikov stripper in the whole Russian Army! Gifted with you’re your hands, eh? Hence my precaution - ” He nodded at the cuffs. “But what I would really like to know first is if you are current KGB? Hmm? Any thoughts?” He jammed the dildo again into her face. “No?” He shrugged. “Very well, you know what? I’ve made up my mind. As to the order of things. So why don’t you turn around? I’ve got something for you.”

  She didn’t move. “I’ll scream.”

  “I expect so.”

  “The hotel staff will come.”

  “What from ten floors below?” He shook his head. “And there are no other guests nearby. There are two suites on this floor and I’ve booked them both. But, just in case - ” He reached for the remote on the bedside table, and turned on the TV. He flicked through the film offerings to the guide, found a classical music station on FM, turned the volume way up. Schubert filled the room. Her father’s favourite. He dropped the remote back onto the table. “Scream over that, why don’t you?” he yelled.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to try, and he hit her, backhanded across her face. She wrenched hard on the cuffs, twisting her wrists, felt a greater pain than on her cheek in the right one. She was frightened now, her breath coming faster, too fast. Breathe, she thought. Think. This was more than just a bad client. This man, his knowledge of her? But that she would consider later. There was one thing for now, and she would only get one chance at it. For it to work though, she needed him angry.

  So Sonya began to laugh.

  It stopped him, even as he bent to grab a fistful of her silk teddy. “What’s so fucking funny?” he said.

  “You. You are so fucking funny. What are you, a British spy? You think you’re James Bond or something? But you can’t get it up any more, so you have to put on this thing. No women will fuck you now, because you can’t, you are so useless. So you blame them, blame me. You should blame only yourself, you weakling. You coward.”

  He stood upright, his face working in fury. Took the step back, the one she needed. “You ugly - ” he began.

  Making her toes rigid as a board, she swung her leg hard round and kicked him in the side of the
nose. His head snapped around and he went down hard, the bonus for her when his head hit the bedside table, spilling it. Lamp, alarm radio, his phone, water glass all fell to the floor around him. He groaned, writhed. She knew she only had a little time. If she’d obeyed him, turned to face the iron post where her hands were she’d never been able to get any weight into a kick, so she’d twisted her hips to the other side of the bed, knowing that the only force would come from their uncurling. She’d been lucky, with the table, but luck would last only until he came to. She could guess what would happen if he did and she was still attached to the bedpost.

  He’d put the keys to the cuffs in his dressing gown pocket. That lay where he’d dropped it at the end of the bed beside his briefcase. She wriggled her body down the bed, biting her lip against the pain at her wrist. At full stretch… she still could not quite reach the dressing gown with her toes. She wriggled back up, levered herself off the bed till she was lying on the floor. This Sebastien was about a foot away from her. He groaned now, his eyelids fluttering. His nose was bleeding.

  Her arms stretched high above her, she reached, and managed to curl her toes into the linen robe; held it, pulled it, lost it, got it back. Slowly, she inched it towards her, then used both her feet to lift it onto the bed. She got back up herself, probed the pockets, using her big toe and the next one to try and snag the keys. She had them twice, dropped them twice. Third time she had a proper grip. Curling herself round, blessing the yoga she did to keep in shape, she lifted her legs over her head and lowered the keys onto her out-stretched fingers.

  The angle was hard, and her fingers numb. The two cuffs helped, where one would have been impossible. She could twist her wrists, the right one hurting a lot when she did. Through the pain she turned it; got the first key wrong, just as Sebastien rolled onto his back and started to cough. The second key turned, she had one hand free, and then she swiftly released her second, just as the man sat up, leaned towards her. “What the fuck?” he said, stretching his own left hand out.