This was the power and the glory. The beginning and the end. Death and resurrection.
Her appetite was whetted, and there was no turning back.
A sense of corruption such as she had never known came up in her. Gladly now she surrendered to her basest animal urges.
Forward she rocked on the balls of her feet.
Wildly, shamelessly, obscenely she twisted her hips, rubbing and thrusting her opening in his face.
And still he grasped tightly to her smooth solid buttocks, still he gulped mouthfuls of nectar from her bottomless well.
Again she cried out, digging her nails into the granitic, plaited muscles of his shoulders. So intense was the spasm, so overwhelming the sensation of being swept away and flung out of the cosmos, that she clung to him for dear life.
Then, her entire body weak and racked with tremors, she sank unsteadily to her knees. Her firm breasts and flat belly rose and fell, and still she kept clutching him, drawing one deep, ragged breath after another.
It was her first orgasm of the afternoon, but not the last.
Barely had she recovered when Christos laid her, face up, on the abrasive, dirty ochre carpet as though upon a flower-strewn altar of devotion.
Never had cushions of silk felt finer than these chafing nylon fibers! Never had the ministrations of priest or lover raised her to such transcendental consciousness.
With bated breath she waited. With eyes wide and luminous, she gazed at him raptly, following his every move.
No detail escaped her heightened senses. Not the rain squiggling down the closed window above them, which cast pale, wormlike shadows to crawl and wiggle down his face and gleaming nude body; not the reflection of herself she saw in his eyes, two miniature Glorias captured within those exceptional rings of dark cobalt; not the musky scent of her climax that lingered on his breath.
'And now,' he whispered, 'we begin. Really begin.'
'Yes!' she breathed eagerly. 'Oh, Christos! Yes!'
He knelt over her, took her by the wrists, and gently spread-eagled her arms and pinioned them to the floor. Then, dipping his head, he gave his undivided attention first to one plumply nippled breast and then the other.
His lips were paralyzing. She lay there, eyes closed, the better to concentrate on every exquisite sensation. She felt his velvet tongue trace a snail's trail of leisurely concentric circles, explore the soft, warm valley between her bosom, brush the tender, swollen buds of her nipples.
Like a newborn he suckled, inflaming her aching need and drawing out the inevitable, deliberately prolonging the sweet, maddening torture by thwarting her urgency.
Then she felt his delicious weight atop her, and her pulse quickened. Tears sprang to her eyes—tears of joy and exhilaration. 'Yes!' she gasped. 'Oh, Christos, now! Now!'
'Easy . . . ' he breathed, the word a cool exhalation against her feverish skin. 'Easy does it. There's no rush.'
She groaned, unable to bear her deferred desires a moment longer— no, not a moment!—but still he continued to tease, merely letting her feel the straining length of his phallus trapped between their bellies.
She lifted her head, her expression accusing. 'Christos!'
But he wasn't about to be hurried, and took obvious delight in her frustrated hands clenching and unclenching, her arms and thighs tensing, her torso thrusting upward, demanding to be filled.
'Inside me!' she gasped. 'For the love of God, Christos! Put it inside me!'
Now he suckled her teats with the passion of a grown man: nipping harder, more urgently. Rolling a plum-tipped nipple gently between his teeth.
Her eyes were once again shut and she moaned and writhed, whipping her head from side to side. Carefully his teeth applied more pressure, and she thrashed wildly, her mouth gaping wide, as if she sought intoxicated ecstasy from the very air itself.
Now he felt his blood racing through his veins, the sense of power, as though mainlined, gathering strength and centering in his penis. Cruelly, he bit down hard.
This time her screams echoed off the walls as the pain shot through her. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him wildly.
'Open your legs,' he whispered. 'Part your thighs.'
She needed no prompting. Greedily her legs parted and she bent her knees pliantly, drawing them toward her shoulders and bracing herself with her forearms.
His hands gripped her hips and then he straddled her.
She closed her eyes, welcoming the blackness. Purposely banishing all visual distractions so that she might relish every last, delicious morsel of sensation.
Slowly he entered her.
Pain and pleasure. She gasped aloud as the two merged and became one.
And suddenly the veil of blackness lifted and she saw scenes of infinite wonder: ever-shifting pictures transforming themselves like fleeting dreams—a swan taking wing, only to morph into a pale pink rosebud that opened as though filmed with time-lapse photography.
Everything she felt became visions of inordinate beauty. His gentle thrusts were fleecy clouds wafting, feather-light, against the bluest of blue skies. His full deep penetration became a herd of leaping white stallions. And when she contracted her muscles around him and met his every thrust, she saw a vivid cloud of violet-and-pink butterflies take flight.
Dear God in heaven: impossible, this consuming ecstasy, this wild, impassioned rapture of flesh merged with flesh! Sizzling embers hissed and burst, sent white-hot sparks shooting from her fiery core out through her extremities.
And still the mental images kept coming: thousands upon thousands of flickering candles. A burning prairie. The tide receding from a sandy- bottomed ocean, the water building into a far-off wall, and the top cresting into a single giant tidal wave.
Then the entire ocean suddenly raced toward her, lifting her high into its concave curl and thrashing her about—
—and with her entire body and soul she climaxed.
It was as if the floor gave way beneath her and the heavens exploded. Screaming, she convulsed and raked Christos's bare back with her nails.
Now that he'd brought her to orgasm, he abandoned all attempts at self-control. With renewed urgency he plunged furiously in and out, in and out, faster, faster! In and out, in and out, in and out and in and—
Then the dark, primal bellow rose from the depths of his throat as he, too, climaxed in a storm of magnificent, earth-shaking release.
Together now, they slumped, gasping and shuddering, into each other's sweat-sleeked, trembling arms.
If the afternoon had ended there, Gloria would have been more than satisfied.
But it didn't end there. Christos wasn't done yet. And he soon proved that he was, in fact, only just beginning . . .
'Well, I see you're finally home,' Hunt said.
Gloria, heels clicking on the foyer's checkerboard marble, stopped cold in front of the baroque giltwood mirror, drew a deep breath, and then turned swiftly around.
Hunt, leaning in a doorway, held a drink in his hand.
Gloria said, 'Look, I lost all track of—'
'You don't need to explain, Gloria. Spare me the lies and excuses.' Hunt downed a slug of bourbon.
'But the Burlingame—'
'—Senior Citizens visit? Has been rescheduled due to unforeseen events,' Hunt said. 'I waited around too long, hoping you'd appear.' His smile was mirthless.
Gloria looked at him questioningly. 'And the fund-raising dinner?'
'Can't be rescheduled,' he said, with a shrug. 'I'm going, at any rate. Have to, even if you won't.'
With an angry glare, Gloria crossed the foyer and stood in front of him. 'You bastard!' she expelled softly. 'You think I'm drunk, don't you?
He didn't reply.
'For your information,' she said icily, 'I'm not drunk. Oh, granted I've had a few, just like you're having one right now.' She glanced derisively at the tumbler in his hand. A frenzy of rage, all-consuming, sudden, and frightening in its fury, detonated inside her.
He
saw the blur of her open palm, but neither ducked nor tried to block it. With a crack, her hand caught him across the face, causing his head to swivel sideways, stamping the scarlet imprint of her fingers upon his cheek.
Still leaning casually in the doorway, he stared at her. He didn't appear to be the least bit surprised.
Somehow, his lack of reaction and defense enraged her all the more. Again she slapped him, harder. Then again. Harder yet. And again and again.
But he merely continued to lean casually against the doorway, his head swiveling with every slap, his cheek and jaw steadily reddening.
Her eyes shone with a wild kind of triumph. 'I don't suppose you want to hear why I'm late, do you, Hunt?' she panted tauntingly, and he could glimpse something sharp and lethal glinting through the anger. 'I guess you'd rather not know every gory little detail?'
'As a matter of fact,' he said calmly, 'yes. I would. Believe it or not, I'm concerned about you, Gloria.'
She looked away for a moment and when she looked back up at him, her eyes were blazing and filled with a wildness such as he had never seen.
'Well, then I'll tell you where I was!' she spat triumphantly. 'I was out fucking, Hunt! I was out screwing my little brains out! That's what your wife was doing!' Gloria trilled brittle, bitter laughter. 'But you needn't worry, darling. I was discreet . . . just as discreet as your mother— yes, your mother, Hunt! Your very own mother!—told me to be!'
He stared at her, his face chalk white.
'What's the matter?' she inquired, laying on the syrup. 'I haven't disappointed you, now have I?'
'Please, Gloria. Stop now,' he whispered.
But she wasn't finished. Not by a long shot. All the poisons that had been bottled up inside her for years suddenly came spewing forth in a torrent.
'That's right, Hunt. Imagine! I found myself a man! A man, Hunt! A real man! And my neglected, shriveled-up privates are alive! They're more alive than they've ever been! If you listen closely, why, you can practically hear them sing!'
He shut his eyes, his face clouded with pain. 'Stop it!' he said hoarsely.
But she was ranting and raving, and there was no stopping her.
'Isn't it hilarious, Hunt? Can't you just hear it already? All those tongues wagging?'
Gloria tilted her head, made a production of cupping a hand behind her ear, and pretended astonishment.
'Why, just listen to them! They're saying Mrs. Hunt Winslow, wife of the Desert Storm hero and rising political star, is a whore! Why, she's nothing but walking white trash, is what they're saying! And . . . what's that? 'What can he expect, his wife coming from the wrong side of the tracks, and all?''
'For the love of Christ, Gloria!' Hunt said thickly. 'Stop it!'
But she threw back her head and blurted hysterical laughter.
Closing his eyes in anguish, Hunt took a steadying breath and exhaled slowly. He could feel the sweat running in rivulets down his tensed arms, the tingling itch of his trembling, clenched knuckles.
'Oh, you should have seen it, Hunt!' she taunted. 'Really, you should! I wish you'd been there!'
He opened his eyes to see her dancing back and forth in front of him. Shimmying her hips here. Striking a Marilyn pose there.
'Because I debased myself, Hunt!' she trumpeted proudly, the triumph rich in her voice. 'Yes! I degraded myself! I defiled myself! I wallowed in filth like a pig!'
The light shone in her huge round eyes as she leaned into him, her face inches from his. Despite her expensive perfume he could smell the sour, underlying stench of stale sex and spent passions.
'And you know what?' Her face blazed with an unholy feverishness. 'I loved it! That's right, Hunt! I . . . loved . . . every . . . fucking . . . minute of it!'
'Stop it!' he said. 'Stop it now!'
But she was too far gone.
'Don't you see?' she goaded. 'Someone's got to give it to me, Hunt! I've got to get fucked somewhere if I can't get it at home! And it's not like I fucked any of your friends—'
'Goddamn it!' he roared. And flinging his arm back, he hurled the tumbler at the gilt-framed antique mirror.
One moment, the crystal glass seemed suspended in midair. The next, it smashed into the sheet of glass.
Ca-rack! The mirror exploded into a jagged cobweb that blew outward, the shards crashing down to the marble and fragmenting yet further.
Her gaze flickered feebly, then her footsteps echoing like a reproof, she turned and ran swiftly across the foyer and up the sweeping marble stairs.
And then there was silence: sudden, utter, and unearthly.
'Oh, God,' Hunt whispered, staring at the silvery rubble in horror.
The damage seemed a reflection of his marriage, of lives doomed to explode into a thousand infinities. As his had.
But what was that compared to the sheer hatred Gloria had vented? Her revelations still reverberated in his head like seismic aftershocks jolting whatever ruins were left standing.
Slowly, wearily, he sought refuge in the antique hall porter's chair. As he sank down into it, he felt something hard and unyielding beneath him.
Frowning, he lifted his buttocks and reached underneath.
The box was small and crisply wrapped in glossy white paper and red ribbon. Frowning, he kept turning it over and over, wondering how it had gotten there.
And then he remembered.
He himself had placed it there only an hour and a half earlier.
The gift from Cartier.
The agony in his gut flared ulcerously, almost causing him to double over. He had bought it for Gloria at the branch shop on Post Street, positive she didn't think he would remember.
But he had. It was she who had forgotten.
His lips twisted into a bleak rictus. Today was their anniversary. Their Silk Anniversary.
Letting the box drop, he covered his face with his hands. They'd been married for twelve years . . . twelve interminable years of a life sentence without parole.
And he'd bought her a gift—a gift! As though it were an occasion to celebrate.
How stupid could he be?
21
The rituals of death follow prescribed rules of etiquette. Like christenings or marriages. In fact, weddings and funerals have more in common than people like to think. Both can be ruinously expensive. Both usually call for masses of floral arrangements. The ceremonies often involve members of the clergy, and afterward, whether it be a wedding reception or a wake, food and alcohol are consumed in great quantities.
The cynical observer notices something else: for the celebrants (or mourners), both occasions are often the only chance they get to ride in limousines.
Dorothy-Anne, who had ridden in limousines since birth, and who attended church services only sporadically, found no solace in these carefully structured traditions. How could she? Freddie had been her other half, her anchor and her bulwark, her soul mate and lover and business partner.
Without him, she was . . . incomplete. A mere shadow of herself adrift in a strange, lonely void.
The funeral only slammed home the enormity of her loss.
The service was held in Chatham, a drive of two hours and fifteen minutes up the Taconic from Manhattan. Dorothy-Anne had insisted he be laid to rest here, far from the madding crowd.
It's what Freddie would have wanted, she thought. And it was what she wanted, too. As a family, she and Freddie and the kids had spent the happiest times of their lives in nearby Old Chatham, where Meadowlake Farm, the 732-acre estate they'd acquired after Liz was born, served as a bolt-hole from the pressure cooker of Manhattan and the unrelenting demands of running an international empire.
The turnout at the local funeral home was small; Dorothy-Anne had insisted on a quiet private service. Freddie's brother, Rob, had flown in from Chicago with his wife, Ellen. Derek Fleetwood, chairman of the Hale Corporation's hotel division, was there, as were Maud Ehmer, Freddie's prim, devoted secretary of eleven years, and Venetia.
No other exec
utives, colleagues, friends, or acquaintances had been invited. The only exception was the staff of Meadowlake Farms: the caretaker couple, the horse trainer, grooms, stable lads, cook, and gardeners.
Dorothy-Anne sat through the service with a taut-faced, quiet dignity. To either side of her, the children were red-eyed and uncharacteristically subdued. Nanny Florrie kept sniffling and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
The closed mahogany coffin spoke volumes, a persistent reminder of the terrible way in which Freddie had died.
The Episcopal priest was saying: ' 'The first man is from earth, made of dust. The second man is from heaven. And when this perishable body has been clothed with the imperishable, and our mortality has been clothed with immortality, then is Death defeated.' '
And the service was over. It was time to go outside and get into the long black limousines and follow the hearse to the cemetery.
It was a joyless ride—all the more so because the houses along the way were festooned for the holiday season.
Dorothy-Anne shut her eyes against the multicolored lights outlining windows, the red-ribboned wreaths on doors, the life-size plaster crèches and one-dimensional Santas in reindeer-pulled sleighs propped up on front lawns.
Santa won't be coming to us, she thought. The angel of death came instead.
The cemetery was bleak and cold. With a wind-chill factor of ten below, the graveside ceremony was mercifully short and to the point.
' 'In the midst of life we are in death . . . earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . ''
Then the ropes were paid out, the coffin was lowered into the maw of the grave, and someone placed a little shovel in Dorothy-Anne's hand.
Dry-eyed, her face and posture rigid with held-back emotions, she scooped up some soil and cast it down upon the coffin. The frozen clumps rattled on the lid like hailstones.
She winced against the sound.
'Good-bye, Freddie,' she whispered. 'Good-bye, my love.'
Then she felt a firm grip on her elbow.
Second Love Page 20