by Evie Blake
‘So, sweet Maria, will you play a little game with me?’
She nods, her longing making her speechless. He unbuttons her dress and she slips out of it. He takes it from her, carefully spreading it out upon the bed, before turning back to her and admiring her in her bare skin. He stands in his shirt sleeves, his hands on his hips, and she can see his desire for her pushing against the material of his trousers. He is waiting for her, she can see it in his eyes, and his look makes her feel wanton and reckless. She steps away from the wall, and reaches forward, grabbing his belt with both hands and pulling him to her. His clothes feel rough against her silky perfumed skin. She tugs at his shirt, while he loosens his belt and lowers his trousers. Now he is in charge again. He lifts her up and she opens her legs, instinctively wrapping them around his waist. He pushes up into her, groaning with satisfaction.
‘You fit me so perfectly, my darling, I believe we are made for each other.’
He carries her back to the edges of their room. Maria is slammed up so hard against the wall, she can hardly move. She clings on to him, letting him pound into her. She wants it to go on and on. She never wants this feeling to stop. They are like two rare birds, let out of a cage, spiralling in the sunshine, united and elated in their abandon. She is climbing with him, up and up into the oneness of that millisecond when all her life feels worthwhile, just for this precious moment of completion.
Afterwards, they slither down the wall and she sits on his lap, his power curled beneath her, brushing against her nakedness.
He breathes into her neck. ‘Do not doubt that I love you, Maria,’ Felix says.
She tries to twist her neck around to look him in the face, but he holds her tightly and all she can do is feel his lips on her neck as he speaks.
‘Never doubt it,’ Felix repeats.
‘I don’t,’ she says, her voice trembling with joy to hear him say he loves her. ‘I love you, Felix. You are the man of my dreams.’
‘Or maybe your nightmares,’ he whispers, and his words make her shiver.
‘Don’t say such a thing,’ she begs him.
‘But, Maria, I worry that I will stain your perfection. I am not good enough for you.’
‘Hush, don’t say such things.’ She pushes aside his dark words and changes the subject. ‘What game is it that you want me to play with you?’
‘Would you do something courageous for me, Maria?’ he says. ‘Will you forego wearing any knickers tonight?’
She wriggles off his lap and turns to look at him, expecting him to laugh, yet Felix looks deadly serious, his eyes challenging her.
‘You want me to wear nothing under my dress?’ she asks him, incredulously.
He nods. ‘Just your stockings and brassiere, and this.’ He pulls out what looks like a piece of jewellery from his trouser pocket. It is a very thin strip of velvet with a clip at either end, like those on her suspender belt. Part way down and embedded in the velvet is a small golden ball, about the size of a marble.
‘What is that?’ she asks him.
‘Let me show you.’ He grins, looking boyish again.
He makes her stand and then crouches on to his knees. He kisses her pussy. ‘Oh, you smell so sweet, darling,’ he says, before taking the velvet, one end in each hand, and bringing it under and between her legs. He lifts it up and she feels the cold golden ball knock against her flesh. He then attaches one of the clips to the back of her suspender belt and brings around the other end of the velvet to clip it to the front. She doesn’t understand the purpose of this garment. The gold ball is against her bottom. It feels stupid.
‘I don’t understand—’
‘I have not finished,’ he interrupts, putting his hand underneath her and pulling the ball along the velvet. His fingers pass over the most private part of herself with the ball and it makes her jolt involuntarily. He moves on so that the ball is positioned just in front, against a part of her body that Felix has led her to discover this week – a part of herself that is constantly craving more attention from him. She feels him fingering her, opening her up. Her knees are buckling as she weakens. Now she feels him positioning the little gold ball inside her warm, tender flesh. He pulls back, looking pleased with his work.
‘Now,’ he says, ‘I can imagine that little ball is me, touching you all night long. Keeping you primed.’
She moves, feels the ball rolling against her flesh. The sensation is an exquisite combination of pleasure and intrusion. ‘I think you should undo it,’ she whispers. ‘It is too much.’
He looks amused. ‘Are you on the edge, Maria?’
She nods.
He kisses her on the lips. ‘Do you think you are brave enough to see how far you can go?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, uncertainly.
‘You can take it off any time.’ He pauses. ‘You can take it off now. This is for you, Maria. It is about your enjoyment.’
She is not sure what to say. Part of her is scared of what will happen to her body when they go out. She is not in control. And yet another part of her is excited. What will happen if she lets her body run wild? She is reminded of Lempert talking about dance, of the challenge of balancing tension and release, of its parallels with life. Isn’t this little game of Felix’s all about that? She is a trained dancer. She should be able to handle the pressure of a little gold ball nudging her sex as she walks around a room. And yet there is a Maria inside her screaming to be released.
‘All right,’ she whispers, much to her own surprise. ‘I’ll try it.’
Felix strokes her face tenderly with his finger, kissing her again on the lips.
‘I find this very erotic, my darling. I like to imagine your nakedness so exposed and yet untouchable in company. I like to imagine you on the edge, desperate for satisfaction.’
She sits on a chair in front of the mirror, looking at her parted red lips, her eyes dark with desire, her ripe body in the red dress. She sees a reflection of Felix standing behind her. Her knight, but not so shining now: he is a tall, shadowed figure with glittering eyes. She senses his secret self and she wonders if he is right, if maybe he is too dark, too broken for her. Yet her love binds her to him. She believes it lights the way for both of them, so that he will let her heal him.
It feels like the first proper day of spring. After all the rain and cold, the temperature has risen and Valentina has taken the risk of coming out without her coat. Everyone appears to be stepping as lightly as she, lifted up by the bright skies and warm breeze. This is a London she could live in – learn to love. She wonders if that might happen, if Theo comes back to her.
After popping into the Lexington Gallery to see how she did last night, she has taken the Tube back to South Kensington to meet Leonardo for coffee, before he flies home to Milan.
‘So, are you pleased?’ her friend asks her, once they have settled down on high stools, two cappuccinos steaming on a counter in front of them. They are facing the street outside, looking out of the window of the café at the pedestrians as they pace by.
‘I sold them all!’ she says, brimming with pride. ‘I can’t believe it . . . I mean, even those really explicit ones of Antonella and Mikhail. God knows who bought them!’
‘That’s great Valentina,’ Leonardo says. Yet his voice is quieter than usual.
Her friend looks tired this morning, as if he hasn’t slept at all. She spots a grey hair in all the black and, although she had always assumed they were the same age, she wonders now what his real age is. She thinks he must be very heartbroken over Raquel.
‘So, are you going to tell me what happened with you and Raquel?’ She stirs her cappuccino, watching the creamy heart sink in the middle.
Leonardo says nothing for a moment, taking a sip of his coffee and avoiding her eye. ‘There is not so much to actually tell,’ he says, eventually. ‘She met someone else.’
Valentina turns to look at him, but Leonardo avoids her eyes, staring down at his coffee cup intently.
‘Bu
t I thought you guys had an open relationship. Shouldn’t that sort of thing not matter?’ She asks him softly, sensing that she needs to step carefully here for her friend to confide in her.
‘Well, it matters when she wants to end our “open” relationship and have a closed one with someone else.’
He looks up at her, and Valentina is astonished by the blaze of anger in Leonardo’s eyes. She has never seen her friend look even remotely cross, let alone angry and hurt.
‘So, is it because she wanted you all to herself? Do you think you could have done that?’ she asks tentatively.
Leonardo scowls even more. ‘Of course I could have, but that’s not what she wanted.’ He pauses, sweeping his hair back from his forehead with his hand.
‘That wasn’t it, Valentina,’ he sighs, no longer angry now, but sounding sad. ‘We broke up because she didn’t want me in her life anymore.’
‘She’s crazy,’ Valentina says without hesitation, putting her hand over his on the counter top.
‘When it came down to it,’ Leonardo says, ‘she was thinking of the future.’
‘You mean children? But you had agreed to have a baby together, to shut down the club. You were going to change your life for her.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t enough. I am too much of a risk, Valentina.’ Leonardo stares straight ahead out of the window, as if hypnotised by the moving people passing by.
Valentina squeezes his hand. ‘How can that be?’
He pulls his attention away from the pedestrians outside and back to her in the café. He looks crushed. Valentina feels like giving Raquel a good shake. How could she let such a good man go? ‘Raquel wants a decent, stable environment for her children, with a man who has a secure job and a good income. She wants to make a proper family.’
Valentina shrugs dismissively, making her opinion quite clear: Raquel is a complete disappointment as a woman. And yet her friend loved her. She has to be careful not to be too harsh on her. ‘There’s no such thing as a proper family,’ she says carefully. ‘It is better for a child to have love rather than material stability. It is love that makes a child feel secure.’
‘I agree,’ says Leonardo. ‘But that isn’t Raquel’s opinion.’
‘I’m sorry, Leo . . . You know, I don’t think she was right for you, anyway,’ she ventures.
Leonardo smiles a little. ‘Really? And who might be right for me?’
Valentina thinks hard. Of all her friends, there is not one of them she can see with Leonardo, apart from Celia, possibly.
‘What about Celia?’
‘Maybe, but we are friends, really – like you and me, Valentina. She is also on the other side of the world at the moment.’ He pauses, taking another sip of his coffee. ‘Besides, I think I should be on my own for a while.’
Valentina can’t help feeling a little glad that Leonardo is not on the hunt for a new woman. It worries her that he might meet someone who will take him over and not understand their friendship, or be jealous of the time they spend together.
‘So, that’s enough about me,’ Leonardo says, glancing at his watch. ‘I have to go for my flight in about twenty minutes. I don’t want to waste our last moments moaning about my sorry private life.’
Valentina leans over and kisses her friend on the lips. He tastes as buttery as her croissant.
‘What was that for?’ Leonardo says, looking pleased.
‘I do love you, Leonardo,’ Valentina says. ‘You are the best friend in the world.’
‘But what about your other friends?’
‘Yes, but you know me inside out. It’s a funny thing, since I have been friends with them all for far longer than you. Yet I feel like I have always known you.’
‘Like we were meant to meet?’ His brown eyes gaze at her warmly and she can see that her words have cheered him up.
‘Yes. It’s our fate to be friends.’ She takes a sip of her cappuccino. ‘Leonardo, I have been thinking about Theo and how strange it was that we ran into each other, right out of the blue, and then something occurred to me.’ She pauses, finishing off her crossiant and licking her fingertips. ‘Two of the pictures that were exhibited in the Lexington were very recent. I don’t remember sending them in my original submission, although they requested prints of them for the show. So how did Kirsti Shaw get to see them?’
Leonardo shifts in his seat, looking a little uncomfortable.
‘I knew it!’ she exclaims, pointing her finger at him. ‘Did you send the images to Theo? And then he showed them to Kirsti Shaw and pushed her to include me in the show?’
Leonardo says nothing for a moment, but he is blushing with guilt.
Valentina can see that she is on the right track. ‘And, if that is the case, Theo actually conspired for me to see him here in London. I think the whole Anita thing is to make me jealous like you said, so he can really see that I love him. He wants me to react.’
Leonardo reaches out and puts his hand on her arm. ‘Valentina, I have to stop you there,’ he says.
‘I can see that you are hiding something from me, Leo,’ she says triumphantly. ‘You did send him the pictures, didn’t you? He is trying to make me jealous, don’t you think?’
Leonardo shakes his head, looking quite sorrowful. ‘I don’t think Theo has any intention of making you jealous, Valentina, not since I saw him last night. Besides, he knows you are not the possessive type.’
‘Well, the funny thing is, Leo, I am a bit jealous. It’s never happened to me before. Usually, if I can’t have a man, I just shrug my shoulders and walk away, but I just can’t bear to lose Theo to Anita . . . I can’t understand it.’
‘You’re in love, my dear – really in love.’ Leonardo pats her hand, looking sad again.
‘But I don’t believe it is just a coincidence that Anita and I are in the same show. It can’t be.’
‘You’re right on that score,’ Leonardo says, not looking her in the eye. ‘But I am afraid it was me, not Theo, who sent your recent work to Kirsti. As far as Theo is concerned, he had no idea you were in the show with Anita.’
‘You sent the images directly to the gallery?’ she asks him, shocked that he would do such a thing without telling her.
‘Theo had told me about the exhibition. On the one hand, I thought it would be a great opportunity for you. I knew you had already submitted to the gallery, so I just reminded Kirsti Shaw of your existence and showed her some new work.’
‘I can’t believe you would go to so much trouble for me.’
‘Well, I also had an ulterior motive. You and Theo were driving me mad. He would email me asking how you were, and you would be asking me how he was, but, whenever I suggested to either of you to break the deadlock, you were both too stubborn, or hurt, or proud to do something. I just thought it was a terrible shame.’
He pauses, pinning her with a piercing stare. ‘You should be together. So that’s why I thought, if you were in the show, it would be a chance for you to bump into each other naturally.’
‘But, Anita?’
‘I had no idea about Anita. I was as shocked as you were to discover he had a girlfriend,’ Leonardo says, shaking his head and looking genuinely sorry.
She stands up from her stool and, uncharacteristically, she leans over and gives Leo a massive hug. She steps back and he looks completely mystified.
‘What’s that for?’
‘For caring so much about my happiness.’ She really is touched that Leonardo believes in her and Theo.
‘Valentina,’ her friend advises her, ‘don’t give up. The fact that Theo and Anita aren’t sleeping together speaks volumes. I still think you two could get back together.’
‘But to do that I have to break them up.’ Valentina struggles with the idea. ‘I actually rather like Anita. I don’t know if I could do such a nasty thing to her.’
Leonardo smiles benignly. ‘You may appear a cool customer, but you are just a big softie deep down, aren’t you, V?’
She sits bac
k down on her stool, feeling a little self-conscious. ‘I don’t know; my mother tells me I am hard hearted . . .’
‘What does your mother know?’ He picks up her hand and squeezes it. She likes the feeling of her little hand tucked inside his.
‘Of course,’ Leonardo says, his voice dropping to avoid being overheard, ‘there are other ways around this conundrum.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you said that Theo needs you to prove your love to him . . .’
‘Yes, but how do I do that?’
‘A man will always feel his woman’s love through sex, so, by enacting his ultimate sexual fantasy, you could show him your love.’
‘Yes, but I just told you, I don’t want to make Theo cheat on Anita . . . or break them up.’
‘Indeed, I am not suggesting you do so, for what do you think might be the common fantasy for most men?’
Valentina doesn’t even need to think about it. ‘Two women together, with him.’
‘Exactly,’ Leonardo says, his spirits obviously lifted again as he gives her a cheeky grin.
‘Are you suggesting that I win Theo back by taking part in a threesome with him and Anita?’ Valentina is appalled. Leonardo can’t be serious. ‘Apart from the emotional mess that could entail, isn’t it immoral?’ she continues.
‘Of course not. Look, I have thought about this whole question a lot. Not just threesomes, but orgies as well.’ Leonardo looks at her earnestly. ‘I mean, I was raised a Catholic, after all. And a lot of people who come to my club are motivated by a sort of twisted relationship with sex and religion. They crave to be sinners so that they can then cleanse themselves.’
Valentina shudders. ‘I have never felt like that, Leonardo,’ she says. ‘I never felt I was doing something bad, not if no one was being lied to or hurt.’
‘You see, the difference between the sex lives of humans and animals is erotic pleasure.’ Leonardo is becoming himself again: sexual guide and guru. His earlier distress about Raquel seems to be fading away now that he is talking about his favourite subject. ‘We don’t have sex seasonally and we don’t have sex just to procreate. We also have sex to experience sensual raptures . . . Is that not so?’