Club Crème

by Primula Bond

  ‘I’ve got you to thank for all this. I mean, all these lovely clothes, all these adventures,’ I said, and I meant it. It was lovely to see her again. Despite my new-found confidence I was still groping to find my way in comparison to her endless finesse. Mimi was like a beautiful ship, sailed back into harbour, and I was one of the tug boats bobbing about in her wake.

  ‘I should give you more credit, I suppose. You can thank me for discovering you, if you like, but you’ve done all the rest,’ she replied, stroking my face. ‘I have had detailed progress reports from our Miss Sugar, not to mention all these grateful members, panting for more of you.’

  A red-hot blush spread up my face.

  ‘If I’m not careful,’ she went on, turning my shoulders so that I was facing her. ‘Someone will poach you away and I’ll lose my best housekeeper yet. And I’m warning you, Summers. I won’t allow it.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I assured her. ‘Yet.’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. I wanted her to know that I was no servant. I would stay, or go, when I was good and ready. I looked steadily back at her, enjoying our physical closeness.

  ‘So. This conference,’ she said, suddenly brisk again. ‘Allow me to lord it over you tonight and decide your look, would you? You have to be as beautiful and anonymous as possible.’

  She quickly painted my eyes and mouth and patted my face with powder until I sneezed. She handed me a long velvet gown in the darkest sea-green and some matching dark green mules. Then she lit a cigarette. ‘Get dressed, Summers,’ she ordered. ‘They are waiting for us downstairs. We are posing as guests this evening. It’s a perfume convention. Mr Hall has organised it, as a gift, or should I say apology, to his fiancée.’

  ‘Strange gift?’

  ‘She’s mad about her work, I believe, and he’s in the doghouse after his antics with his ghastly sister Avril Grey, so he organised this venue to impress her clients and earn himself some brownie points.’

  ‘Will she swallow it and forgive him, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t know if she swallows.’

  I spluttered with laughter.

  ‘She’s watching him like a hawk, but her clients, and some of her superiors, who have come here from the stores in London and Paris, seem overawed by the place, which will reflect well on her. He doesn’t want her to know who we are, and certainly not that we’re from Club Crème, or even that this place is connected to the Club Crème. She doesn’t even know he’s a member. He wants her to think this is all his own doing.’

  ‘And we’re all to be on our best behaviour?’ I said, pulling a face.

  ‘Yes. But who could resist committing wickedness in a place like this? Miles from home, buckets of champagne, a myriad of rooms to hide in . . .’

  ‘All kinds of things could happen at Symes Hall. What with the randy lord of the manor and his hunky young son,’ I agreed dreamily, looking round the shadowy room. Then I realised what I’d said. ‘It’s all right, Mimi. I know all about you and Merlin.’

  ‘I very much doubt that. And it’s dangerous ground, Summers. Merlin isn’t invited this evening, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ Mimi said in a voice tight with warning. She was stern again, staring at me hard.

  ‘I’m glad he’s not coming,’ I replied coolly. ‘He’s trouble, that one. So it’s good that you’ve chosen his father.’

  I took the dress over to the corner of the room and started to wriggle out of my clothes. I could see her eyes glittering behind me in the tarnished mirror. My own reflection was unrecognisable. She had ringed my eyes with smoky shadow and kohl pencil so that my eyes were elongated like a cat’s. She had painted my lips in the same blood red that she was wearing, which leeched my face of colour like a mask. I liked it.

  ‘You’ve come on a lot in the last couple of months, Summers,’ Mimi said. ‘Changed beyond recognition, I’d say. Even when you wandered into our office on that first day wearing that ridiculous suit with that beret, I thought of you as someone who would learn to enjoy using her own body.’

  ‘And now you’re annoyed that you were proved right?’ I queried, acutely aware of her watching me undress, and sucking my stomach in. I hoped that the underwear I had chosen to go seamlessly under the tight top would do. It was a strapless magenta corset, which clung light as a feather to my ribs while at the same time lifting my breasts in a cradle of subtle wire. I let the dress slither over my head, the velvet kissing my cold skin as it dropped to the floor. The green velvet brought out the same colour in my eyes, which flashed in the dim light. The neckline rested on the tip of each shoulder, then swooped in an elegant line to a row of delicate buttons just below the divide of my cleavage. The basque was perfect.

  ‘No. I’m delighted that I was proved right,’ Mimi answered. She blew out a plume of cigarette smoke and stood up. ‘I’m just saying that you mustn’t go hard around the edges. Stick to what you’re good at, and remember your place. You mustn’t start to meddle.’

  She was annoyed with me, but she couldn’t keep away from me. Quickly she coiled my hair into a knot at the base of my skull and fastened it with a couple of pins. I still couldn’t get used to the way it stayed where it was put rather than falling straight down in a mess of curls and tangles. I could feel her breath on my skin as she fixed a tiny velvet cap to the crown of my head and unfurled a delicate, gauzy veil to obscure half my face. Her musky perfume filled the air.

  ‘It’s the clothes,’ I murmured, surprised at how breathless I was. ‘They make me into the person I am.’

  ‘Don’t blame your tools, Suki Summers,’ Mimi replied softly, pressing her big lips against the bone at the base of my neck. Now there would be an imprint of her lipstick there. ‘You’ve discovered the real thing and there’s nothing like it, is there?’

  We swept down the stairs and crossed the hall to arrive at double doors leading into what could only be described as a salon, except that it was as big as a ballroom. A vast fireplace crackled at one end and huge sofas and chairs were grouped comfortably around the room, which was mainly lit by massive, twisted church candles. Tall French windows ran along both sides of the room and were swathed in thick, brocade curtains. The room was so high that you could hardly make out where the curtains ended and the ceiling began.

  Mimi held my arm to keep me standing in the doorway. She adjusted the little velvet cap and veil that went with the dress, tweaking the lace cobweb over my eyes. She knew that after a couple of heartbeats the people in the room would turn to see us latecomers.

  ‘A devastating duo, aren’t we?’ I murmured, sliding my arm round her waist. She nodded, and didn’t pull away from me. The crowd parted, and a man and woman both dressed in black walked down the room to greet us. The man was thickset, like a rugby player. Jez Hall. But things took a distinct dip for the worse. The woman clutching on to his arm and gazing up at him was . . .

  ‘I can’t do this, Mimi,’ I hissed desperately, turning my back as they paused briefly to speak to a couple of other guests. ‘I know her. She’s Chrissie, my oldest friend!’

  ‘And Mr Hall is her naughty fiancé,’ Mimi hissed back, spinning me round and leading me towards them. ‘Jeremy. How lovely of you to ask us here tonight. And what a divine setting.’

  I shook Mr Hall’s hand as if I’d never met him before, and he almost wept with gratitude.

  ‘Meet my lovely fiancée, Chrissie,’ he gushed. ‘This is her baby, really. She might look like a pussy cat, but she’s worked like a beaver today, and pulled in some big business, I believe. Now it’s time to celebrate.’

  ‘Thanks to you, Jeremy, for organising these posh surroundings,’ Chrissie simpered, and then, as she remembered her manners and turned to shake hands, she let out a screech.

  ‘Suki! What the fuck are you doing here?’

  I thought fast. ‘Lord Whatsit,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. Lord Whatsit, who I used to muck out stables for? This is his place. He rents it out. I kept
in touch after I left. You know . . . the only job I wasn’t sacked from.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Chrissie squealed obediently, ‘Lord Whatsit’. I could have kissed her. My excuse for being there had been as clear as mud. She peered at Mimi, who was still holding Jeremy’s hand. ‘And you are?’

  Mimi stepped in possessively as I waved my hands helplessly.

  ‘I’m Suki’s new friend. We go everywhere together, don’t we, darling?’

  Mimi stroked my cheek, and Jeremy smirked. Chrissie scowled.

  ‘How charming,’ Jeremy said. ‘The sort of girls I like – er, approve of.’

  ‘It’s time to eat,’ Chrissie butted in, tossing him a filthy look and trying to take my arm. She hissed in my ear. ‘What’s come over you? What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ll be there in one moment, Chrissie,’ trilled Mimi. ‘Suki has something in her eye. But then you’ll have to separate us, you know. We are rather joined at the hip, aren’t we, darling? Put us next to someone interesting at dinner, won’t you? Preferably either side of your gorgeous fiancé.’

  Chrissie gave Mimi one of her curt nods, and I started to feel dreadful. I wanted to tell her the truth. She didn’t deserve any of this subterfuge. And she certainly didn’t deserve that sleazeball of a fiancé.

  I started to reply to her, but a very young man with golden curls and a clipboard sidled up to Chrissie and instantly she put on her working face.

  ‘That was quick thinking, but I don’t think she bought it, or liked it,’ I said to Mimi. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Your dear little friend needs to know what he’s really like. She obviously has her suspicions, and it’s not just the sister that she’s worried about. Once you and I are unleashed on him, he won’t stand a chance.’

  Mimi started fussing with my face. Everyone filed past us across the hall and into another cavernous room.

  ‘I told you. She’s my oldest friend. I can’t do this, Mimi, however badly she wants us to.’

  ‘Explain, or you’re fired,’ Mimi said. I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or serious, but she was still stroking my face.

  ‘I shagged her precious Jeremy at Mikhail’s party, for God’s sake. I mean, I didn’t know it was him until they turned the lights on, but I can’t look her in the eye.’

  Mimi’s finger brushed a strand of hair back under the little velvet cap. She looked down and I realised she was trying to suppress a smile. Mimi’s black eyes danced at me and I put my hand over my mouth and started to giggle, too. We had to wait for the giggles to pass.

  ‘Right,’ Mimi said after a moment. ‘In that case, I will have to take over as his honey-trap. Just when I was looking forward to observing your technique at close quarters. Ah well. Think of this as a freebie and enjoy the show.’

  We started to walk towards the dining room.

  ‘Where does that leave me?’ I asked and pulled at her hand.

  ‘I guess that leaves you as a free agent, darling,’ Mimi said. ‘You can simply watch Mimi Breeze in action, and learn.’

  It was an hour or so later, when Mimi flicked her tongue at me just before sitting on Jeremy’s face, that I wondered how much of ‘the show’ was for my benefit by then, and how much for his. All through dinner I hadn’t quite relaxed for fear that Chrissie would cotton on, realise that I knew Jeremy Hall after all, and make a horrible scene. I knew about Chrissie’s horrible scenes. I wanted to tell her everything. I felt a heel, skulking in the shadows, watching her fiancé fall under Mimi’s spell.

  But what I wasn’t expecting to happen at her precious perfume convention was to see the old Chrissie, the Smithson Sandwich, emerging from under the blue eyeshadow. Perhaps it was my presence that encouraged her, or perhaps it was the way everyone else was behaving, but either way I stopped worrying. As the inhibitions fell like so many autumn leaves, so I reckoned the explanations could wait.

  Mimi had ignored me throughout dinner, focussing on Jeremy, softening him up for the kill. That was fine by me. A tiny man sitting on my other side, who looked like Hercule Poirot, started to ogle my cleavage.

  ‘I am Jacques,’ he announced, in a thick French accent, ‘the chief supplier in Paris of perfumes to our beautiful Chrissie.’

  Any more of that accent and I would blow my cover by laughing out loud. I willed my new, knowing self to take over. I leaned towards him with my arm thrown over the back of his chair so that my breasts were spread out for him and anyone else to admire. Across the table I watched Mimi’s big red mouth moving in flattering, seductive chatter, watched Jeremy’s lips part, saliva gathering at the corners as she spoke to him and watched his teeth snap together when her brown fingers stole into his lap and unzipped his flies.

  I caught her eye occasionally across the candlelight, then glanced to see if Chrissie had noticed, but Chrissie was already tossing her blonde curls around, flirting outrageously with the golden-haired youth and his friend who were on either side of her. I knew she was good at flirting, but she had a long way to go if she was going to catch up with what Mimi was doing.

  I simpered sweetly as the Poirot lookalike started to stroke my velvet thigh. He leaned hungrily towards me so that his nose was level with my just-covered nipples, and one or two men started craning their necks to see what was happening up our end of the table. I wanted to watch Mimi, but now it was my turn to be distracted. My neighbour lifted his glass to drink and tipped it sideways, spilling white wine right across me so that I gasped out loud. The cold liquid trickled down my throat and droplets seeped between my breasts. The little man flicked out his napkin and started dabbing painstakingly, snuffling his nose between my breasts as he tried to dry me off, edging the napkin under the bodice of my dress and flicking it across my skin. It tickled, starting up little pinpricks of pleasure in my nipples.

  He saw me smiling, and allowed his other hand to creep, under cover of my napkin, on to my thigh and started to claw the velvet dress up my leg towards my crotch. His eager groping started to arouse me. I’d become hypersensitive to any kind of touch, I realised, no matter who was touching me. I could make something sensational happen, just by parting my legs a little, letting him push the dress right up, letting him stumble into my warm bush, unearth my secret crack. I felt my head swim a little with the enticement of leading him on, getting pleasure and making his day by letting him finger me.

  By losing myself to the possibilities of what the little man could do to me and, by looking suitably demure and keeping my eyes down, I could also see what Mimi was doing. The white tablecloth jerked up and down under Jeremy’s plate as she massaged his cock. He gaped helplessly at her, biting his lips to contain the yelp of noisy lust threatening to burst out. Even Jacques stopped short of uncovering my pussy when he saw what was happening to his host, and we all watched silently as there was one final thrust of the tablecloth, Jeremy sank back in his chair and Mimi tilted her head back to lick drips of creamy dessert off her spoon.

  ‘Time for dancing,’ called Chrissie, clapping her hands as the conversation threatened to stop altogether. My neighbour removed his hand, leaving my pussy warm with thwarted anticipation, and suddenly dinner was over. Faces calm as if nothing had happened, everyone filed back into the salon and a couple of dark, bearded waiters started gliding about in the shadows with champagne and liqueurs on silver trays.

  Chrissie and Mimi ran over to a vast music system in the corner of the room and giggled together as they looked through the CDs. I felt my chest tightening with jealousy. They were both my friends, after all. But tonight I wasn’t allowed to play with either of them. I snatched a flute of champagne off the silver tray being waved in front of me and watched as Jeremy went up to them. A blast of dramatic Spanish guitar music started. Instantly, Mimi started clicking her fingers above her head. Jeremy grabbed her waist and pulled her across the floor. She snatched up the hem of her dress and started swirling it in a wild flamenco dance.

  Chrissie’s little face puckered into fury. She watched them with
her hands on her hips, chewing her pink lips. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. I was about to rush up to my old friend when, as if by a secret signal, my French dinner companion bobbed up in front of me just as the young man who had been sitting next to Chrissie at dinner approached her, kissed her hand and bounced her into an energetic rock and roll.

  As they twirled past Mimi and Jeremy, I heard Chrissie shout, ‘I’ve scored the best-looking toy boy in the perfume business!’ and it was Jeremy’s turn to look furious. Mimi started whooping and writhing round him as the music became more and more frantic, and soon the two couples were separated by their own competing floor shows.

  The toy boy, with his blond curls and bright blue eyes, looked rather like Chrissie herself. I wondered if she could see it. Whatever she could see, she obviously liked because she started running her hands up and down his sides as they danced and, after an anxious look towards Jeremy, the boy copied her. Chrissie’s black dress was short, unlike most of the other dresses in the room, and was slashed into ribbons that spun away from her legs as she danced, and it soon became obvious that she wasn’t wearing any knickers. It was all I could do to stop myself shrieking ‘slapper’ at her like we used to when we were kids.

  Jacques couldn’t keep his eyes off her either. He steered me in a sedate waltz nearer to Chrissie, murmuring something about speaking to our hostess, then he let go of me and started to dance with her and the toy boy. Relieved rather than insulted, I backed quickly away, but Chrissie was too engrossed to notice me. She was dancing, opening and closing her knees, wriggling up and down the toy boy’s body as if he were a pole.

  Jacques went round behind her, planting his small hands on her gyrating hips and guiding her. He was the right height to press his groin right in between her buttocks. I saw her give a little start and glance over her shoulder, then she tilted her bum invitingly against him before grinding her crotch against the toy boy. She was lost in the game, happy to let the two of them push and pull her between them. She was jerking her hips and writhing frantically as if she wanted to go to the loo, and yanking each man against her as she rubbed first her crotch, then her bum, against them.