‘Get off her,’ he barked, stripping urgently. ‘I’ve got to fuck her arse, see? Jesus, let me fuck that whoring little arse. Someone get me some lube. Now!’
The men around me fell away, spitting curses and muttering under their breaths. I felt terrifyingly isolated, and when Ilya traced a gentle stroke along my thigh, the feeling intensified.
‘Get on the bed, on your back,’ snapped Tony as he shed the last of his clothes.
Long strands of his hair had come free of their band and his pixie-like face was slightly reddened. His eyes were narrowed and bright and I simply did what everyone else had done: obeyed him at once. The prospect of his losing control scared me stupid. I imagined him flipping, flying headlong into maniac mode and becoming a man no one could reason with.
As Tony bounced on to the mattress, Ilya grudgingly chucked several packaged condoms and a tube of K-Y beside us. So he was the medicine man, was he?
I shot him a look, wondering if he was also responsible for the grotesquely large dildo. He just answered with a covert wink, but he did not smile.
Tony positioned himself in the gap of my parted thighs, sat back on his heels and roughly grabbed one of my ankles.
‘Ow,’ I protested, as he hooked my leg high on to his shoulder.
‘Take it easy, Tone,’ said Ilya, but his warning carried no threat. It wasn’t going to have any impact.
Tony squeezed a generous amount of lube on to his fingers then slapped his hand into the split of my buttocks. Grinning with energised fanaticism, he rubbed and rubbed, mumbling obscenities before driving a bundle of fingers hard into my anus.
‘Oh, God,’ I wailed as my pinched muscles were suddenly forced to yield. ‘Oh God.’
‘Yes,’ hissed Tony, plunging rapidly. ‘Nice and slippy. Still tight, though.’
He snatched his fingers from me.
‘Fucking lovely,’ he snarled, rubbering up with lightning speed and slathering lube on to his shaft.
Horniness tore around my veins as Tony’s knees nudged under my arse-cheeks. He hitched me up the slope of his thighs and I couldn’t stop myself from moaning and writhing. I was so greedy for the power of buggery.
‘Oh yes,’ he rasped, and he manoeuvred my other leg so both were resting on his shoulders. ‘You are fucking hot.’
His bulbous cock-tip pushed briefly at my anus. Then, with a heave and a lunge, he surged past my closure and his stiff, solid flesh slithered into me.
I cried out, my arse crammed to capacity.
‘Oh, angel,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Yes.’
Reaching his hands forward, Tony clawed at my tits, then he clasped my hips and started fucking into my narrow hole. A halo of pain burnt around the pleasure as he shoved his thrusts deep. Strings of his hair stuck to his sweat-damp face, and his quick breaths grew spittly as his tempo increased. He powered remorselessly, his face lit up with craziness, and I sobbed in delight.
‘Oh fucking yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, baby, how much cock can you take?’
Then suddenly he stopped, shifted us a fraction and lunged for the dildo. One of my legs slipped from his shoulder and I let the other fall, too, arching my back in a bid to keep him deep.
‘Shall we see, eh?’ he said, grasping the huge black tool and flashing me his deranged grin.
‘No,’ I squeaked as my cunt fluttered hungrily. ‘It’s too big.’
But already he was rubbing the vast rounded tip along the wet seam of my folds.
‘Tone,’ came Ilya’s voice, now threaded through with threat. ‘You’d better take it easy.’
‘Nah,’ piped up someone else. ‘She’ll fucking love it. Gagging for it, she is.’
‘Yeah,’ growled Tony, leaning back.
He levelled the cool dildo head at my vagina and, with a gentle twisting motion, he edged an inch or so of the beast into the mouth of my slippery orifice. The opening of my cunt strained round its girth, hugging violently, more stretched than it had ever been.
I released a long, shrill wail, managing somehow to cry out words.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I was saying. And I carried on wailing as, with exquisite slowness, Tony fed the unyielding phallus into me, easing in its big black length until it would go no further.
I gasped frantically, my head rocking on the bedspread as I tried to accustom myself to its gloriously brutal size.
Tony held the position, my legs splayed round his waist, my back slanting down the angle of his thighs. His prick was lodged deep in my arse and several thick inches of the dildo were sticking out from my pussy-lips.
‘Take a look at that,’ he said proudly, tilting his torso back.
I cried without restraint because my lower half was so dense with sensation. It scarcely seemed to belong to me. I felt as if a section of my body, from my belly down to my thighs, was levitating away. My stuffed-solid orifices melded into one massive intensity. I could not distinguish my arse from my cunt. I was just a thing congested with other things. It was heaven.
‘See, Travis,’ said someone. ‘Told you she’d fucking love it.’
‘Yeah, Mr Boyfriend,’ gibed Tony, starting to thrust into my anus again. ‘Come and join the party. Why don’t you spunk over her? Load her tits up. Yeah.’
Tony grasped the dildo end, half thrusting it, half rotating it, as his cock pumped in and out of my arse. I was crying, sobbing, groaning, but I caught Ilya’s flat answer.
‘No,’ he said above the noise.
‘Well, I fucking will,’ said a voice, and the bed dipped as someone scrambled on to it. Then again, another person.
I was hitting orgasm – loudly – my muscles clenching on the great ebony shaft. The two guys on the bed bared their cocks and started wanking furiously. They squeezed and mauled my breasts as Tony, eyes bulging wildly, rammed into me with dick and dildo.
And then there was banging at the head of the bed. Someone in the room next door was hammering on the thin wall and shouting, telling us to fucking well shut up.
But what did I care? What did anyone care?
I was coming again and so was someone else. Their fluid splashed warmly on to my tits, and Tony, his hair plastered in chaotic directions, his neck taut and sinewy, fixed his insane eyes on my semen-splattered flesh. His mean, scraggy face was crimson; blue veins snaked on his temples.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he was spitting. ‘You’re mine, see? You slut, you slut. You’re fucking mine.’
His lunacy chilled me. Moments later he threw his head back, climaxing with a blood-curdling howl.
Hardly pausing for breath, he started urgently fretting my clit, glaring wide-eyed at my face, beaming his broad, psychopathic smile.
‘Come on, come on,’ he panted, his hand shaking away. ‘Come for Uncle Tony. Come on, queenie. Fucking come. Fucking come.’
His rapid friction pushed me towards the brink. I gulped and sobbed, terrified and abandoned, as he began waggling the dildo in my depths, levering it up and down, pushing it in and out.
My orgasm crashed, wave upon wave, my cunt contracting on the slipping hardness, my whole body shaking. I screwed my eyes tight, wanting to shut out the image of Tony’s wild, exultant face.
‘Oh, yes, yes, yes,’ he raved. ‘That’s my girl. A big fucking comer, see? That’s my girl. Oh, yes. She is for me. She is mine.’
My orgasm shuddered to its close and I heaved for breath as the dying pulses sapped my energy. For a long, long time, I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t even look up when more semen splashed on to my neck. I just lay there, inert, trying to block the sound of Tony’s mad mantra.
I wished I were a million miles away. I wished I knew what the score was. Was Tony a man who you just had to get used to? Or was he frighteningly demented and you wouldn’t want to bother? And who were his friends? And when could I go home?
I felt someone get off the bed. Gradually, Tony calmed. He withdrew from me and pulled the dildo from my aching sex.
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes just as Tony threw the glistenin
g phallus in Ilya’s direction.
‘Catch!’ he barked, and, deftly, Ilya caught.
Under his olive-dark skin, Ilya was ashen. He said nothing. He just gazed at Tony.
‘That’s for you,’ Tony said to him. ‘Leftovers. Suck on it if you want.’
A couple of the men sniggered.
Ilya shook his head in astonishment rather than refusal.
‘I want to get dressed now,’ I murmured, pushing myself from the bed.
Tony flung himself alongside me, drawing me back down. He brought his face close to mine, our noses almost touching, and brushed a bedraggled length of hair from my face. Then, smiling faintly, he stroked a gentle line along my jaw. It was truly scary.
‘But, sweetie,’ he cooed. ‘Tony doesn’t want you to get dressed. Tony likes you undressed. And what Tony says goes. See, baby?’ He drifted his finger down my neck. ‘Now why don’t you trot across the room, pour me a whisky and fetch my cigarettes? Mmm?’
I nodded dumbly.
‘That’s my girl,’ he breathed.
I moved slowly – the way police do when they’re trying to persuade a madman to hand over his weapons. Except I was moving away from one.
The room was very quiet.
I padded over to the coffee table, where the near-empty bottle of whisky stood, found a glass on the floor and collected them both. I looked around at the scattered cigarette packets, trying to recall which brand was his. I didn’t want to upset him.
I glanced across to the dressing table and that’s when I saw it. My heart twisted in shock. A gun. It was just lying there, small, black and angular.
I’d never seen a gun before, not in real life. It was casually pointing into the centre of the room, its tip a dark shadowy O. Bullets come out of there, I thought. Then they whizz into someone’s body. Kill them.
‘Oh fuck,’ I said, staring at it, half fearing it would go ‘bang’ any second.
These people were serious trouble, far worse than I’d imagined.
‘What is it, queenie?’ gasped Tony, sitting bolt upright.
‘It’s a fucking gun,’ I breathed, turning to him accusingly. ‘You . . . Get it out of here. Get it away from me. I swear, I’ll do anything you want. You don’t need . . . Just . . . Oh God.’
My words melted to silence.
Tony uttered a stream of mad cackling laughter, raising his hands in a show of innocence. ‘Not mine, sweetie. Not that one. That one belongs to Mr Boyfriend.’
My eyes darted to Ilya.
He gave me a jittery smile. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s not loaded.’
I stared at him, speechless.
‘What’s all the fuss?’ taunted Tony. ‘I thought you two were close. Doesn’t he let you play with his weapons, then?’ He flopped back on the bed, chuckling to himself and rubbing his pale chest. ‘Ho-hum,’ he said. ‘Naughty Ilya. Keeping secrets.’ Then he sat up again and grinned at me. ‘So you don’t like guns?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not overkeen, no.’
‘Then you’d be better off with me,’ he said brightly, angling his head. ‘Now I’m not saying my cupboards are empty of the things. Oh no. But if I were you, queenie, and I really didn’t like them, then I wouldn’t stay with a man who deals in thousands of them. It might make you unhappy, see? Thousands and thousands. Day in. Day out.’
Then he threw himself back on the bed again, laughing manically and gazing at the ceiling.
I looked at Ilya.
He held my gaze and raised his brows, putting on a guilty little smile.
‘Sorry,’ he mouthed, shrugging his shoulders.
‘Thousands and thousands,’ sang Tony. ‘Thousands and thousands.’
Chapter Twelve
TONY WAS EXAGGERATING. Of course he was. Ilya wasn’t equipping a goddamn army.
I sat with him in one of the seafront cafés, dunking my teabag into a cup of milky water.
Ilya had refused to come to my flat because there were too many eyes watching him. I’d refused to go to his B and B. Full stop.
Local radio was playing in the café and there weren’t many people around. Nevertheless, we spoke in low voices, hunching towards each other across the plastic-topped table.
‘So what sort of guns?’ I asked morosely.
Ilya shrugged. ‘A lot of Russian stuff: AK-47s, Tokarevs, Makarovs. Czech gear’s good too, popular, especially Skorpions. Then there’s –’
‘Whoa,’ I said quietly. ‘Will you say that in English, please? You know, do they go bang-you’re-dead or ack-ack-ack?’
Ilya grinned. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Not much call for bang-you’re-dead. Automatics. You know, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, handguns.’
‘Christ,’ I breathed, searching my mind for more questions.
Ilya, for once, had promised me absolute honesty. I had the freedom to probe, and that freedom was tyrannical. It made me feel obliged to ask, ask, ask, and yet I wasn’t sure if I wanted answers.
‘So how does it all work?’ I frowned, toying with a sugar sachet. ‘I mean, where do you get them from? Who do you sell them to? How do you . . . What if . . .’
My questions dried up.
‘Look,’ said Ilya in a hushed tone. ‘There are loads of firearms floating around Eastern Europe. And really good stuff – fucking top-notch, quality war guns. They –’ He broke off and glanced over at a table where an elderly couple sat munching.
‘Stocks aren’t controlled,’ he resumed, his voice even lower. ‘Certificates get faked. Stuff’s crossing borders left, right and centre. And the amount of weaponry the Russian army just, just loses, it’s . . . Then there are factories churning out gear that the military can’t afford. Someone’s got to take up the slack. Ends up on the black market. And, like I said, I don’t work alone. We’re part of a chain. We sell to someone who sells to someone else. My role’s more setting things up in Prague, Sofia, Budapest, then making sure it’s all smooth at this end.’
‘But then where do they go?’ I demanded. ‘Are they for armed robbers? Or . . . or terrorists? Or what? Where?’
Ilya sipped his black tea and grimaced. ‘Everyone wants to be tooled up these days,’ he replied. ‘Best not to ask too many questions.’
I didn’t know if he meant best for me or best for him. Or both.
‘Jesus, don’t you have any scruples?’ I asked, accidentally ripping the sachet and scattering white sugar granules everywhere.
Ilya smiled. ‘Not one of my strong points, no.’
I didn’t return the smile. We fell silent and I just stared out of the window, beyond the quiet shingle beach to the washed-out sky. It looked like it had been coated with those paints you can buy: white with a hint of apple or peach. The sky that day was white with a hint of misery.
The summer season’s coming to a close, I thought. The tourists have gone home; the kids are back at school; the Victorian merry-go-round is all wrapped up in green canvas, showing only its stripy top. A lot of the seafront souvenir shops and ice-cream bars have closed, and so have a fair amount of cafés. Along the arches there are more metal shutters than open doors. Some café owners keep on determinedly putting tables and chairs outside, but there’s no one sitting there.
Brighton at this time of year has a very melancholy feel; it’s like a clown with no friends.
I dropped my teabag into the ashtray and turned back to Ilya. ‘So how do you get the . . . the things into Britain? I asked. ‘Are they hidden inside other stuff?’
Ilya lit a cigarette. ‘Kind of,’ he murmured. ‘You can stash crates in with legit freight.’
‘Well, what sort of legit freight?’
He dashed a knuckle across the bridge of his nose. ‘Anything, really. Depends who I’m working with, how we’re organising it. Perishables are good, you know, fruit, flowers. It gets taped up, has to travel fast, so customs don’t poke around too much. Or it might be timber or . . . like the next run, it’s a big consignment and we’re shipping it in with machine
parts.’
‘Christ,’ I said softly. ‘I just, I can’t get my head round it all. It’s . . . There’s suddenly so much metal in my life. And my life isn’t like that. My life is, is softer. And this is Brighton. I know the town’s not all candyfloss and doughnuts but . . .’
My words petered out.
‘I didn’t want my life to be like this,’ said Ilya testily. ‘It’s not easy, you know, always having to look over your shoulder, trusting no one except yourself, wondering if today’s going to be the day your luck runs out. It’s a fucking pain. But it’s not something you can just walk away from. And the pickings are good. I make a lot of money. Trouble is it’s all tied up in property and deals at the moment. I haven’t got thirty grand to spare.’
A troubled silence thickened between us.
Ilya drew heavily on his cigarette, then said, ‘Look, Beth, I know I said I’d be straight with you, but it’s probably best if you don’t know too many details. For your safety and for mine.’
‘I’m just curious,’ I said sullenly. ‘And since I’m caught up in this mess, I reckon I deserve something of an insight. I mean, what you’re asking me to do is pretty heavy-going.’
‘Yeah, fair enough,’ conceded Ilya. ‘Sorry.’
‘So are you going to move back into your flat?’ I asked, trying to steer away from the subject. ‘Now Tony’s tracked you down, there’s not much point staying in some B and B, is there?’
‘Yeah, but I reckon I’m safer there,’ he replied. ‘It’s more public. Anyway, my flat’s too close to yours. I’d hate Tony to burst in with one of his little reminders when you’re with me.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t visit your flat. You could come to mine.’
Ilya shrugged. ‘Tony’d find out. He always does.’
‘Well, are you going to move back in when this is all finished? I asked. ‘And what about your stuff? Are you paying rent? You could store it at my –’
‘Beth, please,’ said Ilya, with a hint of exasperation. ‘I’m not thinking more than a few days ahead at the moment. Anyway, there’s hardly anything worth having in my flat. I took what I needed when I left for Prague.’ He smiled. ‘The TV and video were the best things there. Oh, and the Anal Virgin cassette, of course.’
Asking For Trouble Page 24