My two stage partners are at my feet, doing sort of undulating press-ups while gazing at me adoringly and lapping at thin air. They’re perfectly synchronised; they’ve done this before. I’m a bit more freeform, trying my best to time things the way we’d planned.
With striptease drama, I start unlacing the criss-cross cords of my hot pants, eyelet by eyelet.
If this were one of my sleazy fantasies, my boorish male spectators would probably be gearing up to pull me down into the bear pit of their greedy lust. But it’s not fantasy; and my spectators, while you wouldn’t quite call them civilised, are not boorish, greedy men – Ilya’s table excepted, of course. They’re behaving pretty well, though, and they’d better stay that way.
Playful whistles and drunken shouts of encouragement compete with the music. I adore it. I feel like I’m pulling an audience into my power, and the buzz that gives me is strong and erotic.
When my hot pants are unlaced, I slide a hand into the front flaps, nudging my arm up and down. I roll my head back and pant as if I’m close to ecstasy. I slip my fingers into my purple G-string knickers, past my newly hairless mound, to caress my vulva. No one can see that I’m really doing this, but I am, and I’m so wet. I feel gloriously wicked.
Turning my back to the room, I remove my hot pants, bending straight-legged from the waist as I shimmy them down. That way, everyone gets a view of my arse jutting up and my buttocks swelling tautly. The hot pants aren’t easy to remove with my boots on, but Leo and Mikey shield the messiness while helping me.
And anyway, so what if the performance isn’t perfect and slick? I don’t care. Rough edges are good. And people are cheering and hollering. It must be OK.
The music changes into some good old seventies disco – no lyrical significance; I just like it. While my hands and the boys’ are at my feet, Mikey covertly passes me my prop – a plastic banana. Leo looks up at me, gives me a cheeky little wink and waggles his tongue salaciously. I grin and waggle mine back.
People laugh and whoop as I turn to face them, rubbing the tip of my plastic banana from my groin to my neck.
My audience, I know, take this pretty much on an ironic level, which is fine. It’s not exactly pastiche-free. But I look around and see swollen groins and I ask myself: Can you have an ironic hard-on? I think not.
I lick and fellate my plastic banana as Leo and Mikey roll around, feigning torment and desire – except Leo’s not feigning the desire bit. His cock is a bulge in his spangly shorts and he doesn’t give a damn. He rubs himself, his hips surging up and down, his six-pack abs shimmering.
Does Ilya get the banana reference, I wonder? Does he remember when I played the whore and he made me fuck myself with stupid fruit?
I’m about to glance over but I catch sight of Martin, propping up the bar, grinning inanely.
It’s obvious that he’s seen beyond my mask, and it’s also obvious that it doesn’t matter one scrap. His smile is big and generous, warm and familiar, and so full of easy love.
I feel a rush of awkwardness and guilt, but it sinks away when I read the forgiveness in his face. And, best of all, everything about him – his stance, his expression, his eyes – is free from lust and pain and anger. He looks like the Martin I knew before we started our stupid affair: Martin, my closest friend. And he’s grinning simply because he’s happy for me.
It’s catching, and suddenly I feel lighter, happier, more free.
I wish I had a pole to writhe around. I wish I had showgirl tassels on my tits.
Hardly concentrating, I see that Mikey’s on all fours for the next bit and I plant my boot on to his broad ebony back. Edging aside sequins and skimpy gusset, I ease the plastic banana into my sweet shaven slit and begin sliding it in and out. It feels so good, moving in my wetness; but the best feeling of all is that, yeah, I’m doing this for Ilya, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I can add an extra layer to it and do it for me.
In a way, it was always for me. I wanted to appease Ilya’s bully-boys not for his sake but for mine, because I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving town. But I don’t like the baggage Ilya comes with and now this is for me because I’m enjoying it. Pure and simple.
I withdraw my banana, which is glistening with juices, and clasp it in both hands. I feel buoyed up with naughty delight as I point it at Ilya’s table, brandishing it like a gun, and slowly, slinkily, I step down from the stage.
Tony thinks it’s funny. He thinks he’s part of an in-joke, but pretty soon I’m going to wipe that smile off his face. This part of the show was always planned, but the reasoning behind has suddenly changed. Now, I’m more concerned about seeing Ilya’s reaction than I am about trying to spite Tony.
I make my way to the table, my bikini sequins sparkling, and make a charade of drifting caresses over the heads and shoulders of the men sitting there. Ilya, looking worried and mistrustful, watches me closely.
When I reach Tony, I linger, and he shifts his chair side-on to the table. I stand wide-legged before him, stirring my hips and lowering myself into half-squats.
Tony leers and gloats, lapping up his status as the man who’s forced me to perform. His eyes are bright with eagerness and intrigue. He thinks I’m about to give him the star treatment, and I am – in my own special way.
Holding my banana gunlike, I wave it close to his thin lips and then close to mine. I lap at the tip, tasting my musk, then offer him the same. He grins and his lizardy tongue flicks out. I allow him to taste me just enough, then I take the thing to my mouth and lick along its length.
Bit by bit, I offer Tony more. It’s like there’s just me and him there, playing a silly little banana game. Tony responds by trying to outdo my teasing, attempting to take more of the banana than I seem prepared to give.
Eventually, his mouth closes over half of it. His lust-sharp eyes are locked on mine, and he looks an utter fool.
Then, making it seem as if it’s just a flourish gone wrong, I sweep a near-full pint of beer from the table.
The glass falls into Tony’s lap, the liquid spills, and he jumps up in shock, spitting the plastic banana from his mouth.
People at a nearby table squeal and laugh.
My eyes dart to Ilya. Anger flares up in his face, not because he’s wet – he isn’t – but because he’s furious with me. I’ve seen that anger before, the way it streaks through him and wrecks his composure.
When he catches me looking, Ilya does his best to conceal his rage and turns his attention to poor, soaked Tony.
But I saw him. I saw that brief betrayal of what’s ticking in his mind. He knows I’m fucking up on purpose, and it makes him livid because all he wants right now is for me to be a good little slut who can placate his creditors.
The clarity of my situation is stark, vicious almost in its suddenness: Ilya’s not concerned about me, not to the extent I want him to be. His priority is his own neck, and he’s using me in a way I don’t want to be used.
As Tony wipes at the damp patch on his trousers, and someone makes a fuss about getting a cloth from the bar, I swank away to another table.
There’s no point slutting it up for the bully-boys. I’ve done enough of that.
And, at last, I’ve reached my decision.
Today was good and today was bad.
Last night, shortly after my little accident with the beer, Ilya and his gang left the gig. Ilya said nothing to me – not even ‘Goodbye, never mind, thanks’ or ‘That was great’ or ‘You stupid bitch, what did you go and do that for?’ He just smouldered for a while, face like thunder, then they all trooped out.
It worried me for a long time. I kept thinking that maybe Ilya would have to bear the brunt of Tony’s wrath. Or maybe I would.
I couldn’t sleep – not just because of that but because of a thousand other things running through my mind. And, as I lay in bed, I was forever expecting the phone to ring or the door to buzz and for me to be summoned to take some ill treatment from Tony.
And i
f I didn’t agree, then Ilya would get his kneecaps blown off or cigarettes stubbed out on his face, or the tip of his tongue cut off with scissors. Or, more likely, my refusal would count for nothing and Tony would just get on with whatever he fancied doing to me.
I had lots of horrible, sick thoughts as I tried to imagine the worst kinds of sadistic torture Tony might be capable of. When your head is suddenly clogged up with violence, as mine was last night, it’s a truly nasty experience. And it was so hard to escape from. However much I tried to focus on nice things, some part of my brain kept working of its own volition, chucking up foul images to better the ones I already had.
But nobody called and, when daylight brought rationality, I figured Tony wouldn’t have reacted to what was, after all, just a bit of spilt beer. He didn’t have Ilya’s explosive rage. To be unhinged the way Tony is, you need a certain coolness, a psychopathic calm.
So I more or less reassured myself that Ilya would have seen the night through unharmed.
Around midday, I headed for his B and B.
I’d spent all morning wavering between decision and indecision – not about whether to do it but how to do it. Perhaps it would be easier if I just dropped him a line. If I say it to his face, maybe he’ll try to persuade me to change my mind; maybe it’ll get messy and emotional and I’ll start to weaken.
But I didn’t think that would happen. The one constant in all we’d been through was our respect for cuttlefish, the end. Even in the B and B, surrounded by thugs, Ilya had given me the option of saying the word, of walking away and leaving him to deal with Tony and his cold, gleeful violence.
There was something almost sacred about the clean death of cuttlefish.
So yes, I would say it to his face. Besides, I wanted to see his reaction. Would he look relieved? Hurt? Would he start frantically packing in a scramble to leave town now he’d lost his prize bargaining tool?
It was a warm, freakishly windy day. I walked along North Street and everyone’s hair and clothes were being whipped this way and that. When I reached the Old Steine, the force of those winds, powering in from the beach, almost took my legs from under me. The waves were crashing in like I’d never seen them before and the sea was swollen and choppy. It was weird weather.
At Ilya’s B and B, I pressed the bell. The beige man answered the door again, and again I told him I’d come to see someone in room nine.
He shook his head. ‘Left this morning,’ he said. ‘Not here any more.’
It took a while for this to sink in. I just stood there, the wind tunnelling up the street, lashing my hair across my face.
‘Are you sure?’ I said, raising my voice because that wind wanted to whip my words away.
‘Yep. Is your name . . .’ The man frowned, and beckoned me into the gaudy red lobby.
‘Are you sure?’ I repeated, as I closed the front door and deadened the noise of the weather. ‘Dark guy. Ilya Travis, his name was – is.’
‘Yep,’ said the landlord, and he disappeared into a room full of empty breakfast tables, spinsterish lampshades and net curtains. ‘Something odd like that,’ he called back. ‘Room nine, he was.’ He returned with an envelope, looked at it, then at me. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Beth,’ I breathed. ‘Beth Bradshaw.’
He handed me the envelope and I took it with shaky fingers. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
I saw my name scrawled on the front and gave a silent breath of relief when I recognised the writing as Ilya’s. I’d half feared it might be unknown to me and inside there would be some horrible message about Ilya’s fate. Maybe there still was. Maybe it was a blood-splattered farewell, written by Ilya while he had a gun pressed to his head.
I didn’t want to open it.
‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ I asked. ‘Was anyone with him?’
‘Just paid up and left.’ The landlord shrugged, resting his hand on the wooden banister as if he were about to go upstairs. ‘Not likely to tell me where he’s going, is he? It’s a bed and breakfast. People come. People go. Quite early it was. Now, anything else I can do for you?’
‘No,’ I whispered, feeling slightly foolish. ‘Thanks.’ And I left.
Outside, I leant against the spiky black railings, my back to the sea in order to shield my envelope. I opened it with strong, sure fingers, terrified the contents would be snatched away from me, sucked up into the sky, and I’d never know what they were.
Inside was some Brighton picture postcard. I turned hastily to the reverse, my eyes scanning wildly for the whole sense, rather than reading in sentences.
‘Cuttlefish’ was the first word I registered. It leapt out at me – cold and brutal.
No, I kept thinking, that’s my word. That’s why I’m here. It’s mine. I was ready. I was going to say it. It’s been running through my head all morning. You’ve stolen it. It’s not fair.
Then I read the message:
Sorry, Beth. It’s been great. You’ve been great – more than I deserve. But I don’t know how to play fair any more. Maybe I never did. Tony wants more of you – I suppose you knew that’d happen. And so do I. But the two things don’t go together, and so I guess this is it, babe. You’re worth far more than me. It’s time I moved on. I’ll never, ever forget this summer. Hope you won’t either.
Love and cuttlefish, Ilya.
PS Your stage show blew my mind last night. I’m gonna have a hard-on for decades. Keep at it.
I went to the beach.
The shingle was all banked up near the promenade, littered with debris chucked up by the sea.
I didn’t cry.
The waves were enormous, hurtling forward, caving in and spuming up as if they were hitting cliffs rather than beach. And, against the groynes, the water was even more violent, sending white foaminess splashing high into the air.
It was so noisy.
I found out afterwards that we’d got the tail-end of some hurricane from America, but I didn’t know that then.
The wind buffeted me and, every now and again, my steps went crooked and drunken because it was so ferociously strong. It was warm and arid too: my eyes didn’t stream the way they would do in a chill wind. That rushing air had the opposite effect; it made my eyeballs feel strangely dry. Probably a good thing.
There were quite a few people about, just walking along and looking out to sea, gazing at its big angry beauty.
I felt numb for a long time. Then I began to feel bitter and resentful because he’d ended it and that was surely my right.
It was as if, once again, he’d turned the tables by landing a surprise on me and I just had to take it. From start to finish, it was always Ilya who had to have the upper hand, who had to compete to outdo me. And now he’d walked away. He would never know that I was ready to quit; that I’d seen enough of his violent, deceitful, twilight world; and that our game was over because it got swallowed up in a bigger game was far too dark and dirty for my taste.
I stood facing the sea – not too close because I didn’t want to invite danger. I was through with that; and, anyway, I’d never meant to do it in the first place.
The gales were so fierce that I could actually lean forward and stay that way, supported by the constant push of air. It was difficult to breathe. The wind was too fast to inhale though my nostrils, so I had to open my mouth and my cheeks wobbled as the breath I wanted poured into my throat. It was delicious because it was so warm and sharp with brine.
It made me laugh. I felt giggly and exhilarated. A fine sea mist blew steadily into my face, making my skin damper and damper. And I had a sudden upsurge of delirious happiness and a feeling that I could conquer the world.
Negative ions, someone once told me. You get them from the seaside and they make you feel good. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe it was the sight of all that furious water cresting in and exploding into whiteness like some advert for bad aftershave.
Or maybe I had every reason to be deliriously happy. Ilya was right: it was a su
mmer not to be forgotten and, yes, it had been great. Most of it.
But in a way, I was glad that all the horrors of guns and bully-boys and whatever else Ilya’s life was had crept in to destroy our game. At least we hadn’t had to say cuttlefish because we were getting bored or because one of us – me, probably – wanted the other to give more. After all, it seemed pretty unlikely that either of us would quit because the sex was too debauched.
And isn’t that what I’d asked for in the beginning: just a summertime fling?
I worried a bit about what would happen to Ilya. Would he be safe? Would he sort Tony out? Where the hell was Tony now? Would I be safe?
Time will tell, I thought. But I had a sense that it would be OK. I didn’t think Ilya would leave me to face any danger. And I reckoned he knew how to handle himself. He seemed to have managed so far.
I crunched on a little further, the wind roaring into my left ear. The shingle was strewn with trails of slimy seaweed, broken shells, bits of rotting wood and the flotsam and jetsam of a modern-day beach: a dead biro, a crushed tin can, a lighter, another tin can.
I have Martin, I thought, and I’ll probably love him for ever, because we’re back where we used to be: just great mates. We’d spoken the night before, briefly, and he’d laughed delightedly at what I was doing, said I was a soppy old tart and that we ought to go out soon, drink some beer and bicker over the best flavour of crisps. He’s sorted himself out, I can tell. He knows we’re better at being friends than we are at being lovers.
So Martin and I are solid and platonic.
I still desire Ilya – in my groin more than anywhere else – and I’ll probably miss our sleazy sex games. But he’s gone now.
And I’m fucking Luke who’s kind of sweet but he doesn’t make me swoon.
I imagined taking the best of all three situations, putting them in a blender, and bam – I’d have the lust and love of my life in one delicious package.
But then, I thought, I don’t want that yet. I’m only thirty and, while some people are seriously settled, done and dusted at that age, I don’t want to be like that.
Asking For Trouble Page 26