by Simon Jenner
“Thank you, John Smith,” she said. “If that really is your name.” She fell backwards on the bed in an even bigger fit of giggles. After only one miniature brandy, she was as high as a kite. The brandy had smoothed down the edges and the exhilaration, born of relief, had flooded out like water from a busted dam.
John put down his drink and lay next to Savannah. She could feel his eyes on her as she stared at the high ceiling.
“I mean it, Smith,” she said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“It’s not all over yet. We still have the mad bomber to worry about.”
“I know but I feel different. You know what you said before we went into the escort agency?”
“I told you yesterday, I can barely remember my name.”
“Don’t kid around, Smith. You know what you said about me having been a victim all my life?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, you’re right and now I don’t feel like that person anymore.”
“That’s great.” John poked a finger in Savannah’s side. “That’s for the elbow. I’ll get you back later for breaking my foot.”
Savannah jumped up and leapt on John’s stomach, straddling him and sending the air rushing from his lungs.
“Ooomph! That hurt. Get off me you lunatic.”
She looked at his face. His eyes were blue-grey and mischievous, shining with life and vitality, nothing like the eyes that had judged her yesterday morning. Sure he was handsome, but he was also twelve years her senior. Was that perverse? He looked much younger - did that make a difference? Graham had been twenty-seven and looked older than the man beneath her.
“Get off me,” grumbled John, making suspiciously little effort to remove her from his person. “Have you got lead in those lanky legs of yours?”
She didn’t reply. She was lost in his eyes and everything he had done for her. If she tried to kiss him, would he reject her? Was not throwing her off him a sign that he would like her to kiss him? Shouldn’t he make the first move?
She had never trusted or wanted somebody so much than at that moment but it was too important. Yesterday she had been a prostitute. Sure, not a very well paid one, her whole career grossing fifty pounds, thirty of which she gave to that dirt bag Christos. But she couldn’t forget the look John had given her yesterday when he realised she was in his bed for money. Could he ever get past that? Could any man? They were proud and strange beasts.
Being sat upon by a silent person was obviously not the correct protocol. “What’s up?” John asked.
“Just thinking,” she replied.
“About what?”
About kissing him, about whether he found her attractive, about whether he ever could, about how he was the bravest, most selfless man she’d ever met. Not much really.
“Nothing,” she said.
He gazed up at her. Perhaps her display of uncertainty was putting him off.
“Your eyes are amazing,” he said. “I never saw such bright, shiny eyes in all my life.”
That was it - confirmation to proceed. No attempt to shake her off and a compliment about her eyes - it was enough. She leaned forward taking her weight on her arms which she placed either side of John’s shoulders. As her face drew closer to his, she hesitated, suddenly nervous and unsure of the advance she was clearly making and the message it gave out.
Her face hovered motionless above John’s. His breath was warm and smelt of whisky. Christ, she had to do something now. Warmth in her cheeks, not of the brandy-induced variety, told her that if she didn’t go one way or the other soon, her embarrassment would be well and truly on display. John lay still like a lamb to the slaughter - surely another sign? In one slow, smooth and deliberate motion, she planted her lips onto his and rested them there. Her hair fell down around his face like an intimate tent. As his lips pressed back, she was filled with a mixture of happiness, relief and lust. Her heart drummed in her chest every bit as hard and fast as it had in Aphrodite’s Angels when she had heard Christos’s voice on the loudspeaker.
Their first kiss was soft, tentative and long. When John’s mouth opened, Savannah’s followed suit and she welcomed his tongue inside. She teased him with her own tongue which darted eagerly around his in a fast, then more measured and sensual motion. Each time her tongue increased its urgency, John’s lips would press harder and his breathing became faster.
John raised his head from the bed as his passion seemed to escalate. Savannah sensed that both of their pleasures would be heightened if John was able to move freely. When she lifted her left leg over his stomach, he scrambled to his knees and grabbed her by her waist. The straps of her dress fell over her shoulders as John pulled them to each side. She thanked a higher power for the gift of new, sexy underwear from Harrods.
Taking hold of her shoulders, John pulled her towards him and kissed her neck from front to back sending a series of shivers through her that made her squirm with delight. His lips moved to her ear and he breathed heavily. The anticipation of having her ear lobe nibbled by John was unbearable and the shivers continued from the soft touch of his breath on her neck. Most men, and there hadn’t been many, ignored her ears, preferring to head straight for the more obvious erogenous zones.
John, thankfully, wasn’t most men and was homing in on her second most sensitive area without a single clue. Savannah moaned softly, out of relief as much as pleasure. She had finally come across a man who would treat her right, in and out of the bedroom. But John’s teeth never reached her ear and the words he whispered delivered neither pleasure nor relief.
“I’m not paying for this, am I?”
Savannah pulled away, pulled her arm to one side and swung it with every ounce of energy her anger could muster. The flat of her hand hit his right cheek with a resounding slap, such was its force and accuracy. The cheek glowed even before John covered it with his own hand, rubbing, soothing. She felt her own face flush and her anger heighten.
“I thought that you were different. How could I have been so bloody stupid? You’re a pig, just like the rest of them.”
John stared back, rubbing his cheek, eyes wide and jaw dropped.
“You fucking bastard, you goddamn prick, you mean fucking cunt of a man.” Savannah’s hands grabbed her hair and pulled. “Is that what you want? Is that how dirty filthy whores talk to their men? Does that get your dick hard?”
John’s jaw fell open further.
“Well say something you ignorant son of a bitch. Tell this cheap slut exactly what you think of her now.”
Savannah reached over to her right and grabbed one of the huge pillows. As she pulled it to her, John flinched, apparently expecting her to attack him with the feather-filled weapon. The anger was petering out and the hurt was taking over. The hurt churned up her insides until she felt like she would explode. She badly wanted to scream but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Goddamn him! Others had frightened her, bullied her, cheated her and even died on her. But John Smith had done worse, far worse. He had made her feel completely worthless. Savannah took her pillow, locked herself in the bathroom and cried.
*
As the bathroom door slammed behind Savannah, John finally regained control over his slack jaw, closing it as he continued to rub his smarting cheek. It hadn’t been an easy decision to purposely end the excitement and he had to face it, it was the excitement that had worried him the most. He was certain that the sex would have been over very quickly and that would have been the end of it. She wouldn’t have been angry and never would have hit him. She would have looked at him with those bloody gorgeous eyes full of sadness for him, because he was a sexual failure, and for her, because he had promised so much, not in words but by his actions. The hero who couldn’t satisfy the damsel he saved from distress.
He could have said that he hadn’t been with a woman in over a year and that all their near encounters had raised the sexual tension so high he didn’t know how to cope with it. Or he could have s
aid that the last woman he had been with was only the second of his life. Both were true, after all. Didn’t modern women want the truth? No. Women wanted what they had always wanted from their heroes. They wanted confidence and satisfaction and with John she would have received neither.
John lay back on the bed and considered his next move. He had destroyed everything that could have been and might have been with Savannah. For somebody who couldn’t have cared less two days ago, John couldn’t have imagined feeling more miserable and dejected. To top it all, her outburst, which some might have thought crass or crude, only made him care about her more. He fully understood why she had reacted with such venom. Those piercing eyes of hers which couldn’t lie were unable to disguise the pain he had caused. He made up his mind to split the remaining money with Savannah and to part company at the next opportunity.
*
With a fistful of cash in one hand and the other about to knock on the bathroom door, John was interrupted by a knock at the main door.
“Room service!”
What had Savannah done? Spent all their cash on unnecessary food to teach him a lesson? Thousands could easily be paid out on the luxuries available in the hotel. Perhaps she had ordered some medication for a headache? He tapped lightly on the door between them.
“Savannah, did you order room service?”
“Go away,” she said, sniffing and then blowing her nose.
“Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I had my reasons and I understand that we aren’t meant to be, but there really is someone at the door and I’m not answering unless you tell me that you ordered something.”
A few more sniffs. “No, I didn’t order anything.”
John tried to keep his voice calm for fear that it might carry out into the corridor. “Come on out, I think we’re in trouble. We need to get the hell out of here.” He tapped again. “Savannah, I’m not kidding.”
John heard a crash and whirled around to see the door straining against the brass security chain. He banged harder on the door.
“Savannah, they’re breaking the door down! Come on.”
The lock clicked and Savannah opened the door an inch.
“Are you kidding?”
Another crash echoed out as their hotel door slammed against the inside wall with great force. It was too late. Whoever had been at the door was now inside their suite. John pushed his way into the bathroom sending Savannah backwards.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Savannah said, using her hand against the far wall to stop herself.
John locked the door again and cast his eyes around the gleaming room for signs of anything else to bolster the door.
“Pass me the toothbrushes,” he said.
The bathroom door vibrated. Someone was thumping at the other side. “Open up, Savannah Jones,” the voice said venomously. “This is the police. We know you’re in there.”
John wedged the toothbrushes so they stuck in the gaps below and above the door. It didn’t look like they would make much difference. Savannah tapped John on the shoulder with something hard. John turned his head to see a white phone by his ear.
“Call reception,” he said, “and tell them we’re under attack.”
“Is Varushkin in there with you?” asked the voice outside the bathroom.
Ah, so it was Christos’s men. They must have followed them back from the escort agency. But why wouldn’t they have dealt with them outside the hotel? Surely this was insanity. The real police could arrive at any second.
“Reception says they are the police,” Savannah informed him.
John pulled Savannah to him and whispered in her ear. “They don’t know that I’m in here so keep them talking while I think.”
She nodded, seeming steadier than she had been in Aphrodite’s Angels.
“I’ve done nothing wrong so why should I come out?” she said, shrugging her shoulders at John. He nodded. “What am I charged with?”
While Savannah stalled for time, John tried to get an outside line on the bathroom phone. No luck. The hotel had presumably disabled the service at the request of the fake police officer. A thought occurred to John, and he whispered in Savannah’s ear again. She nodded.
“Who’s the other officer with you?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?” returned the voice.
“You said ‘We know you’re in there.’ So who’s the other part of the we?”
“It’s just a figure of speech.” A pause, then, “We always say we. If you don’t open up, I’m afraid I’ll have to break the door down.”
“Don’t you mean we?”
Then Savannah jumped up like she had seen the ghost of a despised relative. She grabbed John’s wrist and tugged him towards her, almost tripping him up in the process. She tapped his new watch and John, picking up on her manic gestures, immediately pressed the button to alert Johnson and Wilson.
John’s stumble had been heard through the door. “Is there someone in there with you, Miss Jones? If Dmitri Varushkin is in there also, then we have some questions for him too. I’m not sure you realise what serious trouble you are both in.”
What if Johnson and Wilson were out of range? Even if they were in range, what if they were half an hour away?
“Time’s up, Miss Jones,” said the voice.
The door shook as a foot began to methodically kick it midway up its height. The two toothbrushes wedged at either end fell away in seconds. John picked up a toothbrush, wedged it back in the bottom gap and pulled it up until it snapped. He looked at the result in his hand - useless. He chucked the half length of toothbrush into the bath and gathered the second unbroken one from the floor. This time he wedged the end into one of the sink’s hot taps, leaving his fingers close to the end so that the pressure remained close to the inserted end when he levered the toothbrush upwards. It snapped perfectly leaving a sharp plastic tapered end. It was no knife but it was a weapon of sorts. Another kick landed and the lock rattled meekly, indicating its intention to give up on the next blow.
“Don’t kill them,” ordered the voice.
So there were two of them. Was one of these men the rain-coated man from the station? If so how did he know about Varushkin? John signalled to Savannah to stand to the right of the door and open it on his signal, and he took position on the left. A loud crack accompanied the sound of smashing glass and a bullet blew a four inch hole in the bathroom door, sending splinters of wood into the air between them. A tile behind them disintegrated as the bullet passed through it, adding ceramic powder and tiny pieces of tile to the airborne mass.
Christ, now they were shooting too! John looked at the wall where the bullet had hit. There was a huge hole and no sign of a bullet. What were they using, an elephant gun? He and Savannah were dead for sure. John looked at Savannah, feeling an urgent need to apologise to her but she was busy. What was she doing? She was opening the door!
“No!” he yelled.
But it was too late. She pulled the door wide open at the instant Christos’s foot appeared, followed by his leg and his body. The look on Christos’s face would have been comical if their situation had not been so dire. Without the resistance of the door to absorb the energy from his kick, Christos was travelling uncontrollably forward and downwards with his mouth open in a mixture of anger and surprise. Christos’s trunk reached an angle of forty-five degrees to the floor at the exact moment that his left knee hit the ground. John, timing his swing to perfection, plunged the broken end of the toothbrush deep into the side of the man’s neck.
John was transfixed by the sight of the writhing, black-clad figure on the floor as he coughed out blood and pulled frantically at the well-embedded toothbrush. Savannah began to scream when a further crack rang out to the sound of smashing glass and a second bullet blew another tile on the back wall to smithereens.
Savannah sensibly leapt into the bath and made herself into a tight ball. John could not reach the bath without crossing the doorway and so lay flat on the ground o
n his side of the door, inches away from the bubbling-mouthed pimp who still tugged away at the green plastic handle in his neck. He heard movement in their suite followed by another gunshot and another, exploding glass and ... a wall in their suite taking two bullets?
Another flurry of running feet, another gunshot, another explosion of glass and a thud of a striking bullet even further away from the bathroom followed. Whoever was shooting was not aiming at them but at the man who had impersonated a police officer and sent Christos after them.
It had to be Johnson and Wilson!
John stood up and brushed - or rather dusted - himself off, as his smart attire was covered in a very fine powder. Christos finally clawed the offending object from his neck, sending a thick jet of blood five feet across the bathroom where it splattered against the white tiled wall. John heard Savannah’s bare feet squeak against the bath’s surface as she pushed herself upright.
“Don’t look, Savannah,” he said, placing himself between her and the moaning Christos. The jets of blood, which gushed in time with each heartbeat, quickly lost their zeal and diminished to a dribble. With great urgency, Savannah jumped out of the bath and knelt beside Christos’s head. She slid her hand underneath his flabby cheek, which was resting in a bright red pool of his blood, and turned his head so that she could look into his eyes. John could see that the light in him was fading rapidly.
“You piece of shit!” she exclaimed. “We made a deal.”
John had seen more emotions in Savannah’s dark eyes than he had seen in the rest of the world’s eyes put together but this look frightened him the most of all. Even after the dying man’s eyes dulled over and the Grim Reaper collected his soul, Savannah continued to meet his empty gaze. Her lips were pursed tight, eyes narrowed, breath like a snorting dragon, her beauty gone, seemingly sucked temporarily into a place so dark it might well have tainted her soul.
John placed his hand on her shoulder. “Savannah.” He shook her gently but she didn’t respond. “Savannah,” he repeated, shaking her a little harder.