Petra stepped out of her elfin-like waist-high pantiehose. ‘Your type is never a one-woman man and Krystelle knows that as well as I do.’
‘I’m a little old-fashioned,’ said Grant. ‘We’re not married, but somehow that makes us even more permanent, because marriage has only got rules while people like Krystelle and I have obligations. Which are more important.’
‘But still made to be broken,’ said Petra. ‘So forget them. You’ve got an aura of aggression, and a fight with no holds barred does me a lot of good. In fact I like breaking in novices like you who don’t know too much about pain, so this should be good.’
The girl was rousing Grant in spite of himself. She had a don’t-give-a-damn approach which was a novelty, but he sensed that she meant every word and that she was organised for almost anything. ‘What exactly are you after?’ he said. His voice was suddenly husky, a sign of rare excitement, and the girl was so tensed with expectation that her sex seemed to fill the room. It was an animal attraction without the slightest hint of affection yet Grant knew that with this woman he could find at least one kind of satisfaction even if it might rate a bit kinky! And maybe a memory which could be important!
Her voice dropped an octave. ‘Remember that cock-fight? The one we saw in Mykonos. It began like this.’ She caught him off-guard and the nails of her right hand scraped along the side of his left shoulder. ‘First blood to me,’ she said and darted in like a brown snake striking towards his thighs for the follow-up.
She straightened at the last moment in an unexpected feint, but Grant met her with a full body check and she fell to the floor. Her limbs were flashing towards his chest when he fixed her in a folding press with shoulders firm against the carpeting, but her hands somehow fastened near his upper arms, and as thumbs pressed against sensitive nerves Grant was forced to somersault over her face. Before he could regain his balance her left leg had again thrown him and she fixed his head under one arm.
Grant could hear the thud of her heartbeat and the warmth of breast against his cheek as she switched into an armlock. ‘I thought you could fight,’ she said contemptuously.
The attacks had taken Grant off guard and he had a built-in dislike for striking women, but he did the only thing possible and used an unorthodox whip-back-hammer which threw her unsteadily against the wall and gave him time to throw off his bathrobe before she again pinned him with a double armlock while long nails bit into his flesh. But she had begun to breathe heavily and grunted as Grant tried a fast cross switch which didn’t quite come off. She then did a swift wriggle, seemed to withdraw for a split second, dived in like a professional and moved from a momentary quarter-Nelson to an aching half which took Grant completely by surprise.
He saved himself by grasping her crotch and felt her stiffen as she yelped with pain, but she again squirmed round and held him in a grovit. It was almost perfect, but he managed a wicked inside whip which gave him respite for less than four pulse beats before he again found himself almost pinned by a double arm from over the top.
He was saved only by his weight, and for the first time seized the initiative by holding her in a back-breaker over his left knee which he followed up by throwing her into a perfect pinfall position with his weight on top. But a savage wrist-counter enabled the woman to break free and she crouched, facing him, her face broken by a broad grin of almost bestial satisfaction. ‘Watch it, Petra,’ he said. ‘I’ve let you get away with plenty, but if you don’t stop I’ll really hurt you.’ His head was buzzing with weird noises and the room swaying like a rocking chair.
Her eyes tensed and her voice quivered with anticipation. ‘Do that, David,’ she said. ‘Just try and hurt me.’ Her feet flashed in an arc towards him and he stepped back as her heels stopped short of his chin while she crashed against cushions which had fallen from a divan. He paused to check that she hadn’t been badly hurt and was instantly locked in an arm lever, a grip which seemed to be her speciality.
Grant remembered, for the first time, that she was also a judo fan and decided to bring things to an end. She was giving away over two stones in weight and he could use the advantage, even against a black belt—if she had one. He began to fight by the book, and within seconds had her in a reverse double-knee hold which he followed with a head lock and stranglehold. Her breasts seemed to leap out in front of his eyes as she fought for breath and then he tightened the grip on her windpipe while he adjusted to a double-handed strangle and began to rub his knee into her back in a series of sweeping strokes which made her groan with pain.
She suddenly went limp and Grant, remembering vague messages from his medical days, wondered if he had accidentally hit that sensitive nerve plexus deep in the neck which can cause almost sudden death. He allowed her to drop and stepped back while she opened her eyes and slowly raised her arms. Her face seemed relaxed and he felt her fingers begin to caress his toes. She was smiling and her teeth gleamed like ivory flecked with gold dust in the light of the room. ‘So nice, David Grant,’ she said. ‘So very very nice!’ Her hands were rippling up and down his calves, and he stooped, almost without thought, to help her to her feet.
He was again trapped by her bluff, and the side of her hand cut him across the neck just below the angle of his jaw the moment she saw that he was within range. But it landed just an inch or so off target and her legs flashed towards him in a follow-up which threw him by the neck across the room. He managed to convert the throw into a cart-wheel, but crashed into the door and realised for the first time that in spite of weight and sex this really had to be a fight with no holds barred. His trouser belt lay draped across the back of a chair and her eyes glistened with excitement when he dived towards it. He stepped into range just long enough for her to throw a back slash to his stomach, but it fell millimetres short because she was still off balance and struggling to her feet. The blow was also short on weight, and Grant, standing above her, dived for the pressure points on her neck. He held the grip until she groaned with pain and he saw sweat break on her forehead. And then he moved into a reverse side head-lock with grovit.
He had become ruthless. The woman was still dangerous and he tried a series of moves which he didn’t like even when used against professionals, throwing his arms between her legs to fix a figure 4 leg lock.
The woman was sweating all over, her skin greasy as though it had been oiled, and his hands slipped. She dived for his hair and was seizing the advantage when he fixed a faultless arm lever and allowed his whole body to fall against her elbow. They were in an Indian death lock when Grant leaned back and Petra suddenly burst out laughing. ‘You win, David Grant. Finish.’
He unfolded himself, stood up and was rubbing his shoulder, which was still bleeding from four deepish scratches, when he felt a one-two chop behind his neck and against his right kidney and he slumped to the floor as she followed with a head butt which made him almost sick with pain. But he had been tricked twice and did the only thing possible, pulled himself together for one final effort and tripped her as she danced back out of range. He rolled on top of her as she fell and struck clean on the point of the jaw. Her head went limp and Grant staggered to the shower. He felt as though he had been in the front row of a campus riot and was in a blind rage. The jets helped to soothe his tingling body and he was dabbing his scratches with a sponge when he felt a touch near his thigh and looked down to see the woman kneeling beside him. Her lips were pressed against his groin and her arms around his legs. She was smiling and her eyes twinkling. Her neck was bruised and there were marks on her face, her hair was flecked with a few small bloodstains and he could feel her fingers trembling as they caressed him. ‘You’re good, David,’ she said. ‘My black mamba who turned into a fighting cock! So now that you know what I like you’ll do it properly from the beginning next time, won’t you?’
Grant figured that he had met almost every kind of woman, but this was a new experience. One part of him said that she was mad. But atavistic lust told him that this was also how love c
ould be for some people: a fight; treachery; smiles; blows; pain and the ecstasy of a knockout followed by a return to sanity and a deep sub-sub-conscious longing to find another kind of union and the thrill of flesh touching flesh with a gentleness which was the opposite of hate, yet separated from it only by an emotional hair’s breadth! ‘Did I hurt you?’ he said. And he could hear the thickness in his own voice. He felt ‘different’, almost light-headed, and the noise of water jetting from the shower seemed like the tinkle of sheep bells.
She climbed him slowly, her arms picking their way up his trunk as though moving from grip to grip until she was facing him, her cheeks crushed against his chest and her thighs pressing against his body. He was automatically soaping her skin, wiping sweat away with a sponge, and watching tepid water trickle down the line of her spine into the dark groove between her buttocks when her fingers entwined behind his shoulders and she slowly tossed the hair back from her eyes. It was now dripping with spray, yet moulded to her skull, and he saw for the first time a hint of her African ancestors. The lower jaw was a fraction too long, her cheeks a shade too prominent below her eyes, and her ears set at an angle which reminded him of that old, old world which lies between the bulge of Africa and Zanzibar.
Her lips again caressed his neck as her fingers began to massage the ache in his arms. The shower was lit by an orange light which reflected against her skin, and he almost quivered as her breasts moulded against his ribs, their tense nipples firmly hard while her right knee worked gently against his crutch. She seemed to be so completely helpless that he was disarmed, and a feeling of unexpected relaxation slowly swept over him. But it was the relaxation of knowing that danger has passed and that good things lie ahead. Somehow he had begun to dance inside!
‘We need Massage Boy,’ she said and lifted two thick towels which were draped over a heating panel.
Neither spoke until they were lying side by side, each on a single bed, and Petra had switched on the current. Massage Boy, as Grant well knew, was one of the most sensual, yet tension-releasing gadgets of all time: a device which attached to the bed and made the whole thing quiver with short, sharp, rhythmic movements more soothing than even the expert hands of Japanese girls in a Kyoto bath-house. Every muscle found a new style release and then the woman switched on a top-quality hi-fi whose two electrostatic speakers made the Supremes sound as though they were in the room. He saw Petra rise to pour more wine and felt that he was being transported into a cloud world of gossamer and gardens. He could even pick up the scent of wild roses, mimosa and thyme moistened by rain. Frank Sinatra followed with ‘Something Stupid’ and then Mauriac in her last aria before the execution scene in Tosca.
The bed rocked slightly as Petra slithered between his sheets, and her body was cool and fresh. It was difficult to believe that anything so gentle could move with such speed and ferocity! His arm slipped across her stomach and he heard her sigh with pleasure while a voice which might have been Gigli began to sing Che gelida manina and the room-lights dimmed to a deep, dark purple. He felt Petra wriggle close beside him and her tongue flicker against his ear. The music became louder as one part of him responded to a need, while the other was content to enjoy the steady pounding quiver of Massage Boy with every wall acting as a sounding board to music which filled half of his senses.
Her lips were soft against skin, and his flesh tensed with pleasure while her hair dragged down the length of his body and her cheeks snuggled against his groin. He could feel her tongue flickering around the tension which had builded up within him and then he was engulfed in warmth while the music rose to a crescendo and the bed seemed to heave in rhythm.
He was still drowsy, yet with every organ aware of pleasure being given, when she turned to face him, her features still blurred, but her hair dropping over her shoulders. Her hands moved in the darkness and he felt a new kind of warmth, while she sat, like some ivory apseros engraved against a background of purple light.
The outline of her body rose and fell half a dozen times and then she slowly sagged forward towards him, her breasts touching the hair of his chest before once again moulding against his ribs. Her lips were sucking the very life out of him while the slow caress of her tongue somehow gave everything back and warned him that she too was being erupted into the same searing need to become that mysterious male-female thing which is man-woman, life-living and a little death.
The music faded as Grant’s head cradled between her breasts and he savoured the regular whiff of her breath wafting against his neck. Her hands felt gently reassuring and the purple lighting ebbed into dark blackness as he drifted into sleep.
He wakened to find her dressed in a Turkish qaftan. Breakfast had been prepared and she was sipping a glass of lime-juice. ‘No talking, David,’ she said. ‘Have a shower and rub down. You ought to be feeling like a million dollars after last night.’
He glanced at the digital clock built against the far wall. It was rising nine o’clock and he remembered something about someone joining him for breakfast. But everything still had a dream-like quality which was unreal and he was content to do as he was told. The water was cool enough to sting, but it didn’t seem worth while even to ask himself what Petra was doing in his bedroom or why she was sharing his meal. She handed him a glass of juice while he slicked his hair. ‘I’ll bring your razor,’ she smiled. ‘You’ve got a heavy growth.’
He remembered something about a valet and tried to ask a question, but the girl placed a finger against his lips. ‘Later, David Grant. Right now Petra is your valet and she likes it that way. Take your juice.’
Grant tried to bring the night into focus. He remembered talk about Brazil and a mix-up of lights and music, but everything was remote and details confused. He went to the toilet for a second time and snibbed the door. He had a deep-rooted sense of need to think, and was afraid that someone would interrupt. A danger signal was tinkling in his mind and he connected it with the woman who had started to valet him.
He remembered his name only when he saw it sewn on his bathrobe. But it worried him that he could ever have forgotten.
David Grant!
And who was David Grant? He looked at the trade label of his flip-flaps and something again clicked in memory as he recalled buying them in Paris when he had been with a woman. Another and different woman!
But what woman?
A knock at the door snapped him to attention. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sure I’m okay. See you in a few minutes.’ He studied his bathrobe for more clues and wondered about a cigarette burn on the right sleeve, because it had become important for him to remember. Cigarette! Drinks! Daiquiris! Ron Bacardi! West Indies! St. Thomas! Two women who had died! Frank! Brother of Krystelle! Admiral Cooper! ADSAD!
The past was still out of focus, but days later he was told that a combination of ‘ideas association’ linked to years of training aimed at implanting a special instinct for survival deep into the subconscious had probably begun to operate.
He could see Petra sitting at breakfast while he washed, and the scene was familiar. Yet different. And then he remembered how he had often shared breakfast with another sort of woman! Krystelle began to be something more than a name as he began to recall her features and he won more time by brushing his teeth. His toothpaste had been bought in Brussels and so Admiral Cooper also became more than a name. Grant could even see a mental picture of an office with a secretary who had sometimes made him feel like a small boy. Miss Sidders!
He wiped his lips on a towel: anything to gain a few more seconds for thinking. Word association was paying dividends!
Miss Sidders!
Mission to South America!
A briefing about a man called Brandt!
A 737 to B.A. and buying flowers!
Flowers and the smell of mimosa!
A conservatory with rare plants and a man called Cyp!
Then supper with wine and a girl!
This girl!
He w
as still far from having the picture clear, but he had remembered enough to make fragments of sense, and when he turned to the breakfast room overlooking the lawns he knew that once again everything would have to be played by ear. The Teak Room might even become his death room.
4
‘This room is as safe as a prison’
‘You aren’t ill or something?’ asked Petra, and something about her voice put Grant on guard. The woman had a curious, desperate, almost baffled expression in her eyes which was new.
‘Dreams,’ he said briefly.
‘Nightmares?’
‘I’m not sure. I seem to have lost part of my memory. But that apart I feel hellish.’
‘You don’t remember last night?’ The girl sounded incredulous.
‘Very little.’
‘But we were here for ages. You must be crazy.’ Her eyes narrowed and she looked cunning and furtive. ‘Has this ever happened before?’
‘No.’
‘Well, what do you remember?’ she said, and a great deep gulf seemed to have opened out between them.
He closed his eyes. ‘There was talking. A lot of talking, and then a fight with a woman who might have been you, but I can’t be sure. I remember purple lights and music though I seemed to be in another place.’ He flushed slightly. ‘Now don’t laugh, but I tell you straight it was as if God was very near, and the world was quiet and beautiful. I seem to have been in a trance for a long long time and then I remembered that Massage Boy thing on your beds. It kind of jerked me into sleep and …’
‘How do you mean, beds?’ snapped Petra.
Grant chipped the shell from a boiled egg. The girl’s manner baffled him. ‘Twin beds,’ he repeated, ‘and mine at least had Massage Boy attached.’
He still felt stupid. Time had again begun to slip and he wanted only to sleep. But deep, deep, down inside him something was saying that there were things to do and that it would only be a matter of will power to see that they were done.
Crimson Jade Page 5