by L. S. Hilton
Still, apparently I had the hottest date in town that night. When I gave Raznatovic’s name to the maître d’ at the Peruvian sushi joint, I thought for a minute he was going to choke. He called me ‘Madam’ at least four times as I picked my way through the crowded room to the table, which was set in splendid isolation on a dais at the back of the restaurant in what looked like a hastily improvised VIP area. I ordered a glass of red wine and lit a cigarette, simply for the dirty pleasure of smoking indoors. Three waiters rushed at me with ashtrays.
‘Let me help the lady.’
Even by Serbian standards, Dejan Raznatovic was huge. Six foot six, I reckoned, with shoulders that blocked the light. Before I’d joined Steve on the Mandarin two years ago, I’d barely been inside a decent restaurant; since then I’d sat at a lot of expensive tables with a lot of serious men, but the atmosphere Raznatovic projected was like nothing I’d ever encountered. As he greeted me and we shook hands, I realised that the entire company was watching us. Even the obligatory DJ was craning out of his booth. The air felt heavier for his presence, as though his power was squeezed between its molecules. It wasn’t just celebrity, or the invisible spore of wealth; it was, I recognised, fear. Apart from his size, there was nothing thuggish about Raznatovic – his navy suit was impeccably bespoke, his cufflinks discreet – but as the chatter around us slowly resumed, I saw that while everyone in the room knew who he was, not one man in there dared to catch his eye. I was hit by a slug of desire so pure that I did actually feel weak at the knees, and I was letting him see it in my eyes when the waiter made a squawking noise, tried to pull out a chair far enough for his giant guest, dropped the ashtray on his foot and caught the tablecloth as he steadied himself, sending a stream of wine across the cloth. The three of us contemplated the mess for a moment.
‘Do you like sushi, Miss Teerlinc?’ Dejan asked.
‘It was very kind of you to invite me here,’ I replied neutrally.
He put a note on the table and said something to the waiter in Serbian, then pulled out my chair for me.
‘We’ll go somewhere else, I think.’
A silver Aston Martin was parked on the pavement, in the pedestrian area outside the restaurant. Dejan opened the door for me, waited until I was seated and then spent a moment levering himself into the low driver’s seat. I had a terrible urge to giggle. We pulled away, followed, I saw, by a black Range Rover with tinted windows which had also gaily disregarded the parking laws. His security, I assumed. We began to climb a steep road that I thought must lead up to the castle park.
‘It’s very good of you to see me on a flyby,’ I began. I wanted to see if he knew the term – a flyby is an informal estimate of what a work might bring at auction.
‘If the piece is as interesting as it sounds, then it is very good of you.’ He was dancing then. Good.
‘Here we are. I hope you won’t find the road too steep.’ He was looking unabashedly at my legs. Even better.
He offered me his arm to negotiate the Alaïas up an almost perpendicular alleyway. My hand looked tiny on the expanse of his sleeve. A young man had dismounted from the Range Rover behind us, waiting for an instruction, then bobbed into a doorway ahead while we followed at cab-shoe pace. Inside the room was lit by oil lamps, with a few wooden booths, green velvet banquettes and a good deal of silver and starched linen, but it didn’t feel formal, more as though we had stepped back into an older version of the city. An elderly waiter with a blue-rinsed walrus moustache welcomed us with a silver tray and two tiny chased-crystal glasses of slivovitz. Dejan raised his courteously to the scattering of other customers before swallowing it back. I imitated him and felt the delicious must of plums burn down my throat.
‘This is one of the oldest restaurants of Belgrade,’ Dejan explained as we sat. He pronounced it the Serbian way, an ‘o’ replacing the ‘l’. ‘I think you must try the horse tartar.’
‘I’m sure it’s delicious.’
He ordered and, once our wineglasses were filled, asked for the photos I’d had Jovana make up. I launched into my pitch:
‘I should explain that I met Dr Kazbich in Venice, where my gallery is based. We have several professional acquaintances in common. I understand you are interested in icons, so when this came up, I took the liberty of contacting you.’
‘Dr Kazbich gave you my number?’ He seemed amused.
‘No,’ I replied, looking him in the eye. ‘I went to his gallery and asked for it. They were very obliging.
‘How enterprising you are. You are British, no?’
‘My family lived in Switzerland.’ Elisabeth’s story felt oddly rusty. ‘So,’ I continued, ‘the concept is similar to what the Chapman brothers were doing with Goya – you saw the work, naturally? The icon is thirteenth century, Venetian, exceptionally rare, but badly damaged. It’s for sale – privately, through the family who own it. Xaoc plan to divide the fragments and produce a triptych, something like this.’ I showed him the series Jovana had constructed.
I didn’t know how expert Dejan really was as an icon collector, but I didn’t worry that he’d recognise the piece, since it didn’t exist. Jovana and I had made a composite image of several of the smaller icons based on the collection of the Ca’ d’Oro museum in Venice, a typical dark-haired, sloe-eyed Virgin in a gold-trimmed mantle, holding a bug-faced Christ child awkwardly on her lap. We had inserted the appearance of cracks across the faces and a bad watermark in the bottom left corner. The ‘concept’ was that Xaoc would slice up the damaged picture and remount it in three pieces, overlaying it with photographic images of the ‘client’s’ choice – we had mocked up several examples based on the Renaissance bodybuilders I had seen displayed in Kazbich’s gallery, some Serbian graffiti in marker pen and one of the nastier screenshots from Jovana’s ‘abject’ project. It actually didn’t look too bad, though all that mattered of course was that I got the opportunity to meet Dejan and pass on my message.
‘It would be a commissioned piece, so of course the details would be – malleable.’ Dejan’s English was almost flawless but I hoped the word might confuse him slightly. He studied the pictures for some minutes, his thumb hovering over the screen.
‘Where is the icon at present?’
‘In Venice, at the home of the owners. It has only ever been owned by them. I could arrange for you to see it?’ I knew perfectly well he couldn’t leave Serbia.
‘And there are . . . permissions to use the work in this fashion?’
‘None needed. It is in the family’s possession, to dispose of as they wish.’
‘The price?’
‘750K USD to acquire, plus my commission, plus the fee for Xaoc on which I will also take ten per cent. I estimate the resale value to be at least twice that.’
‘And to bring it to Serbia?’ He was good.
‘One of the family will fly to Belgrade, I will accompany him, the sale will take place technically on Serbian soil. No patrimony issues.’
‘You have thought of everything.’
‘I would never have dreamed of approaching you had I not.’
We were interrupted by the arrival of the waiter, who set down small bowls of dark red meat, capers, parsley, chopped egg and onion, which he mixed in front of us. Dejan showed me how to spread it onto thin tartines of toasted bread. I took a bite. The horsemeat was velvety, gamey but with a surprisingly fresh, clean taste of iron.
‘Do you like it?’ Dejan asked solicitously ‘It’s not too strong?’
‘Not at all. I love it.’
I did. It seemed that I hadn’t actually tasted real food forever. We charged through the tartar and a bowl of boiled potatoes swimming in butter and dill and another of tomatoes roasted with paprika and garlic. The waiter changed our plates for little glass bowls of set cream studded with preserved cherries and silver-rimmed cups of cardamom-scented coffee. We didn’t speak much.
‘I won’t buy your piece,’ Dejan said suddenly as he sipped the coffee. I had been floating a
little, in the wine and the warmth of the restaurant; it took me a second to haul my head back to business.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. But we have – other clients. Thank you for such a wonderful dinner.’ I made as if to gather my things and leave, though he caught my eye as we both smiled at the feint.
‘Wait a moment.’ He set a huge heavy paw over my wrist. I felt the heat of his fingertips in my veins.
‘I won’t buy it,’ he continued, ‘because, as you say, I am very interested in icons. I own several and I care deeply for them. This piece would – disturb me.’
‘You’re being polite. You hate it. I understand.’
‘Perhaps you would like to see them?’
‘You’re asking me if I’d like to come up and see your icons?’
He was grinning now. ‘Yes. I think they would please you.’
‘Well, thank you, that would be – delightful.’
I thought he might kiss me after he had squashed his body back into the car, but he didn’t need to, and he knew it. We drove for about twenty minutes in silence, the Range Rover visible in the wing mirrors. Every time he changed gear the car shifted slightly with his weight, I could feel it through my seat. I was so wet I thought my juice must have soaked the back of my dress. We crossed a motorway and turned off onto a bleak straight road, empty except for a ribbon of spindly trees, then turned down another, looping back towards where I guessed the river must flow beyond the city. It was, I thought, a long way out of town. And no one knew where I was or who was with me. Momentarily that felt wonderful.
*
‘This is your house?’
The floodlights beamed up as the gates slid open. I thought I’d seen a fair representation of all the crassness that money can buy, but Chez Raznatovic was – villainous. If I closed one eye it might have looked like a pink plaster version of Chenonceau, with three rounded towers huddling over an artificial lake; if I closed the other it was pure Churrigueresque, heavily iced in festoons of cascading cement. There was actually a drawbridge. There was also a life-size plaster Siberian tiger snarling over the three-metre-high steel security doors.
‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s very . . . powerful, yes.’
He gave me a wry look. ‘I had another house, in Montenegro. Much more beautiful, simple, stone. Venetian. Just outside Kotor, on the fjord. You would probably prefer that.’
‘Yeah, bummer, that extradition treaty.’
‘That’s not very polite, Elisabeth.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He pressed a button on the dash and I bit my lip as the drawbridge solemnly descended. ‘It’s what they expect. Not subtle –’ he moved us forward – ‘but useful.’
Three young men in black combat pants and heavy padded bombers jogged up to the car as we braked in a cramped courtyard. Two of them opened the doors in a smooth, practised movement as the car’s engine was still humming, the third advanced to the open door, pointing an AK47 into the night, sweeping the driveway until the steel clicked shut. After my faux pas it seemed more courteous to pretend not to see it. Effectively though, I was walking into a fortress. I remembered the quote I’d read, on Dejan’s career as an executioner – A little weird the first time, but afterwards you’re happy to go out and celebrate. Dejan spoke in Serbian and, after helping me from the seat, one of them peeled off to usher me through a narrow door set in one of the turrets.
‘This way, please, miss.’ He indicated that I should pass before him up a spiral staircase set with garish mosaics. I came out into a round room where I was surprised to find a wall of books and two rather battered velvet sofas set either side of a lovely but raggedy Persian rug. There was a fire burning, something strongly scented in the logs – apple maybe? – and a quite severe Louis XVI table in mahogany and marble, with a bottle and two plain glasses. Looking around, I could see how pretty the room was – white roses in a blue Chinese bowl, embroidered cushions, limewashed walls tinged with gold in the light from the fire and a huge dull bronze doré candelabra, Empirish. With the rest of the horrible building hidden behind the shutters, it might have been a room from a nineteenth-century Russian novel. Especially when I saw the three icons set on their dulled silver mounts.
‘Better?’
Dejan was crossing the room, holding a corkscrew.
‘May I remove my jacket?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ I assumed he already had, downstairs, since whatever had been on his hip in the restaurant was gone.
‘This is my private apartment. An ivory tower?’
I cringed a bit but I couldn’t blame him.
I took the glass he handed me and pointed to the icons.
‘Tell me about these.’
‘Tell me if you like this first. It’s Georgian, from Kakheti.’
The wine smelled of cedar and cherries.
‘It’s delicious, thank you.’
‘So. These are from Okrid, these two, and this one – the Madonna – from Skopje. They are all thirteenth century, because the thirteenth century was the most . . . revolutionary time for icon making in Serbia. You see, this is when Serbia became an independent kingdom and the holy Saint Sava expelled the Greek bishops from their – seats?’
‘Sees.’
‘Am I boring you?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘So, the icon painters developed their own style for the first time. Most of the painters were still Greek, but there is a new simplicity. More colour, more – fierceness.’
‘They are very pretty.’
‘I like this. The wine is delicious, my priceless icons are ‘pretty’. That is always how the art people speak. Understatement?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The more valuable the thing, the more little the . . . ?
‘Adjective?’ He was right, and the affectation had always amused me too. Back at the House, if you knew what you were doing you would describe a Gainsborough as ‘quite charming’.
‘Thank you.’
Dejan sat beside me, the old sofa bucking under his weight, and sipped his wine.
‘So now?’
‘Now?’
‘We can fuck and then you can tell me what you’re doing here, or you can tell me what you’re doing here and then maybe we’ll fuck.’
‘Then we should fuck.’
He reached over and took the glass from my hand, set it down alongside his own. The scent of the wine was thick on his tongue as he turned to kiss me, lifting me easily with a hand in the small of my back so that I was lying below him. I opened my mouth wide, greedy, pushing my hands under his jacket. His chest was vast, ropey with muscle, and though he was holding his full weight off me, I could feel his cock swelling against my thigh. I opened his shirt, tracing my nails through the thick hair, finding his nipple, squeezing gently. We were necking like teenagers, breathless, a little clumsy.
‘Let me take off your pretty dress.’
I wriggled off the sofa and gave him my back, his massive hands dexterous on the row of hooks concealed in the silk, followed by my bra.
‘Beautiful.’ He stroked his fingers the length of my spine, following them with his mouth so that he was on his knees behind me, both hands squeezing my ass. I was dripping for him, the hot ache in my cunt almost unbearably pleasurable. I stepped out of my knickers and made to bend forward on the table, but he gripped my waist with both hands, standing up in one movement, holding my whole body easily above his head. Tipping his head back, he reached for my pussy lips with his tongue, sucking deep, so that for a second I was weightless, suspended, the hollow of me pulsing, then I set my shins on his shoulders and reached my palms flat against the ceiling to steady us, and began to grind his face as he licked me from my cunt to my asshole. His tongue was inside me there and I pushed on the ceiling, my weight urging him to lick deeper, my body arcing back over his head. I could have cum like that, but this was too good.
‘Put me down now.’
He lower
ed me as smoothly as I had been lifted and I turned and knelt to take his cock in my mouth.
‘Oh. Oh.’
God would have made every cock like Dejan’s, if only He’d had the money. Thick as my fist, even down the whole length, the circumcised skin drawn together in a little raised trident, delicate as watered silk. I tongued him there first, letting just the flat of it caress that tenderness, teasing and flicking until he gasped, twitched, swelled even more, then grasped the shaft tight in my palm, long dropping strokes, following with my whole mouth, drawing his fingers to the hollow of my throat, so he could feel himself deep there, dipping my head faster, lathering him with spit and letting him hear the wet slurp, pushing down, half-choking myself until I gagged and my throat contracted. They love it when you look . . . uncomfortable. His hand found the base of my skull under my falling hair and he began to thrust at my face as I smeared his balls and perineum with my cunt juice, extending my tongue up and over the head of his cock as I pumped him. And then – slowly, infinitely slowly, relaxing my mouth, loosening, withdrawing my hand until once again there was just the insistent hummingbird flutter of my tongue, all torment, all promise.
He was silent, his face intent far above me. I tipped my head back and gave one last long lick at the whole length of him.
‘You can fuck me now.’
I reached my arms to clasp his neck, hauled my body up his thick thighs, kicked my coccyx back, up and over, and settled him inside me, my legs locked around his waist as his hands took their place under my ass. He took a few steps backward, me impaled on him, propping his back against the wall and drove into me, cramming my hips against him. One slow stroke, two, three, until I was screaming inside for the whole length of him, biting at his chest, and he turned and gave me his place and slammed into me with his whole massive weight, over and over, until I felt my cum start, deep through my clit to my cervix and hissed at him, ‘Now!’ He gave me a few more strokes to take me over and as my head went back and my cunt spasmed I felt the girth of him grow inside me and as his own orgasm exploded he lifted me slightly off his cock so I could watch the gouts of his cum spray up into me, sliding just the head between my soaked and gaping lips, until he roared and released me, letting my whole weight smash down him, catching me at the last moment and grasping me there against him while the last of it poured through me.