‘Do I look like the sort of man who would stoop to puns?’
‘No comments about “breast or thigh”, then?’
His gaze settled very deliberately on my breasts and he bit his lip. ‘Perish the thought.’
I sat back, dabbing at my lips with my napkin and giggling. ‘You’re impossible.’
‘Thank you. It’s something I’ve been working on. More wine?’
I nodded. ‘Is that your Plan B? Get me wellied?’
‘Would it work?’
I wrinkled my nose and decided not to answer that. ‘Wouldn’t be much point. I fall asleep too easily when I’m drunk. Unless you find snoring a turn-on, of course.’
‘No, I usually go for fully conscious. The more responsive a woman’s body the better, I find.’
My own body reacted to his words with a shiver of pleasure. I was annoyed with myself, but not really surprised. I’d already demonstrated what a walkover I was, after all.
‘There’s nothing more exciting than the betraying signs of arousal in a woman: nothing. The darkening of the eyes. The way her breath flutters and her blood comes to the skin, and the little involuntary movements she makes …’
My mouth was dry but I didn’t dare lift my glass because I didn’t trust my hand not to quiver. ‘I’d have thought power was more your thing,’ I said ungraciously.
‘That is power, Avril. Ah …’ He was looking at my breasts again, and I knew my nipples had hardened. That dress hid nothing. And the more he looked, the more my areolae tightened and the more my nipples stood out against the cloth. The tiny points of friction were quite uncomfortable. ‘I’d have to put you down as really quite responsive.’
I drew the pashmina around my shoulders, biting my lip.
Michael was just gracious enough to make no further comment at this juncture. He cleared the starters and served the next course, moving with an easy confidence and handling the food deftly. I watched from under hooded lids. A previous job as a waiter? I wondered. It didn’t seem particularly likely. Maybe he was just good at everything he turned his hand to. The duck breast was perfect: rich and moist and crispy-skinned, and served with creamed potato and sweet red cabbage. The perfect Sunday roast, just like I’d asked for.
Delicious though it was, eating was difficult. I could hardly concentrate.
‘Talking of drink,’ Michael said; ‘there is something I’d like to try.’ He brought out a glass bottle with no label and uncorked it. ‘You will never have tasted this before, Avril. And I doubt you or I will get many chances to try anything like it again.’
‘Oh?’ I was dubious.
‘This,’ he said with relish, ‘is wine from the ancient world. In 1982 they found a wrecked ship off the island of Naxos. Estimates put it at about the fourth century BC, a trading vessel from out of Athens. There wasn’t much left of the hull, but there were amphorae by the dozen buried in the sands. Some of them still had their bitumen seals intact. And inside was wine more than two thousand years old from the vineyards of pagan Greece. I bought this at auction.’
‘It can’t be drinkable still, surely?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think it’s terribly pleasant.’ He tipped a slug into his still half-full wine glass. The liquid looked thin and brown, like vinegar. ‘But to have the chance to taste it … to imbibe a vintage pressed before the birth of Christ, before the rise of the Roman Empire, before the foundation of our civilisation … Isn’t that something precious?’ He poured into my glass too, without waiting for permission. Then he raised his own in a toast, or a challenge. ‘Shall we?’
‘Now why don’t I trust you?’ I asked softly.
He blinked. ‘Because you have a terrible cynical mind.’
‘Hm.’
‘And a very twisted attitude to men.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I like men. I like working with them and hanging out with them and … I like them in pretty much every way you can like them.’
‘You don’t trust them.’
I pursed my lips. ‘I don’t trust you.’
Michael laughed, drained his glass right the way down and sat back, eyes closed.
‘What’s it like?’
‘Sharp.’
Sighing, I took a cautious sip. It was sharp, even under the warm and fruity cover of the wine it was mixed with, and slightly resinous. You wouldn’t drink it for fun. ‘How much did it cost?’ I asked.
‘That bottle? A little under eight thousand pounds.’
I gasped involuntarily, and felt the rush to my head. I took another sip, just to make sure. Then I started to giggle.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘This. All this.’ I waved my hand at our surroundings. ‘It’s too much. You are completely crazy, you know? I’m not worth all this.’
‘So you say.’ He wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘Have you got confidence issues, Avril? Because that really surprises me. Of all people …’
‘Everyone has confidence issues. Unless you’re a psychopath.’ He raised an eyebrow and I rather regretted my words.
‘Hm. So what are yours?’
I took a hearty sip of wine and shook my head disparagingly. ‘You know, the usual. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not good enough at what I do.’
‘That’s strange. Because from here you look exquisite.’ He didn’t wait for me to try to come up with a gracious response. ‘And you know you’re good at what you do.’
‘Yes, well. In my position I can’t ever just sit back and relax about that one.’
He regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Do you want to know what it is I see in you, Avril? D’you want to know why I’ve been … interested?’
‘You like a bit of butch? Or is it just I’m the only woman in Britain who’s ever said “No”?’
He smiled. ‘Not quite. You have to understand, in my position I meet so many people – beautiful people, some of them. And almost every one of them is trying to pull just enough weight and to kiss just enough ass to make life comfortable and easy for themselves. But you … you’ve not gone for easy. You’ve taken the road beset with thorns and briars. You’ve gone for something you’ve had to fight for, tooth and nail. And it’s not something comfortable; it simply happens to be the thing you want. Now, that interests me.’
I was silent. He’d done something to me with those words that simple flattery could never have achieved. He’d slid past every one of my defences. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I’d never felt so self-conscious. ‘Well, you know why it is I have to say no to you, then,’ I muttered in the end.
‘Mm?’
‘You’d ruin it all.’ I fluttered my hands hopelessly. ‘You can’t be one of the lads if you’re shagging the boss. That’s the rule.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh yes. I didn’t write it, but there it is.’
‘Rules are for the weak, Avril.’
I gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Easy to say. But you’re not me, and you don’t have to work the way I do, and you’re not risking anything.’
He smiled, as if looking straight through me to a vista only he knew. ‘Imagine a world without rules, Avril. No limits: physical, social, spiritual. What do you think that’d be like?’
‘No limits?’ I thought about the rite of Dionysus. ‘Terrifying.’
‘Oh yes. But fear would be a small price to pay. Imagine if you could screw anyone you wanted to, Avril, without rules and without consequences.’
I squirmed a little under the table.
‘Who’s that lad works for you? I’ve seen him on the tractor.’
‘Owen.’
‘Owen. Good-looking boy. Have you thought about what it’d be like to screw him?’
I was flushing. ‘Look, uh …’
‘Have you thought about it?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yeah. I mean, he’s a nice kid. I like him.’
‘That’s interesting. Does “I like him” mean “I want to fuck him”? Does one follow on from the other? Or are you simply
using a euphemism when you say you like him?’
‘I like him,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘means I like him. That’s really important when it comes to fancying a man. I don’t like you.’ The words were uttered from malice; by this point I had no idea whether they were true or not. I’d changed my mind a dozen times during the course of the evening.
Michael’s face lit up. ‘Yet you want to fuck me. That must be quite disturbing for you.’
I flushed. How was I supposed to answer that? I rattled my fork against the edge of the table in frustration. ‘Ash said you were a manipulative shit,’ I muttered.
That put the icing on Michael’s cake of self-satisfaction. ‘Really? You’ve been talking to the Ginger Rasta, then?’
‘When we met in the wood.’ I was already so flustered that a simple lie wasn’t going to show up.
‘And what else did he say?’
‘He said you did black magic.’ It came out before I could censor myself, a bald accusation.
Michael looked genuinely surprised. ‘You astonish me. He’s talking even worse crap than he usually does.’
I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. ‘He … He said a lot of stupid things. He’s a bit of a nutter.’
‘Black magic? Are you sure?’
‘Uh …’
‘Magic isn’t colour-coded! Were those his actual words?’
I stared. ‘He said you were a magus.’
‘Ah.’ Michael sat back again and tapped the tips of his fingers together. ‘Well, he’s saved me a lot of tedious explanation, at any rate.’ Taking up the unlabelled bottle, he held it out at arm’s length over the earth and inverted it. As the ancient wine glugged out and disappeared into the dry soil he spoke in a language I’d never heard. I’d take a guess that it was Greek. Then he put the bottle back on the table.
Somewhere a drum began to beat.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. The drum was joined by a reedy-sounding pipe.
‘I’ve summoned the bacchanal.’
The music was making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. ‘What?’
‘The maenads. The votaries of Dionysus.’ There was no humour in his expression at all now. ‘The rites are begun once more.’
I pushed back my chair from the table. Indistinct figures were visible flitting among the shrubs, like darker shadows. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
‘This is Plan B.’ He said it like his honesty made him irreproachable.
‘You prick!’
‘Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you. You’re a woman.’ Michael stood up and turned, scanning the landscape around us. ‘It’s me that’s in trouble.’
I caught my first clear glimpse of one and was on my feet in an instant. She was small and wiry and filthy dirty, her bare skin blotched with grime and her dark hair snarled with twigs. She loped out from behind a cypress, stared at us, and raised her arms over her head, fists clenched. ‘What d’you mean?’ I demanded. ‘What’ll they do?’
‘They’ll tear me limb from limb,’ said Michael. ‘They’ll eviscerate me and pull me apart at the joints and flay my skin to wear as a trophy.’
I stared at him and then I stared at them – more of them now creeping out from behind every tree – and it was hard to tell which made the less sense to me. The women were universally scrawny and nearly naked except for the odd piece of raw animal hide worn as a cape or a hood. The brown streaks painted up their arms and breasts looked a lot like old blood. I might have dismissed them as bit-part actors hired by Deverick as part of his game, except that I saw their eyes as they came closer. Those eyes were glazed and bloodshot and the pupils so dilated they swallowed all colour.
‘Then what are you doing?’ I said weakly as they closed in on us. ‘Send them away, you idiot.’
They loped around us in a rough circle, heads cocked like curious animals. I caught my first whiff of their scent, a musky odour that was part sex and part the yeasty lees of wine.
‘Too late.’
Their nails were long and their thighs scored by the marks of thorns. Some carried knives, and those looked like they were made from knapped flint. They whined like hungry dogs.
‘This isn’t funny!’
‘You can save me, Avril.’ Michael’s voice cut through the noise of the women and the wailing of the pipe and the insistent drumbeat. He wasn’t looking at them any more; his gaze was fixed on me. ‘You can save me.’ I stared at him, horrified. They were milling around us in a circle, avid but for the moment still wary, twitching in time to the music. ‘Money and power just puts your back up, doesn’t it? Well, this is my gift, Avril. My life in your hands.’ The boldest of the women came in close enough to snatch at the back of his jacket. He shrugged himself out of it quickly and she threw it away. Two other bacchantes caught it and tore it in two and everyone cried out.
I swore at him, calling him the worst names I could think of.
‘Please, Avril.’
‘What do you want?’ I demanded.
‘Claim me.’
A woman stepped in, raking her fingers across his chest before dancing away. Michael winced, but he didn’t look at her or try to dodge as his shirt shredded and blood welled up on his skin. ‘Oh Christ!’ I cried.
‘Claim me as your own.’ His eyes were bright with pain and urgency. The women were small, but if they attacked en masse they would be overwhelming.
‘Go to hell!’ The drumbeat throbbed in my skull. I was vaguely aware of the drummers: two naked men who bore the instruments under their arms and hammered upon the rawhide with what looked like leg bones. Their eyes were rolled back so far that only the whites showed. The women stomped and twisted and shook their tits.
‘You’re the only one who can save me, Avril.’
A bacchante clasped his shoulder and sank her teeth in. Michael’s face twisted. When she danced away, spinning in ecstatic circles, she left a red rose of blood blooming on his shirt. The crowd shrieked with excitement. Two more maenads stepped from the ring simultaneously. They passed on either side of me as if I were invisible and danced up to him, grinding their hips. Their fingernails were ragged and black with dirt. One put her hand to his face. One humped up against his thigh, drawing her claws across the fabric of his trousers.
‘Avril!’ His eyes blazed, desperate.
I broke. He might have been bluffing, but I couldn’t just stand and watch him being torn apart. I stepped in, grabbed the nearest of his assailants by the shoulders and wrenched her bodily to one side. I seized the other by her tangled hair and threw her to the floor. Then I grabbed Michael and because I didn’t know what else to do, kissed him hard.
I could taste the bitter old wine on his lips.
The drumbeat stuttered momentarily. I pulled away just long enough to see that the women had fallen still, staring at us, then he answered my kiss with his own and I felt his relief and his hunger and his triumph as he pulled me tight against him. God, his body was hard, and the heat between us was enough to melt my flesh. Our tongues coiled together. I bit at his bottom lip and he caught my hair and pulled back my head, his mouth hot on my throat, all tongue and teeth, while above me through the glass the stars flashed.
‘Avril,’ he groaned from deep in his chest. His hand was on my arse, crushing me against him, his fingertips biting into my cheek through the soft cloth. The maenads roared and shrieked on every side. I twisted in his grasp, yanking at his shirt, bursting every button as I tore it open; the maenads obliged by ripping it from his back. A perfect hourglass of black hair, broad across his chest and flaring again to a delta at his lower belly, lay close against his skin. I grabbed for his belt buckle and as I ripped it loose the whole garment was snatched down his legs by unseen hands. He wore soft clingy briefs beneath and God knows how he’d managed an erection in the circumstances, but he had, and the cotton was stretched like a tent over his pole. He was so eager that there was already a damp spot marring the fabric. I rubbed my hand up his length and it bucked and
pushed against my palm. He caught my face in his hands and kissed my mouth again, sweet and dark like wine, sending my mind into a whirl. The drums roared in my skull. I was so angry with him, and yet so turned on. ‘Suck my tits,’ I gasped.
He obeyed, bending me back and mouthing at my nipples through the dress, then pulling the shoulder straps down to reveal them. He was a little too impatient with the taut fabric and I heard small fibres tear. He suckled at me again, tugging at my teats with his lips and teeth until my nipples stood out and my tits gleamed all over with his saliva. I arched my back and writhed against him, whimpering. Michael’s sapphire eyes were shining as he slid his hands up under my dress. I felt his fingers exploring my bare sex and then, like I was a fruit brought suddenly to ripeness, my juices came seeping out through the split in my flesh. He inhaled sharply, his supporting arm tightening around me. I ran my hands through his hair and saw how my fingers broke through the dark waves. He responded by pushing two fingers into my cunt and, as I gasped at this invasion, my perfume ran down upon his hand.
‘You’re so wet,’ he growled into my flesh. ‘Oh, I like that.’
The women had fallen back, licking their lips and beating their hands slowly together.
Gathering all my willpower I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him down, right over, sprawling on his back and elbows. For just a moment there was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. I noted his hard chest and the way his musculature was brought into definition by his dark hair and the blood trickles from the shallow slices across his breastbone, as I dropped to my knees astride him.
‘Like this too?’ I asked, drawing up my skirts to my hips, displaying my taut thighs and my downy pussy. We’d collapsed in a patch of wild oregano and the aroma of the crushed leaves rose up around us. The drums pounded through my bones. I gyrated my hips and stroked myself, letting him see what I had to offer, and there was a grin on Michael’s face that left no doubt as to his appreciation even if his cotton-sheathed hardness hadn’t been stabbing insistently at my backside. Then I slid my fingers between my spread thighs, took the moisture gathering there and painted the gloss of my sexual juices across my lips before leaning in to kiss his, teasing him with stabs of my tongue and nibbling bites. Michael arched beneath me, groaning, lapping at my face until I pulled away again. Then he grabbed my wrist and sucked my fingers, drawing them deep into the hot cavern of his mouth and then biting at their sensitive tips. I ran my fingers over his forehead and eyes, down over his lips and his chest, scribing lines in saliva and sex juices, claiming him for my own just as he’d desired. My fingers found their way right down to the waistband of his briefs.
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