by John Gubert
I thought we had finished as we passed the Burlington Arcade, but she insisted in stopping off at the Ralph Lauren shop for a few odds and ends.
I got her eventually to Fortnum’s, just before the lunch time crowd.
“I’ll order,” she said and promptly asked for a variety of sandwiches and some exotic tea. I have to admit that both were delicious although an unusual combination for a workday lunch.
“I bet you can’t even recall what we bought,” I said.
“I can,” she replied. “And moreover I can do it down to the last item. I got two pairs of shoes. They are Ferragamo court shoes, one a high-heeled black job and the other a medium black pair. The two dresses are a red Dior sheath and a Versace off the shoulder cocktail number. I then got a bustier for fun evenings and a couple of casual tops. There is also a pair of white silk trousers. I also got a black jump suit, very tight and slinky with a plunging neckline.
“I got you a couple of pairs of slacks, a couple of casual shirts and also that blouson that you bought because I like it. Although I am not sure if you’ll ever agree to wear it.”
“Rubbish, I’ll wear it if only to appear attractive to you,” I responded.
“Well, I’m flattered. Although is it really because you can’t stand the idea of not wearing it because it cost you a small fortune?”
“You make it sound as if I had Scottish blood. I actually haven’t.”
“Darling with a traditional British banker as a father, you have to be the sort of guy who’s careful with money. Don’t worry though. Your caution and my extravagance should mean that, if ever we have kids, they will turn out just right.”
“Hey my former identity is gone. I am now just Charles, remember. What’s this by the way of children? You’re not getting broody are you? I know you Catholic girls believe it’s a sin to take precautions. I don’t want a surprise.”
“Charles,” she replied adopting a mock Italian accent, “oh per favore, you expect me to take all of the precautions. Think of the shame of me in the chemist shop asking for the pill? And they’ll know I am not married. Oh the shame of it!”
“Well carry on being ashamed. It’s better than the alternative,” I said.
“Mmm. I suppose so. But one day I want a few bambinos. Are you offering to father them?”
“Well, let’s get married first.”
“That’s not a proposal is it?” she joked.
The shop was full by now and we were whispering at our corner table. “No,” I said. “But only because this isn’t the right time and place. Not because of anything else. I love you. Soon, I’ll ask you.”
She smiled, lent over and kissed me. “And then soon I’ll say yes. But for now it’s a secret that we’ll keep to ourselves.”
Suddenly she got up. “Let’s pay the bill, darling. I’m no longer hungry. Let’s go.”
She said this in a loud voice, smiling happily. The people around looked at us as if we had breached the protocol of the place. They were an unusually sombre and sober crowd even for Fortnum’s. It’s never a buzz of fun, but usually a bit brighter than it was that day. Two women in fussy suits gave us a disapproving look.
Jacqui gave a wicked smile. I waited. I knew she could act the exhibitionist with an evil sense of humour.
“Darling, we’ve got to find a hotel. I need a bed and you in it. Let’s make love, loads of times,” cried out Jacqui in a clear voice that carried, her eyes laughing.
The shocked looks on the faces around her spurred her on. She continued, “Your wife needn’t know. Come on. You didn’t buy me all these things because you wanted us to eat twee sarnies and drink tea here. Come on. Let’s satisfy our carnal urges.”
At this, I started laughing. The faces around us were horrified. I quickly threw a couple of twenty pound notes on the table. I assumed the bill would come to less.
And, thinking I should at least join in, I responded in kind with, “Let’s run down to the Ritz. They rent the rooms by the hour if you’ve got a tie on.”
“Oh do they?” came the response, “I’ll pick one up on my way out.”
I grabbed the cases and some of the bags. Jacqui picked up hers. I could see the faces looking at the mass of shopping and wondering if to believe this banter or not.
Jacqui though decided to continue, “I don’t know what they put in those sandwiches but I can tell you it works better than anything I’ve bought in a chemist. Darling, how many girls have you seduced here over a smoked salmon sandwich and a chicken vol au vent?”
Our exit was fast, much to the relief, I suspect, of our fellow diners. I had a feeling that we had given them something to talk about.
“I wonder if any of them will try the sandwiches or the vol au vents. It would be fun to see if they do,” said Jacqui as we left the august shop.
“I doubt I’ll ever dare to go back there again,” I said.
“Oh come on. It’s all been too serious recently. We need to enjoy ourselves. I love being outrageous.”
I laughed, “I think I gathered that the day we went to the Café del Arte in mid town Manhattan. Your outfit even took them by surprise.”
“Hold on,” she said, “That was a genuine mistake. I thought I had put on a little top under my jacket. At least I was wearing a bra.”
We turned into the Ritz and got our key. I told them we would leave in a couple of hours. The great thing about hotels like that is that they do not hassle you over departure times. There was no problem that we would be around till three or four. They have enough late arrivals to allow them to get rooms ready. That is if they are full at the time.
We went upstairs and Jacqui unpacked. I checked the cases to see that there was nothing in the lining before laying them open and allowing them to be filled. Our luggage had expanded to three cases, a briefcase and a vanity bag. And they were all full.
Jacqui had changed into a mini skirt that left little to the imagination and the bustier that she had bought earlier. She topped this with what she described as gorgeously tarty high heels. She insisted I wore a pair of the slacks she had chosen, as well as one of the shirts. And of course the blouson that she had made me buy.
“I look cool and tarty,” she announced as she applied a bright pink lipstick and some extravagant eye shadow. “I feel in the mood to look like that.” She fluffed her hair allowing it to fall haphazardly over her shoulders. She did not look tarty in reality, more erotic and exotic. She would turn every head in the plane, some would be admiring and others reproachful. But nobody could have described her as tarty.
She looked at me and said critically, “You’ll do. The shoes are a bit conservative but the rest is good.”
“OK then. We need to see if we can get on the plane. Let me call,” I said.
As I suspected there was no difficulty and Jacqui was overjoyed. “Where will we stay in New York?”
I thought through the different hotels I knew. “I want to ensure that we aren’t recognised. Otherwise I would stay in the Pierre,” I said.
“Let’s stay in the Waldorf Towers,” said Jacqui. “I feel like a steak and we could get a table at Smith and Wolenski in the evening.”
I nodded in agreement. The Waldorf Towers was just right. It was comfortable and normally quite crowded and impersonal albeit rather pretentious. S&W was one of the best steak places in New York and we had been there before when we had been famished.
“I’ll get reception to book the Waldorf. I don’t think that they will be indiscreet.”
Jacqui nodded and I called down, advising we would leave at four and requesting the reservation. I then took out my mobile and dialled a number. I did not recognise the voice that responded. “Is Di Maglio there?” I said. “Tell him it’s from De Roche.”
He came to the phone. “It was Marco. He confessed. He did it for revenge. He planted two bugs in your cases. The second is in the handle of the suit carrier. Can I speak to Jacqui?”
“What did you do to Marco?” I asked.
“We beat him up rather badly before he confessed. Then he tried to run away from us. We were on the roof of a block of flats near Nice. I am afraid he fell the whole ten floors. I saw an ambulance,” he laughed quite evilly, “but the paramedics weren’t called.”
I passed the phone to Jacqui. She talked for a few moments to her father and then she said, “I believe you. Why don’t you take the opportunity to get rid of the shitty things he ran? If you run that type of company, you will always be involved with the Marcos of this world.”
I doubt he responded enthusiastically as, after a few more terse comments, she rang off.
We lazed around for the rest of our time. And then took a cab to the airport. I hardly liked the idea of going through the airport again. This time though we whisked through and were soon in the first class lounge waiting for the call to board the plane.
Jacqui had attracted quite a few glances. The first class lounge in Heathrow’s terminal four is a male dominated room. When the stewardess asked for coats and other hand items before we boarded, Jacqui winked mischievously at me and took off her jacket. The mini skirt was mini to the extreme. Her midriff was bare, and the bustier plunged and pushed up her full breasts. The conversation on several tables stopped.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” I asked.
“Perhaps we will have to make mile high love to warm me up?”
I smiled at her, happy that we had moved near to the world where we used to live. I put my arm round her.
“If you are going to misbehave, then I am going to have to cancel the flight and book into one of the cheap hotels around here. That will solve my problem and, with a bit of luck, it could help yours.”
She kissed me as we walked on board. It is strange in first class across the Atlantic. Either you are a businessman and work or a super rich from whom everybody accepts outrageous behaviour as normal. Perhaps it is because one needs to be slightly mad, even as a businessman, to pay an airline exorbitant prices for a little more space and slightly less bad food for a few hours.
We landed in New York a couple of hours by the clock after we left London. You don’t hang around for your cases when you travel first class and soon we had piled into an airport limousine and were heading through the gloom of New York towards the centre. As we drove up outside the hotel, I leant over and murmured to Jacqui, “Welcome back.”
In our room, I called my parents. My father was feeling fine and would be out of hospital in the next day or two. He had to relax but would be fully mobile within a week. And by the end of the month he was likely to be as good as new. My mother was going to do her teeth the next day.
“When are you coming over to Rio? You should have yours done as we planned.”
“We’ll stay in New York for today and take a plane either tomorrow or the next day. I prefer to book at the last minute as we are scared of being followed. So if you book us a room from tomorrow, we will be safe whatever we do.”
We did as we had planned that day. We did get to Smith and Wolenski and did have a huge steak and a bottle of Californian red. It was becoming like the old days and we appeared to have put our recent problems behind us. In fact it was almost as if they had never been.
We were in the hotel again before midnight. We put on Music TV and they were just playing a slow smoochy ballad. I took Jacqui in my arms and we slowly started to dance in the splendour of our boudoir like room.
My hands felt the cool warmth of her bare midriff as I moved them up and down her back and then to below her waist to play with the hem of her skirt. She lent against me, the warmth of her body seeping through my clothes. Her hands moved inside my jacket and gently peeled it off my shoulders.
As it fell on the floor, my hands moved back up over her waist and round to her breasts. This time there was no resistance as I gently caressed her. I felt her move her body so that she pressed up against my cupped hands. I moved round to the back of the flimsy garment and clumsily started to undo the hooks. Her hands moved from my neck and gently removed my hands. The garment opened up in an instant, only held to her by my body against hers. I moved a half step away to allow it to fall to the ground.
Her hands moved to the buttons of my shirt and she undid them one by one. At each button she stopped and caressed me gently, until the shirt also fell to the ground and joined her bustier on the floor. I pulled her again towards me and felt her naked flesh against me. She moved her body slowly across my chest until I held her tightly. Then as my hands moved back down her body, she started again.
Her skirt offered no resistance and the narrow band of cloth soon fell to the rest. I knelt down and gently rolled down her tights. She stepped out of them as I caressed her gently, burying my head gently into her body. I hooked my hands round her panties, still kneeling in front of her and slid them over her willing hips and legs.
I pulled her naked towards me and we kissed. At first it was tenderly. And finally quite frantically. Moments later I was stripped next to her. We were on the bed, making love with passion. We tried to get closer and closer. I held on to her body, putting my arms around her and pulling her closer to me. She too seized me and pressed me ever closer to herself.
We made love, a deep passionate tempestuous love. We stayed together for a time afterwards. Then, almost reluctantly, we moved apart. But it was only to lie together and hold each other as closely as one can without making love itself.
That night we came together more than once and the next morning we stayed in bed through part of the morning. We did not want to stay in New York for another night. We knew that we would only try to repeat the sensations of the night before. And we knew that we would only spoil the memory.
In the afternoon, we were on the plane to Rio.
PLANNING FOR A FORTUNE
We landed in Rio on time and a hotel limousine was waiting for us at the exit to customs. I was relieved that nobody even gave us a second look as we walked through passport control. Both of us were on edge as we transited customs but without cause.
We had a wonderful room on an upper floor with a spectacular view. The beach in the distance looked inviting, but I sensed that we had had our holiday in New York. It was unlikely that my father would allow us to forget why we were here. Now that we had funds available well ahead of plan and markets looked ripe for action, he would be single minded in his pursuit of his objective of making that billion dollars plus and more.
True to form, we had only just unpacked when the phone rang.
“How are you both? Come up to my room and have a drink. We can then go and see your father. They are keeping him in a couple of days longer as he says he is in a bit of pain. Men are usually unable to cope with that. And he is a bit of a hypochondriac as well.”
“Mother, nice to hear you. Sure, we would love to join you. What’s your room number?”
I took the number and Jacqui and I walked up one flight of stairs to my mother’s room. It was a suite, a bit larger than our bedroom. They had expected to spend some time in it as my father recovered. My mother looked fit and well, dressed in casual slacks and a light silk shirt. She was small next to Jacqui, who seemed to glisten with health after her day or so of total relaxation.
“You both look well,” said my mother. “You gave us a fair share of frights with all your escapades. Are you sure that you haven’t been followed here?”
“Positive,” I replied. “We checked the airlines and found that there were two planes with masses of spare seats. They suggested we went stand by. So I only booked fifteen minutes before the plane left. I put us in business class and that meant we got on the plane immediately, but were not as visible as if we had gone first. We were on board ten minutes or so after getting to the ticketing desk and perhaps within half an hour of reaching the airport. We also kept a close look on the passengers getting on and off the plane.”
“Yes,” said Jacqui. “And nobody looked at us. There were a couple of women who glanced over at Charles but I soon put a stop to that. I
grabbed hold of him and glared over.”
“Hey, why so proprietorial?” I responded.
“Because,” she said, “that’s my prerogative. I don’t share.”
“Quite right,” said my mother. “You two seem to be getting on fine. Don’t let anybody else interfere.”
I noted the encouragement. She knew I would make my mind up. She was just signalling that she liked Jacqui.
I poured them each a soft drink and grabbed a beer for myself. “When do we go and see dad?” I asked.
“We can go tomorrow morning, if you want. What time will you two love birds get up then?”
“Oh,” responded Jacqui, “we’re like a staid married couple. We can be up at the crack of dawn if you want. We go to bed early and rise with the dawn.”
“I may be older my dear,” said my mother, “but I am not blind or stupid. I dislike hanging around and so suggest that we meet at around half nine in the lobby.”
With that we headed back to our room. “Well that put us in our place,” said Jacqui. “Don’t disappoint her. She wants us to have a good time tonight.”
The next morning we went downstairs and saw my mother in the lobby. She was talking to a stranger and she looked agitated. My first thought was that something had happened to my father. I then noticed that the man was holding my mother’s arm. And there were two other men who were standing beside her.
I turned to Jacqui. “They could be police. They are definitely not friendly. Let’s just stand clear and see what happens.”
My mother saw us and I noted the quick warning flash of her eyes. I was right. We had trouble. I was close by. My mother pulled her arm from the man’s grip and ran to the door, shouting, “Leave me alone. I’ve done nothing. I don’t know what my husband is supposed to have done. We’re just here on holiday.”
The man caught up with her and pulled her arms roughly behind her back. I understood fully her message. I pulled Jacqui aside. “Let’s go. We should pack. These guys may come back and look for me. I think it’s time to stop playing at Charles De Roche. Until I am certain, you are sleeping with Charles Feraud. But be careful how you use that name. I haven’t any papers to support it any more.”