The Exchange (Mischief Books)

by Williams, Carrie

  I must have sighed, because she paused, then asked, ‘But I guess it’s not for you. Or not any more. Why did you run away, Rochelle?’

  I’d never thought of it as running away – as a passive, reactionary thing. I’d framed it as a positive decision. Now that Lisette used that phrase, I thought that she was probably right. But what was I running away from?

  Lisette interrupted my swirl of thoughts. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to imply …’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘you’re right. I did run away. But it’s difficult to say what from.’

  ‘Konrad, partly?’

  ‘Yes, in some ways. Or maybe just from my mixed feelings about the way he leads his life. How is he? We Skype but it’s difficult to pin him down. You know what he’s like.’

  ‘Oh, Konrad will always be in his little bubble. Even if the money runs out, he’ll find a way to bump along on the surface of life, unharmed. When you look like an angel, it’s hard to think that life can ever let you down. I’ll tell you what, though – she wouldn’t admit it, but Rachel adores him.’

  I swallowed. Of course, I knew other people – girls and boys – lusted after Konrad. How could they not? He was beautiful, rich and fun – a fatal combination. When he could be bothered to work, and in his life in general, he was surrounded by other beautiful people, all of whom wanted a piece of him. Since we’d got together – as together as we ever were – I’d had to deal with all of that. And I did deal with it.

  But for some reason that I couldn’t properly understand, hearing that Rachel was falling for him upset me. The notion of swapping lives wasn’t meant to be taken so literally – surely we hadn’t needed to warn each other off our respective boyfriends?

  But then Rachel, I reminded myself, didn’t have a boyfriend any more. And even if she’d still been with Kyle, he just wasn’t my type

  Still chatting with Lisette, I flicked over to Rachel’s Facebook page and looked at her profile photo. It gave little away. I looked at her albums – there weren’t many, and most contained her work rather than pictures of herself. But there were a few self-portraits in among them. I glanced through them and then sat back in my seat, a bit more relaxed. She wasn’t Konrad’s type, I decided. She was very pretty, with a good, athletic figure, but she was too ordinary for him. At least if I was anything to go by.

  My own Facebook profile couldn’t have been more different to Rachel’s. I had albums galore, most of them devoted to pictures of myself in various extravagant outfits or costumes. Some were of me either performing, or pre- or post-performing. Quite a lot were at parties, with friends or hangers-on. Some were of me and Konrad, looking a bit the worse for wear, arms flung around each other at the end of another long night on the tiles. I wondered if Rachel, over in my flat, had done the same as me – if she’d scrolled through my images and studied these photos of me and Konrad particularly closely, jealousy spawning inside her.

  ‘So what have you guys been up to without me?’ I said.

  ‘Well, they all came to my show and then afterwards we all ended up in Bar Galaxie. Actually, Rachel disappeared at some point. She said afterwards that she suddenly felt ill, but I wondered if I hadn’t upset her by dancing with Konrad. You know what it’s like.’

  I laughed. Like me, Lisette loved wigging out with Konrad, and he with her. Both, like me, were big show-offs and were never happier than when everyone around them stopped to watch. Konrad and Lisette, I knew, weren’t so much flirting as competing. But it wouldn’t have seemed that way to Rachel, who didn’t really know them. Rachel would have taken their dirty dancing all too literally. Rachel didn’t live in our world, where it was all about being seen. She was a viewer, a voyeur.

  It interested me what Lisette had said about Rachel being fascinated by our trade. Like Lisette, I hadn’t spent much time consciously thinking about dancing. It was something I’d fallen into more than sought out, but it suited me on many levels. The money was good, it was sociable, and it meant that I could party all night and sleep in the day, unless I was rehearsing. Before I did it, I hadn’t soul-searched too much about the performance aspect of it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked it – especially after I graduated from the chorus line and started doing solo acts. I loved the creativity of that – I got to devise my own costumes, which was great fun and very satisfying, and though the choreographer oversaw me, I had a lot of input into the routines.

  But it wasn’t just that. I loved my body and the pleasure it afforded me, my problems with Konrad notwithstanding. I loved dressing it up, but I also loved taking my clothes off and seeing the effect my beauty had on other people. There was a seediness to it, for certain. There were times I didn’t like the look in the eyes of some of the punters – an avariciousness that made me a little afraid. But I didn’t have any real contact with them – that was left to the hostesses who waited on their tables. There was never a feeling of threat, but any guys who seemed like they might become just a little too interested I avoided looking at directly or personally provoking during my act. I knew that the tipping point could be reached in the blink of an eye.

  Of course, it was a power thing, and a self-esteem thing, and in some part of myself I realised that the need to be seen and admired said something not too healthy about the state of my psyche. I’d never been to a therapist and didn’t feel the need to, but I was pretty sure that if I did, we’d spend most of the time talking about my parents. But on the other hand, wasn’t it better to be involved in life than distanced from it, as Rachel seemed to be? I wondered if Rachel’s attraction to Konrad wasn’t down to the fact that he was so different from her. Like an exotic animal in a zoo, he fascinated her but probably frightened her too.

  Lisette and I finished our conversation and then I called Konrad on Skype. I’d been putting it off, on the basis that having paid for my outfit and listened to my excited ramblings about Park Lane, he would naturally ask all about my evening.

  I didn’t know what I’d tell him. Of course, he knew – as a soul mate of kinds – that I was wild and got myself into plenty of scrapes. We’d never actually broached the subject of open relationships during our six months together, but for my part, I assumed that that was the deal. I never imagined I’d have someone like Konrad all to myself – or I guessed that if I did, it would only be temporary and certainly not something that I could insist on.

  On the other hand, I had no evidence that he had dalliances with other people in that time, and I hadn’t played around either. We had wild times together – evenings when things always threatened to career out of control. Evenings when it felt that something dangerous was about to happen. But to date it never had. To date it had been about the dancing and the drinking, and the running around from party to party, a trail of admirers in our wake.

  Konrad answered my Skype after a few rings and his face flickered into view on the screen of my laptop. His hair was mussed up and he was unshaven. I realised he was sitting up in bed, his laptop balanced on his knee. It was early afternoon, but he’d just woken up. Not that that was surprising or unusual.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, smiling. He looked almost childlike in his barely awake vulnerability, and I ached to reach out my hand and muss his hair up more with the palm of my hand, to inhale his bittersweet morning breath.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’

  ‘Impure thoughts, I hope,’ he chuckled, reaching for the packet of cigarettes beside his bed. ‘How’s tricks?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m thinking maybe about coming home,’ I said. ‘Or I want to – but I don’t want to screw things up for Rachel. Lisette said she’s doing good – making friends and shooting some great pictures.’

  It was Konrad’s turn to shrug. ‘I’m not sure about either,’ he replied. ‘Well, I mean I’m sure she has done some great pictures, but I’ve not seen them. And as for friends – well, let’s just say she’s a bit of a wallflower.’

  I laughed. ‘I’d sort of work
ed that out.’

  ‘I do like her,’ he said quickly, ‘but I’m not sure someone as superficial as me could ever penetrate her depths.’

  We both laughed this time. This was what I did like about Konrad – his self-deprecating humour and the fact that he accepted his own limitations and didn’t pretend to be anything more than a party boy. It wasn’t that he was unintelligent, but he saw no sense in spending time thinking when he could be having fun. And who was to say that he was wrong? Maybe that was where I’d gone astray and why I was here now, feeling miserable.

  ‘Do you miss me?’ I said, and as I did so I flinched. I hadn’t meant to say it, and now that it was out I felt ridiculous. Konrad and I simply didn’t talk to each other like that. We didn’t speak of love, or feelings, or anything remotely deep. We just got on with it.

  Konrad looked uncomfortable for a moment but he was quick to save face and laugh it off. ‘I miss your gorgeous tits,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take your top off?’

  I felt horny and wished I was there with him. I’d sit astride him, I thought, and as I rode him to orgasm I’d finger my clit and come at the same time. For the first time with him, I’d come, and the experience would open both of us up and for once we would talk about our emotions.

  I did as he said, enjoying the feeling of being bossed about. I was wearing a translucent black silk shirt and beneath it a black balcony bra with scarlet piping. I pulled the shirt up over my head, then pulled the cups down so that my breasts sprang forth. My nipples were erect.

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Konrad. ‘You’re divine. I wish you were here.’

  ‘What would you do to me?’ I breathed.

  His bathrobe had fallen open, and he was sprawled naked now. He took his cock in one fist and started moving it up and down it, towards the camera of his laptop and then away from it. His free hand was tucked behind his head as he lay there, languorously wanking and yet consciously on display for me. His magnificent torso, completely bare from waxing, shone like light oiled wood. He was a supreme human being, physically.

  ‘God,’ I said. ‘You are my god.’ And for the moment at least, I felt like the luckiest girl alive, to have this heavenly creature in front of me, watching me and being watched.

  I stood up, lifting up my laptop and taking it over to a coffee table in front of a leather armchair. Positioning it on the edge of the table and adjusting the screen, I sat back in the chair, my legs in the air. Raising my bum a little, I wriggled out of my panties and tossed them in the air, towards the computer. Then I leaned back and, opening my legs, started to play with myself, slowly, almost drowsily, emulating the rhythm that Konrad had established.

  For a while I didn’t look at the screen but at myself, watching my hand move me towards the delectable, almost painful throb of orgasm just as Konrad was watching me. Then I looked back at him. He was wanking hard now, sitting more upright and staring towards me, not saying a word. He was inscrutable, I thought, even in the extremes of pleasure. I would never know him, and he would never know me.

  The thought made me sad, for a moment, but that evaporated as I came, my nails digging into the fat leather of the armchair with the sheer intensity of it, my eyes fixed on the screen where Konrad too was climaxing. Only he wasn’t looking at me, I realised – his head back, eyes closed, he was in a swoon, moans escaping from his lips as his come pumped out, sliding through his fingers and oozing out onto his six-pack belly.

  There was silence as we sat up and collected ourselves. Then Konrad stretched out, reaching for his bathrobe, and ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Mmmm, that was good,’ he said, then he winked at me. ‘Did you call for anything particular?’ he said with a chortle.

  ‘Ha ha,’ I retorted, and then I thought it was probably best to wind up the call anyway, before he did remember to ask me about my evening on Park Lane. I still hadn’t decided what to tell him. Part of me felt that he really didn’t need to know what I had got up to in the penthouse and that I shouldn’t risk what we had together for the sake of honesty. Another part thought that he wouldn’t actually mind, and I wasn’t sure that I liked that idea. And what if he actually found it a turn-on?

  Of course, Konrad had to live with the knowledge of what I did for a living, which was essentially to take most of my clothes off for the gratification of strangers. But he’d known I did that when we met, and had he had any issues with it, I could justifiably have pointed out that he lived by his body too, and indeed often posed with few clothes on. One of the reasons he was currently so loaded was that he’d scored a big ad for a designer underwear campaign, posing alongside one of the world’s most famous supermodels.

  But it just wasn’t an issue. We’d met in a nightclub just off the Champs-Élysées, when I was dancing away on a podium, in a white tutu and silver leotard, revelling in all the attention that was being paid to me. You’d have thought the last thing I wanted after strutting my stuff on stage was to show myself off some more, but it seemed I had an insatiable appetite for showing off.

  Konrad was in the crowd and I kept seeing him glance up at me. His attention counted for that of a hundred others. I knew who he was from the magazines and I was flattered that he had noticed me.

  He was out with a supermodel that night, and afterwards I found out that they’d been sleeping together for a while. Had I known, things might not have happened the way they did. Not that I had any moral scruples – if someone wants you, it’s their choice if they cheat on an existing partner. It’s not as if I forced other people’s boyfriends to sleep with me.

  But Deedee Knowles was breathtakingly gorgeous in every way, whereas I was good-looking in a kooky way. She was perfect, and I was interesting. For Konrad, however, it was a no-brainer. When I went off to the toilets, I guessed rightly that he was following me and, when I came out, I wasn’t surprised to find him waiting in the corridor for me. We left without saying goodbye to the people we were with.

  That first crazy night set the scene for everything that was to follow. It was a bit like Gainsbourg and Birkin, who got together by taking off from the film set they met on and launching themselves into the Paris night, touring the clubs until dawn. Only unlike Gainsbourg, Konrad wasn’t ugly. And unlike Gainsbourg, Konrad didn’t pass out drunk.

  We danced all night, and it was partly a competition and partly a mating ritual. We both knew what was going to happen and I think we both wanted to draw it out, build up the anticipation until we couldn’t bear it any more and couldn’t keep our hands off each other a moment longer.

  At dawn we stumbled into my apartment, and there was the urgency and the sense of high drama as Konrad threw me down onto my big double bed and tore my clothes off. Though he must have seen bodies technically better than mine, for several minutes he just feasted his eyes on me. Then he went down on me, one hand on each of my breasts, and it was pure delight.

  When he entered me, it felt like something wonderful had begun for me, and I let myself be carried along on that wave until I felt him start to buck and moan. I squeezed my internal muscles and pushed up to meet him, but he was lost to his own pleasure and didn’t seem willing to help me share it. Not that one could ever count on coming at the same time, of course, especially the first few times with somebody. But all that night we’d felt so close, mentally, like two soul mates who had found each other at last, that I felt an urgency to climax with him.

  He came with a yell and I didn’t come at all. Watching him fall into an exhausted sleep, I tried not to care. There’d be next time, I said to myself. There’d be lots of times. I was both right and wrong.

  ***

  Tatiana and Alice had been rifling through my clothes on Rachel’s rail as I got changed. I could tell they found my style bizarre and amusing, and part of me wanted to tell them to just piss off.

  I’m not some toy, some doll for you to play with and then cast off, when you’ve had enough of me, I wanted to yell at them. But I ignored them, focusing on tonging my hair in
to loose ringlets around my face, trying to channel Sara Stockbridge. Vivienne Westwood’s favourite model was my style icon; one of my most prized possessions was a late 1980s ad Stockbridge and Westwood did for Courtaulds Tricel, with the model on tiptoe in a burgundy dress with a low-cut bodice top and a flounced mini-skirt, and black shoes with wooden platform bases and satin ankle ties that wound all the way up to her knees. Another constant stylistic reference point was Kirsten Dunst in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, with a bit more cleavage. In fact, before I’d left Paris I’d been thinking of devising a new act featuring my burlesque version of the French queen.

  Rouging my cheeks and applying a fresh layer of lipstick, I turned to Tatiana and Alice. The latter was holding up one of my basques and the other was looking at her mock coyly. I wondered what these faux lesbians had in store for me that evening. But then I told myself it didn’t really matter what they planned. Tonight I would remain firmly in control. I’d drink little and I’d maintain the upper hand. I’d use them as a way of getting out and of seeing parts of London I might not have easy access to, but that was all.

  We left the flat in the direction of Park Lane, which made me uneasy. I didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime of a few evenings before. Or rather I did, but not in the company of the criminals themselves. I thought of the barman at The Hilton and hoped we might go there. Who knows? – if he was as interested in me as I was in him, I might be able to go off with him and ditch these witches.

  But we didn’t head for The Hilton, or, thankfully, the penthouse where I’d allowed myself to get so carried away. We went to the northern end of the long road, just by Marble Arch, where we headed into the bar of the boutique hotel 140 Park Lane for champagne cocktails. There, perched on a bar-stool, I cringed as Tatiana and Alice flirted with the male and female waiting staff and decided that it was going to be a long evening, especially if I wasn’t going to drink.