Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk

by James Lovegrove

  “I reckon they’re scratching their heads, wondering who that fat lass is with Barnaby Pollard. They probably assume I’m your sister.”

  “For God’s sake, will you stop calling yourself fat? You’re not fat.”

  “Compared with your usual bulimic beanpoles, I am.”

  “Then perhaps you should stop measuring yourself against them.”

  She took a mouthful of her lemon sole Saint-Germain, then said, “Wait a mo. Did you just call me gorgeous?”

  “I believe I did.”

  “Flatterer. Anyone would think you were trying to get into my knickers.”

  “I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind.”

  “Well, buster, for the record, I don’t drop them for just anybody.”

  “Good thing I’m not just anybody, then. I’m Barnaby Pollard.”

  “Oh, you smug git,” Lydia said, but she was chuckling.

  The date ended with a peck on the cheek and Lydia disappearing into the night in a taxi. Barnaby hadn’t expected it would go much further than that, although he wouldn’t have minded if it had. He understood that this was going to be a long game, that victory would come after a protracted campaign rather than a single, decisive battle. He also knew that there was no way he was going to lose. It was asymmetrical warfare. He had all the firepower. He outgunned her financially and socially, in all the ways that mattered. There could only ever be one outcome: her eventual and total capitulation.

  BOMBARDED

  HE ARRANGED FOR flowers to be sent to her home the following morning and every morning thereafter – a dozen Burgundy velvet roses, fresh from the Netherlands.

  He flew her to Rome to see a new production of Tosca at La Scala.

  He obtained VIP tickets for the Rolling Stones at the O2 Arena.

  He whisked her down to Epsom race course for Derby Day, where she won big with the £500 stakes he subsidised.

  He arranged a private, after-hours shopping spree for her at the Hermès boutique on New Bond Street.

  He took her to the premiere of the new George Clooney movie, even though she warned him there was a very strong likelihood she would throw herself at the star and gush over him like some breathless teenage fangirl, which, at the post-screening party, was exactly what she did.

  “I could get used to this lifestyle,” she said as Jakob drove them away from the party venue in the Jag. She added quickly, “But I’m not sure I should.”

  “Crisis of conscience?” said Barnaby.

  “Tell me straight, Mr Pollard...”

  “You sound awfully serious all of a sudden, Miss Laidlaw.”

  “None of what’s happening – the attention, the glamorous nights out, the flowers – none of it has anything to do with me being an environmentally-conscious journo?”

  “I don’t see the connection.”

  “You’re not trying to defuse me in any way? Nobble me?”

  “How would that work? You’re going to have to explain yourself a bit more clearly.”

  “I’m feeling overwhelmed, that’s all. Bombarded. And a part of me’s asking whether there isn’t some ulterior motive behind it. Whether Barnaby Pollard isn’t simply trying to secure some favourable publicity. You struck out with the other four. I’m the one you think you can win round somehow, if you throw enough cash and trinkets at me. You can razzle-dazzle me into coming onside.”

  “Do you honestly think I’m that sort of man?”

  “I have no idea. This is all so outside my realm of experience. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Only without the whole, you know, prostitute thing. Or the teeth.” She held his gaze steadily. “I’m just saying, if you’re messing with me, if this is all some elaborate business wheeze, some cunning strategy, you need to come clean right now. Because, if it is, I won’t take it well, but if I only find out much, much later, I really won’t take it well. And I am not the sort of woman you want pissed off at you. Trust me on that.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Barnaby said. “And no, this has nothing to do with your job. It isn’t anything underhand or sinister. I’m as sincere about this – about us – as a man can be. I don’t know how else I can prove that to you, other than by saying so.”

  “You could kiss me,” she said. “Properly. That might do the trick.”

  So he did.

  The Jaguar purred through London, zigzagging around the late-night traffic on its way towards Kensington, where Barnaby lived.

  Barnaby and Lydia continued to kiss.

  Tongues flickered, touched, entwined.

  She tasted of showbiz wine and arousal.

  He knew that she would be coming home with him tonight.

  He caught a look from Jakob in the rearview mirror, a disapproving scowl.

  He closed his eyes and carried on kissing.

  ACROSS THE LINE

  SHE STEPPED OUT from the en suite bathroom. She had changed into a white satin negligee, which she had brought with her, secreted in her handbag. It hugged the contours of her body. Its lacy hem came down to the tops of her thighs, just hiding her crotch. She had been planning this, he realised. She had decided in advance that tonight would be the night. All she had needed from him was that last little bit of reassurance to get her across the line.

  He was naked under the covers. She approached the bed with slow, stately grace.

  “How do I look?”

  She gave him a twirl.

  “Magnificent,” he said, and he meant it. There was so much of her. Her breasts were immense, mountainous, possibly larger than the breasts of all the other women he had slept with combined. They gave a delicious ripple as she moved. Her buttocks, across which the base of the negligee was stretched taut, had the ripe roundness of watermelons. Her legs were thick and powerful, and already he was imagining them scissored around his pelvis, squeezing, applying intense pressure.

  He was hard as she clambered onto the bed. His groin had become a tight, pulsing knot.

  He grabbed her and pulled her to him. The negligee stayed on for perhaps another five seconds.

  There was such ampleness to her that he almost didn’t know where to begin. He seized and pawed and kneaded, amazed at how soft she was, how her skin seemed to sink and glide under his touch.

  Lips crushed lips. His hand slithered over the mound of her belly, venturing into the dimpled fold between her legs. His palm brushed the coarse tuft of her pubic hair. His fingers found her pillowy pudenda. Her cleft was wet. A forefinger slid in. The heat and moistness of her. The gaping, eager void.

  All at once his cock was inside her, and she gasped, and so did he. He thrust, and quickened, and blazed. She cried out, raking his back with her nails, while he was beyond words, beyond sounds, his mouth wide but nothing emerging except a breath, an exhalation of pure ecstasy.

  Later, as they spooned together, woozy and half asleep, he marvelled at how snug her body felt next to his. He was accustomed to women who were all bones and high-strung rigidity. This... this was comfortable and pliant and welcoming. Cotton wool instead of barbed wire.

  Yes, it had been perfect.

  As far as it went.

  A few more straight fucks like that – no problem. Plenty of pleasure to be had there.

  But then would come the time when he wanted something else from her. Something more.

  Once he had lulled her, once he had gained her trust sexually...

  There would be other games to play.

  Other avenues to explore.

  Other doors to open.

  THE PHWOAR! FACTOR

  THE MEDIA WEREN’T slow in noticing that the founder and CEO of GloCo had a new woman – and a woman who broke the mould as far as he was concerned.

  “From seagull to G-cup gal,” wrote one gossip columnist. “Maybe that bonk on the bonce from a bird’s beak has done something to bachelor Barney’s brain. Pictured here is the latest lass he’s been lording it with around town, and she’s not one of the usual Pollard Lollipops. This larger
-than-life lovely is Lydia Laidlaw, 35, freelance journalist, and she’s busted our preconceptions about Big Bad Barnaby in more ways than one. As the saying goes, you don’t get many like her to the pound. Luckily, oil oligarch Barney’s got plenty of pounds!”

  The paparazzi took to Lydia. She was photogenic and had the phwoar! factor. Hers was the name they shouted loudest at red-carpet events, hers the cleavage that captivated their zoom lenses.

  Soon, opinion pieces were appearing in the middlebrow tabloids with headlines such as “Singing The Praises Of The Fuller-Figured Woman” and “Is Our Obsession With Skinny Finally Over?” The articles, all penned by female hacks, couldn’t decide whether it was a good thing or not that Barnaby had dumped the waifs and plumped for someone statuesque and Rubenesque instead. On the one hand, it gave hope to larger girls everywhere. They, too, might be able to bag a handsome billionaire. On the other hand, there was a distinct undertone of resentment and chagrin. It seemed that all this time women had been exercising and dieting like mad, thinking that thinness was what men found attractive, only to discover that they might as well have ditched the Zumba classes and splurged on the Chardonnay and chocolate biscuits all along.

  When a bestselling chick-lit author went on Twitter and referred to Lydia as “that jammy heifer,” she was deluged with indignant comments and trollish accusations of jealousy and gender-betrayal. The truth was, though, that many of her sistren secretly agreed with her. How dare Lydia Laidlaw be so voluptuous, so comfortable with her curves, not to mention so damn lucky?

  One byproduct of this minor media frenzy was that it drowned out the carping commentary on Barnaby’s round-the-world PR tour. Dorothea, OwlHenry, Isaac and Aletheia could barely get their views noticed. Lydia had stolen their thunder. She had eclipsed them all.

  Then Brava! magazine came calling, requesting an interview with Lydia for its regular In The Limelight slot. The editor, Marlee Whitgift, conducted the interview herself, while a photographer snapped pictures of Lydia at home in her modest Battersea flat.

  Brava! Magazine, August Issue

  Interview Excerpt

  Brava!: Lydia, you’ve made a career out of crusading environmental journalism. Now you’re going out with GloCo oil magnate Barnaby Pollard. How do you reconcile the two things?

  Lydia Laidlaw: They’re not incompatible. I don’t see the problem. Just because Barnaby does what he does, it doesn’t mean I have to stop doing what I do. We’re both grown-ups. I’m an independent woman. I’m not going to change my worldview just to please my boyfriend.

  B!: But don’t you think some people might find it a bit hypocritical, you enjoying the rewards of his industry, an industry that’s about as environmentally-unsound as it’s possible to be?

  LL: The money’s there. Barnaby’s made it. If he wants to spend some of it on me, that’s his choice. It’s not as if I could stop him.

  B!: How did the two of you meet, anyway?

  LL: GloCo needed to raise its profile in the eco-media-sphere after a string of industrial accidents, and that whole unfortunate, but still quite amusing, seagull affair. I was one of the journos they targeted. Barnaby and I just clicked.

  B!: I’d have thought, to someone like you, he’d be the Devil himself.

  LL: But you can’t help who you’re attracted to, can you? And he is, let’s face it, a very attractive man. I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to like him at first. I tried not to. I gave him a pretty hard time, as a matter of fact. But Marlee, haven’t you ever fallen for a wrong ’un? Someone you know you shouldn’t fancy but you just can’t help yourself? I doubt there’s any woman who hasn’t, at some time or other.

  B!: Are you hoping to tame him? Is he a challenge? A project?

  LL: A handful, maybe, but tame him? Why would I want to do that?

  B!: Change him, then.

  LL: Again, why? He’s not broken. He doesn’t need fixing. He is what he is.

  B!: But someone like you, in a position to influence his decision-making...

  LL: I’m his girlfriend, not his wife.

  B!: You could do so much good for the planet. You could be the Melinda Gates to his Bill, the Jane Fonda to his Ted Turner.

  LL: I can do good with my writing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Marlee, but women these days can exert power directly. They don’t have to work their wiles on their menfolk in order to have influence, not any more. Like the song says, sisters are doing it for themselves. Barnaby’s a king of the world, for sure, but I’m a woman, and that means I’m in a whole different league.

  B!: No argument here.

  LL: Let me tell you something. There’s a lot of talk about women having an “inner goddess.” About how we’re all of us connected in some way or another to the source of things. We give birth – create life. Our menstrual cycles echo the lunar cycle. We’re natural, elemental beings. Now, some would dismiss that as mystical poppycock. Sentimental nonsense. But there’s still some truth in it. You can’t deny that, in the ways that count, in the areas of life that really matter, women are and always have been far superior to men.

  B!: Again, I’m not going to dispute that for a moment.

  LL: Here’s what I think. We may not individually be goddesses, but collectively, as a gender, you might describe us as a goddess, as aspects of a divinity, multiple parts of a much greater whole. Compared to a man like Barnaby Pollard, I might appear to be nothing very much, not in material terms or the effect I can have on society. But I’m linked to something larger than me, something he’s excluded from by virtue of his Y-chromosome, something no amount of money can ever buy him, and that gives me strength. Infinite strength.

  B!: Mother Nature? Is that what you mean?

  LL: A bit simplistic, but yes. “Mother Nature” always sounds so kindly and caring, doesn’t it? I think it’s stronger and stranger than that. Fiercer. Nature is not necessarily a cosy, cuddly thing. So there’s my counterpoint to Barnaby’s status, how I’m his equal.

  B!: Much as I hate to round things off on a “cosy” note, Brava! readers I’m sure will want to know if you and Barnaby have any plans. What does the future hold for you two?

  LL: Who knows? It’s still early days. Are we going to get married, you mean?

  B!: He is eminently eligible, he seems serious about you, he’s in his mid-forties so he really ought to be settling down – and there’s no question you’d make a terrific wife...

  LL: It depends. I haven’t got to know him properly yet. There are layers to him. Many layers. I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface so far.

  PREJUDICE AND FREEFALL

  SHE RODE ON top, her pendulous breasts swinging just inches from his face. She was gripping his cock tightly inside her, her vaginal muscles slowly clenching and unclenching. It was exquisite procrastination. She was holding both of them on the brink of climax, drawing the moment out as long as she could. He thrust upwards with his pelvis, urging her to go quicker, to finish things. She resisted. She pinned his shoulders to the bed with her hands, reinforcing her control. Her mouth was a full-lipped O of anticipation, her eyes squeezed shut.

  He almost couldn’t bear the delay. He could feel the orgasm swelling up inside him, begging for release, ready to explode, but she kept the tension going, moving only enough to bring satisfaction that tantalisingly tiny bit closer. His cock seemed so engorged, it was a wonder she could fit it in. There was nothing separating them. He filled her.

  He seized a breast in each hand. His groping fingers found the nipples, which were erect and proud, big as his own thumb tip. He pinched them experimentally, and when she gasped with approval, he pinched harder.

  It had the desired effect. She started to rock faster on him. She tossed her head back. He felt tremors begin to shudder through her. Her hands clawed his shoulders. Her whole body became one massed effort of pleasure, with no function now but to take them both over the edge of the precipice and into the freefall of ecstasy.

  They came as one, like a single organ
ism, bucking and bending, bellowing.

  PARADISE LOST

  “BLIMEY,” SHE SAID afterwards. “I think the whole of bloody Kensington heard that.”

  “Soundproofed glass in every window,” Barnaby said. “Keeps the traffic noise out.”

  “And the shagging noise in.”

  “Pure coincidence, I’m sure. A happy byproduct.”

  She lay on her back, gazing up at the moulded ceiling. On first seeing Barnaby’s bedroom she had remarked that it was larger than her entire flat. Yet it occupied only a quarter of the second storey of the house. In a crowded city like London, Barnaby’s wealth bought him the one thing that was at a real premium: space.

  “Did you read my Brava! interview?” she asked. “I sent you a link to the online version.”

  “Hmm. Yes.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I liked it. You came over well. Smart, composed...”

  “But?”

  “Why does there have to be a ‘but’?”

  “Because of your tone of voice.”

  “Okay.” He grimaced comically, like someone about to undergo a body cavity search. “The goddess stuff. That Mother Nature bit. Really?”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I just would never have expected it from you. I thought you were more grounded than that.”

  “Obviously you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “Unless you were simply giving them what you thought they wanted. Brava!’s pretty right-on and feminist, isn’t it? ‘The Magazine For The Woman Who’s Special.’”