by Primula Bond
‘She’s got someone with her!’ I mouth into his hand. Hot tears prick at my eyes and start to fall. ‘Do you think that’s Pierre? After all that crap she’s told us, maybe he’s been with her all along?’
Gustav cocks his head for a moment. The voices mingle in a hubbub of yelling, then go silent. Gustav’s hand is covering my nose as well as my mouth, and I can’t breathe.
He shakes his head.
After several minutes we hear the scrape and tap of Margot’s shoes, but instead of coming this way her footsteps are muffled by the front door of the building once more clanking shut.
We’re safe here. For now. She would never sully herself or her expensive shoes by searching for us in a filthy, dank alleyway full of trash. But this isn’t the end of the story. Not by a long chalk.
Margot is out to finish us.
I struggle under Gustav’s hand, but he presses it harder over my mouth, banging my head back against the wall, and now his black eyes are glaring as if he wants to bore a hole right through me. With his free hand he pulls mine away from where I’m bashing at his chest. He thrusts my hand down his stomach, down over the front of his jeans until my fingers clamp over him.
He’s hard as rock. He’s so hard that I can feel the heat throbbing right through the denim.
The shock is like a punch in the guts.
Margot has done this to him. Not me. The dangerous allure that once attracted him to that woman was oozing out of her just now. Everything about her, those red stockings, the wet red lips, the laser eyes, the knowledge that she was naked beneath that leather skirt, those gloating, filthy reminiscences she was so desperate to share, has brought it all back. Christ, if I can’t look at her without seeing the two of them going at it, what memories must be boiling inside Gustav?
I nip viciously into his palm to get him off me, but he doesn’t budge. His eyes glitter with the grim determination he employed to overpower me in the early days. He continues to press my hand over the big thick bulge inside his pants. I can feel a sob choking me, but also the sharp twist of desire deep inside me as I touch him.
All at once he moves his hands away from my mouth, leaves my fingers on his crotch and shoves one knee between my legs so that they are forced apart. My legs are shaking as I stagger slightly, but he’s not going to help me. He’s going to have me. He pushes his hands under my little lace dress and sinks his fingers into the soft flesh of my buttocks, lifting me quickly so I don’t have time to feel the cold. I scrabble to keep hold of him by wrapping my legs round his hips and now I’m slicking open for him, moistening against the denim jeans despite the dizzying mix of fear and fury as my dress floats up round my waist.
Gustav pins me against the cold, flinty wall as he starts to unbutton his fly. His breath is hot on my face, his lips parted to show the glint of his gritted teeth. Our eyes lock as footsteps pass beyond the entrance to the alleyway. I lean in and bite his bottom lip, suck up the droplet of blood.
Once tasted, you’ll always come back.
He shoves me harder against the wall so that the cold bricks scrape into the tender skin on my lower back. My lovely leather jacket is going to have scratches on it, too. I kick my boots against his butt as he starts to bite my neck, but he just shoves me more brutally to keep me still.
His fingers dig deeper into my butt cheeks, prising them apart, and then his fingers are in the damp crack between, searching and sliding towards my centre. I grip his shoulders as we both feel the wetness beneath his fingers, a mixture of the seething sweat of fear and the curling cream of excitement.
I open myself wider to swallow his fingers, grinding against his jeans, winding my fingers in his silky hair to pull his head to me so that I can kiss him. He groans unevenly, licking and biting his way up to my mouth as his fingers grapple with my weight and then they slide inside me, releasing my urgent, musky scent, driving me wild with wanting.
As he kisses, or rather takes chunks out of me, he mutters under his breath, so rapid and angry it sounds like a foreign language.
He’s saying bitch, bitch. Bitch.
I reach down and flip undone the last remaining buttons of his fly and wrap my fingers around him. This man belongs to me. This hard-on belongs to me. This precious part of him is mine, and it’s going into me now.
I grunt like an animal and he lifts his head, lips wet with saliva. We stare deep into each other in the darkness. I’m holding on to him, but I’m quivering violently with the effort of gripping him and with the ferocious desire to have him.
‘She was lying about me and Pierre, G. You must believe me. We never went that far. You know she was lying.’
I’m aware that I’ve just said G, his brother’s pet name for him, but just then it seemed to fit perfectly. I can’t take it back. So I kiss him to shut myself up, not biting this time but pressing my lips on to his gorgeous mouth, pushing my tongue in to open him to me. He pauses, as if he is about to break this long silence, but then his tongue snakes hungrily around mine.
Kissing is better than talking, however violent and angry it is. I am still gripping him but he needs no guidance. He pulls his hips back and then slams himself up inside me, so rough and hard against the wall, jolting me violently so that my teeth bite through my lip.
He pulls out, allowing a breath of cold air to wash over my bare skin in the brief pause, then with a muffled groan he thrusts inside even harder. I wrap myself like a limpet around him and I make it easy because I’m so wet and ready. He moves inside me, so smooth compared with the painful rasp of brickwork on my spine, and my body closes tight around him. Then our bodies are stuck together, just as they should be, and we’re ramming it, swearing into each other’s ears like a whore and her brutish punter in the alleyway.
One of those enormous, noisy fire trucks that looks like a toy roars down the street, choosing the moment when it reaches the entrance to our alleyway to sound its horn and wind up its siren. We both jump in alarm as the sound invades our space, but the renewed commotion of the city around us doesn’t stop us rutting like a pair of dogs.
In an apartment a few metres above us, my lover’s ex-wife is pacing up and down in her hot, stuffy sitting room, dragging her fingernails across the fabric of the thick curtains and showering curses on our heads as we start to come.
I grind against my Gustav and feel his teeth biting into my neck again as he shudders to his climax, and I suck him in, keeping him inside me until I’ve no more strength. We slither down the grimy wall in a tangle of limbs until we’re sitting amongst the cans and pizza boxes and spilt beer and Coke and cat piss and who knows what else, needles and condoms probably.
We collapse, panting and exhausted, on to the dirty paving stones of this backstreet alley.
The fire truck has gone and the street is quiet again.
‘No is the answer,’ Gustav says into the night quiet. He rakes my hair roughly off my face so that he can see me clearly. ‘I don’t want her back.’
I keep my eyes on the gold crinkle round one iris that gives him that wolfish look.
‘But she wants you, Gustav. She has your things in the flat. Shirts. Wedding gifts. She won’t rest till she—’
‘I don’t want anything of hers. She leaves me cold. I feel stone dead inside when I look at her, compared with the passion that burns me when I look at you.’ He shudders. ‘She was sexy as hell, Serena. Pure lust blinded me to the reality of how rotten she was. Hard to believe it now. She physically repels me. But back then it was a need, greed, hunger, an itch, I don’t know, a virus. It wasn’t love. Never love. You couldn’t love someone so empty and cruel. I’ve told you I was besotted with her for a few short years. She could have me on my knees just by raising her eyebrows, and on my knees is where I ended up. That’s not love, is it? How could it be? It’s not even as meaningful as hate. It’s just – emptiness. I was broken. I lost Pierre. But at least I was free. There’s a vital piece of her missing, cara. There always was.’ He bashes his fist at his chest. ‘Was
it the ice queen who had a chip of ice where her heart should be? Margot doesn’t get how normal mortals live. How far you can go before you stop being forgiven. She doesn’t get any of that.’
I nod. I feel safe with my face cradled in his fingers like this, but now that the cold is creeping into the space left by the heat of passion, I don’t feel sexy any more. I feel dishevelled and anxious. And the lies about me and Pierre are still circulating like vultures in the air.
‘Margot was up here for a long time.’ He taps his forehead. ‘But she’ll never be in here.’ He taps his heart. ‘That’s where you live.’
He winds my hair round his fingers and pulls my face tight against his.
I cling to him, shivering with fear and cold and exhaustion.
And then his phone buzzes.
‘Leave it! Leave it!’ I cry, trying to stop him getting to it. ‘Don’t answer it!’
Gustav keeps his eyes on me as he untangles his fingers and takes the phone out of his pocket. I can see the fire ebbing from him, replaced by a steady distance.
Margot’s eyes, slicing into me just now. Not looking at Gustav. Looking at me.
The eye in the peacock feather.
‘Is it Margot?’
He shakes his head, still studying the screen. ‘Not even she can hack into my phone. It’s Pierre. He’s seen my missed calls.’
I open my mouth. Shut it again. I step back from my lover, feel the cold, dirty air rushing between us as he frowns and texts something back.
‘What did he say?’
He presses send, still not looking at me. Waits for the reply, which comes rapidly with another double buzz. He reads it, starts to text a reply, then changes his mind and drops the phone back into his pocket.
At last he looks at me again.
‘Pierre is catching tomorrow night’s flight out of LAX.’
I nod, then take his face in my hands and rub my cheek against the hard plane of his jaw, feeling the rasp of his harsh bristles. ‘This is me. In your heart. In your head. I’m yours for as long as you want me.’
He doesn’t smile, but squeezes me, hard. ‘So prove it by swearing something, Serena. On that diamond ring.’
I hold myself very still. ‘What do you want me to say? And why do you need me to swear it?’
‘Before I ask Pierre this question I want to hear it in your voice, your words.’ He lifts me to my feet, tugs my lace dress around my cold, shaking knees, straightens my jacket. ‘Swear to me that my brother has never been inside you.’
Instead of soothing me, the massaging jets are irritating me. The Jacuzzi’s too big to wallow in alone. You could easily drown beneath the frothing surface, and no one would know for hours.
Gustav is already up and dressed. He was out nearly all day yesterday. We barely spoke, and this morning he’s been out to buy food and is now doing his chef thing, preparing mussels in a creamy white wine and tarragon sauce. I woke up late in our empty bed after a second restless night peppered with dreams of a hot, cluttered flat. Margot Levi was standing behind a judge’s bench wearing a black gown, like a bat, handing down death sentences. Then she was dancing out of an enormous mahogany wardrobe wearing a very short bridal gown, pulling the petals off armfuls of white roses.
Waking up wasn’t the relief I needed. I was aching and stiff and I needed Gustav.
I wander into the kitchen to find him buttoning up his whites. He knows it turns me on to see him pretending to be Gordon Ramsay. He looks so gorgeous. He hasn’t shaved since we got back from Margot’s apartment two nights ago, so his face is shadowed with what I call his bandit beard. His glossy black hair keeps falling over his eyes as he bends over the steaming pot.
‘Moules marinière? A little extravagant for lunchtime isn’t it, honey?’ I murmur, coming up to him and winding my fingers through his hair. ‘Doesn’t that smack of the prodigal son?’
Gustav lets me secure his black hair, which has grown just past his collar, into a silly ponytail so that it won’t fall into his eyes, but he keeps watching for the pops to pierce the rolling water. So preoccupied.
‘It’s Pierre’s favourite.’
I step over to the coffee machine and pour myself a cup. But it’s not caffeine I need. My heart is clattering along too fast as it is. Valium. Dope. I need some kind of sedative.
I close my eyes and try to count down my heart rate. ‘How long is the flight from LA?’
‘Less than six hours. He’s been on that plane while you’ve been asleep. He’ll be landing at JFK any time now.’
I gaze up through the skylight to the bright blue sky. There are no clouds. No white streams carved in the ether by departing or arriving planes. What are the chances of Pierre just, well, not showing up?
Gustav is testing each mussel. He runs his fingertips over each ridged black shell and without looking he rejects any bad ones that are open too early, casting them with perfect aim into the bin.
I look away, back up to that blue sky. Spring has arrived overnight. That late-March brightness, the hint of sunshine, the promise of warmth, should be filling me with birdsong and thoughts of weddings and honeymoons, but instead I only have the sensation of sliding too fast along a walkway.
I can’t get off. Although I don’t want to get off. Not if Pierre is waiting at the other end.
When he makes his way through the airport he’ll step on to one of those conveyor belts and move steadily towards us. He’ll have minimal luggage. No luggage, preferably. He’s not stopping long.
I blow across the surface of my hot coffee.
‘Gustav. Stop a minute. We’ve barely spoken in the last two days. Be honest. Are you angry with me for stirring all this up with the feather and Margot and Pierre?’
Gustav holds a shell above the boiling water, ready to drop it in. He glances up at last. The reflection from the cooking pot makes his black eyes look as if they are bubbling, too.
‘All of the above. Also none of it. My darling girl, so sweet and so sleepy. I wish you’d never gone to Venice on your own and yes, I know that was my fault, too. But since you ask, I’ll admit it. I’m still rattled by what you’ve told me. What Margot said.’ He drops the unfortunate shell into the water and picks up another. ‘Seeing her is like ripping at an old wound when you thought the scar had healed and finding it’s as raw as ever. But also I’m nervous about Pierre’s reaction when I confront him. He’s capable of fighting to the death just for the sake of it. Bizarrely I want him to corroborate every vitriolic thing she said. Then at least it will all be clear, and we can start again.’
The shells start raining down into the water.
‘Except the bit about me.’ I take a sip of coffee and it burns my mouth. ‘If he just admits the truth about what he was playing at in all this, no one need be angry or nervous. Ever again.’
We smile at each other for a long, simmering moment across the steam. Then Gustav lifts the lid, ready to clamp it on top of the pot.
‘And if you don’t get out of my favourite shirt and into some decent clothes I will have to work off this tension by ravishing you right here. Right now.’
I duck away before he can come round the counter, and run back into the bathroom.
Now I’m standing in front of the full-length mirror, sweaty yet shivering. My breath puffs rapidly on to the glass as I study my naked reflection. I’m no fatter, no thinner. My breasts are still high and full, the red nipples hardening as soon as I think about them. My waist is tiny, my hips feminine, my legs long. The curves that were hidden for the first twenty years of my life. It wasn’t so much Gustav who changed me. It was Crystal, our assistant, who I suddenly wish was here.
It’s thanks to her that I dress this body up like a proper grown-up woman these days, not like someone who has just crawled out of a horsebox.
I’m no different from two days ago. My eyebrows have been groomed professionally so that they somehow follow and refine the line of my cheekbones. My eyes are hazy and big with anxiety and fatigue, and t
he bright light in the bathroom gives them a darker hue, a kind of laurel-leaf green. They are staring back at me as if peering out of a dark well. There’s a shadow behind them, as if someone else is in there with me, looking out.
What is different is my mouth. It’s always full, but it’s come up bruised and crushed. The lower lip is swollen from where I bit it hard as Gustav pinned me against the wall. Kisses that felt like punches.
I pick up a comb and start to drag it listlessly through my hair. I relish the snag when it catches at the roots. One by one, I start to curl tendrils of my hair round my fingers. I have a new long fringe, and trim only the ends of my hair now, so it still flows to my waist.
I’m up high, like Rapunzel in her tower. I glance out of the window as I comb. From here I can see the Hudson River. The sun is nearly overhead. It’s the first time since we arrived in New York at Christmas that I’ve seen the sparkle of it on the water and the deep sharp shadows cast from the high buildings by the stronger light.
I’m about to squeeze styling gel on to my hair, just as Crystal has nagged me to do to banish the frizz, and then I stop. No. No hairstyling. I turn back to the mirror. No make-up, even. I don’t want to look as if I’ve made any effort for Pierre. I don’t even want to be here, except that Gustav has insisted. It’s about the only thing he’s said to me, with the new gruff edge that’s been in his voice and his manner, since we left Margot’s lair.
My stomach tightens. If I can push that woman to the perimeter, just for a few minutes, I can dwell on what happened when we got down from her apartment to terra firma. Gustav shoving me through the rain and into that filthy alleyway, pushing me up against the wall beside the dumpsters.
I turn and look at the vivid red scratches scoring my back as if he’s been whipping me, right down my butt and my legs. They are stinging from the soap. I flinch as I run my fingers over each one. My eyes are drawn back to my neck, which has a ring of angry red bite marks around it.
I look as if I’ve been raped.