by Primula Bond
‘It feels like a nunnery to me.’
‘So think of Angelique as the Mother Superior and me as the chaplain! Come to me any time, habibti. I will gladly hear your confession!’ She lifts the cloth off the couscous and tips Angelique’s pomegranate seeds into it before forking it through.
‘Anyone less like a nun or a priest I cannot imagine!’ I giggle as the steam rises between us. ‘You’re the one with the sins to confess!’
‘They are coming to eat, so halas.’ She shreds mint leaves over the couscous. ‘Enough. No more talking for now.’
The girlish laughter in the distance lowers into quiet talking as various figures, in floaty dresses in all the colours of the rainbow, appear from doorways and arches and come out of the little white pavilions erected in the far corners of the garden for massage and treatments.
Maria hands me a flagon of wine and a tray of roughly blown stubby glasses stained with blue and gold, and a group of girls, including Polly, pushes through a curtain of vines to join us.
‘So you’ve found your mother figure,’ Polly remarks, sitting down and nudging me sharply in the ribs. ‘But I’m going to have to prise you apart now. It’s silence for the rest of the day.’
I have no idea what time it is, or even what day. I know that nearly a week has passed since I arrived at this ashram. I haven’t been able to speak to Gustav, although in the hammam I did pick up one voicemail left the day we flew out of Paris, telling me he had touched down in London, he was missing me, and giving me the flight details of his return to New York next week.
And I know that the powerful, fruity homemade wine we have been drinking is making me languorous and heavy. Angelique is still in her vow of silence, but every so often I feel her eyes resting on me, and if ever there is a space on a cushion next to her, she beckons me to sit. So whatever I said out of turn is forgiven and forgotten. And I’m learning to keep my mouth shut.
Maria and I are together more, though, working in the kitchen or swimming in the pool. We talk a little about Les Liaisons and the promotional tour she will soon begin, but as soon as I touch on how she met Gustav and what went on in the house in Baker Street, she refuses to be drawn.
‘Talking about that stuff is not in the spirit of this place,’ she murmurs, and no amount of teasing or cajoling will get any more out of her. In any case, any talk of London or Gustav or Margot disturbs the peace that has settled on me since I came here.
But now it’s siesta or meditation time. The others have dispersed and I’m lying face down on a massage table where Maria told me to come and wait for her. I rest my chin on my hands, staring through the gap in the white curtains of my personal little pavilion, heavy with the aroma of incense from the tapers burning on the mats all around. The treatment areas are deliberately placed at a remove from the main buildings, facing away from the earthly delights of the kitchen, the swimming pool, the art room so that all I can see from here are a few rows of vines, the village where they have the hammam, and then the rise of the grey-blue mountains.
All I can hear is the trickle of sleepy piano music coming from inside this tent. Outside, there is no sound but the splash of water and the twitter of tiny bright-blue birds.
A pair of hands lands on my shoulder blades, pressing me hard down on to my front. Because I’m not expecting it, the breath is pushed right out of me. I feel as if I’m going to go through the spongy couch, straight through the ground, and as the pressure releases so all my resistance evaporates. There is a pause. Ice-cold gel is squirted on to my back, and then the heel, the palm, and the knuckles of someone’s hands start to work on me.
It might be one of the young, silent, dark-skinned girls in special golden shift dresses who flit about the grounds and the courtyards, bringing food, drink, towels and clean clothes, plucking flowers from the beds to decorate the rooms, and massaging the inhabitants.
But I know it’s not. My body twitches with a sudden, fierce, forbidden desire.
My cheekbones dig into the towel, my body rocking, and gradually the surface of my skin starts to tingle in places my masseuse hasn’t even reached yet. The oil slicks up and down my arms, back to my shoulder blades, and along the knobs of my spine. The blood starts to drum in my ears, drowning out any other sounds.
‘What’s this? Still tense even after all my efforts to relax you?’
Maria’s husky accented voice murmurs in my ear. Soft, damp lips run along my temple, and I feel the tickle of her long, tangled black hair brushing over my shoulder. There’s her dreamy, musky scent in the air.
‘You’re making me fidgety!’ The breath is pushed out of me as she presses me down into the mattress again. ‘And I’m missing Gust—’
‘Don’t say it. Don’t think of anyone or anything except me, and what I’m doing to you. Not your fiancé. Not your cousin. Not even Angelique. They have all gone into one of their trances. It’s just you and me this afternoon.’ The hands massage each knob of my spine, right down to my butt, and then start to smooth up my sides, over my ribs. ‘Are you going to resist, or will you let me woo you?’
‘Woo me?’ I ask, trying to twist round. What did she say to me at the château?
I saw how you looked at me. There is more you would like to try, but you hide it.
‘You talk too much, habibti. We’re not in Paris now.’ A soft blindfold is tied round my eyes, blocking out the soft white light. Blocking out everything except the hands touching the swell of my breasts, then pulling away, down over my hips, and then gently pulling my legs apart. ‘Just concentrate on the pleasure that is coming.’
Her hands run back and forth over my hips, and down the backs of my legs, and warmth oozes through me, yet my whole body is at the same time exquisitely sensitive. When she touches the crease at the back of my knees, I kick out involuntarily, and my thigh comes into contact with her leg.
‘Why did Gustav want you to watch out for me?’ I try to clench my legs together when her hands feel their way between my butt cheeks, but her knee comes up and parts my thighs. ‘What does he think might happen?’
‘Margot reared her ugly head and gave you a fright and he really didn’t want to leave you. But he has a lot on, and he knows I’ll keep you out of harm’s way. He also knows I will have fun with you because I’m allowed in here and he isn’t.’ She is kneeling up on the bench. I feel something soft brush across my back, and back again. ‘I’ll do anything for that man of yours. And he’ll do anything for you, Serena.’
I tighten inside. She’s naked. Those are her breasts brushing across my skin. Her big, brown breasts with the hard, brown nipples that I saw pushing into the young man’s mouth in the loft in Manhattan. The same luscious La Marquise who was straddling the young boy Danceny at the château last week, all the time her black eyes flashing at me. Wanting me.
I prefer women. That’s what Maria said to me, back at the château. It was meant to reassure me that she wasn’t after Gustav, but it resonates more now as a blatant flirtation.
Her breath is on my face, her lips pressing as her hands continue to stroke, and now it’s less of a massage, more a blatant touching up, and now, oh, God, she’s lifting me so that she can stroke my stomach and work down from there, down between my legs, hitching my hips up towards her. I have no strength to struggle or wriggle away, hell, I don’t want to resist her. Her hands pull me so that I’m rubbing up against her, arching myself so that I can grind across her legs, I’m spreading myself open for her and now she’s on top of me, the length of her warm body over mine, her body starting to rock against me, wetness slicking over my butt cheeks, she’s kissing me everywhere, hands everywhere, and I’m sinking rapidly into my own trance.
‘Maria, I don’t know, is this allowed?’ I groan helplessly, just as she starts to turn me over. I grapple for the blindfold, but she takes my hands and holds them tight. ‘What if the others—’
‘They are gone for hours, and anyway, I can do what I like, chica.’ She turns me over as if I’m somethin
g warm and delicious she’s just taken out of the oven. ‘Absolutely anything.’
I croak, trying to form some words even while the scented blackness of the blindfold seems to empty my mind.
‘I’m here to rinse your mind clean of everything, and everyone. So hush. It’s time for silence.’
She seems to be balancing herself astride me, and now I feel the tickle of her hair as she bends down and parts my mouth. She explores it with her long, wet tongue, probing until I relent and start to suck at it and nibble at her big, luscious lips.
My whole body fizzes with excitement. I’m splayed beneath her like a feast. She stops kissing me and squeezes some more cream or gel on to my breasts and starts to fondle them, circling the plump flesh, squeezing it, no pretence at massage now, and I give into it, arch myself, feel my nipples prick up hard against her hands. She chuckles and massages the area all around before pinching the nipples. Now there are teeth on them, biting, making me moan with growing pleasure.
She rocks against me and our dampness starts to mingle. The slowly accelerating rhythm of the pleasure she is taking from my body fills me with a hot, desperate desire. I shake my hands free and grab at her hips, pulling her so that we can move against each other. I dig my fingers into her bottom, edging one finger up towards her centre to show her I know what I’m doing, and I know what she wants. She moves back and forth as she sucks on my breasts.
And then her fingers are doing the same. One hand cradles my breast, but the other moves down between my legs, pauses, then her fingers trace the hidden crack and probe inside like her tongue probed my mouth and I gasp and tighten myself round her, pulling her against me, pushing my own fingers up inside her and she’s so soft and scented, panting now, so womanly as we writhe against each other, and just as I push my fingers harder up, she locates my hidden spot and I cry out as she manipulates it with one of her fingers, no idea which one, and it’s just then that I start to imagine her with other women, how often she’s done this before, and that thought argues with a fierce determination to be the best she’s ever had, so I start to fuck her and laugh out loud as I feel her body squeeze to keep my fingers inside her.
Little tongues of pleasure start lapping at me, too, as she pumps rapidly into me. Her thumb still plays me until I’m arching and bucking and the ecstasy is radiating through me and we tumble off the bed on to the cushions arranged all over the floor, our legs and arms wrapped tight, that big luscious mouth of hers locked on to mine as we roll over each other. I snatch away the blindfold in time to see her eyes go misty as she starts to come.
She falls on to her back and I fall on top of her, twisting and gripping her as our moans recede against the softly flapping sides of our pleasure dome.
‘Surprised I could tear you away from two whole halcyon days with the Memsahib to come shopping with me, Mrs lover lover.’
Polly links arms with me as we walk through the narrow streets of the souq in Marrakesh, past stalls selling the pointy-toed slippers called babouches, leather, straw or canvas bags, bolts of cloth, bottles of perfume, blue and green painted ceramics, and everywhere multicoloured triangular pyramids of cinnamon, cumin, harissa, paprika and a myriad other spices.
‘Sorry, Pol. I know we’ve only today and tomorrow together before I fly home.’ I blush bright red and pluck at the neck of my silky copper-coloured T-shirt. My ordinary casual clothes feel strange on me now. ‘She’s a force of nature!’
‘You think Gustav will be happy you were tasting a bit of girl-on-girl soon as his back was turned?’
I’m not in the mood for joking. I can’t quell the churning of anxiety that started as soon as we left the ashram to come into town. I expected my phone to go crazy the minute we were in range of a signal, but this almost total silence is killing me.
‘He organised it! And I’d report back if I could get hold of him, but I can’t even get voicemail now. There was one text, then a couple of blank ones, and a call that was just a kind of scraping sound. Now his line is dead. I’m getting worried. I wonder – would you be really pissed off if I found a travel agent and got an earlier flight home?’
‘Where to? New York, or London?’
We stop by a stall selling piles of silk scarves, some wigs made from real human hair, and every kind of gel and serum. I realise I haven’t thought this through. If everything has gone according to plan, Gustav will be on his way back to New York tomorrow. But if something has gone wrong, he’ll still be in London.
A text chirrups and I nearly drop the phone.
I let go of Polly’s arm. But my heart plummets as quickly as it jumped, because it’s not from Gustav. It’s from Pierre.
Don’t leave the ashram. Stay with Polly until we come for you.
I stare at the message. What the hell does Pierre mean? I don’t know if it’s from Paris, or London, or LA, or even Morocco. But what I can tell is that this order, or warning, is dated six days ago. Just like the non-texts from Gustav.
‘That’s henna,’ Polly remarks, unaware of my panic. She’s pointing at a green powder in a big sack. ‘Our Angelique uses it to dye her hair that glorious colour.’
I text back quickly. Too late. Am in the souq and about to book earlier flight. Where to? London or NYC? Blank texts from Gustav. GET HIM TO PHONE ME!
The phone is hot in my hand. I grip it tight, willing it to ring. I need to hear Gustav’s voice. Even some kind of explanation from Pierre would help.
Polly has wandered a little way down the street. I pick up a little hessian sack of the henna.
‘You mean that’s not her natural colour?’
Polly is looking at some chunky silver jewellery strung across a little pinboard. ‘She was a redhead once, but she admitted that she was growing a little grey at the temples. She’s old enough to be our mother. Or at least, our much older sister.’
I take a swig from my bottle of mineral water and shuffle along to the next stall, which has mirrors and small carved teak tables at the front. The world around me is noisy and crowded and too busy. I just want my phone to ring.
Through a gap at the back of the shop, I can see into a cavernous workshop. Rows of heavy carved wooden doors are stacked against each other or side by side, as if ready to open.
‘So what made her leave the convent and fetch up in the Moroccan desert, do you think?’ I ask, groping through a display of hanging carpets to find Polly. ‘What commitment-phobe let that lovely woman slip through his fingers?’
Polly runs her fingers over the dark-red embroidery of a kilim rug. The stall seller leaps forward to start haggling, and she grins and swerves past me to get away. She turns down a side street I didn’t even know was there.
‘Something happened in that convent.’ Her voice retreats down the alleyway. ‘We don’t know what or who, but she never took her final vows. A naughty priest, maybe? Another nun?’
I go to follow her but stop when my phone trills with an incoming text, this time from Gustav’s number. My hands are shaking as I read it.
Change of plan. Staying in London. Don’t bother to come. Enjoy your freedom!
I frown at the screen, scroll down, but there’s nothing more. No mention of Morocco, no jokes about meditating about him, no asking after Polly and the wedding dress. No endearments. No messages of love. A cold fist squeezes my ribcage. There’s something cold and final in the tone of the text. As if he’s saying goodbye.
I start texting back, aware that the stallholder is standing in front of me. The kilim rug that Polly was admiring is now hanging over his arm.
A little brusque, darling? Everything OK? Will meet you in Mayfair. Loving you until then.
‘Mademoiselle, very good price. Pure cactus silk!’ The stallholder lays the carpet out at my feet and invites me to stroke it. What have I done wrong? What’s the matter with Gustav?
‘La’a, shukran! No, thank you!’ I press ‘send’, but the signal has gone again. Message failed. I hold the phone up in the air and it trills into life again.
Without checking the number, I answer it frantically.
‘Gustav! Darling! Is that you? Speak to me!’
There’s a heavy sigh at the other end of the phone, a cough, then what sounds like a microwave beeping in the background.
‘Serena. Sis. Ish Pierre.’
I nearly throw the phone across the alleyway with fury. ‘Oh, stay out of it, P! You’ve been drinking! Get Gustav on the line!’
‘He’s not here. You need to get back to. The ashram. Danger. Go back to Polly and we’ll get you – someone will get you.’
The single beep in the background goes into a two-tone wail, like the alarm that goes off at the supermarket when someone is shoplifting.
‘Please, Pierre. Stop with the weird scaring. I’ve no time for your warped sense of humour, especially when you’re pissed. I need you to get hold of Gustav for me. His phone isn’t working, and I’m worried. I miss him. I need to tell him I’m coming over to London.’ I clamp the phone to my ear, still searching the crowd and the stalls for Polly. A cold hand brushes over me again, despite the heat. ‘Is Gustav on another of these mysterious trips? Is that why he isn’t picking up?’
Pierre groans. ‘I’m not drunk. It’s these drugs.’ A woman calls his name from across a noisy space. ‘G’s in London, but he can’t. His head. Trouble. Get back to the ashram – wait!’
‘You’re breaking up!’ I’m yelling now, and people are staring. ‘So I’ve said I’ll get a flight as soon as I can. Tell him to sort his phone out and I’ll meet him at the Mayfair house!’
The carpet seller barges up to me again, pushing the carpet into my face.
‘Take American dollar!’
I spin away from him and step straight into someone standing behind me.
‘Hey, Pol, why did you rush off like that?’ I splutter, as the person catches me and holds on to my shoulders. ‘I need to book that flight right away!’