by Primula Bond
‘Need to see more, Serena?’
I shake my head, bending over as the nausea surges up my throat. Tomas sits back down, stroking between my shoulder blades.
‘Too bad. Keep her there, Tomas. She has to see it all. How easy it was to get my husband back.’ Margot shifts further up the bed, as if she can’t bear to come any nearer to me. ‘She will watch this film if it kills her.’
‘Let me go!’ My voice is muffled with tears. ‘I just need to get back to Polly!’
I bat uselessly at Tomas. He holds me more firmly, winding one arm to pull me close to his tough, warm body, the other clutching my wrist, making my silver bracelet dig into my skin.
‘Just let her finish this. I’m right here. I’ll help you,’ Tomas murmurs, his breath brushing hot in my ear. ‘It’s for your own good. You were never going to win the battle between those two. She was never going to give up. They will always end up together. And I’m right here to catch you. I’ll show you how you can get your life back.’
‘You can’t force me to watch,’ I growl, trying to pull away. But he grips my wrists and pulls me against his chest. I can hear his heart drumming up against my spine.
‘You might enjoy it. It’s really dirty.’ His mouth moves across my cheek. ‘Margot’s fucking good, you know. It turns me on, just watching!’
‘That’s because you’ve learned from the best, Tomas! Serena Folkes is your consolation prize, now that I have Gustav, but still you’ll never find anyone who can match up to me. Just like poor Pierre.’
Margot laughs softly. The mention of Pierre brings back brief, snapping images, changing each time my tired eyelids blink, but instead of filling me with dread I welcome them. If I focus on him, I can forget what I’ve just seen Gustav doing. It’s like peering through the tiny viewfinder of a toy camera I was given once. Each time you clicked the pretend shutter there would be a new picture. A snow-covered chalet. A camel in front of the Giza pyramids. A ballet dancer. All tinted in bright colours and tricking you into believing you were peering at something real.
So there’s Pierre, or rather his mask, looming over me under the canopy of a gondola. Then he’s in that courtyard in Paris, the scaffolding tumbling off the apartment building behind him like bandages off a wound. Then he’s standing in a hotel corridor, holding up a pair of red shoes.
When I try to picture Gustav, he’s contorted and fractured, as if there’s a splinter in my eye.
‘Pierre Levi did find someone to match up.’ I try again to twist away from Tomas, but he yanks my hair hard to keep me in place. ‘He fell in love with me.’
‘A poor second, that’s all. A cheap imitation. Keep hold of her, Tomas. She’ll be yours for the taking when she realises she’s lost.’ Margot presses play then leans back as the screen flickers to life. ‘If she doesn’t want to watch, at least make her listen to every last gasp of pleasure!’
As if to interrupt her, Gustav’s voice is harsh on the screen. ‘I thought you understood my thoughts on punishment! No more bondage. No more whipping.’
The real Margot sitting beside me chuckles. Her screen self strokes the whip tenderly up Gustav’s buttocks, tickles it round his hardness until it stiffens and jumps in response, then she trails it round to his jaw, runs it between his lips and flings it on to the floor.
‘That’s better, my love. Obeying me, for a change.’ He nods and his mouth spreads open in a wide smile. ‘I told you we don’t need whips for our pleasure. So why don’t you untie me so I can get my hands on you properly?’
I don’t care any more. The tears are hot and thick and my sobs choking me as on the film Margot unlocks one of the cuffs, takes Gustav’s hand, and places it on her own bare flank. She kicks at his legs so that he stumbles to his knees, pulling hard on the remaining cuff to keep his balance and slightly dislodging the hook in the wall.
I feel sick to hear the crack of his knees against the parquet floor, but as the truth of it sinks in, a strange, tingling numbness replaces the flow of blood in my veins. I have no energy to struggle or run, but Tomas tightens his arms around me just in case and I’m vaguely aware of his strength and heat. I’m even oddly glad of the restraint. Without it I might just crumble into little pieces.
On the film, Margot glances once more at the camera, smiles beneath her catlike mask, then she spreads open her thighs. And with all the class of a pole dancer she pushes her naked crotch into his face.
‘Watch what Gustav does to me now,’ Margot gloats, leaning forwards to study the action, her chin resting on her knuckles. ‘Watch how hungry he is for me.’
On the screen, she weaves her leather fingers through Gustav’s hair and pulls him closer, wriggling impatiently. I see his free hand running down from her bottom and catching on the top of the thigh boots. His fingers pluck at the tight leather, then move up again over the nearest white butt cheek, up the crack between. I see his other hand jerking at the cuff imprisoning his wrist. He’s pulling the hook a little further from the old panelled wall. He pauses with his mouth and nose almost buried inside her. He seems to be sniffing for her scent.
That’s his way. I know how he does it. He keeps the tension racked up until I’m begging him to do it. He teases his lover until the first electric touch ignites her.
Except that Margot is his lover now. Not me. He is running his tongue over his lower lip to moisten it, and he is going to taste another woman. Not me.
‘Hey, take these silly gloves off. They’re catching in my hair,’ Gustav murmurs on the screen. ‘I want to feel those lovely fingers on me. Your tiny wrists.’
I shut my eyes, and all I can hear from the screen is the slight metallic clink of the cuff as Gustav shuffles closer to her on his knees. As I’m about to cover my ears, too, I can also make out the loud rev of a car on screen, parking outside the house.
Margot’s hand snakes out and turns my face towards the television as those moist licking sounds go on and on and on.
‘See his mouth on me? Oh, so good feeling his tongue on me after six long years!’ Margot is crooning. Her hand sneaks down between her legs. ‘Hear that? How wet I am? Right now, as well as in that film. I’m as hot for him as ever. That’s our thing, you see. We always did that afterwards, you know? When everyone had gone. He’d be on his knees licking me. His way of saying thank you.’
I have nothing left. Nothing except my sense of hearing to witness my fiancé’s betrayal with his ex-wife. I can shut my eyes, smash the TV, but the image of him on his knees with Margot’s pussy in his face will forever be seared on my mind.
‘Don’t you just love it when he does that with his teeth? I call him my pet vampire. When he nips on your clit, ooh, makes you scream, doesn’t it? Have to be careful when little brother’s asleep down the hall, of course!’
Tomas presses close to me and chuckles in my ear. ‘And how ironic is this? You pushed your fanny into my face just like that, at the Club Crème. Just think. If your boyfriend – that boyfriend, by the way, the one in the film who’s lapping at his ex-wife – if he hadn’t walked into the room that day you would have stood still and let me lick you till you came. Don’t deny it. You were up for anything.’
‘You tell her, Tomas. Time her halo slipped off.’
Margot leans back, and as she watches my fiancé Gustav licking her on the screen, her arm moves between her legs until she’s bucking against her own hand.
‘Seen enough?’ she gasps. ‘Or do you want to see the bit where I untie his other hand and he attacks me, so starved of a decent woman, the poor man, and then the bit where he has me, again and again, on that hard wooden floor, all the time crying out for me like he used to. “Margot, my darling Margot!”’
Her head tips back and her hips give a little final convulsing twitch.
‘Shut up! Shut your yapping mouth!’ I jump to my feet and kick at the television until the screen cracks and breaks apart with a satisfying, elongated smashing of all its parts. ‘You win. Just let me go. I need to get back to
Polly. And then I need to speak to Gustav, face to face.’
‘The same face that was buried in me a few sweet days ago? Well, you can’t. And he won’t.’
Margot doesn’t even look at the broken television, now a scattering of black shards across the floor. She lights up a new joint, puffing blue smoke which hangs in ribbons in the stifling night air.
‘He wouldn’t just leave me without a word! What about the silver chain? The golden locket he gave me?’ I start pulling at the diamond ring, but my fingers are swollen and hot and it won’t come off. ‘What about our wedding? He doesn’t do anything without some kind of deal or contract. He at least owes me an explanation!’
‘Oh, such indignation! You really are even more stupid than I thought you were.’ Margot sighs and holds up her hand. ‘Time to show you how deadly serious I am about getting rid of you. Hold her still, Tomas. Give me the scissors.’
Tomas holds me like a vice. The blades glint in the candlelight as she snips them in front of my face. I am so totally terrified that not one part of me is able to move. She really is going to kill me.
I fall back against Tomas, trying to communicate some kind of plea to him, but he only twists my arms more painfully behind my back. Margot puts her joint into the ashtray and opens the scissors.
‘He calls you Rapunzel, doesn’t he? Well, let’s see how that particular fairy tale ends.’
She darts forward, and with one snip under the topknot she has cut off my hair.
I jerk backwards so quickly that the scissors are knocked out of her hands, but I’m too late. It’s all gone.
‘Just an ugly little runt beneath it all, aren’t you? He won’t look at you twice. So I’ll spell it out for you one more time, Serena dearest, if you’ll just stop snivelling. There’s no more Gustav. No more boyfriend. I met with my husband in London. Behind your back. We had rough, nasty sex just like old times, in our old house. Behind your back. And by the way, he also knows I’m showing you this film. He doesn’t care, Serena. He was a bit cross when I stole his phone, but tant pis. He doesn’t give a flying fuck what you think. Because he’s mine again.’
A red mist literally drops in front of my eyes and I lunge towards her, my hands out like claws, my teeth bared. Tomas tries to pull me away, his arms tight around my waist again, but I pull against him, trying to get close enough to hit her. She shifts back into the pillows, putting her hands up, but instead of hitting her I kick at the little book on the floor.
‘So why isn’t he with you now? It’s been ten days since you – since that film!’ I yell, my voice infuriatingly strangled. ‘What have you done with him?’
‘I could tell you he’s got business to tie up in London, you know what a workaholic he is, but that would be lying. He didn’t want to come anywhere near you, that’s why he’s not in this room tonight. All you need to know is that he’s waiting for me.’
‘Where? I asked you where?’
I kick at the book again, and the pages flutter open.
‘Tomas! Pick that up!’ Margot tosses her joint into the ashtray. She tips another handful of pills out of the bottle and swallows them. Whatever she’s taking only makes her black eyes glitter all the more, her face grow even whiter, despite the Moroccan sunshine that beats down day after day. ‘You stupid, stupid girl!’
‘Where is he, Margot?’
She slams her hands down on the bed.
‘He doesn’t want you to find him!’ She takes the book off Tomas and folds it open against her breasts. ‘He doesn’t love you or want you. He never did. How could he love you, a little ginger alley cat, when he has me? He didn’t want to let me out of his sight, but I said I had to show you the film personally. I knew how much I would enjoy putting you through that, because I am so very mean, but I also wanted to make sure you knew exactly what the score is now.’
‘And what you don’t get is that I love Gustav. He’s done the worst thing he could possibly have done, and I can’t forgive him. But I have to see him!’ The sobs choke me and Tomas puts his hands on me again. ‘Just one more time!’
‘How the hell did he put up with you and your whining all this time? You are making me tired. So tired.’
‘At least give this back to me!’ I grab the book off her and open it to the page where Gustav’s italic writing flows.
Margot doesn’t bother to read the inscription. She falls back against the cushions, her eyes fluttering, but then they snap open and are as black and poisonous as ever. She drops the mobile phone on the floor. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Tomas, take her away!’
‘You still want me to keep the riad locked?’ Tomas asks, pulling at me and lifting me up into his arms as easily as if I’m a bouquet of flowers. ‘She stays here?’
‘Until I say otherwise, yes. She’s all yours. Get her drunk or something. Do whatever you want and keep doing it until she comes to her senses.’ Margot picks up the SIM card from the wreckage of the phone and throws it into the candle flame. ‘And make sure you record every minute of it. I want something graphic and unforgettable to show Gustav.’
‘This can’t be happening!’ I start to sob. ‘We were getting married!’
‘This says not.’ She taps the book, the black sapphire glittering like a beetle shell. ‘Take a look at what my husband has written.’
‘Gustav bought this for me in Paris just two weeks ago. This shows how wrong you are about him. About all of this!’ I snatch the book from her, the leafy pages fluttering uselessly as I struggle to open it. ‘Whatever you may think you’re showing us on this film, he wrote me a loving message, and you can’t erase that. He called me his wife.’
I run my fingers over the ink inscription, somehow hoping to feel still the warmth of the hand that wrote it.
‘Let’s hear the loving message he wrote to you, then, shall we?’
I look down at the words, written in our special book. It’s the same date. But not the same book, and not the same message.
This one says Margot. Ma petite amie. Ma femme.
Margot scratches at the bite on the inside of her arm. She scratches so hard that she draws spots of blood.
‘See? The wedding is off.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I struggle and kick, but Tomas carries me down to the next landing. Over the balustrade I can see that Chloe and the others have been out somewhere but are piling into the candlelit courtyard, pulling off hooded cloaks but wearing long see-through kaftans similar to Margot’s, in jewel-bright colours. They are still veiled, which gives them an ethereal look as they settle down to pour clear liquid from the spouts of elegant silver pitchers straight into each other’s mouths. Chloe must have taught them the technique from those tequila-drinking sessions in the Sapphix Bar. They drink and smoke and start swaying their heads to a sound that is barely music, just a kind of low drumbeat.
Chloe lifts her head, but she is not looking at me. She is glaring straight at Tomas.
‘She’s jealous because you’re with me tonight.’ Tomas grins down at her. ‘Take no notice. She knew the score when we came here. Free love. No exclusivity.’
I try to catch her eye. I have to make some kind of connection, however fuzzy, with this girl. Chloe glances at my hand, the fingers clawed desperately to hold the balustrade. She meets my eyes. She must be able to see what’s happened. Surely there’s something there, a gleam behind those huge blank eyes. Recognition? Hope? Fear?
I lean away from Tomas and mouth it. ‘Help me, Chloe.’
‘Let’s get you to the reward room.’
Tomas carries me down a short passage and into another room, bigger than the one I was in before. The big bed has been turned back, the white pillows plumped up, and the clean, pressed sheets are so inviting. It has been lit with some more lanterns, goatskin stretched across wavy iron frames and pierced with holes so that the candlelight shines through. Although the air is warm and fragrant with an incense so strong my head is swimming again, I start to shiver uncontrollably.
�
��I’ve lost him, Tomas. I’ve lost Gustav!’ I sink down on to the bed and the tears take over.
Tomas pulls the curtain across the entrance, and the music and voices from the courtyard trail upwards. He takes his shirt off and drops it on a chair, then fiddles with what looks like a CD player in the corner. Various little red and green spots light up on the silver casing, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed that the music hasn’t started. He comes back to the bed and holds me against his chest while I sob until my throat is red raw.
‘You’re safe with me.’
He smiles and pulls me towards him. He starts stroking my back and my arms and then his fingers are under the flimsy slip, wandering across the warm skin on my stomach. I feel my body quiver in response.
‘I’m so tired, Tomas. Please leave me alone,’ I murmur, trying to push him away. I raise my hands to feel my shorn hair, but I daren’t. ‘I meant it the first time you asked me, and I mean it now. If I can’t have Gustav, I don’t want anyone.’
He’s strong, and heavy, and now he’s pushing the negligee up over my breasts.
‘You’ve been promised to me, Serena. And I know how dirty you can be. God, Pierre will go mad with jealousy when I show him the next instalment!’
‘I’m not some kind of trophy. I said get off!’ I try to cover myself. ‘All those kinky things, I only do them when Gustav is with me.’
‘Well, I’m here, not him. And you don’t have to do anything. Just lie back. It’s my turn now!’ He rips off one of the spaghetti straps. ‘And we’re going to film it all, just to make sure Gustav gets the picture!’
Tomas is too strong for me, pressing me down into the pillows. I’m dizzy, and sick, but my mind is whirring like an overwound clock. Suddenly it clicks into place.
‘Not here. Let’s get away, and then we’ll do whatever you want. Let’s find Polly! You could have her, too!’
Tomas shakes his head and glances across the room. I’m so stupid. I thought Tomas had been fiddling with a CD player when we first came into the room. But that’s not what it was. It’s a movie camera, ready to create what Margot called his visual record, and the record button is on. He starts to rip my slip upwards from the hem.