Maestra: The most shocking thriller you'll read this year

by L. S. Hilton

  Even amongst those giga-yachts, one in particular stood out, its vast hull rearing up like the Kraken. I had seen that in photographs, too. Mikhail Balensky, ‘The Man from the Stan’, as the English papers called him, was an Uzbek industrialist whose career, according to even sober reports, read like something from a comic. Beginning in oil fields, he’d diversified into the arms trade but, finding that there weren’t enough wars going on to make a decent profit, had decided to start a few. Fund some disaffected rebels in a small country of which we knew nothing, arm both sides, sit back and let them slug it out, then buy up whatever hard assets remained in the hands of the government he’d helped to install. Very efficient. That was two decades ago; nowadays Balensky appeared at galas with heads of state, popped up at the Met Ball or the Serpentine summer party, or was photographed sloshing out a couple of million at whatever repellent philanthropist’s shindig represented the cause du jour. It’s amazing what you learn by keeping up with Hello!

  ‘Mademoiselle?’

  The bellboy, discreetly distracting me from my Riviera reverie. I had a ten-euro note already folded in my hand. I gave him his tip and told him to put our bags in the bedroom to the left, and monsieur’s to the right. Whatever James had in mind I had no intention of sharing a bed with him. In case he had anything to say I stepped onto the balcony with my back to him and looked determinedly at the view. I felt him come up behind me and his hand reached for mine.

  ‘Happy, darling?’

  Darling. Oh God.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, with wondering hesitancy.

  ‘And I bought you this,’ he added, handing me a crumpled plain black plastic bag with what he obviously thought was a roguish grin. ‘Something to slip into. Later.’

  I wondered what horrors it contained, but I managed to give him a little tiptoe kiss on the clammy slab of his cheek. ‘Thank you, darling. That’s so thoughtful of you.’

  ‘I thought we’d have lunch at the pool and then go to Cannes for a bit of shopping. Thought you girls might like that.’

  ‘Super. I’ll just get changed.’

  Mercedes was whirling round the bathroom, examining the Bulgari toiletries.

  ‘Oh my God, this bathroom is bigger than my whole flat!’

  ‘Find the minibar,’ I hissed. ‘I need a fucking drink.’

  *

  James appeared for lunch at the Eden Roc, the hotel’s cliffside swimming pool, wearing a vast pair of garish Vilebrequin swimming trunks under a white hotel robe, which hung meekly on either side of his milky gut. From behind my sunglasses I saw two blonde children in the water, pointing and giggling until their nanny shushed them. We all ordered lobster salad and Perrier water. James speared whole pats of butter from their little bed of ice, cramming them onto rolls and into his mouth. A little party of crumbs descended the folds of his chin and lodged in the grey mat of hair on his chest. It was like watching an animated Lucien Freud, but that didn’t make it easier to look at. While Mercedes picked at her salad and played with her phone (I thought I’d have to tell her to stop holding her knife like a pen) I prompted James to tell me again about his patently fictional days as a Riviera playboy, pretending to be fascinated by his exaggerated stories of dancing with Elizabeth Taylor at Jimmy’z and partying with Dionne Warwick at Golfe Juan. It wasn’t that he was trying to convince me that he was quite the catch, I realised, it was that he actually believed he was.

  We were driven over to the Croisette after lunch. On the beach below the Carlton hotel a group of women in burkas splashed wretchedly in the surf. The sky had dulled, it was incredibly humid and James was irritable, rudely insisting to the driver that he knew the best place to park then berating him in pidgin French when we had to drive three times round the block. I didn’t think his patience would hold out for much of a trolley dash, so I suggested we stop outside Chanel and have the car wait. I walked into the boutique first and asked the saleswoman if she could possibly bring a chair while Mercedes and I looked at the bags. She looked faintly appalled at the suggestion she might do something so menial. But then she glimpsed James in the doorway.

  ‘Tout de suite, madame.’

  I knew what I wanted: the classic quilted shoulder bag in black with leather and gilt handles. Mercedes was dithering, looking through a rack of unseasonable tweed coats. They were beautiful; I would have loved to try one on, to feel the silk lining against my bare arms, the swing of the tiny gold chain stitched into the hem, but James clearly felt the role of sugar daddy was wearing a bit thin.

  ‘Which bag do you want, Mercedes?’

  ‘The big one.’

  It seemed to take an age for the saleswoman to pack up the bags in their tissue paper and black cotton pochettes stamped with the Chanel C’s, finally placing them in pleasingly stiff ribbon-tied carriers. I’d gathered by now that James’s short temper sprang from the fact that he couldn’t admit to himself that the fact that he was constantly exhausted and uncomfortable was not the world in general’s problem but his, as he was too fucking fat to fit in it. Still, he gamely handed over his Amex while Mercedes and I pretended to be interested in the scarves, discreetly keeping our eyes away from the cash till. Result. But when James declined my admittedly rather cruel suggestion that we take a stroll round the steep cobbled streets of the old town in favour of going back to the hotel for a ‘siesta’, I knew I was going to have to earn it.

  When we got back to the suite I shoved Mercedes into our room.

  ‘Why don’t you have a nice relaxing shower, darling?’ I trilled over my shoulder. At least I wouldn’t have to get covered in that filthy sweat.

  ‘I hate you,’ I said as she collected her things to go back to the pool.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’ll only want a bit of a cuddle. Anyway, look at these.’

  She showed me a couple of pill jars in her overflowing make-up bag.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing much. Xanax. A few Vallies.’

  ‘Hand it over, then.’

  ‘Not for you. For him.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Duh. We’ll slip him a Mickey Finn. I don’t want to spend an evening with that fat bastard. We’re in the South of France, Jude!’

  ‘Lauren.’

  ‘Alright. Listen,’ she whispered, though I could hear the sound of the water from the other room. ‘We’ll go for dinner, then I’ll grind up a few of these and you can slip them into his brandy.’

  ‘He doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Fizzy water, then. Half an hour and he’ll be knackered. We can go out on the town and in the morning he’ll have had a lovely rest. He’ll never know.’

  ‘He’s really fat, Mercedes. I’m not sure dead punters are a good look.’

  ‘Don’t be soft, they’re not strong. I take them all the time. I’ll get it ready in the loos by the pool now. Or will you be feeling like another session on the rubber mattress later?’

  ‘Don’t be a cow. This is a free ride for you.’

  ‘I know. I’m just saying why shouldn’t you have some fun? We’ll go down to where all them big yachts are. Come on, it’ll be a laugh.’

  Maybe it was the insouciant air of the Riviera, but I was feeling a lot more cheerful. Sod it. Even if James found out, he could only get furious and pack us off home with a £2,000 handbag each, not bad going for a single day. Something else would turn up.

  ‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘But be careful. Look at the labels.’

  ‘Best get your glad rags on then. Knickers off, ladies!’

  *

  When Mercedes skipped off, I examined James’s little bag of tricks. It contained a pair of crotchless PVC panties, a fishnet camisole which laced like a corset, open at the nipples, and a pair of black hold-ups with PVC trim. Nasty stuff, the sort sold in touristy Soho sex shops. I hauled it all on, washed my cunt and rubbed a trickle of monoi oil over the stripe of my pubic hair and between my buttocks. Adding black stiletto sandals and mussing my hair, I looked at myself in
the mirror with the opulent marble bathroom behind me. Well, if what he wanted was low-rent hooker . . . it could have been much worse, I supposed. If I squinted, I could almost pretend it was more Cabaret than streetwalker. ‘Mama thinks I’m living in a convent, a secluded little convent, in the southern part of France,’ I sang under my breath, trying out a slow, voracious smile. Good. Very good.

  I sashayed across the drawing room and tapped on James’s bedroom door.

  ‘I’m ready, darling,’ I purred.

  ‘Come in.’

  The room was empty. From the bathroom I heard the splatter of an explosive crap, followed by a ricochet of bubbling farts. I paused in the doorway. Oh God. A few moments later there was a flush and James emerged, along with a steamy waft of shit and Penhaligon’s Extract of Limes.

  ‘Bit of a runny tummy,’ he said, in an accusing voice. Why couldn’t he keep his foulness to himself? He was naked now, under the gaping robe. As he looked at me, a slow leer spread across his face, but he hesitated to approach me. He hasn’t done this before, I realised. Feeling more confident, I took a step towards him. I closed my eyes and ran my fingertips along what passed for his jawline, down his throat, across the hillocks of his chest.

  ‘So,’ I murmured breathily, ‘what do you want to do with me?’

  Silence. I braced myself for a kiss, peeking under my eyelashes.

  ‘James has been a naughty boy.’ I opened my eyes. He was pouting, the fat on his face suddenly making him appear like an inflated toddler.

  ‘James has been a naughty boy and he wants his mistress to punish him.’

  I could have laughed for joy.

  ‘Then lie down on the bed, immediately!’

  I held my breath and ducked into the bathroom to detach the belt from the spare dressing gown. James was spread out on the bed, his weight challenging even the hyper-technical mattress. As I flipped his arms over his head and tied his wrists together I took a quick look down over the vast mottled belly. Would I actually have to lift up a skirt of flesh to get at his cock? Jesus. I didn’t have much to improvise with, so I worked on my script as I slid the belt from the loops of his trousers where they hung over a chair. Holding the buckle, I looped it around three times and swallowed hard as I approached the bed. Three thousand pounds. A few months’ grace. Admittedly I had never let anything as hideous as this near me, but I told myself all cats were grey in the dark.

  ‘Turn over!’

  He rolled onto his side, he couldn’t have got any further without a hole cut in the bed. His arse looked like a pair of cheap battery chickens. I had to concentrate or I was going to either laugh or chuck. I stroked the makeshift flail along one puckered buttock.

  ‘James deserves a good spanking. I saw him looking at those girls by the pool. I was very jealous. Naughty, naughty boy!’ With each ‘naughty’ I gave him a tap, trying to measure how hard he wanted it.

  ‘Yes, mistress, I’ve been a naughty boy.’

  ‘And you deserve to be punished, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Harder this time.

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Yes, mistress.’

  Harder again, enough to raise a red stripe. He sighed. So did I.

  I went on with that for a bit, but there was really no way of telling whether he was excited; his face was already scarlet from the sun at lunch. So I rolled him back over, unlaced the camisole to give him a peek at my tits and crawled around him until my face was above his crotch, with my bottom in the air so he could see my cunt through the split in the panties. His cock was tiny, a two-inch stub poking jauntily from a thatched cushion of flesh. I’d tucked a condom into the sole of my sandals, but there was no way I could see to get it on him, let alone him in me. Thank Christ, but I was going to have to get him off somehow.

  ‘Do you deserve to come, you bad boy?’

  ‘Yes, please, please!’

  Crack.

  ‘Please what?’

  ‘Please mistress.’

  ‘And what do you want?’

  He screwed up his face again, lisping now, even more revolting.

  ‘Jameth wanth hith pudding.’

  I had done a lot of stuff sexually. Most of it I’d liked, and some I hadn’t, but I’d forced myself, sometimes from curiosity and sometimes because I wanted to know what I could take. Girls and boys and threesomes and moresomes; sometimes I’d been scared and sometimes hurt, but it was the only real power I’d ever had and I wanted to test its limits. Each of those acts had been another veneer on the enamel of my strength; this was just one more. Nothing. I pushed my hair away and took it in my mouth and he came in about twenty seconds, a little mucus dribble that I knocked back like medicine. Ker-ching. In my own bathroom I yanked off the nasty lingerie and took a quick shower. I wondered briefly how I ought to feel. I didn’t feel like anything except swimming laps, so that’s what I went and did.

  *

  James insisted we went to a place called Tétou for dinner. He claimed it was the only place to eat bouillabaisse in the South of France.

  ‘Ugh, fish soup,’ muttered Mercedes. ‘Don’t have any of that garlic paste, we’ll stink.’

  As soon as the valet opened the door I trotted inside the restaurant, which didn’t look like much more than a glass-walled beach hut, and had a quick look at the chairs. I wanted to keep James in the good temper he’d enjoyed since our little encounter.

  ‘Monsieur will need a different chair,’ I whispered quickly to a waiter in French. ‘He’s very – robust.’

  The waiter gave me an odd look, but by the time James plodded in an armless chair had been found. Mercedes was excited. We’d both spent a long time dressing, she in one of her pour-on sub-Léger numbers, me in a very plain lemon silk shift, a childish, soft tunic cut that finished inches below my knickers, with six-inch Zanotti platforms in buff suede. I noticed the gratifying second of stillness among the customers around us as we sat down, though I doubted anyone thought that James was taking his nieces out to celebrate their graduation from finishing school. With a roguish grin, James suggested champagne, and a bottle of Krug appeared.

  ‘Come on, James,’ prompted Mercedes, ‘Go mad! Have a sip.’ James’s jowls chortled to themselves as he held out his glass.

  ‘Why not? Just this once.’

  The bouillabaisse came in two servings, first the intense shellfish broth with croutons and rouille, then a white tureen of fish. The saffron sauce looked delicious, but Mercedes had a point about the garlic. It was quite a jolly dinner, really. I’d told Mercedes to put her bloody phone away, and she listened attentively to round three of James’s anecdotes, laughing in all the right places and making unobtrusively sure, accomplished as she was, that his glass always contained a few fingers of fizz. When the plates were cleared and we were handed the dessert menu, James excused himself.

  ‘Touch of the runs,’ he confided.

  I felt my own guts contract in horror. What was the matter with him? We both looked away as he lumbered off between the tables and asked loudly for la toilette.

  ‘Quick,’ said Mercedes. ‘Move your serviette. I’ve got it here.’ In her hand was a little homemade wrap, folded from a sheet of Hôtel du Cap writing paper. She tipped it into his glass like a Jacobean villain while I ordered tarte tropézienne for three.

  James declined my offer of a romantic stroll on the beach, as I knew he would, and the waiting car took us back to the hotel. We could have a drink on the terrace, I suggested instead, to enjoy the wonderful view. It was a short drive, but James’s head was lolling on his shoulder like an overblown cabbage after five minutes. He emitted loud, viscous snores. I caught the driver’s eye in the mirror.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to wait while we help monsieur inside? Perhaps a little too much champagne –’

  The banknote crunch of Hôtel du Cap gravel roused James. He pretended, of course, that he hadn’t been sleeping, but added thickly that he might turn in. I followed him solicitously up to the suit
e and steeled myself for an affectionate goodnight kiss, but he was already shambling towards the bed. I heard him banging about for a few minutes, then the strip of light beneath the door vanished and there was silence. I counted slowly to sixty, twice, until the snores resumed.

  Mercedes wanted to go to Jimmy’z, the famous nightclub on the port at Cannes, but it was too early, and besides I had an idea it would be lame. I asked the driver to take us somewhere ‘décontracté’ and he swung the car right, towards Antibes, climbing away from the coast and into the hills for about a quarter of an hour, until we arrived at a low stone building done out Ibiza-style, all in white and silver, with a huge terrace and a gaggle of black-suited doormen. Two Ferraris were being parked as we pulled up.

  ‘This looks alright, eh?’ said Mercedes, and suddenly I started giggling. I’d never had anyone to do this with before and I felt giddy and even affectionate towards her. I told the driver he could go; we’d get the doormen to find us a taxi.

  ‘Come on then, girl,’ I said in a voice that hadn’t been my own for a decade. ‘We’re going to have a right laugh.’

  The bouncer gave us a quick once-over and unfastened the redundant velvet rope.

  ‘Bonsoir, mesdames.’

  We took a table on the terrace and ordered Kir Royal. There were a few groups of older Euro types, all open-collared white shirts and giant watches, one gaggle of etiolated Russian hookers and several younger couples. As I wondered if Balensky himself might make an appearance, two coupes of champagne appeared.

  ‘With the compliments of the two gentlemen,’ intoned the waiter solemnly.

  I followed his gaze and saw two young Arab guys in absurd sunglasses nodding to us.

  ‘We’re sending them back,’ I whispered to Mercedes. ‘We’re not prostitutes.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, love.’

  ‘Bitch.’

  We drank three Kirs as the club filled up, then moved inside to the dance floor. I watched the men watching us. I think this is the moment I like best, the flirting, the choosing. Shall I have you, or you, or you? We did a bit of fairly half-hearted shimmying while we made our minds up.