Desire

by Mariella Frostrup

  I’m well and truly trapped in his web now. Gustav’s designers and printers are working all hours. The pictures have already been selected for enlargement and framing, and the railings leading along the street towards the front door of the Levi Building have been cleared to display the publicity poster we’ve chosen for my exhibition. It will show the crocodile of mini witches caught by my camera on their way to the party, lit by the streetlamps and halted in their tracks by the little one falling over. In the next day or so that image will be developed, enlarged, elongated and fixed to the railings, the witches waiting in their various impatient attitudes under the melancholy statue for the little one to right herself.

  “No going back now, Serena.” Gustav rubs the foil from a pat of butter round a couple of ramekins. “We’re on the slippery slope.”

  “I like you barefoot,” I remark as he dances from what the chefs would call the mise en scène over to the fridge and back again. “And I like those dark jeans. You were wearing ones like those the night we met.”

  “I’m flattered you remember.” He stops buttering and whisking and looks down at himself. Holds the white apron out comically like Little Bo Peep. “You like it rough, Serena?”

  I bite my lip. He does too, biting down the shocked smile we share at the naughtiness of his remark. Yes, I like it rough, I think to myself. Or I will when I try it.

  “The suit distances you, that’s all. Makes you unreachable. Maybe first impressions are the ones that stay with us?”

  He frowns as he ponders the question. Ponders me. “I think I like you every which way, Serena. Though I’m glad the tomboy is beating a retreat.”

  “I can be all things to all men. But yes. It’s kind of fun, and kind of pervy, dressing as my cousin.”

  He laughs lightly and turns to a tray on the counter. I nearly tell him I also prefer him with his arms showing, because I love his strong hands and what I know they can do, and his strong forearms with the ropes of muscle. But I say nothing.

  “Have a drink,” he says. “Shaken, or stirred?”

  I pick up a glass of vodka martini from a tray on the counter and once again relish the slow burn of it down my throat. I hold the glass up and watch how his movements sparkle and undulate through the clear liquid.

  “Dip these nachos into the tzatziki. I’m willing to bet you haven’t eaten anything today.”

  I hitch myself onto a stool and drain the entire glass. Take another one. “You’d be right. The cupboard is bare at Polly’s flat. I had a sandwich at the gallery today. So what’s this going to be? Pavlova? Mousse? Meringue?”

  He moves the bowl along the counter to sieve the flour into the eggs. “Double baked cheese soufflé, if you must know.”

  I watch the way the muscles in his arms flex as he whisks.

  He catches me looking. Stops whisking and holds the bowl over his head to check the whites are done. “And if you’re lucky, maybe a taste of my famous Coquilles Saint Jacques.”

  “And for afters?”

  “What my grandmother used to call wait and see pudding.” He dances back to the huge American fridge and brings out a bright berry coulis and some clotted cream. “Where’s my piping bag?”

  I snigger like a schoolgirl. He looks at the limp, wrinkled bag in his hands, looking exactly like an oversized condom, and chuckles with me. His face is flushed from the heat of the kitchen. He’s unshaven again. Yes. I like him rough. It makes his face shadowy and manly, makes his eyes bright.

  He grabs a hunk of mature cheddar and starts grating.

  “What’s that cheese ever done to you?” I laugh.

  “Just getting it prepped for the second bake. Timing is crucial. Hey, look at you,” he says suddenly, reducing the hunk of cheese to a few crumbs. “You’re soaked. What was I thinking? I should have got Dickson to collect you from the flat, but now you need to get dry. If you go up the stairs, as far up as you can go, you’ll find a shower room and something to put on. It’s the old attic. The previous owners claim it’s haunted.”

  I let out a nervous tinkle of laughter. “I’m too tired for jokes, Gustav. You asked me to be at your beck and call, but you don’t have to scare me half to death as well.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Some people find that an added attraction. But I’m hoping you will consider this your home.” He waves his grater in the direction of the stairs. “And when you come down I have a little gift for you.”

  I wander obediently through the big house. There’s no-one else here. The skeleton staff consists of this mysterious man cutting and chopping and baking in his kitchen. And me.

  The night gets wilder, pressing black and insistent against the windows as I climb the stairs, past closed doors, past low lights and pillar candles, soft music piped presumably from a central system Gustav is controlling from the kitchen. For the first time it occurs to me that all this melancholy magnificence, bought with the spoils of success, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if he has no-one to share it with.

  The room at the top really is under the eaves, but the beams have been painted white as has all the old, distressed French-style furniture. White muslin curtains stir slightly against the glass doors leading out onto a little balcony. On a large four-poster, like something Scarlett O’Hara might sleep in, someone has laid out a white silk negligee. Why does everyone think I should dress as a vestal virgin? Don’t two years of active, adolescent sex with Jake count?

  But I shiver suddenly as the rain slaps against the long thin window.

  As I step into the warm spray of water in the little shower room attached, Polly’s voice in my ear has changed to: suck it and see. What’s not to like?

  *

  I am so ravenous and the jazz music playing in the background is so mellow that it feels perfectly casual and natural half an hour later to be perching barefoot against the quartz island in the kitchen devouring soufflé, warm bread, and cherry mousse. None of this strikes me as at all odd. That I’m eating supper in a strange house, wearing nothing but a white negligee given to me by a man I only met a few days ago. What else would I be doing?

  Now softer music is playing throughout the house and Gustav has gone upstairs ahead of me and lit soft lamps everywhere. He has also taken off his whites and is wearing a soft blue and white striped shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

  He waits for me solemnly as I come up from the kitchen to the ground floor and puts his hand in the small of my back to usher me into a little art deco cocktail bar off the hallway. The walls in here are of dark purple velvet. The chairs and stools are the same. It’s like walking into the cushion of a giant jewellery box. Even the bottles crammed onto every available glass shelf behind the mirrored bar are filled with liquors gleaming in jewel-bright colours.

  “Nightcap?” He holds out a champagne bottle. His face looks almost bearded in the flickering candlelight, and the wolfish air has returned. His black eyes are asking questions again. But despite our signed agreement, despite eating together tonight, even though he touched me, pushed his fingers into me so intimately to pin me down, to make his point, to stake his claim, I still don’t know the answer.

  “Just one, thanks. And the food was great. Who knew?” I walk a little shakily across the polished wooden floor, over the creamy rug, aware of the silk negligee clinging to my legs. Still sore from his fondling. Aware of his dark eyes trying to read me again. “But then I ought to get going. It’s quite a long way back to Gabriel’s Wharf.”

  “You’re going nowhere dressed like that, signorina!” He twists the cork out with a pop. I was right. He is staring straight up my legs, directly at the place where he touched me. I perch quickly on the arm of the sofa and cross one thigh over the other. He chuckles. “But I would love to see it. You, running through the driving rain in nothing but a petticoat. Hailing a cab on Piccadilly in the middle of a thunderstorm. Eyes huge. Hair streaming down like a waterfall. You’d look like a Hitchcock damsel in distress.”

  I look down at my body. My arms and le
gs are bare, my feet are bare, like his, and the lovely garment shimmers, the spaghetti straps slipping down my arms, delicate silk catching the light from the sconces and candles and picking out the tremor of the fabric as I move and breathe, lingering on my curves. And oh God, the low light lingers now on the stiffening of my nipples. I am wearing nothing underneath after the shower, because I had nothing dry to wear.

  I’m learning the different ways he looks at me. The businesslike stare, deadpan but flashing with interest and enthusiasm. The concentrated one of this evening as he shuts out the rest of the world and whips egg whites and cheese into an ambrosial fluff. There’s another look, too. This one. The magician’s sleight of hand, which changes him from a formal, polite, reasonably easy colleague or friend to a man harbouring deeper, darker intentions.

  That’s the one I glimpsed in the gallery, when he marked me, hooked me with his fingers. And that’s the one who seems to be here now, standing behind the bar. The penetrating gaze that sends shivers of doubt, fear, anticipation, and excitement down my spine.

  He hasn’t laid a finger on me this evening. Hasn’t so much as mentioned the pictures which have been framed today, especially the controversial Venetian ones which are bound to cause a stir when the show opens. He hasn’t mentioned what else he requires me to do to fulfil the personal part of our agreement. Maybe he’s lulling me into a false security, lulling me into forgetting that this is all a lot more complex than just being colleagues, with his soufflé and his easy chat, and now the champagne. Maybe soon he’s going to demand the next instalment. And maybe I’m going to shock him by being totally ready, willing and able.

  But for now I play his game, assuming nonchalance. I fold my arms. “How am I supposed to get home, then?”

  “If our Dickson was here, he’d take you home, semi-naked or not. He knows not to touch my property, however tempting. But as he’s not, and I’ve had too much drink to drive you myself, you’re staying here, Serena.” Gustav hands me a flute brimming with palest gold and reaches out to run a finger down my jaw. My eyes flutter at the touch. Surely he can see how I react to him even with the slightest contact? Surely he can see what he’s awoken?

  “But –”

  “No more questions,” he insists softly, pressing his finger on my mouth in his familiar gesture. His eyes spark as my tongue flicks out to lick his finger. I know he’s feeling the same clench of desire inside him that I am.

  I reach up to take his hand, lace our fingers together. They are longer than mine, and stronger, and warmer, but somehow they fit so well. “Gustav,” I whisper. “When?”

  His eyes blaze back at me as he swallows hard. He lifts our joined hands towards his mouth, brushes them over his warm lips. I try not to squeal with impatience.

  Then he gently extricates his fingers.

  “First we drink to celebrate! That first glass down in one go. And then another, I think, to quench any nerves.”

  “I’m not nervous.” I keep my voice low. Hope it’s seductive.

  He clears his throat. “Tomorrow we prepare for your private view, and we still have a lot to do. Tonight, I will try to answer your question, Serena. Starting with this.”

  I do what he says. Drink the flute of champagne in one go, and it feels as if I could float off the floor. Then he hands me a little blue box tied with a scarlet ribbon.

  “Open it.”

  The box is empty. Or so I think. In fact there is a wisp-thin chain lying in a heart shape on the velvet cushion. It’s a silver bracelet, so delicate it looks as if it has been woven by a spider. I take it out, turn it in my fingers. It’s like fairy hair.

  All the ease, mellowness, barefoot familiarity evaporates. I stand stiffly behind the massive purple sofa. The atmosphere has shifted yet again. Gustav Levi is behaving like a suitor of the most old-fashioned sort, but he’s taking it much slower than he did yesterday.

  I’m confused, and frankly annoyed. Right now he doesn’t look like the same man who pushed me up against a window and put his fingers inside me, made me tremble and come like a bird in his hand. Made me want it again, and again.

  Tonight he’s a handsome, rich, successful host, enticing me into his house and flattering me. The next step I daresay will be him expecting me, demanding that I climb the stairs with him at the end of the evening and sleep with him. It’s in black and white in our agreement. Well, the simple words are there in a little clause of their own at the very bottom of the document, below 50:50 and above our joint signatures.

  Sex when demanded.

  This is the whole reason my work will be hung tomorrow on the white expanses of Gustav Levi’s gallery, splendid and stylish for its admiring audience, cajoled by my champion to open their wallets. It’s how I will repay him for making my name known nationwide. Worldwide. It’s perfectly simple, but now I’m here, in his house, in a diaphanous negligee, full of his food and drink, close enough for him to scoop me up and carry me off, I’m still not sure how it will work. I’m not sure he is, either.

  How hard can it be? Polly would be rolling her eyes by now.

  “It’s beautiful.” I tentatively touch the bracelet. “No-one has ever given me anything so exquisite before.”

  Gustav takes the chain and winds it twice round my wrist. “You’ve reached the age of twenty and have never been given jewellery?”

  We both study it as he holds my wrist up in the candlelight. The bracelet fits perfectly. It’s so light that once it’s on I can’t feel it on my skin. I notice that my name is engraved in a kind of Gothic script on a tiny plaque. I also notice that once the clasp has locked into place, I can’t take the bracelet off.

  “Never. No-one at home ever saw the point of jewellery. They saw it as extravagant and vain. I got pens, pencils, books, clothes for birthdays and Christmas, practical things that I needed. But nothing unnecessary or flippant or fun. Not even a watch. Nothing to make me look pretty. When I was fourteen my cousin Polly pierced my ears for me with a sterilised safety pin.” A sulky sigh escapes me. “But until then I was never adorned.”

  “In that case, I am thrilled to be the person breaking that chain of deprivation.” He keeps his fingers hooked round my wrist. My skin, and the intricate silver, are heating up under his fingers. “This isn’t just a gift, though. Not just an adornment.”

  He keeps his eyes on me as he takes another chain from under the velvet cushion. This one is slightly thicker. He hooks it onto my bracelet and then unwinds it, like he unwound my hair the other day. With a smile creasing his eyes now, he walks backwards away from me to show me how long this second chain is, and then he clips it onto his watch.

  “What are you doing?” I jerk my wrist, and the chain between us goes taut.

  “It’s more than jewellery, Serena.” He frowns and tugs it harder, forcing me to take a jerky step towards him. “Think of it as a symbol. Here’s the chain, joining us together. I know it’s a symbol of captivity. Slavery, even. But I also like to think it represents an anchoring. You know, like the rope thrown over the side of a ship.”

  I put my hand over my eyes, suddenly tired. “All these symbols are making me dizzy!”

  “Look at me, Serena.” He takes my hand away from my eyes. “I want it to represent our binding relationship. What we’ve agreed. What we’re going to do for each other. A silver handshake, if you like.”

  I lift my hand to examine the intricate work. Somehow the chain makes my wrist and hand look elegant, swanlike.

  “Isn’t that when people say goodbye?”

  “A silver handcuff, then.”

  Suddenly there’s a blinding flash of lightning. The flames in the candlesticks dip to one side and I bunch my fingers round my mouth to stifle my automatic scream. I count the minutes to work out how far away the noise is, but it’s already here. There’s the thunder, thick, fast and deafening, right above the house.

  Gustav is in front of me, holding my arms. “Hey, what’s this? My young Amazon frightened of thunder?”

&nbs
p; “Always have been. Since I was young. They always left me alone when there was a storm.” I realise I’m shaking.

  “They?”

  “We lived in a horrible house on the cliffs. Right at the very end of the country. It felt like the edge of the world. I was terrified of the storms, and they just shouted at me. I’m certain that thunder is amplified by all that water. Or that’s how it sounded to me, anyway.”

  He holds me close, just as I was hoping, and puts his mouth in my hair just the way I like it, strokes my bare arms, listening, pushing my hair off my face, until I calm down. The temperature has dropped like a stone with the rain still battering against the windows. There are goosebumps on my skin. My nipples are out like corks. I let him sit me down, shivering, on the sofa.

  He fills my champagne glass. “Your family were cruel to you?”

  I take a long deep swallow, feel it seep through my veins, weigh the delicious heaviness in my head.

  “They weren’t my family. Not really.” I mutter, aware of the coarsening of my voice. “He found me abandoned as a newborn, tripped over me actually on the church steps, and when no-one came forward to claim me they were allowed to adopt me, but they made a mistake. I was always the alien. They chose the wrong child.”

  “They hurt you?”

  “Sometimes. Nothing major. No broken bones, or Social Services, or A and E visits. Just a kind of cold, calculating neglect, punctuated by the odd kick or punch until I was big enough to fight them off.” I take another swig of cold bubbles. Blood singing nicely in my ears now. “And then they just ignored me.”

  “Until you could leave home?”

  I nodded, staring over his shoulder at the black windows. “I suppose I should thank them because it was because of them that I had these dreams, to escape the house, the village, to travel, to make real this fantasy life where I had adventures. So as soon as I could I did travel. Sometimes round England and Scotland, later round Europe. They practically shoved me out of the door, they were so glad to be rid of me. I came home occasionally for my things, to nick money off them. I never said a word. And then I’d disappear again.”