Margot's Secrets

by Don Boyd

  Xavier answered the intercom with her name and she pushed the heavy glass and wrought-iron, art deco door into a large, warmly-lit hallway with a marble staircase to the left, an old wooden framed elevator opposite the doorway and a dark corridor to the right. He was standing at an open door. He had changed into black jeans and white cotton shirt. Margot noticed that his feet were bare as she walked towards him slowly, deliberately luxuriating in the excitement and anticipation.

  Nothing that anybody could have described to her would have matched the extraordinary environment he had created for his living space.

  “You must see my frogs and then I will give you a guided tour.”

  “Frogs? Are they part of our game?”

  “They watch. And listen.”

  He removed her coat and kissed her lips very gently. “Come!”

  They walked through what could be loosely described as a studio area, then through what appeared to be a workshop and out into a terrace. The afternoon sun penetrated the entire space through beautifully designed skylights which had been constructed above a raised bedroom area. This was cluttered with objects. Statues. Old projectors. Video installations. Old lamps. Antiquities. Photographs. Paintings. An easel. And computers everywhere. She noticed a gurney and three or four trolleys of differing heights and sizes – medical trolleys and the kind of aluminium trolley you might see in the kitchen of a modern restaurant. There was even a wheelchair placed behind some electronic paraphernalia that Margot recognised from her trips to the optician.

  “Don’t worry, I will show you some of this later; I want to introduce you to my frogs first!”

  In the ‘garden’, which was also cluttered with antiquities, was a small fountain in the centre of a pond, around which sat several enormous frogs. One of them jumped into the pond when Margot spoke.

  “I have never seen such huge frogs!”

  Xavier laughed. “I feed them well! Do you like my arboretum?” he was referring to the myriad trees, palms and plant life which contributed to the clutter.

  “How do you keep it all alive during the winter?”

  Xavier walked to the side of the terrace and pushed a button. A glass canopy appeared silently from within the tiled roofing above the extension he had built, which extended behind the building. The terraced area outside was now completely sealed off like a greenhouse.

  “All of Barcelona’s buildings extend generously behind their façades,” he explained, as if to anticipate her curiosity. Xavier obviously had some access to two floors which allowed him what was effectively a two-storey extension.

  “This is amazing, Xavier. Do you own both floors?”

  “Yes, I do!”

  Margot floated around his strange space with no real sense of time or space. Robert had called it a shrine, implying something religious. In that sense she felt like a nubile nun, about to be initiated by the High Priest into a ritual which would transcend any previous religious experiences.

  “Shall we can begin our little game? It is a variation of a children’s game called Snakes and Ladders. But instead of the dice, we use our imagination. And instead of a board, we have my apartment. You roll the dice in your imagination and tell me what number between one and twelve arrives in your mind. And I correspondingly guide you to the next stage on the playing space. Metaphors. Concepts. Fantasy. At each spot that your number has led us to, I prescribe some behaviour which we must both indulge in. We will begin at the beginner’s level. Nothing too extreme. Do you remember my rules?”

  “No,” she lied. But she was happy to obey them, whatever they might be.

  “You can start the game when you choose to, you can indulge it for as long as you want, you can play hard, play fast, play slow – you set the pace and most important of all, you can stop play whenever you choose.”

  Margot smiled and closed her eyes. He kissed her again and on this occasion she parted her lips and gently kissed him back, allowing her mouth to open just enough take his tongue and play with hers. He took her in his arms. She whispered to him. “I have just rolled my dice. Seven!”

  Xavier paused for thought and pulled away. “Seven? Interesting… Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

  He took her hand, kissed the nape of her neck, her ear and then led her by the arm inside to the workshop area. He pulled a large carpenter’s trolley from below a work surface to reveal a range of what looked like ancient farm implements. Obscure, unfamiliar, dangerous, sharp. Some of them were rusty, some gleaming steel or aluminium. Some of them were made in wood. One of them looked like a corkscrew, yet another had some leather around two cylindrical handles and some rope. Xavier had begun to kiss the nape of Margot’s neck again, and then her lips.

  “I must now prescribe some behaviour…”

  Xavier invited Margot to finger the objects he began to describe. The knives and axes were sharp and mysterious; the complicated, ancient farm implements were in mint condition. She combined her physical curiosity with the thrill and excitement of an experience both seductive and dangerous.

  “What do you want me to do with these? What are you going to do to me?”

  Xavier continued to be obscure, evasive, but he was also gently forcing her to explore the texture and physicality of each and every object as if they had some sacred significance. The more he teased her, or confused her, the more she was aroused. Her fingers caressed the blades he passed to her for inspection and he wrapped her hands around the wooden handles he was rubbing against her cheeks. She squeezed them gently at first and then with the encouragement of his strong hands, she tightened her grip. His hands wandered around her body, but his voice was beginning to sound a little imperious; he was in control and Margot was happy to be submitting to him in every way. When he clasped her body from behind, she could feel his hard, erect penis.

  “Now, you must go through to the kitchen, find and open the fridge, pull out a small bottle of champagne, and bring it back to me without opening it.”

  Margot laughed softly to herself, temporarily coming out of a trance.

  “Was that a snake or a ladder?”

  “A ladder.”

  Margot went through to the kitchen area, adjacent to the workshop. On every wall were posters advertising some sort of political commitment. Some of them were old posters from the Spanish Civil War, revolutionary calls to arms. There was the inevitable poster of Che Guevara and what looked like an Andy Warhol Chairman Mao. All were neatly framed. Even the slogans were carefully mounted. She easily found the old American-sized fridge and the half bottle of Cava was positioned prominently. When she returned to the workshop area, Xavier had disappeared. Bewildered and exhilarated, she shook with anticipation. She looked around.

  “I need another roll of the dice. Come through to my studio,” he replied.

  Margot looked outside into the garden area but there was no sign of him there. She went back to the kitchen, a little confused, and then backtracked to a bedroom area – a large double bed with a white duvet. No sign of Xavier.

  “Where are you, Xavier?”

  No reply as she left the bedroom and walked back towards the kitchen – the apartment was a labyrinth of rooms. And then she realised that she had missed the studio entrance, which was disguised by a makeshift screen. She went through the gap and into another large, darkened space, in which there was a huge, flat TV screen and an array of computers. Xavier’s face was glowing behind the largest screen in a corner at the back of the room. He emerged from the flickering shadows.

  “Eleven!”

  Margot gave him the bottle and kissed him, biting him gently on the lips. He opened it and poured the bubbly wine into two exquisitely proportioned glasses which were on a desk.

  He gave her a glass, chinked his and drank it in one long uninterrupted gulp.

  “To Marguerite Duras! And the number eleven.”

  Xavier then clicked the mouse of the nearest computer and the number eleven appeared on the screen. It changed into a ten and then a nine as
if it were the leader introduction to an old film and at the end of this numerical countdown there was a stunning, photographic close-up portrait of Margot’s beautiful face. He clicked again and the image was on all the screens in the room including the large one. She was flabbergasted.

  “Where on earth did you find that? Who on earth took that?”

  “Does it matter? What do you think I was doing during the hour after lunch?” he sounded a little irritated, almost unpleasant. This was proving to be a theatrical performance as much as it was a bizarre seduction. “But I haven’t prescribed any behaviour for you yet.”

  “I am waiting…”

  “You must now go to the downstairs bedroom area, take your shoes off and your jewellery including your earrings, your panties and sit on the side of the bed and wait.”

  Margot did exactly that and Xavier pulled down a series of blinds to darken the area from the brooding, approaching dusk. He then wheeled towards Margot the sleek metallic instrument she had noticed earlier, a very modern, optician’s electronic eye-testing device which now looked like a small friendly robot. He told her to sit still and look straight ahead, gently pushing her thighs wide apart so that her dress rode up leaving her wet cunt exposed, and then wheeled the machine between her legs. The hard, vertical central column nudged her clitoris. He placed a heavy pair of oculist’s spectacles on her face and then positioned the protruding vertical arms of the electronic device firmly around her face. The black metal was cold but surprisingly sensual. Without touching her body, he began to inspect her eyes in the way an optician might – laser beams of light shone into her pupils, red and green lenses slipped in and out of the holders on the right and left of the spectacles. While doing this, he intermittently slid his fingers skilfully though her hair. Occasionally he brushed her lips with his fingers.

  “These are very, very imaginative eyes.”

  “Thank you! How are we doing? How is our game progressing?”

  Margot felt anxious, but the experience was so beguiling and intense that she was going along with it with total abandon.

  “What now?”

  “Another number!”

  “Five.”

  He clicked a nearby mouse.

  “I am afraid that you have guided me to a snake. And the game must move onto a much more eccentric, more dangerous level.”

  Xavier was now pulling another trolley towards him. A pristine medical trolley. On top of this was a tray full of a series of surgical knives and scalpels.

  “This is weird, Xavier! Very weird… What are you going to do with these?”

  “You have to trust me.”

  She shook her head. Margot had a client whose sexual exploits had included controlled rape fantasies, and her Chicago training had provided her with some truly unpleasant examples of perverse sexual violence. These had all been in the context of abuse by one person to another, but she had never understood the acquiescence of the victims. Surely she wasn’t beginning to manifest within herself an attraction for the sado-masochistic games and perversions she had spent so much time studying?

  “Remember the rules.”

  Xavier was almost irritated, as if anticipating her reluctance. Margot had become his puppet, shaking with sexual excitement.

  “What are you prescribing next?”

  “I won’t hurt you. I will go up those stairs to my mattress area and you must follow me with one of these knives… Don’t undress, keep your clothes on… And then I will tell you what to do…”

  Margot moaned in anticipation. Breathless. “Are you joking?”

  “I can only promise you that if you do exactly what I say, it will lead to an experience which will transcend anything you have ever done before.”

  Margot stood up and paused. She was at a point of no return. She was now intoxicated with the charismatic sensuality of Xavier’s movements and behaviour. She was out of her depth both physically and emotionally, her body pulsating with excitement. The darkest of her fantasies had become reality and all her customary bourgeois preoccupations about sexual boundaries seemed superfluous; trite. Xavier had moved the optician’s device aside and was climbing up to the raised bedroom area. Margot sipped her champagne and looked at the gleaming knives. She gingerly chose what looked like a scalpel. She felt the blade. It was obviously very sharp. She tested her dexterity on the hem of her red dress. The blade was also very efficient. She then climbed the wooden staircase to his sleeping area like Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine.

  “What do you want me to do with the knife?”

  When she arrived in front of him, he knelt opposite her on the mattress almost as if in prayer. Margot sat watching him for what seemed like an hour. He pressed the knife into her fingers.

  “I want you to slowly and carefully cut all my clothes away from my body.”

  She smiled and, as carefully as an experienced seamstress, began to cut at his sleeves and then down the line of the buttons on the front of his shirt. He stood up so that the waist of his jeans was close to her mouth and she cut open the flies. He was magnificently erect. She instinctively kissed the slightly moist helmet of his circumcised penis. He gently took away the knife and helped her slide his jeans off his legs and away from his tanned body. He then slowly sliced circles from her dress around her large erect nipples, which were thrusting tantalisingly against the silk of her dress. He teased them with the tip of the blade before cutting through the dress around her wet cunt which he skilleted like a surgeon during a heart operation. She was now completely naked. He then placed the knife carefully on a bookshelf above the bed, parted her legs, which were still partially covered by remnants of her silk dress, and then entered her as if he owned her body and had known it for years. She gasped as her back arched. The pace of their lovemaking was slow and progressive. Xavier was a consummate lover. He knew how to deny and he knew how to be almost violent without ever seeming dangerous. He fucked her cunt, her arse, her breasts, and her mouth. She exploded, moaned, screamed and again exploded, repeatedly. His cock remained hard throughout. Finally he came, deep inside her.

  And then they lay there quietly while he stroked her nipples, caressed her thighs, kissed her cunt, drinking the fluids from her wet vagina, bringing it to her lips with his mouth. The bell of the Santa Maria struck the quarter hour.

  “I must go!”

  While Margot manipulated her coat over the shredded red dress, he put on some music – the slow movement from a Beethoven violin sonata. She smiled to herself. Somewhat corny. He came over to her from behind, cupped his hands around her breasts, turned her around, opening the coat and pushing the silk upwards pressed his erect penis up against her moist vaginal pudenda. She kissed him and gently pushed him away.

  “I don’t want to go, but I must.”

  Without kissing him again or saying goodbye, she wrapped the coat tightly around her dress, hurried out of the building and ran back to her office.

  Chapter Nine

  Margot slept at her studio that night as she often did during the week. She woke early, walked to the elegant public swimming pool at the end of the Barceloneta for a swim – thirty brisk, icy cool freestyle laps in the lane which straddles the plate glass window and its magnificent clear image of the early morning Mediterranean – and then ambled in for her usual breakfast at Elvira’s bar.

  Before Margot had time to settle in her usual stool in the centre of the bar for her shot of dark, strong black coffee and the juice from two squeezed oranges, Elvira beckoned her over to the tiny table next to the fruit machine. The regular couple of young priests were gossiping to each other quietly in the opposite corner close to the bar counter. A man with a paunch was nursing a brandy and stirring his solo obsessively. Elvira squeezed Margot’s juice and hurried over with the coffee on a small, aluminium tray. She was very agitated and was whispering. Her voice was normally strident and jovial. This was the first occasion in three years of her friendship with Margot that this elegant woman had narrowed her blue e
yes with more than just worldly-wise anxiety. That morning Elvira’s husband was the source of the story which Elvira knew would profoundly affect the lives of many of Margot’s friends and clients. And of course, as Margot knew so well, she was married to Inspector Carlos Mendoza, one of Barcelona’s most prominent and respected policemen, a source of considerable pride.

  “Carlos called again to check your ‘phone number. He needs to speak to you urgently – he’s looking forward to meeting you. He knows we’re friends. We have no secrets. I told him about your job.”

  Margot smiled. She was used to that moment when a friend would use her analytical talents to help them out with some family saga which might benefit from a therapist’s professional slant.

  “No, don’t smile! He is very upset. My husband is a tough guy. He is very strong…”

  Margot looked around. The priests were paying their bill.

  “Yesterday morning he left our bed at four o’clock. He was called and was very angry. Normally he doesn’t go to the scene of a crime but, he was called by the officer who deals with the ambulance service. He was out late night the night before, drinking too much Cava. Our son graduated…”

  Margot jumped in: “How wonderful. Congratulations! What fun!”

  Margot couldn’t help smiling again. She had often wished that her own social life might have included a wild, drunken family celebration or two. But the smile was quickly wiped from her face with Elvira’s news.

  “A young Englishman and his girlfriend were found dead. That is why Carlos wants to see you as soon as possible.”