‘Kara, of course.’ Mike gave her a full hard smile this time, his eyes flashing like he was daring her to disagree.
‘Of course. So we sell everything on her. More tit, more ass, more gloss.’ Lina tapped the table in time with her words. ‘How far will she let us push her, d’you think?’
Mike raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re taking quite an interest. I thought you couldn’t stand her.’
Lina shrugged. She let one long fingernail trace the outline of Kara’s figure in the photograph. ‘You want to fuck her, that’s your business. I’m interested in what we can get out of her.’
‘Intending to go to work on her, aren’t you?’
‘She needs polishing. We have to push that sex appeal that seems to have knocked you for six, turn her into a drop-dead irresistible product.’ Lina sat back in her chair. ‘Fuckable singers are two a penny,’ she said. ‘We need shock and awe tactics, here.’ She smiled, lifted her hair and stroked her neck. ‘I’ll turn your rough little slut into a gold-plated diva. Just give me some time.’
Mike nodded. He lifted his feet onto the edge of the desk and stretched out, swinging back and forth in his chair. ‘And the rest of the band?’
‘I’ll deal with them. Should be interesting to see how it all shakes down once I’ve licked Kara into shape.’
‘Now there’s a picture.’
Lina gave Mike a long smile, ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. ‘Isn’t it just?’ She leaned forwards and let her shirt fall open a little further. She placed one hand on Mike’s leg and stroked gently along his calf bone. ‘I do think we can have a little fun with this, don’t you?’
‘Sure.’
‘It could be just like old times.’
At this, Mike swung round to face her. His expression was blank and Lina’s hand curled automatically away from him. ‘Don’t,’ he said, curtly, and the smile dropped from her face.
‘Oversensitive.’ Her lip curled as she said it. ‘You do bury your grudges deep, don’t you, Michael?’
‘I don’t want to have this conversation, Lina.’
He was rifling through a drawer, head bent in concentration, and an onlooker would almost have believed he was ignoring her, so calm was his expression.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said, ‘I’m only playing. Don’t tell me you’d turn down a little ménage with your latest toy. And the lover that knows you best.’ She reached for the amber pendant that hung round her neck and toyed with it, listening to the faint sawing noise as it slid along the chain necklace.
Mike was turning out to be trickier than she’d anticipated. Still, there was colour rising in his cheeks. It could have been anger, but Lina guessed he wasn’t completely immune to her overtures. She’d seen his face when she’d walked in on him and Kara after all. It had that dark spark of desire flickering on it, even as he was inside Kara.
He tossed a piece of paper onto the table. ‘Kara’s number,’ he said. ‘Try not to frighten her off, will you?’ Their conversation was clearly over.
Lina nodded as she rose from her seat. ‘That’s sweet, darling. You care about her. Well, don’t worry.’ Lina lifted the pictures from Mike’s desk and slid them into a folder. ‘She won’t know what hit her.’
With that, Lina left, leaving a trail of Obsession in her wake and Mike with a strange twisted feeling in his stomach.
9
‘IS THIS A bad time?’ Lina stood on the doorstep, shaking her car keys in one hand.
Kara, having just dragged herself out of bed, squinted at the other woman in the morning sunshine. Lina was dressed with a sharp, calculated sexiness that looked straight out of the pages of a Sunday style supplement. Designer trousers, designer shirt, designer fucking lipgloss, no doubt. Kara was damn sure that she spent more money on her appearance than Kara paid in rent.
‘I thought we’d best get moving early,’ Lina continued. ‘We’ve got so much to do.’ With this, she gave Kara’s faded-to-grey Goldfrapp T-shirt and bare legs a sly once-over, as though she couldn’t quite believe the new face of pop slept in such shabby gear.
‘Uh,’ Kara said, combing her hair with her fingers. ‘Shit, we’re not recording today, are we?’ She fought the urge to tug her T-shirt down further over the threadbare pink knickers she was wearing.
‘No,’ said Lina, flexing back and forth on her knee. ‘Today we’re branding.’
‘Which means?’
Lina gave her a smile as hard and fake as her impossibly pert breasts. ‘Shopping. Aren’t we a lucky girl?’
‘For what?’
Lina pursed her lips. ‘For the next big thing,’ she said. ‘For sex, in loud, bright, shiny, glittery packaging.’
‘I don’t quite –’
‘We need to brand you, Kara, before we can sell you. Add a bit of spin. So we’re visiting a good friend of mine, dressing you up and taking you out to play. Think of it as a crash course in pornification,’ she added, in a stage whisper.
‘But I’m not –’ Kara waved her hand in the air, at a loss for words. She had no idea what the crazy bitch was talking about, but it sounded like the wrong kind of wild.
Behind them in the hall, Ruby emerged from the bathroom and moved tentatively towards the daylight. ‘Morning?’ she said, blinking at Lina in confusion.
‘You must be the drummer.’ Lina nodded curtly. ‘Hi. Kara and I are just about to leave.’
‘But Ruby,’ Kara said, latching on to an idea suddenly. ‘Rube needs to come too, yeah?’
‘Not necessary,’ Lina called, already turning to descend the steps, waving one gloved hand in the air. ‘You’re the sex kitten, Kara. The others are just background.’
Kara cringed. She spun round to see Ruby drawing back into the hallway. Ruby was silent; the hurt showing in her hunched shoulders and a sudden coldness in her face, the way her rosebud mouth tightened.
‘I’ll be in the car,’ Lina was shouting as she pointed to a black Mazda double-parked outside the terrace. ‘See you in ten.’
Lina drove fast, but without ostentation. It took them ten minutes to slip through the early-morning traffic; they reached the Merchant City before Kara had time to rub the sleep out of her eyes. They pulled to a stop in front of a redbrick warehouse with a heavy steel door set between frosted-glass panels – unmarked and unremarkable. Lina was out of the car and already on the phone getting them buzzed in by the time Kara got a chance to register that this was not a shop, nor anything like one. She felt a mix of resentment and curiosity as she waited for a shadowy figure behind the glass to get to the door – she still had very little idea of what Lina was setting up, and Ruby’s displeasure had left a bitter taste in her mouth that wouldn’t leave.
‘Jerome!’ said Lina, pronouncing the name with a soft ‘J’.
‘Hi, hi, come in.’ A shaven-headed man with a wide mouth and a hurried, fretful air waved them in, kissing Lina lightly on the cheek and zipping his eyes up and down Kara’s figure. They walked swiftly across the marble hallway and into the lift, where Kara was free to look closer at their host in the mirrored wall. He was a strange-looking type – ugly in the conventional sense, with heavy-lidded, small green eyes and deep lines bracketing his mouth. Only there was something in his manner, in the tense, brusque way he ignored both women and held himself braced against the wall that intrigued Kara. Though his head was bald and smooth, dark wiry hair sprouted from his roll-neck T-shirt and his skin looked tough and leathery.
‘So,’ he said as the lift doors opened and they spilled out into a large airy studio flat overlooking the City Chambers, ‘what is your pleasure today, Lina darling?’
Lina launched into the same speech she’d given Kara earlier about branding and sex appeal, while the man, Jerome, nodded and hummed, with his glittering green eyes fixed squarely on Kara. Feeling uncomfortable under his critical gaze, she looked around. The space was a workplace as well as a home, a large table dominating the centre of the room, covered with sheets of tracing paper and sketches. Scraps of
fabric were scattered on the floor and a rack of clothes was pulled close to the table. Jerome’s furniture was bright and modern and looked hellishly uncomfortable – turquoise plastic chairs and a clear Plexiglas coffee table sat on a zebra-striped rug that was placed, artfully squint, across the slate flagstones of the floor. Kara’s attention was immediately drawn though to the poster-sized photographs that hung on the bare brick walls. Mostly monochrome, at first they appeared abstract, but among the curves and shadows Kara picked out a few recognisable elements – the pointed tip of a tongue, curling upwards, the bony ridges of knuckles and scribbled shadows that on second glance revealed themselves as being body hair trailing across skin.
‘Help yourself, take a look,’ Jerome called to her, gesturing with a big pawlike hand towards the sitting area. Kara walked closer, leaving the others to talk in a low intense murmur while she examined the pictures.
There were women and men, hidden in shadows as black as pitch. Kara’s eyes followed the lines of their limbs: intertwined, wrapped in thin rope, crushed against other bodies. When she noticed a thick erect cock gripped in a fist and pushed against a mouth, Kara smirked, but she also felt the rush of wetness flowering between her legs. The photographs were beautiful and the more she looked at them, the more she saw: the silver stud in a tongue, glowing dully under a curved buttock; fingers sinking into mouths, crevices, hollows; the sheen of wet skin – fresh sperm or women’s secretions brushed against a thigh. And a recurring image, one that pricked her attention most, was the glossy wet-black fabric that clung to hips, breasts and stomachs.
‘Latex,’ Lina said in Kara’s ear. She seemed to have come out of nowhere. ‘It’s Jerome’s special talent. Come,’ she added, taking Kara by the elbow and leading her to the table where Jerome had looped a measuring tape over his shoulders and stood watching her with his hands on his hips.
‘We want something to shock, yes?’ he asked, directing the question at Lina rather than Kara.
Lina smiled in assent. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Full length? Sleeves? Hood?’
‘Hood?’ Kara said, too loudly. She looked at Lina, but the other woman’s face was perfectly bland.
Jerome approached and reached out to grip her waist.
‘Hey!’ Kara pulled back, only to hear Jerome make a guttural laugh in the back of his throat and see Lina roll her eyes.
‘Please, Kara, calm yourself. We need to take your measurements.’
Jerome’s froggish face became serious. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll find this an enjoyable experience if you just relax, I promise.’
Kara inhaled and let Jerome’s fingers scuttle over her body, pinching and testing. He whipped the tape from round his neck and looped it under her breasts; she tried not to flinch when his knuckles bumped against her nipples.
‘I think something slashed, yeah?’ he asked Lina, drawing a line from Kara’s throat to her navel with his fingernail. ‘Expose the breasts, maybe even a little snatch.’
Kara stood silently while Jerome drew imaginary lines on her body like she was a mannequin, putting a hand on her hip to turn her round and tracing across the very top of her buttocks. He made noises as he worked, little sucks and clicks of his teeth like he was beatboxing. Even through her clothes, it felt as though he were cutting her up into slices, portioning her like a butcher’s diagram. ‘Legs are good too, Lina,’ he said. ‘Hobble skirt maybe, something that clings to her arse and makes her wiggle. You like the sound of that?’ he said loudly, slapping Kara on the bottom and laughing like a drain.
Kara’s lips curled back to snarl at him, but she caught a warning look from Lina and managed to perk her mouth into a fierce smile instead. She focused on a fleck of spittle in the corner of Jerome’s mouth and watched his pointed tongue curl to lick it away.
‘I think I’ve got something that could work,’ he said, turning to the dress rail and flicking through the hangers. Each garment was shrouded in cellophane and labelled with a paper tag and, as he rustled through them, he called over his shoulder, ‘At the risk of sounding forward, darling, drop your clothes on the chair for me, would you?’
Kara cocked an eyebrow at Lina. The older woman had settled herself into one of Jerome’s bucket chairs and looked as though she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She nodded at Kara.
‘Jerome has worked with the best,’ she said pointedly, as though that absolved him from perversion. ‘Do as he says now.’
‘Quick, quick,’ Jerome added, snapping his fingers at Kara. ‘No point in being coy.’
Kara undressed as quickly as she could, pulling her top over her head and shuffling out of her denim skirt. She dropped them, as Jerome had directed, on the chair, and stood awkwardly holding her elbow, as though one arm over her belly could cover her nakedness.
‘Everything, Kara,’ Lina said, ‘latex is very unforgiving.’
And so, while Jerome chose a hanger and turned to lay the bundled plastic in his arms reverently on the table, Kara unhooked her bra and draped it over the rest of her clothes, pulled off her knickers and bunched them in her hand. For some reason, she didn’t want to let go of them, no matter that she was standing gloriously naked under the studio’s strip lights with two strangers. Her skin was prickling with goosebumps and her nipples pinched tight in the suddenly cold daylight.
‘Not shaved,’ Jerome said, frowning at Kara’s pubis. ‘Shame.’
Silently, Kara gave thanks for the triangle of dark hair that curled over her pussy and covered her most intimate parts. Without it, she would be one degree more naked, one particularly obscene degree. It might be obvious how her clit had darkened and swelled, how she was bizarrely excited by the situation she found herself in – ashamed, but unable to stop her body from reacting. She kept her thighs pressed together and hoped the wetness between her legs was not visible. When Jerome approached, she held herself rigid, arms clutched at her sides.
Apart from her shame at being so publicly exposed, she hadn’t showered that morning, had changed at breakneck speed to accompany Lina on this twisted ‘shopping’ expedition. There was a lingering smell on her, the rosemary scent of Mike’s aftershave and pungent traces of the night before. She was nervous now, starting to sweat, and the sweat was enlivening every sweet and earthy fragrance that clung to her. Kara was keenly aware of the rich scent of body odour trapped in all of her hidden crevices.
But Jerome wanted her to lift her arms. He held a bottle in his hand with his finger on the spray nozzle and he aimed it at her while he motioned for her to put her hands up. Kara put her hands on her head, like a criminal surrendering. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. The spray hit her body with a cold tingle that spread and lay on her skin, cloying and slick. Jerome worked steadily over her, coating her from her neck to her ankles.
‘Lube,’ Jerome said, turning her and spraying her back, bottom and legs. ‘You can use powder, but this –’ he smiled, spritzed the crevice of her buttocks and let the liquid dribble slowly into the crack of her arse ‘– I think this gives more pleasure.’
Then his hands were on her, surprisingly rough and warm. He brushed lightly over her skin, as though trying to warm her, slapping at her hips and sides, gliding gently over her breasts, moving so fast that Kara didn’t have time to protest or even register how his rough massage made her skin thrill all over.
‘OK. Let’s try this baby out.’
Jerome unwrapped the hanger and pulled aside the plastic to reveal his creation. It was purple – vivid blackcurrant purple – and shone like polished fruit. The dress held its shape even without a body to fill it, curving round at the hips and bust, tapering at the edges where it would fit tightly to her.
Kara nearly burst out laughing. ‘It’s a cartoon dress,’ she said, suddenly feeling ridiculous. ‘It doesn’t look real.’ Nervously, her eyes darted to Lina, but she was smiling and Kara relaxed. The dress was jiggling as Jerome removed the cocoon from its wrapping, the gleaming surface quivering like jelly, and alth
ough it was bizarre and surreal, she really had to touch it suddenly, like a kid reaching out for sweets.
Kara felt her legs gliding together as though they were oiled when she moved across the floor. When she pressed the rubbery sheeting of the dress between her fingers she felt it bounce a little, slippery and cold, almost like wet flesh. A faint plasticky smell rose from it, tangy and artificial. Despite her bemusement, Kara wanted this against her skin, wanted to feel herself encased in it.
Jerome helped her ease into the dress. She stepped into it, holding on to his shoulders for balance, and let him slide it inch by inch up over her hips, felt the tight, slick rubber pull at her skin and suck at her. Somehow she felt quite comfortable, even when he pushed the flat of his hand in between the dress and her body to drag it up, even though she could feel his breath hot on her side, panting as they worked together to shoehorn her into the crazy outfit.
It hugged every part of her body, stretching tight over her curves and following every dip and crevice as though it were painted directly onto her skin. Her breasts and belly and ass were cupped and moulded, squeezed into the hourglass form, constricting her breath and pulling at her in an all-enveloping embrace. Jerome led her to a mirror, Kara shuffling in tiny steps because the skirt restricted her movement, and when she looked up, her eyes widened.
‘I look like a computer graphic,’ she said, ‘not real.’
‘Perfect,’ Lina said, approaching from behind and placing her hands, with their long painted nails, on Kara’s hips.
Where the dress stretched tight, it reflected a distorted image of the studio around them, and when Jerome spritzed more, it gleamed. Kara watched in the mirror as he worked more lubricant onto the dress and was so mesmerised she hardly noticed he was rubbing her breasts, her nipples, her hips through the rubber. The wetness between her legs had smeared on her thigh, merged with her sweat and the spray Jerome had applied and she was all liquid, pliable and taut and rippling, trapped in the dress and glistening with ripe sexiness.
The New Rakes Page 8