Finally, dressed in an ice-cream pink sleeveless mini dress with a matching double-breasted coat, she rejoined him. He was watching cricket on the television and glanced at her appreciatively.
‘Nice! Those shiny tights are all the rage this summer; they’re very sexy.’
‘I’m glad you approve!’ she laughed. ‘I wasn’t sure how to dress and thought this outfit could go anywhere.’
‘We don’t make a very good couple,’ he said in amusement, and as she looked at him and took in his old petrol-blue tunic sweater worn over a faded blue T-shirt, teamed rather incongruously with a pair of navy pinstripe trousers, she realised that he was right.
‘Shall I change?’ she asked anxiously.
Rick shook his head. ‘You’re looking far too attractive to be the one to change, and I’m too lazy. It won’t matter. They’re used to me looking like this. I only ever dress up for Guy’s dinner parties. As for you, they’ll probably wonder what you see in me!’
Climbing into Rick’s battered Ford Fiesta, Cressida was quite certain they wouldn’t wonder about that. Seen out of the gallery Rick was even more attractive than she’d originally thought. His fair skin was lightly tanned, which made his grey-blue eyes all the more striking, and he had a generous mouth, prominent cheekbones and a straight Roman nose. The combination made her feel quite breathless with what she supposed must be desire. If it was, she’d never truly desired Tom, she realised ruefully.
The restaurant, small and tucked away on the edges of the Covent Garden Piazza, was designed to look like a greenhouse and when they walked in the door the heat seemed to hit her in the face. She was grateful when Rick took her coat.
The proprietor came hurrying out to greet him, shaking him warmly by the hand and ushering them to a table in the corner of the room where they were relatively private. He then brought them a bottle of house wine and left them with the menu.
‘Where’s your mural?’ asked Cressida, wishing she could use the menu as a fan.
‘Behind you,’ said Rick.
Cressida turned, and saw that the wall behind her was covered with drawings of young men and women. Some were kissing, others holding hands, while a few were simply standing staring at each other, but every one of the pairs gave off a feeling of incredible sexuality. It was as though they were about to remove their admittedly scanty clothing and start making love at any moment. Cressida couldn’t work out how Rick had managed to create such a feeling when there was nothing overtly sexual about what they were doing.
‘Like it?’ he asked nonchalantly.
‘It’s very powerful,’ said Cressida, aware the word was a feeble one for the way the mural made her feel but unable to think of anything else to say.
He nodded. ‘That’s the way I wanted it to be. It’s a statement you see; a statement about the contrast between what society wants people to feel and do and what they really want themselves – from an erotic point of view, that is.’
‘Well, you can certainly tell what those people really want to do,’ she assured him. ‘I’m just not sure how you managed to get the point over.’
‘It’s all in the muscles and facial expressions,’ he said, his face serious and his voice full of passion. ‘Tension, that’s the key to eroticism. There has to be sexual tension. Chocolates, flowers and a kiss on the sofa aren’t real passion. They’re window dressing, that’s all. My drawings show us the truth.’
At that moment the waiter returned to take their order. Cressida hadn’t even looked at the menu so Rick ordered mixed grill of fish for them both. ‘It’s one of the best meals in London at the moment,’ he promised her. Cressida didn’t really care. Her stomach felt as though it had closed down for the evening, and food didn’t hold any interest for her. The longer she was with Rick the more she was attracted to him, and his mural had made her feel almost as strange as his drawings in the gallery.
‘Guy tells me you’re doing a new picture at the moment,’ she remarked when the waiter had departed.
Rick, nibbling on his bread roll, nodded. ‘I’m meant to be. The truth is, I haven’t started yet. I’ve been waiting for inspiration. Now I think I may have found it.’
‘That’s good,’ said Cressida casually, not daring to believe she might be the trigger for one of his erotically charged drawings.
Rick grinned at her. ‘I mean you,’ he stated. ‘The moment I set eyes on you in the gallery I began to see the shape of the thing, and tonight when you came down all dressed up in that little-girl-pink outfit, like an advert for some new drink, I knew I was right.’
‘But that’s not your style!’ exclaimed Cressida, rather put out by his description of her clothes.
‘Not the exterior that you present to the world, no, but the contrast between my image of you – the way you make me feel, the things I want to do to you – and the way you dress and talk, that’s my style. You’re good at disguise, Cressida, did you know that?’
Considering that she was working undercover for the fraud squad at that very moment, Cressida found the remark rather ironic. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she muttered, relieved to see the waiter approaching with their food.
The waiter placed huge plates full of a delicious-looking assortment of fish in front of them, and then put down a bottle of pink Dom Perignon. ‘For the lady in pink, with the owner’s compliments!’ he exclaimed.
Rick was enchanted by Cressida’s embarrassment. ‘It’s a good job Chris de Burgh isn’t here – he’d probably write a song about you!’ he laughed. ‘I like it when you blush, it’s so old-fashioned. Most girls today don’t know how to blush, and it’s very sexy.’
‘It isn’t an art that you acquire,’ retorted Cressida. ‘It’s something that happens, and I don’t like it as much as you seem to.’
‘At least it means that people know when you’re being honest with them. It would be difficult to lie deliberately when you blush.’
If he only knew, thought Cressida, picking at her meal and feeling more and more guilty about her deception. It wasn’t as though what Guy and Marcia were doing had anything to do with Rick, but she was using him shamelessly to try and get closer to them. Worse still, she was enjoying it.
‘When we’ve eaten, will you come back to my place?’ asked Rick. ‘I don’t want to show you my etchings, but I would like to show you the outline I’ve drafted for my new idea – the idea you’ve inspired.’
‘I’d love to,’ agreed Cressida, feeling her legs going weak at the prospect.
‘How many lovers have you had?’ asked Rick casually.
Cressida nearly choked on a piece of grilled tuna. ‘That’s my business!’ she said shortly.
‘I only wondered. You look as though you’d be a six or seven sort of girl. Didn’t you just love that scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral when Andie McDowell goes through her list of lovers and the list seems to last for ever? I thought that was one of the best bits in it!’
‘I liked John Hannah reading Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’, said Cressida.
Rick blinked in surprise. ‘Well, it was moving but hardly the highlight of a delightful comedy of modern sexual manners!’
‘It was still my favourite bit,’ said Cressida stubbornly.
‘Perhaps sex and death are linked in your mind,’ said Rick thoughtfully. ‘Do you know what the French call an orgasm? A little death, and in a way it is.’
‘Do you really think like this, or is it an act?’ asked Cressida, drinking some of her champagne.
‘I never put on an act,’ Rick retorted. ‘Of course this is the way I think. That’s why my pictures come out the way they do.’
‘It’s odd, because it isn’t the way you look,’ said Cressida. ‘You seem to be so wholesome; the sort of guy who likes rugby and cricket and belongs to his local squash club.’
‘I do like cricket.’
‘Yes, but dark sex is your favourite subject, and you don’t look at all dark. In fact,’ she added, getting braver by the minute as the champagne began
to take effect, ‘you look a positively conventional sort of guy. Not that different from Tom.’
Rick’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who’s Tom?’
Cressida hesitated, cursing the alcohol and the relaxed ambience of the evening for letting her make such a stupid mistake. ‘My last lover,’ she said reluctantly.
‘An ex?’
‘Definitely an ex.’
Rick’s face was happy again. ‘That’s all I wanted to know. How about a crême brulée for dessert?’
After that, Cressida was more careful about what she said, and by the time they left the restaurant and got into the old Ford Fiesta again, she felt that she was almost back in total control.
Rick drove carefully to his flat in Bayswater. It was over a karate club and had a huge window in the ceiling which made it perfect for his work. There was one double bedroom off the main room, and a small kitchen and toilet, but it was clear he didn’t bother to clear up very often. Cressida could hardly move for sketches, paintings, discarded articles of clothing and dirty crockery.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said casually. ‘I have a tidy up once a month, and the month’s nearly up!’
In the middle of the floor there was an easel with a picture on it, but it was covered by a cloth and she assumed this was the outline for his new work. On the walls of the room there were dozens of rough pencil sketches. Some of them were clearly roughs for the pictures Cressida had seen in the gallery, while others were totally new to her, but they all had the same theme of a tethered or restrained woman dominating the picture while a faceless man looked on.
‘Here, this is my first new rough draft, the one I did after seeing you at the gallery this morning,’ said Rick after rummaging through a heap of papers. Cressida took the white sheet of paper and stared at the drawing.
A young woman with very long legs and short dark hair was sitting on a desk, and her left knee was drawn up close to her chest while her right leg hung over the edge. Her arms were stretched out to either side supporting her. There was a thin line around her neck, which looked as though Rick might intend it to be a rope or leash, but apart from that she was quite free. What was different about this picture was the fact that the young woman wasn’t naked.
She was wearing a suit that looked as though it belonged to the days of power dressing. The jacket had padded shoulders and wide lapels, but jagged tears had been created at strategic points so that one breast stuck out boldly. Every muscle and sinew at the top of the left leg could be seen and so could the opening at the top of the thighs. Her sex organs were exaggerated, like women in Eastern works of erotica, and the contrast between the business-like expression on her face and her nylon-covered right leg compared with the bared breast and vulnerable vulva was shocking and yet compelling.
‘Is that how you saw me?’ asked Cressida in horror.
Rick looked closely at her. ‘Not literally, no, but it triggered the idea. Why? Don’t you like it?’
Cressida shook her head. ‘I don’t think I do,’ she said quietly.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t understand which is meant to be the real woman. The one who’s in control or the one who’s blatantly sexual in a way that’s meant to pander to men’s fantasies.’
‘Can’t a woman be both?’ enquired Rick, equally softly, as he took a step towards her.
Cressida began to tremble as he reached out and slowly pulled her towards him. ‘I think you’re both,’ he muttered, and then she felt his fingers starting to tear at the buttons on her pink coat as he lowered his mouth on to hers.
Chapter Five
RICK’S HUNGER FOR her was so great that Cressida could almost feel the heat coming off him, and suddenly, as his mouth ground down hard against hers, she felt just as frantic for him.
As he tore at her clothes and pulled her down to the floor, she was aware of the pictures around them, and their erotic charge increased her desire. She heard herself making tiny whimpering sounds of need as he flicked his tongue around the edge of her bra before sucking at her nipples through the delicate lace. The sensation was wonderful, and Cressida reached down his body, now only covered by a pair of boxer shorts, and cupped her hands around his buttocks so that he moved closer to her and she could feel his rigid erection pressing against her.
Sucking and licking at her skin, Rick moved his mouth down lower and then began licking the inside of her thighs before nibbling gently against the shred of silk that covered her sex lips. To Cressida’s amazement, a sudden ripple ran through her as she was shaken by a tiny orgasm. Rick rolled on to his back, pulling her on top of him so that when she spread her thighs on each side of his body she could feel his straining penis through both their pairs of pants.
His desire gave her a sense of power that she’d never felt before, and she began to move on top of him, knowing as he groaned and gasped beneath her that she was bringing him perilously close to the point of no return. All at once he grabbed her and rolled over again, so that now he had Cressida pinned to the floor, and as she flung her arms out to the sides she hit the edge of the easel and the cover fell to the ground, brushing against her bare arm.
She felt his hands tugging at her panties until at last they were off, and as soon as he’d removed his own she wrapped her legs tightly round his waist as he supported himself above her on fully extended arms and let the tip of his erection brush against her pubic hair. ‘Beg for it,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Tell me how much you want me.’
Cressida didn’t need telling twice. ‘I want you inside me, now, quickly!’ she whispered, but despite her words and the dampness of her frantic secret place, that wasn’t enough for Rick.
‘Say it louder,’ he demanded. ‘Shout it. Tell everyone in the street that you want me.’ He let his erection brush up and down between her widening sex lips so that for one blissful moment it touched her clitoris and her whole body tightened and jerked.
‘I want you now!’ she screamed, totally lost in the sensations and the urgency of the moment. At her words Rick pushed hard against her and she felt him slide inside her, and then he was thrusting rapidly in and out as her orgasm built towards its climax.
Rick seemed totally out of control. She could hear him making frantic noises as his own orgasm drew nearer, and then all at once, just as she was about to come, he changed position, lying on top of her for a moment before rolling over yet again, leaving Cressida on top.
‘You move now,’ he gasped. ‘Make us both come together.’
Cressida didn’t care if they came together or not – she was totally consumed by the need to come herself – and so she angled her body forward with her head almost touching his chest and moved her buttocks back and forth while Rick’s hands pulled at her nipples, which were still partly covered by the half-lace bra.
Suddenly the red-hot heat of release burst over her like surf crashing down on the beach, and she cried out with the sheer pleasure of it. Within seconds, Rick was crying out too and she felt him heaving and shuddering beneath her as his head rolled from side to side on the floor of the attic room.
For some time they lay silently together, their damp bodies entwined, until finally Rick pushed himself up and brushed the hair off his forehead. ‘Fantastic!’ he exclaimed. ‘I was right about you, wasn’t I?’
Cressida, who could hardly believe what had happened, managed to nod and look as though this was the kind of thing she did regularly. In fact, she’d only ever slept with one man before Tom and even that had been a very restrained affair. She didn’t know what was to blame; the champagne, the eroticism of Rick’s drawings, or his undeniable sexual charisma. Whatever it was, she wasn’t about to complain.
Propping herself on one elbow, she looked around the room, and to her astonishment saw that the picture now revealed on the easel wasn’t one of Rick’s drawings after all. It looked to her like a half-completed Holbein portrait. Immediately her mind changed gear and she became the undercover policewoman again.
‘What’s
that?’ she asked Rick casually.
‘What?’ questioned Rick, his eyes still glazed with their recent passionate encounter.
‘That painting there. It’s not your usual sort of thing.’
Rick stood up and re-covered it with the fallen cloth. ‘It’s an experiment. I want to see if I can do other things apart from the stuff I sell to Guy, but I’ve got a long way to go before it’s ready to show anyone.’
‘I thought it looked good,’ said Cressida. ‘Can I have a closer look?’
‘No way. It’s private, and I guard my work very carefully. Come on, I’d better run you home as soon as I’m dressed.’
She could tell that the atmosphere had changed. He was no longer relaxed, and his desire to get her out of his flat was plain. Seeing the expression on her face he grinned ruefully.
‘Sorry, that sounded pretty abrupt after what’s gone on didn’t it? I’m not much good at the after-sex chat and the cuddling.’
‘That’s all right,’ Cressida assured him, knowing full well that it was her interest in the painting that had caused his change in mood. ‘I’m not into all that either. I’ll get dressed and then we can go.’
The drive back to Cressida’s house was rather quiet. She was lost in her own thoughts, trying to work out whether or not Rick knew that he was probably being used by Guy and Marcia, while Rick seemed to have withdrawn from her completely. It was only when he dropped her off that he reverted to the Rick she’d known earlier.
‘Sorry about the end to the evening,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I get these mood swings and when the black dog descends on me there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Don’t worry – it comes under the heading “artistic licence”,’ Cressida reassured him.
The Gallery Page 9