As he’s been talking, I’ve been shooting him crafty looks, and I like much of what I see. He’s certainly more than a little rough round the edges, with his knotted dirty-blond locks and his ripped jeans. His face tends towards the pretty rather than the manly: full lips and big blue wondering eyes, full of enthusiasm for the things he talks about. Only time will tell if I like him enough to consider sleeping with him, but he will certainly make an attractive guide for the afternoon.
‘We should start,’ he says, ‘with the Indo-Aryan Jagdish Temple with its amazing carvings, and then perhaps see the Crystal Gallery with its mind-blowing collection of crystal chairs, sofas, tables and even beds.’ He adds afterwards, ‘We could take a stroll around the beautiful Fateh Sagar Lake, and even take a boat out in it to Nehru Park with its boat-shaped café.’
I tell him it all sounds wonderful and thank my lucky stars again that I didn’t take Charles up on his offer.
10
THIS IS BEYOND what I have ever dreamt of, and so far beyond the limits of what I have experienced in my admittedly very limited life that I can scarcely allow myself to believe it is happening to me, that I am really here, in this fabulous marble palace in the middle of a lake, with this incredible man. He’s sitting naked in front of me on the private terrace of our royal suite, talking on his mobile. I’m naked too. After arriving by boat and having a drink in the Lily Pond courtyard, we came here and made strenuous love on our vast four-poster bed. The opulent furnishings and fabrics made it seem all the more carnal. I felt like a wild animal as I clawed at Charles’s back, at his buttocks, pulling him even further inside me, turning over so that he plunged into me doggy style as I fingered my clitoris with one hand and squeezed his balls with the other.
He probably thinks I’m exhausted, that I’m glad of the respite, but in fact as I lie here watching him, admiring his strong lower back, the curve of it into his buttocks, I’m already plotting my next move. In fact, I won’t even wait for him to get off his call. Inching forwards on my lounger, I reach round him and wrap one hand firmly round his cock. His whole body stiffens and then his shoulders start to shake. I can feel the effort it’s costing him not to cry out. I start to pump his cock, cradling his balls with my other hand, and I feel my pussy start to flood the recliner beneath me.
Charles cuts short his call with an excuse about the line being too bad for him to hear properly all of a sudden. He turns to me, but instead of lust on his face there’s fury.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he snarls, yanking my hand away from his groin. ‘That was an important call, to a big potential client. You could have cost me millions.’
I recoil, afraid for a moment that his anger is such that he’s going to slap me, but instead he stands up, looking down at me. ‘You have absolutely no idea what’s at stake here,’ he says, and he turns on his heel and stalks inside, swearing under his breath.
I sit flabbergasted, blinded to the incredible views over the shimmering lake by his outburst. I tell myself that I haven’t known him for long, that I misread him, underestimated his seriousness, at least in certain respects. But he has made me feel like a child, and it’s an unpleasant sensation, to be scolded like that at my age. I was only having a laugh, encouraged by his nakedness. If it was such an important call, why didn’t he dress and go inside to his desk, instead of flaunting his beautiful body in front of me?
Of course I need to say all this to him, but already I know that I won’t, that a mumsy housewife like me won’t come out tops from a ‘discussion’ with a business brain of his calibre. No, I’ve learnt my lesson, and I’ve also learnt a little about Charles Hoffmann and what makes him tick. What I can and can’t get away with.
Nadia takes the hotel boat over to us. We planned to meet on shore, but Charles insisted on staying at the Lake Palace in the end, and I didn’t feel able to argue with him after the incident between us. Nadia didn’t seem to mind too much, although she did ask if she could bring a friend with her, and also told me they won’t stay too long since there is a screening of Octopussy this evening on the rooftop of her hotel. Some of the Bond film was shot in the city, she explained, and so there are regular showings in certain cafés and budget hotels.
Dinner, which we opt to take in the less formal of the hotel’s restaurants, is quite a sober, even stilted affair, in spite of the presence of Nadia’s new ‘friend’, a chirpy Australian she met at her hostel. He is a very nice boy, or should I say young man, in fact, and probably the only thing that saves the meal from disaster. Nadia still hasn’t warmed to Charles and the lingering atmosphere between the two of us probably only serves to make her more wary of him. Charles, meanwhile, is clearly starting to tire of her frostiness; his annoyance with me probably makes it even harder for him to tolerate being given the cold shoulder.
I am glad when it is all over, although I dread being alone again with Charles. As Nadia and Christian head back for the boat, I look after them both enviously and hopefully. Perhaps he will be the one who finally melts my daughter’s heart, or at least makes her happy for a time. Sometimes I feel she is more than a little lost, without being able to pinpoint a reason why. She is beautiful, bright, has attracted more than her fair share of handsome boys. So why is there this sadness to her?
On our way back to the suite, however, Charles puts his arm around me, pulls me towards him. ‘Listen, Val, I’m sorry for bawling you out,’ he says. ‘It was out of order.’ He stops in the corridor, turns to face me and takes me in his arms. ‘I appreciate the gesture, I really do,’ he goes on. ‘You’re one incredibly sexy lady and I love the fact that you keep coming back for more. It’s horny as hell. But please, just think next time – there are few things that I would turn you down in favour of, but this is a huge deal for me and I need to be focused.’
I nod, smile at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t thinking. It won’t happen again.’
‘Oh that’s a shame,’ says Charles. ‘I was rather wondering …’ He reaches round and grasps my buttocks, pulling me up towards him, so that I can feel the rock-hardness of him against my lower belly. I reach up, bring his face to mine, but we don’t kiss for long, impelled by our desires towards our suite and the four-poster that awaits us there.
11
‘YOUR MUM SEEMS nice,’ says Christian on the way back across the lake. ‘But that guy she’s with is a creep.’
‘You think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
I wrinkle up my face. ‘I don’t like him,’ I say, ‘but I don’t know why. And he makes Mum happy, so –’
‘She didn’t seem so happy over dinner.’
‘No, you’re right. She wasn’t her normal self. I think they must have had a row or something. The atmosphere between them had definitely changed.’
‘Well, I’m sure they’ll sort themselves out. You say she just met this guy?’
‘Like, two days ago, in the hotel bar of all places. He picked her up.’
‘Or she picked him up.’
I look at him sharply. ‘My mum’s not like that,’ I say, and he apologises, pats my hand and says he didn’t mean anything by it.
He’s a sweet guy, and when he does that I take his hand and we sit in silence for a while, contemplating the twinkling shore as we approach it. After a minute or two, I turn my head and glance back at Mum’s hotel, which looks even more otherworldly when lit up and reflected in the inky waters as it is now. I wonder what she’s doing at this very moment, and hope that she’s happy, that she and Charles have sorted themselves out, even though I agree with Christian that he’s basically a creep and wish she’d never met him. I hope more than anything that she can relax and enjoy herself in that amazing hotel; it may not be to my taste, but she deserves a spot of unashamed luxury after the life she’s had.
The boat reaches the shore and we climb out, our hands unclasping. I start back in the direction of the hotel, but Christian catches hold of my wrist, eases me back and, twirling me r
ound by the shoulders, pulls me into his arms. For a moment he just stands looking down at me, eyes sparkling. ‘You’re amazing, Nadia,’ he says at last, and he leans in for a kiss.
I step back, my wrist still in his hand, trying to assess my feelings at this point. There’s part of me that just wants to let him lead me back to the hostel, pull my clothes off and take the prize of my virginity, rid me of the cursed thing. I know that he will be gentle and respectful. But as always, I hesitate: am I straight or gay, do I like white or brown flesh? Yes, I could easily sleep with him, and then we will both go our separate ways, no matter how good it was, and we will remember each other with fondness. But is he the one who really does it for me, the one I’ve been waiting for? If the question poses itself, then the answer must be no.
He’s not the kind of guy to take offence or lose his temper with me, and we walk back to the hostel in a companionable rather than an embarrassed silence. At the foot of the stairs up to my room, I turn to him, feeling that he deserves an explanation.
‘I don’t really understand it myself,’ I say. ‘You’re an attractive guy, and … it’s not that I haven’t thought about it today. I’ve thought about it a lot. But …’
‘It’s all right,’ he says, one hand on my shoulder, unthreatening, reassuring. ‘Neither of us is sticking around, and if there’s not any future in it …’
‘It’s not even that,’ I say ruefully. ‘I have no objection to one-night stands. I’m just so confused about myself.’ I couldn’t bear to take him to the brink and then back out – he’s too nice a guy for that.
He frowns, perplexed, and then leans forwards and kisses me lightly on the cheek, musses my hair. ‘You’re a great girl,’ he says. ‘I hope you find someone who makes you happy.’
‘Ditto you,’ I say, smiling regretfully. ‘Thanks for everything. Maybe I’ll see you in the morning?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t think I’ll hang around much longer,’ he says. ‘I’m through here.’
‘Where next?’ I ask.
‘I’ll decide when I get to the station,’ he says with a grin and another shrug.
I look at him in admiration. How wonderful it would be to be so spontaneous, to put oneself in the hands of fate, I think, as I walk upstairs. How wonderful not to think of the consequences, not to have to play things out in advance.
On my bed, despite my weariness, I think of all the people I’ve met over the past few days, of all the chances I’ve had and squandered, and of my life back home. It’s always the same story. I came here to escape myself, and also to find myself. It sounds like a paradox, but I really feel that if I shed my skin, the protective layer I wear back in Britain, then the true me will be revealed, my needs and desires acknowledged. But instead I find that I’m just the same old me – fearful, fucked up, incapable of decision or action. What will it take to shake me free?
I lie down. We missed the film, but it’s no big deal. Perhaps Christian has gone up there now, has started the process of forgetting me already. Not that I flatter myself that he is in love with me, but he was clearly very taken with me. I pull my top off, then my bra, release my breasts and clasp them in my hands, run my thumbs over the creamy-brown nipples and watch as they spring to life. Then I pull my skirt up above my thighs, till it’s all bunched up around me. I let go of my breasts, pull the gusset of my knickers to one side and palpate my clit and lips, thinking of Carla, of Asha. So different yet so beautiful, with their wet little beavers, all clean and shaven, with the look in their eyes, provoking me, asking for a reaction, willing me to do something.
For a while it’s hard to make myself come, however much I think of them, however much I visualise their dripping wet snatches – wet, perhaps, for me. Wide open and waiting for me. It’s only when I imagine them sitting there, at the end of my bed, arms around each other, hands on each other’s thighs, watching me bring myself off, that my orgasm comes, and I scream out in the night, feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt before.
12
I’M DUE TO meet Nadia this morning, for breakfast and some sightseeing on land, but when Charles’s alarm call goes off at seven-thirty, I decide I need at least another few hours in bed. Last night shattered me – and not only physically. Charles took me to places I’d never even known existed, never dreamt could exist, and in doing so revealed to me how much of my life has been only half lived. It’s as if I’ve been inhabiting a dream for the past twenty years, or perhaps all my life, and now I’m wide, wide awake.
There was pain involved, of course, along with the pleasure. Or should I say: it was as if the pleasure was bound up with the pain, as if they were the two faces of the same experience. Certainly, from the way Charles acted, reacted, it was as if reaching the summit of his own personal pleasure involved a large dose of hurt. ‘Exquisite pain,’ he’d called it, during one brief moment of respite, jaw clenched, head thrown back on the pillow, eyes tightly closed, beating the bed with his fists. ‘Fucking exquisite pain.’
It wasn’t long after we got back to Charles’s suite that I realised things had changed between us, shifted to a new level. Perhaps, thinking about it now, Charles was still angry with me about the incident on the terrace and wanted to punish me. But even as I say this, I think, no, it would have happened anyway. These are things that are in Charles, awaiting a catalyst. Our little ‘misunderstanding’ of earlier that day might have been the trigger, but these desires are part of Charles, who he is. I see that clearly now.
‘Strip!’ he’d barked at me as we were barely over the threshold, and my pussy turned to liquid. But as I began to unbutton my shirt, looking over at him, I was surprised to see the back of him as he walked away from me, over to the minibar to get himself a drink. He didn’t offer me one, but stood in the window gazing out at the view. I recognised that I couldn’t hold a candle to the sight of the lake at night, of the shore opposite, lit up as if by fairy lights, but I was shocked by his apparent, some might say studied, indifference.
At length, without even turning around, he said, ‘Are you ready?’
I was indeed naked by then, my clothes in heaps on the floor around me, shivering slightly with a mixture of desire and fear, mouth parched. What was he going to do with me? There was something different in the air, a kind of threat, but one that excited me. I clutched my pussy with one hand, afraid that my juices might start to rain down from me.
He turned at last, but the room was still unlit, and all I could see was his silhouette in the window, the outline of him; his face was shadowed and undecipherable. ‘To the bed,’ he said simply. Then he added, ‘On all fours.’
I didn’t answer, afraid that my voice would sound high pitched and girly and break the spell, but crossed the room and positioned myself as he had bidden. For a few moments there was silence: nothing beyond the plash-plash of the lake water against the wall of the terrace outside. Then footsteps came towards the bed; Charles still had his clothes and shoes on.
He parted my buttocks with his firm hands, as if inspecting a fruit for ripeness, then brought his face to me. I let out a cry as I felt his fingertips around it, digging in, prising me apart to allow his tongue an entry point. Unable to stop myself, I brought one hand to my clit and started vibrating it frenetically, listening to myself whimper. I didn’t know if I wanted it to stop or go on forever.
When Charles surfaced, I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do, no way in which I wouldn’t humiliate myself, to ensure that he carried on, that he concluded what he had put in motion. But of course he had no intention of stopping there. As I looked over my shoulder, I saw that he was loosening his belt buckle and then the button and fly of his expensive slacks. The cock that he unleashed was proud, majestic – I suddenly felt unworthy of it. My pussy seemed so everyday, so unexceptional: not ugly, for certain, but I’d hardly taken care of it. Charles could see a hundred better ones anywhere he cared to look. Especially in a place like this, full of idle wives free of domestic cares, with nothing better to occupy th
emselves than afternoon-long plucking, waxing and bleaching sessions at the beauty parlour.
But reminding myself that I was here, that it was me that Charles had picked out and chosen to invite on this little jaunt, I spread my knees a little wider on the bed to facilitate his explorations, to let him know that I was ready and willing, that I consented to whatever he had in mind. Within a few seconds I felt the tip of his cock pushing against my backside. Beside it, Charles’s thumbs pressed into my flesh, stretched it, inched it apart a little more at a time. It hurt, God knows it hurt, but it was a sweet-tasting kind of pain, a sublime one.
I heard Charles spit and knew he was coating his cock with his saliva. My heart thudded: I dreaded what was about to happen, feared not being able to bear it, and yet I wanted more than anything else in the world to know what it felt like. Ravi and I had seldom diverged from the most staid and conventional positions and the idea of anal sex had never even presented itself. It seems amazing now, looking back, that we lived that way for so long, but I suppose that once the rules are laid down in a relationship, the boundaries drawn, people rarely question them, and forget that other things lie beyond. I certainly had.
His cock was at me again, pushing harder now, and I felt myself begin to give, felt my muscles loosen their hold and allow Charles purchase on me. Instinctively, I pushed back and up a little, very gently, reaching back with my own hands to peel my buttocks further apart as Charles’s fingers continued to work at my opening. And then, all at once, he forged through and slid right in, and I shrieked in both pain and rapture. There was an incredible tightness to the way I fitted around his cock that felt both dangerous and full of erotic potential. There was no way, as there is with vaginal sex, when you’re not feeling into it, or when you’ve come and you’re a bit numb for a while, that you could just ignore it, just go with the ride.
Chilli Heat Page 6