On Demand

by Justine Elyot

  'We really have to tell Chase,' I decided.

  'He'll kill us!'

  'He'll kill you anyway, once the story breaks. And if I've kept it from him, he'll kill me too. Two deaths are better than three.'

  'Fuck you, Sophie!' exclaimed Jade.

  'Yeah, well, a little less fucking and we wouldn't be in this mess. I really don't see another way. At least Chase might know some people; perhaps he can do something to stop the story coming out. Don't you think he's a man with connections?'

  'I suppose,' said Maria doubtfully.

  'It won't save your jobs, but he'll do whatever it takes to avoid bad publicity for the hotel. At least your mother might avoid a heart attack.'

  'Yeah. I guess you're right,' sighed Jade.

  'You know it,' I soothed. 'Come on. Let's break the news.'

  I led the disgraced maids out through the bar, avoiding Lloyd's eye. His voice arrested our progress.

  'Are you going to talk to Dr Rock?'

  'No, we're going to talk to Chase.'

  'Seriously?' I looked at him. He was wiping a glass with a tea-towel. He managed to make wiping a glass with a tea-towel look sexy. In a hateful way.

  'No, I'm joking. This is all just a massive piss-take, after all.'

  'I mean, Chase will sack the lot of you. I really do advise you to try and get Dr Rock's people to lean on the papers first.'

  'Chase,' I said glacially, pushing my shoulders back, 'would never sack me.'

  Lloyd didn't move a muscle, the tea-towel and glass held in suspended animation for the longest seconds on record. 'Oh, Sophie,' was all he said, and the affectionate sorrow of it almost made me leap over the bar and push him over.

  'Merry Christmas.'

  The words came from the region of my thighs, and in my half-awakened state I wondered if I was still dreaming. But when I looked down, there was a messed-up head beneath the sheet, tired eyes still capable of mischief. He smiled, then I felt a whiskery prickle on the lips of my sex, and then I had the longest, lushest morning licking of my life. He was note-perfect, seeming to know my secret buttons as well as I did myself, pushing every one in series, at just the right moment.

  Once my orgasm had washed over me, he flipped me over on to my stomach and pushed at me from behind. I was quite chafed from my previous exertions, but he was careful, keeping the movements small, harvesting my juices with fingers and cockhead and using them to lubricate my well-used opening.

  'Mmm, I bet this is sore,' he said, gaining an inch of ground, his bulbous head now through the portal.

  'A bit,' I hissed, screwing up my eyes. But once he was a little further down, the sting became sweet and I opened for him despite myself.

  'How about here?' His thumb against my puckered anus; I whimpered as he broke the ring.

  'Yes, that's sore,' I confirmed.

  'You can't say you haven't been thoroughly seen to, can you, Sophie?'

  'No. Oh.'

  'And who made you this way, hmm? Who filled your poor little pussy and arse so full that you can still feel it today? Who did that to you?'

  'You . . . did . . .' My breath shortening, agony and ecstasy.

  'I did. And I'll do it again and again and again until you get the message.'

  'The message?' He was thrusting hard now, the headboard slamming the wall. Poor Mrs Treadway.

  'That you . . . should be . . . with me . . . Sophie.'

  His hand was on my neck, the other fishing at my clit. The space in front of my eyes looked blue, then purple.

  'Do you understand me?'

  'Dunno, just keep going!' I screamed. He was pulling my hair. Fuck! I love having my hair pulled when I'm being pounded from behind. How does he know? How does he know me?

  He even seemed to know the tiny throaty sound that is the prelude to my climax. His fingers swished across every possible bundle of nerves and I felt the power of his thrust hit hard, hit home, and he held back no longer, clenching momentarily then releasing inside me with a feral cry.

  I let him kiss me and coo into my ear ('You see, we're good, aren't we?') before I collapsed back into sleep.

  When I woke up, an hour or so later, I was alone beneath the sheets.

  I raised my head groggily; had he gone already? In a way, that would make things easier, but there was definitely a pang in there somewhere. Regret? Loss? Well, it didn't matter. I had to be at my grandmother's by midday. I should make a move.

  Before I could swing my leg, rather wincingly, over the side of the frame, I heard a noise. Two noises, actually. One was the gurgle of my coffee percolator. The other was . . . coming from my darkroom.

  I leapt up, not even stopping to grab a robe, and blundered into the blacked-out room. He was in there. Lloyd was in my darkroom.

  'How fucking dare you?' I yelled. 'Get out! Get out now!'

  Unfazed, he took a long, slow look at the walls. Papered with photographs of Chase – different versions of the one he let me take for the hotel brochure. A veritable Warhol tribute, made of nobody else but Chase, Chase, Chase. Yes, it made me look obsessed. It made me look like a crazed stalker. But I was not so much embarrassed as enraged at being found out in my pathetic infatuation this way.

  'Why are you still here?' I fumed, picking up a tray of developing fluid, preparing to fling it in Lloyd's face.

  'Don't waste your time on Chase,' he said, ducking as a wall of red and black Chases were drenched in the liquid. 'He isn't right for you.'

  'What are you, match dot com? Fuck off! I never want to see you again. Get back to your poor bitch of a girlfriend and leave me alone.'

  I ran to the door and flung it open, then gathered up his coat and boots and hurled them on to the landing. I stood naked in the doorway, ranting and raving, until Lloyd, shaking his head and fixing me with a piercing eye, left the flat. Just as Mrs Treadway's friends-and-relations appeared on the stairwell bearing gifts.

  'Merry fucking Christmas!' I shrieked at their stunned faces before slamming the door shut and sobbing on the floor until it was time to leave.

  We marched past Lloyd and his odious I-know-better-than-thou smug mug, onward to the lair of Chase.

  'Why are you so horrible to him?' Jade asked, despite her imminent unemployed status. 'He really likes you, you know.'

  'He does not.'

  'How can you say that after that pool party? That was the most chemistry I ever saw since . . . a chemistry lesson,' she finished lamely.

  'Never mind chemistry, prepare for an explosion,' I said grimly, knocking on the door of the inner sanctum.

  'Enter.' His voice still gave me the shivers. As did his steely under-the-spectacles stare. 'Is this important, Sophie? I'm very busy.'

  'I'm afraid so,' I said apologetically. 'Something potentially embarrassing to the brand has happened.'

  'Really? Come in.' Chase was fixated on 'the brand' and its image, to the point of issuing long directives concerning what we were and were not allowed to tell outsiders.

  The three of us made a sheepish journey over to the desk, where two of us stood wringing our hands.

  'It's unfortunate,' I opened, keeping my tone bright and breezy, 'but probably salvageable. A press photographer has managed to get some shots of Jade and Maria here, in the company of Dr Rock.'

  Chase put down his pen and leant forward. 'In the company? By which you mean . . .?'

  It was pretty obvious from the rich scarlet of the maids' complexions what I meant. I smiled wanly. He did not smile back.

  'Were you in uniform?'

  'Partly.'

  'Not completely undressed?'

  'No.'

  He drew in a sharp breath. 'And the photos depict what, exactly?'

  Jade spoke up. 'Well, um, Dr Rock is, uh, having sex with Maria. And I'm . . . sitting on her face.'

  Chase's eyebrows. Gawd.

  'Compromising, then,' he said with the kind of heavy sarcasm you could not contemplate laughing at.

  'And . . . oh, you forgot to say, Jade,' s
aid Maria, almost inaudibly, 'about the money. You were holding money, that he'd given you. I think the photographer might have caught it.'

  Chase could do nothing but stare for upwards of a vomit-inducing minute.

  'You prostitute yourselves to the clients?' he said at last.

  'Not usually for money!' I defended them.

  He turned to me, freezing me to ice. 'You mean . . . it's a regular occurrence? And you know about it?'

  'I . . . know they sometimes pull one or two of the famous names. I . . . thought you would have turned a blind eye. So I did too.'

  'You thought wrong, Sophie. I see I have some calls to make. Where was the photographer from?'

  'Sauce on Sunday,' we all muttered.

  'Perfect. Jade. Maria. Collect your things and leave.'

  'Yes, Sir,' they whispered, clutching each other's hands as they turned to leave.

  'They didn't mean to . . .' I started, but he cut in, his voice a blade.

  'You too. Get your things and get out.'

  I literally staggered forward, my mouth agape, no words forming for what seemed like aeons.

  'You can't mean it?'

  'I can. Go, before I call Security.'

  'But I thought! We were! You know! That you!' Somehow everything was coming out in exclamatory jerks.

  'I know what you thought.' One long finger hovered over the intercom button. 'Shall I call them? Or can you go quietly?'

  It seemed I could not, because without thinking or feeling or knowing anything of what I was doing, I collapsed in a heap on the carpet and began keening like a banshee.

  When a hand fell on my shoulder, I expected roughness and pushing and shoving, but the hand stayed there while its owner began talking to Chase. I was not even listening at first, too wrapped up in hysterical woe, but my ears began to prick up when the voice appeared to belong to Lloyd.

  '. . . your famous last stand? Because it isn't a very glorious one, if it is.'

  'Get out, Ellison. I have no intention of discussing personnel issues with my cocktail waiter.'

  'Enjoy your final few moments as manager, Chase. Sophie will be a fixture here for a lot longer than you will.'

  'Get out! Get out!' I had never heard shrillness from Chase before; even in the throes of my darkest hour, I had to satisfy my curiosity and look up. His usually impassive face was transformed into a mask of rabid panic. There was even spittle in the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a good look. He was jabbing the button for Security so hard I thought it might break.

  Lloyd pulled me up by the shoulder and began to escort me from the room, turning at the door to deliver a parting shot.

  'I might call the papers myself. I know a story they might find interesting.'

  Chase threw a paperweight with some force, narrowly missing Lloyd's head as we bolted through the door and towards the bar. My cocktail champion steered me past the leather banquettes and the marble-topped counter, past the gleaming mirrors and the tasteful Christmas decorations into the stock room again. We slid down on to the floor together, backs to a tower of wine boxes, and he held me while I choked and spluttered on his shoulder.

  Once his shirtsleeve was completely drenched and my tear ducts drier than the Sahara, I raised my puffy face to his.

  'What was all that about?'

  Lloyd kissed the tip of my nose. 'Chase won't be here much longer,' he said.

  'Why not?'

  'He has debts. Enormous debts, to the wrong kind of people. At first they were personal debts, but he's been dipping into the hotel takings as well.'

  'What? How on earth do you know this?'

  'I needed a second income, so I have a sideline working in a casino. Not a legit casino, though. A private gambling club on the other side of the park. Chase is a member.'

  'Oh! Is it above a peep show?'

  Lloyd widened his eyes questioningly, but I was not about to give away the secrets of my stalker past.

  'Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Let's just say that Chase's luck has not been in lately. He is way down. Too far down. The owners want their money back. And the hotel shareholders don't know what's been going on. At least, not yet.'

  'Shit. How . . . is he going to pay them? What if he can't?'

  Lloyd mimed a throat-cutting slash. 'I've a feeling he might have a flight booked for later on,' he said. 'To somewhere very, very far away.'

  'Blimey.' We sat in sombre silence, ignoring the pleas of the junior barman for some help out there. 'I think I need a cigarette.'

  'You don't smoke.'

  'No, but let's get out of here anyway. Let's go outside.'

  Behind the kitchens there was a yard cowering in the shadow of the multi-storey hugeness of the Luxe Noir. It housed bins and laundry hampers, but beyond a wicket gate was a small herb garden with a stone fountain at the centre. We went to sit on its plinth. Lloyd offered me a cigarette, but I didn't really want one. He lit one for himself, breathing in deeply and exhaling a wavy blue column of unspoken tension.

  'Filthy habit,' I remarked.

  'Not that you'd know about those,' he parried, flicking ash on to the hard, cold earth. 'You won't lose your job,' he said ruminatively. 'I'm pretty sure the new manager would want to keep you on.'

  'I just can't believe it. I can't take it in. Chase. I thought he had some kind of pervy secret sex life. Nothing like this.'

  'You would think that,' said Lloyd, ruefully affectionate. 'Sex-mad Sophie.'

  'Lewd Lloyd.' Comparisons with the driven snow were rarely drawn when Lloyd was the topic of discussion.

  'I'd say we were pretty well suited, wouldn't you?'

  'Oh, don't start.'

  'Don't start? I've started already. We've started already. And now I can't stop.'

  I shut my eyes and breathed in the smoke, wincing when its harshness hit the back of my throat. Tar and nicotine, a source of strength and comfort to millions. Perhaps I should try it.

  'What do you mean, you can't stop? If I say you have to, you have to.'

  'Why? Why do I have to? What are you afraid of?'

  'Afraid? I'm afraid of his 'n' hers bathrobes. They terrify me.'

  Lloyd chuckled and dragged deep on his cigarette. He looked sexy and rumpled and a bit dangerous. I could feel victory slipping away from me.

  'Well, I share your horror of all that. I promise I'd never make you wear a matching bathrobe.'

  'No, but maybe you'd spend all night watching Match of the Day while I manicure my nails and read Take a Break.'

  'Nope. Not a big football fan, to be honest. Too much commitment required. And if I caught you reading Take a Break I'd spank you.'

  Laughter bubbled inside me; the kind of ridiculous, frothy laughter you get when you realise you might be unexpectedly in love with somebody. He stubbed out the fag with the sole of his boot, turned to me and grabbed my wrist.