by Primula Bond
‘You think I put on this expensive silky negligee just to show my top half?’ Mrs Weinmeyer’s tongue flickers over her mouth as she drifts across the thick Persian rug and brushes my hair off my hot face. ‘We only just got started, sugar. And I think full frontal is what we’re after, know what I mean? The whole body. We should have made it clearer. I was just getting comfortable with you, I guess.’ She pats her stiff yellow hair, pushes her gown a little off her shoulder, and floats out of the room towards the hallway. ‘I’ll go and make sure the bordello room is ready.’
‘You look a little flustered. Why so coy, Serena?’ Mr Weinmeyer puts his hand on mine as I’m about to pack up my equipment. ‘The photographs in your exhibition were horny as hell. You hang out with Gustav Levi, and he knows a thing or two about the seamier side of life. You don’t have me fooled, even if my wife thinks butter wouldn’t melt in this tasty mouth of yours.’
I look at his hand resting lightly there. Asserting its authority. He is the customer, which ought to mean that he is always right.
I look him in the eye. He is like a Bond villain. Aryan, impenetrable, powerful. Probably armed. ‘I get to choose what stance to take when viewing my subjects, and it’s usually at a distance. I’ve never got up close and personal before.’
‘Interacted with them, you mean? Well, there’s always a first time. Now, you’re perspiring, I can see it. Let’s take this jacket off you. This scarf. I think this thick jumper, too?’
He tosses my outdoor garments onto a chair then leads me out to the hallway, past the stairs and round to another set of stairs descending into the basement. The first thrill of alarm shivers through me.
I steady my voice. ‘Like I say. My speciality is watching, you know? Unobserved?’
‘Ah yes. Gustav said. It’s your USP, he reckons, for such a young pro. But we saw that for ourselves at the exhibition on London. The voyeur. Spying, in other words?’
‘They don’t know I’m watching. My subjects. That’s the point. I catch them unawares. I can’t direct them. I just let them get on with what they’re doing.’
‘I like it. Your subjects. Queen Serena.’ He laughs, and pushes me ahead of him down the stairs. ‘That’s exactly what we want you to do now.’
The stairwell is painted blood red and adorned with rich oil paintings full of plump, naked nymphs and goddesses by Titian and Tintoretto being ravished by swans and incubi and fauns. The stairs lead into a room with walls and low ceilings padded in red velvet and lit by the fractured glints from red glass chandeliers. My ribs contract for a moment. Something about it reminds me of Margot’s room of pain in the chalet in Lugano. Perhaps it’s just the fact that it’s hidden away. Probably soundproof. Down here, nobody could hear you scream.
But where Margot’s was designed for single-minded brutal punishment, all bare floors and walls, unforgiving lighting and an arsenal of weaponry with one intention in mind, this frilly bordello, as Mrs Weinmeyer called it, was designed for pleasure. It is all softness and comfort, seductive lighting. And sex.
Mrs Weinmeyer herself is already in position, reclining on a vast bed that takes up most of the room and could easily accommodate eight or ten participants. Her filmy dress has fallen away from her pert white body. I can’t take my eyes off the small jut of her breasts, the flat stomach, the thighs loose and relaxed.
‘We want you to portray us in a really sexy, edgy light so we have something to amuse us and our friends on these cold winter nights.’
Mr Weinmeyer laughs. ‘It’s not even mid-morning yet, cherie.’
She giggles and stretches one leg up in the air like a ballerina. ‘So decadent, yes? Living a half-life under the ground when everyone else is rushing round the city, stressed, strained. Not us. We no longer have to stress and strain for what we want. Which reminds me. How about something punchy and potent to drink. Get us going, huh, sugar?’
She hands me a big glass Venetian goblet, red of course.
‘Thank you. Perhaps when I’ve finished the shoot. Why don’t you get comfortable?’
I unfold my tripod, pace round the room testing the very dim light with my meter, and then aim the camera at the bed. Mr and Mrs Weinmeyer are already arranged amongst the pillows, lying back, legs entwined, and gulping from their goblets. They are the epitome of elegance. Except that his muscular body is naked bar a pair of tight white boxers.
I bend to peer through my camera. ‘Edgy,’ I croak. ‘Right.’
‘And we thought mainly monochrome? Tasteful, but pushing the envelope to the limit.’
Mrs Weinmeyer has hooked one leg over Mr Weinmeyer’s thigh, and they are kissing. Slowly, their tongues sliding in and out of each other’s mouths like they are licking ice-cream. They pause, tongues curled at the tips, and glance at me, eyebrows raised. My God. They really are like Siamese cats. Polly with her white blonde crop and crystal eyes would match them perfectly.
My mind seems permanently anchored to this new, perverted train of thought. Polly really would think I’d taken leave of every last sense if she thought I was setting her up, even theoretically, in a threesome. She was the one who taught me the facts of life, huddled cross-legged on the cold Devon beach amongst the cigarette butts. She was the one who told me about blowjobs, demonstrating with her bananas. She was the one who let her new boyfriend feel her up in front of all her London friends just a few months ago. Yet she can’t seem to cope with his scars.
And it’s her ignorant little country cousin who’s alone in a room with two of the richest, most debauched people in North America.
My finger trembles slightly. The meter is running. I charge by the hour, and then a further rate for the preparation and development of the pictures. So I start shooting, and once I’m in my stride the rest of the world, already far away, recedes even further from this sumptuous room.
Above us Gotham City marches on, the thrusting metropolis that never sleeps. Somewhere out there Gustav has cut his call to Mr Weinmeyer. Is he wishing he was here at the Weinmeyers’ house, watching? Has he been here before? Has he ever been into this boudoir of delight?
There is a murmur and a squeal from my clients, arousing each other on the bed. I try to drag my mind away from my lover. Not to picture the rickety girders of the High Line and Gustav at his meeting in the echoing space of a converted shed in the Meatpacking District. He hasn’t told me what he’s up to, but the fingertips that can make my nipples hard just by hovering over them will be drumming on the surface of the conference table as some cocky risk-taker outlines their plans for the future. Or a young, green hopeful like me. A twinge of jealousy pricks me. What if he happens upon another female ingénue in the course of his talent-spotting, ripe for the plucking?
I can’t go for more than about ten minutes without thinking about him. I must learn to park him well away from my mind.
I can now hear soft piano music playing. Mozart or Chopin, I’m not sure which, but the notes ripple up and down the octaves and pause, wind around the room. Now piano, now forte. Actually, the sensual ambience in here is perfect, like some kind of drug, because I’m relaxing too.
Mr Weinmeyer’s hand peels his wife’s negligee over her bottom, showing me her ballerina’s thighs and buttocks and the pinkness between. Then he stops kissing her, reclines against the huge pillows and lifts her easily on top of him.
I think of Gustav, lifting my naked, slippery body in the warm, bubbling water of our Jacuzzi. Tying me to our huge bed with the silver chain.
Mrs Weinmeyer strips off her flimsy garment, twists it rapidly in the air as if she’s making pizza dough and reduces it to a strip of cloth that she winds over Mr Weinmeyer’s eyes and fastens in a big bow behind his head. A huge dirty grin spreads across his face, and his blinded fingers explore her dark crevices, fan over his wife’s bottom. I slow the shutter speed to get some of this not only in soft focus but actually blurred, to reflect how sexy this is, and yet intensely, deeply loving.
I can feel dampness seeping into my
knickers. My jeans feel too tight. Mrs Weinmeyer’s white bottom opens slightly as her husband rocks her over his groin. My hands are sweaty, and I lower my camera for a moment.
‘No, no, keep shooting.’ Mrs Weinmeyer is breathless. She keeps her blue eyes fixed on me over her shoulder. Her thighs soften, open a little wider.
Mr Weinmeyer lifts his wife off him for a moment. In one clean movement she whips his shorts off and lands lightly down again, sliding straight onto the erection quivering in waiting. I take a fantastic shot of Mrs Weinmeyer’s long white arm launching the white shorts into the air as if freeing a dove. She bangs herself hard down onto her husband, making his body jerk helplessly beneath her, but she’s not ready to let go quite yet. She rummages under one of the enormous red cushions and flourishes a pair of leopardskin-covered handcuffs. Nestling down on him she snaps the cuffs around his wrists and fixes them to a discreet hook fixed to the wall behind his head.
Weird shocked laughter catches in my throat. Gustav should have hooks like that in the apartment to attach the silver chain.
Mrs Weinmeyer joins in my laughter. Now she’s like a rider on a bucking bronco, a position I love, but these two are so quiet, so graceful, choreographed in slow motion like a dance. It’s sexy as hell, but you couldn’t exactly call it dirty.
It’s so warm down here. Even my silk long-sleeved T-shirt is sticking to me. I roll the sleeves up, pull at the boat neck.
What would Polly say? For the first time ever the question stalls. Once she’d have been taking notes, demanded that I give her every gory detail, but something’s changed in her. I have no idea what she’d say about this scenario. She’d either tell me to join in or get the hell out. There was something so contrived about the way she writhed on Pierre’s lap and flashed her knickers the other night as he groped her.
What about Gustav? What would he say? Do the Weinmeyers have a reputation for kidnapping new talent for sexual slavery? Did he know when he waved goodbye from the corner of the Dakota building that I was wandering into a den of debauchery? Is that why he called Mr Weinmeyer just now? Is this another test to open my mind, hold my nerve?
Mrs Weinmeyer rocks faster, her body sliding easily as Mr Weinmeyer enters her. I step round them as quietly as I can, seeing, catching, shooting. This is my job. Gustav will have to accept it. My body is tight with excitement at the sight of this elegant, white-limbed couple entwining in front of me, to be forever frozen in the act of riding each other on the big red bed deep beneath Manhattan.
Her bottom gyrates over him. His hands pull half-heartedly against the handcuffs but he doesn’t want to escape. I take a close-up of his hands, clawed, the tendons in his wrists standing out from the tender underside as if he’s being tortured, but straining as if that gives him leverage and rhythm as his wife works her thighs and butt. I squeeze my legs together as the pair accelerate their pace, the little muscles flexing in her slim back, his legs lifting and falling, his toes curling in response as the two of them move soundlessly.
Mrs Weinmeyer waves her hands wildly in the air and although they’re making no sound I realise from the way her head is falling back and his legs are bending and kicking up under her that they’re coming in perfect harmony. I rub up between my legs, I can’t help it. I tremble in the corner, biting my lip to keep from moaning out loud, until they’ve stopped moving. They remain totally still. The porcelain shepherd and his shepherdess enacting a scene from the Kama Sutra.
‘Hey, sugar,’ coos Mrs Weinmeyer after a few moments, flicking her hair away from her face. ‘Come over here. All this lovin’ making you horny?’
‘Ingrid,’ growls Mr Weinmeyer, ‘you’re coming on all southern belle. You were born in Vienna, for God’s sake!’
She sniggers, her pink lips curling back over sharp little teeth like a yawning cat. ‘And I prefer it when you come on all silent Aryan beefcake. Hey, Serena. Come round this side of the camera, why don’t you? Come sit with us.’
I don’t move for a moment.
‘I’d like to see the images so far,’ she soothes. ‘See how well they’ve come out.’
She’s the client. Remember that, Folkes. Remember that they are certainly going to report back to Gustav. I’m sure that’s what he’s requested, no matter how vehemently he denies having anything to do with this commission. Rule number three. Never disobey or displease the client. Especially a very rich, well-connected client whose home you are in.
Mrs Weinmeyer casually unclips her husband from the handcuffs and unties the scarf from around his head. His eyes are closed as he lies quietly beneath her. He looks asleep. She pats the bed. I can’t refuse. I take a slug of the red liquid from the Venetian goblet and it is such a rich, herbal wine punch that it goes straight to my head and I topple slightly onto the deep cushions, falling onto my side.
Mr Weinmeyer grunts and rolls away, leaving Mrs Weinmeyer lying where he was. Letting me fall on top of her.
Before I can right myself Mrs Weinmeyer has pulled me closer to her, and now we’re lying side by side like a couple of girlfriends at a sleepover. She takes the camera and scrolls through the images on the screen.
‘These are great, honey. I could come all over again, just looking at them.’ She hands the camera back to me and I take a look. Clicking through them rapidly makes them into a stream of moving images and yes, it’s very sexy to see the two of them, so white against the red bedding, rapidly humping.
‘Oh, you spilled some punch on your cool top.’ Mrs Weinmeyer takes the camera off me, slips my T-shirt over my shoulders and while she’s at it unclips my bra too, and throws both items across the room. I’m dizzy with the drink and the heat, and before I can move or cover myself she is pulling me down, brushing my bare breasts across her closed eyelids.
‘Mrs Weinmeyer, what are you – what do you want me to—?’
‘Just relax, sugar. Just playing with you a little. Indulge us. Indulge yourself. You’re so gorgeous, don’t you know it? Gustav knows it, that’s for dang sure. The reputation he has. No one really knows him, but everyone wants to. I’m guessing he’s a wild one, isn’t he? What will he say, I wonder, when you tell him all about this job? Because you must tell him, sugar. Never have secrets. Mr Weinmeyer and I have no secrets. This was his fantasy, two girls, and now it’s mine. So we are always looking for lovely young women to join us.’ She smiles, seeing how her voice is hypnotising me. ‘Ever done this before? Ever been paid for it?’
‘No, not for this. You’re not paying me for sex. You’re paying me for my work!’
‘Absolutely, and marvellous work it is, too, darling. We’ll want all the shots. They’re fantastic. But right now? We want your cute little ass.’
I’m losing my willpower. I’m so warm and dozy. I wonder if Gustav knows exactly how far the Weinmeyers are trying to take me? I try to twist round to see what Mr Weinmeyer is doing, but Mrs Weinmeyer’s hands are on my back and she’s pulling me down, her lips nibbling the round flesh of my breasts with the merest touch of a butterfly, tickling with her fingertips, her eyelashes, even her hair. I’m holding my breath. I’m also thrusting myself towards Mrs Weinmeyer’s mouth. My nipples are dark points in the dim light. I like them to be sucked. Gustav never does it enough. Mrs Weinmeyer’s lips are running over them as if she knows. She’s about to take one into her mouth.
But I pull away frantically. I want her to do it, more than anything. But how can I? It’s kinky, and naughty. Unprofessional at best, unfaithful at worst.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Weinmeyer. I can’t do this. I’ve never done this. With a woman. With strangers.’
‘Strangers? We’re not strangers any more!’
Mrs Weinmeyer stares up at me as if I’m a tasty morsel, and then her tongue flicks out, just touching one burning nipple before flicking in again. I moan out loud before I can stop myself. Embarrassed? I should co-co. But incredibly turned on.
Behind me Mr Weinmeyer plants his hands on my bottom and cups the cheeks and then I feel him reach
ing round to undo the top button of my jeans. I’m burning up with humiliation, but I can’t get away from him because now Mrs Weinmeyer is drawing my nipple into her lovely pink mouth. Mr Weinmeyer pauses, as if for permission.
Mrs Weinmeyer gives one sharp nod, nipping me and making me squeal. So the big blond tycoon has to ask his wife first? What about my permission? Her husband starts to lower the zip, ease my jeans over my hips. I want to jerk away from him, but I can’t move.
Mrs Weinmeyer senses my unease and massages my breasts a little harder, sucks very gently now on one aching bud, then the other.
My jeans are halfway down my buttocks. I’m hanging between them, their easy plaything. Enough of me is exposed now, because Mr Weinmeyer starts to rub himself against my soft butt. His penis is long, and slim, already hard. And it’s the alien feel of his manhood that finally brings me properly to my senses. I don’t want it. I don’t want any other man. I can’t have any other man.
‘Stop, please. I can’t do this. This isn’t why I’m here.’ I pull away abruptly, feel Mrs Weinmeyer’s teeth still nipping sharply at me. ‘Gustav would kill me if he found out.’
I fall off the edge of the bed, stand up swiftly, buttoning my jeans. I stand for a moment, staring down at their calm, watching faces. My breasts are bare, bouncing frantically with my breath, my nipples taut and sore, shining with her saliva. I scuttle about, locating my discarded clothes and holding them in a bunch in front of me. I can’t find my bra, but I don’t want to fuss about that now. I fumble for my camera. Not so cool and professional now, eh, Folkes. What now? How do I leave? How do I make this polite yet firm?
They have moved back into each other’s arms, lying calmly on the bed watching me.
‘Au contraire, sugar. Gustav will be proud of you when we report back. You’ve passed the test with flying colours. He dismissed any idea of you succumbing when I ran the idea past him, and he was right. You’ve learned from the master.’ Mrs Weinmeyer laughs, licking her lips one more time as I pull the T-shirt over my head. ‘Not even he would let his libido get in the way of a good deal.’