by Primula Bond
‘My God, Serena, that’s the whole bloody problem! You’d shatter the Louis XIV mirrors in their elegant dining room with your gorgeousness! You’d rattle the silverware out of their walnut cabinets. You just don’t get the effect you are beginning to have on people!’
‘Take those jeans right off then, and show me the effect I’m having on you,’ I croon, pulling my T-shirt slowly up my stomach. ‘And then show me what you’ve been doing in that club, you naughty boy.’
He kicks his jeans off and now he’s only covered by his tight-fitting black boxers. He kneels down on the cushions near me, tugging on the silver chain so that I come closer.
‘They have a basement bar where the word cocktail takes on a whole new meaning. Men can choose their tipple, and have their way with the hired help right there in front of the others.’
‘So far, so kinky.’ I wriggle up to him, hook my fingers in the waistband of his boxers. ‘Do the women have any say in who chooses them?’
‘Absolutely not. They are totally subservient. Unless they are told to pick another woman, in which case yes, they can take whoever tickles their fancy. Oh, my God,’ he groans suddenly as my fingers touch his warm skin and start to pull at his boxers. ‘They would all want you, Serena. In the bar, in the party room, in the smoking den. You’d never get out of there alive!’
I straddle his lap so that his erection jabs into my stomach. ‘So what do you suggest I do about it, master? Strap on a chastity belt? A suit of armour? Go dressed as a man? Because you are not going to stop me.’
I grind against him. I take his face in my hands as I move, keeping my eyes on his until he calms a little, comes to heel.
‘OK, I surrender. Photographing inside the Club Crème will be your most prestigious commission yet, and I can’t deny you this chance to prove your mettle. We’re partners, remember?’ He leans towards me, and runs his tongue across my mouth. ‘So you can go, you wicked little witch, but I will most definitely be accompanying you.’
‘As my green-card-faking assistant with the awful Spanish accent?’ I rub against his body. ‘Or as my tooled-up minder?’
‘As a fully paid-up member. In every sense of the word.’ He winds my hair round his fist. ‘And as your secret consort.’
‘Right. Talking of members,’ I whisper, running the hand tied with the silver chain idly over his warm, flat stomach. ‘All this horny talk is doing it for you, I can see.’
He laughs softly. His shorts are straining to contain his arousal, but he pushes me onto my back and with one deft yank he removes my jeans and knickers. Excitement quickens inside me as he pulls off my socks so that I am naked from the waist down. Then he starts to lick his way up the inside of my legs, blowing hot breath onto my cold skin. He stops just above my knees, pushing my legs further open.
‘I think I could handle seeing that again. You with a girl. Or two.’ His fingers continue their way upwards, and I squeal and wriggle as they reach their target.
‘That’s called having your cake and eating it. How would you feel about seeing me with another man? Like we discussed before?’ I bite my lip. ‘I mean, in a controlled situation. Like with the Weinmeyers, but probably not the Weinmeyers.’
‘You’re not making sense, Serena.’
I close my thighs over his stroking fingers. ‘I mean if you were there with me. Watching, maybe even participating. We’re in this great big dirty city, Gustav. We can do whatever the hell we like! But I never want to hurt you. Would playing with fire like that count as infidelity?’
Gustav’s dark hair falls over his face as he leans over me in his wolf pose, on all fours, his shoulders hunched into hackles, his mouth slightly open but the lips drawn tight, white teeth trapping his tongue. He wrenches my legs further open, hands clamped down on me, thumbs running up and down my skin as if he’s both imprisoning and tuning a harp.
‘I’m just putting it out there. Just playing with the idea. I don’t mean to make you angry,’ I pretend to whimper, trying to catch his hands. ‘I don’t know how these things, these clubs, work. I’m just talking about assignments that I can control.’
He cups my softness for a moment, not speaking, still running his finger up and down possessively until I can feel the spring of wetness, and then he removes his hand, strokes it over my stomach, my breasts, pushes my arms down, frames my face.
‘I’ll do anything to keep you happy and by my side, Serena. You’re beautiful and smart, and you’re mine. I’m reluctant to share you, God knows, but you are so young. If you really want some adventure, some experiment, then I have to allow it.’
I lie very still as his fingers work on me. I don’t want to distract or divert him while his mind is working like this. ‘But you got so upset and jealous when I told you about my little session with the Weinmeyers.’
‘Yes I did, but now I’m asking myself why I was surprised. Everyone in Manhattan, in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Venice, knows exactly what those two are like. And since then, and since your girlie session with Princess Emilia and her consort, I’ve had time to think. And what I realise is how seriously I underestimated you. My God, the Weinmeyers must have been so impressed that you resisted them, not to mention frustrated! You were being faithful to me, weren’t you, my angel? Really I should reward you for being true to me. I should show you how much I trust you. But I have to be there. I have to know everything that happens to you.’
He is deadly serious, and I love knowing that he wants to watch over me all the time, but he can’t hide a tinge of dark sadness in his eyes.
‘Forget it, Gustav. I’ll cancel the commission at the Club Crème.’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’
‘So what do you want me to do? You want me to be faithful, but you want me to do things that might hurt you. I don’t even know what I want to try. Girls? Boys?’ I murmur in confusion. ‘You’re my man, Gustav. I will always want you by my side. Watching over me. Even if I do something like that, go off-piste, I will never lie to you.’
He regards me for a long moment, his face very pale in the flickering firelight. Then he bends over me. I arch upwards for a kiss, but he slowly pushes up my T-shirt, unclips my bra, lets my breasts rise up into the flickering firelight.
‘No. I owe it to you to allow you more freedom, so long as I can handle it. So long as whatever happens is within certain boundaries.’
I yank at the silver chain to bring him closer to me. ‘And those are?’
‘We’ll make that up as we go along. A tweak on the chain every so often will keep you in check. But it might surprise you to know that the idea of watching you discovering yourself is making me hard.’ He chuckles, relaxing at last. ‘But I think you’ll know if you’ve gone too far when the time comes. Because it will either feel right or it will feel very, very wrong. And when that happens, you will be punished.’
I squirm with pleasure and push my breasts up at him. ‘Promise?’
He kneels over me, runs the palms of his hands over my hardening nipples. I push harder, waiting for him to touch them or kiss them. But abruptly he flicks his fingers, shows me something shiny and glinting in his hand, and all at once there’s a stinging bite on each little bud.
Gustav puts his hand over my mouth.
‘Nipple clamps, darling. Just to give you a taste of what to expect. If you ever do come across the more dominating female of the species in the club or in other little games, she may want to play with these. But I want to be the first one to use them on you. See? Painful, aren’t they? Think of them as Princess Robinson’s little teeth taking a bite.’
The sting eases into a deep, red-hot throbbing. Gustav watches me for what seems like ages, and then I hear the smooth slide of his shorts and the warm thump landing on my thigh. I arch myself harder, hook at him with my legs, and he kisses me at last, his mouth warm and wet on mine, his tongue pushing in deep as his body echoes that and he groans before entering me with one hard thrust.
The nipple clamps are more like
terrier’s teeth than any girl’s, worrying at me with exquisite pain that radiates from my nipples through my breasts into my ribs and bones, growing duller but no less insistent the further inside me it reaches. I lift beneath my lover, embracing him as he presses deeper inside me and swift climax starts to wash towards me.
‘Not so fast, young lady. You must wait for me.’
I reach for him blindly, my mouth seeking his. His warm skin is slippery on mine as he pushes harder, faster, his hands roving over me to keep me in the position he wants me, and he’s huge now, and as I cling to him he draws back, his hips slowly rocking back and forth, and at last we are in harmony again, two parts of the same machine, his dark, solemn head steady above mine as his black eyes own me and he increases his speed.
I feast my eyes on the muscles rippling in his arms, his neck, his eyes as they glaze over, and then we’re slamming into each other, he is moaning my name, my body filled, his face dark with the effort of holding on, and then he makes a soft low groan as he lets loose and my climax meets his.
I let him sleep for a while. I would love to sleep too, but my nipples are in agony now. I slide out from under him and pull the clamps off, watching the tortured points subside gratefully from heated scarlet back to pale pink, from stiff to soft. My thighs are sticky with mingled juices as I trail the silver chain after me and step into the shower to douse myself for a long time in warm water, flinching as the soap touches the sore parts of me.
I smile at my reflection as I think over the day. Over the promise of the days ahead. The potential of the Club Crème for all kinds of wickedness, all under the watching eyes of my Gustav. Time to remind him that if he wants to accompany me on future assignments, then I need free rein. He can watch. And I’ll make sure he’s turned on by what he sees. I will be the voyeur, viewed.
And I chuckle to think of Emilia Robinson, soon to be a married woman, carrying all that fake innocence, all those hidden lusts, bringing Rosaria to her marital bed. All the people in this dirty old town, up to no good. There’s no such thing as virtue here, it seems.
Virginal girlhood, my ass.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It’s next to impossible to tear myself away from this place. I glance at my watch. I’ve been here since the doors opened but there’s still so much I want to see. Polly probably won’t mind if I keep her waiting but I don’t like being late for anyone. And I can always come back another day. This city is my home for now. The International Center of Photography isn’t going anywhere.
The permanent collections here make my current crop of portraits look like holiday snaps, but that’s not going to defeat me. It’s galvanising me all the more. My first exhibition in London has been a sell-out, after all. The Park Avenue princesses and the Robinsons have already referred me to new clients here in Manhattan and others as far away as Paris. The assignment at Club Crème is coming up in a few days.
And the Weinmeyers have been in touch just this morning to arrange a meeting to go through the proofs of our session. And to offer me a new commission.
Little do they know that Weinmeyer has swiftly become a code word for me and Gustav to instigate particularly rough, argumentative sex spiced up by a running commentary. He figures that if we talk enough about the Weinmeyer predilection for one-man-two-women threesomes, I won’t be tempted to try it. But he’s the one who sowed the seed. And the idea is sticking. Something to save up for.
I dance a little jig on the spot. This evening he wants me to dress in a crinkled silk chiffon dress from Ralph Lauren that’s hanging in my wardrobe. Then he’s taking me across the park to the jazz bar in the Carlyle Hotel to listen to Woody Allen playing the clarinet with his band.
I push out into the cold white midday light and hurry up Sixth Avenue to the Rockefeller Center. Today I’m wearing the Dr Zhivago white hat and white jacket that Crystal kitted me out in when I went to Lugano last November, because Polly and I have decided to behave like tourists and go up to the top of the Rock before hitting the ice rink.
She’s standing by the ticket kiosk and I see her before she sees me. It’s only been a couple of weeks since New Year’s Eve, but I’m taken aback. She’s wearing a neon-pink bobble hat with matching jacket, her legs skinny as sticks in a pair of white jeans exactly like mine. But contrasting with, or maybe because of, those jolly bright colours she looks haggard and pale. She is flipping the tickets in her hand as she waits for me, and as she stares into space there is a fractured look of dejection.
‘Hey, babes, sorry I’m late!’
I rush to hug her. I can feel her shoulder blades poking through the padded pink jacket. She clings onto me, her cold cheek pressed against mine. I recall the Halloween party back in London when she was in her element, dressed up to the nines and pirouetting through the racks of lacy dresses and feather boas in Pierre’s new London outlet. She was the hostess with the mostest that night. Now she won’t let me go. We stand there, buffeted by the crowds, her thin arms twined round my neck.
‘Hey, move along there, sisters!’ someone yells at us, and finally we break apart.
We join the queue to get up to the top of the Rockefeller Center, and I feel her staring at me.
‘You OK, Pol?’ I ask, surprised at the nervous quiver in my voice. ‘I’m worried about you. I wondered if everything was all right with you on New Year’s Eve, actually. You don’t seem yourself.’
She shakes her head but we are then marshalled into the crowded lift before she can reply. We shoot upwards as if we’re in a rocket going to the stars.
‘Don’t bother about me. We were all a bit on edge that night. A lot to get our heads round. But forget all that. You’re on top of the world up here. Come and see!’ she cries, grabbing my arm.
For the next half hour we are buffeted by the high winds circling the viewing platform. You can see it all from here. The impressive, solid Empire State Building may be fifteen or so blocks away but it looks close enough to touch. Below us the New York cabs scuttle up and down the straight lines of the city streets like yellow bugs, while planted at the mouth of the harbour the Statue of Liberty waving on her plinth looks like a tiny jade Thumbelina.
‘If I screw my eyes up I reckon I can see our apartment from here.’ I point to the west side of Central Park, and glance at Polly to see if she’s following my finger. ‘Maybe even Gustav’s telescope!’
‘Oh, change the record! All that domestic bliss gives me vertigo.’ Polly turns her back on the stunning vista laid out at our feet and stares at me. ‘But Gustav is doing something right. The change in you is phenomenal. I love your hair grown so long. It’s like golden syrup. All those years when my aunt and uncle used to sit you in the kitchen with a pudding bowl and hack it all off as soon as it reached your collar. They hated it, didn’t they? Called you an ugly ginger.’
I clutch onto one of the eyeglasses set along the parapet. I attempt to peer through it, to see if I can spy our flag. But all I can see is a circle of blackness. I swallow to try and keep calm. ‘Why bring that up?’
‘Just the contrast between then and now.’ She reaches out and touches a strand of my hair. ‘You look as if you’re lit up from within, you know. Your eyes are sparkling. Your skin is peachy.’
I flinch away. Not so much from her hand, but the jarring note in her voice. ‘You make me sound like a prize springer spaniel!’
‘I’m a stylist. I advise on beauty for a living, remember? My job is about people’s looks. Styling them, improving them so they look good for their public. I’m paid to transform them into the person they want to be. But that involves lashings of make-up, expensive hairdressers, and combing Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman for suitable clothes. It creates an illusion so far removed from the original that they end up looking like someone else. But you? You still look like the Serena Folkes I know and love, but with knobs on, and all with minimum effort.’
‘That’s because I’m happy to be here, I’m happy to be with Gustav. Hey, and most importantly of
all, I’m happy to be with you! We’re in the same city at long last! All those shops and bars and clubs you frequent, all the people you’ve met! First you were in London then over here becoming worldly and sophisticated when I was doing my best to get away from Devon. Did you know I nearly got on a plane and came over here to surprise you last year instead of travelling round Europe? But then I’d never have gone to Venice and those nuns would never – are you OK, Polly?’
She nods sharply, grabs at my sleeve as if she’s about to faint. ‘Sure. Cold, that’s all.’
I put my arm round her, pull her close, rub her arms to warm her up. ‘And now I’m here for the foreseeable future. I haven’t even got a ticket out of New York because our stay is open-ended! So I can spend lots of time with you, meet your friends, see what you do every day, maybe even come and work with you if you can pull some strings?’
‘It’s been more than two weeks since New Year’s Eve, Rena. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.’ Polly pushes her cold face up against mine. But it feels more like a knock than a hug. Her cheeks are so bony. ‘But I guess I should forgive you. You’re head over heels. That bloom. Is that what love is supposed to look like?’
‘Honestly, Pol, you make it sound as if I’ve got it all sorted, but I’ll never take any of this for granted. Not for a second. I worked hard to get here. Gustav and I had a business arrangement and I had to prove myself. Anything could happen in the future, but I’m going to do everything I can not to jinx this.’ I pull my white hat down over my hair to stop it whipping into my eyes. I’m aware she’s studying me closely, as if she can’t work me out, and the blue light of her gaze is unnerving.
‘You’ve got it so right. And I think I’ve got it so wrong,’ she murmurs so quietly that I’m not sure I’ve heard right.
‘It was a rocky path for me and Gustav, Polly. If you can call eggshells rocky. We started out so incredibly wary. Trust, intimacy – some seriously thorny issues to deal with. It was supposed to be all about my photographs and the exhibition, and physical companionship from me in return, all very clinical, but who were we kidding? It was lust at first sight! Seriously, Pol. We were horribly mixed up, both of us. You know all about my past, you were the only good thing in it, but that Margot, and Pierre, they nearly destroyed Gustav’s ability to get close to anyone ever again.’