by Primula Bond
It’s a wake-up call, too.
‘So Margot was unfazed by your scars, just like me, but surely that’s because they gave her something to lie about, and helped her to steal you away?’ I’m returning his stare as the images and scenes play out in my mind. ‘And, scars or no scars, you are still the spitting image of Gustav, which must have made it easier for her.’
‘To exchange one Levi for the other, you mean? So if she could do it in the blink of an eye, so could you, Serena. You like being with me. Come on. Relax. I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to.’ Pierre’s voice is a soothing hiss, like the snake in The Jungle Book. His hands are round my neck to pull the scarf away again, brushing his fingers against my skin. ‘I can see I’m going to have to work bloody hard to tempt you away from Gustav.’
‘You won’t ever succeed, Pierre Levi. So don’t even try.’ I try to wrench myself away, but he has me by the hair now, so subtly that no one else can see. I can’t ignore the insistent tugging at the tiny sensitive roots. ‘Let’s get this conversation over with. What happened to you and Margot after Gustav chucked you out? And what did you mean, a few tumultuous months? I assumed, and I know Gustav did, that you were together virtually until you met Polly.’
Pierre lifts my hair away from the scarf and murmurs into my neck. ‘It won’t help you, and it won’t help Polly.’
‘Call it curiosity. And it may well kill the cat. But if I’m ever going to get the spectre of Margot out of my head maybe hearing this from you will be a start. I know I’ve replaced her in Gustav’s life, but for Polly’s sake I just want to know what she had that Polly and those other discarded women don’t.’
‘I think you know already. Margot had to be pretty sensational to keep a man like Gustav enthralled.’ Pierre raises the menu to summon a waitress and orders two new cocktails. ‘For me it was macho triumph that to pay him back I’d conquered my brother’s wife, right under his nose. But she was the one who conquered me. I guess that’s the effect she had on him, too, in the early days. Anyway, from that moment I was hers. Whether she intended that or not, she was stuck with me. Even in the cab careering down Baker Street, away from Gustav, she was straddling me. All over me like a wild cat. I was always hard when she was around. I’m hard now, talking about it.’
There’s a sudden silence between us.
He shrugs. ‘I told Gustav a slightly edited version of this when you left us in the bar the other night. Well, I didn’t tell him that I still get hard talking about it, obviously. That’s just for your benefit.’
‘No wonder he didn’t tell me much about your conversation.’
‘So, the elopement. Well, there was me thinking she’d whisk me to Heathrow, perhaps fly to Lugano, but we went to a hotel in Holland Park. Hardly the great escape, but the staff greeted her like an old friend. Certainly didn’t blink when she dragged in this rumpled, overgrown schoolboy.’
‘Another life she’d already set up,’ I muse quietly, as the thought strikes me. ‘She was already planning her escape.’ Pierre rubs his hair into unruly tufts.
‘She took me up to this room painted black, with a huge four-poster bed, all black satin sheets and drapes. She’d glimpsed my burns back at the house, told me that spectacular lie about Gustav starting the Paris fire, so I was already hers for the asking, but this was the first time she’d had the leisure to study them properly. I was young, Serena. Totally different from the man you see before you. I thought my brother was a monster. She was my world from then on. First love? I think so. Obsession? Certainly. I’ve never been able to put a label on my emotions, but I knew she was the woman for me when, like you the other night, she just studied my skin for a moment, and then kissed me. Every scarred inch.’
I bite my lip. The power of that gesture to a bitter kid like him isn’t lost on me. Somewhere deep inside I’m wishing someone had done that for me a long time ago. Kissed away the scars.
‘She kept me tied up in that room as her sex slave, basically, and I was more than willing. Because until her I was a virgin. Don’t know if Gustav was aware of that little fact, love god that he is, but the burns, you know. Didn’t give me a lot of confidence with the girls. Not until Margot. Anyway, she plied me with all this drink and drugs, Viagra, you name it, which kept my head in a fog and my cock up like a pole the entire time, and when she wasn’t riding me she was whipping me. This amazing whip, all thick handle and knotted tails. My butt was her target. She went for it, whipped until red welts came up. You look as astonished as I was. Everything that had shocked me in the house in Baker Street became, with her, the promise of heaven. I still hated Gustav for exposing me to all that debauchery, but it was one rule for him, quite another for me, and I don’t care how twisted that sounds. It’s how it was with me and Margot. I would have taken any kind of treatment from her because she was my saviour. My world.’
The waitress is standing there with two cocktails on a tray, and some tiny dishes of nuts. My God. How long has she been there? How much has she heard?
The cocktail is something called a Ginger Fig, and I realise as soon as I’ve taken a big swallow that it is even more powerful than the previous one.
Pierre’s voice has gone very soft. ‘Being kept prisoner became normal to me. No one else would understand that. Not even you. Not even the mates I have now. The more sophisticated ones like Tomas would never believe the power that woman had over first Gustav, then me.’
‘Shit. I should have been ready for that. Why did you have to mention Tomas, of all people?’ I lift my glass and take another sip to hide the blush scorching my face. It’s a mistake, because the cocktail practically knocks me sideways. ‘I’m not sure how sophisticated he is, anyway. But I could wipe the smile off his face if Gustav had him thrown out for revealing the secrets of the club.’
‘Go ahead and try it.’ Pierre smirks. ‘I must say I’m surprised at Gustav, letting you dance like a slapper in front of a room full of stags. Although I’m told the striptease was your idea?’
There’s that vision again, the guy with the golden curls, running his tongue up me.
‘What’s the point of being in a big bad city if you don’t experiment with what’s on offer?’ I realised I was enjoying the expression of undisguised admiration on Pierre’s face. ‘Gustav is wiser than any of us because he knew that having dipped my toe in that particular murky pond I won’t do it again.’
‘Not what Tomas said. He reckons if Gustav hadn’t come into that smoking den – well. They’d all pay a king’s ransom to see you dance like that again.’
‘Just one last question, Pierre. I have to get this clear. I have to understand five whole years of hostility. Didn’t Margot’s delight in whipping you, and you getting a taste for it yourself, tell you that Gustav wasn’t the monster after all?’ I say, trying to keep a handle on this conversation. ‘It just proves that she likes to whip, and be whipped. End of.’
‘And so do you, don’t you? But Gustav didn’t feature any more, because of what Margot had told me about the fire. And it was easy to believe her, easy to follow her, because once we’d left that house, that past life, he was gone, just like that.’ Pierre flicks his fingers disdainfully. ‘Margot was the only person, the only thing in the world that could reach me. Sometimes we’d re-enact what happened back at the house but once she’d initiated me, got me addicted to it just like Gustav before me, then she’d take it further, with handcuffs, or blindfolds. She’d pretend Gustav had burst into the hotel room and she’d conduct an imaginary conversation with him. And then one night she told me we were leaving. I wonder to this day if it’s because Gustav had discovered where we were.’
I collapse back in my seat and unwittingly slump against his arm, which has slipped off the back of the seat and onto my shoulder.
‘He would have been looking for you. Not for her.’
‘Well, he was too late. We got to New York, and then she kept me in this apartment for another six months or so. I never left. I didn’t want to.’
<
br /> We stare at each other as the restrained hubbub flows round us. We are so close that I can see the bustling waitresses reflected in the pupils of his eyes.
I clear my throat. ‘Like Stockholm syndrome?’
He shrugs, looking away from me at something, someone, who isn’t there.
‘If that’s when you fall in love with your demon gaoler, then yes. It’s every man’s dream, isn’t it? A beautiful, wicked older woman who can never, ever get enough.’
We both pause and look up. The waitress is there again.
‘We shouldn’t be seen together.’
‘Oh, I love a good intrigue.’ Pierre is halfway through drawing some dollar bills out of his wallet. ‘Look. You asked me to tell you about Margot.’
I close my eyes to hide the hot tears that have sprung from nowhere. ‘I know, but now I want you to stop.’
‘Nearly finished now.’ He reaches up and strokes at a tear that has escaped from my eyelid. ‘One morning I woke up to find her wearing a tarty red leather dress. She’d cut all her lovely long hair into a horrible bob and dyed it porn-star yellow. She looked like a Latvian hooker. Totally unrecognisable. She started whispering all this poisonous stuff about having ruined me as well as Gustav, that I would never find satisfaction, never want another woman after her. That was her plan all along, and now she was done with me.’
‘Why couldn’t you and Gustav have seen a mile off how deranged she is? You were just another scalp for her belt.’
‘I think he saw it loud and clear, and wanted her anyway.’ Pierre grins. ‘But my excuse is that I was too young to get the measure of her. I just wanted her. I still do, Serena. If Margot was here, I’d take her right now in front of you. I mean it. And she’d go with it. She doesn’t care where, who, what, when.’
There’s a long pause. My fingers are locked around my glass. Our kneecaps are touching, our half-drunk drinks hovering in front of our mouths.
‘Then let us pray that she never comes back,’ I say thickly, not moving. Everything is sliding like a movie through my mind. The triumphant woman in those destroyed sketches from the chalet in Lugano is right here again. I can’t bear to imagine her with Gustav, but I can see her using and abusing this young stud, her brother-in-law, changing him forever.
‘I was lying there for hours. She sent two cleaners in to find me. They giggled themselves stupid to find me still attached to the bedpost. They made a half-hearted attempt to unlock the handcuffs but, when they couldn’t, they decided to sample the goods themselves. Yes, that’s right. First one, then the other. I had two naked, slutty, gymnastic Mexican cleaners crawling all over me!’
Pierre tips his head back against the velvet sofa and exhales a kind of gasping laugh. ‘My God, Serena. It was like every sexual fantasy rolled into one. No wonder I’m ruined, just as Margot intended. No wonder I go cherrypicking. I’m incapable of fidelity. All the girls in that theatre wouldn’t be enough. I’m an absolute shit and Polly’s well rid of me.’
His legs are slightly spread, one hand resting on the back of the sofa. For the first time since I’ve met him he looks spent. Exhausted.
‘God knows how I’m going to explain this to Polly, but I’ll try.’ I stand up shakily, step round the coffee table, pick up my camera. ‘You’re still living in that apartment, aren’t you? That’s why you never invited Polly round. And that’s how Margot will always know where you are.’
Pierre stands up, too. He takes my hand. I let him hold onto it, because I’m feeling unsteady on my feet and because I want an answer. But instead of shaking it and dismissing me, he lifts my hand and kisses it in a direct echo of his brother’s charming gesture. I catch envious glances around the room and realise with a shafting pang of unease that we must look like a couple.
‘I call it my love nest. But that’s not your business, or Polly’s. I stayed there because I’m the addicted loser around here, Serena. Which means that no woman is safe. Not Margot.’ He grins wolfishly, as if to say there’s nothing he intends to do about it. ‘Not even you.’
He brings his mouth down to mine, starts to brush it over my lips. I can feel the heat of him, the heaviness of his body, and for a moment my head swims with confusion and, oh, God, the dart of desire.
But then I twist away, furious at him. Furious at myself, the tell-tale blood burning my face. I clutch the velvet sofa for balance, stoop to collect my other things and realise, too late, that I’ve left everything except this one camera at the theatre. I don’t know what to do. I need my equipment, but I need to get away from this man far more.
Pierre lets his hands drop to his sides as if, despite trying to kiss me, he couldn’t give a damn if I stay or go. I propel myself round the table and bang him on the chest.
‘That didn’t happen, Pierre. OK? And another thing. You called me “sis” earlier. I let it go, in the spirit of friendship. But don’t ever call me that again.’
Pierre lifts his hands in mock surrender. ‘I called you “sis” in the spirit of friendship, because who knows? We might be related one day. If my brother has any sense, Serena, he’ll keep you close.’ He gives a military bow, cocks his head to study me. ‘Because be warned. If I can’t have the woman I want, I might just have to take someone else’s.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I can’t evict the two dark-eyed men who circle me in the night. One is slightly taller than the other, slightly slimmer, but otherwise they are indistinguishable. When I sit up in bed, shrugging off sleep, they are standing over by the window watching me wake as the sun climbs higher over New York. I open my eyes wider and they blur and merge, part and merge again, like a drunken lens trying to focus.
And then one of them pushes the other out of the way and comes towards me, unbuttoning his shirt. The only way I’m going to be able to tell the difference will be from the body beneath. If it’s Gustav, I will wind my limbs around him and make him take me, right there in front of Pierre.
If it’s Pierre, if there are those raised, gnarled scars under his shirt, I will have to sit up and face Gustav, and confess that his brother came on to me in the bar last night and I was too weak to stop it.
‘You will say nothing,’ one of the men says, but I can’t tell which one because the sun is so bright behind them, reducing them to black silhouettes. They are both on the bed now. I can feel the weight of their bodies as they sit down, the mattress sagging further and further, the floor rising up to bump at my bones. The men are so heavy that the bed collapses and now they are both pulling back the duvet and I’m naked, the way Gustav likes me to sleep. The silk negligees that he gives me are hanging in a row on the wardrobe door like pastel corpses.
I try to hide myself, fold my arms across my breasts, pull up my knees, cringe back in the bed, and when one of them grabs my wrist to clip on the silver chain I realise I’m still dreaming.
I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for the Weinmeyers.
After my perilous evening with Pierre Levi and a sleepless night apparently shared with both brothers, I could weep with relief and a kind of resigned recognition when I rush, late, into the Central Park Boathouse and see Mr and Mrs Weinmeyer sitting by the lakeside window, sleek, pale, matching in cream cashmere, and waiting for me. Their assured, expensive air is so calming, and weirdly so comforting. If they weren’t such a kinky pair of perverts beneath the pearls and pinstripes, I could even think of them as family.
Mr Weinmeyer lifts a heavy paw, glistening with gold hairs, in greeting. ‘There she is. Our homing pigeon.’
‘My goodness, sugar, what’s up? You are gorgeous as ever, but you look a little – dishevelled today? Like you’re running a fever! The Big Apple finally getting to you?’
I fall into Mrs Weinmeyer’s scented embrace and hold on to her just a moment longer than necessary before sinking into my chair.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late, but I’ve just been incredibly stupid and disorganised, that’s all. I left my iPad and all my photographic equipment except my m
ain camera at this theatre where I was shooting yesterday, but when I went to fetch it just now the place was locked. Deserted. No lights. No sound. No dancers or musicians lining up outside. And no one is answering their phone.’
I pick up the menu and realise my hands are shaking. Mr Weinmeyer lowers it so as to look into my eyes. He rests his hand on mine. On his little finger he wears a gold signet ring.
‘Perhaps because it’s Saturday. Even New Yorkers need a break sometimes?’
Mrs Weinmeyer lays her pretty white hand on top.
‘Old-fashioned pen and paper will do for today, Serena. We just want to take you on a little journey away from all this madness. How about Venice? By the way we’ve gone ahead and ordered. Smoked fish platter for us.’
‘I looked up the menu online. I’ll have macaroni gratin.’ My stomach rumbles. I am starving, as it happens. ‘And I’m fine. I love New York. But I’ve a lot on my plate at the moment. As well as the macaroni.’ I stitch a smile on and realise that the adage about smiling making you feel better seems to work. ‘And I am really pleased to see you!’
‘After what we tried to make you do last time?’ Mrs Weinmeyer pours ice-cold Chablis into tall, inviting glasses.
I take my glass gratefully. ‘Well, I’ve been behaving fairly outrageously myself since then, haven’t I, Mr Weinmeyer?’
He taps his nose and grins. ‘What goes on at the Club Crème stays right there.’
Mrs Weinmeyer sniffs a little jealously. ‘I’m sure whatever she was doing was sensational. But today we wanted you to feel more at ease, that’s why we chose this place to meet. Halfway. We couldn’t trust ourselves to be alone with you at our house.’
I chuckle conspiratorially and twist my hair into a thick plait to maintain some kind of control over the ringlets and tangles that have taken over like Sleeping Beauty’s forest in the night. The word ‘trust’ reverberates. Gustav trusts me. It’s the most important word in his vocabulary. I suspect more important than ‘love’. And yet what have I done as soon as he’s out of town for five minutes? Got myself into a situation with his brother where he thought he could pounce on me, that’s what.