by Noel Amos
'It's erotica not pornography,' Lucian had said sniffily in the course of the previous week's phone call, 'and you're very welcome to try your hand at it, Percy.'
'What!'
'Well, if not having a Walk to do leaves you a bit short, why not? If you want to make me a proposal I'll give it a sympathetic read, I promise you.'
Percy had not been amused. 'Look, you pretentious turd, the only proposal that springs to mind is that you flush yourself down the crapper along with your filthy books!'
Percy chuckled to himself in recollection. He really shouldn't have been so rude but he'd enjoyed every moment.
'Hey, sport, what's the joke?'
Percy blinked at the blonde girl who had appeared by his side.
She wore a white T-shirt with the words 'Cascade Beach Holidays' in red across her chest and carried a clipboard.
'Well, I... er, it's just a private...' mumbled Percy. He wasn't used to being accosted by beautiful girls with laughing eyes and flashing teeth.
'Glad to see you're enjoying yourself already,' said the vision in an Antipodean twang, laying a slim bronzed hand on his city-white forearm. 'My name's Carol-Anne, I'm the Entertainments Officer. I'm just putting together the teams for the volleyball competition, so can I add your name?'
'I don't think so. I don't play.'
'Oh come on, it's fun.'
'Sorry.'
Her fingers squeezed his arm and her azure eyes bored into his. 'Please. I only need one more person. We're about to start.'
'Well...' He was wavering. What man wouldn't?
'Great! What's your name?'
'Percy Carmichael.'
'Right, Perce, you're a Plonker.'
'I'm sorry?'
'The teams are Willies, Dickheads, Choppers and Plonkers. The Plonkers are over there.'
She pointed to a collection of bare-chested individuals in a huddle on the beach beside the volleyball net. Percy observed that they were all at least ten years younger than him and that one of them was female. Her chest was bare too. He rose to his feet.
'Wow,' said Carol-Anne. 'How tall are you?'
'Six-five.'
'And you've never played volleyball? Hey, Plonkers!' she shouted at the group on the beach. 'Look what I've found for you.'
The group turned their heads.
'He's a Plonker too,' yelled Carol-Anne.
A cheer went up as Percy loped towards them and a curly-haired man with a barrel chest punched the air. The girl whooped with excitement and her small pink breasts jiggled. Percy found he had an enormous grin plastered to his face. He really was entering into the holiday spirit.
The first game passed in a blur. Percy didn't have a clue and when the ball came to him at the back of the court it skimmed off his palms into the sand. Fortunately his team-mates did not appear to resent his inept play. He noticed that the small girl was almost as hopeless as he was, though the way she threw herself about undoubtedly made her better value for the spectators.
Then he found himself at the front of the court as the players rotated. A bronzed opponent leapt and smacked the ball. Percy stuck up a hand and the ball plopped into the sand on the other side of the net. His first point.
'Great play, Perce,' yelled Curly Head.
The Plonkers served, the Choppers returned and Percy, with his superior reach, swatted it back on the other side.
'Yes!' cried the Plonkers.
'Keep it away from that tall bastard,' muttered a Chopper. But they couldn't and Percy left the court with his victorious team wondering why he had never played the game before. He was obviously a natural.
He let Curly Head - Clive, as he soon discovered - buy him his fifth beer and Jean, the small girl, sat by his side. Her breasts looked even pinker close up. She saw the direction of his gaze.
'I'd better be careful,' she said, 'sunburnt tits are no fun.'
'Don't worry, sweetheart,' said another Plonker - Jimmy, 'we'll oil them for you free of charge. Won't we, Perce?'
Jean made a little moue with her mouth and looked at Percy. 'If we win the final I might let you,' she said to him alone.
So Percy took up position for the deciding game in a haze of squiffy euphoria. He felt suddenly younger, happier, freer. He leapt and swatted, lunged and smashed. He didn't know he had it in him.
It was a tight game, the Dickheads were organised opponents.
They served to Percy when he was at the back of the court and he fluffed it; they picked out Jean when she was by the net and she was overwhelmed. But Clive, Jimmy and Garaint from Wales were clever players and the teams were neck and neck as the Plonkers won the serve on match point.
Percy was positioned by the net, straining every sinew as Clive shaped to serve. He'd not felt such a desire to win since junior school, playing football against his elder brother and his friends. A lifetime ago.
Clive served, the Dickheads set and spiked, Garaint kept it alive, Jimmy set it up for Percy. This ball was his, he knew it. It twirled in the air directly above the net and Percy leapt like a vaulting salmon instead of a forty-year-old sedentary male. The biggest Dickhead jumped opposite him to block the ball but it rebounded off Percy's elbow and spun back onto the Dickheads' side.
With elation bubbling in his veins, Percy fell to earth, all the weight of his body slamming the ankle of his left foot against the base of the metal net support.
His shout of agony was lost in the Plonkers' victory roar.
Chapter 12
'Lucian, dear boy,' said a familiar smoky voice on the other end of the line, 'I'm about to do you the most enormous favour.'
'Of course, Marilyn,' said Lucian, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice - and failing. Marilyn Savage, literary agent extraordinaire, never missed a vocal nuance.
'Don't sound so enthusiastic, sweetheart. I'm offering you the hottest book in town.'
'As hot as last time?' The Dordogne Diaries by Victoria Venables had left Lucian unmoved. Reminiscences of Sarlat market day and recipes for ratatouille by the literary editor of the Daily Blizzard were not Lucian's idea of a bestseller. But then, what did he know? Not much from what Marilyn was saying.
'You missed out there, Lucian. Rodney Branscombe picked it up for fifty thousand and Black Raven start filming next week.'
Lucian sunk deeper into gloom. 'But it was crap, Marilyn. You should be ashamed to take your ten per cent.'
'Fifteen, dear boy. I'm a very special agent.'
'I should say so. So you made seven and a half grand off that old boot's laundry lists. How long did it take you?'
'A morning of phone calls, darling, and—'
'Don't tell me - a lifetime's experience.'
'Precisely, you cheeky boy. You know me so well, don't you?'
That was true enough. He'd first met Marilyn during school holidays when he used to hang around Uncle Basil's house, playing with his cousins. The publisher had specialised in cultivating up-and-coming agents and the gamine Marilyn, with her heart-shaped face and violet eyes, had been a particular favourite. As a pubescent schoolboy Lucian had fallen hard for the tyro agent. And, despite her unpredictable temper and legendary manipulative skills, the torch he carried still burned.
'So what's this new book, Marilyn?'
'Aha. Have I got my little fishy on the line?'
'Please don't tease me.'
'But you love it, darling, don't you? It's what makes dealing with you such a pleasure. Unlike some jumped-up little pseuds with MBAs and marketing diplomas and mentioning not the name of Rodney Branscombe.'
'But you sell him all your big books!'
'That's because GrabCo currently have a lot of money. Mind you, the way he's spending it there soon won't be much left. And when that happens he can do his shopping elsewhere.'
'You're being remarkably frank, Marilyn.'
'That's because I know you won't tell. And if you do I'll get my own back and you wouldn't like that.'
That was true. He adored Marilyn but he
knew he was dead meat if he crossed her.
'Besides,' she continued, 'frankness is the order of the day as you will see when you read The Novelist's Wife. I'm giving you an exclusive look, not just because we're old friends but because it's what you need to get Blue Desire Books off the ground.'
And so it was, he could see that as he pored over the sample pages that night. It wasn't just the nature of the material - the story of an unfulfilled woman wreaking her vengeance in promiscuity on the husband who had robbed her of her dreams. Or even the way it was written - vivid and graphic, with an edge of naivety which suggested this wasn't a professional writer striving for effect but a woman trying to tell the truth. None of that would have counted for much of course. The book would be dismissed as just another smutty read were it not for the information contained in Marilyn's letter of submission - and the accompanying photograph.
It showed the author on the arm of her husband at a first night or some other ritzy showbiz function. Lucian was pretty certain it was the West End opening of the movie based on Montgomery Hastings' The Waning Moon. He didn't have to be a genius to recognise the great author, dapper in his dinner jacket, pressing the hand of the oily Heritage Secretary, Godolphin Sumner. And the woman by his side, slim and dark with high cheekbones and faraway eyes, was the novelist's wife, the author of the lurid sex confession that he held in his hand - the other was absent-mindedly stroking the full-blown erection that had sprung from his loins the moment he had begun to read.
Marilyn's letter made it clear that Karen Hastings wanted to use her real name and trade on the celebrity of her husband. Even if she had looked like the back end of a bus that would be sufficient to cause a scandal. The fact that she was a dark-eyed angel from the valleys, already known to the public as Monty Hastings' refined and respectable consort, was guaranteed to send the newspapers into a feeding frenzy. Caro, for example, would kill for a glance at this material.
There was one obvious catch. Even though it was late, Lucian dialled Marilyn's number. She answered immediately.
'I thought it might be you,' she said.
'I can't publish this, Marilyn!'
'I suppose it's not sexy enough for you.'
'You know it's not that. It's mind-bogglingly filthy!'
'Or is the author not to your taste?'
'The author is elegant and beautiful and a brilliant storyteller.'
'But—?'
'But her husband will sue the shit out of us! It's obvious the novelist in the book is him. She's hardly bothered to change his name - Michaelis Hardy is almost the same as Montgomery Hastings! He cheats on his wife, has orgies with prostitutes, bonks his secretary over her desk every morning and, what's worse, is a lousy writer.'
'Calm down, Lucian. The quality of Monty Hastings' work is surely a matter of opinion.'
'That's not the point. It's the whole picture of the man - the adulterous fraud who'll screw anybody to get what he wants. It's defamatory and he'll sue.'
'No he won't, darling, because he knows he'd lose.'
'You mean it's all true and she can prove it?'
'Got it in one, Lucian. She has sworn affidavits, indiscreet letters and a library of incriminating cassettes. Not to mention naughty videos. As you know, Monty is not one of my favourites, but I almost feel sorry for the little shit.'
'Christ.'
'And as far as indemnity goes, Lucian, don't worry. Karen will sign whatever legal disclaimer your lawyers require. She'll do anything to see this book in print - she'd probably give it to you for nothing. Fortunately I'm here to protect her interests. So go and talk to whoever writes the cheques at your place these days and tell them to get their fountain pen out.'
Lucian put down the last page at midnight. The novel wasn't yet complete but he had read more than enough to know that The Novelist's Wife was the most sensational book of the year. Correction - the decade, at least. Provided it wasn't a hoax, of course.
He got up and prowled around his room, his brain gnawing at this sudden possibility. He'd have to meet the author, see the famous incriminating evidence, watch the video... The thought of the divine Mrs Hastings recording her husband as he ploughed his big-breasted secretary and then masturbating to a series of explosive climaxes with her skirt around her waist on top of a fire escape set Lucian's cock beating a tattoo against his belly. That had been the last scene, so vividly described, in the manuscript.
So, did that videotape really exist? Was that what he would see - the voluptuous assistant thrusting her muff into the novelist's face, her big satiny buttocks wobbling in his fingers as he sucked her off? And would the angel-faced author sit by his side as he watched her husband betray her in graphic, shaky close-up? And would she then confirm that the lewd spectacle had so excited her that she had plunged her hand between her legs and brought herself off then and there, over and over again?
Lucian's imagination was in lurid overdrive and his loins were in a fever. He could have wept with frustration - not sexual frustration but frustration of purpose. He had - he really had - promised himself that for the present there would be no sex.
He rushed downstairs and knocked on Tania's door. No reply.
He pushed it open and cursed at the empty room. Where was she when he needed her? He wasn't sure he wanted the answer to that question.
Returning to his room, Lucian slumped on his bed, his penis an uncomfortable bar across his stomach. It was no use, he was going to have to jerk off. Perhaps he should dig out that photo of Caro? No - that was the one thing he mustn't do. His relationship with Ms Fitzjohn was about to enter a new phase and this time he would be in charge. No back-sliding.
He looked out of the skylight window at the house across the street. Since his first sighting of Nicole Sessions in her bedroom window he had not glimpsed her at all. What with one thing and another - in a word, Tania - he had scarcely looked. A part of him strongly disapproved of this Peeping Tom activity. On the other hand, given what he had seen last time, how could he resist?
His luck was in tonight. A light burned in the bedroom across the street. As before, Nicole sat at her dressing-table brushing her hair. This time her fabulous breasts were encased in a black, push-up brassiere with sculpted cups that squeezed her pretty orbs together to form a deep ravine of cleavage.
Instantly all thoughts of other women, of pert-bottomed Caro, of bronzed and bubbly Tania, of the dark mysterious gaze of Karen Hastings, were driven from Lucian's mind. All he could think of now was the swing and pull of Nicole's slim brown arm as she brushed her hair and the beckoning vee of her golden breast flesh. How he wished he could reach out an invisible hand and slip it beneath the black wisp of material to cup a pouting globe and pull it into view.
It was as if she were listening to his thoughts for, as she continued to work her brush with one hand, she slid the other into the front of her bra and pulled her right breast into the open. It hung there, trembling in the light, and she began to fondle it, running her fingers into the crease beneath and cupping the gourd of flesh, then palpating the areola between her fingers, making the brown nipple jut up like a hat peg.
She put down the brush and brought out the other tit, offering them both up to the mirror before her as she weighed them in her hands. Then she released them and the spheres of flesh settled and separated a fraction on her chest. She wiggled her shoulders and the movement rippled and flowed through her golden bosom, like wind blowing through a ripe cornfield. As she took a nipple between the finger and thumb of each hand and began to pull, Lucian's loins erupted, the spunk shooting unbidden from his tormented tool.
Why, he thought to himself, in the dizzy afterglow of his unexpected orgasm, was Nicole behaving like this? It was hard to believe that this display was for her own benefit. But, of course, it wasn't. For there stood Hugh, his cock in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face as he appeared from stage left, as it were, and sat on a chair by the foot of the bed. He held his hand out to his wife.
Nicole
stood in front of him, holding the hairbrush. He took it from her and she laid her sumptuous body across his lap, her black be-knickered bottom face up. Hugh surveyed it for a moment, running a proprietorial palm across each upthrust cheek. Then he tugged at the waistband and yanked the flimsy material downwards, baring the broad and beautiful ovals of her milky white buttocks. Lucian's cock was now once more straining upwards from his loins.
Hugh hit her first with the bristle side of the brush, a smart swipe onto each fleshy crescent. Then he pressed the brush downwards into her yielding flesh, working it round and across. Her hips twitched under his ministrations and he slapped down smartly with his open palm as if to say, Be still!
Methodically he began to spank her with the flat of the hairbrush. Whack! Smack! Whack! The night was quiet and, through his open window, Lucian could plainly hear the collision of wood on flesh. And was that a tearful sob, audible between the blows?
Nicole's bum had turned puce now and she couldn't help moving. After each strike she grabbed at her belaboured arse and twitched and writhed. Hugh waited until she was perfectly still again before bringing the brush down once more.
Lucian could hear a woman's voice amidst the erotic sounds. A smack, a cry, a moan and then a shout. The shouts preceded the blows, like commands.
'Nineteen!'
The brush descended, the pink arse danced and Lucian realised that Nicole was calling out the number of her punishment. My God, to think people actually did these things! He'd read about it - in the past few days he'd read rather a lot - but to think he knew people who actually behaved like this!
'Twenty! Aah!'
Hugh threw down the brush and reached behind him. He unscrewed a small jar and dipped in his fingers. Then, very slowly, he began to rub ointment into Nicole's flaming derriere. The rounds of flesh squirmed beneath his fingers. Lucian could imagine the cooling balm being smoothed into that abused behind. Could imagine too the pleasure of feeling her silky flesh beneath his fingers. Of soothing the burning skin of her seat, then peeling apart the satiny globes to gaze on the dark and secret valley between - just as Hugh was doing now.