Authors: Roberta Latow
‘Indulge you?’
‘The wrong word.’
‘Yes, Arianne, most certainly the wrong word.’
‘Ben, I love you.’
‘I know: more’s the pity, but I think we’re star-crossed lovers.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Well, it certainly looks that way.’ Together they walked through the café, his arm around her waist. ‘We’re gambling with our lives, Arianne.’
They found Mike at the end of the souk, waiting in the Mercedes for them. They drove through the traffic, horns blaring, crowds of people dispersing to let the car go through.
‘We missed our drink. I know a nice place, are you game?’ suggested Mike.
‘Yes. My last night in Tangier – we should have a drink together. I’m taking the first flight out of here in the morning. I’d be grateful if you could get me that VIP treatment we had when we arrived.’
‘No problem.’
It was several minutes before Mike turned around and said, ‘Ben, I’m glad you managed to talk Arianne into leaving.’
‘I guess I didn’t. I’m taking that flight out of here alone. Arianne will be staying on and I’d be very grateful and indebted to you, if you could keep an eye out for her. I think she’s going to need it.’
‘Sorry, Arianne, but I wish you’d change your mind,’ Mike said, looking concerned. Arianne bit the side of her lip and turned away from the two men, tears brimming in her eyes as she looked out of the window.
In the hotel Ben and Arianne ordered dinner to be served on the balcony of their room, but found they had no appetite. Instead they went to bed and made love: sweet, gentle love. As the night wore on that love turned to passion and later to lust, and then their thirst for each other was impossible to slake. Sleep was banished on their last night together. Jason’s name was never mentioned again.
The sun was bright in the sky when Ben untied the silk scarves that bound Arianne to the bed posts. He had lashed her to them in his passionate desire to fuck her into sexual oblivion. Exhausted by then from her many orgasms, she wanted only to give him as much pleasure as she had had. She was over him with hands and
mouth and searching fingers that only incited his ardour for her more, triggered his sexual fantasies.
The scarves had been found, Arianne tied down and she was his. At the mercy of his lust. She came and came, in a stream of orgasms she could no longer control. To swallow his seed, to feel him come inside her, to feel the exquisite gentleness he used to ease himself into that place between the cheeks of her bottom until she was so relaxed and open that he could move in and out of her, giving her incredible fucking. Then to feel the warmth of his sperm there. It was to submit to Ben and her orgasms with boundless joy. She was there where he wanted her to be, where he knew she loved to be, in that distant, mysterious place, sexual oblivion. A place of bliss like no other for a woman.
Mike was as good as his word. He was waiting for them in the lobby. The three walked to the waiting Mercedes. Ben was on the first flight to Paris. Hardly a word was spoken on the way to the airport. On arrival, the Mercedes went through the side gate, on to the tarmac and stopped where the men were standing. Handshakes all round for the same men who had met them only four days before. Ben thought about that: only four days, it seemed a lifetime. His loss was incalculable.
Ben and Arianne left the men standing near the car and crossed the tarmac together. They saw the stewardess wave from the top of the stairs. He was the last passenger to board and they were running late. The plane had been held for him. They hurried their steps.
‘You won’t change your mind?’ he asked her, the pleading there in his eyes.
‘I can’t. Wait for me, Ben?’
‘I can’t promise that. Goodbye, Arianne.’
‘That sounds so final, Ben.’
‘It has to be.’
‘It doesn’t, you know. I’ll call you. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Arianne told him somewhat nervously.
‘No, don’t do that. You’ve made your decision, Arianne, I’ve made mine. I’ll be moving out of Three Kings Yard. Don’t make contact. I don’t want to see you, hear from you, until you’re really ready to come back once and for all.’
‘Then you will wait?’
‘No. I won’t. I meant that goodbye. You’ll have to take your chances just as I’m taking mine now.’
The stewardess ran halfway down the stairs of the plane’s landing stage. She was shouting, ‘Mr Johnson, please! Mr Johnson!’ Ben pulled Arianne into his arms and he kissed her deeply, with great passion, and then ran for his plane, never once looking back.
She was there again, standing on the balcony in a haze of bright sunlight, dressed in something white. He could see the outline of her body, sexy and provocative, the shadow of long legs, thighs, and when she turned around, as she did at that moment, just a hint of pussy. She looked at him and, seeing he was awake, stepped from the sunshine, into the room. The shadow of her body vanished under the cotton dress. He could imagine men’s hungry eyes, heads turning, hands reaching into long robes to cop a feel. He laughed and reached under the crisp white sheet to do the same thing. But to Jason it meant nothing. He couldn’t be bothered. Sex for him was more exciting in the mind, less demanding than in the act. At least that was the way it was now. These days, heroin was sexier than cunt.
Miraculous, his doctors termed his recovery, that he could move again – even achieve erection – was nearly whole, and in time … He laughed again, aloud this time, and smiled at Arianne. Life and sex were more sensual, more exciting, a hell of a lot more erotic than physical sex, when you lived in the twilight world. But then, he thought, who knows? Orgasm, like everything else, was available to him, but called up no emotion in Jason. Desire was only faintly there. His only real passion was the needle now, and that packet of pure white heroin and its accoutrements he kept taped to the underside of the table next to his bed.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked her, not unkindly, ‘and where’s your friend?’
‘In Paris.’
‘You should have gone with him.’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘Go away, Arianne, you’re not going to get what you want here. No divorce, no answers.’
‘What if I told you I’m not looking for answers? I’ve given up
the idea of even forming any questions.’
‘I’d say that was good. Good for you and very good for me. Now go away.’
A gentle knock at the door, perfect timing, and Brother François entered the room with a white enamel tray. On it were a syringe and a length of rubber tubing. ‘Oh!’ – his reaction on seeing Arianne there. ‘I’ll come back later.’
‘No! I can’t wait, you’re late now, François. Go away, Arianne. I promise you you don’t want to see this. Go away. If you’re waxing sentimental about happy times, forget it. The happy times were over long ago. That tray, what’s on that tray, is happy times now, and all I care about. Go home. Brother François, come on, we’re wasting time. Nirvana calls.’
Arianne grabbed her handbag. She was biting back tears. The meanness, the anger in his voice – never in their life together had it been directed to her, but it was now. What had happened to him? She fled the room and ran down the empty corridor, her steps echoing behind her. Only in the sunshine of the courtyard, when she leaned against one of the pillars, was she able to breathe again. What was she doing there? Why hadn’t she left with Ben? It was impossible, yet she felt compelled even now to stay, to try again to reach Jason. She hurried from the courtyard, elbowed her way through the mob of patients in the hospital corridor and into the street. The crowds gave her some comfort. Even the merchants hawking their wares as she pushed her way through the narrow streets were a welcome distraction.
In the square she found a taxi and fled back to her hotel. Arianne sat for a long time thinking about Jason, the Jason she had known and loved: the laughter, the smile in the eyes, how he had once loved her, cared for her, coddled her. His sexual ardour and prowess, how he had taught her the glories of sexual pleasure, created in her a sexual animal to satisfy him. She saw a vestige of that man in the Jason lying in that hospital bed in the hospice. How she had loved that other man. How easy it had been to give herself up to him and Ahmad. But that was then.
She looked at her watch: Mike Chambers was taking her to dinner. She changed into a black linen dress and clasped a choker of pearls around her neck. The dress, an off-the-shoulder affair, that fell softly to the waist, was cinched by a black belt, solid with
black glass bugle-beads. Arianne draped a black silk shawl over her arm, not for warmth – it was hot, even late at night – but to cover herself in the streets.
Mike took her home to a small house he rented in the souk. It was behind a whitewashed wall with a crude wood door painted bright blue set into it. A fuchsia-coloured bougainvillaea dense with flowers lolled over the wall. They stepped into a small courtyard resplendent with more bougainvillaea and pots of flowering bushes. Lanterns and fat white candles cast a soft, warm glow into the garden – hanging on the wall, down on the tiles, strung up in the bushes, two on the stairs.
Mike called for the servants, a lady cook and a man, who came out and greeted him with happy smiles. Then he gave Arianne a tour of the sparsely furnished, immaculately clean, comfortable, but far from impressive house. One flight of stairs led to the bedroom, with a balcony overlooking the crooked streets in the souk. They took another, steeper flight up to the flat roof of the house to see the lights of Tangier spread out before them, and roof-tops of people catching a breath of air, dining, sleeping. Mike pointed out the monastery, surrounded by houses and shops and hidden in the maze of streets. There they remained to drink gin and talk about the wonders of Morocco. They returned to the garden for dinner, a
couscous aux poissons
and a tagine of lamb with olives and potatoes.
‘You know I’m not always here for your husband. I’m sometimes reassigned for a few days to other jobs, but he is my main assignment.’
‘Then he has no one when you’re not there?’
‘He does know a couple of people in Tangier, and they visit him. I never ask about it, it’s not my business. I think they keep him supplied with more than company.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The hospice, they keep his habit going because they have to. If Jason were to quit heroin, it could kill him – he is too far gone. So they are obliged to keep him supplied but controlled. But I’ve seen him at times when he seemed more out of it than usual. I know he’s getting more from some place.’
‘Shouldn’t you do something about it?’
‘No, and neither should you. I made a pact with your husband.
Anything he wants, remember. We brought him here to Tangier on the condition that it’s his life and he’ll do with it what he wants. Those were the conditions that even the hospice had to accept. The hospice is quite remarkable. They give him everything to keep him comfortable, and ask nothing.’
‘There are no conditions?’
‘None.’
‘And who pays for all this?’
‘Ah, I don’t know, but it is paid for and handsomely. Your husband has everything he wants, that’s why you should go home. He’s got his life worked out for him, even his death.’
‘I’m not going home, Mike, not just now. I want to stay in Tangier for a few weeks, a month. Can you find me a room somewhere? Something cheap. You see, I don’t have much money and the hotel is too expensive. A room near here, even closer to the hospice.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Every day she made a visit to Jason and almost every day he said barely a word to her. Arianne was in Jason’s room again. This time she had brought flowers, long-stemmed miniature sunflowers. She arranged them in a clear glass vase – she had brought that too – and placed them on a table near the only chair in the room and where he had a good view of them. He was reading
Napoleon at Waterloo
. He ignored her for some time, then looked up. She was fanning herself with her hand. ‘It’s so hot,’ she told him.
‘It can never get hot enough for me. I’m always cold. Even on a day like this I’m just warm. You know I can give instructions for you not to be allowed in this room and they’ll obey them?’
‘But you won’t do that.’
‘Are you so sure?’
‘No.’
He went back to his book and then drifted off to sleep.
The following day she arrived with Mike. Mike and Jason played chess. Jason won. Arianne had been in Morocco nearly three weeks. She spent her days discovering Tangier and visiting the hospice. Jason allowed her there – or more accurately,
tolerated her presence. Most of the time he ignored her. Occasionally he would ask her about something in the city. ‘Is Pépé’s Café still in the square? Get Mike to take you to the marriage market. I always used to like going to the marriage market.’
‘I never knew you’d come to Tangier.’
‘You never knew a lot of things. End of conversation.’ He was bored, uninterested.
One day she found him not in bed but sitting in a chair in the sun on the balcony, with a blanket over his knees. ‘That’s wonderful! You’re up and sitting in a chair!’ She was genuinely happy about his progress.
‘Why don’t you go away and take your enthusiasm with you?’
‘Do I disturb you so much?’
‘You don’t disturb me at all. I merely asked why you don’t go away.’
‘I don’t think you understand anything about what I’m doing here, Jason.’
‘Oh, don’t I? Go away, Arianne, and take your love with you.’
‘You once liked my love, adored me for it.’
‘That was a long time ago, and it was over a long time ago. It’s a faint memory for me and one I don’t even think about. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t want you to kill me with love either.’
‘Then why do you let me come here?’
‘Because I don’t care enough even to stop you. I don’t care much about anything any more. Only the needle and anybody that takes the pain away for even a minute.’
Arianne made ready to leave the room: she had had enough for that day. Brother François entered with an orderly carrying two plastic bags, one filled with clear liquid, and a syringe. Arianne rushed past him, appalled yet again that his condition demanded such medical care. It finally dawned on her how truly dependent he was on the good brothers of the monastery and the nursing sisters at the hospice, his doctors, and the needles. He hid it so well, his dependency. But hadn’t she realised what he was still going through? He could move his arms, his legs, maybe he could even function sexually, but the rest – all those internal injuries, not being able to walk … He would never leave that room even
if he could. She knew that she hadn’t really understood it before now. That was his world; the room, the people who cared for him – they were his family, they were his lovers, they gave him all he cared about, all he wanted. Arianne began to cry. She could only stop when she realised she was crying for herself, not for Jason.
Mike had found a room for Arianne only a few houses from his – a small room at the top of a house, and she had the roof garden as well. The Moroccan family that lived below her room cooked meals for her. She was quite happy living there in that small room.
Mike was often away on other cases, but never for long. When he was in Tangier and free he would take Arianne out to dine. She was aware of Mike’s attraction to her. Several times he had made a discreet pass at her. She was grateful for his company, and, though she did find him attractive, she side-stepped his advances. At least once in every ten times they met she would tell him, ‘I will be leaving quite soon.’ But Arianne did not leave Tangier. It had seduced her, and Jason was still accepting her visits. He seemed to rally; his humour improved. He never quite lost the Jason charm. It could still attract anyone to do anything for him.
He had even, on occasion, showed kindness, a begrudging admiration for Arianne. Once they even laughed together. Arianne found herself in a strange situation. It was inexplicable to her. She was there for him. Not loving him, but giving him all the attention and love she had within her that he would accept. Unconditional love, the sort she had always given him. Yet there was a tremendous void between them, an emptiness, a lack of emotion.
Arianne discovered the book markets, the booksellers. She found treasures, rare books, and bought them, packaged them and sent them, some to Christie’s, others on approval to a client in New York. Jason, Tangier, became her life and yet strangely they were not her life at all. They were something transient. She knew she would one day have to leave.
She met several expatriates, and then stayed away from them. She wanted not to be a part of their world. She almost never thought of Ben. He was relegated to some safe place in the back of her mind, though she loved him not one bit less. Several times
she told herself, I hope he’ll still be there.
It was nearly three months since she had arrived in Tangier. Now it was she who could take Mike to places where real travellers, not tourists or the expatriates, went. One night in a small restaurant on the outskirts of the city where she and Mike were dining, she told him, ‘Several times I’ve been to the hospice, knocked on Jason’s door but could not enter. It had been locked from the inside. I would wait around for as much as half an hour and would leave having not seen him. I never mentioned it before because I always thought the doctors or some medical emergency demanded privacy. But the other day when I was there, the door was again locked and I passed the doctors and Brother François in the hall.’
‘Jason sometimes locks the door when he has special visitors.’ Mike looked embarrassed by his specious explanation.
Arianne felt numb, she hardly knew why. A woman, why should that affect her? Had she in her subconscious possibly hoped there could be something more for them than indifference? Platonic love? Was that what she was waiting for? Or the passionate love for her he had once been capable of? ‘Oh!’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ said Mike.
‘You don’t have to be.’
They talked of other things and then, apropos of nothing, she said, ‘If only you had known us before the crash – we were something special together. He was a terrific person, a wonderful man. Oh, why did he ever make that trip? Whatever possessed him to fly over the Himalayas? With Jason it was always another adventure, another challenge. When I thought he was in the Rocky Mountains, he was flying halfway around the world. Why, Mike, why? To play the daredevil yet again?’
‘I asked him once, when I first met him in that village in the Himalayas, what he was doing there, flying in that area. He told me he did it for a bet. He was flying against the clock from the Rockies to the Himalayas and back. A million-dollar bet. His best friend put up the million, and if he lost …’ Mike stopped in the middle of his sentence and closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe it: he hadn’t realised what he was saying, who he was talking to. He had stopped thinking of Arianne as being Jason
Honey’s wife. He thought of her as a beautiful, loving woman, in love with a guy called Ben Johnson, when he wasn’t thinking of her as a woman he would like to make love to, hold in a passionate embrace. He couldn’t very well tell her that Jason Honey had gambled his wife for a million dollars – and lost.