So she wasn’t forced into whoring, but had volunteered for it. I could understand it if you fancied one of the guys you needed to bribe – after all I’d had a few thoughts myself about Miguel – but not with someone like Raoul.
‘But why can’t you just get a girl in? I mean, someone presumably cleans your office but you get a cleaner, right? You don’t say, OK this is a job I can do myself so I will.’
She laughed appreciatively at the analogy. ‘That’s true. Look at it this way. Say you owned an old and expensive car, like a vintage Rolls Royce, and you were an expert mechanic. Would you take your precious car to an unknown garage for a service just so you didn’t get your hands dirty?’
‘Well –’
‘No, you wouldn’t. And when we’re dealing in big bikkies like here, there’s no way I’m prepared to risk some whore upsetting anyone when I can do her job better myself.’
Fair enough. She explained that without Raoul’s land and his influence on other landowners the whole deal would come to nothing. It was obviously in his interests to help the project, as he was getting a good price for acres of land he wasn’t getting anything out of, but he had been reluctant to help with their negotiations with the others – until last night.
‘So is that it? You won’t have to do a replay?’
She grinned. ‘He said he’d be interested in seeing me with my lesbian whore next time he was in Santiago.’
‘Oh God,’ I groaned. ‘You’ll have to get another girl in.’
‘No problem.’
I realised what she’d said. ‘Santiago? That’s in the Hostal de Arte, right? You’ve got an office there.’
‘That’s it. Having an office in a hotel makes my little incentive schemes quite easy to put into practice, of course.’
‘Sure.’ My sluggish brain seemed to be functioning better. ‘So is Jorge involved in your company, then? I’ve forgotten what it’s called; ETA?’
‘ETP. Yes, he does some jobs for us, and we use the studio for meetings sometimes.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Time we went to the restaurant.’
Everything was going so well again. Susie and I seemed to be back on track; I’d got some more little snippets out of her about the development project and ETP, and she had implied that Carlos was going to give me a little description of last night’s action, presumably as background to something steamy. But things didn’t go well for long. As the three of us sat down at the restaurant table Red and Robbie appeared in the doorway and ambled over, calling my name. Carlos’s face showed he was not at all pleased.
Just as he’d come round after my stupidity last night they’d gone and spoiled it. I tried to make faces to tell them to back off but Robbie was bending over Susie in full-on smarmy mode and Red was exclaiming over the coincidence of bumping into me so hammily that I shrank with embarrassment.
‘Sorry I can’t ask you to join us,’ said Carlos pointedly. ‘We were just about to order. But it was nice to see you again.’
They finally got the hint and went. I kept my eyes on the menu.
‘I didn’t realise you’d arranged to meet your fan club here, Bliss,’ said Carlos in a tight voice.
‘I didn’t,’ I said honestly. ‘I left them in the Lake District and wasn’t expecting to see them until the day before we get on the boat to Patagonia. How could I arrange to meet them when I didn’t even know which town we’d be staying in? It’s a coincidence, but not a very odd one.’
He couldn’t argue with that, but neither did it convince him. Susie tried to mollify him and he smiled at her little stories about the making of gumbo, but I could tell he was not a happy bunny. At least, I consoled myself, he thought that the guys had come to the island to see me and didn’t suspect they were here to pry into his business. That was the best scenario, so I stopped protesting my innocence and tried to join in the conversation.
‘I’m really cross with you for spoiling our lunch, Bliss,’ said Susie as we got out of the car back at the house. ‘If you hadn’t told those boys where you were going, we’d have had a really nice time. I think you ought to get some practice in keeping your mouth shut. Don’t you agree, Carlos?’
The bastard, he answered her in Spanish. He was shaking his head and wrinkling his nose distastefully. She too switched languages and they threw the conversation backwards and forwards vigorously for a few minutes while I stood not knowing what to do except, of course, keep my mouth shut.
Maria ended their argument by coming out and telling Carlos he was wanted on the phone. With a final word he walked inside. Susie immediately grabbed my arm and frog marched me into the house.
‘You’re coming to my room, hon, and shutting up before you spoil anything else.’
She pulled her big suitcase out from under the bed and beckoned me over. Meekly I stood before her. I had guessed what was coming.
The gag wasn’t too bad. She put it on carefully, with that little gleam of lust coming back to her eyes.
‘Strip for me, please,’ she said imperiously. There was no question of not obeying. After all, I’d been waiting twenty-four hours for her already.
She dressed me, if that was the word, in the black choker and gloves I’d worn for the first time for Carlos, fastening the gloves behind me, though not attaching them to the choker. Next came the black leather boots, except this time they too had chains around each ankle, which she clipped together, just as Carlos had hobbled my shoes in his apartment. She looked me up and down without a word, then suddenly jerked down one of the chains of the choker so that I was facing the ceiling.
‘Don’t upset him any more,’ she whispered almost menacingly. ‘I’m going to try to bring him round. Don’t spoil it.’
With that she hooked a lead on to one of the chains and pulled me through the door. Instead of going straight to Carlos’s room she led me into the kitchen, where Maria was stowing our shopping in the fridge. She turned towards us, a tiny smile on her face. I cringed at her look and cursed Susie for deciding I needed degrading as well as gagging.
Susie spoke to Maria in Spanish and I silently – not that I had any choice – thanked God that I couldn’t understand. However, just as she finished she continued in English, obviously translating what she’d just said for my benefit. Or rather, for the benefit of my humiliation.
‘Thanks for doing that, Maria. What do you think about our little puppy here? Isn’t she the cutest thing you ever saw?’
Maria, who had smiled and been about to reply before Susie had spoken in English, answered. At least she couldn’t translate for me. But Susie could.
‘You think she looks ridiculous, but as you know that’s what the señor likes. Now be honest, Maria, don’t you like to look at her?’
The Spanish followed and Maria laughed her answer. Her little eyes were fixed on me as they had been the day before, and I realised she relished the English girl being humiliated like this.
‘You think she’s got a good body? Do you want to touch it?’
The maid’s smile disappeared when that was repeated. She shrugged, and Susie carried on in Spanish, tweaking one of my nipples with one hand as she did so. Whether it was her action or what she said I couldn’t tell but it made Maria laugh coarsely. She came close to me and I shivered. She smelled of tomatoes and onions and clothes worn once too often and stood so close I could count the lines on her face. I couldn’t believe she would really touch me.
‘I just told her that it didn’t mean she was gay, any more than me, but she should see how shamelessly you enjoy anyone touching you.’
I felt Maria’s hands brush my pubes and hoped she didn’t feel the corresponding leap in my sex muscles. My eyes closed as Susie continued, ‘I told her to stick her fingers up your vagina to see how wet it was.’
The rough, calloused fingers thrust inside me. I imagined they had just finished chopping garlic and unwrapping the fish we were to eat that night. It was awful, so awful that I couldn’t help it: I groaned. Susie laughed at Maria’s comments and answered her. The fingers pushed inside me again, once, twice, three times.
‘Yes, she’s got to be some slut to get that wet when an old woman touches her. Go on, do it again. Give the whore a treat.’
‘Susie, you’ve gone quite far enough. Let her go.’
I raised my eyes to Carlos, totally shamed and humiliated. I expected his face to register either disgust or excitement, but instead he was looking at me with an expression of patience and regret. His face changed however when he barked something rapidly at Maria, which made her scuttle from the room. When he looked at Susie his face was dark with anger.
‘I suppose I guessed it wouldn’t be long before the bitch in you came out,’ he said furiously. ‘You choose to play the whore, Susie: no one makes you. You’ve got no right to take it out on Bliss. I told you to leave her be.’
He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms, hiding my scarlet face in his neck. ‘I wish to God I’d never told you that story,’ he continued to Susie. ‘Anyway, you’ve done your job here, so just get back to the office. I don’t really want you around for the next few days.’ He turned back to me. ‘I just want to be alone with Bliss.’
Chapter Nine
I
t was a hard call deciding whether I should tell Red and Robbie about the Susie and Maria incident. Every time I recalled it colour flooded my face and I closed my eyes in shame and disgust. To be fair to Carlos, however, I wanted them to understand that however much bribery and corruption he might be happy to perpetrate, he hadn’t tried to exploit me at all and in fact had been my knight in shining armour as far as that bitch Susie was concerned. I wouldn’t have to tell them how tenderly he had untied me and led me to the shower so I could wash away all traces of Maria’s hands, and how sweetly he had made love to me to wash away my humiliation, or how he had blamed himself for telling Susie about the old man in the shanty town. Or, of course, go into details about the rather more hard-edged scenes we had over the next couple of days while Maria took a little holiday.
I decided it was more scrupulous to tell them. I did it quickly and with lowered eyes, adding, ‘I’m hating every minute telling you about this, but I just want you to realise that Carlos isn’t a complete sleazebag where women are concerned. But it’s over, end of story; don’t mention it again.’ And I burst into tears.
Red hugged me fiercely and Robbie slid off the other top bunk to put his arm over both of us. They were so sweet, and I felt such a girlie. I can’t even remember the last time I cried; I think it was when the games teacher I had a desperate crush on left my school, about eighteen years ago. Mind you, as they both stroked me protectively I thought that after having been an object of degradation the prospect of playing the weak girlie was quite pleasant, and I made a mental note to consider changing my style when I got back to England.
We were on the boat to Patagonia. The previous afternoon we’d met in Puerto Montt and I’d been congratulated on the amount of information I had for them. Quite frankly I’d felt that apart from a couple of steamy encounters at the end of the week the whole thing had been a bit of a waste of time, but Red and Robbie seemed to think I’d done a good job. They were pleased with their own investigations, though kicked themselves for coming in to the restaurant. They had tailed Carlos from his meeting but not being experts at it feared he might have seen them, in which case it would have been more suspicious if they hadn’t come in.
‘Thanks to Franco and his pals we’ve got a pretty good file of sleaze, bribery and corruption stacked up against him,’ Robbie had said excitedly. ‘We’ve got plenty of photos of the site and tapes of interviews with people who’ve already been intimidated by Delgado and his cronies. Wheels are being set in motion already.’
Which is why I came clean the next day. We appeared to have struck lucky with the cabin. Of course, we weren’t alone, but Michael, our fellow traveller, was a taciturn German who said how much he enjoyed sea travel and after putting his rucksack away went up on deck. Now three hours later we were still alone.
I cut the crying act and explained that I wanted to be fair to Carlos. ‘I mean, what’s going to happen to him when all his dealings are exposed? Don’t tell me he deserves all he gets; he didn’t do me any harm, and came to my rescue.’
Robbie laughed cynically. ‘Please don’t worry about him, Bliss. Look, we’ve done our job. But nothing at all may come of it. Even if we can get a public outcry about the project itself, there’s never any mileage in naming individuals. It’s the agency and the multinationals that employ them that we’re after, not their employees. Let’s face it, if he went someone else would take his place.’
I understood and was relieved by that part, but his first comment took me aback a bit.
‘How can you think nothing might come of it? Surely once this is leaked there’ll be questions asked all over the place?’
Red stroked my hair and looked up at Robbie. I could see they were thinking, oh bless.
‘This sort of thing happens all the time,’ said Robbie gently. ‘If the public gave a toss about what corrupting influence companies like this have, don’t you think we would have a few more reforms? But people are kicked off their land on the instructions of oil companies, virtually enslaved by sportswear manufacturers and have nuclear reprocessing plants planned for their back gardens. What’s changed?’
Christ, I was depressed.
‘But sometimes,’ Red added, ‘people do take notice. Very occasionally. And this might be one of them.’
‘We have to try,’ Robbie put in. ‘Don’t you agree?’
I nodded, but it was hard to understand how they could carry on such frustrating work.
‘Anyway, we’ll have a bit of a nose around Puerto Natales. There’s a rumour going round that Patagonia could be phase two of Chile, the holiday resort,’ said Red brightly. ‘Never give up, Bliss.’
I was buggered if I could understand how they could be looking forward to another investigation that could be a total waste of time, but was impressed by their dedication.