Katie In Love: full length erotic romance novel (5 page)

'It's beautiful,' I said, and he nodded thoughtfully as he replied.

'Damn right,' he agreed, and we stepped out of the car.

He reached into the back for his bag, took out a camcorder and slowly panned the surroundings. He filmed the façade, leaning back to capture the slate spires; they were black, shiny as the widow's patent leather shoes. The house was a folly. It looked Gothic with its block stonework and arched windows, but had been built in Victorian times by a wealthy botanist who had walked across Borneo and amassed the world's largest collection of butterflies. I was rattling off the history as the eye of the camera paused on my face.

'I make up my mind whether or not I want something by taking pictures,' he said. 'Just pretend the camera's not there. Can you do that?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Photographs without people are usually dead. A figure puts the dimensions into perspective,' he added, and I nodded in agreement.

The house was circled by tall trees. There was a half-moon of lawn with a sundial at the centre and, at each corner, facing away from the house, two crumbling statues that looked Greek, but were probably replicas. There was silence except for the hum of insects and the lilting song of a nightingale calling from the bushes that arched over the porch. It stopped abruptly, fluffed up its feathers and stared directly into my eyes. As the camera turned back to the house, the bird lifted from its perch and vanished into the glare of the sun.

We followed the York stone path to the entrance. I had a problem opening the door, and Mr Devlin stepped in to save the day.

'There, you have to be strict with door locks, show them who's boss,' he said.

We entered an open hall with black and white tiles, marble busts and a sweeping staircase. He took from his bag a stills camera, a Nikon, hung it around his neck, and continued filming as we made our way into a wide living room decorated with portraits staring down from carved gilt frames. As I passed the mirror above the fireplace, the image I glimpsed didn't look like me at first, my lips red from where I'd been unconsciously biting them, my hair wild after being blown about in the wind. I paused for a moment. I was in a sort of trance and came back to my senses when I saw Mr Devlin behind me in the reflection. He wasn't smiling as he pointed to the corner.

'Stand over there, Katie, I want to show the piano in front of the bookshelves,' he said. 'Is the piano included in the price?'

'As far as I know, everything is included,' I answered.

'Everything?' he repeated, and I nodded. 'That's good. I hate quibbling over small things, don't you?'

'Yes, I suppose so.'

I posed beside the piano, a Steinway with gold lettering, and recalled watching Bella in the music room practising. Bella always knew what she wanted and went about getting it with a blend of audacity and submission, the resources I needed at that moment. He clicked his fingers to draw my attention.

'Will you do something?' he said. 'Try and relax. Look as if you're thinking to yourself: if I play my cards right, I might just sell this house.'

He must have been reading my mind because that's exactly what I was thinking. The camera whirred, Roger Devlin moved closer, so close the lens almost touched my nose, then backed away again.

'The camera likes you,' he added.

I felt a little shock like static electricity and, when I smiled, he clapped his hands three times.

'And there's me thinking your lips were always stuck in the same position,' he remarked. 'You're not nervous, are you, Katie?'

'No...yes. No. I'm not sure.'

He laughed and I laughed.

'Come on, let's go outside.'

The living room opened on to a long garden containing the hoops required for playing croquet. We exited through the French windows. He was behind me, filming again as I walked across the lawn. He took a number of stills, then went back to the camcorder.

'Take your shoes off, I want to get one of those, you know, barefoot on the grass shots.'

I did so. His voice had grown mellow. I was getting somewhere. The grass was like velvet, warm between my toes. The garden was an island surrounded by a sea of fields. The whir of the camera was rhythmic, soothing. It struck me that we were miles from anywhere, and how unusual it was for me to be alone with a man I didn't know. I watched two pink butterflies dance in a spiral then disappear.

'If only England was always like this,' he said, breaking into my thoughts.

'If only,' I repeated, and felt as if a bond had forged between us.

He mopped his brow with a white handkerchief and I noticed another one of the buttons on his denim shirt had popped open to reveal a gold cross on a bed of dark wiry hair. He gazed up at me gazing at him, then turned to study the back of the house. The spires pierced the blue dome of the sky and the windows behind small balconies were like glittery eyes looking back at us.

We continued the tour, the modern kitchen with high tech appliances, the dining room beyond with a dozen chairs around a walnut table, the extensive library, big as a ballroom, where the Victorian lepidopterist had kept his collection of butterflies.

'Yes,' he remarked, and our eyes met again. 'It's the perfect location.'

I was hot and felt a shiver of pleasure. Half of one percent of the sale price was almost £10,000.

'Shall we go upstairs?' I said.

'You bet. I want to see everything.'

He followed me back into the hall, filming at the same time, then stopped to throw his camera bag over his shoulder. I was still carrying my shoes and was about to put them back on.

'No, don't, just hold them,' he said sharply. 'Climb the stairs slowly, will you. I love this space and I want to get it just right.'

I started off.

'No, no, come back. Let's start again. Look a bit dreamy. Arch your back and swing the shoes with the rhythm of your movement. Think about something wonderful, your boyfriend, something like that.'

I set off again. I was good at taking stage directions and had once played Romeo in the school's production of Shakespeare's play with Bella, naturally, as Juliet. Mr Devlin remained at the bottom of the stairs. He shot a side view of me as I ascended, my head thrown back, my shoes loose in my fingers. Suspended from the ceiling was a huge chandelier made up of hundreds of pale pink shades like glass roses and it wasn't my 'boyfriend' who slipped into my mind, but the gardener peeking at me through the trellis in the garden at home.

We toured the five bedrooms with their en suite bathrooms and came to a halt on the balcony overlooking the garden in the largest of the rooms.

'Lovely view,' I said, and he turned away.

He set up a tripod at the end of the bed with its embroidered white lace canopy, attached the video camera so that it reeled off a wide angle shot of the room, and took various stills with the Nikon, the snap, snap, snap of the shutter like a steady pulse.

I opened the doors to the walk-in closets.

'There's masses of space,' I said, but Roger Devlin wasn't interested in details.

'That's what you expect, the price they're asking,' he returned. 'Now, stand over there, to one side of the window, in the light.'

I padded barefoot back across the grey tiles. The shutter snapped over and over. I had thought when you shot into the light the image was ruined by the flashback, but when he showed me the photographs in the view screen, my features were highlighted against a pastel background.

'Nice, eh?'

'Amazing,' I said.

'I'll get some printed off for you,' he promised, and stood back with that intense expression he had. 'Now will you do something for me?'

'Yes, of course...'

'Undo a couple of those buttons,' he said, pointing at my blouse. 'I want to get a shot of the sun on your shoulder.'

He spoke in a way that left no room for thought or discussion. I obeyed instantly, releasing the top two buttons. The collar wouldn't stretch back far enough and my fingers, as with a will of their own, unsnapped another two. The blouse opened to reveal my shoulder and the tops of my breasts in the pretty white bra I had chosen as if fate had lent a hand in my dressing that morning.

'Good, good, that's nice, very nice. Look over your shoulder, push out your hip. Come on now, come on, give it to me, baby, give it to me...'

He kept talking, the camera kept snapping, and, it's funny, but I knew what to do. I'd seen a million models in magazines and had pretended I was a model, peering into the mirror in my bedroom. I would pucker my lips and glance over my shoulder to see if my bottom looked cute when I tensed the muscles. All girls do the same, I'm sure, and it seemed perfectly natural in front of the camera.

'Katie, take it off now, turn around. I want to shoot your back. Do it slowly, the way you walked up the stairs. Just those last couple of buttons. You can do it. Let's get some really nice shots...'

His Irish lilt was stronger, mesmeric, compelling, his words like drumbeats, steady, melodic. I could hear the pounding of my heart. My skin was sheathed in sweat and it felt cool as the camera snapped and the buttons popped and I dropped my white blouse nonchalantly to the floor.

'Good, good. Lift your hair above your head and let it fall, always slowly. You could model, you know that. Didn't I say, the camera likes you? Turn now. Turn towards me. Lean forward, that's it. That's fabulous.'

I leaned forward. I swivelled my hips. I arched my back. The more I glammed it up, the easier it was.

'Katie, we're going to do something interesting now. I love this skirt. I want you to spin around like a ballerina and let the skirt swirl around the top of your legs. Do you think you can do that?'

I didn't answer. I listened to the camera shutter snapping. I crossed my feet and began to turn, gathering speed, the skirt rising like a hula-hoop. The room was shady except for the path of crystal light sliding over the balcony with its galaxies of golden dust. I grew hot and giddy and, when I came to a stop, he wasn't smiling. He pointed at the hook on the side of my skirt.

'Unhook that,' he said sternly, waggling his finger. He leaned in close, his dark eyes like the nightingale I had seen in the garden. 'Lower the zip and then do one more pirouette. Hold the skirt together before you start and let it swirl around and fall. Let's try and do it in one take.'

He stood back and I turned again in a circle, the dancing girl, dancing to the mood music, the race of my heart, the swish and snap of the camera. I raised my hands. The skirt moved with me, spinning faster and faster until it was claimed by gravity and fell in a pale pink pool about my feet. I stepped to one side and, what went through my head was how glad I was that I was wearing white against my suntan.

'Let's keep going,' he said, tossing my skirt and blouse on a chair. 'We're really getting somewhere.'

I kept posing, turning, thrusting out my hips. I felt as if things inside me that had been balled up were untangling. My skin gleamed in the shaft of light. I wasn't sure what to do with my hands and, when I gripped them behind my back, I realized I was pushing out my breasts.

He stared into my eyes. I smiled. He looked serious.

'Katie, will you do something?'

He didn't say what. He just looked at me and I nodded.

'Take your top off for me.'

The words came from his mouth like a coil of silver smoke and seemed to hang there as if in tiny cloud.

Take your top off for me.

It was such a simple sentence. Such a simple request. My nipples were tingling. I wanted to release them, give them air. The sweat on my back turned cold and made me shiver.

'Take your top off for me.'

He said it again, his smooth voice deeper, darker, the words no longer a curl of smoke, but words whispered from far away. They reached me like a recording that had been slowed down.

Take your top off for me.

Just as I often knew what Mother was going to say before she said it, I had known Roger Devlin was going to ask me to take off my top. But the
'for me'
tagged on to the sentence made the request appear so courteous it was difficult to say no without seeming disrespectful. I felt flustered, embarrassed, confused. As we had entered the tunnel of hedgerows at the end of the journey to Black Spires I had made a pact with destiny and destiny was taking its course.

'I can't do that,' I finally mumbled.

'Katie?' He waited.

'Yes.'

'I won't tell you again.'

'But…'

I sensed rather than saw the faint shake of his head. The disappointment. I was just a silly schoolgirl with my head full of fantasies, a pathetic little virgin. That's what Simon had said, and the words rang through me like a funeral bell. I had failed. I would never sell Black Spires.

'Please,' I said, but my will had gone.

He raised his brow, the upward motion acting as a spring that resonated from his bright eyes to my arms. It was uncanny, a stage trick, a radio wave. As his brow went up and his eyes flashed, I wriggled my arms up my back and unhooked my bra. Like a stripper in a night club, I held the cups to my breasts before allowing the material to fall away. I had been holding my breath and let out a long sigh. We remained motionless in the amber light, my breasts standing out firm, my nipples hard and painful, pink and shiny with the rush of blood. I had always thought they were too small, but they were full now, throbbing.