Authors: Rebecca Chance
Nearly there, she thought, the wine she had drunk keeping her
just serene enough to ‘deplane’, as the Americans called it, without any more undignified rushing.
Oh God, what was I thinking,
drinking that revolting wine? I completely forgot I was pregnant! What
on earth is
happening
to me?
She knew she should be feeling guilty,
but she couldn’t access anything but the rush of anticipation that
was racing through her veins. Ironically, now that she was so close
to her goal, she didn’t need to hurry any longer.
I mustn’t seem too eager. I must be very cool, as if she means
nothing to me at all . . .
Emily was waiting for her at the gate, her blonde hair tossed
over one shoulder, her face contorted with embarrassment as
she saw Victoria emerge from the jetway.
‘I’m
so
sorry you were booked on American, Victoria,’ she
said in a rush, words she had been planning to say for hours
now spilling out of her. ‘I know you hate it. I can’t
think
what
Travel were doing!’
‘It was the most convenient time,’ Victoria said casually.
‘The hotel isn’t quite what you’re used to, either,’ Emily
said apologetically, scurrying ahead of Victoria to show her the
way, scuttling sideways like a crab in an effort to look her boss
in the face while she talked to her, a considerable achievement
in Miu Miu Mary Jane stilettos. ‘But you’re in the Presidential
Suite. Apparently it’s the best in St Louis.’
Victoria flapped a hand at her, indicating that she should
shut up. Emily went white, red, and then white again, biting
back tears, and obediently fell silent; she was so intimidated by
Victoria that she didn’t dare to say a word from then on, not
even to indicate where the limousine was waiting for them.
Instead she did her best to convey everything by gesture, which
would have been very entertaining if Victoria had been in the
mood to be amused.
But I’m not, Victoria thought. Her body was on tenterhooks,
her guts churning as if she had food poisoning, twisting and
writhing like a pit of snakes; she hadn’t eaten a thing all day,
couldn’t have managed solid food, had existed on skim-milk
cappuccinos and white wine, and was feeling positively lightheaded as a result. Her iron self-control, however, meant that
Emily had no idea that Victoria was any different from normal.
Victoria either overwhelmed her underlings with a barrage of
questions, or ignored them completely, so the fact that she was
sitting silently in the limo, staring straight ahead, taking regular
sips of Fiji water from the glass that Emily had eagerly poured
for her as soon as the car pulled away, meant only that Victoria
was pretending Emily simply didn’t exist, something she did in
the
Style
offices on a daily basis.
This water isn’t 12 degrees, Victoria noticed. And the lime
isn’t cut how I like it – quartered, not sliced. Coco would have
made sure it was exactly right, even on the road. Normally,
she’d have taken the opportunity to make that point firmly to
Emily, but today, it simply didn’t seem to matter.
Emily cleared her throat, wanting to say something, but
nervous at her boss’s reaction.
‘Yes?’ Victoria turned her head.
‘Um, we’re here, Victoria,’ Emily mumbled. They had not
only come to a halt: the driver had climbed out, and stood
ready to open the door.
Victoria started in surprise. ‘So we are!’ she said, handing
the empty glass back to Emily. ‘Thank you,’ she added absently,
and, exiting, completely missed the girl’s astonished reaction
to her last words.
Across a smooth incline of green lawn, the St Louis Arch
rose in front of Victoria, nearly 200 metres tall, a shining,
stainless-steel curve like a huge twisted silver ribbon, superbly
elegant and utterly incongruous against the background of the
standard American city it anchored. Its single, powerfully sleek
line, designed by Eero Saarinen, might have come straight
from an Ayn Rand novel, a monument one of her heroes or
heroines struggled for decades to build, a soaring triumph of
the individual will against collective mediocrity.
Through the arch, at the base of the levee on which it stood,
the muddy, coffee waters of the Mississippi could be seen,
flowing sluggishly along. Huge, ugly, rusted freighters chugged
slowly upstream against the current; Victoria could just
glimpse a white paddle-steamer riverboat, moored at the base
of the steps that led down to the waterfront, clearly a tourist
destination.
Not the riverboat, she thought instantly, her razor-sharp
editorial brain snapping into gear. The freighters might be
rather wonderful, but we can’t possibly have that tacky tourist
trap in the photos.
And then, picking her way down the looping path which
cut through the manicured green grass, she began to make out
the details of the fashion shoot, and it was as if a sledgehammer had slammed into her ribcage.
Because, standing at one of the bases of the arch, was Lykke.
She wore a tiny, abbreviated, deep blue polo shirt which
clung to every inch of her narrow torso, a band of milk-white
skin showing at its hem, above the waist of her huge, crimson
skirt. It was made of layers and layers of stiff tulle, spreading
out wide as petals on a cabbage rose, a huge blossom with
Lykke’s slender body as the stamen, her delicate features at the
centre. Her hair was a long white flag spilling down her back;
on her feet were high wedge sandals. She was posed standing
against one foot of the arch, her spine curved to mimic its
shape, a white marble statue in a perfect, formal tableau.
‘No!’ Victoria said loudly, her cultivated, patrician voice
cutting like a diamond through glass across the air between
her and the troupe of
Style
staffers. She strode swiftly towards
the group, all of whom jumped nearly out of their high heels,
swinging round with identical expressions of panic on their
faces.
‘Wrong!’ she continued, closing the distance with a snap of
her stiletto boots on stone.
Stretching out one arm to the side, she held out her Bottega
Veneta bag, which was instantly removed by Emily, who had
hurried up behind her.
‘What did I say?’ Victoria asked rhetorically, putting her
hands on her hips.‘Jumping. Running. Girls in movement. This
is America, not bloody
France!
’
She swivelled to fix Mireille in her sights. Annoyingly,
Mireille was the only one of the
Style
employees whose expression had barely changed on hearing Victoria’s emphatic ‘No!’
Standing with her Italian-shod feet in third position, her pencil
skirt and twinset fitted perfectly to her slim frame, her high
bun and Hermès scarf were the final touches that made her
look entirely French, in a town so American that the correct
pronunciation of its name emphasised the final ‘s’ in a way that
totally contradicted its French origin.
‘I’ve
told
you, Mireille,’ Victoria said crossly. ‘Why is she
standing still? This is an American shoot – my first American
cover. That’s the whole point! Iconic American . . .’ she waved
at the arch . . . ‘edifice, monument – what the hell is that thing?
Anyway, iconic American
thing
, and American sportswear, red
and blue – and look at her, she’s white as a sheet of paper! She
is
the American flag! And what the hell does a flag do? It
bloody well
moves!
’
Victoria could barely look at Lykke, let alone say her name in
public; she confined herself to swinging her arm briefly in the
model’s direction. Lykke had relaxed from her pose and stepped
off the grass to spare the suede of her shoes. Hands folded in
front of her, those incredible blue eyes regarded Victoria as
gravely as a young nun in front of the Mother Superior.
‘America’s in
motion!
’ Victoria swept on, instantly averting
her gaze. ‘This girl,’ she still couldn’t say Lykke’s name, ‘was a
dancer – that’s partly why I told you to book her. I want to see
her moving.’
And then a red flush swept over her face as, despite her
most rigorous efforts, she failed to repress the memory of
Lykke, moving between her splayed legs, jamming her pussy
against Victoria’s, humping her, hard and furious, against the
trestle table in the studio, her hands wedged against the top of
the table to let her grind even harder against Victoria’s . . .
She knew the blood had risen to her cheeks, and hoped
desperately that they’d take it for a surge of anger. Mireille’s
eyes were quizzical as they took in her editor’s arms-akimbo
stance, but she replied, with her customary poise, ‘Of course,
Victoria. We did,
naturellement
, plan out many of the shots in
motion that we know you prefer. There was the suggestion by
Ludovic,’ she gestured at the photographer, ‘that we shoot just
a handful of more sculptural photos for the website. But we
will immediately abandon that and return to the more
American style,
comme vous voulez
.’
Victoria bit her tongue. But she couldn’t go back now.
‘Good!’ she said curtly. ‘You can do some standing shots
later, if the light holds out. Now, let’s go.’ She snapped her
fingers. ‘Come on! The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get
out of this Godforsaken hole.’
‘Ms Glossop?’ said a small voice. Victoria looked impatiently
in its direction to see a large-boned, Midwestern woman, who
looked clinically obese next to the skinny
Style
girls, emerge
from behind the photographer. She was wearing a navy shift
dress, a pink cardigan fastened round her neck with an elaborate
brooch, and court shoes.
Macy’s finest
, Victoria thought dismissively.
Mall wear
.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ the woman gabbled on bravely.
‘I’m Myrtle Robinson, from the St Louis Convention and
Visitors’ Commission – I was hoping to interest you in a few
facts about the Gateway Arch. You know, it’s the gateway to
the West, it truly symbolises the heroism of those early explorers, Lewis and Clark, we have a real fine statue of them down
in the river in a little boat, with their dog Seaman, it sure is real
cute and I’d be more than happy to personally escort you
down there to take a look if you’d like – it might make a fine
background for one of your fashion photographs . . .’
Dead silence had fallen. Every single
Style
staffer was staring at Victoria with agonised expressions, expecting her to
first rend Myrtle Robinson limb from limb, and then turn on
them for having allowed her to be exposed, even momentarily, to this flood of tourist-board drivel. Even Myrtle herself
finally wound down midstream as if her batteries had died,
her bright-lipsticked mouth hanging open as she took in the
wordless way Victoria Glossop was staring down her long
aristocratic nose at her.
Victoria’s lips parted. Emily, hovering close, the handbag
over her arm, took a full step back in fear.
‘Take
her
,’ Victoria said, nodding at Mireille. ‘She’s our fashion director. I’m sure she’d love to see the statue. And don’t
hurry back,’ she added to Mireille.
A small smile curving her lips, Mireille strolled towards
Myrtle Robinson, who was pink-cheeked with excitement and
pleasure at being able to take
Style
’s fashion director to one of
the city’s famous landmarks.
‘Well!’ she could be heard saying as she bustled Mireille
away in the direction of the steps down to the river. ‘It sure
was nice of her to spare you for a little while.’
What on earth is happening to me? Victoria thought briefly.
Is the pregnancy making me soft?
The thought was nauseating. Turning to the trembling
Emily, she bellowed, ‘Coffee! Now!’
And then, fixing Ludovic with a steely stare, she continued,
‘Well, what are we waiting for? Come on – action shots! Let’s
get moving! I want to see her fucking
fly!
’
Victoria had been up since five that morning. She had worked
out, dropped into the office briefly, left again for her hospital
appointment – which, as far as the office was concerned, was a
trip to view a house; she wasn’t telling anyone she was pregnant till she passed what the Americans called the first
trimester. Then she had dashed to the airport, flown to the
Midwest and supervised a crucial cover shoot for four hours.
I
ought to be shattered
, she knew, as she stood at the floor-toceiling window of what passed, in St Louis, for a decent suite,
staring out of the window at the city by night, bright with
lights in a regular pattern of lines that signified the centre of a
purpose-built American city, laid out to a symmetrical grid
pattern. Beyond the sprawlingly-wide Mississippi, now a black
swathe of velvet spanned by orange-lit bridges, the factories of
heavy industry on the wrong side of town sent up a faint plume
of smoke still, though it was past ten at night. The smoke had
been there all day, grey and dirty; it would be scrupulously
airbrushed out of the final photographs.
An Ayn Rand arch is a fabulous symbol of America, Victoria
thought. Those factories are just as Ayn Rand, but rather less
photogenic . . .
Or are they?
An image popped into her mind, fully-formed, influenced
also by the rusty sides of the passing freighters, their faded and
peeling paint. A huge factory, pipes and metal framework,
girders and RSJs, high ladders against old brickwork. And
Lykke, beautiful and pale as a ghost, halfway up the ladders,
draped over rust-stained slabs of iron, her limbs long and slender as the poles of the ladders, spike heels elongating her legs
to impossible proportions . . .
Fuck!
Victoria slammed a hand into her forehead. Every
time she closed her eyes, she saw Lykke’s face, her body, her
breasts . . . every time she lay down in bed she imagined
Lykke on top of her, fucking her as she had that afternoon
weeks ago. She had planned the entire cover shoot around
Lykke, her white skin and hair that would make such a stunning visual image with the reds and blues that were so
on-trend right now, would provide an unearthly, sophisticated vision of Americana that would instantly proclaim
Victoria’s arrival at the helm of
Style
. She had put Mireille in
charge of the shoot, had held off for ages on even booking
herself a ticket, had told herself that she wouldn’t visit, would
leave matters entirely in Mireille’s hands.
But of course, she had been completely unable to resist the
temptation of seeing Lykke again.
Victoria had left them all after directing the shoot, had said
she was tired and would retire to her suite and get room service. But that hadn’t been true. She was terrified of being out in
public with Lykke in a social situation, afraid that the way she
looked at the girl – or maybe even the way she avoided looking
at her – would betray her to the watching eyes of her employees, who were used to observing her like a hawk to ensure they
were doing things precisely the way she wanted. Even being so
close to Lykke, outside, by the arch – she had needed to touch
the model, to rearrange the hang of clothes on her body, to
show the hairdresser how she wanted Lykke’s long silky white
hair done for the next shot – had been unspeakably erotic.
Victoria’s breath had come fast, her hands had trembled; she
had blamed Emily, loudly, for bringing her over-strong coffee.
And Lykke had stood there like a beautiful mannequin, only
a blue vein in her throat, pumping against the white silky skin,
to show that she was moved, agitated, in any way by the proximity of the woman she had fucked so wildly the one and only
time they had met before.
Oh my God . . .
Victoria looked at herself in the dark glass of the window as
she reached down and slid one hand between the wrapped
folds of her robe, parting it slowly, the silk lining brushing
exquisitely against her bare legs as she pulled it aside. Her
fingers moved up her thighs, even higher, between her legs,
slipping her fingers up into the parting of her lips, teasing
herself, easing back and forth, her body gradually yielding,
relaxing fully, allowing her between those folds, too. Victoria
inhaled a little gasp at the sensation, the wetness her finger
found inside her, the eager readiness as she pretended that it
was Lykke caressing her like this, Lykke’s fingers between her
legs, Lykke’s fingers inside her now . . .
A moan escaped her. And then she heard a series of light,
insistent knocks on the door of the suite.
She knew instantly who was there. It wasn’t room service;
her untouched dinner still stood on its trolley in the sitting
room, covered by stainless-steel lids that she hadn’t even
lifted. It was too early for them to come to take it away again,
and besides, room service, or housekeeping, would howl
loudly outside the door; it seemed the policy now in provincial hotels, some sort of training code that taught them to
whack at the door, throw their heads back, and yodel:
‘HOUSEKEEPING!’ at the top of their voices. You couldn’t
call to them to come in any more, either: no, you had to open
the door yourself, and then invite them in. Like vampires,
they weren’t allowed to enter until you had officially told
them to do so. It was all so tedious.
The knocks came again, soft and discreet.
There was a moment, poised in time, where Victoria held
fire. Where her brain still desperately tried to distract her by
running through room service and housekeeping protocol,
keeping her away from the main door of the suite for long
enough for the person outside to become discouraged and slip
away again.
But the next thing she knew, her mules were dashing across
the carpet, her silk robe whispering around her as she ran, and
she was fumbling at the door, cursing under her breath as she
struggled with the security latch, the awkward brass handle.
Eventually she dragged the ridiculously heavy door open, her
breath stopping, caught in her throat, as she saw Lykke standing there, pale and beautiful, her hair pulled back in a ponytail,
wearing the leggings, loose sweater and Ugg boots that were
the uniform of the off-duty model.
The two women stared at each other for a few seconds.
Eye to eye, almost; Victoria’s mules had heels, while Lykke’s
boots were flat-soled, which helped to even out the height
difference.
Lip to lip
, Victoria thought, and then she couldn’t
help it, she found herself looking up and down Lykke’s body,
picturing what was under her clothes, and thought,
Breast to
breast . . .
The next moment, Lykke had stepped forward, inside the
suite, and the heavy door swung shut behind her as she took
Victoria into her arms.
‘I had to come to you,’ she said seriously. ‘Because you
wouldn’t come to me.’
The breath Victoria had been holding flooded out of her in
a great sigh of relief. She threw her arms around Lykke,
suddenly desperate to embrace her, to touch every inch of her,
to kiss her as passionately as they had kissed before. Even
though she had been thinking about Lykke near constantly,
fantasising about her, imagining her long, pale naked body
stretched on top of hers, she hadn’t realised, until her lips and
Lykke’s met, how intense her yearning had been.
Wrapped together, stumbling in their haste, Lykke crashed
back into the wall of the hallway, Victoria pressing her back
against it, grinding herself into Lykke, dragging up the girl’s
sweater, moaning with satisfaction as she discovered that she
was naked underneath it, her hands closing over Lykke’s bare
breasts. Lykke’s hands were in Victoria’s hair, cupping her
skull, dragging her lips to hers, her tongue sliding into Victoria’s
mouth, claiming it, her breath sweetly tasting of sugary fresh
mint. The kiss went straight to Victoria’s crotch, like a stab
between her legs, a fizzing and buzzing in her pussy as if she
had slid one of her many sex toys up inside her.
‘Fuck,’ she moaned into Lykke’s mouth. ‘God, you make me
practically fucking come just by fucking kissing you . . .’
Lykke pushed off the wall, took a couple of steps forward,
pressed Victoria back in her turn against the opposite side of
the hallway, a picture hanging there tilting sideways with the
impact, luckily failing to hit Victoria’s head. Lykke was unbelting Victoria’s robe, squeezing her breasts, and Victoria made a
choked protest, between pain and pleasure; her breasts were
more sensitive than they had been before.
Lykke noticed instantly.‘Are you on your period?’ she whispered, kissing Victoria’s neck.
‘No, I—’ Victoria couldn’t say the words.
But then Lykke’s gaze dropped down past the slightly swollen breasts to the curve of Victoria’s stomach, and she drew in
her breath as she realised the truth.
‘Don’t stop!’ Victoria heard herself say frantically. ‘
Please
don’t
stop!’ She writhed towards Lykke, unable to bear the thought of
not finishing what they had started, arching her whole body into
Lykke’s, wrenching the girl’s sweater up and over her head, sighing in ecstasy at the sight of her tiny, bud-like breasts.
‘You’re so fucking beautiful,’ she sighed, her hands going
down Lykke’s smooth back, sinking under the waistband of
her leggings, cupping Lykke’s small buttocks, throwing herself
at Lykke till they crashed back into the other wall once again,
ricocheting into it. She dragged the leggings down to Lykke’s
thighs as Lykke sank her mouth into Victoria’s neck, finding
the most sensitive points, licking and biting and kissing.Victoria
heard obscenities streaming out of her lips, words over which
she had absolutely no control, that trailed into a high, wordless
wail. She jammed her hand into her mouth, to stifle a scream
as Lykke cupped Victoria’s crotch with her hand and expertly
flicked the tip of one finger three times, just enough to send
Victoria into a desperately-needed orgasm.
Her hips slammed into Lykke’s with release, her muscles
slackening, her eyes closing as she gave herself up to pure
sensation. Dimly, she felt Lykke pushing her against the wall
behind her once more, giving her something to lean against as
the girl sank to her knees, eased Victoria’s legs apart, and, her
hands reaching up to caress the infinitesimal swell of Victoria’s
stomach, tilted her head into Victoria’s pussy and slid her hot,
clever tongue inside it.
Victoria’s palms were flat against the ridges of the wallpaper,
pressing into it with everything she had, trying to keep herself
upright, steady enough so that Lykke could keep doing what she
was doing, licking her in strokes and whirls,flicking her with the
tip of her tongue, making her come again and again. Victoria’s
hips bounced back and forth off the wall, a regular, steady
rebounding as she rose and fell on Lykke’s tongue. Lykke knew
exactly how to pace Victoria, not to over-stimulate the highlysensitive cluster of nerve endings that blossomed between her
legs, to take her on a long ride, like a boat sweeping up and
down a series of waves, cresting the white foam on each ridge,
then dipping, with just enough time to catch her breath, have
her eyes focus again on Lykke’s smooth white forehead, the
delicate wisps at the hairline, as white as her skin –
like
swansdown, like feathers
, Victoria thought distractedly before
Lykke’s tongue twisted around her centre and her eyes snapped
shut once more as another orgasm laced through her.
She had no idea how long it went on before she became
aware, slowly, her pussy wet and open and throbbing with
sensation, that Lykke was on her feet once more, winding an
arm around her waist, leading her through into the bedroom
of the suite, laying her down on the bed.
‘I wonder if you taste different,’ Lykke said, her blue eyes
wide, ‘now that you are pregnant. I wish I had tasted you
before, to see the difference.’ She was kicking off her Uggs,
pulling off her leggings, her naked body even more perfect and
streamlined than Victoria had imagined it.
‘What do I taste like?’ Victoria asked, pulling Lykke towards
her, licking her own juices off Lykke’s wide mouth.
‘Do you think you taste different?’ Lykke asked eventually,
raising her head. ‘You lick your fingers after you touch yourself
– do you think there is a change?’
And bossy, utterly confident Victoria Glossop, editor-inchief of
US Style
, all too used to rapping out commands, with
no hesitation, ever, in giving her opinions, found herself wriggling and blushing like a little girl.
She couldn’t answer. Instead, she tilted herself up, one hand
between Lykke’s breasts, pushing her back, watching the serious, questioning expression in Lykke’s long, pale aquamarine
eyes grow even more serious, even more concentrated, as she
stretched out her long legs, lay down in response to Victoria’s
unspoken order. Like all five-star hotels nowadays, the bed was
made up with a duvet on top of the high mattress, for extra
softness, extra delicious yielding as one climbed onto it, and
Victoria felt as if she were moving through a cloud as she slid
between Lykke’s legs, her knees sinking into the mattress
topper, which was soft as Lykke’s skin, as her silky inner thighs,
as the faintest, silkiest, down on her mound of Venus . . .
Like feathers, Victoria thought, smoothing it with her hand,
hypnotised by the tiny fluff of white pubic hair on white skin.
She’s like some mythical creature. I could almost imagine that
she’ll grow wings and fly away . . .
Her hands met on Lykke’s mound, caressing it, slipping
down into the grooves on either side, tracing them with her
fingertips, making Lykke groan and thrust her hips up, begging
for Victoria’s touch further down. Her knees came up, the flats
of her bare feet on the coverlet, pushing down, raising her
groin to where Victoria’s mouth was ready to meet it.
Victoria didn’t have Lykke’s expert technique, but she had
always been the fastest of learners. And the inability to speak
was what helped her more than anything else, what forced her
to concentrate entirely on listening to the sounds Lykke made,
on feeling how Lykke’s pelvis pumped against her lips, teaching her how to pace her licks and bites and tongue-flicks as
Lykke had done with her, finding Lykke’s own particular
rhythm, making her dance on her tongue with pleasure, relishing the sweet, salty, sharp-lemon taste, using her hands to cup
Lykke, tip her up into her mouth, stroking the creases of
Lykke’s groin with her thumbs in tickling strokes that made
the girl gasp even louder, groan even more.
Victoria had always been entirely selfish in bed. She had
considered Jeremy’s orgasm something for which he was
completely responsible and which she strongly preferred him
to keep away from her as much as he possibly could. But this
was entirely different, so different that the sexual experiences
Victoria had had up to that point, before Lykke, seemed, by
comparison, completely unworthy of the name. Victoria was
transported, overcome, utterly consumed by what she was
doing, the stream of orgasms she was giving; grinding her own
pelvis into the comforter, she gave herself a whole mini-string
of climaxes that echoed Lykke’s cries, the rise and fall of her
small, gently-rounded buttocks as she rode Victoria’s mouth
again and again, growing wetter and wetter, Victoria licking as
fast as she could.