Linus Posen was a man who would never be made to face justice. Not unless justice came to him.
The front door went, echoing through the quiet mansion to where Bibi was preparing upstairs. She met her reflection in the mirror, totally sober for the first time in months. She had to be, for what she was about to do. Mustering her courage, she stood.
Downstairs, Linus was pouring Scotch, his back to her.
‘What is it?’ he grunted irritably.
Gritting her teeth, Bibi approached. ‘Hard day at the studio?’ she crooned, gently kneading his bloated shoulders.
Linus downed the liquid in one. She hated the way the bristles at the back of his head scratched against his shirt collar. ‘Every day’s hard,’ he muttered, dismissing her understanding. ‘All I want is bed and a blow job.’
She withdrew her hands and stood back. ‘Funny you
should mention that,’ she purred. Linus turned, a slow grin seeping across his face. He knew this routine because they’d done it before. Bibi had never initiated it—in fact, he hadn’t even known she liked it. That was part of the sport for him, but a dame’s enthusiasm had its merits as well.
‘Well, well,’ he growled, pouring a second drink but not taking his eyes from her body, ‘this is a welcome surprise. What’s the occasion?’
‘Does there need to be one?’ Bibi steeled herself for what she was about to do.
One last time … Then it will be finished
.
He necked the Scotch, wiped his mouth. ‘Bend over,’ he commanded.
Bibi thought of what was waiting upstairs. ‘No,’ she told him, pulling gently at his hand, praying he’d follow. ‘I’ve got something different in store for you tonight.’
Linus was too thick when it came to women to read unusual behaviour, let alone analyse it. He was also too aroused. His bottom half was distended with a raging hard-on.
‘Lead the way,’ he choked. Bibi’s skirt was short and as he trailed her upstairs he grabbed at the exposed flesh like something savage snapping at bait. Forcing a light-hearted giggle, she slapped him away.
On the bed, she tied his wrists, using a silk black ribbon. She tied the knots tight. Straddling him, she removed his clothes, from his tie down to his socks. He was breathing heavily now, all but foaming at the mouth with excitement. It was better this way—being in control. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
From the bedside cabinet, she removed another silk scarf, attempted to blindfold him with it but he resisted.
‘I wanna see everything,’ he pronounced gutturally, sweat building in the dip of his clavicle and forming a sheen across his meaty chest. She tried to force the blindfold—she had her reasons—but when he began to get angry she knew to cut her losses. Already she had him tied up: that was the most crucial part.
Standing, she slowly and purposefully stripped off. Linus bucked against the ties when he saw her underwear—or lack of it.
‘Get over here,’ he managed, red-faced, salivating over the scant panties, the soft nest of russet hair peeking through.
She bent to him, bit back bile as she touched her tongue to the sour head of his penis. It tasted of cheese and sweat. She ran her tongue down its length, taking him into her mouth. Linus released a protracted groan, a high-pitched whine, as he raised his hips. Ordinarily he’d be pressing her down, forcing her to choke, but not now. For once, she had the power.
‘Keep goin’, baby,’ he crooned. ‘That’s the way Daddy likes it.’
Bibi obliged, measuring the potency of his thrashes against the bed frame until she knew he was ready to come. Lifting her head, she mounted him once more. The heat from his cock burned and he attempted once or twice to stab it into her, fruitlessly, aimlessly.
‘Not so fast,’ she teased, each time evading his grasp. ‘I promised you a treat …’
Bibi produced a thin black rope from beneath the pillow. Linus watched, mesmerised, as she weaved it round his neck, bending to graze her tits across his chest, over his
mouth, letting him lick them, chew on them, anything to keep him hard.
‘Not happenin’, baby,’ he wheezed. ‘I don’t go in for that.’
Bibi pouted, pretending to be disappointed, but she’d planned for this—she wasn’t as dumb as he thought. ‘Come on, Daddy Linus,’ she breathed. At the beginning she’d called him that all the time, his favourite. ‘For me.’
He was torn. Bibi’s practically naked body hovered tantalisingly above him; he was centimetres from heaven.
Taking his silence for consent, Bibi gently tightened the rope, hardly at all at first so he could ease into it and think she was being cautious, playful. He leered as, for his reward, she sank her body on to his. Linus’s eyes rolled back in his head. Again, Bibi pulled on the rope, saw it dig more firmly into his skin, then she released.
‘Again,’ he panted, thrusting into her. She obliged, tightening then releasing, tightening then releasing, tightening then releasing.
Tightening.
Tightening.
Linus’s eyes bugged. Deftly Bibi raised her body from his, kneeling over him, thinking of every bad thing he had done to her, every terrible act he had made her do. He was trying to shake his head, strange gurgling noises escaping his lips, his body writhing beneath her as she tightened and tightened, every muscle in her spent with the force of it. The rope cut into him, beginning to draw blood. A bluish hue sprang up around his eye sockets, purple and black.
Die, you fucker! You sadist! You rapist!
‘
I hate you!
’ she screamed at him, again and again and again. ‘I HATE YOU!’
She thought she might cry, or laugh, or both at the same time.
Bibi squeezed her own eyes shut, unwilling to look at him: at the final moment, a coward.
Abruptly, Linus Posen ceased shaking and became still.
Stevie and Xander came into land the next day. Stevie wanted to see Capri, to visit the Blue Grotto and take the cable cars to the top of the island.
It was Xander who saw the news stand first and recognised the face.
‘My God, Stevie,’ he said. ‘Look.’
She had bought them ice cream,
gelati
, from a nearby stall. Catching the strawberry with her tongue as it melted down the cornet, she made her way over. ‘What is it?’
He was frowning, pale beneath his tan. Italians bustled around the kiosk, clamouring in their fluid, colourful language.
‘Xander?’
He presented her with the paper he was holding. On the front page was a picture of Linus Posen. Stevie didn’t know Italian, but she had enough common sense to deduce that the headline beneath his headshot read: AMERICAN PRODUCER DIES AGED 56. Another paper, another headline, this one more shocking, more revelatory: SEX GAME ENDS IN TRAGEDY.
Stevie’s smile dropped. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Bibi.’
35
Lori
Lori was in New York, shooting an anti-fur-campaign calendar. July girl, she was hot as the height of summer.
‘Beautiful!’ the photographer told her, clicking away ‘Another one just like that!’
Lori repositioned the faux-blood-soaked stole. It sounded grosser than it was: in reality the fake fur pieces were dampened with a dark, inoffensive liquid, and only in the finishing pictures would the red sheen be added. Against the models’ skin, those textures—the glossy red and sticky fur—made for a reel of dramatic images.
Dante was December. They had the hottest male model in town set against a crystal-white backdrop, his theatrical eye make-up and slim build rendering him near androgynous. The soaking-yet-still-so-lavish artificial bearskin wrapped around his ravishing black form made him resemble a 1940s debutante gone horribly, beautifully wrong.
‘Ew!’ He tore the material from him the second his shoot was done.
Lori laughed as she got changed. ‘It’s not real.’
‘Yeah, I kinda got that part.’
‘I meant the blood.’
Dante touched his fingers to his chest and made a face. ‘It sticks, darn it. To think I had a wax done yesterday!
And
I’m seeing you-know-who tonight.’ Dante was sleeping with a married actor, filming in NYC on the set of his new movie.
The mention of Dante’s wax reminded her of Peter Selznick. Following her chat with Jacqueline, Peter had mostly been behaving himself. He’d slipped a couple of times, usually following a mutual appearance, as if he couldn’t get his head around the fact they could pretend to be a couple and then get home and not necessarily sleep with each other. ‘Tons of chicks
say
they’re virgins,’ Peter had announced, rampantly chewing his Big Red gum. ‘It doesn’t mean they
are
. If it’s the press you’re worried about …’
‘It’s not the press,’ Lori had said. ‘It’s a personal thing.’
The whine had crept in. ‘How long’re you gonna hold out on me?’
‘You knew this was the deal, remember?’
‘Didn’t think you’d actually
meant
it,’ he’d snorted.
But if you omitted the sex pestering, Peter was surprisingly easy to live with. Plus Jacqueline had been spot-on when she’d said the world would go nuts for them as a couple. According to the media they had been together over three months now. Was Lori sleeping with him, or wasn’t she? Gossip columns raged with speculation.
‘Coffee?’ Dante asked as they exited the warehouse.
‘Can’t.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘I’ve a flight to catch.’
Landing at LAX early evening, Lori saw that, even weeks after the event, the city still hollered news of Linus Posen’s death. The effect had been less in New York—it was Los Angeles that had made him royalty—but the aftershock remained. At the airport, every newspaper and magazine carried stories on his life’s achievements, his contributions to the movie industry, his devotion to Hollywood. Each mourned the great talent that had been taken, too soon, from them.
As her car sped back to the Bay Heights mansion, Lori’s thoughts turned to Bibi Posen. She felt for the woman, knew what bereavement was like—and in those circumstances, too … It was a stretch for Lori to imagine what they must have been doing to lead to such a tragedy, but while she was a virgin she wasn’t naive: people did that kind of stuff and all it took was one wrong turn. Bibi had been taken in for police questioning but shortly afterwards released. Her husband had been a willing participant in a game that had gotten drastically out of hand.
Lori was surprised to find the mansion shrouded in complete darkness. She was sure Peter had said he’d be in.
The entrance hall was steeped in gloom.
‘Hello?’ she called into the silence.
Nothing. In the kitchen, she flipped the lights on, dropped her bags and opened the refrigerator. Half-eaten energy bars and vats of homemade fruit smoothies, blueberry pips clinging to the syrupy sides of their containers, let her know Peter had been here recently.
She grabbed a carton of juice and shut the door with her knee. As she poured, something flickered in the corner of her vision. Peering out to the terrace, into the fading light of evening, she saw an orangey glow emanating from one
side of the pool. He must be out there, though what he was doing in near-darkness was a mystery.
Padding out of the patio doors, she caught the bleed of music seeping over. It was sultry, sexy, something R&B. What was Peter doing?
Nothing could have prepared her for the sight that met her eyes.
Peter was at the foot of the pool, its water aquamarine and lit from below. He was standing hands on hips with his eyes squeezed shut. Candles flickered. Music blared. He was
wearing her lingerie
. The purple silk set she had treated herself to from Belle Gray a month ago. And shoes.
Her shoes
. Dagger-sharp Louboutin heels donated to her after a shoot.
Between his legs, two naked blondes were on their knees. One was kissing his legs—at one point, yes, his feet—the other’s head fixed a little higher, bobbing up down, in and out, like a nodding puppet, as Peter rammed resolutely into her, grim as a soldier marching into battle.
Lori’s first urge was to laugh. Then came the certainty that he must be stretching her clothes: his size-twelve feet teetered on the precarious heels; it was only really his toes and the ball of his foot that had managed to squidge themselves in. Inside the lingerie, his frame looked like the Incredible Hulk’s, expanses of oiled muscle rippling out of a tiny, futile attempt at discretion. He brought to mind a chair that had had an item of clothing thrown carelessly over it.
Peter climaxed furiously into the girl’s mouth.
Lori couldn’t help her words. Anger hit. What was Peter thinking, letting strangers into their house?
Her
house?
‘What the
fuck
is this?’ she demanded. She never cursed.
Peter’s eyes flew open. He teetered on the brink of his
heels before toppling forwards, falling headfirst into the pool. The girls went with him, all three surfacing seconds later, Peter’s beetroot-red face frantic as he thrashed about, scrabbling to reach the side.
‘Oh wow,’ one of the girls purred. ‘Lori Garcia. Wanna join the party?’ She was high.
‘Get them out,’ Lori said flatly.
‘Now.’
She made her way back indoors, blinking back the inexplicable burn of tears. What did she care?
This is what men are about. Get with it. They’re all the same
.
To think she’d ever believed in the fairytale was a bad joke.
Several splashes later, Peter was at her heels.
‘Hey, come on,’ he whimpered. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that—really, I am.’
She spun on him, could scarcely take him seriously in that lingerie. At least the shoes had come off. ‘Is this what you get up to every time I go away?’
He had the nerve to grin at her. ‘Jealous?’
‘Get away from me, Peter.’
He chased her up the stairs. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry! OK? Jeez.’
‘You’re dripping water everywhere.’
‘Lori,
wait
one second, would you?’ He grabbed her arm.
‘I even told you I was coming back tonight!’ At his nonplussed expression, she added in wonder,
‘Jesus!’
and turned and continued up the stairs.