The Movie (32 page)

Eleanor shrugged defensively. ‘I wasn’t born like this, you know.’

‘Do you want a nightcap?’ Goldman asked, and she was surprised to hear herself say yes. But she did want a drink with him, she realized. The pleasure of spending an

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afternoon with Tom Goldman, talking about everything and nothing, was too great just to be suddenly switched off with a stiffgood night. They hadn’t talked like this for years now, maybe even five or six years. The upper reaches of the greasy pole were too slippery and dangerous to do anything but climb.

They rode up to Tom’s suite in companionable silence. It was similar to Eleanor’s; decorated in silver and turquoise, it had shades of an Oriental harem, and instead of a library boasted a small private gym. His reception room was also fitted with a fully stocked bar.

‘What are you drinking?’ Goldman asked her.

Eleanor knew Paul would want her to say ‘mineral water’ or ‘a Virgin Mary’. ‘Bourbon on the rocks,’ she said. ‘Wild Turkey, if you’ve got it.’

Tom raised an eyebrow, looking at her quizzically.

God, th guy is so handsome, Eleanor thought. ‘Got a problem with that?’ she asked menacingly.

He laughed. ‘No, ma’am. I think I’m gonna have to bring you to New York more often. Dope, drink.., this is a whole new side to you.’

‘I haven’t done dope since I was twenty,’ Eleanor protested.

Goldman mixed them both a whisky and they sat down together on his soft, vast blue sofa.

‘To Artemis,’ Eleanor toasted him.

‘To us,’ Tom corrected her, ‘because we got there, and today we made sure we’re gonnastay there.’

They touched their crystal tumblers together and drank. ‘What did you mean earlier, when you said you weren’t born like this?’ Tom asked her softly. ‘What do you think you’re like now?’

She leaned back, feeling the pleasant warmth of the alcohol spread through her. ‘Oh, you know. The Ice Queen. The Statue. All those things they say.’

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Tom looked her in the eyes. ‘I never thought you were an Ice Queen.’

Eleanor struggled to beat back the slow, heady wash of desire seeping through her. It was too much, sitting next to him like this, after the day they’d had, up here, on their own. She knew it was dangerous. And yet she made no move to get up.

‘Why did you want to make movies?’ he asked her. ‘Why? I’m not sure.’ Eleanor considered it. ‘Because it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time. Maybe because I watched so many fdms as a girl. Because I liked the way they always had happy endings and the heroine always wound up with the tree love of her life. Every woman’s

dream. In the movies, everything was passionate and larger ‘ than life and nobody ever compromised, and I wanted to

believe my life was gonna be that way…’

Her voice trailed offinto silence.

‘And now you don’t believe it’s possible for a woman to end up with the great love of her life?’

‘I believe it’s possible.’ Eleanor toyed with the rim of her grass, then glanced over at Tom Goldman, sitting next to her, his black eyes staring at her so intently, his large body so dose she could hear his breathing, and his left hand, gripping his tumbler so tightly that the knuckles were white, decorated with a simple platinum wedding band. ‘I just don’t believe it’s possible for me.’

‘Look at me,’ Tom, insisted. He put two fingers under her chin and turned her face ,towards him. ‘You are intelligent and talented and beautiful and brave. I knew you were special from the second I met you. You can have anything you want.’

‘No,’ she said, feeling her skin burning where his foagers had touched her. ‘Not quite anything.’

For a few seconds Goldman didn’t reply. Then he began to look at her again, the way he had done in her suite, infmitely slowly, admiring her sexually, his gaze s.eeming

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to lift away her clothing, until she felt herself juicing, felt

her nipples stiffen in arousal.

‘Don’t,’ she managed.

‘Why not?’ Tom asked. ‘Am I turning you on?’ Eleanor tried to think straight, through the warm fog of her desire. Somewhere in the back of her brain, faint and far away, warning bells were ringing frantically. But the heady, liquid pulse of her blood drowned out all her

normal caution. For once she didn’t want to be sensible. She wanted Tom. She had always wanted Tom. ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘I want you,’ Goldman said, and Eleanor said, ‘Have

me.’

He leaned forward, very slowly, and brushed a lock of hair away from the side of her cheek, his rough palm cupping her soft skin, and then brought his left hand up to cradle the’other side of her face, holding her head, letting her feel his strength. Then he bent down and touched his mouth to hers, a soft, dry kiss at first, then a more urgent one, and finally he ran his tongue across her lips and cheek, pushing it inside her mouth, desperate to taste her sweetness. His arm suddenly circled the small of her back and pulled her body tight against his, impatiently, insistently, creasing up her expensive silk suit.

Eleanor was overcome with desire. At the first touch of his skin on hers, fire shot through her, blossoming in her belly and breasts, everything animal and female in her in heat, her blood seeming to warm and melt. Spontaneously she moved her legs apart, the centre of them moist and ready for him. His caress was exactly as she had dreamed it would be for all these years: masculine and tender and gentle and dominant. His erection strained against her through the fabric of his pants, large and rock-hard with need.

‘I always wanted you,’ he was murmuring, and Eleanor said, ‘Tom, my God…’ and then his. hands were

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fumbling with the buttons on her jacket, clumsily, and Eleanor twisted apart from him, stripping offher clothes, kicking offher shoes and peeling down her hose, as hungry as a teenager, until she was down to her bra and panties, tiny scraps of coffee-coloured Italian lace, and then Goldman’s hands closed over hers, stopping her, wanting to do that himself.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered, and then she groaned in arousal as his hands closed on the softness of her breasts, playing with her nipples through the lace, his finger and thumb rubbing them and stroking them until she was half-mad with the pleasure, and just when she thought she couldn’t stand it Tom’s lips were closing over them, his tongue lapping and tugging, sucking them, the

‘ wet heat of his mouth making dark circles on the tips of her bra cups, the roughness of the lace contrasting with the smoothness of his slippery tongue until Eleanor was arching against him, thrusting her flanks against his.

‘Do you like that? Huh?’ Goldman was asking her, his voice hoarse with sex, and then his fingers were trailing d6wn the front of her stomach, just the tips of his fingers brushing her skin, drawing a long, burning ribbon of fire across it. Eleanor sobbed with pleasure, unable to believe herself capable of such feelings, and then gasped out his name as Tom slid his hand into the soft, downy curls under her panties, covering her burning, damp mound with his hand, and then, infinitely gently, sliding two fingers inside her, rubbing lightly over the slick nub of her clitoris.

‘Oh, .Jesus! Jesus, Tom!’ Eleanor gasped, feeling her womb contract into spasm, intense pleasure exploding all over her and fresh wetness flood her between the legs as she came.

‘That was nothing, sweetheart. That was just the start,’ Tom said, and she felt him unsnapping her bra and peeling offher panties, damp with her own juices as he rolled them down her supple thighs. When she was completely nude,

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he rolled her gently onto her back, stroking her lightly from her shoulders, along the curving sides of her body down to her buttocks, and before she could even twist in response Eleanor felt his warm breath on the nape of her neck, teasing her, making the tiny hairs there stand on end, and then he was kissing her, firm, circular butterfly kisses, licking and sucking at her skin, flicking it with just the tip of his tongue, taking his time, moving down her spine.

Eleanor felt conscious thought recede. She was only aware of Tom’s mouth, and the heat of his body crowding hers, and his strong arms that held her relentlessly in place as she squirmed, maddened with desire, under the attentions of his tongue. Her entire body had become one huge erogenous zone; melting, pulsating streams of desire seemed to flow out of her spine, where his mouth was, and bathe her entire skin in ecstatic need. When he finally reached her coccyx, she was close to another climax.

‘Tom, you’re incredible,’ she sobbed, and Goldman said, ‘I want you so much, I’ve been thinking about this for months,’ and his hands were on her buttocks, gripping them, stroking them.

‘You’ve got a great ass,’ he said. ‘I used to fantasize about doing this every time you walked down the corridor.’

Eleanor tried to say something, but surprise and arousal strangled her voice and she could only twist under him, kissing at his forearm.

‘Do you want me, Eleanor?’ he was asking, and for answer she guided his hand to her pussy, open and more than ready for him, and begged, ‘-Please, Tom I can’t wait any more,’ and he murmured, ‘That”s right, sugar, let it go.’ He freed himself quickly, half ripping his clothes off, and Eleanor opened her arms to him, naked and hard and straining for her, his cock already dewed at the head, glistening with his arousal, and the two of them fell upon one another, kissing and biting, and he found her almost immediately and with one hard, impatient thrust sank’

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himself deep inside her, all the way up to the hilt, and then all Eleanor knew, all she could think about, was Tom Goldman, above her, inside her, his swollen thickness drawing pleasures out of her she had never imagined existed, his intelligent, arrogant face now staring down at hers with an intense expression of desire and love, and she felt his cock, sunk deep inside her, hit some melting, blinding place, some sweet, secret trigger buried deep within her, and suddenly a new orgasm was gripping her, more powerful than the first, more powerful than any climax she had ever known, the sensations seeming to pour out of every inch of her body so she could feel the waves rock he from her forearms to her calves, her whole body convulsing in blinding ecstasy, and she cried out, ‘Tom, I

‘ love you,’ and somewhere very far away she felt him tense, coming inside her, and she heard him say, ‘I love you, Eleanor, I always did,’ and then the final, consuming, white wave of bliss broke across her body and swept everything away.

Eleanor woke slowly, her head swimming up towards consciousness very gradually and gently, her deep sleep pierced by soft shafts of golden morning light. She glanced at the gold carriage clock by her bedside. It was 6.4o a.m.; in another five minutes the alarm would have shrilled, waking her far less pleasantly. Sleepily she turned it off, stretching luxuriously as the memories of the night before came flooding back. Despite the lack of sleep, her whole body felt loose and relaxed, as though her very bones had melted under Tom’s mouth.

She twisted a little on the navy-blue satin Pratesi sheets. Tom Goldman’s large, solid back was turned towards her, moving slightly as he slept. Eleanor admired him briefly for a second or two, staring at the hard bulk of him, liking the masculinity of the tiny dark hairs on his back, the scent of his body next to hers. She debated whether or not to wake him now, so they could make love again, but decided agaimt it: they had a flight in two hours and she wanted to dress and prepare herself, put her make-up on, be as beautiful for him as she possibly could. Her hair was a wreck, her face was a mess - well, she’d hardly had time for the cleanse-tone moisturize thing last night-and she needed to take a shower.

Eleanor slipped noiselessly out of bed, careful not to wake him, and gathered up her crumpled clothes from the sofa and the floor. Then she tiptoed back to the bed, kissed Tom lightly at the top of his spine and crept out of his suite;

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Megan tried not to give herself time to think about what she was doing. If she paused for breath, she might back out of it. This was not something reversible. This was her, Megan Silver, casting offher old way of life and plunging head first into the private swimming pool of a new one. It felt a little uncomfortable, but in Hollywood perhaps this was the only way.

The mini-library of self-help books that David had bought for her all said the same thing; you can reinvent yourself if you want to, physically, mentally and spiritually. Awaken the Giant Within. A Course in Miracles. Stop the Insanity. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … Megan had read them all, or at least skimmed through them. She’d had to - David Tauber quoted them all the

, time, and Megan didn’t want to look stupid in front of David. And maybe it was about time she woke up to the message - change wasn’t only possible, it was an American Duty. And if going from a caterpillar to a butterfly involved shedding a few layers ofsldn, well, that was simply the way it had to be.

‘The Electric City concert had been the last straw. She had been Caught up in the magic, she had wanted so much to be wrong about Zach, to be able to believe in the idealism of her generation again, to trust in artists, to have faith in the idea that there were people who sought truth and compassion, and who rejected shallowness and glitter and surface perfection.,For a few moments up there, in the humid darkness, Zach Mason had seemed to be one of those people, the tree artist, the hero she’d idolized since she was a teenager.

Pulling on her Calvin Klein jeans, Megan Silver smiled grimly. Idolize was the ideal word for it. Because Zach had proved about as genuine a gum as the Great and Powerful Oz.

Was she jealous ofloxana Felix? Megan asked herself. loxana was an out-and-out bitch, a fashion princess on

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the receiving end of a lucky genetic accident which she obviously thought entided her to be queen of all she surveyed. To know her was to loathe her. She was spoilt,