Authors: Primula Bond
‘Oh, God, Serena,’ he moans at last, running his fingers over my mouth to smooth away the wet. ‘I’d give anything to go straight up to that hotel room of yours right now. Something happens to you when you’re outside. You light up. It’s extraordinary. It was the same when you were galloping beside me in Switzerland. There’s something supernatural and untamed about you.’
I take a risk and run my hand down his stomach, further down to feel what it is he wants.
‘So what’s stopping you coming to bed with me right now? I want that too. More than anything. I want to do it again and again, like proper lovers. It’s a waste of an antique walnut-inlaid bed to lie there alone,’ I quip, biting my lip at the echo of Jake’s naughty suggestion.
Gustav groans, tipping his head back in frustration.
‘I can’t stay. I have to get back. No, don’t be angry with me. I’m not toying with you. How could I, after you’ve confided in me today? I do have a meeting about New York. I was going to drag you back to London with me but I want to be absolutely sure you’re coming back of your own accord.’
‘Drag me all you like, Gustav. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.’
‘No. One more test, for both of us. It’s a habit I might learn to break, but there’s something in me that forbids me to take what I want without being one hundred per cent sure I deserve it.’
‘You were pretty sure the other night. You took me when you wanted me then!’
‘Yes, and it felt absolutely right. But I regret the way it happened. The state of mind we were both in.’
‘I’m in my right mind now.’
He holds his hands up, then folds them tight around me again. ‘Yes, but I’m going to blame you for being such a beautiful temptress. No. Much as every sinew in me is urging me to stay, I’m going back to London now. My mission is accomplished. You stay here and relish the luxury. Crystal made a good choice when she purloined those funds from the company account, although she, like Dickson, should really be looking at a P45!’
‘I know you don’t forgive easily, or at all, but you’ll forgive Crystal, won’t you? She was rooting for me, even though she broke a confidence by telling you where I was. And so was Dickson.’
‘Dickson? He deserves to be sacked.’
‘You couldn’t manage without them, you know you couldn’t,’ I reply confidently. ‘And nor could I.’
‘And none of us can do without you.’ He takes my hand and leads me across the beach, leaving the heap of ashes behind us. ‘Come back to London tomorrow morning. Enjoy your last night of solitude. Because after that I won’t be letting you out of my sight. We’ll start again, my
signorina
. Let’s see this thing through to the end.’
The tender words are music to my ears, apart from the open-ended, enigmatic minor key of the word ‘end’.
He leads me back up the steps, picks up my socks and puts them in his pocket, strides on over the wet grass to the terrace and leaves me there.
‘What was the special thing you went to Milan for?’ I ask, desperate to keep talking even while he’s backing away from me.
‘Come back to the house in London, where you belong, and you’ll find out.’
And then with one final kiss of my hand he runs down to the jetty where the sea tractor is waiting.
I still have the key Gustav gave me. It was still on my silver bracelet. And it’s a good thing, because he wasn’t home when I let myself in this evening. He hasn’t even left a note.
But Dickson has. In a surprisingly elegant italic scrawl, he has told me the master wants me to dine well and not to wait up.
I try the door of Gustav’s bedroom on the lower landing, but it’s locked. The excitement that has propelled me all the way from Devon today is still there, but it’s mixing now with that nagging voice of doubt I can never seem to silence. I go over everything he said at Burgh Island. That’s all I can hold on to. Until he’s standing here in front of me, until I can touch him again, I don’t belong.
I lie on my bed in the attic room and stare through the arched windows. The moon is like one of those puffballs you see swelling in damp undergrowth. I reach for my camera and from my prone position take a couple of shots. Zoom in as far as my Leica lens will allow, right into the acne scars on its surface. The twigs from the little plant on my balcony are like fingers tapping at the window.
As I roll over to put the camera back on my table I see Crystal’s neat carry case on the floor, packed with cosmetics. She came here earlier this evening with the prints of the
Bleak House
series, and asked me to sign them.
‘You can close that chapter for good now, Serena.’
‘Yes. I’ve got all of you now. An odd lot, granted. Very eccentric. A bit like the Addams Family!’ I guffawed loudly. ‘Oh, don’t look so cross, Crys. Come and do my make-up for when Gustav gets back?’
‘Crystal.’
She opened up this big carry case and balanced a couple of round containers of colour on the tips of her fingers. With a thin smile she painted two round red spots on each cheek. I looked just like her, in fact, with the two round spots painted directly under each of her two round eyes.
‘Wipe it off and do it more subtle,’ I laughed, slapping playfully at her. ‘I don’t want to look like a barmaid.’
She pursed her lips tight as a button hole and held a lock of my hair in very hot tongs till it started to smoke.
I watched the tendril bounce out of the tongs in a beach-babe-style wave.
‘You know, you’ve changed since I’ve been here,’ I remarked, feeling like a princess. ‘You look a little softer, for starters. You don’t pin your hair so tightly that it looks like it’s being pulled out, root by root. Maybe you’ve put on a little weight? Munched too many of Dickson’s cheesecakes?’
Her mouth twitched reluctantly. Even her lips, still blood- red, looked plumper.
I miss her spiky presence now. I don’t actually know where she lives, although she is often here. Perhaps she floats around this house at night, watching over us.
I pick up her big blusher brush and flop onto my back. I stroke the brush down my throat, down between my breasts. I am wearing the lovely negligee Gustav gave me my first night here. The one I danced in. Why didn’t I just go ahead like Scheherazade and seduce him that night? He’s a man, after all, not a mirage.
I run the brush over the fabric to see if the soft bristles can penetrate. They aren’t sharp enough, but the sensation is just as pleasurable, and my skin gives a little quiver.
No need to close the shutters or draw the muslin drapes. I glance over at the balcony. The darkness and silence are spooking me tonight. No-one can see me up here. Unless they are one of Crystal’s cat burglars.
I pour out a glass of red wine from the bottle I’ve nicked from Gustav’s cellar. Dutch courage, if he ever comes home. Maybe he’ll be angry. I hope so. I want him roused. I’ve seen what he’s like when threatened, or cornered. I may not want that violent reaction every time, but I want to make something beautiful happen between us. Something that is only ours. No-one else’s.
I lie back again. So restless now. Where the hell is he? Maybe I should have gone out with Polly. She should still be gallivanting somewhere. I grope about but can’t find my mobile phone. She’ll want to summon me to whatever bar or club she’s in.
Loser! Staying in with just a paintbrush for company!
The wine, the bright moonlight and the soft Miles Davis music makes me dozy. Mustn’t sleep. The grandfather clock down in the hall wheezes, starts to chime, then for some reason thinks better of it.
I flick the blusher brush up and down my neck. It’s quite thick, with a sturdy handle, but the bristles are soft as kitten’s fur. I twiddle it like a cheerleader’s baton before taking the handle delicately between finger and thumb. I touch the bristles to my leg and flinch when they tickle. How I long for Gustav’s fingers on me.
I squirm as my skin tries to resist the hairy touch. I flatten the brush over my thighs, sweeping it down to my knees and back again as if painting myself, brush further up the insides of my bare thighs. I wriggle as my hands and the brush start moving of their own accord. The negligee rides up as my hands move about.
I remember how Gustav pushed it up, over my thighs and hips, how he studied me in the candlelight the first time he invited me here, and how he bent forward and licked me right here.
The brush flicks it, ruffling the neat cluster of curls. I let the brush explore.
There’s a tiny creaking sound. Nothing new there. The whole house creaks, especially at night. But I notice that one of the three glass doors opening onto the balcony has swung ajar. The little tree in its big terracotta pot scratches again, as if trying its luck. I should close the door against the draught, but instead I close my eyes and rock back into my soft duvet, dancing about on my bottom as the music murmurs around me and the paintbrush strokes faster and faster up my legs, over my stomach in circles, and down again, straying away from where I want it to go, the part of me that’s yearning and burning for attention.
This is what a cat burglar would see. Stop him in his tracks. Make him stand there with his swag bag, his coil of rope, maybe a weapon or two, crouched in the attack position, dressed all in black. My head starts to sway and I play my tongue across my lips. It makes me feel sexy like a starlet. I rotate my hips on the cushions, thighs moving further apart as the brush plays.
I am only flicking and stroking, but with each stroke of the brush my hips rock more wildly. I slide both hands between my white thighs and part my legs, wider and wider, all the time imagining Gustav here with me, remembering his tongue, the feel of his hands strong and rough on my hips and thighs, pulling them open.
Remembering the promise of it. The thought that we had all the time in the world.
He talked about addiction to that life with Margot. I push away her shadow. Well, I think I’m addicted to Gustav. That’s the madness keeping me here. Why I’ll keep flipping back to him like a boomerang no matter what he chucks at me.
There is another scraping sound, and I glance at the window. The breath catches in my throat. Be careful what you wish for. Because somebody has decided to answer my prayers. Or maybe realise my worst fears. Either way I’m not alone with this make-up brush after all. Someone is out there, watching me. A man, all in black, standing on the balcony.
His mouth is moving. Is he demanding something? My money or my life? I’m not stopping now for anyone. I bend my knees, relax into the pillows, close my eyes. The brush travels to the top of my legs, up over my smooth mound. The bristles pick up the tight curls, and I sigh out loud. Wonder what he is thinking.
It’s not Dickson, and it can’t be Gustav. Why would he break into his own house? My fingers waggle over the soft patch, I try to keep them back, try to tease for a moment longer, but the foreplay with the brush and the idea of the man watching are irresistible. I burrow in, crowd my fingers in for a moment. Everything is exquisitely sensitive and exposed, visible to the man outside and anyone else for that matter, no doubt about that, but my legs are aching now. I hear the moist kiss as my lips press closed.
Let him look for a little longer. Did he see what I was doing? Did it make him stiff? Or scare him off?
The brush starts again. Up and down, the bristles bending softly into my contours and making small circles round the emerging bud. My fingers follow the brush, probing until either the brush or my finger, I can’t tell which, scrapes that hidden kernel. It blazes into life and starts to throb.
I wriggle again, really into this performance now, throwing myself backwards as my fingers guide the brush, or rather the brush guides them. I ache with suspense as the brush dips delicately. I gradually increase the tempo until like an electric shock the brush hits its mark again.
Why isn’t the man crashing in through the open window, finishing the job off himself?
Figment of my imagination, that’s why, and if he isn’t, then the security in this house is better than I thought. In any case I can’t stop now. The brush works furiously until I raise my buttocks off the bed, knees flopping wide open as I moan in private frenzy.
My hair tumbles across my face as I come, blocking out the room and the moonlight and the motionless presence out on the balcony. The CD goes back to the beginning track. The warmth of the brush on me and its friction subside. I open my eyes blearily. The grandfather clock downstairs clears its throat again. It was my imagination. There was no-one there. Time to sort myself out. My face floods with heat, contrasting with the cold, and I draw my legs slowly together. Then I stand up stiffly and wander to the window. Bang my forehead wearily on the glass. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘Either option would be appropriate.’
Gustav steps through the window, wearing a black leather jacket, jeans and biker boots. He casually pulls off a black woollen hat which has left his hair slicked over his head. Then he starts to unzip one of his black gloves for all the world as if I’ve just invited him in for tea and cucumber sandwiches.
I move away from him, stand back against the window, the glass cold on my back.
‘Forgot your key?’
He nods, looking me up and down with undisguised lust flickering in his eyes.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Sent Dickson back to the gallery to check.’
‘So he still has a job, then?’ I laugh. ‘You could have rung the doorbell.’
‘I did, my darling. Frantically. You obviously didn’t hear it. I was worried you might not be here after all.’ He chuckles and picks up the brush. ‘But you were obviously otherwise engaged.’
I tug at the flimsy negligee. Feel traces of moisture seeping through.
‘So you thought you would, what, scale five floors of sheer London brick and leap over my balcony like Spider-Man?’
‘Batman’s more my style. More of a dandy, don’t you think? And it’s not your balcony any more, Serena. You’re moving rooms tonight.’ He unbuttons the neck strap of the jacket and cracks his neck to ease it. ‘Thought I’d use my old free running skills to get up here, actually. I could have waited for Dickson to get back, but I wanted to get into my house. I wanted to get to you as soon as possible.’