Those Wicked Pleasures (34 page)

She looked past her husband to David, who was standing next to Jamal. In David she saw again the first great love of her life. The man who had nurtured the sensual side of her nature, who had primed her for love and sex with men. Their love had taken many turns, endured many changes, and still they loved each other. He smiled as if to reassure her. As if she needed reminding that he was there for her and would always be there for her. She smiled back. And then looked at Max, who was standing next to her. He still loved and spoilt her at every opportunity. Like her other brothers, he was always there for her, ever offering her another adventure, another dream to pursue. Max, who gave, and gave as if he gave nothing.

Lara had always taken these two men’s love for granted. Now, suddenly, she was humbled by it. In a moment of awareness she was humbled by all the love and the loyalty they had given unstintingly. Max squeezed her hand, and she knew they, both David and Max, had always understood that she thrived on their love and affection. She gave her attention now to Jamal. He seemed happier than she had ever seen him. There was a kind of energy about these three handsome and distinguished men who were there for her. She thought she might never experience this surge of energy again, and took it to her heart. For at that moment she sensed she had the romantic love that she had been seeking, pure and perfect as she had imagined it. How had she not understood she had been born with it? That it had always been within her. And that she had been doubly blessed because she had had it all her life in all the men who had ever loved her. She
was
romantic love.

The wedding party was ushered to a table and a chair set to one side of the garden. There Lara took the chair while Jamal signed the marriage certificate. The three men were standing around her. She looked at each of them, smiled, then took the pen in her hand. The sun struck her lavish engagement ring, sending a rainbow of colours over the certificate. The wedding-band, a circle of square-cut diamonds, sparkled. She tried to suppress a smile brought on by thoughts of Emily. All that disapproval. Lara signed the document. A shaking of hands all round. Her men kissed her, the magistrate beamed. There was a knock on the garden gate, and David remarked, ‘Perfect timing.’

In minutes the garden swarmed with Arab boys in striped burnouses carrying cage upon cage of white doves. They set them free. The garden became a flutter of white wings, the sound of flapping and cooing. Several house-servants
dressed in their best robes and turbans arrived with champagne. A quintet of Moroccan musicians filled the garden with the thump of drums, the sound of oboes and stringed instruments. Several Arab girls pelted the party with rose petals. After twenty minutes, the wedding party fled through the garden gate and piled into an open Rolls-Royce. The reception was being held on the streets and beaches of Tangiers, on a dhow that would sail them to a secret palace on the shoreline.

They had fled from Marrakesh because rumours of a wedding had already leaked to Jamal’s family. Fled to Tangiers and then from the house there, so as not to share their happiness with other than the four of them. It was a crazy, wildly funny day. Lara, who had been carrying a bouquet of dozens of white moth orchids, at one point saw a couple who looked very much in love. She stood up in the car and the couple waved and clapped, and she tossed the bouquet to the girl. It was falling short, but the boy ran for it and caught it just before the flowers hit the ground. He tossed it into the air again and the girl caught it. They went from café to café, drinking and laughing. In the
casbah
they had a wedding-feast in a small restaurant at the end of a maze of narrow streets.

It was dusk when Jamal and Lara parted from David and Max. And when David kissed her goodbye, he said, ‘If ever you need me …’ He pressed the amber
netsuke
she had given him, and from which he had never been parted, into the palm of her hand. ‘Just get it to me, and I will find you.’

She opened the palm of her hand. The amber object rolled around in it. She closed her fingers tight around it. ‘I’ll be fine. Just fine. Thanks, David, for everything.’ And they parted.

Chapter 23

Just a few days and nights later, Lara realised that she would not be fine. That she had made a catastrophic mistake in marrying Jamal. She had not expected that he would have changed, and she had, after all, loved him in the past, in spite of the negative and sometimes evil things she knew he was capable of. What she hadn’t bargained for – and it was obvious that Jamal hadn’t either – was how very much
she
had changed. But she had expected that their relationship would be based on truth and trust, not manipulation and deceit.

It had all started off well enough. The wedding day itself had gone marvellously, better than any bride could ask for. Alone at last on one of the African wooden sailing ships that had plied the coast of Morocco for centuries, they were thrilled to be husband and wife. Jamal could not have been more affectionate, more caring. More sentimental. It was not a perfect full moon, but it glowed silkily against a black sky studded with stars. The sea was rough, but that hardly bothered such a hardened pair of sea-goers. Lara and Jamal had stood in the prow of the ship and waved to David and Max standing on the now-deserted, powdery white beach next to several blazing bonfires, until they disappeared into the darkness of the night. Then Lara and Jamal turned their attention to the crew scampering over the ship in burnouses and turbans to raise the sail and cut through
the crashing waves to get them away from the shore and fully on course.

It was too cold for Lara, still in her champagne-coloured, strapless silk dress, even with its long coat of the same material. Whereas the soft, sensuous, yet casual Christian Dior outfit had been perfect for the wedding, once offshore, the wind tore at it and etched her naked figure beneath. Haute couture fell prey to raw nature. They went below, and Lara and Jamal changed into sumptuous Moroccan robes, period family-pieces. Over them they wore burnouses of the finest woven cashmere trimmed in silk embroidery. They went above once more to sit on deck under a silk canopy stretched over the tops of narwhal tusks. The sofa they reclined on was placed on oriental carpets of great age and beauty. They drank hot sweet mint tea and smoked
Kif
. The wind had eventually died down, and they lay in each other’s arms. She could feel his happiness, and that made her own swell. She was brimming with her newfound joy.

‘This dhow and the palace where we will be staying were two of my father’s favourite possessions. He would be so happy to know we married. He always thought you lovely. Had you been his, he would have sealed you away somewhere safe. Kept you all to himself.’

‘He never did that to your mother.’

‘Ah, but he did. He only let her out of his sight when she was allowed to go to New York, and then I or my brother accompanied her everywhere. But even that was only because he didn’t want his European and American friends to think him a barbarian.’

‘He was hardly that.’

‘Well, half that. There are still some seven women in residence who have never been allowed the privileges of my mother. And he was married to two of them.’

‘I hope it’s not a case of like father like son? I don’t think I could cope with that.’

‘Lara, they do say that of all his children I am the most like my father. One is sometimes surprised at what one can learn to cope with.’ His answer was less than reassuring. She turned in his arms to make her feelings clear. Candlelight fell on his face. They stared into each other’s eyes. He was too quick for her. He read her expression and placed a finger over her lips, telling her, ‘Like a lifetime of this.’ He kissed her deeply.

It was dawn when they arrived at their destination: an impressive fortress on the sea, flanked by stretches of glaringly white sand beaches, empty and apparently infinite. Crashing waves beat constantly against the façade of the stone palace. The dhow sailed through a breakwater to dock on the beach. There Jamal and Lara were met by a carriage and two horses that carried them through the gates of the palace into a courtyard lined with giant date-palms rustling in the breeze. Inside, from what Lara could see, it was lavishly appointed, a treasure trove of Islamic art and artifacts. They went directly to their suite of large and sumptuous rooms overlooking the sea on one side, and a panorama of undulating sand dunes on the other. It was almost more a moonscape than landscape, more an erotic escape than a desert outpost. From another window were visible walled gardens of date-palm trees and flowers, grass and pools, an oasis of lush flora and exotic birds where, Jamal insisted, a leopard and even a panther lived and roamed. Exhausted, they undressed each other and went directly to sleep.

When they woke late the following afternoon, they remained in their rooms and made love. Sex, passion, took over, a lust in which they willingly lost themselves. And it was during one of his more violent rages of lust for Lara that the ending of her second marriage began.

He had inserted a line of large baroque pearls, strung several inches apart on a silk cord, into her vagina. And then told her, ‘You are to wear them all the time. Grip them as you grip me, suck them with your cunt as you suck cock with your cunt, and you can come at any time you choose, wherever you want to. At some boring dinner party, while shopping, in art galleries, when you’re swimming, or flying, or riding … Am I not the most generous of husbands?’

He was smiling, and fondling the pearls with searching fingers, kissing her lips and breasts. He told her, ‘Even on demand, as now. Come for me, Lara.’ He felt the contractions, and his excitement mounted as she trembled in his arms and she came, warm and silky over his fingers and her very special string of pearls. Then again, and this time she called out in a frenzy of passion. He bit hard into her erect nipple, and then licked the tiny droplet of blood that appeared where he broke the plummy coloured skin. He had ordered and she obeyed.

They lay quietly recovering from their sexual abandon, he cradling her in his arms. She had been drifting between thoughts of Jamal and how exciting it was to be a part of his life, to grant him his pleasures, to submit to one who loved as he professed to love her. To drop all the barriers, run free with her emotions. Of course she was a sexual toy that he played with, that he honed to perfection, that he flayed so that she remained sexually raw, with every nerve-ending exposed. Sex with him was like a balancing act, always teetering on a dangerous edge. It was life lived and died in orgasm and rebirth and that slow climb back to life again.

That was where she was drifting when he suggested, ‘When next we meet Roberto, you will be wearing your pearls. I shall demand that you come, and you will. That will be his reward, to know that you are coming for him
in public. He loves that sort of thing, does our Roberto. Or should I offer you to him as a thank you note, to do with as he chooses? Well, we know what Roberto chooses. How many times has he had you, Lara? Sodomised you with that aristocratic cock of his?’

Lara resisted his words, and yet they grew clearer, until she was hearing him plainly and not through a fog of lust and love. None of it made any sense to her. What was Jamal talking about?
Who
was Jamal talking about? The Roberto she had introduced him to when they met by chance in the Piazza in Florence? Surely Jamal had never met Roberto before. But then, if that were true, how could he know Roberto’s sexual preferences? She felt suddenly sick. ‘Reward … for Roberto? A thank you note? What could you possibly be grateful to Roberto for, Jamal?’

She was sitting up now in the bed. The last play of sunshine was bright orange, and spilled through the window to bathe the room in a pink-golden light. She could hear the sea pounding the rocks. Rage, a dying day, and a sense of danger emanating from Jamal, seemed to fill the room. She looked naked and wanton sprawled against the brocades, her long silvery hair spread over the brightly coloured intricacies of the embroidered pillows. She could see Jamal, naked and virile, and on his knees now, bending over her, reflected in the huge mother-of-pearl and ivory mirror of Damascus work hanging opposite the bed.

Suddenly she felt real fear. A rare and unsettling experience for her. She swallowed hard and looked away from Jamal, not wanting him to catch the expression in her eyes. There seemed to be no menace in the way he took her chin in his hands and turned her head round to face him once again. ‘Don’t look away from me when I’m talking to you. Where is all your old world breeding, my dear?’

His eyes were cold as stone. But he spoke to her softly, as if coddling her. That only augmented the sense of menace. She had seen him like that in the past, when he was under the influence of some sadistic spasm. She reached for a large Chinese white silk shawl covered in pink and peach and gold embroidered flowers, trimmed with long silky fringes. She had an instinct to cover herself. The shawl lay on the edge of the bed. She drew it slowly over a leg, slid it gracefully up over her thigh. She tried to make it appear a casual, unimportant action. Jamal raised her hand and kissed it. The shawl slipped from her fingers and slid off her body, from the bed, on to the floor in a single frustrating slither.

He demanded, ‘Just leave it there. I prefer you the way you are.’ She obeyed. He kissed her thigh and then her ankle. Then, holding her by her foot and caressing it, while staring coldly up into her eyes, he said, ‘Why to Roberto? For making it so very easy for me.’

She girded herself to say, ‘Tell me it’s not true.’

‘That what’s not true? You should be more specific, less cryptic. This is not going to be a marriage, I hope, where we cannot communicate unless you are coming.’

She was cut to the quick that he should play the monster to her behind his role of Prince Charming. Where was love? She felt herself victimised by his petty stabs. She rallied, determined not to allow it, and ignored his demeaning remark.

‘Fate had nothing to do with our meeting in the Piazza della Signoria, did it, Jamal?’ He remained silent. ‘You stage managed that meeting. You used Roberto to arrange it and let me believe it was fate. What a fool you and Roberto must have taken me for. For what possible reason?’ She put up her hand as if to stop him from speaking, although he had had no intention of answering her. ‘Oh!’ Pain coloured her voice. ‘How very stupid of
me. Of course. You couldn’t come to me openly and tell me you still loved me, say you wanted to marry me. You were afraid I would throw you out.’

‘No, not that. Never that. I knew you would never decline an offer of marriage from me.’

‘You bastard! I don’t believe you. Then why the deception? Why did you have to manipulate me into marrying you?’

‘Timing. You were always easily seduced by me. I could always bend you to my will where other men never could. Deceiving you always shakes that pilgrim stock in you. It brings out a certain vulnerability that excites my imagination. Manipulation, deceit … just remember, it got us to the altar before the week was out.’

She tried to pull herself way from Jamal but he held her fast by her foot. Lara felt trapped. There was no getting around the feeling that she had made a monumental mistake in undertaking marriage to him. She tried to dismiss the feeling and make the best of what she had done.

Thus began for Lara the most soul-destroying time of her life. She and Jamal lived in the palace by the sea. There were wonderful romantic days and nights when he never left her side. He showered her with gifts and spent endless time with her, teaching her the customs of his country, the history of his family. They played tennis together, they rode Arab stallions into the desert, and they sailed. He had musicians and dancers flown in from Tangiers. There were lunches for Moroccan friends to meet his bride.

He promised her she could bring her plane and her mechanic. They would fly all over North Africa to remote architectural sites. He would build a runway for her plane. As soon as Bonnie’s holiday with Sam was over, they would fly to the States to pick her up, bring her back
to Morocco to live with them in the house in Marrakesh.

But none of those things happened. He kept postponing Bonnie’s arrival. The excuse was flattering: he wanted Lara all to himself, for just a little longer. He refused to allow Nancy and Coral to join them in the palace by the sea. They lingered, awaiting orders, in the house in Marrakesh.

A teacher was sent for from Rabat, and Lara began her Arabic studies. Jamal seemed proud of her quickness to learn, her anxiety to please him. But, from that very afternoon when she knew their marriage was a sham, his demand that she submit to him in everything became a way of life for them. And Lara’s neurotic need to please Jamal, not to have another failed relationship on her hands, soul-destroying as it was, became the object of her life.

During the seven weeks that they remained in the sixty-room palace next to the sea, Lara was victimised by Jamal in a thousand petty ways. He refused to let Bonnie join them, and then called Lara a bad mother. He accused her of being attracted to his servants. She must want his Arab boys as lovers because she was starved here of rough trade. Hadn’t she had American boys as secret lovers? He checked on her every movement. He countermanded her orders, read her post, listened in on her phone calls.

It was he who spoke to Nancy in Marrakesh, who turned down the social engagements that arrived from all over the world. About dinner engagements, Lara was never consulted. He interrupted her when she was on the telephone, embarrassed her, insulted her intelligence. He isolated her from her child and family and friends, and then chided her for preferring her own company and his. But he never hit her. On the contrary, he made love to her every night, every day. Whenever, she realised, he felt that he had gone too far. He revived her flagging self-esteem
with sex and her ability to excite his sensual passion. There would be flattery of her as the only woman in the world he could have married. Yet he abused her emotionally on a grand scale. It was a systematic and purposeful control and punishment of her. The effect was far more devastating than if he had punched or thrashed her.

Lara found herself living with a terrifyingly unpredictable Jekyll and Hyde figure who cherished and humiliated her by turns. He was like a coin flipped up in the air that might land either head or face up. Charm or abuse, charm and abuse. He used the charm as a manipulative tool to control and confuse her. And Lara as putty in his hands was the excitement of Jamal’s life. It inflamed the evil side of his nature. They were both locked in a game of self-destruction, glossed over by charm and a need to love each other, and fear of a failed marriage.