When the Siren Calls (35 page)

“Will you let me touch?” she asked.

“Maybe, if I like you.”

Camila whirled, twisted and gyrated around Lucy, forming strange and alluring shapes in the air as she pushed and rubbed against her body, tantalising and pulsating against her skin. Lucy encouraged her, letting her fingertips brush against her skin as she dropped to her knees, twirling her hair around her as she buried her head in Lucy’s crotch. Lucy let out an encouraging sigh of assent and Camila rose again, looking her in the eyes as she spread her thighs across her and pushed her breasts forwards, tempting her, daring her to take them. Lucy reached out and stroked them, holding them in her hands as Jay looked on.

Camila moaned and moved Lucy’s hands to her lean brown stomach, rubbing her crotch up and down Lucy’s thigh as she unfastened her bra. She leant forwards, circling and gyrating against Lucy, offering her breast to Lucy’s deep red lips. Lucy moved in, tentative but purposeful, one eye on Jay who smiled with satisfaction. But as she opened her mouth, Camila sprung up and refastened her bra, bobbing in a perverse curtsy as the show came to a close.

Jay gave a brief clap of appreciation.

“Would you like to stay for a drink, Camila?”

“Thank you,” she said with the well-honed reflex of her trade, “a champagne, please.”

“You still ok with this?” Jay asked as another girl, all but naked except for two strategically positioned strips of fabric, joined them on the sofa, sitting herself on the arm next to Jay.

“I’m ok.” Lucy smiled widely as if to prove it. “It’s fun. If you want a dance, you go ahead.”

“I’m told it gets even more fun upstairs. You up for that?”

“I might be,” she said, as she considered her options, “but only with one girl, ok?”

“Which girl?” he asked magnanimously.

“You choose, big boy, you’ll be the one that’s watching.”

His smile faded slightly but he nodded, “Let’s go upstairs and have a look around.”

“What about Camila?” asked Lucy, feeling strangely guilty at not following through on such meticulous foreplay.

Jay laughed. “She isn’t going anywhere, are you, Camila? Let’s just have a look upstairs.” He walked over to Eva and talked briefly with her in the corner, low and inaudible.

She beckoned to Lucy, “Follow me.”

At the top of the stairs Eva stopped and turned to them, her voice hushed, almost secretive.

“You are very lucky to come now. I have a girl here who is very special, only eighteen. She is from Siberia. She has just arrived seven days ago. Very beautiful Russian girl, with the smoothest, whitest skin I have ever seen. I do not let her work downstairs, not yet, she is too precious to me. You would like to meet her?”

“Can’t hurt to just say hello,” said Jay with a shrug, as if they were calling on a neighbour, while Lucy stood in silence behind him, happy to just let things unfold.

Eva rapped at the door with her knuckles and opened it without waiting for a reply. The girl in the room was sat on the bed reading, her knees pulled up to her chin with blonde hair cascading down her back. She looked over and smiled but did not get up. Eva stepped back out and pulled the door until it was almost closed.

“Like a beautiful white flower, isn’t she? Her name is Katrina, but the girls call her Rapunzel. You must be gentle with her. She may need a little coaxing. She is different from the girls downstairs. So fresh. So innocent. And she speaks only Russian.”

“No English at all?” asked Lucy, feeling strangely sorry for her.

“Only one word, which is yes. I think she can say yes in five languages.”

“Not bad for seven days!” said Jay with a laugh. “I think we’d like to get to know Rapunzel a little better.”

Eva ushered them back into the room and exchanged a few sentences with the girl in brusque Russian. The girl stood up, lithe and sylphlike and in a short pale dress; Eva walked quietly out and left them in her hands.

The second the door was closed Lucy turned to Jay, fierce and fiery.

“Before we go any further, I want to get the rules straight. This is just going to be a show. You can watch, but you can’t touch. Not Snow White over there, anyway.”

“Come on, Lucy. You can’t expect me to stand here holding my hands while you get it off with Miss Siberia. Be fair.”

Lucy was nothing if not fair. “Ok, I’m going to allow touching, but only with your hands, and only then on the outsides. No penetration, you got that? Not with your hands, or anything else. Nothing of yours goes inside her, not the mouth, not anywhere else.”Thirty-nine

Isobel left the Savoy with a spring in her step as she and Maria emerged into the tepid warmness of the grey-blue morning, refreshed and elated by the air of peaceful contentment that had pervaded their evening together. They waited together in the Savoy courtyard for Peter’s driver, who was to pick them up and take them to Gatwick for Maria’s impending flight to Pisa. They sat in serene silence in the car and arrived with two hours to spare.

“I’ll come in and see you off, Maria, I’m ready for a coffee anyway.”

“Call me ten minutes before you need picking up, Ma’am,” said the driver, more than used to hanging round airports, “and I’ll see you back here.”

They lounged together in the café, sipping coffees with one eye on the departure gate for queues.

“So what happens next, Isobel?” asked Maria, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Can you see yourself repeating what you did yesterday when Peter is around? Have you thought about all the lies you’ll need to tell?”

“I really don’t know,” replied her friend with a sigh. “I’m not very good at lies. But right now I don’t think I can stop seeing Jay. It’s like I’m a different person when I’m with him. The way he makes me feel…I just can’t give that up, not yet.”

“And you think he feels the same way?”

Isobel shook her head. “I know men are different, but yesterday he did say that what we had was something special for him, something that he couldn’t remember feeling before.”

“You mean, he sort of said that he was actually in love with you?” Maria looked sceptical, even shocked.

“No, of course not. I know that’s not possible. We’re not teenagers and there hasn’t been enough time. But I do believe there’s something there, something he feels with me that he isn’t feeling at home, or has felt with other women. Not for a long time at least.”

“So he wasn’t put out that you hadn’t passed his little test with the Hollywood?” asked Maria, annoyance flickering across her face at the wrongness of her predictions.

Isobel looked away, unable to answer.

“Oh my god, Isobel, you didn’t?”

“It’s not illegal!” Isobel exclaimed. “What is so wrong about me doing it?”

“What’s wrong is that you might as well tattoo I am besotted with you on your forehead!”

“Is doing what he wants me to do so bad, if we both like it?” asked Isobel dreamily, wanting nothing to encroach on her bliss.

“So I suppose now he has he asked you to get a stud in your clit or something?”

Isobel laughed, unwilling to rise to the bait. “No, Maria, he hasn’t asked me to do anything else. Nothing like that anyway.”

“So he has asked something?” Maria latched onto her instantly, immediately knowing. Isobel hesitated, unwilling to expose herself.

“Come on, Isobel, what hurdle has he asked you to jump over next?”

“It’s not a hurdle or anything. He just asked me when was the last time I masturbated, that’s all.”

“When was the last time! Quite a supposition there. Not something you can answer yes or no to, is it?”

“Anyway, I didn’t tell him,” said Isobel, sipping her coffee to end it.

“And he just left it at that?” asked Maria, her voice etched with disbelief. “He popped the question out there, and then forgot about it?”

“No, he asked me if I’d ever let anyone watch me do it, and I told him the truth, which is no. And what he then said was that he would like to watch me do it. And if you must have the gory details, he then asked if I owned a vibrator, and I said no because I don’t, and never have.”

“So that’s when he pulled one out of his backside?” cried Maria, cold and frenzied.

“No, he just said it’s something he’d like to see me do, with a vibrator.”

“Did he specify the model? A black, twelve inch corrugated monster perhaps?”

Isobel started to answer, but Maria was no longer listening; she was staring down the concourse towards the departure gate.

“Have I lost you at the interesting bit, Maria?”

“Sorry. Did you say Jay shot off at six last night to catch a flight?” Maria glanced at her, her whole face blunted and saddened.

“Yes, yes he did; he was coming straight here.”

Isobel looked into Maria’s face, at the eyes that were looking right past her. She stood up and followed their gaze, letting out a strange, strangled squeak as she saw Jay standing alone next to the gate.

“Something must have happened,” she blurted out with bewilderment in her eyes. “I need to speak to him.”

Maria grabbed her friend by the arm. “No, Isobel.” It was an order, not a statement, and she pulled her close to her body.

Isobel tried to push her away. “I must, I need to know what’s happened.”

Maria tightened her grip. “No, Isobel, not yet. Just wait one minute.”

The two stood there looking down the concourse; the people that milled about blurred together in Isobel’s vision, a dark rainbow of colour that swirled around the image of him alone, expectant, at the gate. He lifted his head and they followed his gaze as a long legged blonde in a black beret approached him. Isobel watched as they embraced, sharing a kiss, before linking arms and disappearing through the gate. Maria held her friend as she felt her body go weak, her grip tightening as Isobel started to shake and her tears started to flow.

“It’s better this way, Isobel. It’s better to know now.”

As Isobel shuddered in anguish, Peter sat calmly on the other side of the Atlantic, waiting patiently in Dallas International Airport for a call from Massimo Pitsone, an old colleague from the Milan branch of his previous job. He straightened himself with confidence as the first peal of the phone rang out in the silence of the first class lounge. They had barely exchanged pleasantries before Massimo, who sounded strained and anxious, broke into the reason for the call — the prospectus for Castello di Capadelli.

“Peter, my assessment of the proposal is similar to the one you have from the guys in London. But there’s something more I think you should consider. Whoever has written this document is either a complete fantasist, or is simply ignorant of the laws and regulations here in Italy. Or maybe both. The numbers are attractive, but what is proposed is impossible to do at this place Capadelli.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Peter, taken aback.

“Because in this matter the law, for once, is black and white — your so-called resort is an illegal tourist complex. ”

“But there’s already a hotel and restaurant operating on the site; how can it be illegal?”

“Yes, I noticed that. But I can find no reference to any licences being granted for hotel and restaurant operations at Castello di Capadelli, which I think would be very difficult to obtain.”

“So what about the spa and all the other developments that are in phase two?” asked Peter, his voice steadily rising as unease turned to foreboding.

“All these are, and I hate to use the word, impossible. No one in the business of operating tourist facilities would buy into the development, that I can guarantee you.”

“I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, Massimo, but from the very outset the place has been promoted as a tourist complex, as a resort.”

Peter could almost hear Massimo shaking his head. “I saw that too, but my view is that all these promises are nothing more than inducements, hooks to sell property. It never has been, nor ever will be, a tourist resort. You see, I can give you a thousand reasons why it can’t b—”

“Massimo, you have been most helpful. I owe you one.”

The Italian did not take offence at his brusqueness; he knew a chastened man when he heard one, and thus carefully laced his apocalyptic words with a soothing tone.

“It has been my pleasure. I am sorry to have not been able to be more encouraging. I have just one other incidental point. I think you said you were thinking of buying an apartment at Capadelli, irrespective of the wider investment. If so, I very much recommend you seek an independent valuation. I say this because the prices I see on the Capadelli website for apartments are strange.” He hesitated, seeming uncertain whether to heap further bad news on his old friend; in the short silence Peter could hear the tapping of computer keys somewhere at the other end of the line. “Perhaps I am not understanding something, but even in the centre of Milano I would not pay so much as these prices.”Forty

Jay and Lucy sped from Pisa to Capadelli in a pearl white cabriolet, the top down and the wind in their hair, resplendent together in symbiotic beauty. Her sultry, youthful allure complimenting his mature and magnetic presence, they seemed to sail along the road as if propelled by their own power. The cool breeze rendered the sun-beaten landscape no more than a vast and beautiful painting, an idyllic backdrop for their perfection. She fiddled with his hair in playful affection as he drove, her eyes fixed on him.