Читать книгу The Unbreakable Trilogy - Primula Bond - Страница 14

I have actually run some of the way to get here. I tell myself it’s only because I’m desperate to get my cameras back.

He’s told me which way to come and now I’m in a street on the other side of the river, practically next door to the Savoy Hotel in fact. But Polly is long gone.

I didn’t wake up until midday. The first thing I did was look for Gustav Levi’s business card. And I couldn’t find it. I tipped my jacket upside down, inside out, shook it. It was plain white, thick, his name in a thick black Modoni font. I tried to envisage the number across the bottom. I couldn’t. I hadn’t even read the card. I must have dropped it in the street. At the party. In Pierre’s red car.

I slammed my hands down on the bed. Then I forced myself to count to ten and walk to the window and back ten times. My camera. My cameras. Think. My life’s work is stored in there.

My mobile phone buzzed on the table beside the bed. I can’t think who that is. Please not Jake. And I’ll kill Polly if she gave Tomas my number. I don’t want to have to find the words to put him off. No. Stay calm. It could be one of those galleries. Number unknown.

‘Yes. Serena Folkes here. Hello?’

There was a pause. Then, ‘Ah. Serena.’

His voice was even deeper than I remembered, pouring treacle. My knees went from under me and I fell onto the bed.

‘Gustav! Mr Levi. Oh my God. You don’t know how happy I am to hear from you!’

He chuckled. I could hear low voices and brisk footsteps in the background. He sounded as if he was an echoing room.

‘Maybe you could come and show me how happy?’

‘How did you find me?’

‘The wonders of technology, Serena. I just made a note of your mobile number when you left your phone with me in the bar last evening. If you go to your contacts you’ll see I’ve added myself in there, too. So now we’re both armed with vital information. I told you I wanted to see you again, and I meant it.’

I just stared stupidly at the phone.

‘You do want your cameras back, don’t you?’

Yes I did. I do. And so it was arranged.

This must be it. There’s a flight of steps and big glass doors up ahead of me, but before I reach them and check the address I stop to look at the publicity poster attached to the approaching railings.

There’s no obvious gallery anywhere nearby, but the poster shows a sepia photograph of a group of comely women reclining on a sofa, with tumbling black hair, plump bodies, and can-can corsets and stockings. They are incredibly dated, girlishly coy, mostly, their backs turned to the camera to show mooning white buttocks and big bovine hips and shoulders, but the eyes gleaming under curled fringes are vacant and old as the hills.

I guess they are from a collection of dirty postcards of fin-de-siècle Parisian prostitutes, or a clever reproduction. They are certainly faded. Patches of the background are missing or cracked where the old processing ink has peeled away from the paper, but the women are intact.

I run my hands over my own rounded hips. I’ve made a real effort today. After we’d arranged to meet I told myself as I showered and dressed in Polly’s glittering white bathroom that today is the day to make some changes.

So I’ve shed Rena the scruff in her jeans and biker boots, and I’m wearing a dress. Well, he told me that this was business and that I was to come to his office, so businesslike is how I want to be. It won’t go amiss for my other appointments, either. So it’s not only a dress, but a black jersey dress, flaring on the hips, wrapped tight across the bust, severe yet softened by these shiny black boots. Flat, not heeled. I can’t masquerade to that extent, let alone pound the streets of London in heels. And a cropped black Cossack jacket with velvet collar and cuffs and military silver buttons.

At the last minute I pull on the beret for comfort, but this time I wear it low over my forehead Garbo-style.

I continue on up the polished white steps and read the name above the door. It says The Levi Building. It’s not as phallic as some City buildings. None of the structures along the Embankment reach any higher than Big Ben. But it’s no less hulking and impressive for that. The words swim into focus. The Levi Building. So he owns the whole shebang?

The lobby is vast and echoing. There is a chrome shelf, not even a desk, in the middle of the place, and a lady sitting bolt upright behind a switchboard of buttons. She looks like a spooky Mary Poppins. Black hair pulled back into a bun so tight that her face is dragged back with it. A black broderie anglaise blouse pinned with a cameo brooch. She glances up and without speaking pokes out a long plum-painted fingernail to press a button marked Levi.

‘Is everything around here named after him?’ I ask. My voice hisses across the black marble interior as if I’m in church.

‘Penthouse office. Top floor.’ Her voice is high, as if holding a top note.

The lift spits me out at the top, and I am dazzled by the blaze of light. It’s hard to know where the light comes from, whether I’m facing north or south, even.

‘Ah, Serena. How lovely to see you again.’

A pin man appears in the distance, etiolated and thin like an alien just about to step out of the blinding interior of the mother ship. I rub my eyes and step towards him. He seems to be wearing a suit and a white shirt today, but before I can focus properly he takes my hand and shakes it formally. He holds it for an extra moment.

‘I’m so glad you took my phone number,’ I gibber, as we start to move back towards the light, one of my hands still in his. ‘I would be absolutely lost without my cameras!’

‘Your head is like a sieve, so it’s lucky I’m a magpie. Gloves, cameras—’

How familiar his deep, calm voice is. I only met him yesterday.

There is a cool, tomb-like atmosphere in this place. I still can’t see clearly, but I think we are in a corridor. He turns right and leads me into another big space but this is insulated. Not warm, but not cold, either.

He drops my hand and leaves me standing in this vast, warehouse-like space. He walks towards another window but the light in here is less glaring, and finally I can focus. I turn in a full circle. There are more of the French photographs, blown up, on one wall, and others, sepia, black and white, none coloured, but I’m assailed, as any visitor would be, by rolling flesh, and plump women, and vivid nakedness.

‘You’ve brought me to a gallery? This is awesome. A real inspiration. Exactly the kind of venue I’ve dreamt about.’

‘Not just any gallery, Serena.’ There’s a click. On goes an oversized chrome Anglepoise lamp by his desk and there he is, springing back into my life. Someone who looks just like him, anyway, but this guy is scrubbed and brushed today, those eyes blacker, deeper, more glittering in contrast to the cleanly shaved cheeks. The formal tailoring makes him seem taller and broader, but the fine fabric also restrains him, restrains all that restless energy.

He stands and moves differently, slowly, considerately, the jacket creasing slightly as he bends his arms, the trousers revealing nothing of the long legs I saw in their jeans last night. The body that pressed against me. No hint of the manhood, what lies beneath. He moves almost in slow motion, but not his hands. They are restless as ever. They pluck the middle buttons, doing and undoing. The man I know as Gustav Levi is someone who stalks misty London squares at night, wrapped up warm but unshaven, wild eyes watching.

Apart from a giant vase of lilies in the corner tall enough to bathe in, there is nothing else visible in this space.

As the light snaps on the lively photographs leap away into the shadows cast by the winter afternoon light.

‘This is my gallery.’

I walk towards the window. Behind him the river flows dark and fast past the London Eye and the South Bank opposite, multi-coloured lights winking off the various bridges spanning the Thames.

‘What can I say, Mr Levi? You said you were an entrepreneur, but this? You own this place? This whole building?’

‘That’s my name on the door. And more besides, Serena. You could say I’m multi-national. London. Paris. New York is currently being conquered.’ He takes a pen out of his breast pocket and taps it against his chin. His mouth is hard today. Both lips equally unforgiving. ‘I’m a walking, talking, living corporation. Mostly I own and lease galleries. I prefer to try to keep art in my life, but I do own other kinds of industrial space, too.’

‘A real tycoon. I should have been nicer to you.’

We stare at each other for a moment. He does indeed look every inch the tycoon. The knot of his dark red tie with a pattern I can’t decipher from here is tight up against his Adam’s apple. He’s so cool, and handsome, all that contained power, but his fine face is etched with a tiredness I didn’t see yesterday.

And I was right. He’s closer to forty than thirty. As if he knows what I’m thinking he fiddles under the knot of his tie, undoing the top button.

‘Meeting you made my day, Serena.’

Oh, the eyes. How they glitter with life.

Look at me again, then, Gustav.

His thumb is poised to punch at the top of his pen as if it’s misbehaved. ‘But you’ve changed.’

‘So have you.’

‘I look like this every working day. But you’re all – neat and tidy! What’s happened to Calamity Jane?’

‘She’s still here, but I thought I’d make an effort.’ I run my hands over my new, svelte outline. ‘My cousin left loads of clothes in the flat and told me to help myself. And I’ve got a lot to do today. Places to go, people to see.’

‘Appointments made?’

‘Not new ones, no.’ I grip the handle of my portfolio. ‘I needed to get my cameras back first.’

He sits on the edge of the desk, swinging one long leg. Shut away from the world this is how a master of the universe looks in the flesh. His eyes are chips of black ice. This intense attention, scrutiny almost, must be part of his business technique. Because it’s certainly working.

‘The beret. They way you’re wearing it today. It’s less the impoverished artist, more the student from the Left Bank. Très chic. Who knew you were two different women, rolled into one?’

If it wasn’t for the very slight swinging of his foot in its polished black brogue, he could be a waxwork. One of his own exhibits. But the whole room, the whole building vibrates with his aura. And best of all, he is totally zoned in on me. Again I am the only person in his world.

‘Who’s to say you get either? Look, I shouldn’t keep you, Mr Levi. You must have so much to do. So many deals to cut. So many fortunes to make. But thank you for looking after my camera.’

‘You told me to guard it with my life, and that’s exactly what I did.’ He folds his hands on his leg in an effort to keep it still. ‘I told you I had a proposition for you, so I’ll get straight to the point. I want you to hold all your other appointments. I don’t want you to rush off anywhere, Serena, because I’ve had a look at your work and I like it. I think I can help you. I want to help you.’

‘My work? How did you take a look?’

‘Simple.’ He picks up my camera bag, takes out the Lumix. ‘You just switch on this little device, press the screen button and presto. Scroll through all the images.’

I laugh at the faux advertising speak. ‘I should be very cross with you for invading my privacy, Mr Levi. For all I know you could have copied the lot onto your computer by now, even though they’re my intellectual property!’

‘Industrial espionage. I like it. But not nearly as much fun as just coming to a good, old-fashioned, quid pro quo arrangement, eh?’

There’s a brief, easy silence between us. I glance at him, his eyes holding mine, then walk past him towards the light, suddenly exquisitely self-conscious in my dress, aware of my legs, exposed as they swish in their stockings. I’m trying to walk elegantly in the shiny boots. If I feel a fraud dressed like this, I’m a fraud who is about to make something happen.

I sit down on the broad window sill. The light is behind me so he’s at a disadvantage now. He’s forced to swivel sideways.

‘So what did you see on my camera?’

He holds his fingers up and counts them off. ‘The little witch at the back of the line falling over. The others all standing there, huffing and puffing till she got up again. The streetlight casting those triangular shadows from their hats. But much more besides. I seem to have got a kind of potted history of your life. Well, your travels anyway. Egypt. Morocco. France.’

‘And there’s more. Venice, that was my favourite. Here, in my portfolio.’

‘Which I will look at, too, if you’ll let me. There’s so much talent here.’ He walks over to the other end of the window sill and wags his finger at me. ‘I’m not just saying it. I know how tough it is when you’re starting out. And what I can see in front of me is a girl who could use a break.’

‘Yes, I could. Of course I could.’ I grip the edge of the window sill. ‘But I’ve only just got to London. I’ve got to give it my best shot. There’s lots of places to try before I start taking charity.’

‘Who said anything about charity?’ He slams his hands down on his knees. What did I say yesterday about crossing him? About those hands being able to twist necks? ‘Don’t be so stubborn, Serena. Everyone needs a leg-up in life, especially in the arts world. And I’m just the guy you need. I’m not kidding you.’ His black eyes are deadly serious now. They are boring into mine, boring into all that misplaced pride, clumsy resistance. They’re sucking me in again. ‘I’m the answer to your prayers.’

I feel unbalanced, dizzy. Rest my back against the cold glass as I wait for the prickling goosebumps on my skin to subside.

‘You know nothing about me,’ I say softly. If we keep talking at least I can stay here a little longer. I wish I could press myself against him again, touch him, have his arms pinning me there, stopping me from leaving.

‘That’s not strictly true. I learned a lot about you last night. And now I also know you have talent.’

He stands. God he’s tall. I get a crick in my neck just staring at him. He comes towards me, fans his fingers under my jaw, pauses, strokes a little further down my neck. ‘Last night’s chance meeting will prove to be a stroke of luck for both of us.’

‘How?’

His black eyes are devouring me again. Glittering, and deep, drawing me further in. Less demonic today. More mesmeric. Something is being drawn out of me. Not my energy. Quite the opposite. It’s resistance and anxiety he’s taking away. I feel as if I’m being charged up, like I’ve been plugged into the mains.

His hand rests on my cheek a little longer, then he stands abruptly and goes back to sit behind his desk. Steeples his fingers.

‘I’m in danger of losing my concentration,’ he says, clearing his throat. His hair finally gives up and falls away from where he’s combed it back. ‘I’m going to have to come clean and admit that you have an extraordinary effect on me, Serena. I thought you’d walked out of my life yesterday, off to your party.’

‘I didn’t want to go.’

‘Your cousin must have been chuffed you made it. Your friends.’ He cuts through me, pushing his hair back. ‘But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since yesterday. So let’s start again. Let’s turn this into an interview. Please take a seat.’

‘All a bit formal?’ I laugh, but he waves towards the white leather chair in front of his desk. Obediently I change seats.

‘Too right. Now. I have mounted photographic exhibitions many times, as well as fine arts, installations. Even concerts. I’ve sponsored some very famous names while they were struggling to get a foot on the ladder. So not only can I afford to take a risk with an emerging talent like yours, Serena. I am positively seeking out fresh blood.’

‘You make me sound like a rare steak.’

‘The rarer and bloodier, the better.’ He grins. His face goes light. It’s totally unexpected, like a flash of lightning on a sunny day. I’m liking his interview technique. ‘Come on. We all have to take leaps into the dark. How else are people going to notice you or your work? I can offer you the venue, the publicity machine, the marketing. The media exposure.’

I sit very still, very quiet. I’m still digesting what he said about being unable to stop thinking about me.

‘What’s in it for you?’

‘Well, firstly it has all the promise of a very lucrative, no, rewarding partnership. I’ll have priceless modern art on my walls. It’s essential to keep one’s finger on the pulse, especially with fledgling talent. Maybe I’ll even buy some for my private collection at home. And if we work towards a sell-out between now and Christmas, from there on in you’ll be able to charge whatever you like for your work.’

‘That really is a leap of faith. It all sounds too good to be true, Mr Levi.’

‘Gustav.’

‘So what’s the catch?’

He taps his fingers against his lips. So suave. So scary. His eyes sparking with a kind of mischief now.

‘I don’t see it as a catch. I see it as something beneficial for both of us. Like I said, a quid pro quo. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Because I have seen something daring and brave in you, Serena. I’ve seen … well, I think we get on. Yes?’

The way he’s staring at me now. Even behind his desk. Behind his hands. He’s doing something to me. I cross my legs, aware of how bare they feel under this dress. Also aware, with an inward gasp, of a softening dampness.

‘What’s daring and brave got to do with your showcasing my work?’

‘Because of how I want this to go. How I propose you repay me.’

This is where Polly would be jumping up and down saying I’m right, I’m right, watch him, he’s after something.

Yes, yes! I hope he is! I want him to be after something, however reckless that sounds. Because I am after something too.

But what I actually say is, ‘Money. We haven’t talked about money.’

No, not wet, I’m imagining things. I shift about on the chair. Just warm from the white leather that’s sticking to me. I lace my fingers in front of my knee, let it swing. The leg looks quite elegant in the opaque stockings, just like the stockings worn by these filles de joie in the Parisian pictures on the walls.

‘I’m trying to find the best way to say this.’ He folds his arms, looks genuinely awkward for a moment, and with the awkwardness comes an instant lifting of the years, as if dropping the facade of hard businessman is a relief. ‘I have in mind something mutual, something which pleases both of us, benefits you, makes me happy, and involves no hard cash whatsoever.’

‘I’m not understanding.’ I fold my arms, too. ‘You want me to give my photos away?’

He shakes his head, presses his hands together like a priest.

‘I’m assuming you’re living on private means at the moment, Serena? If that’s not too intrusive a question?’

I nod as if it’s the most normal thing in the world for a girl of twenty to have no visible means of support. ‘I’ve recently inherited a substantial sum of money. And I’ll get more when I sell the house.’

He stares at me a moment. I’m aware how cold that sounds. But I’m not an actress. I can’t affect sorrow or grief, or even gratitude, where there is none.

‘You’re alone in the world?’

‘I have my cousin, Polly – she’s the one who had the party last night, but she’s working as a stylist in New York at the moment. I told you I’m living in her flat. But Gustav, my money won’t last forever, not once I’ve bought property and so on. What do they say about paying monkeys with peanuts? I intend to earn a living. If we’re going to do this, if I’m ever going to be taken seriously, I need to do it properly. I need to sell these pictures!’

‘And you will, my – Serena. You will. Money will exchange hands in the usual way between the gallery and any buyers, commissioners or collectors. And the gallery will then split the sales fifty–fifty with the artist – you – which in itself is unusual. I usually sting my clients for at least eighty–twenty.’

I laugh, but he’s looking at me so seriously, as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear.

‘So why give me the preferential treatment?’

‘Because I like you, Serena. I don’t think you realise what a find you are.’ He holds up his hand and starts ticking off points on his fingers. ‘Basics. You’re beautiful to look at, invigorating to be with, and what makes it even better is that you don’t know it. I have a painting in my house by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and you’re in it. No-one’s ever told you you’re gorgeous, have they?’

I shake my head. He had me at beautiful.

‘Not even the boyfriend you’ve left behind you. Because there’s always a boyfriend left behind. First love. But too callow, I’m guessing. Too young, once you’d seen a bit of the world. Too set in his ways and his horizons so much narrower than yours?’

Tears are fighting flattery here. How does he suss all that?

‘You’re young, and fresh, and undemanding. And like me you’re pretty much alone in the world, which gives you that hungry edge. Oh, there’s room for refinement. We’ll do a little work on you, me and my assistant. Continue what your cousin has started. Wardrobe, hair, make-up. Don’t frown at me. I love the waif-and-stray look. But this is a competitive business. You need to present a flawless face to your public, yes?’ He spreads out his hands, presenting his findings. ‘What do you think?’

‘Of your resume? More complimentary than my own profile.’

He taps the portfolio with his long fingers. ‘You want professional exposure and although I’ve never stopped working my personal life has taken a dive. I’ve been hibernating like a monk for too long.’

‘I’ve never met anyone who looks less like a monk!’

He grimaces. ‘I need re-tuning. The personal angle I’m after is pure pleasure. If pleasure can ever be wholly pure.’

I sit bolt upright in my chair, my knuckles white on my knees. He’s still a stranger, however mesmeric his eyes. Remember that. ‘And this personal pleasure will come from me?’

‘I want to be able to call you my own, Serena. For a measurable period. Enough to restore my faith in womankind. Sound odd to you? Well, I’ve been licking my wounds for too long. I took one look at you stalking those poor little witches yesterday, and I thought, that’s the girl to wake me up. I want that one.’

‘You thought I was a bloke when you first saw me!’

‘Only for a moment, till I got closer.’ His narrowed eyes gleam at the reminder. ‘And for once I was delighted to be proved wrong!’

I nod distractedly. ‘A measurable period, you said? You mean this doesn’t have to go on forever?’

He shakes his head and looks out of the window. I follow his gaze over the rooftops.

‘This is a deal. Not a life sentence. I’m suggesting until the very last photograph is sold. Between now and Christmas. I have been dragged down some very crooked, dark paths in the past. I need your company to shine a light. Just by being by my side, especially when the day’s graft is at an end. I want to wine and dine you. I want to see you blossom. It won’t be particularly chaste. I may as well warn you of that now. But I’m going to enjoy your gratitude.’

‘Doesn’t that work two ways?’

He laughs. ‘Of course. I will be grateful too. Believe me.’

‘Still makes me sound like more of an escort.’

He looks back at me and nods slowly. I watch his mouth for signs of a smile. ‘I realise how that sounds. And yes. It’s come out all wrong, but that is kind of what I mean.’

‘With the sex thrown in?’

‘I was getting to that. Please, don’t look so shocked. I didn’t have you down as a prude. Hear me out. There’s so much pleasure to be had out there, Serena, if you just know where to look. Do I look satisfied to you?’

‘Honestly? No. You look famished. Hungry like the wolf.’ I uncross my legs and stamp both feet on the ground. ‘But why me? I’m not pure as the driven snow, but I’m not exactly a woman of the world either. I’ve only had one. One boyfriend I mean. There must be heiresses and models and powerful women up and down the land with all kind of skills who would be delighted to oblige you!’

‘Gold diggers, sure.’ He gets up and walks away from me, to the corner of the building where it looks out over Westminster Bridge. Leans his forehead against the glass. ‘Cynical, bitter women who pounced as soon as I was single again and thought I’d wave a magic wand to make them comfortable with no effort on their part. I was taken in by my ex-wife. I was stupid. She was the woman with two faces. The face of an angel, the body and soul of the devil.’

I shift uncomfortably at the sudden bitterness in his voice. ‘Why didn’t you leave her, then?’

He doesn’t turn round. Talks to the window. ‘Besotted. Blinded. Belittled, in that order. And blamed. But the blame is all on me, because I should have known better.’

‘Sounds like a classic case of mental cruelty to me.’

‘You have a wise head on those slender shoulders, Serena. But I still need to be absolutely sure that you are the girl I think you are. Because if so, the rewards will be endless.’

‘And if not?’

He comes back towards me, stretches out his two hands and separates them as if swimming, or parting the Red Sea.

‘Where is she now?’

He sighs. That muscle is going in his jaw again. Either he’s the actor I’ll never be, or there is a real weight of sadness tugging at him, chaining him under those chalk stripes.

‘She’s gone. That’s all you need to know.’

‘So this isn’t a Rebecca scenario. The ghostly paragon hovering over our shoulders. The paragon I could never match.’

‘There are no paragons in my story. One younger brother. I took care of him all his life. We were thick as thieves until we were estranged. He witnessed things in our house he shouldn’t have, but when I tried to fix it, promised to change, she not only seduced him under my nose but succeeded in poisoning his mind.’ He laughs caustically. ‘Voilà. The concept of family is irrelevant to me now, just as it is to you.’

‘We have that heart of darkness in common, definitely. But do you not see how perverted your suggestion sounds?’

He seems to be growing in stature again. Taller, broader, darker. The exhaustion is scrubbed off his pale face. He flicks his jacket back, shoves his hands in his trouser pockets. I study the tautness of his stomach under the pressed shirt. The way his trousers are tailored beneath his belt. Professionalism personified. Not a hint of what lies beneath.

‘And do you realise how prim you sound?’

‘Touché.’ I laugh a little shakily and stand up to hold the back of my chair. ‘I am listening, Gustav. I’m not – I’m not saying no. I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.’

Polly is screeching no, no, no, Lothario like some kind of Greek chorus in my head, but my own voice is saying yes, yes. Who is left to stop me?

We move at the same time, right up to each other. Behind us, the darkening gallery with the naughty pictures capering across the walls. In front, the great river and the westering sun casting orange ripples under the boats ploughing home over the river. The London Eye rotating.

‘This is my office. My rules. I can lay down whatever warped plan I like. What I want is to be woken up again, but on my own terms. You don’t have to accept any of it. You can walk out that door any time you like.’

He laughs softly, and there it is. The soft lower lip, pushing slightly away from the upper. The run of his tongue across it, the glint of those biting, hurting teeth.

‘Why don’t I just cut the sob story and show you just how carnal I want to be?’

‘Should we not discuss terms?’ My voice warbles up the scale. ‘Sign something?’

‘In blood, do you think?’ he chuckles, leaning down towards me. I can see that yellow crinkle on the edge of his eye. The calmness of his brow. I can smell a faint, lemony tang of scent. ‘Later, perhaps. Let’s see how we get on. Poco a poco.’

‘Baby steps.’

We stare at each other. The mini version of me reflected in his black eyes shimmers against the afternoon light. The bug-eyed girl I can see there is perfectly calm, too. His face relaxes into a smile, the creases at the corners of his eyes showing me it’s heartfelt.

I lift my hands up like praying paws but instead of taking them like he did before, kissing them like a courtier, he pulls me roughly and imprisons both wrists behind my back with one hand. Right. So he’s not being gentle today. I put up a token fight, try to wrench my hands back, but his tall, firm body is pressed hard against mine and my resistance is shrivelling.

‘Trust me, Serena. I’m not going to do anything you won’t like. You responded to me yesterday. I love that you’re so transparent. You’re a frustrated, lovely temptress. You make the blood pump through these weary veins again.’ He tightens his grip on my wrists, nearly stopping the pumping of my own blood, but I welcome the pain because it’s brought him up close. ‘Remember, you’re free to leave whenever you wish. But I guarantee by the end of our time together you’ll wonder how you ever lived without the attention I’m going to lavish on you.’

The window sill digs into the backs of my legs. His smile fades into seriousness as he examines my face silently, sliding his free hand under my hair. Watching the way my hair curls round his fingers, his eyes sliding back to mine to see how I’m reacting. He already knows how that weakens me. He’ll remember, because every time he strokes or tugs or tangles my hair, my eyes will close, my head fall back with surrender. After that I’m a sure thing.

His hand moves down, framing my face, then as it continues on, down my throat, his face is brought so close it’s almost blurred. I focus on his mouth. What will it give away about him today? Those teeth are a tiger’s barrier to his emotions. They come down hard when he’s hesitant or thoughtful, then when some kind of release is allowed the tiny dents in his lip fill out again. It’s happening now. How warm his breath is on my cheek as he brushes his lips against my skin. I tilt my face up, move my mouth towards his, but he turns his face sideways, his black hair falling like water against my mouth instead.

The idea that whores don’t kiss shoots through me and hits its target. Dark determination twists inside me. We’ll see about that.

His hand is over the swell of my breasts now. He closes his eyes. The V of the neckline is very flattering, framing and hoisting them invitingly. The perfect choice for today’s encounter. The perfect garment to launch my new, brazenly ambitious self. Keep the red blood boiling in his veins no matter how controlled he thinks he is.

It’s as if he’s measuring me for something. His hand barely touches, merely brushes. I arch my spine to push my breasts closer to him. If he just moves a little to the left he could untie the wrap fastening with one move and undress me, reveal the black lace I’m wearing underneath.

But his hand travels on, smoothes over my stomach. His grip tightens on my wrists. He half opens his eyes again, watches the exploring progress of his own hand skimming down my body, over the soft rising mound. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop, and then he’s there, down there, between my legs. If his hand goes in through the skirt of my dress he’ll know the dampness springing there, oh God, that is what he’s doing, he’s found where the dress wraps over and he’s inside, touching the bare skin of my thigh above the stocking.

Instinctively I try to sidle away, close my legs against his hand. Behave like a lady before it’s too late.

His fingers rest easily on my thigh. His black eyes are on mine. ‘Stay still when I ask. Move when I ask.’

‘My mind is whirling, Gustav. This feels good, but it also feels very, very bad.’

My body belies everything I’m saying and thinking. It feels absolutely right that he’s touching me and lording it over me. All my life I’ve struggled to appear strong, never show the damage. Even with Jake I led the way sexually, I always gave the go-ahead, but after a while I wanted more than he could give me.

‘Whirling is fine.’ Gustav’s chuckle is low, almost a growl. ‘You telling me there’s something wrong about a man who just wants to touch you? Who’s wanted you since he set eyes on your scruffy little butt?’

‘You didn’t give much away yesterday.’

‘Well, I’m telling you now. I was being old-fashioned. Respectful.’

‘Or slow off the mark?’

He laughs quietly and as always when he laughs his hair falls forward as if it wants to join in. His eyes half-close but they can’t hide the want gleaming there, the lust shining through. ‘Time to make up for that, then. I want to know if you feel as good as you look today.’

Who am I kidding? I’ll never be a lady. Would a lady deliberately put on a low cut, seductive, breast-boosting dress to visit a gentleman? I’ll enjoy the ride, and see how far he goes, how far I’ll let him go, what this demented arrangement will actually turn out to be, what it will actually feel like.

‘Stay still, Serena.’ His mouth is hot against my hair now. ‘Let me enjoy this.’

My body has made up its own mind already. It’s given in, willingly. I’m so tired of arguments or arrangements or agreements. I’m weak with the waiting. His breath heats my hair as he mutters something in a foreign language which sounds dirty and which I know he won’t translate for me, but his fingers do the talking instead, stroking in between my thighs and opening me up, as if about to play the harp. My thighs part obediently, and oh God there he is, touching me, treading over the softness.

The scent from the lilies clogs into my nostrils, so heady and thick that it has actual substance, like stuffing my skull with cotton wool. Some kind of barge or boat outside judders into the river bank. I can hear the pilot telling his mate to cast the rope round the bollard on the pier.

One more feeble attempt at decency and decorum. My thighs press together, meaning to stop his hand but instead trapping it there, the tips of his fingers already inside.

He pauses, his mouth pressed against my hair. He remembers what I said last night, knowing that the little hairs which that woman used to yank when she thought I was naughty are rising sensuously like baby feathers under his breath.

‘Still time to back out, Serena. You have no idea what you’ve done to me. So warm. So sweet and fresh. I could play with you all day. But it’s not too late. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave and we’ll say no more about any of this.’

Those words decency, decorum, dignity are like shreds caught on barbed wire. Distant voices tell me he should shove his gallery, along with his twisted suggestions.

But I like the feel of his hand there. My body wants it, him, inside me.

‘Not that sweet. Go on, if you dare. Put your fingers in me,’ I whisper. ‘But look at me while you’re doing it.’

He nods, as if I’ve answered a question correctly. His mouth slides across my cheek, just touches my mouth, then his eyes are there again, locking onto mine and it’s like I’ve always known them, the dark messages burning inside, the pulse pummelling his neck to confirm the urges he’s struggling to control. The desire he has to touch me and own me.

He doesn’t hurry, though. His self-control is almost military. He continues softly onwards and upwards, to invade me, smoothly, making all my senses come alive. He keeps his eyes steady on me, his mouth a closed line as he feels underneath me. I squirm in response, shamelessly, close my thighs harder as his hand finds its goal, and I start to ride it.

Shame flees, hands above its head like a horrified spectre. Sense and sensibility flee too, along with every other sensible attribute: chastity, modesty, mystique. I close my eyes, the better to feel his breath now on my neck, under my ear.

‘You like that? Of course you do.’ He grunts approvingly. ‘Remember to stay very still. What I didn’t tell you is that if I think you’re resisting me or being disobedient, I might get angry.’

‘Yes,’ I stammer, confused. ‘But I thought I was the one who was supposed to – I thought it was your own pleasure you were after?’ I open my eyes again. He’s doing what I asked. He’s still staring at me but it’s the deep stare of the hypnotist now. I’m ready to drown in it.

‘You’re pleasing me already. Look at you. So lovely perched here in front of me, opening your legs for me. So quiet now. Obedient. Willing. Just the way I like it.’ He hooks one finger into my knickers, keeping his eyes on mine. ‘How could any man not get pleasure from doing this?’

He can feel how wet I am. He strokes me for a moment, his face still so intense. A strand of his black hair has been hooked by one of my curls. There’s no-one else in the world except us.

I’m tight under his fingers, but he pushes more insistently, knowing his way, so that everything loosens and opens, and then he groans quietly and changes tempo, and he’s being rough and hard with me now and several fingers are up inside me, thrusting into the emptiness, and it’s so, so good.

His eyes are burning with triumph. ‘This lovely body has so much to give. So much to learn, too. You can’t help showing me, my lovely. Can you?’

I moan incoherently, not really hearing what he’s saying, tipping myself up to his fingers.

‘You don’t want me to stop, do you? You’ll never want me to stop.’

He pushes his fingers in harder, moving his arm so I am rocking on his hand. This is what Pierre was doing to Polly last night at the party. She was riding on his hand, right there in front of everybody. It’s what caused old Toga Tomas to get so aroused. But there’s no-one watching us now. I fall back against the window as my legs lose their strength. Gustav grips my wrists harder to keep me from falling.

His eyes flash. He can sense the build-up of excitement in me just as strongly as I can, I’m certain of it. The last bastions of my resistance give way, no point even pretending to fight, I’m going weak with it, his fingers are doing what he said they’d do, claiming me as I whimper into his shoulder and I surrender and buck against his hand, my honey soaking his fingers.

He leans his forehead on mine and waits for my hysteria to subside. He releases my wrists and wraps one arm around me. His other fingers still possess me. We’re breathless, embracing lovers there in the window inflamed by the sunset.

At last he pulls away, leaving me wet and still wanting. He smiles as he holds his hand up to the fading light and one by one he licks his fingers.

‘You’re mine now, my Serena. That was me, taking possession.’

I nod wordlessly, watching him sucking my juices. He pokes that last finger into my mouth, pushing it between my teeth so that I taste the faint salt-sweet tang of my own arousal.

He holds my face thoughtfully. ‘Good girl. So. Are you ready to do this? You and me, working and playing together?’

‘And at Christmas I turn back into a pumpkin?’

He wipes his finger across my mouth and holds it there as he studies me, his black eyes dancing now as if he, too, has been relieved of some massive tension.

Then he steps away to his desk and takes out a sheaf of papers.

‘That depends. You are mine until every one of your photographs is sold. Agreed? So I suppose the nicer you are to me, the more we learn about each other, the quicker the photographs will sell, the more successful you’ll become, and the sooner you can go back to your old life.’

I’m aching now, pulsing with soreness. He’s right. I am his, body and soul. He reached right inside me just now, flicked a switch. Hooked me like a little wriggling fish.

I lean back gingerly against the window sill, aware of the naughty stickiness.

‘It’s only till Christmas. It’s why I came to London, after all. To sell myself. I’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

He turns back to me, smiling broadly now, as if he can never get enough of looking at me. ‘Got it in one. And who knows? By then you might not want to leave.’

‘So what’s the document?’

‘A letter of agreement for you to mull over. I prefer this kind of formula to be signed face to face, on paper, not done by email. If you’re happy to sign it, let me know before the end of today. Let’s be really dramatic and Cinderella-like and say midnight. If not, just give me a call and we can rip it all up.’

There is a long pause. Big Ben is tolling. It must be about four by now.

Gustav holds the document out towards me, then when I don’t respond he puts it back on the desk with a shrug.

‘You haven’t got much time, granted. But I wanted to make sure you couldn’t tackle any other galleries today. And you’re not really in a fit state to go touting for business now, are you?’

I look up at him and catch his grin. He really does look like the wolf who has taken a nip at his prey and is relishing the promise of devouring the whole meal very, very soon.

‘If you do agree, then make sure you’re here tomorrow morning at nine a.m. sharp. Leave your portfolio with me. We can start printing and framing the best once I’ve had a good look at the whole collection, see if we can’t produce various themes to flow from wall to wall. Then I’ll convene some meetings with my marketing guys.’

I am going to agree to all of it. Of course I am. Just not yet.

‘Give me a moment. I can’t think straight. Let’s talk about something I do have an opinion on.’ I stand up shakily and smooth down my dress. ‘Tell me about the show you have on at the moment. Who are they, by the way? Parisian whores?’

He spreads his arms to present the whole display. ‘Ah, my bordello show. Yes. Turn of the last century, some of them. Others taken during the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, in the maisons closes they kept for Nazi officers. There’s a family legend that several of my own relations were involved. Controversial form of collaboration, to say the least. But some of these pictures were taken as recently as the sixties. Gets you in the mood just looking at these ladies of the night, doesn’t it? They’re so innocent, yet so dirty. So hairy!’

Every hair on my own body prickles in response. I blush and walk over to a picture to study it more closely. I’m sore, but deliciously so. I can’t put one foot in front of the other now without remembering his fingers inside me. If he’d shown me these pictures yesterday I’d have taken a purely professional interest, perhaps felt awkward forensically examining these women alongside an attractive stranger. But today it’s fun to look at them frankly and easily. Let the subjects of the pictures speak eloquently in all their plump, open nakedness.

Gustav Levi has taken me with his fingers. I don’t feel shy any more.

He strides round the gallery pointing out each different picture of each era, his jacket flapping over his hips every time he lifts his arm. The way he taps at each picture like a magician tapping his magic wand at a top hat full of secrets is infectious. I follow him around, start to see more detail in each picture. The awkward way the women have been positioned by the photographer, their large buttocks squashed against a buttoned cushion or a piano stool while their knees tip the other way. But all with a coy smile, all with their legs open, everything on show so untidy, so luxuriant, au naturel.

The same place where he just touched me. I look at the plump, naked women, and they look at me, and we are conspirators. We give pleasure naturally and easily. Who cares how we all arrive at the arrangement?

The past is another country, though. These women are another species. How small and neat are their breasts compared with modern breasts. Much smaller than mine. They’re even a different shape, curving upwards like flowers meeting the light, nipples by contrast huge and dark on each white cupcake.

‘Shame to see them go. I’ve enjoyed sharing my space with these lovelies.’ Gustav has stopped presenting, and is beside me again. ‘They’re incredibly erotic, no? A study, a celebration of the female form, even when these particular female forms seem crude by today’s standards, even when there’s no denying they are only there to debase themselves. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!’

One of the pictures in particular strikes me. One from the sixties. A very young woman, my age, maybe, sitting in the middle of a huge sofa, totally alone but for blurred male figures standing about in doorways, on distant stairways, all looking at her. Queuing for her services. But she is oblivious. She’s one of the few subjects staring straight at the camera, legs akimbo, arms crossed in a vain attempt to hide her breasts. They are huge, and generous, and rest on her slender arms. Her hair is long, right down to her waist, curling and tangling like jungle vines. And the label underneath the picture? One word. Rapunzel.

‘She looks just like you, doesn’t she? She also looks like the Rossetti I have at home. She’s the woman I was thinking about last night, when your beret fell off.’ Gustav comes to stand next to me. Our arms touch. ‘She could be you.’

‘No-one has ever compared me to a pre-Raphaelite painting before.’

‘You’ve been mixing with rude mechanicals then, with no culture.’ He snorts and turns to me. ‘But you’ve risen above all that, haven’t you, Serena? And maybe one day you’ll be taking photographs like these.’

‘Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ I laugh softly. I’m emboldened by everything that’s happened today. ‘In a way, I already have. Not prostitutes. Something much, much more kinky!’

His eyes flash with amusement.

‘Now I’m itching to see what other work you’ve done. And by the way that bravado will take you anywhere.’

‘That’s what my art lecturer used to tell me.’

We seem unable to leave each other’s side. Again I get a waft of the sharp, crisp, lemony scent off his cheeks, but I also notice the bristles starting to push their way through his skin as the evening approaches. I try in vain to suppress a sudden, vivid image of Gustav Levi in a vast Italian marble bathroom somewhere this morning, patting on the cologne before he came to work, his face and lean, naked body reflected in a huge, spot-lit mirror.

I force myself to move away from him. The exhibition continues on the walls down the corridor towards the lift, except these are blown-up photographs of Roman frescoes. At first they look as if the subjects are dancing or praying, and I wonder if this is a totally separate theme, but then I see that the men and women are standing, sitting and lying in various positions.

‘The lupanare,’ Gustav says in a low voice behind me, like the commentary of a son et lumière. ‘From Pompeii. The frescoes should give you a clue what the lupanare was.’

Very faint, cracked figures, painted in terracotta and black over ancient bricks. At first they look as if they are dancing, or praying, but no. They are copulating, rutting, humping, in every position under the sun. Here is a tough man gripping a slender girl’s thighs while she stretches out gracefully and he takes her from behind. There is a woman with elegant coiled hair straddling a man as he reclines on cushions, her breasts pert and terracotta coloured, the nipples sharp cherries dotted on with the tip of a paintbrush.

‘It’s like a menu, see? All the services you could get for your dinarii,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘Or perhaps the pictures were just designed to get them horny.’

There is such a heavy silence in the gallery that I am being sucked right into the ancient paintings. Another pair of lovers, or punters, kneel up and go at it face to face, togas slipping to the floor. A man simply poses for his own enjoyment, staring into the middle distance as he displays his thumping erection. A girl solemnly lowers her face into a man’s groin. Another woman, naked and with her legs open, sits on the bed with them, staring directly at me. The same attitude as Rapunzel, the Parisian whore with the long red hair.

‘Do you think they were still in here when the lava came?’ I am leaning against him, now. The etchings are so delicate, yet so businesslike. The theme of giving pleasure for money smoothly reproduced, but going back centuries. ‘Were they petrified exactly as it found them, you know, in flagrante?’

‘Some of them would have been, yes. But what a way to go.’ Now both his hands are resting on my hips. He’s stepped over the first of a series of lines today. An intricate game of hopscotch. But his fingers have been inside me now. He’s taken hold of me. I still ache down there, and I’m aching for much, much more.

I am too turned on by the pictures, by everything that has happened, to stop him. He runs his hands over my hips, down my legs, tugs the soft jersey dress.

‘Imagine coming to your favourite whore, paying your usual, getting her to service you every which way on the bed, hot, tangled, no clue what is erupting outside on the mountain, just what is erupting inside these walls, the client lost inside his whore, pumping his life away.’

He runs his fingers up under my dress and sinks them into the soft flesh of my butt cheeks above the stockings, stroking where he stroked me before. I push against him as the shivering starts and yes, there it is, the hardness straining into my back. Gustav Levi wants me.

‘They wouldn’t have stopped, would they, even if their hearts were clattering with fear?’ I dare to bring my hands onto his hips to keep him there as my nipples go rigid inside my dress. ‘They would have gone on and on, don’t stop until I come, whatever it is can’t touch us in here—’

‘That’s right. Safe inside the lupanare.’ His voice is a groan as my hand runs over the definite bulge. I fold my fingers lightly round the shape of him. ‘Everyone at it like there’s no tomorrow.’

‘But you and I have tomorrow.’ I close my eyes, swallow, squeeze very lightly. I feel the jump and swell of his response. ‘And tomorrow you can tell me what you think of my portfolio, Mr Levi.’

‘You make that sound so dirty. I’ve managed to corrupt you in a few short hours. Oh, God, this is like taking a hot meal from a starving prisoner, but not now, Serena.’ He pushes me gently away, my dress draping unhappily back into place. ‘Not now.’

I turn to look at him and he is standing where I left him, his hands hanging loosely by his sides.

‘You’ll see I’m not as sweet as you’re painting me when you see what’s in my portfolio.’ I smooth my hands down over my legs, fan them out over the throbbing area where he touched me. ‘My work was becoming risqué long before we met! Easily as erotic as these.’

He fiddles his jacket closed as if trying to button up the red-blooded part of him. He takes my arm and leads me down the corridor towards the lift and presses the down button.

‘Yet again you’ve whetted my appetite, Serena. Actually I’ve seen at least one very sensual picture on your camera. The one of the couple kissing in the rain? Where is that?’

‘Pont Neuf in Paris. Not a very original location.’

‘But exquisitely romantic nevertheless. His hand right on her backside, pushing her against that lamp post on the bridge? Shocking? No. Sexy? Extremely.’

‘Wait until you see my Venice series.’

His eyes flash black fire as he steps towards me. ‘Tell me more, you little minx.’

‘They are classified until we both sign. Yes? Then my portfolio will be your portfolio.’

I rip open the envelope, take out the one-page contract, skim the contents until I get to the figures 50:50. He stands there as if his stuffing has been knocked out. I laugh softly and reach into his jacket. What a way to pitch my work. I may as well have thrown a dart directly onto the bull’s eye.

I let my hand brush against the smooth Egyptian cotton of his shirt, feel the thumping of Gustav’s heart inside his chest, and as he looks down in surprise I reach into his inside pocket and draw out the heavy silver fountain pen he used earlier.

‘How did you know?’

‘You’re not the only one who watches people like a hawk.’

I can’t believe my own cheek. He laughs as I rest the paper on the wall and sign on the dotted line.

There’s another pause between us. These pauses get longer, and more intense, yet they’re easy pauses. I’m happy in Gustav Levi’s silences. The relief of making a decision is like the lifting of a weight. The frisson of anxiety that I might have signed my life away, done something disastrous, is like the flicker of a distant torch about to run out of battery. And easy to dismiss.

It’s only till Christmas.

‘Your work is marvellous, Miss Folkes, and you are going to make millions. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have discovered you!’

As the lift doors start to close him off from my view, I realise that he’s said exactly what I was praying someone would say to me. He truly is the answer to my prayers.

A satisfied smile, shining with possibility, spreads across his face and behind him an aeroplane cuts a swathe through the velvety evening sky as it starts its descent to Heathrow.