Читать книгу The Unbreakable Trilogy - Primula Bond - Страница 15

It’s the tall dark mansion on the corner of the square, somewhere in Mayfair. The one the witches swerved past on Halloween night because they were too scared to bang on the knocker to trick or treat. The one he started to walk towards that night then changed course to walk me to that cocktail bar. The one that is now being battered by gusts of wind as a storm revs up and tips buckets of rain over me as I struggle up the hill.

I should have known that’s where Gustav Levi lives.

What I didn’t expect when he invited me to his house tonight to celebrate our long and happy association was that no-one would answer the door. I ring the bell and bash at the knocker for a few minutes, getting wetter and wetter, before the door swings open apparently of its own accord. I hesitate. It doesn’t creak on its hinges, but it’s pretty Hammer Horror nonetheless.

I follow a trail of bright lights set into the edges of the floor, the treads of the stairs curving up into the shadows upstairs, enticing me from the darkened, red-lacquer-painted hallway down another flight of stairs into the basement, and the second thing I didn’t expect was that I’d find the man of the house in a vast, quartz kitchen wearing chef’s whites and breaking eggs into a huge glass bowl.

‘Ah, you found us.’ He looks up at me with a boyish grin and starts whisking so energetically that he has to follow the bowl across the counter. ‘And so we come back to the square where it all began.’

‘Us?’

‘My household. My underlings.’ He waves the whisk vaguely. ‘Usually you’ll find all sorts of people coming and going here. But tonight it’s skeleton staff, you might say. I’ve even let Dickson off tonight.’

‘Dickson?’ I look around.

‘My chauffeur and pilot. Doubles up as my chef, too. But a man’s got to find a way of relaxing when he comes home from running his empire and sealing deals with startling new talents he’s picked up in the street. So I’m cooking tonight.’

To cover the sudden chill of awkwardness I walk around the kitchen making a show of examining everything. It really is state of the art, with several ovens of various sizes and at least six gas rings the size of hub caps on the oversized central hob. What did I think Gustav was going to be cooking? Toe of frog and eye of newt?

‘So you didn’t pick me at all. You live right here in the square. You were just taking a constitutional that night and happened to bump into me.’

He shakes his head calmly. I see what’s different about him tonight. He’s had his hair cut. It’s sweaty with his culinary efforts, but it makes him look tidier, more formal, but somehow safer. And it means I can see his eyes clearly, and tonight they are very bright. ‘Believe what you like, Serena. I picked you, as soon as I saw you.’

‘You thought I was a boy.’

‘Touché.’ He grabs at the escaping bowl and we both start to smile. ‘But very soon you’ll see that we’re a perfect match. In fact, I can’t wait to get started.’

‘On the exhibition? Or on me?’

He allows himself a brief chuckle. ‘Both. Although the exhibition I believe is nearly ready for lift off. It’s the other part of the contract which is beginning to feel a little like the blind leading the blind.’

‘The sex part, do you mean?’

‘I love that you’re so direct, Serena. Was I really that explicit?’

‘You didn’t have to be. You started off by touching me, remember? Very intimately. I took that as, I don’t know, an introduction to what you have in mind?’

He puts down the egg whisk and rubs at his hair. Now that it’s shorter it stands up in black spikes and makes his face look more open. ‘I confess you caught me on the hop. Once I’d met you and seen the work stored on the camera, I wanted to do something to keep you here. Otherwise I feared that you would simply vanish into thin air. Or someone else would snap you up. So I thought of doing it this way. Making it personal as well as professional. Having said all that, I’m not sure I thought it through.’ He neatly rips a huge paper bag and releases a cloud of flour. ‘I think it’s a case of suck it and see.’

I turn my back on him before he sees me blushing, and walk as calmly as I can to the end of the kitchen. The scraping of my feet sounds intrusive on the underheated floor. Through the big doors I can see, in the long thin moonlit paved garden, small trees and rose bushes in pots being bent and buffeted by the rain and rising wind. I lean my forehead on the glass.

I’m well and truly trapped in his web now. Gustav’s designers and printers are working all hours. The pictures have already been selected for enlargement and framing, and the railings leading along the street towards the front door of the Levi Building have been cleared to display the publicity poster we’ve chosen for my exhibition. It will show the crocodile of mini witches caught by my camera on their way to the party, lit by the streetlamps and halted in their tracks by the little one falling over. In the next day or so that image will be developed, enlarged, elongated and fixed to the railings, the witches waiting in their various impatient attitudes under the melancholy statue for the little one to right herself.

‘No going back now, Serena.’ Gustav rubs the foil from a pat of butter round a couple of ramekins. ‘We’re on the slippery slope.’

‘I like you barefoot,’ I remark as he dances from what the chefs would call the mise en scène over to the fridge and back again. ‘And I like those dark jeans. You were wearing ones like those the night we met.’

‘I’m flattered you remember.’ He stops buttering and whisking and looks down at himself. Holds the white apron out comically like Little Bo Peep. ‘You like it rough, Serena?’

I bite my lip. He does too, biting down the shocked smile we share at the naughtiness of his remark. Yes, I like it rough, I think to myself. Or I will when I try it.

‘The suit distances you, that’s all. Makes you unreachable. Maybe first impressions are the ones that stay with us?’

He frowns as he ponders the question. Ponders me. ‘I think I like you every which way, Serena. Though I’m glad the tomboy is beating a retreat.’

‘I can be all things to all men. But yes. It’s kind of fun, and kind of pervy, dressing as my cousin.’

He laughs lightly and turns to a tray on the counter. I nearly tell him I also prefer him with his arms showing, because I love his strong hands and what I know they can do, and his strong forearms with the ropes of muscle. But I say nothing.

‘Have a drink,’ he says. ‘Shaken, or stirred?’

I pick up a glass of vodka martini from a tray on the counter and once again relish the slow burn of it down my throat. I hold the glass up and watch how his movements sparkle and undulate through the clear liquid.

‘Dip these nachos into the tzatziki. I’m willing to bet you haven’t eaten anything today.’

I hitch myself onto a stool and drain the entire glass. Take another one. ‘You’d be right. The cupboard is bare at Polly’s flat. I had a sandwich at the gallery today. So what’s this going to be? Pavlova? Mousse? Meringue?’

He moves the bowl along the counter to sieve the flour into the eggs. ‘Double baked cheese soufflé, if you must know.’

I watch the way the muscles in his arms flex as he whisks.

He catches me looking. Stops whisking and holds the bowl over his head to check the whites are done. ‘And if you’re lucky, maybe a taste of my famous Coquilles Saint Jacques.’

‘And for afters?’

‘What my grandmother used to call wait and see pudding.’ He dances back to the huge American fridge and brings out a bright berry coulis and some clotted cream. ‘Where’s my piping bag?’

I snigger like a schoolgirl. He looks at the limp, wrinkled bag in his hands, looking exactly like an oversized condom, and chuckles with me. His face is flushed from the heat of the kitchen. He’s unshaven again. Yes. I like him rough. It makes his face shadowy and manly, makes his eyes bright.

He grabs a hunk of mature cheddar and starts grating.

‘What’s that cheese ever done to you?’ I laugh.

‘Just getting it prepped for the second bake. Timing is crucial. Hey, look at you,’ he says suddenly, reducing the hunk of cheese to a few crumbs. ‘You’re soaked. What was I thinking? I should have got Dickson to collect you from the flat, but now you need to get dry. If you go up the stairs, as far up as you can go, you’ll find a shower room and something to put on. It’s the old attic. The previous owners claim it’s haunted.’

I let out a nervous tinkle of laughter. ‘I’m too tired for jokes, Gustav. You asked me to be at your beck and call, but you don’t have to scare me half to death as well.’

‘I didn’t mean to. Some people find that an added attraction. But I’m hoping you will consider this your home.’ He waves his grater in the direction of the stairs. ‘And when you come down I have a little gift for you.’

I wander obediently through the big house. There’s no-one else here. The skeleton staff consists of this mysterious man cutting and chopping and baking in his kitchen. And me.

The night gets wilder, pressing black and insistent against the windows as I climb the stairs, past closed doors, past low lights and pillar candles, soft music piped presumably from a central system Gustav is controlling from the kitchen. For the first time it occurs to me that all this melancholy magnificence, bought with the spoils of success, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if he has no-one to share it with.

The room at the top really is under the eaves, but the beams have been painted white as has all the old, distressed French-style furniture. White muslin curtains stir slightly against the glass doors leading out onto a little balcony. On a large four-poster, like something Scarlett O’Hara might sleep in, someone has laid out a white silk negligee. Why does everyone think I should dress as a vestal virgin? Don’t two years of active, adolescent sex with Jake count?

But I shiver suddenly as the rain slaps against the long thin window.

As I step into the warm spray of water in the little shower room attached, Polly’s voice in my ear has changed to: suck it and see. What’s not to like?

I am so ravenous and the jazz music playing in the background is so mellow that it feels perfectly casual and natural half an hour later to be perching barefoot against the quartz island in the kitchen devouring soufflé, warm bread, and cherry mousse. None of this strikes me as at all odd. That I’m eating supper in a strange house, wearing nothing but a white negligee given to me by a man I only met a few days ago. What else would I be doing?

Now softer music is playing throughout the house and Gustav has gone upstairs ahead of me and lit soft lamps everywhere. He has also taken off his whites and is wearing a soft blue and white striped shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

He waits for me solemnly as I come up from the kitchen to the ground floor and puts his hand in the small of my back to usher me into a little art deco cocktail bar off the hallway. The walls in here are of dark purple velvet. The chairs and stools are the same. It’s like walking into the cushion of a giant jewellery box. Even the bottles crammed onto every available glass shelf behind the mirrored bar are filled with liquors gleaming in jewel-bright colours.

‘Nightcap?’ He holds out a champagne bottle. His face looks almost bearded in the flickering candlelight, and the wolfish air has returned. His black eyes are asking questions again. But despite our signed agreement, despite eating together tonight, even though he touched me, pushed his fingers into me so intimately to pin me down, to make his point, to stake his claim, I still don’t know the answer.

‘Just one, thanks. And the food was great. Who knew?’ I walk a little shakily across the polished wooden floor, over the creamy rug, aware of the silk negligee clinging to my legs. Still sore from his fondling. Aware of his dark eyes trying to read me again. ‘But then I ought to get going. It’s quite a long way back to Gabriel’s Wharf.’

‘You’re going nowhere dressed like that, signorina!’ He twists the cork out with a pop. I was right. He is staring straight up my legs, directly at the place where he touched me. I perch quickly on the arm of the sofa and cross one thigh over the other. He chuckles. ‘But I would love to see it. You, running through the driving rain in nothing but a petticoat. Hailing a cab on Piccadilly in the middle of a thunderstorm. Eyes huge. Hair streaming down like a waterfall. You’d look like a Hitchcock damsel in distress.’

I look down at my body. My arms and legs are bare, my feet are bare, like his, and the lovely garment shimmers, the spaghetti straps slipping down my arms, delicate silk catching the light from the sconces and candles and picking out the tremor of the fabric as I move and breathe, lingering on my curves. And oh God, the low light lingers now on the stiffening of my nipples. I am wearing nothing underneath after the shower, because I had nothing dry to wear.

I’m learning the different ways he looks at me. The businesslike stare, deadpan but flashing with interest and enthusiasm. The concentrated one of this evening as he shuts out the rest of the world and whips egg whites and cheese into an ambrosial fluff. There’s another look, too. This one. The magician’s sleight of hand, which changes him from a formal, polite, reasonably easy colleague or friend to a man harbouring deeper, darker intentions.

That’s the one I glimpsed in the gallery, when he marked me, hooked me with his fingers. And that’s the one who seems to be here now, standing behind the bar. The penetrating gaze that sends shivers of doubt, fear, anticipation, and excitement down my spine.

He hasn’t laid a finger on me this evening. Hasn’t so much as mentioned the pictures which have been framed today, especially the controversial Venetian ones which are bound to cause a stir when the show opens. He hasn’t mentioned what else he requires me to do to fulfil the personal part of our agreement. Maybe he’s lulling me into a false security, lulling me into forgetting that this is all a lot more complex than just being colleagues, with his soufflé and his easy chat, and now the champagne. Maybe soon he’s going to demand the next instalment. And maybe I’m going to shock him by being totally ready, willing and able.

But for now I play his game, assuming nonchalance. I fold my arms. ‘How am I supposed to get home, then?’

‘If our Dickson was here, he’d take you home, semi-naked or not. He knows not to touch my property, however tempting. But as he’s not, and I’ve had too much drink to drive you myself, you’re staying here, Serena.’ Gustav hands me a flute brimming with palest gold and reaches out to run a finger down my jaw. My eyes flutter at the touch. Surely he can see how I react to him even with the slightest contact? Surely he can see what he’s awoken?

‘But—’

‘No more questions,’ he insists softly, pressing his finger on my mouth in his familiar gesture. His eyes spark as my tongue flicks out to lick his finger. I know he’s feeling the same clench of desire inside him that I am.

I reach up to take his hand, lace our fingers together. They are longer than mine, and stronger, and warmer, but somehow they fit so well. ‘Gustav,’ I whisper. ‘When?’

His eyes blaze back at me as he swallows hard. He lifts our joined hands towards his mouth, brushes them over his warm lips. I try not to squeal with impatience.

Then he gently extricates his fingers.

‘First we drink to celebrate! That first glass down in one go. And then another, I think, to quench any nerves.’

‘I’m not nervous.’ I keep my voice low. Hope it’s seductive.

He clears his throat. ‘Tomorrow we prepare for your private view, and we still have a lot to do. Tonight, I will try to answer your question, Serena. Starting with this.’

I do what he says. Drink the flute of champagne in one go, and it feels as if I could float off the floor. Then he hands me a little blue box tied with a scarlet ribbon.

‘Open it.’

The box is empty. Or so I think. In fact there is a wisp-thin chain lying in a heart shape on the velvet cushion. It’s a silver bracelet, so delicate it looks as if it has been woven by a spider. I take it out, turn it in my fingers. It’s like fairy hair.

All the ease, mellowness, barefoot familiarity evaporates. I stand stiffly behind the massive purple sofa. The atmosphere has shifted yet again. Gustav Levi is behaving like a suitor of the most old-fashioned sort, but he’s taking it much slower than he did yesterday.

I’m confused, and frankly annoyed. Right now he doesn’t look like the same man who pushed me up against a window and put his fingers inside me, made me tremble and come like a bird in his hand. Made me want it again, and again.

Tonight he’s a handsome, rich, successful host, enticing me into his house and flattering me. The next step I daresay will be him expecting me, demanding that I climb the stairs with him at the end of the evening and sleep with him. It’s in black and white in our agreement. Well, the simple words are there in a little clause of their own at the very bottom of the document, below 50:50 and above our joint signatures.

Sex when demanded.

This is the whole reason my work will be hung tomorrow on the white expanses of Gustav Levi’s gallery, splendid and stylish for its admiring audience, cajoled by my champion to open their wallets. It’s how I will repay him for making my name known nationwide. Worldwide. It’s perfectly simple, but now I’m here, in his house, in a diaphanous negligee, full of his food and drink, close enough for him to scoop me up and carry me off, I’m still not sure how it will work. I’m not sure he is, either.

How hard can it be? Polly would be rolling her eyes by now.

‘It’s beautiful.’ I tentatively touch the bracelet. ‘No-one has ever given me anything so exquisite before.’

Gustav takes the chain and winds it twice round my wrist. ‘You’ve reached the age of twenty and have never been given jewellery?’

We both study it as he holds my wrist up in the candlelight. The bracelet fits perfectly. It’s so light that once it’s on I can’t feel it on my skin. I notice that my name is engraved in a kind of Gothic script on a tiny plaque. I also notice that once the clasp has locked into place, I can’t take the bracelet off.

‘Never. No-one at home ever saw the point of jewellery. They saw it as extravagant and vain. I got pens, pencils, books, clothes for birthdays and Christmas, practical things that I needed. But nothing unnecessary or flippant or fun. Not even a watch. Nothing to make me look pretty. When I was fourteen my cousin Polly pierced my ears for me with a sterilised safety pin.’ A sulky sigh escapes me. ‘But until then I was never adorned.’

‘In that case, I am thrilled to be the person breaking that chain of deprivation.’ He keeps his fingers hooked round my wrist. My skin, and the intricate silver, are heating up under his fingers. ‘This isn’t just a gift, though. Not just an adornment.’

He keeps his eyes on me as he takes another chain from under the velvet cushion. This one is slightly thicker. He hooks it onto my bracelet and then unwinds it, like he unwound my hair the other day. With a smile creasing his eyes now, he walks backwards away from me to show me how long this second chain is, and then he clips it onto his watch.

‘What are you doing?’ I jerk my wrist, and the chain between us goes taut.

‘It’s more than jewellery, Serena.’ He frowns and tugs it harder, forcing me to take a jerky step towards him. ‘Think of it as a symbol. Here’s the chain, joining us together. I know it’s a symbol of captivity. Slavery, even. But I also like to think it represents an anchoring. You know, like the rope thrown over the side of a ship.’

I put my hand over my eyes, suddenly tired. ‘All these symbols are making me dizzy!’

‘Look at me, Serena.’ He takes my hand away from my eyes. ‘I want it to represent our binding relationship. What we’ve agreed. What we’re going to do for each other. A silver handshake, if you like.’

I lift my hand to examine the intricate work. Somehow the chain makes my wrist and hand look elegant, swanlike.

‘Isn’t that when people say goodbye?’

‘A silver handcuff, then.’

Suddenly there’s a blinding flash of lightning. The flames in the candlesticks dip to one side and I bunch my fingers round my mouth to stifle my automatic scream. I count the minutes to work out how far away the noise is, but it’s already here. There’s the thunder, thick, fast and deafening, right above the house.

Gustav is in front of me, holding my arms. ‘Hey, what’s this? My young Amazon frightened of thunder?’

‘Always have been. Since I was young. They always left me alone when there was a storm.’ I realise I’m shaking.

‘They?’

‘We lived in a horrible house on the cliffs. Right at the very end of the country. It felt like the edge of the world. I was terrified of the storms, and they just shouted at me. I’m certain that thunder is amplified by all that water. Or that’s how it sounded to me, anyway.’

He holds me close, just as I was hoping, and puts his mouth in my hair just the way I like it, strokes my bare arms, listening, pushing my hair off my face, until I calm down. The temperature has dropped like a stone with the rain still battering against the windows. There are goosebumps on my skin. My nipples are out like corks. I let him sit me down, shivering, on the sofa.

He fills my champagne glass. ‘Your family were cruel to you?’

I take a long deep swallow, feel it seep through my veins, weigh the delicious heaviness in my head.

‘They weren’t my family. Not really.’ I mutter, aware of the coarsening of my voice. ‘He found me abandoned as a newborn, tripped over me actually on the church steps, and when no-one came forward to claim me they were allowed to adopt me, but they made a mistake. I was always the alien. They chose the wrong child.’

‘They hurt you?’

‘Sometimes. Nothing major. No broken bones, or Social Services, or A and E visits. Just a kind of cold, calculating neglect, punctuated by the odd kick or punch until I was big enough to fight them off.’ I take another swig of cold bubbles. Blood singing nicely in my ears now. ‘And then they just ignored me.’

‘Until you could leave home?’

I nodded, staring over his shoulder at the black windows. ‘I suppose I should thank them because it was because of them that I had these dreams, to escape the house, the village, to travel, to make real this fantasy life where I had adventures. So as soon as I could I did travel. Sometimes round England and Scotland, later round Europe. They practically shoved me out of the door, they were so glad to be rid of me. I came home occasionally for my things, to nick money off them. I never said a word. And then I’d disappear again.’

He is listening intently. The rain is pattering. The fire crackles in the grate. The bubbles pop and fizz in the glasses. The music has slowed.

‘The only good thing they ever did was die. I was like Harry Potter living with the Dursleys.’

‘The muggles.’ His smiling eyes glint in the firelight. ‘And you the little orphaned witch.’

‘Yeah. But it feels great to be alone in the world, especially when you have some money. You can do whatever you want. And here I am, doing it. I want to relish every minute of it, Gustav.’

There’s a slight pause as we think about the truth of my words.

‘And so you shall, Serena. You look enchanting in that negligee by the way.’

I gasp at the unexpected quiet compliment. Tilt my head demurely. ‘Glad my lord approves.’

‘Bewitching. Now’s the time, Serena. I know you’re going to please me, very much.’

I lift my shoulder coquettishly. Thank the champagne. ‘Your wish is my command.’

He takes a deep breath, as if daring himself. Runs his tongue over his mouth. ‘Dance for me, Serena. Forget everything that’s gone before. I want to see you move. I want to see your spirit. I want to admire you here in private. I want to see if a mere garment can change you into my dream woman.’

I fold my arms. ‘Please, Gustav. I’ll feel stupid. I didn’t mean that kind of command. Why can’t I just kiss you?’

He frowns and leans forward. ‘Pretend it’s not just me, if that inhibits you. Pretend your cousin and your friends are here. You’re stepping out on stage.’

The volume rises in the speakers, a sultry Latin tempo with a wailing saxophone accompanied by a low, hypnotic bass beat. Gustav walks in front of me and there’s the chain, looping between us as he leads me across the hallway into the big drawing room, where another fire is burning in the kind of fireplace you could roast a whole cow in. He goes to stand by it, stroking his dark chin like a forbidding Victorian patriarch.

‘Will you dance with me?’

He shakes his head and sits back down on the sofa. Stretches his arms along the back. So confident suddenly, so sure I’ll do what he wants. And I will. I want to. I want to make his eyes gleam with desire. I want to make the pulse in his neck race like a jack hammer.

I pause in the middle of the huge dark red carpet, breathing fast like a frightened animal as the thunder still grumbles outside. Gustav shifts in the cushions, his thighs slightly parted, so relaxed that the casual shirt untucks from his belt where he hasn’t bothered to fasten the lower buttons, and I can see a sliver of stomach and a dark line of hair twining enticingly down into the cool jeans.

Remember what he’s doing for you, Serena. There’s no going back. This is the start of your new, colourful life. The one that you’re going to relish. Remember how he makes you feel. How you wanted to stay with him in that bar. How he’s gotten under your skin. How you even rejected the advances of that rich, cute American guy at Polly’s party because this man had already taken possession of your mind.

I kick my legs out like a pony and start to pace up and down the floor like a matador, glaring at him. Gustav grins and lifts his glass to me in response.

‘You look angry,’ he remarks quietly, his eyes roving over me hungrily. His hair looks wilder than ever, pushed in damp spikes off his forehead. ‘Like you’re going into battle.’

‘You made me talk about my family. It always makes me angry.’

‘Anger’s good. But forget them. I’m here now. That’s all you need to know.’

‘But you inhibit me.’

I tilt my chin so that the glare becomes seductive rather than sulky, then shake my hair round my face. My crowning glory. Rapunzel. I’m thinking mermaid now, not witch. A siren from another world.

‘So like I said. Pretend. Think of all of this as a game. Then you’ll realise how sexy that can be.’

He reaches above his head to dim the lights totally so it’s only candlelight now. He doesn’t see me glancing again at his stomach when he stretches, the shirt flapping open as if he’s a schoolboy running late. The bare strip of skin that my fingers are itching to touch.

He settles back down, biting his finger now as he focuses on me. I let the music direct me, closing my eyes and rotating my neck until I’m dizzy. But dizzy’s good. It makes me feel lightheaded, energetic, daring. An exhibitionist. Best of all, the centre of attention.

I edge the negligee upwards, revealing my ankles, then my knees, pausing as he continues to stare at me. Those eyes appreciate me. I lift the negligee up my thighs, my feet freer now to step apart and together while I run my hands over my ribcage.

A sudden, firm jerk on my wrist reminds me we are still linked, the nearly invisible thread joining us together. The thunder rumbles more distantly now, and the show-off in me takes shape. Let’s see what happens. How long will it be before he comes begging. Preferably on his knees.

My hands wander down my throat, over my shoulders, then they’re over my breasts, hovering an inch over them, tracing the soft outlines, the protruding little peaks, outlined under the silk and even the suggestion, the threat of touching triggers a sharp tug in my nipples, then another much lower down. My nipples scrape and catch on the silk. I run the tips of my fingers between them, squeeze my breasts briefly together, then flicker and tease down my stomach and down between my legs, holding my softness there for a moment, licking my lips like a stripper. Hands sliding down my thighs, pushing them open and closed.

As the music grows louder I accelerate my moves, bending and straightening and sliding my legs further and further apart. This is a private dance, just for him, no audience. I’m not sure of the programme, what will happen next, but I’m turning myself on, that’s for sure, dancing in my new negligee. My fingers want to creep inside to play, but I slap myself away.

‘Don’t stop, Serena.’ He can’t hide the animal groan of arousal in his deep voice. ‘This is strumming all the right strings.’

My hair sways in front of my face, down my back, I sweep my hands down my body, cup the dampness growing between my legs. I pull the silk up so high that any further and I’d be totally bare to him.

He is leaning forwards, his hands dangling the champagne glass between his knees as he watches me, his eyes burning with desire but the rest of his expression so concentrated it’s as if he’s at the ballet. It’s flattering, but strange. All I’m doing is prancing around his drawing room, really. Awaiting further instructions. The streak of warmth across his cheekbones, the working of the muscle in his jaw give away what’s really on his mind.

The daring is like a pair of hands pushing, pushing me on. I go over to the sofa, bend over him, let my hair fall in a tent around our faces, tip his watching dark face up close to mine, then I push him back into the cushions and swerve away as I see the gleam lighting up his eyes.

I’m making it up as I go along, but I’m tired of dancing solo. I want him to join in now. I’m dancing as I assume he wanted me to dance, burlesque style but without the tassels and the props. I sway towards him, aware of how all my curves push against the shimmering silk.

I hold my hands out to him, wriggling and gyrating.

‘Dance with me, Gustav. Let go. Hang loose.’

I twist away from him, dance to the other side of the room, crooking my finger like a Scheherazade. And at last I get my reaction. His mouth snaps open in a wicked grin and my wrist is suddenly pulled out in front of me so that my arm is straight.

‘You’re gorgeous, Serena. I could watch you all night. Maybe one night I will do just that. You move like a sea creature. But I want you over here now.’

He tugs at the silver chain, smiling wolfishly at his game, at this small but potent display of power.

I resist the pull of it at first. But as he goes on pulling, and it takes the strain; that spindly meshing of silver threads has the strength of a tow rope. So I let him pull me until I come to a halt in front of him again, still swaying slightly to the insistent music.

‘I’m enjoying myself, Gustav. Dance with me!’

He shakes his head, holding the chain tightly in his fist, moves it from side to side so that my arm is forced to swing like a pendulum.

‘That’s what couples do. No, don’t turn your lovely mouth down like that. Anything’s possible, once we’re used to each other, but for now we’re still working to an agreement. I’m your patron. You’re my protégée. What a patron does is take the protégée under his wing. And what protégées do is what they’re told.’

I fold my arms and look away from him. Tap my bare foot impatiently.

He sighs deeply. ‘Please would you kneel down, Serena. You’ve had the effect on me I knew you would. Look.’

I look. There’s an unmistakable bulge in his jeans, straining at the dark blue denim. His eyes, glittering in the candlelight, half closed behind those thick lashes, are pulling me towards him as irresistibly as the chain.

‘I’ve been in this parlous state, on and off, since I first set eyes on you. You probably guessed that by now.’ He spreads his hands in a helpless gesture and we both stare at his crotch again.

‘Hands and knees, you say? You want me to scrub the floor now? Surely I can do something else for you? Much more fun. Protégée isn’t the same as servant.’

He laughs, so naughtily. ‘Very true. How about slave? That sounds a whole lot sexier, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe. If you’re Caligula.’

‘Hmm. Very tempting, if it wasn’t for the toga.’ He jerks on the silver chain. ‘So, what does a slave do when her master calls? She hears the command, and she comes, that’s what.’

But I don’t move. I can’t bring myself to go down on hands and knees, lick his shoes, his floor, whatever it is he wants me to do. He jerks again on the silver chain. I’m so busy resisting that I stumble and fall towards him, half falling into his arms, but he catches me, stops me in midair before him.

His strong hands are brakes on my hips. I stare down at his silky black hair which seems to grow as fast as his beard. He’s about to push me down onto my knees, his word being my command, but I don’t want to do that. I fall against him, press into him, his face is against my stomach, his nose is level with my navel, his mouth so close to where his fingers were yesterday.

His breath is hot on the silk at the top of my legs. I’m soft and weak from the dancing, the music, the kiss of silk on my bare skin. I push myself towards him.

‘Stay right there, Serena.’

He groans into my stomach. Such a primeval, sexy sound. My man, groaning because he wants me.

Then he pulls me slowly, almost thoughtfully towards him, his hands spread over my bottom to keep hold of me. He looks down with that questioning frown, why is he always so unsure, unwilling to let go? He pinches the fabric up between his fingers, right up, so that it’s all wrinkled up around my hips and there’s nothing between my naked skin and the cool air. I’m bared before him.

He reminds me of the hung-up, insomniac businessman in Pretty Woman. The scene where the escort girl comes downstairs late at night and finds him playing sensual jazz on the hotel piano. She sits on the top of the music stand, her legs on either side of him, rousing him from his apathy in the most obvious way possible, and as he pushes her silk nightdress up over her nakedness her toes start to play the keys out of tune.

I wriggle, press my thighs together. He slides his hand in sideways, and parts them.

The saxophone wails suggestively, up the scale, minor key, sad but sexy.

The way he’s looking. Examining this part of me like a precious jewel, a long sought specimen. It’s because he’s so slow, so quiet, his lips working silently as if he’s praying. It’s as if this core of me is rare, precious, the Holy Grail, something he’s somehow been denied. He felt it yesterday, but today he wants to see it.

It fills me with a hot, wild surge of womanly pride. There’s nothing special about the way I’m built. But this guy’s slow- burning, horny fascination is making me feel like the most special woman in the world. No-one’s looked at me like this or made me feel beautiful like he does. Ever. Not even my face, let alone my body.

Jake looked at me because he fancied me. Loved me in his adolescent way. He looked at my face, my eyes. Very occasionally brushed my hair if I begged him. But he was young and he was in a rush, greedy, hungry for me. Desperate all the time to get his rocks off. But he never took time out to look at me in this reverential way, like I was up on a pedestal.

Let’s face it. We were both young and hungry.

I lay my hands gently on Gustav’s head, on his face, run my fingers down his neck to say yes. Not that I need to. I’m his servant after all. But he’s right. The game is fun, whichever way you play it.

Gustav tips his head back to show me he likes my hands in his hair. I go on stroking him as he parts me gently with one hand. His lips are so close to my very core. He blows on the secret place as if blowing flames onto kindling laid in a cold grate. I wriggle invitingly. His fingers hold me open like a prize, wide open, unfurl me like a flower. One finger smoothes out each petal, making each part damp, then wet, as he touches it, and then his mouth is moving against me and he slides his tongue up me, like a cat, in one movement.

The kindling flares into life before I’m ready. I moan and shake uncontrollably, tugging at his hair. It’s not just the one small sliver he’s touched and inflamed. The wet slick of his tongue has licked right through me, embers catching fire. Literally to the roots of my hair, the tips of my fingers as the sensation shoots through me.

I gasp out loud, a really dirty, wanton sound, grasp his shoulders, tangle his hair in my fingers so that I’m sure it must hurt, and yank his face into me harder. He pauses. I loosen my grip on him, perhaps this isn’t allowed, but I’m not letting go completely. And then he licks again, his fingers still holding me open, the exposure exquisite yet excruciating, I feel like one of those botanical drawings, every detail sketched by a fine pencil.

And by his warm tongue, licking again, his other hand fanned out over my bottom to keep me in place, keeping me pushed against his mouth and thank God he’s taking my weight because my legs are buckling as he licks, and then his tongue flicks on the bud that’s poking out rudely, waiting.

It’s private, but it’s no mystery. Certainly not to him. Shades of other women, other intimate kisses, make my desire all the fiercer. Gustav finds the exact spot and touches it with the tip of his tongue. It’s an electric probe on me. I close my eyes to shadowy rivals because I’m starting to come now, grinding against his mouth, his fingers, his tongue, ripping at his black hair, squeezing my thighs round his face, falling heavily down onto him when it’s finished, crashing onto the sofa as he slides backwards to catch me. I land on top of him and lie there, never wanting to move, listening to the slow, steady thump of his heart beneath me.

His voice is a rumble in my ear as he strokes my hair. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. You’re supposed to be at my beck and call, not the other way around.’

I bury my face in his shoulder.

‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’

‘Turns out what I wanted was to pleasure you.’ He sighs. I can smell myself on his breath, just a faint tang. He’s tasted me. ‘So hot. So eager. Such a sexy woman. Not much tuition required here, at least not in the oral arts.’

‘You make me sound like a tart.’

‘Classy tart.’ He chuckles. ‘Lady, wildcat, virgin, whore. Whatever I can get.’

I bury my head against his chest. ‘I’ve never behaved like that before.’

He pushes me gently up, makes me sit up so he can look at me. His hair is rumpled. His mouth is still glistening with my juices. I long to kiss it.

He picks up his glass though, and tosses the rest of the champagne down.

‘You’ve only ever treated sex as a pastime to get you through those bored teenage years. With the one guy. Am I right?’

I shrug, in a very teenage fashion. ‘I told you. I’m very inexperienced.’

He frames my jaw with his hand. I’m learning this is one of his favourite gestures. It means I can look deep into his eyes, see the way his brows move with his thoughts, the way his upper lip releases the lower before he speaks.

‘Maybe you’ve blossomed very recently. Maybe you were plain as a pikestaff before. You’ll have to let me see some photos. How could no-one else have noticed these slender coltish arms and legs, that tiny waist, those beautiful breasts, that amazing hair, your closed, innocent face. How has nobody ever snatched you up and carried you away before?’

‘I’ve never been interested. And I’m no pushover.’ I roll onto my side at last, still panting, my body still flinching with delicious surprise. This is easier territory. ‘You’ve seen how I normally dress. It’s easier hiding under unisex clothes.’

‘And yet you undressed for that lucky boyfriend of yours.’

‘Just the one. In the dark. Usually pissed. Always in a hurry.’ I sit up and move away from him. That’s not strictly true or fair, but none of it matters now. ‘Where I live, by the sea, people look more at boats and rocks than they do people.’

‘Well, I’m looking at you now, and I want you to look at me. What you’ve done to me. What you constantly do.’ He pushes me down and off the sofa until I’m on my knees on the floor in front of him. His eyes burn urgently. ‘I don’t want to lose the moment. I’m not all poetry and compliments, Serena. I’ve just licked you to orgasm and it’s my turn now.’

My breath catches in my throat as he pushes his shirt aside and unzips his jeans. He grabs my hand and pushes it inside his pants, pressing me onto the hardness waiting down there. He tugs on the silver chain and I lift it out cradled in my fingers, revealed to me at last. The second penis I’ve ever seen. A man’s, not a boy’s. Bigger, harder, curving up so majestically as it meets the air.

He leans back easily, moving my hand up and down the shaft so that it grows even more. ‘See what you’ve done to me. Can you make a happy man very old?’

It’s more of an order than a question, yet it also sounds like a plea. There’s just him and me here. I could jump up now, simply leg it. Yeah, right. Out into the pouring rain. I could tell him to get stuffed. Yeah, and find my photographs out in the trash tomorrow morning.

‘Teach me how, Gustav. I’m a quick learner.’ I lick my lips to cover my naïvety, then realise how suggestive that must look. The answering gleam in his eye tells me I’m right. ‘Teach me how to take you to heaven and back, just like you did for me.’

It jumps in my hand. He pushes my hand off to show me. I can’t tear myself away. Why would I want to run from that? It looks like it would fit me so beautifully.

Gustav tugs the silver chain again, pulling me down again with a thump. I start by putting my hands on his thighs. Feel the tensing of muscles there. I stroke my hands up and down, up towards his groin and away. Is he afraid? And if so, why?

‘Still your choice, Serena. That agreement can be ripped up at any time. And if you choose to stay here and do what I ask you, you’ll find I’ll sometimes be tough on you. That’s how I’ve been used to operate, especially with women. I think you’ll respond very well to it. I think you’ll like it. I think you want to empty your mind sometimes and let your body be ordered about by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Quite simply if you don’t start by passing this one little test for me, the deal’s off. Pleasure me now, like I’ve pleasured you, and I promise you we have some truly amazing times ahead of us.’

‘OK. So quit the lecture.’ I press my finger to his lips so hard it makes a dent. He tries not to smile at my cheekiness. But then something steely enters me. A new, cool certainty, that this is fine. More than fine. Being around this guy makes me constantly alert, constantly wondering what’s happening next, and he’s just shown me what a couple of swipes of his tongue can do to me. How the world can tilt in front of my eyes when he licks me. He thinks he’s in charge, and yet he’s also a slave to my new, feminine power.

Why would I run away from a master class like this? It’s only a few weeks of obedience, after all.

I’m not going to let on that I’ve never sucked a man before.

I grip his legs harder, slide my hands right up to his groin. Now it’s my turn to spread his legs a little. My face is right up against him. The heat from him pulses outwards. He smells so clean.

His glorious ready hardness springs forward in his lap. I lean forward. The soft rounded end bumps blindly against my cheek.

His hands come off my shoulders, slide under my hair. Yes. I have taught him something. If he touches my hair, I’ll do anything for him. Look at me. I’m kneeling in front of my master. My master, at least until our agreement ceases and we walk away from each other.

To help me I think about what’s happened so far. That curtailed cocktail, how I didn’t want to leave him. How I obsessed about him all through Polly’s Halloween party and couldn’t get it on with a readily available American millionaire. How I nearly ran all the way to the gallery to find him after he called me yesterday morning. How distant and scary he looked in his suit, how good and dirty it felt when he took me with his fingers, us both standing by the window overlooking the river. What he’s just done to me with his tongue. Cunnilingus. A fantastic old word I’ll never laugh at again.

The rounded end prods at the corner of my mouth as if it has a life of its own. Gustav rests his head on the back of the sofa, half closes his constantly burning eyes, and for once that’s a relief. His eyelashes leave spidery shadows on his face as it settles into something approaching peace.

I open my mouth and the most precious part of Gustav Levi slips smoothly into my mouth.

The silver chain is lying limp across the base of his stomach, catching in the triangular shock of black curling hair, like a decoration winding round a Christmas tree.

My heart is pounding. Sweat pricks under my arms. But I want to do this. And it’s not so bad, is it? Think about what he did to you, what he’ll do again if you’re a good girl. My body twitches in lazy memory. There’s still moisture slicked inside my thighs. He did that to me. I close my lips as the length of him jumps over my tongue. So long. So hard. His hands close over my ears so now I can only hear the thick pulsing of my own blood. I stretch my jaw wider.

This isn’t just for him. This is for me.

He is hard now and huge, pushing into my mouth and shoving to the back of my throat and I realise that this cool, mysterious man is about to lose control of himself at my bidding. I try not to gag, ridiculously remember Polly telling me how it was done, demonstrating on a banana when we were on the beach one day, looking really filthy as she licked this curving yellow peeled fruit and pushed it right down her throat.

Guys love you to swallow, she said, biting the banana so that it almost squealed with pain. How I giggled and spluttered. If you swallow they’ll be your slave forever.

When I next see her I’ll be able to tell her I’ve done it at last. Or are we too grown up for all those confidences now? I’ll tell her what she didn’t tell me, that it only really works if you’re falling for the guy. That’s why I couldn’t have done it for Toga Tomas. Or Jake.

I push the thick shaft back with my tongue, close my lips round it again, and start to suck it into the wetness of my mouth. As it gives a little buck, and starts to grow even more, so does the balloon of triumph inside me.

I’m getting wet all over again. Gustav’s big warm hands are jammed over my ears, but stroking and tugging at my hair at the same time. He’s stiffening and swelling as I suck. I don’t know if it’s my breath or his that is gasping and rasping with excitement now, but pride surges through me.

He thinks I’m his pet. But watch this. He’s my pet, too. His obvious, thrusting pleasure is turning me on. I can taste him. His hands tug at my head, up and down, moving my mouth up and down, he’s a little more rough now, tangling and yanking at my long hair.

My mouth loosens, lips losing their tight grip. I start to bite instead, nip the taut surface, no idea how hard to bite or how much it might hurt.

He moans, his hands growing weaker, and elation surges through me again. Here am I, Serena Folkes, just up from the country, with my lips wrapped round one of the most powerful men in the arts world. I am the one making him whimper.

He thrusts deeper into my mouth. I will myself to exercise control for a little bit longer and start to fondle underneath it, the soft balls shrinking shyly as I encircle the base with my finger and thumb. The chain is tangled up between us. He’s filling my mouth. He’s pushing at the back of my throat and now he’s forcing me down over the velvety surface.

I nip once, nip a little harder, then suck, my lips sliding up and down, and then he is jerking, pushing himself into my face, he’s jerking against the roof of my mouth, blocking my throat, his fingers are pulling at my hair, pulling me away, pushing me back, and then he’s groaning loudly and painfully, sobbing his control away. His life force is spurting and flowing. It’s hot and thick, and alien. What did Polly say to think about when you were doing this?

Imagine you’re dying of thirst in the desert. I open my throat and swallow every drop.

I kneel back at last, wipe my mouth quickly, and watch him. His eyes are closed now, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking. His throat bulges as he regains his breath, swallowing down the shouting excitement. His mouth slowly closes and he lies back, totally spent. I could watch him all night. The lovely man I’ve reduced to this exhausted heap.

Instinct tells me I can watch him but I can’t kiss him. Can’t do anything except rest my hands on his legs, watch the pulse in his neck judder to a calmer rhythm.

After a few moments, his eyes still closed, he packs his subsiding erection away into his jeans then lifts his hand and finds my bracelet to unhook it from the silver chain.

‘Will you leave me now? You can find your own way to bed tonight.’

I stop his hand on my wrist. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘No, sweet girl. I just need some time. Please.’

I want to sit beside him on the sofa and watch the dying embers of the fire in the enormous grate. But I get up obediently and watch the silver chain fall away from me and trickle against his leg, and as I leave he waves me away as if he really is a Roman emperor. I turn abruptly and walk into the chilly hall.

How can I sleep after this? How can he dismiss me like this after I know I’ve pleased him? I stop on the landing outside a set of double doors, churning with anger. I’ve a good mind to go straight back down and tell him to act like a normal lover. At least to talk about it.

I turn to grab the banisters. I’m ready to straddle and slide down them in my fury, and then I catch sight of it. The Rossetti painting he mentioned earlier. The model, Elizabeth Siddal I’m certain, is in typical pre-Raphaelite pose, doomed woman bathed in early evening light from a window outside which a river slowly flows. Her mournful eyes are turned upwards, cheeks and jaw pointing down, a mane of tawny hair falling over a green velvet medieval gown pulled slightly off one shoulder, candles symbolically blown out around her.

I calm down, looking at that. No matter where I go, I know that every time he passes that priceless picture, he will think of me. My hand comes to rest on the doorknob of his bedroom. Is he a collector? Has he more in here? But the door is locked.

I glance down at the hall, the flickering strip of light from the sitting room. He must be sleeping now. One day he’ll take me into this bedroom, carry me over its threshold like a prize.

I run up those shadowy stairs to the little room in the attic, lit only by one lamp.

I feel light as a feather. I climb up onto the high four-poster bed and fall into the mountain of white cushions, running my hand over my lips, where I just tasted him. Down to the place where he tasted me.

Then, as the wind rattles insistently at the glass doors to try to get into my bedroom, I fall straight into a deep slumber as if tumbling off a cliff.