Читать книгу Pierre - Primula Bond - Страница 10

‘You’re breaking up!’

Francesca’s face freezes on my laptop. She continues speaking even while her mouth remains fixed in an O, as if she’s choking on a walnut.

I take a break from my monologue and she continues her side of the conversation while the moon rises on her side of the Atlantic and she lounges on the deck of their luxurious Hamptons home. Her hot American day of lunches and swimming and trying out kiwi fruit cheesecake, or maybe courgette ribbon pasta recipes for her new cookbook, has become a relaxing evening.

Five hours ahead in London I’m knackered after falling through the door of our cramped boathouse after a full day’s work at the Aura Clinic followed by a long night of moonlighting as a svelte, swaying artiste.

‘Surely you’re allowed to fraternise with patients without getting into trouble? The sun obviously shines out of this Pierre fellow’s ass.’ The Skype image jerks forwards a little. Fran’s mouth is now primly pursed between breaths, and I can see my little nieces waving robotically in the background. ‘It’s not like you’re a qualified medic with ethics and Hippocratic oaths or anything.’

‘The rulebook says, and I quote, that relationships between staff and clients are discouraged and disciplinary action will be taken if there’s an abuse of trust or the duty of care, and when the client is particularly vulnerable. I’m sure that applies everywhere, but because the Aura Clinic is private, and costs a fortune, they police the regulations with a rod of iron.’

‘Except no rods are allowed, apparently!’

I don’t cackle along with her innuendo. ‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned him now. We just get on quite well, that’s all.’

‘More than that. You haven’t stopped talking about him. I haven’t heard you this animated since –’

‘Since Daniele?’

I kick off first one agonising shoe and then the other. The elegant, elongated posture the high heels have afforded me all night crumples back into my more usual casual slouch.

On the screen my sister nods jerkily.

‘Yeah, since that scumbag pissed all over you. So what’s the story with Poirot?’

‘Pierre!’

‘I mean, what happens next? You go on being his nursemaid, wait until he’s discharged and then lose him? Or you live a little, seduce him, break some silly rules?’

‘He doesn’t see me like that. He just wants to talk.’ I rub the circulation back into my toes. ‘He even got me to spill my guts about Daniele and the sous chef.’

‘No wonder he wants to hear some gossip, poor guy’s flat on his back all day. And not in a good way.’ Even from this distance I can tell Fran’s trying to keep a straight face. ‘This all sounds pretty lame, Rosa. You need to ramp it up a bit.’

‘That’s exactly what I did. He was goading me, and I told him everything. He wound me right up like a clock, until I told him exactly how I found Daniele fucking that bitch.’

‘Holy shit! You go, girl!’ Francesca lifts her hand to give me a transatlantic high-five. ‘But you need to go further! Invent your own rules. Tell anyone who catches you that it was discreet, safe and consensual. Where’s your chutzpah? Give the sick guy what he wants, then give him some more!’

‘All he wants is for me to tell him a story every time I see him, like Shazzan or someone?’

‘Scheherazade, you muppet! Christ, he sounds kinkier that I thought. Don’t you know the story of Scheherazade and the thousand and one nights? That the Sultan killed each new lover after he’d slept with her, but Scheherazade kept him awake night after night with her sparkling storytelling and so she was spared in the morning. Basically she talked her way out of trouble.’

‘I haven’t got a thousand and one things to tell him. In fact, I’ve got zero going on in my life at the moment.’

I place my delicate shoes side by side in a box. It felt good wearing them earlier, teetering out of the wings into the spotlight. Then kicking them off in front of all those expectant faces.

‘It doesn’t have to be real, silly! Just talk dirty, if that’s what he wants, embellish, embroider, sex it up till he can’t bear it. Until he has to take you right across his knees in that bloody wheelchair!’

I start to laugh as I wrap the shoes in crackling black tissue paper. My sister’s on a roll now with her long-distance advice.

‘OK, boss! I take your point!’

‘Flirt with him. Bustle about. Bend over a lot. Are you sure he’s not getting a hard-on every time you swish by in your tight little uniform?’

I think of the unmistakable reaction when I washed him that first morning. The soft shape warming up, firming up in my hand like a delicious pastry.

Any man with red blood in his veins would get hard, being handled like that. It was nothing special. I unzip my dress. As soon as the expensive, silky embrace falls away from me I stop being the poised, confident woman I was when I was wearing it.

‘I think he quite likes me, but it’s just a job, Fran. I’m just his carer, a servant really, just like I am to all the other spoiled, rich malades in there.’

‘Don’t be so tough on yourself, cara. You’re coming down after your glittering performance tonight, that’s all. Anyway, if this Levi bloke won’t look at you twice, someone else will. You’re a catch for anyone.’

‘Maybe. It won’t be that long before he’s discharged or I’m sacked or I quit. I won’t see him again and then I can go properly hunting.’ I hang up the dress, aware that if the connection is working my sister can see me in my bra and knickers. ‘Look, Fran, I can’t chatter on. The signal’s hopeless tonight. You might all be chilling out over there, but I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m absolutely done in.’

‘How did the gig go tonight? You look great, by the way. Although satin and silk isn’t normally your style?’

‘I was going to pick up something from the Kate Moss range at Top Shop but my employers insist on high-end cocktail dresses so they sent me to Bond Street. They give me a credit card and a personal shopper. The dress code at the club is very strict for everyone on the premises, staff and members alike. They’re all men.’

‘Who, staff or members?’

‘All the members are men. And most of the staff. They have to wear black tie. Or white tie, if they have military medals, no matter what time of day it is, because the idea is that the minute you walk through those doors you are in another zone. Day and night become meaningless.’

‘Classy! Or pretentious. Sounds like the Starship Enterprise!’ Francesca chortles. ‘All a bit antiquated, though, isn’t it? Black tie? What’s wrong with kilts, or some sharp tailoring? They sound like a bunch of pompous gits. So where is it again?’

I reach into the thin fitted wardrobe for my kimono. If I don’t cover up it won’t just be my sister who sees me semi-naked. If I don’t close the shutters on these portholes anyone motoring down the river or walking along the Embankment at this time of night can see me, too.

‘I’m not supposed to say, but you know what? I don’t give a shit. It’s the London branch of the Club Crème.’

‘Christ, sis! Why didn’t you say? That’s a really prestigious place! Of course I know how secretive the club is! Carlo’s a member!’

‘Really? You happy about that? I’ve heard they get up to some pretty debauched stuff in the entertaining suites.’

‘He’d call it exclusive, rather than secret, but yeah, so long as he doesn’t come home with one of those famous white dildos rammed up his backside. It’s a great place for networking. You know how ambitious Carlo is.’ We both snort with laughter. ‘So, what else? Do they lay on make-up and hair, too? I can’t believe you chose that vampish lipstick all by yourself. Chanel, is it?’

‘Actually, yes, it is, and yes, they do.’ I look away from her to unfasten my necklace. ‘There’s this lovely dressing room for performers, all flowers and scent and deep comfortable chairs, and a very petite Japanese lady who checks you look just so before you go out on stage.’

As I twist the necklace round and fiddle with the clasp I notice that the programme on the TV, which I’ve turned down so we can talk, is panning round a state-of-the-art industrial kitchen, not dissimilar to the one my sister operates from to test recipes for her restaurant in midtown Manhattan.

‘Well, you look great. I bet you knocked their monocles off!’

‘Thanks, Frannie! Hey, there’s a new cooking show just come on. Wonder if the chef’s anyone you know?’

‘Don’t go there, hon. You should know by now that, despite what they do for a living, most chefs are poison.’

I snort. ‘Says the chef who married a chef. And introduced me to one.’

‘So it takes one to know one! And going back to Daniele, it’s been a year now. This born-again virgin vibe doesn’t suit you. It’s obvious how you’re going to get him out of your system for good. Get laid.’ My sister leans towards the screen, her eyes gleaming like a she-devil. ‘Go after Pierre Levi.’

When we were kids people thought we were two peas in a pod. Same dark-brown eyes, same black hair and olive skin inherited from our late Italian mother, usually covered in mud or chocolate, whichever we happened to be eating at the time. At thirty Francesca is five years older than me, but I’m taller than her. We were always more like twins, and like twins we were inseparable. This boathouse doesn’t feel the same without her.

‘I don’t want to make a fool of myself over some guy.’ I sigh when there’s a break in her list of suggestions. ‘Again.’

Slumped alone on this faded tartan banquette with its mismatched scatter cushions while London still sparkles and hustles around me, I feel like Cinderella, deposited by the carriage after my glamorous night out.

Not that Francesca is an ugly sister, though we’ve often called each other that, and worse. Quite the reverse. She’s beautiful, glossy, successful and sweet. But she’s so far away from me now. Not just geographically. She’s removed socially and financially, too. Since she met Carlo at a cooking school in Rome, left our shared flat, married him and moved to New York, they have spent the last ten years opening restaurants, having babies, being feted across the globe.

Finally my big sister draws breath.

‘Don’t let me down, Rosa. By the next time we speak I will expect you to have made progress with this guy, by fair means or foul. I expect you to fight for him. You still there?’ Francesca waits for me to grunt in response. ‘And if this Pierre Levi’s not up for it, how about tickling the fancy of another patient? Or a visitor? Then there’s no moral quandary. Or one of those bow-tie-wearing plonkers in your gentleman’s club. You’re only twenty-five, sis. Too early to shrivel up. Deal?’

‘Oh, bloody hell, if it’ll get you off my case. Deal.’

‘Tell you what. I’ll give you till the end of October. If you’re still lovelorn and celibate then, I’ll send you a free ticket over here. There’s plenty of hunky New Yorkers we can introduce you to.’

‘Thanks, sis, but I don’t need –’

‘Come down off your high horse. You need all the help you can get. I want you to report back that you’ve got that little prick Daniele out of your hair and got someone totally hot, rich and deserving.’

‘Copy that, captain.’

I blow her a kiss, close the laptop, turn to the TV and nearly jump out of my skin.

Because the chef who has stepped up to the televised workstation wielding a rolling pin and kneading dough, fixing those Italian charmer eyes on the viewers under his corkscrew black curls, fixing those eyes on me, grinning like he’s been listening all this time, is none other than my ex-boyfriend. Daniele. And standing next to him, dicing and chopping, is the bitch who stole him away. The woman Pierre Levi called the screamer.

I go to turn up the volume and hear what he’s saying in that velvety accent of his, but decide against it. It will only remind me of what he used to whisper to me when we were in bed together.

Daniele rolls out the pastry and scatters ceramic beans to blind-bake a pie. He shoves it into the oven while the camera focuses on his companion mixing apple, cinnamon and raisin before spreading it on to delicate sheets of filo pastry and brushing it with egg. They exchange some kind of lascivious joke as she rolls it all into a strudel and he taps a sieve over it to sift the icing sugar.

I used to love watching him cook. Only at work. He never cooked at home. He always expected me to do that, which is why we lived on spaghetti carbonara occasionally alternated with schnitzel, my two specialities.

But at work he was the masterful, bad-tempered chef that all TV shows love. And yes, he made you want to get close to him, to tame him. Until we got together I was just one of a group of waitresses at the restaurant who had the hots for him. Those hands, cutting and slicing and gutting and stuffing, you couldn’t help fantasising about them moulding, feeling, slapping and stroking.

And then one night Carlo and Francesca, mini-celebrities by then, swept into the trattoria to check out my new job and it turned out Carlo knew Daniele from catering college. My status elevated me instantly. It’s obvious now that Daniele thought I was a good way to hitch his wagon to Carlo.

Francesca and Carlo have obviously dissected my situation, even if I haven’t.

Well, they can diagnose away. The good news is I no longer miss Daniele. The sadness has gone through the permutations of anger, grief, weary acceptance and, since sharing that story with Pierre, something approaching disdain.

But I miss having a man in my life, in my little wooden double bed. If I’m going to take up Francesca’s challenge, the next man to lie next to me is going to be better than Daniele.

What am I waiting for? I’m in the middle of this vibrant capital city juggling two exhausting but unusual jobs. Apart from when I’m on this boat I’m never alone. My sister’s right. There are men in the clinic, men at the club. I could get them all to want me.

I’m not a nun. I’m a horny young woman with lips made for kissing and a body ripe for someone new. According to our prime patient, a stupendous chest and sexy contours.

Yep. There’s only one man I want.

Someone totally hot, rich and deserving.

* * *

The appointments chart indicates that Pierre Levi’s free. I’m about to knock at his door when Dr Venska comes clacking down the corridor in a spindly pair of strappy white sandals. Not exactly regulation footwear. Nor is her white wrap skirt, which flaps open at the front as she hurries along and I catch a glimpse of a tiny white lace thong slicing up between her thighs.

‘What are you doing hanging around here?’ she asks, coming to a halt and looking down her nose at me. ‘Haven’t you got some commodes to empty?’

‘I need to speak to Mr Levi,’ I mutter, standing my ground as she reaches past me to grasp the door handle. ‘I don’t think he’s expecting you this morning?’

‘Therapy works far better with the element of surprise,’ she replies, opening the door. ‘And I can assure you Mr Levi is always delighted to see me at any time. Day or night. Don’t you worry about that.’

An overpowering waft of perfume hits me as she passes.

‘How about I get your notes for you, then, doctor? I see you haven’t got your file with you.’

‘What’s that?’ She is widening her eyes and pouting in the round mirror of her powder compact. ‘Oh, yes. Sure. If you must.’

She edges through and shuts the door in my face. I find the file in the cabinet, go back to the door and knock. There’s no answer. I knock more loudly. Still no answer. When I try the door handle I realise it’s locked from the inside.

I dither for a moment. What are they doing in there? Why haven’t they heard me knocking? I’m about to give up when my sister’s words nudge me.

Embellish, embroider, sex it up till he can’t bear it …

I’ll take the file round to them through the garden.

The garden of the clinic is large for central London and surprisingly peaceful, despite the rush and roar of the capital city all around us. There are flower beds bursting with roses, formal dark privets and bays clipped into exotic birds and beasts, spreading or weeping trees. A big pond in the middle of the garden is the favourite spot, where a fountain shaped like a dolphin splashes water gently all day. You know which patients are feeling better because this is where they’ll be sitting as soon as they can escape the confines of their rooms.

In this heat I’m tempted to take my clothes off and dive in, or at the very least paddle, but before my break I’ve got to deliver this file.

The French windows to room 202 are open. I’ll give Dr Venska the notes and as soon as she’s finished with him it will be my turn. I don’t know yet what I’ll say. Tell him another story if I have to.

I can’t hear anything. Not Pierre’s gruff murmur. Not the slightly high-pitched, accented voice of Dr Venska. The others nickname her Elsa because she looks and behaves like the cartoon princess. From her white toes with their white nail polish right up to her ice-blonde hair, coiled and pinned tightly to the back of her small, pointed head, it’s like she’s frozen, carved from ice.

I step closer, waving the file to remind them why I’m here.

The bed has been moved, away from the light. I can just about make out Pierre’s legs, one in the white cast, the other now in bandages, a sheet draped loosely over them. He’s wearing different pyjamas today. More jaunty. Different shades of red stripes.

And there’s Dr Venska, pacing the shiny floor between the bed and the window. For a moment I think she’s walking towards me, but her face is turned to the bed. Her white limbs, white face, bottle-blonde hair are all bleached colourless by the sun falling into the room. I can hear her now, talking in a low voice, running her hands down her sides, over her high pert bottom, stretching her long legs as she walks so that her short skirt rides up.

When she approaches the garden door I lift the folder like a shield, but she’s still not looking at me. She spins round towards the bed, lifting her hands in the air and smacking them against her legs, bending down, her tight white blouse straining across her breasts. Her head is jutting forward.

It looks as if they’re having a row. I can’t hear Pierre, or see his response. His right leg, the bandaged one, rises rhythmically as if he’s doing some exercises, but I can’t see his hands, which would indicate his response. His jolly red pyjamas contrast with the whiteness of his bed and the paleness of his companion. Like blood on skin.

More silence. Hectoring him hasn’t worked. Dr Venska is trying a new technique. My God. She’s facing him, slightly sideways to the window, and she’s unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it open.

I step backwards, still clutching the file. So this is the stage they’ve reached in his treatment. Pierre Levi has opened up to her, just like I told him to. Too successfully. Because she’s about to open herself up to him, in every sense of the word.

Whatever she’s about to do, whatever alternative sexual therapy she’s about to administer, whatever rules she’s about to break, I should know better than to hang around to witness it.

I turn too quickly, and stumble over the bench. The file flutters open, revealing the few sheets clipped inside. I tear my eyes away from the sight of Dr Venska’s blouse slipping off her shoulders and look down at the notes. I wonder if they mention the kind of therapy that involves the psychiatrist stripping for her patient?

They don’t. Because there aren’t any notes. Well, hardly any. On the first page, dated during the week Pierre Levi was admitted to the clinic, Dr Venska has written ‘psychosomatic erectile dysfunction?’ But she has apparently failed to answer her own question, let alone cure the suspected condition, because beneath the subsequent dates, up until the date I first met him, is scribbled the conclusion we’ve all become familiar with: ‘unresponsive’.

I glance back into the room. No wonder she didn’t need the notes today. She doesn’t need a folder or a textbook to tell her how Pierre Levi is doing. Her question has already been answered.

I can’t speak for his mental progress, apart from the fact that he told me he’d talked more to me in half an hour than he ever had to her. But what about his physical progress? I scratch at a peeling corner of the file. I mean, there’s nothing dysfunctional about Pierre Levi’s cock. I’ve seen the evidence. My body tightens at the thought of it, rising in greeting that first quiet morning.

What’s the point of gloating over that? Someone else is about to benefit from it. Not me.

There are one or two other illegible notes that refer to the drugs Dr Venska is prescribing, or that the other medics have given him for his pain relief. The word ‘hypnotherapy’ is scrawled in capital letters on some entries. But following that the remaining pages are blank.

It’s no secret that Venska uses hypnosis as one of her special techniques. Quite the opposite. She boasts about it. None of us has ever witnessed the therapy because she insists it has to be conducted in private, one to one. And I can see why, now. She’s been putting her special technique to good use in their private sessions. Sex and hypnosis. What an explosive combination. But for whom? Who benefits? Hypnotist or hypnotised?

How real is the sex in those conditions? And actually, why resort to hypnosis when I made him hard just by holding him?

Dr Venska stands in front of Pierre Levi. Her white blouse drops to the floor. She reaches behind her back to unclip her lacy bra. She slides it away from her breasts and tosses it towards him. His hand lifts and catches it easily, like a cricket ball.

He doesn’t seem remotely surprised.

No wonder she never has any notes to write up afterwards.

I glance around the garden. There are a few patients and staff on the other side of the big beech tree, and there’s the glass corridor that encircles the rest of the garden like a horseshoe and serves both to let light in and to keep an eye on what’s going on outside, but there’s no one on this side of the tree.

No one else to see what’s going on in room 202.

My sweaty fingers make prints on the cardboard. I can’t tear my eyes away. Dr Venska sits on the bed, perfectly visible from the window, and faces him. Her breasts are high and pert, and I can clearly see the dark red darts of her nipples. She lifts her hands and starts to massage her breasts, pushing them together, licking one finger and rubbing each nipple to make them harder. She’s talking, talking, all the time, in a low voice I can’t quite catch.

I pluck the pen from my breast pocket and dash off my own observations for today’s date.

‘Responsive today. Extremely responsive. See sex therapy. Hypnosis. Recommend introduction of hallucinogenics and stimulants.’

I stand up with the file, turn to tiptoe away.

Venska is still whispering. Pierre is not replying. Either he’s deep in a trance or he’s getting aroused, lost for words.

No wonder the door was locked.

Venska is leaning back and now she’s undoing her skirt. It falls open easily, and she parts her legs. I can see the white flesh sticking slightly before her thighs part. She hooks one finger into the little lace thong and pulls it aside. There’s a glimpse of blue-white pussy. Bare. Totally waxed.

I feel a punch of nausea. I step away, and notice too late that one more blank sheet is on the ground. I pick it up and, as I straighten, something – the whiteness of the paper, my movement – finally catches Dr Venska’s eye.

‘You! How long have you been hanging around out there?’

Her voice is a whiplash, screaming out of the room.

‘I was just coming to give you this!’ Thank God for the folder, my prop. I lift it, and wave the stray piece of paper. ‘The door was locked.’

She swears loudly, leans down to pick up her blouse from the floor and shoves her arms into it, buttons up her skirt, kicks her shoes back on.

‘Did it not occur to you that it was locked for a reason?’

‘The rules state that doors should never be locked, in case of emergency. Staff should always be able to get in –’

‘I am staff, you imbecile. And you? You were creeping around!’ She snaps, turning her back on Pierre and marching towards me. ‘You were spying on a confidential therapy session!’

‘It’s only spying when something nefarious is going on,’ Pierre says suddenly, his voice carrying across the room. ‘Who’s out there, anyway?’

‘The little cleaner. The drab one in the hideous uniform. The one you described as, now what was it? A hot piece of Italian ass when she comes out of her shell?’

‘He said what?’ I gasp, my cheeks burning.

‘Rosa?’ Pierre calls out. ‘Is that you?’

I step towards the door, but Dr Venska is still blocking my way. She scowls at me, at the new uniform that Nurse Jeannie gave me this morning. No longer so hideous, thank God.

‘Oh, don’t think you’re unique. He’d say that about anyone. Anything with a pussy and a pulse will do. All it proves is that my treatment is working.’

‘You mean I’m returning to my super-stud ways?’ snorts Pierre, but there’s an edge to his amusement, I can tell. ‘I can start chasing girls again? Oh, wait. I can’t walk.’

‘Oh, you’ll walk again, unfortunately for the female sex. And then it’ll be business as usual. You have me to thank for that, Mr Levi.’

‘Actually, it’s not you I wish to thank –’

‘You were broken when you came into this clinic. Head and heart. I brought you back. I showed you how to be a man again.’

‘What do you want, a round of applause?’ Pierre’s voice is dark. ‘It’s what you’re paid to do.’

Dr Venska takes my arm and pulls me into the room, over to the bed.

‘But I’m not paid to do the menial tasks.’ She shoves a bowl of soaps and gels into my hands. ‘I thought it would help. You know, water, bubbles, a bit of role play. But no, he won’t be touched.’

‘I could have told you that,’ I murmur, taking the equipment, avoiding Pierre’s eye. ‘It makes him feel degraded.’

‘Check you out in your bright white uniform, Cavalieri. Nicely tailored, sky-blue piping, the halo logo of the clinic right there on the pocket.’ Pierre whistles. ‘Cute little buttons instead of that rusty old zip.’

I blush. Run my hands down the softer fabric in an echo of what Dr Venska was doing to herself earlier.

‘It’s my reward for completing my probationary period.’

He nods. ‘And it makes you feminine rather than frumpy. Fits you like a glove.’

‘And talking of gloves,’ snaps Dr Venska, ‘he’s all yours. I’m done here.’

She rips a pair of latex gloves out of the packet and throws them at me.

‘Don’t you need this, doctor?’ I ask, holding out the folder. ‘For today’s session?’

Pierre sniggers. I risk glancing at him. His black eyes are dancing at me. He’s biting his lips hard to stop laughing. Dr Venska snatches the paperwork, unlocks the door and shoves her way past Nurse Jeannie, who steps inside the room, tutting.

‘What on earth is going on? What have you two done to Dr Venska?’

Pierre and I shrug at each other like naughty schoolkids.

‘Rosa was simply delivering some notes. Dr Venska is unhappy because I’m not responding as she would like to her suggested therapies,’ Pierre says after a moment, his face straight, his voice calm. ‘I think the legal term for someone like me is vexatious.’

Now it’s my turn to stifle a giggle. I cover it by pulling on the gloves and going to fill the bowl with water from the bathroom.

When I return Nurse Jeannie has gone. Pierre Levi is lying on his bed, the sheet rolled down and with it, oh God, his pyjama trousers. His cock isn’t erect but it’s long and firm, lying across his thigh. How could I have compared it unfavourably with Daniele’s aggressive little weapon? Even at rest this is a magnificent sword unsheathed, ready for engagement.

I can imagine my sister chortling at my overblown Sir Lancelot imagery. I must be more frustrated than I realised, because I can’t take my eyes off it.

‘What are you doing, Mr Levi? We agreed!’ I frown, standing by the door. ‘Cover yourself up!’

‘Strict orders. Nurse Jeannie’s doing spot checks this morning. Lucky you entered stage left just then, ready to perform my toilette,’ he says with a grin, folding his arms behind his head. ‘So you’d better get on with it, because she could be back any time!’

A spasm of desire drags at me at the sight of his nakedness, so brazen, so calm, the dark line of hair running down his flat stomach like an arrow aiming at the target, the black hair curling round something that I can imagine, oh so clearly, getting hard, hot, nudging against me pushing inside me –

I step closer, forcing my eyes up to his face.

‘I doubt she’ll be back. So we can stop pretending now, can’t we?’

He drops his hands, grabs for the sheet. ‘You’re repulsed. You can’t bear to touch me. God, I’m such a –’

Our clients are way more vulnerable than they care to admit.

‘No. No. No! Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t you ever think it!’ I’m there like a shot, taking the sheet from him, pulling it back down to reveal his nakedness. ‘I’m not repulsed. Look at you. Look at your cock. It’s beautiful.’

There’s a long pause. The room is thick with the silence. Outside a mower starts up and begins to carve green stripes in the lawn.

‘Rosie. You’re just being kind, but I –’

‘I’m not being kind. I’m being truthful. I only hesitated because you told me you didn’t want to be touched.’

The smile is fading. His black eyes are steady. They pull me towards him.

‘I’ve changed my mind. Take the gloves off, Rosie.’

I do what he asks, peeling the gloves off my fingers one by one.

His tongue runs across his lips, but I detect nervousness there as well as bravado.

We, the staff. We’re the strong ones.

‘You sure about this, Mr Levi?’

‘Despite your brave, encouraging words you still look as if you’d rather eat your own hair, Cavalieri, but yes, I want this. I want you to wash me. Please, Rosie. I won’t bite –’

‘Unless you want me to!’ We finish the sentence in unison.

But our smiles fade as I take hold of him. It’s so warm. I can feel the pulse throbbing through it. My sex tightens at the feel of it, at the intoxicating mixture of innocence and lust in the action I’m about to perform.

He’s got two broken legs. Post-traumatic stress. Insomnia. How dangerous can he be?

‘You’re not just a cleaner by the way, Rosie.’

‘My God. Everyone in here can read minds.’

You can’t deny the charisma’s still there. For those who could be susceptible.

‘Nurse Jeannie wouldn’t let you tend to me like this, on your own, if all you were good for was scrubbing the bogs.’

I squeeze soap on to him and rub along the shaft with the tips of my fingers. It shifts against his leg, stiffens with its forgotten strength, lifts into the palm of my hand. I swallow. This is a swifter reaction than last time. Beneath the soft new cotton of my uniform my pussy heats up equally swiftly, throbbing between my legs.

‘You came in the nick of time, Rosie. I thought Dr Venska was going to attack me.’

‘Seriously? It didn’t look like that to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

‘Just how much did you see, Rosie?’

He lies back and closes his eyes.

I rub at the soap, covering his cock with lather. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly.

‘I saw her taking her shirt off. And then her bra, and then I saw her touching herself. I assumed you had a, an arrangement. That this was your usual therapy.’

‘She hypnotised me, yes. I responded, but not to the extent she wanted.’ Pierre’s eyes flash open, burn into me. ‘Not like I respond to you, instantaneously. Like Pavlov’s dog.’

I cough, lower my eyes to the task in hand. ‘Pavlov’s dog?’

‘Pavlov was a scientist who conditioned his dogs to salivate instantly when he rang a bell, because through various connections they associated the bell with food.’

‘So am I the food or the bell?’ At least this daft conversation is distracting me from the erection growing slowly but surely in my hand.

He laughs. ‘Apparently the dogs started salivating whenever they saw the lab assistant. I like to think she was a female lab assistant – because they associated her with bringing the food.’

I laugh. ‘And Dr Venska couldn’t have worked this out as a solution?’

‘She’s not only incompetent, she’s violated every professional ethic in the book, but I’m not going to report her, and nor are you. Because I have only myself to blame.’ Pierre sighs and closes his eyes. ‘I’ve made her job impossible.’

I can focus better without those lovely black eyes boring into me. I can convince myself that he is just a patient. Client. Whatever.

‘Go on.’

‘That feels so good, Rosie. I can’t think why I told you to stop the other day.’

I soap the balls as gently as I can, but his cock is lifting, glistening with soap.

‘What’s really wrong with Dr Venska, Mr Levi? Why is she so angry?’

The rounded end of his knob is pushing out eagerly. I have a sudden, terrible urge to lick it.

I clench my teeth, dip the cloth into the warm water to rinse off the bubbles.

‘Because I turned her down. She was trying to seduce me, Rosie. She thought she could fuck me out of my sexless state.’

‘Sexless state? Nothing sexless about this!’

It’s out before I can stop it.

‘That’s your doing, Rosie. You and your sexy new uniform got me going. Not her.’

He is rigid now, pulsing in my hand.

‘Not sure you should be saying that, Mr Levi.’

It’s so gorgeous, so male, so phallic, perfectly shaped for penetration, pleasure. I can’t help it. I stroke it.

‘Not sure you should be doing that either, Cavalieri.’

I encircle it with my fingers more firmly and squeeze.

‘She was undressing in front of you, Mr Levi. I think it’s your turn to tell me a story.’

Pierre Levi groans.

‘How about this then, Scheherazade? If you hadn’t come wandering in from the garden at that precise moment, my shrink was going to go down on me.’

I start to rub the shaft, up to the end, and down again. He shifts in the bed, his eyes fluttering but still fixed on me. More colour than before streaks his cheeks.

‘Well, she does have sex therapist on her CV,’ I murmur, moving my hand up, down, up again. His cock is filling my small hand now, pushing out of my grip, pushing for something more. ‘Has she done that before?’

‘She’s touched herself up, yes. That’s why she dresses in those tarty little skirts. Easy access. She started off standing, then sitting in that visitor’s chair, and today she’d graduated to my bed. She pokes her fingers inside and she tells me to look at her. “Look at me, Levi,” she purrs. “Focus on me.”’

I giggle at his perfect imitation of her Eastern European accent. One hand wipes the soap off him, the other hand is fondling his stiffness, making it grow thicker, longer, making it harder, making it push and throb, searching for release.

‘She likes to show me every little bit. Her cunt. Her labia. All the time she tells me what she wants. I think she’s forgotten she’s supposed to be helping me. And yes, I get turned on, any man would, and yes, it’s a relief to know my responses are normal, as the medics say. But I’ve known that for – I’ve known that for a while now.’

‘How long? How long have you known that?’

My hand moves faster, faster, Pierre Levi is breathing heavily now. His hands come up as if to stop me, drop down again, start tugging at his pyjama jacket.

‘God, you’re wicked, Rosie. I don’t know if this is right, I’m not strong enough to stop you, even if I wanted to. What if Nurse Jeannie comes in?’

‘Just doing my job.’ I murmur, bringing my other hand into play now, massaging his balls, which are shrinking up into his body as the pleasure mounts. ‘So go on with the story.’

He groans. ‘One time she did the stripping thing and then she started gyrating in front of me like a lap dancer. She’s bloody good at it, and I should know. I’ve hired enough of them. In fact I would put money on her having worked as a stripper for real, maybe to earn money while she was training. Anyway she danced up to me, took my hands and put them on her bare buttocks, guiding them all over her to fondle her. It was the first time I’d touched a naked woman since –’

‘Since June?’

He nods, panting a little now.

‘She had her back to me, I was in the chair, I’m usually in the wheelchair for these sessions, it makes me feel less, you know, useless and helpless, and she lowered herself on to me. I was hard by then, Rosie, like I am now, and oh God, what are you doing?’

‘Keep talking.’ I’m nearly there. He’s bucking as I pull at him, up, down, the little bead glistening at the end. My gorgeous victim is biting his lip, groaning, covering his mouth to smother the sound.

‘Somehow she got my cock out of my PJs, I’m lying, I wasn’t as hard as this, not as hard as, oh, God, Rosie, stop, no, don’t stop, please, OK, she was like a gymnast on a beam, you know, because I was in the chair, so she had to grip the arms and balance on her high heels and I pushed myself between her white butt cheeks, her legs were spread so as not to put any weight on my sore legs, oh, she’s very flexible, you know, and then –’

I imagine myself, just for a moment, as Dr Venska. Rejoicing as this thick, pulsing shaft pushes up inside me. My pussy is wet now, my knickers sticky with desire, the remembered sensation of a man’s cock, thrusting with lust, hot for me, throbbing as he’s about to fuck me.