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‘You!’ She was now desperate for the feel of him, the shape of him inside her, filling her, pounding into her.
Seeking release, he entered her, excruciatingly slowly at first, then again, after a couple of deep thrusts, he pulled out.
‘Not yet,’ he whispered against the outline of her ear pushed against the fabric of her blouse, her sex throbbing in anticipation, every erotic zone heightened; her lips, her nipples, her swollen clit. He rolled her onto her side, then pushed himself between her thighs and entered her slowly from behind. Lying back on the floor, he pulled her onto him so that her body was lying over him, and continued to play her as he moved slowly inside her. She came almost immediately, while he held back. As she lay over him, catching her breath and slowly gathering her wits, she realised he hadn’t had an orgasm yet.
‘Free me,’ she pleaded.
‘Why? What will you do?’ he asked teasingly, still role-playing.
‘Free me and I’ll show you.’
He untied the tights from her legs and helped her wriggle the rest of the way out of her skirt and top. Once completely naked, she pushed him back down to the floor and made him roll over on his front, then reached for her handbag, which was still sitting on the floor nearby.
She pulled out a small umbrella she always carried. She also pulled out a jar of Vaseline she used to moisturise her lips. With her knee, she forced him to spread his legs, while lubricating the smooth knob of the umbrella handle.
‘Susie, I’m a top not a bottom.’
‘Not for long.’ She cupped both his buttocks; he had a beautiful arse, high and firm, and long muscled legs, now spreadeagled on the marble. Reaching under him, she grasped his erect cock and ran her fingers up and down it, him groaning while, with her other hand, she found his anus and eased her lubricated fingers into it, then slowly pushed the knob of the umbrella handle in. He groaned again, but she was pleased to find he still stayed erect, as she masturbated him with one hand and fucked him with the other, faster and faster until he came spurting against his own stomach and the floor.
Afterwards she climbed off him, and he rolled over, and remained lying on the floor, naked except for his T-shirt, still hard from her, hands now behind his head, grinning up at her. ‘So, was he?’
‘Was he what?’
‘Bigger than me?’
‘Huge, a hundred times bigger,’ she said, grinning back. ‘God, you’re impossible.’
‘I hope so. I hope I am beyond impossible. I hope I am unimaginable, undeniable, indelible like the blackest ink. So when do I get to see the proof sheet?’
She stood up and pulled her skirt back down over her legs, then reached for her bra. ‘You don’t – you know that. We have an agreement. You think a little sex changes that?’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’ He pulled his trousers toward him. ‘But I tell you this much: I’m never going to look at an umbrella in the same way again.’ At which they both started laughing.
*
She couldn’t sleep. It didn’t help that Felix apparently always slept with a nightlight on. And there it was, an orange beacon with its light yawing across the bedroom floor like a lighthouse illuminating the shipwreck of their abandoned clothes and underwear. Susie didn’t want to be there. To her surprise, Felix had persuaded her to spend the night, yet once they were inside his vast emperor-size bed he’d curled up against her, wrapping his arms around her, and had fallen asleep instantly. Which was where he still was, snoring gently, his breath a warm tide against her shoulder. But it was hot under the sheets, and more than that she felt trapped, claustrophobic.
After they’d made love she’d wanted to go, but he’d insisted on cooking and they’d eaten out on the heated terrace, naked except for two hats – a dare he’d made, with which both of them had gleefully complied. Felix had set up his video camera on a stand and had filmed their antics. The footage had charmed her; there was a jarring contrast between the pristine hard-edged glamour of Felix’s modernist furniture and table settings and their own uncontainable, fallible flesh: it had felt like a metaphor for the impossibility of their coupling. Felix wore a bowler hat like Magritte, while she wore a trilby, like some Thirties hooker, her mascara and lipstick smudged from their lovemaking. He entertained her with gossip and scandalous anecdotes about the art world: who had seduced whom, how this painter had managed to get into that gallery; skirting around anything too intimate or personal. Beneath his banter she sensed a curious need for approval. It was as if this extraordinarily erudite and successful gallerist sought not only to impress her but also to achieve an intellectual camaraderie he imagined would legitimise him somehow. After the meal, he’d asked her to spend the night with him.
Bending her head slightly, she gazed down on his sleeping profile. He was less beautiful side-on, and, with his mouth slightly open as the breath entered and left his body, more vulnerable and human. He was a paradox, and Susie knew, to her chagrin, how obsessive she could become when it came to trying to understand paradoxes. She carefully rolled away from him, lifting his arm (the weight of it disturbingly mortal) and resettling it on the pillow so that he wouldn’t notice her departure. He turned, but to her relief, carried on sleeping.
After wrapping herself in his silk dressing gown, abandoned at the foot of the bed, she tiptoed out into the passageway and into the library room she’d glimpsed earlier through a half-open door.
The room was circular and was the centre of the apartment from which all the other rooms radiated out. Panelled in oak, it was entirely lined by bookcases, the ceiling extending to the height of the two floors of the apartment. She scanned the spines of the books, her heart jolting when she spied a whole shelf dedicated to her art set up high.
An exquisite antique set of library steps was placed at one end of the bookcases. As Susie began to push the steps toward the shelf, the wheels started squeaking. Terrified, she paused, listening to see if she had woken Felix.
Nothing but silence came from the corridor outside. Encouraged, she moved the steps the last few feet to the shelf and climbed up, the polished wood cool under her naked feet. The shelf contained catalogues; all her solo shows and all the group shows she’d ever been in, dating from her final graduation show at Goldsmiths to the infamous Sensation group show to the last retrospective she’d had at Tate Modern in London. Leaning across, she arbitrarily selected one of the catalogues and pulled it out. It was for her first solo show in Britain, Desire as Myth, the show Felix had mentioned that he’d loved. Glancing down at the image on the front cover, a rush of memories came upon her; how naively optimistic she was before the show, the intense excitement of filling a space entirely with her own work, her conviction that it would be critically panned and her astonishment at the following notoriety and fame. How she had changed.
As she placed the catalogue back, she noticed that the shelves below were full of old hardback books, seemingly minor or unimportant, forgotten works. Curious as to why Felix might be the collector of first-edition B-grade fiction, she pulled a volume out. As she opened it she noticed that the first page – the blank title page – had been torn out. Why bother collecting first editions if they weren’t in mint condition? she wondered, but then so much of Felix was surprising. Just then somewhere far below in the street outside a car alarm went off. Taking it as a sign to leave, Susie climbed down the steps.
Moments later she was dressed and at the front door. Once outside, breathing in the chilly air, Susie immediately had the sense of a huge weight lifting from her. Was this fear of intimacy, or relief? She didn’t know and in that moment she didn’t care.
*
The bedroom was dark and filled with memories that fluttered against Latisha’s purple drapes like confused insects. Woken by a full bladder, she lay there thinking about the scenario she’d just emerged from. She’d been modelling for Maxine, a lazy hot afternoon; drowsy with the sound of the artist’s voice and the earthy scent of wet clay, she’d fallen asleep in the dream and had woken in her bed. For a second she wasn’t sure which scenario was the real world.
*
