Текст книги "Seduce Me"
Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Thirteen
‘Hi.’
He looks down at me, and for a split second I see a slash of annoyance, then recognition and genuine surprise. ‘Julie?’
‘Mmmm…’ I gaze innocently at him from under my lashes, the way Lady Diana used to. I hope I come off as vulnerable and flirtatious as she used to.
‘You look different.’
‘Different better or worse?’
‘Definitely different better.’
A fierce flash of pride and pleasure go through me at his words. My heart starts beating really fast. I am determined to have this man. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. Come with me,’ I say, and, grasping his arm, lead him into the corridor and down it. I open the first door to my right, look in—it is empty. I pull him in with me.
‘What’s up?’
I turn to close the door and my heart is in my throat. The room is in semi-darkness with the drapes pulled halfway across the tall windows and two lit corner lamps. I am glad for it. My cheeks are burning up. In the dim of the soaring ceiling amongst the grand furniture, I try frantically to remember exactly what I had planned to say, and fuck me, nothing comes into my head.
My mind is blank.
I feel dread crawl up my spine as I turn to face him. He is looking at me curiously. I swallow hard. The blood is pounding so hard in my ears I hear it like a roar. All I can think of is how much I love him. I have loved this man for so long. I love everything about him. I love the bewilderingly silent pauses he lapses into. There will always be a part of him that can never be known, not by his mother, not by Lana and not by me. But I even love that he will never wholly be known.
I love the way he holds his jaw in that aggressive slant. I love the way everybody respects him. Or the way his hair is slicked back without any parting. And his tormented blue eyes. In my dreams they are hot and passionate. I laugh when he laughs. I love, love, love everything about this man. He has to love me back. In the end he must fall in love with me.
If only he would take me in his arms. If only there was no need for words. I squeeze my eyes shut. Where, oh where are the words that I have so carefully planned?
‘Are you all right, Jules?’
Jack’s voice cuts into my confused thoughts. I don’t like to swear, but fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! My eyes snap open. His face is puzzled but interested.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I gulp.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
I open my mouth and close it again. Thousands of unfinished sentences pass through my empty head, each one as incoherent as the one that had gone before.
‘What is it?’ he repeats, this more urgently. He reaches out a hand and takes mine in it.
At the touch of his hand I begin to tremble violently. Oh my God, Oh my God, it is going to happen like it happens in my dreams. He is going to take me in his arms.
‘Jules?’ He takes a step closer, and it seems to me that his whole radiantly clean heart is concerned. Even in this dim light I know he can see how tense my body has become. I am a nervous mess.
I open my mouth. ‘I love you,’ I blurt.
The room becomes so deadly silent that I dread to expel the breath I am holding. He looks like a nine-year-old boy that has had a bra thrown in his face. The incredulity in his dear face would have had me rolling with laughter in different circumstances. He frowns. A quick flash of some emotion crosses his eyes. I cannot understand it. Before I can even properly register it in my mind or its implications, I am swamped with that famous Jack smile. The smile that made all the girls in school swoon. He does not drop my hand, but gallantly, and in an oddly old-fashioned gesture, raises it to his lips and kisses it.
‘You will never be happy as the wife of a poor man.’
‘But I love you.’
He lays his fingers on my mouth. ‘One day you will find someone who is perfect for you, perhaps even the rich man of your dreams. And that day you will thank your lucky stars that nothing became of this day.’
I do not like the tone he has taken. This is wrong, all wrong. Even if he had said he loathed me it would be preferable, but this tone, as if I am a hurt child that needs to be soothed. I won’t have it.
‘She’s married now. You can never have her. Have me, please.’
It is as if I have slapped him. He draws away from me. Never before have I seen so much misery in anyone’s face except maybe that one time with my father.
‘You have your love and I have mine,’ he says sadly, and turns away to leave.
I grab his sleeve. ‘Wait, Jack.’
He turns back. His voice is dull. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Jules. Please, let’s just pretend we never came into this room.’
‘You can learn to love me.’
‘I could never love you.’
My mouth drops open. Maybe later I will feel shame. Now I just know I must carry on. I have come this far. ‘Yes, you can,’ I insist stubbornly.
He shakes his head.
‘How do you know?’ I demand, my voice rising hysterically. ‘You haven’t even tried.’
He stares at me with that pitying look. He doesn’t want me. He won’t even give me a chance. Even if it is just to prove that I am not good enough for him. Somewhere in my brain a fire splutters and rises up. I gather up my dignity and let loose the rage of hurt pride. I will turn this into a liberating experience even if it kills me.
‘I hope you’re not waiting for her. Because Blake is never letting her go. You’ll never have her,’ I cry vindictively.
His face pales in the gloom. ‘I am not waiting for her. I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘What? You arrived today and you’re leaving tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I am needed in Africa. I am not here.’
‘You are needed here. I need you.’
‘I am here to keep a promise to dance at Lana’s wedding,’ he says, and depressing the door handle, quietly leaves.
‘Oh, you, you…’ At that moment I cannot think of a word that is bad enough. My hands are clenched tight and my breath comes in hard bursts. ‘Fool!’ I holler at the closed door.
There’s a chair nearby and I sink into it. The reaction to my wild outburst has made my knees weak. I feel so bewildered. He did not want me. Was it all for nothing then? I no longer feel furious, just a strange, cold emptiness. I place the palms of my hands against my humiliated cheeks. Oh! The vile things I had said to him. He must hate me. Forever, I will be haunted by that stricken look on his face when I flung at him that he would never have Lana. How I regret those unkind words that I can never take back.
My eyes fall upon a painting of a seated crone in a thick white shawl, her deeply lined face enclosed in a full and heavily ribboned white cap. I look at her puckered mouth and for some insane reason it makes me want to scream.
‘Damn it to hell, I’ve ruined it. I’ve lost him,’ I wail, and, burying my face in my hands, mourn.
‘Nothing drives a man away faster than desperation,’ says a deep male voice from the depths of the gloomy room.
I spring up in startled confusion and whirl around in the direction of the voice.
Fourteen
The best man is hanging his head out from the side of a huge sofa. He has very white teeth, which gleam in the darkness. Shame runs up my throat and flames into my face. Can it get worse? Now Grandview has witnessed my total humiliation too.
‘You were listening to a private conversation. You should have made your presence known,’ I accuse angrily.
‘I would have, but the conversation took a turn for the worse before I could announce my presence.’ He says it reasonably enough, but his eyes are laughing at me.
‘Oh! How dare you mock me?’
‘I’m not mocking you. It just seems to me that you are going about your process of seduction the wrong way.’
For a moment I consider turning around and sailing out of the room, my head held high. But…in spite of myself I am intrigued. I march up to him.
‘What do you mean?’ I demand haughtily, looking down at him as disdainfully as you can to someone who has witnessed you make a complete fool of yourself in the most cringe-worthy way possible.
He gestures towards the high-backed chair opposite him, and I perch on him. I don’t plan to stay long. Up close he has very strong features. He looks like one of those Australian surfer boys. It must be his light hair. Good-looking, I suppose, but nowhere near as fine as Jack. My Jack is so beautiful it sometimes hurts me just to look at him.
Fine wisps have escaped his ponytail, and hang about his face. He sits up and pushes them back. He places his fist on the armrest—it is full of golden hairs, and I am struck by its resemblance to a lion’s paw. Not in the sense of shape but in sensation alone. It looks so cuddly, ineffective and harmless, and yet one swipe could rip out the contents of a man’s belly. He has been lying stretched out on the sofa and has taken his shoes off.
‘You have a hole in one of your socks,’ I say.
He grins shamelessly. ‘I left my knitting needles in Paris.’
A hippie and a smart Alec. Whatever. ‘What did you mean just now when you said I was going about it the wrong way?’
‘When outnumbered by the enemy, a stubborn or simple-minded man will fight face to face in the open until he is killed. A smart man will react differently. He will strategize, find the weakness of his opponent and exploit it. As in war so in love. The sexual encounter, they say, is a flowery battle between a man and a woman.’
‘A flowery battle?’
He nods. ‘Every night the last Emperor of the Manchu dynasty turned over an ornate jade name plaque next to his bedchamber and a new concubine from his stock of three thousand girls would be brought to his bed. In 1856 the Celestial Prince picked a plaque that carried the name Yehonala.’
Yehonala—a concubine called Yehonala. The idea is intriguing.
‘As was the custom, the odalisque was carried on the back of a eunuch, covered only by a red silk sheet. He laid the twenty-one-year-old virgin at the foot of the bed, and to symbolize her complete subjection to the will of the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, she had to crawl on all fours towards him. All the naked girl had to become the mistress of her own fate was that one night.’
Grandview pauses. I lean forward. When he speaks again his voice is soft.
‘One night with which to bewitch a dissipated god-king whose tastes were varied and, according to some, perverted. Beauty was of no use as every girl in the harem had been chosen for her good looks. Intelligence: he could find a hundred other scholars to discuss worldly affairs with. Humor: he had the Court’s professional comedians.’
In spite of myself I am utterly fascinated. I strain to catch his words, to enter the foreign world he was weaving.
‘No one knows what she did that first night, but whatever occurred was what the ambitious girl had learned during the five years that she had been languishing within the vermillion walls, virtually a prisoner, not a functioning man in sight, and while the Emperor was not even aware of her existence. She had tirelessly learned everything she could of the arts of love. Every closely guarded technique and all the secrets and practices of feminine allure became hers. That knowledge and sexual prowess made her irresistible to the pleasure-sated Emperor, and from that night on no one could usurp her place as the Imperial bed-partner. She let the Chinese poet Chang Heng speak again after two thousand years: “No joy shall be equal to the delights of this first night, these shall never be forgotten, however old we may grow.”
‘The Emperor became utterly besotted with her and remained so until his death. In that one night her skills set in motion the events that ultimately led to the collapse of the centuries-long Manchu reign and the rise of a woman to power. Yehonala claimed the throne and became China’s last and most famous Empress. She became known as the She Dragon of China.’
Vann stops speaking and looks at me. My eyes travel down to his hands. They too are sprinkled with golden hairs. Big. Squarish. Well shaped. Masculine. Nice. Very nice. My mind goes blank. What the hell am I doing? I sit back, turn my voice disbelieving. ‘How could a virgin with no previous sexual contact with a man do that?’
He smiles. ‘Perhaps sex is not what you think it is?’
I frown. I am sixteen again, sore, the ejaculation leaking out of me. I remember he had gone out of the room and told his friends, ‘Like fucking a pillow, man.’ They had laughed. I had wiped myself and gone out, and pretended that I was not dying inside. The memory brings acute pain. I bow my head. ‘Well, what is it then?’
‘Sex is in the head.’
I frown.
‘Here, let me demonstrate. Close your eyes and do not open them until I tell you to do so.’
I look at him carefully. He appears relaxed. He has not moved a fraction of an inch from his position on the sofa and does not appear inclined to do so. What harm can come from a little demonstration? I close my eyes.
‘Imagine a white lotus bud. Do you know what a lotus looks like?’
I open my eyes and look at him, one eyebrow raised. ‘I’m a florist.’
His lips lift upwards, his hand waves down. I close my eyes.
‘Imagine that this lotus bud is very special. It can enter you…’
I squirm internally, a little, at that thought.
‘I take the lotus by the stalk and I hold it against your forehead. Instantly your forehead opens to allow the tip and slowly the entire bud into it. I pull the lotus out and place it at the base of your throat. Once again your body opens and welcomes it in. I do the same to the middle of your chest. In and out. Slowly. Next your belly button. The lotus disappears into it and out again. Now it is poised over your pussy. I gently insert it inside. First the tip and then, as your body learns to accommodate it, the whole bud, even the widest part. It feels tight, but you can take it. I pull it out and now it is hovering over your anal cavity.’
I swallow hard but I don’t allow my expression to change.
‘The tip enters your ass. Slowly, because you are not used to it, I bury it deeper and deeper, until the whole thing has been swallowed up by your body.’
I open my eyes and put on a bored expression. ‘And?’
‘You are sitting in a puddle.’
I flush horribly. It is true. His voice, the strange environment, being spoken to like that by a total stranger.
‘Sexual confidence is an allure that a man finds impossible to resist. Would you like to learn the arts of sex magick?’
I raise my head and look into his eyes. Lana and Billie have been learning to deep throat among other things. Above all else I want Jack. If Yehonala’s way will do the job then so be it. ‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ he says wolfishly. His name is very apt. Wolfe! I don’t know how I did not notice it before. He roots around his pocket and comes up with a pen.
‘I don’t normally carry one, but I was working on my best man’s speech.’ In another pocket he finds a folded piece of paper. ‘Best man’s speech,’ he says and tears a small corner off. He writes on it.
‘Twelve sessions, three times a week. Starting Monday at 7.00 p.m.,’ he says and holds it out to me.
I take it. Our fingers touch and my hand sparks and tingles with the contact from his. That jolt shocks me, sends currents into my viscera. I withdraw quickly. It must be the static electricity from the layers and layers of organza in my dress. Confused, I hurriedly bend towards the paper in my hand. An address: Bread Street in London.
‘How much will the…training cost?’ There is a pause. Head bent, I am hanging on his words.
‘My cock in that sulky little mouth of yours.’
My eyes rush up to meet his expression. He grins. Totally and utterly confident in his own skin. I feel the heat rushing into my cheeks. I feel dirty and horrified, but I am also transfixed and hooked. He and I will be having sex. But of course.
‘Get a life,’ Billie would say.
I have never done anything so outrageous in my life. Now is the time to back out. And yet I don’t. I don’t want to. I am strangely excited and turned on by the prospect of sex with this lion-man. I’m not with Jack yet. Besides I’m doing this for Jack. It is not different from Lana and Billie taking lessons on how to deep throat. Maybe he will teach me that too.
Bereft of any clever thing to say and unable to hold the strange intensity of his laughing eyes I drop my gaze to the scrap of paper and pretend to study the bold, slanting handwriting.
‘Will you allow me to paint you?’
I raise my head, startled. ‘You want to paint me?’ I splutter.
His eyes are twinkling and his laugh is warm and sensual. ‘Yes. A sulky mouth and slanting green eyes is a very unusual combination.’ He moves his attention to my mouth.
I feel his gaze like a physical touch on my lips. There is an odd fluttering in my stomach. He did not impress me as much at first glance, but there is definitely something commanding about this man.
‘My eyes are not green.’
‘They are now.’
‘Oh! Well, I guess I should be going,’ I croak, and spring up, all flustered and hot. Should I warn him about Fat Mary? Nah… Let him suffer.
‘See you Monday,’ he calls, the laughter still ringing in his voice.
‘See you Monday,’ I throw over my shoulder, as I flee from the room where I was turned down by the love of my life, and was propositioned by a wolf! It is exciting. It is definitely exciting.
Fifteen
As a fun event India Jane has hired a fortune-teller to work the tables. I watch her nod to someone and make her way to our table. She is a parody of a gypsy, with a colorful scarf tied around her head, hoop earrings dangling down to her shoulders, a ruffled white blouse, a full skirt, red stockings and black shoes. Her complexion is swarthy, her nose is hooked and her eyes are beady and sly. They alight on me.
She advances and holds out a dark hand to me. Her gaze is unwavering and intense. Strange even. I don’t want her to read my palm. I am the stealer of secrets and the hider of many. I swing my hand behind my back like a child and she smiles oddly.
Someone at the tables laughingly says, ‘Come on, Julie, it’s only a bit of fun.’
But her eyes bore steadily into mine, and there is not the least hint of fun in them as she wills me to submit. Like a hypnotized rabbit I hold my arm out to her. She captures my outstretched hand, turns it palm upwards and slowly brushes her other hand over it. Her palm is leathery. Her eyes release mine and move to my trembling hand.
‘You will get him if you don’t give up.’
I flush hard. She knows about Jack. She is about to spill my secrets. I knew I shouldn’t have let her take my hand. I try to snatch it away, but she has it in an iron grip.
‘I see you traveling with him… And children… Two girls. Very good man. Strong… Tall.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Fatherless.’ Then she frowns. Her deeply black eyes travel upwards to mine, a startled, almost fearful expression in them. ‘Evil will try to tempt you, touch you. Don’t let it.’
This time I pull my hand away and she allows me to.
‘Now give me a coin, so you don’t owe me anything,’ she commands.
I stare at her. Her face is set in uncompromising lines. She has not asked for a coin from anyone else. I have no coins. I turn to the man sitting next to Billie. ‘Can I have a coin please?’
He laughs, takes a coin from his wallet and holds it out to the gypsy. She shakes her head. ‘It must come from her.’ He passes it to me and I give it to her. The gypsy nods and moves on to the next table.
My heart is beating hard in my chest. I am so exhilarated I can hardly sit down. I press my tingling palms together and rub them. She said, if I do not give up I will get my Jack. Everything else she said fitted too. Good. Tall. Strong. Fatherless. And she sees me traveling away with him. Does that mean I will be traveling to Africa? The prospect fills me with excitement. I do not understand her warning about evil so, as I have always done, I discount it as one unimportant inaccuracy in her prediction.
It is time for the happy couple to cut the tall, six-tiered cake—a holy smokes affair that has been patterned to look like the softly glowing painted glass shades of Tiffany lamps. It is so beautiful and unique it seems a shame to cut it. Anyway, they are cutting it, and I am not staying around to watch. Happy occasions always depress me.
I walk along the dozens of twinkling luminaria, over-sized white paper pom-poms and lanterns that flank the outdoor walkway towards the greenhouse. I just need to get away from the noise and joy of the party. I just need to think. About Jack and everything that has happened. About how I can win him back. I stand by the pond and look at the fishes glinting in the water. Do fishes sleep?
‘Hey.’
I whirl around. It is Lana. In the soft light she looks very beautiful. Why has she followed me? She is the bride, the sparkling star of the party. The princess of the day.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Of course. Why do you ask?’
‘You just looked a bit lost for a moment.’
That—and you know I don’t like to swear—but that fucking gets my back up. I am not feeling lost. I laugh. The sound is unnatural. I curse it. ‘No, I’m fine.’
‘I think Vann likes you.’
Fuck you! I don’t want Vann, I want Jack. I am so irritated and annoyed at that moment, I don’t care that it is her day. She was the bride and all of us were meant to be the moons that orbit around her great body.
‘Oh wonderful. Thank you so much. You kept the billionaire for yourself and saved the servant for me.’
Her conspiratorial smile turns into an O of shock. There is a hurt look in her eyes. Like a child that has been slapped when it came for a kiss. Shame punches through me. I am furious with myself. At that moment I hate myself. I am the worst bitch in the world. I fucking hate myself. I honestly did not mean to say that. I mouthed those ugly thoughts before I was conscious of them myself. I was just in my own world, my own wounded world. How I wish she hadn’t followed me. How I wish I could take the words back.
We stare at each other.
There is a sound at the doorway. We both turn. Blake looks at us, his eyes going from one to the other, and then they rest briefly on me. I see the cold fury in them. He knows I have upset his doll, and he is intimidating as hell. Great, now I have pissed off the billionaire. No flat in Little Venice for me. Fuck them both. I raise my chin. I’m not about to apologize. But Lana does the good thing, the right thing. She comes to me and puts her hand on my arm. Her wedding ring is cool against my warm skin.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered?’
For a moment I just look at her and feel truly outclassed and outgunned. She is the bigger person. She is trying to make it all OK again. Why? I don’t know and I don’t care. I lean forward and hug her. She is the thinnest person I have hugged. Come to think of it, I have never hugged anyone else but my mother, and that was many years ago, and even then my hands had not gone around all of her. We move away from each other. I fancy that she must be relieved to be drawing away.
‘Let’s have lunch when I get back,’ she says.
I am too choked to speak. I simply nod.
‘I actually came to give you this.’ She hands me her bouquet.
I take it from her with both hands. The frog in my throat croaks out a thanks.
‘Got to go. I’ll call you when I get back.’
I know she is flying off to a surprise, secret location first, and Billie will be staying at Lana’s apartment with Sorab, but after a week Billie and Sorab will fly out to Thailand to meet the couple for a week-long holiday.
‘Yes, please do.’
She grins. ‘Good, I’ll bore you then with all my photographs.’
I smile weakly, and she turns away from me and goes to Blake. They link hands. I watch him. His entire attention is on Lana. Without another glance at me, he takes her hand and guides her away from me, the super bitch. At the door Lana turns around.
‘He’s not who you think he is,’ she says, and then they go down the lantern-lit path. I watch them walk under the fairy lights and the oversized pom-poms until they are swallowed by the topiary garden. But even from here I can already see the guests have lighted their sparklers. Hundreds are waving around. There is clapping and cheering and wedding bubbles start rising up. A beautiful end to a superb day. I wish I had not come here alone. I should have stayed with everyone else.
Suddenly music, music that I recognize booms out of the loudspeakers, and John Newman’s strong, raw voice: ‘Know I’ve done wrong, left your heart torn.’ I smile. It is one of my favorite songs. He is screaming in that totally cool way: ‘IIIIIIIII need to know now, know now, will you love me again?’ I look down at the bouquet in my hand. Bring it to my nose and inhale the faint scent deeply.
‘Congratulations, Lana,’ I whisper sadly.
