Текст книги "Seduce Me"

Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Eighteen

When I get back he has lit one of the bedside lamps and is lying propped up against the pillows.

I sit on the bed and hold the glass of water out to him. Strangely there is no awkwardness.

‘Thanks.’

I watch him drink it. He seems beautiful in this soft light. I let my eyes slide away and look around the room. In front of the bed is a metal pole. Surprised, I turn back to him. ‘Is that a lap dancer’s pole?’

‘Yup. This apartment was rented out to a big gun in the City. And when he left, the pole was left behind.’

‘Surely tenants have to leave the place as they find it?’

He shrugs one bare shoulder carelessly.

I swing my legs up on the bed and lean back against the headrest. ‘City boys and their drugs and their sluts and prostitutes. What parties he must have had here.’

‘Pole dancers are not prostitutes. I’ve known a few with hearts of gold.’

‘Oh!’ A stab of jealousy. Where on earth did that come from?

‘Besides,’ he adds, ‘the best lap dancers are artistes who turn their bodies into canvasses, works of art. You should try it some time. It’s a great turn-on for a man.’

I gaze at him. ‘You think I should learn to pole dance?’

‘Why not? Jack might love it?’

‘And you think my body is good enough for it.’

‘The best pole dancers are voluptuous women, but you’ll do.’

‘Do you think Lana is beautiful?’

He frowns. ‘Lana? As in Blake’s wife?’

‘Mmnn.’

‘Yes, very, but a bit too thin for my taste.’

‘Is she thinner than me?’

‘No, you’re thinner.’

‘Really?’ I feel a warm glow in my stomach. ‘I am thinner than her?’

‘First time I saw you I wanted to feed you.’

I look at him curiously. ‘Why do you like big girls then?’

‘They seem more sensuous to me. Their spirit is often more generous.’

The next question seems obvious. ‘So why are you sleeping with me then?’ His answer is not so obvious.

‘Stand up and take your robe off,’ he says very softly and there is an underlying steel in his voice.

‘No.’ My answer is instant and very definite.

‘It is my wish that you are naked, whenever I wish it.’ He looks at me steadily. Again I am reminded of a hunter. Implacable. He is hunting me without moving a muscle. I want to say no, but that look in his eye. It tells me if I take my robe off there might be more pleasure to come. I have been awakened from a long sexless sleep and now I want more.

I stand and drop the robe, but I am unable to withstand his searing gaze. My hands instinctively go to my breasts and the triangle of hair between my legs in a vain attempt to shield them. He crawls forward on the bed and, standing on his knees, takes away and holds my wrists at the sides of my body.

‘Never cover yourself like that again. You were born to be naked.’

He lets my wrists go and sits back on his heels, as proud and naked as the day he was born, and gazes at my body while I struggle not to cover myself.

‘Ah, that is lovely,’ he whispers finally, and, moving forward, takes a stiff nipple in his mouth.

I gasp.

He sucks.

I tremble. I moan.

He buries his face between my breasts. His lashes sweep darkly against his cheek.

‘How can you give pleasure to anyone if you are unhappy in your own body?’ His voice is tender now.

I bite my lower lip. He has awakened a strong desire in me. The breast that has been sucked is tingling. As if he has heard my desire, he slips his finger between my legs, and I sigh and part my legs. He takes his hand away and retreats to his haunches.

‘Clasp your hands behind your head.’

I obey and find the position has arched my back, thrust my breasts forward, made me feel vulnerable, and in some subtle way increased my nakedness. My whole body flames with desire and shame for my position. He does nothing, just continues staring at me while the slit between my legs begins to swell and feel so very hot. Very naked and helpless, I stand in his gaze.

‘You have the most beautiful breasts imaginable. Firm and plump and pink-tipped and so perfectly round they look fake.’

This I know to be true. My breasts are my best assets. They are exactly as he described: pink-tipped, plump and round and without any sag at all. He puts a hand out and curves it around one breast and massages it gently. I shudder helplessly.

‘I must have you again.’

He reaches into the dark blonde, damp curls and inserts two fingers into my aching folds. With those fingers impaled in me, he draws me towards him. I gasp. The hand inside me is exquisite, the thought of being pulled by my pussy filthy and erotic. He licks the inside of my thigh. My knees shake.

It happens fast. The other hand wraps around my waist and I am lifted off the ground and placed on the bed. He parts my legs and, gathering the liquids he finds, works my clit, round and round. My hips rise off the bed, my head presses into the mattress, my spine arches.

‘Will you totally surrender to me?’

‘Yes, yes.’

He smiles. An odd smile. Then he covers my mouth with his hand. Over his hand my eyes open in terror and my body prepares to fight back, but there is nothing to fear, but fear.

‘Let’s not wake the neighbors,’ he says, jams his thumb into me and carries on playing with my clit. But in a special way, as if he is following a set program. Twice my body buckles and tries to find release but at that precise moment he suddenly stops. The frustration builds.

My whimpers are muffled.

Again he looks at the distress in my half-covered face and smiles and carries on playing with my sex even as hot liquid leaks out of it and soaks the sheet underneath. Against my thigh I feel the hard length of him. I begin to twist from side to side, my hands curled into useless fists. My eyes beg him to enter me, finish the job.

Let me have my release.

He shakes his head, bends his head and licks my nipple.

‘Let me come,’ I sob deliriously under his hand. My whole body is afire.

‘Wait,’ he says.

And works me again, and again—start stop, start stop, God knows how long—until my body is shuddering violently. The spasms coming from deep inside me are so violent that I am shocked and fearful of them. I look at him with frightened eyes. What is he doing to my body?

‘Wait,’ he whispers. ‘This is the real sexual energy that human beings have. This is the thing that ancients use for sex magick. Nothing to fear. It is coming from the base of your spine.’

And indeed the spasms are so powerful that my body is being rocked and lifted cleanly off the bed. And then suddenly it is no longer possible for him to hold me back. I come screaming uncontrollably, awfully, under his hand. The pleasure is indescribable. The release is so great I take great gulps of air. Tears are streaming down my face. My sex is throbbing and what feels like waves or vibrations are expanding out of it. I don’t feel tired and wasted, but exhilarated. As if I have taken a really good ecstasy tablet. I look at him through my tears, my shock.

‘Wow!’

He smiles. ‘That is what Yehonala did.’

‘What about you?’ I ask, and even my voice sounds different.

‘Without selflessness even the best technique is useless.’

He leans forward and kisses the hairy pelt between my legs and withdraws his thumb out of me. And I, I immediately crave it back inside me.

‘Are you staying the night?’

God, I actually want to stay. To carry on. This kind of pleasure is explosive, it is addictive. ‘I have to go home. Got work in the morning.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ he says evenly, and, moving off me, begins to dress.

The way he switches off immediately makes me feel insecure. I quickly pick up the robe on the floor and wrap it around myself. ‘I’ll just go change in the other room.’

‘OK. Meet me in the living room.’

I look at myself in the mirror and think of Jack and feel guilty. While I was in Vann’s bed I had never spared a single thought for him. I dress quickly. When I get back to the living room Vann is already waiting for me.

In the lift I sneak a look at him and find him leaning against the chrome railing watching me. He raises his eyebrows. I think of his thumb jammed like a plug inside me and flush. Quickly I avert my eyes to the lighted numbers. I hate lifts. The doors open and I dash out.

‘This way,’ he says outside and points to a brand new Jaguar CX Four-by-Four. He opens my door and waits courteously as I climb in.

‘Blake’s?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s nice. He’s really good to his friends, isn’t he?’

‘Blake doesn’t do friends. There is no one he can trust.’

‘But he trusts you.’

‘Only because we grew up together. Are you hungry?’

I’m starving. ‘Nope.’

‘Then I hope you won’t mind if I drop by and get a takeaway Chicken Shwarma.’

‘Not at all.’

Except for giving him my address, we don’t speak much until we get to Beauchamp Place. He parks and turns towards me. ‘You sure you don’t want anything?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘OK, won’t be a minute.’

I watch him cross the road, his stride long and prowling, and go into a restaurant called Maroush. In less than five minutes he is making his way back to me, two cylindrical white packages in his hand. He gets into the car and opens one package. Is he planning to eat it here in the car, in front of me?

He is. He untwists the top of white greaseproof paper and, tearing it off, reveals the pitta bread filled and rolled with chicken kebab inside. The smell. Oh sweet Jesus. The smell of garlic sauce when you have missed dinner and had a bucket load of sex. He waves it in front of my nose. I know if I ignore the hunger pangs they will go away in a while, but not with the scent of food so close by.

‘Just taste it.’

I look at him with an unfriendly expression.

‘Go on… It’s the best in London,’ he cajoles.

One taste. I swallow my saliva, take the package from him and take a small bite. Goodness, gracious me. It is so good I have to stop my eyes from rolling to the back of my head. I try to hand the food back and find him waving it away, and opening the other instead.

‘I got you one just in case you changed your mind.’

No further invites are necessary. I bite into the kebab, chew and swallow. And carry on doing so until there is nothing but soggy paper. I gaze at it almost with surprise.

‘You were hungry, weren’t you?’

Oh shit. I’ve just eaten a whole kebab at one o’clock in the morning. It’s going to become pure fat in my body.

He starts up the engine. There is no traffic on the roads and soon we are outside my block of flats.

‘I’ll walk you to your door.’

‘There’s no need. See that door there?’ I say, pointing to my door on the third floor. ‘That’s my home.’

We exchange numbers.

‘Wednesday at seven. Don’t eat before you come over and bring some clothes and the stuff you need in the morning. Plenty of empty cupboards for you to choose from.’

‘OK,’ I say and jump out of the car.

He waits until I have run up three flights of stairs. I wave before I enter my home and close the door. Everybody is asleep. I go into the kitchen and fill a glass with water. I salt the water. I drink three glasses. Then I run up to the bathroom and make myself sick. There, all that horrible fatty meat is gone from my body. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, but I feel light and good again.

I flush the toilet, clean my teeth, spray some air freshener and go to bed.

Nineteen

It is 9.10 when I leave home for work. On the way I see two men putting up a billboard poster with a pair of eyes looking out of punched out gray wallpaper and the caption, ‘We’re closing in on undeclared income’. The poster is from Her Majesty’s Revenue Collection Department. It is designed to put the fear of God into people who are evading or planning to evade tax.

People like me. Who pretend to work sixteen hours a week, but in actuality work many more. Fuck them, I think. They honestly make me so mad. It’s bullshit that taxes are used to raise revenue. Imagine putting up a poster like that in such a poor and depressed area, and there are all these giant multinational corporations getting away scot-free with not paying billions in taxes.

As far as I am concerned they are just bullies to come after little people like me. It is not the likes of me that are killing the economy, but them. Think about it. If I revealed the exact number of hours I work, they would tax not only me, but also the small business I work for. My employer would then no longer be able to afford my services and run aground. Besides, they don’t need my little contribution at all. They proved that when they suddenly and magically found billions to bail out the big banks with. Income tax is a tax to work. And I’m not fool enough to pay tax to work.

I unlock the door of Sasha’s Flowers and disarm the alarm. I switch on the lights and the computer and check if any orders have come in during the night. There are none. I put on my apron, sweep and mop the place. As I am changing the water in the pails of flowers Zipporah comes in.

She stops in the doorway, narrows her eyes. ‘What have you done to yourself?’ she demands.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re glowing.’

I flush hard.

‘You had sex last night, didn’t you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you surely did. Look at you, you’re as red as a Walker’s crisp packet.’

‘All right, I did. But I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘So it’s not the boy, then?’

Ziporrah is the only one who kind of knows about the crush I have on Jack.

‘No,’ I mutter.

‘Hon, if a man can make you look this good, you should kick that boy to the curb, and get with the man.’

Let me tell you about Ziporrah. She has all her hair in tiny cornrow braids and the type of hourglass figure you would see in a rap music video, the butt so high and rounded you could eat dinner on top of it. Her mother named her after the wife of Moses. Yeah, I didn’t know either, but apparently she was black! On a plaque hanging on the wall in the shop Ziporrah has part of a verse from the Song of Solomon 1:5: “I am black and beautiful.”

The thing about Ziporrah is that she is unashamedly black. She doesn’t try to straighten her hair, color it, or do anything to ‘whiten herself’. She always tells it like it is. In fact, nothing infuriates her more than white people who think they are doing her a favor by using ‘the n word’ instead of nigger in her presence.

‘Cause that just means you have to say the word in your head for them. Black people have a chip the size of Africa on their shoulder because their blood remembers the time they were sold like oxen. But underneath their skin, they’re just like you, girl. Only less fucked up.’

I choose the flowers I want to use in my flower arrangement and lay them down on the wooden table in the back room of the shop. I start my arrangement with a pink rose stalk (desire) and follow that with an oleander (caution).

In my head, Vann says, ‘Let’s not wake the neighbors.’

Twenty

It feels strange to be taking an overnight bag to a man’s home. When I think about it¸ he has practically invited me to move in. When I arrive at Vann’s he is already out of his work clothes. I have made a point of not using any perfume.

‘It has turned out to be a glorious spring evening, too beautiful to be staying indoors. I thought we could go out to eat.’

‘OK.’

‘I know a fantastic Indian restaurant.’

Indian food. No way. Not only is it extremely fattening, but it burns all the way up and out. ‘Poo on a plate? No thanks,’ I say very firmly.

‘What?’

‘That’s what Indian food looks like to me. Diarrhea on rice.’

He looks incredulous. ‘You lump all Indian food as poo on a plate?’

‘Yeah.’

He shakes his head. ‘You need re-education badly, Sugar.’

Nothing I say moves him. He takes me to his friend’s restaurant on a side street off Piccadilly Circus and orders half a portion of what seems to me to be almost everything on the menu. And I am told I have to taste at least one bite of everything. He does not order any alcohol.

‘It dulls the senses,’ he says. ‘And tonight you are going to have a sensory overload.’

I take a sip of still mineral water. ‘So where did you learn all the stuff you did to me the other day?’

‘Conversation is not allowed either.’

I smile. I’m game if it ends up the way of the other night.

A beautiful waitress passes by and he doesn’t even glance.

I raise my eyebrows. He raises his back. I smile. His smile is polite but mocking.

All kinds of dishes are placed in front of us—chicken marinated in tamarind, fiery pork with kachampuli, succulent lamb in a full-bodied black sesame seed curry, tandoori prawns laden with clarified butter and lime. Silently, I take a bite of the cubes of fried bones in an orangey-red Amritsari sauce. I follow that with fish marinated in yogurt and pungent potatoes in an old ancient Kashmiri recipe.

Sometimes I close my eyes to fully appreciate the foreign flavors. When the tiger prawns marinated in green chilies and mustard paste and cooked inside a green coconut until tender and bursting with flavors causes my eyes to water a glass of hot water is given to me. An old Indian trick. Only hot water will stop the burning. It works. What’s left on my tongue is ginger, garlic, lime, red chilies, ajwain, Indian sorrel and a silence pregnant with erotic intent.

‘Dessert?’

I shake my head. I’ve had enough.

‘Mango kulfi,’ Vann says.

When it comes, he spoons it into my mouth. Our eyes meet, lock. For the first time that night I swallow without tasting.

In the end I have to confess that none of it is poo on a plate.

‘Never dismiss an entire culture like that again,’ he says.

He has not turned on the light but the illumination from the moon turns him bronze as he pulls his shirt off. I drink in the sight of the powerful arms and shoulders, the broad chest, the taut stomach. Rising to my knees I reach and touch his stomach with my fingertips. His eyes are hooded and burning with desire. My fingers move to the waistband of his jeans. I undo the button and grasp the zip.

And then I lose my nerve and pull my hand back, but he catches the edge of my T-shirt, tugs it over my head and, swiftly and with unnerving expertise unhooks my bra. He unzips my jeans, pushes me back onto the bed and tugs the jeans off by pulling the material at the ankles. He throws them behind him and hooking two fingers on either side of my knickers, pulls them down.

‘And that is how it is done,’ I whisper throatily.

He chuckles and, turning away from me, crosses the room and opens the door to one of the built-in cupboards. I get on my elbows and watch him curiously. He brings out what looks like a wooden object. It is about nine inches long, thick on one end and pointed on the other. I sit up in alarm.

‘You’re not going to put that in me, are you?’

He laughs. ‘By the time I am finished you’re going to be wishing I had.’

‘I’m not into kinky things.’ My voice is very sharp, although I am disturbed to note that I am actually secretly turned on. ‘I’m here purely to learn how to seduce Jack.’

‘Very altruistic of you,’ he says drily. ‘This…instrument…is for a foot massage.’

I lie back down. The mattress depresses and he sits cross-legged before the soles of my feet. ‘The first few massages will be painful, but eventually you will come to crave it. In ancient times only the concubine that is chosen to spend the night with the wealthy warlord would be given a foot massage. It made all the girls long to be chosen for the night.’

He grasps my foot by the ankle and, raising it to his lips, kisses the sole. The gesture is incredibly sexual and I feel myself instantly respond. Slowly, he drags the blunt end over my feet. That’s not bad. Quite nice actually. I change my mind fast when the sharpened end meets my skin and sharp blots of pain go up my leg. I try to withdraw my leg, but he holds on tight.

‘You want to bind the man to you?’

Reluctantly I nod.

‘Then you must learn the method. If you cannot bear it yourself, how will you dispense it?’

I bite my lips and agree to go all the way.

‘Even if you beg me to stop?’

‘Even if.’

But the pain is so horrible I stop squirming and start shouting and finally beg him to stop.

He says nothing. Simply works that torture instrument until finally he stops. Relieved, I take in my first full breath. Then he grasps the other ankle.

But eventually it is over. I am bathed in a film of perspiration, but strangely alive. All my nerve endings are so sensitive that when he takes my tender, throbbing big toe in his mouth and sucks it the pleasure is so intense my back becomes a tightly drawn bow, and I simply don’t want it to stop. Ever.

He makes short work of getting out of his jeans and briefs, unrolls a condom on his erection and crawls on top of me.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Tingly and silky all over, but mostly just relieved.’

He laughs softly. ‘That’s what l like to see: a damp and glowing but precocious woman.’ He bends down and kisses one breast peak. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘This one is called the Flying Dragon—you probably know it as the missionary position.’ He puts his hands under my knees and lifts them until the soles of my feet are flat on the mattress. That opens my pussy. I raise my thighs, eager for him to plunge into me. He lays the palms of his hands on either side of me.

‘Two deep, eight shallow. Enter softly,’ he says, and feeds his hard flesh slowly into me until he is buried deep inside. I suck at him with my muscles, trying to pull him even deeper into me. ‘Withdraw hard,’ he says, and pulls out so suddenly, I yell. He thrusts from the hips, the rhythm relentless.

Two deep, eight shallow, enter softly, withdraw hard. Together we delve deeper and deeper into a place I have never been to, but desperately want to explore. It is dark and throbbing and warm, and wild with ecstasy.

I feel large but gentle hands on my body. I am eased to my knees, brought to my elbows, face down, ass up high. My thighs are parted. ‘This position is called the Tiger’s Walk. Not every woman can enjoy this—the thrusts are deep.’

And indeed they are—the first plunge is so deep it feels as though he will come out of my throat. But I like it. I love the feeling of being so filled up, so stretched. I can feel his dick wading thickly through my juices. Again and again he hammers into me, with a definite but different rhythm from the last position. Five short, eight deep. When my own syrupy liquids start running down my thighs, he stops and turns me over.

He lifts my legs until my knees touch my breasts and my lower back and buttocks are raised in the air. He presses down hard, almost ferociously on my body, and enters me violently. I thought his shaft had entered me deeply before but with this position he reaches my deepest core. I gasp with shock, and before I know it my entire body is contracting with long spasms, the kind that I imagine women in labor have to endure. I give in to it, and a wave takes me over a crest and beyond. I am flying alone, even with him there, always alone. But it is beautiful where I go.

When the eruptions settle down, I find him looking down at me.

‘You’re sweet.’

‘You never came,’ I accuse.

‘I have a fantasy, Sugar. Ever since I saw you I wanted to come in your mouth.’

‘I’m not sure I’m all that good at giving head.’

‘There’s no secret to a good blow job. Simply suck it as if you want to suck it dry. Pump it to death.’

He removes the condom. I get between his legs and fit my lips around his rock-hard cock. Above me he sighs. I take his advice and suck like my life depends on it. I look up at him and he is watching me, his eyes glazed and unreadable. His hands are on either side of my head. As I watch him his expression changes into a snarl, his head goes back and he spurts into my mouth.

It never crosses my mind to move my head back or spit out the semen. I swallow. It’s only protein. And I like protein. For a moment I am shocked at my own behavior. I am normally so fastidious and yet, after I have swallowed it all, I lick his steaming cock as if it is a lollipop. I lick it until it is clean of every last drop of cum.

‘Your mouth is so warm and sweet, I wish I could fall asleep with my cock in your mouth,’ he says.

Instantly, I take the semi-hard meat back into my mouth, but he pulls me upwards so his dick slips out with a slapping sound, and brings me up to his face.

‘My heart just skipped a beat,’ he says.

‘That’s funny, so did mine.’

We smile at each other. His lips touch my eyelids. It is tender and intimate. I sigh with pleasure. He tightens his hold on my arm and I tremble. A craving stirs in my veins. This man is mine. What the hell is that thought all about? It brings me up short. It is like a bucket of cold water in my face. Jack is mine. Not him.

He is just teaching me…things. I am going to recreate everything I am doing with him with Jack. And it will be so much better and greater because I love Jack. I pull away from him, disengage my body from his, and plonk myself on the pillow next to him.

‘If Yehonala was a virgin, who taught her?’ My voice sounds cool.

‘In Yehonala’s time sex was seen as an art and the climax of human emotions. To achieve the right sexual alchemy meant years of dedication, application and energy. Before she could enter the bedchamber and lie on the red silk sheets of the Emperor, she knew she had to become master of her craft.’

‘The craft of sex.’

‘Yes. There were women in Yehonala’s time who could take a pistachio nut and an egg yolk into their mouth, and spit out chewed nut and a whole yolk. Today stone eggs are used as a cheap sexual trick. In her time they were placed inside the body and used as a point of resistance against which the vaginal and pelvic floor muscles could be strengthened and trained in conjunction with a series of complicated exercises. An adept could massage a man’s penis in opposing directions. Yehonala would have been taught other closely guarded secrets that are only revealed to the Emperor’s concubines and she would have practiced on skillfully crafted, bronze prostheses of male organs.’

‘Where did you learn all this stuff?’

There is a pause. ‘Mostly in India and China. And some things in a monastery in Tibet. I’ve got some books I’ve asked a friend to send over. They’ll be here in the next couple of days. You can study them, if you want.’

‘Thanks.’

There is something else I want from him. ‘So: your family worked for Blake’s?’

Instantly I sense it, the imperceptible stiffening. The pitch of his voice shifts to non-committal and elusive. ‘Yes.’

‘And you all grew up together?’

‘Mmnnn.’

I turn on my side and face him. ‘What was life like?’

He sighs. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Why wouldn’t I want to know about a world peopled by royalty, tycoons, celebrities, high society parties and fancy lives?’

He looks at me with a despairing expression. ‘You watch the Kardashians, don’t you?’

‘Of course. The best show on TV ever. Now, tell me about the Barringtons and don’t leave anything important out,’ I demand.

‘It was a jewel-encrusted cage,’ he says abruptly.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because it was. Marcus, Blake and Quinn lived in magnificent palaces stuffed with the furniture of Louis XV, the paneling of Bourbon kings, priceless paintings, Gobelin tapestries, and ate from Sèvres porcelain set on golden server plates stamped with the family crest. More than thirty people worked in the house as butler, head housekeeper, chef, footmen, maids, nurses, chauffeurs and at least another sixty were employed on the farm, stable and gardens.

‘The children ate sitting straight-backed, eyes ahead and mostly silent with footmen in livery and spotlessly white gloves standing behind their chairs. The food was of the highest quality and prepared by a renowned French chef. Thousands was spent on fish alone, but their menu never varied. Mondays was fish, Tuesday was fowl, Wednesday was meat, Thursday was back to fish and so forth. Everything was controlled, from when they awakened to when they went to bed, what they ate, how they dressed, what they did. Every hour had to be accounted for. It was a very strict upbringing.

‘All the Fabergé eggs, all the gilt and the gold did not make life less stiflingly immaculate or incessantly boring. The simple fact was their childhood was one of physical luxury combined with personal neglect. It was designed to make one emotionally ill, but unable to express the trauma as nobody would understand. Blake once told me his only friends were his horses.’

I stare at him with surprise. ‘Why? Did they have no friends then?’

‘Very few, and even those they met only occasionally. Eventually they understood they were different from everybody else. It is very difficult to trust anyone when you know that almost every person that befriends you is motivated by self-enrichment.’

I immediately think of that day when Lana told Blake her father wanted money, and there had been not even the least trace of surprise in him. In fact, he had expected it. Still, I wanted to hear about their parties.

‘Did they not have fantastic lawn parties full of beautifully dressed people then?’

‘Of course. The Barringtons, like all the other families, tried to outdo each other in the lavishness of their parties. I remember gardeners used to carry cherry trees around the dining table so guests could pick the fruit themselves.’

This is more like it. ‘Who were the guests?’

‘It was a heady mix of the rich and the rarefied, artist and royalty, beauty and brains, Indian maharajas and smarmy politicians. They came to sample every imaginable pleasure. It was an amazing sight, people dressed in all their jewels and grandest most opulent dresses streaming up the stairs from the ballroom. But what I remember most is how dark and gloomy it always was, after all the glamorous people were gone and the chandeliers had been switched off. It was a suffocating existence. A place to escape.’