Back in my room with a couple of hours to spare, I turned on my laptop to do some work, then changed my mind. I wouldn’t have shown up at the client’s premises after three beers, and I owed it to them to apply the same rules to working remotely. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for behaving ethically, then logged into Claire’s e-mail account.
Mandy’s message had raised a suspicion and a quick browse of Claire’s inbox confirmed it: Ray Upton, who I presumed was Concertina Ray, the garden gnome. But the initial e-mail had been from Claire:
Is that invitation for a drink still standing?
Straight back from Mr. Upton:
Would you indulge me and allow me to treat you to dinner?
And then, a minute later:
Perhaps you would care to stay in London, post-prandially.
Bastard. I Googled “Ray Upton,” hoping to find “notorious pedophile” but instead got “Adjunct Professor Ray Upton: Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Cranfield.” The photo matched, as did the bio, which mentioned membership of a contemporary folk group that had released a modestly successful album in the 1980s. Claire could do better.
* * *
I could hear the shower running upstairs when Charlie put his head in with the offer of a pre-dinner martini, made with the gin I had brought. The storm clouds were closing in and we sat in the living room watching the sky darken. The temperature had not fallen.
“I’ve done a little research on Claire’s suitor,” he said.
It took me a few moments to register that he was referring to the prospective buyer of her company.
“They’re sound, but she should know about their strategy, which they’re not being particularly open about. Basically, they’re looking to unearth one or two stellar products: an Amazon or a Facebook. They’re buying a raft of companies and they’ll let them sort themselves out. Only a couple are going to survive.”
“How do they know any of them are going to be stellar? Why not keep the solid ones—”
“The way it works is this. They keep the principals on, offer them huge bonuses if they achieve crazy-high results in the next couple of years. Nothing to lose, the principals work hard, but above all they take risks. Most fail. A couple go gangbusters. Maybe.”
Our discussion of company acquisition strategies was interrupted by Angelina making a grand—and careful—entrance down the staircase in a shiny black outfit: a short, tight dress, buttoned all the way to the bottom, bare legs, and strappy stilettos. Red lipstick. Martini in hand. Not quite the dress code for an at-home dinner in a French farmhouse. It was also a long way from what a woman of Angelina’s sophistication would choose unless she was consciously playing a role.
I caught a glimpse—more than a glimpse—of the nervousness that I had seen when she had appeared in my bedroom in the similarly extreme red number. This was apparently what being in charge of the entertainment entailed.
We had something that I’m sure was very good for dinner, accompanied by wines of no doubt excellent quality. The food was on a platter and the wine was in a magnum. Charlie led a conversation, or at least delivered a lecture, about erotica, arguing that the artist must find the line that divides the permissible from the forbidden. It was reminiscent of the treatise on rosé champagne that had followed his discovery of us in flagrante two days earlier, and about as subtle as his wife’s outfit. If Angelina was in charge, she was using a management technique unfamiliar to me.
Charlie waited until dessert to acknowledge explicitly that something was going on. “This is her perfect dynamic. Center of attention. Two men.”
“Stop it,” said Angelina.
“What she really wants is to be caught,” he said. “She likes to be watched.”
“In fantasy,” said Angelina.
“So she tells me,” I said, meaning, All right—I’ll play along for now.
“It must be show time,” said Charlie.
“Don’t push me,” said Angelina.
I had no sense that this was a practiced routine. Angelina was on edge; Charlie was studiedly cool. I was wondering what was going to be expected of me.
Perhaps I’d led a sheltered life. My musical career had not reached the heights that attracted groupies and the database world is not known for debauchery. Sex had always been strictly one-on-one. My image of a ménage à trois—my best guess as to where we were headed, at least in a general sense—was of two footballers with some hapless fan in a hotel room, everyone drunk, and those with any moral fiber regretting it afterward, especially when the story appeared in the Daily Mail.
A polite withdrawal on my part would put an end to it. But Angelina had the same option. Curiosity—or compulsion—kept me there for the time being.
Charlie stood up, poured something into two balloons, and gave one to me.
“What about me?” said Angelina.
“You’ve had enough,” said Charlie.
Angelina took the bottle and poured a slug into her wineglass. Charlie smiled and turned out the lights. The room was still illuminated by the setting sun.
Angelina walked to the CD player on the sideboard while I followed Charlie’s cue and sat on the sofa—at the opposite end. The opening chords of “Because the Night” filled the room, and Angelina stepped into the space between us and the fireplace as her recorded voice sang with a worldliness that had been missing that first night in the bar.
She faced us, awkward for just a moment, then took a drink and plonked her glass on the sideboard. With that gesture, she must have summoned the actress within, because, when she turned back, she seemed to have disconnected from us and dedicated herself to the performance.
But if Angelina had to psych herself into this, who was it for? I was more puzzled than turned on, as removed as Angelina apparently was. And Charlie? I had no sense that he was getting off on this, except in some sort of intellectual way.
Again, I could have walked away. But Angelina was clearly intent on going through with whatever she and Charlie had set up, and I wanted to know what it was and why. I didn’t want to deal myself out of the game. Nor was I about to abandon Angelina.
She danced, gyrated, running her hands over her thighs, outside and inside. Then she carefully undid the buttons of her dress, let it fall to the floor, and turned her back to us while she unfastened her bra and threw it aside. She turned to face us with her hands over her breasts, and I realized that the dynamic had changed once more.
The distancing had been temporary, a way in for her. Now she was present, connected to both of us and unquestionably turned on. And because she was, so was I.
There was a flash of lightning and, almost simultaneously, a clap of thunder. The music stopped for a few moments as the power cut out, then came back on, the song restarting from the beginning. If God or Thor was trying to warn us against sin, He was going to have to do better than that. Seconds later the rain came, in noisy torrents.
Angelina walked up to Charlie and put one high-heeled foot in his lap, dropping her hands to her sides to balance herself. He undid the shoe, taking his time about it. She put her bare foot back on the floor and presented me with the other. The shoe was fastened around the ankle, and a tighter fit than the one I had struggled to remove the day we arrived at the house. Charlie steadied her as I eased it off.
She lay on the floor, on the rug, and Charlie followed, running his fingers lightly over her toes. In her twenties she had loved having her feet tickled and licked, but I had not tried it this time around. There was a foot going begging, so I joined the two of them on the floor. Charlie produced a sleep mask, the sort they hand out on planes, and put it over Angelina’s eyes. He returned to her other foot and the two of us began working in unison. Twenty-two years had only intensified her response, or perhaps it was the doubling of the guard.
As wind and rain pounded against the windows, Charlie kissed the top of her foot, then moved his mouth up her body until he reached a nipple. I followed suit to the accompaniment of the Angelina Brown songbook: “Both Sides Now.”
As Angelina’s voice sang that she didn’t really know what love was about, I went up and Charlie went down. I kissed her lips, ran my hand over her belly, and at the crucial moment, squeezed a nipple, hard, letting her break the kiss with her tongue still in my mouth.
We pulled back, as Angelina lay on the floor, and sipped our Calvados.
“Not done yet,” said Charlie to Angelina. “Who would you like?”
“Up to you.”
Charlie looked at me and nodded. After you. I could not have imagined any other answer. Charlie may have played the same role as I had in Angelina’s fantasies, but I could not see him performing in front of me.
Angelina pulled the blindfold off and positioned me on my back, so that she would be looking directly at Charlie, who had moved to the armchair. I found it easier than I expected to ignore his presence.
It felt good, as sex does, but the emotions weren’t there. I was a prop, perhaps more of a voyeur than Charlie.
“Look at me,” said Angelina. She was speaking to Charlie.
“I’m watching you,” he said, and whatever I was doing was irrelevant as Angelina arched her back, hands on her breasts, looking directly at her husband, until her pleasure carried me over the edge as well.
She subsided on top of me and we rolled over, feet toward the fireplace. I sensed a huge release of tension, above and beyond the sexual, a tension I had not realized was there, in the way that you only notice a steady background sound when it stops. It was coming from Charlie as much as Angelina. Even through my own post-coital haze, I understood why. This was it, the end of the line, the limit of what Charlie would or could offer Angelina.
“Bedtime,” said Charlie from a few feet above. “Where do you want to sleep?”
“Right here is fine,” said Angelina, sounding as if she had smoked a large joint. After a few moments, she hauled herself to her feet, collecting her clothes on the way, and walked toward the stairs. Charlie drained his glass and followed.
As I lay in bed, on the verge of sleep, I went over it in my mind, trying to square my role as a pawn in their sexual games with my instinct that there was something between Angelina and me that went beyond what had just played out.
But my last thoughts as I fell asleep were of Ray Upton seducing Claire over dinner, and me sitting watching, powerless to intervene.