The gallery looks bright and optimistic in the daylight, but like every other morning for the last month I wonder when I unlock the door if I’ll find it ransacked. Will the photographs from my ‘Windows and Doors’ themed exhibition be ripped off the freshly painted white walls? Will the simple elegant frames be snapped, the glass smashed? All my images shredded and obscene graffiti sprayed on the walls?
I’ve done my best to hide my worries from Gustav. I feel safe when I’m with him, in those strong arms, looking into those steady black eyes. But when I’m on my own I’m terrified. And to make matters worse I’ve been hiding something from him.
He says she’s barred from the condo. Banned from the gallery. The apartment has been swept again for bugs and – surprise surprise: there were none. Although they did find one in the gallery office phone. She can’t come anywhere near us or he’ll call the police. So when does it become acceptable to turn fretting into snooping?
I wasn’t really snooping. I left Gustav and Pierre to go for a walk together after our tense conversation and a few nervy bites of lunch, but thoughts of cufflinks and shirts went on nagging at me after they’d gone out. I knew Gustav would be furious and Pierre would think me neurotic. But the madness of Margot was infecting me. I couldn’t get her whispered threats out of my ears, the smell of her clogging perfume out of my hair, even the air in that apartment out of my skin. The fact that she had taken precious items engraved with Gustav’s initials from Lugano made me feel sick. She’d kept them somewhere for the last six years, brought them back to New York, lovingly unpacked them, washed and pressed them, hung them in their old wardrobe as if, as he said, she was waiting for him to come back.
So here I was, facing the fear, or so I thought, opening one, then another of the battered antique cigarette boxes that Gustav keeps in his dressing room, and, after I’d sneezed away the old tobacco dust, there it was, glinting amongst some old coins, as if waiting for me to find it.
The cufflink he said he’d thrown away, whose mate is now snugly fastened in the shirt he wore to marry Margot. He’d kept it.
So he forgot about it. Big deal. Polly’s opinion was brisk. I dropped the cufflink as if it was red hot, and banged the box shut.
Say what you like, Polly, but that cufflink makes her, their life together, a tangible presence. She’s a face, a voice, I have seen and heard and will never forget. A jealous, deranged woman collecting treasures from her marriage to my fiancé. And don’t tell me, Polly, that they’re just shirts and trinkets, because to me they feel like armour. Weapons of war. However mad that makes me sound, I want her gone.
Leave it for now. Just leave it. Don’t let her get to you. Don’t stir things up between you over a piece of junk. And yes. You do sound mad.
So today, like every day since I got my act together, everything in the gallery is in place. The main picture of the pale hand extending from between green shutters to dead-head some scarlet geraniums still holds centre stage on the main wall, now adorned with a red spot to indicate that it’s been sold. Actually to the local art college. The other pictures still hang in groups according to the city – London, Paris, Manhattan – where they were taken.
Dickson has nailed the title of my new venture, Serenissima, above the door.
That name isn’t just an emphatic version of my own. It’s a gift from my patrons the Weinmeyers and the moniker applied to the city of Venice at the height of its unique, feminine splendour.
One of the larger images shows a row of blank palazzi windows, Gothic arches set into crumbling red walls, with a tattered gold curtain flapping through a broken pane like a lolling tongue.
Here’s a church in a quiet campo, a broad carpet of sunlight leading the way across a worn step into the dark recesses. And there is the little costume shop in Campo San Barnaba where Crystal, sent by Gustav to watch over me, accompanied me to hire the ill-fated green gown for the Weinmeyers’ ball. The display in the hire-shop window is crammed with cruel, mirthless masks suspended behind the smeared glass like decapitated heads on spikes.
I switch on all the spotlights, and with the glare comes a kind of epiphany. Time to embrace the day. Time to push aside the lingering fear that our life will always be a series of pitfalls, an identity parade of other enemies lining up to trip us up. Time to dismiss the discovery of a single tarnished cufflink and let Gustav’s calm belief in me make me feel ten feet tall. If he can forgive my recklessness in going off with a masked stranger after a ball in Venice, and my stupidity in believing that stranger to be my boyfriend, then I should be able to get past that hideous scene in Margot’s flat, too.
Every day we talk and we talk, and we are closer than ever. But still I’m not sleeping. Thank God Gustav is coming back this evening after another business trip. His second in four weeks. I sleep better with him next to me, warmed up and worn out from sex. Last night I sat cross-legged on the wide window ledge of our bedroom and stared for hours over the dark oblong of Central Park.
The world feels fragile somehow because Margot is on the planet. She may not be visible, but she’s everywhere. Gustav seems to think that by facing her he’s laid a ghost. Pierre disagrees. He reckons the diamond ring has made her all the more determined. And I just feel uneasy. All the time.
Manhattan Island feels way too small.
I nip out of the gallery to get a coffee. We’re well into April now. There’s real warmth in the air. Why not focus on all the good things? Green shoots and flowers are sprouting on the High Line above this street. I’m the owner of a great new gallery and my second exhibition is selling fast. I’ve got a rich, handsome, passionate man who makes me feel like a sexy, low-down princess every day and wants to marry me before the year is out.
By the time I’ve got my coffee and my pastry and wandered back to the gallery I am feeling much more like Carrie in Sex in the City. Before tackling my schedule of phone calls, I assess each photograph and its position on the wall. It’s time to view the few unsold images through a potential buyer’s eyes. I mustn’t lose my resolve. I’m even wearing a sassy new Chanel suit, smoky pink bouclé tweed with a silky white blouse, and cherry-red brogues, to make me feel more like a boss.
The steady flow of visitors results in the sale of the remainder of the images, so it’s late afternoon before I get to the penultimate of my list of phone calls. I’m speaking to the tutor of the large art college who bought my ‘Hand Plucking Petals’ photograph. I’m dictating another advertisement, trawling for raw new photographic, figurative or abstract talent amongst her students for my next show. Then I’m going to call Crystal in London and ask her to come out here to work for me.
‘The younger the better, so long as they need a real break,’ I tell the tutor at the other end of the phone, who is enthusing about the fledgling talent she has both in her current intake and amongst the freshers who will be arriving in the autumn. ‘I was given a chance by Gustav Levi, who launched a solo show for me not long after I graduated. I want to do the same for others. Yes, I hope to expand back to London, maybe next year, but Manhattan’s my base for the moment.’
The little bell above the door tinkles and I curse softly under my breath. I can’t get this woman off the line and I really want to close up and get home. I have all the ingredients of something really healthy and juicy to prepare for Gustav tonight. Chorizo casserole and butter beans cooked in lashings of marsala.
The gaggle of female voices bursting into my gallery is so noisy I can’t hear myself think. I make sure the art tutor has my details then hang up and turn round. Three stunning blondes are pushing through the door, unwinding pashminas and shaking lustrous hair out of barrow-boy caps as if they’re settling in for a session.
‘Wow. What a cool place! And you look a million dollars, Serena! Very stern and businesslike today! Glad to see you’re still doing the risqué shots, spying on people through their windows, but we were hoping you might have included some naughtier ones from your past commissions?’
The tallest of the girls comes towards me with her arms out. I’m still trying to work out who she is and what she’s talking about when she pulls me against her soft breasts, swelling through the tight pink sweater she’s wearing under her open jacket. She tilts my face up to hers and gives me a long, soft kiss, right on the lips. She twitches excitedly as the others giggle and start walking around the gallery, studying the pictures.
I extricate myself from the girl’s embrace as politely as I can and pull my jacket closed.
‘I’m sorry to appear rude, but I don’t—’
‘Recognise us with our clothes on! Of course! How stupid of us!’ The girl skips over to her friends, reaches into the enormous bag one of them is carrying, and pulls out a huge white dildo. ‘This jog your memory? Or any other part of you?’
I snort with laughter as one of the others bends over the desk and sticks her bottom up in the air. They all go straight into their act without the aid either of a backing track or any kind of stage direction. The tallest girl tosses the dildo around her head in a series of skilled and hilarious cheerleader moves while the second girl starts kissing the one bent over the desk. She runs her hands to the top of her friend’s legs and yanks down her silvery tights and knickers to reveal a pert bottom. The bent one arches herself eagerly as her friend’s fingers wander under her little miniskirt as if to soften her up.
Their tongues flicker in and out of each other’s luscious mouths, moaning like proper porn stars. I tiptoe across to the door, glance outside and decide to lock up in case someone influential comes into the gallery and is shocked by the entertainment.
Just as the kissing girls start to exaggerate their moans and squeals, the cheerleader smacks the ass of her friend still bent over my desk, kicks her legs further apart and makes as if she’s going to ram the dildo up her cute white butt.
I clap my hands like a schoolmistress to stop them. ‘OK, OK, I get the picture! But this is a gallery, not a strip club!’
The cheerleader presses her friend between the shoulder blades and shoves her face down on the desk, sliding the dildo further up between her cheeks. ‘And for your information we’re dancers. Not strippers. You want us to stop? We won’t stop, or leave your establishment, until you tell us where you’ve seen us before.’
‘OK, you win!’ I laugh helplessly, flipping the ‘closed’ sign over the gallery door and lowering the slatted blinds. ‘It all comes flooding back. It was the Club Crème. You were performing for the Robinson stag night and I was taking photographs. It’s the midtown private members-only club where anything goes—’
‘And everyone comes! We know it’s all hush-hush in that silly club but we were hoping you’d smuggled out some shots of that night. Something we could include in our CVs?’ They all shriek in unison as the dildo gives a final playful jab at its victim’s ass before the ringleader pulls it away and licks it lasciviously. The other two snap out of their roles and hoik their panties up again. ‘You can do that for us, can’t you?’
‘No, I cannot! Top secrecy is the Club Crème code! I’d never work in this town again if the press got hold of some of those shots! Admittedly, I was paid handsomely by the Robinson brothers to shoot their mate’s stag night, and boy, was that poor groom debased by you lot!’ I shake my hair in front of my face. ‘Actually, you did more than debase the groom. I went a bit crazy with the stags after the shoot, and then, to punish me for misbehaving, Gustav bought a dildo off you!’
‘Not much of a punishment!’ giggles the girls’ ringleader. ‘We sold him our favourite!’
‘And we specialise in using oversized ones,’ chime in the others. ‘Bet it made your eyes water!’
The three of them jiggle and dig each other in the ribs as they straighten their minuscule clothes. They seem to fill the gallery with their swishing blonde hair, spray-tanned limbs and a kind of chirruping dawn chorus. They check their reflections in each other’s hand mirrors and then sway across to the couch in the window to sit in a row, like tropical birds on a wire.
They obviously take their work home with them. The dildo-wielding may be their signature act when they’re on stage, but I bet they enjoy using the toys on each other when they’re at play, too.
My body gives a dirty little kick deep inside. I know damn well how good a woman’s naked skin feels. Her mouth. Her nipples between my teeth. I have an inkling of what that’s like because I was kidnapped, for half an hour, by a couple of dancers at Pierre Levi’s burlesque theatre after that shoot back in February. When everyone had gone, they dragged me behind the scenes backstage, set up my camera to film us then ravished me with their mouths and fingers.
I cross my arms firmly across my breasts. My body prickles with a mixture of remembered pleasure and remembered anxiety. It was fun, an eye-opener – and a leg-opener – but I still suspect that Pierre was not only hanging around to witness that impromptu girl-on-girl display but set the whole thing up. Well, if he thought it would serve as another ploy to turn Gustav against me, it backfired. Gustav loved the footage when I showed it to him.
I perch on the edge of the desk facing the girls, and try to look serious.
‘OK, lovelies. I’d love to talk about my sex life with you all day, but that’s not why you’re here. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, it is partly why we’re here. We only saw you working behind your camera that night at the Club Crème, but we’ve heard about you going a bit crazy with the stags, as you put it. So we wanted to check you out for ourselves.’ The second girl, the one who just pretended to take a dildo up the ass, speaks up. ‘Word on the street is that you’re just as smoking hot as us professional strippers.’
The third girl kicks out petulantly. ‘Dancers, please. We’re artistes!’
We all giggle again. It’s as if they’ve blown fresh air through the gallery.
‘So much for confidentiality. And look, you’re fantastic artistes. But this is my place of work. It’s a gallery, not a pole-dancing club. I’m not about to join your troupe if that’s what you’re after.’
‘Well, that’s just it. We might have a commission for you,’ says the first blonde, the one who kissed me on the mouth. ‘But first, to prove that we girls aren’t solely about tits and ass, I’ve brought a portfolio of my own work to show you.’
The pink folder she pulls out of her enormous bag of tricks feels rather light when she hands it to me.
‘I’ll look at it with pleasure. May I keep it for a day or two?’ I start to unzip the case, then pause. ‘So as well as rumours that I’m “smoking hot”, you’ve also heard about my new gallery and that I’m actively seeking new talent? You seem to know an awful lot about me, er—’
‘Chloe!’ They all sing her name together. ‘And they’re not rumours.’
‘Fine. I’ll look at the portfolio tomorrow, Chloe, if that’s OK. I’m closing up now because I have to get back home and cook dinner!’
They all stand up slowly and stretch like cats.
‘Cooking dinner at home on a Friday night? What are you, fifty years old?’
‘None of your business how I choose to spend my time! Now if you don’t mind—’ I move to the back of the gallery to start switching off the lights. These girls must be at least three or four years older than me. So why do I suddenly feel like the sensible big sister? I pause. ‘But before you go. Who was it who told you all about me? Did someone send you?’
They finish their stretches and start draping their silky scarves around their necks.
‘One of our new colleagues met you at the Theatre B.’
Half the lights are out now. The three of them are illuminated by the spots over the door.
‘Theatre B?’
They are smiling at me. Glossy cupid’s-bow lips spread over those even white American teeth, but there’s a couple of beats of hesitation before Chloe, the leader of the pack, continues.
‘It stands for Burlesque. Midtown. Gramercy Park. You did a day’s work when Pierre Levi had invited the Hollywood guys in. I guess you must have so many commissions, but you were shooting a storyboard, a day in the life of a burlesque show.’
I swallow, try to keep my face straight.
‘Of course I remember. Fantastic Moulin Rouge décor, costumes, music.’
‘You must be stoked to have him as a future brother-in-law.’ They all nod enthusiastically. ‘We hear he’s going places. The cameras are rolling.’
I lock up the back office carefully and gather my things. ‘So is it me personally you’re interested in, or is it what I can do for you at the gallery?’
‘Both! The world of theatre and dancing is such a small one, you see. Everyone talks about each other. Our friend told us how she dragged you backstage when the shoot was over and introduced you to the delights of girlie sex. Oh, look, guys, Serena Folkes is blushing!’
A confusion of shame and exhilaration swirls inside me as I recall the heated atmosphere of the Theatre B, as they call it. The scented changing rooms recreated on the stage. The dancers arriving for work in their street clothes and then transforming themselves with costumes and make-up into painted, show-stopping can-can girls. The illusion, to give Pierre his due, cleverly created to make us believe that we had all been transported to fin de siècle Montmartre.
And, permeating the whole day, Pierre’s dark, disconcerting presence. So different from the cowed young man who flew all the way from California on his brother’s orders to shake my hand and say sorry. Or is he?
‘Some of those lucky girls have gone off to Tinseltown to make their fortune.’ Chloe’s voice interrupts my reminiscences. ‘And we’ve been left behind. For now. But while we’re resting, we’re working in this amazing new bar. It’s called Sapphix. The clue’s in the name. It’s a bit like the Club Crème, but not so exclusive. And not so secretive.’
‘So not really the same.’ I start to move across to the door. ‘I mean, is it girls only? Do they keep boys out altogether?’
‘Oh, the gorgeous ones who hang around the doors are occasionally allowed in once the scary boss has checked their credentials!’ The girls are all talking at once.
‘Sounds fun.’ I flick off the last light, leaving just one to illuminate the main photograph above the desk. ‘But I really can’t—’
‘We know you’ve used a dildo. We know you’re not nearly as innocent as you look! But really the club’s cool. You drink, you dance and you forget all your cares!’
They are all clustered round me like a shoal of silvery fish. I fling the door open and hold my arm out to usher them out.
‘Hey, girls, I’m glad you’ve got a great new job. You deserve to do well. You’re amazing strippers – I mean dancers. But you’re telling me all this why? Did you say something about a commission?’
‘You’re obviously not selling Sapphix to her, Chlo!’ The second girl nudges their ringleader in the ribs. ‘Get to the point!’
‘You look as if you’ve got the world on your shoulders today, so we reckon we’ve come along just in time! We want you to come down and check out our club. You can let your hair down! And if you’re worried about taking time off from running this place and spoiling your husband’s dinner, think of it as a brief. Publicity for the club. We can be your new client!’
‘Venturing into the world of hospitality—’
‘It’ll be fun!’ They giggle again as I lock up the gallery. Our breath puffs in joined-up clouds on to the window.
On impulse, I take a picture on my phone of my three abductors all whispering and fidgeting around me, and send it with a text to Gustav:
Remember that scene in Love Actually when the gauche English guy travels to America seeking adventure and is picked up by four gorgeous gals? Well, these are my new friends, honey. But I’ll still be home in time to meet you!
The girls run into the road to hail a cab that cruises past while I wait for Gustav’s reply. His response comes quickly.
Your kidnappers look cute, naughty and familiar. I know what they like to do with a length of silicone and latex. Don’t worry, plane delayed. Just make sure they leave you in a fit state to pleasure your fiancé when he gets home.
I hesitate for a moment. Maybe I should go home and make myself beautiful for him. But the girls are herding me towards the yellow cab.
‘I give in. I may be the owner of a smart new gallery, but I can’t afford to turn down work. So OK. We’ll call this a commission. Because God knows, I could do with letting off some steam!’
And then I turn to my gaggle of admirers and crook my elbows for them to lead me astray.
There is so much gossip and chatter in the cab that, although we’re still somewhere in Manhattan, I have no idea which area we have come to. When the car comes to a halt, we pile out on to a scruffy narrow street which seems to be buried almost entirely under scaffolding. A brave row of spindly, leafless trees lends sparse softness to the acres of grey tarpaulin flapping in the sudden aggressive breeze.
The girls trot across the pavement and drag me down some basement steps, noisily assessing my vital statistics as we all tumble past display cases showing flashing neon images of stripping starlets. And then we’re in the warm, noisy embrace of the already rammed, brothel-red, chandelier-lit Sapphix Bar.
The heat and noise of voices and music envelop me, and I cease to give a damn about anything. I don’t know what made these girls think I had the world on my shoulders. Maybe it was the severe suit, my hair up in the kind of tightly pinned knot that Crystal would be proud of. Maybe it was something in my face. Maybe they are mind readers. I could use some female company. My handful of trusted friends who saw me through thick and thin when I was a troubled, lonely kid are all back in Devon, England, leading their own lives. Or maybe I’m spending too much time with Gustav and not enough time around other females. My cousin Polly is meditating in Morocco and virtually uncontactable. Crystal – if you could call her female – is looking after the London properties. And every time I see Ingrid Weinmeyer, she paws me like a hungry cat.
We’re not about to sit down and chill out, it would seem. The girls pull me round to the back of the bar where a statuesque waitress with chocolate skin barely covered by a sparkling white bikini spins shot glasses from a bullet belt slung across her body.
‘Remember me, honey? I was one of the dancers at Theatre B when you were shooting that storyboard for Pierre Levi back in early February?’ she cries, pouring a neat line of liquid into each glass. ‘My girlfriend and I had a taste of you behind the scenes. And I’ve still got your panties from that day as a trophy!’
‘Oh, God, of course I remember! Your world really is far too small for my liking,’ I say with a pout, wagging my finger at the other girls. ‘Is nothing sacred?’
‘Certainly not your panties!’ The blondes all laugh and slap their long slim thighs. ‘You think her man has a clue what Serena Folkes is like behind that wide-eyed look?’
‘If Gustav Levi is anything like his wicked brother Pierre, he’ll handle her just fine.’ The black girl leans down, breasts spilling from her tiny white bikini. She studies me hard as she hands me a glass. ‘Everyone knows about you and Gustav Levi, honey. You and he are the hottest couple outside showbiz. And I’ll bet he’s happy to see his girl swing with girls as well as boys. No faking that cute little climax once we’d got our hands on her, I can tell you.’
I pick at the pins in my hair to loosen them. ‘You owe me dinner for that little escapade. Remember? You and your girlfriend grab me at the end of a long day, ravish me with fingers and tongues as a none too subtle introduction to lesbian sex, oh, and also you film it – I reckon dinner’s the very least you can offer me!’
They all kick their legs out again, shrieking with glee.
‘Sure. Whatever madam wants. But first, a tequila tasting to get you in the mood. Stocking this really good stuff was my idea. The new management didn’t have a clue. Just told me to get on with ordering it in. So listen up. This liquor is not your usual tacky “mixto” tequila. This is a hundred per cent agave. Tell me what you taste. And mind you sip it like real Mexicans. Don’t shoot.’
We hold our glasses up, pinkies in the air, and drink.
‘Lime!’ shouts Chloe.
‘Citrus, definitely!’ shouts the second girl.
‘Oranges,’ I murmur, relishing the ooze of warmth invading my veins.
‘Good. That’s a blanco. You can drink it with delicacies such as ceviche dressed in lime, chilli and coriander. So. Here comes another.’
The girl stands in front of us and spins another bottle out of her holster twixt finger and thumb, like a pistol. ‘This is a lightly aged reposado. You can eat strong cheese or hung meat with this. Totally different taste.’
‘We like well hung meat,’ chortles one of the others.
‘Cinnamon,’ I murmur, draining my next glass. ‘God, it’s making me hungry!’
‘I can taste honey!’ calls out Chloe. ‘Ooh, making me horny!’
Any stresses and strains the girls thought were bothering me have vanished, washed away by these first fiery tequila shots. I slam my shot glass down on to the chrome and, as I reach for a third glass, a thought strikes me.
‘Shit! In all the excitement I’ve left my camera behind at the gallery!’
The girls stop as they’re about to knock back the third round, and exchange looks. Chloe jumps to her feet. ‘I’ve an idea! You can sing for your supper, then! Or rather dance.’
‘You have to be kidding! You owe me, remember, not the other way round! I’m no one’s performing seal, and if I’m not working, at least let me relax!’
We all down another row of shots, and then they’re off their barstools and surrounding me. I stare round in confusion as they bundle me off my chair.
‘Not any more. We’ve been told to get you to work, and if you’ve left your camera behind then you have to pay for your drinks some other way. Come on. Let’s get you out of these boring clothes and have you looking like a proper ho!’
We tumble through a glittery curtain into a small, hot changing area consisting of wall-length mirrors and tiny pink fluffy bathroom stools. They push me down on one of these while they peel off their clothes. Unlike the performers at Pierre’s burlesque theatre, who draped themselves and fondled each other as they undressed, applying lipstick to each other’s mouths, navels and nipples, transforming themselves as part of the performance, these girls are brisk and on a meter.
I feel like a spare part without my camera to hide behind. The girls pour themselves into smooth, sequinned leopard-print bodysuits. I remember the costumes so well from the stag night at the Club Crème. The music throbs louder at the front of house. The girls stop talking at last, concentrating on painting each other’s faces with gaudy shading to accentuate their eyes and bright red lips.
I can’t tell the difference between them now. They are standing in a row, each one back-combing the next one’s hair into a lion’s mane.
‘Is it just the three of you here?’ I ask, remembering the crowded stage at the burlesque theatre.
‘The boss was supposed to complete the line-up.’ I think it’s Chloe speaking, with her mouth full of hairpins. ‘That was the idea when we were hired. Problem is, it turns out she’s not as young as she makes out, though we’d be fired on the spot if we said as much. There’s something wrong with her, anyhow. Collapsed on the first day of rehearsals.’
There’s too much noise. Too many voices. I put my hands over my ears and glance round the little space for some kind of back door, but the three of them turn to me now, bending from their waists, rotating their necks and knees sinuously as they sketch their stretches, their huge cartoon-cat eyes unblinking as they surround me again.
‘Sounds like you’ve all been muddling along for the opening nights of your routine? You must be pretty nervous, then!’ I take off my jacket, but sweat continues to trickle between my breasts and down my back, making my crisp cotton gallery-owner’s shirt stick to my armpits. I try to pluck it away from my overheated skin, but I seem to be getting hotter by the minute. I realise they haven’t answered me. ‘Wait a minute. You’re looking at me like that – why? Oh, God. I thought I was off the hook, but you little bitches are serious about me getting up on my hind legs, aren’t you?’
‘We told you. You’re here to work, and now there’s a gap in the formation, we need you in the chorus line.’ They advance on me and start unbuttoning my shirt. ‘And if you’re sexy enough tonight, maybe you can understudy for Chloe when she goes off on her holidays!’
And that’s how I find myself blinking in the light from my phone camera as they take a picture of me dressed in a sparkly white bra just like the tequila lady’s. I’m also wearing white lace hold-ups and a tiny white tutu like a cygnet in the corps de ballet. They go to put the finishing touches to their own attire, strapping leather suspender belts round their waists to add to the oddness of their costumes.
I peer through the glittery curtain at the back of the stage. It’s little more than a podium. I can’t think how the girls are going to move at all, let alone gyrate and dance in such a small space. They have deliberately dressed me differently from their jungle motif, because I am playing a ‘victim’ and must therefore stand out.
My role is simple, apparently. All I have to do is stand there, or lie there, and take it. They won’t tell me what ‘it’ is.
I start to think that maybe, if I don’t open the curtain any wider, it won’t happen, but Chloe puts her arm round my waist and sweeps the curtain aside to point out the audience. The club is full now of beautiful, chattering, drinking, scantily clad women, although there’s also a handful of men lounging in a darkly lit booth on the opposite side of the room.
‘Oh, there’s the boss. She’s like the queen bee. And those guys with the bulging crotches are her drones.’
I follow her pointing leopard paw. And see that I’ve walked straight into a trap.
Because the queen bee enthroned on the velvet banquette, wearing a long sheath dress in red snakeskin, a red lace net over her face, looks exactly like Margot.
‘Chloe! Tell me I’m hallucinating. Is that Margot Levi? Because if it is I can’t be anywhere near her!’
The lookalike hasn’t seen me yet. Or at least she hasn’t acknowledged I’m here. I may be wrong about who it is, but I still want to get out. I turn frantically to beg Chloe to help me. But Chloe’s speaking to the barman.
This is no coincidence. It really is her. Margot sent those girls to entice me here with a story about taking photographs of her new club. I don’t blame them. I like them. And God knows, they need to know what – who – they’re dealing with. But now that I’ve been tricked into dancing with them, she’ll organise some serious degradation to alienate me from Gustav. This could be what Pierre meant. That she will toy with me and threaten me, hurt me over and over again until she’s driven me away.
I could escape now. There must be some kind of fire exit. So why am I rooted to the spot? I stare at her, at her spiky body and shadowed face. Then I look at myself.
I look pretty damn hot, actually. Just like my new friends said. I’m in character as a cygnet from Swan Lake. I can use this. I’m damn well going to work it.
My legs are long and elegant in the white stockings. I fluff up my tutu, run my hands up the tempting inches of visible thigh to leave them showing. I flex my foot so that the stocking rides up and down. Then I run my hands up to the frilly knickers that the girls said looked so much sexier than going commando.
I dig my fingers into my sweaty palms. My body stiffens. This is not fear flooding through me. It’s cold, hard resolve. She’s got me here. I’m in costume. I’m on my marks. She wants to use this to hurt me, or show Gustav I’m cheap and unworthy, but I won’t let her belittle me and I won’t give her the satisfaction of running away either. The girls have made me look hot. Really, really hot. How can this possibly work against me?
The show’s about to start and the atmosphere in the club is quietening down in anticipation. The DJ is mouthing something at one of the dancers as they parade out from behind the curtain to take their places.
Look over here, Margot. See my white painted face watching you. Masking my fear. Taking that fear away, at least for the next few minutes.
Sure enough, she looks up. She lifts her sharp chin above the shaven head of one of the young men, whose mouth is wandering down her stomach while another lifts her red dress. She fixes me with those slanted eyes, glaring down her narrow beak, and she nods, as if giving the signal to drop the guillotine.
The icy calm washes through me once more. It won’t be Serena Folkes who’s belittled tonight. The girls beckon to me, but I reach behind me and take out my phone. They make rude gestures. I put up one finger to ask them to wait.
Making sure everyone can see me, can see that any plan to humiliate or blackmail me isn’t going to work, I hold the phone up. I take a photograph of Margot, and then I text Gustav’s number, attaching Margot’s picture and a selfie of me in the white costume and adding the name of the club. I want him to be here. Not just to protect me. I want him to see everything that happens when Margot is around.
Then I’m ready to begin.
The girls have brought a row of barstools up on to the podium and arranged them beside a metal shelf to represent a bar laid with a wine bottle and four glasses. They strike louche, masculine poses with their elbows on the shelf, flicking at the strange white belts they are all wearing. Chloe sits astride a stool with her legs spread, just like a man. All of them ogle me.
The volume is jacked up. It’s some kind of tribal house music, the kind of repetitive, hypnotic beat that pumps inside so that your heart jumps against your bones. I strut across to the pretend bar, kick the ‘guys’ aside and down a glass of wine in one. It’s not pretend wine, though. It’s another glass of tequila and the room tips slightly.
Chloe takes my arm and pulls me to stand between her legs. She looks me up and down, her face set in a hard, masculine leer. I glance out at the audience. If Margot wants to teach me some kind of lesson, she can think on. My lesbian cherry has already been popped.
One of the other girls pours another tequila, and as I lean to sip it, my breasts swell heavily over the edge of the tight bra. I arrange myself so that the audience can see my every move, one white thigh crossing slowly over the other, my hand stroking leisurely down my throat. It’s hard to see through the dazzle of footlights at the edge of the stage, but I can feel those hungry female eyes burning. My fingertips brush my breast and because I’m so wrought up, this lightest of touches sends a bolt of excitement sizzling through me.
I glance over at the mistress’s booth. I can just make out her eyes above the dazzle of lights, but her toy boy is obviously licking her now, because although she seems to be staring at me, there is the half-closed, blank expression of a woman being sucked off.
I can’t remember where the entrance to the club is, so I won’t even know if, or when, Gustav arrives. Maybe that’s for the best.
I turn my head so that now all I can see is Chloe. And as if someone else is directing me to follow orders, I take one breast, already squeezed halfway out of the tight bra top, and let the nipple pop out and harden in the air. Chloe’s eyes flash with surprise, and she turns her grin into a masculine leer of desire as she sees what I’m doing. One of the others comes closer to me and mirrors the action on my other breast, tweaking and rubbing the nipple, and a fist of excitement clenches inside me.
Chloe gives a very faint nod at the two others and they retreat out of sight. She clinks her glass with mine and runs her finger over my wrist, sending a faint shiver of electricity up my arm.
So this is how it feels to be a proper performer. This is Serena the show-off, getting wholeheartedly into character. I so hope Gustav gets here soon. I so hope he understands, when he sees Margot, that his role is to show her he’s mine and I don’t give a shit for her and her games. This is me, showing her what I’m made of. I glance over at the bar. If Gustav is here, surely that’s where he’ll head if Margot doesn’t somehow waylay him first?
The barman isn’t serving anyone, however. He’s ogling me, polishing a huge balloon glass over and over as if he’s in a trance. Then he reaches up and turns a small metal handle, and a filmy muslin curtain drops down between the stage and the audience. The arc lights shift around and shine brightly from the back of the stage. We’re going to be shadow dancers.
Chloe stands up, leaving the stool between us, and pulls me closer so that our faces are touching. She runs her lips over mine. I jerk away, but she pulls me closer and probes my mouth with her tongue, flicking it exaggeratedly so that the audience can see what our outlines are doing.
I wonder where the others are. Is this going to be a real-life sex show, just the two of us? I let her kiss me. It’s not so unfamiliar. Emilia Robinson, sister of the Robinson stags, got me into a threesome with her Latina bridesmaid when I was supposed to be shooting a ‘bride preparing for her wedding day’ montage in her boudoir. The tequila-shooting barmaid kissed me like this when she seduced me at Pierre’s theatre.
This behaviour is allowed. Gustav and I agreed long ago that pretty much anything goes, so long as he is there to watch, or he gets to see it on film. This is for his benefit, too, when he arrives.
As Chloe kisses me, someone, presumably the barman, the tequila girl or the other two dancers, fixes the curtain in place so that it stretches taut to make our silhouettes ultra-clear.
I am just a shadow now. I can do whatever I like, and no one will know me. No one except Margot and Gustav. I just have to trust that he’s here, and that he’s watching.
There’s a sudden whoop of applause from the audience. I struggle to pull away from Chloe, but she has my face locked between her hands and she continues to kiss me, pulling me to lie across the stools.
The music descends to a much sexier, deeper beat. Somehow more threatening, too. My nipples scrape across the bar seat as Chloe continues to pin me down, and as I smile up at her she whips a wispy scrap of chiffon round my wrists and ties my hands to the foot bar of the stool.
Chloe does her Bond girl shimmy, raising her arms in triumph like a boxer, and the audience cheers and whoops to see me tied so elegantly yet firmly. Then one of the other dancers grabs Chloe away from me in a show of possessiveness, and as we are dragged apart I see why the audience are yelping with such delight. The newcomer has a huge white phallus strapped to the belt around her waist. It’s protruding like a huge hard-on from her groin and bouncing eagerly. It must look shockingly sensational against the curtain.
This other dancer runs her hands over Chloe’s breasts, holds them up and pinches her nipples into sharp points to poke through the flimsy net-like fabric of her leopard-print body. Then she rips it neatly at the waist so that it slithers like a second skin down her legs, leaving her bottom and pussy totally bare.
Chloe starts to smile as the other dancer gropes and fondles her, and then other hands start touching me. The third girl must be behind me now because my tutu is flipping up to my waist. A white dildo slides down my face. It waggles comically to show me what I’m in for, and the audience wave their arms in the air and dance about with delight.
The other girl presses up behind Chloe and with her fingers she parts her to reveal a sudden redness. I wonder if they’ve run lipstick up the crack to make the colour show so vividly and, if so, why, when the audience can only see us in monochrome? A finger disappears inside Chloe and I start rubbing myself against the stool in response.
The girl behind me mirrors the action of her mate, so that her fingers are on me, too, fingering me, fluttering and tickling round to explore my softness, making me wriggle, making my body clench with desire, and then suddenly her fingers are inside me, stirring up new, impatient tremors.
Is Gustav here yet? What’s he seeing? What’s he thinking? Is this gamble going to pay off? Or is it going to go horribly wrong? Has Margot grabbed hold of him? Is he going to be turned on or is he going to castigate me, when we get home later, for shaming myself, and him?
The little tremors start to knit together more urgently now, tangling with this new anxiety, and the result is a sticky wetness that makes me fidget between my legs. My nipples brush against the leather seat, then my breasts are squashed down as my bottom tilts more visibly in the air.
I glance at Chloe, and my stomach gives a lustful twist. She is being bent over in the same way as I am. Our faces are close up. Close enough to kiss. The other dancers keep us in place as they grasp their big thick dildos with their free hands. I can’t see what my assailant is doing, but the dancer behind Chloe is stroking her dildo lovingly over Chloe’s bottom before making it pump and jump like the real thing.
As I gape at the enormous phallus about to plunge into her, my own warmth is pulled open. A hard, long shaft nudges between my buttocks. I grip the stool as it circles blindly under me, searching for my centre. It brushes over my clitoris, and when the contact makes me jerk backwards, it deliberately repeats the action for the benefit of the eyes watching us. The surface of the shaft seems to be slightly ridged, so that there’s a kind of catching sensation each time it touches or scratches me. The slightest contact sings just that bit longer.
God. This is good. Doing it in front of a crowd feels shameful and dirty, but so good. Remember to keep it exaggerated and stylised. Remember that I’m just an outline.
A tiny voice is trying to insinuate that I still have time to behave decently and stop this. But the other, stronger voice, aimed at Margot Levi and any challenge she cares to throw at me, refuses to give in or stop anything.
And you, if you’re here. Watch me, Gustav. Watch how dirty I can be. I can be so much dirtier than her, any day of the week. She can’t touch us.
As if it can hear me, the phallus rubs harder against my body, whipping up the warmth as it edges closer. I tip myself up invitingly, but still it’s determined to tease.
Chloe’s invader is more brutal than mine. A hectic flush suffuses her cheeks as she is suddenly thrown forwards. Her mouth brushes mine as the dildo slams into her.
Even though the music is deafening you can still sense the excitement that rips through the audience now, swaying like a cornfield then jumping impatiently as they watch the show.
I force my focus inwards, concentrate on moving sensuously. I tip my bottom higher in the air, arch my throat so everyone can see the invitation. I push at the dancer behind me to invite her to go ahead and do it to me, and she manipulates her dildo to follow my movements, the blunt head of it still hovering millimetres away from my centre.
‘Look at you. You’re loving this,’ Chloe yells into my ear as our faces push towards each other again. ‘You lowdown little ho.’
‘Think Margot would approve? Come on, girlfriend, don’t look so surprised. You must have known your boss and I were connected, otherwise why would she ask you to entice me here? But maybe you didn’t know she’s my fiancé’s ex-wife?’
My new friend doesn’t insult me by coming on all innocent – which might be because, far from being belittled, I’m stealing the show. Instead she grins conspiratorially.
‘OK. Busted. She made out you were intimately acquainted. But I don’t know why she asked us to bring you here. Some grudge you guys have? But I’d say she’s made a big mistake. It’s backfiring, because you make her look washed-up.’ Chloe flicks her tongue over my lips. ‘You could be the permanent star of this show if you wanted!’
And then she’s pulled back and temporarily lost to me. I watch her bucking back and forth across the hard little stool, her small tits bunching and swinging over the edge of the seat as her friend rogers her with the dildo. Her mouth opens wider, her blue eyes unblinking, as she gets right into it. The dancer behind pulls her weapon back and pushes it in, hard. High, keening cries escape from Chloe as she’s penetrated.
‘What are you waiting for?’ I yell to the dancer behind me. ‘Go for it!’
The chiffon ties stop me twisting round. I can’t even glance over my shoulder. In any case, there’s no response, other than more pushing and pulling. The dildo is creating sensations which go so far and no further. The head has yet to enter me. For some reason my dancer is fixated on rubbing it back and forth to set my clit burning. Maybe she isn’t so experienced, or maybe she’s waiting until Chloe’s been thoroughly seen to, but I crave the spotlight now, because the more tentative she is, the more determined I am to show the audience, and Margot, who is tonight’s diva.
I bring all my acting skills together to mime my frustration. I stamp my legs apart and together again, and gyrate my butt, and the audience are clapping along in time with my gyrations, but the girl behind me is strong, because every time I rise too far she pushes me back down across the stool and then, as if to punish me for showing off, the dildo is whipped away, catching my clit in one last tease. It leaves me sore and throbbing, and aching for it to come back.
I struggle and kick with fury, but I’m kicking thin air. Watching Chloe being aroused by that brutal thing has made me greedy, but my dancer and my dildo have gone.
Oh no, they haven’t. Here they are again. Chloe’s eyes, just about to close as if she was on the point of coming, widen at the person behind me, then she winks at me before she is thrust violently forwards to keep her in line.
I’m grabbed by the hips, and there it is again, oh, heaven, warmed now by its contact with my body and edging into place, and then when my dancer pulls me back against her groin, the dildo pushes right up inside me. It’s big, and hard, but maybe because it’s so deep it’s lost the unbending brutality and that ridged feeling. It has a lifelike feel, throbbing and pulsing, and as the delicious sensations expand inside me my legs turn to jelly.
Chloe’s assailant rears back with her white weapon, the length of it nearly out altogether, and then she thrusts it back in. Both girls seem to be focused far more on me and my dancer than on each other. Their eyes keep flickering to the person behind me and sly grins split their faces. Natural to make me the star turn, I guess. It’s probably part of the act, since I’m the newcomer. The little ingénue in her white fairy costume, dragged on stage all protesting and innocent, yet let’s all witness the animal awakening.
‘Gotta keep up!’ gasps Chloe as we rock towards each other.
‘Just watch me!’ I flash back.
But now Chloe loses herself again. As her friend and the music dictate their rhythm, Chloe starts to come.
And I’m thrown forwards once again. The metal feet of my stool scrape across the floor as my legs are spread wider. My forehead knocks against Chloe’s bare shoulder. I can sense rather than hear her groaning as I race to catch up with her, but I’m dependent on the girl behind me and this curious dildo, which is so lifelike and so responsive that instead of being rigid its super-sized length has swollen to fit me.
Wild, fierce lust climbs through me, jagged and sharp, goading me in this wild display. As the shaft speeds up inside me, replicating the thrusts of a real man, I cry out like Chloe did, letting the moans shiver through the music. My hands scrabble to keep a hold of my madly rocking stool and I don’t care if Chloe’s acting or not. We are both, for our own purposes and the crowd’s, coming brilliantly together and my dildo even seems able to simulate its own bursting climax.
We are both held down for a moment longer until the applause, and the music, start to fade. The audience waits as the dildos are slowly pulled out of us. My tutu is pulled down over my bare bottom, but the show isn’t quite over, because Chloe turns on her dancer, holds the dildo up like a spoon and makes her assailant lick it clean.
I remain tied to the stool. I am still just a stark outline. They are waiting for me to straighten up, snap out of it, presumably so the curtain can go up and we can take a bow. Margot is still watching and she isn’t going to witness any weakness in me, even though I can’t move.
But now the two dancers are unclipping the curtain, the barman is winding it up to the ceiling, and Chloe and her mates are bowing to the crowd. They all start roaring with laugher as I’m revealed to the audience, still bent over the stool, the skirt barely covering my sore ass. I know I look helpless, and there’s a moment when I feel it, too. Weary of fighting for my life. For my man. But I can’t let it show. Not for a second. Not while that woman’s hateful eyes are on me. And especially not if Gustav is somewhere in this club, watching how his girl is fielding Margot’s latest grenade.
Chloe pretends to forget about me, then skips across to untie my wrists.
‘Bravo, Serena!’ she says, laughing and lifting me upright. ‘You and your man were brilliant!’
But instead of lifting my hand or directing me to curtsy for the finale, she leaves me standing there in the middle of the stage. She and her dancer carry the stools to the side, sit astride them, take cocktails from the barman, and the lights all go out, leaving me in a single spot.
‘Time to take a bow, Serena. You’ve done what you set out to do.’
The deep voice in my ear makes my whole body buzz. A trickle of juice tickles my inner thigh. My knees threaten to buckle as I stare up into Gustav’s black eyes, glittering with pride and triumph.
‘You crazy, crazy man!’ I squeal, bashing uselessly at his chest as he ostentatiously buttons up his jeans, and the audience break into rapturous applause as they realise they’ve been had. ‘Who knew you could impersonate a dildo!’
‘Can you impersonate something inanimate?’ He lifts me up on to my tiptoes to kiss me. ‘And talking of inanimate objects—’
He jerks his head in the direction of the raised area where the queen bee was holding court earlier. I glance across in time to see Margot rising to her feet, shoving her companions away from her. Her white face is drawn tight beneath the red lace netting. Her mouth is an uneven buttonhole of fury.
The only part of her that is alive is her eyes, which blaze as she draws one red fingernail across her throat.
‘Ignore her and kiss me!’ Gustav turns me towards him.
I flush, itching to turn back and see what Margot is doing. ‘I did it for you!’
‘You exhibitionist little slut! You didn’t even question who, or what, was inside you!’
Before I can answer or apologise or explain, he tilts my face up in the big hands that were holding me down just now, and the audience goes wild as he kisses me.
The last light snaps out, leaving us in the dark.
‘Too late to be angry with me now, lover.’ I pull away from him, my lips warm and wet as I jerk my head out towards the dance floor. ‘Whatever I did just then, I did it to show Margot.’
We stand together on the stage, searching the blur of faces as people resume their conversations, buy more drinks, demand new music. But the banquette on the far side is empty.
Margot has slunk away. For now.