I’M NOT LONG back and, ravenous from my exertions, am making some toast when Anne walks into the kitchen, smoke billowing out from one hand. Bringing her cigarette to her mouth to take brief but hungry drags that make her face seem even more pinched and bony than it is naturally, she’s clearly worked up about something.
‘Anything the matter?’ I say, buttering my toast, glad of an excuse to avoid her gaze, although I know that she’s not going to mention James and the events of last night. What I don’t know is whether whatever it is that she’s in a stew about is real or feigned, precisely in order that we can avoid talking about what is uppermost in our minds. Or uppermost in my mind, at least. You’d think it would be in Anne’s too, but it’s hard to tell. Is this kind of thing so commonplace in her life that she feels it warrants no discussion, not even a mention?
‘That bloody woman,’ she says bitterly, and I gather from the tumble of words and curses that follow that Anne’s agent, the über-powerful Delphina Carmichael, has pissed her off in some way. I should be interested, and under normal circumstances I would be fascinated by this insight into London literary life. But suddenly I’m replaying images from last night in my mind’s eye, and my face is flaming crimson at the thought that Anne saw me naked, saw me losing control as James worked me with the dildo. Saw the strange, illicit pleasure it awakened in me to spank the bare arse of this virtual stranger, this man nearly four decades older than me. Anne knows things about me that no one else knows, that I don’t even know myself, from being in her privileged position – present and involved yet distanced, poised, controlling things rather than losing her head. Remaining cool, she sees things that we don’t as we are swept along. She sees who we are when we are taken out of ourselves.
Anne’s still ranting and, finally, having spread my toast with Marmite and put the jar back in the cupboard, I have no choice but to turn and face her. It’s easier than I think: she’s lit a fresh cigarette and is huffing and puffing, eyes fixed on something beyond the kitchen window, outside in the small garden. Or perhaps on her own reflection in the glass. Perhaps, it strikes me, Anne is afflicted by a curse that may be a pitfall of being a novelist: that of always being an observer, unable to fully, unselfconsciously act because one is watching, noting, obsessively collecting data for one’s fiction. And that must include data about themselves. Can Anne ever really join in, participate fully in life?
Suddenly she stops talking, and her face turns to mine. Our eyes meet. Mine search hers for some glimmer of recognition of what happened between James and me, between the three of us, last night. But all I see, still, is a kind of cold, hard quality, like that of the stars on a crisp, clear winter’s night. There’s a beauty to them, but also something frightening: a reminder of the vastness of the cosmic space that divides us, of infinity in all its indifference.
For a moment I am dumbstruck, lost. The things she has seen … But what was I expecting of her? Affection? Sex doesn’t always lead to that. Nor does it begin with it. Why should affection enter into this at all? But it seems, as I stand there before her curiously blank gaze, that I would feel better about this if I knew that Anne cared for me, if at least a small dose of love entered into this.
I think of James and console myself with the conviction that some measure of affection does at least exist between the two of us, above and beyond what Anne says or does, perhaps even in spite of her. The courtesy and concern he shows me, the pleasure he calls forth in me, must spring from a caring source. Perhaps they are even the seeds of what might turn out to be love, if what exists between us was allowed to grow, to take its natural course. Certainly, I have more than a little fondness for him. I want him physically, but it goes deeper than that. I feel that something has happened to him somewhere along the line and that he needs a person who can understand him, who can act as a balm upon his wounds. Wanting to be that person is surely a form of love?
The silence goes on too long, and suddenly there’s a change in Anne’s eyes, and I feel that the coldness has been superseded by something calculating, perhaps even malevolent. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but it’s as if she’s assessing me, weighing up what she finds in order to plot anew, to take things in a fresh direction. I wonder if I’ll be up to the challenge and, as the thought runs through my mind, I’m amazed at the change in me: already I’m so accepting of my place here, not even considering refusing to go along with whatever she is cooking up in her warped imagination.
‘Is there … Is there anything I can be doing?’ I manage at last. ‘Filing or whatever?’
Anne shrugs, eyes still piercing mine. ‘Not right away,’ she says.
‘But later? There must be –’
She doesn’t let me finish. ‘There’s a student …’ she begins, and then her eyes leave mine as she brings her cigarette to her lips and takes a long, contemplative drag. Again her gaze fixes on something in the garden, or on the reflective glass of the window pane. ‘Come down at two o’clock. I want you to sit in and take notes.’
I watch her as she continues to smoke, having seemingly terminated the conversation. Her mind, it appears, is elsewhere, and I wonder if she’s thinking of her new novel, if she’s spilling over with inspiration and creative impulses. For a moment I’m jealous: how wonderful that must feel.
Then I frown. What does she mean by ‘student’? She’s not mentioned students before, and I can’t imagine a novelist of her stature giving tuition, even if her reputation has slid in recent years. If she was struggling financially, surely the first thing to go would be this big house, which has more space than she needs, and a location that must give it a multi-million-pound price tag.
But I don’t get chance to ask, because Anne has awoken from her reverie and is heading out of the kitchen. I look at my watch: it’s one o’clock. It’ll be an hour before I find out what this is all about. I decide to take a nap.
Upstairs, a little restless, I reach for the plastic bag containing my little purple friend and, after giving it a rinse, admire it, running my fingers along it, from one velvety end to the other. Then I can’t resist it any longer and I hoik my skirt up, lie on my side and bring it to my pussy. It slides in smoothly, and the raised bump on the end fits up snugly against my G-spot. My eyes water as I struggle with the urge to just let myself come right away. To help myself hold off, I roll over onto my belly and work at creating a measured pace that I can contain until I am ready to go the whole way.
When it begins to get difficult, because of the grinding of my clit by the other, ribbed, end, I raise myself onto my elbows and start to thrust. My hands, as before, are free, and this time I find myself reaching around and clutching my buttocks with my hands, prising them apart, driving my fingers and even my nails into my flesh. The sensation is further heightened. Letting go for a moment with one hand, I reach between my legs and activate the vibrating bullet. It’s all systems go as the stimulation of my clit intensifies, and I come with a yell.
As I lie panting on my bed, I wonder if Anne is outside my door, but, even as I contemplate the idea, I realise that I don’t care. So much has happened that I can’t see what difference it would make. There’s no privacy here: I’ve already become aware of and resigned to that. I’m in Anne’s employ, living in Anne’s house, and as such she has the right to do what she likes, as long as it’s not illegal. This is the situation, and I either accept it or leave.
For a moment I let my mind toy with the idea of leaving, but I find no answers to the questions that are raised: What next? Where would I go? What would I do? Vron, ecstatic at having seen the back of me at last, would be adamant she wouldn’t let me get another foothold on her place, and I can’t think of anyone else who has the space or the goodwill to put me up for more than a couple of nights. I’d have to get my own place, and doing that in London would require me selling my soul, getting some high-paying job that would wear me down, putting paid to my writerly hopes and ambitions.
But I have to admit, as I ponder all this, that there’s something else at work here too: Anne has me hooked. There’s James, of course – bait if ever there was one, the carrot on the end of her stick. There’s unfinished business with James, and I fear that Anne is my only means of access to him, meaning that leaving her would be to give up on him too, which I’m not ready to do.
There’s more, though. This ‘student’ who I am shortly to meet – something tells me that this is not going to be a run-of-the-mill tutorial, that the teacher–pupil relationship I am going to witness is going to be skewed to some degree. It’s amazing how little time it has taken me to judge Anne as someone who can never be straightforward in any of her dealings. Perhaps I am to be proven wrong.
To take my mind off the impending meeting, and also away from James and this whole complicated and perplexing situation, I pick up a novel and, before more than ten pages have been turned, start to fall into a doze. With the sun streaming through my mansard window onto the bed, cocooning me in warmth, I feel a welcome drowsiness, freeing me from care and confusion. I feel as if I could sleep for a hundred years. Only who would be the prince to come and kiss me awake? James Carnaby? Am I falling for this sugar daddy, this rich and well-known man who is so inexplicably single?
The dozy wash of thoughts through my head is arrested by the shrill sound of the doorbell. I sit up with a shock, smooth down my hair as I strain to listen. I glance at the time on my mobile. Whoever this mysterious student might be, he – or she – is very punctual. Which means that they are keen to learn whatever it is that Anne has to teach.
It’s not a girl – I hear that as soon as I am out of my bedroom and on the landing, harkening to the voices down in the hallway. There’s Anne’s, sounding softer and more welcoming than I am accustomed to. And then there’s a male voice, quite hushed and tentative. The opposite of James’s, with his assertive, forceful voice, essential for lecturing and making TV and radio appearances and doing book tours, for convincing people he knew more than anybody else about his particular field.
‘Hello?’ I hear Anne call, and I turn the top of the stairs on the first floor to find her looking up at me. ‘Oh, there you are,’ she says. ‘Good. We can start.’
She turns on her heel, heads towards the living room. In the doorway I see a figure, tall, svelte. As Anne reaches him, he turns and precedes her into the room. She places a hand on his shoulder, appears to guide him. She’s unexpectedly motherly in her gesture.
A few strides behind them, I reach the living room just as they’re settling on the sofas, side-on to each other. The boy – he can’t be as old as me – looks a little nervous but excited too. His cheeks are pinkish, contrasting with the auburn sheen of his hair. His eyes are roaming the room uncertainly, as if taking in details that he will wish to recall later. Immediately I know that he’s never been here before. If he is a student, he’s a new one.
His head swivels as he senses my movement; large blue eyes turn on me, electrifying me with their suggestion of a childlike innocence I know that no boy as beautiful as this can lay claim to. My breath catches, is held captive in my chest.
Anne speaks for me. ‘This is my assistant,’ she says to him, and I note that she doesn’t mention his name either.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I say, holding out one hand, which he takes. The frisson is immediate, as if a supercharged current has passed between us. I think irresistibly of the Björk song ‘Venus as a Boy’, of the lines ‘He’s exploring the taste in her/Arousal/So accurate.’ James has his charms, but they are complex charms that need to be decoded, unlocked. This boy is in-your-face, undeniable gorgeousness, like a vision of Cary Grant as he might have been at eighteen.
I tear myself away from him to find Anne studying me, openly curious about my reaction to the newcomer. I stare back at her, feeling brave. I know I have to be brave if I am to have any chance of getting what I want, and right now more than anything else I want some time with this amazing being.
What? her eyes seems to challenge me.
I open my mouth, almost choke on the words I want to say. ‘What’s the lesson?’ I say instead.
She continues to look at me. ‘Aesthetics,’ she says slowly. ‘Did you study anything about that at university?’
I shake my head. ‘Not really,’ I say, wondering where she’s going with this.
‘Shame,’ she says, looking at the boy and then back at me. ‘But of course, you didn’t study philosophy, did you?’
‘Not as such. Bits here and there, in passing.’
She shakes her head. ‘Of course the French,’ she says musingly, ‘get a basic grounding in philosophy at school.’
I smile, trying to relax. ‘Well, of course, you French are pretty much better than us at everything,’ I say, half ironic, half serious. I’m a Francophile to a degree, but at the same time I’m wary of subscribing to racial clichés and stereotypes. I risk a glance at the boy. He’s looking at Anne expectantly. He too hasn’t a clue where this is leading. Does he hope it will take us to the same place as I do?
‘Axiology,’ says Anne, reaching for the little silver cigarette box on the low table in front of her. ‘The study of quality or value, including aesthetics. Which is the study of the ways we see and perceive the world.’
The boy nods; I nod too. Then he looks at me, and I at him. For a moment we hold each other’s gaze, and once again I savour the apparent innocence of those huge cobalt-blue eyes. Then we look at Anne as her words puncture the bubble in which we have sealed ourselves for a minute, making us oblivious to all else.
‘Beauty,’ she continues, exhaling a mouthful of smoke. ‘Is it purely a cultural construct, or is there such a thing as objective beauty, a beauty that is evident to all?’ She eyes the boy, almost mistrustfully it seems to me, as if his face might crack open like a mask, or dissolve into the air, and reveal something disappointing beneath. As if there’s something false about his beauty, some trickery involved. There’s perhaps even a little distaste in her expression, a refusal to be bamboozled by the physical.
The boy doesn’t reply, but I don’t feel that she really wants him to, that she’s interested in what he has to say on the matter. And again I wonder if this is a tutorial, or something else masquerading as such. Why did the boy come here? What is he expecting? His open, unworldly face gives nothing away.
‘Perhaps,’ Anne says, ‘it’s just a question of the paucity of our vocabulary. After all, aside from the question of subjectivity, what makes a painting beautiful is very different from what makes a piece of music beautiful, or a poem.’ She stubs out her cigarette, closes her eyes for a moment. ‘Or a person.’ I wonder what, or who, she is thinking of.
None of this talk is particularly new to me – having read all of Anne’s novels, I recognise beauty as a recurrent theme of hers. Her works endlessly run up against the big questions: the point of our existence, whether beauty is a distraction from the mundane and the mortal or instead the only thing that makes life worth living.
I take advantage of her having her eyes closed to look again at the boy, more questioningly this time. Is he a fan or a student of her work, here to learn more? I can’t believe that he can be a writer himself, an acolyte, given how young he is. But why would Anne open her door to one student among the hundreds who must approach her each year, since some of her early works are on university syllabuses?
Then it comes to me: Anne is obsessed with beauty, and with its effects, and this boy is beautiful. She wants to observe his effect on me. Just as with James, I am a guinea pig, the litmus paper of Anne’s own refracted desires. I sit forwards. I am willing to assume that role.
As if my thoughts have made themselves known to her, Anne looks at me and lifts her chin. Her eyes roll heavenwards. I stand up. I know where I am going, where we are going.
As I climb the stairs, I hear her speak in muffled tones to the boy, and am disappointed I can’t hear what she is saying, nor his reply. I would love to know if he came here under false pretences or in the full knowledge of what was to be asked of him. Whether he would have come had he known, or whether he’d have been too afraid.
But when he comes into the first-floor bedroom, the one I was in just a couple of nights ago with James, there’s no fear on his face – just lust. A film of sweat increases and enhances the natural shine of his beautifully toned and flawless skin. He truly is godlike, a male incarnation of Venus. Who could dispute his beauty? I do recognise that beauty is a cultural construct, but I can’t imagine that there’s a human being on any part of this Earth who would deny that this boy is astonishingly good-looking.
Suddenly I feel a little shy. Am I worthy of him? I know I’m not bad-looking by any stretch of the imagination. Men have always shown an interest in me, from wolf-whistling builders to some of my father’s friends. I’m lucky enough to be slim without having to work out or watch my diet too closely, with a flat belly and firm breasts that vary between a C and a D cup. I’m of medium height but my legs look long, and my arse is shapely and rounded. My best facial feature is undoubtedly my mouth with its fleshy lips complete with Cupid’s bow, but I have nice eyes too, or so they tell me. Smallish but expressive, with flecks of gold buried amidst the sea-green iris. My hair is dark brown tending towards black, contrasting with the ivory pallor of my skin.
No, I’ve always attracted attention from the opposite sex, without actively seeking it. I don’t dress provocatively, although I’m happy to show off my best features, to wear skirts that end just shy of the knee, tops with a hint of cleavage. I know the importance of a good bra in the overall effect, which so many women don’t. I like good shoes too. But my student budget has always severely curtailed my sartorial aspirations: I have the occasional more glamorous piece happened upon in a charity shop, but, before I moved in with Anne and started making a bit more effort, my day-to-day look tended towards the grungy – jeans, a T-shirt, battered Converse sneakers.
I look at the boy’s clothes for the first time, as he comes to a halt in the bedroom, Anne hot on his heels. He’s far from grungy: his pale-grey skinny-fit trousers are well cut, his shirt is casual but crisp, in a charcoal grey with light military styling. Rolled-up sleeves reveal strong forearms. My eyes travel down. In the low light of the bedroom with its closed curtains, his leather brogues gleam, freshly polished.
Seeing me size him up, he smiles shyly yet with – or at least it seems to me – a certain inner confidence in the fact that I am liking what I see. I think enviously of what his life must be, imagine him sauntering through university corridors on the way to lectures, turning heads as he does so, both female and male. Who could remain impervious to his charms? I wonder how many people he’s slept with, whether he swings both ways. He’s got the kind of looks that appeal to both boys and girls. And if he’s up for this experience with Anne, with me, then won’t he have been willing to experiment in other ways?
I’m jealous, imagining all this – his freedom, his openness. My university experience was so different because of my having got myself tied down so quickly with Nate. I wonder now if I did that because I was afraid, afraid of choice, of liberty, of going for what I really wanted. Why tie myself down so early, denying myself during one of the most sexually fruitful times of life, if not because I am terrified of my own urges?
Now, feeling those urges towards the boy, I am still terrified, but at the same time I realise that to deny them would be to deny my inner nature, my real self. Sure, it’s risky, showing someone that you want them. You risk rejection, humiliation. But at least you’ll have known, and not spend the rest of your life wondering about what could have been, if only you’d followed your instincts, if only you’d dared.
Standing here before him, I wish fervently that I could wind time back and relive those university years without Nate by my side, like a comfort blanket, or a shield. Did I ever really love him, or was that just my excuse for taking the safe way out?
The boy’s eyes flicker from mine to the bed, and he smiles. I smile too, and then we both look, knowing who’s in charge here, at Anne. She is turning away from us, but it’s only, it turns out, to take a seat in the corner of the room. Once she’s settled, she looks at me with the mixture of haughty froideur and smouldering intensity that I am coming to know so well.
‘Strip,’ she rasps, breaking the almost unbearable silence.
I don’t need to be told twice; my clothes are off in a matter of seconds. And despite my shyness in the face of this Adonislike creature, I revel in my nakedness. I’m so up for this, I could scream.
‘Now you,’ says Anne. ‘Boy. Strip.’
Looking bemused rather than humiliated by her curt and dismissive way of addressing him, her apparent desire to belittle him, he too undresses. But the way he does so is more slow and contained than me, as if he’s keen to assert some kind of control here, or if not that then at least to let her know that he is no mere toy willing to bend to her in every way, like a sapling submitting to the force of the wind. I admire him for that, feel even more turned on. He seems to know who he is.
First comes his shirt, button by button. As he pulls it away from his hairless chest and his lightly muscular arms, he folds it and places it on the bedside cabinet. Likewise with his trousers, after sliding them down his slender hips and over his ankles and feet, having already untied his shoelaces and slipped off his expensive, handsome brogues. Last come his black stretch boxers, emblazoned with the word ‘Spank’ across the front of the waistband. I think for a moment of James, of the wooden paddle I applied to his arse, and of his obvious relish of my actions. Will Anne get her box of tricks out again now, and if so is spanking in store, or something else? Does this boy want to be spanked? Has he been spanked before? Do I want to spank him?
These are the questions that spring into my mind as I stand, proudly naked, almost triumphantly so, in front of them, thrilling to their eyes on me. The boy wants me – so much is clear from his expression. His eyes are bright and eager, his lips slightly apart, the bottom one snagged between his top and bottom teeth. Anne’s face is harder to read. There’s a distance in her eyes, as if, despite being the mistress of ceremonies, she is also retreating somewhere, going deeper inside herself, to some dark and hidden space to which no one but she can have access. I wonder what lurks there: memories, fantasies, images beyond the reach of words and reason?
She’s like a spider, sitting there in her corner, patient after the long and laborious task of constructing a web. Which means that we are the flies – trapped, helpless, able only to wait her bidding, or the coup de grâce. The sinister image excites me even more. I feel as if my very destiny is in Anne’s hands, inheres in what happens here, in this house, as long as I am brave enough to stay here and trust in her guiding star, even if it is a dark star.
My breasts are in my hands, my fingertips toying with my nipples. The boy is looking at me, questioning now. Perhaps he’s growing impatient. I stare back, trying to tell him with my eyes that nothing here is down to me, that I am unable to act. Surely he’s worked that out by now?
‘Take him,’ barks Anne, releasing us from the delicious pain of the wait.
I step forwards, exulting, the cat that got the cream. I push him down onto the bed and he yields, an invitation in his eyes.