(1998) Denial (19 page)

Adoring every second of him.

She took him, as far as she could, in her mouth.

Oh Jesus Michael you are huge
.

She cupped his balls in her hands, squeezed them gently, felt him respond. His balls felt wonderful, the cold, sensuous skin, the soft hairs, she was entering a new space
here, travelling through an uncharted trench deep inside her, or maybe she was travelling outside her body, outside all time to some distant point that was the centre of the universe, the centre of all time, all existence.

Then she was floating through air. She was being carried, swept, in Michael’s arms, and now she was lying on a bed, a huge bed, she could feel a shoe being pulled from her foot, then another incredible explosion inside her.

She opened her eyes. He was naked on the bed, naked and covered in hair and holding her toes in his mouth, pulling softly on them with his lips, pulling deep shivers of pleasure like folds of silk down her body.

Now his tongue was tracing up her calf. Then he was exploring the space behind her knee, then on, up along the base of her thigh, and then, in one space-time continuum, his tongue was entering her again, deep inside her.

She clutched his head with her hands, some distant howl erupting around her, maybe it had come from within her, she didn’t know, she didn’t care, this was all existence, there was nothing beyond this moment, no past, no future, nothing else mattered, nothing else had ever mattered or ever would. She was in the clutches of some wild, primal force, this creature, half-human, half-beast, had her helplessly in his control. She opened her eyes for a moment, saw flashes of a wall with a painting of apples, of a dressing table, a painting of a naked man and naked woman touching each other, she saw a drawn curtain, a single bedside lamp that was on, then Michael’s face blurred through the fuzz of her pubic hair.

Then her eyes were rammed shut as a wave of pleasure welled in the pit of her stomach, pushing outward, growing, swelling inside her, rippling her skin, her body, her brain . . .

Now his face was right over hers and the pleasure that could not get any stronger was getting stronger.

He was entering her. She was gathering him into her, clawing his back.

Michael was trying desperately to hold back, he was trying to think, to concentrate, to remember all the things
you were supposed to remember – not that he’d ever been that great, or that experienced, a lover – things like taking his weight on his elbows, entering slowly, trying to think of something to distract him, something boring or horrible, anything to turn him off, to try to contain himself for just a while longer, for a few minutes, to please her. He wanted desperately to please her, he didn’t care about himself, not at this moment, he just wanted to hold it, to make it special for her.

I didn’t even think about a condom
.

She didn’t say anything
.

Their eyes met. He thrust himself in even further. She was smiling, that look of trust, and this trust gave him confidence, there had never been anything like this in his life, he could hold himself, he could hold back, he really could!

She was taking him into her. This
thing
of his. This huge, incredible thing-beast-serpent was pushing up inside, pushing away ripples in its path, pushing ripples that spread out into vast shock waves of pleasure way beyond her physical body, and deep into her soul. She was dreaming, nothing could feel this good, she had to be dreaming, this was –

OhMichaelohMichaelohmyGodMichael!

He was coming in deeper still. This thing, this thing that she couldn’t – couldn’t take in further – this was the nucleus of her body now, everything else clung to it.

And now she and this man-beast-Michael were locked together, travelling together, racing on some rock that had broken free from Earth, free from gravity, soaring through a firmament of darkness and stars, with a fuse burning inside each of them, burning harder, faster. Pumping, pumping her insides, pumping these waves that were engulfing her.

Then the bomb imploded inside her, and seconds later, inside him too. She was drawn, screaming with pleasure into some dark hole, some black hole, wormhole, incredible black vortex of pleasure that felt like it would never, ever, end.

Afterwards she lay there in shock. She couldn’t believe how good it had been, and he was still on top of her, still
inside her, still hard as rock. It was a full minute, maybe two, maybe even longer than that, before either of them was capable of speaking.

Oriental massage – call Viki!

Strict discipline! Call Miss Whiplash!

For a really sensuous massage, phone Carla.

Fantasy woman. Let delicious Divina pander to your whims!

Twenty minutes after he had left Michael Tennent’s house, Thomas Lamark dialled the number on the card. He was hesitant; he had never done this before. A woman answered. Her voice was common but maybe he could get her to change that.

‘I saw your ad. Divina?’

She sounded wary. ‘Where did you get my number?’

‘In this call box. At the bottom of the Earl’s Court Road.’

‘You’d like an appointment?’

‘Are you free now?’

‘I have an hour, if you come round right away.’

‘What colour is your hair?’

‘Red.’

‘Do you – do you have a blonde wig? Long blonde hair? Wavy?’

‘Want me to put that on for you?’

‘Thank you.’

Ten minutes later, Thomas pressed the buzzer of the narrow door sandwiched between a betting shop and a café. He identified himself through the speaker-phone, entered and climbed a narrow, dimly lit staircase.

When he reached the landing at the top, a door opened. A woman stood there, much younger than he had
imagined from her voice, mid-twenties at the most, and plumper than he had visualised. She had a friendly, soft-featured face that he found neither attractive nor ugly, long platinum blonde tresses and was wearing a cream satin dressing gown loosely fastened.

‘Thomas?’

He stared at her cleavage. ‘Yes.’

She eyed him carefully, then beckoned him in, closing the door behind him.

He entered a small room lit with a red bulb inside a paper globe lampshade. There were large mirrors on the wall and on the ceiling. The narrow double bed had a candlewick coverlet, and there was a mangy red carpet on the floor. Ventilation was from an open window behind Venetian blinds, and an electric fan on the dressing table.

‘Would you like a drink, Thomas?’

‘No thank you.’

‘Not a Coke or anything?’

‘Nothing.’ He was feeling awkward. There was a sickly sweet smell of perfume that he did not like. This was not what he had imagined.

‘Let’s get the financials out of the way before we start, shall we, Thomas? It’s one hundred pounds for the hour, unless you want anything a little kinky, then it would be extra.’

Startled by her directness, he fished two fifty-pound notes from his wallet and handed them to her. In return she gave him a condom in a foil wrapper.

Then she untied the sash of her dressing gown, let the front fall open, and leaned back provocatively. ‘What would you like me to do to you, Thomas? A little massage first?’

Her breasts were nothing like his mother’s. These were bigger, rounder, upright, they looked unreal. The nipples were horrible, tiny dark things, like studs.

And she had a thick, unruly bush of black pubic hair.

His eyes went up to her wig, then down to her pubic hair.
His mother’s had been blonde, tinged with grey recently, but still blonde.

This black was horrible.

‘Something wrong, Thomas?’

‘You have black pubic hair.’

She grinned. ‘Sorry, I haven’t got a pubic wig, darling!’

He did not like the way she made fun of him. He was making a mistake in being here, he realised. This wasn’t how he had imagined it; this wasn’t what he wanted. From what he had seen in films, he had imagined he would be in some vast gilded chamber, with a sunken bath, crystal chandeliers, champagne on ice.

And a woman who looked like his mother.

In her cheap wig, this woman was insulting his mother’s memory.

‘Can you speak differently?’ he asked.

‘Speak differently?’

‘Do you know the actress Gloria Lamark?’

She shook her head.

Anger rose inside him.

‘Did she speak lah-di-dah, Thomas? Do you want me to speak lah-di-dah?’ She feigned an upper-class accent. ‘Do yew meeeen speaaakke laike theas?’

‘Tell me that you want to touch my choo-choo,’ he said with an edge of desperation.

Reverting to her normal voice, she said, ‘Your
what?
’

Reddening. ‘My choo-choo. Tell me that you want to touch my choo-choo.’

‘Choo-choo? What’s your choo-choo, darling?’

He pointed at his flies. ‘My thing. Penis.’

‘You call it
choo-choo
?’ She looked at him in astonishment, then burst into a cackle of laughter. ‘Choo-choo!’

He stared lividly back at this ghastly creature, with her sickly sweet smell and her studs for nipples and her fat flesh and ghastly black tangle of hair, then dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his coin.

He tossed it in the air palmed it.

She caught the glint of gold and asked, ‘What’s that?’

‘Tails,’ he said. ‘Tails, Divina. You’re very lucky.’ He
turned and walked out of the room, ran down the stairs, and out into the street, then hurried around the corner to where he had parked Dr Goel’s Ford Mondeo.

What’s wrong with me?

The Gregorian chant filled the car with a sound that alternated between high and low pitch. The choral voices crashed out of the speakers, unearthly, like voices of the dead. They shrilled in Thomas’s ears, boomed in his heart.

He drove in a mist of rage, a man possessed, with demons in his soul. He wanted to kill someone tonight, anyone, it didn’t matter who – a guy, a girl, a junkie, a wino, anyone.

It would be Dr Michael Tennent’s fault.

You will have blood on your hands, Dr Tennent
.

With the sickly sweet smell of the prostitute’s perfume still in his nostrils, he headed towards the West End, anxiety nagging him: maybe the psychiatrist had caught sight of his face. What if the bitch had made a note of his licence plate?

No. They’d just glanced at him, that was all. They hadn’t seen his face, hadn’t written down his number. They weren’t interested in him. They were just interested in each other. Even so, he had been careless. Stupid.

Why couldn’t he and Divina have been interested in each other?

Why did you laugh at me, Divina?

What on earth is the matter with me?

The traffic was heavy up the King’s Road. He was forced to slow down, drift along with it, part of a long line, like jigging along in a cut-out car in some theme park ride.

The ride was called
Virtual London
.

Weirdos swirled past in the current; some were hovering in groups as if they were caught in eddies, some were massed outside the entrance to clubs like scum slopping
against a river bank. Everywhere he looked the street was full of floaty weirdos.
Come on, step off the pavement in front of me, make my day
.

He cruised Sloane Square, then traversed Belgravia to Hyde Park Corner and on down Piccadilly. He was driving fast now, except the traffic was gumming up ahead as he closed on Eros. He was doing better, he had found a rhythm, found the trick of bullying past slower vehicles. It was easy, all you had to have was nerve! Force open a gap! And ignore the angry flashing of lights!

He crossed the junction on a dubious amber, then accelerated hard up Shaftesbury Avenue, pavements flooding over with kids, freaks, spilling off the kerb. He wanted to feel the thud of a body on the front of the car, he wanted to see some freak come barrelling over the bonnet and explode against the windscreen. He swerved in towards the kerb but nothing happened. He was driving right through people as if nothing was there!

He wondered if his memory was tricking him, the way it did trick him sometimes. Maybe he wasn’t in Terence Goel’s navy blue Ford Mondeo 16 valve, maybe he was at home, sitting at his computer, playing a game, driving through Virtual London.

This was just a game!

I’m indestructible!

He overtook a stalled taxi, caught another light on the final flicker of amber, made a left into Tottenham Court Road. Then his rear-view mirrors threw a dazzling glare at him. Some jerk behind driving on full beam. He heard a siren, just a short burst of two-tone, the lights flashed again, full-beam then low-beam and when they dropped back to low beam, his mirrors were a riot of strobing blue light.

He felt a flash of anger at himself, then flipped his indicator and pulled over into the kerb. Headlights swung in behind him.

Concentrate!

Had he been mistaken about how much Dr Tennent or
the girl had seen? Had a neighbour reported the number-plate of the car?

He lowered the window and in his mirror watched a policeman climb from the car behind, pull on his cap and approach him, a flashlight in his hand.

The beam momentarily struck Thomas in the face, dazzling him, then was switched off. He blinked, annoyed, but kept calm. The policeman was in his mid-twenties and looked younger. Thomas observed that he pressed his face right up close to his own, presumably to try to detect alcohol on his breath.

‘Your house on fire, is it, sir?’

He looked at the officer blankly. In his surprise at the question, he almost forgot to adopt the Bostonian accent of his friend Dr Goel whose car he was driving. ‘My house?’

There was a faint reaction to his accent. The policeman seemed to soften, but only a fraction. ‘You seem to be in a bit of a hurry, sir.’

Thomas applied maximum charm. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I get lost in London. I’m trying to find my way back home, down to Cheltenham and I’m going round in circles.’ He accompanied his explanation with a suitably beguiling smile.

‘You’ll be going round in an ambulance if you carry on driving like that, or else some innocent person will. Have you been drinking this evening?’