Masquerade (13 page)

W
e leave the island and arrive back in England late in the afternoon. It is raining—big fat drops of cold rain. Nothing could be more different from the place we have left behind. I feel a little sad and a little frightened. We did not have sex last night. We simply cuddled and fell asleep in each other’s arms. The truth is I wanted to have sex. I wanted it to be as though nothing had changed. I was afraid that something had changed. And I wanted back the carefree, wild way we had been.

Even after that first night something inside my body changed. Like he flicked a switch and everything I thought I was, everything I wanted, suddenly disappeared. And all that is left now is an aching hunger… Impossible to satisfy without him.

When we reach his house I realize that I am far more exhausted than I thought. Perhaps I am even a little depressed. I know now that I can’t just ride into the sunset with him. There are problems—big problems, maybe unsolvable ones. He undresses me, slips one of his T-shirts over my head and puts me to bed. Not in the white room, but in his bed in his bedroom. His room is very large and full of light that comes from the sky. I look around tiredly. It is a sumptuous room. Chocolate and cream and beautiful old paintings. I guess it’s a man’s room.

He puts me into bed and gently kisses my forehead.

‘Go to sleep,’ he tells me, the way an adult would instruct a child, the way I tell Sorab.

I close my eyes and almost immediately fall asleep. 

I wake up alone. I don’t call out. I simply get out of bed and go looking for him. There is no one upstairs so I go down the magnificent marble steps. I wonder if a time will ever come when I will not be impressed by their beauty. The banister is cold and smooth under my hand. I hear a whirling sound, like the blades of a fan going very fast. I go toward the sound. It is coming from the room with all the gym equipment.

I open the door and Jaron is in the middle of the room. He is dressed only in a pair of faded, loose, knee-length shorts. He is skipping but he is going so fast that the rope is a blur. It is the rope that is making the sound. He is moving from foot to foot. The movements he makes are very graceful and light. You would never believe it of a man his size. I close the door and lean against it watching him. He stops and looks at my reflection in the mirrored wall.

‘What?’ he asks.

‘You don’t want to know,’ I say watching his back muscles gleam with a sheen of sweat.

He turns around and faces me. ‘Actually, I really do.’

‘I was thinking about licking the salt off your back.’

He throws the skipping rope on the ground.

‘That is usually a punishment I reserve for naughty girls. Have you been naughty recently?’

‘Yes, I was very naughty this morning.’

I lean forward and lick his nipple. It’s salty. I snare it between my teeth. ‘You smell like a bearskin rug,’ I mumble, and increase the pressure on the nub. Not even a flinch out of him.

‘You’ve never smelt a bearskin rug, have you?’ His eyes are mocking.

I let go of the nipple. There are teeth marks on it. ‘OK, you smell like what I think a bearskin rug smells like. Makes me want to get naked and lie on top of you.’ He reaches out for me and I evade his hand.

‘Aaa,’ I say warningly and move around him.

I stand behind him and with great dedication I abandon myself to the job of licking the sheen of sweat off his back. He shudders and turns to look at us in the mirror. I swivel my eyes to look too. The picture we make is distilled sex. The slow licking looks obscene and that is perhaps why it is such a turn-on.

I feel myself getting wet. We watch ourselves avidly. Both of us mesmerized by what our bodies are doing. I slip my hand into his loose-fitting shorts and feel for the elastic of his smalls. With both hands I yank them both down his narrow hips. Wow! Instantly his erect member stands proud. It is always me who is nude while he is dressed. For the first time it is the other way around. It’s kinda hot.

‘Play with yourself,’ I tell him.

He palms his mighty schlong and starts to stroke himself, all the while watching me. I feel rather pleased with myself. Maybe I miss being in control, making the other person submit to me. I stop licking and walk to the front of him. We look at each other. His jaw is clenched hard, but the expression in his eyes is maddeningly arrogant. And it occurs to me that he’s not doing what I want. I’m doing what he wants. Suddenly he moves—the movement is so sudden and quick it feels like an explosion of sheer male power and aggression. 

To my shock I am now facing the mirror and he has grabbed me by the crack of my ass, his fingers digging into my pussy. Impaled thus he lifts me until I am barely on my tiptoes and walks me in that position toward the mirror. A foot and a half away from our reflection he stops.

‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ I squeal.

Using the hand buried between my legs he lifts me higher so I am clean off the ground and in such a precarious position that I am forced to place the soles of my feet and my palms on the mirror and straight off I see what his intention has been all along. Evil bastard. Now he’s driving the train.

In the mirror my long T-shirt is bunched up around my hips, the soles of my feet are filthy, and between my spread thighs my sex has opened up like a flower, but also I see his large, manly fingers crudely buried inside my glistening hole. Underneath my pussy his erect cock bounces.

It could be the most vulgar and most horny thing I’ve seen in my life. Exposed and vulnerable and totally helpless in his firm hold. It looks so wrong and yet so badass good. Oh, hell yes.

He stands there scrutinizing my dripping bits. The lips of my vulva rolled back in anticipation.

‘Dirty bitch.’

‘Yes, quite,’ I say.

With a long finger he strokes the flowering part of my clit. ‘Play with yourself,’ he says smoothly. His smile is triumphant.  

The power struggle between us makes my skin tingle, but he is also my sexual soulmate. Between us there are no inhibitions. Nothing is out of bounds. It also causes a maddening ache between my legs. My breath races, but I am so incensed by the way he has tricked me I think about refusing. 

‘You want to come, don’t you?’ he whispers in my ear.

I stare at Mr. Alpha stubbornly.

‘Do it,’ he orders.

I use my finger and begin to play with my clit.

‘Look at me while you do it.’ His voice is domineering.

I look at him. At the pleasure he takes in taming me as I carry on playing with myself. I don’t take my eyes off him even as I succumb to the orgasm coming for me. It turns me inside out. I rock helplessly around his hand. When it is over I close my eyes, breathe gently and lean my head back. He kisses my neck.

‘Milk time for pussy,’ he says, and lowering me to the floor, tilts my pelvis upward, and fucks my pussy into oblivion. Well, I don’t just stand there. I match him in his thrusts, impaling myself over and over on the hard rod.

‘Jesus, you’re one wild fucking beast,’ he says.

‘Yeah, feed the fucking cat,’ I pant aggressively, and lose myself in a haze of lust and heat and friction until he comes, spurting hot semen deep into me. He stills, heaving, his face buried in the side of my neck, and I squeeze his cock as hard as I can. It twitches inside me and he raises his eyes to me. His hands blanket me. One cups my breast. I turn my face toward his and we kiss.

Slow, tender, careful, and I feel myself float on a warm wave and dissolve into his mouth. His tongue and lips make love to my mouth while he crawls under my skin and into my heart. There is no other way to put it.

E
bony rings my bell in the afternoon. I open the door and stand aside.

She enters wordlessly. I lead the way to the living room.

‘Can I get you a drink? Vodka? Goat’s milk?’

She shakes her head. She is wearing something that looks like a super-sheer, giant condom. To give her her dues, she has the figure for it.

‘Have a seat.’

She eases herself onto my sofa.

I walk to the sofa opposite her and sit down. ‘Well, what brings you here, Ebony?’

She smiles at me coolly, but I can see that she is seething. ‘You’ve been to the island?’

‘Yes,’ I say shortly.

She smiles tightly. ‘He’s so predictable. Takes all his conquests there.’

A hot bubble of pain starts in my bowels. The thought: he has taken her there. He takes all his women there. 

‘What do you want?’

She smiles. ‘Did he catch land crabs for you?’

I want to slap her hard, so hard I leave marks, but I swallow hard and keep my cool. ‘Is that what you came here for? To ask about my holiday?’

That puts her back up. ‘Of course not. But he is very good at catching land crabs, isn’t he? He has the long arms of a gorilla. It is easy for him.’

‘True, he has beautifully long arms.’

‘So you had a good time?’

By now I am barely hanging onto my temper and yet I know she is here for a reason and that she has secrets I want. ‘Yes, I had a
very
good time. Was there something you wanted, Ebony?’

‘In fact there is. I wanted to tell you that while you are enjoying Jaron’s large cock, don’t forget that you’re just a temporary diversion. One of many. You can’t even begin to guess how many. The man’s a slut. But I’ll always be in his life. We have something special. It transcends sex.’

‘Ah, that’ll be why he took me and not you to the island then.’

Her eyes glitter with hatred. Jaron has no idea, but this woman is crazy in love with him. ‘You don’t know anything about him,’ she snarls.

‘What is it I should know?’

She smiles a nasty smile. ‘Ask him what he does for a living. I think you will be rather surprised by the answer.’ With that she stands up and sails toward the door. I stand up and go after her.

‘I know what he does for a living,’ I tell her.

She laughs. ‘Oh yeah?’ she taunts. You see, she has one final, ominous parting shot. ‘Then ask him why he chose you.’

I close the door after her. My mind is blank. I light a cigarette. My hands are shaking so much I stare at them in surprise. I go onto the balcony and watch her walk down the street toward an illegally parked bright yellow Mercedes. It is one of the ones I have always liked. Jaunty. The SL400.

A parking attendant is busily writing a ticket for it. Even from here I can see the ingrained expression of sanctimonious and self-righteous indignation on his long face. He has nearly finished writing his ticket. I exhale smoke from my mouth. My attention flicks away from the attendant to Ebony. She is strolling toward her car. There is not an ounce of distress or worry in her stride. I would have been running toward my car, waving my hands wildly, and cursing loud enough to wake the dead. Jewel thieves probably don’t have to worry about pissy parking fines.

The parking attendant has already written his ticket, torn it off, put it into its yellow and black plastic case, and is in the process of pasting it on her windscreen when Ebony leans all her hot curves against the bonnet of the car. He turns and goes rather rigid. Then he fidgets and I can almost imagine him blinking and gulping. Who knows what Ebony says to him, but he looks around aggressively, as if demanding, ‘What? What the fuck is a mere man supposed to do in such a situation?’

She says something to him and he actually preens. I’ve never seen a man preen. She tears the ticket from the windscreen and holds it out to him. It flops in her hand. The wind picks up and it waves half-heartedly. Like some sort of white flag. For a moment longer he hesitates. Then he looks around again and fidgets. Suddenly the ticket is back in his hand. She blows a kiss, gets into her car and waves at him, then revs her engine loudly before roaring off.

And I stare at the sky and wonder what the hell I am going to do with my situation. It feels as if I have been left holding someone else’s parking ticket.

After a while I decide. I am not going to play into her hands. If she wants me to ask him then that is the wrong thing to do. Let him tell me when he is ready.

Jaron Rose

They chased him through brambles,

They chased him through the fields,

They’d chased him forever,

But the fox would not yield.

—‘End of the Game’ by Sting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqxn5POG0GI

I
walk the night clad in black. Unknown. Unseen. Unchallenged. A shadow among shadows. Rooftops to me are a home away from home. Like smoke I drift along them, slip into the most well-guarded keyholes, work around ultrasonic motion detectors, and drop a leg onto a smooth, rain-slicked ledge, so narrow it is more an architectural flourish than a shelf broad enough to house the dimensions of a human foot.

Let me tell you, when all you have are your hands and back flat against the wall and your shoes stick out over the edge of a twenty-one floor fall—one sneeze or one truly malevolent gust of wind and it’s all over—it is an indescribable adrenalin high.

This is the thief’s world: a life of compulsion, great passion, skill and danger. It is a fantasy world where it is a risk to disturb the grime on a windowpane. A glamorous world of priceless objects and a space where seconds can be more precious than hours or days in the ordinary world. It is an intoxicating, overwhelming, and addictive business. But it is not for the faint-hearted. It’s all about challenge.

Sweat always breaks out on my brow when I pull on my black gloves, and fear, that old friend of mine, takes a stroll across my stage. At that moment I always smile, a grim smile of welcome. Only when you welcome the fear can you master it. Fear is useful—it alerts the senses, but only the intellect allows control.

After this initial surge of fear I become ice cold.

Normal people will find the long shadows caused by the low-level, non-invasive red service lights that virtually all galleries in the world employ murky and oppressive. Not me. I revel in them. They turn soaring vaulted ceilings into low, black voids of mystery. The arid tang of de-ionized air expelled by coal-filter dehumidifiers in museums: it’s perfume to me. And those security cameras mounted high on their walls that frighten you into not touching anything, well, let me tell you, they are not real. Real video would be too expensive to run. Most museums rely on containment technology. Take an Italian masterpiece off a wall and the gallery immediately seals itself with you inside it.

When I think of myself I see myself silently weaving my way over a roof, or crouching on my haunches, or balanced on a parapet scanning for sighters on the street. It is what I was born to do. Even as a child I could shimmy up a tree like a koala bear.

But sometimes I think of myself falling seventy feet below onto a line of spiked protective railings. The spikes impale my thighs in two places. I have never forgotten the pain of pulling my flesh off of the unforgiving metal, leaving behind blood, bits of flesh and gore. I wake up sometimes haunted by that fall. In my nightmare the spikes enter my heart. Even so, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d do it all again.

Even the fall.

You see, real life, the one led by most people, is excruciatingly dull. Too dull for me. I’d rather be a persistent sinner. And I am that.

I didn’t tell Billie the whole truth!

I wanted to, but I didn’t.

I told her I was a jewel thief and I gave her the impression that I do it for the danger. The high of knowing that this could be the last time and going ahead anyway. That my greatest passion comes from creeping on a roof, making a tunnel in a wall, avoiding the latest in security to get that loot. That is only true up to a point.

I was that. I walked around with an empty rugby bag to fill with spoils, but that was only until that day when, while sorting through a jumble of gems and glitter, ordinary pieces of diamond, out of someone’s safe, I realized I had landed a rare and magnificent
40.63 carat, heart-shaped Burmese ruby mounted on a 155 carat diamond necklace.

I held it up in the shine of my heavy-duty torch and a
stimulus came from it. It was not sexual like the act of stealing. It was far more potent than that. It was love at first sight. It provided me with more satisfaction than any woman had ever provided.

I was captivated—mesmerized actually. I suddenly understood why people kill for these shiny objects. For me it was like standing on the deck of the sinking
Titanic
and debating if we would not have hit the iceberg if we had gone a little bit slower or steered the ship a little more to the north. The deed was done. The ship was sinking.

The compulsion to steal more of these beautiful stones is incredible, undeniable. The high is unobtainable by any other means. I have tried everything. Kinky sex in strange nightclubs, places where nothing is taboo, but nothing compares to stealing and collecting these beautiful objects. 

Why didn’t I tell Billie that?

Because telling her that would reveal something else. Something she will not like. My mobile rings. I look at it. It is Ebony calling. Something that involves Ebony. Something unfinished.