Masquerade (7 page)

T
his is the day of my first skydive. I wake up excited and the feeling does not go away until he walks through the door.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘You ready?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Scared?’

‘Are you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, you.’

‘I’m not like anybody you know, Billie. I don’t get scared of danger. I get excited.’

We stare at each other. Every day I become more and more intrigued by him.

‘Let’s go then,’ I say.

When we get downstairs Jaron steers me toward a Pagani Huayra with gulf wing doors. I stop suddenly.

‘Is that yours?’ I ask in a shocked tone.

‘Last time I looked, yeah.’

‘Wow!’ I squeal, running my eyes over the aluminum and glass trimmings. ‘I
love
this baby.’

He chuckles. ‘Its name means god of the winds in Quechua.’

‘And why haven’t you told me about this car before?’ I demand aggressively as I start walking toward it.

He clicks his remote and the wings go out and up.

‘Whoa,’ I cry with serious admiration, and dash toward the driver’s seat. He pulls me back by my jacket. I turn around and look at him enquiringly.

‘You’re in the passenger seat,’ he says with his eyebrows raised.

‘Can I at least drive on the way back?’

‘Maybe. Let’s see how you feel after your jump.’

‘OK,’ I agree, and slide into the plush leather seat, as happy as I have ever been in my life. ‘I always saw you as an all black McLaren P1 guy.’

He glances at me curiously. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, but I was wrong. This actually suits you perfectly.’

As soon as we hit the motorway Jaron puts his foot on the accelerator and the car zooms forward so fast I actually feel a knot of fear and excitement in my belly. No wonder he didn’t want me to drive, if this is what he calls driving. We fly along, tearing past the rolling countryside until we turn off at the road leading to the airfield.

Jaron hauls our equipment out of the car and we go into the low building. He is well known there and so I am in a large locker room kitting myself out in a jumpsuit that goes over my clothes, gloves, goggles, and a helmet. Next is the harness. I step into it and Jaron pulls it up over my shoulders, and tightens all the straps to make it nice and secure. He checks it.

‘All right?’

‘A OK,’ I say although a whole swarm of butterflies has invaded my belly at the thought that soon I will be jumping out of a plane.

‘OK, face down on the floor,’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll show you what position to free fall in.’

I lie on the floor, and he tells me to bend my legs at the knee and lift them about six inches in the air. We practice a few more moves and Jaron straps on his parachute.

‘Ready to skydive?’

‘Yikes,’ I joke, but by now I am a jumpsuit of nerves. We walk over to the plane. I shuffle along and sit on the bench. Jaron waves to the pilot and shows the thumbs up signal. The plane taxies off and Jaron turns to me and attaches our harnesses together, tightening all the straps again to be certain that they are all safe and secure. For the next fifteen minutes while we ascend to jumping height, Jaron seems very calm and relaxed, and that helps a lot, but it is still a really strange feeling. I trust Jaron implicitly, especially after having seen the video, and for some weird reason I love the idea of having my fate tied so irrevocably with his. Also the way he has his large, gloved hand on my knee is dead protective and I am getting off on that. We clear the clouds at nine thousand feet.

‘OK, thirteen thousand feet,’ Jaron says.

‘Time to jump?’

‘Yeah,’ and there is a frisson of exhilaration in his voice.

I look at him in wonder. So this is what he does for kicks.

‘Get your goggles and helmet on,’ he says, and I obey. I look out of the window and the jarring thought is: What the flying fuck am I doing? I have seen videos of jumpers falling out from planes and disappearing from sight and now it is my turn. Jaron shuffles me over to the edge of the plane, with our legs dangling out. My mind goes blank. And suddenly there is neither fear nor nervousness. A strange calm comes upon me. I turn my head to look up at Jaron. There is a strange light of excitement in his eyes. Our gazes meet and for a second we are connected on a deep level.

‘Three…two…one, we jump.’

The force of the wind slams into me instantly as we hurtle through the sky at crazy speed. It pulls and sucks at the flesh on my face with a force that is shocking. My mouth drops open with the impact of the free fall and Jaron has to reach down and close it for me. I quickly get into the position Jaron taught me. The cold dry air and my own nervousness make my lips stick to my gums.

I bring my tongue out to wet my lips and my tongue is buffeted by the freezing cold wind. There are sharp ice droplets in the air and Jaron holds his hands out over my face to protect me. We fall at over a hundred miles per hour from thirteen thousand feet. I give in to the unique high of rushing through cold, clear air, the dip in the stomach. The speed and the sensation of danger push everything else out of my mind. It is unexplainable and amazing and so different from anything I have ever experienced. Never have I felt that sensation of all my senses being open, on alert and on edge.

The free fall lasts just under a minute.

At five thousand feet Jaron gives me the hand signal and I move my arms across my chest in the brace position and wait for him to pull the chute. As he pulls it we are dragged into a vertical position. In movies it always seems as if pulling the chute causes the person to jolt upwards with great force, but it does not happen like that. The parachute opens slowly and the fall in speed is gradual.

We begin to glide down under the canopy. Now that we can hear each other speak, Jaron asks, ‘You all right?’

‘Definitely,’ I say, and I am filled with an odd emotion. A feeling of great tenderness for him. I don’t exactly want to call it love, but it is protective and slightly possessive and full of gratitude for the experience we have just shared. He even lets me steer at one point.

He points to landmarks and I let my eyes follow his gloved hand, but I am still in a state of shock. My heart is pounding like a mad thing. It takes us four, maybe five minutes to glide down and then it is time to land. It was over too quick.

Jaron reminds me to raise my legs up. I immediately obey so I don’t get injured. We have the perfect landing.

‘Whoop… Touchdown, baby,’ I holler.

Jaron unstraps me, and, turning me around, kisses me hard. Really hard.

‘What was that for?’ I ask, when he raises his head.

For a hot minute it seems as though he is going to say something important. Then he shakes his head and says, ‘For coming with me and being so cool up there.’

I am buzzing like crazy. I grab his face and kiss him back passionately.

‘What was that for?’ he asks.

I want to tell him about that strange emotion I experienced about him in the air, but I stop myself.

‘Thank you for that experience. It was super amazing,’ I say excitedly. ‘I shall never forget it.’

He nods.

I laugh with exhilaration. ‘Can we go up again?’

He laughs too. ‘Maybe not today.’

‘God! It’s the best drug in the world.’ Adrenalin-fueled I whoop with joy. Finally, I understand one tiny part of him. That part of him that seeks out danger.

W
e go to Lana and Blake’s house and Tom, their chauffeur, takes us all to a private club called Annabel’s.

The doormen usher us in like royalty and we end up at a red lacquered bar surrounded by artwork. The walls have depressing, old-fashioned, polished brass and dark oak panels, and the ceilings are low and Moorish. The lighting is kept so dim that there is the feeling of being in a tomb or a cave. The clientele represents the denizens of British aristocracy in suits and international men of mystery who have as decorative objects tall and stunning Eastern European women half their age, and of course the super rich spoilt children of the Middle Eastern oil men. The dress code is strict and everyone is in a suit or a cocktail dress. Despite every effort to retain a décor of the dark and somber appeal of a library, the atmosphere borders on the nouveau riche.

A few very expensive cocktails later we move to their dining room where the walls are lined only with bottles of Bordeaux. The maître d’ does the usual and swarms all over Blake. The other waiters, mostly Italian, are friendly, a little cheeky and indulgent. We dine on some kind of Franco-Italian food, which is very good. Both Lana and I have pasta, Jaron orders the Bellota Iberica ham and Blake goes for blood-soaked steak. For starters Blake orders caviar, which is disgusting, but which everyone else seems to think is great. The wine is vintage and very expensive, but I don’t like wine so I stick with my cocktails.

Blake is sophisticated and urbane, Lana sparkles, Jaron is charming and attentive, and I just watch Jaron. There is a dynamic at work that I don’t understand. I watch Jaron work Blake Law Barrington and his wife. He is smooth. He is clever. He is funny. He is charming. And he is not the Jaron Rose I know. He is wearing a mask. He takes my hand, he looks into my eyes, he even leans in and kisses me on the lips, but this is not the Jaron I know.

The Jaron I know is assertive and demanding and, well, a fucking animal. This smooth, well-oiled…salesman is a shock to my system. Looking at him you’d never imagine that he flies down mountainsides in a wingsuit or goes to dive clubs where everybody is high on drugs just for the music. Is he hoping to get some business from Blake Law Barrington?

After bitter chocolate ice cream Lana and I move to the starlit dance floor to dance to cheesy seventies and eighties tracks. Obviously, I am conscious that I am dancing to ABBA but I have drunk so many fifteen pound cocktails I don’t care anymore. It turns out to be surprisingly fun.

For the most part it is Lana and me who keep rushing off to the dance floor to boogie while the men stay and talk about whatever it is that men talk about when their women go off to the dance floor. Once they come to interrupt us. From the corner of my eye I see Blake whirl Lana away by the waist and hear her surprised, delighted laughter, and then I am distracted by a hand grabbing me by the ass and pulling me around.

‘Classy, very classy,’ I shout over the music.

‘Don’t give out all your compliments in one night,’ he tells me and slams me into his body. I curl my hands around his neck.

‘Are you having a good time?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, you were right. Blake is a great guy, for a billionaire.’

And I am filled with a sense of great relief. I think I had been worried that he would not get on with Blake. ‘I wouldn’t want to have him as my enemy, that’s for sure. But it’s great when he’s married to your best friend.’

He replies but I don’t catch it because
Mambo No. 5
comes on and I shout, ‘Look, Jaron, they’re playing your song.’

‘Very funny,’ he says, but we have a good time, with me kicking up my heels, singing, ‘A little bit of Monica in my life, A little bit of Erica by my side, A little bit of Sandra in the sun. A little bit of you all night long makes me your man.’

Jaron twirls me around beautifully.

‘Mambo number 5,’ I scream, taking one step to the left and then one step to the right. Then we are clapping our hands twice in unison with all the other dancers while moving along and laughing.

‘All we need now is a dose of
Macarena
,’ Jaron says.

And shock horror, the DJ puts on
Macarena
. My mouth drops open. And then we fall about laughing. Jaron makes an exaggerated production of limbering up before following me in the Macarena dance. It’s fun. I never expected him to be such a sport, to allow himself to be so goofy. Even Blake has a go. Lana looks flushed and happy and I wonder if I look like that too, because that is exactly how I feel inside. Flushed and happy.

By the time we get home it is nearly two in the morning and I am singing
Hips Don’t Lie
by Shakira. ‘No fighting, no fighting,’ I sing tunelessly as Jaron stuffs me through the front door.

‘Oh, baby, when you talk like that…’

He drags me to the bedroom, throws me on the bed and falls on top of me.

‘My hips don’t lie,’ I tell him slowly, enunciating the words properly. ‘I bought them in Columbia.’

He rolls me over so I am on top of him and it is immediately obvious that he is in no mood to banter. My knickers are sliding down my legs.

‘You’re mine,’ he says harshly, so different from the man who sat at the dinner table at Annabel’s. This is the Jaron I know. The promise in his words shivers straight to my sex.

‘Do whatever you want to me,’ I whisper hoarsely.

‘Say it. Say you are mine.’

‘I’m yours, Goldilocks. I’m all yours.’

‘Now fucking ride me until you get home.’

I murmur something incoherent and start unbuckling his belt. I slide my wet pussy against his cock and adjusting it to the center of my core, push down. This drunken sex is beyond delicious. It is like part sex, part dream. It could become part misery if I am not careful: shit, where did that thought come from?

I blank it out immediately.

I shudder on the edge. ‘Hell, I’m going to come,’ I gasp and look into his face. His eyes are burning green and a thin sheen of sweat is making his skin glow. My heart trembles. Jesus, save me, I am falling for Goldilocks. And then I am going out with the waves that come to fetch me. The thin sheen of sweat on his body—I slip on it. Shit, am I falling for Goldilocks?