Sugar Mummy (19 page)

'Third? I thought there were only two.'

'There were four altogether. Plus a little snacking in between
meals, you know what I'm saying.'

'So who was the third?'

'Henry somebody. He was an English lord. Looked a bit like you,
sugar, only a bit older.'

'What was he like?'

'Boring, boring, boring. I think someone must have told him to
go to Rio to loosen up a bit, you know? Learn to have a good time.'

'Did he?'

'Oh, sure, he learned to take off his tie on the beach. Rio is
where Marion developed her taste for younger men. Unfortunately so did lordie.'

'He left Marion for a younger man?'

'Some beach bum.'

'Oh, God. And then she married someone else?'

'Yep. Lordie was boring and, fatally, not as rich as Marion first
thought. He had this cold, draughty old pile miles from anywhere in the English
countryside which didn't appeal. Ten bedrooms and only two bathrooms. Not only that,
it seemed almost everything the family owned would go in tax when his father checked
out. So then she met Carlos. He was probably the best of the lot: nasty, ruthless
but great fun to be with. And he was the richest. Used to sleep with a Smith &
Wesson under his pillow at night. What a guy!'

'Sounds like quite a character.'

'Oh, he was. They gave even better parties than when she was
with Josef.' Her face hardens. 'The only bad thing was that she met that bitchy
little fag Channing there and they've been together ever since. Marion says he's
more faithful than a husband.'

'I met him just now.'

Davina is staring across the room at Channing, hatred screwing
up her face as much as her surgery will allow.

Intrigued, I ask, 'You've crossed swords in the past, then?'

'Crossed swords'? I sound like my dad.

'I'd like to cross his fat neck with a sword,' says Davina.

Just then Marion appears.

'Marion!' I gasp.

'Are you guys having fun?' she says.

Before I can think of something to say and say it innocently,
Davina says, 'Beautiful party, Marion', and smiles warmly. I do the same except
that I must look like a grinning idiot. Marion looks at us both for a moment and
then touches my arm. I get up and she tells me there are some other people she wants
me to meet.

'See you later,' I say to Davina. She just smiles knowingly.

'Was Davina boring you to death?' asks Marion.

'Oh no,' I say casually. 'Just chatting.'

'She's getting on a bit. Sometimes I think she's losing it -
too many heated rollers when she was young. I only invite her to things out of pity.'

Just after one o'clock people start to leave and within a few
minutes the room is empty. Some woman with heavy eye make-up comes up to me and
says: 'Andrew, there you are. We never got a chance to talk all evening.'

'No,' I say. 'We'll have to do it next time.' By which time I
might have worked out who she is and thought of something to say to her. Everyone
triple kisses Marion and thanks her so much you'd have thought she'd saved their
lives.

When we are alone together I put my arms round Marion and look
into her eyes. 'Nice party,' I say softly.

'Thanks. I throw better ones in New York but there's just no
room in London.' She kisses me on the lips and runs her hand through my hair. 'Let's
go to bed.'

I look at her carefully for a moment, wondering if what Davina
said was true. 'I'm just going for a quick walk to clear my head,' I say, already
thinking about the hangover I'm going to have the next morning.

'Oh, must you?'

'Just quickly.'

I wonder out into the mews trying to avoid any last guests in
case they think I have been chucked by Marion. At the gateway I take a deep breath
and stretch my arms above my head and bring one of them down on Louise, the Australian
girl.

'Oh, sorry, I didn't see you standing there,' I say, wondering
what she is doing lurking around by the gatepost.

'No problem,' she says. There is a pause. 'Hi.'

'Hi,' I say, remembering what she is like at conversation. There
is a pause. 'Could you see me home?'

'Er, well ...'

'Look, here's a cab.'

Before I can say anything more she has rushed over the street
and thrown herself at a taxi which stops just inches before it makes contact with
her. She turns and yells across to me to come on. I run over as well and get in.

'Where do you live?' I ask, trying to make it sound like a casual
opening line of conversation rather than a panicked enquiry about where the hell
we are going.

'Kensington High Street,' she says and suddenly yells with laughter.
'It's not far.'

Louise leads me along a silent, empty corridor of her block in
West Kensington. The whole place has probably not changed much since the seventies
– brown swirly carpets, groovy orange lightshades, some of them slightly melted.
She is giggling and breathing heavily. Suddenly she throws herself against a front
door and says, 'Home sweet home.'

'OK,' I say, hopelessly. 'Well, good night then.'

'No,' she squeals in protest, and lets us both in, flinging the
door wide open and rushing over to switch on a small table lamp. The room is empty
apart from a large scruffy sofa bed. Everything else is lying on the floor: the
phone, some magazines, a CD player and CDs, clothes and a horribly ugly, terminally
ill house plant.

'Look, Louise, I must be getting back.'

'One quick coffee,' she says, so I close the door behind us and
walk round the flat while she goes into the tiny kitchenette. I look down on the
headlights of the traffic moving slowly below us and open one of the creaky metalframed
windows for a moment to get some air but the noise is deafening so I close it again.
She asks what I want to drink. 'Whatever,' I say, moving over to the dividing unit.
I can guess what is in her fridge: a few cans of beer and diet coke, a bottle of
champagne and perhaps some cottage cheese (probably with smoked salmon or prawns),
well past the sellby date. What's called a 'tart's fridge'. On the wall is a notice
board with cards for a mini-cab service, a Pizza Hut discount leaflet and a flyer
for a club I have never heard of, although Vinny probably has.

Louise leaps up from the behind the counter with a bottle of
champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. 'Look what I found,' she says
and collapses laughing on the floor.

'I'd love to but I'd better not,' I say.

She pouts. 'You've been drinking all night. Why stop now? Just
one.'

'Well-'

'A nightcap.'

'Oh, well, thank you,' I say. 'But just one glass'.

'OK,' she says as the champagne cork shoots off and hits the
polystyrene ceiling tiles. 'Wow! That's what I love about champagne.' I can't help
laughing at her delight. I sit down on a squashy leather settee and say 'Nice place'
for some stupid reason.

'No, it's not,' she says. 'It's a shit hole but at least it's
quite central and doesn't cost anything.'

'Why's that?' I ask. Not very cool but I genuinely want to know.
There is supposed to be no free lunch but somehow I begin to suspect that everyone
else is queuing up with their trays ahead of me.

'Oh,' she winks. 'An arrangement.' Then she howls with laughter
again and falls over, almost doing the splits. I help her recover. Suddenly she
is serious.

'Ow! Oh, no, I think I've done something to my leg.'

'Ah you all right?'

She puts her arm round my shoulder and I lead her over to the
settee and help her sit down, me beside her. She is squeezing her inner thigh and
wincing slightly. She gets up and walks round, stretching it.

'That's better.' Then she comes back and stands over me, one
hand on her hip, the other still on her inner thigh, legs apart: 'Finish your drink.'

I open my mouth to say something but she tuts and takes the glass
out of my hand. Then she straddles me and starts kissing me deep and hard. She tastes
of booze and ciggies. I try to resist, pushing away.

'Lou ... ise,' I hiss through squashed lips but she ignores me.
Her tongue explores my mouth and her hands run through my hair. She pulls at my
ears, at first gently then so hard it almost hurts but the force of her tongue and
the gentle rubbing of her crotch against mine take my mind off it. Suddenly she
gets up, unbuttons her shirt and takes it and her bra off. She looks at me as she
touches her breasts.

'Louise, for God's sake I-'

'Shut up.'

I feel my dick pressing against my underpants and a second later
she has released it and is sliding my trousers down. I try to stop her but she bats
my hand away. She works at my dick with her mouth. She is serious, determined, driven.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back slightly. I'll give her two minutes then
I'll stop, really. Two minutes. Well, perhaps five.

Oh, what the fuck! I put my hand on the top of her head and run
my fingers through her hair. Then suddenly she stops and is gone. A second later
she is walking back from the bedroom, tearing at a tiny package. Skilfully she forces
a condom down over my cock in a split second and slips off her jeans, eyeing it
hungrily.

'Shall we go to the bedroom?' I ask, my heart pounding, but she
mutters something about it being a mess and then climbs on to my legs and eases
herself down onto me, moaning softly. I gasp as the feeling washes over me. For
a second I think I am about to come but I pause for a moment, think of Vinny in
his dressing gown and I'm OK. Louise begins to move up and down. Slowly I reach
out to touch her left breast. She grabs my hands and forces them onto both breasts,
pressing hard. I crane up and take one in my mouth.

For what seems like hours we destroy the remaining springs in
the settee, knock over a glass, bang my head against the wall countless times, rip
the buttons off my new shirt, oh God, my brand new shirt and rub my legs raw against
the zip of my fly.

Then suddenly she begins to move faster and starts gasping, 'Ow,
ow, ow.' Suddenly I feel myself coming as well. She slows her rhythm and I wait.
For a moment I don't think I'll do it after all and I have to push myself into her
harder. As a result, my orgasm is extra good. I shout out with the pleasure and
exquisite pain.

'Hey! A screamer,' says Louise. She rolls down onto the floor
panting and pushing her long blonde hair away from her face and her damp forehead.
I laugh and catch my breath. She sits up, looks at me for a moment and laughs again.
'Ooh, animal!' Before I can stop her she gently but firmly pulls the condom off
my dick and goes into the bathroom to throw it away.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to put my clothes back together.

Sweaty and still weak, I manage to do up my fly and belt but
decide that my shirt is a bit of dead loss and so I just tuck it in as best as I
can. Fuck, what a mess. What a waste, too.

The toilet flushes and she comes back from the bathroom still
naked. She has a beautiful, bronzed, athletic body which I wish I'd had time to
get to know a bit better. Funny to have sex and then check out her bod afterwards.
She laughs, kisses me lightly on the lips and collects the glasses to refill them.

'Er, no thanks,' I say. 'I must be getting back.'

'Oh, no worries then,' says Louise. 'You can get a cab out in
the street - dead easy.'

In my state of post-coital exhaustion and sogginess I suddenly
feel guilty about Marion - and more than a little nervous about what she'll do if
she finds out what I've been up to. That was a hell of a long breath of fresh air.
I'll have to get undressed downstairs or something. I'll have to take the suit to
the dry cleaners and buy a new shirt tomorrow. 'It'll be OK,' says Louise, knocking
back half a glass of champagne in one mouthful and eyeing it disdainfully.

'I suppose so,' I mutter, guilt and embarrassment really kicking
in now.

'Hey, cheer up, mate, I wasn't that bad, was I?'

'No. I mean, you were very good. I enjoyed it,' I say, but somehow
it doesn't sound very complimentary, more like I'm saying goodbye to a prostitute
and somehow I don't like thinking about prostitution at the moment.

'Well, what's the matter then?' She looks at me suspiciously.
'You in a relationship at the moment? That it?'

'Yes,' I say quietly.

'Don't tell me she was there - at the party?' says Louise, more
intrigued than troubled.

'Yes,' I tell her. 'It was her party.'

'Christ,' giggles Louise. 'I didn't even know whose party it
was. Who was she?'

'Marion.'

'Marion,' she says pensively. 'Oh, her. That old American woman
with the blonde hair? Looked like she'd got a poker up her ass all night?'

'Yes. I mean, no, she doesn't look ... like that.' I feel indignant
on Marion's behalf (guilt again) but I suppose that is how she must appear to the
rest of the world.

'Christ, I'm thirsty tonight,' she says, sticking her head into
the fridge. 'You and her together, then?'

'Yes, we are,' I say in a very English sort of way.

'Kinky. She's old enough to be your mother.'

'I like mature women,' I say even more stiffly. Louise comes
over to me, opening a diet Coke. She looks me in the face.

'Course you do, mate. Why not? I like older men - especially
if they've got a bit of cash.' She takes a swig of Coke and waits a moment for my
reaction. 'She should see you all right. That house must be worth a couple of mill.
Hey, you might get a flat like this, play your cards right. You're a good-looking
boy, not bad where it counts.' She makes a playful grab for my crotch and I immediately
pull away. She laughs.

'Why did you bring me back here?' I ask slowly.

She looks surprised by the question. 'Because I just fancied
someone my own age, I suppose.' She fiddles with the tab on her Coke can. 'And because
you were the best-looking straight guy at that party. I thought if I didn't get
you someone else would.' She looks up at me leeringly. 'Bit of a trophy fuck, I
suppose. You should be flattered.'