White Moon Black Sea (9 page)
They thanked the men for arranging this artistic aubade, a farewell to the Monets in this perfect setting. Then they left the Jeu de Paume as they had come, through the side door where their car waited. The dazzle of Monet’s color, the shifting floral shapes, still captivated their memories. It had been a visual high. Words were banished by the intensity of their impressions. Mirell leaned against Adam’s shoulder as the Rolls picked up speed, leaving her beloved Paris behind, and headed for the airport.
The sun was just rising in the sky when they boarded Mirella’s jet, the latest Grumman Gulfstream. No sooner were they aboard than the steps disappeared, the doors closed, the motors revved, and the plane started rolling down the runway.
Once the pilot announced they were airborne, they freed themselves from their seat belts, rose from their comfortable, raw silk club chairs, still dressed in their gala finery, and went through the main cabin to the master bedroom. There Mirella sat down at the dressing table to remove her tiara and jewels. A little overdressed for flying, she ruminated.
Adam stood near the large double bed, also shedding his clothes. He watched Mirella in the mirror and was enchanted by the scene. He slipped his arms through the sleeves of his black silk robe and walked up behind her to place his hands on her naked shoulders. He kissed the top of her head, not taking his eyes off her face reflected in the mirror. Slowly and lovingly he removed the long pins from her hair. It fell down in waves around her shoulders. He gathered some of it in his hands, buried his face in it, and then kissed it. Bending forward, he touched his cheek to hers. Two lovers reflected in a mirror.
She reached up and touched his bare chest, turned around where she sat and gently pulled him down and kissed him tenderly on the lips, then turned back to look again in the mirror.
Adam slowly eased the straps of her crimson gown off her shoulders and down over her arms, lifting first one, then the other, so that the crêpe de chine top slid down to the tip of her breasts. Standing squarely behind her, he enfolded her in his arms, and with his hands gently pulled her dress down, exposing her breasts and already erect nipples.
He fondled them and watched himself doing it, saw Mirella’s eyes close in ecstasy and delight at his touch. Then slowly he picked up the heavy silver brush from her dressing table and began brushing her hair.
Mirella trembled, thrilling to Adam’s sensuous sweeping of her tresses. She could feel the rampant hardness inside his trousers against her back. He bent down again and kissed her on the shoulder, whispering, “Do change, quickly. I’m famished, and I am sure you are too. It’d be a shame to let what’s waiting in the dining room get cold.”
She squeezed his hand and rose from the table. Adam
unzipped her Saint Laurent gown, bent down to kiss the small of her back, then turned away. She put on a black lace nightgown, over which she wore a champagne-colored, silky satin dressing gown. It closed high at the neck with a ruff of black ostrich feathers which extended to one side past the opening and right down to encircle the hem. She worked quickly at closing the dressing gown while she watched him standing in front of the mirror combing his hair and tying his robe. Then Mirella accompanied Adam to breakfast.
They spoke few words in those last minutes in the bedroom, but their thoughts were busy — his fancifully upon the naughtiness of the sexy, black lace nightdress she was wearing, and how later, after breakfast, she would be made to feel the joy and the passion it evoked in him; hers sweetly upon how much she loved him and was overwhelmed by the love, not unmingled with lust, he felt for her, her yearning to lie in his arms and have him share that love in sexual intimacy. How remote what they had together was from the erotic hours she had spent all day with Rashid.
Rashid. Sometime before they landed she would have to talk to Adam about Rashid and her behavior toward him earlier that morning at breakfast in their house on the Bosporus. What an unwelcome task it would be to tell him that Rashid had duped her. Stolen her property from under her very nose. She had not picked up the warning signs and the bad news had been confirmed only minutes before she had joined Adam at breakfast. Rashid’s arrival had caught her off guard, depriving her of the chance to plan her reaction, though she had camouflaged her true emotions with the scene she had created. Since then she had made up her mind how she wanted to handle it. For that she would need the cooperation of Adam and Joshua. Adam was going to be very angry. Yes, before they landed in New York, she had to tell him all.
The dining room was small and circular and, for an airplane, utterly charming. Two stewards were in attendance, Mirella and Adam sat opposite each other at the round table. The room was paneled in French sixteenth-century
boiserie the color of the palest honey. The light from the early-morning sun reflected off the clouds filtered into the cabin through the portholes. Heavenly bright light, with huge white clouds below them and nothing but bright blue skies above.
Mirella looked at her husband across the low silver bowl filled with fresh white freesias. “You do think of everything. What, of course, does one crave after a night like that?” They smiled as each said, “A bowl of French onion soup.”
They laughed as they shook out their napkins and laid them across their laps. “I can smell it. Mouth-watering. No other smell like it in the world. Delicious onion soup, so hot it burns the tongue. But the melted cheese soothes that. Then you bite into the fried bread on top of the golden liquid. Transporting delight for the average peasant in France! How I miss the old Les Halles — all that market bustle getting ready to feed Paris. I used to go there with friends at two, three, in the morning to share a bowl of it with the fruit and vegetable marketeers hawking their produce. To kill the hangover, tease the palate, and feed the soul. That’s French onion soup for me.” She selected a piece of hard, crusty bread covered with sweet butter, the traditional side dish eaten with the soup, and began munching on it.
The aircraft’s two stewards placed the steaming soup in front of them, the earthenware dishes burned brown around the edges, the cheese still bubbling from the heat of the oven. The aroma revived memories of so many wonderful mornings with Adam after the nights before.
Ice-cold champagne, vintage Krug, was poured into hollow-stemmed fluted glasses of crystal so thin that they seemed to be afloat on air.
The red Ferrari homed in like a well-directed missile through the narrow, deserted streets where dawn was just eclipsing the streetlamps. It pulled up short in front of the shabby façade of a restaurant that glowed with a warm yellow light and the chatter and bustle of patrons. Rashid
snatched two bottles of champagne off the seat next to him and stepped out of the car.
That was the lady’s first glimpse of him. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen. No, not handsome, beautiful. And the sexiest. Everything about him crackled sex: the way he moved, the way he breathed. She was mesmerized by every little thing about him. His impeccable dress clothes, the shine of his shoes, the silken shimmer of his white scarf and the way it swung with the rhythm of his stride.
The bell above the door tinkled when he opened it to enter the noisy, smoke-filled room where the aroma of onion soup and escargots clung like a mist to everything and everyone. All the tables were filled. Several people put out a hand to greet him as he passed by them. He stood in the middle of the room and called out, “Carmine,” to the frizzy-haired blonde tart serving behind the bar. She looked up. A smile broke across her face as she caught one of the bottles of champagne in midair. He shouted his order above the din: two dozen snails baked in their shells with butter and garlic. Then he managed to find an empty chair at a table where two workmen were tucking into steaming bowls as if onion soup were an elixir. He snatched three clean glasses off a tray a waiter was carrying and poured champagne from the bottle for himself and the two strangers he had imposed himself on.
He tilted his chair on its back legs and leaned it against the grimy, pale green wall, relaxed and happy to be in the workmen’s restaurant. Its fame rested on just two things: the snails and the soup. He had been a steady customer there in the dawn hours for years. It was one of the few places in the world where he enjoyed anonymity. Anonymity was the plat du jour as far as Rashid was concerned. The gala and the reverential treatment given to the king and queen and their respective families had included Rashid. It had been flattering and great fun. But he had had enough.
Sometime during the evening he had made up his mind the moment had come for him to concentrate on his own dynasty. All the chess pieces were in the right place now
for Rashid Lala Mustapha to checkmate any challenger who tried to block his ambitions.
The aroma of fresh butter and garlic banished these thoughts as the waiter slapped down in front of him the stainless steel escargot plate, forceps, small double-pronged fork, and half a baguette of warm bread. He ate the first huge, succulent snail, broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into the small hollow of the shell now filled with sizzling garlic butter, popped it in his mouth, and washed it down with vintage Bollinger. Then he gave his mouth a satisfied wipe with the back of his hand.
He was starting on his second dozen when she made her move to his table. He looked up and she was there. He was quite startled by her sudden appearance, actually caught off guard. She was a beauty of great distinction who instantly captivated him with her looks, her height, her slender femininity. She had a symmetrical, exquisite facial structure and seductive black eyes, ebony satin skin, hair smoothed back and wound in a crown on top of her head: Her regal bearing — it was as if all Africa were standing in front of him. Her feral sexuality actually overpowered him. Imperiously, he gestured the other two men at the table away. Mesmerized by her, he hardly snapped out of the spell she cast, even when the two strangers clumsily thanked him for the wine, shook his hand, and bid him good-night. But his breeding did rouse him enough to prompt him to rise from his chair and confront her.
Speech came first to her. “May I sit down?”
He found her voice no less sensational than her appearance. The French accent was faultless to his ear. He held the chair for her. She slid into it like flowing black gold. She was dressed in a loose caftan of indigo blue cotton as fine as silk. Around her throat she wore a narrow band of pure pink gold with a hand-cut and polished diamond, as large as a walnut, set in the center.
He sat down, unable to utter a word, or turn his eyes away from her. She reached out and picked up the forceps, lifted a snail shell in them, then plucked the snail and sensually put it into her mouth. He could see in her eyes she was delighted by the taste. She sighed and, replacing
the utensils on his plate, declared, “For masculine beauty you score high, you know. ‘How many hearts has he broken?’ I was asking myself over on the other side of the room. ‘How many women has he tantalized with lust?’ I want you, for one day, this day. Is that possible?”
“Possible,” he answered.
“Ah, then let us not mince words. What would be the going rate for a man like you in Paris today?”
Such effrontery, Rashid thought, but felt himself restored to control this encounter. He was amused that she thought he was a toy-boy.
“At the end, you pay when the party is over, and my charges are determined by me, at that point. Are you sure you can afford me?”
“I don’t believe that’s the way to express it. Let me ask you instead whether you can afford me the pleasure my lust demands, whether you know how to obey a woman. No, no, we do the accounting here and now.”
She opened her small handbag and placed a thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills under the side of his plate. Rashid raised a single eyebrow. “Ah, you see me as a cheap gigolo then. A sensitive man would feel insulted.”
“And I can see you pride yourself on your sensitivity. Maybe it will inspire you to please.”
“It just might,” he answered, amused still at the idea of her using him as a sex object. Who was she? What was she doing in this place? Why would a woman such as she need to hire a man? Those questions tripped through his mind, but he asked nothing. His body required to know her more than his mind did.
She stood up and smiled at him. She reached out and took his hand in her own longer, slender one. He rose slowly from his chair, lowered his head to place his lips upon her hand in a kiss calculated to send shivers of delight through her. He could feel her passion rising. A current of excitement was flowing between them at this first physical contact. Power and passion overrode the acute intelligence and royal bearing that emanated from this most unusual beauty standing before him. All the bones in the hand he caressed, and the feel and scent of her dark silky skin,
stirred him in a strange way. He looked into her eyes, and, not for the first time in his life, Rashid Lala Mustapha thought he might be in love.
“My place or yours?” she asked with a hint of defensive mockery.
“Mine,” he answered. Then he slid the small bundle of hundred-dollar bills from under the plate and into his pocket. A multimillionaire could not afford to be short of change.
“Your name?” he asked, wanting to savor her powers of invention.
“No names, and no tomorrows for us,” answered Tana Dabra Ras Magdala Makoum with the calm of one who knew her name was neither credible nor communicable just now. He took her firmly by the elbow and propelled her through the room.
“Very well. It’s your money, you call the shots.” But to himself he said silently, “You just go on thinking that, you ethereal Ethiopian goddess.”
S
outhampton, Long Island. The Palm Beach of the north. The summer session for the rich — old, new, real, and make-believe rich.
Rashid had been in residence for weeks. The summer people were in full flower, their social calendars filled. The chic country club with all its exclusivity was brimming with competitive members.
Rashid was not considered old guard or exclusive. People never quite knew where to place him. His intimate friends were in the same league as the Rockefellers and the Fords and the Guy de Rothschilds, others who resided in mansions on the same footing as Camp David and the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. His vast wealth and
his family’s regal connections, spread throughout the royal houses of Europe and the Middle East via his family’s place in the Ottoman Empire, made it difficult to label him at all. He was therefore simply considered “almost exclusive” by the Southampton social Brahmins. However, Rashid’s compound was considered something else. It was more difficult to penetrate than any of his high-society friends’ houses, and an invitation there was the most sought-after prize in Southampton.
Sousa, Sabrina, Amanda, Cynthia. Four beauties. All but Cynthia were jet-setters, society column fodder. Beauties with ever so slightly tarnished reputations.
The four, with figures that made them supersaleswomen for the trendy spas they went to, were dressed by Rodeo Drive, Madison Avenue, Bond Street, and the rue Faubourg St.-Honoré. Their beautiful faces and expressives eyes revealed sensuality, selfishness, vanity, and desire. They were young ambassadors of the “chic life.”
Their conversations during dinner revealed what they wanted and what they were. Their long, well-manicured, polished fingernails and their correct amount of hand gestures expressed their charm, wit, and measure of intelligence. More than a measure of cunning, it was the kind that enchanted men into bed and, they hoped, to the altar.
Cynthia Cohen, with her dark brunette hair and amazingly voluptuous figure, was sheathed in an antique Fortuny pleated silk dress the color of bronze. Cut in a high crescent from shoulder to shoulder at the neck, it clung to her body like a second skin until it fell from below her derrière to the ground. She was dynamic looking and wore nothing underneath the dress. Her heavy breasts were still high for all their weight and her nipples showed through the pleats, which shimmered with every arm movement, every step she took. These and her tiny waist and voluptuous hips were tantalizing to the men in the room.
Clever Cynthia wore no jewelry, not a ring on her fingers, not a bauble in her ears; no bracelet hung on her
wrists, no brooch was pinned to her dress. She wore her tits like diamonds.
Sousa was more exotic looking, animallike, with flared nostrils set in a pretty, narrow nose, wide full lips, and a touch of meanness in the eye. She wore thin, satiny silk evening pajamas that fitted snuggly on the hips and tightly on her bottom. The top was cut and tailored perfectly, with long, puffed sleeves that contrasted with the material clinging tight to her tiny, almost flat breasts. Its delicate peach color made her dark, mocha-colored skin suggest she was a mulatto instead of the Arab she was. It was obvious she wore nothing underneath the sensuous silk. The faint shadows of black nipples, pubic hair, and the crevice dividing the cheeks of her bottom showed through the silk. Around her neck she wore a strand of solid gold beads. Her curly hair, shiny and pitch black, fell on her shoulders, and nestling in it were small, lifelike gold filigree swifts and swallows. Each finger of her hands had several thin gold rings on it.
She, too, tantalized and advertised a promise of things to come. She gave off the image of sex, sensuality, and animal cunning. The scent of a classy hooker. A member of the international jet-set, hardly brilliant, in society from the wrong side of the blanket and successful under it because of her dash and daring.
Lady Amanda was just plain gorgeous. A beauty in every sense of the word. Tall, slim, lovely. The right kind of subtly sensuous breasts and body. A haughty face with the perfect white skin of the perfect English aristocrat. The elegant nose that turns up naturally. The spoiled and petulant lower lip and the lovely natural, long blond hair. Casual but proud in her looks and her manner, she was dressed in a Saint Laurent black pants suit with a white satin blouse whose ruffles around the neck and wrists only added to her fresh innocent looks.
She wore pinned to her bolero jacket a Georgian diamond brooch in the shape of a basket of flowers. On her hands she wore two rings, one of small diamonds and emeralds, the other, three entwined bands of different shades of gold.
Just a bit aggressive, yet haughty, she wore her English reserve like a crown while managing to join in and to hold her own among the other women at the dining table. When the men talked of the hunt, the horses, and hounds, she more than held her own — she almost silenced them with her knowledge of the sport. She had an exquisite indifference to world affairs and making a mark for herself in life. There was something else about the young and beautiful Lady Amanda. She signaled that, underneath her cool, upper-class English façade, hidden fires did more than just smolder. They burned bright.
Then there was Sabrina Colefield. A combination of a
Playboy
centerfold, a Bo Derek poster, and any number of top models featured in
Vogue
. She was six feet two, with hair the color of amber in the sunlight, casually brushed away from her face and falling to her waist. A face that could be characterized as only California, brought health, sunshine, and the sea to mind. Her every feature was as if chiseled by a sculptor — or by the most expensive plastic surgeon in L.A. Her smile was a dazzler. It broke her face into all the laughter in the world, and the teeth that showed when she smiled did credit to dentistry.
The designer, crumpled, white silk, ankle-length sarong she wore tied to one side on her hip did little to hide the seductive shape of a willowy yet voluptuous naked body and legs that seemed to go on forever. Her long-sleeved wraparound blouse crossed between her breasts revealed a cleavage to tantalize. The suntanned, bare midriff delighted the touch, and when she moved, the swell of her breasts and the outline of her rosy nipples through the wet look of the white silk seemed to cry out, “Take me, suck me, love me.” In fact everything about her seemed to say that. She looked like a goddess, a siren just risen from the sea.
The men at the party, who had been invited to Rashid’s for the weekend, were all old friends, international jet-setting bachelors, with a dash of the bounder or cad in each of them. Yet they were terrific: successful, handsome, intelligent, with varied interests in sports, megabusiness, the arts, and ladies. Each in his own way was as ruthless a
lady-killer as his host, but with less imagination, stamina, and generosity.
Rashid watched the four women closely while still performing his role as the perfect host. He was a woman watcher par excellence. An addicted seducer of the female sex, he found all women fascinating, irresistible. They were his passion, and erotic love and sexual depravity his twin gods. He gloried in his Don Juan complex. It was in fact the driving force in his life. The gossip columnists around the world claimed the handsome Turkish millionaire playboy Rashid Lala Mustapha had two vices, sexual prowess and chocolates, and that he indulged them both to excess. And they were right. Women were to Rashid the siren call of adventure.
He slowly swirled the aromatic golden liquid around in the large Lalique snifter, raised it to his lips, and took a swallow of the superb fifty-year-old cognac. Then he placed the crystal snifter on the marble-topped sideboard. He looked into the Queen Anne gilt mirror above it and raised his hands to run his fingers through his thick black hair.
He stood there for a few minutes studying his own image and the room reflected in the mirror. He liked what he saw. Beautiful sensual people gathered together in a stunningly beautiful room. Bright, amusing friends sated with fine food and wine, engaged in entertaining one another, and an undercurrent of erotic tension that appeared to build moment by moment.
The sunken living room, a large and grand room of boulder stone and massive glass walls overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, looked soft and comfortable in spite of the clean-cut, severe lines of the modern architecture. All the furniture was covered in hand-spun yarns of beige and sand colors hand-woven into sumptuous cloth. The luscious, deep-pile carpets on the stone floor were the color of sand. There were rare Chinese celadon bowls of enormous size filled with white roses, and on an easel stood the only painting in the room, an eighteen-million-dollar landscape. A Poussin.
Rashid caught sight of Cynthia’s reflection. She was
standing at the center of the gigantic glass wall which had been partially slid open, engaged in conversation with his old friend Henri. But her eyes were set on Rashid, whom she could see in the mirror. Their eyes met. And for an instant they were locked into each other through the mirror. It was enough. He watched an embarrassed blush caress her proud, beautiful face, and her hand unconsciously touch her cheek, then caress a magnificent weighty breast. He had her before he had even touched her, he knew that. But her embarrassment, and the anger with which she tore her eyes away from his and abruptly dismissed herself from Henri to walk through the open glass wall out to the sand and scrubby pines where she was swallowed up by the blackness of the night, told him she would be a worthy adventure. The chase was on.
He finessed his way through the room and his guests, like the old pro he was, to go find Cynthia. The view from the living room was through the pines and straight out to his private beach and the huge Atlantic waves on one side, across the lawns, so green and well manicured, on the other. She had chosen a path to the top of a sand dune where she faced the ocean and its rhythmic sounds.
It was warm, and yet Cynthia could feel a chill rising from the ocean and the beach below her. It had been pitch-black when she had stepped out from the house, but now the clouds had parted to reveal a moon white and cold, and a night sky perforated with stars. She rubbed her arms up and down several times as if to warm herself, to bring herself back to life. She had been unnerved by the passion she felt when Rashid and she had shared that intense look in the mirror, but she had regained control of herself now.
She sensed his approach before he made his presence known, dropped her hands to her side, and became determined to remain in control of her emotions.
“Don’t be frightened, it’s only me, Rashid,” he said, coming up behind her. Before she could turn around to face him, she felt his hands caress her arms, and his lips and cheek brush aside her hair; then he kissed her on the side of her neck and his tongue licked the back of her ear.
“Oh, but I am,” she answered in a husky whisper, as she felt herself melt under his caresses, weaken as he enveloped her in his arms, become dizzy from the scent of his skin and the erotic strength and power of his body pressed into the back of hers.
“Of me, or yourself?” he asked, then gently sucked the lobe of her ear and gave it a tender, sweet, loving nibble. He felt her body give way ever so slightly and heard the tremor of passion in her sigh as she turned around in his arms to face him directly for the first time. As she turned he slipped his hands from her arms and placed them firmly on her waist, pulling her even closer to him, and he felt her breasts, naked under the silk, rub up against him and excite an erotic tug on his senses. Without releasing her, he traced the outline of her lips with his finger, teased them open by running the tip of his tongue between them until helplessly they parted. Her breathing was uneasy and she wet her lips with her tongue and waited for his passionate kiss. He laughed and placed a gentle kiss upon her lips, the last sort of kiss she expected or wanted. They could both feel her heart beating wildly. “Are you teasing me?” she wanted to ask. But the words stuck in her throat.
“Put your fears away, Cynthia, at least for tonight,” he whispered in her ear. “I won’t promise you’ll be safe, or that your fears will not be well founded, but I do promise you an erotic adventure. Was I wrong? Did I not sense the soul of a sexual adventuress call out to me when our eyes met?”
Somehow Cynthia managed to gain a vestige of control over her emotions. Not much, but enough to want not to be taken for granted or to play the game of seduction with him. That was her fatal mistake, and what he had banked on. The minute she said, “Yes, I do believe you were wrong,” the clever, sexy beauty committed herself to the role of just another one of Rashid Lala Mustapha’s sexual victims.
He gave a resounding laugh, and with his arm around her shoulder they walked together back toward the Louis Kahn house. A miracle of architecture glowing in the blackness of the night, set like a great jewel on a bed of
sand dunes, scrubby pines, and clipped green grass. The music of the ocean filled their ears.
“You’re a liar,” he declared.
“Well, you’ll have to prove that, won’t you?” she said, feeling surer of herself now that the game was on and she had decided to play.
“Will you give me one night, this night, to prove you wrong? All I will ask of you is to stay by my side, not to leave me no matter what. Promise that, and to follow your natural sexual inclinations, and then we will know if our erotic souls did or did not call out to each other through that mirror.”
She began to laugh, and he liked her spirit, the fight he sensed in her. How delicious it will be to break her, he thought. What fun it will be to tantalize her sexually, to spoil her.
She interrupted his thoughts. “What a vain, pompous man you are, Rashid. Mighty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes. And you?”
She began to laugh at him again. He slid his arm from around her shoulder to her waist, and they continued to walk side by side toward the house. He smiled in the dark.
“You don’t know me, Rashid. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am just another New York Jewish princess looking to capture a prince. We Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jewish princesses are a different species entirely. Of course, I will grant you the night, it’s little to ask in return for your hospitality. The whole world knows that an invitation to Rashid Lala Mustapha’s compound is quite a coup.