Fools for Lust (24 page)

We will take a trip to the Garden District, taking in the Audubon Zoo, the cemeteries and the canals with their morbid history. Every other man we pass or see as we travel from place to place is becoming another potential lover for you. I know your taste in men: they should not be too good-looking, you like them sexy but rugged, you respond better to the bastards. My eyes become yours as I weigh them for you. We will eat at Tujague's, the unending procession of courses, the crab bisque, the beef brisket, so tender with horseradish, you drink wine and I see how your eyes blur and your hormones rise up through our soul, those damn hormones of spring. I know you like the waiter. He has a limp and you take pity on him. Maybe tonight we will meet another man, one who will tie me up on a chair so I can only watch, not even join in or touch you, as he greases up your dark puckered arsehole and forces his way past your clenched sphincter and your moans of pain and discomfort and invades you, stretching your opening like an obscene black hole in which he drills on and on and on. I will hear you, I will know that you are crying, as his deep thrusts never cease and he plunders you like a rubber doll. And when the sight of your open arse is just too much for me to bear any longer, I close my eyes but all I see is the panorama of another, dingier hotel room back in Europe and you on your back, your legs spread wide open at an impossible angle while a man manoeuvres his whole wet fist into your unnaturally spread cunt lips, an experiment he says – after all you've had a child already so there should be no problem, he argues. I feel sick. And envious. The animal in me whispers in my ear that I have never fucked your arse or fisted you, have never even dared ask you. I open my eyes. Just in time to see tonight's stranger withdraw from your ravaged hole, small specks of faecal matter still stuck to his greasy shaft. He still drips and wipes himself against the still-parted white cheeks of your rump. He slaps you hard, leaving a red mark on that lovely arse and pulls his trousers up and leaves the room. I am still tied, helpless to the chair, listening to you sob. Eventually you fall asleep and I nod off. You untie me the next morning. We will say nothing. These are our secrets. What happened when I took you to New Orleans.

And so our strange vacation will unroll, the flow of lazy days ebbing away like the slow movement of the riverboats on the Mississippi, days of happy closeness while my heart falters every time you smile and your eyes shine stronger than ever before. Like a mad collector, I record every single moment of your quiet beauty, every step we take, every breath we take in this city of desire; I store every conversation away, print every image of you in the magazine of my mind, so that I will always love you in all the years to come, when I have become too old for you, have fully lost my sight, and can only survive by memory alone.

When I take you to New Orleans, I will maybe test my love for you by taking you to a peep show on Tulane where other men's unwashed cocks parade through holes in the partition, the glory holes and I will watch you suck them all dry and I will then kiss your parched lips with ardour. We will attend a swing club where you will wear the Victoria's Secret bustier and matching string panties that barely cover your mound which we chose on Broadway the other month, and we will watch others make love on the carpeted floor or in private cabins the doors of which have been brazenly been left open. We will join in, plunging into the darkness and the sheer anonymity of casual sex with strangers. While I suck on another woman's clit, I will hear you moan in the obscured alcove just a few feet away, guessing rightly that you are being well and properly fucked to high oblivion there while a hand or is it a tongue wets my anus and, before I can react, someone's cock pierces me. Later, summarily showered, we will share impressions, and you will reveal that you experienced for the first time being taken in arse and pussy at the same time. Still filled with the secretions of others, we will walk into a toy shop and I will buy a toy train for your little boy who is right now being looked after by your ex back home.

We will take a tour of the swamps and you will see an alligator in the muddy waters and regret we have brought no camera along. Your eyes will alight on a young woman in a bar later and maybe we will share her, if she doesn't dislike me and my overweight tummy too much (you, she will like, no problem there ...). I have not told you that, on the internet, I had met a young student called Amy who lives just an hour away, who was willing to join us for a threesome, but I am too shy to admit to this, too scared you might be offended that I have disposed thus of your body without your consent. Your treasured body, your gift to so many other undeserving men, like the banker in Switzerland who wanted you as his submissive and just the thought of you in a black studded collar at the beck and call of a dom had me hard and masturbating wildly like a teenager, did I tell you that? You see, I have no shame.

At the House of Blues on Decatur, you will follow a man in a leather jacket and a ring in his right ear to the washrooms and not return for at least 20 minutes, flushed, your arm bruised, evidence of tears on your cheeks, but will refuse to tell me what happened.

At Beckhams Bookshop, that cavernous emporium of secondhand books and dust, you will have a Metropolitan mood and we will rush to the toilet for some privacy after you grab my crotch between the bookcases, but I fail to get hard – the smell of the cubicle, my tiredness, the thoughts of the men who own your body, who needs a reason? – and, irritated, you begin our first quarrel. And there I was thinking that only married couples had arguments ... You ask for the room key, pretexting a migraine. You disappear for the rest of the afternoon and all I can do is use my imagination as to your activities in the time we are apart. Bourbon Street and the Vieux Carre have so many perversions and I can only begin to imagine the extent of your lustful infamy. When you finally get back to the hotel you immediately strip and shower, washing the afternoon away, but I see no signs on your skin. The body is a resilient thing, and I'm the only one I know who wears his heart so visibly on his sleeve. You laugh at my sombre mood.

When I take you to New Orleans, I want it to be days that will live for ever in both our memories, hours that will bring us even closer together, minutes that will make the impossible possible. See what a fool I am: a man who could almost be your father chaperoning you down Canal Street, dodging the tramways and the occasional tropical downpour, a man who will stand by your side as you watch the little black boys tap-dancing on the corner of Chartres and Magazine and still not believe his luck, a man whose warped imagination relishes all those terrible images of you in the arms, under the bodies and lips and cut open by the cocks of others. A fool for love.

Because, you see, this is actually a love letter.

A love letter full of abominable darkness, but a love letter nonetheless.

And I know beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that I will take you to New Orleans. And whatever happens will happen, my blue-eyed gal whose name I may not mention.

How they first met is unimportant.

Or, at any rate, another story altogether.

A different one.

Here, they both arrive at Kennedy Airport on different flights from Europe, barely one hour and two terminals apart. Initially the flight she had suggested taking was bound for Newark and cheaper, but he had been unable to coordinate his own travel arrangements to match hers.

After retrieving his case from the luggage delivery area and verifying her flight details, he kills time wandering through the busy rundown hallways and alleyways of the building cluttered with passengers in various forms of transit. Idly wandering what she might actually look like. Checks out the stroke magazines in the news concession. There's a new one he's never come across before, called
Barely Legal
. He nervously glances aside as he leafs through it. Time passes slowly. A double cheeseburger and fries and a large coke take up another ten minutes.

He finally makes his way toward the terminal where the Sabena flights disembark, dragging his own case behind him on its dodgy wheels. A screen announces the arrival of her plane. She must now be queuing at passport control. He finds a seat to the right of the luggage pick-up area from which vantage point he will see all the passengers come out of the corridor from immigration. He holds his breath one moment. Suddenly, the whole thing doesn't sound so wise after all. What if, what if?

The Brussels flight crowd stream through the corridor. So many of them, the plane must have been quite full. Saunter down the short flight of stairs towards the luggage carousels.

She is among the last to emerge. A dozen times already he has convinced himself she wasn't on the plane. Had been playing a game with him all the time. Had missed the flight by barely a minute or so back in Europe. Had been discovered by her Masters and held back in captivity. Had come to her senses and realised this whole New York thing was quite pointless after all.

Finally, a slip of a girl with luminous features makes her way past the security guard posted at the top the short flight of stairs and tiptoes her way down, concertinaed almost by two burly six-footed businessmen in charcoal-coloured suits and matching attaché-cases. Her dark blue skirt is short, swirls around her knees. Her T-shirt is white, its thin material clinging to her skin. Even from where he sits he can see the outline of her nipples through it, or is it the rings?

Jesus, she is so young!

But he knew that already, didn't he?

As she reaches the bottom of the stairs and her involuntary escorts scatter into different directions, she looks around the luggage enclosure, seeking him.

Her eyes alight on him. The sketch of a smile spreads across her lips.

He stands up. Smiles back at her.

His heart skips a beat or two or three.

She stands there motionless, as the arriving crowds mill all around her, a statue of perfection at the centre of the hurly-burly of the airport.

She slips her rucksack from her shoulders. He moves toward her, feeling all around him freeze, like a slow-motion scene in a movie with the soft rock soundtrack missing and replaced by a cacophony of disruptive languages in a cocktail of voices.

Inches apart.

The heat from her body reaches toward him, a hint of spearmint on her breath.

‘Hello, Thalie.'

‘Bonjour.'

She leans over, kisses him on the right cheek.

He briefly imagines she's telling herself he's so much older than she thought, fatter, less than handsome.

‘For a moment, I thought you weren't coming,' he says, as behind her the luggage begins to accumulate on the conveyor belt.

‘I said I would come,' she answers. ‘Why should I not?'

‘I'm just rather insecure,' he says.

‘I'm a lot of things,' she smiles. ‘But not that.'

‘So, no regrets?' he asks her.

‘Not yet,' she tells him. ‘You asked me to come. Here I am.'

‘Good,' is all he can summon as an answer. Then, ‘What does your case look like? We'll look out for it.'

‘I haven't one,' she says, pointing at the rucksack at her feet. ‘This is all I've brought. Some change of underwear. For my first time in New York I thought it would be nice to buy some new clothes while I'm here.'

He smiles. ‘We can buy them together. That would be nice.'

‘Sure.'

‘They must have been surprised when you checked in back in Brussels, no? Travelling so light?'

‘I just said I was a student.'

‘I see,' he says.

She bends to retrieve her rucksack.

‘Shall we?' she asks.

‘Yes.' He picks up his case. ‘Let's go and find a cab.'

The driver must be from Haiti, he reckons. His radio is tuned to a station full of static, reggae and rap and French patois.

She sits close to him on the back seat. He tries to recognise the perfume she is wearing.

JFK Boulevard. Van Wyck Expressway. Jamaica. Queens. Past La Guardia and the mortal remains of some long past exhibition by a dirty lake. The car is held up for 15 minutes on the approach to the Mid-town Tunnel. The driver puts a hand through the partition requesting toll money. He still has a pocketful of coins from his last trip to America.

In the darkness of the tunnel, she places her hand on his. Since meeting up at the airport, they have barely spoken. Mostly about the weather; here; back in London; back in Belgium. How their respective flights had gone. Had she managed to sleep, and how he had spent the time reading. The in-flight movies and meals. Small talk at its most banal.

They finally drive out of the tunnel into the canyons of Manhattan and he breathes a sigh of relief. In the hotel room, he knows, he will be more eloquent, less shy and tongue-tied.

The traffic in the cross streets slows them down further as they navigate the traffic lights up to midtown.

They finally reach the hotel he has booked them into. Not the usual one where most staff in reception know him already, but one close by. He pays the cab driver. A porter rushes forward to assist with the luggage. There is only his case propped in the cab boot against a worn spare tyre. She carries her rucksack by its strap, and straightens her blue skirt as she steps out of the yellow vehicle.

He catches the porter's glance. Feels suddenly like a guilty, dirty old man, with this young girl at his side. Twenty-five years age difference. I am a cliché, he thinks. Damn it, he's not going to feel guilt now, is he?

At reception they make a big fuss of him. Ten years since he has stayed here last, according to the computer.

The elevator. The long corridor festooned by Andy Warhol prints. He inserts the electronic card key into the slot, the door flashes green and opens.

‘Welcome to New York, Thalie,' he says as a wave of infinite tenderness washes over his heart.

There is little for him to unpack as she uses the bathroom to freshen up from the journey. He listens to the water splash behind the door as he hangs his shirts and jackets in the cupboard. It's only mid-afternoon.

She emerges. Smiling sweetly. Now she looks even younger. Wonderfully slim, her loose dark hair falling over her shoulders, reaching midway down her back. Her waist looks as if he could hold it within his two outstretched hands. Her breasts jut against the thin material of her white cotton T-shirt, and his eyes can't avert the hypnotic shapes that strain the alignment of the whiteness. He guesses the strap of a bra over her shoulders, but the cups must be soft and barely disguise the ever-aroused state of their contents.

‘Are you hungry?' he asks her.

‘Not really,' she answers. ‘I snacked on the plane. But it wasn't very nice, I must say.'

‘It never is,' he remarks. ‘Because of the time difference with Europe, I always find it better to have a meal when I get here, as late as possible. Puts one's body clock on New York time. Otherwise, we'll end up waking in the middle of the night and we'll feel even more tired.'

‘If you wish,' Thalie says. ‘Is it what they call jetlag?'

He nods. Gazes at her.

Her eyes are pale brown, a delicate colour variation he would give heaven and hell to be able to define. The knot in his stomach grows ever more painful with every passing minute. Eventually, he knows, he will have to get to grips fully with this crazy situation he has somehow engineered.

‘Shall we go out? Maybe down to the Village. Have a walk. I'll show you around. Maybe see some shops for you. Have a bite to eat.'

‘Whatever.'

It's spring. The sun is out. Everything feels unreal.

They walk. It feels like miles, but neither of them are tired. They browse. He can't help visiting a few bookstores. She gets a top at Urban Outfitters, but will not let him pay. He introduces her to the dark chocolate with dark chocolate Häagen-Dazs bar which is not available in Europe. They have an early dinner, around seven, in a Ukrainian restaurant on 2nd Avenue, near the corner of St Mark's Place. Night falls. They are about to catch a cab back to their hotel when a pea-coloured chenille sweater catches her attention in the dimly lit window of a thrift store. This time, he insists on paying. As they exit the shop, she pulls her purchase out of its paper bag and slips it on.

‘It's suddenly grown colder, hasn't it?' she remarks.

‘Yes,' he agrees.

There is a sea of yellow cabs cruising down the Avenue, all with their lights on. He extends his arm to hail one. The driver is from the Ukraine, and insists on practising his English on them when he discovers that he hails from England. He has relatives in Swindon, and is surprised to learn he has never come across them.

There is a new porter on duty at the hotel door. To avoid judgment on their apparent age difference or the risk of being told he cannot bring young ladies into the hotel – a thought that has dominated his mind throughout the cab ride up from the East Village – he exaggeratedly holds his card key aloft as they walk into the hotel. Possibly guessing his embarrassment, Thalie holds his hand in hers, whether to compound his self-consciousness or reassure him, he is unsure.

Green light.

The door opens.

The room is not overly large, the sparse furniture purports to be antique, a Picasso face is spread across the left wall, the narrow double bed – by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near king-size – dominates the landscape that is going to be theirs for the next four days. Heavy brocade curtains are drawn. It's a quiet room; he is not sure whether the window gives on to 44th Street or not.

She drops her rucksack to the floor, kicks off her flat shoes and approaches the bed. Tests its firmness with her hand and then sits on its edge as he watches her. She pulls the new sweater over her head. Looks him in the eyes.

He remains silent.

Attempting to put off the inevitable, maybe?

‘So?' he finally ventures, ‘am I what you expected?'

The wrong age, the wrong middle-age spread, the wrong shortsighted eyes, the wrong kind of clothes, the wrong size cock, the wrong man?

‘I don't know,' she replies. ‘You tell me.'

Then, as an afterthought, ‘But I do like your voice.'

‘Is it the voice of Master, or the voice of a slave?' he asks her.

‘Do you really want me to answer that question now?' Thalie says.

‘You're right. I don't. Maybe you can tell me at the end of the week.'

‘Exactly. I've agreed to come here with you, but I can only be myself, you know that already ...'

‘Yes,' he quickly interrupts her. ‘And as we talked before, back then, I respect your nature, I shall not attempt to change it. You are what you are, I accept that fully.'

‘Good. I'm not seeking to be rescued ...'

‘I understand ...'

‘I am yours for this week we shall spend together in this room. Totally. Do to me what you will. Use me. Beat me. Humiliate me. My only pleasure is in giving myself. For you, I will be no different than I have been for others, with others. My holes are yours. All I am is a body, with holes made to be filled, used ...'

Hearing her say it like this hurt even more than when she had initially written it.

But he tried to show no sign of the torment spiralling across his heart.

‘I understand,' he repeated.

As she rises to her feet, she utters the last words he would hear from her until the following morning, ‘I know there will be tenderness, but please, oh please, do not fall in love with me.' Thereafter, there were sounds. In abundance. But no more words. Only moans, sighs, cries, the whole orchestral palette of sex.

She approaches him. Closer than they have ever been.

Her lips move toward his.

They kiss.

She tastes of Ukrainian tea.

He takes her into his arms. Holds her tight as their kiss continues. Tongue. Teeth. Breath held back. His hands now linger all over her, feeling her softness, exploring her warmth, he feels her eager responsiveness as tremors of lust race through his body. He takes a step back, interrupting their feverish embrace. Recalls all she has revealed of her subservient nature.

‘Undress,' he orders her.

Her eyes look up towards the light fixture.

‘One item at a time,' he continues. ‘I want to examine your body.'

She lowers her eyes and proceeds to pull the white T-shirt off, twisting its folds over her head, mussing her long brown hair which falls back down on her shoulders. Her skin is porcelain white. His heart tightens as sudden memories of another woman with the same pale skin flood back through his mind. Small flowery patterns crisscross the flimsy flesh-coloured bra she is wearing. It has no under-wiring. Her small pert breasts visibly don't require any. Her hands move to her back and she unhooks the bra and her chest is fully revealed. There is a dark mole an inch or so below her left nipple. Discreet dots of pigmentation are scattered across the approach to her modest cleavage, too pale even to merit the epithet of freckles.