Lovers in Their Fashion (12 page)

‘What? Oh!’ She started to giggle.

He kissed her on the lips.

‘We could go back to mine first?’ she said between kisses. ‘Get a carry out after? Or I could make something? It’ll have to be something simple; I don’t have much in.’

‘I want to push my tongue deep inside your furry little mott,’ he whispered, his hands still holding her close by the lapels.

Fran was laughing now.

‘I want to stick my thumb up your bum and wash your beautiful cunt clean with my hot and shameless tongue.’

‘Oh, my God!’ She held up an arm.
‘Taxi!’

‘Taxi?’

‘We haven’t got time to walk, John.’

M
artin Planer’s hand moved gently down the girl’s cheek, like a lover’s. The girl wasn’t fooled. In her short life in Bulgaria she had known what it was to be loved, if only by her family. This wasn’t love. She knew what this was. Since the Russians had brought her to England, she had seen a lot of this.

The Russians. They’d told her parents they could get her a job as a waitress. Good money, they’d said. Soon she’d be sending some of it back home. And they’d fallen for it. Scraped together five thousand Lev they couldn’t afford to pay her fare and give her a start.

A start in this. The Russians had her passport. They never let her out of the house, except to move her by car to the next house in the next town, so the men they found could experience something fresh. And they certainly didn’t give her any money.

Her blouse was thin and she wore nothing beneath it. Her breasts weren’t big enough to need support and, anyway, the Russians liked her this way. Defenseless. Vulnerable. It was what their customers paid for. When Planer pinched her nipple beneath the skimpy cotton, she whimpered.

At first, she had tried to squash the whimpers, hide the fact that she was hurt, because she thought it would only make the customers angrier. She knew better now. Beata had explained it to her. The Russians offered something special. They sought out customers who wanted to know they’d hurt the girl they were with. That’s what they came for.

It didn’t help to pretend you’d been hurt, though. That didn’t work with the kind of men who came here. They wanted real pain, not pretend, and they knew the difference. Beata had explained that to her, too.

She hadn’t seen Beata for a while. She’d asked Ivan about that, Ivan the Russian who seemed to be the nicest of the bunch, if nice was a word you could use about any of them. He’d slapped her, told her to mind her own goddamned business.

Beata had thought she was pregnant, the girl knew that. Maybe the Russians had taken her somewhere she could give birth in safety. Maybe they’d even sent her home to have it.

Maybe.

Planer was pushing her down, onto her knees. She knew what came now. As she worked his zipper down she licked her lips, trying to force moisture into a dry mouth. You had to give yourself what comfort you could.

There were no windows in this room. As the girl worked on his cock, Planer stared at the wall, covered in travel posters for some Balkan paradise that existed only in the minds of the tourist authority that commissioned them. Why was he here, when he was going to be knocking the hoity-toity Alice Springer off her self-allocated pedestal the very next evening? He knew why. He lasted longer when he was drained. Even a few days of celibacy made his time to orgasm shorter. And, when he got his hands on Alice, he was going to make sure he lasted as long as possible. Alice was going to suffer like no girl before her had ever suffered. And, with her mouth stuffed full of those nice little panties he’d sent her and told her to wear, and her hands hobbled with the restraints he was taking in his bag, no-one would hear her screams. No-one would know what she went through.

Until they saw her face the next morning.

A
s they came through the door, Fran was rippling open the buttons of her coat. She shrugged out of it and tossed it onto a hook. Moving into the sitting room she stepped away from John, turned to look at him and stared into his eyes. ‘Stand there,’ she commanded. She unhooked her long skirt and let it fall to the floor. Her hands moved more slowly now as she unbuttoned her blouse, her eyes on his, putting on a show, knowing she had his full attention. The blouse went on the floor with the skirt.

John stood as if spellbound.

‘You like this?’ she murmured.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Agent Provocateur call it Fifi. I call it my play clothes.’

“It” was a French slip in black tulle and pink Chantilly lace that fell to just below her hips. Fran turned this way and that, showing herself off, deliberately provocative. She reached out and took his hand. Turning, she led him towards the bedroom. The beeping of a cell phone intruded. ‘Can that wait?’ she asked.

John looked at the number on the screen. Tony. He could just imagine what Tony wanted to speak to him about. Alice, and his heartless cruelty in walking out on her. Well, he knew what he knew about Alice, and Tony didn’t. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It can wait.’

He dropped the cell phone on the coffee table and followed Alice into her bedroom.

‘
He’s not answering,’ Tony said. ‘The phone rings out, but he doesn’t pick up.’

Merrill gnawed at her finger. ‘You’ve tried him at home?’

‘He doesn’t answer that, either.’

‘Do you think he’s in Brighton?’

‘He could be anywhere.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Merrill, my darling love. I want Alice to be happy as much as you do. I want Alice to be happy because if she’s happy, you’ll be happy, and I want that more than I want anything in the world. But if he won’t answer his cell phone, he won’t answer his cell phone.’

‘I know, darling.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’re a brick, you know that? A real pal.’

‘I hope I’m more than that.’

‘You know you’re more than that. You’re going to have to go down there.’

Tony smiled. ‘Usually, I’m the one who tells people what they have to do. Are we going together?’

‘I can’t go tonight. Alice might need me.’

‘Tonight? You want me to go tonight?’

‘Would you?’

‘Merrill, honey, he may not even be there. For all we know he’s still here. In London.’

‘Brighton’s where he lives. He’s got to go home some time, doesn’t he? What was he planning to do after we’d had dinner tonight?’

‘He’d booked a room at the Savoy. But I’ve already rung there. He cancelled.’

‘Well, then.’

‘Feminine logic. How can you beat it?’

‘Please, hon. For me?’

Tony sighed. ‘I’ll get Ben to call me a cab.’

‘Thanks, Tony. I’m sorry about dinner. And about…you know.’

‘Anything else I might have been hoping for tonight?’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘Can I have a kiss, at least?’

‘You can, my love. A very passionate kiss. And a promise.’

‘Which I’ll be looking to cash in on. Soon.’

F
ran sat cross-legged on the bed, her French slip barely concealing the lacy edge of her matching panties, and watched John undress. The potent bulge at the front of his
Dolce Vita
boxer briefs told her what she had not doubted, but was still glad to know. ‘Is that all for me, my love?’

He stripped them off. Although she had known what she was about to see, she still gasped at the sheer unleashed power of this man. ‘You know something?’ she murmured.

He knelt on the bed before her. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’m so glad I’m a woman. And I’m so glad you’re a man.’

He took the slip by the hem and she raised her arms to help him take it off her. She lay down. John covered her, taking on his elbows the weight of his powerful body. As he began to kiss her, she stroked his powerful shoulders with her hands, so small against this broad expanse. There was an urgency about his kissing, something almost frantic, that had not been there the last time they’d met.

She pressed him gently away so that she could look at his face. ‘John. Has something happened?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re different.’

‘Fran…’

‘It’s okay, honey,’ she said, sensing his irritation. ‘I’m not going to psychoanalyze you.’ She reached down and slipped off the panties. Then she took him in her hand. ‘Put it in me.’

‘But…’

‘The foreplay can wait. Let’s call it afterplay, shall we? You need me like you didn’t need me last time. I can sense it. Now. Put it in me. Here. Let me do it for you.’

Spreading her legs as wide as she could, she positioned the rampant cock against her moist opening. ‘Push, honey. Oh, my God, yes! Now, my cherub. Ride me. Ride your little filly like the stallion you are.’

He began to move, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. With each stroke, as he withdrew and then slammed into her again, the power of the hammering she was taking drew a breathless gasp from Fran. Now they were moving together, two people become one, lovers with a single purpose, and she was crying out, clinging to him, her legs wrapped around his back, what had started as a lustful tingle becoming the unstoppable drive to orgasm and here…and here…
’Aaaah!’

She fell back, stunned, overcome by the strength and suddenness of the peak she had scaled. And then John cried out in his turn, his deep thrusting ceased and she felt the fiery burst of his seed as he spent within her.

H
is desperate climax over, tenderness returned to John. He lay half over Fran, covering her with his strong body, wrapping her in his arms. He rolled sideways and they lay together, limbs entangled, his sex no longer hard as a rock but still powerful against her thigh. They began to kiss. Slow, tender kisses full of gentleness.

The change came just like that. Afterwards, John would be at a loss to put a moment to it, or a cause. One moment, she was his, he was hers, they were together. Happy. At peace. The next, it was gone. He could describe it, but explain or understand it he could not. They were certainly still as one when Fran stirred. ‘What now, my love?’

‘Frank Sinatra,’ John had mumbled.

‘You want Frank Sinatra? After
me?’

John nibbled her earlobe. ‘Nitwit. He sang that song.’

‘I preferred Miss Piggy’s version. With the Muppets.’

‘Miss Piggy. Hmm. Yes, I guess I can see why she would appeal to you.’

Fran dug her elbow into his side.

‘Ouch. That hurt.’

‘Watch your mouth, Master Lover. Miss Piggy indeed! I meant, as I do believe you knew, what do you want to do now?’

‘Well, er…’

‘You’re not going to sleep on me, are you?’

‘Sleep? I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Shall I list the options?’

‘Please do.’ He took his arms away and lay back on the bed. ‘I want to watch you while you’re being masterful.’ At this point, he would have said they were still great together.

‘Oh.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that what turns you on? A bit of Fem Dom?’

He laughed. ‘I couldn’t say. I’ve never tried it.’

‘Why am I not surprised? Now then.’ And still, he would believe, nothing had broken into their idyll. But then came this:

‘Which?’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s now, or it’s then. It can’t be both.’

And with that silly little joke, thrown away offhandedly, he would later conclude he lost her. As far as he could tell. But by then he thought, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else.

‘What is it? Darling? What’s the matter?’

She did not answer. Looking away from him, eyes down, her brow and cheeks red, a hand raised as though to wipe away tears though tears he did not see, she raised herself from the bed and moved away to the bathroom.

‘Fran? Fran? Sweetheart, what is it? What have I said?’

There was no answer. He heard the bathroom door lock. He heard the sound of running water. Time passed. Eventually, Fran came back into the bedroom, wiping her cheek with a tissue. She seemed entirely calm. Without looking at him, she stood near the window and started to thread an earring into place. ‘What would you say to pizza and beer? There’s a place just round the corner. It isn’t bad.’

‘Pizza and beer is great. Do you want to tell me what was going on just now?’

‘Just now? Nothing was going on?’

John looked at her. Then, ‘Okay,’ he said.

They dressed without speaking to each other. Walking to the pizzeria she allowed him to take her hand but left it inert and unresponsive in his.

A plump Italian of about thirty smiled at John and greeted Fran by name as they came through the door. ‘Bring us two Peronis, will you, Renato?’ said Fran. She turned to look at John as she led the way to a table by the window. ‘That okay with you?’

‘Sure. One of my favorite beers.’

‘What are the others?’ asked Fran as they sat down.

‘I like Kronenbourg. The KroColBlanc in the bottle with the white collar that comes from France—not the stuff in tins they brew in Luton.’

Renato put two bottles of Peroni and two glasses on the table and started to pour Fran’s. John picked his up and tipped the bottle carefully against the glass, pouring it down the inside to minimize the head. He glanced at the menu. They ordered their pizzas and Renato went back to the kitchen.

‘That’s like with Peroni, isn’t it?’ said Fran.

‘What is?’

‘The real stuff comes from Italy in bottles. What you get in cans is made here and it isn’t good.’

‘I guess.’

‘British beer’s rubbish.’

John shrugged. ‘I can’t argue with you.’

Fran sipped from her glass. She stretched a hand across the table for John’s. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Because British beer is rubbish?’

‘You know that isn’t what I mean.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘No. Except to say I was a ninny. Can we forget it?’

‘Sure.’

‘I can be a moody cow sometimes.’

The pizzas were good. They talked about this and that, about her life and his life, about what they liked and what they didn’t like. They talked about anything but the uncertainty that had come into existence between them.