The Pleasure Quartet Page 12

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked me, interrupting my train of thought and bringing me back into the real world.

  ‘Ah, no, I’m fine. I had better get back to the party.’

  I checked myself in the mirror quickly, thankful that my inner secrets did not show on my face, and walked back towards the terrace. Nobody had moved an inch during my departure. The women were still gossiping on the sofa, their voices a degree shriller, as the champagne bottles in buckets scattered around them emptied. Joao, Matheus and the other black-suited men were now smoking cigars, leaning over the white-pillared barrier that separated the suite’s outdoor area from the drop down to the hotel gardens below.

  Joao looked up as I approached, and swept me against his broad chest with the arc of his arm.

  ‘Are you okay, darling?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes of course,’ I told him. ‘Just getting some water.’

  ‘You should have just called out to the waiter,’ he said. ‘That’s what he’s there for.’

  I shrugged. His hand slipped down inside the back of my dress, along the seam of my underwear, and cupped my arse. I was grateful that he didn’t venture further, as he would have discovered that beneath the thin covering of my plain black thong I was wet and undeniably horny. But I didn’t want Joao tonight. I didn’t want to make love, or even to have sex, like any other two ordinary people would. I wanted to have someone who knew me and understood what I was thinking and who even liked to grab me by the hair and throw me down onto the bed and fuck me hard and relentlessly until every thought in my head disappeared and I was left with nothing but a few precious moments of being totally alive.

  Later that night, after we finally made our excuses and left the Palace, I asked Joao to drop me off at my apartment.

  ‘Shall I come up with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Another time perhaps,’ I told him, and explained that I was just tired, and wanted to get up early tomorrow and visit the beach.

  He acquiesced without much argument, and kissed me goodnight, a quick peck on the lips.

  Inside, I threw off my dress, crawled into bed and touched myself until I came, visions of past and imagined lovers flooding my brain in a stream of pornography.

  I did not think of Joao once.

  The heat was rising.

  I woke layered in a film of sweat. And realised immediately that I had overslept. My apartment was deathly quiet, and the thick silence made me feel even hotter. Not so much as a single breath of fresh air ruffled the white sheet wrapped around my naked body. I had begun switching off my air-conditioning unit to save costs, and to avoid the low hum that kept me awake at night-time.

  Outside, the only breeze that interrupted the stifling humidity against my sticky skin came from the rush of passing cars and motorcycles speeding by on the Avenida Vieira Souto. If only Ipanema Beach were a nudist colony, I would have discarded my clothing right there in the street and continued walking naked. Why had I chosen today to wear the all-over black-patterned floral dress, instead of the thin, white barely-there kaftan that I had borrowed from Aurelia and which was still stuffed into one of my overflowing wardrobe drawers? The halter-neck style I was wearing enabled me to get away with going braless, but instead of leaving my breasts bare and cool as I had imagined, the cotton fabric pulled tight against my chest and around my throat and made me just as uncomfortable as an underwire would have done.

  An interactive billboard set up in the middle of the road flashing the current temperature in large orange lettering against a black background advised me that it was 43 degrees. At only ten in the morning. Joggers raced by one after another, ripped bodies glowing with exertion, smiles painted on their faces as though they were impervious to the heat. One, clad only in a pair of short, navy-blue shorts secured low on his hips with a loose white drawstring, reached his arm out poker-straight in front of him with his mobile phone gripped tight in his hand, grinned and snapped a picture. His apparent dedication to health and fitness made me crave a cold milkshake and a burger. I hadn’t yet had breakfast.

  I continued to wander aimlessly, thinking of what I could do that day. It was now too hot to hike Pedra Bonita as I had planned, a task that would have necessitated rising around 5 a.m. and catching a taxi to the Tijuca National Park before the sun rose. I would be at the top now, if I hadn’t rolled over lazily and pressed the snooze button when my alarm went off. There was the National Museum of Brazil, housed in the Imperial Palace, that had been on my to-do list for ages, but my guidebook informed me that it was closed today. I had no money for clothes shopping, and my closet was already jam-packed with more evening dresses and high-heeled shoes than I had ever owned in all of my years living in London or New York combined. The cinema would at least be air-conditioned, but my brain was in too much of a heat-dazed fug to be bothered concentrating on following a film in Portuguese.

  My stomach rumbled. What I really wanted was a Salty Pimp from Big Gay Ice Cream in the West Village – vanilla ice cream on a crunchy waffle cone with caramel and sea salt – or a peanut butter banana soft serve from Momofuku in Brooklyn. Even a tub of Ben and Jerry’s would have sufficed. America really knew how to do dessert. Not refined and elegant like the French did, but big and cold and sweet and satisfying. Zaza wasn’t open yet and I really needed to stop spending money in fancy restaurants and start economising, and besides, their lemon sorbet wasn’t nearly fattening enough for what I fancied right now. Beachside Rio, with all its vanity and focus on appearance, was overrun by health foods; low-fat yoghurts, fruit smoothies and juices abounded.

  I would have to settle for a plastic tub of frozen açai, a deep purple-red berry mixed with ice and sometimes sugar, the latest superfood trend and consequently available nearly everywhere.

  Raoul’s juice bar was the nearest. I had broken my habit of visiting there most mornings since I met Astrid and then fell into dating Joao and waking up in my own bed on fewer and fewer occasions. I never had asked Raoul out on a date as I had once planned to.

  The tall, broad-shouldered Brazilian was wearing a baggy T-shirt with a V neck which revealed a small thatch of his thick black chest curls and the gleam of a gold chain around his neck. His shining black hair was loose around his shoulders. He was making a drink for another customer and turned away from me as I approached the counter, leaving me free to remind myself of the pert, round shape of his hard buttocks, his tight glutes prominent beneath a pair of white-and-black board shorts. Raoul was one of the few men I had seen here who preferred to wear loose clothing instead of muscle tees or vests and swimming trunks even smaller than my briefest knickers. There was something deeply masculine about him that appealed to me. The brutish way that he moved, his big hands slamming the plastic body of the blender into place and gripping the lid with little care for finesse or the longevity of the equipment. I bet that his cock was long and thick and his balls heavy. He would have a musky smell and a bush of unkempt pubic hair that I would delight in burrowing my face into.

  ‘Hey, bonita,’ he said when he noticed me standing there. ‘Haven’t seen you for a long time. Thought you’d left town.’

  I was flattered that he’d noticed.

  I ordered a cup of frozen açai, and settled onto the tall bar stool that sat closest to the buzzing fan on the counter.

  The other customers, a young white couple, obviously tourists with their matching lightweight khaki trousers, pockets bulging with real, sun hats straight out of a camping catalogue and expensive cameras fixed tightly around their necks, wandered off, leaving the two of us alone.

  Raoul flicked the cloth that he had been wiping down the drink machine with over his shoulder and leaned down to meet my eyes, resting his elbows on the counter in front of me.

  ‘Not taking away today? Heading for a swim maybe? Or just tanning that lovely body of yours?’

  Brazilian men flattered women openly here. I did not fool myself for a moment into thinking that Raoul’s words meant that he saw something specia
l about me in particular.

  ‘Too hot for the beach today, I think. Can’t face the crowds.’ I knew that the shore would be littered with deckchairs, umbrellas and volleyball players as far as the eye could see in both directions.

  He nodded. ‘You should get out of the city. So many people come here and just see the Copacabana boardwalk, and Ipanema. Sing the famous song, take a few photos and drink a few bad caipirinhas, and leave again.’

  ‘Where would you suggest?’

  ‘ I can do better than suggest,’ he told me. ‘I’ll show you. There’s Ilha Grande, Lopes Mendes, the other places that are in all the guidebooks, but we can skip those. I’ll take you to places where you won’t need a bathing suit, because we’ll be the only two on the beach.’

  He must have noticed my wry expression; just another pick-up line, I was thinking.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I’m also a tour guide. When I’m not working here, behind the bar.’

  ‘Oh.’ That explained why he spoke English like a native.

  ‘I could come on one of your actual tours.’

  ‘If you want to drive around slowly with tourists in matching pale beige outfits snapping photos of every cocada stand they pass in the road, sure. Half of them can’t walk fifty yards without wanting to sit down and rest.’

  I laughed.

  His eyes twinkled when he smiled, animating his whole face. It had been a long time since I’d met a man who made me laugh. Not since Dominik. Joao was serious by nature, and even Antony, my ex-lover and theatre director, had been too much of an arty sort to spend a lot of time joking around.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘if it’s just the two of us, we can take the bike.’ He nodded towards the road and I followed his gaze in the direction of a sleek yellow Ducati motorcycle.

  ‘Is that yours?’

  ‘My pride and joy, although she’s getting old now. Bought her off a British guy a few years ago, who rode her all over Brazil. Reconditioned the engine, bit of body work and a friend did the paint job, and she’s good as new. You ever ridden a bike?’

  ‘Only traveling pillion. Not for a long time though.’ In my late teens in New Zealand, I had dated a half-Japanese man who rode a red Suzuki and we had spent a week touring the Queen Charlotte Sounds on his bike. I still remembered keenly how badly my buttocks ached after spending long hours in the saddle, and how much I enjoyed wrapping my arms around my boyfriend sitting in front of me, and pressing my breasts against his back.

  ‘Good. It’s settled then. I have a spare helmet. We can go tomorrow if you’re free, it’s my day off.’

  ‘I’m free,’ I said. Actually, I was supposed to be teaching Astrid violin in the afternoon, but I decided then and there to give her a call and pretext a headache.

  A lanky teenage boy clad in just a pair of trainers and neon-orange speedos appeared alongside me and asked Raoul for an abacaxi and mint juice, one of my favourite combinations.

  Raoul seemed openly annoyed by the interruption.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, keeping the tall youngster on my right waiting for his drink, ‘meet me tonight at Academia da Cachaca in Leblon, and we can plan where to go. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yeah, I know it. Best caipirinha I’ve tasted here so far.’

  ‘You’ve been spoiled, they make the best in Rio. Eight o’clock?’

  I agreed, and left him to serve his customers. A queue had mounted.

  We didn’t make it to any of the deserted beaches that he had promised to show me. We didn’t leave my apartment until dinner time the following day. I couldn’t blame it on the cachaca. I’d only had two, one the original limao, and the other a sweeter, creamier version flavoured with coconut, along with a large meal of feijoada served with perfectly cooked farofa and succulent orange slices. The waiter sat us outside in the still-humid night air, on two rickety chairs either side of a round table top that was so tiny Raoul was able to reach under it easily and place his hand on my thigh, a fact that he took advantage of almost as soon as we arrived.

  His grip was strong and persuasive, not that I needed to be persuaded. Unwelcome thoughts of Joao and Astrid caused pinpricks of guilt to pop into my brain, which I quickly disregarded.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, as he put his other arm under the table after the waiter delivered our second round of drinks, and brazenly pushed my knees apart, oblivious to our public surroundings or just impervious to the reactions of other diners nearby.

  ‘What would you like to eat?’ Raoul asked me, as he leaned further forward and grazed his knuckles all the way up my bare thigh to the seam of my panties. I responded to his touch without consciously thinking about it, my body disconnected from my brain – or perhaps the two were perfectly in sync in a way that the moralistic part of me didn’t want to admit – by slinking down in my seat to give him easier access. I had changed into a cap-sleeved navy lace top tucked into a short red skater skirt, and for one shameful moment I felt pleased that I had picked the flared number and not the black satin shorts that had been my second choice.

  ‘Good girl,’ he whispered, and slid two fingers inside my knickers. He kept them there and continued to lightly brush over my now wet slit as the waiter returned to take our food order.

  ‘We’ll have the large plate to share,’ Raoul interjected for me, when it became apparent that I was unable to speak.

  If the uniformed attendant had noticed the reason for my reticence, he didn’t remark upon it.

  ‘You’ll make a lot more noise than this when I get you home,’ Raoul teased, when we were alone again. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

  His presumption and his cockiness horrified and annoyed me in equal measure, but also undeniably turned me on.

  Some things never changed.

  I knew juggling two lovers was not a feat I could sustain indefinitely.

  I was right.

  I was no good at lying and coming up with new excuses. Pretending to Joao that I needed some space and time on my own when I happened to be with Raoul. On every occasion I visited Astrid’s father or spent time with him after days of rage and sex with Raoul, I thought he would immediately notice the obvious signs of dissipation across my face, in the depths of my eyes, let alone all over my body. I was ever rehearsing explanations for the small bruises, the pleasurable tiredness that surrounded me like a cloud after rough sex. But if Joao ever noticed anything, he carefully avoided questioning me, retaining his innate elegance and discretion. Or maybe he knew from experience how complicated it was to keep a younger woman on an imaginary leash or happy, and he feared upsetting the apple cart. If there was an affray, I guessed it wouldn’t be of his making.

  As for Raoul, I had to come up with a different set of answers. And ask he did. Repeatedly. Which meant grossly exaggerating the number of violin lessons I was giving Astrid, to attain some level of plausibility. I sensed his jealousy and possessiveness.

  And then there were the nights when both insisted they wanted to see me, and I had to make a choice between them, the smooth and the rough, the slow waltz of love and hovering over the precipice. Never an obvious choice.

  Raoul loosening the rope that bound my wrists to the bed’s metal headboard, my breath still halting, still half afloat in that envious zone where I was both spectator, victim and sacrificial offering to the gods of lust, and a shameless form of desire through which I navigated as if naturally born to it. His perspiring body, dark and linear, strong thighs taut, thick cock still at half mast, hovering above me.

  Rubbing life back into my wrists, noting in passing the marks the rope had left, the momentary imprint of the sweet madness on my skin. Experiencing parcels of pain in parts of my body I didn’t know I had. Listening to the life outside filter through, one sound at a time, the air stir, the whoosh of the ceiling fan, this wonderful and terrible man’s sweat pearl down from his hairy chest onto my bare skin, pooling around my navel and in the valley between my breasts. Coming down. No longer flying through the holy spheres. Floating. Fal
ling. Becoming myself again. Summer.

  He bent over. Kissed me. His hand tight around my throat, immobilising me into position. The pressure in my lungs. The buzz racing across my skin like a web still holding me captive. I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. As if he was testing me, keeping me under observation to see how far I would allow him to go on dominating me. Checking my resolve, my limits. And, out of pride and obstinacy I knew I would not be the first to flinch, to cry out ‘no’.

  He released me.

  My cunt felt abominably raw, so much more exposed, open, ravaged, wetter than wet. He initially refused to wear a condom. During our very first encounter. Unlike Joao. Assuming in his macho way that I was the one who should be taking precautions, not him, and thinking only of children that might come, as if he were invincible to other risks. I insisted from the outset we use protection, but he never stopped making me pay for it. Pointedly spitting on my slit to keep it lubricated. Once bringing a condom filled with his semen to my face and making me lap from it like a dog drinking from a cup. It both disgusted me, this attitude, but also fired a light inside me, the radiance of the moth attracted by the glare of the fire.

  His lips abandoned me just as I was about to cry out, gasp for air. His hands moved away from my throat. He was still squatting over me, his knees pinning me down, widening the angle of my thighs. His hand passed through my legs, wallowing inside my juices, brought a finger to his lips, then mine.

  ‘Taste,’ he ordered me.

  I licked his fingers clean.

  ‘You’re like an animal,’ he told me later. ‘A beautiful beast . . .’ Admiration and desire juggling for space in his eyes.

  He gazed at me, a million thoughts apparently bustling in his mind.