The Pleasure Quartet Page 13

  I remained impassive. I didn’t love this man, never could. But I craved the way he wanted me and the brutal form of his desire.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

  He rose, turned his back on me, walked to the nearby kitchen counter, his naked arse solid as rock, like a throne of stone presiding above the straight towers of his muscled legs, his movements swift and proud. Returned holding a plate. His dark cock had now shrunk but was still visibly wet from our exertions, shone like a warped diamond, reminding me of its relentless journeys inside me, the way it pushed its way down my throat earlier, almost had me gag, and the way he slapped my cheeks and pinched my nose in reaction as I resisted, forcing his authority on me, controlling me, enjoying me.

  I was unwilling to move, spread obscenely across the faded white sheets of his narrow bed, my body broken, still relishing the ebb and flow of fading lust that kept animating my mind as I lay on the bottom of the mental ocean. He held a thin strip of beef carpaccio above my mouth. My lips parted.

  ‘Raw meat for an animal,’ Raoul said, with an undisguised smirk of satisfaction.

  I gulped the meat down with relish, chewing it avidly and sucking out the taste before swallowing it.

  ‘It’s not very flattering to be compared to an animal, you know?’ I remarked.

  ‘Maybe a thoroughbred would be a more appropriate description,’ Raoul said.

  ‘I think I prefer that.’

  ‘A thoroughbred whore,’ he continued. ‘A pleasure animal.’

  ‘Hmm . . . Animals can sometimes be dangerous, unpredictable,’ I pointed out.

  ‘They can also be trained,’ he added. Oh yes, he had cruel lips.

  ‘Do I really need further training?’ I asked.

  ‘There can never be enough training.’

  I was due later that afternoon at Joao’s villa, for a lesson with Astrid. Her violin skills were developing nicely, even though I knew I was something of an impatient tutor. I would be expected to stay the night, I knew. I just didn’t think I was in a state to do so. My body would betray me. The marks on my skin might not fade in time.

  I felt drained right now.

  ‘I need to sleep, Raoul. Can I stay?’

  He had a tour booked, I knew. Would be away until late in the evening.

  ‘Sure.’

  I switched off, allowing the waves of lassitude to breach the dams of my consciousness. I was about to go under when I heard him.

  ‘I want to show you off, Summer. I feel others should witness how beautiful you are when unleashed, bridled. Even, see you with another man. Oh, that would be quite a sight . . . One day . . .’ he promised.

  I was too tired to respond and welcomed the dark.

  I missed the violin tutorial with Astrid. And was too weary to even phone and warn her.

  My explanations and excuses might not have proved convincing, or maybe I was betrayed by invisible signs of my activities with Raoul, but on the next occasion I met the businessman at his villa, I found out that Joao’s suspicions had been raised. He’d had me followed by someone, his driver maybe, and he had been made aware of the fact I had spent the night away from my own place and instead at Raoul’s. How much more he knew, I could only guess.

  He asked me to choose. Between his anchor and the deep blue deep sea that Raoul represented. I told him I was unable to do so. Begged for time. Somehow Astrid knew some of what was going on and became more distant, suspended our tutorials of her own accord and no longer wanted to spend time at the beach with me.

  Which left me with just Raoul.

  And I knew all too well where the relationship with him might be leading me. It was a combustible path I was all too familiar with and was unwilling to tramp through yet again. God only knew that I wasn’t good at learning lessons, but some had made indelible marks and left me badly scarred in the process.

  I was also running out of funds.

  Aurelia, or the Network, had made a payment into my account as she promised that they would, but I refused to spend it. I wanted to be free of their hold over me, unencumbered by the ties of that world which I had chosen to walk away from. Neither could I bring myself to rely on Joao’s generosity, although I knew that given even half a chance he would happily install me in his Jardim Botânico villa permanently, or pay the lease on a new apartment. The Ball had paid up front for my rental for one year only, and my twelve months were nearly at a close. If I wanted to remain in the city by the sea, I would need to find alternative accommodation. My once frugal habits had taken a hit when, ironically, as a result of some of Joao’s generous gifts of dresses and outfits, I had felt obliged to accessorise and complete them with added jewellery and, principally, shoes. He had bought me shoes and earrings as well, but I was too vain to wear the same ones over and over, and too proud to insinuate that I needed or wanted more. And I’d always had expensive taste in shoes! What with my loss of income from the Ball, and the fact that I had not undertaken any musical engagements for more than two years now and my old record royalties were dwindling, I calculated that I only had six months’ worth of cash ahead of me. I hadn’t waited tables since I was a teenager, and I knew that sort of work paid terribly here. My Portuguese wasn’t anywhere near strong enough for an office job, even if I could fake a résumé. I had no other skills but music. And I knew I was not ready to return to playing the violin for a living. My soul wasn’t ready. Would it ever be?

  I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to stay in Rio now. It seemed that a simple life of beach and sun was not enough for me.

  My foolishness with men had spoiled things. Again.

  I rang Susan, my erstwhile agent back in London. She was surprised to hear from me. Had probably written me off completely.

  I didn’t tell her exactly where in the world I was.

  Or explain the true reasons for my call.

  Before departing for the Ball, I had left her a power of attorney over my business dealings. I asked her to sell some of my violins, whose storage she had access to, and transfer the proceeds to me via PayPal.

  ‘Any particular violin?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Whichever will fetch the best value,’ I said.

  She agreed, and we postponed any other discussion to a future occasion, although she did insist on advising me that another record label appeared to be strongly interested in signing me up. Some new executive she found rather interesting. I informed her that I was anything but ready to return to music, though. I heard her sigh on the other end of the line.

  After I’d set the mobile phone down on my kitchen counter, I felt a momentary spell of dizziness and I gripped the bench and stared out through the window. A compact herd of low-lying clouds was drifting above the golden sands of the beach. Rain was on its way.

  The only violin of substantial value was the Bailly Dominik had bought me, I knew.

  I wasn’t even sure any longer why I had held on to it so long.

  Now it would be gone forever.

  And with it, its history and personal associations.

  I began crying.

  5

  A Magnificent Obsession

  Noah sat at the bar of the Ivy Club, sipping the last dregs of a potent double espresso, his second of the day. He felt both energised and aimless. A meeting with a couple of journalists had ended a half-hour ago. The label kept them on retainer to report on interesting new prospects in the North of England and Scotland, and they’d handed over a handful of demo discs and memory sticks they thought he might turn out to be interested in. He still had an hour to kill before attending a gig in Camden Town in a subterranean club where the sweat poured down the walls and archaeological layers of grime and dried beer coated the floors defying any cleaner’s attempt to attack them. Far from his favourite venue.

  One of the journalists, a Manchester-based freelancer called Barbara, had caught his eye at first sight. Bubbly and highly convivial, she was championing a local band she had come across and was effusive with her praise for their still-unf
ormed talent. She’d not been part of the company’s network of A&R stringers-along, recruited by his ill-fated predecessor just before Noah’s return to Britain.

  Noah had the feeling the music she was praising so loudly would not prove to his taste, if only by the way she described the group, but he politely heard her out and pocketed the demo disc. The moment she had walked into the bar, he had been struck by her initial appearance. A tiny pocket Venus, curvy, a buzzing ball of energy and all too self-aware of her physical attraction, vertiginous cleavage peering out from her colourful turquoise top and a black denim skirt that adhered to her skin with industrial precision.

  She also had red hair.

  And a built-in radar that immediately registered his undisguised curiosity. Must have been the way he looked at her, he knew, anything but indifferent, a possible twinkle in his eye as the words poured out of her. She took it as an open invitation to flirt. Totally ignoring the other journalist present, a tall shaggy-bearded Glaswegian almost twice her height, dressed in lumberjack chic shirt and skinny tie. They visibly knew each other. A couple?

  But Noah’s gaze strayed away from her revealing blouse and remained fixed on her hair. A thick ball of fuzzy curls in varying shades of orange and red under the club’s somewhat nocturnal lighting. An uneasy feeling began to brew in his stomach.

  Had he ever held such a fascination about red-haired women previously? Not that he remembered.

  He tried to recall how many he had actually known. As acquaintances, friends or, more rarely, lovers.

  He could count them on the fingers of one hand.

  Vivacious schoolmates with freckled faces at an age when he was still more interested in his stamp collection than the other sex. The earthy scent of the ambassador’s daughter who, in his teens, had smuggled him into the dormitory where she was sleeping with her class on a study trip to Avignon, who kissed with a savage hunger, aggressively biting his lips, allowing his hand to wander down below and experience the coarse texture and tightness of her pubic hair while she gave him a clumsy handjob. They’d been shopped the following morning by a classmate in a nearby bed and he’d been unceremoniously despatched back home in minor disgrace. Just over twenty years ago now, and he didn’t remember either her name or her face, he uncomfortably realised.

  The Scot had excused himself and headed for the toilets. Barbara had casually put her hand on his knee and was leaning forward, the tone in her voice shifting ever so slightly to confidential mode even though she was still singing the praises of her pet project.

  His eyes moved closer to the explosion of her hair.

  Which had now adopted an unnatural shade of sun under his near scrutiny.

  He could smell her breath this close. A whiff of spearmint. The hint of a parting in the close-knit map of her scalp. A variation in colour. A thin line of darker hue.

  Her hair was dyed.

  Noah had felt a strong sense of deflation. And relief. Noting his lack of response to her less than subtle approach, Barbara had instinctively retreated and the conversation had continued, neither of them openly acknowledging that the moment had passed.

  He checked his watch, a black round-faced Tissot model, and raised the small white cup to his lips, draining the last dregs of cold coffee, and waved his credit card at the bar attendant to settle his account. He was soon in the back of a cab travelling to North London. A sparse curtain of rain parted in front of them as the taxi cruised past the British Museum. The London lights flickered as if it was already Christmas, late-evening commuters running like clockwork mice in random directions as the storm opened up, hoods and umbrellas shielding them as best they could. Noah could still smell Barbara’s scent breeze around him. More spearmint than redhead.

  And he thought of Summer.

  Wherever she was.

  Desperate to know more about the woman behind the music and the dazzling, inviting images he had begun to collect in the madness of his obsession.

  Mentally assembling a jigsaw of her life from all the often conflicting morsels of information he had succeeded in gathering so far in his casual investigations. His stalking?

  He realised how, to any onlooker, his quest might even appear a touch creepy, unhealthy, but it was something he could no longer control. The elusive classical musician had taken over his thoughts by stealth.

  He had never believed in love at first sight. Was too much of a realist for that.

  But lust at first sight, well, that was a whole different kettle of fish!

  His name was on the guest list and he checked what time the group he was keen on watching would be on stage. He still had an hour to spare. He was given a square pink voucher for a free drink but, not a great drinker, elected to pick up a bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water. He noted the presence of a few familiar faces, A&R scouts for other labels grouped around the upstairs bar. He descended into the small, darkened auditorium, the strumming of a guitar luring him in, a rangy mid-length dark-blonde girl in a long peasant skirt, scuffed boots and a grey sweatshirt, straight from folk-singer casting central, the support act, her voice, almost masculine in its bass depths, at strong odds with her appearance. Sitting next to her, an earnest slide guitar player who looked like an under-age college student and was studiously caressing his strings and punctuating the singer’s studied melodies with widescreen soaring notes. A pleasant overall sound but a pity about the repertory: Joan Baez and Buffy St Marie standards, and ‘Greensleeves’ on predictable hand for the finale. But, Noah noted, there was something there, a glimmer of originality, personality; the way her voice swooped in uncommon patterns, treading a delicate line between the melody. Did they also write their own material?

  At the end of the opening act’s set, he walked over and introduced himself. The girl’s eyes widened when she realised he was genuinely from a record label and not just a passing bullshitter. Her name was Magdalena, she said, and her accompanist happened to be her younger brother.

  ‘Do you write anything yourself or just stick to covers?’ Noah asked.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said hurriedly, hoping to please. ‘But it’s not quite ready to be tried out in public,’ she added.

  She was raw but there was a kernel of untrained talent there, Noah felt. He advised her to keep in touch. Maybe in a year or so, if her own songs confirmed his instinct, she would be worth looking at again. In his job, he had to play the long game. Sow seeds. Hope. Wait.

  A couple of roadies were now scrambling across the stage, setting up the main act’s equipment, checking connections, plugging the various instruments in, tuning them one final time, adjusting mike and drum stall heights and checking sound levels with the technician situated at the back of the room in charge of the control console.

  Noah noticed that one of the sundry instruments they had left out on a chair by the wall of Marshall amps was a violin, a long cord leading from it to a smaller amplifier. He frowned. There had been no violin to be heard on the demo tapes he had been sent. Maybe it was only used on a song or two? From where he stood, the instrument looked battered and cheap, had nothing of the elegant angles and curves and burnished wood colour of the Bailly ‘Christiansen’ of Summer’s he had seen auctioned.

  ‘You’ve come to see them, I guess?’

  It was Magdalena. He hadn’t noticed she was still standing by his side. Her brother was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘The bass player, Kristian, is a family friend,’ the young woman said. ‘That’s how I got the support gig,’ she explained.

  ‘Have you watched them play before? What’s the story about the violin?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just a gimmick. The rhythm guitarist plays it briefly during the finale. I saw them rehearse the number at the afternoon soundcheck.’

  Noah looked round towards her. She appeared nervous, unsure of herself. On stage, she had appeared composed and serene. The secret life of musicians, he decided. Or actors. The moment they walked onto a stage, they changed, became so
meone else altogether.

  She had a lovely mouth.

  And she was, he couldn’t help noticing, almost flat-chested under the shapeless sweatshirt.

  ‘Is Magdalena your real name? Of Eastern European descent?’

  ‘No. It’s Tracey. Just a stage name. Tracey’s not much of a folk singer name, is it?’

  She grinned. Noah smiled back at her.

  ‘Drink?’ he suggested.

  ‘Why not,’ she said, a wry expression spreading across her face, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, a decision she had been hesitant about had been taken for her.

  He realised she reminded him a lot of Bridget, in both appearance, way of dressing and musically. Although she was patently more ambitious, the sort of musician who would do anything to succeed. She had that steel of determination in her eyes.

  Magdalena stuck to him all evening, through the band’s set. They were good but not enough in Noah’s opinion. Would have made a perfectly adequate signing to the label five years earlier, but tastes had changed as had fashion, and he was seeking the next big thing and not an imitation of glories past. If only he knew what the next big thing would be; maybe he would know when he saw it, heard it. A fat chance.

  The signs were there for all to see. The way she smiled or laughed just that inch too far when he made a moderately witty remark, moved closer to him in the crowd as if seeking out his heat, her fingers grazing his as the audience filed out of the club and onto the High Street, avoiding being separated from him in the rush for the last Tube.

  The rain had stopped, but the pavements were still wet, shining, reflections of the street lights twinkling like will-o’-the-wisps on the surface of the road. Cars rushed by driving northwards.

  ‘What about your guitar? Are you leaving it behind?’

  ‘My brother took it home earlier. I didn’t want to be saddled with it.’

  An air of anxious expectancy on her face.

  It took them a lengthy ten minutes to find a cab, standing in silence in the cold, looking out for a ‘for hire’ sign heading in their direction, unspoken words weighing on them.