The Pleasure Quartet Read online

  ‘Tell me.’ The other’s eyes lit up.

  ‘I’m almost certain it was Summer Zahova,’ Noah said. ‘A series of images of a woman in some sauna. Quite obscene, and troubling too. Bad quality. But haunting.’

  ‘The Kentish Town series,’ Mieville stated.

  ‘You know them?’ Noah asked, unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘I know of them. Never actually seen them, though. You’re not the first to mention them. I thought it was apocryphal, something of an urban legend. Sounded too extreme to be true.’

  ‘Oh.’ Noah couldn’t conceal his disappointment. He had somehow hoped that raising the subject might have enabled him to get access to the images again, although he feared that doing so might be a mistake.

  ‘I once met a man – not a nice one, at all – who said he was present and actually claimed to have taken the photographs. He’d been summoned by another at short notice. Smuggled a mobile phone into the sauna and took the pics in secret.’

  ‘So it was her?’

  ‘Yes. The story’s unclear but it seems she was a magnet of sorts for dominant men – not always the scrupulous majority – through her rumoured dalliances with BDSM, and a particularly persistent one tracked her down to the Hampstead bandstand. The locale we’d heard so much about and which was alluded to in the book. God only knows how he talked her into following him to the sauna and the reasons she finally did. He’d assembled a group . . .’

  ‘Jesus . . .’

  ‘It’s all rather sordid, and the story changes in each successive retelling, but at core it seems the event did occur, and of course there were those photos. Which you’ve seen . . .’

  ‘And lost any trace of,’ Noah said.

  ‘Maybe I prefer it that way. Not sure whether I would want to see them,’ Mieville declared.

  ‘All the men present involved, were “fans”, aware of who she was?’

  ‘Some. Probably not all.’

  Noah felt exhausted by the conversation, fighting away disgust for the way the obscene images still lived so strongly in his mind but also exhilarated by the confirmation that it was indeed Summer at the dread centre of them. There was an eerie conjunction between her music and her life, a magnet he was drawn to in ways he failed to understand. And then the thought flashed through his mind that Summer too could not fully understand the compulsions that manipulated her musicianship and the lower depths of her mind. And her body.

  He downed the bourbon, his thoughts now miles away.

  If only he could meet up with her, somewhere, someday, somehow. Just to listen to the sound of her voice, see her play, look into her eyes and grasp at her inherent sadness, witness her hair shimmer in the breeze, mine her thoughts, perceive just the ghost of her natural fragrance. He sighed heavily.

  Mieville observed him sympathetically.

  ‘I once managed to identify one of the blindfolded musicians who played with her in the crypt for her lover, following the acquisition of the Bailly. Of course, he could see nothing of what was unfolding, but he affirmed that the music was simply divine, the notes she pulled from the strings, the way she managed to bend them to her will and add another dimension to the piece. And that was before her musical career even really began, when she was still something of an amateur. Nonetheless, he said it was electric.’

  ‘I’m sure it was.’

  One part of Noah wanted to stay here all evening and listen to any more stories the older man might retell, but he also felt that he had reached saturation point. He needed fresh air, time to think, absorb the new information. Anyway, the two glasses of bourbon were already clouding his mind.

  He excused himself.

  The following day felt hollow. It was a dull Sunday and he’d brought no work home, not that he would have been able to concentrate on listening to new demo tapes or discs, he realised.

  As night fell, he took a long, rambling walk which led him to the edges of Hampstead Heath. He sought out the area where the legendary bandstand was situated but was unable to locate it, soon hopelessly losing himself among narrow paths beyond the ponds, venturing hesitantly into thick clusters of trees and seeking out clearings. The shadow of a half moon peered uncertainly through the high branches, casting a horror-movie curtain on the flickering night. Shadows peered between the trunks, shapeless forms, joggers, lovers in search of privacy. He turned back, following the sounds of traffic on the nearby roads for bearings until he was out of the woods. At the first opportunity he hailed a passing cab.

  Back at the flat, he was briefly tempted to call up Magdalena and apologise for the other night and see if she would see him again, but then decided against it. April was coming tomorrow, and in case he got stuck at work and was unable to meet her flight, he had left a spare key for her with his neighbour in the basement flat, the dark-haired woman who had swept past him on the day he had moved in. Her name was Candy (not a stage name, she insisted), and along with proving much friendlier than Noah had first suspected, if still a little brusque, she had turned out to be a cookery-school student rather than a dominatrix, and told him that the receptacle she had carried on her back was a well-stocked kit of kitchen supplies that she took with her to classes.

  It would be just his luck for April to arrive earlier than expected, let herself in, and find him in bed with another.

  Not that they had ever insinuated they would remain faithful to each other long distance – it had been a mutually agreed clean break – but still, the less ammunition she had, the less awkward their time together would likely prove to be.

  Sleep didn’t come easily.

  ‘Well, are you coming to bed?’ she asked him.

  He was in the living room hunched over his laptop, sending off some last-minute emails to his colleagues in the New York office, tidying up loose ends in preparation for a conference call the next morning during which they would discuss the marketing budget for the next quarter. Noah would have his chance to recommend which of the solo artists and bands that fell under his remit would benefit from a PR push, and argue for his slice of the pie.

  April stood in front of him, clad in a short, pale peach satin slip and matching robe. He hadn’t seen her wear either before. It was a clear invitation.

  ‘Err, yes.’ He closed his laptop and followed her to the bedroom.

  She dropped her gown.

  God, she was beautiful. Noah held his breath as he admired her form. April was like a model from a perfume commercial.

  They kissed, and fell onto the bed together. Made love as they had a hundred times before.

  There had been a moment of awkwardness, an obvious pause in their usual routine when he had been about to enter her and was momentarily too embarrassed to ask her if she had been with others, and used protection. April had handed him a condom and murmured, ‘I don’t expect that you have remained celibate, all this time,’ and then lay there with her legs spread, waiting for him to roll it on and finish the job. He had almost gone soft.

  It had felt like an accusation, not that he had anything to be ashamed of. Damn her. The rush of anger he felt had made him erect again, and he had fucked her harder than usual, though not so hard that she protested. He knew April didn’t like it like that. More’s the pity.

  Afterwards, when she had rolled over and gone to sleep, he lay awake, unsatisfied. He had come. So had she. Predictably. But Noah wanted more. He just wasn’t sure what exactly it was that he wanted.

  He pulled back the sheet and padded quietly to the kitchen, without bothering to dress. His cock was still sticky, and had that horrible acrid smell from the condom’s spermicide. He opened the fridge door and drank a few gulps of orange juice straight from the carton, knowing that April hated it when he did that. She would no doubt complain in the morning, when she discovered that he only had orange with bits, and she preferred it smooth.

  He sighed. Had he always been this petty?

  Visited the bathroom. Took a leak. Washed the rubber’s residue from his
hands.

  Unbidden, images rose into his mind. The woman tied to the bed at the North London party, the way that the rope that bound her had bit into her skin as she pulled against it, unable to keep still in the heat of her arousal. Her full lips opening into a scream as Noah pressed the sex toy against her cunt, knowing that she could also feel the weight of the butt plug that her partner had pushed into her hole. The overtness of her responses.

  Her orgasm hadn’t been tidy. She had been driven beyond any normal expression of pleasure into a far more savage form, and, if pushed, Noah knew there would have been further screams, sweat, fluids gushing, even tears. Given the chance he would have made sure the bed really needed the protection of that black plastic sheet, despite its uncomfortable surface and irritating rustle.

  He closed his eyes. Conjured up the scene again. But in his mind, the mop of hair that surrounded the woman’s face as she arched her back and cried out wasn’t mousey brown, it was flaming red.

  Noah’s cock was in his hand before he even thought of what he was doing. Not that he ever put a lot of thought into self-pleasure. It was an enjoyable biological release, no more.

  His fantasy was vivid, and within minutes he felt himself edging that precipice, searching for just one more stimulus to make him explode.

  He came. Shuddered. Looked down at his hand covered in his own ejaculate. Reached for the toilet roll.

  The door creaked.

  April.

  How long had she been standing there? Long enough.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose it really is over between us.’

  He spent the rest of the night on the couch.

  6

  Mistress and Lover

  Joao had been away on his lands for a week and asked me if I could spend time at their villa with Astrid in his absence. He felt she was in need of company. He declared he had been wrong to have me followed and that I was free to conduct my life in any way I felt best. Begged me for forgiveness. It coincided with Raoul being busy with his tours, so I wasn’t torn between alternatives. It was an uneasy status quo and left me with a deep sense of foreboding, but it suited me for now.

  I tried to mend bridges with the young girl and was partly successful. When we were together, we bathed in playfulness and easy complicity, whether frolicking on the beach, messily cooking together or my pretending to be something of a martinet when instructing her in the ways of the violin, not that she ever took me too seriously when my patience snapped confronted by her frequent clumsiness.

  It was also pleasant to have their lavish environment at my disposal, alongside all the domestic help. I had to admit my original awkwardness with being waited on had mostly passed, and now I just enjoyed never having to do laundry or vacuum. Alongside the glorious weather, there was something about Brazil that induced a guilt-free form of laziness and personal indolence that I was insidiously getting rather accustomed to. Morning lie-ins with no men around to distract me, fresh squeezed fruit juices and cool stone floors beneath my bare feet to greet the day. And, for now, I had no real need to dip into my shrinking funds.

  I insisted that Astrid relentlessly practise her scales and whatever piece of music she was in the process of learning for at least ninety minutes every single day before she was allowed to go to the beach. She protested that the violin was just a hobby and she had no wish to become a professional musician – I had, in a rare moment of indiscretion, revealed that I had once been, and she took me more seriously following my confession, although I had insisted that she not mention the fact to either Joao or any of her friends. So long, my anonymity had held and I did not wish to endanger it further.

  When Joao finally returned, he was delighted by the way his daughter’s mood had improved.

  ‘You’re such a good influence on her, Summer,’ he said, taking me by the waist, pulling me towards him and kissing me affectionately.

  ‘She’s a good kid.’

  ‘She is. It’s a long time since I’ve seen her so relaxed,’ he declared.

  We effortlessly fell back into our odd routine consisting of my staying a few nights a week in his bed and compensating by spending regular afternoons with Raoul, when I pretexted that I was working on some unknown project and unable to join Astrid at the beach which she invariably made a beeline for, cycling the five-kilometre distance around the lagoon to reach her favourite spot by Ipanema after she left school and completed her allotted time with her instrument. I’d had to inform Raoul that I was giving private violin lessons on occasion and he was full of questions, betraying his jealousy and possessiveness, trying to trip me up with details about Astrid once I had revealed I only had the one student, which he found bizarre. Maybe he intuited that there was more than violin lessons going on and that, of necessity, it was in some rich home and there was no way he could compete in terms of either money or comfort. And it didn’t make him any easier to appease.

  I had never experienced such controlling behaviour from men before outside of sexual games and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Often I wished that I had a real friend that I could talk to about the complicated web I had woven and now found myself trapped inside, but I did not yet feel ready to reach out to Lauralynn and admit where I was, and did not want to involve Aurelia. God knows what she might do if she believed that I was in some kind of danger, especially considering the mafia-like resources at her disposal within the Network.

  There was to be a fundraising gala at Astrid’s exclusive private school, the Escola Americana, to coincide with the end of term, and Joao, impressed by her recent progress, which he attributed solely to my efforts, had convinced his daughter to agree to perform. Together Astrid and I selected what she should play. Unlike me in my salad days, Astrid was a good technician but clearly lacking in emotions and sensibility, so we quickly settled on a classical Bach piece, his Sonata No. 1 in G Minor. It was an archetypal solo violin composition which I had never performed. Normally, one would also play the accompanying Partita, but I didn’t feel Astrid was quite ready for such an extended exercise. I had always found Bach and his contemporaries and successors more like maths, perfect but cold, exquisitely crafted and mechanical, lacking a sense of life, and had always preferred the romantic composers or more modern music, with a soft spot for Eastern European tunes with a hint of folklore past; maybe it was the blood of my faraway origins, before my ancestors had moved down under, talking.

  Although I was on one hand reluctant to attend the recital as it would mean being seen out in society with Joao again, I was also curious to see Astrid play on stage, and her father insisted strongly that I come along.

  ‘So you can show me off as your mistress?’ I queried.

  ‘Yes, and why not? You are beautiful. I am proud of you. Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You don’t own me, you know,’ I protested. I was wary of the idea of our fragile relationship being seen as a mere transaction with an older, wealthier man, displaying his younger ‘property’.

  For a rare occasion, Joao had joined Astrid and me at the beach, where he had looked on indulgently as we had played football on the sand with a bunch of small, excitable local kids, peering above the pages of the economics books he was reading and then joining us in the water when we needed to cool off.

  I’d quickly run out of energy and Astrid had returned to play, volleyball this time, her lithe, tanned body in constant motion, like a free bird let loose, running, dancing, jumping. laughing her head off every time she missed the ball and splashed down ignominiously face first in the warm, grainy sand to the delight of the competitive, other players. Joao suggested we go have a coffee.

  ‘Find some shade,’ he explained.

  There was a definite shortage of dedicated coffee shops or places to go to around Ipanema Beach, just an assembly of open-aired juice outlets, and sticky-floored bars that hadn’t yet opened for trade. We made our way to Emporio 37 on Rua Maria Quiteria. The last time I had sat there was a couple of weeks earlier with Raoul. Was J
oao aware of the fact? I certainly hoped not. I kept telling myself that having his driver tail me was a one-time thing, and that considering my infidelity I ought to cut him some slack for his reaction to it.

  We were served. Joao’s features were unusually drawn, a mask of severity spreading across his olive-skinned face.

  ‘You’re young; you have needs. I understand,’ Joao said. ‘And I’m away so much and older than you. In situation and responsibilities, not just years,’ he continued. ‘I realise it would be wrong to hold you down . . .’

  I opened my mouth to comment in some way, wary of where his monologue was leading, but he raised his hand, indicating I should remain silent.

  ‘What I’m suggesting is an arrangement,’ he said.

  Just like a businessman.

  Clumsily, he tried to explain how, from personal experience, monogamy was something of an awkward state of affairs for men, and coyly confessed he himself had not always been faithful when his own wife had still been alive, and conceded, to my surprise, that he realised that the same craving for new experiences equally applied to women. But he truly liked me, he said, felt we were so wonderfully compatible. In addition to the fact that my presence was healthy for Astrid. Unlike some of the air-headed young women it would be easy for him to bed and spoil. I was about to protest that I had no wish to become a substitute mother figure, but Joao was in full flow and developed his proposal.

  He wanted me to keep on seeing him, sleep with him and be at his side for business and social occasions within reason. Beyond that he would want me to remain discreet on other fronts, take precautions of course, and he would choose to ignore what I was up to in my free time. In exchange, I would always have a roof to live under and he would see to my material comfort. I would have access to a car, his driver even, frequent opportunities for travel in Brazil and overseas should I wish to join him on trips, and would be generously rewarded in kind.

  In other words he wanted me to become his official mistress. I was tempted to ask whether I would be the first, but refrained from doing so, as he kept on insisting how much he trusted me and the degree to which I displayed what he termed ‘class’, or as I mentally translated his words, was deemed suitable arm candy.