LITMIR.BIZ

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powder as fine as flour, as light as goose down, as deep as a beach. Instinctively, many of the group took off their shoes and shrugged off preconceptions and inhibitions. Alice included. All around, images of Africa burst out against the bare rock face, whilst African music both melodic and intensely rhythmic drowned any other sound or the need to talk. The effect was mesmeric, hallucinatory almost. If the purpose of a cathedral is to suck a visitor deep into its very message, then this disused, recycled quarry was a cathedral indeed. Where was Alice? In Africa? In France? Was she hearing with her eyes and seeing with her ears? Why hadn’t she been anywhere like this in her thirty-three years? Her body began to sway to the hypnotic drum-heavy soundtrack and she sashayed her way, trancelike, through the halls. Sometimes, she was completely alone, images drenching her. Sometimes, she found herself amongst people – her colleagues, strangers, all sharing the space and the experience and moving to the rhythms instinctively. Savannah and fabric and faces and dried river beds and wildlife and blood-red skies enveloped her. She caught sight of Rochelle, dancing quite bizarrely all by herself, but Alice had no inclination to laugh or cringe. Paul was right. This was a cathedral in so much as it was an awe-inspiring space where all who entered experienced an intense and spiritual headiness. Paul was right. Where was he?

       He’s behind me, he’s to my side, he’s in front of me. An image of a huge tribal chief swathed in robes the colour of sunburst is superimposed over him. Paul’s face is red and yellow. Now there’s a flame tree all over him. And now he’s up close against me. His lips are hovering near mine. Touch down. Tongue. I’m kissing Paul. And his hands are all over my body, they’re squeezing my boobs and fondling my bum and travelling up and down my back. And mine are grappling and groping him. God, his biceps, his six-pack, his tight bum. We’re swaying and pulsing to the music, which is deafening and divine. Christ, I’m turned on, not just by his lip–tongue talent, nor the tantalizing bulge of his hard-on or the fact that he’s pinching my nipples and nuzzling my neck. It’s more. It’s the energy of this place. It’s the strange contradiction of stone that is soft, powdering its way between my toes. It’s the thrumming tribal beat. It’s the sultry, rich, ever-changing colours. It’s like being stoned. I suppose, in this derelict quarry, we are stoned in a sense. Actually, it’s better than being stoned. It’s more real. My senses are in overdrive. I’m gorging on Paul’s mouth like I’ve been half starved. I have no idea if people can see us. I don’t care if they can. I want to stay in this moment. I want to be in this place.

      The wink wink nudge nudging started on the coach. It was as if the unbridled unity the group attained inside the Cathédrale was decimated by the startling sunlight and sudden heat which confronted them on leaving. As if, by shielding their eyes from the sun, they hid from the unexpected spirituality they’d just encountered. As if it was suddenly unseemly for publishing and editorial directors to be seen barefoot and blissed out when they were normally known for their professional poise and thrust. No matter how at ease they had felt within the Cathédrale d’Images, it was a comfort zone they could no longer access once the reality of the day outside had hit them. And so the whispers started. Alice was dismayed. How could something that had tasted so good and felt so right have negative ramifications so quickly? Even Anita seemed to be having a good old gossip with Rochelle as they stood in line to board the coach.

      ‘And what do you have to say on the matter?’ Jeanette whispered, slithering into the seat next to Alice, raising an eyebrow while elbowing her in the ribs.

      ‘Yes,’ Jacquie said, popping up from the seat in front, ‘what’s your take, Alice?’

       Fuck. Is that it then? Is that where a trance-like snog in some spaced-out quarry gets me? Does my perceived crime really warrant my reputation being compromised? Christ, it was only necking and a bit of a grope – it’s not as if we got down and shagged. God, if only we’d’ve fucked at least it would have made this bit slightly more worthwhile. Hell’s Valley indeed.

      ‘Consenting adults,’ Alice declared in an uninterested voice. ‘People shouldn’t judge so sweepingly nor condemn so quickly. Perhaps the behind-the-scenes situation justifies the visual dramatics – you know?’

      ‘Blimey, Alice!’ Jacquie said. ‘You do surprise me.’

      ‘Me too,’ Jeanette agreed. ‘After all, she’s your main rival at work – and you need him on your side. We all do.’

      ‘God knows I do,’ Jacquie sighed, ‘but not enough to perform that on!’

      Alice stared from one woman to the other and as the pennies began to drop like a one-armed bandit spewing the jackpot, she wondered how best to backtrack.

      ‘Isn’t she married?’ Alice hedged her bets, trying to come across as knowing exactly who – never mind what – they were on about.

      ‘Clare?’ Jacquie exclaimed in a whisper. ‘Didn’t you hear Clare called off her engagement? Even though the Vera Wang was already on order.’

       Clare! They’re talking about Clare Cabot. Christ alive!

      ‘He’s married too, isn’t he?’ Alice went for broke, now keen to know just who it was that Clare had done what with in the depths of the quarry.

      ‘Geoff is more than married, Alice – Christ, his baby can be only a few months old. A few weeks even.’

      Geoff – they’re talking about Geoff. Bloody hell, Clare and Geoff. Who could’ve seen that coming?

      ‘I like Geoff,’ Alice mused, gazing out of the window as the coach ambled off. She wondered whether she’d ever return to Les Baux. Perhaps the experience should be left as a one-off so as not to dilute the impact.

      ‘Everyone likes Geoff,’ Jeanette whispered.

      ‘That’s the point,’ Jacquie agreed.

      ‘What on earth possessed him to go for her?’ Alice joined in, for safety’s sake.

       Yet I do know what possessed them. I empathize. La Cathédrale d’Images possessed them. As it did me. But Clare was caught and I wasn’t.

      Now that it transpired Alice hadn’t been seen, but so easily might have been, her desire for Paul increased tenfold and the danger of being caught made the notion of sex with this man all the more irresistible. It was all she could think about. However, the afternoon was timetabled relentlessly with the Belgian’s motivational workshops and role-playing exercises; the evening was centred around the team dinner; their plane was leaving first thing the next morning.

       Well, no doubt Beard Man from Bruges will be harping on about believing in the Power of Me. So why don’t I just practise what he’ll be preaching – I ought to account for my actions and Access the Impact I have on others. Right then. If the point of this trip is to inspire me, I can think of something far more motivational than one of Fritz’s daft exercises. I’ll be role-playing all right, just not in Conference Room B. If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to make me feel good about myself, that will make me think this trip has been worthwhile, that it’s given me something positive and memorable to take home, it’ll be rampant sex with Paul Brusseque. Surely all managers of my calibre should be encouraged to take matters into their own hands as we see fit? And what matters to me is getting hold of Paul’s throbbing cock. See how we fit.

      Alice told Anita and Rochelle that the experience of Les Baux had given her a migraine for which the only cure was to lie down, undisturbed, in a darkened room. She told Jeanette and Jacquie she was faking a headache to skive off the afternoon’s sessions and she’d meet them in the bar at six. She told Paul she was playing hooky from the afternoon’s workshops and to meet her in her room in ten. She told herself that all of this was a very good idea. So she set about tweezering renegade hairs from her bikini line, applying a little perfume in strategic places and putting on fresh underwear, a swipe of mascara and a dirty, dirty smile.

      Paul takes off his watch and puts it in his bedside drawer. He washes his hair, showering the limestone from his legs and feet. He must have made over fifty visits to Les Baux over the past three seasons, but still the place

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