LITMIR.BIZ

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is already up and dressed. He was out nearly all day yesterday. We barely spoke, and this morning he’s been out to buy food and is now doing his chef thing, preparing mussels in a creamy white wine and tarragon sauce. I woke up late in our empty bed after a second restless night peppered with dreams of a hot, cluttered flat. Margot Levi was standing behind a judge’s bench wearing a black gown, like a bat, handing down death sentences. Then she was dancing out of an enormous mahogany wardrobe wearing a very short bridal gown, pulling the petals off armfuls of white roses.

      Waking up wasn’t the relief I needed. I was aching and stiff and I needed Gustav.

      I wander into the kitchen to find him buttoning up his whites. He knows it turns me on to see him pretending to be Gordon Ramsay. He looks so gorgeous. He hasn’t shaved since we got back from Margot’s apartment two nights ago, so his face is shadowed with what I call his bandit beard. His glossy black hair keeps falling over his eyes as he bends over the steaming pot.

      ‘Moules marinière? A little extravagant for lunchtime isn’t it, honey?’ I murmur, coming up to him and winding my fingers through his hair. ‘Doesn’t that smack of the prodigal son?’

      Gustav lets me secure his black hair, which has grown just past his collar, into a silly ponytail so that it won’t fall into his eyes, but he keeps watching for the pops to pierce the rolling water. So preoccupied.

      ‘It’s Pierre’s favourite.’

      I step over to the coffee machine and pour myself a cup. But it’s not caffeine I need. My heart is clattering along too fast as it is. Valium. Dope. I need some kind of sedative.

      I close my eyes and try to count down my heart rate. ‘How long is the flight from LA?’

      ‘Less than six hours. He’s been on that plane while you’ve been asleep. He’ll be landing at JFK any time now.’

      I gaze up through the skylight to the bright blue sky. There are no clouds. No white streams carved in the ether by departing or arriving planes. What are the chances of Pierre just, well, not showing up?

      Gustav is testing each mussel. He runs his fingertips over each ridged black shell and without looking he rejects any bad ones that are open too early, casting them with perfect aim into the bin.

      I look away, back up to that blue sky. Spring has arrived overnight. That late-March brightness, the hint of sunshine, the promise of warmth, should be filling me with birdsong and thoughts of weddings and honeymoons, but instead I only have the sensation of sliding too fast along a walkway.

      I can’t get off. Although I don’t want to get off. Not if Pierre is waiting at the other end.

      When he makes his way through the airport he’ll step on to one of those conveyor belts and move steadily towards us. He’ll have minimal luggage. No luggage, preferably. He’s not stopping long.

      I blow across the surface of my hot coffee.

      ‘Gustav. Stop a minute. We’ve barely spoken in the last two days. Be honest. Are you angry with me for stirring all this up with the feather and Margot and Pierre?’

      Gustav holds a shell above the boiling water, ready to drop it in. He glances up at last. The reflection from the cooking pot makes his black eyes look as if they are bubbling, too.

      ‘All of the above. Also none of it. My darling girl, so sweet and so sleepy. I wish you’d never gone to Venice on your own and yes, I know that was my fault, too. But since you ask, I’ll admit it. I’m still rattled by what you’ve told me. What Margot said.’ He drops the unfortunate shell into the water and picks up another. ‘Seeing her is like ripping at an old wound when you thought the scar had healed and finding it’s as raw as ever. But also I’m nervous about Pierre’s reaction when I confront him. He’s capable of fighting to the death just for the sake of it. Bizarrely I want him to corroborate every vitriolic thing she said. Then at least it will all be clear, and we can start again.’

      The shells start raining down into the water.

      ‘Except the bit about me.’ I take a sip of coffee and it burns my mouth. ‘If he just admits the truth about what he was playing at in all this, no one need be angry or nervous. Ever again.’

      We smile at each other for a long, simmering moment across the steam. Then Gustav lifts the lid, ready to clamp it on top of the pot.

      ‘And if you don’t get out of my favourite shirt and into some decent clothes I will have to work off this tension by ravishing you right here. Right now.’

      I duck away before he can come round the counter, and run back into the bathroom.

      Now I’m standing in front of the full-length mirror, sweaty yet shivering. My breath puffs rapidly on to the glass as I study my naked reflection. I’m no fatter, no thinner. My breasts are still high and full, the red nipples hardening as soon as I think about them. My waist is tiny, my hips feminine, my legs long. The curves that were hidden for the first twenty years of my life. It wasn’t so much Gustav who changed me. It was Crystal, our assistant, who I suddenly wish was here.

      It’s thanks to her that I dress this body up like a proper grown-up woman these days, not like someone who has just crawled out of a horsebox.

      I’m no different from two days ago. My eyebrows have been groomed professionally so that they somehow follow and refine the line of my cheekbones. My eyes are hazy and big with anxiety and fatigue, and the bright light in the bathroom gives them a darker hue, a kind of laurel-leaf green. They are staring back at me as if peering out of a dark well. There’s a shadow behind them, as if someone else is in there with me, looking out.

      What is different is my mouth. It’s always full, but it’s come up bruised and crushed. The lower lip is swollen from where I bit it hard as Gustav pinned me against the wall. Kisses that felt like punches.

      I pick up a comb and start to drag it listlessly through my hair. I relish the snag when it catches at the roots. One by one, I start to curl tendrils of my hair round my fingers. I have a new long fringe, and trim only the ends of my hair now, so it still flows to my waist.

      I’m up high, like Rapunzel in her tower. I glance out of the window as I comb. From here I can see the Hudson River. The sun is nearly overhead. It’s the first time since we arrived in New York at Christmas that I’ve seen the sparkle of it on the water and the deep sharp shadows cast from the high buildings by the stronger light.

      I’m about to squeeze styling gel on to my hair, just as Crystal has nagged me to do to banish the frizz, and then I stop. No. No hairstyling. I turn back to the mirror. No make-up, even. I don’t want to look as if I’ve made any effort for Pierre. I don’t even want to be here, except that Gustav has insisted. It’s about the only thing he’s said to me, with the new gruff edge that’s been in his voice and his manner, since we left Margot’s lair.

      My stomach tightens. If I can push that woman to the perimeter, just for a few minutes, I can dwell on what happened when we got down from her apartment to terra firma. Gustav shoving me through the rain and into that filthy alleyway, pushing me up against the wall beside the dumpsters.

      I turn and look at the vivid red scratches scoring my back as if he’s been whipping me, right down my butt and my legs. They are stinging from the soap. I flinch as I run my fingers over each one. My eyes are drawn back to my neck, which has a ring of angry red bite marks around it.

      I look as if I’ve been raped.

      Tears rise up in my eyes. I can’t hold on to anything positive right now. I can’t hold on to the sexiness of being fucked by Gustav like that. It was just him and me, and it was earth-shattering, but something else was driving him.

      And hovering around us still, like a cloud of mosquitoes, is the triumvirate, that exclusive threesome of Gustav, Pierre and Margot.

      ‘He’ll be here in about half an hour.’

      Gustav’s hands are on me. I’m in front of the mirror with my eyes closed, resting on my forehead. He has a soft

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