Lunch (11 page)

 

Chapter 10

H
e is already late for the set when he hits the buzzer, leaning on it a moment too long.

“Who is it?” Her voice floating down, annoyed.

“Acme Messenger.” Perfect Cockney accent.

“I'm not expecting anything.”

“Are you Miss O. Morgan? Delivery.”

“From whom?”

“Medusa Records, miss. From a Mr. Chabrol.” He pronounces it Chab-­roll.

“Can't you leave it there by the door?”

“No, miss. It says urgent. I need your signature.”

“Okay,” she sighs over the intercom. “I'll be right down.”

She opens the door, a whiff of cerulean, a brush in one hand, her painting smock askew, tendrils of hair curling around her face as she pushes them back impatiently in an instantly familiar gesture. She looks at the package. “Where do I sign?”

“Here.” He holds out a clipboard. “Line eleven.”

She scribbles her name and takes the package. “Thank you.” Turns to leave.

“I also have a message for you.”

She looks at him, curious, but cannot see his features hidden behind the opaque black face guard. She can barely hear him.

“Yes.”

He unmasks himself.

She blanches, then steps back, enraged, startled away from work by a face she is unprepared to see.

“You son of a bitch,” she says. “How dare you? I can't see you now.” She tries to push the door shut. Nick is too quick. He wedges in his boot. Steel-­tipped. No fear. “You can't come in.”

“I don't want to come in. I only wanted to see your face.”

“Well, you've seen it. Now go away.”

He pulls back, and bows.

“Tuesday,” he says. “Tuesday lunch.”

Olivia leans against the door she has slammed and slides down to the floor, trembling, her hands shaking as she tears open the package, not from Medusa, no, that was such a nasty trick, but a small blue box tied with a white ribbon, a small heart glistening on a bed of cotton, a small ruby heart, deeply red and circled with gold.

There is no card, no note, no apology, just a dazzling gem, gleaming in the light on a thin gold chain, blood-­red to flicker between her breasts.

 

Chapter 11

H
e senses her mood the instant she closes the door, but does not indulge her by asking what's wrong and rubbing her shoulders to ease the tension away, murmuring soothingly that he understands. He does not help because he likes seeing her human and real and frustrated, he is expert with weakness. The silliness of his charade on the bike was deliberately provocative, the dopey prank of an infuriating juvenile, growing up into an infuriating man who knows how to find her when she does not wish to be found.

He only wanted to see her face.

Now he is sitting on the bed, waiting, pages of his script littering the floor where he has tossed them, memorized and discarded, he is waiting for her to explode, and when she does he knows exactly what he's going to do to her.

Anger is easy, for Nick.

He senses her mood and will not give in to it, teasing her when she finally comes to him, she pushes him away in annoyance but he is too strong, and too wily, and he knows what she likes, and he always makes her come.

“Tell me about your boyfriends,” he says as they lie, sated, finally.

“Not now,” she says. “I have a meeting. I've got to go.”

“In a minute.”

She sighs, restless.

“Then tell me about your husband,” Nick says, his fingers stroking her hair.

Olivia pulls away, her eyes narrowed. “How do you know about him?”

He shrugs. “I don't know anything. Just that you were married.”

“Don't ever ask me about him.”

“That awful?”

“Not awful. Just over, a long time ago. I was very young, and naive. It ended badly.”

“In tears, you mean.”

She stands up, looking for her clothes.

“Sorry,” he says. “No. I'm not sorry.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you hadn't married him, you wouldn't have come to London, and we wouldn't be here right now.”

“Thanks for reminding me. I've got to go.”

“No.”

“Yes. Leave me alone.”

“I won't.” He sits up and grabs her wrists.

“Let go, you bastard.” She tries to pull away, not in play or fear but real anger, the anger of pain and betrayal, and then she lashes out, kicking him, wanting to hurt him, to sink her teeth into him and watch him bleed, not knowing how much he enjoys this display of temper, how he thrills to the fierce fury in her determination, her muscles taut, her mouth set, her breathing hard as he frees her wrists, suddenly, so she topples, off-­balance, into the soft comforter, and is instantly up on all fours, trying to crawl as far as she can, still lashing out and catching him full on the shins. He grabs her around the middle and whacks her bottom, hard, as if he were spanking a wayward child, two handprints appearing, ghostly pink images, Nick loosening his grip for a second to admire his handiwork, and Olivia twisting onto her side, trying to get away.

I have been waiting, with dread, for this all along. I knew it was coming. The dreadfulness is not merely the anticipation of Nick doing it, but that I have been wanting so badly to see Olivia try to fight him off, push him away till she can fight no longer, and then succumb.

I disgust myself.

This is the scenario Nick had been dreaming of, wondering how to entrap her into the games and props as delightful to him as the sight and feel of her body, and as necessary. And here she is, the familiar joy of a soon-­to-­be vanquished woman clawing at him, scratches running across his chest, venting her rage on the kind of man who, early in his career, had taken a small part as a sailor in a film that he knew would be awful, simply because he wanted to learn the intricacies of the Blackwall hitch and the fisherman's bend from a real professional.

Nick tells himself she is begging him to subdue her.

It takes no more than a second to yank free the silken cords holding back the brocade drapes, looping one first around her right wrist and then the bedpost, and as quickly repeating it with the other despite her shocked, frantic thrashing.

He kneels over her, smiling, savoring the moment, content now to watch her as she struggles helplessly against the cords, smiling when she tries to heave away as he reaches out to caress her breasts.

“Don't you touch me,” she screams at him.

“Why shouldn't I?” He is maddeningly calm.

“Because I hate you.”

“If you don't stop screaming I'll have to put a gag on you.”

She is too angry to be frightened, too angry to realize how her wrath arouses him. “You wouldn't dare.”

“Wouldn't I?”

She is still trying to kick him.

“Are you going to calm down, or should I tie your legs, too?”

That provokes the reaction he knew it would, and he rolls over on top of her, propping his weight on his elbows, pinioning her body beneath his, delighting in her thrashing response.

“You can't get away, you know. You are totally helpless, and I can do anything to you that I want.”

“No, you can't, you bastard,” she says. “Let me go.”

“I will, but only if you apologize.”

She looks at him, aghast. “Me? For what?”

“For screaming at me because someone else made you mad, and otherwise insulting my character.”

“Your
character? You're a monster. Now let me go.”

“Am I?” His fingers have found their mark, incessant, swirling. “Would a monster do this to you?”

“Get away,” she says, more feebly.

“You like it,” he says. “Say that you like it.”

She turns her head away, and he turns it back, biting her lips, kissing her, devouring.

“Say it.”

“I hate you.”

He pulls away, instantly, leaving her there on the bed, he wants to hear her plead, craving satisfaction, as he saunters into the kitchen to open a bottle of champagne, coming back to sit on the edge of the bed, bemused, smiling at her childish tantrum.

“Care for a drink?”

“You fuck,” she says. “You're never going to see me again.”

“That's what you think.” He drains his glass, and stands, looking at her, his hands on his hips, his body taut, virile, his eyes darkening, and she stares back at him, a slick knot of fear tightening in her gut, but still she will not back down.

“What are you looking at, you sadistic pervert?”

“You, my darling Olivia,” he says, as he lies down atop her once more, this time his arms pinning her legs, his head in her belly, his tongue incessant, demanding, unyielding, till she moans.

“You want me,” he says, sitting up. “Say it.”

“I want you,” she says, because she can't stop, “but I want you to go away.”

He laughs, plunging into her with long sure strokes, maddening, rhythmic, stronger and stronger, endless waves of stroking pleasure from the weight of his body, and the sureness of his fingers, and how he feels inside her. “I am not going to go away,” he says, “not now, not ever.”

“Yes you are, you bastard,” she says, his smugness infuriating her yet again. “Get off me.”

“I've had just about enough of your lip,” he says, pulling out of her suddenly and turning her on her side, her arms smarting against the cords, and spanking her again, hard, harder, till she is kicking and screaming at him to stop, but he won't stop now, no, he is not close to stopping, the thrill of her sweet body beneath his, bound into compliance against her wishes, he is not going to stop, not now, not when he can have his fill of her however he wants it. “Take it,” he says, “you know you can take it,” and he makes her, screaming, tears soaking the pillows as she tries to squirm, fighting, twisting away to fight, but she cannot because he has turned her back and is kissing her, kissing her deep, his fingers deliriously maddening yet again, and she hates him more than ever for her helpless submission to his will, her effortless initiation into his twisted, expert manipulation of pain and pleasure, and her certain knowledge that this was only the beginning.

 

Chapter 12

S
trange how stories begin. Usually you're in them before you think they could possibly be worth remembering. All those endless, mindless encounters that fueled our days, those overheated sagas of instant gratification so vivid to the players, so boringly habitual to us that the actual recollection lasted no longer than a sneeze.

This story is different. It started at lunch, yes, but it doesn't end there; stories like this, born of innocence in the full light of day, never do. No, they end in the black of night, when the moon is obscured and a bleak winter wind rustles the leaves, and those well-­fed eaters of pasta in trendy restaurants are tucked safely in bed, dreaming of deals and dates and buffalo mozzarella with a hint of basil and extra-­virgin oil, their sorry simple minds never daring to unleash the dark webs of dangerous impulses spun like quicksilver in their synapses, lurking, desperate, just beneath the veneer of their respectability, waiting to be released.

This story begins not with a chance encounter on a day full of rain, nor with the light-­diffused sessions in a white studio scented of hyacinths and oils, nor with the inevitability of his willful seduction.

No, it begins when Nick is lying in bed, he is lying in the flat, the pillows grasped to his chest, inhaling the lingering scent of Olivia, the essence of Olivia mingled with vetiver and sex, the essence of desire. Nick is lying there, his fists wrapped around the sheets, and Olivia will not come that day, I know it, she is afraid, and Nick is lying, dreaming, waiting, waiting in vain for the soft rush of footsteps up the staircase, the metal clink of a key in the lock, the knob turning, the door opening, the woman blowing in, breathless, raindrops on her face, raindrops in her hair, she is warm and laughing and full of life, kicking off her shoes that are sodden with wet. These were suede once, she says, and smiles. Nick pulls her down, kissing her, drinking in a whiff of her, this essence of desire, he cannot hold her long enough before she is gone, she will not stay.

He cannot keep her.

This is when the story truly begins, with a pain Nick had not allowed himself for more years than he can remember. It is the pain of refusal. Olivia does not submit, she will not come, and even if she did, she would not stay.

Nick has no tolerance for pain, spoiled as he is by the facile leap into the kind of fame that is incomprehensible to those who'll never live it, his senses dulled by the endless procession of shapely bodies yielding to his will.

The rage starts small. He ignores it, as long as he can, obscured briefly by the essence of desire.

The rage starts only as a tiny match sparked into life, but it grows, yes, it grows, it is a small steady flame, it is a warming campfire in the middle of the forest, it is fed, fed too much, it is burning the trees, they are glowing, crackling with fire, burned, then gutted, incinerated in the maelstrom of heat so intense it consumes the very air that feeds it, and dies.

The pain is palpable, growing like a tumor in his gut. It is palpable, and it is out of control, inextricably, hopelessly entrenched, living, breathing, an all-­consuming obsession.

Olivia is not like the others.

She is unhavable.

This story truly begins when it is already beginning to be over.

 

Chapter 13

T
hey do not speak of their lives outside the flat. They meet at lunchtime on weekdays, and then leave, quietly, on separate paths.

She tries to keep their meetings short despite Nick's calm requests for other times, burdened, she says, by her schedule, and Nick must get to work, mustn't he, put on his face, learn his lines, be who he's meant to be, become another. She tries, she tells herself, a flurry of self-­righ­teous justification, she is trying, she is still in control of this thing, she will put an end to it, he's leaving anyway in a few months, it's only because Olivier is away, it must stop, he wants too much, he wants her.

He wants.

Each time he pushes the wanting, the games of their lovemaking, just a little bit farther.

Each time she lets him.

Even a woman like Olivia has found herself ensnared by the force of Nick's sexual charisma, and on such a completely fundamental level, going beyond all rational thought or deeds. Thoroughly unaware is she of precisely what she's doing till it's done, and still she can't believe she is capable of such abandon, of what under other circumstances would have automatically been judged as depraved or unthinkable. Nothing else, no drug, no potion, no money in the bank, has that power, and quite that devastating a result.

It is easier to pretend it isn't there.

She does not speak of her friends, the steady rhythm of her days, the familiar patterns of her life and the faces of those she loves, or of the commissions, her flurry of impassioned energy, the newest portraits painted with such sure quickness, the seeing of them so much easier, with a dazzling clarity. Nick has changed her work, though she does not want to admit it, the force of him enlivening the subtle shifts of color and form she paints on faces more vivid and free, full of hidden depths of character.

Will that be lost when she ends it, she wonders, is that what pulls her feet across the park to this flat? She does not speak of the jumbled confusion such thoughts bring during her long walks in the cold, longer each time, and back again.

She never mentions Olivier.

Nick does not speak of the astonished delight glistening in Toledo's eyes during dailies, watching Nick's scenes shot the day before, or of the cast, pouncing on this unexpected vigor, grabbing it quickly and feeding it back, rallying around their superstar's surprising willingness to share, to shoot and reshoot, endlessly patient during difficult technical scenes on dank cobbled streets, questioning, willing and open, to work, and then work harder even as his breath traces an aurora of steam in the chilly damp air. The work is there, all-­enfolding, all-­sustaining, says Faust, it is harder than Nick had ever imagined to actually be present in it, and it is satisfaction unexpected to revel in the seriousness of creation for its own sake. To Nick's surprise he is capable, if only because he can close his eyes and see Olivia's impassioned dance behind the canvas, the wrinkle of concentration between her eyebrows, her mental absence as she painted his face more potent than her presence.

His Gretchen is madly in love with him, melting at his touch, offering him every opportunity for a seduction he once would have welcomed but now spurns, gently, joking, flirtatiously friendly and respectful. Everyone is respectful.

If it weren't for Olivia, I might almost be pleased, but if it weren't for Olivia, this filming would most likely have crossed the line into the fiasco I'd feared, even though I'd always believed Nick capable of such a role, and encouraged him to play it.

If it weren't for Olivia.

Nick does not speak of the elated late-­night phone calls to the Coast by gloating executives already deep in the quicksand complications of strategic marketing for a film they'd thought would last for a week and then be yanked straight to video. We never thought he had it in him, they say, when only weeks before they'd been calling Nick's indulgent fantasy
Faust's Folly,
and yet here it is, shimmering to life before their very eyes, a real story, thrillingly told.

Nick does not speak of it.

There is a new and shifting mood in him, one that so perfectly suits the character he is playing that even Toledo does not credit himself for its gradual deepening. He sees only a gravity in Nick's eyes that had never been there before, a somber worry, a questioning passion, elusive, ineluctible, and, were he aware of its effect, devastatingly sexy.

If I didn't know Nick as well as I did, I might even have called it something like love.

S
HE HEARS
a bell ringing, disturbing her reverie. It has been ringing for quite some time, her machine is not on, she wonders why not in that brief second before she picks up the phone, she must have turned it off, yes, because Olivier is meant to be calling, and she wants to pick it up on the first ring and tell him Darling, please, please, come home, come home to me, I can't bear it anymore, don't leave me alone, I am going mad.

The phone has been ringing and ringing.

“Olivia,” he says.

“Is it really you?”

“Of course it is,” Olivier says, a faint echo in her ear. “Who else would call you this time of night?”

“You,” she says, “only you. But it's your night. My day, and I should be working.”

“Is that why you let it ring so many times?” He is teasing, but she panics.

“Oh, I couldn't paint, so I was running a bath.”

The briefest hesitation. “What is it,
ma petite?”

“I just miss you too much.”

“Is there something else? Something that's bothering you? I hear it, in your voice.”

She is sitting on the floor, gripping the receiver with both hands. Hear it. Hear it in her voice. Not possible. “Yes,” she says.

“Tell me.”

“I can't wait for you to get back, so I'm going to get on a plane tomorrow. Well, I can't tomorrow, I have a sitting. The day after, then. Soon,” she says, although she has only just decided. “It was going to be a surprise.”

He is amused, and pleased.

“Let's get married, now,” she says abruptly.

“Why now?”

“I don't know, let's just, please. Please.”

“You are very adorable,” he says, chuckling softly at her impassioned plea, “but you know that's not possible. Your American paperwork takes days, anyway, and I haven't got a spare moment to myself.”

“Except at night.”

“Except at night. But I won't allow myself to believe you're really coming until I see you. It is too much to hope for.”

“Good. Then I'm really coming.”

“Darling, what is it?” he says. “Something else. Tell me. Tell me now.”

“I just want to see your face, that's all, and it's cold and dreary here, and raining all the time, and I'm sick of it.”

“Are there problems with the portrait, that actor?”

“No, of course not. I finished it weeks ago, and he was really pleased with it. At least he said so.”

“How did you do him?” His voice drowsy, sweet. “I've forgotten.”

“A minotaur,” she says, “standing in a maze.”

“Oh yes. A beast. Lost.”

“I'll call you as soon as I have the flight number.”

“It's such a long flight.”

“I don't care. I'll take a sketchbook.”

“Silly girl.”

“Mmm.”

“I'll fetch you at the airport. I don't care what I have to cancel.”

“Will you?”

“In a big black car.”

“Naughty.” She shivers. “What did you play tonight? I'll put it on.”

“The Mozart program, but I missed the cadenza in the D minor Fantasia.”

“Because you were thinking of me.”

“Sans doute.”

“How many encores?”

“Four.”

“Only four?”

“I must be slipping.”

“Go to sleep now.”

“I will.
Je t'embrasse.
”

“Me too. Soon.”

“Soon,” he says, “but not soon enough.”

H
ER HEELS
on the cobblestones of the mews, walking past the car dealer, the pub where normal ­people are having a pint and a sandwich, gossiping during their lunch break, her heels dragging as she walks up Queens Gate to the park, past the Albert Memorial, up the paths by the neatly tended shrubs and flower beds, past the Watts statue, brushing her gloved hand along the horse's hoof for luck, and knowing she would not find it as the wind whips her hair, past the American students trying to throw a Frisbee, past the obelisk, past the fat man walking his corgi, “Come along, you little nipper,” he says, nodding to her in greeting, past the pond, looking across it to the Henry Moore sculpture, a gleaming white beacon.

Where are you going, she imagines she hears it whisper, and why are you going there?

It is not me, not my true self going there, she tells herself, letting him touch me this way, wanting him to, the fear and pleasure jumbled so helplessly and intoxicatingly together, craving that recklessness dragging me down to places I don't want to go.

She can acknowledge it in her painting, she realizes as she walks out of the Lancaster Gate and past the tube station, her pace slowing as she heads up Queensway, past the kebab stands and pinched faces of hurrying shoppers. She wants it there, in her work, there where she can control it.

Still her feet keep moving, taking her past the baths where she should be lying, sweating the shameful duplicity out of her body, seeping in fat drops from her pores, trickling down her body and away, far away, there she should be lying, instead of in the arms of her lover, waiting impatiently for her in his gilded flat just around the corner.

E
ACH TIME
she is a little later, she who so hated to be kept waiting. The relentless sweep of the hands on her watch, blithely ticking, another minute gone, her wishing it by, wanting and not wanting, loathing the knowledge that her footsteps might slow at the familiar sight of Porchester Square, yet they will always take her up the stairs, and through the door.

“I shouldn't be here,” she says as soon as she walks in.

Nick is lying on the bed, reading a script, smoking, and he looks at her, his instinctive response to her petulance making his expression go vacantly wary.

“Then why are you?” he says, careful to keep his voice low and perfectly conversational. “You could've called, to cancel. It wouldn't be the first time.”

“I know. But there's something I want to say.”

“Then say it.”

“I can't when you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you're so maddeningly fucking calm.”

“What do you want me to do, when you come bursting in like this?” His eyes begin to sparkle with the pleasure of a fight as he stubs out his cigarette and stretches languorously before sitting up.

She still does not know him well enough, or perhaps chooses to delude herself, I cannot decide which, to realize how one tiny chink is all he needs, a hole in the dike, one tiny crack, to sidle in wherever he wants to go, his strength taking sustenance from weakness, the slightest hint of it swelling him, empowered, a snake swallowing a rabbit, engorged with gluttony.

“Last time you came here—­when was it, oh, just a scant few days ago—­you were in a bad mood too, weren't you? It's becoming a regular habit. You're almost always late, and you're usually in a snit about it. It's not like you to be so cranky.”

“So now you know what I'm like?” she mutters, her eyes straying to the bed, the covers rumpled from Nick's lounging. The silken drapery cords are linked around the bedposts, where he'd left them, where he always leaves them, taunting reminders. He sees her eyes upon them, and smiles, wickedly.

“Have a drink,” he says, motioning to the champagne. “It'll calm your nerves.”

“There's only one thing that'll calm my nerves.” She turns to the door, but he is too quick, blocking her path. She cringes, waiting for him to pounce, but he stands there, his face a cipher, watching her, assessing all the possibilities.

“At least take off your coat, and then you can tell me what you came to say,” he says, his voice mild, blandly reassuring. He eases her coat and scarf off, draping them over one of the chairs, careful not to touch her. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Want some tea?”

She shakes her head and sits down on the other chair. He sits on the edge of the bed, nonchalant. The role of the sympathetic, docile suitor fits him as sleekly as his jeans. It is a part he has played many times before.

“Tell me what's wrong.”

She takes a deep breath.

“It's guilt, isn't it?” he says, not wanting to hear anything he can't say first. “You shouldn't make yourself feel so guilty.”

“How do you know what I feel, or don't?”

“Okay, maybe I don't know. I'm
imagining,”
he says. “Even someone of my limited education can recognize a guilty conscience when he sees one. It's written all over your face.”

She flushes. “I don't believe you,” she says, unconvinced.

“Then don't. We believe only what we want to believe, anyway, you and me, Olivia.” This is not like Nick, to speak of such things, but he is clever, far more clever than she thinks at snapping up her confusion. He has encouraged this anger in her, preferring it to the calmer disposition that exists outside this flat, for it is the perfect counterpoint to his temperament. He baits it, eagerly awaiting it only to subdue it, conquering her and her desperate moans. Just when this anger is about to overcome her saner instincts he transforms himself into a sympathetic ear, a loving brother, a trusted friend.

I shift the camera as he gets up and goes around to the back of her chair and starts massaging her shoulders. I have to move, stretch my legs, do something. Nick is enjoying his performance far too much.