Maestra (9 page)

When we got back to the suite I shoved Mercedes into our room.

‘Why don’t you have a nice relaxing shower, darling?’ I trilled over my shoulder. At least I wouldn’t have to get covered in that filthy sweat.

‘I hate you,’ I said as she collected her things to go back to the pool.

‘Don’t worry. He’ll only want a bit of a cuddle. Anyway, look at these.’

She showed me a couple of pill jars in her overflowing make-up bag.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing much. Xanax. A few Vallies.’

‘Hand it over, then.’

‘Not for you. For him.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Duh. We’ll slip him a Mickey Finn. I don’t want to spend an evening with that fat bastard. We’re in the South of France, Jude!’

‘Lauren.’

‘Alright. Listen,’ she whispered, though I could hear the sound of the water from the other room. ‘We’ll go for dinner, then I’ll grind up a few of these and you can slip them into his brandy.’

‘He doesn’t drink.’

‘Fizzy water, then. Half an hour and he’ll be knackered. We can go out on the town and in the morning he’ll have had a lovely rest. He’ll never know.’

‘He’s really fat, Mercedes. I’m not sure dead punters are a good look.’

‘Don’t be soft, they’re not strong. I take them all the time. I’ll get it ready in the loos by the pool now. Or will you be feeling like another session on the rubber mattress later?’

‘Don’t be a cow. This is a free ride for you.’

‘I know. I’m just saying why shouldn’t you have some fun? We’ll go down to where all them big yachts are. Come on, it’ll be a laugh.’

Maybe it was the insouciant air of the Riviera, but I was feeling a lot more cheerful. Sod it. Even if James found out, he could only get furious and pack us off home with a £2,000 handbag each, not bad going for a single day. Something else would turn up.

‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘But be careful. Look at the labels.’

‘Best get your glad rags on then. Knickers off, ladies!’

*

When Mercedes skipped off, I examined James’s little bag of tricks. It contained a pair of crotchless PVC panties, a fishnet camisole which laced like a corset, open at the nipples, and a pair of black hold-ups with PVC trim. Nasty stuff, the sort sold in touristy Soho sex shops. I hauled it all on, washed my cunt and rubbed a trickle of monoi oil over the stripe of my pubic hair and between my buttocks. Adding black stiletto sandals and mussing my hair, I looked at myself in the mirror with the opulent marble bathroom behind me. Well, if what he wanted was low-rent hooker . . . it could have been much worse, I supposed. If I squinted, I could almost pretend it was more
Cabaret
than streetwalker. ‘Mama thinks I’m living in a convent, a secluded little convent, in the southern part of France,’ I sang under my breath, trying out a slow, voracious smile. Good. Very good.

I sashayed across the drawing room and tapped on James’s bedroom door.

‘I’m ready, darling,’ I purred.

‘Come in.’

The room was empty. From the bathroom I heard the splatter of an explosive crap, followed by a ricochet of bubbling farts. I paused in the doorway. Oh God. A few moments later there was a flush and James emerged, along with a steamy waft of shit and Penhaligon’s Extract of Limes.

‘Bit of a runny tummy,’ he said, in an accusing voice. Why couldn’t he keep his foulness to himself? He was naked now, under the gaping robe. As he looked at me, a slow leer spread across his face, but he hesitated to approach me. He hasn’t done this before, I realised. Feeling more confident, I took a step towards him. I closed my eyes and ran my fingertips along what passed for his jawline, down his throat, across the hillocks of his chest.

‘So,’ I murmured breathily, ‘what do you want to do with me?’

Silence. I braced myself for a kiss, peeking under my eyelashes.

‘James has been a naughty boy.’ I opened my eyes. He was pouting, the fat on his face suddenly making him appear like an inflated toddler.

‘James has been a naughty boy and he wants his mistress to punish him.’

I could have laughed for joy.

‘Then lie down on the bed,
immediately
!’

I held my breath and ducked into the bathroom to detach the belt from the spare dressing gown. James was spread out on the bed, his weight challenging even the hyper-technical mattress. As I flipped his arms over his head and tied his wrists together I took a quick look down over the vast mottled belly. Would I actually have to lift up a skirt of flesh to get at his cock? Jesus. I didn’t have much to improvise with, so I worked on my script as I slid the belt from the loops of his trousers where they hung over a chair. Holding the buckle, I looped it around three times and swallowed hard as I approached the bed. Three thousand pounds. A few months’ grace. Admittedly I had never let anything as hideous as this near me, but I told myself all cats were grey in the dark.

‘Turn over!’

He rolled onto his side, he couldn’t have got any further without a hole cut in the bed. His arse looked like a pair of cheap battery chickens. I had to concentrate or I was going to either laugh or chuck. I stroked the makeshift flail along one puckered buttock.

‘James deserves a good spanking. I saw him looking at those girls by the pool. I was very jealous. Naughty, naughty boy!’ With each ‘naughty’ I gave him a tap, trying to measure how hard he wanted it.

‘Yes, mistress, I’ve been a naughty boy.’

‘And you deserve to be punished, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

Harder this time.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, mistress.’

Harder again, enough to raise a red stripe. He sighed. So did I.

I went on with that for a bit, but there was really no way of telling whether he was excited; his face was already scarlet from the sun at lunch. So I rolled him back over, unlaced the camisole to give him a peek at my tits and crawled around him until my face was above his crotch, with my bottom in the air so he could see my cunt through the split in the panties. His cock was tiny, a two-inch stub poking jauntily from a thatched cushion of flesh. I’d tucked a condom into the sole of my sandals, but there was no way I could see to get it on him, let alone him in me. Thank Christ, but I was going to have to get him off somehow.

‘Do you deserve to come, you bad boy?’

‘Yes, please, please!’

Crack.

‘Please what?’

‘Please mistress.’

‘And what do you want?’

He screwed up his face again, lisping now, even more revolting.

‘Jameth wanth hith pudding.’

I had done a lot of stuff sexually. Most of it I’d liked, and some I hadn’t, but I’d forced myself, sometimes from curiosity and sometimes because I wanted to know what I could take. Girls and boys and threesomes and moresomes; sometimes I’d been scared and sometimes hurt, but it was the only real power I’d ever had and I wanted to test its limits. Each of those acts had been another veneer on the enamel of my strength; this was just one more. Nothing. I pushed my hair away and took it in my mouth and he came in about twenty seconds, a little mucus dribble that I knocked back like medicine. Ker-ching. In my own bathroom I yanked off the nasty lingerie and took a quick shower. I wondered briefly how I ought to feel. I didn’t feel like anything except swimming laps, so that’s what I went and did.

*

James insisted we went to a place called Tétou for dinner. He claimed it was the only place to eat bouillabaisse in the South of France.

‘Ugh, fish soup,’ muttered Mercedes. ‘Don’t have any of that garlic paste, we’ll stink.’

As soon as the valet opened the door I trotted inside the restaurant, which didn’t look like much more than a glass-walled beach hut, and had a quick look at the chairs. I wanted to keep James in the good temper he’d enjoyed since our little encounter.

‘Monsieur will need a different chair,’ I whispered quickly to a waiter in French. ‘He’s very – robust.’

The waiter gave me an odd look, but by the time James plodded in an armless chair had been found. Mercedes was excited. We’d both spent a long time dressing, she in one of her pour-on sub-Léger numbers, me in a very plain lemon silk shift, a childish, soft tunic cut that finished inches below my knickers, with six-inch Zanotti platforms in buff suede. I noticed the gratifying second of stillness among the customers around us as we sat down, though I doubted anyone thought that James was taking his nieces out to celebrate their graduation from finishing school. With a roguish grin, James suggested champagne, and a bottle of Krug appeared.

‘Come on, James,’ prompted Mercedes, ‘Go mad! Have a sip.’ James’s jowls chortled to themselves as he held out his glass.

‘Why not? Just this once.’

The bouillabaisse came in two servings, first the intense shellfish broth with croutons and rouille, then a white tureen of fish. The saffron sauce looked delicious, but Mercedes had a point about the garlic. It was quite a jolly dinner, really. I’d told Mercedes to put her bloody phone away, and she listened attentively to round three of James’s anecdotes, laughing in all the right places and making unobtrusively sure, accomplished as she was, that his glass always contained a few fingers of fizz. When the plates were cleared and we were handed the dessert menu, James excused himself.

‘Touch of the runs,’ he confided.

I felt my own guts contract in horror. What was the
matter
with him? We both looked away as he lumbered off between the tables and asked loudly for
la toilette
.

‘Quick,’ said Mercedes. ‘Move your serviette. I’ve got it here.’ In her hand was a little homemade wrap, folded from a sheet of Hôtel du Cap writing paper. She tipped it into his glass like a Jacobean villain while I ordered
tarte tropézienne
for three.

James declined my offer of a romantic stroll on the beach, as I knew he would, and the waiting car took us back to the hotel. We could have a drink on the terrace, I suggested instead, to enjoy the wonderful view. It was a short drive, but James’s head was lolling on his shoulder like an overblown cabbage after five minutes. He emitted loud, viscous snores. I caught the driver’s eye in the mirror.

‘Perhaps you’d like to wait while we help monsieur inside? Perhaps a little too much champagne –’

The banknote crunch of Hôtel du Cap gravel roused James. He pretended, of course, that he hadn’t been sleeping, but added thickly that he might turn in. I followed him solicitously up to the suite and steeled myself for an affectionate goodnight kiss, but he was already shambling towards the bed. I heard him banging about for a few minutes, then the strip of light beneath the door vanished and there was silence. I counted slowly to sixty, twice, until the snores resumed.

Mercedes wanted to go to Jimmy’z, the famous nightclub on the port at Cannes, but it was too early, and besides I had an idea it would be lame. I asked the driver to take us somewhere ‘
décontracté
’ and he swung the car right, towards Antibes, climbing away from the coast and into the hills for about a quarter of an hour, until we arrived at a low stone building done out Ibiza-style, all in white and silver, with a huge terrace and a gaggle of black-suited doormen. Two Ferraris were being parked as we pulled up.

‘This looks alright, eh?’ said Mercedes, and suddenly I started giggling. I’d never had anyone to do this with before and I felt giddy and even affectionate towards her. I told the driver he could go; we’d get the doormen to find us a taxi.

‘Come on then, girl,’ I said in a voice that hadn’t been my own for a decade. ‘We’re going to have a right laugh.’

The bouncer gave us a quick once-over and unfastened the redundant velvet rope.

‘
Bonsoir, mesdames.
’

We took a table on the terrace and ordered Kir Royal. There were a few groups of older Euro types, all open-collared white shirts and giant watches, one gaggle of etiolated Russian hookers and several younger couples. As I wondered if Balensky himself might make an appearance, two coupes of champagne appeared.

‘With the compliments of the two gentlemen,’ intoned the waiter solemnly.

I followed his gaze and saw two young Arab guys in absurd sunglasses nodding to us.

‘We’re sending them back,’ I whispered to Mercedes. ‘We’re not prostitutes.’

‘Speak for yourself, love.’

‘Bitch.’

We drank three Kirs as the club filled up, then moved inside to the dance floor. I watched the men watching us. I think this is the moment I like best, the flirting, the choosing. Shall I have you, or you, or you? We did a bit of fairly half-hearted shimmying while we made our minds up.

‘What about them?’

‘Too old.’

‘Or them?’

‘Too fat. Too fucking fat.’

We collapsed shrieking. It seemed like the funniest thing in the world.

‘Or them?’

‘Promising.’

Mercedes was doing some frantic false eyelash signalling to a raised alcove, obviously the VIP section. Two men sat at a table with an ice bucket of vodka, both texting while a waiter unloaded a tray of sushi. They were young and presentable looking, though we were too far away for the watch and shoe check.

‘Go on then.’

‘I’ll go and say hello.’

I clutched her back. ‘You can’t! I’ll be ashamed!’ This was how it was meant to feel, wasn’t it, being a girl? ‘We’ll sit down and wait for them to come to us.’

‘What if they don’t? What if someone else gets in first?’

‘They will. Watch.’

*

And then somehow, an hour later, we were in a Porsche cabriolet driving stupidly fast towards the old port at Antibes, with Dom Perignon drying on my yellow dress and Mercedes necking one of them madly in the back. Everyone was smoking and a little podgy guy whose name no one knew was doing coke from a Guerlain compact in the parcel shelf.

‘I wanna go to Saint-Tropez,’ yelled Mercedes, surfacing for a second.

‘I wanna see the Picassos!’ I yelled back.

Then we were veering crazily over the cobbles of the old town, nearly knocking over a weary paparazzo kneeling on the dock, the podgy guy had vanished and Mercedes was being carried down a gangplank, legs waving like a beetle.