Obsession (Year of Fire) (65 page)

“What a surprise, Al-Saud.”

“Taylor,” he growled.

“Always in good company.” Nigel took Gulemale’s hand. “Gulemale, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“How are you, Nigel?” the woman asked kindly. “Very well, from the looks of it.” She glanced haughtily at the blonde and more appreciatively at Taylor’s suit, which had undoubtedly been made to measure.

“Things are going well.
Very
well,” he added. “I’ve recently won a few contracts from the competition and that makes me happy.”

Gulemale let out a deep, throaty chuckle.

“You’re incorrigible, Nigel.”

Al-Saud put on his jacket, tossed a few pounds to the coat-check girl and seized Gulemale by the arm.

“Good night, Nigel,” the woman trilled as Al-Saud dragged her out into the cold night.

Gulemale linked her arm through her companion’s and they walked down Mount Street flanked by two gigantic, impeccably dressed black men. In spite of Gulemale’s bodyguards and his annoyance at running into Taylor, Al-Saud stayed alert. “A true soldier never lets his guard down, not even on a beach in the Caribbean with a daiquiri in your hand,” General Raemmers always used to say.

“What happened between you and Nigel to make you hate each other so much? Where do you know each other from?”

“Nothing happened. We just hate each other,” he lied.

Al-Saud wanted Madame Gulemale to understand that his mood had turned very sour and he didn’t feel like answering questions. He was upset that Taylor had seen him with her. It was information that he would have preferred his competitor not know.

“Where do you know him from?” the African woman persisted.

“You’ve changed, Gulemale,” Al-Saud said by way of an answer, and turned to look into her eyes. “You’ve become curious and nosy. Don’t forget that it was your discretion and mystery that seduced me.”

“And my beauty?”

“That was what got me into your bed.”

Gulemale laughed again in her distinctive manner. When they got to Park Lane, they turned left. The Dorchester was a few feet away. They made their good-byes on the steps to the main entrance. Gulemale positioned herself at Eliah’s height, put her arm around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. She probed with her tongue but was rejected and eventually gave up.

“You just answered my question: you have a woman.”

“If that was true, would that prevent us from continuing our friendship?”

“Of course not!” Gulemale spun away regally, the tails on her mink coat flaring around her, and went inside.

Al-Saud got into a taxi parked in front of the hotel and, because he was busy telling the driver to take him to the Savoy, he didn’t see Aldo Martínez Olazábal getting to his feet in the lobby of the Dorchester when he saw Madame Gulemale. Nor did he see him greet her with a
kiss on the lips and, with his hand on the small of her back, guide her toward the elevators.

Matilde woke up on Saturday at eight in the morning. She opened her eyes but stayed very still in the bed, sensing that Eliah’s side was empty, with the sheets and duvet untouched. She tilted her head a little to bury her nose in the circle of the pillow where she had sprayed A*Men—he had taken the Givenchy Gentleman with him. The night before, pained by his absence and his silence—he hadn’t called her once—she had gotten in bed to smell his cologne and cry. She had replayed the kiss from Monday morning so many times that, like an old, wrinkled photo, it had started to fade in her mind and instead of those minutes of passion she remembered how he had changed after Roy’s death. Maybe he was getting sick of her; she had caused him too many problems. A worldly man like Eliah Al-Saud probably bored of relationships quickly, especially if the woman was a simple, prudish girl who didn’t have money for elegant clothes or to buy him expensive gifts. A girl who made him dulce de leche and put a little cap on the jar! Who painted self-portraits and ridiculous doodles. She threw the blankets off and jumped up so quickly that she lost her balance. She put her hands on the edge of the bedside table to steady herself and, paradoxically, as her vision clouded over, a revelation came vividly to her mind: she had to go back to Rue Toullier. She had realized that Al-Saud’s absence and silence were sending a clear message: he wanted her out of his house. He wanted his space back. What other way was there to interpret his behavior?

It was Saturday. Why, she wondered, hadn’t he come home from his trip? Eliah didn’t distinguish between working days and weekends, the days of the week simply didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t one to divide his time between days of rest and activity. Takumi Kaito had warned her: a Horse of Fire didn’t live according to a routine, and for him, she was the embodiment of a routine.

She ran into the dressing room. She didn’t know whether to change first or pack her suitcase. She decided on the latter. She had to drag a
chair over to get it down from the top shelf. The effort left her tired and panting. She threw her clothes inside wildly and even hurled the jar with the stupid little embroidered cap at it; it nestled into her clothes. Then she started to get changed. She yanked out a shirt that had ended up in the suitcase, and in an act of audacity in keeping with her rabid mood, put on the lingerie she had bought at Chantal Thomass: the black plumetis tulle with transparent fabric over her nipples and crotch.
I’m not such a simple girl
, she thought, cheering herself up.

That was how he found her, fastening her bra, the suitcase still open on the floor. Al-Saud glanced back and forth between her and the jumble of clothes. Matilde felt vulnerable and exposed in her revealing lingerie; she felt completely naked. She was sad to note her embarrassment after the passion they had shared.

“
Qu’est-ce que tu fais?
” In his surprise, he spoke French.

“Hello,” she murmured, her heart pounding in her ears and throat; she felt like a drum kit. “I’m packing my things,” she blurted out, careful not to look into his eyes. Then she added, “I’m going back to my aunt’s apartment.”

She cursed herself for not having dressed first. She rummaged through the clothes that were still hanging on the rack. She covered herself with a white shirt, which she didn’t get a chance to button, because he grabbed her wrist and shook her.

“What are you talking about? You’re leaving?” He dragged her down with him as he swooped to grab the jar out of her suitcase. “What’s my gift doing here? Were you going to take it with you?”

“It’s ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous? I adore this jar!”

He shoved it back onto the shelf furiously. They stared at each other: he was shaken, his mouth hung open and strands of hair fell over his left eye; she was blushing, feeling hopeless, guilty and confused.

“Matilde, what’s going on? What is this madness? You promised me, you
swore
to me that you wouldn’t take unnecessary risks. Now I get back and I find you about to…”

“Why didn’t you call me all week?” she interrupted him, and was even more embarrassed to hear how squeaky her voice was. She hated herself for not staying calm. She hated playing the role of the jealous wife; she
sounded just like Dolores, her mother. How she understood her at that moment! She had judged her harshly for her histrionics, the screaming, the crying and everything else, but she had never understood the pernicious bite of jealousy and doubt. “Forgive me,” she said, covering her face with her free hand. “I don’t have the right to demand anything of you.”

Seeing her upset and resentful excited him; he was both happy and nervous, and he started to laugh. Matilde snatched back her hand and looked at him in amazement. Al-Saud wrapped her in his arms, engulfing her in his blue cashmere coat, which was still cold and wet from the rain outside.

“I wanted to call you. I wanted to call you every second I was away from you, but I didn’t, I stopped myself, I resisted the urge.”

“Why? Juana told you that she’d always keep her cell phone switched on, even during class. I drove myself crazy trying to come up with explanations for your silence: he can’t because he’s on the other side of the planet and there’s too much of a time difference, he’s not calling me because his meetings went on too late and he doesn’t want to bother me and so on. I was inventing excuses, I knew that you had no problem getting in touch with Sándor, Alamán or Tony. You called everyone except me. Just this morning I realized that it was because you wanted to get rid of me and so I…”

“Matilde!” He pulled her to his chest again, happy but tormented; he had made her suffer, as if her life didn’t have enough cruelty in it already. “Forgive me, my love! I was cruel. I confess that I wanted to see you react like this. I wanted you to want me, to miss me, to yearn for me.” He fell silent, suddenly shocked by his own sincerity.

“But Eliah! You made me suffer so much. I thought…I thought…” Her voice faltered.

“I was dying of jealousy!” he roared, unable to contain his irate affection. “I don’t know how to explain what happens to me with you, Matilde. I don’t know how to explain it,” he said again, suddenly dispirited. “From the beginning I haven’t understood a thing,” he admitted. “I went insane from anger and jealousy over this Blahetter business. I was even jealous of your father. I’m jealous of the Congo and the people you’ll treat there. I’m jealous of Ezequiel, because he knows you better than anyone and you love him so much. And your classmates at the lycée and your colleagues
at Healing Hands. I’m jealous of everyone and everything. That’s why I didn’t call you, to punish you. I wanted to know that I was important to you.” He put his forehead on her shoulder and slipped his hands under her shirt to span her tiny back.

“My God, Eliah.” Matilde lifted his face and stroked it over and over, his forehead, his unshaven cheeks and neck. She tucked back the loose strands of hair, which flopped back down again. “You’re so handsome,” she thought out loud. “You take my breath away when I look at you. I go weak at the knees, I swear it. I never imagined that I would see the day when I felt what I feel for you. How could I make you go through all that when, in fact, you’ve become the center of my world? What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he assured her avidly. “It’s my fault. I’m possessive, short-tempered and impatient and I
really
lack compassion. And you’re the opposite. I think it’s your compassion for everyone that drives me insane, because I’m incapable of feeling it, I don’t understand it. You’re too good for me, Matilde.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him very lightly on the lips. She stayed close and murmured, “Do you know the real reason I don’t want to go to Argentina for Roy’s funeral?” Eliah shook his head. “Because I don’t want to leave you, that’s why. The guilt upsets me, but I just can’t.”

Al-Saud felt the thick hair on his skin stand on end, incited by the feel of Matilde’s mouth just inches from his. The importance of her words nestled in his breast. As her breath dried the saliva from his lips, he was overtaken by arousal.

“I missed you so much, I needed you so much,” she continued, not at all perturbed by his silence. “The week was so long without you.”

They melted into a kiss that embodied the contradictory emotions that coursed through them: passion, anger, jealousy, doubt, desire and arousal. Al-Saud ripped off her white shirt and bestowed a collar of wet kisses on her neck. He bit her a little, and their pants were suddenly peppered with squeals, which lingered in the air until they became moans as he massaged her buttocks, pressed her body into his and pushed his hard penis against her naked stomach. Matilde simply remained on tiptoe, her hands tight around Al-Saud’s neck, responding to the voracity of his lips and his insistent tongue. He pulled his mouth off hers to lean down and take off her tiny
panties. He looked at her with dark eyes as he slipped his arm underneath her to cradle her hairless mound of Venus with his huge, long-fingered hand. Matilde didn’t break eye contact and spread her legs a little, as if obeying a wordless order. She didn’t realize that she was holding her breath, that she wasn’t blinking, that her lips were parted; she was concentrating exclusively on his fingers, which separated the lips of her vulva and played with her clitoris. A moan of pleasure would intermittently slip out of her, although she tried to repress them so that nothing would distract her attention from his face or his work down below.

“Matilde, you don’t know how much I wanted to come home and do this.” Al-Saud looked at his hand, which was wet with her fluid. Matilde stared at it herself; it was still such a miracle to her that she could get wet like this. It had never happened with Roy, and they had even tried artificial lubricants.

“I’m so horny,” he panted. Without taking off his coat or his jacket, he unzipped his pants and, with a look of pain, pulled out his penis. “Hold it,” he begged, and leaned back on the wood of the closet with open arms, like someone allowing himself to be searched.

Matilde undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down to reveal his boxer shorts. She didn’t want to undress him any more than that; she enjoyed a perverse pleasure in the vulnerability she felt, being completely naked when he was almost fully dressed. Finally she gave in to his wishes and took him in her hand. She heard him let out a growl, and looked up at him. She loved discerning in his contorted face the pleasure she was giving and the effort he was making to contain himself. She passed his glans over her stomach, her mound of Venus—
ma petite tondue
(my little baldy), Al-Saud had nicknamed it—and, remembering
The Perfumed Garden
and the Position of the Blacksmith, turned her back on him and squeezed his member between her legs, sliding it back and forth, looking at his member and how it appeared and disappeared under her mound of Venus, smiling as she heard the change in Al-Saud’s breathing, which came faster and shallower. Al-Saud slid his hand over Matilde’s stomach and another under the tulle of her bra until he found her nipple and made her scream.

“Did you miss me?” he wanted to know.

“The whole time!”

“Why didn’t you call me then?” he teased her, without stopping the caresses that, he knew, were taking her breath away. “Why?” he insisted impatiently, and penetrated her brusquely with a finger. Matilde let out a sob, mixed with pleasure and pain. “I was waiting for you to call too,” he insisted, introducing a second finger, which knocked her off balance. Matilde grabbed a shelf in the closet and pressed her head against the backs of her hands. “I need you to call me to let me know that I’m all that matters to you.”