The Tied Man (27 page)

I tensed under her embrace. 
Blaine
’s idea of a ‘little surprise’ usually tended to result in my inability to sit down for a week.

‘Oh, stop that, silly.  I’m sure you’ll like this one.’  Her hand crept to my balls, as natural an action for her as brushing a stray hair from her eyes.  She gave a proprietorial squeeze.  ‘And dinner jacket for tonight, please – it’s a real ‘dress to impress’ evening.’

I wasn’t allowed to see the letter, but Coyle had supplied me with some scant detail  – not enough to give me any real information, but enough to trigger those first stirrings of dread: it was a particular skill of his.  So I knew it was a couple, that they had pre-booked the dungeon, and without doubt that it wasn’t going to be fun.  It also made one thing abundantly clear.  As much as it hurt to admit it, Henry had been right. The further away Lilith was from this life, the safer she would be, both now and when she finally escaped. 

I started doing the calculations in my head. If I took four temazepam as soon as I got to my room, I would be able to take another four just before I met my clients without collapsing face first into the soup.

Somewhere beyond the horizon a storm was brewing.  Although the sky was still clear, the faint whistle that escaped from my lungs every time I exhaled warned of the building pressure.  Relief would only come once the storm broke; until then I would have to make do with my inhaler. 

I stood behind the dining room door and prepared to make my entrance.  I smoothed down the skirt of the dress I always chose when I needed a boost to my courage: the teal satin Dior that I had last worn when I went head-to-head with Johnny Buckle.  Only this time, as per
Blaine
’s request, it was teamed with an Edwardian lace throw to hide the raw eczema that blighted my arms.  

I straightened my back and walked into the room.  The couple
Blaine
had hired me to entertain stood with their hostess, making the most of the sparse breeze that drifted through open patio doors.

‘And
here’s
my artist.’ 
Blaine
gave her best
Hollywood
smile.  She had opted for red-carpet glamour for the evening, and looked warmer and softer than she deserved in a caramel silk cocktail dress.  She took my arm, patting it softly like a proud owner.  ‘Lilith Bresson, may I introduce Royce Garvey, historian and documentary-maker, and his fiancée, Selena Clarke.’

‘Miss Bresson, can I just say I am a
tremendous
fan of your, ah... work.’ Royce took my proffered hand and raised it to his lips. He gave it an overly-moist, noisy kiss that left me with a wet hand and nowhere to wipe it.  He straightened, and I realised he was only scant inches taller than I was.  ‘I really
do
feel that in this repressed society, anyone who approaches sexuality in art with the... gleeful abandon that you do should be championed.’ He smoothed his greying comb-over neatly into place and devoured me with tiny eyes, half-hidden behind eyebrows that hadn’t been pruned for decades.  ‘And may I just say you look absolutely...’ In lieu of words, he made a noise that was meant to be appreciative but would not have been out of place in an obscene phone call.

I wondered what the hell his manufactured young fiancée might think about such obvious leching so early in the proceedings, but I needn’t have worried: Selena’s own carnivorous gaze was firmly fixed on the beautiful, immaculately-groomed young man who had just made his customary entrance at the top of the stairs. 

Finn, for his part, had eyes for no-one else but me.   Confusion and betrayal  scourged his features before he had chance to hide his shock, then I watched as he stepped faultlessly into the act that would carry him through the evening.

‘I’m
so
sorry I’m late,
Blaine
.’  He walked confidently over to our little group.  ‘Damn bow tie threatened to get the better of me.  I swear, you should be able to study for a degree in tying those things.’  Polite laughter formed the soundtrack as he kissed her on both cheeks, then turned to me with a fixed smile.  His pupils were saucer-wide already.  ‘Lilith,’ he nodded in my direction, and to me alone, his resentment was palpable. 

Now it was
Blaine
’s turn to take charge of the proceedings.  This was, after all, her business.  The introductions were completed and she ushered us to the table.  I sat on Royce’s left; Finn, as brittle as deadwood, took the seat next to Selena – much to her obvious delight – and our hostess went to the head of the table.

‘Selena, darling, you look absolutely stunning.  Such an unusual dress,’ she said as she took her seat.

I watched with morbid fascination as yet one more supposedly intelligent adult melted under
Blaine
’s polished brand of bullshit flattery.

‘This?  Oh, it’s from  a little boutique in LA.  Roycie had it designed for me when we were over there last autumn.  He was picking up some award or other for his ‘Sex Lives of the Emperors’ doc.’  She had a piercing voice that needed conscious modulation to stop it becoming glass-breakingly shrill.  Somewhere down the line, daddy had paid for hours of elocution lessons to get his little darling a few more steps up the social ladder.

‘What do you think, Lilith?’ 
Blaine
asked me. 

I already wanted to strangle Selena simply for shortening the perfectly adequate word, ‘documentary’, but that was beside the point;  I was merely expected to contribute to this nauseating farce and try not to outshine the birthday girl.  My task wasn’t made any easier by her choice of outfit.  She wore a cantilevered , augmented-breast-skimming satin dress the colour of egg-yolk.  Somewhere in deepest
Nebraska
, a prom queen two sizes smaller than Selena was wondering where the fuck her outfit had disappeared to.  She wore her honey-toned hair piled high on her head, and even in candlelight I could see the hidden welds of hair-extensions. 

Underneath the thin veneer of ostentatious glamour she looked absolutely appalling, but ‘
What do you think, Lilith?
’  was nothing to do with complimenting Selena, and everything to do with
Blaine
testing the extent of my compliance.

I waited for Lilith’s barbed rejoinder – for her to point out that Selena looked like she’d been fed into sausage-casing to fit into that dress, or that yellow was a poor choice of colour for someone whose skin-tone could best be described as ‘tangerine’.

It never came.

‘Very striking.’ Lilith gave a thin smile, and I wanted to howl at her; to take every piece of crystal and silver and heirloom china that adorned the table and hurl it to the floor before shaking her until reason returned.  Instead I took refuge in silence and prayed for the temazepam to start killing my senses. 

From her cowed, false words to her choice of outfit, the message couldn’t have been clearer: for whatever price, Lilith Bresson had finally been bought.

Henry, professionally invisible, cleared away the dishes that contained the dying slush of a champagne sorbet
amuse-bouche
.  I had come to adore Henry’s food, but in this instance I could have been eating cardboard as I obsessively scrutinized our guests.  Royce had eaten like a rooting truffle-pig, and if I had been in the least hungry to start with, the eager snuffling sounds he made as he spooned the stuff into his already over-moist mouth would have killed my appetite for the next month or so.

Selena had that infuriating habit of ostentatious dieters that involved her sampling two mouthfuls before deliberately pushing the rest around the bowl to show that she would not be ingesting those remaining five calories, and I let my initial dislike bloom into unfettered, if well-hidden, hatred.

Finn had simply pushed his dish to one side the moment it arrived. 

‘Do you mind if we...?’ Royce asked, and placed a tiny silver filigreed snuffbox on the table before fumbling in his top pocket and bringing out a matching miniature spoon.  ‘Wouldn’t normally and all that, but it’s been rather a long day, what with all the travel.  Would hate to be asleep before the, er... main course, so to speak.’

Blaine
gave her mellifluous laugh.  ‘Royce, as I explained when you booked – once you’re at Albermarle, you don’t need an excuse for
anything
.  If you’d have requested it, I would have supplied my own.’

‘Ah.  Marvellous.  Lilith, would you care to...?’

I wondered if we would be playing ‘guess the rest of the sentence’ for the remainder of the evening.

‘No, thank you.’  The refusal came harder than I intended, and he gave an oddly childish pout. 

‘Goodness.  I didn’t take you for a puritan in such things.’

Blaine
glanced at me and I knew I had been reined in.  I forced an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t get me wrong – under normal circumstances, I’d be more than happy to join you.  But I’m at a rather tricky stage with
Blaine
’s portrait.  Morning-after juddering wouldn’t be a good idea right now.’

Royce clearly understood.  ‘The sacrifices we artists make, eh?  I must admit, I tend to abstain if I’m filming.  Can’t have anything affecting the timbre of the V.O.’

‘That’s ‘voice-over’,’ Selena explained to Finn, in the style of an aide to the terminally stupid.  ‘Telly folk. They speak a different language.’

Royce noisily snorted a spoonful of cocaine before reloading and passing it to Selena.  Once she had taken her fill, she offered the spoon to Finn.  He looked to
Blaine
, appealing for a reprieve, but the subtlest of nods from her meant that yet another chemical began to surge its way around his already overloaded system.

I had never seen anyone take cocaine and not become a self-obsessed arse.  Royce was already there to begin with, so with pharmaceutical assistance he became an absolute beast.  I was no longer needed for conversation: I was reduced to a pair of tits for him to leer at, and a pair of ears to be filled with an extended version of the glorious career of Royce Garvey, as the tortuous meal progressed.

By the time Henry served icy, sharp gazpacho  - chosen to fit in with the strict demands of Selena’s diet - I knew about his infancy as a childhood prodigy; his glorious years at Oxford and his internationally applauded PhD;  local, tender lamb with wild herbs was accompanied by the tale of the natural progression into television: apparently unavoidable for one with such a magnetic personality as his.  Although I set my body language to ‘enthralled’ and nodded in all the right places, the only thing that held my attention was Selena as she began to move in on Finn.

It started with acrylic-tipped fingers casually moving from the table top to his thigh.  At first it was done so softly that it could be dismissed as accidental if she was spotted, but as Royce droned on, oblivious to anyone but himself, she became more brazen.  As I was tutored at length about the influence of Greco-Roman art on modern erotica she began to knead at his leg with fingers that were well-practiced in arousal.  She even kicked off a diamantéd sandal and began to play scarlet-painted toes against his calf, as
Blaine
looked on.  It was only when Finn finally brought his own hand down to rest in the small of Selena’s back that I forced myself to look away and feign an even deeper interest in the endless problems of filming with an Italian crew.

Royce didn’t stop to draw breath until dessert, and only pure greed at the stack of virginal meringues and fresh raspberries broke his stride.  As he stacked his bowl so that juice overflowed and spilled like blood onto the white linen, Blaine decided to bring Selena into the conversation.

‘I am just
desperate
to know,’ she began, and Selena’s hand snapped away from Finn’s fly button as if she had been stung, ‘how did the pair of you happen to meet?’

‘Er... I... What? ’ came Selena’s guilty, blustering response, and Royce gave her a reassuring, indulgent smile.

‘Carry on, my darling – as Lady Albermarle so beautifully explained, we
are
in a place where excuses are not required.’

Selena, not entirely convinced, kept her hands to herself whilst she told her anecdote, although her toes continued to slide around Finn’s leg.  ‘It was just one of those things, really – I was PA to Colin Prendergast: he’s Head of Children’s Programming for Alpha Television – and Roycie had come in to discuss a history series for young people.  Roycie’s
very
big on encouraging young people, you know.’

‘Such public spirit.’

Royce’s chest expanded just a little more. 

‘Anyway,’ Selena continued, ‘I simply thought he was the most interesting, different man I’d ever met, and then on his way out of the meeting Roycie invited me out to lunch, and well, over a bottle or two of champers, let’s just say we found we had one or two rather...
adult
interests in common.’  She glanced at her fiancé with a coy smile.

‘Really?’ 
Blaine
asked, genuinely interested.  ‘Would you care to elaborate?  It’s been so long since we’ve had the opportunity for candid conversation like this.’