Acts of Love (6 page)

Arianne recognised the photos at once. She was immediately drawn to them. From the lamp warm light spilled over the pictures. The silver frames gleamed, and the photos seemed to come alive. In one, Arianne flanked by Jason and Ahmad in front of the Tiger Moth, the day Jason bought the plane. Smiles. The three seemed to be bursting with happiness. And in another, the trio lying on silk brocade cushions, sunlight filtering through the wooden Arab screens, mushrabiya, to make an exotic pattern over Jason looking down at Arianne, love for her emanating from his eyes. Ahmad, her hand in his, with his head slightly bowed
kissing it. ‘Our first Christmas together in Cairo,’ she said aloud to the empty, silent room.

She picked up yet another of the silver-framed photographs. A white sand beach fringed with coconut palms leaning lazily over it. Emerald and sapphire blue water lapped over the three of them wrapped in the other’s arms. Ahmad’s magnificent sailing yacht was anchored far out in the lagoon. The laughter and fun they were having together showed clearly in postures fixed by the camera. She announced to the room, ‘And the first time the three of us made love together.’

Arianne sat down on the sofa. Placing a cushion behind her head, she slipped out of her shoes, swung her feet up and stretched out. Still the picture was in her hands: she seemed mesmerised by it. She studied the snapshot that had been blown up to a four-by-eight. It had lost some of its sharpness, become grainy, had the sheen of the soft focus. She so concentrated on the photo that she could almost hear the Indian Ocean rolling on to that shore, feel the heat of the sun.

So often she relived the complete happiness of her life with Jason, and the magnificent erotic nights and days with her husband and his best friend. Rich memories. Those erotic threesomes had become so much a part of her and Jason’s happiness together that she had almost forgotten the first sexual encounter on that deserted island in the Indian Ocean.

Arianne closed her eyes for a minute and she drifted back in time. She had always had a timid soul. Courage, taking chances, allowing passion to run away with her, the big adventure: that had never been Arianne. But that was Jason, the very heart of him, his soul, the way he lived. She knew what she was taking on when she had married him. And he had enriched her life.

Memories revived, and once again she was contemplating the wavy white line of foam that trailed along the beach as far as the eye could see. The three of them balancing themselves on the rail of the sloop, she in the centre and the two men on either side holding her hands. She was trembling with excitement and fear at the prospect: to dive from such a height into the sea and swim for the shore. It seemed to her too far, but Jason and Ahmad were so certain she could make it. A dingy had been launched with Ahmad’s manservant and a picnic. She watched it head for the
beach as she tried to calm herself. Certain she was steady on her feet, Jason gently removed his hand from hers; Ahmad did the same a few seconds later. She gathered courage from their macho energy, the power of their strong personalities. The three of them extended their arms, preparing themselves for the dive. Jason called out ‘Let’s hit that shore’. They looked at each other. In unison the three of them dived off the sloop. The crew had lined the deck to watch the stunt.

Arianne hit the water. Her dive was deep, but she swam smoothly back up to the surface, breaking the water some distance behind the men. They waited for her to swim up to them. Clearly thrilled with their performance, Jason pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply. Then he turned her around to Ahmad, who did the same. Ahmad had never kissed her like that before. The way he ran his hands over her body, caressed her face with his hands: it felt so good. The water was cold and they set out for shore swimming three-abreast.

It was a marvellous swim. The waves were high, exhilarating to swim through. They paused several times to float on their backs under the tropical sun. The men were happy, playful in the water. Like porpoises they dived around Arianne, sometimes to scoop her up in their arms as they sprang from the deep and then pull her under with them. Other times they would in turn take her in their arms and swim with her, or carry her on their backs. Together they raced the last three hundred yards to the beach. The undertow was stronger than they had expected, but they worked through it to be washed up on the beach, tired but adrenaline-high, enamoured with the swim, the beach, and each other. They crawled away from the grasp of the undertow and lay there on the sand. Waves, their power now spent, rolled lazily over them to the steady rhythm of the push and pull of the sea.

It was as if they never wanted that swim to stop. They were lying on their backs, the men on either side of Arianne, wallowing in the sensuous sensations of the hot sun caressing their bodies, then the lap of the ocean washing over them, over and over again.

It was Jason who first rolled on to his side and pulled himself closer to her, until their bodies touched. Jason who leaned over her and placed a kiss on her lips, caressed her face and then her breasts, and then kissed her deeply while his hand slipped
between her legs and under her swimsuit to caress her mound. A wave rolled over them right up to their necks and slipped away again to return to the ocean. The lust was brimming in his eyes, stronger and more provocative than she had ever seen it before. Again a wave broke over them. She felt a passion that became uncontainable.

He slipped the straps of her suit off her shoulders and pulled it down around her waist. Cupping a breast in his hands, he licked the salt water from the dark nimbus puckered from the cold water and the touch of his tongue upon it. Her nipples, slender and erect, felt the suck of his mouth, his teasing teeth. Her cunt felt searching fingers. She was giving way to his lust for her. Now his mouth was upon hers again. They kissed deeply and she felt him roll her gently on to her hip and into Ahmad’s arms. Ahmad caressed her wet hair and kissed her with great tenderness, then searched out her tongue and kissed her with ever greater passion. She felt so good in his arms. It wasn’t merely male animal lust in those kisses, there was more, something indefinable that took possession of her. The pressure of his hands caressing her back, her breasts, his muscular body pressed tight against hers. And when his hands slipped under her suit to caress her hips, the flat of her stomach, and he ran his fingers through her wet pubic hair, she wanted him no less than she wanted her husband.

He returned her into Jason’s arms. Fired by seeing Arianne being made love to by Ahmad, Jason seized her and bit into her lips. His kisses were wild with desire for more of her. When Jason passed her back it was to a now-naked Ahmad, beautiful and erect, who placed kisses all over Arianne’s nude body while the water rushed over them. The two men, both now naked and erect, wrapped themselves around her. Hands went everywhere, and kisses. She was tantalised by each of their penises rubbing against her, the feel of them in her hands, grazing her lips. She was crazed by so much male lust for her. Their tongues licked, their mouths devoured. Now erotically out of control, she begged them to take her. She heard herself begging to be fucked by them, to feel their sperm flowing into her as the ocean relentlessly swept over her. Arianne was amazed by her own lust, by her freedom to express her own needs and desires.

All three were lost in an erotic world the men had drawn
Arianne into. Masters of the erotic, of all things sexual, they were enamoured of Arianne for giving herself up to them so willingly. It was her, her sweetness, passivity, her willingness to surrender to them body and soul that sharpened their sexual appetites. Together they took possession of her. They made love to her, fucked her in turn. If one was fondling her breasts, kissing her in a frenzy of passion, he was also guiding the other’s rigid member into Arianne’s willing cunt. There were whispers of love and passion for her from Jason, gratitude for her willingness to give herself up to his every sexual whim, to form a sexual triangle with Ahmad. And Ahmad, when he entered her for the first time, was magnificent, as exciting a lover as Jason but very different. And the first time they all three came together in the most intense orgasm she had ever had, it was with Jason deep in her mouth, her tongue hungrily in unison with Ahmad’s thrusts, and Jason’s fingers manipulating her clitoris, the waves of satin-smooth water rushing up over their interlocked bodies and then rolling back into the Indian Ocean.

The ocean washing over them, a womb? Why not? They were indeed born together and anew. Arianne lost herself; the ego and the id died. She sensed a new selfborn to them when the two men merged as one inside her. And that was their beginning. She felt at that moment they would be together all their lives. She wept with joy at a new sexual freedom that allowed her to take over and become the aggressor in their erotic games. It was all so fluent, so easy, natural even, when in their lust for each other she would pair off with one to give the greatest pleasure to the other. With every orgasm they became closer, more entwined in the other’s lives.

Arianne ran her fingers over the glass enshrining the pictured memory of that time. She felt pure joy in the memories the photograph conjured up for her. They had been like carefree, happy children, thinking it would never change for them. They had felt like golden children of gods who smiled upon them, for whom it would never end.

What made the picture even more poignant was that Ahmad’s man had snapped the photograph when they still had their swimsuits on, in those first moments when the men had passed her between them, and lust became their body language. It was
the inception of an intense sexual
ménage à trois
that was to be theirs for so many years, until fate snatched it away from them.

‘Jason. Jason,’ Arianne murmured. She often called his name. For her he remained the most important man in her life.

Chapter 4

It should have felt odd to Arianne to wake up in that glamorously draped bed, one she had never slept in before. But it didn’t. Nor did it feel strange to her to be luxuriating in the deep, old-fashioned bath, in a room with luscious white terrycloth bath-sheets, with her name discreetly monogrammed in coral satin appliqué, warming on a heated towel-rack mounted to a mahogany-panelled wall.

Sitting in her robe on the stick chair in the kitchen drinking black coffee, eating toast and marmalade while looking at Victorian butterflies, was certainly not the norm for Arianne either, but it felt as though it was. She had no sense at all of being a stranger in Number 12, Three Kings Yard. Quite the contrary. A deep awareness of place and comfort would have described better her feelings on her first morning in her
bijou
gift-house.

It was her nature to be, if not content with her lot in life, at least receptive to it, no matter how good or bad, exciting or dull. Quick and unexpected changes were always taken in her stride. She had, since a child, always lived in the moment, rarely looking back, hardly forward. Having Artemis for a mother; a quiet, passive, fatalistic doctor for a father; and Jason for a husband, had been good training for that.

Arianne was living a solitary life; she had done so since Jason’s death. It had not been intentional; that way of life had simply come upon her. Although she lived it from day to day and did not dwell on the past, nor wallow in that never-never land of ‘what might have been’, it did still include a strong love for a dead husband, and an indefinable relationship with Ahmad that allowed her to accept his overwhelming generosity with a grateful heart.

She expected the knock at the door. Ahmad had told her ten o’clock in his letter. And the man who was to return to the bed-sit
in Belsize Park to remove her things was on time. Arianne picked up the list she had written out of the belongings she wanted brought to Three Kings Yard and went to open the door.

He was casually leaning against the stone architrave surrounding the front door. From a clear cellophane florist’s box the stems of three dozen white roses poked out. A large white satin bow and long streamers glistened in the autumn sunshine. They gazed into each other’s eyes. Her heart missed a beat. It always did, every time she saw him after a long absence. In earlier days, when Jason was alive, that look in Ahmad’s dark, almond-shaped eyes had set her aflame. Now it flared up for a second and then, like a candle in the wind, was snuffed out.

She watched him raise a hand and run his fingers through his silky black hair: a sexy habit he had that drew attention to the decadent, clever eyes, the sensuous bone-structure of his face, the voluptuous lips. Whenever she saw him she was surprised at how tall he was, how handsome and well turned-out. So urbane. But, more than anything, she never ceased to be amazed at how beautiful a man he was. A strange term, but beautiful and erotic, that was Ahmad Salah Ali. He had a beauty reminiscent of the marble statues one sees in the Cairo museum, a Pharaonic prince, a great lord descending thousands of years to the present – only alive, so very much alive.

Without clothes he was unimaginably erotic, the wide shoulders and narrow hips, the hardness of his body … Ahmad’s skin was smooth, satin to the touch, the colour of dark honey. To caress him was enough to sense a lust unhindered by morality or inhibition, to have all fear of losing one’s self in him vanish. He wore his masculinity with a sureness that made not only Arianne but all his women tremble with excitement for more, always much more of him. A libertine who seduced, corrupted if given the chance, he was still the handsomest, most sensual man she had ever seen. One look at him and she was instantly aroused, her body yearning for sexual pleasure with him. Was it possible, she had often asked Jason, for a man to be voluptuous? He had laughed and had always answered her, ‘Yes, and Ahmad is the living proof.’

Ahmad’s smile warmed her, and she bent forward and placed
a tender kiss on each cheek. And then she told him, ‘You’re a lovely surprise.’

He removed the slip of paper from her hand and replaced it with the box of roses. Then, without detaching his gaze from her eyes, he called over his shoulder to someone and waved the piece of paper in his hand, while he told her, ‘I made a change of plan.’

‘The house. It’s perfect. I love it.’

‘Good.’

She wanted to thank him, but it seemed so trite. She could see how pleased he was that she was there and had accepted his gift. Instead she reached out her hand and took his, then led him into the house. She handed back the flowers. ‘Please – for a moment, while I discuss a few things with the mover.’

Ahmad walked into the sitting room and placed the box on a chair. He opened his coat and went to stand by the fireplace. Arianne liked the house. He felt happy about that. He had enjoyed buying it for her, had known exactly how he wanted it done up – what would make her comfortable and what would be merely fussy.

He missed her and Jason. Their deep abiding friendship. Their sexual
ménage à trois
. He listened to her giving instructions to the mover: the sound of her voice held his attention, not her words. Still young, fresh, very American, still capable of hiding within it the fire and passion, the sexual hunger he knew she was capable of. In the sexual life she lived with him and Jason, Arianne had found a way of reaching beyond the limits without succumbing to depravity. She was a very sexy lady in love, not a true decadent like himself and Jason. He had always suspected that when Jason was alive, but had never wanted to believe it. But, after Jason’s death, when they spent their first night together imagining that they could pick up the overwhelmingly erotic and passionate life they had once shared so happily, he was forced to accept the truth. It simply did not work for them without Jason. He was Arianne’s love, her decadent soul, and now it was gone. Ahmad could not help but hope that one day she would find another man to love as she had loved Jason. Not for Ahmad’s sake but for hers. So that she could enjoy again the erotic world she had once embraced with him and Jason. Ahmad knew how much she missed it, yearned for it. She deserved that and love and
much more. Arianne and Ahmad? Without her spontaneous, decadent sexuality, Ahmad had no sexual desire for Arianne, merely a deep abiding affection.

It had always been a miracle to him that Arianne’s and Jason’s marriage had been so happy, so complete. He loved Jason, and knew him down to the marrow of his bones – how wild, compulsive and passionate, what a natural decadent, he was. The charm and cad in him. Once Ahmad had met Arianne he had understood how she was able to tame Jason. She did it with love. Giving him everything, denying him nothing, not a fraction of her heart, no morsel of her soul. And he loved her and was devoted to her for her selflessness. Soon after their marriage when he gave her to Ahmad, she gave those same things sexually to him. Ahmad had always known that he was an intricate part of Arianne’s and Jason’s marriage, that the attraction of their sexual
ménage à trois
was so powerful it cut off all other avenues that Jason might have wandered down.

As for Ahmad, he had never stopped enjoying the corruption of Arianne. He and Jason had been masters at drawing her into an erotic world that could still excite the three of them after years of being together. It came as no surprise to him that he should fall in love with her and their sexual arrangement. The shock had been that without Jason it was over.

Arianne entered the room and went directly to the box of flowers. She pulled at the bow; it dissolved in her hands. She removed the lid. She could feel his eyes on her. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

‘A great deal better than yesterday. But you must know that, since this house and you are responsible for that.’

He went to her and raised her hand and placed the palm over his lips and kissed it. He closed his eyes. Another time, another place, she would have bent forward and kissed his eyes, teased the closed lids with the point of her tongue. She used to tremble with excitement to kiss and caress his beautiful, decadent face, sometimes even to tame his wild, erotic soul. Now she could only admire that face, and remember. A part of him would always be there with Jason lingering in the past. The feel of his soft, voluptuous lips against the palm of her hand, the tip of his tongue licking it, was a sexy gesture. They both savoured it for a few
seconds before he opened his eyes again and placed an arm around her shoulder. Together they went to the kitchen to arrange the roses in a Lalique glass vase. Then he carried them to the sitting room for her. They hardly spoke to each other. Their togetherness seemed to be doing the speaking for them.

Finally he asked, ‘Have breakfast with me, across the road at Claridge’s.’

It had been a long time since she had seen him, nearly a year. And now all this: the house, his visit and a few hours to hear all his news; to bask once again in the charm of his personality. She hurried as she dressed in the same clothes she had worn to Chessington House the morning before. It was quite shattering to think how one’s life could change so radically from one day to another. Arianne took a final look in the mirror, ‘Well, you’ll just have to do,’ she said aloud, and slipped into the sable jacket from the dressing room down the stairs. She found him waiting for her in the hall by the front door.

As they crossed Davies Street and walked arm in arm around the corner on to Brook Street to enter Claridge’s Hotel by the main entrance, Arianne felt suddenly different. As if some fairy godmother had touched her shoulder with a magic wand, and had chased a darkness away that had been hovering over her life since Jason’s death. It was simply one of those inexplicable feelings when you know a space in your life has opened.

Walking through the vast dining room of Claridge’s, so handsome in its classic coolness reminiscent of the Art Deco period of the nineteen-twenties, Arianne wanted to giggle. She always did whenever she entered that room. Her imagination was not prone to fantasy, but it was overworked in Claridge’s. She had only to walk through the lobby and the salon where the musicians played at tea and drinks-time, then through the decorative iron and glass fret-work doors into the dining room to sense the illusion that she was on one of the grand Cunard ocean liners like the
Queen Mary
, that had made regular Atlantic crossings from Southampton to New York before the airplane took the leisure and elegance out of crossing the ocean. Of course she did not giggle, merely smiled and followed behind the maître d’ to a select table where a bevy of black-suited waiters hovered to draw out chairs and fuss over the table and guests.

She could not help noticing the heads of well-dressed, affluent diners turn to look at them as they wove their way between tables. Arianne had learned to enjoy admiring looks from strangers whenever she was with Ahmad. He gave off an erotic essence that signalled sensuality. When she had been with both Jason and Ahmad, as a threesome, they had invariably created an atmosphere that was electric.

Seated across from each other, once breakfast had been ordered and crystal flutes filled with tiny white peaches covered with champagne had been served to them, and the waiters had buzzed off to hover at some other table, Arianne told Ahmad, ‘I always feel like the duckling that turns into a swan, the timid mouse who can roar like a lion, the
femme fatale
who rises like a phoenix from the ashes of a plain Jane when I walk across a room with you.’ This time she did give a charming giggle, and reaching out she touched the rim of her glass to his and made a toast, ‘I miss you. I miss us. The three of us.’

There was no sadness in her voice, merely a truth. Ahmad smiled back at her and suggested, ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t?’ Arianne felt hurt by the tone in his voice. It was emphatic, nearly an order.

He was not unaware of her feelings: they showed in her eyes. Her hand was lying on the crisp white damask cloth covering the table. He took it in his and held it. ‘There is no point. It’s counterproductive to waste your life missing something. Especially something as special as what the three of us had together.’ There was tenderness in his voice. He continued, ‘That was unique. With Jason gone, it will never happen again; it’s irreplaceable. That should have been obvious to you when we tried to create a sexual life for ourselves without him. Remember, oh yes. But miss, no. I don’t want you to miss love and great sex. They are too much a part of your life now. Go and grab that lust for love and sex I know you thrive on. Or at least make a space in your life so it can find you. Begin again. Find a new love. It’s love that works for you. Love that sets your libido free. A deep, abiding and sincere love. We don’t have that with each other. That’s why it couldn’t work for just the two of us. Jason and you had that. He loved you more than I could have imagined he was capable of loving. But that did not hinder him from taking advantage of
you, just as I did. You were vulnerable and we manipulated you sexually. You were lucky. It could have been destructive for you, but it wasn’t. It worked for all three of us. We turned you into a sexually liberated lady and watched you enjoy every nuance of every bizarre sexual act we drew you into.’ Ahmad, still holding her hand, was speaking low, cautious that no one in the dining room should overhear him. ‘Your utter disregard for yourself, your love for Jason and later for me – think what harm you could have come to!’

‘But I didn’t.’

They were silent for several seconds, simply gazing into each other’s eyes. Ahmad saw it for the first time. He was surprised. He had never even suspected in all the years the three of them had been together, through all their amazing sexual excesses, not once had he guessed. ‘You knew. You have always known the rotten side of Jason. That touch of evil he could twist around us, and excite us with. His lust for depravity, and my enjoyment of everything erotic. You were never blinded by love for the charming cad you married, were you?’

The colour rose to her face and she lowered her gaze from his eyes. He gave her time to compose herself, then he squeezed her hand. She raised her eyes to meet his again. There was no point in keeping her secret any longer. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘Oh, maybe I did put the blinkers on in those first few days after I met him and he swept me off my feet. But the truth is, I was never blinded by love. Rather, I accepted everything in the name of love. You see, I was very innocent and inexperienced when I met Jason. But not so innocent that I didn’t know he was a corrupting influence, that you both were. He was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. And then, when I met you, right from the first time we were introduced, I knew you were the second most thrilling man I would ever know.