I Was Waiting For You (8 page)

Joseph relented. “OK. you can come with me tonight. But you must dress sexy. To fit in.”

“Absolutely,” Cornelia pecked him on the cheek and then lowered her mouth towards his dormant cock to revive him. Tasted herself there. Joseph was happy to cooperate.

“You'll be the death of me, young lady,” Joseph said, as he felt the velvet caress of the young American woman's tongue across his mushroom-shaped head. He closed his eyes, abandoned himself to the feeling.

He came quickly. Undaunted, she eagerly swallowed his seed like a genuine little trooper. These foreign girls sure were craftful, he reflected, slumping back on the bed.

She rose. Damn, she was a sight for sore eyes, tall, straight-backed, pale-skinned, high-breasted and so proudly naked. He felt confident that given another hour he could manage another erection. He smiled to himself.

“I have to go clean up a little,” she said, tiptoeing across his cold linoleum floor toward the neighbouring, small bathroom.

“That's fine,” the club doorman said.

He heard her switching on the shower, hoped she didn't mind cold water; at this time of the day, the house's central heating was far from efficient. Soon, he had dozed off.

By the time he woke up mid-afternoon, she had expertly tied him up with some rope she had probably found in the compartment under his kitchen sink and immobilised his feet and hands with neckties. The moment he stretched his eyes open, Cornelia, waiting at his side, quickly forced a couple of handkerchiefs deep into his mouth, and he became unable to speak. She was fully dressed again, putting him at yet another disadvantage. How the hell had she managed to do this without waking him, he wondered idly before panic set in?

“What is this?” he wanted to say, but the material stuffed past his lips only allowed him to grunt or moan.

“I have some questions, Joseph, and I expect answers,” the young American woman said. Her tone was cold and there was no longer anything innocent about her at all. Just a quiet, determined ruthlessness.

He nodded.

“Good.”

His eyes were wide open, staring at her. He was still in a state of shock. How could this have happened? What the fuck did she want?

“Last week, there was an incident at the club, wasn't there? Someone was killed.”

Joseph's head went up and down in agreement.

“See, it puzzles me: there hasn't been any report in the papers or the news. Has it been hushed up? And if so, why? And by whom?”

Cornelia paused as she watched the man began to realise what this was all about.

She continued, “And then there's the curious case of the young woman you spotted leaving the premises later without the man who had brought her along, the man who was killed, as we both know. You mentioned her to someone. I would like to know who.”

She looked him in the eye. Her gaze had the hardness of blue steel.

As Joseph gathered his senses, there was now an air of defiance about him. She quickly punctured this when she raised her hand, and let him see the sharp Swiss Army knife she had come across earlier while going through his drawers.

He blinked.

“I'm not showing off, Joseph. Just want to show you I do mean business.” She smiled at him, but this time around there was no sense of play or flirtation any longer.

He shivered.

“So,” Cornelia continued. “I need some answers. And I want them now. No wasting time.” She pointed the unfolded knife at him. “I'm going to take those handkerchiefs out of your mouth so you can speak, but don't even think of screaming, calling for help or anything stupid because I would not hesitate to use this one moment.” She glanced down at his cock hanging limply between his thighs. Joseph lowered his eyes, indicating his understanding of the situation.

“Open wide.”

She pulled the crumpled wet material from his mouth

Joseph gazed at the knife Cornelia was now holding and the cold stare of her eyes and determined expression. She was not joking. But surely she wouldn't cut him? Or would she?

Maybe he could reveal a little to her, pacify her and she would then relax the interrogation, and he would somehow gain an opportunity to get the upper hand again. He closed his eyes one brief moment, remembering how it had felt to make love to her, how pliant she had been, how soft, how her thighs had clenched his, the deep sigh when he had entered her the first time. All lies, pretence. No mere American tourist girl, this. He could sense the ice-like sense of danger that now radiated around her. How could he have been such a fool?

Cornelia waited, observing his silence.

“Know what, Joseph, I've always been a great fan of French novels. I was wondering whether you'd ever read Octave Mirbeau's ‘
Torture Garden
'?”

He hadn't. Indicated so.

“Thought so,” she added. “Takes place in China early in the last century, how a man suffers the death of a thousand cuts, one little nick at a time, a cut here, a slash there, until his whole body bleeds and hurts through every pore of his skin. It takes an eternity for a man to bleed to death. Although I do seem to recall they also do quite a few other charming things to him, though. Did you know that a penis can, under the right circumstances and treatment, actually ejaculate blood? Very imaginative.” She waved the Swiss Army knife in front of his eyes.

The doorman blinked.

“So?” she asked.

“The owners of the club didn't want to attract adverse publicity and police attention. The body was disposed of.”

“Good,” Cornelia relaxed. “Now tell me more.”

“No one knows anything about the young girl who came to the club that evening with the man who was killed. She was new meat, so to speak. Probably some kid he'd picked up somewhere and wanted to put through the motions …”

“The motions?”

“He was a regular patron. Often brought new young women there. Was known to share them with other members of his circle. I think he held shares in the business, so they turned a blind eye to his activities. It's all one big bordello, anyway. No difference really between suburban or Parisian swingers, or the predators who would use the club as their stamping ground. A fuck is a fuck, ain't it?”

“But you reported her leaving without the deceased to someone? Who? Why?”

“They are very important people. They were the ones who asked about the young girl.”

“And you told them the same thing you are telling me? That you don't know who she is or where she might have gone?”

“That's correct.”

“So no one's the wiser?”

“Indeed.”

“How convenient,” Cornelia remarked.

Her bound prisoner was now sweating heavily. She leaned towards him.

“His circle of friends. Tell me more about them, these people who come there with more than just swinging on their mind. Women trafficking?”

“Not at all,” Joseph replied.

“Explain.”

“They're into BDSM, you know, masters and submissives, slaves even. But for them it's more than play. It's a way of life. They have international connections. It's not just a network of bourgeois thrill-seekers; they are very serious about it.”

“Too many fools who've read
Story of O
and have mighty delusions of grandeur,” Cornelia ventured.

“Don't kid yourself,” Joseph said. “These people are dangerous. And powerful. You'd be a fool to get involved with them.”

“I am involved, whether I like it or not,” Cornelia pointed out.

The Frenchman nodded.

Without a word of warning, Cornelia waved the knife and the blade slashed across the naked man's stomach, just below his navel.

Joseph roared. “Fuck. Why did you have to do that? Fucking hell!”

“Just to show you I am deadly serious,” Cornelia said, wiping the fleck of blood on the knife's tip on a towel that was lying around. The cut was not deep.

“That was totally uncalled for,” he said, catching his breath.

“Yes, it was. Just a taste of what I might be provoked to do if I find you lying to me.”

“I haven't. I'd never seen the girl before, nor again after that night, I bloody well swear. No clue who she is or where she might have pissed off to.”

“I need the names of some of the dead man's associates.”

“They're dangerous. I can't,” Joseph protested.

Cornelia's hand took a firm hold of his dangling testicles and squeezed. “Next time, it's the knife I'll use,” she warned him.

“Bitch …”

“And being offensive will make no damn difference.”

“You can't get away with this …”

“I have so far,” Cornelia said.

The man sniggered and was about to spit at her, but he reined back his anger, thought better of it. She'd get what was coming to her if she messed with those people, Joseph knew.

He just hoped they would not blame him for her interference.

“Spill,” she insisted. “Now.”

Joseph provided her with the names of three men he knew had been involved with the murdered man and were active in the circle. He did not have their addresses or telephone numbers but advised Cornelia that the information in question must be stored somewhere at the club. Hinting that if she let him out, he might obtain it for her. Cornelia smiled.

He was no longer of any use to her.

“I've given you what you wanted,” Joseph said. “Will you let me go now, come on” he enquired. “At least, let me dress, this is so undignified.”

Cornelia did not answer. She stood up, looked down at his naked, immobilised figure, moved the knife to her other hand and expertly cut across his neck at an acute but premeditated angle.

Blood spurted. She stood aside to avoid being caught by the thin torrent geysering from his throat. The words forming around his lips ended up a gurgle, his eyes wide open in amazement and he slumped as the realisation he had barely a minute to live dawned on him.

By then, Cornelia had already turned her backon him and was calculatingly trashing the small apartment. Making it look like a burglary gone wrong would delay any official investigation into his death, she knew. She then untied the body's hands and legs and rolled him out across the floor, where she wetted a rag and cleaned his limp cock of any secretions that she might have spilled when he had fucked her. Not that she believed the authorities would waste too much forensic time on the dead club doorman.

It was only midday.

B
Y THE TIME THE
train reached Madrid, Giulia felt as if she had rolled back the years. This instinctive camaraderie with the other boys and girls in the travelling group reminded her of those final years at college and the initial time at La Sapienza University back in Rome. Laughs, sipping from bottles of beer, smoking joints, silly jokes, loud conversation. It just felt natural again. As if the past unending months of older men and anguish had not even happened. Instead of small cafés off Piazza Navona or Manzoni around the midnight hour, it was just a railway carriage hurtling through the landscape and heading towards the blessed South.

They all communicated on a simpler level, unburdened by thoughts of the future, fear of consequences, any form of calculation. It was like a massive weight being taken off her shoulders. Her mind was in a haze, but totally at rest, as she slumped back in her seat, leaning against Paolo, the Portuguese boy with the shaven head, relaxed, blissfully retreating from the real world.

In Madrid, someone knew of a friend of a friend who had a spare room, where they all slept that night, sprawled between sofas and spread across the wooden parquet floor cocooned in sheets and blankets and sleeping bags. The aimless conversation went on well into the small hours and morning easily bypassed them. The rest of the day was spent wandering across the city, pausing in gardens and tapas bars for smokes or food and by evening there were already two more group members, picked up almost by accident, a local young woman with a leonine mane of hair and her Swedish boyfriend, a tall blond Viking with dreadlocks and a skeletal frame.

They all agreed they wanted to continue the journey southwards, and most of them expressed the wish to reach the sea, where they could lounge for days on end until another better plan occurred to them. One member of the initial group was unable to come along as he had made arrangements to meet friends in Sevilla a few days later, but promised he would attempt to convince his mates that they should all assemble a week later at the beach they had agreed would be the group's next port of call and rejoin the fray. The news was greeted with another round of drinks. Someone was despatched to the main railway station to investigate the timetables.

Paolo's eyes pleaded poverty and Giulia agreed she would pay for his ticket. She could still afford it.

That same night, he shared his sleeping bag with her. There were too many others in the room for them to be able to fuck with any relative discretion, but once inside cuddled up to his musky warmth, she slipped out of her T-shirt and knickers and slept naked against his skin, which brought back memories of that one night almost centuries ago now when she had lain naked with her tennis instructor. It felt comfortable if weird to be sleeping with someone again like this, chastely, listening to the other breathe softly, heartbeat against heartbeat.

“This is nice,” Giulia said, but the boy was already sleeping. Whispers and sighs flittered across the room, the sound moving between couples and singles and other random combinations of bodies huddled together. Not everyone had decided to be as discreet as she and Paolo, what with the familiar halting melody of hushed lovemaking hopscotching its merry way between the walls. Giulia guessed it must be Stieg and Marta. She smiled.

By the time they all reached Tangiers ten days later, the group had fragmented and half of the original Paris contingent had scattered to be replaced by other young kids on the summer trail. Giulia had kissed Paolo on the ferry from Gibraltar and slept with him properly the same night on the African side of the waters in a sultry cheap bed and breakfast room. He had proven clumsy if tender, and came too fast. Had Jack and her Paris seducer spoiled her, she wondered? She was sensual by nature, they had all told her, but surely not all young men were as inattentive to a woman's desire. Or was there something twisted inside her that men her age could not satisfy? The next morning at breakfast, out of frustration and anger, Giulia had a bad argument with Paolo and he took the next ferry back to the mainland. Which now made her the only unattached female in the small travelling group.

Marta had come across some good local dope in the market that same morning. They both sat on a balcony overlooking the blue sea passing the handmade roll-up between them. The stuff was very strong, and Giulia imagined she was floating in the air even as she could feel the cold stone of the terrace under her bum, barely shielded by the wafer thin material of her long white linen skirt. As if she were in two places at the same time. Observing herself. Serenely detached.

“What about you?” Marta asked. She was Hungarian, dead on beautiful with her medusa hair now haloed by the Mediterranean sun like a crown of fire.

Giulia blinked. “What about me?” She hadn't even properly heard the question. Or followed the gist of the other girl's conversation, her monologue, for some time now.

“What brings you here?”

“I don't know. Really,” Giulia answered, taking another puff, inhaling deeply and feeling a haze of sloth shroud her whole soul.

Marta was peering at her.

“Well,” she added, hesitating, “I witnessed a murder back in Paris and I didn't want to get involved with the police and all that. It was accidental. Nothing to do with me. A bad coincidence. But I just don't wish to talk about it.”

“What did you do? Before?”

“Just studying. I have a degree in languages, but not actually sure what sort of job I want to do. Probably journalism or publishing. That's what my thesis was about. Citizen journalism.”

“What is it, citizen journalism? Sounds communist,” Marta chuckled.

Giulia sketched a half smile across her dry lips. She felt sleepy.

“No, it's all about how ordinary people can do personal sort of journalism on the Internet … You know, sort of going beyond blogs and all that.”

“Oh …” Marta observed. “I never even learned how to use a computer.”

“Really?”

“I was never interested.”

Giulia remembered that it had now been ages since she'd even logged on. Her laptop's battery, long dead, probably badly needed recharging. Anyway, this small place where they were staying had no Internet access and she had no desire to go into the town hunting for a cyber café. In all likelihood all she would find in her mailbox would be more messages from her father or Jack claiming how much he missed her or Eleonora worried about her whereabouts. She didn't feel guilty that she had gone off the map. She had drawn a line, needed this time for herself. Even if it hurt others. This was her time to be selfish, she reasoned.

She took another puff from the joint. Felt blissfully light-headed.

“This stuff is strong,” Giulia remarked, “so what about you?”

“Just a boring story,” Marta replied. “I wanted to see the world, I suppose. Wanderlust. Did a few bad things to get the cash.”

“What sort of things?”

“A couple of films for a Dutch company. Porn. Amateur stuff. Pretend casting videos done in a hotel room. Just a means to an end.”

“What was it like?” Giulia enquired.

“Felt very dirty afterwards but, like you, it's something I don't want to talk about much. I've drawn a line. The moment I had the money, I left Budapest. They were hoping I would do more, but it was never my intention. I met Stieg on the road. He's okay. I like the way he smells. Different somehow from the guys back in Hungary. Strange, no?”

“Yes, life sure is strange,” Giulia remarked. “Even if I still haven't a clue what it's all about, family, men, sex, adventures, sometimes it makes no sense.” Her mind was sinking in a haze of dope. It was relaxing. It was good.

“Stieg knows this place two hours down the coast to the east,” Marta said. “Some sort of artist's colony. Very remote. Almost private. Apparently the grass you can get hold of there is not only terribly pure but also quite cheap. We're talking of heading there in a few days. Maybe you should come with us?” she suggested.

The initial group Giulia had been travelling with since Paris had now fragmented to all corners of the south and she had no longer had any loyalty to it. She hazily recalled Marta's earlier words, “a means to an end”.

“Sure,” she nodded. The African sun above was sensually wrapping her into a warm cocoon of laziness. She knew she should get up and move out of it, or her pale skin would burn badly, but it felt difficult to summon the necessary energy.

Marta's voice punctured Giulia's reverie.

“Our room's shower is not working properly. Do you think we could use yours, Giulia? I do love this weather, but it makes me sweat like a pig.” There was a thin sheen of perspiration on her forehead and cheeks.

“Of course,” Giulia said.

They both rose unsteadily to their feet and walked into the shade. Stieg was at the bar downstairs nursing an absinthe and daydreaming. Flies buzzed. The three of them slowly walked past the tiled central patio of the building and down the corridor to Giulia's room.

Once in her room, Giulia collapsed onto her bed and watched Marta and Stieg undress. They looked beautiful. Shiny. An innocent form of nudity. Stieg winked at her as he slapped Marta playfully on her rump and then took her by the hand and led her to the narrow shower stall.

Giulia took a final puff from the dregs of the joint now beginning to burn her fingers and listened to the sounds of water, laughter, splashing and then lovemaking.

She lowered her right hand and slipped it under her white linen skirt and inside her panties and touched herself. The hair that had been shaved away in Paris was growing again.

The next morning they all packed their few belongings into a rucksack each and ventured down the coast towards the colony. The bed and breakfast owner agreed to store Giulia's laptop and her winter clothes while she was away. In her own mind, she knew there was little certainty she would even return.

Eleonora had moved into Jack's hotel. She had her own room but for a week they would spend most of their days together. Speculating. Comparing notes. Evoking memories. Growing ever more familiar with each other. They visited Flora again but failed to extract any further information that might prove useful.

Unlike Giulia, she was allowed to eat spicy food so Jack introduced her to some of his favourite eating places in the Latin Quarter. The Japanese kebab place a few doors away from the hotel, Chez Bebert the couscous restaurant on the Boulevard St Germain, the Korean BBQ near the Bastille, the Crêpes stand near the Luxembourg. All places he had once wanted to take Giulia to, naturally.

Sitting together at a large wooden table in the hotel's reception area, laptops facing each other, they had systematically explored their respective inboxes for Giulia's old e-mails, a process Jack found painful as it evoked too many memories and reminded him of the so many words of tenderness and affection she had once bestowed upon him. Searching for forgotten words, throwaway remarks that might give them a clue to her present whereabouts or intentions.

“I'm no longer even sure whether she even loved me once,” Jack remarked.

“She did,” Eleonora answered.

“Really?”

“Yes, she spoke to me so much about you. And she wrote to me about it too. Here, in some of her mails. Do you want to see?” she asked, ready to move her computer across the table.

“I'd rather not,” he said. They had agreed at the outset that they would refrain from looking back at the past under a microscope darkly. Some things were better left private.

Eleonora fell into a deep silence. Jack's mouse danced a distracted fox trot on the rubber pad as he moved on-screen between past messages.

She looked up and gazed deeply into his eyes. “What did you see in Giulia?” she asked him.

Jack pondered at length. He didn't want his answer to be flippant.

“Life,” he finally said.

Eleonora squinted.

“She was so lively, almost childish at times,” he added. “Selfish, but in a healthy way. She made me look at things in a new way, in a positive way. Just one look at her and the whole day felt better, something I wouldn't have to struggle through. Essentially, she made me a better man. Not someone who had seen it all and become a cynic. She became life itself for me.”

“That's true. She is a force of nature. Always so cheerful. And determined. Nothing could ever make her change her mind once she had decided on something. Like the time, she borrowed her father's camper and drove us to Venice for the film festival …”

“Could she be there?” he suggested. ‘Venice?” he wondered briefly.

“Something inside tells me it can't be Italy. She'd feel a sense of defeat having to return to her own country, I believe.”

“You're probably right. But then the Giulia you knew is not the one I did …”

“I know. After she met you, it's strange. On one hand, she was so happy but also, on the other hand, there was a sadness about her.”

“My melancholy can be contagious,” Jack stated. But he knew this was not the sole reason. He had not been fully available then, and this had been like a worm eating away at her mind and her insides. He had proven incapable of giving all of himself. And Giulia was young and when she wanted the world, she wanted it now.

“It's not just you,” Eleonora pointed out. “When I was with Henry,” she said, “I was both happy and sad. That's what love is, isn't it? One goes automatically with the other.”

“But does it always have to be this way?'

Eleonora didn't answer. She scrolled down her screen. Looked up at Jack.

“I think it was in Barcelona she was happiest,” she remarked.

“That's true,” Jack said. “It was her first time away from home on her own, before San Francisco.” Giulia had been arguing with her father for months to allow her to go on the student exchange programme. Her first genuine taste of liberty, of independence.