Killer Queens (14 page)

If I have to be shut away from the world, I couldn’t have chosen a lovelier place,
Belinda thought, her bare feet warmed by the stone. She often sat and watched the play of water from one of the many fountains, flicking through magazines or listening to music; the palace was fully wireless, Rahim loving anything to do with technology, and she could program her laptop or iPod to play through concealed speakers in all their sections of the palace. This wing was hers, and gradually she had turned it into a sanctuary. Across the courtyard was a fully equipped Pilates studio, into which Belinda had recently had a ballet barre installed: she went inside, switched on the mild air conditioning which she allowed herself when working out hard, pulled out one of her current favourite DVDs and slipped it into the player.

The familiar music started to play, the big white smile, bouncing ponytail and determined stare of Carrie Rezabek, Belinda’s latest exercise guru, filling the fifty-two-inch screen. ‘Welcome to Pure Barre!’ Carrie said brightly, and Belinda grimly settled in for forty-five minutes of hardcore suffering. These, ironically, were the times when she felt most alone. She missed doing classes with other women, missed the grunts and groans of misery that made the workout so much less painful when shared with other sufferers. It was much harder to make herself wedge the special Pure Barre ball beneath one knee after another as she rested her hand on the barre and copied the exercises Carrie had specifically designed to lift her buttocks and give her the Pure Barre Ledge, her hamstrings and glutes screaming in pain; to drop to the ground and place the ball high up between her thighs, squeezing it firmly as she executed a series of torturous twisting sit-ups.

Carrie was American, and Americans were always in a hurry. There was barely any time for Belinda to recover between sequences, to stretch out and let her body assimilate what it had just managed to achieve. But afterwards, when the DVD was paused on Carrie’s resolutely cheerful face, Belinda felt absolutely wonderful. She had achieved something. It would be so easy, here in paradise, to let herself go, to eat more and exercise less, to slip into a lazy, spoilt, indolent way of life. But she had known that, if she took that path, depression would set in very quickly. Exercise had been the only thing she could cling to as her marriage exploded, sending splintered shards of glass raining down on her, and exercise had saved her again when she had escaped.

Sweat practically dripped from Belinda as she stood up and surveyed herself briefly in the floor-to-ceiling mirrored walls. She was in better shape than she had been when she had fled to Montecapra twenty years ago, leaner, stronger, with more muscle definition. And of course, it wasn’t just her body that had changed. Discreet plastic surgery on her face had altered it just enough for Belinda to be unrecognizable to anyone who might associate her with the woman she had once been; her nose was shorter, her chin rounder. Combined with her now-blonde hair and lightened brows, it was inconceivable that anyone who didn’t already suspect her true identity would guess who she was.

And frankly, being blonde at forty-six is much more sensible than being brunette,
she thought wryly.
It’s so much easier to cover the grey!

Leaving the studio, she came out once more into the courtyard, passing swiftly around it to the far side where a wide flight of steps led down the outer wall of the palace. On a promontory below was Rahim’s supreme gift to her, a private swimming pool, partly recessed into the cliff-like side of the citadel, partly extended out into space, an infinity edge allowing the water to flow invisibly over the rim, a glass bottom providing spectacular views of the ancient rock below, overlapping spurs folding over and over each other like waves of a long-frozen golden sea. High above, birds which she had learnt, with great amusement, were called Atlas horned larks, circled in the sky, riding the currents of air, and a buzzard hovered far in the distance over the white-peaked mountains beyond.

Rahim was already in the pool, happily ensconced on his favourite lilo, a mauve blow-up armchair with wide arms on which his own rested; it looked as if he were sitting on a floating throne which moved graciously across the water, impelled by the random setting of the wave machine. He smiled on seeing Belinda run swiftly down the steps, his white teeth flashing under his black moustache as he raised a hand in greeting. Belinda stopped underneath the big built-in rainforest shower head by the side of the pool; it turned on automatically, cool water pouring down on her as she soaped off her body, peeling off her exercise clothes as she did so, rinsing them out at the same time, letting them fall in sopping wet heaps to the cut-stone floor of the shower – bra, thong, all dropping until she stood naked, rinsing out her hair one last time, and then, with a whoop, raced towards the silvery pool and dived in smoothly.

There was nothing like swimming naked. The water pressed between her legs, entering her as they opened and closed in a strong powerful breaststroke; it lifted her small breasts, which bobbed lightly, buoyed up, her nipples already hardened by the cool shower. The pool had been situated to be completely invisible from the rest of the palace. No windows overlooked it, no balconies or walkways provided even the tiniest glimpse over the expanse of water that stretched out miraculously over the rocky mountains below. Belinda and Rahim could swim and sun themselves here in total privacy, the rarest of privileges when you were usually completely surrounded by servants. So Belinda, seeing clearly underwater, could swim up on Rahim, see his dark cock rising up between his legs from the sight of her stripping under the shower water, watch it bob gently in the waves of her approach, and duck her head to close her mouth around it, sucking hard for a long delicious moment, before the need to breathe forced her up to the surface.

Rahim’s hands grasped her arms, pulling her higher, helping her slither onto his lap, their limbs slick against each other’s. She straddled him, bracing against the inflatable chair, finding their familiar angle, gasping as his cock nudged between her legs, finding its entry place, sliding up inside her, forcing a rush of cool water inside her and then its own heat, filling her as she let her weight sink onto his lap.

‘God!’ she sighed in happiness, his arms wrapping round her waist, her legs around the inflated back of the chair, his calves kicking gently beneath their floating bodies, balancing them, leaning back a little to keep them suspended upright in the swimming pool. This was why Rahim so loved this particular chair; the back was a separate piece, allowing Belinda’s long legs to extend behind him, close around him, keep her pressed down hard on his cock as they let the lapping waves of the pool move them around in slow circles. The root of Rahim’s cock rocked between Belinda’s parted legs in a rhythm they had long perfected, building slowly, agonizingly slowly, stoking a fire inside her which grew and grew.

Sun beat down on her shoulders, larks called to each other as they spun high above the citadel, the jets of the wave machine beneath them kept the lilo constantly circulating; Rahim began to tilt his pelvis back and forth, his cock pushing even more insistently inside Belinda, against her. She was biting down on his shoulder now, the smooth wet skin pressed into her mouth, moaning and gasping, trying to hold on as long as she could, not to rush what she knew was coming, to make this build-up last as long as possible; but she heard herself cry out, louder and louder, a plaintive, desperate wail that echoed the cries of the larks above them. She couldn’t bear it any more. With a fierce push of her legs, she rammed herself against Rahim, pulled back for a split-second, letting cool water pass between them, rammed herself in again, the friction intense, three or four rubs of her spread legs against him all she needed to send herself spilling over the edge like the water that was lapping over the rim of the pool.

Rahim rocked harder, rearing back, the heel of one hand jammed into the small of her back, the other rising up to tangle in her hair, pull her head back, drive his tongue into her mouth. His cock was driving up faster and faster inside her, and Belinda came again, kissing him back as frantically as he was kissing her, the rough rub of his moustache against her upper lip an extra stimulant, rough hair and smooth skin against her face, her body, his hard cock inside her and his wet pubic hair grating against her mound, the network of nerve endings that radiated between her legs on fire now, almost too stimulated, burning up under the cool water.

Rahim’s thighs under her were pumping faster and faster, bouncing her body up and down. It was harder and harder to hold onto his slick wet skin, to keep herself steady. He grabbed out behind her for an edge of the pool, caught the stone, wrapped his hand around it and, still kissing Belinda, holding their bodies up, grunting now with the muscular effort, let himself go, yelling as his cock exploded inside her, vibrating between her legs so strongly with the relief of release that Belinda was hit by another orgasm she hadn’t expected, rippling through her so powerfully that she lost her balance and her grip on Rahim. She fell against him, onto the arm that was holding them locked to the edge of the pool, knocking it loose; the inflatable chair flipped sideways and tumbled them both into the water, Belinda’s legs still wound around Rahim’s waist.

The cool water was a shock on their scalps after the heat of the sun. They thrashed for a second or two, untwisting themselves, legs floating down to find the bottom of the pool, pushing up to the surface, grabbing for the side; they hung there like two beached mer-people, their torsos resting on the warm stone, gasping in the aftermath of their orgasms, their chests rising and falling fast. Gradually their panting gasps turned into laughter; with great love, Belinda watched Rahim’s moustache quivering, his dark eyes dancing with amusement.

‘One day,’ he said, ‘we won’t fall off.’

‘We always fall off sooner or later,’ she said.

‘That was much better,’ he said firmly. ‘And really, it was your fault. I had a terribly good grip. We would have been fine if you hadn’t fallen on top of me.’

‘I had a bonus orgasm,’ she said. ‘When you came. It took me by surprise.’

‘A bonus orgasm! I must be
really
good,’ he said complacently.

‘It was a bonus,’ she said. ‘I don’t think, technically, you had anything to do with it.’

‘Excuse me, of course I did! My penis was inside you at the time!’

His smile was wide, his teeth dazzling against lips the colour of pale mocha, shading into rich pink where they were parted; his moustache was rich dark coffee, but Belinda was beginning to see a few silvery hairs in it now, the same silver that gleamed in his short sideburns.

‘I love you so much,’ she said.

His hand closed over hers.

‘It was worth it?’ he asked, a question he tried not to put to her more than every other day. And she gave him the answer she always did, with a smile that echoed his:

‘It was. It was worth it.’

They lay there for a little while longer, still beached, cast up on the shore, their legs dangling in the water.

‘I have to move,’ she said eventually, regretfully. ‘I’m going to get burned. I haven’t put on sunblock since this morning.’

‘Your nose is going red,’ he agreed, reaching out to touch it.

‘You should have told me!’ Belinda started to pull herself out. ‘God, my arms are like jelly . . .’

‘It’s so cute when it goes red,’ Rahim said, dropping back to stand in the pool, gripping her thighs and hoisting her up and out. ‘I like it. You look like a bunny rabbit.’

‘
Men
,’ Belinda said witheringly. ‘The things you think are cute.’

She wriggled to her feet and walked around to the palace wall, where a wooden chest held fresh towels. Wrapping one around herself, she sat down on a lounger in the shade provided by the white overhanging canopy. Rahim followed, winding a towel at his waist, sarong-style; then he picked up an iPad from a mosaic-tiled table, clicked it into life, and ran his thumb over the screen.

‘Are you
sure
that it was worth it?’ he asked, sitting down next to her, drops of water standing out in relief on his rich brown skin, tanned dark even in the winter sun.

‘Darling—’ Belinda snaked an arm around his waist, rested her head on his damp shoulder. ‘You
promised
you wouldn’t keep asking and asking—’

‘There’s something you need to watch,’ he said, his voice serious now. ‘I was wondering how to tell you, but I think I will just show it to you instead.’

He tilted the iPad towards her as he thumbed the Play button below the BBC News 24 window that was open on the screen. Belinda’s heart pounded against her ribcage as she saw the face of her son, that blend of her and Oliver all grown up. She was extremely familiar with how Hugo looked as an adult, of course she was, having eagerly followed his and Sophie’s transition from toddlers to skinny-limbed children to preternaturally sophisticated adolescents to fully formed, beautiful descendants of the House of Sandringham, royal heirs in waiting. She asked Rahim not to keep questioning her about whether it had been worth it precisely because she asked herself the same question on a daily basis; she had tried not to Google new pictures of her children more than once a week as they grew, and she had always failed.

Without them, she would have walked away from Oliver much sooner and never looked back. They had been the umbilical cord that kept her tethered there for years, and the wound that she had caused to herself, severing it, ached with as much pain now as it had the day that she had left, a scar that would never heal.

But once they had turned twenty-one, Belinda had forced herself to stop. The pain was not abating; it actually, perversely, grew stronger when she watched them as adults, realized that they had entire lives of which she knew nothing. She had had the willpower to leave, to face the truth, that she had to make a new life for herself rather than stay and face being murdered by her ex-husband. Now she needed a second, equally strong burst of willpower to say goodbye, once and for all, to the children she had left behind.