Stephanie's Revenge (4 page)

'I'll call you
when I get back from Rome,' she said.

'Be
careful.'

'Don't worry.
I've got it all planned.'

Stephanie put
the receiver down and lay back on the bed, still tingling with the
aftermath of her orgasm. She squirmed her naked body on the bed to
nudge the nerves to produce another little frisson of pleasure,
another tremor in her body like the aftershock of an earthquake.
She toyed with the idea of getting Frank back, unlocking his pouch,
and getting him to fuck her. But as the orgasm faded, her mind was
turning to other things. To the plans she had to make, to her
revenge...

The Learjet
landed smoothly at Leonardo da Vinci Aeroporto in Rome. It had been
no more than a twenty minute flight, and most of that had been
circling Rome waiting for a runway.

Rome was hot.
As Devlin used Rome frequently for business, he kept a car and
chauffeur in the city. They were waiting to meet Stephanie off the
plane. As she intended to do a great deal of shopping she had
brought a number of suitcases with her, though all, bar one, were
empty. A smaller case contained everything she would need for her
short stay, and the one or two special items she needed to deal
with Gianni.

The chauffeur
loaded the cases into the Rolls Royce Silver Wraith while Stephanie
waited in its air-conditioned interior. The short journey to the
five star Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto would be accomplished
in the utmost comfort.

Stephanie had
been to Rome before. She had never dreamt she would return in such
style - a private jet, a chauffeur-driven Rolls, a suite at the
Excelsior. It was amazing how dramatically her life had changed.
But the most important change was not in her circumstances - not in
the fact she was now dressed in a cotton Armani shirt-waister,
Versace shoes, Cartier sunglasses and La Perla knickers and driving
in a Rolls Royce - but in her attitude. She felt free. She felt
able to use what she had, able to express herself, able to be
herself. She was not cowed by taboos, inhibitions, sexual
prohibitions. All the social conventions that she had carried
around for so long had turned out to be like the luggage in the
boot of the Rolls - empty.

They drove
through the Piazza Della Republica, where Stephanie remembered
sitting to eat a pizza on the steps of a church designed by
Michelangelo, then on up the Via Barberini to the Via Veneto. Rome,
like most great cities, presented a beautiful vista at every
corner, a particular mixture of the heavenly and the prosaic, of
the divine and the sordid. The great statues of the Trevi Fountain
mixed inextricably with the thirteen year old girls in red satin
mini-skirts and black Lycra halter tops displaying their nascent
breasts to passing men as a means of touting for business.

The staff at
the Excelsior were appropriately ingratiating, bowing and scraping
in a way that suggested Devlin was a valued and important customer.
Stephanie was escorted to a suite by a tail-coated manager before
whom minions scattered in confusion. He assured her that her every
wish would be their command. He assured her the hotel was honoured
and privileged beyond mere words by her singular presence.

He showed her
around the huge suite on the top floor, its bedroom and sitting
room both opening on to a small terrace that overlooked the Via
Veneto. He absolutely refused to take the tip she offered him
explaining, in the florid language he seemed to favour, that it had
been entirely his pleasure.

Stephanie
unpacked the few clothes she had brought and wandered downstairs
again. She dismissed her driver and wandered aimlessly across the
street to Harry's Bar where she ordered a glass of dry spumante -
the Italian version of champagne - and a large café nero, and sat
quietly on the wide pavement to watch the people go by.

She attracted
admiring glances from passing Italian men, but did not notice them.
Her mind was full of her plans for Gianni. She had no doubt her
plan would succeed. Gianni was the sort of man who believed he was
absolutely irresistible to women. It would not be difficult to
convince him that, despite the way he had treated her in the
cellars at the castle, she had conceived a great passion for him, a
passion she had to satisfy. And then...

An Italian man
sat down opposite her at the small circular table.

'You are
English?' he said.

'Go away.'
Stephanie remembered the way Roman men had harried her when she was
a student here. She had disliked it intensely then and that had not
changed.

'Hear what I
have to say.'

'Fuck
off.'

'Language. For
a respectable English woman, I think you have much fire.'

Stephanie
looked around for a waiter. They were all inside the bar.

'I give you
what you want.'

'I told you to
get lost.'

'Anything you
want. I can get you anything.'

The waiter
came out of the bar with two cups of cappuccino on his tray.
Stephanie waved her hand. She was determined not to have to get up
and leave. Why should she?

'I know,' the
man was saying. 'I know about you. You want a party. I get you a
woman. Two men. Anything you want. I can get anything.'

The waiter
delivered his order and saw Stephanie's hand. He walked over
towards the table and the man immediately got up. He smiled a
leering, ogling smile.

'Pity,' he
said. 'You are a very sexy lady. I know. Very sexy. Molto
caldo...'

Before the
waiter had covered the ground between the five or six tables the
man was gone, disappearing as rapidly as he had appeared. Stephanie
heard his rather whiny, high voice, 'Molto caldo...' Well, he had
been right about that. She could not suppress a flicker of a
smile.

Stephanie had
ordered breakfast for nine and it arrived precisely on time. She
had it taken out to the balcony and, climbing into a pink silk
dressing gown, she drunk her coffee and blood-red orange juice as
she watched Rome coming to life in the streets below. The street
cleaning trucks spewed out water to clean the gutters, the delivery
vans restocked the restaurants and bars with crates of aqua
minerale, wine, beer and, inevitably it appeared, with crates of
Coca Cola.

After spending
an hour on the terrace, enjoying the sun and the sights, she
dressed in a light, plain cotton dress which buttoned down the
front - and was therefore easy to get in to and out of in the
innumerable changing rooms she planned to visit - and selected a
pair of low-heeled shoes that would be comfortable to walk in.
Armed with the credit cards, store account cards, and thousand
Swiss Franc notes she had found in Devlin's safe, she walked out of
the hotel and into the sun. It was no longer the height of summer
but, though the nights were colder, the days could still be
uncomfortably hot.

She walked to
the Spanish steps and stood surveying the terracotta-coloured city,
before descending to the Piazza and the Via Condotti, at the heart
of commercial Rome. As yet there were few people about. In the
Piazza the flower sellers were busy setting up their stalls. The
narrow streets were effectively shaded from the early morning sun
and felt slightly chill in the dark shadows.

After two
hours she had been to Valentino's, St Laurent Trussadi, Armani and
Ferre. She had tried on dresses for all occasions and not bothered
to look at the prices. She had bought silk, satin, and leather. And
then, with the colours of the clothes she had bought still fresh in
her mind, she had gone to Rossetti and Bally and Gucci for shoes
and handbags and gloves. All her purchases were to be sent to her
hotel.

The hotel had
recommended a restaurant for lunch and she found that shopping had
made her ravenously hungry. Not wanting to go back to the hotel and
order the Rolls she decided to take a taxi, and regretted it
immediately. The driver was clearly under the impression that she
was a representative of Ferrari looking for a driver for their
Formula One team. He drove with such speed she could have sworn the
car was cornering on two wheels. As she did not know the Italian
for 'slow down', there was nothing that she could do but cling on.
They reached the restaurant in three minutes.

The concierge
at the hotel had booked a table. Clearly, from the warmth of her
welcome, he had also added that she was considered to be a very
important client. She was ushered to a large window table
overlooking the Piazza Navona. The dining room was beautiful, a
black marble floor contrasting with the crisp white linen on the
tables. A huge display of fresh flowers on a circular table
dominated the room.

Sipping a
glass of spumante to calm her nerves after the ordeal in the taxi,
Stephanie ordered Tagliatelle al Prosciutto followed by mixed
grilled seafood. It was all delicious. She had a salad of what
looked like grass - thin flat leaves of green - but which tasted
sweet, dressed with a virgin olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. She
declined the dessert trolley and ordered instead a Vino Santo with
almond biscotto and a large cappuccino. Following the tradition she
had learnt on her first visit, she dunked the biscuits into the
golden-coloured wine.

The one area
she had not investigated that morning was lingerie and that, she
decided, would be her main objective this afternoon, before she
returned to the hotel for her siesta.

She didn't ask
for the bill. She dropped on the table a thousand Swiss Franc note
which seemed to meet with the hearty approval of the restaurant
staff, and got into the Rolls. Not wanting to risk a taxi again she
had got the restaurant manager to call up the chauffeur. At a
dignified pace, she returned to the main shopping drag.

She wandered
more aimlessly than she had in the morning. There were two shops
devoted entirely to lingerie, but after browsing in both of them
she had bought nothing. It was after an hour of haphazard
searching, and at the point at which she was almost giving up, that
she noticed a very old-fashioned shop tucked away in one of the
narrowest streets. A window on each side of a wood-framed, opaque
glass door displayed one item of lingerie only. On the left side
was a white waspie basque complete with suspenders, mounted on the
sort of cloth dummy dressmakers use. In the other window was a
camiknicker in black silk on an identical dummy. The frame of the
windows was dark brown, the paint chipped with age. The door was
painted in the same ageing colour, though its brass handle was
brightly polished - the only thing on the outside of the shop that
looked as though it had been cleaned for years.

Stephanie was
intrigued. Both items of lingerie were beautifully designed and
made. She had not seen anything in the other shops to rival them.
She turned the door knob and the door shuddered as she pushed it
open. A bell rang somewhere deep inside the shop, triggered by the
frame of the door.

The shop was
cool, not from air-conditioning but from the lack of direct
sunlight in the narrow street. A long, wooden counter ran the whole
length of the room behind which, from floor to ceiling, were
glass-fronted wooden drawers, each with a brass finger pull and a
neat label written in florid Italian script. In front of the
counter there was nothing; no point-of-sale bins, no special
offers, no advertising display cards, not so much as a poster of
any manufacturer of lingerie. There was a chevalier mirror and an
old upright chair with a wooden seat.

A woman,
summoned by the bell, appeared from behind a heavy damask curtain
hanging at the end of the counter. She was dressed entirely in
black; her wrinkled skin was sallow, her hands thin and bony, the
fingers crooked with arthritis, her black lisle stockings hanging
loose on her thin legs.

The woman said
some words in Italian, obviously a question.

'Non parlo
italiano,' Stephanie said, determining that learning Italian should
be on her list of priorities.

'Fine. I speak
a little English. How may I help you?' Her English was spoken with
little trace of an accent.

The woman was
definitely over seventy, Stephanie thought, but she moved with a
grace and energy that belied her obvious age.

'I'm looking
for lingerie. Whatever you could show me...'

'Of course.
You are a very beautiful woman. For you, I think, only the best is
good enough.' Her English was precise, her voice strong. 'You have
the figure to wear such things. It will be a pleasure to serve
you.'

'Thank you,'
Stephanie said.

The woman took
a bra out of one of the drawers, then some matching knickers and a
suspender belt and slip, all in black. She laid them out on the
counter. 'Everything we have is made here by our own girls. All our
own designs.'

'They're
lovely.' Stephanie fingered the garments.

'Try these
first for size, and then I will show you all our designs and
colours.'

Stephanie
picked up the bra. It was exquisitely made, hand-stitched and
underwired.

'This way
please.' The woman in black came out from behind the counter to
guide Stephanie through a small mirrored door into a short corridor
where there were two small cubicles made from frosted glass mounted
in ornate wooden frames, each with a lace curtain for an
entrance.

'Please,' the
old woman said, indicating one of the cubicles.

Stephanie
stepped inside, stripped off her clothes and slipped into the black
lingerie. The size was perfect. The underwear could have been made
for her. The bra held her breasts firmly, pushing them together
slightly into an alluring cleavage. The knickers fitted perfectly,
following the soft curves of her buttocks. Obviously the old
woman's experienced eye had judged her size to the millimetre. The
material of the garments was soft and silky, but it was more
elastic, more supportive and stronger than silk. This shop,
Stephanie thought, was a definite find.