Tease (12 page)

‘What are you …’

She glanced over her smooth, bronzed shoulder. Sure enough, Johnson was racking up a line of white powder on her smooth bare arse.

Tiger rolled her eyes, sighed and flipped quickly and elegantly onto her back, her perky breasts rising like zeppelins.

‘Oh shit! I said stay still, baby,’ exclaimed Johnson, a half rolled hundred dollar bill mid air in one hand. Tiger gracefully swept up her long legs and wrapped them round his neck, pulling him towards her.

‘Darling, my ass is an unspoilt landscape, I don’t need
you racking up Colombia’s finest on it thank you,’ she murmured softly. Tiger was certainly no prude, having had her own chemical dramas in years gone by, but she had emerged on the other side a wiser woman, and now found the whole Class-A culture rather passé. She certainly wasn’t going to be used as Johnson Tyler’s serving dish.

‘Aw c’mon, baby. It’s a massive compliment. It’s usually a blue pill,’ said Johnson with a serious face.

‘Oh thanks, that’s a relief then!’ laughed Tiger heartily. She couldn’t be annoyed with such a downright charmer.

Johnson kissed her tenderly. Tiger suddenly felt relieved for the interruption. Deep down she knew she was still trying to get Rex out of her head. Thank god, she was better than this. Black satin sheets indeed! And cocaine! How eighties!

Tiger rose. ‘I should leave, my darling. I have a long day tomorrow. Thank you for drinks and dinner and … I’m sorry, I just can’t …’

‘Yeah I shouldn’t have – shit, what was I thinking – we’re cool, aren’t we?’ asked Johnson, suddenly looking like a spoilt schoolboy in his high-tech playground.

‘You bet. Look me up when you’re in the UK and I’ll take you out for dinner.’

‘Okay, baby. You’re a rare broad, you know, Tiger.’

‘Well, if I do the job of a blue pill then I could make billions!’

They both laughed as Tiger smoothed her hair, dressed, and ran out to the warmth of her waiting limo.

The gloved hand slowly turns over the front cover of the ‘Funtime Playtime’ scrapbook. The leaves of coloured sugar paper are turned over one by one, first blue, then pink, then yellow. Each page proffers another image of Tiger Starr, cut from a magazine or a faded newspaper. Beautiful smiles and sultry gazes radiate from each page; moments captured in time. The gloved hand reaches for a scalpel blade from the desk, and the blade is guided slowly towards Tiger’s image. It is scraped deliberately and repeatedly over her heaving bosom in long, leisurely strokes, scoring the paper as she twinkles from the page. Trembling, both hands now methodically scratch gashes into her breasts, faster, shorter, faster, harder, faster; until all that remains is an ugly wound of sugar paper. The page now hangs sorrowfully from the binding by a thread, the picture a mass of angry slashes.

The gloved hand lays the blade down carefully, next to little piles of newsprint words arranged neatly on the desk. A sheet of wafer thin, translucent paper sits squarely next to an embellished packet out of which spills a pink writing block and matching envelopes. A small bottle of Chanel No. 5 occupies the last square of space on the desk. A
pink envelope is selected and duly primed with a light spray of the amber liquid. Miniscule droplets of fragrance sparkle momentarily under the beam of light from the anglepoise lamp, before settling on the envelope. A deep sigh echoes through the room as it fills with powdery, floral notes of rose and jasmine.

In the distance a lawnmower could be heard motoring up and down the playing field. The lively hum of chattering schoolgirls had been replaced by the soporific drone of the industrial floor polisher in the corridor, interspersed with sporadic shrieks of gossip barked in Polish as the cleaners noisily emptied bins and swabbed the parquet floor in the neighbouring classrooms. Poppy fiddled miserably with the novelty zipper on her Betty Boop pencil case, anxiously imagining the scene when she returned home. She had never had a detention before, and she knew her mother would be absolutely furious. Poppy prayed that Mr Rogers hadn’t noticed the cigarette butts out on the grass earlier, or the unmistakable smell of stale smoke on her clothes. The ripped shirt was bad enough, but if her mother was told about the cigarettes, Poppy was sure to be grounded for the rest of her teenage years. That’s if she wasn’t sent away to boarding school like her parents frequently threatened if Poppy was naughty.

She looked over at Emma, who was still slouched sulkily in her chair, doodling on her A4 pad with a Bic biro. She’d been huffing and puffing solidly for the past hour. Flicking an evil sideways look at Poppy, she mouthed ‘stupid cow’.

Ed Rogers looked up from his text book
Playing the Game: Bats, Balls and Boules
.

‘Okay, girls, it’s five-thirty, you may now leave. Please could you place your essays on the front desk for me.’ He spoke in his Australian twang, deep and husky from all that bellowing on the sports fields. ‘Your parents will be called by the secretary in a moment to let them know you are safely discharged.’ He rose from his chair and turned to the whiteboard, upon which tonight’s punitive essay title was written in marker, ‘Violence is unladylike. Discuss’.

As he swept a rag in arcs across the board, erasing the legend, Poppy stared at his tanned, muscled calves. She idly wondered why he always wore long shorts, rarely tracksuit bottoms. The chair scraped loudly next to her, and Emma rose. As she reached over to place her essay on the desk in front, she shoved Poppy’s open pencil case onto the floor.

‘Oops, sorry,’ said Emma loudly, smiling slyly at Poppy as she sashayed from the classroom with a wave. Poppy leapt up to gather the pens and pencils that had scattered.

Ed Rogers moved in on her. ‘Let me help you with that,’ he said kindly, crouching down and reaching out to pick up a couple of pens that had come to rest under the desk. Poppy was alarmed to find tears suddenly spilling down her cheeks and onto the bottle-green sweater that Mr Rogers had lent her to cover her ripped shirt. She snivelled in little spasms and frantically tried to rub her eyes dry with shaky hands. Crying in front of a teacher
was so embarrassing, especially a man like Mr Rogers. She was fourteen now after all, no way was she a silly little girl any more.

‘Poppy, I know you’ve never had a detention before,’ said Ed gently, reaching to put a hand on her shoulder, ‘and your parents have to be informed – those are the regulations. But let’s just say …’ He paused long enough for her to look up at him with her green eyes.

‘Look, let’s just be friends, Poppy. I didn’t see anything like cigarettes and matches out there, for example. You get my drift?’ He slowly slid the biros into her pencil case.

Poppy swallowed hard, stemming the flow of unwanted tears, and nodded as she knelt there on the parquet floor. She stared back at his kind face, as he casually ran his long fingers through his tousled golden hair. He was close. He smelled of washing powder.

‘Your jumper, I need to give it back,’ started Poppy.

‘Oh that, don’t worry. No, you just keep hold of it for the moment,’ Ed laughed softly. ‘Besides, you can’t go home in your ripped shirt. Just one thing, Poppy,’ he asked suddenly. ‘Why were you rolling around the grass with Emma?’

‘Like I said, we were just playing,’ mumbled Poppy, feeling little butterflies in her tummy now that the tears had dried up. Wow. She was actually getting to keep Ed Rogers’ jumper for a while. Wow. She reckoned she could sell it to one of her classmates for a heap of money, everyone fancied him.

‘Playing? Emma was nearly ripping your hair out.’

‘Um. Yeah. We’ve been watching the wrestling on telly?’ Poppy ventured, unconvincingly.

‘Well, you’re better than that. You’re not like other girls, you’re not vulgar. Don’t lower yourself to that.’

‘Oh, sir, it was just that Emma – oh you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Are you being bullied?’

‘Oh god, no!’

‘You must say if there’s something going on.’

‘No, sir, definitely not, it was just a little difference of opinion. I got defensive, that’s all. Sorry.’

‘Did you hear what I said back then?’

‘No.’

‘That you’re not like other girls.’

‘Oh.’

‘I mean it, Poppy.’

‘Um …’

‘You’re special, never forget that.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t be embarrassed.’

Ed reached out and rested his hand on Poppy’s. She could feel herself trembling. She was confused. Her stomach churned with nervous excitement, but she was unfamiliar with the heady mixture of exhilaration and unease washing over her. The classroom was deadly silent. The cleaners had gone home, the gardener’s work was done. Poppy’s mouth felt dry. She didn’t know where to
look. She could feel Mr Rogers’ eyes on her. Her mind raced. She wanted to hold his hand. Her friends would hate her for that. Should she say something clever? Her mind went blank. She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Her small hand simply trembled under his. She cast her eyes down awkwardly and studied a small piece of fluff on her skirt.

Ed Rogers leapt to his feet and cleared his throat. ‘Okay, Poppy, I’ll take your essay. Have a pleasant evening,’ he said coolly. ‘See you for hockey Friday. Oh, and remember it’s the match against Hazelbury next week. We want to thrash them. Those silly girls think they’re going to be top of the league, so let’s show ’em what’s what.’ He winked and showed Poppy to the door.

As she walked out into the corridor clutching her pencil case and books, she took a deep breath and braced herself for the furious confrontation she was about to have with her mother, who would be waiting at the school gates in her clapped-out old car. Poppy suddenly didn’t care. Mr Rogers had just told her she was special, and she was wearing his jumper. She felt bullet proof.

Tiger Starr’s house may have looked unassuming from the outside – a neat Grade II listed stucco affair – but typically for Tiger, it was situated in the lavish surroundings of the Crown Estate, in the Outer Circle of Regents Park. It nestled comfortably opposite the Danish Church, and Tiger relished the view from her manicured garden: immaculate mansions with Corinthian columns and gargoyles reared up into view over her tree tops like absurdly elaborate facades, making her feel like she was tucked away on the set of some huge Regency drama.

Inside the house it was pure indulgence. Each room paid homage to a different country and decade. The dining room had the air of a 1920s cruise-liner bar, with dark punched steel wall panels, sleek leather banquettes and a streamlined minibar. The library might have come straight out of the Palace of Versailles with fancy gilded cherubs and glam-baroque scrolls. The parlour was all decked out in 1930s
chinoiserie
with black lacquer skirting, deep emerald satin walls, and a real cherry blossom in the corner. There could be no doubt that Tiger loved to submerge herself in different worlds.

The bedrooms were just as eccentric. One posed as a
1960s Michael Caine-esque bachelor pad with brown leather Eames chairs, chrome pendulum lamps and exposed brickwork. Another bedroom was a
frou frou
palace that mimicked the style of Diana Dors’ mansion, with chintzy sage-coloured raw silk bedlinen, a chiffon canopy and a fluffy telephone. This particular room had been claimed by Blue the nano-second he had moved in six years earlier, and his framed prints of Bardot and Jayne Mansfield now adorned the walls, whilst piles of vintage ’50s beefcake porn were stacked underneath the coffee table.

Tiger’s own master bedroom had been styled as a sleek
Dynasty
fantasy, fully swagged in oyster silk, with rich gold fittings and the deepest cream shagpile. In fact, there was quite a production unfolding in her bedroom right now, as Libertina Belle straddled a blissfully docile Tiger, the exquisite pair bathed in a burst of Sunday morning sunbeam which streamed in through the sash window. Their soft moans harmonised with the bells that pealed out from the Danish Church, with Libertina’s huge solid gold bracelets adding rhythmic percussion. A union of pink and raven manes were tossed about spectacularly as the symphony progressed into its fourth movement. Beethoven would have wept. The groans and sighs rapidly erupted into an almighty crescendo of ecstasy and arched backs, at which moment, a key rattled downstairs in the front door.

‘Coo-eeee!’ Blue could be heard calling up the sweeping staircase as he closed the heavy door behind him with a loud clack.

‘My dahhhling, I don’t want to leave you, but I must go,’ murmured Libertina dramatically in Tiger’s ear, as they lay entwined together in her huge bed, panting breathlessly. Libertina swept Tiger’s pink hair away from her face, and softly stroked her flushed cheek.

‘Please stay,’ begged Tiger affectionately.

‘I wish I could, dahhhling. I have to go for that reading for my next film. I’m sure I mentioned it.’

‘On a Sunday?’ protested Tiger.

‘I made them squeeze me in before I fly to NYC first thing tomorrow,’ Libertina explained.

‘Okay, I wouldn’t dream of holding you up,’ sighed Tiger, making sure not to let her disappointment show. ‘Good luck, beautiful lady.’

‘Huh, luck has nothing to do with it. It’s a done deal. The reading is just a formality, the part was written for me.’

‘So no casting couch, then?’ giggled Tiger.

‘Honey, I
invented
the casting couch.
Ciao
bella bella,’ said Libertina, planting a soft kiss on Tiger’s lips, ‘and give me a call, we should do lunch when I get back. We didn’t do much talking last night and I want to hear what’s happening in your world … properly.’

‘Okay, lunch sounds perfect. Thanks for breakfast.’ Tiger winked as she watched Libertina stepping gracefully into her dress and easing it up over her shapely hips.

‘
Merda
!’ cursed Libertina in Italian as she frantically tried to smooth out the creases of her miniscule Dolce and Gabbana number. ‘I look like a bag lady!’

‘Rubbish. You just look freshly fucked,’ said Tiger. ‘Perfect. Now, be gone! Wouldn’t want you to be late!’

After a final kiss, Libertina grabbed her sheared beaver coat and ran out of the bedroom door, slamming straight into Blue. They squealed and apologised loudly in unison, and then Libertina was off towards her Ferrari in a flurry of fur and swishing hair.