The Blue Guide (21 page)

More drinks come and the talk gets bawdier. Jacqui is telling us about a yoga teacher she once dated and the positions they used to try out, and I can see Carlotta drinking it all in, making mental notes. I'm in for an athletic time later, I think, wondering what kind of weird shapes Carlotta's going to try to twist me into. But the thought freezes in my head when I see that Jacqui has leaned forwards and has rested her hand on Carlotta's bare thigh.

She's saying something, and Carlotta's laughing, her lascivious little tongue peeking out from between her white teeth. I would even go so far as to say she's poking her boobs out a bit, as if presenting them to Jacqui.

‘What the fuck . . .?' I've started to say under my breath when Michiko, who's so far let everyone else do the talking, turns to me and says:

‘My place isn't far from here, in Somers Town. Let's all go back there. I have whisky, and dope.'

Suddenly all eyes are on me, waiting for my reaction. I look at Carlotta, shake my head, and she glares at me for a moment and then looks away. She's fuming. But I won't let her bully me into this. I want her, not a gang bang with this oddball couple.

From this moment on I'm excluded, which I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about. I don't let it get to me: I sit and smoke, sip my drinks, and watch the other three giggle among themselves. I'm not even interested in what they're saying. The evening washes over me in a blur.

Later on, with the lights down low and a band providing live music, Carlotta takes the Japanese girl's hand and they move out from between the tables and
start to dance together. Carlotta leads the way, one hand on the small of Michiko's back; I see them start grinding into each other, and I can imagine Carlotta's clit, all pink and throbbing for this tiny Asian girl, chafing against the lace of her knickers. She doesn't even look at me: she takes it on trust that I'm watching, that she's riling me. I wish she wasn't, but it's true.

Jacqui drifts away, strikes up a conversation with another Asian girl at the bar, and soon I see her lean in and risk a kiss. I finish my drink, think about telling Carlotta it's time to go, that she's had her fun. Her hand is on Michiko's buttocks now, pulling them up towards her. She's angling for a kiss, I can see, and the Japanese girl's lips are already parting in readiness, her eyes half-closed.

I'm climbing down from my stool when I hear a voice beside me.

‘She's making a fool of you, your girlfriend,' it says, crackling from years of nicotine abuse, and I turn my head and see a woman in her late-forties flashing me a faux-sympathetic, rather wolfish smile. She's wearing a red fifties-style satin cocktail dress and a sort of furry stole, and there's a cigarette holder clamped between her yellowing teeth.

‘She's not my girlfriend,' I say.

‘No?'

‘She's a friend's wife.'

‘Some friend,' she says with a throaty laugh. She leans in towards me, and I get a blast of Chanel Cristalle. ‘I saw you earlier,' she says, ‘getting all cosy together. Before those minxes arrived.'

‘OK,' I concur, ‘so I fuck her from time to time. So what?'

‘Does he know, the hubby?'

‘I don't think so,' I say. I don't add that I found a certain sketch in his bedside drawer this afternoon that suggests otherwise.

‘Whatever,' she says. ‘She's making a fool of you with that little Japanese piece.' She nods over at them. I don't need to look to know that they are kissing.

‘What you need is a real woman,' she says, leaning in further. There's stale tobacco on her breath, and garlic, and sour cheap wine. ‘Come home with me,' she goes on. ‘I'll show you what it's all about.'

That's it: I grab my bag and run out, jumping into the first taxi I see, cursing the day I met Carlotta, the day I accepted Paco's booking. No amount of money, none of the glamour of such a high-profile client, can make up for this kind of treatment. And all because I wouldn't go home with that lanky bitch and her girlfriend. Carlotta can go to hell.

At home I have a herbal tea and try to call Daniel's number in the States. Suddenly it seems vitally important that I talk to him above anybody else, even Jess. Suddenly no one else will do.

Of course, he's not there, and the call goes straight through to the answering machine. I hang up, call the number of the last person in the world I should be speaking to: Paco. Even as he's answering I don't really know why I'm calling him. Then I remember the drawing.

He's on his way home from the Royal Albert Hall in a taxi, I learn, and I persuade him to stop near my flat. He calls when he's on the corner of my street, and I run down and meet him at the Moroccan-themed bar there. He's still fired up, I see, from his show, his eyes bright, his skin glowing. I try to imagine how it must feel to
get up in front of all those people, to hear that applause and know it's for you, but I can't. It's all worlds away from my life.

He orders a half bottle of champagne, asks what Carlotta and I have been doing. Seeing a way in, I murmur something vague about art galleries – I don't want to answer his question in case he asks Carlotta and our stories don't tie in – and then I slowly bring the subject around to Manet. Like Carlotta, I say, I'm a big fan of the French painter. It's nice that we have that in common, I add.

Paco doesn't really react, and I remember him saying he's not really into the visual arts. I carry on regardless, determined not to squander the opportunity.

‘His
Olympia
, for instance,' I say. ‘So shocking at the time. You know the one I mean?'

He shakes his head, looking around the room as if he's discovered a sudden interest in the decor, or one of the sweet Swedish barmaids this place seems to have on tap.

‘The one with Victorine Meurent, posing as a prostitute staring at her client – who is you, the viewer. With the cat at the end of the bed.'

Paco stubs his cigarette out very slowly, still not looking at me, still shaking his head, and I start getting impatient.

‘I don't know how you
can't
know it,' I insist. ‘It's your wife's favourite painting. It's in the Louvre.'

He looks at me at last, raising his head very slowly. ‘Look, Alicia,' he says as if with effort, as if he is endlessly weary. ‘Carlotta and I are not Siamese twins, you know. We don't live in each others' pockets. We have our own lives.'

‘I know you do,' I say meaningfully. But I give up without reminding him that Carlotta took him to see
the painting in Paris not so long ago, or so she claimed. Paco is not giving anything away, and we're just going to end up fighting if I keep pushing.

Fortuitously, the champagne bottle has run dry, giving me a natural opening to call an end to the evening. When I stand up and push my chair back, however, Paco looks aghast.

‘Where are you going?' he says.

‘Home,' I tell him. ‘I'm tired and –' I don't go on, can't tell him I won't sleep with him as long as I believe he's lying to me about the drawing. As long as I believe that there's something going on beneath the surface of all of this.

He stands up, pushes his own chair back and starts to march out. I follow.

‘Why did you call me?' he says as he turns to me on the doorstep. ‘You prick tease. Well, I don't need you, you know. I can get the best fuck in the world from my wife. Goodnight, Alicia.'

And with that he's off and I'm left standing here on the pavement, watching him stride away into the night, wondering again how I came to be involved in all of this.

Upstairs, my mobile rings and it's Carlotta, weepy and contrite. She's back at the hotel, she says, minus Jacqui and Michiko, regretting the whole unsavoury affair.

‘I was only doing it to get attention, to make you jealous,' she sobs. ‘You must see that, 'Licia. There no way . . . I not even . . .'

‘It's OK,' I say. ‘I understand. Listen, Paco just called me about some financial stuff and I know he's on his way back to the hotel so you'd better pull yourself together or he'll wonder what's wrong and you'll have some explaining to do.'

‘OK,' she sniffs. ‘Thanks. Listen, 'Licia. I know I not deserve it, but can I see you tomorrow?'

I can hardly refuse, given that her husband is paying for me to be her companion, but I'm very wary of Carlotta now. I'm not even sure how genuine these tears of hers are; I wish I could see her in the flesh, gauge how much she's putting it on. I was wrong, it turns out, to question her ability as an actress. She could give some of the Oscar winners a run for their money.

But however upset she is or isn't, I know one thing for sure – Carlotta is a control freak, and I would bet almost anything that her spot of frottage with the little Japanese waitress was intended not so much to make me jealous as to punish me for not obeying her, for not agreeing to a foursome.

‘Sure,' I sigh. ‘I'll pick you up at eleven, OK?'

‘Whatever you want, 'Licia. I can't tell you how much you mean to me.'

‘Goodnight, Carlotta.'

By the following lunchtime, we've walked right up through Regent's Park to the top of Primrose Hill to admire the views over London, and are about halfway back to the hotel, having butties and coffees in The Honest Sausage Cafe. I've lost count of the number of times Carlotta has apologised for yesterday, has declared her undying love for me. It's all making me feel a bit nauseous. Something rings false in all this.

I want to change the subject, but the other thing that's preying on my mind – the wonderful portrait she did of me – is out of bounds. Not just the fact that she lied about it, but just how bloody good it is. I want to ask her why she's dissipating her energies playing silly games in lesbian bars when she is so talented. But I
can't because that would mean giving away what I've seen.

Carlotta must sense my
froideur
, for before long she suggests that she pay for me to have a long massage in the hotel spa to make up for her wanton behaviour. You know by now that I'm not one to turn down a freebie, and if Carlotta wants to splash out on a treatment for me to salve her conscience, I'm not going to protest. Thus it is that, twenty minutes later, I'm browsing the menu of treatments, trying to ascertain which is the longest and most luxurious. If it's the most expensive too, then all the better.

Carlotta waves to me as I'm ushered into a treatment room by a neat beautician, all scraped back hair and flawless skin and immaculate nails. She's perfect, and perfectly sexless. I'm relieved, was worried that my newfound appreciation of the female form might, when combined with a sumptuous massage, put ideas in my head.

In some ways, though, it's a shame: part of me would have loved to have got it on with my masseuse, would have loved to have had an oily romp on the treatment couch, just to get back at Carlotta. But that would be descending to her level. And in any case, I think I'm starting to get erotic burnout. The last thing I need right now is another fuck.

The masseuse, needless to say, is resolutely professional, and her fingers work their magic where they should – deep into my taut muscles, which soften like putty at her touch. My cunt doesn't stir at all, and I'm relieved to have some time off from its demands. For the last few days I feel its wants and needs have been dictating my life more than a little, more than is healthy. I need a pussy break.

Ninety minutes later, swaddled in a bathrobe and
smelling of lavender and ylang ylang, I go to find Carlotta. She told me she was having a swim while I was gone, and would wait for me on a lounger by the Jacuzzi. She's not there. I enter the changing room and peer inside the steam room and then the sauna. She's in the latter, naked on a towel, her damp brown skin gleaming in the orangey light. She's playing with her cunt, idly, lazily, eyes closed, a half-smile on her lips.

I'm about to back off, go get my clothes from the locker and get dressed, when she sits up, almost as if she's sensed my presence.
Come in
, she mouths, beckoning me with a hand. I sigh, pull open the door.

‘How was it?' she smiles.

‘Great.'

She stands up, steps towards me and pushes the robe off from my shoulders, then plunges her face into my neck. ‘Mmmm, you smell
good,'
she says, her hand on my pussy, one finger already between my lips in search of my opening. I wish it wasn't, but it's already wet for her, and her finger slides in easily. I swoon back against the warm pine wall, look down as she falls to her knees. With her teeth she nips at my clit, while more and more fingers are pushed into my cunt until her hand fills it. She bunches it up into a fist, starts pummelling, looking up at my face for a reaction. I can see my juices dripping from her chin. I gasp, grab her head with both hands, amazed that I can accommodate so much of her, electrified by the combination of pleasure and pain, by the almost unbearable intensity of it all.

I start sliding down the wall, and then I'm lying on the ground and she's turning round and her cunt and arse come down on my face as she leans forward and continues going at me with her mouth, with both hands. At that moment something catches the corner of
my eye and I turn my head and there's a figure standing in the door, indistinct behind the steamed-up glass. She – it's definitely a woman – looks to be wearing a swimsuit, and I wouldn't swear on it but I think as I watch that her hand slips into the bottom of it and she starts playing with herself as she observes us.

Carlotta looks up, follows my gaze, and the sight of the woman sets her off: she stands up, sits down on the bench right opposite the door, spreads her legs and gives our little friend a head-on view of her pussy as she brings herself off, whole body shuddering as she does so. The sight of her climaxing, in turn, has me reaching for my own cunt, and within seconds I'm slithering all over the floor as my orgasm whips through me like a tornado.