This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) (13 page)

Carmel warmed to Joshua as an international socialite who like his father rarely hit the fast lane of the glamorous jet-setters. Young, fascinating, a man who lived and loved on his own terms and no one else’s: Adam’s son, and so much like him.

Carmel had suffered her attraction to Joshua in silence. Like
the panther she had stalked her prey, bided her time, waited for him to appear at the right moment, in the right place. Until now there had been nothing she could do about it, because he had always managed to elude her. Now he seemed to have delivered himself to her.

She had a weakness for young male flesh, a passion to be nourished by it, and had, till Josh came along, always known how to get the men she wanted. She was clever in her weakness, and few resisted her. But with Josh it had been different from the outset. She had a fatal attraction toward him, an obsessive infatuation. She wanted, exactly, the sexual life he had evoked for her on the telephone. To make love to him, voyage with him through an erotic land where she could do with him what she wanted, would be the ultimate bliss for her.

Naked, Joshua was a young Grecian God, the epitome of masculine beauty, flesh that cried out for loving. Carmel was tense with erotic ecstasy from the instant she laid her hands on Joshua’s body, so young, so firm; his skin, smooth and supple, vigorously alive, unblemished by time, acted as a drug on her.

He lay quite still on a marble dining table, in the center of the room, the heavy summer rain pounding on the skylight above, a crackling fire to warm him, a satin pillow for his head. Naked and magnificent, Carmel sat astride him, moving her warm moist cunt hungrily back and forth over his body. She was constantly caressing him, pawing him, playing with him, while she licked clean the almond cream with which she had garnished his skin until he was as radiant as live polished marble.

She was extraordinary. She used her tongue sometimes like a feather, other times like a whip, and amazed him when she turned it into a hard and erect instrument she used like a penis to penetrate him wherever she could. And her mouth — she ate him, sucked up his flesh into her mouth and devoured him, leaving faint bruises and teeth marks. No part of him escaped her passion.

She whimpered like a hurt beast with every orgasm, and, when in a frenzy of lust she plied his most personal orifice open with her tongue and readied him with licks and kisses, she came in an enormous orgasm whose come trickled
between the cheeks of his bottom, while she groaned like a great jungle cat.

They were sexual animals, a panther and a tiger, in rut. Joshua had come three times and still she was able to excite him, bring him erect, and rampant. He selfishly wallowed in their mutual orgasms and drifted in and out of ecstasy, never touching her, or pleasuring her. He felt as if flayed by her tongue, as if very soon she would go for him, paralyzing him with her lust so she could consume him alive and whole.

It was then that the quiescent animal in him died. Quite suddenly he felt the urge to dominate her with his body. His heart raced with the surging of hot blood through his veins, and his need to take over was acute. He was quite different now: his lustful desire was to bury himself deep inside this woman, this amazing animal, and fuck her slowly, hard and fully, calm her with his cock into passivity, and then bring her back into paroxysms of passion and pleasure his way.

Josh climbed down out of the strange and wonderful never-never land of lust, but only far enough and long enough to take command. He looked into Carmel’s hard, passionate face, placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back on her haunches, to gain a longer look at the beautiful, wild, depraved woman astride him.

He buried his face between her huge full breasts and caressed them for the first time. His lips covered an erect nipple and he sucked it hard, taking as much flesh into his mouth as possible. And harder, more violently he sucked. She tried to withdraw and Josh slapped the side of her breast sharply, a warning to stay still, never removing his mouth from the exciting breast, his hands pinching, pulling. He released her, disliking her squirming and resistance. But before she could move away, he grabbed her, crushed her to him and kissed her with a wildness she had not yet known.

He found her sublime. He rolled her over on her back, wanting to take her now more than he had wanted any of the women he had had for a very long time. She fought him, scratched and screamed at him, as if not wanting him to penetrate her. But he would not be put off. He was the tiger and he would take his panther, she would submit to him. He would have his pleasure of her until she liked it, loved it, and would beg for more.

And she did. All through the hours of the night, with their
roles now reversed, he mastered her, penetrated her every orifice again and again and filled them with his seed. Josh was not much experienced in the act of sodomy, but while practicing it with Carmel, he had never imagined it could be so thrilling, or a woman could want so much to be ravaged in that way. And ravaged she was, having driven him on to a wild frenzy of lust by her words, receptiveness, and reactions.

He was not in heaven and certainly not on earth, but somewhere in between. Nor was he a man. He was more like a beast, a tiger, while he sated her with sex. He only became himself and returned to earth when his orgasm burst forth with hers and she collapsed underneath him, enraptured with pleasure and tears of joy.

They lay like that for some time. Then, having regained his strength and his senses, Josh gently took her in his arms, wanting now to love her, care for her with a sweetness and tenderness he felt for this woman who took him on so sensuous a journey, and whom he had fought, pleasured, and conquered.

It was only when they were lying on their sides, she with her back to him, and he kissed her lovingly on her shoulders, her neck, then down her strong feline back and he felt her freeze under his loving touch, that he spoke.

“Please,” he whispered, “let me love you, hold you, show you tenderness.” And he placed a kiss on her hip.

She pulled away. He tried again, and again she pulled away.

“Leave me alone now, Josh,” she said, still with her back to him. “I don’t want you to be tender and loving. I only get pleasure from that if it comes from young beautiful women. I’m telling you now, because I have stronger feeling for you than I want to have, and I don’t want to deceive you, not now after these exquisite hours with you, not ever, but that’s the way I am.”

Josh was not shocked, but surprised and a bit sad, because he really did want to show her some tender loving. He was not by nature a selfish man. Spoiled by women all his life, yes, but himself generous and kind.

He rose from the blue-fox rug in front of the fire and went first to telephone for two young and very accomplished, beautiful Partouz ladies of the night. Then he walked to the console table against the wall. While watching in the mirror above it the extraordinary Carmel, lying very still on the fur
rug, the firelight dancing patterns over her naked supine body, he opened a fresh bottle of Dom Pérignon and poured two glasses.

The two girls entered the room. He whispered something to each of them and they walked with him to the fireplace. He squatted down facing Carmel, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and handed her one of the glasses. Their eyes met.

“You are a lovely lady, Carmel,” Josh said, “and I want to give you what makes you happy. Otherwise why should two people be together even for one night?”

While he spoke, one of the girls, a seventeen-year-old blond gamine, silently slithered down among the blue-fox pelts tight up against Carmel’s back and slid an arm around her and caressed her breasts, kissing her with the tenderness Josh had hoped he might show her. He saw a change in the expression of her eyes, one of thanks mixed with pleasure, and they each drank from their own glass.

Josh lay down on the low white suede sofa close to the couple making love, with the other young woman. He kissed her and fondled her, showing her the affection he felt for women that he wanted to give to Carmel. Between sips of champagne, he watched the couple on the floor.

Josh was one of those men who enjoyed seeing two women make love. He found it first very beautiful, and also very sensual. Most of all, he enjoyed it when he had, as he did now, a woman of his own to play with while he watched them — until the women were ready for one to take over the male role. Then Josh could become as inflamed as the women were, and the pleasure of observing ended for him. Participation usually with both women inevitably followed. But not this time.

The couple here remained as two women making love, and their orgasms were light and tender and sweet and filled with affection, just what Carmel wanted. In the relaxed and happy atmosphere. Josh drifted in and out of sleep.

He woke from one such moment with a start. It all came back to him now, what he had been trying to remember all afternoon, and clearly now.

It was on the wedding day. He was standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at the white steepled church from the petal-strewn road. Helmut Newton was standing nearby taking a photograph of Mirella — the enchanting, sensuous
Mirella in her wedding gown and masses of sparkling diamonds that glittered in the sunshine, head thrown back in laughter at the world, her wedding veil swept up into the air, hovering like a voluptuous erotic mist around her and Adam, to whom she was linked with one arm, and Rashid to whom she was linked by the other. Each of the men was so distinct, yet similar in their dazzling handsomeness as they gazed at her. An awesome, voluptuous sight.

Then Deena, who was standing next to him, as moved by the scene and occasion as everyone else seemed to be, said softly, “How extraordinary they are, how wonderful they are. I love them because what they have is so special. Have you noticed, the three of them look at each other with one set of eyes?”

The memory of Deena’s words riddled him like a spray of bullets. It was true. Here had been the same look that he saw in his father’s eyes when he stood with Adam in front of the Plaza looking toward the fountain at Mirella, only hours ago. He hadn’t understood then what he was seeing, nor Deena’s words, but he did now, and he felt jealous and angry. He was appalled at the prospect of having to share Mirella not only with his father but with Rashid. A vow shaped itself within him, then and there, that he never would share her in this way.

8

D
eena surveyed the short flight of steps to Mirella’s front door. Like all the brownstone houses on the East Sixty-fifth Street block, this one looked its best on a sunny summer’s day. There were new flower boxes bursting with red, pink, and coral geraniums, and dark trailing ivy, that lent color, charm, and a certain youthful elegance to the dull brown stone. The windows behind the boxes were open and the transparent silk chiffon curtains rippled in the light warm breeze.

A pyramid-sculpted bay tree growing in a bronze tub stood like a sentinel on either side of the polished mahogany front door. A gold-plated ram’s-head knocker, glistening in the
sun, appeared to beckon the passerby to lift the butting horns and knock. The entrance looked handsome and hospitable.

Deena had always found it a romantic house, the type of New York townhouse one always thought of as turn-of-the-century, wealthy, the family home of city folk with country houses on Long Island or in upstate New York. The kind of house that the Amberleys might have lived in, or the Forsythes, had they been New Yorkers. Or, in fact, one of the Wingfields — if he had been a renegade from Boston, as Great-uncle Hyram and his father before him were, as Mirella was.

That was exactly what it had always been and still was; A Wingfield family home. When Great-uncle Hyram sold it to Mirella, three years earlier, in order to keep a Wingfield in the house, he had been a dying man, and, eccentric and wily as he was, he had used even that to press his advantage with Mirella. She was the only one in the family who could not say no to him. It had been Deena who held her hand all through the negotiations. Deena smiled to herself when she thought of those crazy days, and his crazy demands, and the reluctant Mirella, who had been perfectly content in her small apartment.

As she looked up at the house, Deena couldn’t help wondering what Great-uncle Hyram would have thought, if he had still been around to see the vast changes in Mirella’s life since she purchased the house from him. The bizzare arrangement, instigated by him, had included Moses, his majordomo, who had worked for Great-uncle Hyram since the age of eight.

After Mirella had explained to Adam her obligations to live in the house for at least five years before she could consider selling it, Adam had found the solution. When in New York, they would reside in her house and use Adam’s own fifteen-room apartment at the Sherry Netherland as their auxiliary residence.

An excellent idea, Mirella, Adam, Brindley, and Deena had all decided one night at dinner before the wedding. Extravagant, yes, for most, but not for multimillionaires like Adam and Mirella. Shrewd, very. It did after all give them a place apart from Adam’s family, who were quite capable of dropping in and out at will. No one had said it, but all had thought it to be the right solution for both Mirella and Adam. Much as they might love each other and want to live as a
family, they assuredly would have problems learning to live together after so many years of independence with no permanent mates to consider.

And the special challenge to Mirella of being the female head of Adam’s family — a mother to Adam’s illegitimate children, fulfilling an instinct once so alien to her, learning to relate to their natural mothers and some of the other women from her husband’s past, who Adam had proclaimed would remain part of his present, in spite of his commitment to her — could be put aside at the townhouse.

Deena had no worries about her best friend rising to these challenges, not after she had seen how Mirella, though reluctantly at first, was handling her legacy and all it entailed. The continuing changes and growth in Mirella produced by the legacy and the presence of Rashid and Adam in her life were thrilling for Deena. She was fascinated by the way lives could get reshaped — even the life of Mirella, who had always been content with her lot, no matter what it was, and had always learned to live around it. This was an attribute Deena admired but had never herself been able to cultivate.

For Deena, Mirella had always been the brightest star that shines in the sky and everything Deena knew she was not. And Deena loved the oppositeness in them. As friends they had intriguingly separate sets of emotional problems to deal with, hangovers from family and backgrounds. Each faced the other with her problems, and together they outfaced them.

Mirella was not the overachiever that Deena was. She did not have that innate middle-class Jewish ethic which dictated fight for survival. Hers was not a hostile world whose pain can be cushioned only by success, money, social acceptance. No edict instructed her that, having achieved survival, one must be generous, idealistic, and a Democrat. Mirella was born a WASP, that rare breed of American who needs no stinger, because she is welcome wherever she goes, and perceives the world as just as much hers as anyone’s. No pushy Jewish mother set up Mirella as a Jewish-American Princess, targeted by destiny onto a Jewish Prince — or a plastic surgeon, at least. No, when they were passing out mothers in babyland they handed her Lili — who was as bad in her own way as Deena’s mother, Miriam.

“Lili, oh God!” she said aloud. And then had to chuckle to
herself because of both mother’s complaint that after twenty-five years of friendship Deena and Mirella were more like each other than themselves. And in truth, many times in the last ten years Deena had felt herself a star like her friend.

Deena stood on the pavement trying to decide whether to go up the stairs and ring the bell or not. She was early, and the prospect of having to spend time alone with Lili, if Mirella had not yet returned from her office at the UN, kept her right where she was. But if Lili had not yet arrived, while the Princess Eirene and Mirella had? Mobility was restored to Deena: their company before the luncheon Mirella was giving for the princess would be just the right hors d’oeuvre. Deena found the princess fascinating, but had not had the opportunity to spend much time with her.

Up the steps — no, Deena changed her mind. She looked at her wristwatch. She was much too early for the princess. The chance of the princess being there at this hour was small. Back to the pavement. She looked down through the spiked railings of the fence to the areaway, planted with potted cypress trees and a weeping willow. Through the kitchen window, she spied Moses moving around, and her depressing thoughts of being cornered with Lili vanished.

She opened the gate and quickly skipped down the steps and into the heavy perfume of Moses’s herb garden. The windows were open, and the delectable scent of his cooking merged with that of the herbs in the little areaway. She pushed her head through the open window. “Hi, Moses. Got a cup of coffee for an old friend?”

Moses looked at the kitchen clock on the wall and answered, “You’re early. Yes, come on in. The kitchen door is open.”

Entering the kitchen, Deena was enveloped by Moses’s very special domain, a combination of a four-star chef’s country kitchen somewhere in Provence in France, or Cajun country in America’s deep South, and Moses’s home, although he did have three other rooms off the kitchen to live in. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

“Boy, if I could wear the scent of this kitchen, there is not a man alive I couldn’t attract. Well, for a meal, anyway.” She opened her eyes slowly, as if savoring the perfume with them as well, and smiled at Moses.

He could not help smiling back at Deena: she always
amused him. Her sense of humor, her self-deprecation which turned her often into the butt of her own jokes, combined with her timing, were for the most part irresistibly charming. Her intelligence, her fierce loyalty, her deep affection for Mirella, and not least her very pretty golden good looks, made her always welcome in the Wingfield kitchen. Of course there was one other thing: she loved his cooking. Dieting apart, when Moses cooked, it was a joy to watch her eat.

Deena walked straight to the stove, touching everything she could en route: she grazed her hand briefly over bowls of fresh peaches, ducks’ and quails’ eggs, picked a shelled pecan and put it in her mouth, a dried apricot, reached up to familiarize herself with vintage provolone cheeses and smoked hams and the red Spanish onions and globes of white garlic hanging in bunches from hooks above the nine-foot-long scrubbed-pine worktable in the middle of the room. She lifted a lid and got her hand smartly smacked, “None of that, madam,” and she was ushered to a chair at the end of the pine table. “Now, you just sit right here, Miss Deena, and I’ll fix some coffee.”

“You don’t just happen to have a Danish, or a doughnut, to go with it, do you, Moses?” The look she received from Moses while he was pouring her coffee made her say, “Oh, dear, I meant croissant? A brioche?” She watched him smiling and shaking his head in disapproval.

“No. A
spanakopita
, a
tiropete
, then?” He continued to shake his head in disapproval.

“No Greek eleven o’clock feeding either? I suppose a grilled cheese sandwich is out as well? Then I guess I will have to settle for one of your blueberry muffins.”

Moses placed the cup of coffee made from freshly ground beans in front of her and then scraped a dash of cinnamon stick onto the top of the steaming liquid from his tiny silver and ivory nutmeg scraper, a Christmas gift from Deena, who had found this collector’s item in Brazil.

“No blueberry muffins. There are croissants, and brioches, freshly made this morning, pecan and honey rolls, cornmeal fingers, which I could warm for you and serve dripping in fresh, homemade butter, and a lick of Greek Hymettus honey, English crumpets and scones warm out of the oven an hour ago that I will serve with butter and homemade damson preserve. Then there’s whipped cream and honey-dripped
fresh strawberries to top the scones, for tea this afternoon. None of which you may have now, because lunch will be coming through in an hour’s time, and I don’t want clapped-out appetites to greet it.”

Deena sipped the coffee, peeped out over the rim of the cup, and asked, “A homemade Toll house cookie? Don’t look at me that way, Moses, I’m not commiting a crime. Just begging a morsel of food. Sorry I asked. Okay, I give in. A Ry-Krisp, no butter, no jelly, no jam.”

“Incorrigible, Miss Deena.” As Moses spoke he reached into the center of the table among the crocks, glass jars of all sizes and shapes filled with delicacies from the four corners of the culinary world, to extricate one of the many decorative tins, and offered Deena two of his homemade oatmeal cookies which she placed on a French pottery plate from Provence that they used in the kitchen.

“I know I’m incorrigible, Moses, and frankly I’m beginning to worry about it.”

“That’ll be the day,” Moses sniggered.

They smiled at each other, but Moses behind his smile was puzzled because, although they both made a joke of it, he had the distinct feeling she was telling a half-truth about herself. He knew Deena very well, almost as well as Mirella Wingfield, because Deena was so much a part of the Wingfield household. The two women had gradually become family to him in the three years since Mirella had taken over the house. He recognized subtle changes in Deena since Mirella’s wedding night. Something was amiss, but not wanting to press her, he went to the stove and poured himself another cup of coffee. Still with his back to Deena, he said, “What are you doing down here drinking coffee in this kitchen? Why don’t you wait in the library, or in the back garden where it’s cool? You look very pretty, real fresh and summery, and you want to stay that way, don’t you?”

Deena was wearing a short-sleeved, finely woven white linen Ralph Lauren dress, with four large patch pockets, two at the breast and two on the skirt. A bright red and white check silk handkerchief flopped decoratively out of the pocket over her heart, and a sailor’s small jaunty-looking hat, made by Adolfo in shiny white straw, perched prettily on top of her curly, honey-colored hair. It was tilted at an ever-so-slight angle, insinuating mirth, and dictating to onlookers that they
smile, show a little merriment in celebration of a pretty woman.

She had fussed about what outfit to wear in front of the mirror that morning, and after selecting the white high-heeled Maud Frizon sandals of kidskin and a soft white leather Loewe handbag that was shaped like a sailor’s duffel bag, had been satisfied that she looked good enough to dine with a queen, but only
just
chic enough for luncheon with the Princess Eirene.

At Moses’s words she touched the sailor hat, to check that it was still in place, and then stretched her arms out in front of her to check her hands for cleanliness and her long ruby-red fingernails for a chip in the polish. All was perfect. She ran her hand over her antique Indian ivory bracelets, toying momentarily with their stunning large gold and diamond clasps, then played with the collection of slim ivory and diamond rings she wore on several of her fingers, and placed her hands in her lap.

Moses sat down in a chair opposite her to drink his coffee and carve white turnips, tinted by beet and spinach juices, into blushing water lilies and green lily pads to garnish his star dish: sea bass skinned and preened with fresh herbs, parceled in a
pâte feuilletée
fashioned to look like the succulent fish enclosed in it.

“Is anyone upstairs?”

“Just Muhsine. When Mr. Adam moved in, he moved her in too. She’s become Ms. Mirella and Mr. Adam’s sort of lady’s maid companion until they return to Istanbul.”

“You’re not upset, are you, Moses? I know you prefer running the house on your own.”

“No, not at all, quite the opposite in fact. Muhsine is so quiet and unobtrusive. Of course, there’s a language problem. But that don’t seem to matter much. She’s discreet and helpful, stays out of my way, is willing and able to turn her hand to anything. In general, a great help to me now that Ms. Mirella has married, and our routine is so changed. She’s a delicate little thing, like another little flower in the house. She’s upstairs now, putting the finishing touches on the dining room table. I bet it’ll come out exactly the way I told her to do it.”

“Well, if you’re sure she’s the only one in the house, then I might go up after I’ve finished my coffee. Frankly, I came
down here because I couldn’t stand it if Lili were upstairs and I had to go solo with her for any time.”