This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) (8 page)

What he saw this evening was not the glamorous American war photographer dressed in her famous Burberry trench coat and in bits and pieces of men’s clothing she had pinched from her various male colleagues. She most certainly was not now the figure Mirella had seen leaning against the Dining Room door during the wedding breakfast.

Instead of joining the festivities, Marlo had gone to the room reserved for her and spent the afternoon preparing herself for this meeting. She was dressed and groomed for her role as “the other important woman in Adam Corey’s life,” played now to perfection and to a packed house.

Marlo, who always prided herself on “traveling light,” had the habit of packing her duffelbag with film, film, and more film, her favorite Hasalblad, her Nikon, a box of lenses, a wand of black mascara, one tube of bright red lipstick, a gingery pink blusher, a passport case stuffed with credit cards, visas, letters of introduction, letters of credit, and money.

The other items she considered essential, “tools of her trade,” were a large bottle of Mitsouko perfume, a pair of high-heeled evening shoes, an impressive long evening dress, and a handful of spectacular jewelry shoved into a small suede pouch stowed at the bottom of the lens box. Everything else
she bought and disposed of on the way, or borrowed, took, or swapped, as was needed, from her male colleagues. They in turn used her and the contents of her duffel bag.

Marlo was notorious for it, as well as much else about her life. Mostly because with the contents of the bag she was able to get freely anywhere she wanted to be: war zones, entrée to generals, dictators, rebel leaders, the higher echelons of governments, the poor and desperate, the spoiled, privileged, and wealthy. She was not above using her bold and wily female mind or body to get what she wanted.

Many of a female encountered during her dangerous travels bitched her, claiming she attended wars dressed like a princess. But the men in her world of gore and violence knew better: she dressed in her costumes of the trade, sometimes their clothes, sometimes hers, and many were grateful because she and her duffelbag had gotten them out of many a tight spot — even saved a life, maybe, or a man from an unsought interview with torturers. Her duffelbag had as usual served her well on Adam’s wedding day. She knew it, she could see in Adam’s face that he knew it, too, but it was still nice to hear him say it.

“You look like a million dollars, so beautiful, and you have made such an effort. It’s most appreciated. Perfection would have been to have had you with us for the wedding ceremony and breakfast. But, alas, even we don’t get perfection.”

Mirella had to agree with him. Marlo Channing, her hair smoothed back off her face and into a tight shiny twist at the nape of her neck, eye makeup so skillfully applied that only the long thick black eyelashes attested to its use, the hint of ginger pink accentuating the handsome high cheekbones, looked beautiful. More, she looked exciting with a provocative slash of clear red across her thin, sensual lips, that when closed were like the form of two lovers closely entwined lying on their sides.

Mirella was certain that what made Marlo look especially thrilling was her one-shouldered evening dress of butter-yellow silk taffeta, paper taffeta, so thin that the entire gown could be rolled up into a ball that would fit in the palm of the hand. A remarkable necklace of huge round cabochon emeralds, each encircled in diamonds, was at her neck to emphasize the deep tan of her skin. The matching earrings, whose green was the color of her eyes, subtly softened the aura of a deep
underlying drive toward self-determination, adventure, excitement, and freedom.

Hers was a restless, masculine inner and outer beauty in a female form, worn this night with all the opulent decorations to enhance it. Mirella saw in Marlo a uniquely forceful style, the cut and thrust of her mind, and could well understand how she could be irresistible to men.

“Mirella, is this the first time you and Marlo have met?” Rashid asked. Marlo answered for her.

“No, not exactly.”

Mirella felt decidedly uncomfortable. It was such a little thing, her not telling Adam during the wedding reception that Marlo was at the entrance of the Dining Room watching them. If Marlo were to mention it now, Mirella would find it embarrassing. She knew at the time she was wrong not to draw Adam’s attention to the woman’s presence, and now having met her, Mirella was certain it was an evasion that Marlo would make her pay dearly for … if not now, one day not far off.

“We saw each other not long ago, across a crowded room. I can’t speak for Mirella but I can for myself. When our eyes met I sort of knew we would meet again very soon, and then we would become friends.”

Here it came, she was going to tell him, Mirella thought. She did not enjoy one bit playing mouse to Marlo’s cat. But Josh made a fuss over Marlo then, and Rashid stepped to her side and gave her a big hug.

“You look ravishing,” Rashid said. “Naughty, adventurous, mischievous — just ravishing in your Alice emeralds.” The Alice emeralds had been Adam’s gift to Marlo in celebration of the birth of their daughter, Alice.

Marlo raised his hand and placed it on her flat breast, so as to cover her heart, and mocking him, said, “Words from the master of style and beauty. How you make my heart beat.” She laughed. “Well, Mirella Corey, didn’t you think we would swap glances again, and meet, as I thought we would? Or did you believe I was an apparition, and would just vanish?”

“When and where did you meet Marlo?” a puzzled Adam asked Mirella as he placed his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Mirella said promptly. “I
don’t ever remember seeing Marlo, and if I did I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” She could hardly believe she could stoop to such a trivial white lie and embroil herself in such a banal situation. All because of one moment of possessiveness, the fear of sharing her husband with someone he loved long before he ever met her. How stupid and pathetic, she thought, and asked herself if that was what marriage was going to do to her — trivialize her. She quickly answered her silent question with an equally silent “Hell, no,” and made the decision never to slide into such a ridiculous position again.

Marlo realized she had been outfoxed by Mirella with that fib. It would have been a real cheap shot on her part then to label Mirella a liar, and reveal that the two women had seen each other only hours before. She had the good grace to toss her head back and laugh. “And now that we have met, Mirella, what next?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Our preordained relationship dictates the way. We, Marlo, are family. So I imagine you, Adam, and I will see a great deal of each other.”

“Pulling that old chestnut, family ties, out of the fire? No, my dear Mirella, I doubt that. I will see Adam, and if you like, we’ll see each other, but separately. Try to understand without being offended that I wouldn’t want to see you as a couple. I don’t care for the bonding that takes place in couples after they marry — that blanding, dulling sort of flattening of two personalities, who lose a part of themselves in each other’s presence because they are so busy watching each other being a couple. I don’t want to be bored by the people I love, or the friends I make. Now that being said, Rashid has staked a claim to Mirella, so we know she won’t be a wallflower, and I’m laying a claim on you, Adam.”

Adam gave Mirella a quick peck on the cheek, and said, as he put his arm around Marlo and they danced into the crowd, “You are in good hands, darling, there’s a lot of dancing for us all to do tonight.”

“And eating and drinking, and climbing up to highs, and making love. Come on, it’s the Tango Room for us,” said Rashid, taking Mirella by her hand.

What was so amazing to Mirella was that the moment Marlo waltzed away in Adam’s arms, the scene dissolved and along with it whatever fears she had. In Rashid’s arms she thought of nothing beyond what was happening. They
danced, and dined on the sumptuous buffet, and the old excitement was still there. He relinquished her to Adam and her father, and Brindley, and a few other guests for dances, always then reclaiming her for himself, and was delighted in the joy he sensed in her. The erotic bond between them was still very much alive.

The revelers behind their masks flirted with abandon, teased partners who were strangers to them, and, responding to the music and wine and food, and abundance of cocaine inhaled in the privacy of closed rooms, dropped all barriers and enjoyed the night without reservation.

Brindley leapt the three feet off the boardwalk onto the sand. Bared ankles felt good, and he was suddenly aware of all the bones in his feet. He dug his toes into the cool, clean, gritty sand, and enjoyed the texture, rolled his trousers up to the middle of his calf and then turned back to the boardwalk and Deena.

They were at the very end of Oceanside’s beach, where they could look back at the hotel all ablaze with light. There were driftwood bonfires on the beach and a tripod was slung over each fire and held huge kettles of fresh New England lobster and clams. Small vats of warm melted lemon butter nestled in the embers along with old-fashioned camping coffeepots whose contents mixed their scent with the salt air and the ears of corn buried in the white ashes. Beer and bottles of champagne were iced down together in huge copper tubs. Rashid had omitted nothing that would entertain his guests and keep the party going, not even this New England clambake.

Couples were dancing on the sand to the faint sound of the Bee Gees coming from the Beach Pavilion, or were stretched out on blankets making love in the firelighted shadows. The odd couple were chasing in and out of the surge and suck of the ocean’s waves lapping onto the shore.

Everywhere in the moonlight and under a sky black but bright with stars men and women were coming together. Their senses, gratified but still not sated, yearned for sex, and it was there, everywhere around them, just waiting to be plucked, as if from the very air that embraced them.

Brindley looked up at Deena sitting on the boardwalk, her legs dangling over the edge, her seductive mask held in place,
covering her eyes. She was silent, hardly able to contain the turmoil of passion, hot blood, unfettered sexual desire, churning within her.

She wanted what she had just seen, nothing less. If she were to die in the process of getting it, it didn’t matter. In a secluded suite on the top floor of Oceanside, whose door was manned by Daoud and Fuad, Rashid’s two bodyguards, she had seen a sexual performance that had inflamed her with a fire that she knew would burn for her for the remainder of her life. A fire that had to be fed.

She had seen, for the first time, a sexual slave. Not just a sexual slave but one who reveled in her own debauchery. She had seen a woman who was a beautiful and tantalizing sexual machine, who made Deena understand that, for all the sex Deena had had in her life, all the freedom she thought she displayed in her sexual encounters, she had never truly given in to her orgasms, died in them, as Rashid’s slave Humayun did. She had never really yielded herself totally to a man, handed her life over to him to do with it what he wanted. She had never reduced herself to nothing but a cunt, a mouth, an ass, the merest pleading receptacle for a man’s penis and all his sexual and animal needs or whims.

Nor had she ever mastered the art of being both the sexual slave
and
the sexual master of men. Humayun’s golden-red hair seemed not so much hair as erotic silk tresses with which to drape a naked body, the satin texture of her cream-colored skin and her clever and seductive green eyes which were capable of changing in a flash into mean, punishing eyes were used as captivating instruments.

Everything about her was sensuous: the alluring face with its proud patrician nose and remarkable bone structure, the long slender neck that tapered into wide shoulders and a tall lean body dominated by extremely large, well-shaped breasts. The tantalizing nipples and their halo, tattooed, like her voluptuous hairless mound, in henna-dyed arabesque designs, acted as sirens for men’s mouths. The narrow waist, slim hips, full round tight buttocks were instruments to torment males, or be used by men for their pleasure of torturing her.

The visions of sex Humayun had had that night with two handsome young men plus twenty or more of Rashid’s male guests, who indulged themselves in any fashion they chose to — some bizarre, even frightening, and all of which were
madly sexually stimulating — were the most thrilling pictures Deena had ever seen, and would stay with her for the remainder of her life. To taste a fraction of Humayun’s pleasure, experience such boundless sensual delight, was to live and die in the same instant. Such an adventure as that was certain to enrich life, Deena understood now. She had to have that experience.

Brindley removed the silk sandals from Deena’s feet. She watched his face in the moonlight and saw not one crack in the façade of English reserve he wore so well. Was the erotic passion there to satisfy her needs? He folded the skirt of her evening dress up onto her thighs, and raised first one leg then the other, unclipped her garters, and rolled each stocking down slowly, as if he were savoring the act. He tucked the stockings into the shoes and placed them neatly next to her, then he bent down and placed a kiss on her thigh.

He stood between her legs, spanned her waist under the skirt with his hands, then moving them down over her naked flesh adeptly unhooked the garter belt and slid it from around her and dropped it in the sand. How could this gentle Englishman take her where she wanted to go, through all the sexual portals that led through debauchery to depravity, all those places so foreign to Deena that Humayun had shown her glimpses of?

Brindley surprised her when he spread her legs further apart. She felt the strings of her bikini panties snap as he slid her off the boardwalk and the slip of silk from between her legs. Before the skirt of her gown could fall and cover her nakedness he tied it up around her waist.

The night air was warm and it caressed her exposed flesh, wrapped itself around her like a seductive lover. It thrilled her like the touch of Brindley’s searching hands. She turned around and reached for his mask, abandoned on the boardwalk next to her, and broke it from its handle, while he was fondling and licking the luscious orbs of her bottom. Turning back to him again she pulled his tie. The bow dissolved, and she slid it from around his neck and, placing his mask across his eyes, she clumsily tied it in place. He understood and smiled. When she held her own mask up to hide behind, he took it away from her and threw it on the sand, took her by the hand and pulled her along the dunes now cool underfoot,
and over clumps of grass covered with dew that startled the feet.