Those Wicked Pleasures (14 page)

They met at three, and made love till five. Lara returned to Cannonberry Chase. Sam went back to New York and the waiting Nancy Kaplan.

From the beginning of his dating days there had usually been a Nancy Kaplan in Sam Fayne’s life. The names changed, as did the ethnic backgrounds: Italian, Jewish, dusky southern black girls. He favoured the Jewish American-princess type, who attended Bennington, Vassar, Mount Holyoke, and were ‘WASP-ified’ to some extent by the ivy-covered walls of their schools, exposure to an academic life that excluded a Jewish mother, and fucking with the likes of a Sam Fayne. They were dazzled by his handsome White Anglo-Saxon Protestant looks, the cool uncomplicated personality, his lusty lovemaking. The confidence he exuded, the sense of guilt that simply hadn’t gotten started.

He was fascinated by their middle-class values, their dark hair and sultry brown eyes. They were invariably beautiful, extremely sexy, intelligent, and with academic aspirations. And they were heavily into sex, wanting to please, eager for passion and emotion. They were to each
other exotic creatures, alien to their own worlds.

He liked their sexual hunger. He liked all their hungers. They were the most voracious shoppers, husband-hunters, degree-collectors. They played at nesting. The chicken soup might have changed to
consommé
, the
gefeltah fish
to prawns,
canelloni
been replaced by
blini
, black-eyed peas and greens for lentils and a green salad, but the end result was the same: they were all girls who nurtured Sam Fayne. And he loved it … until they wanted a return on playing the whore in bed and the lady in the kitchen: love, entry into Samuel Penn Fayne’s life on any basis, preferably a full-time basis.

Impossible. Sam was already deeply in love. He could envisage no other wife for himself than Lara. A bracelet from Tiffany’s and, reluctantly, Sam moved on.

He found it curious that the Nancy Kaplans of this world usually made the same mistakes. They got hooked by the ‘nice guy’ in men like him. They saw him as easy prey and went for it. Relationship with a big R. They gave everything they had and more, and they never read the signs given them. Only heard what they wanted to hear. And the more they gave, the more they fell in love. Mostly with love itself. They rarely learned from their experience of giving too much, too soon. But Sam did. Every time. He walked away from his little flings always the wiser man, and more in love with the lady of his choice than ever.

The second of Lara’s coming-out parties took place in Manhattan. It was an even grander event, boasting the Stantons’ aristocratic European friends who had not appeared at Cannonberry Chase. The third was hosted by Elizabeth at Claridges in London, and that was a very English affair with Lara and the family as old-guard American society, several of whose ancestors, wealthy heiresses, had married into the aristocracy and so were
accepted among the English upper classes. With such connections – a sister Elizabeth, the Countess of Chester, whose husband, the Earl of Chester, was a well-respected and likable man who sat in the House of Lords; and an eccentric octogenarian distant cousin living in a disintegrating Tudor manor house, set in a parkland and fifteen thousand acres, pleasingly adjacent to a royal in Gloucestershire – all avenues opened for the beautiful young deb from America. Lara took to the English as much as they took to her. She was swept away on a tide of adoration and fun.

Wherever she appeared she gathered around her eligible men of all ages and various nationalities, who were besotted with her. Her telephone never stopped ringing, her date-book was filled for months in advance. She became not just
the
deb of the season, but
the
international jet-set deb. Lara was having the best time of her life.

She became, almost overnight, the gossip columns’ favourite item, the paparazzis’ target, the glossies’ most sought-after deb for their snob feature-articles. And none of them got very far. She remained elusive, discreet. She smiled prettily and gave no interviews. All of which made her more interesting, mysterious even. It was sound, if unconscious, marketing of her personality.

The family watched and enjoyed her success and paid no attention to the names linked with her. They were all of them acceptable, but meant nothing. The family knew better where her heart would finally settle. Emily advised when necessary.

Sam was not amused. He hardly saw anything of her, and when he did, they were too preoccupied with sex and the joy they felt at being together to talk about the others in their lives. But, in the months that had passed since the party at Cannonberry Chase, he sensed a change in
their relationship, an intensity in their sexual encounters, that drove them both towards depravity and away from love. He was not so much shocked by the road they were travelling as unable to continue with Lara on it. He loved her too much. He adored her. He could not bear to let her climb down off the pedestal he had placed her on, to have the shadow of sex envelop her. He had any number of Nancy Kaplans, or a thousand-dollar-a-night prostitute he called on frequently, to play those sexual games with. He indulged Lara because he wanted to please her, and when he could forget that she was his adored, he delighted in their sexual excesses. But … he would rather their excesses had been in love.

Lara, far from being a mere sensualist, was not unaware of the problem slowly emerging in their relationship. She loved being loved by Sam. She wanted to have him love her not less but more. She was giving herself up to Eros in Sam’s arms but, great as that might be, it was not what he wanted. Sam was in love with being in love with her even more than loving her, or actually making love to oblivion with her. If they wanted their love to flourish, she would have to consent to stop cock-teasing her many suitors and sleep with them. Or go back to her secret liaison with Jamal. Both were interesting prospects to Lara, but fraught with danger.

She never spoke to Sam about it but, the next time they met, after a crazy partying evening at a private disco club they ended up in bed. Sam had been particularly sexy and exciting, and she more the erotic aggressor that evening. They were lying in each other’s arms, sexually replete, when she found the moment she had been waiting for. He had said, ‘There’s a fine line between being the top jet-set deb and a party girl.’

‘Are you saying I’ve slipped over the line?’

He rolled her into his arm and kissed her breasts, and
he smiled at her as he said, ‘Yeah, but I’m not complaining. I like party girls.’

‘Mother would hate it if I have.’

‘I’m not your mother.’

‘I have noticed that, Sam.’

‘So long as you’re having a good time, Lara. That’s what this year is supposed to be about.’

‘I’m having the best time of my life. I like being a playgirl. And who says it has to stop after a year?’

‘It doesn’t have to stop at all. You can be anything you want to be, Lara.’

‘Do you mean that?’

‘Of course. I love you.’

‘You mean I can have this wonderful playgirl life
and
be your wife?’

He sat up against the pillows and pulled her up with him. ‘I promise. All you have to do is name the day.’

‘Sam,’ she kissed him, ‘someday, I told you. I can’t see myself married to any other man.’

That was all he ever wanted from her, to love him enough to marry him and bear their children. He reacted to her love for him as he always did. Overwhelmed with desire for her, fully erect, he lifted her by the waist and impaled her on his cock. She called out in delight, and placed her legs on his shoulders. He sucked on her nipples as he cupped her buttocks in his hand and raised and lowered her on his pulsating penis several times with a slow and exquisite rhythm. A penetration so deep as to make her bite deep into her hand to refrain from calling out in a frenzy of passion.

Finally she brought herself under control enough to ask breathlessly, ‘Stop. Let me rest sitting here like this.’

She lowered her legs, tucking them under her, and rocked forward to kiss him lovingly. They held each other and she said, ‘Sam, you know that I love you.’

‘Why do I think I’m about to hear something I don’t want to hear?’

‘You do know that?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I don’t want us, either one of us, ever to love each other less. But I want us to be free until we decide to make it official that we intend to marry. Sam, I want us to be able to have other affairs. They can never be a threat to what we feel for each other.’

He placed his hands on her waist and slowly lifted her off him. She closed her eyes, sad not to have him inside her. She bent down to lick his still-erect penis, to kiss him. He stopped her. Gathered her in his arms. They gazed into each other’s eyes. Suddenly she wanted to cry and didn’t understand why.

He asked, ‘What’s this all about, Lara?’

‘It’s about never having been in love with any other person. About each of us dating other people but never really being with them. It’s about the secret affairs I imagine you have and I turn a blind eye to, and we never talk about because they don’t matter – any more than the dates I have. It’s about giving ourselves a chance to make sure that we can make each other happier than anyone else can.’

‘You have doubts?’

‘No, I have no doubts. I just want to be a real playgirl, free to go for a while with anyone I choose. And I want the same for you, Sam. The only doubt I have is that we’re so in love we have never had a chance to give ourselves to anyone else. I may never want to. Maybe you won’t either. Let’s find out. That’s all I think we should do. We owe it to ourselves.’

‘For how long?’

‘For however long it takes for us to want to give it all up and live together.’

‘And what if I refuse?’

‘Then you refuse.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You have posed us a problem, Lara.’

‘I know.’

They were silent for some time. Sam kissed her on the cheek and said, ‘Don’t look so sad. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll work it out. But it’s a hell of a test you’re putting us through.’ And he went into the bathroom.

Lara heard the sound of water. She reached for her glass on the table at the side of the bed. The champagne was flat, but she didn’t care. She needed that drink, a kind of after-the-fact Dutch courage. Her eyes settled on a large silver-framed photograph of her and Sam. She picked it up. He looked so handsome, they looked so in love. Her heart skipped a beat. She did love him. It showed in the photograph. He loved her, that showed too. The perfect couple. Had she been a fool? Would they lose each other? She placed the picture-frame back on the table, and was reassured she had done the right thing when Jamal’s words came to mind: ‘You had better sort out your libido, Lara darling, before you settle down with Sam. The guy is great, but he’ll never understand your basic sexual needs and cater for them like I do. I don’t know if he loves you too much – or not enough – to get down there in the sexual dirt with you.’ Was that their basic problem? Jamal seemed to think that it was. She could not be so sure. She was certain only that she did have to sort out her blasted libido.

They spoke almost every day. But they gave each other space. Within weeks every deb’s mother’s hopes were up. Rumour had it the Fayne-Stanton relationship was on the rocks. They appeared with other partners among their social set, and, incredibly, so secure were they in their
feelings for each other, were able to dance together, dine at the same table, go to the same week-end house parties. If they did not feel embarrassed by the situation their new partners did. They saw the stolen looks of love that still lingered in Sam and Lara’s eyes, looks they resented. Finally Sam and Lara agreed: if they wanted to give this little experiment a real chance to work, they must not see each other for six months.

That decision worked wonders for them both. They put their love for each other on the back burner of their lives and then hit the ‘I’m dating and available circuit’ with a vengeance.

Chapter 10

In the midst of the hectic social whirl, Lara suddenly felt impelled to see David, if for no other reason than that she loved him still and had been neglecting him. She called him and asked him to take her to dinner. He didn’t hesitate, saying only that he would have to cancel other arrangements. She was suddenly very happy with that special kind of happiness that transcends ordinary joy and decided to get him a very special gift.

She strode briskly down Fifth Avenue to Tiffany’s glass door. They knew her there. The well-turned-out salesman on ‘gold bracelets’ gave her a broad, indulgent smile. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Stanton. Are we well this afternoon, Miss Stanton?’

‘Good afternoon, Mr Ripley. Yes, I am well, and you are too, I hope?’ she intoned.

She looked around Tiffany’s vast, glittering ground floor. She liked the cool unpretentiousness, the hushed way people shopped there. Most of them whispered, as if worried that their preferences might somehow be amplified for all to hear. She tapped her foot, impatient for inspiration. Impatient to get home and bathe and dress for her date with David. She was looking for something to show him she still loved him as she could never love any other man. A bauble to keep with him always. So that no matter what, he would have it to remind him of what they really meant to each other. She
felt terribly sentimental about David. Her eyes roved around the room. A watch, cuff-links … it all seemed so wrong, so banal.

‘Mr Ripley,’ she called. ‘Could you find me something special? For my cousin David.’

‘What did you have in mind, Miss Stanton?’

‘A one-off piece. Small. Something he can carry around with him always. A keepsake? Is there such a thing as a keepsake with a purpose?’

‘A period piece, perhaps?’

‘Could be. Oh, and Mr Ripley, money is no object.’

The salesman glowed with pleasure.

‘In that case, Miss Stanton, I think I might have one or two things to interest you. They are on exhibit in one of the galleries upstairs. Just give me a few minutes.’

He came back with a black velvet tray, a black silk cloth over it, looking like a magician.

Lara chose for David a sixteenth-century Japanese ornament the size of a walnut, a lump of clear honey-coloured amber, magnificently carved. The
netsuke
, a voluptuous, tiny reclining figure filled with luminescence, seemed to have a magic about it. Fondled for centuries, it was irresistibly sensuous. The tiny object, so nearly alive, cried out to be touched, stroked, loved. Cleverly conceived to depict a reclining lady draped in an open kimono that revealed a naked breast, raised hip, bare leg and elegant foot, the
netsuke
was as round as a walnut as well. Held in the palm of the hand and rolled around with the fingers, the amber lady was warm to the touch and silky-smooth. The mere feel of her fired the senses, a magnetic little treasure.

At two o’clock in the morning, calvados was their nightcap. They lay on cushions thrown on the floor in
front of the library fire. David held the
netsuke
in the palm of his hand. It caught the light from the flames. Mesmerising. He kept rolling it between his fingers and then letting it drop into the palm of his hand. Then he would display it in his palm, his fingers flat, enchanted by the reclining lady.

Lara rolled on to her side and leaned on her elbow, her back to the fire. She faced David, watching him, thrilled that she had chosen something so special.

She had had the most wonderful evening: David all to herself. They had dined at a small, out-of-the-way restaurant in Little Italy, the kind of family place hardly to be found any more in the New York Lara frequented. They seemed to know David well there. Certainly they had fed them both well. Afterwards he had taken her to an off-Broadway production that had delighted them both. Then, avoiding a disco or night-club, he had whisked her up to Harlem and a seedy jazz-place, redolent of stale beer and fabulous music. They seemed to know David very well there too.

They had talked and laughed with scant anxiety and deeper feelings than they had had for each other in a long time. Once or twice Lara had to fight off her desire to flirt with him, to try to seduce him. That isn’t too difficult when you know the man you are with is giving you everything he can and loves you. Only her greed for more love from David could have ruined the evening for them both, and she wasn’t having that.

Light from the fire cast shadows across his handsome face. She smiled, and he caught her.

‘A penny for your smile?’

‘It’s a very ordinary smile. Just a smile because I’m happy.’

‘That’s good enough for me. Be happy all your life, Lara.’

‘You too, David. Promise me, if we are ever in trouble, we can be there for each other.’

‘I thought you always understood that, Lara. I will always be here for you. And always, darling girl, is forever.’ And he resumed his ecstatic scrutiny of the amber lady.

‘I wasn’t saying that so much for me as for you, David. I want you to promise me that, if ever you want me, if ever you need me for any reason, you’ll …’ Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly sad. She swallowed hard to forestall a tear. With a forced smile, she made light of what she was saying. ‘Send your amber mistress and I will come to you, wherever you are.’

‘It’s a wonderful present, La. I will carry it with me always.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes, I promise. If ever I am in trouble, I will send it to you, and you can come to my rescue.’ He flipped the
netsuke
up into the air and let it bounce into his palm, then closed his fingers over it. He bent forward and kissed Lara on the forehead, and then on the cheek. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips, a quick sisterly kiss, then announced, ‘I’m off to bed. I have had the most wonderful evening, David. Thanks. I sort of needed to be with you tonight.’

He remained for some minutes in front of the fire fondling the
netsuke
. He too had had a excellent evening. Lara was the enchantress; she always had been, but even more so now. David knew about her love affairs, her sexual liaisons. Even her strange erotic relationship with Jamal. They had no idea that he knew, and he intended to keep it that way. He was not unhappy about her affairs. After all, he knew how much she needed them. If anything, he was more concerned that, seeing as little of Jamal as she did, Lara might be sublimating some of
her natural sexual drive rather than exploiting it.

Still high on the evening, unable to sleep, Lara was standing in her darkened room looking from the widow into the courtyard. She was not surprised when the front light came on. She watched David fling a white silk scarf around his neck, and toss a coat into his car. Just before he slipped behind the wheel, she saw him look up at her bedroom windows. She quickly moved to one side, not wanting him to see her. She saw him bounce the
netsuke
up into the air, catch it and place it in his trouser pocket. The door slammed, the headlights went on and he was gone. Several minutes passed. Where was he going? Who would he be making love to? She imagined him naked in a woman’s arms, his penis hard and sliding into a luscious, moistening cunt. In and out, deeper, faster. She agonised that she was not that woman. The pain of her loss was too much for Lara. She wanted it to stop.

Impulsively, she dialled Jamal’s private number at the house on Fifty-Third Street. No answer. It did not occur to her to call Sam. She blanked her sexual longings for David and Jamal out of her mind and fell into a restless sleep.