Those Wicked Pleasures (17 page)

The fun times came and went. So did the dates and the suitors. Jamal seemed more than ever the man about town, at least in the social circles Lara frequented. She evaded any encounters with him. In her misery she blamed him for Sam’s departure. Had he not been the man to exploit her lusty nature? The man who pretended that men love a woman all the more for her erotic soul. The last thing she wanted was to rekindle their secret relationship. Or so she pretended to him and herself. It became ever more difficult to keep away from him. He and David were inseparable. He was, as always, a welcome guest at Cannonberry Chase, with an open invitation, a room permanently at his disposal.

He entertained lavishly at the Moroccan Embassy where he was climbing fast as some minor official. It was difficult to avoid his invitations, especially when all the family were included. He was dating a variety of glamorous women, all of whom made Lara jealous. Enough to make her aware that she was not as through with Jamal as she wanted to be. She reacted by ignoring him whenever and wherever possible.

He behaved impeccably. Not a pass, not a sexual taunt, when they found themselves alone. Only affection, friendship and flattery, open and for all to see. Her negative reactions to him, no matter how much she tried to disguise them, became obvious enough for the gossip to probe: why did Lara Stanton dislike Jamal Ben El-Raisuli?

Her consistent avoidance of him was fast becoming an issue she was unable to explain to her friends. And that was the reason she decided to accept Jamal’s invitation to a party in his River House apartment. Most of her friends were going. She saw it as a chance to scotch the gossip.

It was four years now since her first traumatic sexual encounter with him. There had been long gaps between succeeding encounters. She felt herself mature enough now to deal with Jamal, able to fend off her own erotic feelings for him. Yet an encounter with him with Sam no longer there to catch her on the rebound? She could not help a tremor of fear at the thought. She repelled it with pride and determination to be her own woman, able to deal with her own life. Fighting thoughts.

‘It’s a party we’re going to, not a wake, Lara.’ Julia reduced both of them to giggles.

‘Happy faces and all that? I know. I think I have a perverse nature. I have no enthusiasm for this party or Jamal, and yet I’m looking forward to it.’

‘You do have a perverse streak in you! I have a good feeling about tonight. Buck up, it’ll be fun. Jamal’s parties are always great. One way or another. Are you sure about this dress, Lara?’

‘Julia, stop fidgeting. You look fabulous.’

‘I still think it’s too provocative for me. Are you sure?’

‘Trust me.’

The matter of outfits for Jamal’s party had vexed their ingenuity. The invitation had had engraved on the bottom of the card ‘The Lady And The Tart and All The Men Are Studs’. David said the line meant Jamal was throwing a party for the prettiest hookers and debs in New York. The two girls had been amused at Jamal’s audacity. They questioned David endlessly as to how the girls would dress, what the women would be like. He had answered them, ‘Most of them, gloriously beautiful and elegant. You know, the sexiest ensembles from the best couture houses in town. The cheaper the hooker, the raunchier she’ll look. Some of them are gonna look as much the deb as you girls do. Real stiff competition there for all you “ladies”.’ Lara and Julia gave each other a look and dressed accordingly.

They were in the Van Fleet entrance hall. The lift would take them down to the Ben El-Raisuli apartment. They had dined earlier with Julia’s father. He now stood in the doorway between the hall and the livingroom, watching them. He had been amused by the girls as they plotted how they intended to behave at Jamal’s party. Lara saw him reflected in the seventeenth-century gilded mirror. Lately, each time Lara saw Julia’s father, she thought he looked more frail. Grief seemed to be desiccating him. She turned to him with a broad smile.

‘How do we look, Mr Van Fleet?’

‘I tremble for the men at that party. You’re both
irresistible. You could snatch any man there. They’ll be putty in your hands.’

The two girls looked delighted. ‘Oh, Dad, ever the gallant gentleman.’

‘Certainly not. Old and doddery I may be at times, but I am not blind or dead. Not yet. You girls constitute a danger to an old man with even a spark of life left in him.’

Julia saw a smile on her father’s lips, a twinkle in his eye, as if the sight of them had suddenly enlivened him anew. She looked at herself in the mirror and knew that it was the youthful spirit of Lara and herself, and his own masculine response to female sexuality, that had made her father’s heart race. She swung round to face him.

‘Oh, Pa, come with us. Jamal would love to have you. It’s going to be young and crazy, and maybe a little wild. It will be amusing for you. Could be you’ll meet a woman.’

He actually laughed. ‘You girls have been amusing enough for me. The way you look, your exuberance and youth, they can still give a rise to an old fogey like me. Who was it said an old man is just a platonic Casanova? Some art-critic. Confessed it in his diary. Anyway, he certainly got my number: a platonic Casanova.’ He went to both girls and kissed them on the cheek. ‘There is no fool like an old fool.’ With that he retreated to his livingroom.

Seeing that extra flicker of life come back into Julia’s father was a thrill for the girls. It gave them a feeling of female power, which they liked. The lift arrived. They accorded themselves one last look of approval in the mirrors on either side of the lift doors.

‘Good evening, George,’ they intoned simultaneously to the lift man.

He greeted them, a look of surprise on his face, then closed the doors. The lift began to descend. The girls did
it again after yet another look at themselves in the lift mirror: in unison, ‘God bless Halston.’

Julia was dressed in a long-sleeved, see-through blouse of black chiffon. Around her waist, a wide black satin belt. Her skirt, tailored to fit her like a second skin, was heavy black crepe de Chine, little more than a mini-skirt. Long black stockings and high-heeled, open sandals with straps of black satin. Sexy, sophisticated, provocative – Julia had never before worn anything like it. Her long hair was combed smoothly off her face and held back by a black satin Alice band, with a small, soft chiffon bow tied to one side. On her wrists were rock-crystal bracelets. She knew she spelled, ‘Sexy. Come and get me.’ But she also knew that Halston had made her nakedness more than acceptable, beautiful and desirable. It was the cut of a master: the way the folds in the chiffon fell, teased with a glimpse of the swell of the breasts yet obscured the nipples.

The girls had told the designer they wanted to look like lady-like French tarts: very
soignée
, priceless hookers, fit to seduce on a grand scale – and, to his amusement, added, ‘And get away with it.’ And lady tarts he had made them, at least with needle and thread. Lady tarts with two-thousand-dollar dresses.

It had been black for Lara as well. Her dress was of fine crepe de Chine. A long-sleeved, wrap-around dress with a neckline that plunged to the waist, it clung to her ample breasts, revealing their voluptuous swell and the shape of her nipples. The skirt was a sarong worn a few inches above the knee. It draped skimpily but seductively, and was tied at the waist in a soft bow with long tails. When she walked, it opened to reveal just a sliver of inside leg and thigh almost to her mound of Venus – a miracle of tailoring and sensuality, with no hint of vulgarity. The soft drape of the neckline revealed the flesh between her
breasts down to the waist, and long shapely limbs that seemed to go on for ever were encased in black nylon. Her shoes were black satin high-heeled pumps adorned with her great-grandmother’s diamond shoe-buckles. The dress, a most sophisticated sexual come-on, was enhanced by Lara’s silver-blonde hair, with its mass of long spiralling curls held off her face by a pair of tortoiseshell combs. The girls had cleverly played down their make-up, letting their bodies tell it all. They looked young and fresh-faced, almost pubescent, bodies primed for fucking.

Jamal had proclaimed, ‘The debs will come in their slightly – just slightly – provocative silk taffetas, all puffed sleeves and full skirts. Lots of chest and no breast, or demure cleavage-boasting jewellery. An occasional plunging neckline, if Mummy hasn’t been around to see it. Maybe even some tit on show. And the hookers will all look like ladies or cheap tarts. And I’ll love them all. The variety will be exquisite.’

David had called him ‘the lady game player’. And he had answered, ‘And why not?’

‘Why not, indeed?’ echoed David.

Never averse to a challenge, Julia and Lara had passed the word on to any deb they knew to be going to the party. There would be few sleeves puffing or silk taffetas rustling this night. Sexy, provocative, cock-teasing clothes would adorn hooker and deb alike.

The surprise on the lift man’s face said it all. The girls gathered all their courage, and the lift bumped to a halt. George, who had known them all their lives, turned before he slid the bronze door open and said, ‘Miss Julia, Miss Lara, you be careful tonight.’ A smile, a pause, and, shaking his head less in disapproval than in resignation, he opened the lift door.

On entering the room they got the buzz, the excitement, that some parties have. Instantaneous magic. The men
all in black tie. The women: it seemed there were any number of beautiful, sexy ladies. They came in all ages, with a rich social and ethnic mix. Lovely as flowers, they adorned the room. The debs were there, but only the odd one had slipped through in silk taffeta. They looked cool and beautiful, but almost dowdy alongside the high-flyers in their sexy gear. The guests stood in groups, leaned on pianos, against fireplaces, sat in deep chairs and on elegant settees, or on the stairs leading to the floor above. They drank and smoked, some swaying to the music of Diana Ross, sounding like liquid sex, looking sensuous as a panther draped on top of the grand piano.

The Moroccan servants, in white turbans and kaftans, drifted among the guests with trays of crystal goblets of champagne, mirrors with long straight lines of cocaine and silver straws, amethyst boxes filled with a variety of slim cigarettes: hashish, Indonesian grass, even Chesterfields. Silver trays proffered mounds of tasty titbits parcelled in filo pastry. Servants in pairs walked among the guests with large glass bowls of caviar, which they served on bite-sized pancakes. On demand, they filled the pancakes with the delectable beads and topped them with a slash of sour cream, before rolling them.

Jamal saw Lara and Julia the moment they entered the room. He was the first to get to them. He approached Julia, took her hands in his and lowered his lips to kiss first one then the other hand. His delight in the look of the girls was obvious. Still holding her by one hand, he had her turn around to give him a full view of herself. His eyes beckoned Lara to do the same. The girls had got him, and were delighted. Finally detaching himself from Lara, he gave his attention to Julia once again.

‘Julia, my dear Julia – I had no idea you were such a sexy lady. How
wonderful
you look, and how brave to wear such a provocative ensemble to my party.’ He
adjusted the fold of her blouse to expose the nipple of her small but pert breast. He consumed her with his eyes. She playfully slapped his hand and readjusted the blouse.

‘And Lara!’ The way he looked at her made her heart race. What was so different about him tonight? She had seen him many times since his return: he had rarely affected her as he did now. All barriers between them seemed to fall away.

‘Jamal.’

‘You certainly have risen to the occasion. How delicious you look.’ He took both her hands in his, as he had Julia’s. He had scarcely kissed one before he made up his mind that she was his, that no other man would have Lara Stanton this night. He suddenly realised how much he had missed having sex with her; that his life, if not quite a sexual desert, had not seemed as fertile since last he had had her. How very thirsty he now realised he had been for her. A thirst that demanded quenching before the night was out. He understood why he had not been bothered one way or the other for the last year or so about not bedding her. She hadn’t been ready for him, so sexy and available to him, as she seemed tonight. She was as he desired her, bursting to be fucked by him. That was what had originally turned him on to her, and that was all that ever did. He yearned to probe the sexual depravity within this angel of a girl.

He smiled with delight again as he asked, ‘Is it possible that you girls are playing with me?’

‘No more than you are playing with us and every other woman in this room,’ answered Lara.

‘I’m thrilled you have at last accepted an invitation of mine, Lara. You are a great asset to my party. But I had better warn you this party is not for husband-hunting, spoiled debs, but for fun girls. Look around. It’s a fast, anything-goes party. A fun party for those who drug and
drink, and want sex and music. But nothing that you two girls can’t handle, if you want to.’

He reached for glasses of champagne from a tray and handed them to the girls. Then, slipping an arm through each of theirs, he led them into a crowded room overlooking the East River. Several people converged on them with evident delight that they had made the party. The girls did not miss in the eyes of some of the women envy at their appearance and the lasciviousness they engendered in certain of the men.

Jamal lost no time. Before she was swept away into the swing of the party, he whispered in Lara’s ear: ‘You look sublime, and I want you almost more than you want me. And you are not as safe as you think. David has been here and gone. He had to leave. A call from Washington, something he has been expecting for weeks has come through. He said to tell you he will be back the day after tomorrow. He won’t miss all the fun and sex games though. He has taken a gorgeous French lady with him.’ He felt Lara stiffen. He had shot an arrow to just where he knew it would wound her. It pierced her jealous heart. He admired the speed with which she recovered herself. She gave him a look so hard it surprised him.