‘Ah,’ she says.
Twenty two
It is late, nearly twelve, when Blake slots his key in the door and enters the apartment. The sliding doors to the balcony are open. A gentle breeze lifts the curtain. He sees her asleep on the sofa and feels a frisson of some strange emotion. He stands over her and watches her. In the soft light, the pattern on the lavender wallpaper looks like thorn vines that the prince has to hack through and she is the princess from Sleeping Beauty. He can still remember reading it for his sister. So many times. Her favorite. He hated it. Corny nonsense. He sits next to her and her sleeping body tilts twenty degrees towards him. He runs a finger along her cheek. She opens her eyes.
‘You smell of whiskey. Where have you been?’
He chuckles. ‘Doing my rounds.’
She puts a hand to his cheek. It is cold. She puts her hand on his chest. Through the shirt material, her fingertips register the beat of his strong heart.
‘You reminded me of Sleeping Beauty.’
‘That must make you Prince Charming then.’
A look of sadness crosses his face. His hand gently traces the line of her cheek. ‘Don’t deceive yourself, Lana. Our liaison can only ever be temporary. I am spoken for.’
His words stab her like a knife. The wounds are whispers. ‘Who is she? Where is she now?’
‘She’s from an old family like me. She has to finish her education. She is only twenty-two. Next year I will be thirty-one and she will be twenty-three. Then we will marry.’
‘Are you in love with her?’
He looks amused. ‘No.’
‘Is it like an arranged marriage?’
‘Something like that. There is some leeway, there has to be some attraction, but marriage for us has always been a merger of two great families. The Lazards marry their sons to Rockefellers and the Rockefellers marry their daughters to Hapsgoods. It works well.’
‘Is love ever a part of the equation?’
‘Love is vastly overrated. We consolidate our wealth and position and make arrangements to cater to our specific tastes.’
‘Specific tastes?’
‘Some of us are gay; others are pedophiles.’
She looks at him in shock. ‘Are you condoning pedophilia?’
‘I’m not condoning anything. I’m stating a fact.’
‘So you wouldn’t report a pedophile who was abusing a child?’
He shakes his head. ‘That is a matter between the pedophile and God as God made him that way.’
‘What about the child?’
‘Time’s march is a web of causes and effects, and asking for any gift of mercy, however tiny it might be, is to ask that a link be broken in that web of iron. No one deserves such a miracle—Jorge Luis Borges.’
‘What an unkind world you live in.’
‘Your tragedy is that you live in the same world as me only you do not perceive it, and that makes you careless.’
‘And your tragedy is your fatalism.’
‘On the contrary. It means I recognize the threat. Cause and effect. Unlike you, my wife and I will guard our children in such a way that they will never be exposed to dangerous situations.’
She looks at him, calmly, shamelessly discussing his bride to be with her. ‘If you are already engaged to be married why are you never seen together and why are you being touted as the most eligible bachelor alive?’
‘You will never understand us. Don’t try.’
‘Is it the same reason your family doesn’t appear in the Forbes rich list?’
He bestows her a smile. ‘That’s better. Now you are beginning to understand. The greatest fortunes are all secretly earned, ferociously guarded.’
‘So… You are the most eligible bachelor because…’
‘The impression of meritocracy must be maintained at all times.’
‘Ah, the taint of elitism.’
‘No, but close.’
‘Why so evasive? I am bound by contract. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to.’
‘If you controlled eighty percent of all the wealth in the world… Wouldn’t you want the status quo to carry on? We prefer to trade anonymously behind a façade, behind the public faces. Kings, prime ministers, tsars, sultans, and emperors come to power and lose it to the jealously and dissatisfaction of the people. We have, uninterrupted, ruled from behind the scenes for centuries. Our secrets are precious.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Time you were in bed,’ he says, and lifts her into his arms. Her hands go around his neck.
‘You’re getting long, Bloom.’
‘Too long for you, Barrington.’
‘Never too long for me, Bloom.’
She turns her head and sees their reflections in the mirror on the opposite wall. Her long nightgown trails behind her and in the soft light from the nightstand they look like the romantic hero and heroine of the black and white movies her mother likes to watch. But we are not, she reminds herself. All his plans don’t include me. The thought is depressing. It makes her feel sad. She buries her face in his neck.
‘To sleep?’
‘Not quite, Bloom,’ he replies quietly.
He drops her in the bed with a plop and looks down at her tousled hair on the white pillows. In the shadows his eyes are unreadable.
‘What is it?’
He brings his mouth towards her and her mouth lifts to meet his. This time their kiss is special. She feels him trembling and the answering purr of her own body. It is as though they are drinking from each other. Their bodies meld together.
And when they are lying sated in the dark he says, ‘I love it when you come and your pussy grips my cock.’
She turns her face away from him and shuts her eyes in despair. She understands what he is doing. Always, she must be reduced to an orifice.
Twenty three
Today, Lana is happy. Billie has called to tell her the good news. The antineoplastons that her mother is on are working. The tests are back—the tumors are regressing. Her mother will have to carry on her treatment for another three months, but she can return in two days’ time to England and carry it on there.
Lana is so happy she cries.
To celebrate, Blake has taken her out to dinner at Le Gavroche. She has already dined on the most delicious cheese soufflé cooked in double cream followed by grilled scallops. Her dessert, a raspberry millefeuille in praline-flavored chocolate, has just been put in front of her.
Blake has the Le Plateau de Fromages Affines. She watches him cut a slice of strong cheese. It is almost transparently thin. He places it on a small square of cracker and slips it into his mouth. She imagines the flavors building up in his nose, the cheese melting on his hot, silky tongue, and cheesy liquids traveling down the back of his throat. She watches the movement in the strong column of brown throat. The entire operation is fluid, elegant, almost a ceremony. It is his education. There is no greed in him. Not even for her.
She looks away and meets the eyes of another man. He is looking at her with the same expression she must have had in hers while she was looking at the banker. Now she knows what lay in the belly of all those men who gazed at her with desire in their eyes. She looks down at her dessert, dips her finger into the praline-flavored chocolate, and places it on her tongue. She raises her eyes and Blake says, ‘You are in bad trouble.’
She doesn’t take her finger out. ‘What kind of trouble?’ she mumbles.
He smiles and is about to answer when a flash of surprised annoyance crosses his face. Its appearance and disappearance is swift. Very quickly his face resumes its neutral expression. Lana turns her head curiously to see what has caused the disturbance. A silver-haired man is walking towards their table. When the man arrives, he ignores Lana, and looks only at Blake.