Asking For Trouble (16 page)

Damn, I should have sneaked a look at it. It was getting
to annoy me, all this being kept in the dark. He knew what I did for a living. Why wasn’t I allowed in on the secret of what he did?

It was fun, at first, being mysterious with each other and holding off on background details. But, ultimately, it was impractical. You’ve got to put in a hell of a lot of effort to stop your tongue from slipping out something humdrum about yesterday or tomorrow or once upon a time or one day soon. But Ilya was putting in that effort and somehow making it seem effortless.

Since my debut as his whore, over a fortnight ago, we’d got into a thing of just phoning each other up or calling round if we were in the mood for some steamy action.

We hadn’t done anything seriously wild. It’d been more about fucking and exploring, with Ilya throwing in lots of dirty talk to make me feel cheap and horny.

On a couple of occasions when I’d phoned him, he’d said sorry, he was a bit busy at the moment. But, whenever I heard his voice, my pussy would tingle and I’d invariably drop everything unless I was booked in to do a voice-over. Sod feminine wiles and dignity: I was infatuated; I was horny; I wasn’t going to pass up any chance to be with him.

My cunt was turning Pavlovian. The phone would ring or the door would buzz and, pow, there’d be a flash flood in my groin.

I thought about him constantly; I wanted him all the time.

And I was still desperately curious about him. But that curiosity was difficult to satisfy because, quite often, we simply didn’t bother with conversations. Ilya might phone, tell me he’d got a hard-on and an hour to spare, or fifteen minutes, and then we’d spend that time in bed, on the floor, over a table, wherever.

If we did talk, it was usually about sex – experiences, fantasies, the power of desire. More recently I’d started
to talk about me and my life, hoping Ilya would do the same.

No such luck. And when I tried to probe he’d just deflect all my questions or laugh and say things like ‘Ah, now that’s classified.’ I’d asked him where he was from and he’d said, ‘Mars.’ It wasn’t fair. I know we had this thing about not getting emotionally involved. But I was only asking everyday stuff like ‘Where are you from? What do you do?’ It didn’t mean I wanted his babies.

So why was he so cagey?

Ilya came back into the bedroom, whirring an electric razor across his jaw. I was dressed. My clothes stank of stale tobacco.

‘Can’t do you a coffee,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’m in a bit of a rush.’

‘No problem,’ I said, peering into a little mirror and rubbing the grime of make-up from under my eyes. ‘I’m off now anyway.’

We swapped a peck on the lips and said our goodbyes.

I popped home for a quick freshen-up and change of clothes, and it was then I realised I was without my watch. It had to be either at the club or at Ilya’s.

I hate being without a watch.

Once we’d sorted out the aftermath of the gig, Clare and I went for breakfast in a nearby trendy café, lamenting the death of our usual greasy spoon.

I fobbed her off about the stubble rash with some cock-and-bull story about a drunken snog with Paul. Well, he was jetting back to Sydney soon. He was a good enough alibi.

I didn’t want to spill the beans about Ilya because it was all too strange.

Clare would only start asking questions like ‘So when do we get to meet lover boy, then?’ And I’d have to say, ‘No, it’s not like that: we don’t socialise. We just have this thing going, sort of a sex thing, and sometimes it’s
just fucking and sometimes it’s to do with fantasies and that’s why I wanted to borrow your shoes because I got into the idea of playing the whore because deep down I have these fantasies about sleazy, slutty, sordid sex.’ And Clare would look at me open-mouthed and the hip young waiter would set down my second cup of tea and smirk.

Or she’d want to know what he did and I’d have to say, ‘I’ve no idea. I just know he’s got a mobile phone and his hours aren’t nine till five. But that’s no big deal, is it? How many people do you know who’ve got a proper job? Not many.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ Clare would say, ‘but how come you don’t actually know what he does?’

And I’d have to say, ‘Well, he doesn’t really open up much about that kind of thing.’

‘Well, what’s he into?’ she would say. ‘What makes him tick?’

‘Sex,’ I’d have to say. ‘Good, dirty sex.’

‘But there’s got to be something else.’

‘Well, there isn’t. Not that I know of.’

So I told Clare nothing. I paid for breakfast and we trundled off in separate directions.

I decided to drop by at Ilya’s before going home to recover in a darkened room. I wasn’t sure if he’d be in but his flat wasn’t exactly out of my way. May as well try.

I didn’t think much about it. I wasn’t about to put demands on his time or his body. I just wanted to collect my watch and Jenny’s boa, then go.

And when I reached the big stone steps, and another tenant was just leaving the house, I simply said ‘Cheers’ when he held the communal door open for me.

Would’ve been polite to buzz and announce myself, I thought, as I made my way up the brown-carpeted staircase. But what the hell: he was probably going to be out anyway. I could leave a note.

At Ilya’s flat I heard movement – just footsteps passing in the hall behind his door. Good, I thought, he’s in.

I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again, louder.

‘Ilya,’ I called. ‘It’s Beth.’

There was complete silence.

‘I’ve just come to collect my things,’ I said through the wood. ‘I’m not stopping. And I know you’re in.’

After a lengthy pause, Ilya opened the door a wary fraction, his foot wedged behind it. He looked slightly flustered. I caught a glimpse of his fingers: they were covered in white powder. There was some white powder on his jeans, too.

‘I left my watch here,’ I began.

‘You can’t come in,’ said Ilya. ‘Sorry. I’m busy.’

‘I don’t need to come in,’ I said. ‘I just want –’

‘Beth,’ he replied, obviously trying to be patient. ‘You’ve called at a bad time. Now go on. Beat it. Go and sleep off your hangover or something. You look like you need to.’

And he just closed the door, giving me another glimpse of those white-powdered fingers.

I couldn’t sleep. My mind was in a whirl.

White powder, I thought. Therefore drugs. But I knew enough about smack and coke to be pretty certain that you didn’t go coating your fingers in the stuff and spilling it down your jeans: expensive mistake.

So maybe he was cutting something pure with crushed paracetamol or baking soda or whatever. Baking soda, I thought. Now isn’t that how you make crack cocaine? You play around with powders, potions and microwaves, then hey presto – you’ve got yourself a pretty nasty drug. Was Ilya running a little pharmaceuticals industry?

Oh God, maybe I was having a weird fling with a seriously hard drugs dealer. He looked East European, though he seemed as British as the next person. So maybe
he had connections abroad – bad connections with bad people who sold bad drugs.

But it didn’t fit; there’d have to be more dubious characters hanging around him.

Maybe I was still a bit drunk and once again my imagination was working overtime. Yeah, probably that. Just a dormant shot of tequila waking up to say hello.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Beth. What’s my favourite whore up to right now?’

‘I’m on holiday. I’m flat on my back on the living-room floor, lying in a sunbeam, listening to Galaxie 500 and talking to you on the phone. In fact, if you stand by your window and I lift my leg up, you might be able to see my foot. Can you?’

‘’Fraid not,’ said Ilya. ‘No, nothing. Ah, saw something move then. Anyway, you don’t sound busy, so I’ve got something for you.’

‘My watch,’ I replied. ‘Have you found it?’

‘Yes, but I’ve got something else.’

‘A purple feather boa.’

‘Better than that.’

‘Hmm. Let me see,’ I teased. ‘Couldn’t possibly be a raging hard-on, could it?’

‘Got it in three.’

‘Well, well. What a surprise.’

‘Do you fancy popping over to collect? I’ve got something in mind I think you’re really gonna love.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘Will it hurt?’

‘Maybe. But only a bit.’

‘OK then. I’ll be there in two ticks.’

‘Strip to your underwear,’ said Ilya, as I sauntered into his living room.

He was rolling down the last window blind. Splintered sunlight gleamed through the bamboo shafts. I glanced
around, searching for something to explain the white-powder weirdness, but saw nothing.

Should I ask him about it? I wondered. But there didn’t seem much point: Ilya never gave me straight answers.

So I undressed, piling my outer clothes on to the sunken armchair, my pussy already juicing. I’d ask him later. I reckoned he owed me some kind of explanation.

Ilya surveyed my near-naked body without a flicker of interest. My underwear was good – black high-leg knickers with a hint of lace, and bra to match. Too good, I thought, deciding there and then to invest in something more appropriate to my slut-self.

‘Lovely,’ said Ilya blandly. ‘Now get down on your hands and knees.’

As instructed I dropped on to all fours, a couple of feet in front of the sofa.

I twisted my head round, trying to catch sight of him as he moved around the shabby, sun-warmed room.

‘Now remember the rule, Beth,’ he said. ‘Anything you don’t like, just give me the codeword and I’ll stop. OK?’

I nodded, feeling a pang of sweet apprehension. I took Ilya’s reminder as a sign that I was in for some major torment. But whatever it was, I imagined I could handle it.

‘I’m going to blindfold you,’ announced Ilya, approaching with a tartan winter scarf.

I gave a tiny giggle of eagerness and tilted my head high, allowing him to fix the band in place. The wool was very warm on my skin and Ilya took his time to secure it, adjusting it so my nostrils were free, tightening the knot at the back of my head and questioning me all the time: ‘Can you see anything? Is that better? Can you breathe OK? Is that too tight?’

When I was shrouded in darkness, nothing happened. Ilya fell silent. His hands were no longer touching me. I wasn’t sure where he was standing. I felt giddy with
expectancy, and my sex bubbled with little dancing pulses. I adored it when Ilya took control.

The scarf was wrapped either side of my head, muffling the sounds about me. It pressed in on my eyes and squashed the tip of my nose. When I cast my eyes down, there was a tiny hole of light. Depending on how I turned, I could see the flecked beige carpet or parts of my hands with purple-polished nails and the big violet ring on my right middle finger.

I raised my head and twisted it, trying to look up with a lowered gaze, but the angle made the hole of light vanish. And anyway, all that straining to gain a glimpse made my eyeballs ache. So I just accepted my blindness.

Nervously, I waited for Ilya’s touch. My ears, sharpened by my lack of sight, yet dulled by the covering scarf, were greedy for every sound.

At irregular intervals, the noise of passing cars rose up from the streets below and in through the open windows. There was a hammer chiselling away at stone: someone was having repairs done to the front of their house. A rooftop seagull called out and its feathered friends took up the sound like a football chant. They all squawked away to a jangling pitch before falling suddenly silent.

Inside the room, when there were no cars on the road, I could just make out the ticking of a clock and the fridge humming in the adjoining kitchenette. Still no sound of Ilya.

I felt strangely disembodied. It was as if my limbs had all disappeared because I couldn’t see them. I was nothing but the inside of my head. I was losing physicality.

A car door slammed outside and there was a brief exchange of male laughter and voices although I couldn’t hear what was said.

The clock ticked away. Come on, Ilya. Touch me.

I half feared he’d left the room. Perhaps he was on his bed, reading a book or something, and amusing himself
with thoughts of how long I’d stay there before daring to protest.

A bus went by along the bottom road – the number seven, the only bus to pass this way – and it made that little ‘poof’ noise that buses do as they change gear or whatever.

Then – ah – a touch, the softest of touches drifting across my back, making goosebumps prickle. I inhaled sharply and held the air in my lungs, recognising the velvet lightness as it swept over my skin: Jenny’s feather boa.

My body, which had all but slipped away from me, sprang to sensation under its whispering caress. I felt the existence of my back more acutely than any other part of me. Then I felt my left wrist and hand as the feathered length tickled a path across me there. I released my breath in a murmur of delight.

I could feel the weight changing on the floor as Ilya moved. The boa trailed over my calves. I had legs now. In fact, I had my whole body back again, because it was singing in anticipation of the next touch. The nerves beneath my skin were set on red alert, ready to react immediately to the merest hint of contact.

For a while I felt nothing but dust motes. Then my feet exploded to a silken breath. Wispy feathers moved across my arched insteps and brushed the bottoms of my. toes.

Then nothing again.

And then the back of my neck, a line of velvet fronds floating over my skin under and across my collarbone, then shivering away via the downy pit of my arm.

Not once did Ilya’s flesh touch mine. Everything was feathers: across my lips, on my thighs inner and outer, snaking up around my arm, sliding under my belly and waist. I drew quick breaths as the feathers fell, always unexpectedly, and sighed pleasure as they dragged gossamer tracks over my skin, and left desire tingling in their wake.

Waiting for those touches to begin and end was like a torture designed by angels.

And the whole thing made me wary because Ilya wasn’t into soft sex and gentle titillation. I reckoned he was up to something. Maybe he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security before subjecting me to some dirty degradation. The thought made my sex bloom open like some flower on time-lapse photography.