Shameless Exposure (6 page)

He crept back across the bedroom to the top of the stairs.

“I can’t stop my practice once I’ve started,” she called after him. “The spirit would be offended.”

“The spirit? What about Caroline? She’s definitely offended.”

“She’ll come to understand. You’ve no idea how much I care for that woman. It hurts me that our agreement bars me from any contact with her. I’ll ask the spirit to watch over her.”

“Well that’s kind of you but perhaps you could also ask the spirit to explain to her what you were doing when I was on the phone?”

Regina laughed. “Make her come up here and all will be clear.”

“I don’t think it’s likely. She’s busy with a new work project and doing family research – trying to trace her natural mother. Perhaps you could put something on and I’ll tell you my initial thoughts on your case.”

“Does the body of a mature woman disturb you?”

“Sorry, your body is very striking, attractive I mean. It’s just that when discussing professional matters I find nakedness distracting.”

“Think of it as an opportunity to challenge yourself. A woman from
The Times
was here last week. It took her three days before she would even meet my eyes but after a taste of the programme and a session with GEORGe she went away happy. She says she’s found a new angle on the female orgasm and will get at least a dozen articles out of it. And she’s promised me that we’ll be in the
Top Twenty Religious Destinations
in the travel section round-up.”

“Congratulations.”

“Don’t be cynical, Robert. It’s bad for the spirit. Think how it would be if western society could rid itself of its obsession with wealth and power and focus instead on the animal within. So what’s your plan to get my share options from Monsaint?”

Robert turned around the chair in front of her elaborate dresser and sat facing his naked client, trying not to stare at her breasts.

“It might be a mistake to focus on the share options. The general principle behind options is that they lapse once an employee leaves the company. However, if it were to be demonstrated that you were unfairly dismissed, then all the benefits normally due to you would become active, in addition to the payment for the unfair dismissal. Reading your papers I would say you have a very good claim indeed for sex discrimination.”

“But it was I who resigned.”

“Because you had to. Because you were trying to protect the reputation of the company you had built up so successfully. And the reputation of your colleagues, whose standards of behaviour towards you had fallen well below those expected of senior directors. They lured you into filming them whilst they acted out role plays. They used their wives to entice you into unwanted affairs. They threatened you with exposure unless you procured naïve young women for them.” Regina rose and walked over to the misty window speckled with raindrops. She faced the Pap of Mura.

“This is why I wanted you, Robert. I knew you would see through their lies.”

“The only problem is that there is a three month time limit on claims for unfair dismissal and this all happened eighteen months ago. Have you a copy of your contract? There might be a way round it. If not, we’ll try the
just and equitable
angle. That sometimes works in sex discrimination cases.”

“Just and equitable won’t be necessary. I negotiated a two year notice period on my contract. The Head of Human Resources was most accommodating, if a little lacking in personal hygiene. I’m not free to work for anyone else until February.”

“I’m hopeful, of course, that Monsaint will cave in once they see your evidence. You will give me some room for negotiation?”

“Robert, if you get me those options back, I promise you and Caroline will be well rewarded.”

 
Five

When Caroline pressed the
end call
button on Robert, a knot of anger had already formed in the pit of her stomach. There was no avoiding the fact that he had been in Regina’s bedroom. No one could mistake the sounds Regina was making. Who knows what else had been going on, or was going on at this very moment? The woman was old enough to be his mother. It was disgusting, stupid, unprofessional.

Her phone beeped announcing a message from Andreas:
Late this morning? Did you get your beauty sleep?
She hadn’t been late. Just not as early as usual. She resisted the urge to throw the phone across the open plan office and resolved to channel her anger into making herself feel good, like it said in the glossy magazines. Her fingers flashed across the screen.

Delayed by searching for the thong which goes with my basque.
She pressed send. It was no exaggeration. She had looked through all her knickers three times before finding the ones that matched. And then one of each pair of stockings had a ladder. How did they end up back in the drawer? Why was she searching out her favourite big-night-out underwear when she was going to Erik’s studio again after work? She knew the answer to that one: his indifference had bugged her. She wanted to be wanted, even if he couldn’t have her. She couldn’t believe he would choose Xena over her.

Andreas must have been in-between meetings because her phone beeped almost immediately.
Wow, having fun imagining that.

Channel the anger. She got up from her desk and went to the ladies room, whipped off her dress, and took a photo of herself in the mirror looking sassy. Back at her desk, she sent the photo to Andreas, no text required. Poor man was obviously missing his wife.

She threw herself into researching South America and started compiling the presentation for the board. Channel the anger. Perhaps an early trip to Brazil to start making contacts wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Despite all her efforts, she was still channelling the anger when she pressed Erik’s buzzer in Whitechapel that evening. He responded quickly this time, and came down to meet her, tucking his shirt into his trousers. In the studio, Miss August was pulling on cowboy boots.

“Caroline, you know Xena. She’s a designer.”

“Yes we’ve met” said Caroline, forcing a smile.

“How did you get on at the Orgatron Centre?” asked Xena.

“I haven’t been yet,” said Caroline. She didn’t explain that she’d gone to the wrong address.

“Oh you must go, darling. It does wonderful things for a woman’s self-control, doesn’t it Erik? It adds a spiritual dimension to the act of love.”

Erik grinned and kissed Xena on her full red mouth. “You call it spiritual? That makes me a convert.”

“Yes, but you should practice as well, Erik. Do you need me tomorrow?”

“Most men practice all the time. I need you, more than once more. Bring Craig if you like. I’m sure he’d find it interesting.”

“I’m sure he would,” said Xena, speaking over her shoulder as she clicked her way over the floorboards to the door.

The lift doors closed on the previous model and Erik turned his attention to Caroline.

“How are we today? Less tense than yesterday, I hope.”

“No chance,” said Caroline. “I’m trying to direct anger into positive outlets but I’m not sure it’s working. You suddenly seem to have become good friends with Miss August.”

“It’s Craig I know really. They’re both artists like me, but their big thing is the design of everyday objects. Things you probably wouldn’t even notice. Like this.”

He tossed her a plastic phial of nasal spray. “That’s one of Craig’s. I should introduce you – he might be a useful contact for your outfit.”

“We don’t do medicines.”

“Yes but you do design. Everything today is a compromise between functionality and design.”

“Functionality wins out every time in our world. It’s purely about what works to save lives.”

“Is it? We’d better make a start.” He pointed her towards the Japanese screen. She removed her dress and stepped out from behind the screen on a pretext.

“Do I need to take everything off again?”

He laughed. “You’ve proved my point. What you’re wearing is a beautiful compromise between function and design.” She twirled round to let him see the sheer back of the basque and her round bottom neatly framed by thong and stockings.

“Though I think design has probably been the dominant force,” he continued. “But you have to take it all off.” She obeyed his instruction, only half behind the screen, checking that he was watching.

Once she was naked on the sofa she relaxed. Instead of the crowd of everyday thoughts fighting for attention, her mind was filled with nothing much. It was getting easier to do nothing, like when she had done the life class modelling for him in her student days. She noticed that the knot of anger had softened. Robert could be an idiot, but it was ridiculous to think he would leave her for that madwoman. There must be some plausible, if slightly unsavoury, explanation for what she had heard.

“Were you having sex with her when I arrived?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m helping her with her orgatron practice. You should try it, you know. It really builds up the power of the female orgasm.”

“What does Craig think of that?”

“I don’t know if they’ve discussed it.” He didn’t pause in his brush strokes. “I’ve slept with him too. He’s says he’s bisexual but I think he means he’ll shag anything.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine you and a man.”

“It’s not my thing but Xena made it a condition that I had to sleep with him before she would agree to a threesome with both of us.” He hid himself by getting close up to the canvas.

“You live in a completely different world to me, Erik. The business world is so conventional and if anyone wants anything unusual they have to pay money for it. What was it like?”

“Sex with Craig?”

“I’m more interested in hearing about the threesome. I would hate two women and a man but I can imagine two men and a woman.”

“I expect it could be arranged. Do you have two men in mind?”

“No, I don’t mean me, I mean in theory. What was it like with Xena and Craig? Did Xena enjoy it?”

“I’ll tell you when we’ve done it. It hasn’t happened yet. It has to happen naturally. We’re going out tomorrow to a party, the three of us. Maybe then?”

“A party? How long is it since I’ve been to a party? I mean a proper one with music and dancing and interesting people. I only go to business functions where everyone’s brown-nosing and pretending to have a good time with people they don’t like at all.”

“Come along with us then. The music should be good – it’s at Omar Zidane’s place in Notting Hill. They’ve gone to his concert tonight.”

“Wouldn’t Omar mind me turning up uninvited?”

“It’s not that sort of party. We won’t be sitting down to dinner. It’ll be a load of people hanging out. You don’t have to decide now. It wouldn’t hurt for you to let your hair down, Caroline. You seem jaded. That’s it for tonight. Get dressed.”

She stood up and walked round to look at the emerging picture. It shocked her. Is that what he saw, stripping off the layers? Her body was hunched, her shoulders rigid with tension, her toes pointing like they did in a meeting. And was that her face? Yes, it was. It was her work face. Tight, bland and false.

♥ ♥ ♥

Robert worked away on the desk in the undercroft. He was now two-thirds through Regina’s confessions. She had remembered some details – ornaments on fireplaces, gilded mirrors in bedrooms – which would send shivers down the victim’s back, if they were true of course. He might need to check one or two details out for himself to make sure that Regina had not just penned elaborate fantasies.

He tried to imagine asking a director’s wife if she had a small rose tattoo on her left thigh, or checking with the pension fund manager that he only had one testicle. Perhaps the wife of the human resources director could confirm or deny that he smelled of cheese and needed to watch an hour of Japanese pornography before he could engage in the sexual act?

He tapped notes into his tablet for later consideration. A draft announced that someone else was descending to the undercroft. Regina’s morning teaching had finished and Georgina wanted her coffee and smoke.

“Shall I make enough for two?”

“Rather,” said Robert. Georgina pulled out some boxes of dried beans and removed her secret supplies and a small cafetiere. She carried them, stooping to avoid disturbing her hair, through to the dungeon where there was a sink and a calorgas stove. Robert followed.

“Christ, it pongs a bit,” said Robert. “It reminds me of the gym.”

“That’s because Ness uses it for exercise at night. He does pull ups from the manacles and lifts the rack up and down. He must be extremely strong because I can’t budge it an inch.”

“Who is this Ness? I heard his name whispered a few times at breakfast.”

“Regina brought him over from Barlinnie. You must know it, the Glasgow gaol. That’s the story, anyway. None of us have actually seen him. He’s in seclusion – through there.” She pointed at a large steel door. “It’s the gaol pit of the castle. They used to throw the prisoner down into it from the courtyard above. Regina’s turned it into an isolation cell.”

“Does he need representing?”

“Regina says he’s there of his own free will. Apparently he’s doing the programme alone and he’s not allowed to ejaculate until the moon ceremony. Regina says Ness will be used for initiations when someone is ready to join Regina in the priestesshood. There are lots of rumours about Ness, about his, you know, prowess.”

“So now I understand the giggles I heard over the porridge. They said he’s a recovering heroin addict.”

“That’s one version. I heard it was murder, or manslaughter at least. There was a fight and someone died. The one thing everyone agrees on is that he’s a big man in every respect.”

“But you said no-one’s seen him.”

“No, but we’ve heard him. The grunts of him practicing and working out come up out of the goal pit at night. Those are his shaving things by the sink.”

“What a strange life,” said Robert.

“Oh, I could live quite happily down here,” said Georgina. “It’s got everything I need. I suppose the bed is a bit uncomfortable.” The bed of the rack had two rows of spikes across the middle.

“Have you tried it?”

“I had to once when I overstepped. It’s not too bad if you can relax.”

She struck a match on the brick wall, lit up, and inhaled deeply, and blew smoke in his direction.

“Won’t you get found out?”

“The nicotine police don’t come by this way very often. There’s a no smoking rule on the island but it’s not a capital crime like having an orgasm outside of the moon ceremony. Only two days to go. I’m hoping I’ll get in touch this time, but if necessary I’ll practice at home and come back for the solstice.”

“Have you seen the giant pussy?”

“Joni says I must call it a wild cat. No. But the spirit helpers are different for different people. I’m sure mine is a dog. It has long white hair and floppy ears and it encourages me to be cheerful. But then sometimes I think it’s a fish.”

“Couldn’t you just have a real dog?”

“Not in my line of work. I fly all over the world for shoots. Last month I was doing bikinis in Mauritius.”

“Somebody has to do it,” said Robert, having no difficulty picturing Georgina in a bikini.

“It’s not glamorous like you think. It’s bitchy and boring. And I’m hungry all the time. That’s why I smoke.” She waved ineffectually at the smoke around her head, stubbed out the cigarette, and put the butt down the sink.

“Do men have any role to play in day to day practice?” asked Robert. “I mean, are you allowed to have sex with a real man?”

A gust of wind dispersed the cigarette smoke. “I think someone’s coming,” said Georgina. “Can you give the cups a quick rinse and I’ll hide the coffee?” She scooped up her contraband and Robert swished the cups under the cold tap. She still had the cafetiere and cigarettes in her hand when two apparitions wearing wimples appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a tearful woman sandwiched between them.

“Hello Jocasta,” said Georgina. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she sobbed. “It’s happened again. I’ve begged Regina to let me stay and she says I can as long as I learn my lesson.” Regina was a few steps behind the miscreant and her spooky guards.

“And your lesson starts right now,” said Regina. “This way.” The guards, who appeared to be draped in white net curtains, marched Jocasta into the dungeon. They shot a bolt across the door behind them.

“I’m sorry, Regina. I’m really sorry.” Robert strained to hear Jocasta’s muffled voice, then Regina’s.

“What do you have to do to show you’re sorry? That’s right… just there.”

It went quiet for a minute and then Regina continued barking orders.

“It’s no good. Your tongue’s not strong enough. Take your robes off. Wimple One, unlock the stocks.”

Robert and Georgina looked at each other.

“That was a lucky escape. Regina didn’t even notice the cigarettes,” said Georgina.