The Blue Guide (19 page)

She studies my face, trying to read my reaction. ‘
Go on
,' she hisses. ‘We get in a rude movie. Something with girls. And some champagne from the machine on the landing.'

It makes me feel bad turning her down, putting a dampner on our happy day, but all of a sudden I'm feeling very jumpy about the whole Paco thing. It would be awful enough if he found out that Carlotta and I cooked up a lie in order to spend the night together. But the fact that I stood
him
up in favour of his wife would turn him homicidal.

I wish I could explain to Carlotta why I have to say no, but somehow I think that telling her I have to go and break off my affair with her husband won't go down too well. Instead, I come up with something weak and watery about meeting my best friend Jess, who I can't let down because she's been having terrible man problems.

Carlotta sulks, obviously stung by my mention of a best friend, of a life beyond her, excluding her. ‘Fine,' she snaps, adding in a low voice that she obviously intends me to hear, ‘I go find someone else.'

I sit down in my bra and knickers, take her hand.
Paco is not the only fiery one, I'm realising. But her reaction makes me all the more determined to stand my ground. Neither of them need think they can get away with bossing me around. I'm not their toy.

By the time I'm away from Carlotta and heading for the other side of London, it's almost time to meet Paco. I come out of the tube at Knightsbridge and walk briskly along Kensington Road and then Kensington Gore, letting the cool summer-evening air caress me. I've showered, but I can still smell Carlotta on me, on my bare shoulders, on my hands, which I sniff surreptitiously. I wonder if Paco will notice them, will disentangle them from my own womanly odours.

At the Royal Albert Hall, I weave my way through the line of waiting limos and ask a doorman to direct me backstage. When he looks suspicious, I tell him I'm one of Paco Manchega's staff, which isn't exactly a lie. At the back door, I find Paco has thought ahead, and that ‘Ms Alicia Shaw' is on the list of his personal entourage to be granted admission.

I walk in, trying to look unfazed by the whole experience, by knowing that I have an assignation with this famous man who's dancing in front of an audience of thousands. My intention is to wait in his dressing room, but I get ensnared in a maze of corridors and suddenly find myself in the wings, watching the end of the performance just a few feet away from Paco himself. It's his first ever solo show, and I know that he was feeling a little apprehensive about it, especially given that over the last year he's had a bad reception from the purist flamenco press on the subject of his choreographic innovations, on his mixing of flamenco with other dance forms.

Even from where I'm standing, so close up, you can't tell he's nervous, he's so far gone into the work, so
utterly absorbed by the dance. His chest is bared, and sweat is pouring down him. The audience might as well not be there, not while he's performing. He looks up and over them, and I remember what he said about flamenco having an almost mystical aspect to it. Then all of a sudden it's over, and he's bowing, brutally aware of them again, and they are going wild. I can still hear the encores ringing out as I make my way back through the labyrinth.

His dressing room, I'm surprised to find, is empty, and I sit down and start thumbing through a magazine I find to hand, to give me something to think about. A few minutes after the encores finally die away, Paco appears, flushed and triumphant, still charged with adrenalin. He's followed by a woman he introduces me to as his UK agent, Eliza Jenkins.

‘Alicia's just popped in on her way home,' he says to her, giving me a look. ‘She's dropping off something for Carlotta.'

Eliza nods, tells me what a roaring success the evening has been, how Paco thrilled the crowds more than ever before.

‘He was on fire,' she says breathily, and I realise that she's not even been looking at me as she's been talking, that she's been gazing at Paco with undisguised adoration. I look at him, observe his body language, and quickly decide that no, he's not sleeping with her. It's all one-sided. Here's another one, I think, who's going to go home and peel off her damp little panties and give herself a good seeing-to, Paco's name on her lips.

The thought that out there, in the vast auditorium, are scores of girls and women now just aching to get home and imagine it's Paco whose fingers are teasing their clits, knocks the wind from my sails. And
I've
been fucking him, I think. What did I do to deserve this?

Eliza and I natter on for a few minutes as Paco strips off his skin-tight Dolce & Gabbana trousers – he's famed for commissioning all his costumes from them – pulls on a pair of jeans and lights a cigarette. She tells me she hears I've been showing Carlotta the sights, asks what we've been up to. I answer as shortly as I can without appearing rude, desperate to have Paco to myself. I can smell the sweat on him from his show, and it must be the pheromones or something because I actually start feeling faint.

The minute she's gone and the door is closed and locked, I turn and throw myself at Paco. You'd think I hadn't had any in years, the way I'm on him now, undoing his zip and pulling out his cock and climbing onto it as he sits in the chair, pulling my knickers aside with my fingers. You'd never believe I've come several times this afternoon, the way I'm burning for him.

One arm on his shoulder to steady me, I'm riding him as if he were a wild horse, my spine arched, shoulders thrown back, all the muscles of my cunt squeezing, locking me onto him. And then he's standing, and advancing across the room, and I'm amazed at the power of those thighs, for him to be able to hold me up
and
carry on feeding himself into me, in and out, in and out, faster and faster. Then we come to a halt, and I'm up against the wall and he's banging into me, crushing me, and we're both gasping and tearing at each other with our hands.

He binds me against him again with his arms and carries me back to the chair, swizzling it around as we sit down. I lean back again – we haven't been kissing anyway, no time for that nonsense – and this time I finger myself too, so that with the stimulation of his prick inside me and the action of my own digit, I come hyper-intensely. It's the cue for him to stop thinking of
football or flamenco moves or whatever it is he thinks about to keep a lid on himself.

I take the opportunity to slide back off the chair, onto my knees, and take him in my mouth. He drives his fingers into my shoulders, jerks his hips convulsively, and I look up and find that he's watching himself in the mirror as he comes, staring into his own eyes. I nearly choke on his come with surprise. That, and the desire to laugh.

Half an hour later we're washed and dressed and having a very civilized drink in the Blue Bar at the Berkeley. We've picked a corner table, but Paco has got his shades on for good measure, not thinking what a wanker he must look. It's nearly midnight, after all. Still, needs must when you're an international superstar on the town with your bit on the side.

We're sipping dry martinis, chatting desultorily. I'm finding it hard to focus, still shocked by how I reacted to him, how much I continue to want him, after all I'd decided, after Carlotta. It seems so wrong, such a terrible muddle, but in the dressing room it felt so right. So necessary. I
had
to have him.

After an hour or so, Paco looks at his watch, sighs. ‘I want to spend the night with you,' he says. ‘Here, in this hotel. I wish I didn't have to go.'

I, in turn, wish that I could tell him not to rush off, that his wife, in all likelihood, is still in the room we shared at The Zetter, going down on some bit of fluff she picked up in the bar, munching on some fresh clit as she threatened to do if I left. But I can't, and I'm exhausted anyway, and in truth the only thing on my mind now is getting home and slipping into my own bed, alone, and getting a good night's sleep. Suddenly, an empty flat is just what I need.

THE MORNING FINDS
me slobbing around in my kimono, waiting for Carlotta to call. I'm certainly not going to chase her after her little fit of pique: if she wants to go out, she can contact me. In the meantime, I have a huge backlog of calls and emails to work my way though.

I sit down at my computer, log on and check my inbox. More than a hundred new messages. I groan, pour myself another cup of coffee, try to bin as many as possible without opening them and assess the rest according to priority. My eyes lock onto one about twenty down in the list: [email protected]. The subject field reads ‘Sorry!!!!!Future date????'

I don't want to, but I click on it.

‘Alicia, I'm sorry,' it reads. ‘I was really looking forward to seeing you. Please forgive me and say you're free on the 20th, for dinner at least, but a tour if you can make it. I'll pay for your time, whatever. I'm in town for a couple of days. Dan.'

I read it over and over, wondering if there's anything between the lines, and then I get cross – as much at myself as him, and I fire tetchily back:

‘Booked up. Sorry, A.'

By the time I've fetched yet another coffee, a second ‘danlub' email has plopped into my mailbox. I open it:

‘Will double rate if you cancel the other. D.'

I frown, start chewing at the inside of my cheek. I suppose I should be flattered, if he thinks I'm worth that, but now I'm really getting wound up.

‘Not for sale to highest bidder,' I type. I pause for a second, then hit send. Immediately I do so, I'm wondering if I've done the right thing. He's apologised for the missed date, and I know, in my heart, he didn't mean it that way. All this business with Paco and Carlotta must be sending me a bit loony.

I reach for the phone, dial Jess's number. She'll be in a strop with me, for not returning her calls, but she'll relent, especially when she hears what I have to say, what has happened. And she's the only one who can talk any sense into me.

The tone goes on, then her answerphone takes over.

‘Jess, it's Al,' I say urgently. ‘I'm sorry. Stuff – stuff has got a bit out of control. Call me. Love you.'

My mobile's ringing as I hang up the landline. It's Carlotta, all bright and breezy, suggesting a walk on Hampstead Heath. Fresh air sounds like a good idea to me, after a succession of sweaty encounters in hotel rooms and dressing rooms, and we agree to meet at the top of Parliament Hill at four o'clock. I check my mailbox again, but Daniel has gone silent, unsurprisingly. I swear under my breath. I've well and truly blown it with him.

I see her before I get to the top of the hill: she's the only person on the heath in a pair of red stilettos. The only one wearing a semi-transparent white sundress with no bra either, I would guess. Around her, kites are colliding and getting tangled as their owners struggle to concentrate on them rather than her.

She steps forward, kisses me on one cheek, a cigarette in one hand. With the other she risks a little tweak at my nipple.

‘Hello, lover,' she breathes into my ear.

‘Hi,' I say shyly.

‘How is your evening with your friend?' she asks, a little archly, obviously still smarting.

‘Fine,' I reply. ‘It was fine.'

‘She is still brokenhearted?'

‘She'll get over it.'

‘Everybody do,' she says, exhaling a mouthful of smoke, pointing over to the south. ‘Look,' she exclaims. ‘You can see St Paul's. That where we were the other day – at the Tate, no?'

‘It is,' I say. ‘What did you do?' I probe. ‘Last night?'

‘Oh, I send out for that sexy movie in the end. It seem such a waste of a lovely hotel room, to go home. Our suite is so huge, you get lost in there on your own. It make you lonely. No, I felt cosy, so I stay and watch a film, and I masturbate a lot, thinking of you. Then I get a taxi home and go to bed. I hear Paco come in, feel his hand on me, but I can't.' She laughs. ‘Even I have limits,' she says.

I find that hard to believe, but I'm glad she didn't fuck Paco last night. I like to think that I had him to myself, for once.

She's smiling at me in the sunlight, her hair glittering around her like a candyfloss haze, and I wonder if I should feel bad. After all, how could she be upset at Paco fooling around when she is doing exactly the same behind his back, and even with the same person?

‘What are you thinking?' she says, watching me curiously, and I shrug.

‘Nuthin' in my noggin,' I say, and at her raised eyebrows I knock on my head, provide a translation. ‘It's all empty in there.'

She laughs, looks around her. ‘Is it true, what I hear,' she says, ‘that you can swim naked here? Outside, in some ponds?'

I nod. ‘You want to go?' I say.

‘Why not? Sounds like fun.'

I walk her to the heath ponds, explaining to her that the former brick pits are fed by natural springs, which means they get a bit of algae but are generally quite clean. It turns out to be a quiet time of the day, and we strip off and plunge in and float around for a bit, before finding a little corner where we can have a bit of a smooch. After a while, Carlotta reaches for me, starts fingering my pussy, and then I do the same to her and before long we're talking about where we can go for a proper fuck.

Carlotta's all for doing it right here, actually, but I'm a bit worried we may get into trouble. She teases me for being so circumspect, bobs her head down under the water and jabs at my fanny with her tongue, coming up laughing and blowing bubbles and crossing her eyes. I want her so badly, I'm ready to give in, just haul her out onto the bank and have her right there, without a care for who sees us. But then an old lady walks by us, skin hanging off her in baggy folds, tough-looking as a rhino's, and we get out and dress hurriedly and go in search of a private spot.