The Blue Guide (24 page)

I couldn't hold out a moment longer. Taking him by the shoulders, I shunted him round and pushed him down on the bed, then climbed on top, slotting myself down over his dick. Then I leant down to kiss him, hair trailing down onto his face as my lips sought his, breasts crushing against the mohair of his chest. His hands on my buttocks, Eric guided me on and off him, helping me to gain a position and a motion that had us both bordering on orgasm within moments.

‘
Attends
,' I whispered urgently. ‘
C'est la première fois
. First time. Go slow.
Doucement
.'

He eased me up off him, rolled me over and brought his face down to my cunt, where he slurped at me, making satisfied little noises like a cat awarded its ration of cream. I giggled uncontrollably, confused by the simultaneous urge to throw him off me and to pull his face tighter into me, to mash my pussy against his jaw. His tongue flicked in and out of my hole, and his stubble grated, not altogether unpleasantly, at the plump skin surrounding my arsehole. I could see his hand busy between his legs, keeping himself primed
for me. Gripping his upper arms, I pulled him up towards me again and he dipped back inside me.

This time there was no way of holding things back, of putting on the brakes. Our bodies met like old friends, and he went deep inside me, then, though I thought it couldn't happen, deeper still, until I felt so full, so complete, I knew that I would always be seeking to find this feeling again, wherever I went, whoever I became. My clitoris, lost inside the soft pile of Eric's pubic hair, was kneaded by his weight. Complemented by his movements inside me, it had me snatching for breath as wave after wave built up, crashed down, retreated and then came back to bowl me down.

Eric held on, fought valiantly, and my contractions were ebbing away when his own climax bore down on him, and he pulled away from me and gripped his dick in his fist as his white jelly rained down on me.

By the time we got downstairs, the others were gone; a note on the wooden table informed us they had returned for a swim. We climbed on the bike and set out for the lake, and as darkness stole over us we all sat by the water smoking and talking. Others arrived, and soon there was a large gang of us. Among the newcomers, I soon realised, was Natalie. I moved away from Eric, located Aude and sat down beside her.

‘How did it go?' she whispered.

I smiled at her. ‘Natalie's here,' I said.

‘Don't panic,' she said. ‘Nobody's going to say anything, I promise you. So, how was it?'

I leaned in towards her. ‘Amazing,' I breathed. ‘It was amazing. I feel – I don't know how to describe it. Life will never be the same again.'

‘I'm so happy for you,' said Aude, pulling her sweater up over her head. ‘Look,' she pointed.

I followed her gesture, saw figures moving into the water, naked flesh glowly faintly in the light of the crescent moon.

‘You coming?' she said.

I stripped off, followed her into the lake. The skinny-dipping bug took hold quickly and before long there were twenty or so of us floating around in the water.

I don't know how much time had passed when Eric appeared beside me, the water level at his chest where it reached my shoulders. Looking around anxiously, unable to see Natalie anywhere nearby, I knew this was my last chance – I was flying home the following evening. I put my arms around Eric's neck, encircled his waist tightly with my legs and kissed him, feeling my hardening nipples press against his chest. I felt so grateful for what he had given me that afternoon, I would have done anything for him at that moment.

His tongue wrestling mine, plunging far inside my mouth, he slipped one hand around my buttock, supporting my weight with the other, and shot one finger up inside my cunt. Finding me wet and ready for him, he took it out and, prising my bum cheeks apart, entered me with an almost bestial grunt of pleasure. I looked around to see if the others had heard, but the light had died and I could see no one save a few stragglers on the shore, and even them I could only make out by the orange flare of their cigarettes. But even had Natalie been standing there watching us, even if she'd been striding out into the lake to tear us apart from each other, I don't think I'd have been able to stop. I was so far gone, not taking this all the way was not an option.

I turned back to Eric, started to eat at his face again.

‘
Je t'adore
,' I said when I pulled away, and in that moment I really meant it. His fingers tightening on my
arse, driving into my flesh, Eric responded by pushing himself even harder into me, burying his face in my tits. When he sensed the dam ready to burst in me, he walked me back and laid me on the shore, where he rode me as I spasmed violently beneath him, tears rolling down my face. Then he kissed me long and hard, into the night. It was, we both knew, our farewell kiss.

So it wasn't bad, for a first time. In fact, it was pretty damn wonderful. But I left France, and I left Eric, without any real regrets. Like Aude had said, we were young adults, on the threshold of new lives that would take us far away, in directions and to places we couldn't predict. It had been brewing up between us for several years, and the air had finally been cleared by one almighty storm that neither of us would ever forget. That was worth a lot.

Back in Brighton, I was a different person – a woman, I thought, at last. I walked differently, I talked differently. I cut my long straight hair, and I took down my old pop posters. The old Alicia was gone, and an enormous sense of freedom and potential washed over me. A new life was beckoning – a life in which the potential for pleasure was only limited by my imagination.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
Mum brings me breakfast in bed after coming home from her shift, and I lie in until lunchtime, taking the train back to London in the early afternoon. On the way I decide that I do need to get away, and soon. But I know that if I leave without confirming my suspicions, without finding out what has really been going on with Paco and Carlotta and how much they know of each others' activities with me, I'll always be wondering if I overreacted, if I misjudged them. There are things I need to do before I head off into the sunset.

I call Jess, and after I've listened to her remonstrations about not having returned so many of her calls, manage to sweet talk her into meeting me for a drink at the Moroccan bar. Within an hour she's there, smoking like fury, gesticulating with her arms as she tells me about her new conquest.

‘His dick was like this,' she says, bending her arm at the elbow and drawing her finger the whole length of her forearm.

I laugh. ‘And just as thick, no doubt.'

‘No kidding, Al – I could hardly walk the next day.'

‘So what happened after that first night?'

She leans in to me over the table, a wild look in her eyes. ‘I picked him up after work the following evening,' she said, ‘and we drove out of town.'

‘Where did you go?' I imagine Jess in her red convertible, whipping along at some fantastical speed, auburn
hair flying out behind her like flames, the gorgeous barman beside her, one hand on her thigh, the other on his cock.

‘Out into the sticks,' she said. ‘Who knows? It doesn't matter. It was dark, and we got into the back seat and he went down on me and I was wailing like a banshee with no one around to hear me, just the owls.'

She takes a long drink, readjusts herself a little in her seat, which I take to be a sign that she's getting just a little bit moist down below. She grins.

‘I let him drive home,' she says. ‘And we hit London at 100 miles an hour. I straddled him all the way along the Westway. He came just as we reached the Marylebone flyover, struggling to keep hold of the wheel. I thought we were going to take off, go out in a blaze of glory.'

They were an item now, she told me, and she was blissfully happy. She thought she'd been fucked in her time, but she creamed her pants just thinking about this guy and what he was going to do with her at the end of each day. She couldn't concentrate on her work, could barely eat. She was even thinking it might be love.

At the dreaded L word, we both grow silent, pensive, until at last Jess looks up at me through her fringe, all serious now, and says:

‘So you're still sleeping with Paco, I guess. That's why you've not been in touch, isn't it?'

I feel myself slump down in my seat. ‘It's a fuck of a lot more complicated than that,' I tell her, and she raises her eyebrows, leans back and lights a cigarette, and just listens, as real friends do, while I unravel the whole sorry tale.

‘You and your appetites,' she says at one point. ‘You're always letting them get you into trouble. It's
like . . . I don't know. It's like you have to have the danger to get you going. It's like your little drug.'

‘That's not true,' I protest. Sure, it was most likely true of Eric, it's true of Paco and Carlotta, and of a whole lot of people in between. But it wasn't true of Daniel. Perhaps that's why meeting him was such a revelation for me, why the comedown was so bloody hard.

I carry on with my story, and at the end of it all, when I get to the discovery of the photographs of me in the bedside drawer, Jess lets out a low whistle between her teeth.

‘Jeez, Ally,' she says. ‘Moving swiftly over the shock revelation that you've been batting for the other side, I don't think it takes a genius to see that these guys seem to be really playing you for all you're worth.'

‘I know that,' I say, suddenly awash with self-pity and a feeling of helplessness. ‘But what the hell do I do to prove it?'

We sit thinking for a minute, and then suddenly Jess is grinning madly.

‘You hide in their room,' she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. ‘You find a time when you know they're going to be there together, and you wait and see what happens.'

‘But I won't be able to understand them. They speak in Spanish.'

‘Yes, that's a bummer. But I'll bet my bottom dollar you'll see or hear something very enlightening with regard to your predicament.'

‘And how do you propose I go about getting in there and hiding without either of them knowing?'

Jess taps the side of her nose. ‘You just leave the finer details to me,' she says with a wink.

The plan goes into action back at my flat, over a nightcap. Jess has me call Carlotta and apologise again for my sudden departure from the hotel and subsequent disappearing act.

‘Somebody had sent me an urgent email about flight changes, and I had to get back to the flat,' I say coolly, with Jess nodding approvingly. Suddenly, with her by my side, I feel brave, able to cope with all this. ‘Then my mum called about some problems with my brother and I had to rush down there.'

‘No problem, baby,' says Carlotta. ‘I just glad you back.' Her voice has an undertone to it, and I wonder if she didn't take advantage of my disappearance from the hotel to find the woman from the sauna, to attend to her own unfinished business. Not that I care anymore. She can screw whosoever she wants. I'm out of it.

‘You want to do something tomorrow?' I go on. ‘What are your plans?'

‘Well, Paco isn't performing, so we thought after he get back from some meetings late afternoon we chill at the hotel, order room service and a movie. We not spent any proper time together lately.'

I seize the opportunity. ‘Well, how say we go to the British Museum, take in some culture?' I say. It's a inspired plan because her hotel is between the museum and my house, and I should easily be able to think of an excuse to come up to her room for a few minutes on the way home. Then Jess can find some way of distracting her while I stake out a hiding place.

‘Cool,' says Carlotta. ‘I book some beauty treatments in the morning, so how about you pick me up around lunchtime – one o'clock?'

‘Fine, see you then.'

I put down the receiver and Jess proffers me a cigarette. ‘Attagirl,' she says.

We start with strawberry tarts at the restaurant in the Great Court of the museum, where I confess to Carlotta that I'm utterly bamboozled by where to begin, the place is just so huge. She's seen enough paintings of late, she says, even for an aspiring artist, so in the end we agree to join one of the Eyeopener tours, the one about the classical world, about which we both confess to know little.

As we're talking, I sit and look at her, with her fake blonde hair streaming down over her fake-tanned shoulders, taking little bites of her strawberry tart with her cosmetically whitened teeth. She stands out like a sore thumb here, in her black leather mini skirt and white and orange striped low-cut top, in her seamed stockings and silver ankle boots. The queen of trash in this great storehouse of culture. And yet in spite of everything, I ache for her. She exudes sex from every pore.

And then there's the fact that beneath this brashy exterior is a brilliant artist and a sensitive soul with a profound knowledge and understanding of art. I feel that if only I could talk to her properly, tell her what I've seen of her work, tell her that Paco really isn't worthy of her, then maybe she could break free of this siren's role she has created for herself, and that has become her prison. But that would be overstepping the mark. Besides, it's not my responsibility if she wants to squander her life. If her art meant that much to her, she'd fight him for it. She must know, deep down, how good she is.

It's time for the tour, and we spend fifty minutes
following a guide around some of the greatest treasures of the classical world. Carlotta hangs on his every word, studies each piece we are shown with great intensity, as if she's trying to commit every aspect of it to memory. I find myself wishing I could read her mind. Then I might really know this frustrating, enigmatic, contradictory creature.