The Blue Guide (3 page)

We slipped along the southern edge of Hyde Park, past the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial, and then traced a course through various minor streets of Kensington to reach Earl's Court. It's a run-down area of backpackers' hotels and Australian themed bars, and we lingered only long enough to take a look at Kensington Mansions on Trebovir Road, which Roman Polanski had used as the exterior for Catherine Deneuve's flat in his film
Repulsion
in 1965. I didn't need to tell Daniel that the amazing expanding apartment itself was actually a studio set.

We headed back through South Kensington to Thurloe Place, where a number of locations used in the film
have remained remarkably unchanged, including the beauty salon where Deneuve's character Carol works, still a hairdresser and beauty therapist's, the Hoop & Toy pub, and Dino's Italian café, where we went and ordered fish and chips in homage to the scene where Carol eats with her would-be boyfriend. When the waitress jotted down what we wanted, Dan asked her a few questions and was touchingly pleased to find out that the French actress also used to come here to eat during breaks from shooting.

‘Imagine that,' he said dreamily. ‘Catherine Deneuve might have sat at this very table.' I looked at his faraway gaze and realised that even Hollywood producers can be starry-eyed.

As we waited for our food, we chatted about the movie, which I had watched a few nights before in preparation for the tour. Conversely to the Hitchcock film, this deals with a woman murdering men, but the repulsion of the title is not the viewer's so much as Carol's, who, it is insinuated, has been abused and is thus unable to deal with sexual advances by men. The most fascinating thing for him, Dan explained, was how different viewers came to such different conclusions about Carol and her motivations. Most agree that she is sexually repressed because of childhood events, but where many people say that she is entirely sexless, Dan believed that, on the contrary, she is consumed by sexual urges that she just doesn't know how to handle because of her fear of men.

‘Everything points to her being both disgusted and turned on by the same things,' he explained as he lit a cigarette and took a swig of the cheap red wine we'd ordered. I was surprised but strangely pleased to note that he didn't feel he had to spend money to impress me, that he wasn't a snob.

‘Like with the boyfriend's razor and toothbrush, and the vest that she sniffs,' he continued. He leaned in towards me, lowered his voice a little. ‘I'm interested – do you think she masturbates in the movie?'

I cast my mind back, tried to think. ‘Not that it jumped out at me,' I replied. ‘Why, do you?'

‘Almost certainly,' he said. ‘Right after when she walks in on her sister's boyfriend shaving. It's very subtle, very ambiguous. You just see her face, trembling a little, and then her face pucker a bit as if in distaste, and then the camera pans out and she makes a weird movement with her hand and flicks her fingers as if shaking water away, as if trying to wash away her feelings of being dirty. In fact, I think it's implied numerous times throughout the film.'

Huge platefuls of fish and chips arrived and we ate with gusto, continuing to discuss the many layers and ambiguities of the film, and then talking about other Polanski films, from classics such as
Rosemary's Baby
and
The Tenant
to the execrable if diverting
Bitter Moon
and
The Ninth Gate
. When we'd finished the food and the carafe of wine, Dan blew his cheeks out and rolled his eyes.

‘I think I need a few tours round the block,' he said. ‘I'm stuffed.'

I laughed. ‘Me too,' I said. ‘How about a walk in Hyde Park? It's just a couple of minutes away.'

‘Sounds great,' he replied, standing up and pushing his seat back, signalling to the waitress that we needed our bill.

Outside, we crossed the thundering Cromwell Road and walked up past the Natural History Museum and Science Museum I'd visited with so many American teenagers. At the top of Exhibition Road, we entered the park. I was half inclined to take Dan to the Serpentine
Gallery: his talk about films enthralled me and I suspected he might be equally fascinating and insightful when it came to art, especially contemporary art. But he seemed to be enjoying being outdoors, so I let it go and we carried on down to the Serpentine lake at the heart of the park. Although it wasn't yet the summer season, a number of people were out on the water, in paddle boats or rowing boats. Dan looked at me.

‘How about we go for spin?' he said.

I smiled. I'm ashamed to say that in all my years in London, in all my time as a tour guide, I had never yet boated on the Serpentine. How could I refuse?

We crossed to the other side of the lake, to the boathouses, where we paid a small deposit and set out in our craft. Daniel insisted on rowing, peeling off his navy-blue John Smedley sweater to reveal his powerful, lightly tanned arms.

‘Just relax and enjoy yourself,' he said, and I lay back and let the mild late spring air caress me, watching the clouds thread their way across a luminescent sky. This, I said to myself, was bliss.

I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew Daniel was leaning over me, saying something in a soft voice.

‘. . . a bit cold?' was all I made out. I followed his line of vision down to my breasts and saw that my nipples were erect and protruding through my light woollen top. Knowing he was looking at them made them harden still further.

I glanced about us. Daniel had steered us into the bank, and we were parked up beneath the overhanging branches of a willow tree. I gazed up at him, pulled my top up over my head, then reached round to free my breasts from my bra, kicking my shoes off at the same time. He laid his palms on my boobs but didn't take his
eyes from mine. Then he swept his hands down over my belly to my skirt and pants. Lifting up my bum, he pulled them both down until I was naked before him, or almost – all that remained on me were my hold-up stockings, the kind that stay up without the need for suspenders. With one finger he traced the slim neat line of my pubic hair.

I stood up now, and indicated that he should lie down. When he did, I yanked at his trouser flies, then reached inside and closed my hand around his meaty responsive cock. He shut his eyes, rested his head back against the bottom of the boat, lips opening and closing almost imperceptibly as if he were muttering something to himself, or perhaps even praying. Maybe for him, just as there had been for me that morning, there was something almost religious about our fucking.

Pulling his cock out through his zipper, I took it into my mouth, rolled it around for a while then began jabbing at the base of his glans with my tongue while giving his scrotum a good firm squeeze with one hand. He went crazy, twitching and shuddering and letting out a strange low groan from the back of his throat. Beneath him, the boat rocked precariously with his movement, and with my free hand I grabbed instinctively for the side. We both began laughing, and suddenly I felt like a character in a Benny Hill sketch. What the hell were we doing here anyway, when a more than comfortable bed beckoned back at Daniel's suite?

‘What can I do to turn you on?' said Daniel quietly, as if reading my mind, knowing that the mood had got lost a little. ‘What's your favourite fantasy?'

I squirmed a little, suddenly shy in spite of the things we'd been doing to each other's bodies over the past twenty-four hours or so. Sometimes it's harder to talk about sex than it is to just get on with it. And I was
fearful of revealing too much of myself to Daniel emotionally when we had known each other for such a short space of time.

Sensing my reticence, he smiled encouragingly. ‘How about this?' he said, and reaching over he placed one hand on either side of my thigh and drew one of my stockings down over my leg and foot. Holding one end in each hand, he pulled the nylon taut in front of him, looking at me questioningly but, I thought, with tenderness. I knew he didn't want to hurt me. All he wanted was for me to experience new ways of being happy.

I lay back again, rolled over onto my belly and crossed my wrists behind me, looking over my shoulder as he bound me with the wispy stocking – tightly, but not worryingly so. I trusted him implicitly. If, at that moment, he'd have told me he was going to throw me overboard but insisted that I shouldn't worry because he would rescue me, I'd have gone along with him. Focused though I was on what was about to happen to me now, on what and how I was going to feel, his own pleasure was very much in my mind too. Whatever it took to turn this man on, I would do.

My hands were bound now, and I lay there, naked save for the stocking on my leg and at my wrists, tingling with anticipation. It was exquisite torture for me not to be able to bring my hands to my cunt or my tits, to attend to the itch in my groin or the fizz of my nipples. I imagined him leaving me there all night, burning to be touched, with no hope of satisfaction. Would I be mad by morning? Could a person lose their mind this way?

Happily, Dan was still there, and after a few minutes of letting me stew in my own juices, he prised the cheeks of my backside apart and brought his face to me. Licking my sphincter like a dog, he made sure I was
amply lubed. Two fingers were pushed into my arse in an exploratory mission, then three. Over my shoulder I watched him wank himself to maximum stiffness, then, at a point where he deemed both of us ready, he brought the bulb of his cock to my entrance. He let it rest there for a few minutes, and I felt the silky polished skin of his head as it snuffled against my hole like some small burrowing creature. Impatient, I had the overwhelming urge to stretch my arms back behind me so I could hold his hips in place with my hands and force myself back onto him, impale myself. Only I couldn't because of the damned stocking.

‘Oh God,
please
– just fuck me,' I heard myself moan, and I was shocked by the ferocity of my desire. ‘Please Dan, I can't take this.'

Acquiescing at last, he drove into me, slowly but powerfully, one hand clamped on my breast beneath me. My pussy ground against the wood of the boat as we moved back and forth, but not uncomfortably – in fact, the way my clit rubbed against its damp surface, the friction that was generated, soon had me on the verge of climax. I managed to stave it off until I felt Dan was nearing his, and then I closed my eyes and gave myself over to a darkness deeper than night.

We'd fucked ourselves raw, and back at the hotel we wanted nothing more than to share a bath, a plate of pasta and a bed. The doors to the dome room opened invitingly onto the circular table where we had had such an extraordinary encounter the previous night, but even that wasn't enough to lure us in. Propped up against a mountain of squidgy pillows, we lay together, me between Daniel's legs with my back against his chest. He was in his bathrobe, though it wasn't fastened; I was naked, and could feel his balls nestled
against the crack of my bum, the soft hairs of his chest against my back. I felt safe, protected. We found a double bill of old Hitchcock movies on some cable channel and watched them before ordering up more hot chocolate. As I abandoned myself to asleep, I imagined I could still feel the rocking motions of the boat as we laying holding each other, our orgasms subsiding, lulling me.

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT
I stayed at home, recuperating from my two days of excess with Daniel over an Indian takeaway, a bottle of Kingfisher beer and a rental DVD of
Alfie
– the original with Michael Caine, not the inferior remake with Jude Law. Daniel had been in meetings all morning but I was scheduled to show him some of the key locations of the film the next day, including 22 St Stephen's Gardens near Notting Hill, site of Alfie's grimy bedsit. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to seeing him again.

It wasn't to be. The morning after, while I was still in bed, my phone rang.

‘Ally, I'm sorry about this,' Daniel began, and as I heard him exhale a mouthful of cigarette smoke I imagined his soft, hot breath against my neck as our naked bodies slid against one another. The thought made me swoon back against my pillow. I sat bolt upright again when I heard what he had to say next.

‘I've been called back to LA at short notice,' he explained. ‘There are some major post-production problems on a movie I'm involved with. But keep all your notes, yes? We'll do the tours some other time, when I next come to town. Your research wasn't in vain. And I'll still pay for the time I booked, obviously.'

I opened my mouth but the words didn't come, and I was suddenly made brutally aware of how exposed my emotions had left me. I wasn't at all sure, from the way Daniel was speaking, that our affair, or whatever you
wanted to call it, had touched him on the same level. I determined to hide my disappointment.

‘No problem,' I said coolly. ‘These things happen. It's no big deal.'

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then Daniel said quietly, ‘Well thanks for everything, Ally. I have to dash for the airport now, but I'll be in touch.'

‘Bon voyage.'

It was hard, when he'd gone, getting back into the swing of things. After the fascinating tours and conversations we'd had about them, and Daniel's charisma and the amazing nights we'd spent together, my normal guide work and everyday routines seemed impossibly humdrum. Normally so perky and full of interest in life and the latest happenings in London, I found it difficult even to get out of bed in the morning, never mind leave the flat. For a while I just wasn't myself; it was as if I'd found a reason for living and then lost it rightaway. That might sound overdramatic, but my feeling of ‘coming home', of having found the missing piece in my life, was so strong, it was truly gutting to have had it snatched away from me.

After an initial few weeks of waiting for a phone call or an email, of trying to persuade myself that he wasn't a bastard or a user, that he'd felt the same way as me, I began to face reality – that I would never see him again, despite what he'd said. He was a busy man with a jetset existence and by the following week had probably forgotten our little encounter, was probably humping some Hollywood bimbo. So I gritted my teeth and resolved to just get on with my life and ride out the sense of deflation; I'd wear a false smile in public and then come home and wallow over the gin bottle. I'd get over it eventually. I had to. I also told myself to
forget about any kind of emotional involvement with my clients in the future: from now on, things were to be kept on a purely professional level.