The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2) (36 page)

The madness is infecting everyone. The Weinmeyers’ trick is fairly simple, but has to be flawlessly stage-managed. Stir willing guests, potent wine, glittering costumes, beautiful lights and rousing soundtrack together to produce an atmosphere of wonderful abandon. And right on cue the music shifts with a great swooping crescendo from the fast waltzes and polkas into what I can only describe as an almost tribal dervish dance, complete with the thumping of a drum to replicate an increasing heartbeat.

It is so loud in this contained jewel-box of a ballroom that people have abandoned any attempt at polite conversation and are starting to sing and whoop along with the wailing strings and hooting trumpets.

Without being able to view this through my camera, and with my mask partly obscuring everything, I can’t focus on the figures cavorting around me, and I am still as safely anonymous as they are. My mask only covers my eyes, but my face is painted chalk-white, which obliterates any real expression or individuality. My lips are dark red, and Crystal has daubed a large black beauty spot on my cheek. I am the same as everyone else except for one thing. I’m the only person dressed in this sensational emerald green and I want to kiss the kaftan lady for kitting me out in the perfect costume.

I could be anyone. The lady in green. That realisation makes me exhilarated, and high. It’s exactly what I need after everything that’s been happening. The thoughts are only half formed, the faces of Gustav and Pierre faint and flickering in the distance, but the feeling inside me, here and now, is real. I’m free, and flying. For the next few minutes I’m free from everybody and everything. I’m part of this great big messy scenario and that’s exactly the way I want it.

I fling myself backwards out of the circle I’m in and rush back to the side of the room. My hands are shaking when I get my camera out again. I glance around to see if Mr and Mrs Weinmeyer are observing me. I want to show them I’m getting this right. I need to make this a sensational record, just like any other job.

My viewfinder is showing me Act 2. The scene, although in the same setting and inhabited by the same figures, is totally different from my initial shots. Guests are no longer sedate, artificial figures stepping through the traditional dances. Now the increasingly mad music has injected them with a hypersexual serum. I’m not zooming in on smiles and delicate waves of fans and fingers. I’m seeing mouths open wide in laughter, arms spread wide, feet kicking wildly, skirts raised, coats flung sideways, shirts and breeches clinging with sweat to thin, fat, muscular, flabby bodies.

And now it’s happening to me, too. I keep my eyes on my screen and film for as long as possible, so I can’t see clearly what’s happening around me, but as I’m dragged back into the fray there is no doubting the touching, the gloved paws starting to reach out for me as I am spun round and round. Despite waving my camera at people to warn them off, there’s no stopping the velvet fingers poking under my dress, plucking at the bloomers that the lady in the shop admitted were not made of authentic linen but of a flimsy muslin designed for easy access.

Through my mask I can see that the women are being flung about like tasty morsels at an anarchic picnic. Some of them when they land on the floor lift their gowns coquettishly, offering a glimpse of what’s beneath, and sashay within an ogling circle of men and other women. I am sweating now, too. A new impatience goads me. I’m wondering how soon before something really outrageous happens, just as the Weinmeyers promised.

People spread their arms, toss their heads with unholy laughter as they offer themselves to be grabbed and fondled. I film the increasingly daring antics, dresses being pulled down, gloves grappling at crotches, but always, always the masks in place.

But then someone grabs my arms from behind, making my camera fall out of my hands to dangle on its strap, and in front of me a man in a blackbird mask, which jerks and pecks like a magpie, waggles his white gloved magician’s hands then scoops one of my breasts out of my bodice and squeezes it.

I can hear my own squeal of shock, but nobody else can. I’m powerless to pull away or kick him off. This is probably what the Weinmeyers meant by me enjoying myself as well as working. Except the original plan was for Gustav to be here with me.

The arms behind are holding me like a vice, and gradually a kind of melting helplessness overwhelms me. I wrestle with anxiety that I will lose my camera and a shameful sense of pleasure at the feel of these random, anonymous hands feeling and squeezing my body at will. There’s probably a mischievous attempt to stop the camera woman working, or perhaps it’s my unique green costume, my sparkling sequins, my huge plume of peacock feathers waving from my
fontange
headdress, that attract them, because others suddenly start to elbow the magician out of the way in a feeding frenzy. Someone hoists the other breast out, holding both treats for inspection, and pinching the red nipples I secretly painted with lipstick when Crystal was out of the room.

Just as suddenly I’m flung aside, and I stagger against the wall, every part of me tingling and urging me to get back in there, forget the filming, just have more of those fingers on me.

But on the other side of the room things have degenerated even further. I can see a woman in a white dress trimmed with gold lace, her expressionless gold mask covering her eyes and nose, her yellow ringletted hair falling over her bared shoulders as she is stretched out between two men dressed in striped cat costumes. One is thrusting his face into her cleavage and drawing out one nipple between very sharp teeth.

I zoom in close so that I can see the nipple reddening as he bites it. Meanwhile the other cat man is lifting up her long skirt and crawling between her legs, pulling down her bloomers, tossing them with an exaggerated flourish into the applauding crowd, and oh, God, a third man, also dressed as a cat but in such a black costume that I can’t even see the glitter of his eyes or the wetness of his mouth, has approached and very calmly unzips his black leggings and lowers himself over the woman’s face, prises open her big, laughing mouth, and pushes himself into it so that she is forced to suck him while the others poke and prod and bite. She arches her big, artificially firm breasts at them as if feeding kittens, and she wriggles and writhes with obvious pleasure.

As I raise my camera to take a shot of the trio, the lady turns her head, still sucking, directly towards me as if she’s deliberately posing for me.

I’m not being held now, and I spin of my own accord, stumble here and there, my cloak occasionally wrapping itself round my legs to trip me. Even the king and queen on their thrones are being kissed and groped by a bevy of white-robed courtiers.

My whole body is burning and fizzing with filthy excitement, nerves and senses on high alert in the midst of this Roman-style orgy. I am a mass of sensation, vision and sound. There’s not a single rational thought or word finding its way through my brain. I needed this obliteration. Badly.

I am dizzy with the drink, horny as hell, high on the intoxicating atmosphere. I want whatever’s going, whatever anyone can give me. The drug or whatever was in that punch has dragged me up to an unbearable pitch of arousal, and I find myself in the centre of the room, spreading open my arms and legs wide to say
come and get me.

More hands smother me as I dance. A man covered in blue and yellow feathers and with an orange crest like a parakeet lifts my skirt and squeezes my buttocks. His fingers scrabble at me. I jerk with delighted shock and curl my leg round his to keep hold of him and maintain my balance, but then he vanishes and another figure in a flashing top hat like a magician spins me and rocks me from behind, pushing his erection into the bustle of my dress and bundling my breasts into his hands.

The crowd starts to whoop and clap, even sing. Hard bodies push against me, encased in velvet and Lycra and leather. I’m aching with excitement now, electricity darting all over my body.

‘
La putana inglese!
’

Or at least that’s what I think I hear in the brouhaha. Then the emperor Weinmeyer appears, all in white, stalking stiffly, holding out his arms to me. I hold my arms out to him. Suddenly I want someone to claim me. I like the fact that he and Mrs Weinmeyer are the only people in this room who have a clue who I am, and even then they only know me because I’m the lady with the green earrings wielding the camera.

As the white and gold statue reaches me, he bows briefly then turns me so that I’m wedged up against his white costume and something thick and hard nudges at my bottom. My breasts are still tumbling out and my knees start to buckle as Mr Weinmeyer’s gloved hand fans out on my stomach to bend me so that he can raise my skirt and push at me more easily. I know it’s him, because through his gloves I can feel the dig of his signet ring. So let him do what he wants. He’s the boss, after all.

All around us, featureless revellers elbow each other and gesticulate, unable to speak in the now deafening music. All pretence of period chivalry has vanished. The people around us start to clap as our host lifts my skirt higher for all to see.

Everyone is in a state of insanity. Those who aren’t watching are doing it themselves. On the dais I can see Mrs Weinmeyer in her white flowing gown, lying on her back, one slim leg hooked round the arm of her throne as a man in clinging snakeskin swipes his narrow pelvis at her.

The sight of her, of all the others enjoying this orgy, the escapism, the madness, suddenly blinds me like a flash of lightning and I pull away from Mr Weinmeyer. I stagger away from him. Before I pick up my camera I need to cover myself. My bodice feels tighter than ever, making it difficult to breathe now. As I try to stuff my breasts into some kind of order they push and squeeze, only half encased, ready to bounce out again. I flick my fan at Mr Weinmeyer and give a deep curtsy as if letting him have his fondle and then teasing him like this was all part of the pretence. Even in my tripped-out state I know I mustn’t anger him.

What did he call me?
Putana
. That means ‘slut’ or ‘whore’, if I’m not mistaken. Well, that means I’m playing my role perfectly. But still I have to work.

To my relief Mr Weinmeyer sweeps a low bow in return, and hands me over to a newcomer who I realise has been hovering on the edge of the circle as if biding his time. All the costumes are padded to exaggerate people’s contours, so that women’s breasts and hips look huge, men’s shoulders and groins are massive. This new participant wears a tricorn hat which casts a deep triangular shadow over his fully masked face, a glorious green velvet coat and tight-fitting breeches and a white ruffled shirt. His muscular calves are encased in green stockings and he’s wearing traditional black buckled shoes.

Topping the ensemble of the newcomer is a single long, petrol-blue peacock-tail feather, complete with the round, staring evil eye, the same as the five feathers Crystal has pinned into my powdered headdress.

We are a perfect match.

My suitor sweeps me into a sedate, swan-necked waltz, spinning me so fast that the lights and the watching faces become a nauseous blur. Everyone falls away as if they, too, know who he is. Mr Weinmeyer knew. He’s handed me over. I belong to the newcomer because he’s the only person dressed in the same emerald green as me. He’s my soul mate, come all the way from New York to find me.

With a relief unlike anything I have ever felt, I realise that it is Gustav. I press up against his firm, warm body, feel the hardness already nudging inside his breeches. I wish I could rip his costume off right here. I want to yank off the full-face mask to see that hidden mouth, biting down to hide the waiting smile. His hands, one on my waist, the other guiding my hand through the dance, are holding me like he never wants to let me go.

I keep my eyes on him to anchor me through the endless spinning.

‘Gustav! Oh, God, this is brilliant! You came after me! Come on, let’s get the hell out of this madhouse! The Weinmeyers will understand.’

Gustav pauses in the middle of the dance, holding my hand up above my head as I spin beneath his finger. But he doesn’t speak. A mask can’t emote, but a body can, and there’s something alert and watchful in his body language. Did he hear me? Is he considering his answer? Is he still angry at what passed between us, or relieved that he’s found me? Does he want to kiss me or yell at me? Is that a slight tilt of his head in a yes? Or is that sharp shake, making the peacock feather jump over his hat, to indicate a no?

‘You look so gorgeous in that green costume. You’re even wearing a peacock feather like mine!’

I raise my hand to touch the feather, lower it to pull off his mask, but he snatches my hands and keeps them trapped inside his highwayman’s gloves.

He pulls me close up against him, so close that the big gold buttons on his coat dig into the fleshy tops of my breasts where they bulge out of my overworked bodice. Has he just arrived, or has he seen everything that’s been going on? The people groping me? Mr Weinmeyer trying to take me from behind? Gustav’s hard-on, packed inside his breeches, barges against my stomach. Well, whatever he’s seen has turned him on. My body quivers in delirious response.

I stand on tiptoe, start to yell his name again. But he still doesn’t speak. I must have broken some kind of ballroom etiquette calling his name. I wish I could wrench our masks off and get out of here, but he’s following the anonymous code to the letter, because abruptly he kicks his shoes together at the heel and lifts his hand in farewell. As he backs away through the frenzied crowd I try to push my way after him but I am grabbed by someone to stop me.

I punch out and realise that it’s the woman in white who was being ravaged by the two men earlier. Her yellow wig has slipped slightly to reveal a raven curl in front of her small, neat ear, slightly pricked. I’m seeing things now. Did he also spot the similarity? Has the sight of a Margot lookalike spooked Gustav and chased him away? Or is he playing some other cruel game?

I run round the room looking for him. He’s not there, but he can’t have gone far because there don’t appear to be any doors into or out of this room. Perhaps he’s escaped another way. I push through one of the tall open windows and hang over the balustrade draped with flags and heralds, searching up and down the quayside below. I lift my mask to see better. But there’s no sign. No emerald-green coat or peacock feather.