The Pleasure Quartet (5 page)

‘We’d like you to take over. Give the place a kick in the ass. Bring it into the current century. You’d have carte blanche. Interested?’

The company were about to give the London boss his marching orders this afternoon, coinciding with the office closing in the UK to avoid complications. Lawyers were already in place to do the dirty work and avoid too much of a mess. They wanted Noah to be in place within a week.

He had no hesitation in accepting.

It wasn’t just the job and the opportunities it offered. The posting would be open-ended and, naturally, dependent on him making a success of it, but it would provide an escape from New York and the unease he was now in the grip of.

Noah and April met up at the restaurant.

She’d been back to their apartment to change first and wore a little black dress and another pair of perilous heels, her long, elegant legs uncovered from mid thigh, taut, agile, a picture of sleek sexual remoteness. He’d stayed on late at the office, already planning the London trip, and came directly from there.

They ordered.

The cuisine was inspired by New Orleans. He had the andouillette gumbo, followed by half a dozen oysters and a small lobster salad, and April went for the shrimp remoulade and a duck jambalaya.

He watched her eating, admiring the delicacy with which she chewed her food, and imagined, remembered those lips so often tasting his cock and the barely there traces of red blush that often spread across her cheeks as she did so, as she realised time and again that she enjoyed it but was also a touch ashamed of her lurid actions. Once he had loved that dichotomy. It had moved him, excited him.

Coffee came.

‘I’m going to London.’

‘How long for?’

‘For good. I’ve been asked to run the London office of the label.’

There was a strange look on her face. It was neither excitement nor disappointment. Almost one of relief. Noah was about to ask April if she would be willing to leave her job and follow him to London, even though he was fearful of the answer she would give him.

She lowered her eyes, set her coffee cup down, took a deep breath.

‘I won’t be coming with you,’ she said, in a low voice, as if whispering.

‘I see.’

‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

And there he was, thinking he would have to say the words. Because he knew it was him. Because of him.

2

On the Beach

The rain falls differently here. Not the constant drizzle of a New Zealand spring, or the umbrella-defeating sideways spray of a British winter, but in great sheets that erupt so swiftly from the heavens that droplets bounce up from the steaming tarmac and soak my knees in the same instant that I am drenched from above.

I sprinted the last two blocks to Zaza, the café near the seafront in Ipanema where I was scheduled to meet Aurelia for a late lunch. My sandals slapped against the footpath, flicking more rain up my calves with each step. My white short-shorts bunched up uncomfortably between my thighs, perilously close to exposing the lace hem of my underwear. I felt infinitely thankful that, for once, I was wearing a proper bra beneath my singlet, and not one of the drawerful of flimsy bikini tops that I had accumulated since my arrival in Rio de Janeiro six months ago.

On my right, a wide expanse of sand stretched for miles, all the way from Leblon, where my apartment was situated, close to the famed Copacabana. Those beachgoers who hadn’t already sought shelter in the neighbouring bars and restaurants were hurriedly gathering up umbrellas, deckchairs and sports equipment, and shaking out brightly coloured towels that formed streamers of blue, green, yellow and red against the darkening sky. Tropical storms were so full of life, clouds brewing mighty occult movements with an underlying magic that always delighted me.

On my left, tourists hurried into hotel lobbies, pink-skinned and paunchy alongside the chiselled perfection of local beach bodies. The plastic tables they previously occupied now stood abandoned outside, cigarette stubs still glowing in ashtrays. A fat man dressed in a pair of black and white horizontally striped jocks held the hand of his kaftan-covered wife and stared at two young brunette women strolling ahead of him, their unfeasibly firm and round buttocks delineated by the thin straps of their thong bikini bottoms. The girls sipped from respective cans of diet guarana soda and walked slowly along, indifferent to the rain. Their tanning lotion mixed with the water beating over their skin and pooled into shining pearls that ran in rivulets over their curves.

I kept running. Another block, and the hotels and cafés drifted further apart; isolated islands of commerce separating high-rise apartment buildings sheltered behind security gates, their plain exterior shells painted in bland hues of cream and grey giving little indication of the wealth that lay within the homes of Rio’s richest residents, anonymous despite the enormous sheets of glass that offered broad views over the ocean but sat too high up to allow outsiders a glimpse in.

Raoul, who worked behind the counter of the juice bar on the corner of Rua Garcia d’Avila and Avenida Viera Souto, called out after me as I passed.

‘Olá bonita! Did I scare you away?’

I turned my head towards him and smiled instinctively in response to the sound of his voice. He was broad-shouldered, shirtless and ripped. He wore his dark hair long, and it shone as though he had laboriously blow-waved and straightened it. His front teeth were a little crooked, a flaw that did not discourage him from grinning widely when I stopped by most mornings to order a maracujá juice or suco de caju, for the first time in my life breaking my perennial daily caffeine habit.

‘Come see me later,’ he cried out, and began to laugh, secure in the knowledge I was unlikely to do so.

I had never even seriously thought of having sex with Raoul. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him outside of our morning commercial banter. But the undercurrent was always there; his questioning look when he stared at me, shoulders back, spine straight, flicking back the hair that fell over his face without breaking eye contact as I stuttered my order in halting Portuguese, made me think that he sensed it too. There was a natural sense of physical chemistry between us, and if I had felt at liberty to behave like an animal, devoid of any inward sense of morality or social pressure, I would have met his questioning gaze with action and stepped around the chest-high, red laminate booth that separated us, bent over it and encouraged him to fuck me from behind. But I was too frozen by the constraints of public expectation to do anything more than admire his firm arse as he turned away from me to prepare my fruit juice in the giant silver blender that sat like a sleek behemoth on the opposite counter.

Two men leaning against the counter, sipping from tall, lime-green-coloured takeaway cups, turned and looked at me. One of them wolf-whistled.

I turned left up Rua Joana Angélica and the rain came to a halt. I was already too wet to bother avoiding the puddles that had gathered on the pavement so just traipsed through them until I reached the restaurant perched two steps up from the pavement at the far corner, its bright blue and white exterior a tropical blot on the otherwise bland street. A waiter dressed in a white shirt with a black waistcoat over the top was hastily rearranging a stack of yellow, pink and orange cushions on the low picnic seat that lined the verandah out front, while patrons standing and huddling under umbrellas stood wrapped in a babble of conversation while they waited for a table to become free.

Aurelia spotted me and waved. She was standing on the front deck outside the main doors, waiting for the tables that had been pushed towards the wall during the rainstorm to be returned to their usual places. Her short-sleeved shirtdress was typically modest, the collar buttoned almost all the way up to the base of her neck, partially concealing the living labyrinth of her tattoos, the sheer, flowing, sky-blue fabric falling to just above her knees, several inches longer than the Rio average. In stark contrast to me, she was a woman of few curves and the boxy shape of her outfit hid her small breasts and waist entirely. If it were not for a sweep of bright red, glossy lipstick covering her full mouth, and a pair of high platform cork wedges, she would have looked quite androgynous. Her pale blonde hair was pulled into a messy knot on the top of her head, besides a few loose strands that framed her face.

Every person who passed her as they entered or departed the restaurant either openly stared or surreptitiously glanced at Aurelia. She refrained from making eye contact with any of them, and appeared quite unaware of the attention she received. It could have been her natural blonde hair, which was rare in Rio, her many tattoos, her height, or her particular brand of beauty which seemed even cooler and more distant than usual in this sultry city. She had the poise of an ice statue, all cool chiselled perfection and reserve in stark contrast with the tanned beach bodies clad in sheer bright chiffon mini-dresses or tight vest tops and short-shorts that populated the city.

The hostess hovering over her voluminous reservation book on its wooden podium caught my eye and I paused before I approached her, running my fingers through my hair in a futile attempt to break up the damp strands that I could feel sticking together like dreadlocks on my head. She smiled at me broadly. She was young and tiny, her pocket-sized frame balanced precariously on pincer-sharp heeled ankle boots. Her shorts were wide cut, black with grey pin stripes and cropped at the very tops of her thighs. Her breasts loomed uncomfortably large for her small frame and were held high with a push-up bra, its rich purple-blue tone clearly visible through the pastel peach blouse she wore over it. When she leaned forward to check my name in the book, the fabric fell open, revealing the firm mounds of her bosom almost all the way to her nipples. She peered at me again.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I got caught in the rain. I’m with Aurelia. Aurelia Carter. Over there.’ I nodded in Aurelia’s direction.

‘No problem,’ she replied. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

‘Summer,’ Aurelia called out, stepping past the hostess and kissing me lightly on each cheek. ‘So good to see you.’

‘And you.’

She was bone dry. Regally impervious to the elements.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said, although a quick glance at the Dali-style melting clock on the far interior wall indicated that I was exactly on time.

Aurelia bent down, picked up a cream duffel bag and handed it to me. Her dress rode up her thigh as she did so and revealed the tail and body of a peacock, rendered stylistically in deep indigo and green tones across her flesh. It didn’t look new, and yet I was sure that the last time I saw her, she had displayed the body of a whale etched in plain black on that particular part of her leg. The landscape of her skin seemingly ebbed and flowed with the seasons and her moods, just another of Aurelia’s many mysteries. Merely a trick of the light, she claimed. I no longer believed her insistence that the intricate map which I knew was etched into every inch of her flesh, including her most intimate parts, was mere illusion. I had resigned myself to the existence of magic since I had been in Aurelia’s employ.

‘I was sunbathing before the rain started – there’s a few spare dry things in there. If you want to change?’

The hostess straightened her posture, an action that I felt certain was directed at me.

‘Oh, thank you.’ I took the bag and headed towards the restrooms, weaving my way through the tables to get there, careful not to bump into anyone in my bedraggled state.

I stepped into one of the cubicles, peeled off my wet clothes and scrubbed the water from my skin with Aurelia’s beach towel, which was clean and dry, and not littered with so much as a speck of sand. Her bag contained a high-waisted, fire-engine-red bikini bottom and matching top, both designed to cover the wearer’s parts in full, totally unlike the Brazilian string-style that was ever in fashion around here. I disregarded the bikini, presuming that it would be too small for my more pronounced curves, and instead pulled on a loose white long-sleeved sun-dress. The baroque framed mirror above the sink indicated that it did absolutely nothing for my figure, but at least it wasn’t see-through, so while my shape might make onlookers guess that I was not wearing anything underneath, my breasts weren’t actually visible through the thin material. God only knew that I was not shy with my body and had lost count of how many had seen it in all its glory or otherwise, but sometimes discretion was the better part of valour.

I dug through the duffel bag’s pockets and located a small toiletry bag with a comb inside, next to an old paperback romance novel. A woman wearing a tight corset and full skirt adorned the front cover. I flicked through the pages, stalling for time. It was the most unlikely book for Aurelia to carry. I just didn’t think of her as a die-hard romantic somehow.

We’d had this meeting planned for weeks, and yet I still wasn’t sure what I was going to say to her.

I was confident that she was going to ask me to continue working with the Network, the organisation that I had been ultimately employed by for the past two years. Initially in New Orleans, running The Place, an upmarket erotic dance bar, and more recently here in Brazil, organising the latest Ball, an erotic, circus-style festival of the senses behind which Aurelia pulled the strings with almost supernatural intuition.

In many respects, my gig with the Network was a dream job, and working behind the scenes rather than on the stage meant that I didn’t need to bare my body or even engage in any of the sex acts that most of the guests came to watch or enjoy if I wasn’t in the mood for it. Instead I had all the perks – the salary, the international travel, collaborating with some of the most unique and talented performers I had ever met – without any of the drawbacks. And, more importantly, it had allowed me to retreat from music, and its often pernicious influence on my own senses.

But in spite of all that, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. I felt tired of it all. Perhaps I was ungrateful, unaware of how lucky I was. Or maybe I was just growing old.