The Pleasure Quartet (7 page)

I swallowed, my mind turning back into a tangle, thoughts darting here and there like a flock of birds disturbed and rising into the air en masse.

She walked quickly towards me and stretched out a long, slim arm to the rack of clothes, so close to me that her wrist nearly brushed across my breasts. I felt my nipples harden and hoped that
they weren’t visible through the regulation white blouse that formed the top half of my uniform. Her forearm was stacked with silver bracelets that clattered as she held the hanger out to me.
I took it, careful to not allow the material to touch the floor and collect any dust that might linger there, and looked around for a changing room, but there was evidently nowhere set aside for
that purpose, not even a screen.

‘Not shy, are you?’ she said.

I shook my head to indicate that I wasn’t, although it was a lie. I felt lumbering and awkward, like I was swimming, the support of water turning my limbs lithe and supple. On dry land, my
body just ‘was’. A vehicle for my thoughts and dreams and passions, nothing more. I thought of the bodies of others as something enticing to look at, but I thought of my own as merely
functional. Being nude in front of Iris was different. We had known each other’s bodies for so long, it became second nature to be unclothed in her gaze. But I never felt as though she looked
at me the same way that I stared at her. Lustfully.

I fiddled with the clasp and zip at the back of my thick, plain black pencil skirt. My nerves had made me clumsy and turned my fingers into sausages.

‘Allow me,’ Patricia said, softly. The tone of her voice changed as she drew nearer to me. She spoke in a hushed whisper, as if we were sharing a secret.

Her knuckles grazed my spine as she searched for the zipper. Undone, the skirt slipped down to my hips where it stopped, prohibited by the rounded flesh of my buttocks. Patricia gave the fabric
on either side a sharp tug until the garment dropped to the floor. I expected her to move then, but she didn’t, and I stood frozen to the spot in front of her, half unclothed, my usherette
uniform pooled at my feet.

Goosebumps rose on my flesh, and not in response to the temperature. The silence between us became a palpable thing, and the longer it lasted, the more any words that I might speak seemed
unnecessary and hollow.

At that moment, the door burst open with a bang so loud in contrast with the tomb-like quiet that we had been standing in that I cried out ‘Oh!’ and jumped into the air.

‘All those murder mysteries affecting your nerves, girl?’

‘No, no . . .’ I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’

Clarissa. I recognised her immediately. Her hair was indeed short, and had not just been pulled back from her face in the picture. She wore it styled in a pixie cut that only served to elongate
the pointed edge of her chin and nose even further. She had the look of someone who would slice through the air instead of move through it, her body a collection of angular points carving its way
from one perfectly aligned geometric position to another.

Her arms were draped with long bolts of fabric, one grass green and the other ocean blue and both evidently so heavy that they slowed her progress towards us. The colours of the swathes of
material weighing her down were all the more vivid as she was dressed all in white in a flowing jump suit with a drawstring tie that sat at her hips. I moved forward to help her, forgetting in my
haste that besides my underwear I was naked from the waist down, and my skirt was wrapped around my ankles.

‘Oh, don’t let me interrupt you,’ she said, and strode towards the nearest trestle table and carefully laid the lengths of silk down. Her high gold heels clip-clopped against
the wooden floor as she walked.

Every word that came out of her mouth sounded as though it meant something else. I didn’t know how to respond.

She bustled over to us before I could think of a word to say and placed two fingers under my chin, lifting my mouth closed.

‘You have a very pretty pair of lips, Missy, but there’s no need to stand there with them hanging open like that. Remind me of your name again?’

‘Moana.’

‘Ah yes, I remember now. A unique name to suit a unique girl. Mo-ah-na,’ she enunciated, copying me breathily, lengthening the A as it should be. I hated when people called me
Mo-anna. ‘And why are you standing there half dressed, Moana?’

‘We were trying on a change of style. These trousers would be darling on her, don’t you agree?’

Patch held up the hanger. I wished that the ground would open and swallow me. No doubt, just as I had begun to get excited about the idea of some extra responsibilities at the theatre, the job
would be taken away from me since I couldn’t even run a simple errand without getting distracted.

‘Oh, how rude of me, Patch, lovely to see you of course.’

Clarissa leaned forward and kissed Patricia on each cheek, awkwardly sandwiching me between them as she did so. I smelled their perfumes mingling, or maybe it was just the scent of their skin.
Clarissa’s was somehow dark, and musky, like the earth in a rose garden after a hot storm, part dank and dirt and part floral, humming with life. Patch’s was light and citrus, lemon
sugar. I imagined being wrapped between them in bed and how it would feel to have a wet pussy pressing against my ass and another against my cunt. Two pairs of hands caressing my body.

My breathing quickened, and I felt certain that my thoughts were printed all over the portrait of my stiff limbs.

Greeting complete, Clarissa picked up the trousers.

‘You’re right of course, Patch, they’re just the thing.’ She pulled them off the hanger and dropped down to her haunches in front of me, her face passing just a few
inches away from my opening. I could feel myself becoming damp, there. Perhaps visibly so, and I was thankful that my knickers were cheap, thick cotton and not a thin, expensive ribbon of silk that
might have looked obviously wet. I wondered if Clarissa could smell me, if she liked that smell in the same way that I loved the smell of Iris, and her taste.

She held the trousers open as if I were a child and I stepped in, one foot at a time, and placed my hands lightly on her shoulders for balance as she dragged them up over my calves, thighs and
hips. She ducked her head to my waist to fasten them and I felt the warmth of her breath travel over my belly. I sighed.

Clarissa stepped back and looked me up and down, reviewing her handiwork. Patch joined her. Both of them, appraising me.

‘Good, I think,’ Patch said. ‘She just needs some heels.’

‘Yes, heels, definitely,’ Clarissa added, ‘and also, I think, something else with her hair . . .’

She stepped forward and ran her hands through my limp locks, first pulling my hair up and back and then over to the side, each time leaning away to view the result.

‘Wonderful,’ she breathed, but didn’t say which look she preferred. ‘We’ll take them. The trousers.’

‘What?’ I cried, flustered and embarrassed. ‘Oh no, I could never afford anything like these,’ I said. I didn’t even know what they cost, but since I couldn’t
even afford ordinary clothes I knew that something designer would be laughably out of my budget.

‘Nonsense,’ Clarissa said, ‘they’re perfect for you. Patch will add them to my tab, and I’ll think of a way that you can earn them back. An end-of-year bonus,
perhaps.’ She winked at me, kissed me lightly on one cheek and then took hold of my waist again, unbuttoning the clasp and pulling the slacks down to my feet, where I obediently stepped out
of them, trying hard to maintain my balance and finding myself half-naked once more.

She handed Patricia the silky black bundle.

‘Would you wrap this in tissue, darling, and add it to my bill, while we gather up all the samples?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Patch nodded smoothly.

I touched my hand to my face. My cheek was still burning where Clarissa’s lips had landed.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. I carried bundles and bundles of dresses and basques and men’s thick jackets from Patricia’s studio into a waiting taxi and then
down the theatre’s long corridors and creaking stairs to the dressing rooms where they were carefully hung again on the garment racks. Clarissa showed me how to use the steamer to press out
creases and the location of the sewing kits and explained how everything must be kept precisely in place so that if a button or hem needed stitching between scenes the right tools could be located
in moments to avoid any delays and avert disaster.

By the time I reached home I was exhausted. My arms ached. It was the most satisfying work that I been involved in for a long time though. Something about the combination of physical labour and
the cerebral strain from learning so many new things had made me excited to do more and nourished my soul. It wasn’t until I pushed open the front door and saw Iris waiting that I remembered
the trousers Clarissa had bought for me, wrapped in violet tissue paper and stored safely in a cranny within the dressing room that I used as a makeshift locker. Guilt swept over me.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘You were longer than I expected.’

‘Sorry,’ I said to her. ‘It was busy. Gerry needed me.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

I thought of telling her about Clarissa and Patch but I couldn’t. My tongue froze solid in my mouth. Instinctively I felt that Iris would not understand. The thought threw me. She was my
best friend, and I had lied to her, if only by omission. A seed had been planted.

She cleared her throat. I gazed at her, and noticed the awkwardly formal way that she was sitting, perched on the end of the bed with her feet on the floor, her back straight as a board and just
the edge of her buttocks on the mattress, as though she was about to get up. She was wearing her cream blouse, neatly pressed, a plain navy skirt with her matching kitten heels, and on her hands,
the gloves that Thomas had given her. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and shining as though she has just brushed it.

‘Going out somewhere?’ I asked her. I felt a stab of jealousy. It would surely be with Thomas. She had been seeing more and more of him lately. A movie here, a dinner there. And more
than that, I was sure, at her office. Occasionally she mentioned that he had popped in and they had eaten together, or I smelled or tasted a sour note of white wine on her breath.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘yes. But I want you to come. I need you, Moana.’

Her shoulders were tight and her smile pinched, her face twisted into an expression of fear and worry.

I dropped my bag and rushed to her. I had been standing in the door clutching my purse all that time, like a visitor in my own home. What was happening to us?

‘Of course!’ I said. In truth, I was tired, and looking forward to an evening in, but I would not abandon Iris in an hour of need.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ I put my arm around her shoulders.

She pressed the tips of her gloved fingers together, gathering courage.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I want to be with Thomas. I want to . . . I want to fuck him. And I want you to be there too.’

She slumped forward, relieved, as though she had expelled all of the air in her lungs along with the words she had spoken.

I was stunned. She went on.

‘I’m seeing him tonight. I wondered if you would come. I just have to know what it feels like with a man; surely you understand? I need you to be there . . . It’s confusing . .
. to have your blessing, so to speak. That way I won’t feel as if I’m betraying you . . .’

She turned to face me. Her eyes were deep oceans of blue, full of hope and questions.

I couldn’t turn her down.

It began with me seated on an ottoman, clutching a flute of sweet white wine that I had barely taken a sip of.

Iris had telephoned Thomas from our flat to confirm my agreement and he had sent a car to collect us and deliver us to his flat in Maida Vale. The vehicle arrived so quickly I presumed he must
have had the driver on standby and I wondered how long they had been planning this and what they would have done if I’d said no. Was it really Iris’s idea? Or was this Thomas’s
way of pushing the two of us into an
ménage à trois
?

Iris buzzed the intercom and we walked through an imposing set of wooden double doors that acted as the gateway to the main building, past a uniformed doorman who did not even look up and then
down a marbled corridor to the elevator at the end. Iris walked confidently and I trailed behind her. She had clearly been here before.

Thomas’s apartment was unsurprisingly on the top floor, but inside, it wasn’t what I had expected. Smaller, for a start, though despite that even his bedroom totally eclipsed the
size of our entire flat.

He pulled the door open before we knocked.

‘Hello, come in,’ he said, and ushered us inside where we stood together in the entry area, cramped and awkward, until he offered to take our coats and hung them on hooks that
decorated one wall.

Below, his shoes were neatly laid out along a shoe rack. He had more shapes and styles than I had ever thought a man might own in a variety of gregarious patterns. Plain tan leather, sharply
pointed at the end. Shinily polished brogues. Deep purple ankle boots with an embossed crocodile print. Another pair, knee high, gleaming black and with a somewhat malevolent air to them, the sort
of footwear that I imagined Jack the Ripper wore when striding down dark alleyways in search of hapless victims. Perhaps I’d just been watching too many Victorian thrillers at the Princess
Empire.

Iris had turned pale and still, as was her habit when she was nervous.

Thomas was flushed. His eyes glittered and his voice was unnaturally loud, as though he was covering an inner shyness with overconfidence.

He wore an aqua blue collared shirt and dark blue, tight jeans that highlighted the thickness and strength of his thighs and calves. A single, stray thick curl kept falling down over his
forehead and he flicked it back.

He took hold of Iris by the elbow and propelled her through the open-plan kitchen and sitting area, towards his bedroom. I followed slowly, taking in the surroundings as I went. A large bookcase
against one wall, stacked mostly with records and magazines rather than books. A couple of squat statues of Buddha alongside a bowl filled with foreign coins. A sketched drawing in a frame depicted
the lines of a nude woman, lying with her back to the artist. The lights of the city glittered like stars through the big bay window that spanned half of the wall, behind his cream-coloured sofa.
There was no glow of broken fish-and-chip shop neon strip lighting upsetting the view here.