The music rises and the beat quickens. I move faster, frantic. Now I’m an animal barely restrained. Sweat sprays from my body with every movement. The music shifts gears and everything but the bass falls away. On the final beat, I stop and pose. My chest rises and falls as I catch my breath.
For the finale, a little Def Leppard, ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’. I stride over to him, a model on a catwalk. His eyes are insistent and demanding. I hold his gaze. I tease his legs apart with the pointy toe of my shoe. I rest my foot on the chair with the toe of my shoe gently caressing his crotch. I lunge forward. I hold my breasts close to his face. I brush my nipples across his rough, dry lips. The tip of his tongue flicks my nipple as I pull away and I cross my arms tight across my chest. I bend over him slowly and lick my lips as if I might kiss him, but I snap away at the last minute. He groans and his eyes roll to the back of his head. My work here is done.
I freshen up in the toilet while Jackie collects the payment from his secretary and the bodyguard helps Suzy to the limo. I wonder if he will try to feel her up in her compromised state. I should go out there to make sure she’s OK.
The gown is a bit wrinkled now, but otherwise I’m no worse for wear. Normally the wig and borrowed costumes make it easy to believe that this person isn’t Geri Carson. Ginger really lives a parallel life. But now without the wig, my reflection in the bathroom mirror makes me uncomfortable. I’ve blurred the line.
There’s a knock on the door. ‘Coming,’ I say, and laugh to myself.
When I open the door, the ambassador is looming large in the archway. He is handsome for a near senior citizen. I find his greying temples sexy. It’s the round belly and the hairy knuckles that turn me off. I notice his gold wedding band and wonder where his respectable wife is. Is she upstairs sleeping? Will she have to satisfy the urges that I’d teased to the surface?
‘I would like to take you to bed,’ he says.
I smile. This is the tricky part. Turn them down yet still make them repeat customers.
‘I will pay.’
I slip past him. I don’t want to be trapped in the bathroom. ‘What a very flattering offer, but I really can’t.’
He catches up to me and pins me against the wall. His stomach keeps us a good few inches apart. ‘I like you.’
‘With all due respect,’ I start, and quickly realise that the respect he is due is nil, ‘you don’t know me.’
‘But I would like to,’ he says, stroking my arms with his fleshy palms.
I shiver. ‘Listen, Mr Ambassador, you can’t afford me.’ I side step free and walk away.
I pause. He did have a nice smile.
‘Name your price.’
And with that I’m gone.
I race off to find Jackie but the study is empty. It’s dark and looks like a library again. The books and leather seem to have absorbed the sexuality from earlier. I walk to the centre of the room and slowly spin around. I’d like to have a home like this some day, minus the lap dancers and toady private secretary.
That’s when I notice it – a tiny red light blinking in one corner near the ceiling. A camera. Our entire performance was captured on film. I feel more exposed than I have ever been at the club.
I run out to the limo, losing one shoe like Cinderella on the way, but I’m too panicked to care. I grab Jackie by the collar and spin her around as she’s ducking into the limo. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ I’m screaming at her. I push her against the car.
‘What the hell?’ Jackie shoves me off and looks around. ‘What are you doing? Trying to wake the neighbours and blow our chance for a repeat performance?’
‘A repeat performance? He simply has to press rewind and play any time he wants.’ I’m poking my finger into the centre of her chest.
‘What in the hell are you talking about?’ She grabs me by the shoulders. ‘And it better be good because no one talks to me like this.’
‘They filmed us. The room is wired like a fucking movie set.’ I kick off my other shoe.
‘They what?’ Her cheeks flush. She looks up at a light in a second-floor window, probably a bedroom, where the ambassador is already more than likely wanking off watching the video replay. ‘I expressly told them no filming. Filming’s extra.’ She turns to me. ‘I would never let them film without your permission.’ She looks me in the eyes. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’
I want to but I shrug.
She grabs my stiletto and hurls it at the lit window. ‘Bastards,’ she screams. She takes off towards the embassy in time to see the bodyguard slam the door shut. I can hear the deadbolt clank. We aren’t getting back in there tonight. ‘I swear to you, Geri, we’ll get that tape. No one fucks me about like this.’
Maybe I’ve spoken too soon. Maybe I’m in over my head. All I need is for that video to end up on YouTube and life as I know it is over. I can already see the headline: Investment Banker by Day, Stripper by Night. I’ve worked too hard to climb the corporate ladder and tap that glass ceiling to see it wiped away by one stupid mistake.
How could I have let this happen?
Chapter One
Two months earlier
It was my first day back in the London office after a bumpy transatlantic flight and I didn’t have the stomach for a fight. I crossed my fingers and hoped my guardian angel would get through the next twelve hours unscathed.
What annoyed me most was that I’d had no time to get the inside track on Sloane Brothers’ latest golden boy, Luke Cotterill, apart from the fact that he had quickly established himself as a smart, smooth operator who worked hard and played even harder. Being on secondment in New York for six weeks had left me out of the loop, and out of the loop was not a place I liked to be.
However, there were some small mercies – the weak dollar had provided me with a new wardrobe of beautifully tailored trouser suits that I’d picked up at Saks Fifth Avenue, so it was with an extra swagger in my step and wearing black Armani that I approached the company’s HQ that morning. Another bonus had been the amount of horny NY investment bankers, one of whom I ended up fucking on the walnut desk of his Wall Street office.
I was prepared to meet the new PA who had been recruited in my absence but there was no sign of her as I strode towards my glass box on the third floor. The fact that I’d recently been given my own office had ruffled some feathers on the team, but I’d insisted on it, given my seniority in Mergers and Acquisitions.
Most of the guys had their noses buried in the FT when I arrived but were suspiciously quiet. They didn’t usually pass up the opportunity to make a fatuous remark. Then I noticed that my office door was open and a man with a shock of ruffled blond hair was sitting in my chair with his back to me.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked in my best clipped voice.
The chair swung round. ‘Do I have to get up before you sit down?’ the occupant replied.
I felt myself boiling up inside but betrayed nothing.
‘Ah, Mr Cotterill I presume? Is that your way of greeting a senior colleague? How unusual …’
‘The famous Miss Carson, if I’m not mistaken,’ he replied without flinching. ‘Thought I would form a one-man welcoming party and warm your seat, so to speak.’