‘Still time to back out, Serena. You have no idea what you’ve done to me. So warm. So sweet and fresh. I could play with you all day. But it’s not too late. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave and we’ll say no more about any of this.’
Those words decency, decorum, dignity are like shreds caught on barbed wire. Distant voices tell me he should shove his gallery, along with his twisted suggestions.
But I like the feel of his hand there. My body wants it, him, inside me.
‘Not that sweet. Go on, if you dare. Put your fingers in me,’ I whisper. ‘But look at me while you’re doing it.’
He nods, as if I’ve answered a question correctly. His mouth slides across my cheek, just touches my mouth, then his eyes are there again, locking onto mine and it’s like I’ve always known them, the dark messages burning inside, the pulse pummelling his neck to confirm the urges he’s struggling to control. The desire he has to touch me and own me.
He doesn’t hurry, though. His self-control is almost military. He continues softly onwards and upwards, to invade me, smoothly, making all my senses come alive. He keeps his eyes steady on me, his mouth a closed line as he feels underneath me. I squirm in response, shamelessly, close my thighs harder as his hand finds its goal, and I start to ride it.
Shame flees, hands above its head like a horrified spectre. Sense and sensibility flee too, along with every other sensible attribute: chastity, modesty, mystique. I close my eyes, the better to feel his breath now on my neck, under my ear.
‘You like that? Of course you do.’ He grunts approvingly. ‘Remember to stay very still. What I didn’t tell you is that if I think you’re resisting me or being disobedient, I might get angry.’
‘Yes,’ I stammer, confused. ‘But I thought I was the one who was supposed to – I thought it was your own pleasure you were after?’ I open my eyes again. He’s doing what I asked. He’s still staring at me but it’s the deep stare of the hypnotist now. I’m ready to drown in it.
‘You’re pleasing me already. Look at you. So lovely perched here in front of me, opening your legs for me. So quiet now. Obedient. Willing. Just the way I like it.’ He hooks one finger into my knickers, keeping his eyes on mine. ‘How could any man not get pleasure from doing this?’
He can feel how wet I am. He strokes me for a moment, his face still so intense. A strand of his black hair has been hooked by one of my curls. There’s no-one else in the world except us.
I’m tight under his fingers, but he pushes more insistently, knowing his way, so that everything loosens and opens, and then he groans quietly and changes tempo, and he’s being rough and hard with me now and several fingers are up inside me, thrusting into the emptiness, and it’s so, so good.
His eyes are burning with triumph. ‘This lovely body has so much to give. So much to learn, too. You can’t help showing me, my lovely. Can you?’
I moan incoherently, not really hearing what he’s saying, tipping myself up to his fingers.
‘You don’t want me to stop, do you? You’ll never want me to stop.’
He pushes his fingers in harder, moving his arm so I am rocking on his hand. This is what Pierre was doing to Polly last night at the party. She was riding on his hand, right there in front of everybody. It’s what caused old Toga Tomas to get so aroused. But there’s no-one watching us now. I fall back against the window as my legs lose their strength. Gustav grips my wrists harder to keep me from falling.
His eyes flash. He can sense the build-up of excitement in me just as strongly as I can, I’m certain of it. The last bastions of my resistance give way, no point even pretending to fight, I’m going weak with it, his fingers are doing what he said they’d do, claiming me as I whimper into his shoulder and I surrender and buck against his hand, my honey soaking his fingers.
He leans his forehead on mine and waits for my hysteria to subside. He releases my wrists and wraps one arm around me. His other fingers still possess me. We’re breathless, embracing lovers there in the window inflamed by the sunset.
At last he pulls away, leaving me wet and still wanting. He smiles as he holds his hand up to the fading light and one by one he licks his fingers.
‘You’re mine now, my Serena. That was me, taking possession.’
I nod wordlessly, watching him sucking my juices. He pokes that last finger into my mouth, pushing it between my teeth so that I taste the faint salt-sweet tang of my own arousal.
He holds my face thoughtfully. ‘Good girl. So. Are you ready to do this? You and me, working and playing together?’
‘And at Christmas I turn back into a pumpkin?’
He wipes his finger across my mouth and holds it there as he studies me, his black eyes dancing now as if he, too, has been relieved of some massive tension.
Then he steps away to his desk and takes out a sheaf of papers.
‘That depends. You are mine until every one of your photographs is sold. Agreed? So I suppose the nicer you are to me, the more we learn about each other, the quicker the photographs will sell, the more successful you’ll become, and the sooner you can go back to your old life.’
I’m aching now, pulsing with soreness. He’s right. I am his, body and soul. He reached right inside me just now, flicked a switch. Hooked me like a little wriggling fish.
I lean back gingerly against the window sill, aware of the naughty stickiness.
‘It’s only till Christmas. It’s why I came to London, after all. To sell myself. I’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.’
He turns back to me, smiling broadly now, as if he can never get enough of looking at me. ‘Got it in one. And who knows? By then you might not want to leave.’
‘So what’s the document?’
‘A letter of agreement for you to mull over. I prefer this kind of formula to be signed face to face, on paper, not done by email. If you’re happy to sign it, let me know before the end of today. Let’s be really dramatic and Cinderella-like and say midnight. If not, just give me a call and we can rip it all up.’
There is a long pause. Big Ben is tolling. It must be about four by now.
Gustav holds the document out towards me, then when I don’t respond he puts it back on the desk with a shrug.
‘You haven’t got much time, granted. But I wanted to make sure you couldn’t tackle any other galleries today. And you’re not really in a fit state to go touting for business now, are you?’
I look up at him and catch his grin. He really does look like the wolf who has taken a nip at his prey and is relishing the promise of devouring the whole meal very, very soon.
‘If you do agree, then make sure you’re here tomorrow morning at nine a.m. sharp. Leave your portfolio with me. We can start printing and framing the best once I’ve had a good look at the whole collection, see if we can’t produce various themes to flow from wall to wall. Then I’ll convene some meetings with my marketing guys.’
I am going to agree to all of it. Of course I am. Just not yet.
‘Give me a moment. I can’t think straight. Let’s talk about something I do have an opinion on.’ I stand up shakily and smooth down my dress. ‘Tell me about the show you have on at the moment. Who are they, by the way? Parisian whores?’
He spreads his arms to present the whole display. ‘Ah, my bordello show. Yes. Turn of the last century, some of them. Others taken during the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, in the maisons closes they kept for Nazi officers. There’s a family legend that several of my own relations were involved. Controversial form of collaboration, to say the least. But some of these pictures were taken as recently as the sixties. Gets you