I back up against the glass door. ‘All I know is, you need to get rid of it!’
‘Relax, darling! I was only teasing about the curse.’ Gustav continues waving the feather like a conductor’s baton. ‘Look at it another way. Maybe some people would see this as a good-luck charm intended for you. Not for me. Maybe Ernst and Ingrid Weinmeyer sent it, even though they were here just now. They are your most loyal patrons, after all. Maybe they feel honoured that we invited them to the opening of our cool new gallery. Or Polly meant it as a keepsake while she’s off wandering the globe in search of herself?’
‘It’s not like you to stand around proffering useless theories, Gustav!’ It comes out sharper than I intended, and heat floods through my face. ‘It’s just some creepy hoax, OK? Designed to sabotage our happiness.’
‘Nothing and no one will ever do that.’ He flicks the feather against my face and holds it there, still pondering. ‘Then again, peacocks spread their tails as part of the mating call, don’t they? So maybe it’s highlighting my machismo? My success in ensnaring the cutest photographer in the western hemisphere, first with a silver chain, then with a golden locket, and now with this diamond ring?’
The fronds feel as if they’re stuck to my cheek. Flimsy, yet weighted with menace.
I flick it away from me and scrabble for the door handle. ‘Let’s just get out of here. Go get dinner and start making some wedding plans!’
‘Nothing I’d like better, Serena, but first things first. What on earth is wrong?’ Gustav swings me round to face him. ‘One minute my sexy seductress is doing incredible things to me right here on this couch. The next minute a harmless feather is making her tremble as if it’s a loaded gun!’
‘Oh, Gustav, that’s exactly what it is. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this, but—’ I finally manage to open the door. ‘I know the bastard who sent it!’
I realise I was wrong about those furtive footsteps I heard on the pavement a few minutes ago. I knew that more than one person was watching as I straddled Gustav, lowered myself slowly on to his hardness, dangling my bare breasts to brush against his lips. There were several people watching as I took charge, and that turned me on all the more.
So when a sleek grey Porsche parked up, I didn’t halt my sexy display. I guessed the person getting out of the car to join the fun was simply the attractive girl I’d spotted earlier when I took a chilly evening stroll along the High Line. I’d been surveying the surrounding apartments through my zoom lens, in my customary sniper’s style, and her dark-skinned, curvaceous figure had caught my eye as she rose naked from a rumpled bed.
So when I glimpsed a black belted trench coat and beret getting out of the car and joining the crowd, I reckoned she was simply returning the compliment and had diverted her journey to watch me in action, watch me playing with my lover. I was even tickled that we shared a taste in outfits. I wanted her to stay, to breathe a little quicker as I started to rock and ride my lover just as I had watched her riding hers.
Because, you see, I like to watch, but since I arrived with Gustav in New York and started taking on more outrageous commissions, sometimes joining in, I’ve discovered I like to be watched, too. Sometimes I like to be the voyeur, viewed.
The clatter of the letter box didn’t distract me as Gustav and I shared our climax with our audience. I wasn’t fazed by the gunning of the engine as the woman pattered back to the sports car and it pulled away from the kerb.
Now I know that she wasn’t acting alone.
‘What bastard? Who are you talking about?’ Gustav tries to stop me dashing outside. ‘There were several people watching us out there. You didn’t care then. Why are you so worked up now?’
‘He couldn’t man up and do it himself. He didn’t want us to spot him so he got someone else to do his dirty work. He was waiting in the car.’ I slip out of his grasp. ‘He must have shifted into the driver’s seat after she got out.’
‘Who?’
I spin round like a dog trying to find a comfortable sleeping place.
‘That’s just it. I thought I knew who the woman was, but she’s just some sidekick he persuaded to dress up like me and then deliver his bloody feather.’
‘Serena, you sound like a demented Miss Marple! The woman in the coat was just a passer-by who got an eyeful.’ Gustav steps into the cold to try to get hold of me. ‘I meant, who is this bastard you keep harping on about?’
Normally I would love the idea of Gustav being so wrapped up in his pleasure that he was oblivious to the world around him. But this is no joke.
‘He’s probably still parked around here somewhere, watching us. Maybe he’s laughing his head off. We have to find him, Gustav!’
I jam my beret more firmly on to my head and start to run in my lacy dress and my biker boots up the sidewalk towards the corner, where a set of overhanging traffic lights swings in the cold night breeze, permanently stuck on red.
Gustav is chasing after me. As I reach the corner I half turn. I don’t want him to be with me when we locate the car. My foot catches and I stumble off the kerb. A truck blares its horn and swerves round me as I stagger into the road.
‘Stop this nonsense, Serena! You got a death wish or something, charging at the traffic like that?’ Gustav hauls me back to safety as the truck driver swears and gives us the finger. ‘What do you mean, “He’s probably nearby”?’
‘I’m talking about your brother Pierre. That feather is from him! And it’s more than a message. It’s a warning!’ I twist away to peer up each street radiating from the intersection, but all I can see are a couple of yellow cabs cruising for fares in the distance. ‘He wants to tell you something terrible about me.’
I start to shiver violently. Gustav wraps his arms around me and guides me back towards the gallery. The open door is swinging and banging against the wall in the sudden sharp wind.
‘My brother’s in LA, you silly thing.’ Gustav pulls me into the porch. ‘He’s creative director of that pilot they’re shooting. It’s the breakthrough he’s been waiting for!’
‘How do you know he’s there?’
‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag him back to the East Coast. He promised to prove himself to me within six months, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s progressed from sourcing costumes and props for fashion shoots to designing stage sets and directing theatre productions. He was already pretty cocky, sure, that’s why he had all the cast and crew calling him “boss” during that burlesque production you recorded at the Gramercy Theatre. But now he’s hitting the big time, and the best bit is that you were part of its inception. It’s your material that was used for the pilot’s original pitch.’
I stand limply against Gustav and close my eyes. Only a heartless bitch would want to quash his joy at sharing in his brother’s life again after a five-year estrangement. So how do I tell him that I’m here not to praise Pierre, but to bury him?
‘I know it sounds crazy, Gustav, but you have to listen to me. Pierre’s not the paragon you think he is.’
‘None of us are.’ Gustav ruffles my hair. ‘I know he’s a rogue and he treats women like dirt. He’s young and still has a lot to learn. But he’s determined to better himself, and I’m proud of him.’
‘Maybe that’s why you can’t spot all the shit-stirring.’ I sigh and turn away to hide the redness in my cheeks. ‘He thought you and I had broken up after that showdown in February, when Polly went berserk and showed you those awful photos of us apparently kissing. Pierre tried, and failed, to take me for himself. Then when I warned him on the phone earlier to back off, he declared that if I don’t want him in my life then it’s up to me to leave. I hung up on him. But the feather was already