Club Crème Read online

  ‘Jealous? Moi? Not my place to be jealous,’ I said. I leaned over my horse’s neck, ready to take flight. I was lying. I was jealous. I didn’t want to think about Miss Breeze sitting on Sir Simeon’s face. I didn’t want to think of her up against a tree, wrapped like a limpet around Merlin. But I couldn’t tell him that, could I? ‘I’m just the housekeeper, remember?’

  ‘Not my housekeeper. Which means –’

  ‘That we can do what we like. No one belongs to anyone else. We’re all free spirits, after all,’ I cut in, galloping away from him. I wasn’t ready for what he might say next.

  But I wasn’t making sense. Because actually, I wasn’t sure just how free I was any more.

  12

  The London Eye was deserted. Not surprisingly, as I’d agreed to be there at crack of dawn. No self-respecting tourist would try to queue up and sightsee at this hour and in this kind of suffocating fog.

  In fact the whole area was eerie. The Thames slid silently between the two banks and even the rumble of cars and buses crossing the bridges was muffled. I shivered inside my camel coat, glad of the creamy pashmina I’d wrapped round my throat, and waited.

  When I’d returned to London I’d dropped by the club, something I felt compelled to do all the time now. Miss Sugar had shoved the telephone at me the moment she saw me hovering in the doorway of the office, and I barely had time to ask who it was when Mr Grey, Avril’s husband, started ranting into my ear.

  ‘You saw them in the park, didn’t you? Don’t be embarrassed. She told me you saw them,’ he had said.

  ‘Well, yes, I did. I was running, and so was she, and then she bumped into Merlin.’

  ‘They arranged it. She’s insatiable. She’ll fuck anything with a pulse if it’ll get her to Simeon. She thinks all her antics will get his attention.’

  ‘And I suspect Merlin did it to annoy Sir Simeon, too. He knows that messing with his club members, or at least their wives, is guaranteed to get Sir Simeon’s back up.’

  ‘Hah! Some wife.’

  There had been a crackling silence as he breathed heavily.

  ‘Why do you want to speak to me, Mr Grey?’ I had asked.

  ‘I want the photographs,’ he had spat back. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. She told me you took photographs.’

  ‘She calmly told you that? Wow. She doesn’t give a shit, does she?’ I had said and laughed with disbelief.

  Miss Sugar had frowned at me and shook her head. Evidently we were not allowed to use bad language with members like that. But then again, we were allowed to copulate in front of them if the mood took us, so where was the harm?

  ‘I want to see the photographs,’ he had repeated miserably.

  ‘I can get them developed this evening, no problem. They’ll be here for you to collect in the morning, if that’s what you really want.’

  ‘I’m not meeting you there,’ he had yelped. ‘I’m not setting foot in that damn club ever again.’

  And now he was ten minutes late for our rendezvous. The fog seemed to be getting thicker. I would give it another ten and then scarper.

  ‘This is like a spy movie, isn’t it?’

  I turned. A man in a long tweed coat and spectacles was striding quickly towards me. I’d barely noticed him that first morning at Symes Hall, getting up on his borrowed horse to go hunting. I’d been too busy disliking Avril and having my foot stamped on. Now, as I shook Mr Grey’s hand, I tried in vain to link him with Avril. The cheating wife who liked to shag her own brother. The tough, super-fit jogger with her washboard stomach and tiny lilac shorts. Where her white-blonde hair was obviously expensively and expertly coloured and trimmed every three weeks or so, his thick reddish hair was a trifle too long and kept dipping over his eyes. All in all, he looked as if he would be more at home in a lecture hall than a gym.

  I felt sorry for him. But then my stomach plummeted at the image of his wife exposing and fingering her shaven red slit, crawling across the bench, firmly mounting Merlin as if he was her private stud, stuffing his hard, quiet cock up into her hungry snatch, wrapping her muscular legs round him, bucking against him as the dusk fell. Yesterday’s visit to Symes Hall had done nothing to push the image out of my mind or to make me mind less. If anything, it had made things worse because now the image of him with Avril in the park, not to mention unseen images of him with Mimi Breeze, kept getting in the way of my triumph.

  After my telephone conversation with Mr Grey, the sight of Merlin and Avril had kept me awake most of the night: the graphic image of her bits spread open like that. My mind had tried to veer away from the part Merlin had played in all this. In the night, I had managed to focus briefly on the silver earring glittering against his dark cheek, and the deep scratches on my back made by the rough bark of the tree, but then my mind’s eye kept hauling me down to his groin, to that quivering penis being handled not by me but by her, used by her like a sex toy . . .

  ‘We have the place to ourselves,’ her husband was saying. ‘I arranged it. So we could conduct this meeting inside the pod, if you like? Give it a surreal air. Take the edge off this whole ghastly business.’

  I stared blankly at him. He was over by the Eye, resting his hand against one of the spaceship modules that dangled off the big wheel.

  ‘Yes. Sure. Why not? Anything to clear my head.’

  He stood aside for me to enter, and we were sealed inside. At least it was warm in there. I walked over to the far side of the pod, ready to rise over the river. The white air and fog seemed to rush at our glass prison and block everything out.

  ‘We won’t be able to see much today, I’m afraid,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But we’re not here for a jaunt, are we?’

  I shook my head and drew out the sealed packet of photographs. I turned my back to let him look at them in private and leaned my forehead and hands against the cool glass. We were barely moving but already we were suspended above the ground. The other pods dangled emptily round us.

  Behind me there was a strangled cough and the flapping of paper as he dropped the photographs on the floor.

  ‘Mr Grey?’

  ‘I never realised how ghastly it would look in technicolour . . . the bitch! And what kind of cold bastard is he?’ he said. His hand was over his eyes and his shoulders were shaking. ‘Just give me a moment, will you?’

  I bent to pick up the photographs, meaning to put them straight back into the envelope, but curiosity overcame me. The first one I picked up was of their two profiles, talking, just after she had shown him that her ankle was actually fine. There was his earring again, very clearly outlined against his bristled jaw. But that was an innocent picture. The fleshy colours of the other pictures drew me and I stared at them, one by one, my breath rough in my ears with a mixture of horror and a wicked, growing arousal as the park action repeated itself in my hands, the shocking nakedness of her thighs and bottom when she had ripped her shorts off, the sliver of his stomach between his top and his cycling trousers as her greedy hand dived down to drag out his stiff cock.

  ‘Mrs Grey in all her glory,’ croaked her husband, coming up beside me. He wiped his hand across his nose and pulled his shoulders back. ‘I know she’s constantly hot for it, but in the middle of Kensington Gardens?’

  I was starting to wish that I could open an escape hatch and eject from here. ‘She fell over, you see, and he helped her up. He looked at her ankle but there was no injury,’ I explained.

  ‘Don’t even think of trying to excuse her,’ he said. He snatched the photographs out of my hand and picked through them again, more slowly this time. Neither of us could help devouring the shocking, ugly excitement contained in the pictures. ‘Your Club Crème has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘I’m not going to apologise for this, Mr Grey, though I am sorry you’re so upset,’ I said calmly. ‘You are a fully paid-up member of our club, after all. I’m only here because you asked me to help you and that’s what I’m paid to do.’

  ‘I know, I know. You’re right. You’re
very kind. I must get a grip. Let’s tackle it head on.’

  He held out one picture and we both looked at it for a long time. It was the moment of impact, you might say, when Avril had risen on her knees, poised above her target. She was fiddling with her hairless fanny, showing that brief red slash, shockingly bright in the wintry light. She was lowering herself so that the two bare lips could close over Merlin’s knob and, little by little, nibble their way down its length. Her hand gripped the back of the wooden bench for balance, a few inches from where Merlin also gripped the bench.

  ‘They didn’t touch or show any real affection,’ I told her husband. I realised we were standing very close. I could feel the tension in his body. The photograph in his fingers was shaking and I took it from him and put it back. ‘It was only sex.’

  He looked at me for the first time and I saw myself and the white sky surrounding us reflected in his glasses.

  ‘Good sex, though, wasn’t it? I mean, those pictures. Rampant, raw, urgent. You must have been turned on, watching it?’ he wondered, stroking his chin and staring at me. ‘I can tell from the way you’ve focussed the camera on them.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know why I did that. I was only using the camera to see more clearly, but I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘And how much further would your job extend, if I asked you? Are you in the business of restoring damaged egos?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ I said. I twisted my head sideways to look out. We were much higher now, and I could see over the buildings towards St Paul’s and the City. ‘My job is to make sure our club members are happy.’

  ‘So you keep saying. And I’m extremely unhappy at the moment,’ he said. He took my cold face in his hands and turned me to look at him. His fingers were very warm. He wore a cream fisherman’s sweater under the tweed coat and I could see tawny bristles pushing through his chin.

  ‘I can see that. And if it helps, I didn’t sleep much last night,’ I said. His eyes behind the glasses were direct and unwavering. ‘Nor did you, judging by that stubble.’

  He grimaced and rubbed his chin. I took the opportunity to step away from him and take my coat off. We were in for a long ride. It was getting warmer in the pod and I felt flushed. I unwound the pashmina from round my neck. The silk of the ruffled red shirt I’d put on this morning was cool where it lay across my skin. The leather trousers clung to my legs and my new boots clicked across the floor. Despite feeling rattled by the photographs, I knew I looked good. Mimi would approve. I looked outside again. We were floating in the sky now. I would have preferred to be alone up here, but despite his anxiety Geoffrey Grey was quite easy company. I allowed my thoughts to drift out over the spires and rooftops of London.

  ‘I wonder why you didn’t sleep last night,’ he said. His voice nudged open the easy silence. ‘Were you jealous?’

  I spun round. He had taken his coat off as well and was sitting on the long bench in the centre of the pod with one suede brogue resting up on the seat. He wore very worn blue Levis, and looked totally relaxed now.

  ‘Jealous?’ How could he possibly know my secret thoughts about Merlin?

  ‘Of all that sexy action. Seeing a man and a woman copulating, out in the open air, unable to join in, skulking behind trees to train your camera on them, catching them on celluloid, humping like rabbits . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t say, Mr Grey,’ I muttered, suspecting there was little weight in my words. ‘It was all very quick, anyway. Not sexy at all.’

  He patted the bench next to him. My feet were aching, unaccustomed to standing about on high heels, and I sat down obediently.

  ‘I have a feeling it would all be much more sensuous and stimulating if it was you and me.’

  He held up the final picture, of Merlin and this guy’s wife arching away from each other. Merlin’s face, I now saw, was twisted away from her and away from the camera’s eye. Hardly true love, or even passion. Her arms were flung out sideways and her face was distorted with the power of her climax as she ground herself down on to him.

  Mr Grey slid the picture back into the packet and put it carefully in his coat pocket.

  ‘So how did the encounter go, exactly?’ he murmured, sliding his hands up my silky sleeves so that the skin on my arms tingled in response. ‘It might help me to hear it. Who made the move on whom?’

  My breath must have been caught as I looked at the picture because now it came rushing out, whistling in my ears as I released the tension. The ruffles at my throat and down the front of my shirt shivered, and he looked down to where the shirt was buttoned tightly over my breasts. He stroked the silky ruffles and waited for me to stop him. But I couldn’t move. I was just staring at his finger, moving so close to my breasts. They were heaving as I struggled for breath. We could both see them beneath the silk, the rounded, full shape of them cupped and lifted inside my bra with only the fabric separating them from an eager world. He flicked the first button almost hesitantly, and I bit my lip as it came undone and the shirt fell open over the lace of my matching red bra.

  ‘Tell me,’ he ordered.

  ‘She made the move,’ I said, my voice ragged. ‘She was gagging for it. She took her shorts off and showed him her pussy. It was easy. She was barely wearing them.’

  ‘Not like you. Classy and mysterious. You’re wearing too many clothes for my liking, although they are beautiful and I can see that this underwear is the very best. La Perla?’

  I nodded and blushed red, unable to reply. I looked down as he undid another button, and then another, until the shirt slipped down my shoulders, tickling my skin so that my eyelids fluttered shut.

  I tilted my head back and felt his fingers treading inside the warmth of my cleavage, and then both his hands were on my breasts, caressing them through the lace until my nipples started to harden. His thumb flipped across, catching the two sharp points, and then he stopped. Of course, I thought. He’s not used to big tits, is he? Perhaps he can’t remember what to do with them. There was a fidgety warmth starting up inside my fanny. It kept tightening and my knickers were getting damp. There was no need to think about what I was doing. I reached round and unhooked my bra, slipping it expertly off while leaving the shirt on. I still had my eyes shut, but I heard him gasp. I leaned towards him to encourage him. There was a pause.

  ‘Did he suck her tits?’ he demanded.

  ‘Do we have to talk?’ I groaned, distracted.

  ‘I can only do this if you tell me how it was.’

  ‘Then no, he didn’t. He didn’t even see them. She doesn’t have big juicy tits, does she? Your wife leads with her cunt. It’s like a Venus fly-trap, snapping up its prey,’ I said. My voice was hoarse with excitement, and with something else. Spite. We could both spite Mrs Grey by doing this, taking our own fierce, illicit pleasure up here in the sky.

  He gave a muffled groan and squeezed my tits until they hurt, the pain radiating into darts of pleasure zigzagging through me. He grabbed the bare breasts, pulling my body towards him so that slowly he could slide his face inside the warm cleavage. I held myself very still and opened my eyes. All I could see through the glass ceiling was white sky, the straight trail of an aeroplane shafting through the clouds. We were at the top of the wheel’s ascent now.

  ‘But you have breasts, don’t you?’ he said suddenly, pinching one nipple hard, and I squealed. ‘Gorgeous, juicy, look at that, the way the little bud goes hard, how have I lived without tits for so long? You’ll let me suck it, won’t you? I can’t resist sucking it.’

  He pinched it again, and then took the other aching nipple between his teeth and bit it, and I squealed louder, enjoying the sound of my voice in our own concealed space and feeling wild and reckless. This was extra-curricular. We were outside the confines and rules of the club. Or were we? Where was the rule about clandestine meetings with club members without anyone else knowing? Neither Sir Simeon nor Mimi had told me what to do. I was my own boss. I could do what I liked. I could simply take this guy as I f
ound him and give him the luscious body he had already taken a fancy to, make him forget his rampant wife, make me forget my own confusion, do this for the sake of relieving ourselves, do this because our mutual anguish had made us fucking horny.

  ‘You can suck as much as you like, honey,’ I crooned, stroking his hair and pulling his face hard into me, my own voice and his desperation turning me on. ‘Suck, and nibble, and tease, and suck. Go on, as much as you like.’

  He sucked at my breast and I wriggled up to get comfortable, straddling his lap. He didn’t stop, and I went further. I pushed my breasts into his face, pushing my torso against him, so that he had to fall backwards onto his coat folded on the bench and I was bent over him, my shirt forming a red tent around us. I sat up abruptly, smiling at the sight of saliva on his lips, and started to undo his jeans.

  ‘Did she undo his trousers like this?’ he asked, starting to lose the thread of his questioning and suddenly looking vulnerable. ‘Or did he do it for her?’

  ‘What does it matter? They didn’t have half as much fun as we’re going to have,’ I promised him, emboldened by the fierce throbbing in my breasts, throwing care to the winds. ‘We can just forget all about them and their shoddy little encounter in the park.’

  He grinned. ‘I was right about you restoring damaged egos, wasn’t I? It seems to be your speciality. Do you always take control like this?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  ‘Don’t talk, then. Just do it.’

  I jumped up, shaking with excitement. I unzipped my boots and pulled my trousers off, taking the red silk knickers with them. We were still poised at the top of the wheel and, with a thrill of fear, I imagined our pod coming loose from its moorings and plunging to the ground.

  ‘Amazing view,’ I cried loudly, running to the edge and waving my arm at the world outside. I could feel my breasts bouncing as I twirled round.

  ‘You can say that again,’ he said, lifting his hips and wrenching his jeans down. ‘Now, was young Merlin as well hung as this?’