Pierre Page 6

  I step closer, waving the file to remind them why I’m here.

  The bed has been moved, away from the light. I can just about make out Pierre’s legs, one in the white cast, the other now in bandages, a sheet draped loosely over them. He’s wearing different pyjamas today. More jaunty. Different shades of red stripes.

  And there’s Dr Venska, pacing the shiny floor between the bed and the window. For a moment I think she’s walking towards me, but her face is turned to the bed. Her white limbs, white face, bottle-blonde hair are all bleached colourless by the sun falling into the room. I can hear her now, talking in a low voice, running her hands down her sides, over her high pert bottom, stretching her long legs as she walks so that her short skirt rides up.

  When she approaches the garden door I lift the folder like a shield, but she’s still not looking at me. She spins round towards the bed, lifting her hands in the air and smacking them against her legs, bending down, her tight white blouse straining across her breasts. Her head is jutting forward.

  It looks as if they’re having a row. I can’t hear Pierre, or see his response. His right leg, the bandaged one, rises rhythmically as if he’s doing some exercises, but I can’t see his hands, which would indicate his response. His jolly red pyjamas contrast with the whiteness of his bed and the paleness of his companion. Like blood on skin.

  More silence. Hectoring him hasn’t worked. Dr Venska is trying a new technique. My God. She’s facing him, slightly sideways to the window, and she’s unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it open.

  I step backwards, still clutching the file. So this is the stage they’ve reached in his treatment. Pierre Levi has opened up to her, just like I told him to. Too successfully. Because she’s about to open herself up to him, in every sense of the word.

  Whatever she’s about to do, whatever alternative sexual therapy she’s about to administer, whatever rules she’s about to break, I should know better than to hang around to witness it.

  I turn too quickly, and stumble over the bench. The file flutters open, revealing the few sheets clipped inside. I tear my eyes away from the sight of Dr Venska’s blouse slipping off her shoulders and look down at the notes. I wonder if they mention the kind of therapy that involves the psychiatrist stripping for her patient?

  They don’t. Because there aren’t any notes. Well, hardly any. On the first page, dated during the week Pierre Levi was admitted to the clinic, Dr Venska has written ‘psychosomatic erectile dysfunction?’ But she has apparently failed to answer her own question, let alone cure the suspected condition, because beneath the subsequent dates, up until the date I first met him, is scribbled the conclusion we’ve all become familiar with: ‘unresponsive’.

  I glance back into the room. No wonder she didn’t need the notes today. She doesn’t need a folder or a textbook to tell her how Pierre Levi is doing. Her question has already been answered.

  I can’t speak for his mental progress, apart from the fact that he told me he’d talked more to me in half an hour than he ever had to her. But what about his physical progress? I scratch at a peeling corner of the file. I mean, there’s nothing dysfunctional about Pierre Levi’s cock. I’ve seen the evidence. My body tightens at the thought of it, rising in greeting that first quiet morning.

  What’s the point of gloating over that? Someone else is about to benefit from it. Not me.

  There are one or two other illegible notes that refer to the drugs Dr Venska is prescribing, or that the other medics have given him for his pain relief. The word ‘hypnotherapy’ is scrawled in capital letters on some entries. But following that the remaining pages are blank.

  It’s no secret that Venska uses hypnosis as one of her special techniques. Quite the opposite. She boasts about it. None of us has ever witnessed the therapy because she insists it has to be conducted in private, one to one. And I can see why, now. She’s been putting her special technique to good use in their private sessions. Sex and hypnosis. What an explosive combination. But for whom? Who benefits? Hypnotist or hypnotised?

  How real is the sex in those conditions? And actually, why resort to hypnosis when I made him hard just by holding him?

  Dr Venska stands in front of Pierre Levi. Her white blouse drops to the floor. She reaches behind her back to unclip her lacy bra. She slides it away from her breasts and tosses it towards him. His hand lifts and catches it easily, like a cricket ball.

  He doesn’t seem remotely surprised.

  No wonder she never has any notes to write up afterwards.

  I glance around the garden. There are a few patients and staff on the other side of the big beech tree, and there’s the glass corridor that encircles the rest of the garden like a horseshoe and serves both to let light in and to keep an eye on what’s going on outside, but there’s no one on this side of the tree.

  No one else to see what’s going on in room 202.

  My sweaty fingers make prints on the cardboard. I can’t tear my eyes away. Dr Venska sits on the bed, perfectly visible from the window, and faces him. Her breasts are high and pert, and I can clearly see the dark red darts of her nipples. She lifts her hands and starts to massage her breasts, pushing them together, licking one finger and rubbing each nipple to make them harder. She’s talking, talking, all the time, in a low voice I can’t quite catch.

  I pluck the pen from my breast pocket and dash off my own observations for today’s date.

  ‘Responsive today. Extremely responsive. See sex therapy. Hypnosis. Recommend introduction of hallucinogenics and stimulants.’

  I stand up with the file, turn to tiptoe away.

  Venska is still whispering. Pierre is not replying. Either he’s deep in a trance or he’s getting aroused, lost for words.

  No wonder the door was locked.

  Venska is leaning back and now she’s undoing her skirt. It falls open easily, and she parts her legs. I can see the white flesh sticking slightly before her thighs part. She hooks one finger into the little lace thong and pulls it aside. There’s a glimpse of blue-white pussy. Bare. Totally waxed.

  I feel a punch of nausea. I step away, and notice too late that one more blank sheet is on the ground. I pick it up and, as I straighten, something – the whiteness of the paper, my movement – finally catches Dr Venska’s eye.

  ‘You! How long have you been hanging around out there?’

  Her voice is a whiplash, screaming out of the room.

  ‘I was just coming to give you this!’ Thank God for the folder, my prop. I lift it, and wave the stray piece of paper. ‘The door was locked.’

  She swears loudly, leans down to pick up her blouse from the floor and shoves her arms into it, buttons up her skirt, kicks her shoes back on.

  ‘Did it not occur to you that it was locked for a reason?’

  ‘The rules state that doors should never be locked, in case of emergency. Staff should always be able to get in –’

  ‘I am staff, you imbecile. And you? You were creeping around!’ She snaps, turning her back on Pierre and marching towards me. ‘You were spying on a confidential therapy session!’

  ‘It’s only spying when something nefarious is going on,’ Pierre says suddenly, his voice carrying across the room. ‘Who’s out there, anyway?’

  ‘The little cleaner. The drab one in the hideous uniform. The one you described as, now what was it? A hot piece of Italian ass when she comes out of her shell?’

  ‘He said what?’ I gasp, my cheeks burning.

  ‘Rosa?’ Pierre calls out. ‘Is that you?’

  I step towards the door, but Dr Venska is still blocking my way. She scowls at me, at the new uniform that Nurse Jeannie gave me this morning. No longer so hideous, thank God.

  ‘Oh, don’t think you’re unique. He’d say that about anyone. Anything with a pussy and a pulse will do. All it proves is that my treatment is working.’

  ‘You mean I’m returning to my super-stud ways?’ snorts Pierre, but there’s an edge to his amusement, I can tell. ‘I can star
t chasing girls again? Oh, wait. I can’t walk.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll walk again, unfortunately for the female sex. And then it’ll be business as usual. You have me to thank for that, Mr Levi.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not you I wish to thank –’

  ‘You were broken when you came into this clinic. Head and heart. I brought you back. I showed you how to be a man again.’

  ‘What do you want, a round of applause?’ Pierre’s voice is dark. ‘It’s what you’re paid to do.’

  Dr Venska takes my arm and pulls me into the room, over to the bed.

  ‘But I’m not paid to do the menial tasks.’ She shoves a bowl of soaps and gels into my hands. ‘I thought it would help. You know, water, bubbles, a bit of role play. But no, he won’t be touched.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ I murmur, taking the equipment, avoiding Pierre’s eye. ‘It makes him feel degraded.’

  ‘Check you out in your bright white uniform, Cavalieri. Nicely tailored, sky-blue piping, the halo logo of the clinic right there on the pocket.’ Pierre whistles. ‘Cute little buttons instead of that rusty old zip.’

  I blush. Run my hands down the softer fabric in an echo of what Dr Venska was doing to herself earlier.

  ‘It’s my reward for completing my probationary period.’

  He nods. ‘And it makes you feminine rather than frumpy. Fits you like a glove.’

  ‘And talking of gloves,’ snaps Dr Venska, ‘he’s all yours. I’m done here.’

  She rips a pair of latex gloves out of the packet and throws them at me.

  ‘Don’t you need this, doctor?’ I ask, holding out the folder. ‘For today’s session?’

  Pierre sniggers. I risk glancing at him. His black eyes are dancing at me. He’s biting his lips hard to stop laughing. Dr Venska snatches the paperwork, unlocks the door and shoves her way past Nurse Jeannie, who steps inside the room, tutting.

  ‘What on earth is going on? What have you two done to Dr Venska?’

  Pierre and I shrug at each other like naughty schoolkids.

  ‘Rosa was simply delivering some notes. Dr Venska is unhappy because I’m not responding as she would like to her suggested therapies,’ Pierre says after a moment, his face straight, his voice calm. ‘I think the legal term for someone like me is vexatious.’

  Now it’s my turn to stifle a giggle. I cover it by pulling on the gloves and going to fill the bowl with water from the bathroom.

  When I return Nurse Jeannie has gone. Pierre Levi is lying on his bed, the sheet rolled down and with it, oh God, his pyjama trousers. His cock isn’t erect but it’s long and firm, lying across his thigh. How could I have compared it unfavourably with Daniele’s aggressive little weapon? Even at rest this is a magnificent sword unsheathed, ready for engagement.

  I can imagine my sister chortling at my overblown Sir Lancelot imagery. I must be more frustrated than I realised, because I can’t take my eyes off it.

  ‘What are you doing, Mr Levi? We agreed!’ I frown, standing by the door. ‘Cover yourself up!’

  ‘Strict orders. Nurse Jeannie’s doing spot checks this morning. Lucky you entered stage left just then, ready to perform my toilette,’ he says with a grin, folding his arms behind his head. ‘So you’d better get on with it, because she could be back any time!’

  A spasm of desire drags at me at the sight of his nakedness, so brazen, so calm, the dark line of hair running down his flat stomach like an arrow aiming at the target, the black hair curling round something that I can imagine, oh so clearly, getting hard, hot, nudging against me pushing inside me –

  I step closer, forcing my eyes up to his face.

  ‘I doubt she’ll be back. So we can stop pretending now, can’t we?’

  He drops his hands, grabs for the sheet. ‘You’re repulsed. You can’t bear to touch me. God, I’m such a –’

  Our clients are way more vulnerable than they care to admit.

  ‘No. No. No! Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t you ever think it!’ I’m there like a shot, taking the sheet from him, pulling it back down to reveal his nakedness. ‘I’m not repulsed. Look at you. Look at your cock. It’s beautiful.’

  There’s a long pause. The room is thick with the silence. Outside a mower starts up and begins to carve green stripes in the lawn.

  ‘Rosie. You’re just being kind, but I –’

  ‘I’m not being kind. I’m being truthful. I only hesitated because you told me you didn’t want to be touched.’

  The smile is fading. His black eyes are steady. They pull me towards him.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. Take the gloves off, Rosie.’

  I do what he asks, peeling the gloves off my fingers one by one.

  His tongue runs across his lips, but I detect nervousness there as well as bravado.

  We, the staff. We’re the strong ones.

  ‘You sure about this, Mr Levi?’

  ‘Despite your brave, encouraging words you still look as if you’d rather eat your own hair, Cavalieri, but yes, I want this. I want you to wash me. Please, Rosie. I won’t bite –’

  ‘Unless you want me to!’ We finish the sentence in unison.

  But our smiles fade as I take hold of him. It’s so warm. I can feel the pulse throbbing through it. My sex tightens at the feel of it, at the intoxicating mixture of innocence and lust in the action I’m about to perform.

  He’s got two broken legs. Post-traumatic stress. Insomnia. How dangerous can he be?

  ‘You’re not just a cleaner by the way, Rosie.’

  ‘My God. Everyone in here can read minds.’

  You can’t deny the charisma’s still there. For those who could be susceptible.

  ‘Nurse Jeannie wouldn’t let you tend to me like this, on your own, if all you were good for was scrubbing the bogs.’

  I squeeze soap on to him and rub along the shaft with the tips of my fingers. It shifts against his leg, stiffens with its forgotten strength, lifts into the palm of my hand. I swallow. This is a swifter reaction than last time. Beneath the soft new cotton of my uniform my pussy heats up equally swiftly, throbbing between my legs.

  ‘You came in the nick of time, Rosie. I thought Dr Venska was going to attack me.’

  ‘Seriously? It didn’t look like that to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  ‘Just how much did you see, Rosie?’

  He lies back and closes his eyes.

  I rub at the soap, covering his cock with lather. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly.

  ‘I saw her taking her shirt off. And then her bra, and then I saw her touching herself. I assumed you had a, an arrangement. That this was your usual therapy.’

  ‘She hypnotised me, yes. I responded, but not to the extent she wanted.’ Pierre’s eyes flash open, burn into me. ‘Not like I respond to you, instantaneously. Like Pavlov’s dog.’

  I cough, lower my eyes to the task in hand. ‘Pavlov’s dog?’

  ‘Pavlov was a scientist who conditioned his dogs to salivate instantly when he rang a bell, because through various connections they associated the bell with food.’

  ‘So am I the food or the bell?’ At least this daft conversation is distracting me from the erection growing slowly but surely in my hand.

  He laughs. ‘Apparently the dogs started salivating whenever they saw the lab assistant. I like to think she was a female lab assistant – because they associated her with bringing the food.’

  I laugh. ‘And Dr Venska couldn’t have worked this out as a solution?’

  ‘She’s not only incompetent, she’s violated every professional ethic in the book, but I’m not going to report her, and nor are you. Because I have only myself to blame.’ Pierre sighs and closes his eyes. ‘I’ve made her job impossible.’

  I can focus better without those lovely black eyes boring into me. I can convince myself that he is just a patient. Client. Whatever.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That feels so good, Rosie. I can’t think why
I told you to stop the other day.’

  I soap the balls as gently as I can, but his cock is lifting, glistening with soap.

  ‘What’s really wrong with Dr Venska, Mr Levi? Why is she so angry?’

  The rounded end of his knob is pushing out eagerly. I have a sudden, terrible urge to lick it.

  I clench my teeth, dip the cloth into the warm water to rinse off the bubbles.

  ‘Because I turned her down. She was trying to seduce me, Rosie. She thought she could fuck me out of my sexless state.’

  ‘Sexless state? Nothing sexless about this!’

  It’s out before I can stop it.

  ‘That’s your doing, Rosie. You and your sexy new uniform got me going. Not her.’

  He is rigid now, pulsing in my hand.

  ‘Not sure you should be saying that, Mr Levi.’

  It’s so gorgeous, so male, so phallic, perfectly shaped for penetration, pleasure. I can’t help it. I stroke it.

  ‘Not sure you should be doing that either, Cavalieri.’

  I encircle it with my fingers more firmly and squeeze.

  ‘She was undressing in front of you, Mr Levi. I think it’s your turn to tell me a story.’

  Pierre Levi groans.

  ‘How about this then, Scheherazade? If you hadn’t come wandering in from the garden at that precise moment, my shrink was going to go down on me.’

  I start to rub the shaft, up to the end, and down again. He shifts in the bed, his eyes fluttering but still fixed on me. More colour than before streaks his cheeks.

  ‘Well, she does have sex therapist on her CV,’ I murmur, moving my hand up, down, up again. His cock is filling my small hand now, pushing out of my grip, pushing for something more. ‘Has she done that before?’

  ‘She’s touched herself up, yes. That’s why she dresses in those tarty little skirts. Easy access. She started off standing, then sitting in that visitor’s chair, and today she’d graduated to my bed. She pokes her fingers inside and she tells me to look at her. “Look at me, Levi,” she purrs. “Focus on me.”’