Primula Bond - The Unbreakable Trilogy

‘She looks just like you, doesn’t she? She also looks like the Rossetti I have at home. She’s the woman I was thinking about last night, when your beret fell off.’ Gustav comes to stand next to me. Our arms touch. ‘She could be you.’

‘No-one has ever compared me to a pre-Raphaelite painting before.’

‘You’ve been mixing with rude mechanicals then, with no culture.’ He snorts and turns to me. ‘But you’ve risen above all that, haven’t you, Serena? And maybe one day you’ll be taking photographs like these.’

‘Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ I laugh softly. I’m emboldened by everything that’s happened today. ‘In a way, I already have. Not prostitutes. Something much, much more kinky!’

His eyes flash with amusement.

‘Now I’m itching to see what other work you’ve done. And by the way that bravado will take you anywhere.’

‘That’s what my art lecturer used to tell me.’

We seem unable to leave each other’s side. Again I get a waft of the sharp, crisp, lemony scent off his cheeks, but I also notice the bristles starting to push their way through his skin as the evening approaches. I try in vain to suppress a sudden, vivid image of Gustav Levi in a vast Italian marble bathroom somewhere this morning, patting on the cologne before he came to work, his face and lean, naked body reflected in a huge, spot-lit mirror.

I force myself to move away from him. The exhibition continues on the walls down the corridor towards the lift, except these are blown-up photographs of Roman frescoes. At first they look as if the subjects are dancing or praying, and I wonder if this is a totally separate theme, but then I see that the men and women are standing, sitting and lying in various positions.

‘The lupanare, ’ Gustav says in a low voice behind me, like the commentary of a son et lumière. ‘ From Pompeii. The frescoes should give you a clue what the lupanare was.’

Very faint, cracked figures, painted in terracotta and black over ancient bricks. At first they look as if they are dancing, or praying, but no. They are copulating, rutting, humping, in every position under the sun. Here is a tough man gripping a slender girl’s thighs while she stretches out gracefully and he takes her from behind. There is a woman with elegant coiled hair straddling a man as he reclines on cushions, her breasts pert and terracotta coloured, the nipples sharp cherries dotted on with the tip of a paintbrush.

‘It’s like a menu, see? All the services you could get for your dinarii ,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘Or perhaps the pictures were just designed to get them horny.’

There is such a heavy silence in the gallery that I am being sucked right into the ancient paintings. Another pair of lovers, or punters, kneel up and go at it face to face, togas slipping to the floor. A man simply poses for his own enjoyment, staring into the middle distance as he displays his thumping erection. A girl solemnly lowers her face into a man’s groin. Another woman, naked and with her legs open, sits on the bed with them, staring directly at me. The same attitude as Rapunzel, the Parisian whore with the long red hair.

‘Do you think they were still in here when the lava came?’ I am leaning against him, now. The etchings are so delicate, yet so businesslike. The theme of giving pleasure for money smoothly reproduced, but going back centuries. ‘Were they petrified exactly as it found them, you know, in flagrante ?’

‘Some of them would have been, yes. But what a way to go.’ Now both his hands are resting on my hips. He’s stepped over the first of a series of lines today. An intricate game of hopscotch. But his fingers have been inside me now. He’s taken hold of me. I still ache down there, and I’m aching for much, much more.

I am too turned on by the pictures, by everything that has happened, to stop him. He runs his hands over my hips, down my legs, tugs the soft jersey dress.

‘Imagine coming to your favourite whore, paying your usual, getting her to service you every which way on the bed, hot, tangled, no clue what is erupting outside on the mountain, just what is erupting inside these walls, the client lost inside his whore, pumping his life away.’

He runs his fingers up under my dress and sinks them into the soft flesh of my butt cheeks above the stockings, stroking where he stroked me before. I push against him as the shivering starts and yes, there it is, the hardness straining into my back. Gustav Levi wants me.

‘They wouldn’t have stopped, would they, even if their hearts were clattering with fear?’ I dare to bring my hands onto his hips to keep him there as my nipples go rigid inside my dress. ‘They would have gone on and on, don’t stop until I come, whatever it is can’t touch us in here—’

‘That’s right. Safe inside the lupanare .’ His voice is a groan as my hand runs over the definite bulge. I fold my fingers lightly round the shape of him. ‘Everyone at it like there’s no tomorrow.’

‘But you and I have tomorrow.’ I close my eyes, swallow, squeeze very lightly. I feel the jump and swell of his response. ‘And tomorrow you can tell me what you think of my portfolio, Mr Levi.’

‘You make that sound so dirty. I’ve managed to corrupt you in a few short hours. Oh, God, this is like taking a hot meal from a starving prisoner, but not now, Serena.’ He pushes me gently away, my dress draping unhappily back into place. ‘Not now.’

I turn to look at him and he is standing where I left him, his hands hanging loosely by his sides.

‘You’ll see I’m not as sweet as you’re painting me when you see what’s in my portfolio.’ I smooth my hands down over my legs, fan them out over the throbbing area where he touched me. ‘My work was becoming risqué long before we met! Easily as erotic as these.’

He fiddles his jacket closed as if trying to button up the red-blooded part of him. He takes my arm and leads me down the corridor towards the lift and presses the down button.

‘Yet again you’ve whetted my appetite, Serena. Actually I’ve seen at least one very sensual picture on your camera. The one of the couple kissing in the rain? Where is that?’

‘Pont Neuf in Paris. Not a very original location.’

‘But exquisitely romantic nevertheless. His hand right on her backside, pushing her against that lamp post on the bridge? Shocking? No. Sexy? Extremely.’

‘Wait until you see my Venice series.’

His eyes flash black fire as he steps towards me. ‘Tell me more, you little minx.’

‘They are classified until we both sign. Yes? Then my portfolio will be your portfolio.’

I rip open the envelope, take out the one-page contract, skim the contents until I get to the figures 50:50 . He stands there as if his stuffing has been knocked out. I laugh softly and reach into his jacket. What a way to pitch my work. I may as well have thrown a dart directly onto the bull’s eye.

I let my hand brush against the smooth Egyptian cotton of his shirt, feel the thumping of Gustav’s heart inside his chest, and as he looks down in surprise I reach into his inside pocket and draw out the heavy silver fountain pen he used earlier.

‘How did you know?’

‘You’re not the only one who watches people like a hawk.’

I can’t believe my own cheek. He laughs as I rest the paper on the wall and sign on the dotted line.

There’s another pause between us. These pauses get longer, and more intense, yet they’re easy pauses. I’m happy in Gustav Levi’s silences. The relief of making a decision is like the lifting of a weight. The frisson of anxiety that I might have signed my life away, done something disastrous, is like the flicker of a distant torch about to run out of battery. And easy to dismiss.