Better Than Chocolate Page 4

  She’s here right now, twitching in his chaotic office down in the basement, spiky heels kicking impatiently at the air while he dares to deal with his minions, sipping the strong black coffee Polly makes for her

  Polly’s the one who stands in the gallery doorway in her long dresses, bed hair piled up messily, black fingernails beckoning in the punters. But Henrietta’s the one who looks like a hooker.

  The artist responsible for painting her in the nude comes down the spiral staircase from the upper landing where he’s been hanging the last paintings for tonight’s private view

  ‘Can’t take your eyes off him, can you, duck? Giles is the most handsome hetero art dealer in London!’ he teases, waggling his hammer at her. ‘So. Got a crush?’

  ‘Nah. Far too old!’ Polly tosses her hair. She wanders across the highly polished floor to re-arrange the lilies in the window. ‘And he’s got Lady Henrietta, anyway.’

  ‘He’s my age I’ll have you know, young lady! And as for her, that’s no love affair. They look good together, that’s all. Kind of risqué and rackety. They use each other for publicity. And sex.’

  Polly’s stomach tightens with jealousy. Sex, the word, everything to do with it, hangs in the cool air like heavy perfume.

  ‘Do you think they’re doing it right now?’ She fiddles with the catalogues just back from the printers, smelling headily of glossy paper

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘You know. It. In his office.’

  ‘Fucking, do you mean, Polly Pocket?’

  Her armpits are prickling, and the backs of her hands. She presses her thighs together, increasing the throbbing deep in her pussy. ‘Yeah.’ Her voice is a croak.

  A smart couple open the door, letting in the bitter wind. Polly paints on a greeting smile. Then, downstairs, Henrietta and Giles start shouting. The punters scuttle away

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Told you they weren’t all that.’ The artist shrugs in the direction of the argument. ‘Perhaps fighting fires them up.’

  Henrietta’s voice grows louder, as if someone has turned up the volume. ‘She’s splayed naked all over the walls, and now you want her handing the drinks round to the critics tonight?’

  ‘It’s art, Henrietta, and she has a body to die for. They’ll lap it up! They’ll be queuing up to lap her up-’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting!’

  ‘You’re the one obsessing about her!’ Giles is slamming the drawers of his desk. ‘But what’s any of this got to do with you? This is my gallery, not yours. And she’s no tart. You can tell she’s still a virgin –’

  ‘So? That just makes her all the more tempting!’

  Polly is hanging over the banisters as the voices descend into angry muttering

  ‘How the fuck does he know –’

  ‘That you’re a virgin?’ The artist tucks her hair behind her ear and pads back up the spiral staircase. ‘It’s in the eyes, girl. We all know.’

  ‘How many times have I told you?’ Now Giles is chasing Henrietta up the stairs. ‘You haven’t been invited!’

  ‘I’m not bloody Cinderella, you know!’ Henrietta trips over her pointed toe as she gets to the top step. ‘I’m just as entitled to go the Berkeley Square Ball as you!’

  ‘Yes, darling, of course you are. Pumpkin, glass slipper and all.’ Giles swipes his hand over the top of his head. ‘But what would your bloody husband think about that?’

  Henrietta staggers against Polly’s desk, knocking over her vase of white carnations. Water seeps across a pile of typing. Henrietta just glares, an aristocratic flush streaking angrily across her cheek bones. The kind of hectic colour you might get after a good day’s fox hunting. It even stains the bridge of her hooked nose, as if someone has punched her.

  ‘Not in front of the staff, Giles!’

  ‘So now you know, Polly. Lady Henrietta’s married. But not to me. I’ve a double ticket but I can’t take her to the Berkeley Square bloody Ball, with royalty and Mick Jagger and God knows who else parading about. I’ve a reputation to keep up.’

  ‘Oh, right. The suave bachelor.’ The artist titters from up above

  ‘Gigolo, more like!’ Henrietta is still glaring at Polly

  The onset of a terrible giggle fit crowds inside Polly’s chest. The kind that attacks you in church or on a crowded tube.

  ‘Royalty?’ She asks Giles, as if it’s just the two of them. ‘Mick Jagger?’

  ‘So let the suave bachelor take his unmarried little virgin to the ball.’

  Henrietta stalks past Polly in a rage and hauls open the street door, expecting someone to scurry after her. But everyone just turns back to their work

  Into the reverberating awkward silence Polly hears herself say, ‘I’ll go with you, Giles.’

  Giles is halfway back down to the basement. ‘You must be joking, Polly,’ he sighs. ‘You’re young enough to be my daughter.’

  Polly is still young enough to be crushed by that remark. He barely notices her. Thinks she’s no better than jail bait – and not in a good way

  She catches the artist’s eye and he blows her a kiss. ‘I’ll take you shopping, Pocket. The guy’s blind! We’ll show him what you’re offering on a plate. You’d look edible in a bin bag, but I’m thinking Holly Golilightly meets Belle de Jour. Let’s knock his bloody Fair Isle socks off.’

  * * *

  In sculpted black dress, killer heels, and hair tortured into a complicated pleat, Polly thinks she looks more like Edith Piaf turning tricks, but what the hell. She’s going to make Giles notice her. So what if she’s meant to be invisible, just handing round drinks and nibbles? She’ll do all that, but she’ll make him see her in a whole new light as well.

  ‘And the model? For that picture?’ A fat man with pocked skin points at the picture of her, running his sweaty fingers up the glass, up her painted splayed legs, towards the shadow of her painted pussy. ‘I thought the artist was gay, but it looks like he’s shagged this little slut senseless.’

  Polly opens her mouth to put him straight, feels the scarlet lipstick parting stickily, but just then she sees Giles staring at her across the expensive crowd of style gurus and arts editors. He makes a drinking gesture and she scuttles over with her tray to his circle of posh mates and clients. The men look her over, their eyes watering. The women purse their lips. Polly feels a surge of power, knowing that the Herve Leger dress clings to every curve, pushes her big, plump breasts up and out. That the whole ensemble has transformed her into a vamp.

  Every time she glances up, Giles is watching her. But she can’t read his face.

  ‘How are the pictures selling?’ She sidles up to him towards the end of the party, tipsy from all the dregs she’s drained downstairs. He’s by the window, saying goodbye

  ‘Good, Polly, thanks to you.’ He turns to her. ‘They’ve been round you like bees round a honey pot. There’s going to be an auction for that painting.’

  ‘Wow. Fame at last!’ She licks her lips. ‘Except no-one will have recognised me.’

  ‘Oh, but they could all tell it was you!’ He grins at her. He’s shaved, she notices. Smooth, but still shadowy. Smells of some delicious aftershave. White shirt whiter against his dark skin. ‘That dress makes you look naked.’

  Her pussy goes hot and tight. But it’s not sleazy, what he’s said. Just sexy. Really, really sexy.

  ‘Just going to start the washing up,’ she murmurs, aware of her knees knocking as she totters down to the basement. ‘Have to get going.’

  In the office she glugs a huge glass of Frascati. There’s no dishwasher. Just a tray of kiss stained glasses, his desk and cabinets, and the sink. She has to bend over to scrub. She kicks the shoes off. The Frascati fizzes pleasantly in her head. She rubs herself against the edge of the work surface. Giles had imagined her naked …

  ‘Thanks for your help, Polly.’

  Upstairs a few feet are scraping goodbye across the floor. Presumably the artist is seeing them out. Because Giles
is in here, with her

  ‘That’s OK. You’re paying me, remember?’

  ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight.’

  She can hardly breathe. ‘You told me to look good.’

  She plunges her hands into the soapy water. And Giles plunges his hand up her skirt.

  Polly squeals loudly, and breaks into a sweat. All that washing up. All that standing and talking upstairs under the spotlights. All that smiling. The wine. The desperate wanting. And now Giles’s hand sliding up her bare thighs, stroking against her knickers, feeling the ready wetness.

  People are deflowered on wedding nights, in bike sheds, teenage bedrooms, hay barns, car seats, woods, dim alleys. There’s cider, puddles, coat cupboards, sofas, carpets, mud. Usually in the dark. Always in a hurry.

  For Polly it’s none of those places. But her deflowering is in a hurry. There are people about. People waiting around. The door is open. The minute he touches her she wants it. Him. All of him. She holds herself very still, bent over the sink, not sure what to do. She relishes the waiting. His touch is barely there. Maybe waiting for her to slap him away. Tension crackles in the silent room. Pure tension, physical enough to touch. No mess of noise and words

  Giles knows where to go. Just one finger drawing a line down the hidden damp crack as if measuring her. Oh God, she wants him to like her! That finger becomes him, warm, hard, stroking, pushing. She bends lower over the washing up, her dress riding up tight, releasing the strong female scent of her arousal. She can’t turn round. Too shy. If she turns round, what does she do? Smile? Kiss him? Say something dirty? Scream?

  Her bottom knows, though. It lifts, pushes against him, his trousers, and now she can feel it in there, the real thing. His cock. She’s seen them before. Touched them. Even licked one. This one is hard and pushing between her legs. His finger is inside her knickers now, picking at the seam ready for her to come loose

  He pushes his finger right inside her and pulls her away from the sink. Hooks her away, finger still up there. He kicks at the door, and his finger slides out, coated with her wetness. She wants it inside her again, to push in harder this time, the urge as violent and natural as the urge to piss, or punch.

  He looks so good in the gleam of one dull light bulb. His face is craggy and handsome and totally focussed on her. His arms are strong. He glances past her. Maybe changing his mind, because she’s young enough to be his daughter. The door isn’t closed properly.

  The bright lights of the gallery intrude. Their feet are skidding about on the wet floor. He makes a groaning sound. Polly presses against him, ready to kiss him, that would be good. Her skirt is up round her hips, too tight to pull down. She still has on the rubber gloves, and is too young to see the funny side. They look stupid. She puts them round his neck, still pressing urgently against him, afraid he might stop, but he isn’t going to stop. He presses his mouth onto hers, more his teeth really, hard against her, still groaning as he pushes her hard against the sink, the edge of it jabbing into her spine, and her legs fall open. He bends his knees, thrusts himself up between her thighs, lifting and grinding, and her legs open further.

  Polly wrenches the gloves off. She scrabbles at his trousers but the buckle won’t undo. He’s pushing his fingers up inside her again and when he puts his mouth on her neck, under her hair where it’s falling out of the pins, she goes weak and moans

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he groans in response, pulling her face round to face him. He looks rumpled, and troubled, and glazed with desire. ‘I can’t believe it, that’s all – you’re so young and gorgeous –‘

  The words are thrilling and he starts kissing her, really hard. His lips and teeth are brutal. She sucks on his tongue when it slips inside her mouth, so unused to all this wetness but it’s mind-blowing, and he can tell because he pushes his tongue in harder, making it feel like fucking, and her cunt squeezes tight with excitement

  ‘Be my Valentine, Giles,’ she whispers, female power surging through her. ‘Do it to me.’

  He groans again and hoists her up onto his scuffed desk where the trays of glasses are waiting to be washed. And where she’s left his Valentine Card. He pushes everything aside. Something rips and splinters. Something else falls to the floor and smashes. Surely someone will hear? But then she’s on her back, the wooden surface hard but wet and soapy too against her shoulder blades. The bare parts of her, her bottom, back and thighs, squeak and slither

  Then Giles has her knickers off.

  Polly closes her eyes, suddenly shy to look at his face. But that invites in images of him with Henrietta. Smooth operator, ripping knickers off with one hand. He must have done it millions of times. Henrietta lying here, smooth operator as well, arching and grinding about on the desk, not just falling back and waiting for him to do it, she’d be doing things to him, crushing him between her thighs, knowing exactly what to do with her hands, her mouth, her pussy goddamit. How exactly to please him. What the fuck does Polly know?

  Her legs look long and white in the sickly light. She opens them, grips Giles round the hips as he kneels over her. Giles is her man now, touching her, lifting her, kissing her, wrenching open his own trousers, flicking the belt out of the loops and cracking it like a whip. They smile briefly at the sound, then kiss again, more tender and knowing, less teeth, more tongues this time, the taste of red wine.

  She wants his cock now, she wants to see it and touch it, but he’s all shirt tails and flapping tuxedo. Everything is so new. His smell, Christ, his maleness. The rough fabric of his clothes. The muscles in his arms. She tries to see herself in a soft focus movie, hopes he’ll see her moving in a beautiful sex scene.

  He puts his hand down and there it is, a warm blunt thing nudging, edging inside, ridiculously cosy warm at first, but harder as it slides in, not nudging now but shoving. Her wetness makes it easy, her body opening to let it in. She waits for it to hurt. For there to be blood. Embarrassment. But she is so desperate to have him in there, it’s all she wants, why feel bad about something as heavenly as this? She wraps her legs tight round him as his cock thrusts in possessively. If there’s any sensation when he pierces her it’s as delicious as popping a champagne cork. Popping your cherry. Her cherry. It’s done. She grips with muscles she never knew she had inside her, and they are off.

  At least, that’s what Henrietta might say. Maybe she’d buck and whoop and smack his belt down to bring red stripes out on his flanks while she cried ‘tally ho!’ She’s heard that people like being smacked. She’s sure Henrietta would love smacking

  Whatever. It’s just Poppy and Giles right now, and this is like being in the centre of a storm. She’s half active, half passive. Half out of her body, half flailing about inside it. Fucking is more effort than she imagined it would be. Those sex scenes are all slow motion, all tracking shots of flesh and hip and nipple. This is heaving and poking and pointing and panting. It’s hard work, but mostly for him

  She wants to keep quiet. She’s not a screamer. Except a year or so later, in a hot dry tent in an open field, she’ll scream as she’s fucked because she’ll want everyone to know.

  Polly loves his grunting as he thrusts at her, shoves her across the rough chipped desk, his jacket flapping across her thigh, something lumpy in his pocket catching under her hip, the boniness of her buttocks rocking, vertebra rolling in her spine as she arches and sinks, his buttons snagging and flipping on her skin. Beard scraping, rash stinging her chin. She lets her body work, grinding and sliding with him as he moves less smoothly, more jerky, faster, thrusting quickly and desperately, kisses her neck lovely man, his breath rough and loud in her ears

  A taxi rumbles up the street above them. Through the glass bricks in the pavement Polly can see its lights blazing red as it brakes, then all at once her Giles cries out as he comes so hard she’s hanging off the table, the blood rushing to her head, making her dizzy, upside down, his cock pushing. Fucking.

  And she finds herself fantasising as the sensations pulse through her, ima
gines Henrietta coming down to find them locked together, horrified but turned on, staying to watch.

  This is how it’s going to be. She is wild about Giles. He’s her man. But he’ll go off, fuck Henrietta and other women stretching into the distance. Polly’s the lucky one. Even now she can see this is just the beginning. Men, sex, cocks, love, popping corks, for the rest of her life

  Only it’s going to get better

  She gasps, how sexy that sounds, and she can’t help it. She shudders as the waves break over her, his cock still hard inside her, pinning her to the desk, and the explosion is her coming

  ‘We have to go,’ he says after a quiet moment. He pulls out, climbs reluctantly off her. ‘That’s Hen’s taxi.’

  ‘You just fucked me, Giles.’ God, the word ‘fuck’ feels good in her mouth. The tendons twang as she tries to stand. ‘Even though you said I was too young.’

  Giles tucks his shirt in. Polly dreads him dismissing her, but he’s a gentleman, even if he has just fucked her across his desk

  ‘Not any more.’ He chucks her chin. ‘So innocent this afternoon. Such a slut tonight.’

  Slut? She was thinking femme fatale. ‘Just the clothes turned you on? Not me?’

  ‘Yup.’ He holds open the door, letting life and light flood in. ‘You’ll learn, Polly. Men really are that basic.’

  At the bottom of the stairs he pays her. For the waitressing, of course. Though as he hands her £20 extra she wonders for the first time what it would be like to fuck for money.

  ‘So will you take me to the Berkeley Square Ball?’ she asks. Upstairs Henrietta is tapping her feet impatiently. Polly smooths her hand over his trousers, strokes the outline of his cock. Well, she’s allowed now, isn’t she? ‘It’s not a crush, Giles. I’m in love with you.’

  ‘No you’re not, Polly. But you’ve earned a pay rise.’ Pushing her up the stairs in front him, Giles laughs softly. ‘And yes, you can go to the ball.’

  A Weekend Retreat

  by Izzy French

  Liz laid her cards on the floor. She’d lost. Again. She was crap at poker. And now there was no going back. They’d all agreed on the rules at the outset. Shivering in anticipation, she awaited Nina’s order