Twenty eight
Blake Law Barrington
I open the door to the apartment and instantly feel that she is gone. Not gone out shopping or gone to see her mother, but gone away from me. Forever. Her presence seems to have evaporated into thin air. I push down the sensation of horror and walk down the corridor to the living room.
The curtains are drawn shut. It is dim and cool. I move to the coffee table. It is empty. In the bedroom, I glance towards my bedside table then hers. Nothing. I go into the kitchen and look at the island top, my eyes scanning the room quickly.
No, she has left no note.
I go back into the bedroom and open the cupboard. Handbags, shoes, clothes. It is all there. She has taken nothing. I key in the combination and open the safe. The velvet box is in there. I open it and the necklace lays nestled on its satin bed. I sigh with relief, put it back and close the safe.
On my way to the living room I pass the dining room, my eyes skim the long table and fall on her purse. For an odd moment, I find myself staring at it. The thoughts in my brain are foreign. I shake my head and walk away. Three steps down the corridor, I stop and go back. Like a sleepwalker I drift to her bag. I put a hand out and lift it by its strap, a metal and black leather interlaced affair.
I raise the flap and look inside.
Lip gloss, ballpoint pen, compact mirror, sparkly eye shadow and…a small maroon wallet. I fish it out, run my finger along the leather and open it. I look at what appears to be a collage of photographs cut out from different photographs and carefully, lovingly stuck together: her mother, Billie and Jack. The child-like innocence of her handiwork causes me pain.
I do not know why it should. I close the flap, return the wallet to her handbag, and walk away from the dining room. I have never done such a thing before. My shoulders feel tense with worry and confusion. What is the matter with me? I have never been curious about the contents of any other woman’s purse before.
She must have gone to visit her mother.
I ring her number and wait, but on the second ring I hear another ring coming from the living room. I follow the sound; her phone is lying on the sofa. I cut the connection and pick up her phone.
Last caller, me, last call, her mother.
I ring her mother’s landline. It rings out. I go through her address list and ring Billie. When her cocky recorded voice comes on I leave a message for her to call me back urgently. Then I ring Jack. He answers on the sixth ring just as I am about to give up.
‘Jack, do you know where Lana is?’
‘No, why?’
‘Just trying to find her. She’s gone out without her cellphone.’
‘It’s raining here. Is it raining there?’
The question throws me and there is a slight pause before I reply. ‘Yeah… It’s raining here.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, mate, she’s probably just gone out walking in the rain.’
‘Right.’
Jack laughs. ‘She’ll come home looking like a drowned kitten. It’s something to behold.’
‘Right. Thanks, Jack.’
I go out onto the balcony. It is pouring with rain. A jagged flash of lightning splits the sky and I wait for the thunder. It comes deafeningly loud almost immediately. I frown. I don’t like the thought of her in the rain. I go to the edge of the balcony and reach a hand out to catch some rain. Strange. I lean over the edge and turn my face up to the shower. I have not felt rain on my face since I was a child.
I try to imagine what she must be feeling, thinking. The rain is cold and I am quickly drenched. I peel off my shirt and as I am balling it in my hand I hear the key in the door. It opens and we stare at each other. Both wet. Both lost.
Instantly I know she is not the same anymore. There is such hurt in her eyes. I stride toward her. She is almost blue with cold.
‘Come,’ I say quickly, and taking her to the bathroom, guide her shivering body under the shower spray.
Lana Bloom
The water that pelts my cold skin is perfectly hot. I hear him moving away and I close my eyes and savor the pleasant sensation. Almost immediately I feel life and warmth coming back into my fingers and limbs. I have walked too long. I lean my forearms against the tiles and lifting my face to the water, abandon myself to it. I hear the shower door slide and my eyes open to him.
He is nude and standing outside.
My eyes rove over him and settle in fascination on his manhood that is already half erect before I suddenly realize what I am doing, and flushing with embarrassment, turn away.
He catches me by the chin and brings my eyes to him. ‘I want you to look at me. Look at me.’
I return my eyes to his growing shaft. It is no longer at half-mast but standing proud. I lift my eyes back to his face and he steps into the shower. I move back to make space for him and watch him through the drops of water and steam. He chuckles and, finding the soap, slips it across the skin of my chest.
‘Lift your arms.’
I obey and he soaps me under my arms. His touch is light and unticklish. He swipes the soap along my shoulders and then down to my breasts. Here he is rhythmic and meticulous. The mounds get much attention. So much that I long to have him take my nipples in his mouth.
The soap travels downward. To my stomach and lower still to my bare-skinned sex. He doesn’t have to ask. Willingly, I spread my legs and the soap slides between them. The water sluices through his hands.
‘Turn around.’
I turn. The soap slides sensuously along my back and down my spine to my hips and finally enters the crack of my bottom. I feel him kneel to wash my legs down to the soles of my feet, which he lifts and does one by one. Then he stands. In my line of sight I see him return the soap and pick up the shampoo bottle. I hear it squirt into the palm of his hand.
Then he is washing my hair.
The bubbles run down my body and heat collects between my legs.
He moves closer until I can feel his hard body slipping and sliding against mine. My legs begin to tremble. He turns me around and sucks my nipples while his hands slide down my stomach and boldly without warning grab my hips.
I gaze into the storm clouds in his eyes. His jaw is clenched tight. He lifts my body and penetrates me. I curl my legs around his hips and cry with animalistic pleasure. The deeper he buries himself inside me, the more my body cleaves to his.
Afterwards he carries me to the bed and dries me carefully.
I look up to him. ‘What are you thinking of?’
‘Your body.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Why did you walk so far in the rain?’
I stare into his eyes. They are unreadable. ‘I like the rain. I’ve always walked in the rain.’
‘But the rain in England is cold.’
‘I don’t know any other type of rain.’
He brings the hairdryer and a brush and sits on the bed with them beside him. Then he calls me to sit on the floor against the bed between his knees and begins to towel dry my hair. He is careful not to rub hard. Afterwards, he runs his fingers through my hair and gently untangles any knots he finds. Only then does he switch on the hairdryer and begin to dry my hair.
When he switches off the hairdryer I say, ‘You can’t cook but you can blow dry hair.’
‘I used to dry my sister’s hair for her.’
I swivel my neck around. ‘You don’t have a sister.’
Firmly he turns my head to face away from him. ‘I’ve told you before, don’t trust everything Wikipedia says.’
The brush glides through my hair in long, slow strokes. ‘Why is she not known to the public?’
‘She was born with a genetic anomaly. She’s not like you and me. She lives in her own world. Most great families have such relatives—they just don’t acknowledge or advertise them. It’s an unfortunate effect of interbreeding.’
‘So she is locked away?’
There is a pause. ‘Something like that.’
‘Do you still see her?’
‘No, she is in our Buckinghamshire property. She has a whole wing and sectioned off grounds. Nurses and servants to care for her twenty-four hours a day.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘A four-year-old child. She communicates by pointing and smiling.’ His voice is sad.
‘Why did you stop going to see her?’
The brush stops for a second, then starts again. ‘The last time I saw her was when I was twelve. I was brushing her hair and my mother walked into the room. She was horrified. “Are you going to become a great man like your father or a sissy like your great uncle George?” He is another family member that we all pretend doesn’t exist. I never went back after that.’
I turn around and catch his wrist. ‘I don’t care what anybody else says, you are a good man,’ I say.
‘Don’t fool yourself, Lana. We’re all no good. Don’t trust any of us. Not even me.’
‘Is there no one you trust?’
‘No.’
‘Not even your dad?’
‘Dad?’ he repeats sarcastically. ‘My father’s a sociopath.’
‘Isn’t he a great philanthropist?’
‘Naïve little Lana. My father’s a trillionaire. And there is no such thing as a philanthropist trillionaire. Do you know what one has to do to become a philanthropist trillionaire? Spend your whole life crushing as many people as possible for profit and then donate a library? I don’t trust him and neither should you. It would cause him the same grief to obliterate you if you stood in his way as it would if he trod on an ant in his path.’
‘Do trillionaires exist?’
The brush stills mid-air. ‘Think, Lana. What is the debt of the United States alone? Who are all those lovely trillions owed to?’
‘The Federal Reserve?’
He laughs. ‘And who do you think owns that? The Federal Reserve is a private company just like the Bank of England, and every central bank throughout the world. Through a network of holding companies, the old families own vast controlling portions of not only their stocks, but all the too-big-to-fail banks that you hate so much.’
I frown. I need time to think about the true meaning of what he has revealed to me. ‘What about your mother?’
‘My mother threw us to the wolves a long time ago. My brothers and I grew up in stifling conditions.’
I shake my head. ‘And there I was, wishing I was rich, while I was growing up in stifling conditions.’
‘You don’t understand, Lana, and perhaps you never will. We are different. We are not merely rich. We don’t own tracts of land, we own countries and politicians. We have different responsibilities. We have an agenda.’
Then his face closes over.