Framed (23 page)

He knocked on the door again, unaware that Charlotte Lampton was peeping at him around the corner of the corridor.

The door opened and Larry felt something like a blow at his solar plexus. Lola, small and beautiful, stood before him in her diaphanous wrap, her golden body a shadowy glow through the folds.

"Hi!" she said brightly, smiling, showing him her perfect teeth. "Come in."

She turned away sharply and walked back into the apartment, leaving Larry standing in the doorway. Awkwardly he straightened his tie and stepped inside, closing the door. His feet were silent on the rich carpet Lola settled herself in the corner of a chaise longue, folding one leg beneath her with a flash of thigh. She indicated a chair opposite. Larry sat down, quietly dazzled by her, hardly able to believe this was the same woman who had radiated such malice and called him a little prick the last time they met. He began, haltingly, to explain why he was there, but Lola interrupted him wordlessly by getting up and wandering out of the room. She i came back carrying an ice bucket between her small hands, a bottle of Cordon Rouge sticking up out of the ice. She put the bucket on a side table, snatched up the champagne bottle and opened it with an admirable lack of struggle. Larry took up the thread of his story again. He explained how he had managed to trace Lola to the Hyde Park Hotel. "I called the villa, you see. The housekeeper said, after a bit of difficulty, because I don't really speak Spanish ... anyway, she explained that you—" Lola handed him a glass of champagne. "How is he?" she said, shortcutting the narrative. "He's okay. He . . . there was an accident, a car crash. But he's fine." Lola sipped her champagne and lowered herself onto the chaise lounge again, elegantly blasé, exposing so much leg this time that Larry had to glance away. When he looked at her again she was smiling pleasantly, apparently unconcerned by the news about Von Joel. "So what brings you to London?" he asked. "What do you think?" Lola sipped from her glass and appeared to hold the champagne in her mouth for a moment before she slowly swallowed it. "I also needed some new clothes. Azzedine Alaia is divine." She tilted her head. "You like sexy clothes, yes? This man is special because he has, how do you say, finesse? Yes? Class." Larry let that wash over him. He took a cautious sip from his glass, savored the mellow tang, then took a bigger sip.

"How long have you known Eddie . . . Philip?"

"Two and a half years," Lola said. "We lived together for the past eighteen months." She leaned forward, displaying quality cleavage. "Can you give him a message? Will you tell him Bruno and Sasha are fine? They are the dogs. Do you have a dog?"

"No. Tell me, have you ever heard Philip mention a brother?"

"No."

"His name was Mickey."

"I've never heard of him." Lola got up and brought over the champagne bottle. As she topped up Larry's glass the door buzzer sounded.

"I hope you haven't eaten," Lola said, putting down the bottle. "I ordered for two."

She went to the door and opened it. A steward brought in a trolley covered with silver dishes and wheeled it to the center of the room. He locked the wheels and deftly flipped out the leaves, turning the trolley into a table. He put a chair at either end, and as he arranged glasses and cutlery Lola told him he could open the wine. She pointed to the leather folder with the service bill.

"You want me to sign?"

The steward opened the folder and held out his pen.

"No, no . . ." Larry came forward, flapping his hand, embarrassed at the mounting generosity. "I'll do this."

Lola stared at him as he took the pen. ,

"I insist," he muttered.

"Gracias.
" Lola smiled. "Excuse me, one minute . . ."

As she walked off to the bedroom Larry looked at the bill and felt a thump in his stomach for the second time that evening. He looked up, gave the steward a strained smile.

"Will you take a check? I've got a card . . ."

The steward inclined his head gently, just once, assenting with the merest shadow of a smile. Larry, fighting down speculation about how he would explain this one, fished out his checkbook and flipped it open.

When the steward had lit the candles he left. A moment later Lola came out of the bedroom wearing a skimpy black evening dress with a semitransparent top. She turned a dimmer switch on the wall, lowering the lights until the warm candle glow was the brightest illumination in the room. She sat at one end of the small table and motioned for Larry to take the chair at the other end.

"This is delightful, yes?" For a moment she gazed at the dishes set out before them, then pointed at one, an iced tureen, and lifted the lid. "Oysters." She smiled at Larry, her teeth lustrous in the candlelight. "Do you like oysters?"

"I've never had one."

Lola scooped a little champagne into the bowl of a dessert spoon. With her fingers she placed the flesh of an oyster on top, being careful not to spill any champagne.

"Allow me," she said, leaning toward Larry with the spoon. "The first time must be savored, and you will either love it or want to puke. Open your mouth, Sergeant . . ."

Larry drew back his head, squinting at the unlovely presence under his nose.

"Come on," Lola coaxed, "open wide."

Larry opened his mouth, simultaneously closing his eyes. Lola pushed the spoon gently into his mouth, tilting it to make the oyster slide onto his tongue. A trickle of champagne ran down his chin.

"Swallow. Swallow it, don't chew, that's not the point. The whole point is the sensation, the texture of the oyster slithering down your throat."

Lawrence gulped as the cold flesh touched the back of his throat. The oyster slipped over his tongue and was gone. He stared at Lola, dabbing his chin with his napkin.

"Well?"

"Nice!" 'The second is as important as the first," she said. "If you liked
numero uno,
the next qualifies the experience, so that the memory, the total taste sensation, will be conjured up every time you order them."

As delicately as before, she eased the spoon past Larry's lips and let the oyster and the champagne glide onto his tongue.

"They are also an aphrodisiac, taste being one of the main senses of the equilibrium. Now . . ." Lola poured Larry a glass of red wine, then one for herself. She picked up Larry's glass and held it close to his face. "Smell. No, no, don't drink it, smell it, tell me what it's like . . . the bouquet."

Larry sniffed, sniffed again, then shrugged.

"I don't know."

Lola put her elbow on the table and leaned forward, eyes lowered confidentially.

"My father," she said, "can tell twenty-two different vintages just by sniffing the cork." She paused. "He is an alcoholic."

They both laughed. As the sound of it died they stared at each other across the table.

"Well, Sergeant," Lola said, "are you going to screw me or not?"

Larry felt his mouth drop open.

During the next ten minutes, or it could have been twenty, Larry revisited the sweating tensions of his adolescent days, the gland-locked period of his life when just the closeness of a girl put his mind and body in such a ferment that he could neither think nor act rationally. Sex in those days had worked on him like a brain solvent, wrecking his coordination and obliterating his sense of right and wrong; when the urge struck, all that mattered was the headlong drive to penetrate and climax.

At some point in the proceedings music had started to play, sexy music with a strident beat, flawlessly reproduced and pulsing through the scented air of the bedroom, which they had reached by a process unclear to Larry. He fell back across the bed, mildly surprised at the effect of only two glasses of champagne. He tried to stop Lola as she began unbuttoning his shirt.

"I've got to go," he protested. He hadn't been this excited over a woman in years, and in one ludicrous respect this time was unique: he was the one resisting. "This is crazy."

Ignoring his protests, Lola pulled the front of his shirt wide open and began licking his nipples. As he groaned she stopped and looked up at him.

"It isn't crazy." She touched his lips. "You're not doing anything wrong. I am eighteen."

"What?" Larry stared at her, stricken. "Eighteen?"

"I consent," Lola said, kissing his neck. She began undoing his belt. "And I have banana-flavored condoms."

Lawrence cupped his hands around her face, drawing her close to him.

"I can't do this," he said, his voice agonized.

"Please . . ."

"You don't have to do anything," Lola whispered, easing her face from his grasp, unzipping his trousers.
"Think
that you can and you will. It is all in the state of mind."

Larry's lips drew back in a taut rictus as the tension between lust and a sense of responsibility leveled out. Eyes wide, scarcely breathing, he watched Lola's dark little head move down. She paused. It was a moment of almost holy intensity. Slowly, her wicked mouth encircled him. He gasped.

f

Two miles away, in Von Joel's dimly lit room at the hospital, the nurse called Jackie had come in carrying a kidney dish covered with a folded cloth. She put down the dish, drew the blinds on the connecting window, then took a chair and eased the top under the door handle. Von Joel pushed himself up in the bed, smiling at her. Jackie turned to face him, undoing the buttons on her uniform dress. "Not too many," Von Joel whispered. "I want you to keep it on."

"Kinky."

"What a lovely old-fashioned word." He beckoned her to the bedside. She came and stood beside him. He realized she was trembling. "You'll have to indulge an invalid, darling."

He put his arm up around her hips. She bent down and he kissed her softly on the mouth. His arm began drawing her forward, gently unbalancing her. She looked at him.

"Are you sure about this?" she whispered. "I don't have very long and I mean, you're hurt . . ."

"It'll be a terrible day when I'm hurt that badly," he

said. "And it's not as if I'm handicapped, is it? I mean,

they took away the cage from my legs, and look"—he held up his right hand, bandaged thickly at the wrist—"no sling."

"You were supposed to keep that on."

"I'll put it back after."

"After what?" Jackie said coyly.

He squeezed her hip once, firmly, before letting his hand drop away from her. She drew back the bedclothes, looked down at him. "Jesus . . ."

"I said I wasn't handicapped, didn't I?" He pulled her down on top of him and held her by the wrists, guiding her hands to the sides of the bed, making her grasp the security rails. She panted against his neck as he pulled up the hem of her uniform, exposing sheer black stockings and the garters she had put on for his benefit. His knees probed between hers, spreading her legs until she was astride him.

"Don't move," he whispered in her ear. He kissed her mouth and shifted his body, the slightest motion of his hips. Suddenly he was inside her. She gulped. "My God . . ."

"Don't move!" he insisted. "I told you!"

She groaned as his hips drove against her, a measured thrust, jiggling her, making her hang on tight to the rails. As he began moving faster Jackie tensed her legs, dug her knees into the mattress. His hand crept around her hip and spread out flat on her rump.