The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) (9 page)

I had no idea why I tried the entrance door to the flat when I was returning my empty bowl to the kitchen. It wasn’t as if it were a real door in the first place. Well, it was, but no one ever used it to leave or return home. It led to the staircase, only used in emergencies. It was possible that the door was permanently locked. We all used the lift that was set to stop in the underground garage, but could be stopped at the foyer level as well.

And it was the lift that set my alarm bells ringing.

It was dead. Turned off. Inactive. Useless.

I was trapped.

My first response was panic, but that was soon replaced by anger. Anger to tears. What if fire broke out? Or I fell sick? Or...

I pushed my head under the kitchen tap and ran cold water over it. That helped. There were several ways out of the situation. The porter downstairs must have a master key. Or I could call the fire brigade, even start a fire in the kitchen myself if need be. I could call Bakir and ask him what that was all about. My father may have asked him to look after me, but he would have never asked for anything that would actually put me at risk.

Only, I didn’t want to do any of those things. I was fed up with my own constant whingeing and the self-imposed victim status. As I would have probably been quick to say to someone else in my position, if you don’t like it, change it. I had quite a bit of money on my savings account. My monthly allowance compared well to other people’s at school, and my mother usually quelled any questions that she didn’t like answering by throwing a number of large notes at me. Like any other girl of my age, I would have probably enjoyed shopping and throwing my money about on senseless trinkets if there was any point to them. I’d have still ended up in my monotonous splendid isolation. Therefore, the best part of that money remained where it was. In the bank. And not in my father’s bank either.

I knew that my father had pre-paid my school fees and board at the
Caroline String High School in full, one of the gestures he liked to make. That and the saved-up lolly meant that I could survive until the end of the next school year without too many problems. Especially if the Munroe take me in over the rest of the summer. If not, I could always go to my grandparent’s house, I thought, knowing full well that
always
wasn’t as appropriate as I would have liked it to be. The Bowens lived on the outskirts of Ross on Wye, running the kennels as a thriving business, and a sanctuary for any animal that needed it as a registered charity. They’d almost disowned my mother when she married my father. It wasn’t his money that they disapproved of, it was because he’d encouraged her to drop out of university in favour of beauty contests. They had never stayed with us, they had never invited all the three of us to stay with them. When I was younger, my mother had been taking me to see them at
The Sanctuary
twice a year, usually for a week at a time and I liked it there. I even liked them. They’d never shown any animosity towards me. They would welcome the opportunity to support a mutiny against my father, I hoped.

Maths, my last exam, was at 2 pm. It was coming up to 9 am now.

Suitcases were in the storage room downstairs, but my favourite Ferrari trolley case, bright red and quite large, lived under my bed. I’d never fully unpacked it since one of Father’s business trips of almost a year ago. I shook out on the bed a collection of scented hotel soaps, a bra that I had been desperately looking for ever since, a number of promotional leaflets for nightclubs half the globe away, a luxury leather box of personalised stationery that was a present from one of my father’s foreign business pals, and a paperback that didn’t look like one of mine.

Right. First things first.

-
       
Car keys. Check.

-
       
Mobile phone and charger. Check.

-
       
The secret pay-as-you-go mobile and charger. Check.

-
       
Bank and credit cards. Check.

-
       
Cash. 72 pounds plus some silver and copper. Check.

-
       
iPod and its accoutrements. Check

-
       
Laptop and stuff. Check.

Clothes, toiletries and such sundry items took no time at all. I closed the case with ease. In passing I picked up a pair of rather swish binoculars from the shelf and dropped them into my handbag. They were a present from my grandparents for my 15
^th
birthday. It may mollify them to see that I valued them.

There was every chance that my father was going to cancel my phone and broadband subscriptions just as soon as he discovered me missing from choice, but I’d had that covered. Several years ago and on Rosie’s advice, I’d bought my pay-as-you-go phone that no one knew about, and I’d set-up an alternative broadband account that no one could child-proof. Have I just said that I’d bought them? I gave Rosie the money and she did all the buying and arranging for me. How humiliating was that?! Rosie’s problem were not her parents, they were as permissive as permissive can be. It was her rich purse-stringer, the imperious, interfering and controlling sod of a grandmother that she had to work around.

I’d had thoughts of running away before, every young person has them, but every time I ended up feeling guilty and ungracious. My parents only had my best interests in mind. Prominent people had to go to incredible lengths to protect their children from greed, revenge, malice or just pure lunacy of others. None of that mattered any longer. I needed to take control over my life, and if that meant the risk of abduction for ransom, so be it. I couldn’t face another virginity test, another locked door, another chaste posh dress to impress a bunch of strangers. Another long summer evening with just myself for company. I had enough.

The suitcase rolled smoothly and quietly over the marble floor. I’d got quite good with opening that service gate between the buildings without disturbing the climbers too much. With the help of ties and a piece of string I could close both behind me so neatly that the interference was barely visible.

As I pulled the suitcase into the archway I could hear music coming from the swimming pool. Thank God for that. The lady was back from her travels. I didn’t expect her to be overly friendly or accommodating. Fading beauties don’t like well developed young girls like me. Still, it wasn’t her kindness that I relied on. All I wanted was access to the staircase in her building through her flat. And seeing that she’d probably be keen to get rid of me as quickly as possible, opening the door to me would suit us both very well. Who knows, with luck, she could even pack me off in the lift, just to speed up the process.

The music changed and I turned to observe the scene.

There were two people larking about in the pool. One was my old acquaintance, the turbaned lady, minus the turban. Her hair was dripping wet and smoothed back, away from her eyes. That earned her a few kudos from me. I hate it when women wade through water holding their heads high and their necks stiff to make sure that their hair doesn’t get accidentally wet. Alongside her was a man of about thirty, with a good mane of hair on his head and a healthy set of teeth in his mouth. That was all I could see of him at first because the woman jumped him from behind and pushed him under the surface. He resurfaced a few seconds later, splashed his playmate and with a couple of swift movements repaid the favour. There seemed to be a kafuffle of some sort between them for a moment, he shouted something incomprehensible in mock irritation, and she soon reappeared victorious, holding an object her hands. I couldn’t make it out from this distance. Without even the slightest twinge of consciousness or guilt, but with a powerful surge of gratitude to my grandparents, I pulled the binoculars out of my bag. By the time I adjusted the lenses, the loot was flying through the air in a small curve leaving trail of water drops in its wake. The man’s black swimming trunks splashed onto the tiled edge of the pool.

This was becoming interesting.

The play fight continued. I could hear them laughing, twirling and circling around each other. I’d heard the term
mating ritual
somewhere before. That was what it meant, I was certain of it. She seemed to be winning for he ended up with his back to the rail at the deep side. Her head was disappearing under the surface again. He was shaking his head, amused and bemused at the same time. I zoomed in to his torso, and a very nice torso it was. Smooth, hairless and gleaming wet. He grabbed the rail behind him with both his fist, and his smooth stomach, what I could see of it, scrunched into a six-pack. He was lifting his legs up to the surface and with them came the head and the back of the woman, followed by the rest of her naked body stretched out along his thighs. I quickly zoomed the binoculars up to the highest setting. I could have sworn that half of his penis was down her throat. I’d seen women practically swallow extraordinarily large cocks in porn videos and thought they were fake, some kind of photographic trickery. I couldn’t swallow a large bite of an apple without choking. I watched, mesmerised, as her left hand held onto the stem of the penis, her mouth moving around it in semicircles, while her right hand fondled his heavy testicles. He bit his lip as his body arched upward. I waited for him to come into her mouth.

But, he didn’t. A few seconds later, he lifted her head off his genitals. With his hand cupped in between her legs, he helped he climb out of the water, then jumped out himself. There were two loungers by the pool. I was praying that they wouldn’t head for the one on the right. If they did I wouldn’t be able to see very much. It would probably afford me an unlimited view of his backside and balls banging into her, but I had quickly developed into a discerning and demanding voyeur. I wanted it all.

A heartfelt prayer yielded fruit.

The woman chose the other one, the one under a perfect angle for the fly-in-the-wall audience. She invited him with her knees spread wide and led him to herself by his balls. It was a magnificent specimen that she was about to screw. I envied her with every fibre in my body. I envied her the anticipation, for he was moving towards her very slowly, I envied her growing urgent need, as he stopped at the very entry into her and was teasing her and teasing himself by rubbing her clitoris with the tip of the large, throbbing head of his cock. OK, I invented the throbbing. Even with the powerful lens that I had, I saw no such thing. But, I could feel it throb inside me, a response to that cruel mirage of a sensation that felt so utterly real and so mercilessly out of my reach at the same time.

Finally, the arrogant, playful cock allowed itself to be caught by the crazed cunt.

The woman impaled herself on it to the hilt. Their firmly coupled bodies rocked in a frenzy. I couldn’t tell whether they worked together or fought each other. After several powerful strokes, seemingly in and out, in and out, but never leaving each other, they both collapsed. He rolled off her and pulled a towel over his midriff.

The show was over. They probably felt glorious. I didn’t. I still didn’t feel guilty for peeping. I was aggrieved for being left out of life.

Chapter 9

I had enough time to take most of the essential items out of the suitcase before my gaolers turned up.

‘You must eat for your examination,’ Bakir shouted from downstairs one hour later. ‘Better come down to eat. The boys will clean up there in minutes.’

‘You locked me in and switched off the lift,’ I growled at him over my caponata. ‘What if there was fire or something?’

‘Tie that napkin better around your neck. Olive oil doesn’t wash,’ he pushed my chair deeper under the table to bring me closer to my plate.

I don’t know how I managed to finish that meal or make my way through my exam. I must have been running along two entirely separate tracks for it turned out later that I passed that exam with top marks while constantly replaying detailed, close-up images of two people fucking each other’s brains out. I wasn’t all that keen on leaving the penthouse any longer. I took my observation post the day after and the day after that, with binoculars on the top setting. The doors to the neighbour’s flat were open and there was movement inside, but no one came out. Clearly, I didn’t expect the couple next door to perform exhibition fucking every morning, but I was determined to be there when they did. My parents were still in Korea. Asha left for Iran three days ago, Rosie was begging me to get my but to the country and help her nurse her grandmother who was suffering from self-inflicted indigestion and driving Rosie mad with constant demands for attention. Rafaela was still in London, playing host to five cousins from her mother’s side. They were here to buy a trousseau for one of them. She was planning to accompany them on the trip to Milan before they all returned to Brazil together. I was invited to join them for the entire holiday. One girl’s family owned a number of hotels in Morro de São Paulo
,
I’d be a welcome addition, Ela pleaded desperately. In response, I asked them all to lunch the day after. Because the air conditioning was playing up and because the girls were a little heady, Bakir served cold lunch on the terrace. Two girls could fit themselves into my swim suits, one was in the middle of her period and decided to spend the afternoon watching musical videos in my bedroom. Ela and her two remaining cousins made clever use of some silk scarves that Mother and I had been given on a trip to Bangladesh. Our pool had never been so colourful.