The Pleasure Quartet (30 page)

‘What went wrong?’ I asked her. I feared that if I continued ruminating on my own situation, I would burst into tears. And I was not yet ready to confide in Tilly. I hadn’t
even worked out my own mess of thoughts, yet alone been able to articulate them to anyone.

‘Relationships like that never last,’ she said. ‘You’re just consuming each other. Something has to give. Either one of you wears the other out, or the shine wears off
and you get bored. Or, you just carry on and carry on, I suppose, until you end up in the newspapers because something dreadful has happened in the quest for finding edges that keep retreating
further and further away. Eventually, you work out that there aren’t any further erotic heights to scale. Searching for the perfect orgasm – it’s like looking for gold at the end
of a rainbow, and the end of the rainbow always keeps moving.’

Again I thought of Joan, and what she’d written about insatiable appetites, hunger that couldn’t be fed. I had a long way to go before I reached that point, I hoped.

‘So what was it for you?’ I asked her.

‘He got scared, like men do. Pathetic, the lot of them.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Said I ought to forget about him, find someone born with a plum in his mouth and get married, have posh babies, live in the country. Didn’t think it could last between us, it would
end eventually so might as well make it sooner than later.’

‘Maybe he really cares, wants the best for you? And doesn’t think he’s it.’

She shrugged.

‘What do you think?’ I continued. ‘Do you want to get married to a regular guy and live in the country?’ Not that I considered any of Matilda’s usual sort of men to
be regular.

‘God no,’ she said. ‘Boring as hell, that life. I’d end up like my mother. Half comatose on Valium all day and nothing but bridge circles and sports cars to keep me
occupied. I’d rather be a happy pauper than rich and miserable. I know you don’t think that of me, but it’s true.’

‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘But it’s not me you need to convince. Why don’t you call him? Tell him how you feel.’

She snorted.

‘Me, go begging on my hands and knees? Not likely.’

‘You’ve got nothing to lose. Besides your dignity, and what does that really matter in the end?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘And what about you? Are you going to be the spare part in Thomas and Iris’s relationship forever? Or the other two . . . Clarissa
and Edward? Or keep cruising BDSM clubs and parties until you work out what it is you’re looking for? Or worse?’ For a moment there, I almost believed she had somehow found out about my
brief career as a whore. Which I had not whispered a word about, even to Iris.

‘I have no idea.’

She pinched the tiny remaining stub of the hash cigarette between her thumb and forefinger and took one last deep in-breath before grinding it out on the ash tray.

‘Fancy going out for a pizza?’ she replied. ‘It’s a bit of a walk from here, but the Italian waiters at the local trattoria are cute, and technically, we’re both
single . . .’

I agreed.

‘Did you wear a swimsuit at all?’ I asked Clarissa. She was sprawled out on the leather sofa in her and Edward’s apartment, naked besides a grey felt trilby
that I was sure I recognised from the Princess Empire prop room. She had never felt shy about helping herself to bits and pieces of the costumes she fancied.

‘Not even once,’ she replied, smugly.

She and Edward had returned a few days ago from their Indian Ocean jaunt, and the previous evening had made a reservation at Joe Allen’s restaurant in Covent Garden where I was now waiting
tables. She had taken obvious pleasure in running her hands up my stockinged legs and beneath the covering of the short black smock that constituted my uniform. After a languorous dinner, coffee
and dessert, they had waited for me to finish my shift and then taken me home with them, flirting outrageously as we left together in front of the watchful and shocked eyes of my colleagues.

Now Edward had left for work, and Clarissa and I were upstairs relaxing, she with the day off and me scheduled on a later shift. She had managed to move from the bed to the couch, and was
flicking through design magazines as I opened and closed cupboard doors in the kitchen, pulling out ingredients to make American-style flapjacks and fried bananas. I had never been able to pour
them thin enough to pretend that they were crepes.

‘You’re as brown as a walnut,’ I told her. ‘I’m jealous.’

I set a pot of coffee down on the table in front of her and she reached for it eagerly.

‘There’s cream in the fridge,’ she said.

I brought it over, poured it into her mug, added a spoonful of sugar and handed it to her.

‘Why don’t you go away somewhere?’ she asked me. ‘Take advantage of living in London, travel. Have you been anywhere else since you arrived from New Zealand?’

‘I’m saving,’ I said. ‘But haven’t yet decided where to go first. Paris, maybe?’

‘You must go to Paris. But so many other places too.’

‘Shit,’ I said, and rushed back to the kitchen. I shovelled the charred remains of the burning pancake into the rubbish bin and prepared to start over.

‘First one always burns,’ Clarissa called out. ‘It’s the law of pancake making.’

I pulled back the curtain that separated the kitchenette from the living area so that we could talk without shouting at each other.

‘Your arse looks great in that shirt,’ she said, as I stretched up to hook the drape up over the curtain rail.

I had slipped into one of Edward’s clean shirts, since I couldn’t face putting on my uniform this early in the day, particularly since it most likely smelled of a work shift –
the accumulation of sweat, cooking and kitchen odours – and still lay crumpled on the floor where Clarissa had undressed me. I hadn’t showered, and was still wet from last night’s
play. Edward had just been an onlooker, as Clarissa fucked me in both holes with a harness that held two dildos at once. She still hadn’t allowed me to pleasure her, and I hadn’t seen
Edward bring her to climax either. She seemed to take great enjoyment from holding herself back, ever remaining in charge off all situations. I wondered if she let her guard down when they were
alone. She was strongly into control.

‘Thanks,’ I said to her. ‘Hope he won’t mind that I’ve stolen his shirt.’

‘I’m sure he’d love to see you in it.’

She was lying on her side, with one leg stretched out and the other lifted up to a right angle, displaying the largest and most luxurious bush I had even seen. It was dyed purple. Her clitoris
was pierced, and curiously extended. It peeped out from between her folds, a tiny glint of alluring silver.

I forced my attention back to the frying pan.

I located the plates, and piled two high with golden-brown pancakes, covered generously with butter and maple syrup. The bananas had caramelised with cinnamon and honey and the bacon had turned
to a perfect crisp under the grill. I poured orange juice into a jug, arranged everything on a tray and carried it carefully into the living room.

‘My, my,’ Clarissa said, ‘at this rate we’ll need another round to burn off the energy.’

She sat up and took one of the plates into her lap, piling a large chunk of pancake, banana and bacon onto her fork.

For a few moments the flat was silent besides the sound of chewing.

‘About Europe,’ Clarissa remarked, speaking with her mouth full.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think you could get a week off work?’

‘Probably. I’ve been there a few months now and at the rate they churn through wait staff, I’m practically one of the most senior . . . I think they’ll let me take a
holiday.’

‘Your cousin too?’

‘Gwillam? I guess so. I could ask him. Why? Do you think I’ll need a chaperone?’

She laughed.

‘Undoubtedly . . . But that’s all the fun of it.’

I waited for her to get to the point.

She picked up her glass of orange juice and took a large gulp, then set her plate down on the coffee table and leaned back against the sofa, her small breasts jutting upwards as she shifted

‘You’ve heard of the Ball, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘I remember your friend Thomas’s sister – Matilda, was it? – talking about her erotic parties,
and wondered . . .’

‘Yes, I know about the Ball.’

I nearly choked on a chunk of banana that was still making its way down my throat. Clarissa patted me on the back.

‘No need to get to carried away,’ she said, ‘though it is exciting. You’re going to love it.’

‘The Ball is back? Somewhere in Europe?’

‘Yes, soon. The precise location hasn’t yet been announced. Just the date. And since I have attended several now, I have permission to invite others, so long as I am prepared to
vouch for them all. So, would you like to come to the Ball, Moana?’

‘Yes, yes of course!’ I told her.

‘Thomas and Iris too, if you want them. All of us. One big sexy celebration.’

I leaned over and kissed her. She tasted of maple syrup and bacon.

Edward made all the arrangements.

We knew the Ball was taking place abroad as he’d asked us to bring our passports along, but that was all he let us know in advance of the departure date. Both Iris and I were lucky enough
that we were allowed to take a week’s vacation for the occasion from our respective jobs. The three weeks that followed the news that we were going to meet up with the Ball again had us in a
state of febrile excitement and apprehension too.

I lobbied Clarissa intensely to ascertain where exactly the event would be unfolding and whether it would be under the sign of a particular theme, so we could plan our outfits and be at our
best, but she remained the soul of discretion.

‘It must come as a surprise,’ she said. ‘And as for what you will dress in, I know your respective sizes, and rest assured that a form of correct attire will be provided when
we reach our destination.’ She always spoke in an odd, formal tone when she was discussing the Ball, as if she were reading aloud from an instruction manual.

We were to travel light, carrying just the bare essentials, necessary toiletries and little else, Edward advised.

Gwillam had also been invited to join us and gleefully accepted, but Matilda had decided to remain in London, still in the throes of her on-again, off-again relationship with Peter. I was
briefly saddened by the prospect of her absence as I had grown inordinately fond of her in the past months, but the buzz of the forthcoming journey and what might lie at the end of it soon tempered
my mood. My dreams were aglow with imagined possibilities, coloured by the glimpses of what we had witnessed at Cape Reinga and the further details I had gleaned from Joan’s diaries.

We met up on a sunny May afternoon at Victoria coach station. The first clue to our destination was when Clarissa led our small, excitable group to a line of passengers queuing for the bus to
Amsterdam. To my surprise, Patch was waiting for us there, standing out in the crowd like a creature from outer space, her head fully shaved, a carousel of thin gold-plated hoop earrings dangling
from each ear and dressed in an outfit of man’s three-piece pinstripe suit and two-tone brogues, the combination of which made her look quite androgynous. Clarissa and she warmly embraced,
while Edward observed their reunion without saying a word. We joined the queue and Patch introduced herself to the rest of our group. Her lipstick was a dark shade of purple. I noticed, with
fascination, that she’d also fully shaven her eyebrows. She would not go unnoticed, even more so as Thomas, Iris, Gwillam and I were all in our leisure uniform of jeans and sweatshirts, while
Clarissa and Edward were also understated in neo hippy loose shirts, baggy trousers that flared at the ankle and matching linen jackets in washed-out pastel shades.

As instructed, none of us had much in the way of luggage to cart along and we soon crowded into the back of the coach.

My imagination was already running wild, remembering all the tales of Amsterdam’s enticing turpitude I’d heard from Gwillam and occasional acquaintances who’d actually
travelled there. The love-ins in Vondelpark, the live sex shows in the Red Light district. Already in my mind I was trying to bring to life the imagined smell of the canals.

I was shaken from my daydreaming by Clarissa’s voice, as if she had been reading my thoughts. ‘We won’t have much time to spare in Amsterdam,’ she said. ‘We have a
train to catch there.’ I looked out of the window as a panorama of green fields still layered in places with a coat of moisture from an earlier rainfall rushed by. The coach was heading for
the ferry port where we’d cross the Channel to the continent. A thought struck me. I looked over to Iris, but her eyes were closed, her head buried in Thomas’s shoulder. I’d never
been on a boat before.

Clarissa was true to her word. We had slept overnight on the ferry and roused in the early hours of the morning, and did not even have time for a coffee on board before hurrying to meet another
coach that awaited us at the port and took us down the lowlands motorway towards Amsterdam’s Central Station. Within ten minutes, we hopped on a train destined for Germany. All we saw of the
fabled canals was a disappointing faint glimpse in the distance before the carriage shook into motion and began its journey through industrial wasteland, anonymous suburbs and the unending, flat
low-lying fields of the Dutch countryside.

During the course of our hasty passage through Amsterdam’s train station, Edward had managed to gather a bundle of sandwiches, fruit and mineral water bottles before we boarded the train
and divided the spoils between us, a makeshift breakfast. The whole carriage was full apart from our compartment; eager faces, travellers from other parts; it seemed as if the whole world was
congregating here for the remainder of the journey. Somehow none of us was in the mood for conversation, our minds focused on the Ball, its wonders, its secrets and our own fears about what we
would encounter at the end of the journey. I quickly dozed off, still tired from our early start that morning and lulled to sleep by the increasingly monotonous landscape unfurling outside the
windows.