White Moon Black Sea (24 page)

They parted and she said, “All right, you never ask for forgiveness. Do you perhaps return money obtained under false pretenses? Say, one thousand one hundred dollars, plus ten thousand dollars, plus a round-trip flight on the Concorde.”

Rashid began to laugh, loudly, and joyously, and the note of relief in his laughter was not lost on Tana Dabra. “Certainly not. I usually hold to the policy that a deal is a deal, but it can always be negotiated or broken, if that is to my advantage. However, not this one. It means too much to me.”

“You are a hard man, not always fair, I think. But I will say nothing more about your deception because both of us now operate under the same guideline. I never complain and never explain either. You might remember that.”

It was dark, long after the regular closing time, when they left Van Cleef & Arpels with a collection of jewelery and gems worth several fortunes. They went directly to their suite and made love, romantically at first, but then with an intensity of unleashed passion. The telephone cut sharply into their ferocious idyll with an incessant ringing. Tana Dabra fumbled for it. When she replaced the receiver she was looking aghast at Rashid.

“What’s the matter?” he asked with genuine concern.

“I can’t believe it. One of the reasons I paid you to come to Paris was to escort me to a charity fashion show and ball I promised to attend, as I told you earlier today. We’re late, I am one of the ladies on the runway. That was Karl Lagerfeld, he’s furious. Rashid, you made me forget the world.” She rose from the bed, but he caught her by the arm and pulled her down next to him.

“Forget it.”

“
Forget it?
I can’t forget it. Come on, let’s go. We must at least make an appearance.”

He responded only with intimate caresses and kisses on her breasts. She closed her eyes in an agony of desire to
stay with him and dive deeper into the sexual excesses he promised. It took all her strength of character to push him away and order him to dress.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t you be ridiculous. I paid you for three days, and, by God, you will give me those three days. For so long as I paid, you will service me the way I want. And, right now, I want you to get dressed and take me to that ball.”

He began to laugh. “You don’t want to go any more than I do.”

“That’s true, but we’re going. Now, please, Rashid, get dressed.”

She turned and was walking away from him. He watched her stride, proud and naked, toward the bathroom. He leapt off the bed and swept her off her feet and into his arms.

“I’ll give you back your money. A complete refund.”

“Too late, you had your chance. Now, as my paid lover, my middle-aged toy-boy, accept it, you have no choice. We are going to the ball.”

She couldn’t help tilting her head back and giving that sexy throaty little laugh that so enchanted him. Still carrying her, he kissed her and then put her down to sit on the edge of the marble bath. He opened the taps and the bath began to fill. He poured a bottle of her perfume into the swirling water, then added bath flakes that burst into clouds of fine bubbles. He picked her up in his arms once more and stepped into the tub with her and lowered them both into the water.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

“You are going to smell like a lady,” she warned.

“I’ll shower the scent away.”

They kissed and their mutual need took over. She felt him enter her slowly. And they took their time fucking in the steamy, soapy water. Afterward, as he was washing her with a large sponge, he said, “All right, you win, we will go to that ball and show them how much I love you.”

The mirror within the walnut frame tilted at a slight angle on its pedestal and she saw herself looking very
beautiful in a sable coat. One furrier adjusted the set of the sleeve, the other, on one knee, was checking that the hem was even. The master furrier of the Bergdorf Goodman fur salon was checking that the ivory-carved buttons of the double-breasted coat were sewn on properly. As he ran one hand down the rolled collar of the coat, he told her the style reminded him of his first raccoon coat in the thirties, long before she was born. She saw, reflected behind herself and the furriers, Rashid, sitting in a small gray velvet love seat. Pleasure at Tana Dabra’s pleasure in her new fur coat suffused his handsome face.

She caught glimpses in the mirror behind him of the thick gray carpets, the heavy crystal chandeliers, an occasional model moving around, one in a floor-length silver fox, another in a four-hundred-thousand-dollar floor-length sable, another one in a chinchilla, yet another in a black diamond mink jacket. They floated through the room between free-standing mirrors, small love seats, and deep bergères covered in cream-colored silk damask. Past rich and elegant women they modeled their wares.

The enveloping smell of fur, Jolie Madam, Joy, Mitsouko, Norell, and, lurking beneath, mothballs of camphor filled the air. Tana Dabra looked away from the mirror and the luxury that it reflected toward the window. There was the cold, gray, foggy November day. The Plaza fountain was etched in frost but still able to bubble and dribble slow cascades of water. Beyond that, she could see the horses and carriages parked nearby, waiting for tourists to come along. Her gaze passed on over the tops of the trees of Central Park to where it was ringed by concrete-and-glass residential towers of the rich and the famous.

Tana Dabra heard Rashid complimenting the furrier. Her attention returned to the mirror, to herself in her new fur coat. The reflection showed herself celebrating her own appearance and, grouped beyond, the trinity of furriers glorying in her as their creation. There was scope here for a reflective mannerist painter, she mused, as Rashid rose from the love seat and walked into the composition framed by the mirror. She turned to him and he held out his hands to her. She took them in hers and, as always with Rashid,
a warmth from him seemed to run through her fingertips down her body right to her toes.

He squeezed her hands and turned away from her to thank the furrier and his assistants. Quite pleased with himself he put his arm around Tana Dabra and they smiled at each other. Rashid asked that they send the lynx coat she had worn into the salon around to the Carlyle. As the pair left, every eye in the room was on them. And why not?

Today Tana Dabra was wearing her long hair off her face and knotted high up close to the crown of her head, framing that magnificent face and long, slender neck. A pair of large square-cut diamonds in her ears sparkled above her new sable coat. Over her shoulder she had casually slung a large black alligator bag. She walked with a kind of clothesless freedom, almost loping like a gazelle. Yet, under her coat, she wore a black silk jersey Jean Muir dress with balloon sleeves that were tight at the wrist. It had a high, simple, round neck, and the material draped over and between her breasts seductively. Several strands of priceless pearls of different lengths seemed to give a glow to her face. As usual, she wore her ruby at her throat.

Though there still had not been a ceremony, on her wedding finger were three rings: two platinum bands holding a single eight-carat, square-cut diamond, and between them a platinum ring holding a twelve-carat ruby. Rashid had given them to her instead of a wedding band. On her left wrist several slim bangles were solid with diamonds, dancing in the light. If people counted the elusive and somewhat mysterious constant companion of Rashid Lala Mustapha among the most beautiful women in the world, they had reason.

Just a few steps from the elevator Rashid turned to Tana Dabra and told her, “I wanted you so much when I was sitting there in the velvet chair watching those men fondling your coat. I was wishing you naked underneath that soft, rich fur. Those high-heeled, shiny black alligator shoes, those trim ankles. Your shapely legs in their sheer stockings I could only think of stripping them off you, having you naked, maybe just draped in your jewels, and taking you ruthlessly the way I did when I swept you away
from that ball in Paris and on to my plane. How long is it now, a month, six weeks, since we have been prisoners of our love? I’ve lost track of time since we met again in Paris. That flight to Dominica seems to me to be only yesterday.”

He whispered softly in her ear, while he stroked the arm of her sable coat. “Dominica, remember Dominica? What joy it was to introduce you to something as depraved as we shared there, and to discover you enjoyed it so completely. The more I discover you the more I love you. Put me out of my misery, Tana Dabra, marry me. You have only to say when and where.”

Yes, she would marry him, but in her own time, not his. And she had no idea when that would be. She was in love, but not blinded by it. She was committed to him till death might part them, but still she held back from naming the date. She didn’t quite know why, but she was sure that it had to do with him and not her. She was waiting for him to reveal to her something he was holding back. She had no idea what it was, but, when he did reveal it, she would know it instantly, and then she would marry him.

“Hello, Rashid,” came a voice behind them. “I never thought I would see you again. I don’t suppose you even remember my name.”

“Cynthia Cohen. How could I be so careless as to forget a beautiful woman as generous to me as you were?”

Tana Dabra watched the girl flush crimson, and she felt sorry for her. Rashid was seducing Cynthia even as he recalled her previous seduction. He had obviously discarded her. How she must have suffered. He introduced Cynthia to Tana Dabra, then turned his attention from her back to Cynthia.

In the weeks they had been together, Tana Dabra had watched numerous women encountered as casually as this girl. Watched them cling to him with a kind of controlled desperation for his attention. He had charmed and seduced them in minutes, as he was doing right now, only to leave them with nothing more than hope, as he would do to this poor Cynthia.

There were so many facets to the man. She had learned
so much about him through his behavior. Not all of it good, but then not all of it bad either. There was the woman who finally had the baby. When she was in labor Rashid had spoken to her every few hours until the baby was born. Afterward he spoke to her every day. Rashid never talked about her to Tana Dabra. He didn’t have to, she understood that he loved the woman. And he was right, it made no difference in their relationship.

There was the woman he called Humayun. He had flown her down to Dominica for four days of sex with them. Tana Dabra had never seen a sexual slave before, yet she recognized it in Humayun at once. She had also been in awe of Humayun, her beauty, her apparent enslavement. Tana Dabra could hardly believe any woman could be as sensual and sexual as Humayun. There was something else Tana Dabra had seen for the first time: Rashid being sexually seduced by Humayun. It released a range of emotions in Tana Dabra that both thrilled and frightened her. And watching Rashid direct Humayun in a night of sexual debauchery nearly drove her mad with desire to be a part of their experience. She half fell in love with Humayun herself during days and nights of sexual abandonment in Dominica.

There was the strange way he behaved about Adam. He had called him from the plane en route to Dominica. She recalled his words and puzzled over the meaning hidden in them. He had reached Adam in Istanbul, while they were in bed in the master bedroom, she sitting naked astride Rashid, lost in her own lasciviousness. They were facing each other. He was savoring her obvious pleasure in taking the dominant role by impaling herself upon him. Lying passively he allowed her to make all the moves that gave her so much pleasure. Hers was the posture of sexual victory, her hands on her hips, a subtle but sensual animal quality in the way she moved up and down and around and around upon him with her pelvis, the tilt of her head, the twist and turn of her shoulders. She thought of those words now.

“Adam. It’s Rashid. Just a quick call. I’ve met a most extraordinary lady. She claims to know you. Tana Dabra
Ras Magdala Makoum. Strange name, mysterious woman. I took her to a ball a few hours ago and am whisking her away for a while. Know that she is safe with me. I find it is you I have to be grateful to for all you have done for her. Adam, just now, only you should know I intend to marry Tana Dabra. I don’t think this has to alter my other longtime relationships. I just need time to prove that to the others involved. You have my word, the last thing I will ever do is hurt the ones I love. Tana Dabra, if she marries me, will understand that our marriage will not change the secret aspects of my life. There are no illusions about that for her.”

Adam had said something in reply. At a more respectable time a few hours later, when she had asked Rashid to get Adam back on the line, she was surprised when he refused. His candor about his reasons surprised her yet more.

“No. Not until we have announced our wedding plans. Am I going to let him tell you that I am a ruthless womanizer, a depraved man — bad material for a husband — a morally obtuse businessman? Do I want you to learn from him that I am obsessed with a past that has vanished? All of which is true, but I would rather have you discover things on your own with me.”

While Cynthia and Rashid flirted, Tana Dabra’s mind wandered back to those days in Dominica.

Rashid’s jet was too large for the landing strip on Dominica and they had to change to a smaller plane in Antigua. The four-seater that took them to Dominica flew low over the Carribean and zoomed down to follow the shoreline, its wheels skimming the tops of the waves, shaving the undergrowth by the rocks and road before bumping down on the short runway laid out in the middle of a forest of coconut palms. The plane skidded erratically to a halt.

Several vehicles, a Range Rover, two beach buggies, and a Chrysler convertible, met them on the runway. They were swept off to the other side of the island, almost all of which was owned by Rashid. Tana Dabra had suddenly
felt happier than she had been about any place since her last dangerous moments in Ethiopia.

The island, with its three hundred and sixty-five rivers, surrounded by a warm sea, sizzled under the tropical sun. It was a paradise within a rain forest. Its native dark-skinned Dominicans, its primitive simplicity, reminded her of home. A life of opulent uselessness in a European capital, acclimating to its radical chic, suddenly became impossible for her. She turned to look at Rashid and confirmed to herself what she had already known: They were meant for each other. He returned her gaze with a knowing look. It brought an instant reaction from her. She spoke up with a voice alive with feeling.