pite never having been married himself he still liked to think the institution was sacrosanct. Or it would put women (and sometimes men) at their ease, as if the experience of marriage both gave him more gravitas and made him more trustworthy.
Just then he noticed that the in-flight magazine lying on the businesswoman’s lap had flipped one page and was open at the movie section. The page was dominated by a large photograph from his latest film and featured him in character dressed as a beekeeper, the lead character in the movie Loser. Startled, he almost got out of his seat; instead he forced himself to remain calm and, surprised at the intensity of his own reaction, tried to steady his racing heartbeat. He hadn’t been this nervous since receiving his Oscar. It was an epiphany, a sudden understanding of how much the seduction meant and how the opportunity that now presented itself was once in a lifetime. Jerome had to stop her from seeing the promotional image in the magazine. He had to stay unknown to her. Had she already recognized him? Was his last chance of looking into the mirror and remaining anonymous lost? Fearing he was too late, he glanced across the aisle—her eyes were closed; she hadn’t seen the photo yet. It was a matter of seconds—he had to move fast. Disentangling himself from his seat belt, he got up and stood in the aisle. Pretending to reach for something in the overhead locker, he swung and deliberately let the sweater that was draped over his shoulders fall across the lap of the Chinese woman. It slipped onto the magazine, covering the photograph completely.
The businesswoman opened her eyes. An expression of outrage at having her personal space so rudely violated flashed across her face. She sat up, adjusted her skirt, and broke into a torrent of angry Mandarin. Ignoring her fury, Jerome, adopting his most charming smile, apologized in English, then bent over her to collect his sweater, keenly aware that by doing so he would certainly be close enough so that she could catch the scent of both his pheromones (the allure of which he strongly believed in, especially as he’d been voted Sexiest Man of 2002) and his very expensive Parisian aftershave. As he collected his sweater he also managed to knock the magazine onto the floor. Again, smiling and fixing his most seductive look upon her, he handed the closed magazine back to her. The unspoken protocol of first-class passengers keeping to themselves was broken. The woman gazed up at him. It was impossible to completely read her reaction in those black eyes, but Jerome was undeterred; if anything her apparent perplexity excited him further, as did the sight of her slim thighs visible under the taut silk of her skirt. Still smiling, he pressed his hands together in front of his face and bowed as if he were a Tibetan priest. The gesture broke the tension as, laughing, she bowed back. Flushed with the success of the first strike, Jerome returned triumphantly to his seat. “The seed is sown, Rom,” he said silently to himself; now it was merely a question of time.
Moments later both the hostess and steward fussed around the two passengers, setting their tables with the customary white linen tablecloth and real cutlery, followed by their meals. The lights had now dimmed and each passenger booth was like a small island of illumination, the gentle drone of the engines like the great internal workings of a huge bird in which they were cocooned.
Jerome loved flying. He loved the neutrality of the environment—it was timeless, nationless, and best of all out of reach of the frenetic world stretched out beneath them. He finished his Dover sole and a glass of bone-dry sauvignon. Now he was intensely conscious of every movement his neighbor made, as if there were an invisible web linking his arm to hers, his hands to the small white fans of her own. He didn’t have to look at her. It was as if he could feel the shift in the air around them with every gesture she made. It was a waiting game, a question of knowing when to reel in that taut thread of erotic possibility, he concluded, stretching his long legs against the footrest that, when raised, converted the seat into a full-length bed—useful in a private jet but not so useful in the polite and chaste atmosphere of a first-class cabin on BA, he noted.
Suddenly his reverie was rudely interrupted by a grape that came flying through the air from the direction of her seat. He caught it deftly with his left hand, then looked across the aisle. The woman sat leaning forward, another grape impaled on a fork. To Jerome’s delight she smiled slightly, a seductive half smile, teasing. In response Jerome lifted the thrown grape to his mouth, then rolled it between his lips, running it across his full lower lip while his tongue circled the purple flesh of the grape suggestively. Mimicking him, she lifted the impaled grape to her own mouth, sucking on it as if it were him, his cock. Jerome watched intently, her cupid bow lips dominating the narrow face, her dusky ivory skin heightened by the ink of her hair. She paused now, holding the grape between her lips. The action pushed out the flesh, and the grape glistened provocatively, ready. Mirroring her, his own lips came down upon the grape he held, both grapes spitting a tiny trickle of juice at exactly the same moment they both bit down: the climax, the pact, the moment of silent acquiescence.
Under his blanket his erection was close to bursting. Jerome picked up the fresh fig that was nestled between the Camembert and Gruyère on his cheese plate. He looked down the aisle; some of the other passengers were now tucked up in their individual booths, stretched out and sleeping, the lights above them turned off. He could even hear the faint rumble of the entrepreneur’s snore in the booth ahead of him. Others were still finishing off their meals. Turning the fig slowly around and around, he waited until the last of the diners had finished and were lying out in their individual booths either resting or sleeping. Most of the overhead seat lights were out and the crew were now discreetly out of sight, sitting in their rest area at the back of the cabin. Leaning down, Jerome carefully rolled the fig across the carpeted aisle toward the Chinese woman. Tumbling as it followed the slight tilt of the plane, it arrived at her seat. She reached down and, after extending a slender leg into the aisle, rolled the fig over her thigh, then beneath her skirt and into the recesses of her crotch. Jerome caught his breath, his own hand creeping under his blanket as he reached for himself, releasing his cock with a subtle lift of the hip and a quick soundless unzipping; in seconds it was in his hand, hard and hot.
Across the aisle the woman switched off her overhead lamp. Jerome peered through the dimmed light, watching, fascinated, as she shifted her weight in her seat, her hand slipping down beneath her skirt and between her legs. He switched his own light off as his fingers wrapped themselves around the smooth skin of his penis, a heat bar pushed up against his stomach. Closing his eyes, he executed a couple of quick tight strokes, the hot familiar pump of masturbation, the image of her lips flashing across his mind’s eye as he imagined her taking him. . . .
The rustle of someone getting out of their seat startled him out of his fantasy. He glanced over. She was leaving, making her way down the aisle toward the toilet. He zipped up his fly and waited for several minutes to pass so he could avoid drawing attention to himself, then, after checking that the crew were still out of sight and that all his fellow passengers were asleep, he followed, his loose shirt concealing the bulging erection that would otherwise have been visible through his jeans.
He paused at the toilet door. The dividing curtain between first class and business was pulled across while the first-class hostess and steward were huddled on the opposite side of the plane’s aisle, engaged in a whispered conversation. They hadn’t noticed him. Taking advantage of their distraction, Jerome tapped quietly at the door. A second later he heard the bolt being slid across. He let himself in.
Dressed in expensive lingerie—purple lace he recognized as La Perla—she was pressed up against the washstand, her back against the basin. He squeezed in beside her, thankful for the extra space given to first-class amenities. There were only centimeters between the tips of her breasts and his chest. She was tiny next to his tall angular frame. He reached behind her head and pulled loose her hair. In a jasmine-scented cloud, it slipped down over her shoulders like black molten glass. She stared up at him, daring him to take her. He needed no permission.
Without a word he lifted her up and set her down on the closed toilet seat. He knelt on the floor as she too knelt on the toilet seat, thrusting her narrow hips toward him. He slowly peeled off the low-cut lace underpants. Her skin, the color of pale honey, was as soft as kid gloves, and the feathering of black pubic hairs so fine it was like a dusting over her sex. He stretched his hands from the center of her flat stomach to her hips, his fingers covering her entirely. Above him he could hear her moan as her body trembled beneath his fingers. He parted her with his thumbs; her sex was neat, symmetrical, her lips glistening and swollen with desire. Bending farther down, he nuzzled in, his tongue finding the small erect clit. She smiled down at him—beautiful, enigmatic.
As he inserted his fingers into her moist crack he found the fig, pushed up inside her, now protruding between her inner lips. He slipped a finger underneath and, nudging the fig out, began to eat it, pausing between each tiny bite to circle her clit with his tongue, stopping to suck gently before resuming, fig juice intermingling with her own juices, her thighs trembling wildly under each hand. Above him the groans continued, a little stifled. He glanced up over his shoulder into the mirror. She had clamped her own hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out, her face flushed pink, his shoulder-length hair falling across her thighs, with only his brow and bridge of his nose visible. He liked this reflection; he liked the way his face was hidden, that he was unrecognizable. He had become every man and no man. He was finally a man who lived in his own skin, who was desired for himself alone and not his fame, who lived for his own expectations and not others”.
His cock was now painfully hard, bursting against his leg as he finished the last of the fig. She was slippery wet, tiny contractions fastening themselves around his finger. He judged she was close to coming but not quite there.
She was small: the promised tightness of her was almost enough to make him come there and then, even without entering her. Instead he lifted himself and stood upright, so that his crotch now faced her. She slipped her legs down so that she was sitting on the toilet seat and reached for his fly, unzipping him eagerly. He turned back to the mirror; his head and shoulders had moved out of the mirror’s reach. Again he was without identity, invisible—all that was reflected was a man being serviced by a woman. For a man who was confronted with his own image as much as Jerome was, it was a profoundly liberating sight.
He tilted his body so that his penis came further into view. He liked his cock. He was lucky that it was as beautiful as the rest of him, well shaped and in proportion, complemented by testicles that seemed a good weight and size. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he ran his hands down the length of it. Then, still watching himself, he pushed his fingers through her long
hair and pulled her down to him, rubbing his tip backward and forward across her lips, teasing. Grabbing at him, she took him eagerly into her mouth, gagging slightly on his size.
Burning circles of tight pleasure spiraled around him and shot up through his groin and torso. Weakening at the knees, he put out an arm to steady himself, trying not to come. She was good, really good. More important, she seemed to be enjoying herself as much as he was. Cupping his balls, she took him deeper and deeper, opening her throat like a professional. Was she a professional? The thought suddenly shot through Jerome’s mind—the uncomfortable possibility that he might have been set up by some mercenary tabloid newspaper. It was almost enough to make him lose his erection. But as he glanced back down at her elegant face dipping to and fro, the diamond bracelets banging against her wrist, he was reassured: she was too well groomed, too well dressed, and there was that elusive quality about her, that independent self-assurance of the extremely successful woman that no hooker, no matter who she was, could emulate.
Comforted, his consciousness rushed back into his body, back into the tip of his cock throbbing in the hot cavity of her mouth. He had to stop. He was too close. Pulling away, he pushed his jeans to his knees and roughly pulled her onto his cock, her legs winding themselves around his waist, as he straddled the toilet seat for balance. She slipped over him like a silk glove; the snug fit made both of them gasp. It was ecstasy; it was the wettest, tightest place he’d ever penetrated, and he was reluctant to attempt any further thrusts for fear of coming. She moaned loudly as he slowly began to move his hips, the pleasure spreading like a slow burn from the pinnacle of their locked sex organs. With each new entry she grew wetter and fuller, and he felt as if all of his body had become his cock, every millimeter of pleasure, of skin on skin, resonating throughout his whole body, both of them now groaning, wet, faster and faster until the sex was driving him completely as he began pounding furiously into her. He slipped his hand into her long hair and yanked it back, while the other hand lifted one of her breasts to his mouth and he bit down on her nipple sharply. He thrust faster and faster, the roar of the plane engines now filling Jerome’s head like his own approaching climax, like the roar of semen, of his own essence, identity, the inner nameless soul gathering up into one searing bolt of pleasure and he came, shuddering over and over, her thin arms clutching at him, her slender fingers trying desperately to muffle his groans. A second later she reached for the hand towel and covered her mouth to stifle her own cries as she came, her whole body shaking uncontrollably. In dim postcoital awareness Jerome found himself clutching onto her until she stopped quivering, suddenly somewhere between lover and fighter. In the silence that followed they half-sat, half-stood there, Jerome precariously perched on the closed toilet seat with the woman still wrapped around him. Reaching across, he pulled up the window blind. Outside it was dawn—just below lay a perfect carpet of thin fluffy white cloud stretching endlessly around the plane. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet and there was a band of glorious pink-red light above the cloud that bled into the azure of the blue sky above. It looked utterly elemental. A great wave of happiness rushed through the film star. He’d done it; he’d finally seduced someone who had no idea who he was, who’d desired him simply for being an attractive man. As he stared out, a feeling of total well-being swept over him and for a moment he was part of that cloud, part of a greater truth, and it felt like immortality.
• • •
Ms. Wei Chung walked swiftly down the tunnel leading into the arrivals lounge feeling particularly refreshed. British passport control had been easy to navigate and she was feeling invigorated after her long but interesting flight. And uncharacteristically for the normally sober businesswoman, she couldn’t stop smiling. Xu Feng, her young PA, an ambitious Harvard graduate who was happy to work around the clock for one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs, was waiting on the other side of the barrier beside the limo driver who was holding up a cardboard sign with her name written clumsily in Chinese characters. Xu looked grim. Wei strolled up and handed her hand baggage to him, thinking her news would be sure to restore his usual cheerfully wry expression. “You’ll never guess who I just screwed!” she told Xu in Mandarin.
BARROW BOY
“What school did you say?” Lord Harwood, Eddy’s prospective father-in-law, looked up from his beef Wellington and studied the twenty-six-year-old metals trader with the air of an anthropologist who has just discovered that the tribe he’s dedicated his life research to turned out to be speaking bastardized French and not some exotic, unknown tongue.
“Oh, Daddy, no one asks that question nowadays.” Cynthia, Eddy’s fiancée of five months, laughed nervously, a high-pitched tinkle that Eddy had once associated with class but now found irritating. Eddy’s narrow, handsome face sharpened as he glanced around the dining table. This was the moment both Cynthia and he had been dreading, the moment of truth when all his carefully laid plans could collapse as fatally as a house made of cards. Luckily they’d spent the week before devising a plausible back-story. Cynthia, despite her ingrained snobbery, was a pragmatist and she appeared to love Eddy regardless of his working-class roots, a fact that had never ceased to amaze him, but instead of endearing her further to him, as it should have done, it only made him feel more indebted to her, and Eddy, as a self-made man, hated feeling indebted to anyone.
Nevertheless, together they had concocted a plausible secondary and university education for the trader, and Cynthia had reassured him that a little white lie here and there wouldn’t cause any harm, especially once her parents realized that Eddy’s annual income was at least twice that of Lord Harwood’s, who’d been living off the dwindling family estate since the 1950s. But the truth was, Eddy, or Edward as he was known around the table in question, was, to his deep chagrin, finding dinner at the Mayfair residence of the great family both intimidating and, in some inexplicable way, humiliating, for Eddy was the son of a fish stall owner at Berwick Street Market. Good English working-class stock, his family had been running that particular fish stall for over 150 years, a lineage one might, in other circumstances, have been proud of.
Yes indeed, Eddy was barrow-boy blood through and through, and the school he had attended was a minor comprehensive somewhere west of the Edgware Road, a place he could barely visualize, as he’d spent a good deal of his schoolboy years playing truant or hanging out with his errant but entrepreneurial uncle, who was the one to introduce him to the intrepid seductions of the stock market.
At twenty-six, Eddy was the most successful metals trader in his bank, a small boutique enterprise that was extremely selective in its choice of clients, and with a turnover of more than two billion per annum, it could afford to be. It was the late summer of 2008 and London was still the glistening financial capital of the world, awash with both ridiculous wealth and pockets of bleak poverty. Like a great, fat diamond with some facets shiny and some clouded by grime, one’s experience of the metropolis really came down to which facet one was staring through, and Eddy had made sure he was staring through the shiny one.
“I ask that question; I’m somebody.” Lord Harwood’s voice rumbled down the length of the Georgian rosewood dining table and settled against Eddy’s Wedgwood white china plate (also over a hundred years old) like a malevolent cannonball. Staring down at his pool of gravy, Eddy was reminded of the pale green chipped china his own father, now divorced, ate off in his small council flat. He knew his socialist father would be appalled to see him now, all trussed up in black tie, speaking in a private school accent he’d recently finessed through watching an old DVD of Brideshead Revisited.
“Fuck it,” the ambitious trader thought to himself, “now the lying begins. Still, what has to be done, has to done.”
Eddy prided himself on a certain mercenary ruthlessness that separated him from his forty-five-year-old dad, who was a bit of a hippie and who, to Eddy’s annoyance, continued to romanticize New Labor, the benefits of t