Picture This

*

Felix put the camera down on its tripod, making sure everything was in shot, then watched for a few seconds as Leia stared down at the traffic streaming 23 storeys below. It was fascinating and empowering; he had control over whether this girl would live or die.

‘I want to fly,’ she sang. ‘I want to fly… ’ For a split second it seemed as if she was about to fall, then Felix moved forward and grabbed her, pulling her back over to his side of the wall. They stayed there for a moment, her buttocks against his crotch, his arms wrapped around her waist as he pressed himself against her wings.

‘God, that was such a buzz,’ she laughed.

‘Baby, you want to fly, I can make you fly… ’ Still hard, he pulled off her G-string and roughly parted her legs with his knee, bent her over the wall, her hair falling forward over her face.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, fear creeping into her voice.

Felix didn’t bother answering. Instead he moistened her anus with his finger, wh

ile freeing himself with his other hand.

‘No,’ she moaned, struggling, which only excited him further. Now he had her pinned against the wall, her legs spread wide, her wings rising up on either side of his torso. Roughly he entered her, the image of him sodomising an angel as exciting as the act itself. The skyline of Manhattan swaying with his pounding, the girl struggling beneath him, so tight he had to steady himself to stop himself from coming, and all the while Susie Thomas’s face in his head, her arse, her breasts, her unconquerable attitude. He would show her, he thought now, thrusting as hard as he could.

*

Latisha watched horrified through her binoculars, the art dealer’s face flushed red as he pounded into the angel, her breasts and head, the long hair hanging down, pushed down over the wall so that all she must be seeing was the yawning street and pavement before her. He was raping her – it was an outrage, a travesty and a crime, and yet Latisha was transfixed. The image was so gross, so violent yet mythical, she couldn’t drag her eyes away. The art dealer was flexing his power, showing the angel who was boss, but Latisha also suspected she was witnessing the real Felix Baum in action for the first time.

*

‘Tell me you wanted to jump, baby. Come on, tell me you wanted to jump… ’ he groaned in her ear, now close to coming, as he pounded faster and faster and deeper and deeper into her, his nails digging into her cheeks, the tightness of her slippery around him. He lifted one hand away from her arse and grabbed for a breast, the other arm curled around her waist, pulling her repeatedly down onto his cock.

‘Get off me!’ she screamed, as he continued.

‘Just say it… ’ He was close; he only needed to hear the words.

‘I…wanted…to…jump… ’ she muttered through tight lips, wanting him to stop.

‘Say it louder.’

‘I… wanted…to… jump… ’

He came with a huge shudder, his body collapsing over her.

A second later she pushed him off. ‘You sick fuck! You wanted me to jump! You wanted me to die!’ She reached for her G-string, wiping the tears from her face.

Collapsed in the corner, Felix laughed. ‘Oh, c’mon, you said you wanted to be a great artist, to make great art. I was just showing you how.’

‘Screw you, I’m out of here!’ Angel girl ran back into the apartment. A second later Felix heard the front door slamming shut. It was only then that he stopped the camera. Glancing down at the playback feature, he watched a little of the footage. It was good. Good enough to masturbate over later.

*

Susie stared at the ceiling: a moth fluttering around the bedside lamp was throwing a staccato shadow up against the roof beams. A multitude of disconnected images from the past two days ran through her brain: the view from the plane’s window, a billboard she’d sighted from the cab coming in from Kennedy Airport, Felix Baum’s face when they first met, that knowing look in his eyes, a curl of chest hair visible at the top of his open shirt, the scent of him as he leaned towards her in the restaurant. Sighing, she rolled onto her side, her fingers sliding down to her clitoris.

*

Back in his bedroom, Felix stripped and crawled into the cool cotton sheets. With his drug-addled heart still hammering away, he curled up, the nightlight he’d installed at the foot of the bed a comforting glow that swept him back to a fictional childhood full of Disney characters skipping through fields of blue cornflowers under a pink sky.

*

Latisha watched the lights go out behind the big windows. First the lounge, then the bedroom. She checked her watch and began punching Theo’s number into her mobile phone. By the time she got down to the ground floor, her nephew would be waiting to drive her home after his shift. She glanced over at Felix Baum’s apartment. She now knew where he lived and how he lived. It was all she needed.

Chapter Five

Felix looked up at the large windows of the converted warehouse, wondering if Susie was up yet. His groin still ached from the excesses of the night before, while a vague sense of guilt hovered at the back of his mind. He pushed it down and consciously buried it under the moment. A shot of wheatgrass juice and two espressos had partly banished his hangover, and now, with a combination of the spring sunshine and the sharp air, he was wired. After resting a corner of the large wrapped parcel he was carrying against the wall, he pressed the intercom, anticipation tightening his throat.