Masquerade

Twelve

We go to Lana and Blake’s house and Tom, their chauffeur, takes us all to a private club called Annabel’s.

The doormen usher us in like royalty and we end up at a red lacquered bar surrounded by artwork. The walls have depressing, old-fashioned, polished brass and dark oak panels, and the ceilings are low and Moorish. The lighting is kept so dim that there is the feeling of being in a tomb or a cave. The clientele represents the denizens of British aristocracy in suits and international men of mystery who have as decorative objects tall and stunning Eastern European women half their age, and of course the super rich spoilt children of the Middle Eastern oil men. The dress code is strict and everyone is in a suit or a cocktail dress. Despite every effort to retain a décor of the dark and somber appeal of a library, the atmosphere borders on the nouveau riche.

A few very expensive cocktails later we move to their dining room where the walls are lined only with bottles of Bordeaux. The maître d’ does the usual and swarms all over Blake. The other waiters, mostly Italian, are friendly, a little cheeky and indulgent. We dine on some kind of Franco-Italian food, which is very good. Both Lana and I have pasta, Jaron orders the Bellota Iberica ham and Blake goes for blood-soaked steak. For starters Blake orders caviar, which is disgusting, but which everyone else seems to think is great. The wine is vintage and very expensive, but I don’t like wine so I stick with my cocktails.

Blake is sophisticated and urbane, Lana sparkles, Jaron is charming and attentive, and I just watch Jaron. There is a dynamic at work that I don’t understand. I watch Jaron work Blake Law Barrington and his wife. He is smooth. He is clever. He is funny. He is charming. And he is not the Jaron Rose I know. He is wearing a mask. He takes my hand, he looks into my eyes, he even leans in and kisses me on the lips, but this is not the Jaron I know.

The Jaron I know is assertive and demanding and, well, a fucking animal. This smooth, well-oiled…salesman is a shock to my system. Looking at him you’d never imagine that he flies down mountainsides in a wingsuit or goes to dive clubs where everybody is high on drugs just for the music. Is he hoping to get some business from Blake Law Barrington?

After bitter chocolate ice cream Lana and I move to the starlit dance floor to dance to cheesy seventies and eighties tracks. Obviously, I am conscious that I am dancing to ABBA but I have drunk so many fifteen pound cocktails I don’t care anymore. It turns out to be surprisingly fun.

For the most part it is Lana and me who keep rushing off to the dance floor to boogie while the men stay and talk about whatever it is that men talk about when their women go off to the dance floor. Once they come to interrupt us. From the corner of my eye I see Blake whirl Lana away by the waist and hear her surprised, delighted laughter, and then I am distracted by a hand grabbing me by the ass and pulling me around.

‘Classy, very classy,’ I shout over the music.

‘Don’t give out all your compliments in one night,’ he tells me and slams me into his body. I curl my hands around his neck.

‘Are you having a good time?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, you were right. Blake is a great guy, for a billionaire.’

And I am filled with a sense of great relief. I think I had been worried that he would not get on with Blake. ‘I wouldn’t want to have him as my enemy, that’s for sure. But it’s great when he’s married to your best friend.’

He replies but I don’t catch it because Mambo No. 5 comes on and I shout, ‘Look, Jaron, they’re playing your song.’

‘Very funny,’ he says, but we have a good time, with me kicking up my heels, singing, ‘A little bit of Monica in my life, A little bit of Erica by my side, A little bit of Sandra in the sun. A little bit of you all night long makes me your man.’

Jaron twirls me around beautifully.

‘Mambo number 5,’ I scream, taking one step to the left and then one step to the right. Then we are clapping our hands twice in unison with all the other dancers while moving along and laughing.

‘All we need now is a dose of Macarena,’ Jaron says.

And shock horror, the DJ puts on Macarena. My mouth drops open. And then we fall about laughing. Jaron makes an exaggerated production of limbering up before following me in the Macarena dance. It’s fun. I never expected him to be such a sport, to allow himself to be so goofy. Even Blake has a go. Lana looks flushed and happy and I wonder if I look like that too, because that is exactly how I feel inside. Flushed and happy.

By the time we get home it is nearly two in the morning and I am singing Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira. ‘No fighting, no fighting,’ I sing tunelessly as Jaron stuffs me through the front door.

‘Oh, baby, when you talk like that…’

He drags me to the bedroom, throws me on the bed and falls on top of me.

‘My hips don’t lie,’ I tell him slowly, enunciating the words properly. ‘I bought them in Columbia.’

He rolls me over so I am on top of him and it is immediately obvious that he is in no mood to banter. My knickers are sliding down my legs.

‘You’re mine,’ he says harshly, so different from the man who sat at the dinner table at Annabel’s. This is the Jaron I know. The promise in his words shivers straight to my sex.

‘Do whatever you want to me,’ I whisper hoarsely.

‘Say it. Say you are mine.’

‘I’m yours, Goldilocks. I’m all yours.’

‘Now fucking ride me until you get home.’

I murmur something incoherent and start unbuckling his belt. I slide my wet pussy against his cock and adjusting it to the center of my core, push down. This drunken sex is beyond delicious. It is like part sex, part dream. It could become part misery if I am not careful: shit, where did that thought come from?

I blank it out immediately.

I shudder on the edge. ‘Hell, I’m going to come,’ I gasp and look into his face. His eyes are burning green and a thin sheen of sweat is making his skin glow. My heart trembles. Jesus, save me, I am falling for Goldilocks. And then I am going out with the waves that come to fetch me. The thin sheen of sweat on his body—I slip on it. Shit, am I falling for Goldilocks?