Fools for Lust (8 page)

That would do to begin with.

If, as I expected, this failed, the second angle of attack would involve more illegal methods to trace financial records at the publishers or the literary agency. This was problematic, though, as I still had no precise indication of her real name.

The biggest risk would involve breaking into her agent's offices to check their records.

Not something I was looking forward to.

But, if it came to that, I knew I would. I could sense it in the air, Callie was in Manhattan. Probably no more than a mile or two away. I had to find her. I would find her.

29 September, 1999
Finally managed a meeting with her agent, a perky preppy twerp with regulation red braces and an insincere smile. No, Miss Blackheath is quite adamant that she wishes to retain her privacy. Did you know we've a Hollywood option for the book? Gwyneth Paltrow is being lined up. Personally I'd have gone for Anne Heche, you know, but she's a hard sell for romantic stories now, of course. If it were up to me I'd love her to consent to an interview. Would help sales. The absent author lark has its drawbacks, you see. He relented slightly, assuring me he would contact her and strongly recommend she agree to seeing me. Absolutely loved the magazine I was pretending to write for. Really. But that's all he could do. He did have this other client, an ex-stripper and dominatrix who lived in Alphabet City and now penned very erotic books. Great angle. Wouldn't a feature on her be great? She wouldn't mind being photographed in the nude, you see. He would get in touch, one way or the other when Katherine Blackheath responded to my request. No, he didn't know how long it would take.

I tried to squeeze some more information out of him. Background stuff for my piece. How had he come to represent her? In fact it was another agent who had since departed from the agency and he had only just taken over her affairs. Had never actually met her. Loved the book. So funny. I noted the previous agent's name. He'd moved to Los Angeles as a reader for a film company.

In her novel, Callie's character had decamped to California and become involved in the making of hardcore porno films. Jotting things down on automatic pilot, in the agent's office with its panoramic views of downtown Manhattan, I recalled the feel of her lips, in London rooms, caressing the dangling sac of my balls, teasing my rigid stem, before tenderly devouring me whole.

I don't think I can really tell you more, the agent said, rising from his padded chair. On the way out, I smiled broadly at one of the young women at a nearby desk. Asked if she was his assistant. No, just an intern. I smiled again. English accents are popular here. A possible future contact?

12 October, 1999
I know it's you, the letter said. Do not try and find me, I implore you, if you have any decency left in your body. Let me be.

Who cares about decency? What the fuck does it have to do with us? I must see you, Callie, or whatever your name really is or was, or is now, Katherine. Please, I answered, sending the letter care of the agency.

At night in my hotel room, I read her few lines a thousand times over. Smelt the paper, desperately attempting to retrieve even a trace of her scent. Two years ago, I had mentally catalogued every one of her fragrances, from the bitter sweet smell of her breath on awakening in strange, sordid hotel rooms, which she always tried to obliterate with mints, to the pungent aroma of her under-arm perspiration following our exaggerated sexual exertions, to the unique perfumes of her inner secretions which I would greedily suck from her as she spread herself open for me.

I still love you madly, I wrote her with a distinct lack of originality. And whatever I have done wrong, I beg for your forgiveness. I must see you. At least, let's talk. It kills me that I don't know the answers.

24 October, 1999
No. I swore it was over, Joe, and nothing you could say or write could make me change my mind now

Stop stalking me. It doesn't suit you. At all.

It will soon be the year 2000. Can't you understand once and for all that I have rejected you and call an end to this sorry episode?

Do not write again. I will not answer any more.

She signed the letter Katherine Blackheath. It was just addressed to Joe. Not even Dear Joe.

How definitive she could be in her vindictiveness.

And, no, I didn't understand women.

Her words both pained and angered me. I swear we shall meet again before the bloody year 2000. Just wait and see.

2 November, 1999
I'm seeing Stevie for drinks tonight. She's the young woman with the kind smile back at Callie's literary agency. Exploring another avenue.

Have given out almost $500 among various contacts I've been given at the immigration offices to track Katherine Blackheath down. None of them asked questions. They took the money and made vague promises.

Now, I wait.

3 November, 1999
Stevie allowed me to kiss her briefly, as we reached the door to the flat she shared with two other ex-Bennington graduates in a Lexington Street brownstone.

I'd laid on the charm like a real hypocrite, never even hinting at the reason for my attentions.

We're eating out tomorrow night.

Her freckles make her look even younger than she is.

8 November, 1999
Stevie and I are now sleeping together. The first night was good; I didn't even have to pretend she was Callie to maintain my erection.

We went to the Hamptons for the weekend. I hired a car.

She talks too much. But then maybe I'm too quiet, and it balances out in the order of things.

But London nights are, so quickly, back in my mind again, as I wish Stevie's fingers might move a little further, a bit harder, differently, as we make love between crisp white sheets and she catches her breath in spasms under the weight of my body.

14 November, 1999
A month and a half to the Millennium. All the papers and TV news (the hotel have finally put my set right) and chat shows are already interminably rambling on the parties and celebrations on New Year's Eve. Times Square will be a killer.

Six weeks left to locate her.

It will be strange seeing her again. I know there's no point in rehearsing a speech or something; I'd forget it in her incredible presence anyway. I'll have to overcome her initial anger, of course.

She's not here on a Green Card. I have managed to determine that. Expensively. Next Sunday, I intend to ask Stevie an important favour.

20 November, 1999
No, not there. Stevie screamed as we fucked. I'm sorry, I told her, but I know she didn't believe me.

But I
am
sorry. She's just the wrong person at the wrong time. I'm too rough because she's not the woman my whole body screams for in an act of madness. I don't like hurting people.

She's agreed to look up the Katherine Blackheath file sometime next week, when she gets an opportunity to get into the agent's office during a lunch break. Probably Wednesday as he's booked for lunch at the Metropole Hotel for a meeting with some Bertelsmann top brass.

26 November, 1999
Stevie's provided me with an address. On Varick Street. In the Village. Must have passed the building on countless occasions. Stevie has also said it would be better if we didn't see each other any more. She knows I have used her.

28 November, 1999
It's a small three-storey building. There's an intercom by the front door; there are no names on two of the bells. I tried all of them. None answered. This was in the morning. Same again in the afternoon. Maybe she's working during the day. Has to make a living. I returned in the evening and the building was still empty. I lurked outside until three in the morning. Couldn't stand it any longer. Felt like a fool. Major calibre idiot. Freezing. I gave up for the day and returned to the hotel uptown.

This weekend, I'll go to Varick Street again.

2 December, 1999
They are already spreading decorations throughout the island in preparation for the festivities. Twinkling coloured light bulbs adorn the trees around Union Square. I'm the one who's anything but cheerful.

I've finally made contact with the other two occupants of her building in the Village. They know little of her. Very quiet. Keeps to herself. Hasn't been seen around for a few weeks. The merchant banker from the top floor thought he remembered her catching a cab, holding a suitcase. Maybe a trip to the West Coast because of the film rights to the novel, I wondered?

I try her bell every two days.

Surely she'll be back for Christmas?

5 December, 1999
She misses Thanksgiving in New York.

Well, she ain't a Yank, is she?

10 December, 1999
Callie has returned.

But I managed to miss her.

She knew I'd been, though.

There was an envelope with my name hastily scrawled on it taped to the bell.

How dare you follow me the way you do, Callie said. Just go away. I can't stand it any more, Joe.

She had vacated the apartment the same morning. I contacted the letting agent and visited the premises, maybe hoping she had left something, papers that might provide me with a clue to where she decamped to.

This was the bed in which she had slept.

No, I think it's too small for me, I told the realtor.

I was back to square one.

And needing her was eating me up inside like a cancer.

20 December, 1999
At last, I'm no longer running around in ever diminishing circles. I'm back on the trail. Through her erstwhile agent who had moved to LA I discovered that she had accepted to dine on New Year's Eve at the 42nd St Brewery that now overlooked Times Square with some studio executives who were developing her novel.

I tried to make a booking there, but it had been sold out for months for such a momentous evening. No doubt, for the view rather than the food.

29 December, 1999
My final contact in Immigration at last provided me with an address. Varick Street. A bit late in the day. I already knew she had left no forwarding address.

The
New York Post
kindly outlined the crowd control measures being put into operation for the Times Square Millennium Party on New Year's Eve.

I knew from one of the waiters that her booking was for 10.30 p.m.

The only access to the Brewery would be down 42nd Street, coming from 5th Avenue.

31 December, 1999
I await the year 2000 standing in front of the Fun City sex shop. Its neon lights turn my skin a sickly shade of pink. The window end-of-century sale advertises six-hour all-anal gangbang tapes for only $9.99, but tall blondes with shaven snatches and extreme amateur debuts go for $12.99. A few yards further down, there's a security cordon of cops who check people's passes to Times Square venues.

Everything around sounds too loud.

Artificially joyful.

The sky is clear of stars.

10.15 p.m. Here she comes, sashaying down, her long legs like metronomes, her strawberry blonde hair shorter than I remembered, walking too fast as usual, her eyes full of sadness peering ahead in a myopic trance.

The crowd of revellers parts slightly as she moves nearer.

She sees me.

Not a sign of emotion.

My heart beats like the onset of a major symphony.

She approaches.

Glares at me.

‘Hi,' I say.

She stays silent.

‘We were bound to meet eventually,' I clumsily say, by way of excuse.

‘I told you not to,' she finally answers.

The crowds whiz by on their way to the party of all parties.

‘I had to see you.'

‘Why?'

‘Answers.'

‘You know it's over. It can never be the same again.'

‘You owe me some explanations.'

‘No, I don't.'

‘You just disappeared ...' I mumble.

‘You can't take rejection, can you?' she says.

‘You're right. It's physical, mental, whatever, I just can't accept there's not even a diamond of hope you might listen to me again, remember the way we felt ...'

‘The way
you
felt.'

‘Please, Callie.'

‘It's Katherine, now.'

‘Please.'

‘No, Joe. Life is not like fiction, there are no second chances.'

‘So why did you write the book?'

‘A way of finally putting it all behind me, I suppose.'

I see her lips, I look into her eyes, I can feel the warmth of her body just a few inches away from me; in the cold air her breath smokes away from her mouth. Is this really the way it ends?

‘Walk away now,' she asks me.

‘No.'

Her features stay blank as her hand moves to the small black handbag and pulls out a small silvery gun. I don't even recognise the model.

‘You wouldn't,' I say.

And move closer to her, to the familiar pale skin now shielded by winter clothes. The gun is now all that separates us.

‘I would,' my sweet Callie says, a vision of terrible pain taking control of her face.

‘So do it,' I order her.

She shoots me in the heart. The bang of the small gun is surprisingly unloud.

As the century recedes slowly, I see the cops over there move towards her in slow motion, their own weapons drawn.

Everything blurs around us. We are imprisoned in a pocket of time.

Callie raises her hands as the cops approach her.

‘The guy was stalking me,' she says.

1- It begins like a movie. With a white screen and a wash of music, massed strings or more likely synthesizer chords, rising to a majestic crescendo. Images coalesce and a melancholy melody emerges from the unshaped wall of sound.
Porcelain
by Moby maybe, or the soundtrack for an imaginary western whose ending will turn out to be particularly bittersweet. A tune that aims straight for the heart but hints at sadness to come. Sadness, yes; because tragedy is too strong a word. The credits roll and then shapes emerge out of blurry chaos throughout the rectangular geometry of the once silver screen. Panavision format. A woman's voice is heard, plaintive, across the fading sounds of the music. Is she singing? Has she a quaint, somewhat exotic foreign accent?

2- Like all men with talent, he had many flaws. But his worst trait was how he romanticized over women time and again, never learning from experience. How the emotions they created inside his head and body skewered his perception of them and coloured all his relationships. He was aware of the fact, but knowing the existence of his Achilles' heel didn't help him avoid the same old mistakes over and over again. Was it the way he was brought up; the fact his father never had the guts to tell him all about the birds and the bees? How he mentally stored and interpreted the distorted facts about the way men and women coexist and war from telltale stories circulating among school kids? How he was savagely wounded by the unknowing betrayal of the first girl he felt longings for?

3- Her presence in a world of men had nagged her from early teenage years. They fascinated and attracted her, but at the same time there was something fearful about these other creatures. They were different. She had always been accepted as a fun person by the groups she wove in and out of, at school, at play, mingling with her elder brother's friends. Always rough and ready for a game, a tumble, she was treated as an equal. Her breasts came late and were never quite as opulent as many of her girl friends. She would eventually grow into a B cup, barely. But from the moment those bumps made their bow inside her blue school shirt, the young men, the older men she would see in the street or in shops seemed to look at her in a new way. Thus did she discover lust.

4- Catherine Guinard was not the prettiest young girl in the class during his first year in a mixed school. Nowhere near; Rhoona DeMole, Beatrice, Elizabeth and Jacqueline ruled that roost. But something about her touched him inside, where it mattered. Maybe that was his main flaw: he thought with his emotions, not with his cock. She was small, had thin, mousey light brown hair and slightly crooked teeth. But you know how it is, it's not just the way they look that does it; it's the way they laugh or their eyes sparkle at a given moment. He worshipped her from afar. Helped her with her classwork. Then, one night, at a friend's party, Pierre what's-his-name in a game of Truth or Dare revealed he had already fucked her and, compounding the injustice, said she wasn't even that good in bed. His heart had dropped a thousand vertical paces to the ground at the unexpected news.

5- Her parents were anything but intellectuals; her father installed shower units and her mother worked in a local government office but they both loved opera. So she was called Mimi, in homage to
La Bohème
. It puzzled her for a long time. Nobody in Estonia seemed to be called Mimi apart from her. That's because you're special, her mum and dad would say to her. Which became, as she reasoned it out, a reason for great satisfaction: her brother was just plain Pavel. When unhappy days ended and she lay in bed listening to the silence invade the room and darkness take over, she would invariably remind herself that she was special. I am special. Then fall asleep with a smile on her face. That expression later became almost permanent, and her lips always appeared to be smiling, whether she was happy or not. That was one thing that attracted men to her like fireflies.

6- Catherine Guinard was the first to carve a deep notch across his damaged heartstrings. Others would follow. Over 39 years, it became a gentle litany of hurt. Many of them were blonde. So he did learn to approach blonde women with the utmost caution. Maybe he wasn't good enough for blondes, he reasoned. Or they were too good for him. And sometimes, juggling memories tried to balance his past sexual statistics by hair colour. The results never made sense.

7- Men liked Mimi. But they wanted more than she was willing to give them, she soon realised. As much as she enjoyed their company, dancing across the smoky floors of youth clubs and downing endless glasses of vodka, she knew that the roving hands caressing her body, clumsily fingering her, were just an overture to fucking her. And she also knew she wasn't ready to be fucked. As much as sex attracted her, and mad thoughts of its horrors and delights flew across her dreams and nights, something inside also told her none of the callow boys she went out with were right for her yet. Sex must mean something.

8- He also had dreams. Dark-eyed, always elegantly dressed Pierre was fucking Catherine. She lay passively on her back, legs held wide apart by the young man's weight while he thrust in and out of her. The scene was always silent. It brought tears to his eyes, but it also made his cock hard as he strained to move closer and observe the movement of the penis breaching her entrance. But he could never see enough. He would have to wait until his first trip to Scandinavia where hardcore films were legal to witness the copulation of others at first hand and on a large screen.

9- He was not a violent person, but he reasoned Pierre should die. But at 17, you have neither the imagination nor the means. His betrayer being run over by a bus seemed to be the best option. But it didn't happen. Next time, he decided, maybe he should take matters into his own hands, and began noting methods of murder and execution in his notebook, gleaning necessary information from the crime paperbacks he was reading: James Hadley Chase, Brett Halliday, Peter Cheyney, Claude Rank, Jean Bruce. Although the latter seemed to be more interested in the minutiae of sexual torture. Which also provided him with regular erections.

10- Catherine Guinard was quickly forgotten after the school year ended and she returned to France. He followed her to Paris a year later, but by then the world was full of blondes.

11- At first, Mimi felt the men would be satisfied if she consented to let herself be kissed. Real kisses, of course, with tongues. It pleased them briefly, but failed to satisfy her. They tasted of stale alcohol and tobacco and she found the experience of kissing her dance partners and boyfriends definitely unpleasant. And still their hands, encouraged by their locked lips, would venture further and they would suggest full sex; almost demand it. She confided in friends and the consensus was, if she wished to retain her popularity within her circle of friends, that she should give in or at least accept to give the men and boys blowjobs.

12- Elizabeth was the first blonde to break his heart. Well, you have to begin somewhere. She was much more sexually experienced than him, and years later, he would marvel how in hell he had managed to hold on to her for all of six months. Her pubic hair was short and curling, thus initiating another of his obsessions, and a shade or two darker than her mid-shoulder length straight blonde hair, which puzzled him mightily, ignorant as he was then of hydrogen peroxide. They fucked like rabbits. She found him fun but he made the capital mistake of falling in love with her.

13- Mimi had never before given too much consideration to men's cocks. She knew they had them; had seen enough of brothers' dangling genitalia, even her father's. At first, the idea of taking one inside her mouth felt a bit ridiculous, but she was also curious to know what it would feel like to experience one swelling up and growing under her lips, tongue or ministrations. Would a penis have a specific taste? A particular texture? The thought intrigued her.

14- When Elizabeth finally tired of him, she broke the news gently. After all, she had a good heart. Not ready for commitment and all that. Naturally, he took it badly and, melodramatically, a couple of weeks later slashed his wrists, cunningly arranging for her to discover him just in time. Which didn't bring her back to him. She even left the country to avoid seeing him again. Another lesson learned.

15- So, while some of her girlfriends were losing their virginity time and time again in the back of cars or in the badly lit backyards of local jazz clubs or in the fields that bordered the fun fair near the chemical plant. Mimi became the blowjob queen of their home town. After all, she reflected, it's only a piece of flesh, harmless in this form, and even though some men seemed overly keen on pushing their cocks too far and made her gag, she knew she was always in control. And however many cocks she sucked, she was still a virgin, waiting for the right man to come along. The one who would at last matter. Wasn't too keen on swallowing their come though ...

16- Even though his attempt had been far from earnest, he also developed an unhealthy fixation on suicide and death. And years before Woody Allen came on the scene, already equated love and death in strange juxtaposition. Even began making listings of how famous people, actors, writers had committed suicide or been killed. Columns for poison, knives, guns (broken down into manufacturer and calibre of course), car and other accidents, etc ... But then he was a far from cheerful young man. The gloom surrounding him would not dissipate much until he turned 30 and had made love to further blondes in various countries.

17- Cocks had no taste per se; come did. They came uncircumcised or cut, although the latter were few and far between since the local Jewish population had been decimated in WWII. Each one was different in length, thickness, appearance and smell. Mimi was unconcerned. It kept them out of her pants and, her nipples proving particularly insensitive, she didn't overly mind their rough, often drunken hands grazing, twisting her nipples or kneading her small breasts. It made her popular, paid for drinks or cinema or club tickets. A cock was a cock. In a way, she felt, it wasn't even connected to the man. Just a transaction. You want to be sucked; so OK, I'll suck you but don't expect any more. She had no regular boyfriend, just men whose cocks she didn't mind taking in her mouth for the comfort of their company.

18- Beretta.

Sig Sauer.

Colt.

Luger.

Smith & Wesson.

Sawn-off shotgun.

Digitalis.

Cyanide.

Strangulation.

Smothering under a pillow.

Swiss army knife.

Asphyxiation.

Carbon monoxide emissions.

Methods of revenge.

19- She'd suck their cocks with her eyes closed. Almost pretending she was blind, her tongue moving over the head, licking the ridge, imagining the shades of pink, brown and purple of the aroused mushroom inside her cheeks. She would tease the opening, the slit, with the pointed tip of her foraging tongue, feel the tremor of lust surging through the man's body as she did so and retreat in time before he came so that the flow of hot ejaculate would either fall over her tongue or, preferably, outside her retreating mouth. Some guys came too fast, some couldn't and she would learn to finish them off by hand. But she learned to enjoy sucking cock. Even took some pride in her growing skills and the occasional compliment proffered.

20- Then came Nicky. She was the sister of one of his best friends and they somehow drifted together. Light brown hair and cheekbones to kill for. Short and square-assed and prone to awful mood swings. At first, she was head-over-heels in love with him; he advised caution and patience. By the time he realised he loved her too, her own ardour had quieted and they faded apart following summer holidays spent separated. Bad timing, he reckoned and began writing crime stories in which the perfect crime always came undone because of a lack of attention to small details and deep-seated psychological flaws.

21- Of course, she pined for actual sex, but Mimi was determined to wait for the right man, the right occasion. She wanted it to be so absolutely right. Even a blowjob queen can be romantic. And six years is a lot of blowjobs and cocks in your mouth.

22- After Nicky, there were others. After all, he wasn't unattractive and was particularly fluent and articulate, even displayed a witty sense of humour when the darkness didn't dominate his soul. There was Marie-Jo, followed by Anne and then Danielle, who was absolutely wild and insatiable and even, one night, moved from their shared bed to join an ex-boyfriend who was staying over in the next room where their noisy sex kept him awake for the rest of the night. His first
two men a night
woman. For weeks, he would mentally kick himself for not having joined them which he realised she wouldn't have minded. Another obsession took root of a threesome with two men both servicing the same woman.

23- So Mimi drifted through the final years of her teens, desultorily moving from school to menial part-time jobs with a live now, pay later attitude to life and that infuriating smile ever draped across her face. Often doubting her purpose, neither happy nor unhappy, aimless in a quiet way. Somehow inside she knew there was something better waiting for her around the corner. So, she made her way down the road. Life wasn't bad after all: there was music, there was vodka, there were the flattering attentions of younger and older men, there was the beach at Nida with its fine yellow sand, and the never unpleasant feel, texture and sensation of warm cocks as she swallowed them and offered a willing harbour to men's lust. Mimi was patient, seldom worried about tomorrow.

24- He tried whores but they never engaged his heart and their embraces were too mechanical and unfeeling. He travelled. Prospered. Even one day married and settled down. The epiphany and beauty of babies briefly assuaged his unhappiness, but children grow and always disappoint to some extent, he discovered. And that hole in his heart, first opened by Catherine Guinard's treachery, kept aching and reminding him of all the roads never taken. Often, he would serenade himself to sleep with a monotonous litany that endlessly conjugated all the “what ifs” of his life so far.