The Pearl Read online

The Psyche Mirror

  Thursday. Three days later. Arthur lay in his bedroom on the big oak bed at his parents’ Piccadilly townhouse. His old childhood bedroom unchanged since his school days at Harrow. An enormous Union Jack hung on the opposite wall. Over his bed hung posters for a Blur concert his sister had dragged him to, and another poster for the Arctic Monkeys when he’d returned the favor. Polo gear, unused for years, lay piled in the closet along with his rugby kit and all the other flotsam and jetsam of his teenage years, long abandoned, long forgotten. He only noted it now because it felt so incongruous to be lying there, surrounded by artifacts of his childhood while dreaming about the thirty-year-old widow he was suddenly sleeping with…

  Arthur had never wanted to be a child. Even as young as nine or ten, if given the chance, he would have happily skipped right over childhood and all its embarrassments and indignities to become an adult immediately. An old soul, his parents called him. From age ten on, he’d treated Charlie like more of a son than a baby brother. Arthur aped his parents, doing everything they did since they were his models for adulthood—attending art shows and the symphony, playing polo like his father, going to auctions with his mother, lectures, board meetings… He’d avoided dating until he was eighteen because girls his age seemed far too young for him. Why should he date a teenage girl when he was trying so hard to be a man? He’d only fallen for Wendy because she’d seemed much older, having gone to schools all over the world. And Naledi had been five years older than him. They’d only had a few months together before she returned to Botswana, but those few months had convinced him he’d never be happy with someone his own age.

  He’d even skipped university because he couldn’t stand to extend his childhood—or at least to put off adulthood—another day longer. He’d chosen Sandhurst, the military academy, because he thought it would make him—finally—feel like a man. Except that hadn’t worked either.

  Then…Regan. He’d still felt he was playing the part of an adult until that night with her, and then, strangely, the very next morning, he’d woken up and felt like a man for the first time in his life.

  Was it because she’d been married and widowed and seemed so impossibly mature to him? And if someone so impossibly mature had chosen him, then he must have been old enough and mature enough for her. Or was it because of the nature of the sex they’d had? That she’d chosen him to explore her fantasies?

  He couldn’t say, only that every time he thought about her, about the events of Monday night, he felt that something monumental had happened to him. A seismic shift. A memory stirred—something his father had tried to tell him and Charlie a few years ago, that they would not know what sort of men they were until they had an intimate partner in their lives. What was it he’d said? Something about being married, how it changes a man…

  Arthur almost had it when the doorbell rang, and he sat up like he’d heard a gunshot.

  When he opened the front door, he found the girl was there again, the blonde in the red raincoat and Wellington boots. She held out another notecard to him. The girl remained on the porch, glowering.

  “So, who are you?” Arthur asked, taking the card. “Do you have a name?”

  “Zoot,” she said, like she was doing him a favor by telling him.

  “Zoot? As in…‘Zoot’? Could you spell that, please?”

  “Zed plus Oot. Zoot.”

  “And why are you called Zoot?”

  “I like spankings and oral sex.”

  He blinked. Then he got it. “Ah. A Monty Python reference.”

  “Never goes amiss,” Zoot said.

  “All right, Zoot, you can call me Arthur, if you’d like. Or Art. No pressure.”

  “Not my lord? Not sir?”

  “Arthur’s fine. Really,” he said. He should make friends with this girl, he thought. Maybe he could get some dirt on Regan. “What do you do when you’re not delivering messages and glaring at me? Are you Lady Ferry’s dogsbody or something?”

  “Second in command,” she said, her East End accent on full display. “So mind your Ps and Qs.”

  “My Ps and Qs are in the best shape of their lives.” He held the card, unopened. She was watching him. “Are you waiting for me to tip you?”

  She clicked her tongue in disapproval. “The boss was right. You are a brat. Makes sense. Brat’s just Art with a B, innit?”

  “That’s Bart.”

  “Close enough.”

  She turned and stomped off, red boots echoing on the pavement. So much for making a new friend.

  Anyway, he had a card to read.

  Let’s play a new game. The Psyche Mirror by Berthe Morisot is hanging over the fireplace in my bedroom.

  Have you ever fucked in front of a mirror, Brat?

  Nine o’clock.

  R

  Arthur went into the house and closed the door behind him, resting his back against the cool of the wood. Fucked in front of a mirror? Sounded like a nightmare. As long as he could see her, why would he want to watch himself? His naked body grinding and the pained awkward horrible facial contortions? Why would she want to do something that awkward? Because she was a sadist, obviously.

  So what did that make him, other than hard again? Nine o’clock was hours away. Hours away, and he was already counting the minutes.

  * * *

  Arthur tried to distract himself with a grueling workout at the gym. Walking home through Hyde Park he felt his phone ring in his jacket pocket. He wanted it to be Regan calling, though he knew it wouldn’t be her.

  No, not Regan. It was his father. Arthur considered ignoring the call, worried he’d let something slip, but knew he couldn’t put off the inevitable.

  He answered and after the usual greetings, Arthur asked about Mum.

  “Missing her babies,” his father said.

  “Does she mean us or her houseplants?”

  “I didn’t ask. I’d assume both,” his father said. “How’s your brother?”

  This question was asked in a tone that implied the answer would not be a satisfactory one.

  “Fine, I think. Haven’t seen him in a few days. Busy with friends.”

  His father scoffed. He felt the same way about Charlie’s friends as Arthur did. Horrifying to agree with his father on, well, anything.

  “What are you busy with?” his father asked.

  “Reading. Working out. Enjoying my free time before the army takes it from me.”

  “Please tell me some of this free time is being spent with a girl?”

  Arthur counted to three before answering with a polite, “Mind your own business.”

  “If I must.”

  “The following question has nothing to do with my love life,” Arthur said, which was true enough. He didn’t love Regan Ferry, and she certainly had no love of him.

  “Go on,” his father said.

  “Do you know a woman named Regan Ferry?”

  “You don’t mean Lady Ferry, Sir Jack Ferry’s wife?”

  “Widow,” Arthur said.

  “Of course I know her. Not well. We spoke to her a few weeks before your sister’s wedding. Are you seeing her?”

  Arthur ignored that last part and concentrated on the other. Lia had gotten married in The Pearl’s ballroom, held her reception at The Oyster, taken wedding photos in the old smoking lounge. No surprise his parents had chatted with the hotel owner’s wife.

  “I know this is strange but…do you remember what you talked about?” Arthur asked.

  “Only Lia’s wedding plans. And Lord Malcolm. He used to live there, you know.”

  “She asked about Lord Malcolm?”

  “If I remember correctly. It was over six months ago. I know we talked about him, and she had quite a collection of photographs of him from the hotel’s archives. Loads of dances. Loads of balls. Parties, I mean, not—”

  “Not testicles. I assumed. All right. Just wondering. Did she ask to buy our portrait of Lord Malcolm?”

  “I don’t recall. Why do yo
u ask?”

  Arthur hated lying, especially to his family, but he had to protect Charlie.

  “I ran into her, and she recognized me,” he said. “We had a long talk and she asked if she could buy Lord Malcolm’s portrait. You know, since he was such a fixture at The Pearl.”

  “I hope you told her no.”

  “I did.”

  “She’s welcome to have someone make a copy of it, but never the real thing.”

  “Right.”

  “We’d sell you to her before we’d sell that painting. Lord Malcolm would never forgive us, and I’d hate to get on his bad side.”

  Arthur bit his lip. “Understood.”

  “But if she wants to buy you and get you off our books, the price is negotiable. All reasonable offers considered. We’ll toss in Charlie, too. Buy one, get one.”

  “Thanks, Dad. Love you, too.”

  “Here’s your mother.”

  “Wait.”

  “Yes?”

  He almost asked his father if he remembered what it was he’d said about being married, how it changes a man, but decided against it—it would be tipping his hand, and his father was the last person in the world he wanted to discuss his sex life with.

  “Nothing,” Arthur said. “Forgot what I was going to say.”

  He chatted briefly with his mother about New York, and he promised her most sincerely that he would go to Wingthorn next week to check on the renovations at the old manor house. By the time the conversation was over, Arthur was back at the townhouse and on his way to the shower.

  While in the shower, he considered what his father had said, that the one conversation he’d ever had with Regan Ferry was mostly about Lord Malcolm. Was it really because he’d been such a legend at the hotel? That was eighty, ninety years ago. And Regan’s animosity toward Arthur—toward the entire Godwick bloodline—made no sense either. Unless it was simply her fetish to emotionally assault the men she was attracted to. Considering how she’d treated him before and after the sex on Monday night, he could believe it. But the answer wasn’t completely satisfying. Not the way she’d looked afterwards. So wounded. Almost scared.

  * * *

  In the hotel lift that evening, he reminded himself that Regan was using him and that he should under no circumstances allow himself to get emotionally involved here—not more than he already was, at least.

  A note was taped to Regan’s door with the letter A on the front. He assumed that was him, that he was the A. Whether that A stood for Arthur or Ass, he didn’t know and wouldn’t ask.

  The note read, Unlocked. Wait upstairs.

  Short. Succinct. To the point.

  He did as ordered.

  As soon as he stepped into the empty bedroom, he remembered in his body everything he had done and felt here Monday night. He stood at the foot of the bed and remembered how his wrists were lightly chaffed the morning after and how he’d laid in his bed at the townhouse, lifting his arms into a silver shaft of morning sunlight to stare at the redness on his skin. Seeing it had been a revelation. How right those pale welts looked on his wrists. It was like seeing himself for the first time—not the way he actually looked, but the way he was supposed to look.

  He turned away from the bed and noticed a familiar face in the bedroom. Regan had hung Lord Malcolm on the wall opposite the bed.

  Crossing his arms, Arthur stared at his long-dead great-grandfather. “What are you up to, old man?”

  There was no answer, of course. Malcolm offered nothing but his Mona Lisa smirk. Yet Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow Lord Malcolm was a part of all this. He certainly wasn’t an innocent bystander.

  Arthur turned his attention to the painting above the small fireplace, the one Regan had referenced in her note. It was a delicate and diaphanous scene, a winsome young woman gazing at her profile in her cheval mirror. She was wearing a filmy white shift, falling off one shoulder. The sort of painting that would hang in the bedroom of a fine young lady. An intimate scene of a pretty girl enjoying the sight of herself.

  “There’s my Brat.”

  Regan stood in the bedroom doorway, hand on the knob, leaning casually against the frame. She wore a grey skirt and jacket to match her eyes. She looked like she’d come straight from work though it was past nine.

  “You summoned me,” he said.

  “Like a witch summons her favorite demon.” She smiled and shut the bedroom door behind her. “You like the painting?”

  “This one?” He pointed at the Morisot. “It’s very nice. That one, however,” he said, pointing at the portrait of his great-grandfather, “has to go.”

  “Go where?”

  He glared at her. “You’re not really going to leave his painting hanging across from the bed, are you?”

  “What? We don’t want good old Great-Granddad Malcolm watching us fuck?”

  “Would you want your great-grandfather watching you?” Arthur asked.

  “It’s just a painting, yes?”

  “Of course it’s just a painting. Still.” He pleaded with his eyes. Surely she had some pity in her soul.

  “If you’re so sensitive about it…” She went into her closet and brought out a gauzy paisley-patterned scarf. She draped the scarf over Lord Malcolm’s portrait.

  “Better,” Arthur said. “A bit. Thank you.”

  There. It was happening again. She did something cruel and cold and then stopped it upon request, forcing him to be grateful for the tiniest crumb of decency. And he ate that crumb like it was a feast for a king.

  “Don’t thank me,” Regan said. “Lord Malcolm was a notorious pervert. If he wants to watch, he’ll find a way to watch.”

  She came to him and put her hands on his chest. The heat of her touch permeated all the way through his t-shirt to his bare skin underneath.

  She met his eyes, forcing him to meet hers. “How is my Brat tonight?”

  “Fine,” he said, and since he couldn’t help himself, added sarcastically, “and how was your day, dear?”

  “Oh, the usual. Busy. Stupid.” She didn’t seem to be joking.

  “You don’t like your work here?”

  She laughed coldly. “Running a hotel was not what I expected to be doing at thirty.”

  “Why do it then? You have enough money to retire for a hundred years.”

  When she answered he heard a false note of levity in her voice. “Have to do something to keep from thinking. Managing The Pearl does the job.”

  He looked at her. “What are you trying so hard not to think about?”

  “Stop. I’m done answering questions. Your turn. How did you feel after Monday night?”

  He had to laugh a little at that. “I work out every day,” he said. “You have to if you’re going to survive Sandhurst. But after you, I was sore in places I didn’t know I had places. And I had a bit of rug burn.”

  “On your wrists?”

  He nodded. “And on my back.”

  “Did you like that?” she asked.

  “I…don’t know if I can answer that question.”

  “I think you can. I think you don’t want to. Embarrassed you liked it so much?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Like you said. This is just sex for you. And it’s just about getting our painting back for me. Let’s not get personal, all right?”

  If she was going to shut down his attempts to get her to open up, he would shut down hers just as swiftly, just as hard.

  “Of course. We’ll have very nice impersonal sex in front of a mirror tonight. And you’ll hate every second of it, won’t you?” She laughed softly, teasingly.

  She brushed her lips lightly over his, and a shiver of pleasure passed through his body. “Do you hate this?”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again, kissed him with hunger, real hunger. He wanted to return the kiss. He wanted to push her away. But more than anything he wanted to be punished and humbled, and if t
his is how the gods saw fit to punish and humble him, who was he to question their judgement?

  He put his arms around her waist and pressed his mouth to hers. She opened her lips and tilted her head back, giving him silent permission to kiss her all he could.

  She tasted like sugar and whisky and one kiss alone would get him drunk on her. The more he tasted her, the more he wanted. He pulled her tighter against him, felt her breasts pressed against his chest, her back arching and her arms wound round his shoulders. He grew hard, painfully hard. His cock throbbed and he wanted to shift his hips away from her so she wouldn’t feel it, but it was too late... She pressed her hips into his, and he flinched with pleasure, even with all their clothes between them.

  Her cheeks were bright pink, her soft lips swollen. She ran her hand from his shoulder to his chest, to his stomach and then cupped him between the thighs, pressing her palm gently but firmly onto his erection.

  “Better,” she said.

  Her fingertips found the head under his clothes, and she lightly traced along the tender foreskin. His breath quickened. He closed his eyes.

  “No.” She snapped her fingers in his face. “Look at me. Watch. You aren’t allowed to close your eyes and pretend this isn’t happening. It is. It’s happening. You chose this.”

  Arthur opened his eyes and looked, watching her hand touch him. He breathed in and smelled again the scent of her, which had an electric current in it. The scent of a storm.

  He had always loved storms. He breathed her in again, wanting more of her.

  The feeling must have been mutual because she reached for his belt and unbuckled it. She slipped her hand into his pants and took his penis out and held it in her palm.

  “There we are,” she said. “It’s really a very beautiful cock you have, Brat.”

  “Penises are the least attractive part of any human being’s body,” he protested.

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I say it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful. Your Wendy was a lucky girl, wasn’t she?”