Red Grow the Roses Page 2

  ‘My turn then,’ said Sophie, rising. She’d had more to drink than she thought, it occurred to her as she staggered slightly. Or maybe it was just that her legs were wobbly.

  ‘Careful, love.’ Ben placed a hand lightly on her thigh to steady her. It didn’t help.

  In the ladies’ toilet there was chill-out music playing and a row of mirrors a mile long for the customers to examine their make-up in. Sophie larded on another layer of lip-gloss and stared at her reflection, wondering if Ben was making a pass at Netta while she was away. She wouldn’t put it past him; he seemed the sort to try anything and his flirting was aimed in every direction. A critical examination of her reflection didn’t make her feel too bad, though. She was slimmer than Netta at least, though she’d never manage to match those fabulous tits. With a slight frown she undid the top button on her dress and tucked the cloth down to reveal more of the valley between her own, imagining Ben’s head nuzzling between them, his tongue lapping at the silky skin of her breasts. Even the thought made her wetter. God, he’d turned her on. She wanted more of that. She hadn’t particularly come out to get laid tonight – she didn’t count herself as that sort of girl – but now that it was looking like a possibility her pulse was running faster. She didn’t want Netta to snatch him from under her nose – and Netta was so much brassier than her and more likely to get what she wanted.

  Maybe Ben was hoping to pull both of them, she thought suddenly. In the mirror her reflection blushed and her eyes snapped. ‘Oh,’ she mouthed with her bright fresh lipstick. That sort of implied he had a place of his own, if he was planning anything that elaborate. She’d never done it before but the novelty had a certain trashy sort of appeal – and she and Netta were good enough friends that it might work. They’d seen each other undress often enough, and talked about sex without any restraint. She wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of Netta.

  It could be fun. Ben looked like, no matter what, he would be fun.

  Making up her mind, Sophie returned to the toilet cubicle and pulled the skirt of her dress up so she could grab the top of her floral lace tights. It was a warm end-of-summer night after all. She could go barelegged.

  By the time she left the Ladies she was wearing nothing beneath that short skirt at all.

  Back at the table, she wasn’t surprised to see that Netta was sitting up close to Ben’s side and that his arm was resting down the back of the padded bench behind her shoulders. Nor was she surprised at his cheeky smile. But his words weren’t what she’d expected: ‘I was telling Netta here that I have a friend who’s an artist. A really good one. Sculpture mostly. You want to see his work?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘What – don’t you mix work and pleasure?’

  ‘I just … well … it’s pretty late.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be in his studio. He likes to work late. It’s not far, if you want to take a look. And he’s … a really interesting bloke. You’ll like him. He’d like to meet you two, I’m sure.’

  Oh, thought Sophie: that’s how it is, then. He was pulling on his friend’s behalf too. She tried not to consider whether she was disappointed or not.

  It wasn’t actually all that late by the time they emerged from the Rose Garden; not that late if you were out on the lash on a Saturday night, that is: late for everyone else. Bars and takeaways were doing a booming trade but the only vehicles on the streets were taxis and buses and police vans. Ben slipped an arm around each of them.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Netta: ‘you’re cold.’ She was right, thought Sophie: he wasn’t icy, but there was none of the heat she’d been expecting from his body. That white cotton T-shirt might as well have been draped over a mannequin’s torso: toned and unyielding and cool.

  ‘Yeah, I am. I need you two to keep me warm.’

  Netta giggled and pressed herself up against him in a hug that only looked innocent.

  So Ben walked through the night streets with them flanking him, his arms around their shoulders, their arms about his hard waist. He steered well clear of loud and dangerous-looking revellers, but kept to the lighted main roads as if to reassure them. And he kept up a stream of chatter all the way, all about Warhol and Lichtenstein and other names Sophie knew she should have paid more attention to on her art-history induction course, until they crossed under a flyover and followed the road in a curve and there were suddenly trees and a big black building looming over them. A church. It stood in a little island in a whirlpool of main roads and it wasn’t floodlit like some of the city-centre churches. Victorian Gothic in style, its stones were black with soot dating back to the Industrial Revolution and it was close-grown with big dingy sycamores.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Ben, suddenly grabbing their hands and skipping them across the road under the nose of a taxi. They reached the pavement beneath a white streetlamp that made the building beyond look even more shadowed.

  ‘A church?’ asked Netta, pulling out of his hand. She wrinkled her nose. ‘It looks derelict.’

  ‘It’s an artists’ centre now. Naylor’s studio’s inside – see the light?’

  They peered into the gloom, and Sophie was relieved to see that there was a glow high up in one of the tall stained-glass windows – though it barely showed through the encrustation of soot and the thick protective wire lattice over the exterior of the glass.

  ‘Looks spooky,’ muttered Sophie.

  ‘Looks like a place for freaks to hang out,’ Netta grumbled.

  ‘Aw,’ he mocked softly. ‘Are the little girls scared?’

  Netta cast him a sharp glance. ‘Hey – how old are you?’ she asked. It sounded like a change of subject but Sophie knew where she was coming from. She’d assumed all along that Ben was their own age or thereabouts: mid-twenties at most. That’s how he’d looked under the indoor lights. But out here under the harsh white light of the streetlamp he looked suddenly older. It wasn’t wrinkles; he didn’t look wrinkled. It was something less definable, something about the way the shadows fell or the look in his eye as he derided their squeamishness. Something about his eyes, for sure – as he turned his face down to them he looked almost blind for a second.

  ‘How old do you think I am, love?’

  ‘Thirty? Thirty-five?’ Netta was being deliberately nasty, trying to get a reaction; Sophie could hear it in her voice. But Ben didn’t reply. He just smiled, and it was a different sort of smile to the others he’d used upon them. Secretive and coldly amused.

  Netta readjusted her bag on her shoulder. ‘It’s getting late,’ she said in a hard voice. ‘You know, I think I’m going to go back. My mum’s coming over to visit tomorrow and I need to get up early to clean the flat.’

  Sophie was surprised and dismayed. So, their hot date had turned out to be a bit of a cradle-snatcher – but did it really matter how old he was, when he was this fit? Wasn’t Netta over-reacting?

  ‘Don’t you want to meet Naylor?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe some other time.’

  ‘You’d like him, I promise.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s late.’ Netta looked sharply at Sophie. ‘You coming then?’

  ‘I think I’ll stay.’ She saw the spark of shock and outrage in Netta’s eyes, the look that said: You can’t stay on your own. You stick with your girl friends whatever. That’s the rules.

  ‘Sophie!’

  ‘You go home if you like,’ said Sophie, nettled. She wasn’t letting an opportunity like this pass. ‘I want to see these sculptures.’

  Ben folded his arms, counting himself out of the discussion. For a moment the two girls glared at each other. Sophie could hear the unvoiced accusation: On your own?

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Netta with a sniff. ‘See you Monday.’ Unspoken was the sneer: Don’t come crying to me if it goes wrong. With an irate bounce in her step she marched away up the street, toward the neon glow of a Chinese takeaway sign and the taxi rank beyond. Sophie watched her go, then turned to Ben, who was waiting with eyebrows raised.

  ‘Sorry about
that.’

  ‘Why be sorry?’ He took her arm and slipped his hand in hers. ‘Now I get to enjoy the undiluted pleasure of your company.’

  Sophie’s pulse jumped, and she felt her sex clench in anticipation.

  He led her into the churchyard, under the black shadows of the trees, and took her not to the front porch but around the north side of the building. The gravestone slabs had long been cleared away but a few table-tombs remained, and there in near-darkness he backed her up against a cold gritstone box and kissed her, harder this time.

  Harder, deeper, hungrier.

  Sophie slid her arms around his neck and ground her thighs against his, feeling for the telltale bulge of his erection. And oh yes, there it was – his cock hardening in response to her heat, her softness, her willingness. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on the tomb-top, and she opened her legs so he could stand between them, pressing up against her. Her skirt rode up, stretched tight across the very tops of her thighs. He took her left breast and squeezed it to the rhythm of his kisses, making her groan into his mouth. The sound seemed to galvanise him and he trapped her nipple between forefinger and thumb, twisting it until she squeaked again.

  She’d never fucked in a churchyard before, she thought. It was exciting, in an old-fashioned way. His cock had clear definition now under the fabric of his trousers, and he was pressing right up against the mound of her sex, and she wondered if he’d realised yet she wasn’t wearing any knickers or whether his own clothing had fooled him. She wrapped her legs about his muscular ass. Her head started to swim; he seemed to have no intention of coming up for air.

  Gasping, she broke from his lips. He laughed low in his throat.

  ‘God, girl: you’re hot, aren’t you?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She was seething with heat. She nibbled at his lips, finding them by feeling his face, and heard the hiss of breath between his teeth. He abandoned her breasts to push both hands up her smooth thighs, questing all the way to the top, finding the rucked-up skirt and then her soft, shaven, plump-lipped sex, a fashionable landing strip of hair the only veil to its nakedness. His thumbs plunged into the wet, twin divers, and she writhed with pleasure.

  ‘Oh, let me guess what you want,’ he whispered. It made her giggle.

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses.’

  ‘Really? One,’ he growled, massaging her clit with both thumbs. She arched her back, speechless. ‘Two,’ he continued, parting the folds of her sex and opening her wide with those thumbs, then working the rest of his fingers into the hot oil she was leaking, getting them good and slick, opening her up. ‘Three,’ he concluded, entering her with three fingers at once, his right wrist locked like a weapon, the muscles of his forearm tense as he pushed those fingers in deep, right past all those thick knuckles until he was holding her by her pussy, his thumb in possession of her clit – then out, then in again. His fingers were blunt and determined and brooked no refusal. Sophie jerked her hips and squealed and writhed, raking his skin with her nails. He pinned her with his other arm, pulling her hard against him. ‘Did I guess right?’

  ‘Mm,’ she nodded frantically, her lips bruising themselves on his hard jaw. She wanted his cock even more, but his fingers certainly had the right idea.

  ‘Then guess what I want, love.’

  ‘You want to fuck me,’ she whispered.

  He chuckled – that dark low rumble again, deep in his throat. Lingeringly he withdrew his hand, enjoying her little whimper of loss. ‘Let’s go see my friend,’ he whispered, confounding her.

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘We walked all this way.’

  ‘Oh … can’t we … first …’

  ‘Don’t be impatient. Everything comes to those who wait, love.’ He tickled her clit teasingly, then slipped from her embrace, secure in the knowledge that she would follow. Sophie slid off the stone feeling like there was a hollow void inside her, and sure that Ben was getting off on her discomfort. She tugged her skirt back down over her thighs and brushed specks of lichen off her behind. She couldn’t care less about Ben’s friend or his artwork now, to be honest, but she wanted his cock so badly she would have followed him almost anywhere.

  ‘Ready?’ He took her hand and led her off, surefooted even in the darkness. He led her to a small door in the north wall, one so low he had to stoop under the arch. It was unlocked, and a light burned in the room beyond.

  Sophie knew almost nothing about church architecture; she was expecting them to emerge into the main body of the building among the pews. She’d expected gloom and age. She wasn’t expecting a small room full of shelves and cupboards, or a set of unpainted plywood stairs that took them up into the roofspace. There was a strong smell of new plaster and paint.

  ‘I knew you were lying,’ she said, trying to be sparky, as Ben led her up. Her thighs felt sticky.

  ‘What?’ He frowned back at her.

  ‘About the vampire thing. You wouldn’t be able to walk on consecrated ground.’

  He turned away again. ‘This was deconsecrated in the nineteen-nineties.’

  They came out into a big white space – almost the whole of the interior of the church roof – illuminated by a few floor lamps. Every surface was painted white. There were pale human figures dotted about the place, on dustsheet islands spattered in paint, but none of them moved. Only one was animate: a slim figure crouching over and dabbing at one of the sculptures with a brush.

  ‘Hello, Naylor.’

  The young man stood. He moved with great fluidity and, though Sophie’s spike heels made a terrible racket on the wooden floor, his bare ones made no sound at all. He was standing in front of them almost before Sophie, transfixed by his grace, had grasped that he was moving at all.

  ‘Ben. Hi.’ He smiled at Sophie, not even bothering to hide the fact he was checking out her tits, her hips, her legs. ‘You’re a pretty one.’

  ‘Sophie,’ she said weakly.

  He was breathtaking. Slight, not tall, with sharp cheekbones and slanted, narrow eyes that turned out to be a wild pale green when they caught the light. A full lower lip gave him an incongruous pout. He was startlingly pale. Black hair flopped over those eyes, partly veiling the finely angled brows but not the wicked glint beneath them. There was a grace about his narrow hips and wiry limbs that seemed almost dangerous, as if he were poised in readiness for something. Something swift and ruthless, she thought; something never regretted. He looked younger than Ben and considerably more slender, but there was nothing weak about him at all. He folded his arms, having looked her over.

  ‘I can smell pussy,’ he said, gazing into her eyes, the corner of his mouth hooked in a smile.

  ‘Yeah … it’s all over my hands, I’m afraid,’ Ben answered, as she started and flushed.

  ‘You been taking her out for a trial lap, you dirty beggar?’

  ‘Just warming the engine.’

  ‘Huh. You want a beer, Sophie?’

  The abrupt switches in conversation stunned her a little, and she barely managed to nod and squeak an affirmation. Ben had been right: she did like Naylor. He looked like bad news – but wasn’t that always more fun in a man? She had a clear idea where this was going, she thought, and she didn’t object – but a little Dutch courage wouldn’t hurt. She’d never been with two guys at once. It excited her a lot more than the thought of her and Netta and Ben. It scared her quite a lot more too.

  Naylor retreated to a cool-box that stood near one wall, near a pile of dustsheets. She watched as he groped inside for three bottles of beer, then prised the caps off against the angle of the lid with three casual flicks.

  ‘Sophie works at an art gallery,’ said Ben.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Just Yardley’s,’ she answered, her voice husky.

  ‘What do you think of my stuff, then?’ he asked, indicating the sculptures with a twist of his head.

  Politely she turned to look them over. A standing figure nearby appeared to be a resin cast of a n
aked woman, her skin the stippled grey of poplar bark, her nipples black knots. But her eyes were only holes and from behind she was hollow, the bark curled and flaked at the edge, her insides cobwebbed. Sophie swallowed. How was she supposed to judge real art? Yardley’s didn’t cater to the high-concept end of the market, just to people who liked a nice picture and wanted something that would match the wallpaper. Sophie worked selling the products of conveyor-belt artists. There was the one who painted nice autumnal landscapes, and the one who did portraits of cheeky 1930s urchins, and the one who did the red canal perspectives … Nothing like this. What did she know?

  She moved to the next sculpture, a heap of reclining naked women. Their skin had the texture of sand and their sleeping faces were peaceful and beautiful – but once again they were hollow, this time from the ribs to the hips, their abdomens smooth white concavities.

  ‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘Powerful.’

  ‘You think?’ Naylor was at her shoulder, though she hadn’t heard him approach. She turned a little abruptly, and he slipped a cold bottle into her hand. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ He was standing unsettlingly close, almost touching her.

  Naylor tilted his own bottle to his mouth. Sophie glanced at the label, but it was some Continental brew she’d never heard of. She took a sip of her beer, all too aware that both men were taking a very personal interest in watching the neck of the bottle ease between her lips. She felt self-conscious: she’d never been the focus of such undisguised greed. She normally was the sort of girl that men could take or leave; rarely without some sort of masculine action in her life, yet never the centre of any drama. Procrastinating, she glanced away at the room again.

  ‘Is that one of yours?’ she asked, peering at something a bit different: two large wooden boards mounted on a wall that part-divided the roof-space. They were covered in black and gilt lettering that was hard to decipher.