‘Rupert is very lucky,’ said the Italian Ambassador. ‘He has always had beautiful women, but seldom so clever. I believe you come to Rome next month for another prize?’
I’m having fun, thought Cameron in amazement. Tony’s virtually kept me in prison for three years. For the first time since New Year’s Eve with Patrick, I’m really having fun.
Rupert took her home just after midnight. They sat on opposite sides of the back of the embassy car and he made no attempt to touch her. In the darkness, she could see his profile, Spanish too with its thick slicked-back hair and forehead which ran down in a dead straight line to his nose. The only luxuriance in such a finely planed face were the wicked long blue eyes which she couldn’t see in the dark, and the fullness of the lower lip. I want him she thought, helplessly; I want to be the woman who brings him fulfilment.
To their left a lot of drunken Scottish football fans were splashing about in a fountain. Above them soared the statue of Christopher Columbus.
‘Can we get out and look at him?’ said Cameron. ‘After all, he did discover America.’
As they got out, Rupert’s hair gleamed in the moonlight.
‘Rupert,’ screamed one of the Scottish fans. ‘Look, it’s Rupert.’
‘No, thank you very much,’ said Rupert, pulling Cameron back into the car.
Furious with herself for wanting him so badly, Cameron spoke only in monosyllables all the way back to the hotel. Totally ignoring the two smiling footmen who leapt forward to turn the revolving door for her, she shot into the elevator. In such a small space, you wouldn’t have thought it possible to be so far apart, but Cameron felt her belly button touching her spine. Falling out of the elevator, she set out at a run across the patterned carpet, then, realizing she’d turned the wrong way, had to retrace her steps. What the hell was the matter with her, Controller of Programmes, mega-prizewinner, woman of substance, flapping around like a blackbird trapped in a fruit cage?
‘I must be pooped,’ she said in an over-bright voice. ‘Thank you so much,’ she mumbled outside her door, and, the moment Rupert had opened it for her, she shot inside.
Rupert made no attempt to retain her. ‘Good night,’ he said yawning. ‘Sleep well.’
Alone in her mammoth suite, Cameron nearly went into orbit with frustration. In the mirror she could see her eyes glittering feverishly, her breath coming in great gasps, her nipples sticking through the apricot dress like thimbles. She half expected to see a pulse jumping between her legs.
She was nearly thirty. Perhaps she was losing her touch and Rupert really didn’t want to sleep with her. She couldn’t stand it. Ripping off the dress and the temptress’s satin underwear he hadn’t even seen, she went into the bathroom and turned on the cold shower, letting the icy jet blast away all the Fracas and the body lotion and the gel, and, hopefully, the desire. She turned it on so hard that it was a few seconds before she realized the telephone was ringing. No doubt it was Tony, establishing his ascendancy, so she let it ring just to worry him. After two minutes she picked it up.
‘I don’t see why Christopher Columbus should have a monopoly,’ said a light clipped drawl. ‘I want to discover America too.’
Cameron leant against the wall, feeling giddy with relief.
‘Cameron.’
‘Yes?’
‘Who are we fooling?’
‘I don’t want to get hurt. Or get AIDS.’
‘You won’t,’ said Rupert triumphantly. ‘I had a test last week. I’m as clear as one of Valerie Jones’s picture windows. I’ve got a certificate to prove it.’
‘I’m amazed you haven’t run off millions of copies on Ministry for Sports’ stationery,’ said Cameron, ‘and circulated them to all interested parties.’
‘Don’t be bitchy. What about you?’
‘I had a medical for insurance last month.’
‘Tony must have bonked you since then. One could catch something far nastier than AIDS from him. Now am I going to have to swing across the balcony like Tarzan or are you going to let me in?’
Rupert had cleaned his teeth and was still wearing his blue striped shirt and suit trousers. Without the camouflage of his jacket, Cameron could see how divinely proportioned he was, hunky on the shoulders, and lean and streamlined everywhere else. The golden meanie, she thought. As he came towards her, she clutched the towel round her, looking very young and vulnerable with her hair flat and wet from the shower, like a guard dog who’s been uncharacteristically caught with its hackles down.
‘Everyone’s into prolonged courtship these days,’ she gabbled. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m easy.’
‘I don’t.’ Very gently Rupert took off the huge Rolex watch she’d forgotten to remove in the shower. ‘I just want to see if you’ve got a designer cunt.’
He stopped her reply by kissing her; the towel slid to the floor.
It was a very good thing, he reflected later, that he’d lost all that weight and been jogging for an hour every morning, or he’d never have coped with the pace. Cameron was like an electric eel, knew every sexual permutation in the book, could twist herself into any position, and ordered him around like a sergeant-major.
‘You are incredible,’ he murmured into the back of her head, ‘you’d make a matchstick feel like a cigar.’
‘I need a bit more stimulation on my clitoris,’ demanded Cameron.
Rupert obliged. ‘In England, we pronounce it clitter-is.’
‘It’s
After two hours’ fairly sustained screwing in both bedrooms, on the sofa in the drawing-room, under the shower, and admiring themselves in every mirror, they collapsed onto the carpet and Rupert came for the fourth and, from his point of view, final time.
‘I haven’t come yet,’ said Cameron in his ear.
Rupert was astounded. ‘What was wrong, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Nothing. It was the best first fuck I’ve ever had, I’m too uptight and too pissed, I guess.’
‘Well, I’m not jumping ship till you do, so you may as well relax and stop fighting.’
Wriggling downwards, he parted her sodden bush. ‘I am, after all, a member of the Cly-Tory Party,’ he said in muffled tones.
27
Waking first, Cameron reached out and immediately realized she wasn’t with Tony. Rupert had the most enormous erection, so like a Cruise missile that Cameron half expected to see lots of Greenham women camped round the bed looking disapproving and waving CND banners. Getting up, she drew back the curtain an inch. Rupert was certainly the best-looking man she’d ever been to bed with, and, despite her sniping, the best lay. Once she’d let him take over last night, everything had been perfect. She knew too that, in the space of fourteen hours, she was a different person. She’d been dependent on Tony for security but never happiness. For the first time in her life, she was in love and it terrified her.
The ring of the telephone woke Rupert up. It was Tony, all smarm, calling from his car, so the line wasn’t very good. This was a good thing as Rupert started kissing Cameron all over in the middle, and so distracted her she couldn’t remember anything practical, like what time the awards were or when she flew in tomorrow, or concentrate on the witty remarks Tony had made to the Princess.
‘It’s Tony,’ she wrote frantically on the telephone message pad.
‘So?’ wrote Rupert.
‘I’m so sorry,’ gasped Cameron. ‘I was working very late on the application.’
‘How’s it shaping?’
‘Very well,’ shrieked Cameron, as Rupert, grinning broadly, lunged Cruise into her. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, I’m off to Toledo. I’ll ring you before I leave tomorrow morning. You’re insupportable,’ she howled at Rupert, as she slammed down the telephone.
‘How was the dinner party?’
