you really were curious only about our nationality. As for any 'veiled threats' he might have issued: that is not unusual. He might not have the vitality of younger men, but jealousy is ageless.'
'No,' I answered, 'he didn't threaten-not that I noticed. But jealousy? Knowing I have only one more day to spend here, what has he to fear from me?'
Her shoulders twitched a little, a shrug. She turned her face to me, her lips inches away. Her eyelashes were like silken shutters over green pools, hiding whatever swam in the deeps. 'I am young, Peter, and so are you. And you are very attractive, very…eager? Holiday romances are not uncommon.'
My blood was on fire. 'I have very little money,' I said. 'We are staying at different hotels. He already suspects me. It is impossible.'
'What is?' she innocently asked, leaving me at a complete loss.
But then she laughed, tossed back her hair, already dry, dangled her hands and arms in the water. 'Where there's a will.…' she said.
'You know that I want you-' The words spilled out before I could control or change them.
'Oh, yes. And I want you.' She said it so simply, and yet suddenly I felt seared. A moth brushing the magnet candle's flame.
I lifted my head, looked towards the beach. Across seventy-five yards of sparkling water the beach umbrellas looked very large and close. Karpethes sat in the shade just as I had last seen him, his face hidden in shadow. But I knew that he watched.
'You can do nothing here,' she said, her voice languid-but I noticed now that she, too, seemed short of breath.
'This,' I told her with a groan, 'is going to kill me!'
She laughed, laughter that sparkled more than the sun on the sea. 'I'm sorry,' she said more soberly. 'It's unfair of me to laugh. But-your case is not hopeless.'
'Oh?'
'Tomorrow morning, early, Nichos has an appointment with a specialist in Geneva. I am to drive him into the city tonight. We'll stay at a hotel overnight.'
I groaned my misery. 'Then my case is quite hopeless. I fly tomorrow.'
'But if I sprained my wrist,' she said, 'and so could not drive…and if he went into Geneva by taxi while I stayed behind with a headache-because of the pain from my wrist-' Like a flash she was on her feet, the raft tilting, her body diving, striking the water into a spray of diamonds.
Seconds for it all to sink in-and then I was following her, laboring through the water in her churning wake. And as she splashed from the sea, seeing her stumble, go to her hands and knees in Ligurian shingle-and the pained look on her face, the way she held her wrist as she came to her feet. As easy as that!
Karpethes, struggling to rise from his seat, stared at her with his mouth agape. Her face screwed up now as I followed her up the beach. And
Adrienne holding her 'sprained' wrist and shaking it, her mouth forming an elongated 'O'. The sinuous motion of her body and limbs, mobile marble with dew of ocean clinging saltily.…
If the tiny man had said to me: 'I am Necros. I want ten years of your life for one night with her,' at that moment I might have sealed the bargain. Gladly. But legends are legends and he wasn't Necros, and he didn't, and I didn't. After all, there was no need.…
4.
I suppose my greatest fear was that she might be 'having me on,' amusing herself at my expense. She was, of course, 'safe' with me-in so far as I would be gone tomorrow and the 'romance' forgotten, for her, anyway-and I could also see how she was starved for young companionship, a fact she had brought right out in the open from the word go.
But why me? Why should I be so lucky?
Attractive? Was I? I had never thought so. Perhaps it was because I was so safe: here today and gone tomorrow, with little or no chance of complications. Yes, that must be it. If she wasn't simply making a fool of me. She might be just a tease-
But she wasn't.
At 8.30 that evening I was in the bar of my hotel-had been there for an hour, careful not to drink too much, unable to eat-when the waiter came to me and said there was a call for me on the reception telephone. I hurried out to reception where the clerk discreetly excused himself and left me alone.
'Peter?' Her voice was a deep well of promise. 'He's gone. I've booked us a table, to dine at 9.00. Is that all right for you?'
'A table? Where?' my own voice, breathless.
'Why, up here, of course! Oh, don't worry, it's perfectly safe. And anyway, Nichos knows.'
'Knows?' I was taken aback, a little panicked. 'What does he know?'
'That we're dining together. In fact he suggested it. He didn't want me to eat alone-and since this is your last night.…'
'I'll get a taxi right away,' I told her.
'Good. I look forward to…seeing you. I shall be in the bar.'
I replaced the telephone in its cradle, wondering if she always took an aperitif before the main course.…
I had smartened myself up. That is to say, I was immaculate. Black bowtie, white evening jacket (courtesy of C & A), black trousers and a lightly frilled white shirt, the only one I had ever owned. But I might have known that my appearance would never match up to hers. It seemed that everything she did was just perfectly right. I could only hope that that meant
literally everything.
But in her black lace evening gown with its plunging neckline, short wide sleeves and delicate silver embroidery, she was stunning. Sitting with her in the bar, sipping our drinks-for me a large whisky and for her a tall Cinzano-I couldn't take my eyes off her. Twice I reached out for her hand and twice she drew back from me.
'Discreet they may well be,' she said, letting her oval green eyes flicker towards the bar, where guests stood and chatted, and back to me, 'but there's really no need to give them occasion to gossip.'
'I'm sorry. Adrienne,' I told her, my voice husky and close to trembling, 'but-'
'How is it,' she demurely cut me off, 'that a good-looking man like you is-how do you say it?-'going short'?'
I sat back, chuckled. 'That's a rather unladylike expression,' I told her.
'Oh? And what I've planned for tonight is ladylike?'
My voice went huskier still. 'Just what is your plan?'
'While we eat,' she answered, her voice low, 'I shall tell you.' At which point a waiter loomed, napkin over his arm, inviting us to accompany him to the dining room.
Adrienne's portions were tiny, mine huge. She sipped a slender, light white wine, I gulped blocky rich red from a glass the waiter couldn't seem to leave alone. Mercifully I was hungry-I hadn't eaten all day-else that meal must surely have bloated me out. And all of it ordered in advance, the very best in quality cuisine.
'This,' she eventually said, handing me her key, 'fits the door of our suite.' We were sitting back, enjoying liqueurs and cigarettes. 'The rooms are on the ground floor. Tonight you enter through the door, tomorrow morning you leave via the window. A slow walk down to the seafront will refresh you. How is that for a plan?'
'Unbelievable!'
'You don't believe it?'
'Not my good fortune, no.'
'Shall we say that we both have our needs?'
'I think,' I said, 'that I may be falling in love with you. What if I don't wish to leave in the morning?'
She shrugged, smiled, said: 'Who knows what tomorrow may bring?'
How could I ever have thought of her simply as another girl? Or even an ordinary young woman? Girl she certainly was, woman, too, but so…knowing! Beautiful as a princess and knowing as a whore.
If Mario's old myths and legends were reality, and if Nichos Karpethes were really Necros, then he'd surely picked the right companion. No man born could ever have resisted Adrienne, of that I was quite certain. These thoughts were in my mind-but dimly, at the back of my mind-as I left her smoking in the dining-room and followed her directions to the suite of rooms at the rear of the hotel. In the front of my mind were other thoughts, much more vivid and completely erotic.
I found the suite, entered, left the door slightly ajar behind me.
The thing about an Italian room is its size. An entire suite of rooms is vast. As it happened, I was only interested in one room, and Adrienne had obligingly left the door to that one open.
I was sweating. And yet…I shivered.
Adrienne had said fifteen minutes, time enough for her to smoke another cigarette and finish her drink. Then she would come to me. By now the entire staff of the hotel probably knew I was in here, but this was Italy.
5.
I shivered again. Excitement? Probably.
I threw off my clothes, found my way to the bathroom, took the quickest shower of my life. Drying myself off, I padded back to the bedroom.
Between the main bedroom and the bathroom a smaller door stood ajar. I froze as I reached it, my senses suddenly alert, my ears seeming to stretch themselves into vast receivers to pick up any slightest sound. For there had been a sound. I was sure of it, from that room.…
A scratching? A rustle? A whisper? I couldn't say. But a sound, anyway.
