Ritual Read online

  Velma said, ‘You’re one of those quiet ones, aren’t you?’

  ‘I told you. I’m tired.’

  ‘How tired is tired?’

  Charlie raised his eyes and looked at her. She was mocking him, in a way; but she was also encouraging him, supporting him, in the way that only women like her knew how. They could take in travellers from the unforgiving night, men who were tired and disappointed and lonesome and very afraid of failure, and give them all the comfort they needed. One night of sex, one night of burying all of their anxieties in darkness and flesh and the pungent smell of intercourse, and they were ready to face the world again, ready to report back to J.J. on how many miles of UPVC piping they had sold, ready to drum up new business. They were as much a part of American business as Lee Iacocca or Aaron Spelling.

  Charlie leaned back in the leather chair and looked around the lounge feeling drunk and detached. ‘Who told you to talk to me? Was it the maitre d’? Bits? Or did you decide to proposition me off your own bat?’

  ‘I’m not propositioning you,’ smiled Velma.

  ‘You wouldn’t be smiling if you weren’t.’

  ‘Well, maybe I wouldn’t.’

  At that moment Charlie knew for certain that he was going to sleep with her. It was her honesty which decided him, as much as anything else. She was handsome and straightforward and big-breasted and that was all that he needed, for tonight at least. He would think about tomorrow tomorrow.

  ‘You can’t come back to my room,’ he said. His voice didn’t even sound like his own. ‘My son is there.’ He checked his watch. ‘Sleeping by now. He isn’t used to all of this travelling around.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Velma, taking hold of his hand. ‘I have a room. Come on.’

  They left the lounge together. At the doorway, Charlie turned around and saw Bits smiling at him through the wine racks which separated the restaurant from the lounge. He turned away without acknowledging that he had seen him. Velma reached back and grabbed his hand and led him through the lobby to the main building. It was well after eleven o’clock now, and the lobby was brightly lit, red-carpeted, smelling of stale cigarettes, and completely deserted.

  They kissed as they went up in the elevator. Her tongue snaked into his mouth. Her hand reached directly down between his legs and squeezed him. He wasn’t sure whether he ought to feel aroused or frightened. They didn’t say anything coherent. The slightest bit of logic would have broken the spell completely, like the fragment of mirror in The Snow Queen.

  Velma’s room was at the far end of a long, airless corridor. She unlocked it with the dexterity of experience. She went in first, leaving Charlie in the corridor to make up his own mind whether he wanted to follow her or not. He hesitated, and then went inside, closing the door by pressing his back against it.

  It was only then that she switched on the bedside lamps. The room was almost identical to Charlie’s own room in the hotel annexe, except that the prints were wild flowers instead of locomotives. Fool’s parsley, and fragrant bedstraw. Velma, her back to Charlie, unbuttoned her dress. He made no move to help her. She dropped the dress on the bed and then turned around to face him. There was a strange, bright look of elation and defiance in her eyes. She was wearing nothing more than a black translucent bra, through which her nipples showed as smoky pink shadows, and a pair of patterned black pantihose, against which her pubic hair was flattened like the geographical map of a river delta.

  Charlie approached her, gradually loosening his necktie. He held her, and kissed her forehead. It was cool, slightly damp with perspiration, and tasted of perfume. ‘I hope you don’t think I make a habit of picking up women in hotel lounges,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if you did,’ Velma replied. ‘Practise makes perfect.’

  She reached behind her one-handed and unfastened her bra, drawing it off her breasts and letting it fall. Her breasts were big and soft and heavy, with nipples that crinkled tight. she unbuttoned his shirt, tugging it out of his pants, and then she grasped her breasts in both hands and pressed her nipples against his bare chest, kissing him with mounting hunger. Her teeth sought out his lips and his tongue, and bit at them so sharply that he could taste the metallic flavour of blood in his mouth. ‘I’m going to eat you,’ she whispered.

  They climbed on to the bed, struggling out of the last of their clothes. Charlie could hear himself panting. He took hold of Velma and rolled her over. Her breasts moved with slow-motion fluidity. Her white thighs parted. He saw dark hair and glistening pink. Then he had pushed himself into her, and the bedsprings began to jounce, and all he could see was Velma’s hair and part of the pillow and a torn off piece of wallpaper that looked like the head of a dog. Details, blurs, gasps, and then a snuffling, snorting release.

  He rolled off her, trying to catch his breath. Immediately, however, she was on top of him and straddled his stomach, so that he could feel her wetness pressed against him. ‘I want more of you,’ she demanded, and when Charlie squinted up at her, with one hand raised to keep the light out of his eyes, he could see that she wasn’t smiling.

  ‘No good huh?’ he said. ‘I told you I don’t make a habit of it. Next time, I’ll try to take my time.’

  ‘I want you now,’ she said, and her eyes glittered.

  ‘Come on now,’ Charlie protested. ‘I’m only human.’

  But Velma slid down him, and crouched like a cunning animal between his legs, and held his slippery softened penis in her hand. She stuck out her tongue, and it was very long and pointed, and she teased him by licking at the small sensitive opening. All the time she kept her hair drawn back from her forehead with her other hand, and her eyes fixed on him. Taunting him, provoking him, seeing how much she could shock him. She was irritating him with her caresses rather than arousing him. ‘Can you guess how much I want you?’ she said. Charlie was almost frightened to answer. ‘How much do you think I want you?’

  Charlie said nothing as she sucked his softened member completely into her mouth. She sucked too hard, and he said, ‘Ah!’ and put his hand on her shoulder to push her away. But she opened her mouth even wider and tried to cram his testicles in as well. Her whole mouth was cram full and still she looked up at him with those taunting, glittering eyes.

  ‘Velma–’

  She bit him gently, then a little harder.

  ‘Velma, I have to tell you that hurts.’

  She didn’t release him. Instead, she bent her head a little lower, and used her fingers to put his second testicle completely into her mouth. Her cheeks were swollen as if she had been gorging herself with too much food.

  ‘Velma, come on, careful now, that really hurts when you–’

  She bit him again, sharper and harder this time, and this time she drew blood. A thin dribble of it ran out of the side of her mouth. Charlie felt a peculiar empty feeling in his stomach and suddenly realized that it was panic. Here he was, lying in bed with a woman he had never met before, and she was holding everything that made him a man between her teeth. With one hard bite, she could turn him into an eunuch. She could even kill him.

  ‘Velma, you have to listen to me now... let me go, will you, please?’

  Velma snarled and dribbled and shook her head from side to side, worrying his sexual organs as if she were a young lioness who was refusing to surrender her prey. In spite of his fear, however – or perhaps because of it – Charlie began to feel his penis hardening again. It uncurled itself against the arch of Velma’s palate and gradually forced her to let his testicles plop out from between her lips, one by one, two wet plums, although she managed to keep almost his entire erection inside her mouth.

  She forced her head forward the very last half-inch. His swollen glans must have actually been inside her throat. Still she kept her eyes fixed on him, challenging, warning. Any other woman would have gagged or choked. Velma kept him there, on the brink between extreme erotic excitement and total terror, and it seemed to Charlie that whole minutes went
past.

  At last she lifted her head, allowing the shaft to slide out from between her lips inch by inch. ‘Did I frighten you?’ she asked him. Now she was smiling.

  Charlie rolled over and got up off the bed.

  ‘I frightened you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m just going to the bathroom, that’s all,’ Charlie felt as if the floor were tilting, and wished to God he hadn’t accepted that cognac. He very rarely got drunk. He didn’t like losing control of himself. Apart from that, the brandy fumes seemed to be rising up from his stomach like gasoline vapour, and he knew that it would take only one more drink to make him very sick indeed.

  Velma stood in the doorway watching him as he urinated. ‘Do you know something? I could have bitten it right off.’ She stepped forward as he was finishing and held him in one hand. ‘You knew that, didn’t you? And you were frightened.’

  ‘I do my best not to live too dangerously,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ Her face so close to his that he could see the orange flecks in her eyes. ‘I wanted to bite it off. I wanted to chew it and eat it and swallow it.’

  Charlie stared at her. She had an expression on her face that he could only describe to himself as triumph, with a little mockery thrown in for seasoning. She released him, and he flushed the toilet and walked back through to the bedroom. ‘I think I’d better get back to Martin,’ he said, and reached for his shirt.

  Velma came up behind him and touched the nape of his neck with her long fingernails. It gave him a shiver that was partly arousal and partly apprehension. Maybe this is what I’ve always been missing, he thought. Maybe my life has always lacked a little danger.

  ‘Stay,’ said Velma. ‘I promise I won’t frighten you again.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charlie demurred.

  ‘Your son will be okay. He’s a big boy now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Well, then,’ purred Velma, turning him around and kissing his nose. ‘He’s almost big enough for me.’

  Charlie opened his fingers and his shirt dropped on to the floor.

  7

  He woke up and there was bright fall sunshine criss-crossing the ceiling like the reflection on a fishing pond. He rubbed a crust of sleep from his eye and then turned over. Velma was lying with her back to him, still breathing deeply. The room reeked of sex and Obsession. Charlie reached over and gently untangled Velma’s hair.

  Beside the bed, the electric clock read 7:07. Martin had been very tired last night; he was probably still asleep. If Charlie dressed and went back to their room, Martin may not even realize that he had been away all night.

  Charlie wasn’t guilty about having gone to bed with Velma. He was divorced, he could go to bed with anybody he wanted. But he did feel that it might upset Martin, seeing how close Martin was to his mother. He pulled at a curl in Velma’s hair and Velma opened her eyes and looked at him sideways and smiled.

  ‘It’s morning,’ he told her. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘No breakfast special?’

  ‘I think I’m just about plumb wore out,’ Charlie said in an Uncle Tom accent.

  ‘That’s hard to believe,’ said Velma, and turned around to admire him with eyes that were still glassy from dreams.

  For the first time, Charlie noticed a deep sickle-shaped scar, just where her right breast met her chest. The scar was pale pink, and it had obviously healed well, but it looked as if something had actually taken a good sized piece out of her muscle. He didn’t like to be over-inquisitive. When you met people on the road, you had to accept that they tell you as much or as little about themselves as they wanted; truth or lies; and that you had to take them for what they were. But he touched Velma’s scar very lightly with his fingertips, and he asked her the question with his eyes.

  ‘Self-inflicted,’ smiled Velma.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Charlie shrugged. His guess was that Velma had stayed with a violent boyfriend just one night too many, and that he had cut her or burned her or whatever it was that violent boyfriends did these days.

  ‘I think it’s none of my Goddamned business,’ he said.

  ‘It could be,’ said Velma. ‘You know all about the Célèstines, don’t you?’

  Charlie stared at her. ‘The Célèstines? You’re the second person who’s mentioned the Célèstines to me in a couple of days. I never heard of them before. Didn’t they come from New Orleans or something?’

  ‘Originally they came from New Orleans, yes; but now they’re all over.’

  ‘I still don’t have any idea of what they are, or who they are,’ Charlie admitted.

  Velma said nothing for a moment. Then she climbed out of bed, and approached the dressing table, inspecting her naked body in the mirror. She laid one hand over the scar on her chest, and closed her eyes. ‘You feel hostile towards them.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about them. How can I possibly feel hostile towards them?’

  Velma opened her eyes and looked at him in the mirror. ‘Do you always feel hostile towards things that you don’t understand?’

  Charlie swung back the covers. ‘I’d better get back to my son. If I get back now, he’ll still be asleep.’

  ‘You mean he won’t realize that his father has been away all night?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Charlie reached for his crumpled pants.

  ‘Does it make you feel guilty, spending the night with a woman you picked up in a bar?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Velma came over to him, still naked, and buttoned up his pants for him. Then she kissed him on the lips, and laughed.

  ‘I know that some Célèstines run a restaurant at Allen’s Corners,’ said Charlie.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Velma. ‘So you do know something.’

  ‘I don’t get this,’ Charlie told her irritably. ‘It’s like some kind of guessing game. Do you know what the Célèstines are?’

  ‘Of course. They’re like a society, a club. Every now and then they get together and they eat a special dinner.’

  ‘Le Reposoir, they meet there,’ said Charlie, and Velma nodded.

  Charlie said, ‘The way we got together last night, was that accidental, or was it arranged? I mean, was it arranged by somebody else? Were we supposed to get together?’

  ‘You could say that,’ she said. He knew now that she was mocking him.

  ‘Do you mind telling me who arranged it, and why?’

  ‘Are you feeling used?’ she teased him. She turned her back on him and for a split second he saw a mental Polaroid of last night’s lovemaking, Velma biting his shoulder, Velma sitting on his face, grinding herself into his mouth. Vicious, harsh, dangerous sex; sex with teeth and blood and fingernails.

  He buttoned up his shirt, buttoned the cuffs. ‘I don’t know what this is all about,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘I don’t think I want to know what this is all about. I’m going back to my room and then I’m leaving. If you want some money – here –’ He reached into his back pants pocket and took out fifty dollars in ten dollar bills.

  Velma shook her head. ‘I don’t want your money. I’ve already been paid.’

  Charlie seized hold of her wrist and twisted her around. Instantly, she slapped his face, hard, and he let her go. They stood glaring at each other, and panting. A crimson handprint gradually appeared on Charlie’s cheek.

  ‘Somebody paid you to pick me up and screw me?’ he asked her incredulously.

  ‘I was trying to help you, that’s all,’ said Velma. ‘I was trying to make you understand.’

  ‘Understand what? I mean, what’s the connection? You, me, Le Reposoir, these Célèstine people. What the hell is it all about?’

  Velma was calm. ‘You approached them, didn’t you? The Musettes?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘I know the Musettes. They called me. They were under
the impression that you knew something about the Célèstines and that you were anxious to join them.’

  Charlie stared at Velma, narrow-eyed. ‘Now, wait a minute. I went to Le Reposoir because I wanted to eat there, that was all.’

  Velma dressed and Charlie watched her, feeling completely perplexed. If the Musettes had believed that he knew what the Célèstines were, and that he wanted to become one of them, why hadn’t they invited him to join when he had visited Le Reposoir yesterday? And why on earth should they have gone to the trouble of finding out where he was staying after he had left Allen’s Corners, and paying for Velma to take him to bed?

  Velma lifted her breasts into her bra, and fastened it. ‘You’d better go down to see your son. You don’t want him to think that you’re the kind of man he’d rather not have for a father.’

  Charlie checked his watch. ‘Okay. You’re right. But stick around. Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes’ time and we’ll have breakfast together.’

  ‘I never eat breakfast.’

  ‘Well, I have to. You can always toy with a cup of coffee.’

  Velma said nothing as Charlie went to the door. He opened it, and stood there for a moment simply looking at her. ‘Ten minutes then,’ he said.

  Charlie went to the reception desk first of all, to see if there were any messages for him. The bell captain smirked, and said, ‘One from your wife, Mr McLean. She wants you to call her back.’

  ‘When did she call?’

  ‘Maybe eleven last night, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t you put her through to my room?’

  ‘You weren’t in your room, sir.’ The smirk grew wider.

  ‘Not right then, no. But my son was.’

  The bell captain’s eyes blinked an almost imperceptible negative. ‘There was no reply, sir. We did think of putting the call directly through to you, but we considered that you might not appreciate it too much, not right then, sir.’

  He walked through the unkempt gardens of the Windsor Hotel and through to his room in the annexe. When he got there, he found that the door was wide open, and that there were two black maids in there, one cleaning out the bath and the other making the bed. The bedside radio was playing ‘The Girl From Ipanema’.