The Apprentice Read online

  Then I get to the bottom of the pile, and I’m brought up short by a book that I hadn’t even noticed during my first sorting. It’s a large and handsome hardback titled Peek: Photographs from the Kinsey Institute. The cover bears a sepia image of a woman, head thrown back, gown falling off her shoulders, bare breasts accentuated by what appears to be a wooden photo frame held up in front of them, outlining them. Glancing quickly at the door, I open the book and flip through it, feeling a bit like a naughty schoolgirl. I see a woman dressed as a dominatrix, wielding a whip over what appears to be a soft toy – a dog placed in a sit up and beg pose. I see a blur of naked legs viewed from above, in a multiple exposure. I see a group of nude men, posed around a column as if holding it up, akin to Greek statues. I go and shut the door to the hallway, come back and sit on the sofa, turn to the introduction.

  The Kinsey Institute, I learn, is a research body – part of Indiana University – investigating ‘human sexuality’. In the 1930s, its founder, Alfred C. Kinsey, started to gather photos and artworks to form a ‘documentary collection’ supplementing his team’s ‘observed data’. Dating from the 1870s on, the works came from all kind of sources – from artists themselves to law-enforcement authorities – hence their eclectic nature. The ultimate aim was a detailed classification scheme of sexual practices.

  I flip through again: some items (the cream of a collection of almost 50,000) are subtle and evocative, others graphic to the point of brutality. This time I linger on items that leap out at me: some French erotic postcards from the late nineteenth century, a gorgeous male nude study from the 1950s, a photograph of some naturists in the snow, engaged – rather surreally – in archery. There is also an interesting-looking essay on sexual photography by an expert in the field, which I resolve to read when I have more time.

  I look around at Anne’s many bookshelves, seeking a spot where this one will fit. In the corner of the room, at the bottom of a sturdy bookcase, I notice a double-height shelf with a range of large-format art books. I steal over, cock my head to one side and let my eyes run over the titles: Paul Gaugin: an Erotic Life; Gustav Klimt: Erotic Sketchbook; Ars Erotica: the Best Modern Erotic Art; Venus: Masterpieces of Erotic Photography; Private Collection: A History of Erotic Photography 1850–1940. It seems my employer has a bit of a one-track mind when it comes to art.

  I slip the Kinsey book on to the shelf and take out another one almost at random, then return to the sofa. I open the book, and my gaze falls on a picture of an older man, sitting in an armchair, facing the camera. The image is in black and white, as all the best nude photos seem to be, and his flesh glows like ivory. You can’t see his sex itself, but his eyes are proud and provocative. He knows that he is still desirable. Inevitably, I have a clear and detailed flashback of last night, of James Carnaby’s face between my legs, of his tongue on me, making me come over and over. My desire to see him naked was so strong it shocked me. I could never have imagine wanting that. Seeing this fifty-something man in the book makes me feel cheated all over again.

  I rest the book on my knees, biting my lip and glancing towards the closed door again. One of my hands slips between my legs. I press it to my pussy, let out a moan of frustration. I wanted James so much, wanted him inside me. I can’t believe that Anne allowed us to go so far and then whisked him away from me. That he submitted to her on that. Wasn’t he gagging for me too? I don’t even need to ask the question: I felt his cock throbbing for me like a little heart, even while we were still downstairs.

  I keep moaning and rubbing at myself through my sweaty tracksuit bottoms even as I’m wondering at all this, a bitter taste in my mouth. What was in it for James? Sure, he got to go down on me, but didn’t he leave as horny as fuck, as frustrated as me? He didn’t look that way: he looked calm and composed.

  I realise, as this occurs to me, that James must have known what was going to happen before we even began. That he knew that Anne wasn’t going to let us go all the way. Again, what was in it for him?

  My orgasm is already mounting as another thought, grimmer still, shoots into my consciousness – the realisation that I never actually heard him leave the house after the pair exited my room. I remember hearing voices in the hallway, but then I had to attend to myself, bring myself off again through sheer frustration at being cheated of James’s cock. Then I zoned out, all floppy and sated. What if the stuff James and I did was just an appetiser – Anne’s way of getting him all fired up to pleasure her? Could it be that watching her lovers at work with someone else intensified her desire for them? If so, then I have been used most shabbily.

  The sound of the telephone interrupts me, and I’m grateful. I was on my way to a sad, cross, niggardly orgasm, a measly compensation for what should have been mine. Suddenly I don’t want to think about James any more, of his complicity in Anne’s warped little games. I don’t want to come thinking of this man who could be old enough to be my grandfather.

  I replace the book, walk over to the phone in the opposite corner of the room. I already know that Anne won’t be answering it, that she eschews having a handset in her own room in order that she’s not disturbed when the creative juices are flowing. And Hettie is out in the garden, pegging clothes on the line. There’s an answering machine, of course, but I suddenly feel guilty again – I’m here to work, to assist Anne, not to sit around ogling pictures of naked men and bringing myself off.

  ‘Hello, Genevieve speaking,’ I say when I pick up, suddenly unsure whether it’s a good idea to mention Anne’s name when answering the phone, for reasons of privacy. Do novelists get stalked?

  There’s a pause on the other end, an intake of breath, and then my stomach flips as I hear a familiar voice.

  ‘Genevieve,’ says James quietly, and for a moment I imagine he’s savouring the feel of my name in his mouth.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply, when it’s clear he’s not going to go on. My own voice comes out funny: squeaky and cracked at the same time. ‘Er, Anne’s upstairs. I don’t know … I … is it all right to disturb her?’

  ‘Oh no,’ says James, and his voice comes down the line at me like molten honey. ‘Oh no, you mustn’t disturb Anne, not while she’s working. I was just going to leave a message on the whatnot.’

  ‘I’ll take a message then,’ I say meekly. ‘I’ll just fetch a –’

  ‘No, no,’ he says, quickly but still quietly. ‘It wasn’t anything important. In fact …’ He pauses, as if he’s not sure that what’s coming is appropriate. ‘In fact, I’m … I’m glad that you picked up.’

  He pauses again, and I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. For a moment there’s a silence so profound I can hear my own blood rushing in my ears.

  Then James speaks again. ‘I was wondering … You’ll think me an old fool, but I was wondering if we could meet?’

  I breathe in sharply. This was not what I was expecting, and the thought fills me with dread as well as desire. But James and I have unfinished business and I know that, if I don’t accept his invitation, I’ll be plagued by ‘what-ifs’ for the rest of my life.

  ‘Sure. When … Where?’

  ‘Are you free tonight?’

  ‘I guess so. She hasn’t …’

  I falter, and he goes on in my place. ‘She doesn’t own you,’ he says, ‘just because you live in her house. Your time is your own, in the evenings.’

  I nod, but I don’t say anything.

  ‘So let’s say eight o’clock? We can have a bite, if you like. I haven’t forgotten I promised you a copy of my book too.’

  ‘OK, that would be nice.’

  My voice must sound hesitant, unconvinced, for he adds, ‘Don’t worry. It will be discreet. I know you don’t want to be seen around with such an old man. But I know the perfect place – are you familiar with the Prince Alfred on Formosa Street in Little Venice?’

  ‘A pub?’

  ‘Yes. It’s easy enough to find with an A–Z, if you don’t know the area. You’ll see what I mean about discreet
when you get there. Bye for now.’

  He hangs up, and for a moment I just stand there, the handset still in my hot palm, sticky with perspiration. Then I start at a noise in the hallway and, after replacing the phone quickly, turn back in time to see Anne coming through the doorway, plucked eyebrows raised.

  ‘Did I hear you on the phone?’ she says.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, struggling not to stammer or let my voice get all squeaky again. ‘It was just one of those annoying sales things, a recording. I hung up. Don’t they charge you for listening, even though it’s them who have called you?’

  ‘Oh, those,’ she says. ‘Damned if I know anything about all this modern technology.’ But already she’s breezing out of the living room and heading towards the kitchen, asking Hettie about lunch.

  I grimace as I listen to her recede. Day two and already I’m keeping secrets from her. This job threatens to be a whole lot more complicated than I envisaged.

  4: Return of the Sugar Daddy

  I LIE ON my bed, trying to steady myself. Having grabbed something to eat, Anne headed back up to her study, without giving me any further tasks. Perhaps she didn’t realise I’d finished sorting out the dresser, and I should have pointed out that I was at a loose end again. But dizziness overcame me, and I had to come up to my room and try to calm my racing mind.

  For a few moments I feel truly lost, and I curse having seen the ad for this job. I toy with the idea of going downstairs again and dialling 1471 to get James’s number, then calling him back and cancelling our date. The very word ‘date’, as I hear it in my mind, makes me shudder. A girl like me, fresh out of uni, going on a date with a possible sexagenarian? I see Vron’s face in my mind’s eye, incredulous at first, then mocking. ‘What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ she’d bray. There’d be no point telling her that this is no ordinary sixty-something man, no point trying to convey to her the way it felt as if a lifetime’s experience of pleasing women was condensed into what happened when he opened his mouth and applied his tongue to my clit.

  But then I blank out Vron’s face, blank out Nate’s face – the latter confused and hurt as well as disbelieving. This has nothing to do with them. This is about me. And I feel that I am owed closure on this, after Anne intervened to put paid to our encounter. Even if nothing happens between James and me tonight, I will know, at least, the outcome to our little story. Know what there is between us, if anything, without Anne’s interference.

  And also, there is something in me that I’m not too sure I have really felt before, or registered as a part of my make-up, and that thing is plain curiosity. Curiosity about this older man and the feelings he brings forth in me. But also curiosity about him: what his body is like, how he uses it. It strikes me that I’ve always taken the safe option, the obvious route. Being with a much older man is something that has never occurred to me, betraying a failure of imagination on my part. But now that my interest is piqued I need to know what it is like.

  Resolved not to miss out because of my nerves, telling myself I’ll go to the pub early and have a stiff vodka or two before he arrives, to take the edge off it all, I feel stronger, and my morale returns – and with it my libido. Energy washes through my veins, renewing me, and I think again of some of the pictures in Anne’s books, and particularly of the provocative look in the older guy’s eyes. I love his fearlessness, his obvious pride in maintaining his body and not letting himself go or fade out of public view just because he’s no longer young.

  How blinkered I’ve been. The world must be full of attractive older men that I’ve been editing out, focused as I have been on ‘suitable’ men. When I was with Nate, I barely glanced at other men, let alone entertained fantasies about them. But I realise now that, even since we’ve split, I’ve only really looked at men who are like him. It’s as if I’ve forced a type on myself, just because Nate was attractive to me. By doing so, I’ve been depriving myself of a world of much more interesting opportunities.

  I close my eyes. There’s no point in regrets, as I once said to Anne. And whatever comes of this whole crazy situation, of this weird job in this weird house with this weird woman, I have learnt something about myself already, something that has allowed me to advance as a person. Which can’t be bad.

  I doze for a while, letting my hand idly flit about my crotch. Lazily I tweak my tracksuit bottoms down. There’s nothing underneath – to avoid VPL – and my fingers slip easily into the folds of my labia, into my wet hole. With my thumb I rub gently at my clit; then I increase, gradually, both the pressure and the speed. I daren’t let myself dream about what might happen tonight with James, so instead I think of the man in the book, of his alabaster skin, of the barest hint of pubic hair between his crossed legs, of his frank, inviting gaze.

  As I look at him, he rises from the chair, and I see his dick, as proud as his eyes, bobbing, questing. He walks towards me. I moan, jiggle my clit a little harder, a little faster. I spread my legs wide, push my fingers in further, wanting to make the feeling last, before I go crashing over the edge, riding on the wave of my orgasm. I try to keep quiet, but guttural little cries bubble up in my throat and escape from my mouth.

  He’s bending over me now, the man from the photo, and my fingers become his dick inside me, my thumb on my clit becomes his, and I throw my head back in ecstasy and enjoy the feeling of falling away as my climax takes hold.

  I lie panting, my hand on my mons. As my breathing settles, I’m sure I hear a shuffling noise from the direction of the landing. I hold my breath, eyes fast on the door. Anne’s there, I think, and for a moment I’m convinced she’s going to come in. I sit up, slither down into my tracksuit bottoms where they have bunched up around my thighs. I look at the door handle, waiting for it to turn. There’s no lock on my room, I realise – it didn’t occur to me last night – but I don’t think I would have had the presence of mind to use it anyway, when I got back up here.

  Nothing happens. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, stand up and reach for a towel to take to the shower with me. It was only the cat, I say to myself as I shoot a quick glance back at the door. There really wasn’t anybody there.

  I intended to be at the Prince Alfred ahead of James, in time for a couple of stiff drinks, but it takes longer to walk to Little Venice from Bayswater than I anticipated. Or rather, with all the sexy new apartments and bars that have sprung up around the new Paddington Basin and alongside the canal, I find myself waylaid en route. It’s a blissful summer evening – still warm, but with a freshening breeze – and for a while I sit on the bank and watch the comings and goings of the barges, tilting my face up towards the sun as it begins its slow descent.

  While I’m sitting here, a couple passes by, arms hooked around each other, white teeth flashing as they exchange loving smiles. For a moment I feel a pang – this is what I had with Nathaniel, for a long time. I’d do anything to recapture that sense of security and protection, that feeling of being completely in tune with someone, if only for the space of an evening. But I can’t hope that of my meeting with James. I can hope that the spark is still there between us – that there was a spark, and that it wasn’t just the wine talking. But that easy, unforced companionship that I had with my first love and erstwhile soulmate seems to be beyond the scope of what exists between James and me, given our circumstances. It’s not even really the age gap: it’s how things started, in a conflagration. With Nate we flirted and wooed each other for months, gradually inching towards sex, as afraid of it as much as we wanted it. It was as if we were both aware of how precious the thing that we had was, and wary that giving ourselves to each other physically might wreck that. Might dispel the mystery that we held for each other.

  With James, things began with fire, a sort of violence. There was no romantic preamble, no emotional foreplay. Suddenly I found myself on his knee with his hand between my legs and his cock pressing into my buttocks. Even if things carry on, there will never be that slow burn, that gradual ascent into
intimacy and trust, that I had with Nate.

  My eyes follow the couple along the bank of the canal. Blinking away tears, I get to my feet and cross the bridge that will take me to the pub. I look at my watch and, seeing that it is two minutes to eight, feel a surge of excitement tinged with terror at the thought that James is probably already waiting for me.

  I walk in, and for a moment I’m confused – the pub seems minuscule. Then I do a double-take and realise my mistake: the place is actually divided into a number of small snugs around a central bar, the wooden partitions between them inset with waist-high hatchways so you can move between them.

  I’m standing in one of them and I lean forwards over the bar, craning my neck to try to see into the other snugs and assess whether James is already here. Suddenly hands rest on my hips from behind and there’s a whisper of breath on the exposed nape of my neck, where I’ve pulled my hair up into a chignon to match my austere but hopefully sexy outfit – a figure-hugging black pencil skirt and a crisp black shirt with wide lapels.

  ‘Ingenious, n’est-ce pas?’ comes the voice, and I turn around and smile, shyly, at James.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, struggling to catch my breath.

  He gestures around us. ‘Now you see why I chose this place. Doesn’t it remind you of compartments in a train?’

  ‘I guess it does, now you come to mention it. What … Why … ?’

  ‘It was a Victorian thing, a way of separating the sexes as well as people from different classes. There used to be things called “snob screens” over the bar counter too, for added privacy from the bar staff. Now, of course, it makes a perfect spot, on a quiet weekday night, for a tryst.’