The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [122]
Elene closed her eyes, thinking: It won’t hurt me, it won’t hurt.
It did not hurt, but it was strange, to be kissed so tenderly by a woman’s mouth.
Elene thought: Somehow I have to get control of this scene.
Sonja pulled open her own blouse. She had big brown breasts. Wolff bent his head and took a nipple into his mouth. Elene felt Sonja pushing her head down. She realized she was supposed to follow Wolff’s example. She did so. Sonja moaned.
All this was for Sonja’s benefit: it was clearly her fantasy, her kink; she was the one who was panting and groaning now, not Wolff. Elene was afraid that any minute now Wolff might break away and go to his radio. As she went mechanically through the motions of making love to Sonja, she cast about in her mind for ways to drive Wolff out of his mind with lust.
But the whole scene was so silly, so farcical, that everything she thought of doing seemed merely comical.
I’ve got to keep Wolff from that radio.
What’s the key to all this? What do they really want?
She moved her face away from Sonja and kissed Wolff. He turned his mouth to hers. She found his hand, and pressed it between her thighs. He breathed deeply, and Elene thought: At least he’s interested.
Sonja tried to push them apart.
Wolff looked at Sonja, then slapped her face, hard.
Elene gasped with surprise. Was this the key? It must be a game they play, it must be.
Wolff turned his attention back to Elene. Sonja tried to get between them again.
This time Elene slapped her.
Sonja moaned deep in her throat.
Elene thought: I’ve done it, I’ve guessed the game, I’m in control.
She saw Wolff look at his wristwatch.
Suddenly she stood up. They both stared at her. She lifted her arms then, slowly, she pulled her dress up over her head, threw it to one side, and stood there in her black underwear and stockings. She touched herself, lightly, running her hands between her thighs and across her breasts. She saw Wolff’s face change: his look of composure vanished, and he gazed at her, wide-eyed with desire. He was tense, mesmerized. He licked his lips. Elene raised her left foot, planted a high-heeled shoe between Sonja’s breasts and pushed Sonja backward. Then she grasped Wolff’s head and drew it to her belly.
Sonja started kissing Elene’s foot.
Wolff made a sound between a groan and a sigh, and buried his face between Elene’s thighs.
Elene looked at her watch.
It was midnight.
23
ELENE LAY ON HER BACK IN THE BED, NAKED. SHE WAS QUITE STILL, RIGID, HER muscles tense, staring straight up at the blank ceiling. On her right was Sonja, facedown, arms and legs spread all ways over the sheets, fast asleep, snoring. Sonja’s right hand rested limply on Elene’s hip. Wolff was on Elene’s left. He lay on his side, facing her, sleepily stroking her body.
Elene was thinking: Well, it didn’t kill me.
The game had been all about rejecting and accepting Sonja. The more Elene and Wolff rejected her and abused her, the more passionate she became, until in the dénouement Wolff rejected Elene and made love to Sonja. It was a script that Wolff and Sonja obviously knew well: they had played it before.
It had given Elene very little pleasure, but she was not sickened or humiliated or disgusted. What she felt was that she had been betrayed, and betrayed by herself. It was like pawning a jewel given by a lover, or having your long hair cut off to sell for money, or sending a small child to work in a mill. She had abused herself. Worst of all, what she had done was the logical culmination of the life she had been living: in the eight years since she had left home she had been on the slippery slope that ended in prostitution, and now she felt she had arrived there.
The stroking stopped, and she glanced sideways at Wolff’s face. His eyes were closed. He was falling asleep.
She wondered what had happened to Vandam.
Something had gone wrong. Perhaps Vandam had lost sight of Wolff’s car in Cairo. Maybe he had had an accident in the traffic. Whatever the reason, Vandam was no longer watching over her. She was on her own.
She