Going Too Far Read online

  It was only as we were going to bed that I thought we should have gone to the police.

  ‘Or did the park wardens call them? I suppose they must have done.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t have done,’ said Red neutrally.

  I was puzzled. ‘Why not? Someone holds up three people at gunpoint and the authorities do nothing about it! That’s a great advertisement for hiking in the national park, I don’t think.’

  Red and Robbie exchanged one of those private glances that meant, shall I tell her, or shall you?

  ‘We couldn’t tell them the truth,’ said Red. ‘Remember the look that Englishman gave us when we tried to tell him. Anyway, no harm was done, apart from losing our boots.’

  ‘No harm?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘You two had a gun pulled on you; we could have frozen to death and he’s stolen your papers, not to mention my films. How can we let him get away with it? We’ve got to tell the police.’

  Red pulled me on to the bed. It was big enough for three, but none of us had any energy left.

  ‘In the eyes of the police Carlos is a respectable Peruvian businessman. We’re foreign backpackers; two of us are students. If we filed a complaint against Carlos don’t you think they might believe him rather than us? Particularly if he tells them we tried to get in the way of a perfectly legitimate business opportunity he’s trying to pull off, just because we’re violent anti-capitalists?’

  ‘But he lied to the warden about me being missing,’ I said stubbornly. ‘We can get him there.’

  ‘The park warden wouldn’t even remember what he looked like,’ said Robbie gently. ‘And I’d put money on Carlos having an alibi. Like he spent all of the Christmas holiday tied up with your mate Susie.’

  ‘Ha ha.’ I wasn’t amused. ‘I bet the warden would remember him. I think you’re wrong.’

  That bloody look again. ‘What is it?’ I shouted. ‘Tell me or I’ll shout the house down.’

  ‘Well, I had to say something. I told them you’d cheated on Carlos with us so he’d pinched our gear, but then must have been afraid we’d die and so reported you missing.’

  ‘Great,’ I said grimly. ‘I thought they were giving me funny looks. They must have put me down as a real slut.’

  Red burst out laughing. ‘Well, it’s not too far from the truth, is it? Anyway, you like being a slut.’

  Very funny, I thought sourly as I stripped and threw my clothes on the floor. I barely heard Red get in next to me, or was it Robbie? It didn’t matter.

  Three days later we were on the road again, this time to cross the final border into Argentina. I had less than two weeks left and still hadn’t seen everything I had planned.

  Christmas Day was a non-event, the town being closed and our celebration having taken place the evening before. We lay in bed, got up to watch some TV, had a walk around the windy town and went back to bed. Robbie spent most of the next day at the internet café on line to friends at home and in the States and, despite my usual distaste for communicating with home while travelling, I sent an e-mail to Kip telling him exactly what he’d got me into.

  We spent a brilliant week sightseeing on the Argentine side of Patagonia, but time was running out. In less than a week I had to get my plane from Buenos Aires. Even though Red and Robbie hadn’t planned to go that far north at this stage of the trip they didn’t want to leave me. Not that they were exactly emotional about it – they were still Australians after all – so they merely said that Buenos Aires would be the best place to replace the missing boots so they could do the walks they’d planned. In reality I knew that after all we’d been through together they didn’t just want to wave me off at the bus station and never see me again, so they decided to come with me and maybe return south later.

  After a stop-off by the sea to break the long, monotonous bus journey, we reached the capital with four days to go before my flight back home. For the first time in ages it was actually hot, about thirty degrees, and after checking into a hotel as a treat for our last few nights we put our shorts on again and strolled around the noisy city streets, revelling in the bustle and life.

  Apart from the sights I’d planned to see in the city I most definitely wanted to go to a tango class. Red and Robbie told me I was alone in that one, but I managed to drag them along to a lesson on our first night. Of course they were hopeless but I was thrilled. Most types of dancing seem banal, boring or just plain embarrassing to me, but there’s something about the tango. I spent as much time as I could hogging the instructor, Luis. Although he wasn’t attractive, being rather short and slightly podgy, he – or rather his dancing – made me feel that I was the most desirable woman in the world. As he bent me backwards and looked into my eyes I melted.

  The streets were thronged with people when we left the class, mainly couples, women in revealing tops and short tight skirts, dark handsome men in white T-shirts and jeans, cruising languidly in the sultry heat. The neon-lit night throbbed with energy and possibilities and my body was still pulsing with the erotic rhythms of the tango. We sat in a restaurant and ate steak and drank red wine but the guys knew my mind was on other appetites. Our conversation dwindled to a minimum as we substituted eye contact and half-smiles for words; we didn’t need to discuss what we were going to do next.

  We skipped coffee and went back to our room. Though we had a fan we opened the balcony doors to let in the cacophony of the non-stop traffic and the all-night record shop over the road. In the glow of one bedside lamp Red stripped me while Robbie’s coarse voice murmured appreciation of my body and suggestions as to what they should do with it. The heat and sensuality of the dance and the couples on the street who I knew were coupling themselves by now pervaded me with languor and I lay back as though drugged. Red and Robbie seemed to understand my passivity and slowly, with infinite patience, touched every pore of my body, inflaming every nerve end until I almost fainted with pleasure and longing, though they didn’t allow me release.

  ‘It’s too hot to sleep tonight. We’re going to make love to you till dawn,’ said Robbie’s disembodied voice, as he kneeled on the floor at the foot of the bed to caress the soft skin of my inner thigh, slippery not just with sweat but with the molten liquid that trickled uncontrollably from my sex. ‘This is all for you, Bliss. We want to cover every inch of you with virtual tattoos that you’ll always remember us by.’

  I shivered as his fingers feathered my thigh, moving to make sure no tiny morsel of skin was untouched, like an artist meticulously dotting my body with a pointillist technique, his touch as gentle as the stroke of the finest paintbrush. But I couldn’t concentrate on it fully as on the other side of me Red was running his fingers up my arm from my wrist right up to the curls that I had allowed to grow in my armpit, running his fingers around them as if flexing them for later, when he would wind them through my other, more luxuriant hairs.

  They followed their caressing with kissing, retracing their fingers’ movements all over me, then jointly sucking insistently at my nipples like babies, until finally their tongues penetrated me simultaneously. I kissed Red back with my mouth, not hard but with swollen parted lips that received his tongue fleshily and moistly in imitation of the wetness and softness Robbie was probing below.

  I wanted to ask him to let me come now, to move his tongue to my clit and let it flicker over it just a few times, which was all it would take to make my cunt flicker and flare in response, but my mouth was still engaged with Red’s tongue. Unable to articulate what I wanted, my body started to quiver. As though it had communicated its needs to Robbie he put his hands under my buttocks and lifted my hips, slanting me towards Red who moved his head downwards. As Robbie’s tongue lapped at my moisture and gently rimmed my anus Red’s tongue skitted almost imperceptibly over my clit and unbearably gradually licked me harder and harder until I exploded.

  It was almost dawn.

  I woke around eight thirty with Robbie’s stiff cock nudging me behind. In contrast to the lovemaking of the hours
of darkness, as I turned towards him he pulled me on top and entered me without preamble. Almost sardonically he made his excuses for his forwardness as he presumed I was already satisfied. Amused by his straightness and unable to refute his statement I shagged him quickly and energetically, enjoying the functional fuck for its own sake. Red slept despite the bouncing bedsprings and after Robbie came we too sank back to sleep. The next time I woke up Robbie was in the shower and I gave Red a similar efficient fuck, so we were all ready to face the day.

  Despite the intensity of the night before Red and Robbie turned me down flat when I suggested another tango class. Although I felt almost achingly tender towards them both I was frankly relieved. I wasn’t going to succumb to the lure of the tango with Red hauling me around like a sack of coal, a ludicrous parody of the beauty he had given me the night before. It only lasted an hour and a half anyway, so I agreed to meet them in a bar later. Part of me also knew that they had to re-establish themselves as a twosome again once I had gone, and bonding over a few beers seemed to be the Australian way of going about it.

  Once again I loved the dancing and was on a high when I joined the guys in the bar. They had probably already had more than enough already but we got some tapas and I had wine while they continued to down the beers. We drank and joked like three best mates and fell into bed with all thoughts of sex erased from our minds. It seemed to be the perfect arrangement and so we agreed to do the same the next night.

  Except that the next night, after the boys had gone to the bar early claiming dehydration, the room phone rang to say I had a visitor. I took the lift downstairs, part of me pretending to wonder who it was, but knowing deep down there was only one person it could be. Deep down I was right. Carlos was at reception, dressed in his cool cream business suit flashing a big smile at me.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Bliss. I’ve missed you. You look beautiful.’

  His tone was tender and he put his arm around me caressingly. What on earth the desk clerk thought I couldn’t imagine. After all I was already sharing a room with two other men. Maybe he too thought we were brothers and sister.

  ‘Well, I expect I look a bit better than I did last time you saw me,’ I said tersely.

  He laughed and held out a bag. ‘I found some belongings of yours and the boys. Oh, and I had your photos developed for you.’

  There was a glint of humour in his eyes, which took me aback. Surely disappointment should be his reaction to finding he had my films instead of Red and Robbie’s, not amusement.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said abruptly, taking the bag from him. I peered in; three pairs of boots and three lots of holiday snaps. Plus a wodge of papers.

  ‘You’ve left some papers in here,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘No, they belong to the guys. Do tell them I’m sorry that I seemed to have run off with them.’

  ‘Not a worry,’ I said, consciously adopting the Australianism to demonstrate where my solidarity lay. ‘They already had copies of them. And in any case they’d faxed them to their friends so they could get to work on them straight away.’

  I faced him triumphantly as I told him that he was already on the verge of being rumbled in his crooked dealings. Worryingly he didn’t look at all put out.

  ‘I had assumed they would have done, but I was interested to read them all the same. Anyway, take that bag upstairs and I’ll take you out to dinner.’

  I couldn’t believe his cheek. Exasperated, I took the bag from him and half turned away. ‘Actually, I have dinner plans, not to mention a class beforehand, so I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey.’

  ‘Oh, what sort of class?’ he asked as if genuinely interested. ‘Spanish?’

  I glared at him. ‘Tango, as it goes. So if you’ll forgive me, I have to get ready and cross town.’

  ‘Bliss, get off your high horse. Just take that bag to your room and I’ll drive you wherever you want to go. I want to talk to you before you go home. Even if not for long.’

  Yes, I know, I should have told him to fuck off out of my face before I called the police. But I couldn’t help but be disarmed by how easily he took the news about the papers, not to mention his amusement at finding himself with my pictures instead of Red and Robbie’s. As I stomped towards the lift I had to accept that the turbulence he had stirred up in my body wasn’t due to indignation; if the guys could accept that he hadn’t planned to harm us I certainly could.

  Besides, it was very nice to look into his espresso eyes as a change from blue and grey. And I liked the idea of driving through BA with a man in a cream suit. Who wore just a splash of a rather sexy cologne.

  His eyes widened appreciatively when I returned to the lobby dressed for the lesson. OK, it was extravagant, but after the first night I’d been shopping for a tango outfit: a short strapless red dress with a boned bra top and a pair of black kitten-heel sandals. It didn’t have class but it was cheap and sexy, which was just how I felt when I put it on. As soon as I’d checked myself in the mirror before I left the room I knew that although Carlos wasn’t completely forgiven I wasn’t going to deny myself the pleasure of flirting with him.

  He drove quickly and aggressively in his hire car to the address I gave him and stopped outside looking at his watch. ‘Seven thirty. Have you got time for a quick drink?’

  It was my turn to laugh. As I’d planned to either walk or take the subway it was fairly clear that the class wasn’t about to start immediately.

  ‘Lovely.’

  We sat in a corner of an old-fashioned bar panelled in dark wood, with stained glass-windows diffusing the evening sunlight. I ordered a vodka tonic and threw Carlos a challenging look.

  ‘Just out of interest, did you come all this way just to see me?’

  ‘And return your things,’ he teased. ‘No. I had a bit of business to attend to.’

  ‘I bet. What are you up to here? Buenos Aires seems quite developed enough to me.’

  His mouth twitched. ‘There’s always room for more development. Actually, you might be interested, as the client is a Dutch company. They’re test-marketing a new soft drink all over the continent and we’re sorting out some possible factory sites for them on the outskirts of town.’

  That déjà vu feeling again!

  ‘Hang on a minute, is that the drink that’s a bit like a fizzy milkshake?’

  ‘So I’m told. I haven’t tried it.’

  He looked puzzled as I laughed out loud. I decided not to tell him that his client, or rather one of their marketing men, was my plane fuck, especially as I doubted he would remember my story anyway. I had a vision of international corporations criss-crossing the world with the various strands of their businesses, like a global spider’s web. I ran my hand over my fringe as if to brush the thought, or the spider’s web, away.

  Carlos put his hand on my bare arm and drew his chair closer.

  ‘Bliss, you do know I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.’

  I believed him, but didn’t want to seem too much of a pushover.

  ‘You must think I’m pretty stupid. How on earth could you have known that I would be all right after you’d made your getaway?’

  ‘Fairly easily,’ he said, smirking. ‘I phoned to say I had news about the missing woman; I was going to pretend that someone had seen her back at the camp site with two men. The park officer misunderstood me, though, and thought instead that I was enquiring about the missing woman. Of course he told me that she’d been found with two others and help was on the way.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I sniffed. ‘I don’t know why I should believe you. What about pulling a gun on Red and Robbie?’

  ‘It wasn’t loaded. I just thought they needed to learn that if you play with fire you can get burned. Didn’t you think I threw it into my rucksack rather carelessly? Your career as a spy doesn’t seem to have taught you very much.’

  ‘Stop laughing at me!’ I snapped. ‘You shouldn’t wave guns around, loaded or not. I might have had a heart attack. In f
act for a minute I thought I had had one.’

  He did laugh then, out loud. ‘I really am going to miss you,’ he said affectionately. ‘American girls just don’t have your sense of humour.’

  ‘How is Susie, by the way?’ I asked drily.

  ‘Fine. I’m sure she’d send her best if she knew I was seeing you. She’s down in Santiago for a few days. Tying poor Jorge up in knots, no doubt.’

  ‘I wondered if he swung both ways, or whatever you call it. Susie told me you weren’t interested, though.’

  ‘No way. I like to be the one in control.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ I sipped my vodka tonic. ‘So what are you going to do now? Now that Red and Robbie have foiled your plans in Chiloe?’

  ‘I hope they don’t really believe that.’ He laughed. ‘Surely they’re not that naïve – are they?’

  There I was thinking I was being smart not letting him know that even they thought it had probably all been a waste of time, and all I’d done was make him think they were gormless innocents.

  ‘They might get a bit of publicity in the left-wing press but nothing much will come of it,’ he explained, as if to a child. ‘That’s if the plans go ahead after all.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ I was confused. ‘You’re not saying that despite bribing the planning people and Susie prostituting herself and working out all the plans for staffing and sourcing the whole project might be ditched?’

  He grinned. ‘Gosh, you must have read all those papers. No, very possibly it won’t get off the ground. These things often fall at the last fence. It happens all the time.’

  I was definitely out of my depth. ‘You’re not telling me that all this subterfuge and corruption and planning go on all the time for nothing? It must cost a fortune! How can anyone waste that sort of money?’

  ‘Bliss, you don’t understand the real world, do you? We’re talking about massive corporations with huge turnovers that think nothing of spending thousands on plans that may not bear fruit. It’s better to go ahead with a feasibility study and then pull out than throw good money after bad, or even worse not to even investigate the possibilities and find the competition moving in.’