Lucy Lord - Vanity

‘Are you comparing Stadium to Busby Berkeley movies?’ Bella laughed. ‘Not sure what your emphatically not gay metrosexual readership would make of that.’

Simon laughed too. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s too depressing to discuss on such a lovely day, anyway. Are you working on anything interesting at the moment, Andy?’

‘Interesting, yes, but not what you’d call uplifting.’ He smiled briefly at Simon and squeezed Bella’s hand, trying to reassure her.

‘Try me,’ said Simon.

‘Do you remember that piece I did on the Albanian people-traffickers last year?’ As Simon nodded, Andy muttered, ‘People-traffickers … fucking euphemism for what these animals do … Anyway, one of them has tipped me off about another, bigger gang, which controls half the underage brothels in London.’

‘Wow,’ said Simon. ‘That’s heavy stuff. Why didn’t he go to the police though?’

‘He’s seriously scared of the retributions if it got back to the big boss, who has his spies, even within the police force. He seems to think he can trust me though.’ Andy’s clever eyes were serious behind their glasses. ‘I suppose he can. Even though I still think he’s lower than scum, if we get this lot, hundreds of girls might be saved.’

‘Eees the big gang Russian?’ asked Natalia, who was watching and listening intently.

Andy smiled at her apologetically. ‘’Fraid so.’

‘I really wish you could investigate slightly less horrible and dangerous people,’ said Bella, trying to keep her tone light, though the thought of her beloved Andy in danger was tearing her guts to shreds. ‘Or start working for a tabloid, where the extent of your investigative journalism would be rummaging through minor celebs’ dustbins, or even a spot of phone hacking …’

Andy laughed and kissed her on the forehead.

‘Don’t worry about me, my love. You know I’m always careful.’

The newlyweds stood at the edge of the cliff, looking over at the lights in the Old Town.

‘Shall we just fuck off to Space and get off our tits instead?’ asked Damian. The after-party was raging colourfully behind them. He was sure he could hear Bella’s dad shouting something inappropriate.

‘And leave behind the people we love, who’ve come a long way to be with us, to meet a whole load of strangers we don’t, and who haven’t?’ Poppy laughed and kissed him on the nose, standing on tiptoes to reach.

‘I know, I know, it’s just … if we were with a whole load of strangers, it would feel like it was just us, alone, amongst – well, strangers … But now we’re with people who know everything about us, and I want to feel alone with you, Mrs Evans-Wallace.’ He started to kiss her so hard that they both fell onto the scrubby grass, inches away from the cliff-face.

‘Well, Mr Wallace-Evans …’ Poppy panted, fumbling at the crotch of his linen trousers, ‘I don’t know about you, but I think we’re pretty alone here.’

She started licking the top of his cock, and as he moaned, she murmured, ‘Move away from the edge you silly sod, I don’t want to be widowed on my wedding night.’

They both laughed and rolled backwards together away from the edge. Poppy started licking his cock again and he moaned some more, then stopped. He gently pulled her head back by her silky long blonde hair.

‘What’s wrong?’ Nobody turned down Poppy’s blowjobs, let alone her husband on their wedding night.

Damian pulled her up so they were eye to eye.

‘Nothing’s wrong, my dearest Poppydoodle. I just don’t want to consummate our marriage like this. I want to be inside you, like …’

‘Like this?’ Poppy grinned wickedly and, in an impressive display of agility, manoeuvred herself on top of him, pulling her flimsy wedding dress up and equally flimsy Myla boy shorts to one side. Soon she was groaning too, biting her lip to stop shouting so loudly they’d be heard by all the guests. Just as she was about to come, Damian withdrew, threw her over, whipped the pants off altogether, then lunged back into her with such force she thought she might explode. Then she did cry out, but he shoved his hand over her mouth.

‘Shhhh, Mrs Evans-Wallace. You’re all mine now.’

As Poppy came to her senses she grinned again. ‘Well, Mr Wallace-Evans, if this is what being married is all about, I think I could get used to it. Shall we gaze up at the stars like lovestruck teenagers for a bit now?’

Damian smiled and kissed her again but she pulled away and forced him to look at the stellar landscape above their heads. ‘I always thought that Ursa Minor sounded like a poor little boy being bullied by someone like Flashman at a horrible Victorian public school …’

The villa was like nothing Sam had ever seen in her life. The vast, modernist, starkly white edifice seemed to grow organically from the hillside. How could that be possible? How could something potentially so incongruous, definitely so gratuitous, look so at one with the landscape? Sam, who’d read up on Ibiza thoroughly before coming to the wedding, assumed it was because the lines followed those of the hill and that the white building, while modelled on a far larger and more glamorous scale than those traditional cuboid cottages, kept the Ibicenco essence.

There had to be at least five levels of asymmetrical terraces, all of which were occupied with Poppy and Damian’s guests, whose laughter and chatter filled the air. Or perhaps not quite filled, thought Sam, ever precise. She’d surprised and delighted her parents by getting 12 A*s at GCSE and 4 A*s – Maths, Biology, Chemistry and English – at A Level. She’d always been clever, but her mum and dad worked so hard keeping their small catering business afloat there had never been a huge amount of time for things like parents’ evenings and helping her with her homework. And looking after her little brother Ryan was a full-time job in itself, of course.

The reason the guests’ chatter and laughter didn’t quite fill the air was the insistent hum of cicadas that served as constant background noise, and the deep thudding bass line of some classic house that emanated from whichever balcony one of the island’s numerous obnoxious DJs was playing. Every other plant, from pines to palms and bougainvillea, was lit up with fairy lights, and candles in jewel-hued Moroccan glasses illuminated every path.

It was all breathtaking, but what really made it, in Sam’s eyes at least, was the pool. It actually went all the way around the house, like an enormous turquoise moat, with waterfalls gushing down in stages from the back, where it was higher up the hill – and according to Bella, the coolest place to escape the fierce midday heat. At the front, the infinity pool seemed to stretch right to the edge of the cliff. Sam, who’d come up from the beach with the others after dark, imagined that in daylight it would be difficult to know where the pool stopped and the sky or sea began. In the middle of the pool was an island with a bar on it, and three palm trees, now silhouetted gracefully against the horizon.

The view, even at night-time, was phenomenal. Bella had told her you could see Formentera from here too. She was looking forward to taking the ferry to Formentera with Mark. She’d read that the water was unbelievable there and that there were loads of nudists. She was happy baring her body, as she’d done it for the cameras enough times, and thought it would be really sexy to be skinny-dipping with her gorgeous hunk in the beautiful sea. She felt happiest with him when they were both naked – that was when she knew he loved her. Even though she thought she was probably as clever as he was, he and his friends seemed so sophisticated that she always felt a bit out of her depth in their company.

His friends at lunch today had been lovely, of course. Bella had always been particularly kind to her, and even that weird Natalia didn’t treat her like some kind of tart.

But loads of the guests today, just like other friends Mark had introduced her to, looked her up and down in two very distinct, and very obvious ways. The blokes looked as if they just wanted to shag her, and she could deal with that, really, because blokes had wanted to shag her ever since she hit puberty. What peed her off was the way they nudged Marky and came out with their not-so-subtle innuendos, just as if, because she had big tits, she wouldn’t understand a bloody word they said.

It was the women who were the worst though. Sam was savvy enough to realize that women in their thirties felt a bit threatened by her young, nubile body, but all she wanted to do was scream at them, ‘I don’t want your bloody boyfriends! If it wasn’t for Marky, I wouldn’t be here anyway and he’s more than enough for me.’ But she just had to smile politely at their bitchy comments and get the odd bit of satisfaction at their looks of surprise when Mark boasted about her philosophy and psychology studies. Though one particularly hatchet-faced old bag did mutter something about ‘dumbed-down Britain’ and ‘of course, everybody has a degree these days.’

She wished Mark would hurry up with her drink. Three blokes had already tried to get her into the pool, saying she’d win any wet T-shirt contest going, and she felt a bit of a pillock, really, standing around on her own in her uncomfortable glittery platforms.

Andy and Bella were floating on blow-up armchairs towards the infinity edge of the pool, which was so brightly lit that the people swimming naked underneath could be seen in all their glory. Sadly for Bella, her father was one of them, but she’d seen it all before; for as long as she could remember, he’d been partial to swimming and sunbathing in the altogether.

‘Daddy, can’t you put your willy away?’

‘What’s that, sweetheart? Sorry, water in my ears, can’t hear you.’ And he went back down to ogle a bit more.

‘Don’t worry about him, darling,’ drawled Jilly from the bar on the island, wiping white powder from her nose. ‘He’ll never change.’

‘But it’s so rude to you, Jilly. He makes me so cross – why do you put up with it?’

‘Your father is what he is, sweetheart. We have a damn good giggle, he’s kind to me, unlike some of the arseholes I’ve known, and he’s never promised me anything. Besides, Jorge here is far more handsome, don’t you think?’ She guffawed and, as Bella refocused her eyes, she realized that Jilly was fondling the barman’s tanned and muscular naked buttocks. All the barmen were wearing g-strings and little white aprons.

Natalia, who was perched on one of the island’s white linen upholstered bar stools, long legs elegantly crossed, winked at Bella. She had changed out of her Pucci minidress into a Schiaparelli pink high-cut swimsuit and a crystal-embossed, rainbow-hued sarong.

‘You want some naughty dust?’

Finding Poppy nearly dead from a cocktail of coke, ecstasy, Temazepam and vodka last year had put something of a dampener on Bella’s enthusiasm for the hard stuff. But in such a ridiculously bacchanalian setting, who could say no, really?

‘Yes, please.’ She suddenly sounded embarrassingly jolly-hockey-sticks, as though Joyce Grenfell had been her favourite teacher at Malory Towers or St Clare’s. She looked at Andy. ‘Darling?’

‘Well, I have never been in a pool with an island and a bar before, so I think, yes, please, too!’

Taking advantage of one of her beloved’s rare moments of frivolity, Bella manoeuvred her floating armchair towards his to kiss him. As she reached out she accidentally launched herself into the water, knocking Andy out of his chair too. They were both laughing as they re-emerged and hauled themselves up onto the island.