Coquette Read online

  Finally, still kneeling on the floor, her head bowed as though in penitence, Sally nodded, "Yes, Mr Viktor Lazarev, I think it would be worth your while to stay in London tonight, yes, I'd make it worth your while. And yes, I'll go to dinner with you, but I'm not going to any of the fashionable places, I'm not going anywhere where I might be recognized."

  Lazarev shrugged. "Fair enough, but this is your town so where do you suggest we eat?"

  Sally paused for a moment "There's an interesting place down in Putney, called The Wharf that I've always wanted to try." "Excellent, I'll pick you up at eight..." Slowly Sally raised her head, and Lazarev was taken aback by the hate that flickered in her eyes. "Don't even think about having a chauffeur drive you: this is either a discreet rendezvous or I walk. Private humiliation is one thing, public humiliation is quite another." Lazarev pondered. "Okay, I'll keep it hush-hush." Sally smiled a quiet smile. "I'll see you at eight o'clock tonight, park just around the corner in Crompton Street." Their eyes held for a moment, and without another word Lazarev rose from his chair and left the apartment. As she watched him go, Sally checked her watch, it was still only just after three, time enough to do everything she needed to do. Time enough to search the attic for what she would wear tonight and time enough to pack a bag and deliver it. Yes, she had plenty of time, she decided, as she walked towards the bathroom; but first she had to scrub her teeth and try and get the taste of this monster out of her mouth. And then to play the coquette.

  * * * * The coquette: the tease, the confusing seductress, the woman who by her hints and her suggestions ensnares and beguiles a man. Tonight Sally knew she would—must—beguile Lazarev, she would simultaneously show how repellant he was to her and suggest that he might not be so. She would tell him that the prospect of him using her sexually was abhorrent, but would dress to suggest that she was sexually available. She would be cold and icy, but send signals that she was melting.

  Carefully, reluctantly she removed her wedding ring, her engagement ring and the distinctive ruby cluster George had given her for her fortieth birthday. Once, when the world had been young, she'd sworn that she'd never, ever take them off, but needs must when the devil drives. Tonight the devil was most certainly driving. And the thought that she would be recognized by her bespoke jewelry or, heaven forbid, leave a piece of it at the scene of her assignation with Lazarev, was unacceptable.

  Rings safely back into her jewelry box, Sally checked herself in the mirror, and was decidedly impressed by the outfit—disguise rather—she'd managed to cobble together that afternoon. Her brunette, bobbed hair was hidden by a long blonde wig; her blouse was a red chiffon, semi-transparent one by YSL she'd last worn— what—four years ago; the very short black lace skirt had been part of a distant Halloween outfit; and, as the piece de resistance, set at a jaunty angle on her head was the small pillbox hat with a raffish veil that she'd impulse bought a year before in Portobello Market. The veil came down to the tip of her nose, and masked her fiery blue eyes and her fine, broad forehead. Not one piece of the outfit could be traced back to her. Dressed and disguised like this, she looked totally different from the woman she'd been just a few hours ago, and, with all her rings discarded, totally unidentifiable as Sally Smith, patrician's wife.

  She hoped it would be a warm evening, though. She had no underwear on under either the skirt or the blouse in deference to a desire not only to pique Lazarev's sexual curiosity but also to ensure that she left nothing lying around at the end of the evening: it wouldn't do to be careless...not tonight.

  No, tonight she had to play the coquette, she had to delude and bemuse, tonight she had to bamboozle Lazarev with her body, and then, she would play Nike, the avenging Fury.

  One final look in the mirror: satisfied, she swathed herself in Chanel No 5 and a huge black cloak, raised the hood, and slipped out of the apartment, careful to ensure that her exit wasn't seen by any of her neighbours. This was one evening when she celebrated the procrastinating nature of the apartment block's maintenance crew: the CCTV camera that monitored the rear of the building had been on the fritz for months... * * * * As she flitted around the corner of the apartment block, Sally saw that Lazarev was parked exactly where Sally had told him to park, the Russian lounging back in the driver's seat of his top-of-theline Mercedes, his arm draped nonchalantly out of the open window. As she slid into the passenger seat, Sally maneuvered herself so that her skirt was edged a long way up along her thighs, ensuring that her long, toned legs were displayed to their best, most disturbing advantage. They provoked a Pavlovian reaction from Lazarev, he reached over to run a hand under her skirt, but Sally grabbed his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pushed the hand away. "Later, Viktor, later, and certainly not here."

  With a frustrated "humph," Lazarev withdrew his hand and drove them with decidedly bad grace to the restaurant, though, like some spoilt child denied candy, he cast several hungry glances at Sally's legs. And Sally made no attempt to cover them. They parked almost outside the restaurant, on the hill that sloped down to the marina being built a quarter of a mile or so below them. The water glinted black and silver in the moonlight.

  "It's quite a place," admitted Lazarev, "and bloody popular. It took a lot of hard work to get a reservation." If he was expecting thanks for his efforts he was disappointed; Sally remained glacially mute. "But, anyway, I managed to get a river-view table." Still there was no reaction from Sally. "I think this may turn out to have been an inspirationalchoice of restaurant, Sally."

  Despite Lazarev's efforts at conversation, it was a silent Sally who allowed Lazarev to steer her to the restaurant's entrance, and, once she was inside, allowed a waiter to take her cloak. As the cloak slipped from her shoulders the restaurant stopped. Despite it being the desolate Wednesday that followed Easter, the place was packed with diners and every one of them froze as the cloak was doffed. Sally looked devastating, and so different from the straitlaced, refined and reserved lady that Lazarev had inveigled into servicing him that afternoon. The brunette bob was gone, replaced by a mane of platinum blond locks that tumbled down to Sally's shoulders, and her steel blue eyes, she knew, were hidden by the black veil; but it was the rest of her outfit that so effectively mutated her from the wife of a Government Minister into...well, a femme fatale.

  The chiffon top allowed all of the staff and diners in the restaurant a superb look at her breasts and nipples...and the lace of the skirt admitted a distinct impression that beneath the skirt she was as naked as she was under the top. The top and the skirt, coupled with the black lace gloves she was wearing, gave her a pagan appearance, an appearance that Lazarev obviously found very appealing. "You look marvelous, really quite lascivious. I wouldn't have recognized you as the woman I fucked this afternoon. Bravo, Sally, though I must admit to being a little surprised by the enthusiasm with which you've entered into our little liaison."

  Sally smiled wickedly as she languorously took her seat at the table. "It's quite simple, Viktor, the longer I keep you sexually intrigued and sexually sated, the longer I can be sure that you'll leave my daughter alone. I may not like you, I may despise you, but I have to accept that you have a certain power over me." "Excellent," purred Lazarev. The food was marvelous, and as Lazarev absorbed more and more alcohol, his appreciation of Sally's beauty became more and more physical, and more and more obvious. Over the hors d'oeuvre his hands massaged her thigh, gradually sliding higher and higher up her leg, until his fingers tested the hem of her skirt. As the main course was served, the hand had moved under Sally's skirt, and had wandered around her sex and trailed over her mons. If he needed more encouragement he received it in spades when they commenced the sampling of their desserts, Sally shifting in her seat and allowing her thighs to open, offering herself to Lazarev. By the time coffee was served Lazarev was almost beside himself with drunken passion, and, as Sally was pleased to notice, was nursing an erection of quite painful proportions.

  After the meal, as Sally manhandled a wobbly Lazarev o
ut of the restaurant and towards his black Mercedes, she was confident all that was on Lazarev's mind was the urgent need to fuck her, and she was equally sure that, following the encouragement she had given him over dinner, he believed that Sally was desperate to help him succeed. Hip to hip they sauntered across to the car, Sally making no protest as Lazarev pawed at her arse and her tits. "You said this afternoon that you preferred anal sex to any other, is that right?" Sally whispered. "S'right," Lazarev slurred, "you're not saying you're up for it?" "Get in the back of the car and I'll show you." The car was parked at the top of the hill looking down towards the dock area that was in the process of being refurbished. But even with all the building works going on the view was astonishing; the waters of the would-be, soon-to-be, moonlight. Unlocking the car, unceremoniously into the back seat, tumbling in after her, his hands tearing at the buttons of her top, and wriggling under her top and her skirt, fondling her breasts and her sex. As Sally sat back on Lazarev's lap, fidgeting her arse wantonly down onto Lazarev's rampantly stiff penis, she started scrabbling towards the window controls. "What...what are you trying to do?"

  "I've got to open the windows, Viktor, it's so hot in here I can hardly breathe." marina glistening in the Lazarev shoved Sally

  "They won't work unless the ignition is on." He scrambled drunkenly around in his jacket pocket and, finally, with much cursing, dragged out a bunch of keys. "Here, use these."

  "I'll just open the front windows, we don't want people seeing what we're doing in the rear," said Sally as she stretched over the backs of the front seat to fumble the key into the steering lock, then retracted each of the car’s windows. And as she leant forward, as her arse was high and vulnerable in the air, Lazarev pushed her skirt over her naked buttocks and buried his face in her, running his tongue around her anus. With a theatrical gasp, Sally pushed herself back towards him, miming delinquent passion. Encouraged, with considerable difficulty Lazarev squirmed the zip of his trousers down and pulled his prick free. "Come back here, come and sit on me," he garbled and, grabbing her by the hips, he pulled Sally back towards him.

  She felt his hard, stiff penis begin to quest at her anus. "Yes," she gasped, "yes," and slumped forward encouragingly, adopting a supine position, an inviting position, simultaneously gripping the handbrake to steady herself for what was to come.

  "Yes," gasped Lazarev as he urged himself forward, struggling with his drunkenness, his trousers and his lust. So distracted was he by the prospect of fucking Sally, that it took a few moments for him to realize that the car was actually moving, rolling down the hill. The shock of realization cleared his mind. "What the fuck...you've released the handbrake, you silly bitch," and he pushed Sally off him, shoving her forward into the front seats, desperately trying to grab the handbrake, "you stupid cow." They were the last coherent words Lazarev uttered. As Sally was pitched forward she twisted and smashed her left

  leg back, driving the heel down into Lazarev's groin. Lazarev had never been kicked in the balls before, so he had no prior experience of the totally devastating feeling of vomit inducing, bowel emptying, eviscerating pain that it caused. Indeed, if Lazarev had lived, the doctors would have diagnosed a ruptured testicle, and it would have taken a week just for the swelling and the bruising to subside. But this pain was as nothing to the agony caused by the foot that Sally smashed across his larynx, the kick completely destroying Lazarev's voice box: it was this injury that would most perplex the coroner, that and the fact that Lazarev had died with his trousers around his knees. The combination of two blows completely paralyzed Lazarev, who sat gasping for air on the leather seat, his beautiful Armani suit bespoiled with blood and bile, but they didn't prevent him hearing Sally as she steered the rapidly accelerating car down the hill towards the marina.

  "If you thought I would be so weak as to allow a piece of shit like you just to walk in and destroy the life of my daughter and of myself, you were sadly mistaken. If you'd have seen the awards I keep in my private study you'd have realized that not only am I a champion swimmer but also a black belt in karate." She lissomed into the driving seat and corrected the trajectory of the car, before turning to leer at Lazarev, "No one will be able to recognize me tonight, the wig and the costume are a great disguise, and that, plus the fact that everyone in the restaurant was too interested in ogling my tits to look at my face, will mean I'll remain the 'unknown hooker' in this little drama. And I haven't left any fingerprints either: my lace gloves made sure of that. No, Viktor fucking Lazarev, I'll be just some mysterious prostitute you took out for a meal, for your last supper." She looked up at the rapidly approaching marina, fastened her seatbelt and then braced her legs against the dashboard, "Ah, now it's deep breath time, and I hope you enjoy hell."

  The car launched over the embankment, flew perhaps ten feet through the air, then stalled, and plummeted down into the icy cold of the marina, the black, fetid water flooding in through the Mercedes' open windows. As the car began to sink rapidly, Sally unclipped her seat belt and shimmied out through the front passenger window, turning to Lazarev as she did so and waving a last goodbye, delighting in the terror she saw in his eyes. * * * * It was a pretty awful Thursday. Laura phoned early, almost hysterical about the death of Lazarev, and she took a lot of settling. Eventually though, Sally was able to calm Laura down, and to elicit a promise from her to come home for a few days to get over the shock.

  When George phoned at lunchtime, he had been, predictably, less troubled than his daughter by Lazarev's death. His contact in Special Branch, remembering his interest in Viktor Lazarev, had spoken with him immediately the news had broken, telling him that a drunk Lazarev, in the company of a mysterious woman, had left a restaurant in Putney the previous evening at about midnight and had run his car off the road into a marina, drowning himself in the process. Of the woman there was no trace, though the police were urgently seeking her.

  "Don't worry," comforted Sally, "your mystery woman wasn't Laura, she was in Leeds last night."

  "That's a relief. I thought for one dreadful minute..." Sally heard papers being turned on her husband's desk, obviously the work of the Ministry was too important to delay even for a moment, "but the police are confident of finding this woman, whoever she is."

  While her husband prattled on about election inconsequentialities Sally pondered this. By her calculations the chances of her being linked with the death were very slight: she had been well disguised, she had kept her lace gloves on throughout the meal so there were no fingerprints, there was no record of her leaving or returning to the apartment, and after leaving Lazarev screaming— well, she thought they were screams but his voice seemed a little...damaged—with fear as the car had sunk, had swum the two hundred yards to where she had hidden her towel and running gear earlier that afternoon. The three-mile run home through the deserted streets of early morning London had been strangely refreshing.

  "Oh, yeah," George broke through her reverie, "I tried to phone you last night but there was no reply..." "No," replied Sally sweetly, "I went for a swim."

  About the Author

  Born in Moscow in 1980 and educated at Moscow University, N is an academic specialising in Norse mythology with especial reference to the impact of Viking culture in Mediaeval Slav societies. Her nom de plume, N, stands for neizvestnaya—unknown—the traditional Russian literary device for masking identity, and wearing masks, as we all know, allows us to act in ways that are anathema to our public selves and to live out our most prurient fantasies, safe from discovery. N's radical opinions regarding the state of Russian society and politics, and her liberated and unconventional attitudes to all things sexual, necessitates her need to mask her identity.

  N has chosen for her symbol a combination of the rune Laguz—the female rune—and Laguz Reversed—the female reversed—to illustrate the duality of her spirit, and the fact that her sexuality embraces both the male and the female, pain and pleasure...dominance and submission.

  N currently lives in Moscow,
with anyone she chooses to, and spends her days working in a leading university and her evenings writing erotica.

  N writes in Russian, and has been co-operating with Nelli Rees, a UK-based jazz singer and a highly regarded translator, regarding the preparing of her literary works for publishing by Phaze. Nelli has translated JazzNoir: Seidr into English and is currently working with N on the final volumes in the JazzNoir trilogy and on N's new DemiMondeseries of books.

  Nelli met N at one of her gigs in Chester, when N was doing postgraduate research in the UK. Check out N on her website www.neizvestnaya.com.

  Collect all 13 Phaze Fury Stories! A CERTAIN WAY – RENEE BLAINE COQUETTE – N TIME WARP – ALESSIA BRIO COLLEGE GRIND/OUCH – COURTNEY BEE ESCAPE – JADE FALCONER CLOSING THE DEAL – MISSY LYONS QUEEN OF CARNAGE, VOL. 1-2 – MICHAEL BARNETTE JASON'S RECKONING – MERRY PHILLIPS JILTED – LEIGH ELLWOOD THE STUD FARM – SKYLAR SINCLAIR MASQUERADING HEARTS – VICTORIA BLISSE PAYBACKS ARE HELL – YEVA WEIST Now available at www.Phaze.com!

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