He opened his eyes and judged that to be a big mistake. The daylight flooded in through a gap in the curtains just so and hit him square in the face. It assailed his retinas and they began to throb in time with his aching head. He let out a soft moan and fell back among the cushions and pillows that were scattered on the floor. A slender arm flung itself over his chest in a gesture that was half-protective, half-possessive and he turned his head slightly to the right.
She was beautiful, but they always were in his eyes. The female form was one that he admired in all its myriad shapes. A beauty in a well fitted dress was guaranteed to catch the eye, but he found nothing so erotic and alluring as a woman with intelligence. This one had precious little of that, but what she lacked in mental stimulation, she’d certainly made up for with remarkably acrobatic physical prowess.
He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath and fighting back the nausea that threatened. A second arm joined the first and this time, he looked at the woman on his left. She was perhaps in her late thirties, maybe even her early forties, with the body of a woman who had birthed three children. To Chester Barreman, she was every bit as attractive as the child-woman on his right. More, perhaps, because she had a flashing wit, a quick retort and a wicked tongue.
Very wicked.
Despite the hangover, Chester smirked.
Carefully, he extracted himself from the two women who immediately curled into one another with little sighs of pleasure. Standing, he draped one of the blankets across the pair of them. Let them sleep. He never rushed his conquests out the door. He picked up the bottle of bourbon and took a long pull of its contents. It dealt with the need to puke, at least for now.
Completely naked and completely unselfconscious about the fact, he crossed the makeshift harem they’d fashioned in the sitting room of his large apartment, and opened the door to his bedroom. A young couple, male and female, were engaged in something that was most certainly not morning callisthenics and seemed oblivious to his presence. He reached for a silken dressing gown that hung on the back of the door and slid it on over his slim shoulders. He watched the copulating couple for a little while, enjoying the moment of voyeurism intensely, before leaving them to it.
There was a half-naked young man unconscious in his bath which precluded any sort of ablutions at this time, and he found the last guest curled up beneath the dining room table. She was the only one who was awake or not otherwise engaged and she glanced up at him when he entered. She was clad only in her slip.
“Chester,” she said, cautiously, not sure if she had the name right. “Chester?”
“That’s right,” he said and hunkered down to look at her. “How are you feeling, honey?”
“What was I drinking last night?” He laughed and put a hand out to help her out from under the table.
“What weren’t you drinking might be the shorter list.” She was particularly attractive, with a cloud of auburn hair that had come loose from its up-do and fell around an enchanting face that was just made to be kissed. And it had been kissed. Repeatedly and by every single person present the previous evening. “You need food?”
“I don’t think I can eat anything,” she said and her voice was so sad and pitiful that he knew a moment’s guilt. Nothing longer than half a heartbeat. Chester Barreman had given up guilt as a bad move many years previously. Since his father’s death and the subsequent inheritance, he allowed himself to slip into the twin embrace of debauchery and hedonism. He was not inclined to break free.
“Hair of the dog that bit you,” he said. “That’s what you need. Christine, isn’t it?” He’d found her outside the stage door of the nearest theatre. A chorus girl, freshly arrived in the big city from Nowhere City, Tennessee. His very favourite type.
Innocent.
“Christina,” she corrected and he nodded. I could be your lucky charm, she’d said in her drunkenness the previous night, with the entertaining earnestness that afflicted some people when they had alcohol in their systems.
“That’s what I said. Come with me.” He led her by the hand into the kitchen. Empty bottles were everywhere and the paraphernalia that went with the opium they’d all experienced was strewn across the table. She looked at it and chewed her lip. Chester bodily lifted her and sat her on one of the stools that butted up against the kitchen bar. She blushed and giggled nervously. He busied himself mixing ingredients and in due course, two glasses of a glutinous red drink were set before them.
“They call it a Bloody Mary,” he said. “Works wonders. Drink up.” She sipped at the drink and wrinkled her nose, causing him to laugh even more. Her purity was divine. He had enjoyed tarnishing it.
He drained his own cocktail with alacrity and watched her as she made her way through the tomato juice and vodka mix. Colour came back to her pale cheeks. Alcohol had made her lose her inhibitions, but the opium had made her sick. He’d not pushed her to try again. No point in losing her so early on. He let his mind slip back to the previous night. It had been one of the more relaxed gatherings of the past weeks. He’d invited his regulars and then Christina had been an additional thrill to the mix. He’d drunk copious quantities of alcohol, but nothing seemed to get his motor humming.
That was when Caleb had suggested they move onto the opium. That had helped clear his thoughts, opening a conduit for that yearned-for whisper that touched him only when he reached a specific state of mind. After Caleb had passed out in the bath, after Mary and Velma had disappeared to the sitting room and after Lydia and Victor had gone to the bedroom, he’d switched to the cocaine. He wasn’t feeling generous enough to share and if anything was going to put him over the edge, then the coca plant would be ideal.
Drunk and drugged, near to the edge, Chester had almost reached his personal nirvana. If he closed his eyes right now, he could almost hear the voice speaking the name…
“I saw your books,” she said, coming up from the drink and breaking the moment. He kept his expression neutral, biting back the anger. “In the dining room. With your name on some of them! You didn’t say you were a writer. Do you do any crime stories? I love crime stories.” Despite his usual levels of self-control, he winced at the very idea.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “I don’t do fiction. Historian with a specialism in world mythology.” Her nose wrinkled again in a most attractive way.
“You sure? You don’t look like any borin’ old historian I ever saw.” She was pretty, yes, but her voice was beginning to grate on him. He leaned across the kitchen counter, his dark, exotic eyes fixed on her. She blinked up at him.
“You are the strangest man I ever did meet,” she said, caught in the spell of those dark, sultry pupils. She reached out a hand shyly to stroke it down the line of his face, the high cheekbones and beautiful complexion that were a gift from his Persian mother. His American father, a lawyer, had gifted him the money and he was grateful for both his looks and his fortune. He reached up and caught her hand in his. The sleeve of his dressing gown slid down to reveal his arm and she saw the many scars on his skin.
His grip on hers was becoming painfully tight. Her eyes widened. She was scared of him and that brought a fresh thrill.
Cas.
The voice tickled at the very back of his thoughts. Cas. The name his mother had fondly used for him. Short for Caspar. A fine Persian name. King of the treasure, my beautiful boy. Yasmina had been dead for twelve years. Nobody had called him Cas in that time.
His eyes closed and his lips moved silently, imploring the voice to say more.
“Chester! You’re hurtin’ me!”
Her words tore him from his brief reverie. There were too many things he could enjoy in the company of this little chorus girl to drive her away so soon. Perhaps she was the key. Perhaps she really was the one…
Images flashed through his brain, faster than he could comprehend and he gasped softly. Mentally he grabbed at them, trying to hold onto them, trying to understand what they meant, but they were too fleeting. He had to find a way to achieve the right state of mind… the right place in time and space…
“Chester!” Her fear was intoxicating and it would be so easy...
But it was too soon.
He relaxed his hold on her and she rubbed her wrist ruefully.
“I’m sorry, Christine,” he said. All it took was a smile. Killer. Deadly. Fatal. The girl relaxed again and once more, Chester Barreman’s charm and charisma ensnared her. She’d left Tennessee hoping to make it big in the city.
“Christina,” she whined and sipped the rest of her cocktail. She pouted prettily and he leaned over and kissed her lips, tasting the vodka on them.
“That’s what I said,” he murmured, taking her hand and leading her to the sitting room. “You might just be my lucky charm.”
She might not be, too. But there was no harm in testing the theory, right?