Bad Girls Read online

  Skye hadn’t been fishing for compliments before. She knew she was no great shakes as a dancer. She took a few classes, sure, but those were as much about staying in shape as honing her craft. Oksana and the Russian girls who’d been gymnasts back home were stunning on the pole, much as Skye hated to admit it; they could pull all kinds of crazy stunts. But Skye’s talent didn’t lie in her gymnastic ability. It lay in her innate ability to be breathtakingly, fabulously sexy.

  Britney Spears’ ‘Gimme More’ was playing, and much as the song bored Skye, it was great for this kind of dancing, perfect for bumps and grinds, perfect for swaying round a pole, dropping down till her bottom grazed her heels, switching it back and forth, popping up again; flipping round with her back to the pole, running it between her buttocks, arching her back so her breasts looked even higher and fuller, sliding up and down the pole, working it with everything she had.

  When Oksana was on the pole, it was a gymnastic prop, like a balance beam or parallel bars. When Skye was working the pole, it was exactly what every guy in the Midnight Lounge imagined it to be: a stand-in for the part of their anatomy they were most interested in introducing to her, but bigger, harder and shinier than theirs would ever be.

  As she flipped her blonde hair back, and wiggled her luscious little bottom and hooked the pole between her gold-glittering bare knees, arching back, it was with the wide-eyed wonder of a girl who had never seen anything this big before, and was overwhelmed by it. The whoops and cheers from the men pressing up to the stage were much louder than they’d been for the previous dancers, even though those girls had shown an awful lot more than Skye did, writhing round on the stage, spreading their legs.

  Head tilted back, Skye surveyed the faces closest around the stage, and smiled to herself; they were sweaty, pleading, mouths hanging open in hopeless lust. Time to start working them, now she’d got them all wound up, time to sashay round the footlights and let them work their sweaty twenties and fifties into her tiny gold outfit.

  And just then, the whoops rose into a roar of excitement.

  Jeez, feeding time at the zoo! Skye thought, grinning as she swivelled to see Jada striding onto the stage behind her, over six foot in her spike heels. They had a little routine for the changeover on the pole that all the regulars eagerly awaited; Skye clasped the pole with both hands, undulating her hips, flirting with Jada over her shoulder as Jada mimed a forehand and backhanded slap to Skye’s arse.

  ‘Yeah! Give it to her!’ one guy yelled.

  ‘Spank her good, baby!’ another chipped in.

  Jada grabbed the pole above Skye and ground herself against her friend. Skye smelled Jada’s light sweat, musky under her Paloma Picasso perfume, and the new leather of her little bra-and-hotpants outfit, felt Jada’s pubic bone tapping against her buttocks, caught the rhythm and went with it, the girls dancing now, grinding against each other, the pole between Skye’s breasts as she parted her lips and raised one hand to her mouth in faux-shock, winking at the spectators, doing a fifties pin-up face that had them screaming appreciation.

  We are gonna rake it in tonight! she reflected happily. Queens of the club!

  Off by the bar, she spotted Oksana, picking her out by the dark orange tan and the hair so bleached it looked as white as bone. She was sucking on a straw, her mouth twisted as bitterly as if it were a lemon.

  Skye shoved back against Jada, listening to the hoots and catcalls of the guys, every yell a promise of money to come. It was literally like music to her ears.

  Amber

  The helicopter was landing at Bovey Castle at noon; beforehand, Tony had dragged Amber out to the terrace to watch the daily falconry display. Because she was nervous at having the big birds fly close to her, she had taken a Klonopin, and now, leaning back against Tony, she watched the enormous owl, which turned out to be called Merlin, hopping around on the grass from one huge, clawed foot to another, squawking imperiously for food.

  ‘He follows the guy round like he’s a dog,’ Tony muttered to her. ‘The guy actually had to teach him how to fly. Funny, huh?’

  Amber nodded as the falconer called Merlin up to his arm and carried him over to the big black box in which he was transported. Two harris hawks came out of the boxes next, brown with white tails, and Tony squeezed her arm excitedly.

  ‘That’s what I hunted with yesterday!’ he said. ‘The Lab flushes out the rabbits and then the birds pick them off – one bird actually jumped on the Lab’s head, it was crazy! The best bit’s coming next – he’s got a gyrfalcon, they go from nought to sixty as fast as a Ferrari. He’ll take it down to the lawn. Very cool.’

  Amber sighed, holding onto his arm to balance in the heels of her suede Jimmy Choo boots on the gravel path. Even though Tony had hired a golf cart to drive them back and forth from the lodge to the hotel – a bare five-minute walk, but the stone steps were ankle-threatening in the Balenciaga spikes she’d been wearing the night before – you still had to navigate some gravel and grass, both of which were murder on expensive shoes.

  The falconer was bringing out a large whitish bird, which took off over the velvety green lawns below the terrace as if it had been fired out of a gun. The bird soared up, disappeared behind the castle, and circled it, darting down out of the trees to swing back in a pale blur as it swooped down on the lure the falconer was swinging.

  An hour later, as Amber and Tony’s helicopter rose from the helipad, she looked down at the castle and had a momentary sense of what the falcon and the hawks must see, how free they must feel for that short time they were unhooded, free to fly. The noise of the whirring blades drowned out everything else: she loved helicopters for exactly that reason. Settling back into the hand-stitched leather seat, she stroked the walnut panelling on the door with her finger. It was a Bentley.

  Only the best for Tony. A Bentley four-seater helicopter, a five-star luxury hotel with its own falconer and fishing lake. And so that her luggage would be the best, too, he’d bought her a matched set of Vuitton suitcases, some of which were stacked in the seat next to her: the weekender, the garment bag and the vanity case, an adorable, hard-sided oval with padded leather straps inside to hold all her creams and lotions and perfumes standing up. Amber gazed at it lovingly.

  Fifty minutes later, the Bentley set down at the Battersea heliport, the pilot jumping down to hand out Amber and carry her luggage to the limo parked a short distance away. Tony kissed her goodbye.

  ‘I’m heading straight off, babe,’ he said. ‘Hopping over to Stansted to catch a ride back to the States with some oil guys on their Gulfstream. The car’ll take you home, or wherever you want to go. And, hey –’ he reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he pressed into her hand – ‘I know Jared takes care of bookings for you, but I wanted to give you an extra present. You deserve it, OK? Pick yourself up something really nice.’ He grinned at her. ‘My fantasy girl. I’ll see you soon, babe.’

  He stroked her cheek wistfully, sighed, and swung round, striding back to the helicopter, raising a hand to her in farewell. Amber climbed into the limo without looking back. The weekend was over.

  ‘Green Street,’ she said to the driver, and slid open the minibar as the car smoothly pulled out onto the road. Selecting a gold shiny bottle of Pommery Pop, she pulled off the foil and untwisted the wire, popping the cork, pouring the champagne into an equally chilled glass. She washed a couple of Xanax down with the fizz before she slid a manicured nail under the flap of the envelope and prised it open.

  She always needed a little Dutch courage for this moment. Reaching for her glass, she took another long sip.

  Fifty-pound notes. Probably three grand worth. And that was just the tip; Tony had paid her modelling agent much more than that for her company this weekend.

  By the time the limo took a right off Park Lane, in Mayfair, onto Green Street, Amber had finished the Pommery and was feeling much better. The limo driver carried her bags through the marble-tiled hall and into the lift. The apartmen
t she currently rented was the top two floors of this Georgian house, and it was exquisitely decorated, with pale yellow walls and polished wood floors. The lower floor was a huge living room overlooking Green Street, with a luxurious kitchen and dining room at the back. Upstairs were two bedrooms with Turkish travertine ensuite bathrooms, and a roof terrace above with a patio heater and trellised gazebo covered in trailing wisteria. The estate agent had described it as superb for entertaining, which was ironic, as Amber hadn’t had anyone visit the entire two years she had lived here.

  ‘Matka! I’m home!’ she called, wheeling in her cases.

  ‘Amber? I didn’t expect you this early!’ her mother exclaimed.

  Slava was, as always, ensconced in front of the TV in the kitchen. The living room was furnished with a set of brocade sofas and armchairs around an elaborately carved coffee table. The apartment had been rented furnished, and the decorators had added the final touches: arrangements of dried flowers and blown-glass spheres in the fireplace and in waist-high vases in the corners of the room. Huge matching brocade curtains draped the floor-to-ceiling windows that led out onto the wrought-iron balcony. It was a stunning room, a real showpiece, and Slava only ever entered it to keep it polished and dusted and to water the flowers in pots on the balcony. She said it was too smart for her.

  Slava didn’t like to go out. She spent ninety per cent of her waking hours in the kitchen, in her comfy old armchair, knitting and doing embroidery, watching daytime TV. It was no surprise to Amber to find her mother in her usual place, a circular wooden tapestry frame on her lap, a wooden sewing box by her side, its lid open to show skeins of silk arranged by colour.

  ‘Tony had to get back to the States by tonight,’ Amber said, coming into the kitchen, kissing her mother on her forehead. ‘He had a lift with some oil guys in their jet.’

  ‘So glamorous,’ Slava sighed approvingly. ‘But you always come back to your old mother in the end. Did you have fun, láska?’

  Slovakian by birth, Slava prided herself on her good English, but still larded it with endearments and emphases from her mother tongue, which meant that she and Amber often slipped between English and Slovak without realizing it.

  ‘Yes, Matka,’ Amber said, responding automatically with the Slovak word for ‘mother’.

  Amber took a glass tumbler from the drainer and slid it into the dispensers in the front of the Sub-Zero refrigerator, filling it with crescent-shaped pieces of ice, then filtered water.

  ‘Give me some Lucozade,’ Slava said. ‘I’m thirsty. My throat is always dry.’

  ‘It’s the pills, Mum,’ Amber said, reaching into the fridge for the open bottle of Lucozade, which was one of the few items it contained. ‘They’re dehydrating.’

  ‘Well, at least I don’t smoke,’ Slava said as Amber brought over her glass. ‘Do you want to watch a film? They have new ones to buy on the film channels.’

  ‘In a couple of hours,’ Amber said. ‘I should unpack now.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Slava looked animated, her green eyes sparkling. ‘Your beautiful clothes, you must take care of them!’

  She shook out two Vicodins from the prescription container on her side table and swallowed them with the Lucozade. Her fingers were heavy with rings; Slava was inordinately proud of her jewellery, and the first thing she did every morning was to reach out to her bedside table and slide on the rings, with their crusted gold and diamond settings and bezel-cut stones.

  ‘My back is bad again,’ she said.

  ‘You should go for a walk,’ Amber responded. ‘It’s a lovely day. You could walk round Grosvenor Square. Even go to Green Park.’

  ‘Maybe later,’ Slava said, turning back to the television.

  Amber knew this meant ‘never’. She leaned against the door jamb, finishing her water, looking at her mother’s profile. Slava was as elegant as ever, dressed up so smartly that any observer would think that she was about to go out to tea with girlfriends at the Ritz: slim shantung trousers, a beige silk twinset, a big necklace of cultured pearls to hide the wrinkles on her neck that she was very sensitive about, her ash-pale hair, as thick as Amber’s, piled on top of her head. Slava’s hair was carefully dyed by one of the most expensive colourists in London, streaked in delicate shades of grey-blonde that looked as natural as possible. Her eyebrows were pencilled in, and her cheeks were dusted with light pink blush.

  Slava had been a good-looking young woman, but she couldn’t hold a candle to Amber. Amber had the same slanting green eyes as her mother, but Slava’s eyelids were hooded and heavy-lidded; her jaw was a little square, her nose a little too wide for beauty, while Amber had a prettily rounded chin and a long, straight, perfect nose. Slava had always been slender as a wand, but Amber, though slim, had the curves that made people’s palms sweat: firm, high breasts, gently rounded hips, and a tiny waist. Slava’s eyebrows had been faint, before they’d faded almost completely; Amber’s were two perfect straight lines, rising fractionally at the outer corners, slanting upwards in parallel with the slant of her thick-lashed green eyes.

  ‘Just you and me,’ Slava said comfortably. ‘That’s all we need in the end. Just you and me, so cosy together.’

  It was a regular incantation, what Slava always said when Amber returned from a shoot away, or a weekend date, and Amber responded as she always did: ‘Just you and me, Matka.’

  Slava nodded happily. ‘You’re still here?’ she asked, her eyes on the television. ‘Why are you still here, silly girl? You said you need to unpack your pretty clothes.’ Slava waved her hand. ‘Don’t look at me. It’s not worth looking at me,’ she added. ‘Go and look at yourself in the mirror. God was only practising when he made me. With you, he got it right.’

  Amber was still smiling as she went into the hall and carried her luggage upstairs to her bedroom. She looked at it for a moment, then pulled her Cartier gold and enamel cigarette case out of her pocket and unlocked the door to the roof terrace. There was a light breeze blowing, and she settled onto the wooden bench in the little trellised gazebo.

  I’ve got so much to thank Matka for, she thought, pulling out a Silk Cut and lighting it up. I wouldn’t have any of this if it weren’t for her. And what other mother would say ‘God was only practising when he made me,’ and actually mean it?

  This was a favourite expression of Slava’s, and, crucially, it never contained a shred of self-pity or fishing for a compliment. Slava was brutally realistic. Amber’s father had walked out when Amber was only a baby, but Slava had coped bravely, despite being a penniless immigrant with a limited command of English. Not once had his name been mentioned between them that Amber could remember. Slava had moved out of London for a fresh start, to Margate, a flea-bitten seaside town in Kent, once a lively resort, now run down and dispirited. With no real skills, Slava had taken jobs cleaning offices at night to support her and her daughter, living in a hostel at first, and then a series of one-room rented flats above newsagents and bookies and fast-food places. Always noisy, always poor, always grimy and often mouse-infested, no matter how much Slava cleaned.

  Amber’s memory of those years was of her mother watching over her like a hawk during the day, walking her to school, picking her up, then locking her in every night when Slava went out to her cleaning job. Slava had alluded darkly to all the bad things that could happen to unattended girls, things she saw on the night streets as she went back and forth to work. She was determined to keep Amber safe. No teenage pregnancies or drug habits for her daughter; Amber wasn’t going to turn out like most of her classmates, knocked up at sixteen, trying to get a flat off the council, planning to live off benefits for the rest of her life. Slava saw the big picture, always. Her ex-husband had been a very handsome man. Slava herself wasn’t so bad. Maybe the daughter they had made would inherit their good looks; maybe Amber would be her passport out of poverty.

  But when it came, it was much earlier and much faster and infinitely more life-changing than Slava could ever have anticipated. At f
ourteen, Amber hit puberty, and everything changed. The gangly, awkward, skinny teenager, ignored by all her classmates, suddenly sprouted, almost overnight, into a pin-up girl. The high cheekbones, the full lips, the long legs, all the features that had got her nicknamed ‘Duck-Mouth’ and ‘Skeletor’ now turned her into an object of such desire that Slava was quick to pull her out of school. The boys weren’t the problem so much as the girls. Amber was already getting threats from jealous prima donnas who’d been the centre of attention before Amber blossomed into a sex object. Amber’s face was clearly going to be her fortune, and Slava didn’t want it sliced up with a box cutter by some envious rival.

  She did her research, took Amber up to London, and walked her round what was planned to be a circuit of the top model agencies. But the second one snapped her up, and after that Amber’s life changed so completely that Margate was just a distant memory to her by now. The girls at school, shoving their acne-spotted faces at her, hissing threats at her to stay away from Daz and Kevin and Matt; the last flat above a Chinese takeaway, stinking of old frying oil; the nights waking up as Slava came back in at five in the morning, but pretending to be asleep, because Slava would be cross if she knew she was awake . . . all that might have happened to another girl.

  They had travelled all over the world: they’d lived in Paris, Milan, New York, Slava always by Amber’s side, chaperoning her, keeping the predators who circled around young models well away from her. Amber had some tutors assigned to her by her model agency, as she was legally required to keep studying until she was sixteen. But it was mostly for show, and Amber was kept too busy to bother much with textbooks. Fourteen was young then, but as soon as they put makeup on Amber, as soon as they curled her hair into big heavy waves, she looked more than old enough to be a model.

  And Matka kept me safe, Amber reflected with gratitude. Even when I started wanting a bit more freedom, even when I started going out with guys, she was always watchful. And she made sure I didn’t get into any of the bad stuff. When I got nervous doing catwalk, or lingerie shoots, all the other girls would tell me to drink, or do some lines. But Matka made sure I had legal stuff instead, pills to help with the anxiety. Stuff I could travel with safely, because I had prescriptions for it. I never had to worry about getting busted at airports, or scoring, or taking something that was cut with crap and getting sick. Matka took care of me . . .