Vanity. Lucy Lord

that whole bespoke ethos is a bit anachronistic at the moment, isn’t it?’ said Sam, one of the honourable exceptions, in her husky voice, earning a look of surprise from Simon. ‘You should see your face! I’m not that thick, you know, and I’ve been reading Stadium cover-to-cover ever since I first appeared in it. I like to keep up on Marky’s job.’

      Sam had taken up glamour modelling to pay her way through London University, where she was studying philosophy and psychology. She and Mark had met on a shoot. Fond though Bella was of Mark, she reckoned Sam was streets ahead of him intellectually. But she was young and easily impressed and Mark was seriously sexy, in a brawny, doltish sort of way. Today he was wearing tight white jeans and a scarlet racer-back vest top, revealing rippling biceps, triceps, pecs and lats in all their worked-out glory. To say nothing of the vast packet. His head was shaved, his smile crooked. When Bella first met him (long before she experienced the full – ahem – thrust of his lust), she’d had her doubts as to whether he was Arthur or Martha.

      As if to prove the point, he laughed and kissed Sam way more explicitly than manners dictated, groping her left tit and shoving his tongue down her throat. Bella remembered what it was like kissing him and reached for Andy’s hand, flushing suddenly.

      ‘Ugh, get a rrrrroooom, please,’ said Natalia, shuddering. Sam pulled away from Mark and laughed.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He does get carried away sometimes. Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes, surely all that handmade suit and expensive trainers stuff just doesn’t cut it when people can’t even pay their mortgages?’

      ‘It’s aspirational luxury though.’ Simon stuck stubbornly to his guns. ‘People need things to cheer them up when times are tough. Just look at the Busby Berkeley movies of the thirties.’

      ‘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.’

      Chapter 2

      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