Dancing With Shadows. Lynne Pemberton

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СКАЧАТЬ her mother’s lifestyle, her loathing only increased by her father’s worship of the empty-headed beauty he’d loved passionately for forty-six years. Weston had often longed instead for a fun mom, and later in her teens she’d longed for a friend.

      From as young as six Weston had lain awake long after she was supposed to be asleep, planning how she could create mischief and mayhem to gain attention. But by the time she was sixteen, she had simply decided that the lifestyle of her mother and her contemporaries was a ridiculous charade. Massaging precious egos, and playing sex games with philandering power brokers was not to be her fate. She set out to become highly successful, extremely rich and very powerful in her own right, and in that order. By twenty-eight she had produced her first television series; it was nominated for three Emmys and won two. A year later she’d joined forces with Imogen Irving, a fifty-two-year-old Hollywood legend and movie producer, who taught her all she knew about motion pictures and also initiated Weston into the joys of sapphism. Weston had never looked back.

      She had gone on to head up her own production company Summit, and had recently negotiated a billion-dollar merger with Avesta Inc, a multi-national media giant spanning digital TV, cable, satellite and the Internet.

      Now she was hungry for more power, more control. It was like a potent drug, addictive, the ultimate high. But be careful, Weston, power also corrupts, she could hear her father’s voice whispering in her ear.

      The waiter had arrived with her drink; she swirled the olive around the glass before taking a sip, her thoughts digressing to her two closest friends, Beth Morgan and Kelly Prescott, who were both joining her for lunch. They were the two most important people in her life, the result of a friendship that had survived untarnished through three decades, since they’d all met at Wellesley College. This year was the twenty-sixth annual celebration of the special bond the three women had forged in their sophomore year. They had been hedonistic young feminists with far-reaching ambitions and ruthless energy, and had formed an immediate rapport. While other girls discussed vacations, boys or clothes, they had spent long hours working out how they would help each other achieve positions of real power. They agreed it would take time, it was a man’s world and they had to find a way to crack it, each giving the others a leg up the ladder whenever they could. The end of the century was their deadline – the millennium. And that was the pact they secretly swore: the Millennium Pact.

      Way back in 1972 when they had called themselves sisters, the world was still waking up to female equality and as the balance of power between the sexes began to shift, they had been ideally placed to take advantage of the changing times. At that time the year 2000 had seemed so distant, yet here they all were nearly at the dawn of a new century, having achieved even more than they had aspired to in those early heady days. They still met six times a year, but their lunches never involved small talk or gossip. They spoke only about themselves, their careers, the next rung, and how each could help the other. Their get-togethers were more like board meetings, brainstorming sessions in which each new move was planned with the sharp precision of a military campaign. And now on the birthday of the Pact they could at last congratulate themselves, give each other a resounding pat on the back.

      They had made it.

      They had beaten men at their own game, and come out on top. Weston glanced at her watch. Beth, she knew, would be on time; she was punctual to a fault. Kelly, on the other hand, would be late for her own funeral. But she was so beautiful, so adorable, Weston would have forgiven her anything – especially after that night, that perfect night in the Hamptons. A vision of Kelly lying by the pool last summer entered her mind. Weston had been swimming and had surfaced where Kelly lay gloriously naked, milky white triangles of soft flesh emphasizing the secret places the sun hadn’t seen. Weston had warned her to wear sun screen, and then had moistened her lips with naked lust as she’d watched Kelly smooth the cream into her delicate skin, massaging it into her full and home-grown thirty-six DD breasts. She was a natural blonde, the all-American dream girl. The one all the guys talked about in the showers after the game, the one they thought about when jerking off, the girl every smart-assed jock had wanted to take to the prom. Weston moaned inwardly as the vision remained before her eyes. She blinked but Kelly was still there, opening her legs wide to apply the cream to her inner thighs. She felt the heat rise between her own, and her belly begin to ache thanks to that never-to-be-forgotten memory.

      It was six years ago, spring 1992; Weston had hosted an intimate dinner party at her house in South Hampton. A select gathering, spelling power and influence. It was a celebration: Kelly’s publishing company had just won two prestigious awards; one for a cutting-edge, investigative magazine that she had purchased three years previously for next to nothing, increasing the circulation to over half a million; and another for Editor of the Year. Weston had closely observed Kelly chatting to Todd Prescott, an extremely wealthy senator. The naturally gregarious Kelly had been in a strange mood all evening, and Weston had thought her distracted and withdrawn. After dinner Todd left, and Kelly had asked to stay the night. She and Weston had sniffed a few lines of cocaine, and listened to music. It was Marvin Gaye singing ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ that prompted Kelly to dance. With her long hair whipped across her face, she had laughed, urging Weston to join her. Weston had refused, happy to watch her friend gyrate; happy to bask in the warm flush that spread from her nipples to her groin when Kelly began to take off her clothes.

      Stripped to her panties, hips swaying, she’d danced till the end of the tape, then she stood very still in the middle of the room, panting, breasts rising and falling, her hands running up and down the entire length of her body leaving glistening trails in the sheen that clothed her. Kelly, not taking her eyes off Weston, had slowly slipped her panties down her legs and, sinking to her knees, she crawled to the sofa where Weston sat.

      ‘You want to eat me, don’t you?’ Kelly had said.

      Weston, her mouth suddenly very dry, had merely nodded and watched, lost in desire and anticipation. When Kelly turned round, for a moment she’d thought she was going to crawl away. But instead she bent over gracefully, provocatively, and arched her back, thrusting her tight ass in the air. Weston had gasped when Kelly spread her legs, hands reaching back to ease her buttocks apart and tracing a line that ran down to the bud of her clitoris, which was being rubbed by one finger.

      Weston could recall muttering, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ as she opened her mouth to taste Kelly. A fresh and faintly peachy sensation.

      The following morning, over breakfast, Kelly had dismissed the encounter. She’d wanted to have a woman, been curious; the cocaine had made her feel horny, she’d needed to come, nothing more. They never mentioned it again.

      Weston now took another sip of her drink to drown the memory before it engulfed her. Looking up afterwards, she spotted Beth coming into the restaurant – true to form on the dot of one o’clock. Weston saw her friend before a waiter directed her to the table, and had the opportunity to observe her unawares. Beth was wearing what she always wore, a badly fitting suit. She had appalling dress sense, and no idea what was right for her big-boned, pear-shaped frame. In summer she favoured either a cotton or linen suit, always with a sleeveless tank. The winter version was invariably in wool and usually worn with an assortment of bright polo-neck sweaters, or high-necked starched white shirts. Today she had opted for a black pinstripe, with a long jacket and knee-length skirt. Underneath she had chosen a canary yellow cable sweater, with a brightly patterned scarf tied at the neck. Her freshly cropped dark hair was gelled flat to her head, she wore no make-up save a slash of scarlet lipstick that made her white face look like a death mask. As Beth neared the table, Weston rose.

      ‘How long have you been here?’ Beth asked between kisses.

      ‘Not long, I got out of my meeting early so I thought …’ Weston pointed to the half-empty glass, ‘why not have myself a quick shot before you guys arrive.’

      Beth dropped to a chair, black СКАЧАТЬ