London Calling

"Yes I do." Eric looks up at last, grinning broadly. "Which is why I rarely give interviews these days. The rumours about me are far more entertaining than the truth."

"I was surprised when you agreed to speak to me." Daniel had had to try, even though Mr Kruppa's press release had said that he would not be available for interview during his visit.

"Well, you said you've visited my gallery. I try to accommodate my customers." Eric glances at the door, making Daniel look over his shoulder to see who's come in. It's the blonde girl who showed him into Mr Kruppa's suite.

"I wouldn't say I'm a customer. I couldn't afford your work." Daniel watches the young lady settle herself beside Eric, fold her legs up onto the sofa and lie down, using his thigh as a pillow. Eric's hand lightly strokes her curls away from her face. Daniel doesn't even realize he's staring until the girl smiles directly at him. She's absolutely stunning... and she's absolutely naked. 'Where's her dress gone?' Is just one of the questions Daniel doesn't think to ask.

"...catalogue?"

"Sorry." Daniel snaps his eyes back to Eric. "I... I wasn't paying attention."

"You were paying very close attention." The girl suggests without any hint of admonition.

"B has that effect a lot." Eric explains and makes an informal introduction at the same time.

"B? The B?" Daniel's research had included a TV interview with her but she's grown her hair much longer since it was filmed so he hadn't recognised her when she showed him in. He can't help thinking that's an appalling faux pas but B doesn't appear affronted.

"In the flesh." She smiles warmly at Daniel. "Eric was asking if you bought a catalogue in New York?"

"Eh? Oh. Yes. Well, actually, my wife bought two. One for us and one as a gift for her girlfriend." Daniel realizes too late that this is getting too personal. He's supposed to be interviewing Eric but, somehow, finds himself being interviewed.

"So you are a customer." B didn't even blink when Daniel mentioned Sabine's girlfriend.

"Daniel?" Eric makes a bid for Daniel's attention and succeeds in prying it away from B. "I'm afraid time is our enemy this morning. I have several places to be. We haven't yet found suitable premises for the new gallery." Eric makes a point of finishing his coffee in one gulp. "Would you like to come along? We can talk en route."

"I'd love to." Daniel can't believe his luck. He'd expected half an hour of Q and A and is getting to spend the morning embedded in Mr Kruppa's entourage.

"Are you coming?" Eric glances down at his lap and asks B.

"Not today. When Helen wakes up, we're going shopping." She gets up with the grace and fluidity of motion normally reserved for ballerinas and cats, and walks towards Daniel.

He can't stop himself glancing at her shaved crotch, just at eye level. B is standing right next to him. "It was a pleasure to meet you Daniel." Again, there is no apparent admonition in her tone but her voice drags Daniel's attention up from her crotch to her face.

"The pleasure was all mine." Daniel tries to be polite. It isn't easy with a raging case of rampant tumescence, aggravated by chronic britishness.

B casually touches the fissure of her labia then holds up her hand, making a show of scrutinizing it. She shows Daniel the sheen of moisture on her fingertip. "Not all yours." With a smile that promises all earthly pleasures, she walks past him to the door.

"B loves an audience." Eric explains while Daniel gathers up his recorder and his bag. "She probably got as turned on as you did. I'm impressed though. Most men at least blush the first time B gets naked for them."

"A few years ago I would have. I'd have lost the power of speech too. My wife says I was the shyest man in the history of the world, ever. Four years with her have cured me though."

"She sounds interesting." Eric has been paying attention. He heard Daniel mention that his wife has a girlfriend. "You say you've been married four years?"

"One year. Sabine and I have been together for four years but we married last summer. When we visited L'Origine Du Monde, we were on our honeymoon." Daniel has decided that he doesn't mind that the interview has gotten away from him. Talking about Sabine is good. He wants Eric to be interested enough to want to meet her. Then Sabine can pitch herself as a model... if she wants to.

"Last summer? That would have been the Innocence Lost exhibition?" Eric had presented an entire exhibition of a girl called Kelsey, who'd been a virgin when she'd agreed to model for him. The gallery had been picketed by the Purity movement for the whole three months of the exhibition. You couldn't buy that sort of publicity.

"Yes. We met the model too."

"That explains why you didn't recognise B. Usually she manages the gallery but, for that exhibition, Kelsey wanted to be there herself. If anything, I think that wound up the protesters even more than if she'd just been some innocent girl that I'd exploited and discarded."

"You really do like to cause a rumpus, don't you?" Daniel figures that to be a rhetorical question.

"It's half the reason for my work." Eric owns up.

"And the other half?"

"It's a good way to meet girls."

"Liar. My research said you met both your girlfriends in college, before you took up photography."

"Ok. Yes. B and Helen begat the camera, not vice versa. Really? When I began, I just wanted to shock people but B taught me that I could do much more than that. She's writing a book on the nature of nudity and sexuality in art and life. Don't be fooled by her behaviour, Daniel. B is the brains of this outfit."

"I'll try to remember that." Daniel wishes his recorder wasn't in the bottom of his bag. He's missing some great material for his next column.

"And, according to them they're not my girlfriends. They prefer the term courtesans."

"I'll try to remember that too."

* * * * *

"Tonight?" Sabine looks delighted and disappointed at the same time: A clever trick. Delighted to be invited to dine with Herr Kruppa, but disappointed because she has to work tonight. Daniel has come to Southside Café to tell her all about his day with Eric.

"Can't Ernesto get someone else to cover your shift?" Daniel met Sabine when she was a bartender in the eatery she now manages half the time.

"I will not like to ask him." Sabine has become much more conscientious since being promoted from behind the bar. Ernesto's staff are all recruited from a local model agency and he's very understanding about their need for time off at short notice for modelling assignments. He always has enough staff to cover the absences, but he only promoted Sabine when she gave up modelling because an absent manager is a lot harder to cover for than an absent waitress or bartender.

"Ask who?" Ernesto, passing within earshot of the booth they're occupying, picks up on the tension in Sabine's voice.

"You." Daniel seizes the opportunity to ask what Sabine won't.

"Scoot over." He urges Sabine along the bench seat and parks himself beside her. "So ask."

"Sabine's favourite artist is in town and we've been invited to dinner." Daniel starts to explain.

"Eric Kruppa? She's been on about him all afternoon. We've all seen that catalogue she brought in." Ernesto says. "Dinner you say? Does this mean I'm not getting the night off after all?"

"No. It means you'll get your night off and just have to deal with my wife being miserable and moody for the next few days."

"Weeks." Sabine corrects Daniel.

"For the next few weeks. So Ernesto? What have you got planned for your well earned night off?"

"What night off?" Ernesto is too fond of Sabine and Daniel to scupper their plans.

"Danke Schoen!" Sabine turns in her seat to hug her employer, kissing his stubbly cheek.

"You can make it up to me sometime. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have a restaurant to run." Ernesto leaves them to their own devices.

"You should not have done that." Sabine is a little cross with Daniel for taking the initiative. This is her place of work after all.

"Why not? I've known Ernesto longer than you have. I'm a valued customer."

"Yah. You are a valued customer... und a good husband." Sabine leans over the table to kiss him too. She isn't really mad at him.

* * * * *

"You like Daniel, don't you?" B asks Eric. She, he and Helen are sharing a Jacuzzi.

"Yes. So did you. I'm inclined to give him the exclusive when we open the gallery." Eric doesn't care about much but he does care about his friends and he has a good feeling that Daniel is going to be one of them. Having the exclusive story of the new Kruppa gallery is likely to be good for Daniel's journalistic profile and Eric sees no harm in that.

"Is he cute?" Helen was asleep when Daniel came calling.

"Very." B offers her considered opinion. "And he didn't blush when I did the touch test."

"Playmate?" Helen is always willing to add a new notch to her bedpost.

"Married." B shakes her head. She doesn't think Daniel will do more than sneak a peek.

"But his wife has a girlfriend." Eric reminds B of Daniel's admission.

The two girls look at each other meaningfully.

"Be nice." Eric has seen that exchange of looks too often before.

"We will." Helen gets out of the tub because her fingers are starting to prune up.

"We always are." B adds, following Helen's example and clambering out of the water.

Eric closes his eyes and relaxes, figuring the girls will need at least an hour's head start to get ready for dinner. And, whatever he says, those two will do what they always do around strangers: Operation Shock and Charm. He smiles to himself as the possibilities unfold in his imagination.

* * * * *

"I think you will like to fuck her." Sabine is talking to Daniel via her dressing table mirror while putting on make-up. She's still naked after her shower and Daniel is just drying off.

"Who? B?" They've been discussing Daniel's encounter with Eric's naked assistant.

"Yah. B." Sabine gets up from the dresser and goes to her underwear drawer.

"What makes you think that?" Daniel makes a lame attempt to deny it.

"You are hard. I think it is not for me this time. B is very sexy I think. Maybe we will both want her." Sabine picks out a sheer thong and steps into it.

"Well, if it's both of us." Daniel feels ok owning up to that fantasy.

"Und Herr Kruppa is sehr grosse. I think I will like that." Sabine watches Daniel's reactions carefully.

"Sabine... Leibchen... If you want to fuck another guy, you don't need my permission. I know we've never discussed it, but it's really not that different from sharing Karen. We're solid enough to be ok with it... if it happens." Daniel has thought about it. Not just today, but as an abstract idea over the last four years. Sooner or later, this subject was bound to come up.

"Yah. We are solid." Sabine closes the gap between them, grabbing Daniel's very rigid erection. "Und you are solid." She squeezes him through his towel. "I think we will have fun tonight."

"I'm sure of it." Daniel kisses her cheek. As Sabine moves away, towards the wardrobe, she takes his towel with her.

* * * * *

"Daniel was very shy und very brave." Sabine is answering Eric's question about how she and Daniel got together. They're in a relatively secluded corner of The Ivy but three beautiful women and one notorious playboy can draw glances even in this celebrity-rich environment.

In his role of London Life editor for the Times, Daniel is making mental notes of who's paying attention to Eric's entourage.

"Brave?" Eric prompts Sabine to continue.

"Yah. There was a riot und a firebomb hit a policeman. Daniel saved his life. He is very brave." After four years, she's still so proud of her husband that she's positively glowing as she retells the story.

"Brave is the German word for stupid." Daniel is always a little embarrassed at Sabine's attitude to his heroics.

"Nein." Sabine throws Daniel a mock-angry glance. She still has the whole table's attention so she continues her tale. "He was very shy. He would only take me for coffee. But when he burned his hands being brave-"

"Stupid." Daniel tries to interrupt again.

"Brave! He could not look after himself so I looked after him und he stopped being shy."

"I had to. Sabine is as assertive as a Panzer division."

"Und this you like."

"I never said I didn't. May I?" Daniel asks if he may take over the story awhile.

"Yah." Sabine sips her wine and yields the floor to Daniel.

"I had both hands in bandages for eight weeks. I couldn't dress myself, bathe myself, couldn't even go to the loo without help. I was at her mercy. Luckily for me, Sabine thought my shyness was cute."

"Und I knew you wanted me because you had pictures of girl's who looked like me under your bed." Sabine teases.

"There's no German translation for TMI." Daniel sighs." Anyway, when she had me at her mercy, she tormented me ruthlessly until I begged."

"Yah. He begged und we became lovers." Sabine is enjoying this.

"And she still hasn't realized that it was all part of my very subtle seduction technique." Daniel smiles across the table at Sabine. "Anyway, Sabine looked after me until the bandages came off then decided she'd had enough of me and got herself a girlfriend."

"Nein!" Sabine is incensed by his blatant falsehood. "I have not had enough of you. Karen is for both of us."

"Karen's Sabine's girlfriend." Daniel goes on. "They met on a modelling assignment in Manchester. Sabine was only away two nights and couldn't stay faithful." Daniel is living dangerously.

"You do not have eine fotze." Sabine reminds him.

"So Sabine not only seduced this girl, who'd never had a lesbian thought in her life, but then stopped halfway through and refused to let her come unless she phoned me."

"Really?" B asks Sabine.

"Yah. I would not cheat on Daniel but if he is listening, I think it is not cheating."

"So I got a phone call at one in the morning from a girl I've never met, telling me what Sabine's tongue is up to."

"And Sabine brought her home?" B asks.

"Not right away. I had to wait until my birthday."

"Yah. Und it was a good birthday present." Sabine takes up the story again. "Daniel had never had two girls at once und Karen had never had a man like Daniel."

"A man like Daniel?" Helen wonders what she means by that.

"Daniel is sehr grosse... Very big." Sabine's hand gestures make her meaning clear. B and Helen look at each other meaningfully, across Daniel.

"These things are relative." He points out; aware he is in the presence of greatness... Eric's greatness.

"Yah. But Daniel is a very good lover and this is not relative."

"Do you still have a girlfriend?" B is curious as to just how bi Sabine is because she's really rather gorgeous and B is already wondering if this couple are going to be...

"Yah. Karen is still our freundin."

"Eric?" Daniel feels a change of subject coming on. He doesn't want his entire private life on the table this evening. "I've shown you mine. How's about you show me yours. How did you three hook up? All I could find out for myself was that you all met at Harvard."

"Off the record?" Eric is well aware that Daniel is still a reporter and there are reasons that Eric's biography is deliberately vague on certain points.

"Absolutely." Daniel crosses his heart. It's not that he wouldn't use the info, but The Times isn't a scandal sheet and, professionally, Daniel is more interested in the new gallery.

"Ok. I was a blameless and innocent young scholar until these two harlots seduced and corrupted me. Ouch!" Eric grimaces as someone's toe intersects with his shin. "That is to say, until my angels found me and the scales fell from my eyes, revealing a world of possibilities I had been blind to for so long." He grimaced again. "What?" He looks directly at B who does indeed look angelically innocent.

"Shall I tell the story? You seem to have forgotten the facts." She is sweetness itself. How can he refuse? Irrelevant: He doesn't even consider trying.

"Sure, if it means you'll stop kicking me." He isn't mad at her. They were only taps.

"Helen and I were roommates and lovers since freshman year. We had an open relationship though: we both had other people to sleep with."

"We fucked pretty much everyone." Helen boasts.

"Pretty much." B confirms. "Except guys who had girlfriends -- That was the only golden rule because the sorority girls already hated us enough without us getting a reputation for stealing boyfriends. Anyway, we used to hang out with frat boys a lot and Eric was one of our favourites. He's got such a monster penis and Helen and I are pretty extreme.

So we partied with him quite a bit, until he hooked up with a sorority chick and that golden rule made us just friends again: no benefits."

"Which was fine because there were lots of frat boys to play with." Helen adds.

"Then Mr Kruppa senior passed away quite suddenly, making Eric very rich. We helped him celebrate his good fortune and the party's still going."

"I have no head for business." Eric says. "So Helen's father runs it all for me and I concentrate on spending the money creatively, if not wisely. Hence the galleries: B wanted to have the most famous vagina in the world. I think that's probably the case by now. If not, it will be, once her book is published."

"Your book?" Daniel turns to B. Eric had mentioned a book this morning and now the subject's come up again, he's professionally eager to hear about it.

"Nudity In Art And Life." She tells him the working title. "A study of the hypocrisy of nudity. Why is it ok to stand fully clothed and look at a painting of a nude woman but not to stand naked in the same gallery looking..."

Eric's heard it all already. He turns his attention to Sabine: an easy thing to do -- she's gorgeous.

* * * * *

"You see, Sabine, as I was telling Daniel this afternoon, I'm expanding the remit of my galleries. B keeps finding other artists whose work is too sexual to display in the mainstream galleries. I want to provide a space for them."

"So. You think London is a good place for this?"

"It's the only European capital that's English speaking. I don't want to have to hire a new legal team just to do the paperwork. You think it won't work here?"

"The English are shy I think. Daniel was very English when I met him und very shy." She glances across the table at her husband, currently trying to face two directions at once because B and Helen have him sandwiched between them. Sabine can understand his dilemma: they are beautiful and flirty. She's already anticipating some very vigorous sex when she gets him home.

"Well, he's not so shy anymore." Eric glances across the table too. From his seat, he can see Helen's breast exposed by the very low cut of her dress. He surmises that Daniel has an even better view of that erect nipple.

"He is not shy." Sabine agrees, looking over to Daniel again.

The open affection in her smile when she looks at her husband isn't lost on Eric. She doesn't seem possessive though. A lot of women would be trying to be in two places at once right now, threatened by their spouse's attention to B and Helen.

"Actually, the idea of giving space to other artists started with the exhibition you saw in New York." Eric gets the conversation back on track. "Originally, the gallery was only really a way for those two to flaunt themselves, until Kelsey approached me about modelling."

"A different girl is a different artist?" Sabine doesn't see that.

"My models are very much a part of the creative process. I just point the camera and record their antics. Besides, half the time one of them is holding the camera anyway." Eric explains his collaborative approach.