Dead Tomorrow

like pictures she had seen in magazines and on the television in the homes she had once been in.
    The woman told her to sit at a table, then moments later produced the finest plate of food Simona had ever seen. It was piled with roast pork, sausage, lard, cheese, pickled watermelon, tomatoes and potatoes, and accompanied by another plate with large, crusty bread rolls and a tumbler of Coca-Cola.
    Simona ate with both hands, cramming the food into her mouth as fast as she could, scared that it would be taken away again before she had finished. The woman sat opposite her, watching her in silence, nodding encouragement occasionally.
    ‘You live on the streets?’ the woman asked at one point.
    Simona nodded.
    ‘How is it?’
    Speaking while chewing, she said, ‘We have a place under the heating pipe. It’s OK.’
    ‘But not enough food?’
    Simona shook her head.
    ‘When did you last have a bath?’
    Simona shrugged, chewing a thick piece of crackling. A bath? She could not remember. Not since the last time she had run away from the hostel. Not foryears. She washed from bottles of water from the street pipes, when it was not too cold.
    ‘I have a beautiful bath waiting for you,’ the woman said.
    When Simona finished the plateful, the woman brought her another, this time a huge bowl-shaped doughnut covered in melting vanilla ice cream. Simona gulped it down, ignoring the spoon on the dish beside it. She tore it apart with her fingers and crammed it into her mouth, eating it faster and faster, then scooped every last drop of the ice cream from the plate with her hand and licked it off. Her stomach ached, she was so full, and her head was swimming with the whisky. She started to feel a little queasy.
    The woman stood up and beckoned. Wiping her hands on her jogging suit, Simona followed her up a grand, curved marble staircase, then along a wide corridor, lined with more fine paintings, and into a bathroom that simply stopped her in her tracks. She stared around in awe.
    It was almost impossibly beautiful and magnificent–and vast. And equally almost impossible to believe she was here, standing in it.
    On the ceiling were paintings of clouds and angels. The walls and the floor were all in black and white marble tiling, and in the centre was a huge, sunken tub, big enough for several people, overflowing with bubbles, and surrounded by nude male and female marble statues on plinths.
    ‘So beautiful,’ she whispered.
    The woman smiled. ‘You are a lucky girl,’ she said. ‘Mr Lazarovici is a good man. He likes to help people. He is a very good man.’
    She began helping Simona out of her clothes, until she was naked. Then she took herhand, steadying her as she stepped into the hot–deliciously hot, almost too hot–water and sank down. The woman eased her head back, until her hair was under the water, then up a little and rubbed in a deliciously scented shampoo. She rinsed it off, then put more shampoo on and rinsed that off too.
    Simona lay there, luxuriating in it, staring at the angels above her, wondering if this was what it was like to be an angel, the whisky and the food making her relaxed and drowsy despite her queasiness. She was close to drifting away as the woman soaped her, every inch of her body, then rinsed her off. Then she helped her out of the bath, wrapping her in a vast soft white towel, drying her carefully and thoroughly, before leading her through into an en-suite bedroom that was even more magnificent.
    The centrepiece was a huge, canopied two-poster bed. Simona stared at erotic paintings of nudes in gilt frames all around the walls. Some were single females or males, some were couples. She took in a man and a woman making love. Two women entwined in oral sex. A man sodomizing another. There were tall windows, up to the ceiling, with rich, swagged drapes. A chaise longue and other fine furnishings.
    ‘The room is OK for you?’ the woman asked.
    Simona smiled and nodded.
    The woman removed the towel and helped Simona, who was becoming increasingly sleepy, into the silky white sheets of the bed. Then she left the room.
    Simona lay there, bathed in soft light from two huge table lamps, and began drifting into sleep. After some minutes, she was not sure how long, the door opened. She opened her eyes instantly.
    The man who had brought her here, Mr Lazarovici, came in. He was naked beneath a blacksilk dressing gown that was open at the front and he had a massive erection below a large