Eighty Days Yellow (25 page)

The class finished and the students began to file out. I held my breath. I couldn’t hang around all day if he simply chose to ignore me.

‘Summer,’ he said to me softly, over the clatter of bags and books.

I stood up and took the stairs down to the front of the theatre, where he was packing up his notes behind the lectern.

He straightened his back and looked at me balefully. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘I needed to see you.’

His expression softened a little, perhaps observing my distress. ‘Why?’ he asked.

I sat down on the last step, so he was standing above me, and told him everything, Lauralynn, the slave and the way I had worn an artificial cock and thrust it savagely into his mouth and enjoyed it, but how, despite all these things, I wanted Dominik to own me. I wanted to be his.

I told him everything, except the job prospect in New York, and my current status of unemployment. Even sat there in the heart of his world, at his feet, I was too proud for that.

‘You shouldn’t have come here, Summer,’ he said.

He picked up his bag and walked out through the door.

His message came later, after I had arrived home again. I was lying on my bed hugging the violin case, hoping beyond hope that whatever happened between Dominik and me, he would let me keep the Bailly. I felt sweeping shame, again, that I could take anything from this man.

Then my phone beeped. An apology.

‘I’m sorry. I was caught off guard. Forgive me.’

‘OK,’ I replied.

‘Will you perform for me again?’

‘Yes.’

The specifics of time, date and address came in another message. Tomorrow, at another, new location, not his home.

This time, he asked me to provide an audience. Select it. A test of my resilience?

I would be playing for him again, I figured, and as a way to repeat the format of our last, successful dates, if you could call our meetings that. He was trying to rewind time, putting us back on the track that we had been headed down.

I thought about who I could invite. Not Lauralynn. That would be adding insult to injury.

There was really only Charlotte, as hesitant as I was to include her in this more sensitive occasion. She had a way of taking over and wasn’t empathetic enough to notice if relations were strained between Dominik and me, but she was my only option. I had met other people on the scene, but in the normal way of these sorts of parties, we’d not really drifted beyond the short space of pleasure to anything more meaningful that might be called a friendship.

‘Ooh, fabulous,’ said Charlotte. ‘Can I bring a friend?’

‘I guess so,’ I replied. He had said to bring an audience, and it would be awkward if I just turned up with Charlotte. On her own, she would definitely get in the way.

All I really wanted to do was fuck Dominik, but I wanted to prove to him that we could make this strange partnership of ours work, and he had asked for an audience, so an audience he would have.

I wore my long velvet dress again, the one I had worn that day on the bandstand, and I took the Bailly along. He hadn’t specifically told me to, I thought with a frown, but he had asked me to perform for him, so I must be playing. Besides, my arms felt empty without the violin.

The address was in North London, another anonymous location, but this time, a large living room-type area with a kitchen and shower, fairly swanky, though blandly decorated with a couple of leather couches at either side, some rugs on the floors and a glass table in the middle. There was a king-size bed in the far corner.

Nearly every available space was filled, as Charlotte had turned up with about fifteen people, including the gorgeous escort, Jasper. Did he charge by the hour?

And Chris.

Oh, God, what had she done?

Dominik looked happy enough, though, I noticed, with relief. He came straight over and kissed me warmly on the lips, giving my shoulders an affectionate squeeze.

‘Summer,’ he said softly, looking as relieved as I was. Maybe he had thought I might not show up.

Chris and Charlotte were deep in conversation across the room, with Jasper. They were chatting in a tight conclave and none of them had seen me. Good. That would give me a chance to talk to Dominik.

Just before I had a chance to open my mouth, to suggest that we find somewhere quiet, just the two of us, even for a short time, Charlotte bounced over and threw her arms around me.

‘Summer!’ she cried. ‘Now we can get the party started.’

Chris threw his arms around my other side and gave me an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

I was surrounded. A look of frustration crossed Dominik’s face, but was quickly replaced by his usual composure. He disappeared into the kitchen, Charlotte trailing after him, her expression more mischievous than usual. What was she up to? I looked around the room, at all the couples in attendance, most of them scantily clad but no one actually having sex yet, despite the lusty vibe that filled the room. This didn’t seem like Dominik’s style at all. I wondered how much of this was his doing and how much was Charlotte’s. Mainly the latter, I suspected.

No matter – soon I would begin to play and then forget them all.

Chris seemed pleased to see me and was trying to engage me in conversation, but all I could think about was Charlotte and Dominik in the kitchen. They were having some kind of strange conversation, and what did they have to talk about, other than me? Dominik’s face was impossible to read at the best of times, but I could tell by the hard set of his mouth that he wasn’t happy about something, and Charlotte was going on and on about whatever it was.

‘Earth to Summer . . . Shall we warm up?’ Chris was shaking me by the shoulder.

‘Oh, sure,’ I replied, picking up my case and moving over to a space at the far end of the room, where he had laid his viola, and which I guessed would be our makeshift stage.

Then Dominik called my name.

‘Summer, come here.’

I set my case down next to Chris’s and walked over to Dominik.

‘You won’t be playing tonight. Not like that, at least.’

He leaned down and kissed me full on the lips. I caught Charlotte’s gaze out of the corner of my eye, just as Dominik pulled away. She looked smug. Whatever argument they’d been having, she’d won. Dominik was hot, and flustered. I could feel the heat rising from his body. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him fill the air with steam.

Somewhere in the room, the snap of a cigarette lighter.

I flinched.

Charlotte had produced a bag with some sort of rope and various attachments inside. She’d told me that she’d been reading up about it, I recalled. I hoped she’d actually enrolled in some proper courses and wasn’t just stringing up anyone who would let her.

She pushed the glass table over a foot or two and then climbed up on top of it, giving the entire room a vision of her long, tanned legs and arse, clad in a full-length white dress, which I realised was completely see-through in the light. She wasn’t wearing any underwear, but then again, neither was I, and I had to give it to Charlotte, she had great legs.

Dominik squeezed my hand reassuringly. I was not reassured. Charlotte was down on the floor again, pushing the table out of the way. She had attached a long length of rope to a metal ring in the ceiling.

‘Will you do this for me?’ said Dominik.

Well, I still didn’t know what he wanted me to do, but whatever it was, I would do it. I didn’t trust Charlotte when she was like this, but I trusted Dominik, even if he was acting weird.

Charlotte took me by the shoulders and pulled me along until I was standing under the ropes.

‘Put your hands up, and don’t worry – you’re going to love it.’

She was going to suspend me, I supposed.

‘Take her dress off first,’ called a voice, playfully, from one of the sofas.

Charlotte complied, slipping off the thin shoulder straps and sliding down the zip at the back before I had the chance to put my arms into the air. It fell straight to the floor. I was naked for an audience again, though fairly well used to the feeling now.

Chris was thankfully nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’d got fed up of waiting or had been freaked out by the crowd, who were getting lustier by the minute, and left.

I lifted up my arms and felt the rope brush across my wrists, wrapping both between and round them, creating an intricate pair of handcuffs. She slipped a finger between my wrist and the rope, checking the pressure wasn’t too great. Perhaps she had a heart after all.

‘That’s OK?’ she asked. ‘Not too tight?’

‘Feels fine,’ I replied. My feet were still firmly on the ground, and though I couldn’t wiggle free, she’d left my arms a little slack so the position shouldn’t get uncomfortable too quickly.

‘She’s all yours,’ Charlotte said to Dominik, conspiratorially.

I heard water running in another room, then the sound of a door open and close.

Chris.

He’d just been in the bathroom.

Fuck.

‘Hey,’ he said to Dominik, ‘what the
fuck
are you doing?’ His voice was filled with anger.

He didn’t ask me what I was doing, just what Dominik was doing. Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t struggling, that I had made a choice to do this, that I was acting out of my own free will, not just according to the whim of whatever man I happened to be with?

I was angry with him suddenly for not understanding me, for wanting me to fit in with his expectations.

‘Oh, just fuck off, would you, Chris! I’m fine! We’re all fine. You just don’t understand.’

‘Summer, would you look at yourself! You’ve turned into a fucking
freak
! You’re lucky I’m just going to let the lot of you get on with your sick little games and not call the police.’

He picked up his viola and his jacket, and stormed out through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

‘Wow,’ said the voice from the sofa that had spoken earlier, ‘and that’s why you shouldn’t invite vanillas to perv parties.’

A few people laughed, settling the tension.

Fuck him. It was my body and I’d do whatever I damn well pleased with it, and that included whatever Dominik wanted to do with it.

Dominik stroked my hair, kissed me again, softly, and fondled my breast.

‘You sure you’re OK?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m good, better than OK.’

I just wanted him to get on with it now, to fuck me and set me free, to stop my arms from aching and let me play my Bailly.

Then Dominik produced a razor.

10

A Man and His Darkness

The heat was rising.

In the smoke-filled room. In their minds.

Chris had departed, but his words still rang in Summer’s ears. Part of her felt the sting of his accusations, while another, more impish and irresponsible part of her was angry at him for having the cheek even to attempt to criticise her and believe he understood the contradictory nature of her impulses.

Summer sighed, shifting her feet to redistribute her weight. She looked up and watched Dominik on the other side of the room as, standing in a corner in deep conversation with Charlotte, his hands wandered freely over her friend’s now mostly unclad body. Next to them was Jasper, fully nude and sporting a spectacular erection, lazily stroking himself with one hand while his other actively busied itself in the darkness of Charlotte’s crotch. The combined caresses of the two men she was almost sandwiched between did not appear to faze Charlotte and she appeared in full control of the bizarre situation. Dominik, still clothed from top to bottom in black, had shed his jacket, his sole concession to the situation, the smooth wool of his cashmere crew-neck top no doubt rubbing smoothly against Charlotte’s breasts as she squeezed against him.

In the dim light Summer could see, and hear, the palette of other couples scattered across the floor, on the other angled sofa on the far side of the room and even on the large rectangular table, now cleared of food and glasses. They were involved in some form of sexual activity – moans, whispers, embraces. The fingers of someone tiptoeing past her brushed her hair, but she did not turn round, and whoever it might have been did not linger and moved on to another tangle of limbs. Her eyes were fixed on the trio made up of Dominik, Charlotte and Jasper. What could they be talking about? Her?

Summer’s mind was racing.

What had begun as yet another stage in the game she had willingly been playing with Dominik was now in freefall.

At brief intervals, all three of the constituent members of the conspiratorial trip would turn and take a look at her, and it appeared to Summer they were laughing, as if she had now become the abandoned rear part of the pantomime horse.

Recollections came flooding back: playing for Dominik alone on the bandstand on the heath, then naked with the blindfolded string quartet, then naked for him, solo, in the crypt, which had ended with them finally fucking, and the episode, still burning in her mind, when he had blindfolded her and she had performed for an unseen spectator (she now believed there had not been more than one other person present and her instinct told her it must have been a man) and was then summarily taken by Dominik in full view of the still unknown stranger. Which had led to tonight.

What had she been hoping for, expecting? Some form of cruel progression in the ritual of their uncommon relationship? There was no doubt she had missed him while he was away at his Italian conference. His quiet assurance, his soft but peremptory orders. Her body had told her so, and she had compensated for it with her own adventures on the fetish scene.

She had wanted tonight to be special, not just some new variation, some twisted theatrical event.

Summer shivered, still feeling the earlier sharp path of the razor blade across her cunt, looked down and again saw the bare smoothness of her genitals. She shuddered; there was something so shocking about the sight of such extreme nudity. Would she ever get used to it, not be self-conscious about the fact that she had been shaved in front of others, unveiled in the most humiliating of ways? She had vaguely hoped that after being displayed in this way, Dominik would then free her hands and at least allow her to play her precious new Bailly for his invited audience, but somehow Charlotte had taken over the reins of the evening and Summer was left here, not quite hanging, but naked and useless, merely a spectator as the tides of lust she had involuntarily given birth to flowed effortlessly among the small crowd and desires were unleashed. Inside Summer’s head was a small voice screaming, ‘Dominik, fuck me, take me, in front of everyone, now, right now,’ but the words just couldn’t get past the ramparts of her closed, parched lips. Because, despite everything she’d done with him, she felt it would be to demeaning to say so. Deep within was a feeling that she must not be the one to ask, beg, that the command must come from Dominik. Not her.