The Pleasure Quartet (6 page)

I thought back to the last time that I had seen Aurelia. The Ball on the Amazon.

It had taken me the better part of eighteen months to organise. The Ball’s guests had come from all corners of the globe, as they always did. I felt a surge of pride as I saw them gather at the Port of Manaus in the North of Brazil, on the Rio Negro. To any outsiders, we must have looked like a large party of tourists about to embark on a river cruise identical to so many others. In fact, we had bribed port staff and a small number of other tour operators with significant sums to keep the river to ourselves for a full three days, time for the crew to set up, the Ball itself to occur and the Ball’s guests to embark and disembark unnoticed.

Attendees had been advised to arrive in normal dress to avoid drawing undue attention or upsetting the citizens of Manaus. Room and time for them to change into their party wear would be provided on board. But the Ball’s guests were by nature not a tribe of people that blended into the background. They possessed a palpable type of energy, not unlike that of the populace in Rio. As if their desire to reach realms of pleasure that existed outside even the imaginations of ordinary people made them seem more alive.

I watched as a young man of about twenty with his white-blond hair gelled into a Mohawk bent down to pick up a rock and tossed it over the rickety wooden barrier that separated the footpath from a sheer six-foot drop into the water below. It traced a neat arc through the air and was swallowed up by the river without a sound, the inevitable splash drowned out by the lapping of waves. Near him, a pair of women who appeared to be in their mid-seventies stood shoulder to shoulder, holding hands, their fingers threaded together tightly. They each sported long grey hair that flowed over their shoulders and wore long coats, despite the incessant afternoon heat. I speculated on what they might be wearing underneath. Latex? Leather catsuits? Lingerie? Neither of them looked the type to wear any of the typical outfits favoured by sex-party regulars.

I had deliberately avoided outlining a theme for this year’s proceedings. I had explained to Aurelia that I wanted this to be a Ball of individuality, an environment that would give each guest the opportunity to truly be themselves and not concealed under a compulsory costume. Besides which, I knew that previous Balls had covered every possibility from under-the-sea themes, where all the guests had been painted as marine creatures, to the zodiac, with a myriad of men as bulls and women in sequins representing galaxies, and I had no hope of coming up with anything original.

Our boat approached. At first just a white blot on the horizon, like a low-hanging cloud, gradually morphing into a ship as she floated towards us, cutting a sharp V through the water. The Ball’s engineers had crafted her specially for this event, since there was none large enough, nor of the right dimensions, available to hire. I had nothing to do with the mechanics, but oversaw the layout of the cabins and performance rooms. I knew that the dungeon lay at the bottom and spanned the full length of the ship, a vast space fitted with all manner of props.

There were several St Andrew’s crosses: X-shaped, padded standing frames that subs could be strapped to, crucifixion-style, and whipped. Spanking benches which fitted the same purpose, but with the sub bending over at the hip, arse in the air. There were ornate thrones that dominatrices could sit on while being pleasured orally by a sub lying beneath, and faux walls complete with glory holes for anonymous pegging. Trolleys were located at intervals and set up with bottles of lube and glass sweet trays filled with condoms and latex gloves, along with trays of various implements. Paddles, a range of whips and floggers, pin-wheels, anal plugs and dildos. Staff would be on hand to refresh and monitor the equipment, and professional doms and dominatrices were available to train amateur attendees in any practice they deigned to learn, and to dish out pain and pleasure to a few lucky volunteers.

The lighting was soft and low, and the space perfumed with a very mild spicy fragrance, akin to toasted chocolate and cardamom. Pots of lilies in water were situated in safe corners, away from the sharp end of a whiplash that might break the glass. Along the walls, low cushioned seats and beds were stationed, where onlookers could relax and watch the proceedings, or subs could curl up after a scene and be nurtured by their dominant.

The dungeon was my pièce de résistance.

Perhaps because it had been so long since I had been truly dominated, in any formal or deliberate way. Dominik, the man I still thought of as ‘my dom’, the man who had widened my eyes and my imagination to the wonders of sex and proven the love of my life, had been dead now for over three years. Long enough for me to grieve, and to move on, although he would always take up a space in my heart. Since then, I had no shortage of lovers. Most of them mere fucks, and some of them I no doubt would have been better off without, and had taken them or let them take me only as an attempt to blot Dominik out of my mind, to dull my pain. Others had been simple physical connections, men and sometimes women that I had met when I was horny and fallen into bed with, the same way that a hungry person might stop by the nearest fast-food joint. Convenience and filling a need, nothing more. Then there had been Antony, the playwright and theatre director whom I had fallen in with, my first proper relationship since Dominik’s death. He now worked with the Ball also, although he was working on the next Ball’s incarnation, scheduled to take place in Iceland in the future, so I had seen little of him recently despite our shared employer.

But Antony was not a dominant by nature. We had fooled around with rope, silk scarves and the like, as lovers do, but he had never taken me to that brutal and blissful edge that I still longed for in my dreams. He was good in bed – great, even – but he did not want to hurt me, or to control me. And I had wanted him to want to hurt me. I had wanted to surrender to him, to feel the overwhelming sense of letting go and freedom that I found with Dominik, when I allowed him to do whatever he would with my mind and my body and I knew that he would keep me safe, despite the sometimes dangerous activities that we engaged in, because he knew me so well. Every iota of my thoughts, every inch of my body had been mapped against his heart. Since his death, no one had come close to freeing that part of me, that kernel of doubt and fear and lust and shame that I kept curled up tight in the deepest reaches of my soul, like a dark stone in a river bed, buried deep.

That was what I wanted to give the Ball’s guests. A place to let their demons come out to play.

Our vessel pulled into port with Aurelia at the helm. She was dressed all in white, a long flowing sheer dress that flew back in the wind, revealing every straight line and curve of her body. She was barefoot, and when she shifted her stance, squaring her shoulders with her arms outstretched, and held firmly onto the rail ahead of her, a gust blew the fabric of her dress firmly between her legs, highlighting the long length of her thighs and calves and the valley of her cunt. She spotted me watching her as the port auxiliaries grabbed hold of the prow and threw up ropes to the sailing hands on board to secure the ship to the mooring point. With her arm raised in a wave, palm outstretched, she looked like arriving royalty.

The crowd turned into an orderly queue, and filed on board, almost in silence. Occasional whispers in languages that I guessed at but could not identify with any certainty reached my ears, but few people spoke in tones louder than a hush. We were like a congregation filing into a church hall. Reverent, awed by our surroundings and what we knew would come.

I bathed slowly, deep in thought. As one of the organisers, I was assigned to the main dressing room and bathing area set aside for the higher echelons of the Ball’s crew, and the performers. The painted walls and plush carpets were a rich purple. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Long mirrors were set up at various intervals along the walls and sweeping wardrobes were packed with costumes and accessories. I was soaking in one of the many Jacuzzis, filled with warm, mineral-salted water. With me in the pool were half a dozen others, none of whom I recognised. Selecting and training the dancers, aerialists, gymnasts and those whose expertise lay in the sexual arts was not part of my remit.

The six who shared the pool with me were near mirror images of each other. All medium in height, with bright red hair, an even truer shade of ginger than mine. Their skin was deathly pale and every inch of it covered in freckles, so they looked as though they had been dusted with specks of cinnamon. They had entered the pool after me, so I had been able to witness them saunter across the black slate tiles towards me and lower themselves into the steaming water. Their nude bodies were worthy of art. Slender and lithe, none of them older than twenty-five, unless they partook of Botox or drank the blood of virgins or had some other trick to keep them so firm and supple. Their legs were endless in relation to their torsos, and so slim and toned that they might have belonged to racehorses. Their stomachs were flat, abdominal muscles just visible in the right light. None of them were shaved. They each sported a thatch of ginger pubic hair that covered their slits fully. As far as I could tell without running my fingers through the curls, their bushes were soft and fine, not thick and coarse like dark hair often was. I was disappointed, I realised, that their hair prevented me from getting a proper look at their pussies, and my disappointment surprised me. I considered myself straight, although I had occasionally toyed with women. It was rare that the female form aroused me as much as these six did, with their lanky limbs and locks of fire. They did not appear to be wearing any make-up, but their lips were full and pouting. Their breasts were larger than mine. Each of them possessed a more than generous handful, and their nipples were small, pert and hard, pink nubs balanced upon the dark pink circles of their areola. They were pierced. A thick gold hoop was affixed to each of their nipples, and another to their clits. Each of the hoops was joined to a thin gold chain that ran from their cunts to the centre of their breastbone and then to each breast.

They were not alone.

A man had led them into the room. A thick gold ring circled his wrist, and from it a length of gold branched off into six, each length attached at the navel to the chains that bound the women. They were rigged together in the manner that a dog-walker might join a bunch of canines, for ease of handling, and managed to avoid getting tangled up together or having their parts pulled too hard by walking in perfect formation, the rhythm and length of their steps perfectly synchronised.

He reached the steps that led up to the platform of Jacuzzi pools, paused, and stared at me openly. I recognised his gaze. It was arrogant, the look of a man who is accustomed to ownership. There was a question in his eyes, too. One that he thought he knew the answer to, but couldn’t be certain of, although he might pretend to. Would I submit to him, become one of his chained women?

I leaned back, squaring my shoulders, and raising my elbows out of the water to rest on the Jacuzzi’s lip, boosting my body up and displaying my bare breasts to him. I met his look with a hard stare of my own. Neither yes, nor no. I would not run to a man like that the moment he snapped his fingers; not anymore. But I was glad to be sitting down, because the rush of desire that raced through my veins and tugged at my heart as well as my clit was so strong that it left me feeling faint. I was too proud to remove myself from the hot water and seek some relief in the comparatively cool air outside of the bath.

‘Here,’ he instructed the redheads, inclining his head towards the pool that I was in, rather than one of the other five. They remained still, frozen in place, and he released them one by one, pressing his mouth to the lips of each as he did so. Once freed, they entered the pool. Watching their bodies slide into the water’s embrace, I felt my temperature rise even further.

There was a dull thud near me, the sound of glass on slate, as he placed a tall tumbler of liquid down within my reach.

‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It will make you feel better.’

I reached for the drink. It was ice-cold and tasted of lime and sugar, like a caipirinha without any alcohol. I gulped it down and my faintness passed. Clarity returned to my thoughts.

‘I’m Vincent,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you here.’

‘Summer,’ I replied. ‘And nice to meet you too.’

‘Your expression suggests you’re attending the Ball for the first time. But I am guessing that isn’t the case, or you wouldn’t be in this dressing room.’

‘It’s my first time as an organiser. I helped with the logistics. Not my first time as a guest, or a performer.’

‘Really? You performed? I would like to have seen that.’

‘Perhaps you did,’ I told him. ‘I played violin, at the last Ball, in Nevada. The desert.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I remember now. You were quite wonderful. I looked for you afterwards, you know, but you were nowhere to be found. I was told that you were otherwise engaged, with one of the lighting crew.’

‘Antony directed some of the major performances.’

‘Director, then. I apologise.’

‘But we’re no longer an item.’

‘Sorry to hear it.’

His tone indicated that he was nothing of the sort.

‘Mind if I join you?’

Before I could respond, he undid the tie on his silk robe and dropped it to the floor, then began to ease himself into the water. His movements were almost comically slow, as though he knew that I was watching him, and he was giving me every opportunity to admire his body. His calves and thighs were thick with muscle, and his chest broad and meaty. He had straight blond hair that fell to his shoulders, like a Viking warrior. A small silver piercing decorated his left nostril. He was younger than me, perhaps about twenty-five. His cock and balls hung low in the warm room. I resisted the urge to reach up and grab his package as he lowered himself into the pool.

We bathed together in relative silence, and then retreated to opposite ends of the dressing room to ready ourselves for the night ahead. My eyes stayed fixed on his reflection in the mirror in front of me as he covered the bodies of his six acolytes in oil until their skin shone. His hands worked slowly, massaging their body parts with reverence. When he was finished polishing their limbs, he fixed their hair, brushing it out over their shoulders and smoothing their frizz with hair balm. They stood frozen, accepting his ministrations like mannequins in a shop window. He bent down onto his haunches and slipped their feet into high-heeled, peep-toe shoes with a buckle at the ankle. Then stood back and admired his handiwork. Satisfied, he clipped each of the women back onto his leash, and turned to depart.