Autumn

by Vina Jackson

  I could see the back of the cab driver’s head twitching as he stole repeated glances in the rear view mirror. Our scuffling in the back seat had not gone unnoticed.

  ‘Feeling shy now?’ Antony hissed into my ear. I shook my head, though truthfully I did feel a little awkward. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was stone cold sober, a far cry from the usual scenario of sharing drunken embraces in the backs of cabs after an evening out.

  He slid the palm of his hand up a little higher, stretched out his fingers and brushed against the bare outer lips of my pussy. I stifled a moan.

  ‘Do you think you could do that again?’ Antony asked. It took me a moment to realise that he was talking about the music and the way I had played.

  He answered his own question before I could respond.

  ‘I do. Of course you could. Look at you. You hum with sex, Summer, it comes out in everything you do. You can’t help it. Maybe I should have fucked you in front of Morris instead of having you play.’

  ‘That probably would have made matters worse,’ I quipped, though regretted it as soon as the words escaped my lips. Now was not a good time for jokes.

  He withdrew his hand from between my legs and pressed it to his brow. I wondered if he could smell me, if the scent of my pussy lingered on his fingers.

  ‘I had a hard-on the whole time you were playing,’ he said. ‘I swear to God, you’re some kind of witch.’ He was looking out of the window now, staring aimlessly at the cars moving slowly alongside us as we picked our way through the typically gridlocked central London traffic.

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me, or just talking aloud. The driver glanced in the rear view mirror again. Listening, no doubt, and hoping for a better look, probably.

  I reached for Antony’s crotch and grabbed his cock through his jeans.

  He pressed his hand against mine and squeezed harder.

  We travelled like that all the way back to the Isle of Dogs, Antony’s hand clamped over mine, covering the erection that strained through his denim.

  Antony paid the driver who looked somewhat disappointed that we were getting out of the cab and taking our intimacy elsewhere, took my hand, and half dragged me from the parking bay through the residents’ only entry to the lifts.

  My high heels clattered on the smooth concrete flooring and as we stopped to wait for the elevator doors to ding open I bent down to undo the straps and remove them. Alissa could stride around everywhere all day in these things if she liked, but I was taking mine off.

  I had just released both buckles and was about to hook my thumb over the back straps, slip them off and step out onto my bare feet when I felt Antony’s hand caress my forehead. He tangled his fingers into my hair, took hold of a few hanks by the roots and gently pulled me up.

  I nearly lost my balance and stumbled against him.

  The lift reached our level and the doors swished open. He placed one hand beneath each of my buttocks, lifted me up and half carried, half pushed me in front of him for just a few steps until we reached the metal handrail that ran around the mirrored walls of the elevator at hip height and he balanced me on the edge with my legs half wrapped around his waist.

  ‘My shoes!’ I protested. One was still on my foot, dangling by the toe. The other had slipped off and lay discarded on the concrete floor.

  He abruptly let me go and stepped out to retrieve it.

  I turned to check my make-up and smooth down my hair in the mirror and felt a strange sense of disconnect when I caught sight of my reflection. The same sense I’d had when trying a slightly different hairstyle or the odd occasion that I wore a ponytail or chignon instead of leaving my long locks flowing untamed over my shoulders. Was this person really me?

  The dress was an old one. I’d bought it from a market stall in Brick Lane for £10 not long after I had first moved to London. Floor-length black velvet with a modest neckline and a low back cut into a V that seemed as though it might slip at any moment and reveal my buttocks. It hugged my curves in a way that few other garments that hadn’t been specially tailored for me did.

  The woman staring back at me in the mirror looked elegant, older, worldly, but I certainly didn’t feel that way. Inside, I felt like the same gauche, naïve, tempestuous girl I’d been when I found the dress at that market stall, but now the rest of my world had changed and I wore it with sky high heels instead of my old cherry red Doc Martens boots that had long ago been totally worn out and dropped off at a charity store.

  ‘Oh,’ I exclaimed, startled, when Antony returned. He’d only disappeared for all of about two seconds but lost in the depths of my own mind time seemed to have slowed down.

  He didn’t offer a penny for my thoughts.

  Instead he grabbed me by the hips and swung me back to face the mirror, pulling me backwards and pushing me down with the flat of his hand so that I was bent over in front of him. He took hold of my wrists and moved my arms to the rail, indicating that he wanted me to hold on to it and then he lifted the fabric of my dress up to my waist. The material billowed down over the front of my legs leaving my calves bare and my arse just with the G-string’s narrow elastic and on display to anyone who happened to walk by and press the button to open the lift.

  We were at a right angle to the door, and Antony was standing behind me blocking any real view of my parts, but with me bent over in front of him holding the rail with my skirt lifted there was no way that we looked anything besides totally obscene. Being groped like this in a long, formal frock with only the backs of my legs visible seemed even more risqué, in my mind than the same situation in a mini-dress like the one Alissa had worn for her audition, tight and slutty.

  Antony’s hands moved to my buttocks, kneading and pulling my flesh. He pulled the G-string aside in one swift movement and the material offered no resistance. I felt the sharp point of his belt clasp scrape against my skin. He quickly unbuckled it and pulled his trousers part way down. Maybe he had stood and watched me looking at myself in the mirror for a few moments as his cock, which was now unfettered and banging against my thigh, grew rock hard.

  His right palm moved away suddenly and I tensed, sensing that something was coming although it was not something that he had ever done before, to me, at least. Spanking.

  But as if he had changed his mind before carrying through on the motion, he brought his hand back to rest gently on my buttock and then moved lower, and slipped a single finger inside of me. He had evidently noticed what I already knew – I was pretty damn wet, and yet … and yet … I was faintly disappointed..

  ‘I hate you for having ruined the play’s chances, you know, Summer … and it makes me want to hurt you. But then I also know you can’t avoid being you. It’s something you can’t control, is it?’

  ‘Hurt me, then.’ I nodded my approval.

  He grunted.

  ‘Slap me,’ I asked him. The words came out in a whisper. I was not in the habit of asking for what I wanted during sex. I shuffled my heels backwards a little and arched my spine, pointing my butt in the air to encourage him.

  ‘No,’ he replied, immediately, and another rush of wetness flooded my pussy. As much as I felt foolish, prostrating myself like that, and I desired that sharp sting and the wonderful warmth that always followed a slap just at the right part of my backside, the denial of what I wanted, the control and the humiliation turned me on more than any single sensation could.

  Some things never changed.

  He pulled my cheeks apart and I moaned, aroused by the thought that he desired that obscene view of both my holes on display, enjoying wondering whether he was considering fucking my arse instead of my cunt. We had not yet tried anal sex.

  His hands remained in place, holding me open, and he dropped to his knees and avidly licked me, all over the entrance of my pussy and my anus, making me even wetter than I already was, then slipping his fingers
inside me again, first just one, then two.

  He pressed his thumb to my rosebud, testing my opening for readiness.

  I could hear the soft sound of skin rubbing rapidly on skin; he was masturbating himself as he stimulated me. Then he pushed himself to his feet as if he had either reached the limitations of his patience for holding back or had suddenly decided which opening he wanted and I braced myself, longing for his cock to enter me, as I knew that it would, at any moment.

  When he finally gripped my waist to hold me steady and pushed his cock into my cunt he thrust so forcefully that my shoulder banged against the wall of the elevator, but it still wasn’t hard enough. I raised my body and pressed my palms onto the mirror, bracing myself so that I could buck back against him.

  He wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed, restricting my air supply just as I had restricted his when we had fucked in the morning a couple of days ago. We were both pressed up close to the side of the lift now, my hands against the wall holding me steady, my face twisted to the side as he held my neck, my dress still haphazardly bunched around my stomach, his trousers pooled around his ankles.

  I caught a split second glimpse of our reflections; brows damp with sweat, expressions scrunched into poses of pleasure so intense they appeared pained, unkempt and messy, faces of fornication. Unable to gasp for breath I was light-headed, giddy, and just as I thought that I might pass out if he kept hold of my throat much longer Antony let go abruptly and slid his hand, hard, over my chin and face, pressing several of his fingers between my lips, simulating forced fellatio. I sucked.

  What had begun in the back of the taxi as a gradual build-up of desire had become a tumult. A whirlwind of sensations and thoughts and images appeared in my mind unbidden – the view that I imagined Antony had of me when he held my cheeks apart, a mental film of him holding his own cock and pulling the skin back and forth as he licked me.

  The echo of our breathing, panting, moaning, the heat that our bodies had created in that small space, the vision of the cab driver’s eyes trying to catch a glimpse of my open thighs in the rear view mirror, the knowledge that at any moment the elevator doors might swish open and offer one of Antony’s neighbours a pornographic vision of us rutting like animals in the elevator, the sensation of Antony’s cock filling me deep thrust after thrust, his hands around my neck; all of these things blended to create the perfect cocktail of arousal within me until I felt as though every particle of my being might explode at any moment and I would shatter into a million pieces over the cold metal floor.

  I heard the sound of muffled voices in the corridor outside, approaching us.

  At that same moment I came, all over Antony’s cock. My cunt spasmed like crazy and my whole body twitched and shook.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ Antony cried into my ear and I felt his body tense like a ramrod as he, in turn, erupted inside me and then immediately flung out an arm and struck the button to the top floor. After a brief moment’s pause in which I was certain the doors were about to pull apart and reveal us to whoever was approaching, the lift whirred into life and we glided upwards smoothly, unseen.

  He slumped against me, relieved, and we stood pressed together until we arrived at his floor.

  Antony stepped back and I sighed as his now soft cock slipped out of me. I loved the moment of entry, but never the moment of exit. No matter how soft his cock was inside me after he had come, its presence made me feel full, at least a little bit.

  He pulled up and buttoned his trousers and I straightened out my dress and collected my shoes.

  ‘That was close,’ he turned to me and remarked.

  It was the first time I’d seen him smile all afternoon.

  He hunted for his keys and we shambled into his apartment.

  ‘Damn you, Summer,’ Antony said. ‘I’m still so angry at the way you took over the read-through and ruined everything. Just by expressing yourself too well. I’d laugh about it if I could.’

  My throat was dry.

  ‘Punish me, then,’ I said.

  Two weeks earlier a delivery van had dropped off a new chest of drawers, dark oakwood-shaded, which Antony had ordered online. The elongated piece of furniture had not fitted into the elevator, so the guys had been forced to pull it up the service stairs all the way to his top floor apartment in an improvised cradle of thick rope. They’d left the rope behind in their hurry to decamp.

  I’d stored it away at the back of a cupboard in the guest bedroom.

  I handed it to Antony.

  Antony stirred.

  ‘Morning,’ I said, spooning against him, seeking out his warmth.

  ‘Hi …’ He opened his eyes slowly, as if afraid the morning light might dazzle him. It was another grey day outside. A barge tooted its horn on the nearby river.

  ‘Any plans for today?’ I asked him.

  ‘I suppose I’ll be manning the phones, to see if there are any other impresarios or investment darlings out there who could possibly support the project. But I’m not hopeful. Surely, word that Samuel Morris has turned us down will quickly spread and will discourage others.’

  ‘What about institutions, banks?’

  ‘Not their cup of tea. I know from experience. If I were to bring them another Shakespeare adaptation in modern dress or with a twist of some sort, they’d come running, but they invariably steer clear of anything in the least innovative or experimental.’

  ‘Oh …’

  The following two days proved awkward. Antony spent most of them on the phone or in town at meetings which never bore fruit and fell into a sullen funk. When we were together, he tried as best he could to conceal his growing disappointment and his natural resentment that I had in a major way been responsible for the project’s failure to attract investment.

  It was evening and, somehow, we had been together in the same room, both silent, for over an hour if not more. I was treading on eggshells, casually leafing through various coffee table books.

  The one I was looking at now was a book of old maps. It was a subject that had always sparked my imagination. The page I had open depicted the Caribbean a few centuries ago, carved slithers of land against the blue of the ocean. It occurred to me that the sea around tropical islands was more green than blue, a delicate shade of emerald that I’d always found soothing and sensual. My mind wandered back to the island. And the conversation I’d briefly had with Aurelia and Andrei.

  ‘I need a drink,’ Antony stated, matter of factly.

  I knew it was the last thing he needed in his present mood. It had been weeks since he’d gone on his last binge and I was aware that if he went down that perilous slope again, I might lose him. There was only so much the ropes could help him forgive.

  ‘Must you?’

  He looked me in the eyes and I knew that he realised that too. He was torn.

  On the point of accepting defeat, my gaze returned to the page. An island. THE island. The shadow of a thought frantically swam through my mind. It felt as if it had been on the point of drowning, had reached the bottom of the ocean and was now rushing, out of breath, back towards the surface like a human torpedo.

  ‘I know some people we could talk to about the investment,’ I said. ‘I think they could be the solution to our problems.’

  Antony looked up at me hopefully.

  9

  Inside the Spiegeltent

  During the highs, the lows and the in-betweens of all the seductive madness with Antony (and his alliterative buxom actress) the proposal I had been made by the fascinating Aurelia and her companion, Andrei, at Borough Market had never been far from my mind. Neither had the business card I had secreted away in a corner of my bedside drawer where it had been sitting for several weeks now, like a beacon in darkness whose insistent pulse called to me whenever my thoughts idled during the course of our work on the play, like a reminder of an even more wondrous form
of madness. The nagging possibility of another life, attractive but dangerous, compelling but also full of question marks.

  The problem was there was no way we could set up a further full-scale table read-through let alone any form of dress rehearsal that could adequately convey to another party what Antony was attempting with the show. If we were not given a go-ahead, and the funds to support it, in the close future, most of the performers and technicians we had lined up and who were up to speed with the text and our intentions would by necessity move on to other jobs. Neither Antony’s or my own resources would stretch far enough to subsidise such a large-scale project much longer.

  I dialled the number on the card.

  It rang three times and the call was then picked up by an automatic recording asking me to just leave my number and assuring me I would be called back.

  I felt totally deflated by the impersonal nature of this response. But what had I expected? That Aurelia and Andrei would be hanging on to the phone all day and night in the hope of my eventual contact? I should of course have realised they had other, better things to do with their lives. In all likelihood, they had long given up on me, anyway. I was not indispensable and evidently had a grossly inflated view of my own importance. It’s what performing on a stage and the hypocritical convention of obligatory public applause leads you to expect. It spoils you. I should have known that, by now.

  But I left my number, trusting it to the buzzing silence on the other end of the line.

  I had called from my Clapham flat, in the nervous belief that Antony needed some time on his own following the Samuel Morris disappointment, although I fervently prayed it would not lead him to drink again. I also needed space to clear my mind.