Eighty Days Red

by Vina Jackson

  Summer took a deep breath, her knees now feeling the hardness of the cubicle’s stone floor.

  She did her best to repress her gag reflex.

  Watching her as his cock inched its way forward past her lips, Dominik bathed in the glow of Summer’s terrible closeness. It was as if the months had melted away. Once he felt she had fully accommodated him, her chest below heaving gently as if animated by the invisible hands of a fluttering breeze, he began a series of progressive thrusts, opening her further, stretching her, still not letting go of the bunch of hair he held tight in his fist and through which he controlled her motions.

  The rest of the world faded, their whole universe circumscribed by the narrow shower cubicle, its glass panels still steamed up, shielding them from what lay beyond.

  Over and over he struck the back of her throat and she tried to control her spasms, never wanting him to stop, inhaling as much air through her nose as she could manage into her lungs at the counterpoint of every thrust. Treasuring his savage invasion, welcoming him into her body, her soul. Praying it could last for ever. Filled to the brim. His.

  Later, after they’d dried in the fluffy white towels liberally distributed throughout Viggo’s guest bathroom, Dominik took Summer to bed.

  He pulled the dreadful dark-hued chenille bedspread away and threw it to the floor. Summer stepped out of the towel, allowing it to fall to the carpet. Faced Dominik. Presented herself. Remembering his tastes, his quirks, the way he liked her when life was still good.

  She climbed sideways onto the uncovered bed, made to get on all fours as she expected Dominik to take her from behind, as was so often his habit. He’d never been much of a missionary man, too much of a slave to his voyeurism, enjoying the spectacle of his cock moving in and out of her.

  ‘No.’

  She looked back at him, feeling the harsh, steely gaze of his eyes observing her.

  ‘Tell me what you want,’ he asked.

  She sought for answers in his stance. He was imperturbable, stone-faced.

  What the hell did he want her to say? That she wanted him, yearned uncontrollably to belong to him against all logic and past experience? Did he want her to abdicate her will, her pride?

  ‘Right now I just want to be fucked by you,’ Summer finally said.

  His face didn’t change.

  ‘I want to be with you … Even if it hurts.’

  It was at times like this she felt bereft and words were just not enough to express the turmoil raging inside her. She almost wanted to scream, ‘Take me, fuck me, hurt me, brand me in my soul, tattoo my heart with indelible ink, make me yours and banish for ever the emptiness inside that plagues me.’ In her mind, it made a sort of sense, but spoken out loud, it would just sound ridiculous. Degrading, humiliating even.

  Still he didn’t respond, standing there impassively, watching her, translating her unspoken words into a language he could understand.

  ‘I want you inside me. Now.’

  Was she now reduced to begging?

  She almost felt as if she was on the brink of tears. Was he testing her? Playing with her?

  ‘I want you too,’ he finally said.

  He stepped over to the bed, drew his fingers across her eyes with a tenderness she had never experienced before, like the kindest of undertakers closing a dead woman’s eyes, and prompted Summer to lie down. He carefully spreadeagled her and loomed above her, his shadow cast along the room’s ceiling as evening fell outside like a blanket of greyness.

  He moved between her legs and she took hold of him and guided him in.

  ‘Just accept me for who I am,’ she said.

  Dominik filled her gloriously.

  ‘Shhh …’ he whispered. Summer shivered.

  Viggo switched the screen off, a broad smile of satisfaction spreading across his face.

  The couple he’d been watching had finally parted, no longer a single entity, a two-backed creature whose every motion combined the grace of birds in flight and the savage cruelty of carnivorous creatures. Both a frenetic and ecstatic dance of bodies with all the wild abandon of tigers fighting to the death.

  Now they had come up for air. Become two again. Summer and Dominik.

  Of course he was a voyeur, Viggo knew. But then who was perfect?

  He was a man who knew beauty when he saw it and often wanted to keep it, save it, put it

  under glass. Collect it.

  If beauty had an essence that could be bottled, he would have been the first in line with cheque book in hand.

  True, he had slept with Summer. Alone and with Luba. But watching her fucking with Dominik had been another thing of beauty. He had seen her come alive, observed the radiance spreading through her body, the way all her inborn defiance and anxiety had just melted away as Dominik had taken control, the way she had colluded with her own spirit of surrender, embraced it. Viggo had never been into men, but the sight of Dominik and the way he had fitted into Summer, next to Summer, had been exhilarating.

  His mouth was dry.

  He picked a bottle of vintage Bourbon from his drinks cabinet and poured himself a generous glass.

  ‘Lovely,’ he muttered, addressing himself to both the mellifluous roughness of the liquid tiptoeing down his throat and the memory of the two lovers now absent from his clandestine screen.

  Installing a minuscule camera in the guest bedroom had been something of a joke all those years back when he had acquired the mansion and an architect friend had come up with the designs and overseen its conversion. It had felt ‘rock ’n’ roll’, something to uphold his bad-boy reputation. And then he had forgotten about the facility for years. It was actually the unconventional Luba, his international woman of mystery and nude elegance, who had suggested he, one night, watch her at love and play with a young woman she had picked up in a club – a punkette with a thin tattoo of a teardrop below one of her eyes, he remembered. Viggo sighed, evoking the memory, the entrancing vision of women together, their curves, the lasciviousness of their kisses and gestures, the hunger, the perfect geometric alignment of lust and desire.

  It wasn’t the hydraulics of sex that turned him on, but the slow motion, soundless elegance of bodies joining in ballet, and the vision of two women was so much more powerful than the heterosexual couples he and friends had spied on during wild parties at the mansion, when guests had strayed or been encouraged to venture to the guest room, unaware Viggo and others were watching them with mischievous delight. But none of the duped couples had the savage grace of Summer and Dominik, he reflected. These two had a wild appetite for each other, a passion he felt almost jealous about, a hunger that flirted with danger. More than once he had held his breath as one or the other had ventured into ominous territory, a gesture, a hand, a pulsion that almost went too far, teetering on the edge before reassuringly pulling back. Viggo had never witnessed a man and a woman fuck with such abandon; it had made his flesh crawl at times.

  Following the tragicomic incident in the vault, he had suggested they go upstairs, and he knew they would end up in bed, under the gaze of his hidden camera and the temptation to activate the surveillance system had been too strong. He had almost given up, since they had spent an uncommon amount of time in the bathroom, leading him to believe he’d already missed out on all the fun. But eventually they had emerged, draped in white towels, almost circling each other like famished birds of prey, ready to pounce and launch into beautiful madness.

  Viggo didn’t regret watching them. They wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t be hurt. The only thing he did fleetingly regret was that he hadn’t installed sound in the room in addition to the spy lens.

  He thought he would now have the surveillance system disabled. Nothing could follow Summer and Dominik. Others would never match the intensity of what he had witnessed. Best end on a high.

  He rose and pulled the sliding bookcase to one side, concealing the small screen.

  Dominik and Summer must now be sleeping, he guessed.

  Maybe he wou
ld do the same, reliving the memories of their embraces, revelling in it. Luba would be back from the gallery soon, he realised. The first time he had seen her dance he had been similarly transfixed. And knew he must have her. She had quickly agreed, although he was aware she would never belong to anyone and he was, for her, just a step along the road, a convenient and a pleasant one, but just a truck stop. Hmmm … there was the germ of a song there, Viggo thought.

  He headed down to his studio and switched the electric piano on. It was strange the way ideas, words, the sketches of melodies just came about. Out of nowhere, unbidden.

  Dominik awoke, rubbed his eyes, wiping away the disorientation of being in an unknown room. They had forgotten to draw the blinds yesterday and the bedroom was now bathed in glorious sunlight.

  The softness of Summer’s arse nestled, spoon-like, against his stomach. She was still sleeping, the delicate murmur of her breath a faint rumour.

  He kissed her neck and she stirred.

  He was still wearing his watch and he glanced at the time. It was only mid-morning. It felt later.

  Once Summer had opened her eyes and smiled at him, he had asked her, ‘Do you keep many of your things here?’

  ‘Not much. Just a few bits and pieces,’ she replied. ‘Most of my stuff is still at Chris’s place.’

  ‘Once we’re up I want you to gather everything together. Here. There. We’ll go pick them up. You’re coming to my place. You’re living with me.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You are.’ He was completely sincere.

  Summer nodded. For now, she would. It hadn’t worked first time around, in New York. But she was willing to give it another chance.

  She yawned and rolled onto her side. ‘Jeez, I’m hungry. But most of all, I need my quota of caffeine.’

  ‘I’m famished too,’ Dominik noted. The last thing he had eaten was a small pain au chocolat from Patisserie Valerie the previous morning when he had been preparing for his visit to Viggo’s house, after which events had overtaken him.

  He stretched, detaching himself from the comfortable warmth of Summer’s naked body and got off the bed. Looked down at her and the unruly tangle of sheets, the puddle of her red hair spread out against the pillowcase. His cock twitched. She smiled back at him.

  He stepped into his black trousers and handed her the white T-shirt she had been wearing the previous day. She slipped it on, sitting on the edge of the bed. Waited for him to hand her something else, underwear or jeans, but he did not, just watched her with a benevolent grin on his face.

  Summer rose from the bed. The crumpled T-shirt reached to just below her navel, leaving her arse and cunt fully exposed. It was a particularly intimate form of undress, natural but wanton, the way one would wander in the privacy of one’s house without fear of onlookers.

  ‘Come.’ Dominik gestured at her. ‘Let’s find the kitchen.’

  ‘Like this?’ Summer queried.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Viggo might be there. Others …’

  ‘I know,’ Dominik said. ‘I like you that way. Viggo has seen it all anyway, hasn’t he? I’m happy for others to see you. I don’t mind.’

  In the knowledge that she was now his, he refrained from saying.

  As they left the room, he topless, she bottomless, Summer held back for a moment, a tremor of hesitation assaulting her at the thought of yet again leaving the Bailly behind. Then she realised it was safe. Lightning would not strike twice.

  Viggo was sitting at a counter nibbling a slice of toast when they arrived. He gave them a look and wolf-whistled.

  ‘Wow, our love birds! Welcome to another sunny day, kids.’

  He was also shirtless, his skinny hairless torso like a white page.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Freshly brewed for your pleasure.’ He gestured theatrically at the couple, indicating the gleaming NASA-like steel-articulated machine dominating the granite work surface.

  As Summer and Dominik helped themselves, Viggo, not without a nostalgic glance at Summer’s exposed bottom half, suddenly rose and made his way out of the kitchen.

  ‘Wait for me, kids. I have a surprise for you.’

  He returned ten minutes later, holding a small frame in his hands which he reverently handed over to Summer as Dominik watched on.

  ‘By way of apology. A gift. In the hope you’ll forgive me.’

  Inside the frame was a black and white sketch. Pretty old, by the looks of it.

  In the top left-hand corner of the image the drawing of a ballet dancer and her male partner, only their bodies appearing, their heads cut off along the edge of the print’s top. Further to the right was the neck of a violin and a bow and the bewigged face of a man with a fancy, ceremonial hat. Lower down, barely sketched, some smoking factory chimneys and some thinly drawn sailing boats.

  ‘What is it?’ Summer asked.

  ‘It’s by Degas,’ Viggo said. ‘It’s called Program for an Artistic Soirée. It’s pretty rare. Because of the violin, I thought it would be nice if you had it. It’s real, not a copy …’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Summer said.

  ‘Just one thing.’ Viggo stopped her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t show it around too much. Only to people you can trust.’

  ‘You mean it’s stolen?’ Dominik queried.

  ‘Yes,’ Viggo admitted with a sly smile. ‘It’s been missing for years. Long story, but at some stage it came into my possession. These things happen, you know. Anyway, after what I’ve done to you, I felt you deserved it more than me.’

  This explained why certain items of his collection were locked away in the panic room, Dominik guessed. They were all stolen.

  ‘Thank you, Viggo. We’ll treasure it. Truly,’ Summer said.

  ‘Am I forgiven, then?’ Viggo asked.

  Dominik didn’t catch her answer. All he could hear was the fact that she had said ‘we’.

  Program for an Artistic Soirée

  Edgar Degas

  13 The Wind Will Carry Us

  Moving house took me much longer than it should have.

  I had spent the morning with Susan, my agent and de facto manager, at a nondescript Starbucks near Victoria station, discussing my plans for the future. She was based in the US but had turned up out of the blue in London, frustrated with me ignoring one too many of her emails.

  I’d arrived late, having rushed from Dominik’s side at his Hampstead house. I hadn’t wanted to waste a minute of time with him, so we’d spent all morning in much the same way that we’d spent the previous night, and the one before, and the one before that. Entwined in each other’s arms, fucking as often as we had the energy for. Some of the time, we’d make love, him full of affection and tenderness, and me brimming with contentment, happy to lie there beneath him, wishing that I could pause time and spend my life in that moment, listening to his deep, throaty laugh, meeting his gaze and waiting for the moment when the look in his eyes would turn from soft and warm to hard and cruel, and he would take hold of the wrist that he’d been gently stroking a moment earlier and pin me to the bed, whispering filthy things in my ear.

  Visions of us between the sheets together had played and replayed through my mind as I threw on the nearest clothes I could find and raced for the tube, aware that Susan was probably already waiting.

  She looked just the same as she had when I’d last seen her – perfectly turned out. Whether for a night on the town or coffee with a client, Susan always looked business. Her shift dress was beautifully cut, sea green to offset her reddish brown hair, and accessorised with a chunky gold Chanel necklace. She was engrossed in her BlackBerry, her fingers flying across the keys as quickly as a pianist’s.

  ‘Sleep in, did we?’ she asked, a little acidly, as I slid onto the barstool alongside her. She’d already ordered me a coffee. It was cold, but I sipped it anyway.

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied, blushing. I didn’t really h
ave any excuse.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Ms Rock Star,’ she replied, now giving me a warm smile and a peck on each cheek. ‘And I hear you got your violin back.’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, enthusiastically.

  ‘So you’re ready to play?’

  ‘Never been readier.’

  ‘I am very glad to hear it. At least I’ll be able to read a newspaper without worrying about which page you’re going to turn up on next.’

  Groucho Nights was just Groucho Nights now, without the special guests, and although I might consider a reunion in the future, for now I was eager to get back to my classical repertoire.

  I floated the idea of a Kiwi album, and Susan readily agreed. The export market was an important one, she reckoned.

  Sounds of home. It felt right. I had spent the past few years going from pillar to post, bouncing from one situation to another like a prize in a pinball machine. Now I had Dominik, and my violin back, and for the first time in my life I felt settled. It was time to look to my roots, as I had tried to do when I was with Simón, with the Venezuelan numbers. But this time I would look back to my own history, not anyone else’s, conjure up the landscape of my home and put it in a song.

  The Bailly would be perfect for that. I felt a heady sense of excitement when I thought of it. My initial joy at its return had been fleeting. I’d forgotten the instrument as soon as I had Dominik by my side, had surrendered to the touch of his skin, the firmness of his commands, the sound of his voice. I’d been so happy to have him back, to feel him inside me again, that the violin had lain lonesome for a full day and night as we explored each other again.

  When we’d finally worn each other out, I’d pounced on the instrument and begun to play immediately. Dominik had laughed to see my expression, like a child with a Christmas toy, as I pulled the Bailly from the case, ran my hands over the burnished, honey-coloured wood and checked the tuning before launching into all the music that was now ours, the backdrop to our relationship. Vivaldi, of course, and as I ran through the chords of each season I thought of the time that had passed, and the time that we had ahead of us. The way life moved and flowed relentlessly, always changing, but always something new and beautiful around the corner. I ended on the light notes of ‘Spring’.