by Larissa Vine
"About my room," Freya said.
Madame Meijer clapped her hands together. "Of course, of course. I show you."
She got up from the desk and led Freya down a corridor, past a series of doors. The smell grew mustier as they ventured further into the depths of the building. Freya sweated as she dragged her suitcase behind her. Its wheels kept jamming on the carpet.
Madame Meijer stopped by a door and pushed it open with a theatrical air.
"The marital suite," she announced.
Freya stepped inside, her feet sinking into the crimson carpet. Her eyes widened as she stared around. She'd had never seem a room like it. The place could have been the boudoir of a mistress in the 17th Century.
The room was dominated by a four poster bed, which was so high that she was sure that she'd need a ladder to get up to it. The bed was draped with a scarlet cover and swathed in scarlet cushions. In one corner, stood an antique armoire.
Freya stared at the silk wallpaper. It had hand drawn images of grapes vines. The vines coiled around and around each other like they couldn't get enough of one another. It was like they were locked in an eternal embrace.
"Do you like it?" Madame Meijer asked.
Like. Freya didn't know if that was the right word for how she felt about the room. It had an unnerving effect on her. It was lush and voluptuous and deeply sexual.
"Are you sure you no buy a ticket to the party?" Madame Meijer asked.
Freya shook her head.
"Then I leave you to get settled." Madame Meijer turned and disappeared out of the room toward the sounds of the ringing phones and the squawk of the love bird.
Freya parked the suitcase by the door and climbed up onto the bed. The springs creaked as she sat down. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and swished it out loose over her shoulders. The light from the scarlet chandelier gave everything a muted, flattering glow.
She fetched her phone from her pocket and took a selfie. She sent the photo to Simon.
Arrived. She texted. Am waiting for you.
She added several emoticons of pouting lips.
Her phone started to ring. Freya stared at the caller display. Simon.
"Hi, darling," she said into the phone.
"Pumpkin, how the devil are you?"
"Good." Freya decided not to tell him about the incident at customs. "This room. I can't describe it, but when you see it you're going to freak."
"About that," Simon said.
Freya stiffened. "About that what?"
A strange note had crept into Simon's voice.
"Well." He sounded cautious. "I bet that you've got a lot of sightseeing planned for the trip. And you know that sightseeing isn't my thing. Is it, Pumpkin? I would only be moaning as you dragged me around the Anne Frank museum."
"We're not going to the Anne Frank museum anymore. I've got new things planned.”
"Well to an art gallery."
"We're not going there either."
"Well to any of the sights—”
"What are you trying say?"
There was a pause.
"I can't make it," Simon said at last. He yawned heavily into the receiver. "I'm too exhausted from work. I'd only be yawning my head off and ruining everything.” He yawned again as if to prove a point.
“Now, don't get angry,” he went on. “We have to put a positive spin on things. Think of this as a reconnaissance trip, a fact finding mission. You go out and find the best restaurants, the best things to see. Then, next month, we'll do it together. I promise."
"Are you fucking kidding me? I'm done with you."
Freya pressed the end call button.
Her phone started to ring again. It was Simon. She ignored the call and let it go through to voicemail. Then she lowered herself down from the bed and marched out of the room. To hell with the Restaurant Greetje and its mashed potatoes. She was going to go to a bar, to any bar, to drink herself mindless. Not that she'd ever done that before. But she was already way out her comfort zone.
She hurried down the corridor to the reception area. Madame Meijer was still at her desk. She'd let Rembrandt out of his cage and he was nibbling the phone cord. In one hand, Madame Meijer nursed a drink of clear liquid.
Freya started to storm past the desk.
"Going to dinner?" Madame Meijer called.
Freya stopped and swivelled back toward Madame Meijer. "Where's the nearest bar?"
Madame Meijer reached beneath the desk. She pulled out a catering-sized bottle of gin and poured a hefty measure into a glass. From under the table, she produced a bottle of tonic water and added a glug of tonic water to the glass.
She held the drink out to Freya, who took it and knocked some back. The gin burned in scorching fingers down her throat.
Freya gasped. "Thanks, I needed that."
Madame Meijer nodded. "Is anything wrong?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“You change your mind about the party, no?"
"How much is the ticket?"
"One hundred Euro."
Freya spluttered.
“I give to you for eighty,” Madame Meijer said. “Is a techno party. It will be very good," she added, as if she was suddenly down with the techno scene.
Freya took another gulp of her drink. Maybe she should go to the party. If wasn't like she had any plans anymore. She was only going to sit in a bar and get drunk. Perhaps she should get drunk at the super cool Madame Meijer-endorsed techno party. And so what if it did cost eighty Euros? The trip had suddenly become a whole lot cheaper. Fifty percent cheaper in fact.
She smiled at Madame Meijer. "Okay, you're on."
Majame Meijer beamed.
"Can you call me a cab?" Freya asked.
"Why?"
"To take me to the party."
Madame Meijer tutted. "But is only nine o'clock. You no go before eleven. No," she continued. "You stay with me and Rembrandt first. We like the company, don't we, Rembrant? And." She winked at Freya. "I no charge you much for the drinks."
Chapter Nine
At 11p.m., Freya left Das Vogel and strode humming toward the cab. She'd had three gin and tonics with Madame Meijer and she felt magnificent. Dutch gin was so much better than English gin. It was magical.
And she'd been right to finish with Simon like that. She'd talked the situation through with Madame Meijer at length. She'd told Madame Meijer how Simon was never around because he was always working. She explained how he'd missed chunks of every Christmas and holiday.
Then, to give herself even more validation, Freya had fast-forwarded time in her head. She'd painted a picture, a rather slurry picture, to Madame Meijer of what her future would have looked like if she'd have stayed with Simon.
Their wedding day? Simon would have snuck in some work before he'd set off down the aisle. The birth of their first child? Sure, he'd be cheering her on in the hospital room but he'd still have his laptop.
She reached the cab, opened the back door, and clambered inside. The smell of cigarettes and air freshener wormed its way up her nose.
She leaned forward into the gap between the front seats and passed the driver her ticket. "Can you take me here, please?"
The driver studied the ticket. "You are going to see Carl Cox?"
"Wow, am I?" Freya had been so engrossed in her break up with Simon that she hadn't looked at the ticket.
She took it back from the driver and stowed it into her purse, as the taxi sped off through the darkened streets. Carl Cox. Wow. Freya knew nothing about dance music but even she had heard of Carl Cox. He was an English DJ who played around the world. He'd been famous for like forever.
Hashtags for Facebook posts leaped into her head. #firstraveever #Amsterdambeyondcool #carlcoxbitches. She dismissed the hashtags just as quickly as she'd thought of them because she'd never have the guts to post them.
Sometime later, the taxi stopped. Freya stared out through the window. It had pulled up alongside a mansion on a corner
of a street. Doormen stood at the gate behind which snaked a queue of people.
Freya paid the driver and got out. She joined the back of the line. She studied the people in the queue. Suddenly, she felt less magnificent. The men were chiselled and cool. The woman looked like the woman at the airport. They had pouting lips and long streaked hair. Designer street clothes hung from their sculpted bodies.
Freya stared down at her sundress, which Madame Meijer had insisted that she'd changed into. The dress was the best thing that Freya had. She had thought that it was pretty. She'd loved its strappy, slightly daring back. But beside this crowd it looked frumpy. It screamed librarian.
She reached the front of the line, where the two doormen were checking tickets. The men were as tall as they were wide. Freya gave her ticket to the guy with the thickest neck. He took it and, with a grunt, and he gestured from her to pass.
She stepped through the gate and onto the lawn, the heels of her shoes sinking into the turf. More beautiful people stood chatting on the grass. She could hear the throb of the techno music through the mansion's open doors.
The music grew louder as she came closer. Then louder and louder still. The smell of chlorine crept up her nostrils. Chlorine? She stepped through the doors and came to a stop. Rippling in front of her was an Olympic-sized pool. It was a pool party. Why hadn't Madame Meijer told her? She could have warned her at least.
The sides of the pool were packed with people, who danced shoulder-to-shoulder. They faced the DJ who played on a stage just past the shallow end. It wasn't Carl Cox but a dude with a goatee and a sideways baseball cap, who she guessed was the warm up act.
And the people. Oh, the people. They were even more glamorous than the ones outside. Freya glanced back at the door. Maybe she should leave. She had no right to be with such a beautiful crowd.
She drew a breath. Perhaps a drink would help. Maybe another gin would make everything magnificent again. She scanned the room looking for the bar. But it was hard to see anything through the people.
She stood swaying to the music, unsure what to do next. Without warning, the taste of gin rose to the back of her throat. She swallowed it back, her throat burning. The music grew faster. Then faster still. Green lights pulsed from the lighting rig. The sweat from the dancers mingled with the stench of the chlorine. Bile flooded her throat.
The strobe light came on. It flickered so fast that Freya felt dizzy. It seemed like she could no longer tell what was real or not. The room grew hotter. The heat crowded in on her. She looked around for somewhere, anywhere, to sit down. But there were no seats, just a mass of swaying bodies.
Then, to her relief, she spotted a door about ten metres ahead, which was set into the wall. It was probably a cupboard. A nice cool cupboard where she could at least get away from the people.
She began to push her way toward it. At last, she reached the door. She hefted it open and stepped into a tiny changing room. It had bench along one side. A line of coat hooks were screwed into the wall panels.
Freya was about to sit down on the bench and put her head between her legs and breathed, breathed, breathed, when she happened to glance to the left. There was another door, which stood partly open. She peered through the gap and realized that she was staring into a small sauna. Her breath stalled in her throat. Holy fuck. What had she just stumbled upon?
A woman with long bleached hair stood in the sauna. Even thought it was sweltering, she was fully dressed in a pair of cut off denim shorts and a t-shirt.
But that wasn't what had caused Freya to almost stop breathing. Two men stood either side of woman. They were naked. Sweat gleamed from their muscles. One man had light brown hair. The other guy's hair was darker and was shaved up the sides. The woman's hands were outstretched as she held each of their cocks.
She started to jerk them off, her hands moving up and down their rods. On each upward stroke, she would stop just before the head, clearly refusing to give them the relief they were craving. She never sped up. Her movements were slow and teasing.
The men tried to push themselves deeper into her hand. But she kept on going with her super slow strokes. Freya loved how in control she was. It was like the men were her play things.
The man on the left with the light brown hair reached down and stuck his hand into the woman's shorts. He began to masturbate her. Freya could see the outline of his hand moving furiously. The woman threw her head back. Her top lip curled.
A pulse began to twitch between Freya's legs.
Look away, she told herself. It wasn't her place to spy on them. But she couldn't. It was as if her gaze was held in place by an unseen force.
Why hadn't the men undressed the woman yet? Maybe they were saving this as a treat.
As if on cue, they turned to the woman. The darker-haired man pulled her top off over her head. She was bra-less beneath it. She had tiny milky breasts that were dominated by wine-colored nipples.
The man with the shaved head knelt down behind the woman. He kissed her on her back just before the curve of her tush. Reverently, he pulled down her jean shorts then her panties. She stepped out of them, turned to the man and gave him a coy smile.
The smile was like a button. It seemed to push something inside the men. At once, the energy in the room ratcheted up many notches. Freya's heart thumped. The men were about to fuck out the woman's brains.
The light-haired man lay on the floor with his legs spread-eagled. He got the woman to sit on her top of him facing away from with him. He thrust her cock into her slit. Freya saw the woman's mouth open in a gasp. She knew that his rod had gone in deep.
The other man stood over the woman. He grasped her shoulder and rammed his member into her mouth. He began to pump, mouth fucking her, while the other man thrust inside her pussy. The woman bounced and squirmed and gagged.
Her skin was flushed. Parts of her body were red from where the man had grabbed her. She had lost control. She could no longer dictate the speed or intensity of what the men were doing to her. Although Freya guessed that she could walk away at any time.
Just then, the dark-haired man glanced up, as he pumped inside the woman's mouth. His eyes locked with Freya's. He raised an eyebrow signalling for her to join in. For a second Freya kept staring. Then, using all of her energy, she managed to rip her gaze away from his.
In two steps, she crossed the changing room. She lunged for the door and threw herself back into the party. Oh God. What had she just seen? Those images. They were so huge and colourful that it was like they'd been burned onto her brain. She pictured the throbbing mushroom heads of the men's cocks. The arch of the woman's neck as the man had slammed inside her right up to the hilt. Freya imagined the sweet pain of it. The animal scent of sex. The slap of skin on skin.
And there had been a moment when her body had almost taken over, when she'd nearly stepped into the sauna to join them. She shook her head. She'd stopped thinking clearly. She had to get out of the party and away from this craziness to the relative calm of Das Vogel.
Bracing herself, she started to elbow her way through the crowd, pushing and jostling past the clubbers. She barely registered what she was doing. All she could think about was what she'd just seen. She stumbled left, weaving around a bare-chested man who was dancing like a nutter. Then she knocked into another man.
"Sorry," she called out.
The man stopped dancing and turned to her. A slow grin spread across his face.
"Why,” he said. “If it isn't the librarian."
Freya stared at him, confused. Then she placed him. It was the sleaze from the airport who'd approached her about the sex toys.
Sleazy or not, she'd forgotten how hot he was. He was leagues above all of the other beautiful people at the party. He'd changed out of his suit into a pair of baggy hip-hop style jeans and a tight black t-shirt that showed off his biceps. He was so beautiful that she couldn't stop looking at him.
He took hold of her arm. "You're not leaving, are you?"
&nb
sp; Freya shook him off. “Don't touch me.”
"I'm sorry,” the man said. “But you can't miss Carl Cox."
He nodded at the stage. Freya glanced toward it. Sure enough, Carl Cox was working the decks lit by a rig of lights. Sweat shone from the top of his bald head and from his bull-like neck muscles.
"I'll get you a drink," the man said.
"No tha—" Freya began.
But the man had already turned. She watched him push his way through the crowd toward the shallow area, where she guessed there was a bar.
She decided to leave. She wasn't beholden to him, especially after he'd taken so much delight in her humiliation. But deciding to leave and actually leaving were two very different things. Since she'd been in the changing room, tons more people had arrived. She was hemmed in by the crowd. Trapped. And then the music pounced on her.
She found herself moving to it, just a little. Her shoulder twitched to the beat. This twitch spread down her shoulder to her arm. She was a marionette puppet. The music controlled her, jerking her by invisible strings.
Soon, she was fully dancing. The music flowed through her. She'd never listened to techno music properly before. It had always felt so aggressive. But now she heard the melodies that underpinned by the bass. They were complex, sad yet beautiful, on the knife edge of sorrow and bliss.
She spotted the man pushing his way back toward her through the crowd. He carried two amber-colored drinks, which he held aloft, so that no one knocked into them.
He came up to her and handed her a glass.
"Thanks." She had to shout over the music. "What is it?"
"A long-island iced tea."
Freya took a sip. It was deliciously cool. Ice flooded her palate.
She expected the man to start bumping and grinding with her. But he didn't. He danced next to her facing the stage. He didn't speak and he seemed transfixed by Carl Cox. He moved with a natural grace. His movements were fluid and effortless.
The music carried on its peaks and troughs, rising and dipping then rising again until suddenly, it stopped. The lights came on. They were so harsh and bright that Freya blinked. She turned to the man. His t-shirt was plastered to his muscular body. His hair was dull with sweat.
