by Vina Jackson
Did I have a choice? This or throwing away my musical career and no doubt Dominik in the process.
‘Anyway,’ Victor said, ‘I plan to have you masked for the occasion.’
‘How tacky.’
‘Not at all, my dear. Don’t we all like rituals? You will look splendid. Black, of course, unless you have other colour preferences.’
I had a sudden vision of the woman in the cage back in New Orleans. I wasn’t even sure whether she had in fact been wearing a mask, but Victor’s throwaway mention of ritual conjured the memory and I felt a familiar twinge in my stomach.
‘Whatever,’ I blurted out.
‘So we have an agreement?’ Victor asked.
‘We do.’ My heart fell.
‘Perfect.’
It would be the one night, one of the many thousands I would now be totally free to enjoy on my own terms, I told myself. One night. And it would just be my body, not my mind or my heart. I would lock those away for the few hours it would take, away from Victor’s evil thoughts and the gaze of strangers, keep them pure. Sadly, I knew all too well that the body quickly heals and shame leaves no traces, on the outside at least. Just the one, final adventure and then I would be free and in control of my life again. Surely not too much of a price to pay. Or would it be?
‘When?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘Are you in such a hurry?’
‘No. Just want to get it over with,’ I replied.
‘In that case, you will have to moderate your enthusiasm for a little. I will let you know.’
‘Oh . . .’
I’d hoped that it could all take place before Dominik’s return. That it would be a thing of the past, as so many other things I had concealed from him, by the time we were together again.
‘I will be in touch, Summer,’ Victor declared.
‘Please—’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I will be the absolute soul of discretion,’ he added, then hung up.
All I could do now was wait.
Dominik set his luggage down and walked towards me. I’d been sitting waiting on the couch, wearing one of his shirts, the charcoal-blue Ralph Lauren one he liked me to sleep in whenever it had been too cold to sleep naked. I also had on a pair of white cotton knickers I’d bought the day before at Gap. Demure, almost innocent.
‘You’re back,’ he said, the kindest of smiles transforming the ambient sadness of his face.
‘Yes, the tour is over. Nothing on the horizon for months now,’ I said.
‘Wonderful.’
I rose to kiss him.
His lips were soft but dry. I licked them, immersing myself again in the feeling of his physical presence, his heat, his smell.
His eyes X-rayed me, full of unformulated questions I had no wish to answer right now.
‘Welcome back,’ I said.
‘You too.’
His hand drifted to my shoulder, pulled me firmly against him. I opened my mouth, but his fingers flew towards his own, intimating I should not speak a word further.
‘Shhhh.’
That familiar sensation raced through my stomach. Memories of all the silences we had shared. The silence that always followed the music. An unforced ritual that had become specifically ours. The Dominik I knew was back, and he didn’t want to know anything about the past. All that mattered was the ‘now’, us together in this room, the rest of the world shut out.
Holding me tight against him, our hearts beating in unison and just a few inches apart, his other hand moved upwards and firmly grabbed my hair in his fist. Pulled. My head moved back, following the angle of his movement, baring my throat. He approached his mouth and, with his lips, pinched the taut skin and pulled on it. I shuddered. Then his lips let go and his teeth delicately bit into the skin, not quite piercing it, testing its pliancy. At the back of my mind, I wondered if this was how a cannibal would rip out my throat, or whether the vampire Dominik might have metamorphosed into while I had been travelling would feed on my blood. My legs wobbled.
I knew his teeth would leave marks on my neck. His mark.
He lingered there, as if hesitant about biting me fully, cutting sharply into the skin and drawing blood, or just eating me in one swift, violent movement, feasting on me.
He finally released his hold on my hair and, with one swift action, tore the shirt off my chest, sending some of the buttons flying across the loft’s wooden floor.
Standing there, facing him, almost naked, I had a sudden impulse to fall down to my knees, unzip his black trousers, pull out his hard cock and impale my throat on it until I felt like gagging, play the slut I always wanted to be for him. Instead, I waited, eager to see what he would do next.
Dominik circled me and, with another pat on my shoulder, indicated for me to spin on my heels until I faced the back of the orange sofa. Then he bent me over and deliberately pulled my knickers down, leaving them bunched round my ankles. A finger tested me. In both holes. He moved my legs apart and suddenly entered me raw, his path made easier by my copious wetness. I welcomed the way his cock filled me, fitted me like a hard glove.
Right now, there was no need for ropes, restraints, ball gags, toys, though I hoped he’d have some of that in store for another occasion. All I wanted was the steadfast movement of his cock inside me, the sound of his breath as his pleasure mounted, and the feel of his balls against my buttocks every time he reached my depths.
It was New York and autumn was now approaching and Dominik was inside me and the music of his movements punctuated the rough way his fingers toyed with my arse cheeks. At that moment, I was happy. No thoughts of tomorrow. Or yesterday.
Would that time could stand still and this never change.
12
Joining the Waltz
Summer would hate this, Dominik thought, as he entered the building that Victor had arranged for the event and surveyed its interior.
The surroundings were sumptuous, and garishly so. It would likely have cost a fortune, even for one night, though perhaps it belonged to a wealthy member of his circle of acquaintances.
The building was an imposing mansion overlooking the Hudson in an area of Manhattan he had seldom ventured into, a millionaires’ row known only to the few, carpeted entirely in red in a manner that imitated royalty but only managed to be macabre, like a building in some old horror film in which all of the floors had been splashed with blood.
Ornate gold-framed mirrors lined either side of the hallway, creating an illusion of width. Dominik could see himself reflected from every angle, an unwelcome vision that made him hurry to get out of the corridor as quickly as possible.
He walked up the flight of steps at the end of the hall, which veered off in two different directions at the top with no sign notifying the guests which way they should turn. Dominik chose the left-hand path.
The door opened before he had a chance to raise his hand to the old-fashioned knocker. A young woman stood on the threshold and beckoned him inside with a graceful sweep of her hand.
She was dressed in a blood-red lingerie set, the same colour as the carpet. Rather than covering her breasts and genitals, the small pieces of fabric merely framed them, the G-string open at the crotch and the bra just a triangle with her small breasts poking through. Her brown hair was pinned up, and resting on top of her chignon was a tall red feather, which had the effect of elongating her so she looked like a very feminine giraffe. She carried a silver tray, which looked too heavy for her slight arm to hold. On top of the tray rested several rows of shot glasses.
She held the tray out to Dominik.
‘No, thank you,’ he said politely. ‘I don’t drink.’
‘Oh, no,’ replied the woman. ‘It’s not alcohol; it’s chocolate. The ancient Aztecs believed chocolate to be one of the strongest aphrodisiacs, you know.’
‘Well, if you put it like that, it would be rude not to.’
He was surprised to find that the sweet liquid was also warm, as if taken from a pot of chocolate that had been melted on t
he stove. There was a slight bite to it, a little chilli and nutmeg, he thought.
‘Delicious, thank you.’
She inclined her head in a slight nod in response.
The house was palatial, Dominik noted, looking around at the vast expanse of the area in which he now found himself.
He was pleased to see that the carpet did not run the full length of the room, but just the outside, creating a border round the central dance floor. There was in fact a couple dancing the waltz on the wooden floor, though no music was playing.
Dominik recognised them as Edward and Clarissa, the couple who had hosted the event involving Miranda. Clarissa was also dressed to match the carpet, in a floor-length red gown with a white lace ruff like a Victorian queen. He began to suspect that Victor had given out some wardrobe instructions to the other guests that he had not provided to Dominik.
Edward was dressed in full wartime regalia and looked like a military hero, or a despot, depending on your point of view.
Dominik headed for the long table at the end of the room, which was set up with champagne in buckets, rows and rows of champagne flutes, large bunches of grapes and mango cut into pieces resting on wooden platters, and even an ice sculpture, a plump cupid aiming an arrow directly into the room. Not the god of romance as many people thought, Dominik mused, but rather the god of erotic love, filling the victims of his arrows with uncontrollable desire.
He had to stifle a laugh when he noticed the chocolate fountain, probably a past gift from a well-meaning aunt who had no idea that it would end up a centrepiece at this sort of party. So that was how they kept the chocolate warm. He’d been beginning to think that Victor was some sort of magician.
‘Having a good evening?’
Dominik turned to see a Japanese woman wearing a white corset delicately patterned with tiny red flowers. In any other circumstance, he would have found the pattern appealing, but in these surroundings it made him imagine that the woman had been recently shot in the side.
‘Yes, thank you. So far at least – I’ve just arrived.’
‘Have you been to Victor’s parties before?’
‘Just the once, but it was a more informal occasion. Nothing like this.’
She picked up a glass and leaned over the table to find a bottle, exposing part of her breast and a pale-brown nipple as she did so.
‘Allow me.’
Dominik took the bottle from her and tilted it, pouring the fizzy liquid into her glass slowly so that it wouldn’t bubble over.
‘Thank you. Won’t you have a toast with me?’
‘Not unless I can find a soft drink. I don’t normally drink.’
He resolved to stop explaining himself. Why did people seem so perplexed by his choice to avoid alcohol? As if a person couldn’t have any fun at all if they weren’t leathered.
‘Probably wise in these sorts of situations.’
Dominik frowned, hunting with his eyes for an alternative. Not a party of teetotallers, judging from the beverages on offer. By the time he turned back, his companion had been swept away into the crowd by a man wearing a pair of black and gold rubber shorts and a wrestler’s mask. Dominik watched the man’s muscled back ripple as he walked and felt a brief pang of envy. Perhaps he ought to take up running, as Lauralynn had suggested, or at least make some sort of return to the athleticism of his university days.
Not that Summer seemed in the slightest interested when he gained or lost a pound. He doubted that she even noticed.
Edward interrupted his flow of thought. ‘I think we’ve met before, but I’m not sure that we were formally introduced. You were at Victor’s last little soirée, I believe?’
‘Yes, Clarissa and Edward, isn’t it? I’m Dominik.’
‘Call me Ed, please. Only Victor calls me Edward, and Clarissa when she wants to wind me up. As you can see, Victor enjoys maintaining a certain theatricality.’
Ed plucked a grape from one of the platters, dipped it into the chocolate fountain and then popped it in his mouth with a satisfied smile.
Clarissa continued the conversation. ‘He always pulls out all the stops. Apparently, he has some sort of surprise planned for us later. God knows what that will be. Do you know him well?’
‘No, not especially. We’re acquaintances, that’s all.’
‘Good. I didn’t want to cause offence if you were a friend. I don’t think he’s well liked, to be honest. People come to his parties for the spectacle, and the champagne is always good.’
‘Is this it, then? Seems a bit tame for Victor. I had expected more.’
‘I think most of the action will be taking place in the dungeon, and the playroom, once everyone has arrived and warmed up.’ She pointed to two archways in the opposite wall, both covered by thick red velvet curtains. ‘I believe they open at midnight.’
‘A dungeon and a playroom?’
‘Yes. Victor has catered for all sorts tonight. There’s a room for BDSM play with all the usual equipment, and another room for the swingers in our midst.’
‘Or the libertines, for those of us who don’t like to be called swingers,’ interrupted Ed. He had chocolate stuck to the bottom of his thin moustache.
‘Yes, dear,’ replied Clarissa, rolling her eyes. ‘So you’re new to the scene, then?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’
Dominik had never been a fan of organised swinging or BDSM parties, preferring to act out his fantasies in the privacy of either his own mind or his own home. The episodes in London when he had joined other men in evenings of excess had, in retrospect, been somewhat lacking in eroticism, just episodes of lust unbound. He’d never attended a fetish club, and had seldom watched any public fetish play besides the vision of Victor topping Miranda. At least, he had hoped that Victor was topping her, and not assaulting her. From what he knew of Victor, the reality might have been either way.
‘You’re lucky that you have all this available. When we started out, we thought we were the only two kinky people in the world.’
‘You’re not new to this, then? How did you discover it?’
Dominik’s curiosity was piqued. Perhaps it was possible to sustain a relationship in these sorts of circumstances.
‘No, old hands, both of us. We met in high school. Been married for thirty years. Started getting dull after a while, so we tried experimenting to spice things up and one thing led to another and here we are. It was harder when the kids were still living at home. Little did they know that their parents were sneaking off to the hottest underground clubs in the New York area when we booked babysitters and told them we were off to the movies. Now we have the house to ourselves and can do whatever we like.’
‘And your children . . .’ Dominik began, then swallowed his sentence back, rooting around in his mind for a polite way steer the conversation away from this uncomfortably intimate topic.
‘Did they turn out OK, you mean? Yes, they’re both lovely, though dull as dishwater. One of them ended up working as a divorce lawyer, of all things, and moved to Wisconsin. He’s back in New York now, playing trombone with an orchestra. Our daughter married the local minister’s son. God knows how that happened. They disapprove of us dreadfully, though we’re careful to keep the cat in the bag, so to speak, in case our daughter decides we’re a bad influence on the grandchildren. People are so silly, you know.’
‘Yes, I suppose they are.’
‘Oh, here he comes, the lord of the manor. Looks a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? Latex should really only be worn by the young and slender.’
Edward scowled at her. ‘Rubbish. The young and slender don’t have a monopoly on glamour. We’re proof of that, surely?’ he added with a satisfied smile.
‘Yes, quite.’
Victor was wearing a rubber ringmaster’s outfit in red, black and gold. His face had been painted like a clown’s, with smeared red lipstick around his mouth in a parody of a smile. He carried a whip in one hand and had a top hat balanced on his head at a jaunt
y angle, which he removed when he arrived in front of them and took a low bow.
‘I’m so glad you could make it,’ he said to Dominik with a snakelike smile of satisfaction.
‘Thank you for the invitation.’
‘I’m sure you will be delighted with the show I have arranged.’
‘You won’t even give us a clue what’s in store?’
‘And ruin the surprise? Never. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must greet the other guests. It’s not easy playing host, but someone’s got to do it.’
Clarissa waited until he was out of earshot before resuming their conversation. ‘He’s just absurd. Quite mad. I’m going to find out what it is he’s cooking up.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Ed asked.
‘Well, someone has to check on him. There’s a difference between kinky and psychopathic, you know. We can’t have the newbies thinking we’re all insane if he’s going to unleash some mad trick on an unwitting audience.’
She turned on her heel swiftly and disappeared through the entrance to the dungeon.
Summer had received the call from Victor four days earlier, just enough time for her to get a Brazilian-style bikini wax and have the resulting redness fade.
His timing was probably not a coincidence, she thought, as the beautician smeared the hot, thick liquid, waited a few seconds for it to dry and then tore off a strip, quickly placing her hand down on Summer’s flesh to ease the sting.
She’d heard it said that there were different types of pain. Just because a person enjoys the thwack of a flogger on their bare bottom doesn’t mean that they will be lining up to visit the dentist or take delight in the stubbing of a toe.
Summer was certainly not a masochist, sure, but nevertheless she found a visit to the bikini waxer one of life’s little pleasures. Perhaps it was the act of peeling her knickers down for a stranger, or the light touch of the girl’s soft fingers separating her lips so that she could ensure the wax went onto the right bits and didn’t tear off anything important, or perhaps it was the fact that she was really very attractive, and smelled like shampoo.
Whatever the reason, Summer found the process arousing, and that night she had lain awake while Dominik slept and pleasured herself to orgasm. For reasons that she couldn’t explain, even to herself, the thought of him lying there unaware while she masturbated gave her a thrill. It was the idea that she was doing something wrong, that she might be caught out that had turned her thoughts to sex. That and the feeling of her skin, which was now extra smooth to touch following the ministrations of the beautician.
