Eighty Days White

by Vina Jackson

  With bad timing, there was no work at the fetish club for a few weeks while the premises were being redecorated, so all my evenings were free and business at the store was slow, so I had all the time in the world to spend with my contaminated thoughts, allowing every tiny epiphany I had shared with Leonard to simmer away: the way his fingers had drawn a lingering trail of saliva across the flowers of my tattoo as he solemnly traced them that time he had undressed me in a hotel room that looked over the Heathrow approach road and we then fucked to the rhythm of the passing cars roaring by on the motorway right below; the tremulous, warm ripple of his breath as his mouth approached my nipples; the pressure of his fingers holding my arse cheeks apart as he rode me from behind; the worlds of silence that often peppered our conversations. It was like a dam of memories bursting, and what had once been intensely pleasurable was now metamorphosing, one steady step at a time, into pain when I evoked it.

  I finally got through to Liana. She was still living in Brighton, but was now no longer involved with Nick and she hinted that she had moved on to another relationship, although she was somewhat secretive about it. She had found a job working for a local firm of lawyers and, having discovered, as I had, that English Lit degrees were thirteen to the dozen and no great help in finding employment, was contemplating some additional legal studies. I really felt I needed to talk to someone, and Liana had once been my closest confidante. We agreed I’d take the train down to the coast the next Saturday morning.

  There was a steady drizzle colouring the day grey as I stepped off the train and left the station. Liana had moved into a bedsit in Hove and had explained how to reach it by public transport, but I elected to take a cab. The travelling with Leonard had given me a taste for creature comforts.

  Seeing Liana was a shock. Her once lustrous brown hair was bedraggled, as if she had not combed it for days, and her features sunk. We shared a similar pale complexion, but today she looked like a Halloween rag doll.

  ‘Going through a bit of a bad patch,’ she said, noting the look of dismay on my face.

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘And there I was hoping coming to see you would bring me some cheer.’

  ‘Join the happy-go-lucky club,’ she remarked as we walked upstairs to the kitchen for an injection of caffeine.

  ‘A man?’ she enquired.

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘You know me, I’m psychic.’ She attempted a feeble smile.

  My heart sank. Exchanging bad-luck stories was not my idea of a comforting weekend with a mate.

  As it turned out, our stories were quite different. I was no longer with Leonard, while Liana was still navigating the ragged edges of an on–off relationship with a man who, it appeared, was also older than her. I was too vulnerable to admit to her how much older than me Leonard had been, and she was similarly non-specific, although I guessed her guy was in his early forties. That was about the only thing in common with our stories.

  If I had thought my own tale of woe was special, I was unprepared for hers.

  ‘He’s a dom,’ Liana said.

  I knew it.

  ‘A good one?’ I asked.

  ‘In some ways.’

  She explained to me a little of the dynamic that she shared with her dom, whose name she refused even to mention. Perhaps she thought that I would report him to the police. As she told me more, I thought that I probably would report him to the police, but I’d rather skin him alive myself first.

  ‘I thought Nick was a dom too?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Your dom.’

  Liana sighed.

  ‘That was the problem. I thought so too. But I didn’t really understand myself either then, it was all so new …’

  ‘So Nick’s not a dom? What about all the rope and stuff?’

  I remembered that crazy night when we had ourselves tattooed and her encounter with Nick and what I had been a witness to. How she had been tied up and used so roughly and the ecstatic look that had spread across her features as Nick had enjoyed her response, and how I had briefly realised this was the real Liana I was seeing in action, a stranger whose deep-seated desires and motivations were so different to mine.

  Although we still remained in touch, our visits and then our phone calls had gradually became fewer and fewer and I realised that we had slowly begun to drift apart after that night. Even if my education in the avenues of sexual tastes had broadened since then, we’d never quite managed to patch things up between us – perhaps because we had never talked about it.

  It was complicated, but then as I’d grown and had a serious relationship of my own, I’d come to realise that few things are straightforward.

  ‘Yes,’ Liana continued to explain. ‘Nick liked rope. He’s an artist. He thought rope was pretty. But that was about it.’

  ‘It looked pretty intense to me.’

  ‘Yeah, but you were high, Lily, and had never seen anything like it before. It really wasn’t that big a deal.’

  ‘So you’re into other stuff besides rope? And Nick isn’t? That’s why you broke up?’

  ‘I guess that’s the short version.’

  ‘We have all day. Why don’t you tell me the long version?’ I slipped out of my chair and flicked the kettle on again.

  ‘Nick didn’t enjoy hurting me. Or even just making me uncomfortable. He’s really quite a softie.’

  ‘You wanted him to hurt you?’

  ‘I am submissive after all. You may as well get used to it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not judging you. Just trying to understand.’

  ‘I’m not really into pain per se. But I am into power play. The D/s dynamic.’

  I nodded, encouraging her to continue. I’d seen people playing at the clubs, but hadn’t actually got to know any couples intimately so wasn’t totally familiar with the mindset behind the sex.

  ‘It’s in the trust bond between two people, you see. The spanking, flogging, all of that is just how it manifests itself physically … but all kinds of other things can be involved. Throat fucking, fire play, hot wax, needles, electro torture …’

  A wicked smile crossed her face when she saw me wince. The old Liana that I knew was hidden away in there somewhere beneath her glum exterior. She still loved to shock.

  ‘That all sounds painful.’

  ‘Nah. Not when you do it right. A good dom warms their sub up first, so by the time you get to the harder stuff it’s not bad, or painful, unless you want it to be. You should give it a go sometime. You do work in a fetish club after all.’

  ‘It’s not really my thing.’

  ‘You never know until you try. And some things aren’t what they seem. Fire, for instance, feels like a warm hug. And wax is quite cosy, so long as you use the right candles so it’s not too hot.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I wasn’t convinced. ‘But what do you get out of it? Just the sensation alone?’

  ‘Not exactly. There’s something almost spiritual in it. When you find the right person, and you really let yourself go, it brings on a sort of trance. And it’s so freeing, to leave all the responsibility in someone else’s hands, to be allowed to be so totally uninhibited like that. To enjoy things that people say shouldn’t be enjoyed. To play with danger. You must have seen it at the club. Don’t you ever let yourself go?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then you haven’t lived. When he pulls my hair, spits in my face, it takes every thought out of my head. Every worry. It’s like I’ve been peeled back and he has my soul sitting in his palm, like a butterfly. As if he’s really seeing me. Not all the bullshit that I’ve built up over the years. The fake confidence and the bravado. It’s like he’s seeing the real me. And then the aftercare, when I’m totally broken down and he pulls me into his lap and cradles me like a child …’

  The hot tea burned my throat when I took too big a gulp. Liana was waxing lyrical and now had a slightly dreamy expression on her face. As much as I was glad that she felt able to confide in me about all of this, it creeped me out a littl
e. Kinky people could be very intense sometimes.

  ‘What’s gone wrong, then? If it’s so great, why the long face?’

  ‘It worked with Nick and I for a while. I think I was born submissive. I’ve always been this way. And he was the first to bring it out of me. Initially it was great, and I loved it. But after a while I started to want more. Things that he couldn’t give me.’

  ‘He didn’t like the harder stuff? Couldn’t he just do it anyway, for you?’

  ‘We tried that for a while. Didn’t really work though. There’s a difference between someone using you because they really want to and because they know you want them to. It switched everything around. I felt like I was topping from the bottom all the time. And I knew he wasn’t really into it. So then we agreed that I could play with other people. Just to get that release.’

  ‘And he got jealous?’

  She stirred another teaspoon of sugar into her tea. I’d watched her dissolve five spoonfuls in her mug so far, and she was mainlining gingernuts one after the other. Liana was on a sugar binge.

  ‘Not exactly. It’s not uncommon to have more than one play partner. I’d go to the clubs and whatnot regularly, and be flogged by the Dungeon Master, or people we knew who were into it. It was a release for them, and for me. Nick wasn’t jealous. But as I stopped seeing him as my dom, my feelings changed. Then we started to bicker. And then I met someone else.’

  ‘The guy that you’re seeing now?’

  ‘No, one of his friends, actually. We only saw each other a few times. But just clicked instantly. Have you ever had that with someone? That immediate connection? Like love at first sight, but not love.’

  I thought of Leonard and the way it had felt as though we’d known each other for ever as soon as we met. The way that he’d known exactly how to touch me, without any instruction.

  ‘Yes. I know what you mean.’

  ‘His name was Alice.’

  ‘Funny name for a guy,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she laughed. ‘That was how we got talking, actually, because he reminded me of you. I know how you still love Alice Cooper, even if you tried to pretend not to … He spelled it differently. American. A-L-Y-S-S. But I called him Alice. We had some amazing sessions together. So intense. Perfect, you know …’

  She was getting that far-away look in her eyes again. Sub-space, I had heard it called in the club, when people went into a trance while they were really being flogged or tied up. Liana hadn’t had a tendency to space out before. I wondered if unleashing her submissive side had made her more dreamy in general.

  ‘But Alyss moved away,’ she continued. ‘Back to America. He was only in the UK for a few weeks on holiday. These sorts of relationships get so intense so quickly. Because of the level of trust and the communication involved. It’s like you have a bond that no one else can really understand or appreciate. Like you’re alone together on your own island.’

  Again I thought of Leonard, and how the privacy that we both imposed on our relationship because of the age difference made us closer. Because we were sharing a secret.

  ‘Makes sense.’ I nodded.

  ‘Alyss encouraged me to move on. Find a new play partner. And I did. And I was trying to get over him so I jumped into it a bit quicker than I should have. Played hard. Pretended I could handle things that I couldn’t really. I wanted to be the tough girl, the strong one. To be invincible. So I couldn’t be hurt again. And I met the guy I’m seeing now who likes to play hard but sometimes too hard. And he won’t stop. And now he wants to control everything, and I don’t like it, but I can’t seem to get out of it, and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Oh, honey,’ I said, jumping up and putting my arm around her as tears began to leak down her face and she briskly brushed them away. ‘You’ve always been strong. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone.’

  She buried her head in my shoulder and sobbed.

  In contrast, the story of my encounter with Leonard and its commonplace outcome paled. I had meant to tell Liana everything, but in the end I just said I’d broken up with someone. My misery seemed pathetic next to hers.

  We spent most of the weekend drowning our sorrows, hopping between familiar haunts from our student years and window shopping, sneering at clothes we could neither afford nor would ever wear, and the women crowding the Brighton streets who could. Not that our superiority over them was any consolation to our rumpled distress.

  On a drunken impulse, shortly before I was due to catch my mid-afternoon train back to London on Sunday, we agreed to cut each other’s hair. I trimmed Liana’s to pageboy effect and she savaged mine until I had a boyish bob that barely reached my shoulders. Gazing at myself in the spotty mirror of her bathroom afterwards I barely recognised myself.

  ‘Not too short?’ Liana asked me.

  ‘It’ll grow back,’ I said. ‘You?’

  She brushed her hands through her scalp.

  ‘Either he’ll kill me or he’ll find a way to punish me for doing it,’ she said. ‘He always says he loves my long hair and I’m not to touch it.’

  Her face had gone deathly pale.

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, shrugging. ‘He’ll get over it.’

  Back in London, Neil was similarly unsympathetic to my plight.

  ‘It’s a bit creepy, Lily,’ he replied, when I told him I had been involved with an older man.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just is.’

  ‘Try and explain why to me?’ I insisted.

  ‘He’s … old enough to be your dad. Don’t you ever look down while you’re … you know … and think … ?’ He was carefully trying to choose the right words to express his indignation.

  ‘No, I don’t think anything of the sort. Leonard is not my father. He’s just a man who happens to be a bit older than me.’

  ‘A bit older!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s more than twice your age. And … Leonard, that’s an old man’s name.’

  I laughed out loud, confronted by Neil’s prejudices.

  ‘You just don’t understand. If the attraction is mutual, age is neither here nor there.’

  ‘But …’ he spluttered.

  ‘Anyway, it’s over now and I can see you’re clearly not willing to provide me with a shoulder to cry on.’ I slipped off the barstool.

  ‘Lily!’

  ‘Fuck you, Neil.’

  He’d changed. He wasn’t the Neil that I knew any longer, so it was easy to walk away. Nowadays he spent more and more time at work and each time we saw each other he looked more like an advertising executive and less like my old friend. Tonight he’d arrived in a sharp new suit with his tie half loosened and I’d briefly imagined tearing it off him and tethering him to the chair with it to show him that he wasn’t all that just because he worked in the West End.

  Neil had been no help. It was just me and my memories, good old Lily and her sadness. I knew I would manage. Time would pass by and the image of Leonard’s face would become more and more unclear as his features faded. Hopefully the feelings he had evoked would also grow fainter and life would continue. Just a blip, I thought. I was determined to make a go of things, and if Leonard had encouraged me to see others, like Liana’s man Alyss had, to extravagantly sample life and its box of delights and what it had to offer while I was still young, I would. Not that I felt young; right now I felt like a million years old.

  I’d seen a Holy Criminals gig advertised in Time Out and, on a whim, tried to get a ticket but it was sold out. When I mentioned it to Jonno at the shop, he told me he knew someone in their management’s office and volunteered to give her a call to try to get me on the guest list, although he joked that I’d never expressed any interest in the band until their drummer had come into the shop with his Icelandic buddies.

  I arrived at the venue with my warpaint on – dark-purple lipstick, thick black eyeliner and short hair gelled – and wearing leather from top to bottom alongside my Do
c Marten boots that Leonard had never liked. My name was on the list at the door as promised, and I was even allowed a plus one, although I had come alone. Jonno was not a fan of the controversial Viggo Franck and his band either.

  I was even given an all-access badge, which allowed me to visit backstage.

  I noticed Viggo immediately, all wild hair and tight trousers. He was in a corner, surrounded by women lapping up every one of his dubious witticisms. I moved to the other end of the Green Room, where the drinks were generously laid out on a long table, with fruit, meats and cheese in abundance. I was clumsily balancing my plastic glass of red wine and a plate in which I had piled up crisps, nuts and an egg-and-cress sandwich, when someone brushed against me. I turned round.

  ‘I like your hair short.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d recognise me.’

  ‘I never forget a teardrop,’ Dagur said.

  I was allowed to watch the whole gig from the stage wings with some of the other hangers-on. The set was powerful and theatrical, even if the music still wasn’t on my precise wavelength.

  Afterwards, Viggo retreated to his dressing room with a couple of tall short-skirted blondes in his wake. Dagur, still dripping with sweat, shirtless and exhibiting a splendid tattoo of a horse carved dark and deep into the taut skin of his back, approached me and winked. There was nothing sleazy about the way he did so, it was just a complicit way of smiling at me.

  Nevertheless, I moved closer to him and, with slow deliberation, ran my hand over his brow. He kissed me. His lips were firm and demanding and when I leaned into his arms, he responded by placing just one hand lightly on each of my hips and holding me still so that he could continue to concentrate on pleasuring my mouth. He didn’t try to grope me or take advantage of his position too soon, and his way of keeping me simultaneously aroused but also at arm’s length attracted me like a moth to a flame.

  The next morning I woke up in his bed. He had turned the heating on full and when I blinked my eyes open to welcome in the day, he pulled the covers off the bed leaving me naked and exposed to his wandering eye as I stretched lazily across his futon mattress. His apartment was practically bereft of furniture and the enormous low bed with its crisp white sheets and black walnut frame dominated the whole room.