Eighty Days White

by Vina Jackson

  I was flattered that Dagur had thought of me. I’d imagined that he must have a slew of blonde-haired, nymphlike admirers who he would turn to first to hold his hand.

  ‘Hi, I’m Grayson,’ said the photographer in a chirpy voice as we arrived. His eyes landed on my teardrop tattoo, but he didn’t remark upon it, and I liked him immediately.

  I sipped a coffee and watched as Grayson set up the lights and shifted equipment around. For half an hour, following the initial set of Polaroids, Grayson shot away at great speed, circling Dagur like a buzzing bee, varying the pauses and instructions. Throughout, Dagur’s smile was strained and fixed, his discomfort at being in the eye of the lens all too obvious.

  ‘You have to relax, man,’ Grayson said.

  ‘How do I manage that?’

  ‘Just do something that feels natural,’ Grayson suggested. He didn’t blink an eyelid as Dagur lifted his arms overhead and pulled off his long-sleeved T-shirt, then unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans and peeled them down his legs and over his feet and tossed his clothes in a heap to the side.

  Dagur winked at me and then at the photographer, his sense of mischief relaxing him, his tenseness disappearing by the minute.

  Grayson smiled. ‘If that’s what it takes,’ he commented.

  ‘It does, a hell of a lot,’ Dagur said. ‘I’ll trust you and our manager to see that nothing compromising emerges from this, though.’

  ‘You have my word for it,’ the photographer said, resuming his dance around Dagur, who was now looser and less rigid.

  Of course I had seen Dagur naked dozens of times before, but I’d never really observed him like this. Usually, when we undressed in front of each other, it was a matter of hastily tearing off clothes while embracing or rushing to dress again in the morning and hurry off to rehearsal or work. Undressing was never a ritual like it was with Leonard, one layer peeled slowly off before the next, as if each item of clothing represented another boiled-down emotion or inhibition removed, bringing us closer together one piece of fabric at a time, naked in mind as well as body.

  But as Grayson focused a spotlight on the skin of Dagur’s chest, I found myself evaluating him in a whole new light. Despite his powerful shoulders and the rippling muscles that spread across his back and torso, he looked strangely vulnerable when motionless and unaroused. His cock hung short and soft, nestling between his legs in a frame of dark hair. Weak. Fragile.

  I leaned back in my chair and did not bother to politely hide how much I was enjoying watching Dagur caught in the glow of the camera lights like an insect under the glare of a microscope. As he responded to Grayson’s instructions, I felt my nipples hardening and my panties beginning to dampen. I was grateful. With Dagur unclothed and me clothed and viewing the spectacle from afar, it was easy to fantasise that I had orchestrated the whole thing and now had my man trapped in the palm of my hand and subject to my every whim.

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Dagur asked as Grayson disappeared into another room to change his camera battery.

  He slipped his hand under my singlet and gave my breast a squeeze. I hadn’t worn a bra that morning, on Dagur’s advice. If I was going to have any skin photographed, then it was better if my flesh did not sport the deep-red lines that often appeared in response to the constriction of underwired lingerie.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, playfully slapping his hand away. ‘Did I say you could do that?’

  ‘Not interrupting, am I?’ Grayson joked as he returned to the room just as Dagur was removing his hand from under my shirt.

  I hadn’t paid the photographer much attention earlier. He’d been friendly enough, but with the cool detachment of a professional who was simply doing a job. He’d seemed to blend into his equipment so that it was easy to forget that he was even human and not just an extension of one of his cameras.

  Now, as I felt a warm flush heat my skin and Dagur’s naked flank so close to my body, I looked at Grayson in a whole new light. He was in good shape too, I thought as I peered at his torso and tried to imagine how he looked under his clothes. He wore a tight T-shirt that stuck to him like a second skin and indicated he was lean beneath it, though not as muscular as Dagur who worked out regularly for the sake of the band’s sex appeal. His jeans were low cut and too big for him, they sat loosely on his hips, displaying the occasional flash of his designer-branded boxer shorts when he moved.

  By the time Grayson had asked Dagur if he wanted any shots together with me, my nipples were as hard as rocks and I was momentarily too embarrassed to remove my shirt as the effect that the two men were having on me would be immediately obvious.

  Grayson did not appear to notice my rising ardour. His cool demeanour only served to increase the heat that was unfurling steadily like a flower blooming inside my body.

  ‘That’s great,’ the photographer said. ‘Great. Please, carry on, I’m just adjusting the lights.’

  Dagur was sitting down on a striped black-and-white stool holding a pair of drum sticks and I slid behind him and straddled his back.

  ‘God,’ he said, craning his head around to catch my eye. ‘You’re wet.’

  My pussy slid against the skin of his back as I moved closer against him and tightened the grip of my thighs around his waist.

  His cock began to harden against my calf and, suddenly aware of the intimacy of our situation and the gaze of Grayson behind the lens of his camera, I started to giggle.

  ‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ Grayson called out, in a relaxed voice. ‘Do what comes naturally.’

  The temptation was too much for me. I didn’t just want to imagine that I had Dagur trapped between my legs, a captive to his arousal, I wanted to have his image captured that way. I got down on my hands and knees in front of him and started to suck his cock. Forced him to lose control.

  What would Liana think of me now? I wondered and smiled to myself, as much as I could smile with my mouth full. The lights continued to flash around us and I waited until I could feel Dagur about to explode in my mouth and then I leaped to my feet and took him by the hair and held him by the scruff of the neck as I turned to face the camera.

  Grayson went mad then, snapping and flashing excitedly as I felt my face bathed from within with heat and emotion and Dagur dropped to the ground in front of me. He was growling with the pain of having the rise of his orgasm interrupted right before its release and I shook with the thrill of the power that I held over him.

  It was then that I noticed the bulge in the photographer’s trousers and lost my mind entirely.

  ‘Put the camera down,’ I instructed.

  Grayson obeyed as if I was leading him by an invisible chain.

  ‘Come here.’

  He stepped towards me and I took hold of his crotch and squeezed.

  ‘I want both of you,’ I said. ‘Now.’

  ‘Whatever you say, young lady,’ Grayson replied, as he fell to his knees.

  5

  Eighty Days of She

  Dagur stirred.

  His left leg was draped across my midriff as we all lay in a tangle of limbs across the patchwork spread of blankets and multicoloured sheets scattered across the studio floor. I turned on my side and came face to face with Grayson’s elbow. I was sandwiched between the two men. Brushing sleep away like cobwebs from my mind, I gathered my wits and the night we had spent together came rushing back to me.

  If Liana had affectionately called me a slut on the phone, then I was definitely one now, I reflected with a wry, self-satisfied smile. Two men in the same evening, at the same time.

  But the thought didn’t drag the slightest feeling of guilt or embarrassment to the forefront of my thoughts. On the contrary, I felt elated, fulfilled. It was an uncommon feeling for me.

  A sentiment of freedom I couldn’t recall experiencing before.

  I shifted imperceptibly, hoping not to wake either Dagur or Grayson, who both seemed to be sleeping like innocents, the soft and firm cushion of their flesh hemming
me in, protecting me in a dormant and exhilarating embrace.

  I dived back with relish into my memories of the preceding night, poring forensically over it, gestures, rare words, caresses, wonderful excesses, over and over, as if I was searching for some form of justification for my uninhibited actions. How, at times, my eyes closed and, swimming in a whirlpool of sensations, I had deliberately tried to guess which of the two men was inside me by his insistent rhythm and muted sounds, or when both had been playing me simultaneously in pleasingly unholy combinations and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world, their sexual alliance punctuating the ever-flowing rise of my arousal like master craftsmen at work, turning the mechanics of sex into a meticulously constructed work of art.

  A pang of cramp began its insidious invasion of one of my trapped feet and I was obliged to adjust my position between the men’s drowsy bodies. One of them groaned and I felt his breath in my ear. I knew it was Dagur. I had become familiar with the steps of his awakening over the past few months. Soon, he would want to stretch his limbs to every corner of the improvised bedding in which we had found ourselves and would scratch his scalp a couple of times before opening his eyes wide, coughing to clear his throat, and, hey presto, he would be ready to get up and face the new day. Unlike me, who could spend hours on end, dozing, daydreaming, lazily lingering between the sheets, he was a person who rose instantly, as if spending an extra minute than was necessary in bed was a diabolical waste of time.

  Grayson was still inert on my other flank.

  Dagur began to stretch, his elbow dug into my side. I winced.

  His movements dragged the sheet that was covering us away to the side and Grayson and I were unceremoniously uncovered. He was lying on his stomach, his square buttocks fully exposed.

  ‘What a sight for sore eyes.’

  The woman’s voice came from behind us but I hadn’t heard her walk into the studio. I turned my head in her direction.

  It was She.

  She was wearing an exquisite form-fitting silk kimono in powerful primary shades of red and pink, like an explosion of colour in the geometrical drabness of the photographic space.

  Dagur dragged himself up on his elbows and faced her, oblivious of his nudity.

  She gazed at him, her eyes lingering with appreciation on the spectacle of his long, soft cock flopping against the side of his thigh as he sat there with legs impudently opened, sustaining her examination. Grayson kept on sleeping.

  Her eyes then turned towards me.

  ‘You I know,’ She said. ‘So who’s this hunk? Your boyfriend or one of Grayson’s rough-hewn models?’

  I was taken by surprise and dumbfounded.

  Dagur rose to full height, looked around the studio to see where his clothes might be.

  ‘I’m Dagur. From the Holy Criminals. Grayson has been commissioned by our management to take pictures of the band. Lily is a friend of mine. And you are?’

  She smiled enigmatically.

  ‘I see dear Grayson is still out cold in dreamland. He sleeps like a baby after a good fuck. I live with him,’ she declared.

  Still stark naked, Dagur stepped over to her and formally shook her hand.

  Back at the club, many of us had endlessly speculated and gossiped about She’s ‘civilian’ life. She had always been a source of fascination for most of us, haughty, imperious, beautiful in a terribly cold and remote way, with hints of abominable cruelty lingering around her persona, whether in her stern dominatrix outfits or in functional, businesslike day-to-day clothing when she arrived some evenings and we caught sight of her before she changed and assumed her authoritarian mistress of ceremonies role. We knew she was not the owner of the club – two middle-aged hedge fund investors who would often wear drag on their rare visits to the place were – but she acted as if she did, and her word was gospel.

  So was she Grayson’s wife, companion, mistress, domme even?

  My mind was reeling, not least because she knew who I was already and now loomed above me as I lay there naked next to the uncovered body of her man. There was little doubt about what had happened during the previous night.

  But She didn’t appear to be angry in the slightest. In fact, there was a hint of amusement on her perfectly painted lips.

  She read my thoughts and reassured me.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Lily. He’s allowed to play. With whoever and however many times he wishes. I’m not the jealous type. It’s not that sort of relationship.’

  ‘You know each other?’ Dagur asked, slipping back into his jeans. He never bothered with underwear.

  ‘My evening job at the fetish club,’ I explained. ‘We work together.’

  ‘Quite a coincidence,’ he said, now pulling his T-shirt on.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t realise what time it was already. I have rehearsals. Out in Maida Vale.’

  ‘I can call you a cab,’ She suggested.

  ‘That would be great.’

  He looked at me on the floor. ‘You’ll be all right, Lily?’

  ‘Of course she will,’ She said, holding her mobile phone up to her lips and ordering Dagur’s cab. ‘I can look after her. Don’t you worry.’

  He was out of the door a few minutes later, leaving me with She and the still-sleeping Grayson. I pulled a sheet over our bodies, blushing under She’s insistent gaze.

  ‘Your musician seems nice,’ She said. ‘Had I known, I might have joined you all. Could have been great fun.’

  I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘So, was it good for you?’ She continued.

  ‘Hmmm … actually … yes,’ I stammered.

  She smiled broadly.

  I couldn’t help but warm to her now. It was as if she had suddenly unfrozen and was human again and not a remote ice goddess dictating her terms from faraway poles. She almost seemed glad I had slept with her man now that she knew the sex had been fulfilling and pleasurable. And the addition of Dagur to the equation lent a hedonistic touch to the whole improvised affair she clearly heartily approved of.

  She stepped towards us, extended her hand and ruffled my hair, which I was allowing to grow long again, although it would take an age to reach the same length I’d enjoyed before Liana and I had succumbed to temptation and cut it in a bid to renew ourselves. She stubbed a bare toe in Grayson’s ribs.

  ‘Hey, Gray, wakey-wakey,’ She whispered. Then, to me, ‘There’s a shower in the room over there.’ She pointed to a door at the far end of the photographic studio.

  I rose. She was almost a head or more taller than I was.

  Grayson was waking up.

  He wiped the sleep away from his eyes, saw me as I gingerly walked away towards the far door and looked up at She.

  ‘Hi, you …’

  ‘Good morning, Gray.’

  From the corner of my eye, I saw her kneel down to his level and kiss him, while her hand wandered down to his crotch and grabbed his genitals and squeezed them.

  ‘Ouch,’ he complained.

  ‘Just checking everything is still in working order,’ She said, and squeezed harder, insolently demonstrating that she was in charge. Grayson blanched. ‘For now,’ she added.

  I’d reached the bathroom door, and felt discretion was now the better part of valour. As the water came gushing out of the showerhead, it obscured any sounds that might filter through from the adjacent studio.

  Whatever the curious vibe circulating between Grayson and She, I felt exuberant. Liberated. It was as if I had thrown an invisible set of chains to the four winds and freed myself.

  I no longer felt any sense of jealousy knowing that I wasn’t the only girl in Dagur’s life, or that, as far as Grayson was concerned, I was just an additional plaything, a pleasing distraction. Knowing emotions were no longer on the menu gave me an infinite sense of freedom. I would enjoy the men, enjoy the sex, live for the moment, seize the day and all those clichés. N
ow I could genuinely try to forget Leonard. I would live my own life, embrace hedonism. Be real. Find myself even.

  By mid-morning we had enjoyed copious cups of extra-strong, invigorating coffee and one of Grayson’s assistants, a cadaverous young man clad all in black with a bulbous nose and shaven-headed, had run out to the high street and returned with a bag of hot croissants straight from the local patisserie’s oven which all three of us scoffed with unfaked appetite. By the time I had emerged from the bathroom, whatever She and Grayson had been up to was over, although his face was pale and drawn, which it hadn’t been when I had left them after he had awakened. I noticed that She’s features were as cool, salon-tanned, calm and collected as ever.

  She declared she had to go and do some paperwork at the club, and when I suggested I should leave with her, she protested and insisted I stay at the studio, that there was no rush for me to leave. She would be back after lunch and wanted to talk and maybe, in the meantime, I could help Grayson out with a project of his. She didn’t say how. I had the day off from the Denmark Street music store, so I agreed. I was intrigued to hear what She wanted to discuss with me.

  ‘I didn’t realise you worked at the club,’ Grayson said, shortly after She’s departure. I was standing in the main room of the studio, glancing idly at some of the prints hung on the white walls: waif-like models in absurd, unpractical fashions; well-known celebrities with grins from ear to ear, and images of the bleak façades of derelict buildings in the rain. One of his assistants had now tidied up and there was no longer any trace of improvised bedding, or evidence of the night’s frolics.

  ‘I’m only there part-time, a couple or nights or so, so we’ve seldom spoken.’

  ‘She can be distant and cold if she doesn’t know you well,’ Grayson remarked.

  ‘How long have you been together?’ I ventured to ask.