by Vina Jackson
Some of the others were already marching towards the path like a stream of ants in uniform motion. It was time for a slow walk back to the Ball’s base.
Yet again it was a night with little sleep as my mind and body seemed unwilling to allow me any rest. But I was serene, almost detached. By my side in the bed, Antony slept heavily, just the steady rise of his chest betraying signs of life, his hair mussed, a mild touch of sunburn colouring the top of his bare shoulders. I watched him endlessly, fearful of waking him and facing the reality that our planned separation in adjoining rooms had failed utterly, we hadn’t spent a night apart since arriving in Nevada and what I thought had been silently confirmed as a relatively casual relationship seemed to be growing in affection every day. But I wasn’t sure that I was ready for anything more than a lover. I still felt hung up on the past, as though most of me had moved on but a part of my heart still lived in the house that I had shared with Dominik in Hampstead.
Purple streaks coloured the sky outside our window as the desert awakened in profound silence. I grabbed the nearest T-shirt and a pair of flimsy silk panties and tiptoed out of the room, picking up one of my violins from the chest of drawers where I kept them on my way out.
The echoing hotel lobby, its terracotta vases, giant plants, cacti and ornaments standing in the shadows and its lights set on dim, felt like an immense museum. I opened the door to the desert and passed from the air-conditioned coolness of the interior into the muggy, rising heat of the sands. It was still bearable, even pleasant, flimsily attired as I was. I was barefoot, and knew I shouldn’t stay outside too long until the earth warmed and made my return painful for the soles of my feet.
I walked for ten minutes in a random direction, beyond the Las Vegas road and the crossroads that led to the nearby lake with its cluster of roadside casinos and the Hoover Dam. In the distance I could hear the sound of an articulated lorry roaring down the road.
Impulsively, I took a turn into the open desert, away from the slowly rising sun.
I reached a small rock formation. I squinted and their shape began to come to life, like a solid Rorschach test, alternately a mineral agglomeration of unlikely bushes and shrubbery morphing formlessly into a group of sitting lions.
With my back to the rocks and facing the immensity of the desert I unlocked my violin case and briefly pondered. Then I gently set it down and stripped. Being naked felt right. It was nothing sexual, just my natural state of being.
I looked down at my body. My small breasts stood firm, nipples still settled into a semi-permanent state of excitement after last night’s lovemaking – Antony and I had got into the habit of fucking before we fell asleep, every day without fail, and often in the mornings too. Further down, my cunt lips were puffy from use, almost plump.
I picked up the violin again, brought it up to my chin.
I knew already what I’d be playing at the Ball in a few days, a mixture of existing pieces from my repertoire tempered with a whole load of improvisations I had devised for what was initially going to be the play and which had since flowered into all sorts of unlikely melodic directions, with musical pit-stops along the way from which I could embark on further digressions, switch gears, dependent on my mood, the activities in progress around me, or the reactions of the listeners to my playing. It was mentally engineered to be both structured and loose.
But right now, I wanted to say farewell to my past. Close that solid oak door once and for all before the next chapter began.
So, I chose Vivaldi.
‘The Four Seasons’.
The music I had first played for Dominik.
The music I had last played for Dominik.
And decided this would be the final time I would ever play the piece. Enough was enough.
The bow hovered above the taut strings, my fingers at the ready.
I closed my eyes.
I began playing.
In the immense emptiness of the desert the notes emerged with crystal-like purity, the sounds rising through the air like the close heat in which I bathed, in which my naked skin soaked.
The music grabbed me by the throat, every inch of emotion choking its way through my lungs, my heart heavy as a stone, its sublime geometry rushing through my veins reaching every extremity of my body in its liberated flight.
Sweat dripped from my forehead as the sun inexorably rose. I felt the irritation of an ant winding its way up from my ankle to my knee, but resolved not to interrupt my playing and to overcome the growing discomfort caused by its pesky presence. I couldn’t move my leg without disrupting the sacred flow of Vivaldi’s immortal melodies I was so intimately wedded to. I gritted my teeth.
A wisp of breeze rose and danced across my skin. I opened my eyes again. Never missing a note.
I was alone, a no doubt incongruous vision here in the heart of the Nevada desert, naked, wielding my diminutive violin like a weapon, the sounds of my music disappearing into the air, its invisible notes blending seamlessly into the rising heat haze.
Had I ever been more alone?
The joyous tunes of Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ bounced along, my wrist animated by the inner truth of the music. My whole body was now covered, from head to toe, by a glistening sheen of sweat. The ant climbing my leg had now reached the crook of my thigh. Surely it wasn’t about to make a beeline for my swollen sex lips?
At the final minute, it diverted and trailed off across my buttock where my sensitivity somehow lost track of it, or maybe it dropped back down to the ground, after its fearless ascent of my human flesh mountain, or I had just tasted wrong to it.
My heart jumped as I segued into yet another season.
The music held me in its embrace, now totally in control, my hands and movements guided by it, a puppet with no other choice but to complete the piece, my offering to the empty skies.
I was dripping.
From everywhere.
My lungs were dry, my throat parched, my lips like old papyrus. I was vaguely aware that I had neglected to bring any water along. Or shoes. Or a hat. But no matter, I had to continue playing.
Until the final note was coaxed into life.
I was swaying.
Unsteady.
Clinging on to consciousness.
My heart heaved, my soul or whatever it was inside that functioned as my engine for living shuddered on its axis. It even felt like an orgasm, but stronger and totally asexual.
I detached myself from the world.
The music continued.
I flowed along with its slithering, clever, beautiful notes, swam down the river of emotions that flowed in its wake.
The bow attacked the strings one final time.
The world exploded.
My consciousness retreated.
I deliberately held my breath back. Testing how long I could do so without gasping.
The hot desert air stored inside my lungs was screaming to be released.
I let go.
The longest exhale of my life.
It was done.
I would not play Vivaldi’s music again.
I had no need to. It was now part of me as never before.
For the first time in ages, I became aware of the light bracelet hanging negligently around my wrist. Ever since I had realised that I had been without it in the Kentish Town sauna I had worn it throughout day and night, as if it had some kind of power that could keep me safe from myself. Dominik’s final gift.
I struggled slightly to locate its clasp and undid it.
Scratched around in the red dirt at my feet and dug a small cavity into which I dropped the bracelet and quickly shoved the dusty earth back above it and buried the memento. The desert winds would do the rest.
My hands unsteady I arranged the violin back into its battered case and closed it, abandoned my T-shirt and panties which I had someh
ow trampled into the ochre sand and stained forever and began my walk back to the Grand Desert Inn. I didn’t care if anyone saw me in my state of nudity. It was me. The way I was born, the way I loved and was made love to. Nude. Exposed. Alive.
I now felt ready for the Ball.
11
The Winged Ballet
I was running late. I grasped my violin case and took a final glance around the bedroom. It looked like a war zone, clothes scattered everywhere, bed sheets tangled in total disarray, a scene of savage devastation.
I rushed outside through the lobby and found the pullman coach waiting, engine purring away. All the other musicians were already onboard and watched me run towards it. In the distance, the sun was falling in slow motion below the mesas and the sky was an organic palette of red, oranges and purples.
The coach wheels crunched the earth of the dirt track, raising small motes of dust as we drove off.
My mind wandered back.
Since the hike, I had seen little of Antony. He had been absorbed in the final preparations for the Ball while I had been engaged in the ultimate rehearsals involving the musicians and dancers and although we continued to share a room, I barely perceived the echo of his warmth between the sheets as we both fell into bed exhausted at different hours and by the time I rose every day he was already gone.
The awkward, affectionate Antony who had wanted to verbally cement our relationship had disappeared, and he was back to his usual, somewhat distant self. Once or twice, I had lain awake desperately horny, and nuzzled into his back, hoping that he would wake up in the same mood but he invariably slept through my subtle demands and I was never disciplined enough to set my alarm earlier so that we could take advantage of an early morning together to fuck before we both set off for the day.
At least, he hadn’t begun drinking again. The mini-bar remained untouched, and since we had arrived in America, I hadn’t noticed any obvious signs of a hangover, despite the fact that the nature of the Ball’s preparations and the fickle personalities of the creative types and performers meant that he spent most of his days figuratively herding cats. I knew that his personal demons would never leave him, and I was even surer that anyone else, including me, could never hold them at bay. But I hoped that he would continue to find solace in his work, as I did, even if that meant that I would lose him to it at times.
Over the past 48 hours, the guests had been arriving, a non-stop stream of cars, 4 by 4s, coaches, buses, utility vehicles, shiny, sleek Harley-Davidson motorbikes and even a few helicopters landing in an improvised field a stone’s throw from the hotel, which had been hastily cleared and over which a latticed artificial surface had been deployed. At first a stream of newcomers dragging heavy cases, trunks and clothes racks trampled through the sands, followed by a ceaseless parade of faceless visitors until I quickly lost interest. There was something anonymous about the crowd, a faceless entity I could not focus on. I had always had the same feeling about audiences, finding it awkward to interact with them. They just ‘were’. The car park had rapidly filled out, and the cluster of vehicles and tents and sundry improvised shelters had spread at an exponential rate all around the Grand Desert Inn, like seeds bursting open in a repetitive pattern under the baking sun. Was it like this every year, as they gathered, returned to the Ball, from all points of the globe, in search of hedonism and transcendence, I wondered? What did they do during the rest of the year? Were they normal people, clerks, bank managers, housewives, idle rich or beggars who saved for twelve whole months to afford the travel to the Ball?
We drove away from the setting sun. This would be the first time I was being allowed into the Ball’s principal area of activity. The dance and musical preparations had all been restricted to the Inn’s echoing basement or varied temporary installations set up in close proximity to it. Only Antony and his construction crew and members of the Ball’s inner sanctum had travelled there, leaving daily in early morning, bound to secrecy as to what they had witnessed or been involved in.
I brought my hand up to brush a stray hair away from my face. The simple black onyx ring I was wearing on my middle finger reminded me of its presence.
‘This will allow you total access to the Ball’s zones and activities after midnight,’ Aurelia had said, slipping it onto my finger, forcing it gently past the joint. ‘That is if you decide to stay on after your actual performance.’
‘I might,’ I said to Aurelia.
‘I know you will,’ she replied.
I had so many questions for her about the nature of the event.
‘Tell me more about the Ball,’ I asked.
‘Such as?’
‘How did you first become involved?’
‘I had no choice,’ Aurelia replied. ‘I was born to the Ball.’
My blank face betrayed my lack of comprehension.
‘My mother was the Mistress of the Ball, and I had no alternative,’ she continued. ‘I had to continue in her footsteps.’
I was still puzzled.
‘And it takes place every year? Or two?’
‘We try to. On occasions, we skip a year. It depends on the amount of preparations involved, the location chosen, the quantity of work required.’
‘And you and Andrei run it?’
‘No, there is a whole support organisation behind it. So many people are involved in aiding it, bankrolling the project, our activities.’
I remembered the private club in New Orleans and Madame Denoux running it, and the intimation that this was just one of many such establishments.
‘How long …’
Aurelia interrupted me. ‘The Ball goes back centuries. Even those of us who are the most intimately involved with it remain unclear about its origins. Legend has it began in ancient Egypt even …’
‘Really?’
‘But things change,’ she added. ‘We try and move with the times. Innovate. But certain traditions remain.’
I had a thousand further questions but Aurelia put her fingers to my lips.
‘Patience, Summer. The answers will come in their own time.’
The conversation had then moved on to more practical ground and my concepts for the musical overture I had been commissioned to put together for this year’s Ball.
I wanted to ask her more. About the hints of magic and the supernatural that appeared to surround her and the Ball, the impossible events I thought I had witnessed as well as experienced since I had been in contact with her, the force fields of improbability, the seductive atmosphere that trailed in her wake. I was about to open my mouth once more as our dialogue came to a conclusion and I still wished to query matters, but she read my mind.
‘It’s all illusions, my dear,’ Aurelia said and left the room. But there had been a glint in her eye, as if she was toying with me.
I shook myself out of my reverie. The coach slowed. The dirt track we had been following had come to a natural ending. We were in the middle of nowhere.
We had arrived.
Stepping off the coach, the evening’s heat slammed into my face as I noted with amazement that the whole desert as far as the eye could see was now dotted with multi-coloured tents and canopies, fragile temporary constructions festooned with banners and streamers, sturdy flag-bearing towers, rigid poles planted into the hard soil joined by a spiderweb jungle of meshes and a scattering of wired, gigantic rigs loaded with generators and pieces of futuristic machinery. It felt as if a giant, multi-tentacular circus had invaded the land and was intent on spreading to all corners.
Madame Denoux awaited us. As usual she wore a long velvet dress but this time it was a deep bronze colour and flowed like a river of glittering gold as she welcomed us and ushered us towards a large tent, out of reach of the sun’s fading hammer and we briskly followed her in, stepping in an orderly file through the double flaps in the heavy material into a cooler world. The scores of g
enerators were visibly doing their job well, feeding the air-conditioning units and making all the activities that would take place here possible despite the harshness of the conditions.
‘This is where you will change into your costumes and have your make-up applied,’ she announced, indicating a row of wall to wall metal stands groaning under the weight of assorted clothing. An untidiness of deep cardboard boxes lay on the ground in front of the multitude of hangers, overflowing with shoes, scarves, and sundry accessories. On the other side of the vast, low-ceilinged tent a line of chairs and small tables with mirrors awaited, by the side of which a half dozen youngsters clad in demure maid’s uniforms stood, to help us both dress or assist with the make-up, each with their hair braided all the way down to their waists, all matching each other. Their facial features were each their own, but they moved and spoke in exactly the same way, like a sextuplet of non-identical twins. Instinctively I tried to guess their gender. They were wearing lace-trimmed long shorts rather than skirts, and had a gracefulness to them that suggested femininity yet lacked a sense of obvious girlishness.
‘Are they girls, or boys?’ I whispered to Giselle.
She looked at me as though the question was totally inane.
‘I don’t think they’ve decided yet,’ she replied.
For various reasons, we had been unable to have a proper dress rehearsal at the base camp and this would be the first time we would actually see the costumes we were meant to be performing in. Not just us musicians, but also the troupe of lithe if silent dancers we had been demonstrating our music to, whose choreography had been evolving alongside our own improvisations.
Lauralynn brushed by me, heading straight towards the clothes. ‘And about time too,’ she remarked.
Supervised by a glowering Madame Denoux, our little helpers buzzed around, handing us outfits, shoes, belts, ribbons, perfectly drilled and efficient, intent on assembling the jigsaw of combinations they had evidently prepared for. Each item of clothing on the metal hangers appeared to be numbered, our sizes and roles previously logged so we could be matched up with uncanny precision. The shoes unerringly slid onto our feet like Cinderella’s slipper, neither too tight or too loose, every outfit designed for our curves and angles, inch perfect with unerring exactitude.