Autumn

by Vina Jackson

  My toe stubbed against a metal step.

  ‘Fuck,’ I muttered. I’d been too engrossed in the world around me to notice that I had reached a staircase before I walked straight into it.

  I slipped my shoes off and gripped them by the heels with one hand, while steadying myself on the handrail with the other. Whatever lay at the top, it wasn’t another one of the Ball’s ‘activity rooms’, I was sure of that. They would have laid out a glass elevator, or a velvet covered escalator, or maybe even a magic carpet. Not this ordinary, cold metal that felt like something out of an industrial warehouse or a mechanical workshop.

  The steps led to a short hallway with a doorway at the end of it. I knocked gently and then pushed the door open.

  It was a large, brightly lit office packed with video screens and computer equipment, like something from a spy movie depicting the headquarters of the secret service. I recognised Antony by the shape of his shoulders and the back of his head, sitting in a padded leather swivel chair and intently watching several monitors set up in front of him. Occasionally he typed commands into a keypad, pressed buttons or flicked switches that were located on the elaborate control system in front of him.

  He turned when he heard the door open.

  ‘Summer,’ he said. He waved me over. He was smiling, and seemed pleased to see me, but his eyes were tired.

  Wally, one of the technicians who had worked on the Violin Diaries play, and Andrei, Aurelia’s partner, were also there. We exchanged greetings, but they were too focused on their work to say much, and I didn’t want to distract them. They were all wearing a combination of tees and jeans or casual trousers. Andrei was barefoot, Antony in a pair of tan boat shoes.

  ‘You were great,’ he said, ‘as ever.’ He wrapped his arm around the lower part of my waist and bum and pulled me against him. I ruffled my hand through his hair.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘What is this place? What are you doing?’

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the control room. Have a look at the monitors.’

  I scanned each one. They were like security cameras, set up to relay what was happening in each key area of the Ball, which was far more extensive than I had realised. Numerous other rooms were adjoined to the main area where the Ball’s guests danced, ate, drank, and of course, fucked. One area was set up like a dungeon. At its centre, an older man – perhaps in his fifties or sixties; it was hard to tell as his age was evident only in the white of his long flowing hair, and the texture of his skin, while his bearing and the lean, firmness of his body could have belonged to someone two decades younger – was whipping a woman who was cuffed to a St Andrew’s Cross in front of him. She was face down so I could not guess her age, but I guessed that she might not be much younger than him. She was not fat, or sagging, by any means, but her skin lacked the obvious plumpness that belongs only to those who don’t appreciate it, the under twenty-fives. Her hair was mousey-brown, and tucked into a loose ponytail that had probably been arranged in this manner at the last minute to allow her partner in willing torture access to her flesh. She would have been quite unmemorable if it were not for the large tattoo that covered her upper back, neck and shoulders. It was a stylised bird, pieced together with spirals, cross-hatching patterns and swirls, with open wings that spread over her shoulders, a head that rested against the base of her hairline and a four­-feathered­ tail that ended five inches or so above the onset of her buttocks.

  The whip was a single-tail, the sort that delivers an incredible burst of pain, like a localised brand, with each jolt of impact, and requires a great deal of skill to wield. He cracked it at slow, regular intervals and with each hit she barely flinched.

  It had been a long time since I had felt the touch of leather against my skin, or the wincing warmth of pain delivered with love. Watching her, I felt two things. Arousal and envy.

  I turned to Antony who was absentmindedly trailing his fingertips over the little bumps and indentations that decorated my skin where the buckles of my harness had been pulled tight. Giselle’s cream was still working its magic. He hadn’t remarked upon, or even seemed to notice, my nudity, but in a situation like this one more naked body was hardly out of place. His eyes were scanning over all of the screens without focusing on any one scene in particular.

  ‘What do you think of that?’ I asked him, indicating the TV monitor displaying the pair in the dungeon.

  He frowned. ‘What do I think?’ he asked, making sense of my question. ‘Is it too dark? I can raise the lighting.’ He reached for a series of knobs above the keyboard.

  ‘No, the lighting’s fine, I meant what do you think of them, of what they’re doing?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Looks painful. But each to their own, I suppose.’

  ‘Would you ever want to do something like that to me?’ I asked him, quietly. It wasn’t really the place to talk. He was working, and Wally was audible in the background, slurping a mug of instant soup and munching on a bread roll. The air smelled faintly of chicken.

  He froze, his fingers hovering over a section of ridges that decorated one side of my hip.

  ‘Honestly? That level of endeavour isn’t really for me. Maybe something gentler. Handcuffs and a spanking?’

  He stopped his exploration of my marks and instead squeezed me against him in a tight embrace.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ I replied, as if I felt the same way, although I didn’t, really. I could feel the ghost of Lauralynn standing behind me with her arms crossed over her chest, glowering at me for chickening out at the last minute rather than saying what it was that I really felt.

  Fuck me, Antony, hurt me, make me yours, tell me to get down on my hands and knees for you like a good little girl …

  But they weren’t words that I could bring myself to say aloud.

  ‘I should go,’ I said, pulling away. ‘Get back to the party.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘stay.’ He glanced at a clock hanging on the wall that read five minutes to three a.m. ‘The main event is about to begin. And we’ve got the best view from here.’

  He pulled me onto his lap, and I burrowed into a comfortable position on his knee as he awkwardly reached around me to fiddle with the controls and bring up the large main screen that covered an entire wall behind us.

  Wally had finished his snack and leapt into action, activating buttons and computer equipment. Andrei barely looked up from whatever he was doing.

  On the monitor, a camera was focused on the centre of the main room. A sound like a thunder clap had echoed through the cavernous space and all those adjoined to it, calling all of the Ball’s guests to file into the main space where they formed a giant circle around a dais that had – in response to one of Wally’s commands – begun to rise from the earth and formed a high stage.

  A gasp rumbled through the crowd as every single light besides those in the office we sat in was extinguished at the same moment, including the electronics that lit up some of the performers’ costumes. The darkness felt palpable, thick and viscous like a particularly heavy fog, and seemed to stretch on forever although according to the tick of the wall clock it was just a few seconds.

  The light that burst onto the stage was like the sun and moon together, bathing the crowd in alternating rays of white and gold, warmth and coolness. It took me a moment to realise that it was emanating from Aurelia. She was standing with her arms raised over her head and her long hair billowing over her shoulders as if in the face of a mighty wind. Her tattoos danced and leapt across her skin like a painted tapestry brought to life. Watching her was like witnessing the arrival of an archangel come down from heaven to bestow a blessing or a curse onto the earth. I waited to see which it would be.

  Andrei turned to watch. His face was relaxed, but his hands were tense. He had picked up an empty coffee cup and was gripping it tightly.

  Eight beams a
ppeared across the room from points at equidistance apart converging on Aurelia standing in the centre. They were pinpricks at first, steadily increasing until they formed laser beams bouncing out of the dais. At the far end of each of the points, a winged man appeared, and seemed to glide along the length of the light ray on the current of an invisible wind until all eight reached the stage and gracefully landed, their wings folding up and tucking against their bodies as soon as their feet touched the ground.

  ‘Are they … flying?’ I asked Antony.

  He grinned. He was watching the scene unfold with the same mixture of pride and worry that a father might have overseeing his child’s first attempts at riding a bicycle. This was evidently his pièce de résistance.

  ‘No, they’re harnessed. The room is full of cables, you just can’t see them.’

  Aurelia brought her arms down to her side and her tattoos slowed their mad frenzy and subsided to a hypnotic, slow dance.

  The camera angle switched to the faces of the winged men. It was the acrobats, I realised. The octuplets who had accompanied us on the desert walk and who Alissa had tried to flirt with but never managed to bag.

  Their hair was slicked back against their skulls with gel, making them seem even younger, and highlighting the chiselled perfection of their high cheekbones and smooth jaws. Their lips, though not obviously rouged, were the deep red colour of ripe raspberries and eminently kissable. Their fingernails were painted blue black to match the silky night sky shade of their wings.

  Naturally, my eyes dropped to examine their cocks. Unlike the sand storm dancers, they each sported a soft bush of pubic hair. They were flaccid.

  Aurelia raised her arms again, this time not over her head but just above her sides, to point at two of the identical young men, one who stood directly in front of her and the other directly behind.

  They stepped forward, within reach of her grasp. She inclined her head to each of them in turn, and then laid her hand on their cocks, one after the other, like bestowing a blessing. As soon as she touched them, they sprang erect. Long, thick, and as hard as rock. She returned her arms to her sides and stood with her shoulders held back and her chin up and forward. Majestic. Her hair continued to billow around her face.

  I discreetly glanced at Andrei. He was still staring at the screen, apparently hypnotised by the events that were unfolding. His mouth formed a straight line like a cut across his face.

  The two appointed men stepped forward and penetrated her, one from in front, and one behind, lifting her leg in order to get themselves into position. Her expression was sublime, like a Madonna in the full throes of ecstasy. The expressions on the faces of her penetrators though, went from joyful release to pain. Their brows furrowed into a grimace. Beads of sweat appeared on their foreheads that they could not brush away for fear of losing their hold on Aurelia’s body. On and on they thrust into her, visibly weakening as her power seemed to grow, her locks writhing like Medusa’s snakes, her inked portraits again in full flow, her skin becoming ever brighter under the stage light – wait – was it a stage light? Or was Aurelia glowing? I couldn’t tell.

  They came, and immediately crumpled to the floor.

  Dead? Surely not. They were acting.

  Two more were appointed to take their place and they pulled the bodies of their fallen brothers aside before sliding their erections into Aurelia’s waiting cock and arse.

  For the few seconds that she had been untended to, empty, the markings on her skin had wriggled like mad, angry. The dragon that decorated her mons bared its teeth. Aurelia’s face was a picture of fury. Filled again, she appeared sated, though undeniably terrifying in her hunger for sex.

  I couldn’t help but relate to her, and felt faintly embarrassed, in part for the melodrama of the whole scene but also because it seemed like a vice to need or desire anything that much, whether it be a cream cake, a tumbler full of whiskey or a hard dick. I tried to puzzle it through – what I thought, what I felt, who I was, but found no answers, only more questions. I turned my attention back to the screen.

  Eventually the men were all used, and lay in puddles of wing and muscle around her feet, jaws slack in defeat.

  The stage light narrowed, the point of its beam now focused just on Aurelia.

  She smiled.

  The audience cheered like a pack of wolves baying at the moon.

  Andrei got up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.

  The lights were turned out.

  Darkness spread across the amphitheatre.

  12

  After the Ball

  We were like survivors finally resurfacing to the earth after an apocalypse, when the Ball ended.

  Antony and I did try to rejoin the party when Aurelia’s grand finale had concluded and his services were no longer required, but neither of us felt able to really get into what remained of the festivities. Alissa and the others were nowhere to be found and the rest of the guests were either too inebriated or overcome by the strange power of the Ball’s energy to really connect with. Tucked away in the relative mundanity of the brightly lit control room, we had experienced the events of the past few hours on a different plane to everyone else, as if we were on the outside of a snow globe watching all the action through an invisible pane of glass, voyeurs, unable to participate.

  We left slightly early, through a rather anti-climactic, ordinary looking exit door situated near the back of the main auditorium, after first climbing four flights of stairs. The sun was coming up, and rather than endeavour to trek our way back through the desert without any water, rations, or precise idea where we were going, we opted to settle ourselves onto the relative comfort provided by a pile of flat rocks nearby, watch the sunrise, and wait for one of the coaches that were booked to arrive at regular intervals of the morning and return the partygoers back to the main car park. I didn’t have any shoes, besides the glass slippers that I was still clutching in one of my hands by their tall, cool heels.

  I was still naked. Instinctively, I pulled my knees in to my chest to cover my body. Antony removed his T-shirt, handed it to me, and I pulled it on over my head, trying in vain to tug the bottom of it down all the way past my buttocks so that I would have some fabric to sit on rather than the gritty surface of the bare rock.

  ‘Wow, that really was something,’ Antony said.

  ‘I wonder what the critics would say?’ I laughed.

  ‘They’d be speechless,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh, I doubt it. They’d think of something. “Ambitious and daring, but ultimately a triumph of style over substance” or “Crude – not creative,” or “What about the children!?”’ I parroted, putting on a deep voice and squaring my shoulders for effect.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. There’s never any way to win. Still, it was fun, right? A production with a handsome, ridiculously talented cast and a virtually unlimited budget … a director’s wet dream.’

  ‘Will you do another?’ I asked him, thinking about my contract with Aurelia coming to an end. I still had a few weeks left, but I still wasn’t sure what I would be needed for.

  ‘A Ball?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yes, for sure, if they ask me.’

  He took my hand and we sat in silence watching the sun rise like an enormous round egg yolk cracking over the cloudless blue sky in streaks of orange and yellow.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. So many changes and uncertainties still awaited me. I wondered if my life would ever be any different, or if I was destined to always be chasing the next bright thing that appeared on the horizon.

  What was it that I wanted?

  The fog was lifting across the waters in Puget Bay as I glanced out of the window, and followed the halting progress of a ferry lazily moving out towards the distant islands.

  I still had slightly over a month remaining on the c
ontract I had signed with the Network, although since I’d flown in to Seattle from Las Vegas a few days after the Ball my duties had been vague if non-existent.

  ‘Just relax, decompress,’ Madame Denoux had suggested.

  The tall, anonymous building in which I was lodging a stone’s throw from Pike Place was host to several floors of offices to which I had no access and at least one level which harboured a series of residential apartments. The suite I had been provided with was light, tall-ceilinged and luxurious in a minimalistic manner, all straight lines and modern furniture in shades of oak and metal.

  I’d been hoping to see more of Madame Denoux here, but hadn’t come across her since arriving. I had so many questions for her. Questions I was nervous asking Aurelia who, I’d been informed, was currently staying in another suite nearby, down the corridor from me. Giselle Denoux had a maternal presence which I found soothing and, I intuited, knew so much about the Ball and the Network, half-hidden secrets I was eager to learn.

  Every morning, after coffee and breakfast – the kitchen was always lavishly replenished whenever I happened to be away from the suite – I would check with the reception desk by the central bank of elevators to ascertain if there were any tasks I had to address. There had been a few occasions when my involvement was sought in a studio sited in the bowels of the building to assist audio engineers mix and adjust sound levels on the recordings made at the Ball of the music I, Lauralynn and our musicians had performed, but most days I was left to my own devices and randomly roamed the city, visiting its many hills, Elliott Bay, Capitol Hill or the University District, pleasantly overdosing on clam chowder and the city’s surfeit of coffee bars. I had been assured that Antony would soon be in a position to join me, but was not given any precise date.