Eighty Days Red

by Vina Jackson

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  He rushed down the stairs and signed for the delivery, not even bothering to look up at the driver’s face as he handed the lightweight parcel over. A guide book to Berlin night life and a novel set there in the 1960s, which he’d impulsively acquired with the click of a button just a week ago when he had toyed with the idea of setting the new novel in the German capital. Which, by the following day, he had realised was a stupid idea, as not only had he never been to Berlin but didn’t even speak German.

  He set the brown cardboard box down on the floor next to the muddy trainers he had kicked off and abandoned there on his return from the Heath the previous day.

  Lauralynn’s tall and heavy cello case stood in the corner of the hall, festooned with labels, travel mementoes from hotels foreign and local, backstage passes and memorabilia she had assiduously stuck across its surface.

  One of the labels was peeling off, he noticed, advertising the charms of the Royal e Golf Grand Hotel in Cour-mayeur. Where was that? Switzerland or Italy, he thought. When had Lauralynn ever been there? It was a ski resort and unlikely to have much of a music scene. Maybe he would ask her.

  His curiosity awakened, he kept on staring at the gallery of labels adorning the cello case.

  Ideas come out of nowhere. They make no sense. Drop unannounced in your lap. Ignore logic or sanity.

  It was as if something had clicked.

  The instrument. Its travels. The tale behind all those stickers, hotel labels, decals and the torn remnants of airline baggage tags.

  There was his story.

  The one that had been eluding him. As if he’d been blind all the time and ignored the obvious.

  It didn’t have to be about characters.

  In the Paris book, he’d been writing about an alternate, imaginary version of Summer. Of a past world in which she was not a musician, had no violin.

  This time, he could write about her instrument. The one he had bought for her.

  The violin.

  The story of a violin.

  3 It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll

  ‘I always knew you were a dark horse,’ Fran said in a smug tone.

  She was leaning back on the car seat with her head nearly resting on Chris’s shoulder. We were speeding through London in the back of a black cab on our way back to the flat in

  Camden Town. I had moved in with Chris temporarily, just until I managed to find a place of my own. Fran was sharing my room until she found her feet, so things were cramped in comparison to the relatively vast apartment that I had shared with Simón in New York, but so far we hadn’t had any major rows.

  It was early on Sunday morning and the three of us had been to celebrate our single status at the Torture Garden Valentine’s Ball, which had surprisingly been Fran’s idea.

  She’d been helping me unpack and had found a photograph that I had forgotten I even had, of me and my old friend Charlotte at the first fetish club I’d ever been to.

  Dominik had been my first dominant lover, but it had been Charlotte who had initially introduced me to the fetish scene, and with her by my side I had experienced my first spanking, and witnessed other fetishists at play. We’d lost touch after a party had turned out badly. She’d hit on Dominik and I hadn’t been able to control my jealousy, and though I bore her no hard feelings now, I hadn’t been in contact with her since.

  The picture, which brought back fond memories, had been taken by one of the club’s roving photographers, and Charlotte, in one of her kinder moments, had had a copy printed and given it to me. In the shot, she was wearing a bright yellow latex dress with pink lightning bolts running down each side of her waist. It was more of a tunic than a dress, and cut so low at the front that it exposed half of her nipples.

  I was more modestly dressed, in a pale-blue satin corset, frilly knickers and a top hat. We were standing out on the deck of the boat that had hosted the party, both laughing at a private joke, my top hat at a jaunty angle giving me a mischievous expression.

  ‘That looks a fun party,’ Fran said, picking up the picture.

  ‘Oh, it was nothing,’ I replied, keeping my voice even and hoping that she would drop it and move on.

  But Fran was both perceptive and persistent, and she kept asking questions.

  Under her insistent pressure, I told her about the club, leaving out the details of how I had received my first ever spanking under the watchful eyes of Charlotte and the club’s dungeon master.

  ‘I’m going,’ she announced. She picked up her iPad and tapped some keys, bringing up their website. ‘Ooh,’ she said, ‘they have a Valentine’s thing on tomorrow night. Looks more like an anti-Valentine’s thing. Perfect. I fucking hate Valentine’s Day.’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t think it’s your kind of party.’

  ‘How would you know what my kind of party is?’ she bristled. ‘We’ve barely seen each other for five years.’ She pursed her lips together and ran her hand through her cropped blond hair in a gesture that brokered no argument.

  Chris was standing in the doorway, surveying the proceedings. ‘If you’re going, I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Surely you have to rehearse?’ I said. His big opening night show with The Holy Criminals was the following Saturday night.

  ‘We’ve got plenty of sessions planned. I’m not letting you out of the house dressed in your underwear without a bodyguard.’

  ‘Fine, then,’ I said reluctantly. Knowing Fran as I did, she’d go without me if I refused. At least this way I’d be able to keep an eye on them.

  Fran had disappeared the next day to find outfits for her and Chris at the Portobello Road Market. She’d returned with her eyes shining and her arms full of bags of clothes, and proceeded to dress a very reluctant Chris in a vintage three-piece groom’s suit which she then covered with stage make-up to mimic the effect of someone who had been killed on his wedding day and stepped out of his grave a hundred years later. She went matching, in a ripped-up wedding dress, with her hair gelled into a quiff which gave a strange punk vibe to her vintage zombie look.

  ‘I hate pin-up girls,’ she sniffed, when I suggested doing her hair in victory rolls instead.

  I was wearing latex for the first time; a skimpy sailor suit outfit that I’d hurriedly bought from a chain store online that offered express delivery and arrived in the nick of time. I’d been too embarrassed to ask for help to get into it, so had lubed myself up in order to button up the tight vest jacket and matching blue and white striped hot pants, and was now feeling sticky, uncomfortable and paranoid that I would catch on something and tear the delicate rubber apart, leaving me naked on the dance floor.

  When we arrived, Fran had seemed at home immediately, bouncing from room to room, eager to explore each cranny of the venue, an old theatre which was filled to capacity on one of their biggest nights of the year.

  She glared at Chris, who was surveying the crowd with wide eyes. ‘Some rock star you’re going to make,’ she said, ‘if you find this lot shocking. I bet Viggo Franck has a dressing room full of naked women. Men too, probably.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Chris groaned. ‘I think every woman I’ve ever met has rung me since the posters went out, asking for a backstage pass.’

  ‘He’s not my type,’ Fran replied, ‘but I reckon he’s right up Summer’s street. She always makes a beeline for the bad boys.’

  I blushed. Viggo Franck was half Danish and half Italian, and The Holy Criminals, already well established in Europe, had risen seemingly from nowhere in the UK to become a massive hit almost overnight when he’d been pictured tumbling out of a hotel in Chelsea with not just one, but three women, including the granddaughter of a Conservative politician and a young actress who had made her money from Disney-produced family-friendly romcoms. Viggo was immediately tarred with an almost god-like womaniser status while the women had been flamed in the press, which had generated even more news coverage when feminists had been up in arms about the sexual double st
andard evidenced in the media.

  As a result of his sudden success, The Holy Criminals had been accused of selling out, and Viggo’s once indie underground status had been abandoned in favour of a stadium-filling mainstream audience. According to Chris, Viggo had managed to maintain his street cred amongst fellow musicians by gaining a reputation for promoting struggling small-time bands.

  He’d met Chris at a party where they’d been hanging out with Black Hay, another band we used to share the stage with occasionally, who’d just been taken on by The Holy Criminals’ record label.

  ‘Well,’ Chris said, ‘I did get you two backstage passes so I guess we’ll soon find out.’

  Fran whooped. ‘No wonder you haven’t come home, Sum,’ she said. ‘London is way too much fun.’

  One of the club’s photographers asked if he could take a picture, and before I could step away, Chris and Fran had agreed and both leapt into fearsome monster poses for the shot.

  I pulled my sailor’s hat down to cover my face just as the flash went off. Being a minor celebrity with a conservative fan base had made me more worried about my public image.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK with having your picture taken?’ the photographer asked, noticing my reticence.

  He sidled alongside me to show me the shot, standing close to avoid having to lift the camera strap over his head. He had a wide smile and friendly eyes, lined with dark eyeliner, which matched his outfit of a latex shirt in a purple so dark it looked black, and wrist cuffs in the same colour that reached almost to his elbow, gladiatorial style.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ I said, peering at the image on the lens. It was a good shot. Fran and Chris were unrecognisable in their thick make-up and I could have been one of a dozen girls in my sailor suit with my hat obscuring almost all of my face, just a lipsticked grin visible and a flash of my red hair bright against the white paint on Fran’s shoulder.

  ‘Email me if you change your mind,’ he said, handing me a plain black business card with just his name printed across in white, simple font. Jack Grayson. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  ‘Stop flirting, would you,’ Fran complained. ‘We want to go and dance!’

  Jack was already a few feet away, taking another picture, his tall body curved into a slight crouch and the big SLR covering one eye and half of his wide smile.

  We headed off to find the music, passing by the dungeon on the way. Fran peered inside quickly, but seemed uninterested in the goings-on within.

  ‘Each to their own,’ she said with a shrug, without giving it a second glance.

  Listening to the soft moans and swishing of floggers landing on skin, I wished that I wasn’t with my sister and my best friend.

  It had been a long time since I’d worn a rope harness or felt a hand against my arse in anything more than a gentle smack during lovemaking and I missed it. I had made a deliberate effort to cut myself off from the scene after I’d broken up with Dominik and then got together with Simón. It wouldn’t have been fair on him to keep that side of myself alive, I’d thought, if we couldn’t make it work together. So I’d pushed those feelings away in the hope that if I ignored them long enough, they’d disappear.

  The fact that I had been unsuccessful in my attempts to banish the fetish scene and its effects on my body and mind was obvious. The noises emanating from within the darkened corners of the dungeon, the whistling of a whip through the air, the thud of a palm onto a buttock, the groan of submissives being put through their paces, made my thoughts race and my hands shake. I was immensely turned on by my surroundings, and I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the rest of the evening pretending otherwise.

  I knew that Fran would be safe with Chris, and I was entirely comfortable alone, so I would be able to slip away for a short while to enjoy myself.

  ‘Hey, I’m going to get some drinks, meet you guys on the dance floor, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Fran yelled back. ‘We’ll be here all night!’

  They disappeared into the crowd, leaving me to my own devices.

  I considered a return to the dungeon, but dismissed the idea as the equipment had all been in use, and I actually wasn’t sure that my outfit would survive a flogging, or that I’d be able to get out of the latex hot pants without tearing them.

  Instead, I followed a set of stairs up to a large, dark and unnamed room, my heels catching dangerously on each uneven step and threatening to send me tumbling.

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the light. I was in the balcony of the converted cinema, which still featured the original fold-down seating. I moved into a row and settled onto a perch, taking advantage of a chance to ease out of my uncomfortably high heels.

  A short film was playing on a loop. Flashes of naked bodies, in sometimes extreme and fetishistic poses, appeared onscreen, casting a glare on the other partygoers in the room.

  After a moment, a woman slipped into a seat in the row ahead of me, her partner trailing behind her. She was one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen, almost certainly a model or an actress. She had an oval face, straight, short blond hair and blue eyes so pale they were close to grey. Her make-up was muted, and she was dressed in a latex nurse’s outfit which fitted her like a second skin and wasn’t even close to tacky. It had probably been designed for her, rather than picked off the peg like mine.

  Her partner was clad all in black, in jeans and shirt, his only hint of fetishwear, despite the strict dress code, a mask that covered his eyes. He might have looked ridiculous, but for the confident slant of his shoulders, rakishly messed hair and the company of such a beautiful woman – all factors that suggested a devil-may-care attitude rather than a tendency to dress badly.

  She met my eyes as she entered the row, her full lips travelling upward in a half smile. There were empty seats all around me, but she’d chosen to sit less than an arm’s breadth away.

  I inhaled sharply and held my breath, wondering what would happen next, why they’d sat so close. They began kissing almost immediately, soft, gentle kisses, and at first I averted my eyes as they seemed so intimate together. This was no drunken moment of passion but a scene that they’d chosen to share with me.

  I turned back to see him dipping his head, and her wriggling backwards so that she was lying over several of the small flip-down seats, with her legs open, one of them bent up by her side and the other down on the floor, giving her partner free access to caress her beneath her short rubber skirt, which he was doing with obvious abandon, with no thought to who might be watching.

  My view of her was blocked partially by his head, now buried between her legs, but in the flash of the cinema screen I could see a vision of her bare legs, slim calves leading up to her smooth, silky thighs.

  Before I knew it, I was leaning closer, and wondering what would happen if I touched her, if I joined in. I wasn’t sure what I should do. Lean forward and tentatively brush her arm? Ask for permission? But while I was wondering, I turned my head to glance at her face and saw her staring at me, her expression fixed in a look of total arousal, though she wasn’t as lost in it as I imagined I would have been in her place, but rather she seemed to be making a deliberate effort to maintain eye contact with me.

  He evidently quickened the rhythm of his licks, as she began to lose control, and grabbed my hand, squeezing my palm and pulling me forward until I was leaning over them, close enough to kiss her, close enough to feel the softness of her skin brushing against mine.

  She moaned, and bucked beneath me as an orgasm coursed through her, and then she let go of my hand, and relaxed into stillness.

  Her partner lifted his head, and stroked the side of her face with his fingertip. I waited quietly for them both to recover, though I was now so aroused by the situation that I was finding it difficult to sit still.

  She turned her head to look at me and smiled.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I replied, though I felt a little foolish under the circumstances. T
here weren’t any words to acknowledge the intimacy of the encounter that wouldn’t have sounded contrived or silly when spoken aloud.

  He gave me a slight nod, his expression unreadable beneath his mask.

  The pair stood and then disappeared into the night.

  I sat still, alone on my seat for a minute or two, regaining my composure, wondering what to do next. I was still immensely turned on, but I didn’t feel right about leaving Fran and Chris to their own devices for too long. Just as I was making my mind up, I heard Fran coming up the stairs behind me.

  ‘There you are! We looked everywhere. What are you doing sitting up here alone?’ Her tone of voice was wondering rather than suspicious. I doubted that Fran would ever even imagine the sort of scene that I had just witnessed.

  ‘Just taking a break. It’s crowded out there.’

  ‘Come on then, you’re missing all the good tunes.’

  I followed them both back into the party, though the image of the woman’s face as she came didn’t leave my mind, and my fantasies were only exacerbated by the sexual vibe in the air and the sheer number of attractive people in the crowd, particularly the men who had either dressed the part, in military jackets, or who had that certain confidence about them, a demeanour that reminded me of Dominik.

  As I slipped into bed after our night out, the thoughts in my mind became ever more persistent.

  Visions of men wearing long boots and carrying riding crops flittered across my mind and turned darker and fiercer, until I saw myself kneeling on a stone floor with a gag in my mouth and my wrists tied behind my back, not with rope but metal cuffs attached to a long, thick chain which ran along the floor behind me, meeting a bolt on the far wall. I was completely naked, and totally smooth. Someone had shaved my pubic hair. I had two nipple rings, both stinging as though I had been pierced only hours earlier. A heavy door swung open and I heard footsteps, slow, deliberate, coming closer. I couldn’t see the person but sensed that it was a man. He neared, but I couldn’t make him out in the thick gloom, just a pair of legs clad in black suit trousers with a sharp crease down the centre standing directly in front of me. I heard the sound of a belt unbuckling and a zipper being pulled down.