Eighty Days Red

by Vina Jackson

  In my dream, I desperately wanted to feel the man’s cock, but he stood just out of reach. I twisted my arms in their sockets and wriggled my hands, trying to free myself but it was no good. My mouth hung open slightly as I longed to feel the penis breach my lips, caress my tongue and hit the back of my throat. My lips were dry and I moistened them with my tongue. I tried to stand, but realised that my feet were shackled as well.

  ‘Do you want something?’ said a voice in a mocking tone.

  It was Dominik.

  I woke with a start. My lips still felt dry, and my hands shook as I picked up the glass of water on my night table and took a mouthful, spilling liquid down the front of my singlet as I did so. I normally slept nude, but not with my sister in the room. She was lying on her back with her mouth half open, snoring softly, her face and hair streaked with bits of white powder, so she still looked a bit like a corpse.

  Neither Fran nor Chris mentioned our night out again. This fact rankled with me. Attending a fetish club for the first time had been such a big deal in my life, like a landmark that separated the person I was before from the person I had become. That other people saw it as just a night out left me vaguely irritated. If the part of my life that I thought of as my ‘dark secret’ had become mainstream, then what did I have left?

  Without my gigs to keep me busy or the often frantic social life that I had maintained in New York in classical music circles, I was at a bit of a loose end. Fran, who had always been incapable of sitting still for more than a few minutes, had begun looking for a job in London almost the moment she landed, and had taken on some casual bartending work, so she was out most evenings and slept during the day. Chris spent most of the week rehearsing with his band.

  ‘Why don’t you come down?’ he suggested. ‘Watch us play. The guys have been asking about you.’

  He gave me an address for a studio off Holloway Road. The place was sleek, manned by a security guard and a complex alarm system, and full of hi-tech equipment. The last time I’d seen the place that Groucho Nights were renting, it was a mouldy basement with a padlocked door in an ominous-looking alleyway near Camden Lock barely big enough to swing a cat, never mind fit a band inside. I knew that Chris’s uncle had lent the band a bit of cash to help them get on their feet, but I didn’t realise that it was enough to afford a place like this.

  ‘Wow,’ I said when I arrived, ‘you guys have gone all out, just for me.’

  I walked over to Ted and gave him a kiss on his cheek, ruffling my hand through his hair.

  He batted me away playfully. ‘Don’t touch the hair.’

  ‘Seriously, do you always dress like this for rehearsals?’ I asked.

  Ted, who played guitar and sometimes the harmonica or kazoo, was from Boston. He and Chris were cousins, and looked so alike they could have been brothers. They were about the same height, with brown eyes and thick, curly brown hair. Ted had started growing his out and frizzing it up so that it was almost an Afro, and he was kitted out in tight red drainpipe jeans and a black waistcoat. Chris was made up to match him with the same outfit but in reverse, red waistcoat and black drainpipe jeans.

  Ella, on drums, had dyed her once-blond poker-straight hair fire-engine red, the colour of a postbox, but she was otherwise unchanged. She was originally from Hull, and the only English member of the group. Ella was long-limbed with a boyish figure and muscled arms. When I’d last seen her, she had a half-finished jellyfish tattoo on her chest which had since been filled in with bright shades of pink and blue, tentacles snaking down like map lines under the neck of her singlet that made it hard not to stare at her chest. She dressed like a trucker, in men’s jeans and shirts, a look that I found singularly appealing on a woman.

  ‘Viggo might be dropping in later,’ Chris replied.

  ‘Really? He hangs out with the common people? Doesn’t sound much like a rock star to me.’

  ‘Maybe it makes him feel normal,’ Ted said. ‘Though I wouldn’t really call him normal.’

  ‘He owns the place,’ Chris added. ‘Did you think I’d be renting something like this?’

  I parked myself down on one of the leather beanbags scattered inside the studio as they began warming up with a couple of slower tracks. I’d brought my violin along with me just in case he wanted to jam, for old time’s sake, but I left it tucked out of the way for the time being.

  They had just finished warming up when the door swung open. I noticed Chris’s hand falter on the fretboard, but he carried on playing.

  ‘Don’t stop, sounds great.’

  Viggo was carrying a tray of coffees, balanced precariously in one hand. He was holding a pair of sunglasses in the other, although I hadn’t seen a sign of sun for a week. I leaped up to hold the door for him.

  ‘Oh, thank you, darling,’ he said in a husky voice. ‘I’d shake your hand but both of mine are full, so I’ll have to kiss you instead.’

  He bent down and kissed my cheek, brushing his lips across my ear as he did so in a gesture that was both bold and totally inappropriate for a first meeting.

  ‘I’m Viggo Franck,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He had one eyebrow raised in a gesture of flirtation.

  ‘Summer Zahova,’ I replied, with a curt nod. ‘Can I take those?’ I gestured to the tray of coffees. I was parched.

  ‘Of course. Don’t drink them all at once.’

  My hands shook as I picked up one of the cardboard cups, without an S for sugar on the side. I was trying to act normal, but in truth wasn’t much accustomed to meeting celebrities. There’d been a few in the classical music world, of course, but they were a different breed altogether, mostly introverts, and not my type.

  None of them were like Viggo Franck. He was dressed in black jeans so tight that I thought he might have got them from the women’s leggings section. They were low slung, and revealed an inch or so of flesh on one side of his midriff underneath a ripped white T-shirt. He was thin rather than muscled, with surprisingly pale skin considering that he was half Italian. I guessed he took after his Danish side. He had high cheekbones and full lips framed by closely trimmed facial hair, halfway between five o’clock shadow and an actual beard. His hair was very dark brown, almost black, and quite straight but teased into fullness.

  It was immediately apparent to me why women chased after Viggo. Sexual energy radiated from him in waves. Even with his dark glasses on and nondescript, rough clothes, he was the sort of person who you would look twice at in the street. Or at least, I would. He leaned against the wall with one foot on the floor and the other on the wall behind him. I sat back down on the beanbag again, and tried not to stare at him.

  Chris and the band were full tilt now into their fastest number, and oblivious to our presence in the room.

  I looked up and caught Viggo staring at me, his lips raised in a half smile. He sauntered over.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he said. He was sitting down, wriggling onto the beanbag alongside me before I had a chance to tell him yes or no, and despite the fact that there was a two-seater sofa alongside us that was unoccupied.

  ‘Sure,’ I replied, maintaining a hint of ice in my tone, though in truth the warmth of his body alongside mine and the flash of his torso had sent a thrill up my spine.

  I jumped as hot coffee splashed onto my arm, my cup tipping suddenly as he settled into the bag.

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ he said. He tried to pull the bottom of his T-shirt up to dab at it, but the material wouldn’t reach, so he pulled it over his head and mopped it up.

  I stared at his chest. His skin pale, with a faint line of dark hair covering just between his breastbone. His nipples, small and dark. The small fold of flesh that had appeared on his stomach when he sat down, a result of the unflattering position we were both folded into. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to run my hand over the softness of his skin.

  ‘There you go,’ he added, before pulling the shirt back on again, ignoring the faint coffee stain that now marked the fabric. />
  His eyes ran over my body, then alighted on my violin case, leaning against the beanbag. ‘Are you a new member of the band?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I used to play with them occasionally, jam, but I’m more of a classical music performer these days.’

  ‘Show us then, I like to see an instrument.’

  ‘The violin? Sure.’

  I leaned down, unbuckled the Bailly from its case and handed it to him.

  He ran his hands over the body of the violin, gently caressing the burnished wood.

  ‘Do you play?’ I asked, curious at his reaction. His eyes, previously so flirtatious and focused on me were now entirely fixated on my instrument.

  ‘Not the violin, no,’ he replied, without lifting his gaze. ‘Though, believe it or not, I was classically trained in piano. Where did you get it? It’s a particularly beautiful instrument.’

  I blushed, remembering Dominik, and the unwritten contract that I’d entered with him in order to keep the Bailly.

  ‘A friend gave it to me,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ he responded, catching my gaze now. ‘Must be a close friend. Do you know where he got it from?’

  ‘You’re presuming my friend is a “he”.’

  ‘Yes I am. Where did he get it from?’

  ‘I’m not completely sure, to be honest. A dealer, I think. It came with a certificate. The last owner was called Edwina. Edwina Christiansen. But I don’t know anything about her. I did Google her once, but no luck. Are you a collector? Or in the market for something new?’

  ‘No, no. Just curious. I like pretty things.’ He handed the Bailly back to me, letting his fingers linger against mine as he did so.

  ‘Why don’t you play it for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Now?’

  Chris was just coming into the final chords of the last song the group had on their set. ‘Yeah. Play for me.’

  Naturally, I could have declined his request, as I’d brought the violin along in the hope that I’d get a chance to play a song or two with Chris and the band. But Viggo was essentially sponsoring Groucho Nights. I wanted to stay on his good side for their sake.

  Viggo stood up and applauded heartily as Chris and the band reached the end of their last song.

  ‘Good shit,’ he said. ‘Now, I want to hear the violin. One more piece?’

  Chris was sweating with the exertions of his set, but smiling broadly.

  ‘Yeah, course, come play, Sum.’

  I picked up my violin and stepped alongside him.

  ‘Just improvise,’ he said, bursting into one of the folk tunes that we used to play together. Ella abandoned her drums so she wouldn’t drown me out and waved a pair of maracas about instead. It wasn’t my best performance, but the rhythm came back to me as though I’d played it yesterday.

  Initially I felt a little self-conscious playing for Viggo, particularly as the rock numbers were outside my normal repertoire, but within a few minutes I had forgotten he was there entirely, I was so lost in the rhythm of the music.

  It wasn’t until I opened my eyes at the end that I noticed his gaze was fixed firmly on me as I played, but rather than undressing me with his eyes as Dominik had, his focus was entirely on my violin, almost as if he were admiring me in the way that he would admire a piece of art. The difference between the two men, and their gaze as they watched me play, lingered in my mind as we returned to the flat.

  Chris was jubilant, and didn’t seem to notice that I was distracted.

  ‘I want to do that every day for the rest of my life,’ he said with a flushed face as we piled into a taxi. ‘Especially if you’re around to pay for us to get cabs everywhere.’

  I’d got used to travelling by yellow cab in New York, and had lost the energy for carrying instruments on the underground. I had plenty of money saved from my recent tours, and the albums were by now all producing tidy royalty cheques. Susan, my agent, had sent me a few sternly worded emails to find out what I was up to, though I was sure that Simón would have told her that I had moved out and was taking a break for a while.

  Truthfully, I’d barely thought of Simón, or New York, since I’d left. I slipped so easily back into my single life in London that the past couple of years were like a dream. I missed him at times, when I thought about it. Missed having someone in my bed next to me, and the security of a full-time relationship, but most of the time I was just relieved to be free.

  I thought about Dominik more often, in my waking life and my dreams. I wondered whether he had someone else, a girlfriend, and if he had abandoned his dominant tastes in bed in order to sustain a more regular relationship, as I had, or if he’d found another submissive woman to tie up at night.

  Towards the end of the same week, we found ourselves in another taxi, this time on our way to the Brixton Academy for the actual show. Chris, Ella and Ted had gone ahead several hours earlier to assist with set-up, which was being supervised by Viggo’s band’s road crew, and to carve out enough time for a soundcheck, so it was just Fran and me coming behind.

  Chris had assured me that we had both been invited to the after-party that Viggo was apparently planning to celebrate the opening night of his tour in London. He had rolled his eyes when I quizzed him. ‘What do you think Viggo said when I told him you had a sister over for a visit?’

  ‘Ugh,’ I replied. ‘He can think again if he thinks that’s happening.’

  ‘I’ll be keeping my eye on both of you.’

  ‘You’ll be too busy with the three hundred models he’s probably ordered to bring his

  drinks.’

  ‘You know me better than that. Bikini-clad dancing waitresses aren’t my style.’ Fran laughed and he glanced over at her with a grin.

  As Chris and I had first met at the Academy, we both had a lot of affection for the place. It

  was a little gloomy without an audience in it, and the space on the inside was smaller than I remembered. Hard to believe that four thousand people would be crammed in here in a few hours. The sloping floor was covered in stains and smelled like beer, but despite that the building had a grand feeling to it, a sense of history.

  Out front, punters who had been lining up for hours were chatting good-naturedly, drinking cans of beer and smoking cigarettes. A fair few of them, I was gratified to hear, had come to see Groucho Nights. Chris had accumulated quite a following. They stared at Fran and me curiously as we flashed our passes at the burly, uniformed bouncers who were guarding the front doors and we were waved straight through. I’d gone fairly nondescript, in a denim miniskirt and my old cherryred Dr Martens, but Fran drew a lot of attention, determined as she was to prove that she wouldn’t be defeated by the British weather, and despite the cold, she was wearing the shortest pair of high-waisted denim shorts I’d ever seen her in. Her skin had turned almost blue in the chill.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I’ll be thirty soon and I hear it’s all downhill from there. May as well get my legs out while I still can.’

  I’d brought my violin with me at Viggo’s request. He hadn’t specified why, but I guessed that he wanted me to play for him at his party, after the show. I felt a little strange about the idea. Dominik had been the only person who I had performed for in that way, but for the sake of the band, if nothing else, I agreed. At least it would keep me in practice, seeing as I didn’t have any gigs lined up. I left the Bailly in the Green Room, which was heavily guarded, but empty for now as The Holy Criminals were in their dressing rooms and Chris, Ella and Ted were busy soundchecking. We idled the time away in the top bar, before taking our places at the front centre of the stage as the first half of the show was about to begin.

  Chris was like another person the minute he stepped out in front of the crowd. Day to day he had a shy, boyish air about him, but in front of a microphone he wore a second skin, the perfect image and demeanour of a rock star.

  The group burst straight into one of my favourite tracks, ‘Roadhouse Blues’, all rolling riffs with a blues melody and Chris and Te
d’s husky vocals riding the sound like molasses rolling slowly down a whisky barrel. Ted pulled out his double bass for the second tune, ‘Fire Woman’, a song about hot love with more of a swing feel. It was a piece that always made the women in the audience go crazy, and tonight was no exception. Chris held the mic in one hand as if he was slow-dancing with a lover, his mouth open wide to catch the high notes.

  ‘Hello, London,’ he shouted out to the crowd, ‘how are we tonight?’

  They leaped and cheered in response.

  ‘Would you like to meet our special guest?’ He stared down at me in the front row. More cheering. Maybe Viggo had agreed to make an early friendly appearance. ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted back, but my voice was lost in the screaming.

  ‘My girl is here, over from New York,’ Chris shouted. ‘Give her some encouragement, people, get her up on stage.’

  One of the roadies raced out hurriedly from behind the curtain with an electric violin, and plugged it in with a burst of feedback. I was relieved it wasn’t my Bailly, as the sound would have been lost, even with the mic, but I hadn’t played an electric for nearly three years.

  I crouched under the rope that cut the mosh pit off from the stage. The two bouncers hoisted me up and Chris grabbed my hand and pulled me alongside him. I turned to face the crowd. The energy onstage was much wilder than I was used to compared with my demure classical gigs. The room felt hot and alive, tingling with noise and electricity.

  ‘Just go with it,’ Chris said, as he broke into one of the songs that we used to play together, ‘Sugarcane’, a folk rhythm with a short violin solo and double-string licks punctuating the vocals, a fat, dirty sound that I hadn’t played since I first left London.

  I stayed for the band’s next song, enjoying the ebb and flow of the music rushing through me like a current, forcing myself to leave them onstage alone for their finale, a heavier rock number which reached a thundering crescendo on the drums.