Eighty Days Blue

by Vina Jackson

  He’d always suspected that Danielle would end up badly somehow, but a decade later, out of curiosity, he’d Googled her and found out she was now teaching sociology in Bordeaux and had even produced a thesis on some highly specialised academic subject that he had, however, little interest in reading.

  It had been total coincidence that their coach tickets happened to have sequential numbers and this had thrown them together and eventually, unexpectedly, led to his first experience with anal sex. Ever since, Dominik had been relaxed enough to allow life’s currents to take him in all unplanned directions, never resisting the flow.

  Did he carry the smell of books with him that so many of his chance encounters had academic connections? Miranda, his seat companion on the flight to New York, was an administrative assistant at Hunter College, uptown. Dominik had always been a quietly charismatic public speaker. It was one of his strengths as a lecturer. If he felt in tune with the subject, he could happily improvise for ages, spinning theories, random thoughts and left-of-field ideas with particular aplomb without ever falling into pedantry or being a show-off. When it came to Gatsby, he was very much on home territory, so the flight went by painlessly as he engaged in light-hearted banter and conversation with Miranda. The seven hours quickly fell away. Less time to think about Summer and how they would manage to live together in New York.

  Miranda wore a grey business ensemble, her skirt reaching to her knees, but gradually moving up to mid-thigh as she shifted in her seat. Her tight white blouse gaped a little between buttons, stretched by the black bra she visibly wore underneath. Her neck was wonderfully delicate, flushing ever so pink as the flight progressed and the heat in the plane rose.

  She was divorced and lived alone on the Upper East Side, Dominik learned. Absorbed in their conversation, she would regularly extend her fingers and touch his lower arm when trying to make a point and even, on a couple of occasions, his knee. Dominik was no expert on body language, but knew it was something he often did himself, quite innocently and instinctively. Only with women he was attracted to, however.

  On arrival at JFK, they swapped details and agreed to stay in touch. Dominik wrote down her number on the back of one of his business cards. He was planning to get a new phone for New York, as his London number would not be practical here, which left the ball in his court, Miranda-wise. He had deliberately not informed her he would be living with another woman during his stay in the city.

  By further coincidence, their respective luggage arrived almost together on the carousel. The smile on Miranda’s face as this happened was worth a thousand words. It appeared she also believed in coincidences.

  Pretexting geographical distance, Dominik insisted in the taxi rank that they should take separate cabs. Deception comes easy.

  This time, the driver was Vietnamese and struggled to understand Dominik’s English accent when he asked for Spring Street.

  The road unfolded. A familiar litany of outer boroughs, the Southern State Parkway, the obligatory detour by Atlantic Avenue, followed by the Van Wyck Expressway and its cortege of concrete pillars supporting the AirTrain, then Jamaica Hospital and the final rush towards the Midtown Tunnel. How many times had he taken this road and survived the traffic jams in either direction?

  Dominik took a deep breath.

  This time it would be different.

  Summer was at the end of the journey.

  By the time the cab reached SoHo, a spring shower had broken. There was no shelter between the taxi and the unprotected front door of the building. Dominik rang the bell.

  ‘It’s me.’

  Summer, as planned, was home and she buzzed him in.

  The elevator was already on the ground floor, doors open, industrial in appearance. Years ago, he had learned, the building had been host to floors full of workshops peopled by migrant labourers, until the schmutter business had moved further uptown to what became the Garment District. The vast empty spaces had been occupied by artists attracted by the light and by cheap property values. Today, few artists could afford SoHo lofts any longer, and they were being swooped up by investment bankers, hedge-funders and business folk.

  The fifth floor had been divided into three apartments, and the one Dominik had arranged to rent was at the end of the corridor when he exited the elevator.

  The door was half open.

  Gripping the handle of his suitcase, he pushed it further open with his foot. The varnished wooden floor led up to a slight ramp, which ran in parallel to the outer corridor, to the right of which was the kitchen area. Beyond it was the wide open space of the loft, all the way down to the bay windows, through which a curtain of rain cushioned today’s grey skies.

  Because of the inclement weather, Summer had switched on the lights. A series of recessed spotlights ran the full length of the ceiling, bisecting the loft space.

  At the very centre of the loft’s living area, bathed in a puddle of light, Summer stood.

  Naked.

  Holding her precious violin in one hand, by her side.

  A knowing grin spread across her face.

  Dominik’s eyes rushed from her painted lips to the explosion of curls crowning her head, then to the shocking red of her nipples. She had used lipstick to enhance herself, just as he had done all those months ago.

  His gaze fell lower. Her pubic hair was growing back, but he could see she had also painted her lower lips.

  His heart skipped a half-beat and he let go of his suitcase.

  Summer ceremoniously brought the violin to her chin, a slave to this private ritual they both recognised as their very own, and began playing.

  The second movement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

  A wave of emotion swept over Dominik.

  He stood still, overcome by a complex maelstrom of feelings.

  Startled by her offering. Her greeting. This overture to their future time together in Manhattan.

  Every single note was both familiar and new to him, evoking memories, past events, visions of Summer in all her splendour. Oh, how tender this spring would be . . .

  As the music swirled across the walls of the loft, and Summer retreated into the music, she closed her eyes. As ever she needed no partition. The Vivaldi notes were now a part of her. Of them?

  Dominik kicked off his shoes. He was wearing black stretch socks, as he always did. He pulled them off; these wooden floors were made for bare feet. Stepping closer to Summer, he felt the gentle heat radiating outwards from her body, the underlying green smell of her perfume, the faint undercurrent of sweat breaking through to the surface of her skin as the violin-playing warmed her measure by measure.

  He took a deep breath.

  Circled her. Her back was white as snow, but Dominik couldn’t help imagining past marks, faint and dull across her back and buttocks, like a long-forgotten lattice of minor tattoos moving in straight and perpendicular lines across the pallor of her flesh. How he imagined the ropes she had told him about would have briefly marked her.

  He moved closer, his whole body just inches from hers. He placed a delicate kiss on the soft tip of her ear.

  Her eyes still closed, Summer shuddered, the involuntary movement causing a slight shimmer in the flow of the melody she was playing. Her back straightened.

  Dominik moved a foot or so back and circled Summer again, now facing her.

  Without impeding the movement of her arms as she played on, he ran one finger from her shoulder down her side, twisting his hand to trace her bikini line and skirt the edges of her painted lips. He kneeled before her, using both hands to widen the gap between her legs. He moved his face closer, almost touching, but not quite. He was aware that with the violin in place she could not see him, not see his tongue as it slowly approached her wet, inviting lips.

  Summer continued playing, although he was aware that every cell in her body was screaming for her to throw the precious instrument aside and grab Dominik and provoke him into exploring her body faster, harder. She knew he was teasing
her. Playing with her. Tempting her to stop concentrating on the violin. Become more active. She was aware how unsteady the music was becoming, how unprofessional. The musician in her was appalled by the poverty of her music, but the woman inside just couldn’t help it.

  Dominik stopped for a brief moment, savouring the moment, savouring the taste of Summer. The waxy taste of the lipstick she had used was sweet and cloying and no doubt emigrated to his lips. He’d probably look a bit like a clown should he see himself right now in a mirror, he reckoned, light-hearted. Summer was terribly wet and he felt her react to every sweep of his tongue inside her, but she kept on playing regardless. He buried his face into her intimate parts, the extremity of his tongue flicking her clit, feeling it harden, and taking it between his lips, pressing it, massaging it, repressing a strong desire to actually bite her. She adjusted the angle between her legs without missing a beat of the melody, inviting him deeper into her. His hair brushed the inside of her thighs as he gladly accepted the invitation and dug deeper into her, his lips tasting the flow of her juices.

  Summer came with a deep shudder rising like a wave from the core of her stomach just as the music reached its appointed end.

  The rain outside had stopped and there was a long moment of total silence, Summer standing to attention like a statue of salt in the centre of the loft space, eyes still firmly shut, and Dominik on his knees, facing her. Both hesitating as to who should speak first, say something, as if the decision might have terrible consequences.

  The silence was broken by Summer’s staccato gasps as she now struggled to steady her breathing.

  Dominik rose from the hard wooden floor, glanced around him and noticed a length of rope lying on one of the kitchen area’s granite worktops alongside Summer’s handbag, her pink mobile phone and a set of keys. Something from her workshop, maybe?

  ‘Stay there. Keep your eyes closed,’ he said, walking over to the worktop and picking up the short length of rope, weighing it in his hands. It was just long enough, he estimated. Just right.

  He stepped back to Summer.

  He stood by her side and delicately passed the piece of rope round her neck and secured it with a loose knot fixed in place.

  He could feel her nervousness as she attempted to control her breath, slow it down.

  ‘Come,’ Dominik said.

  He pulled gently on the improvised lead. Summer brought her legs together, hesitantly put one foot forward and followed in the direction the rope was stretching.

  Dominik led her to the bedroom.

  Dominik had been in New York a whole fortnight and he and Summer had fallen effortlessly into an easy routine.

  He fitted in his hours at the library with her rehearsals and so far there had been no conflicts, although they were both aware that it would soon prove more difficult as her solo gig approached. She would require further hours to practise and had agreed to have some extra-curricular coaching with Simón, the orchestra’s conductor. Dominik had suggested they all have dinner together, but Summer had been hesitant to organise this, under the pretext she wished to keep her personal and professional lives strictly apart.

  ‘We can’t keep to ourselves all the time,’ Dominik remarked.

  ‘Can’t we?’

  ‘It feels as if we are prisoners of the loft. Just you and me against the world.’

  ‘Isn’t that what being together is all about?’ Summer said, with a hint of irritation.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect when she had agreed to move in with Dominik. She was unsure whether she was ready for this domesticity. True, there were still moments when he surprised her, was unpredictable, connected with her inner slut, when he took control in unforeseen ways she craved but couldn’t always express. And Summer also knew it was unfeasible to sustain that feeling day after day. On one hand, she felt a captive of the necessary routine of their relationship, while on the other, she endlessly yearned for some sort of additional challenge. Oh, damn, it was all so complicated . . .

  He was curious about her time with Cherry, the rope workshop, the mild scenes she had got herself involved with. Maybe she should introduce him. Surely it couldn’t be harmful.

  ‘There is a friend I’ve made – you know, when I tried out the rope. Her name is Cherry. Maybe we could meet up, have a drink. I think you’d like her.’

  ‘Absolutely. Why not?’

  Summer picked up her phone and made the arrangements. They would meet up at four at a bar she knew on Bleecker Street. They would have at least a couple of hours, as Cherry was performing that same evening at a joint on the Bowery.

  Bleecker Street was its customary early evening bustle of bohos, wannabes and tourists. They’d walked there, crossing Houston and passing a million other bars along the way.

  ‘Why the Red Lion of all the places around?’ Dominik had asked Summer.

  ‘It’s English, isn’t it? We thought you might enjoy a touch of home.’

  As a non-drinker, Dominik had never been a ‘pub person’, something that Summer seemed unaware of. All their non-sexual encounters had been in small cafés or Italian espresso bars dotted across London.

  As it happened, there was a big European football match being broadcast live on TV that same evening and the Red Lion was packed to the rafters with a loud crowd of expatriates and curious Yanks, so they were forced to move on further down Bleecker Street to Kenny’s Castaways, a folk club that had survived from the Greenwich Village heyday of Baez, Dylan and others, where the bar was quite empty and there were still tables available and a modicum of privacy.

  Dominik was struck by how short Cherry was, not what he would have expected from a burlesque performer. She was small and compact under her pudding bowl of shocking-pink hair, and the bulging canvas bag she was carrying, slung over her shoulder, dwarfed her frame.

  ‘My gear,’ she pointed out, as she lowered the heavy bag to the floor. ‘I always seem to pack more than I need. A spare outfit, accessories, half a dozen pairs of shoes . . . It’s just the way the job is – you never know what you might need,’ she said apologetically, pulling her ring-laden fingers through her dyed hair to straighten it out.

  Dominik had forgotten to ask the barman to go easy on the ice and his Coke arrived ultra-American style, smothered in the stuff. Both of the women ordered pink cocktails in homage to Cherry’s hair. Not the sort of thing Summer usually drank, Dominik observed, particularly as the bar had a selection of Japanese beers behind the counter.

  ‘So you’re Dominik?’ the pink-haired buxom friend of Summer’s said, checking him out. Her black leather jacket was frayed at the edges and patched up in places. She was wearing a skin-tight pair of leopard-print leggings and glittering skyscraper heels, an outfit that would be better suited to a cabaret act than a pub.

  Dominik had forgotten to ask Summer how much she had disclosed of their relationship and past to her new friend.

  ‘The one and only.’

  ‘Very British,’ Cherry remarked.

  ‘And you’re Cherry, the rope lady.’

  Summer smiled, observing their initial sparring.

  Cherry raised her glass. ‘To new friends,’ she proclaimed.

  They followed suit.

  ‘I’m no good on American accents,’ Dominik said. ‘Where do you come from, Cherry?’

  ‘Canada, actually,’ she exaggerated her drawl to emphasise the point.

  ‘Ah. My humblest apologies.’

  ‘I’m from Turner Valley, Alberta, a small town just south-west of Calgary. You’ve probably never heard of it, but I’m guessing it’s exactly what you expect. Wild country, not a skyscraper for hundreds of miles, and certainly no cabaret bars. I got out at the first opportunity I was given. Topless waitressing to start with, and that’s where I met a few girls who taught me to dance. Soon as I had enough tips saved, I hit the Big Apple. Ain’t never going back.’

  ‘New Zealand backwaters, Alberta and London,’ Summer remarked. ‘We’re all exiles, strangers in a strange lan
d.’ She felt uncomfortable, relying on clichés now to keep the conversation going, unsure whether bringing Dominik and Cherry together had been a bright idea after all.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Cherry said.

  ‘So you’re here alone? Your family are still in Alberta?’ asked Dominik.

  Summer shifted on her seat, becoming more and more uncomfortable with the direction in which the conversation was headed.

  ‘Not exactly alone. My boy-friends keep me warm at night, but they’re both out of town at the moment. One travels with his band and the other with his work – he works in sales and is on the road a lot.’

  ‘You have two boyfriends?’ Dominik smiled and raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  ‘You’d think I wouldn’t spend as much time alone as I do. Maybe I should look into hooking up with a third.’

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ Summer interrupted, an attempt to stop any further talk about Cherry’s multiple partners.

  ‘My round, I think,’ Cherry replied, balancing her weight on the table as she lowered herself to the floor. It was a long way down for her short legs, and she paused for a moment to check her stability before putting all of her weight on her heels and teetering towards the bar.

  ‘Your friend is an interesting woman.’

  ‘Yes, she’s . . . different. But I like her. She’s honest.’

  ‘Does it work, do you think, her with her two boyfriends?’

  ‘It seems to. I haven’t met either of them yet, but she seems happy enough. I don’t know how she does it. With all the rehearsing, I barely have time for one. She says the trick is in the diary management.’

  ‘I know you’re busy, but I hope you will manage to find enough time for me.’

  ‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course I have time for you.’

  ‘Not interrupting, I hope?’ said Cherry, easing a tray with two pink cocktails, full to the brim, and a glass of Coke onto the table. ‘I noticed you weren’t keen on the ice, Dominik, so I watched the bartender like a hawk. I hope this is OK for you.’