Eighty Days Blue

by Vina Jackson

  We spent hours rehearsing together, this time taking advantage of Simón’s offer to loan us his basement as a rehearsal space, it being a far more pleasant space to spend an afternoon than the shabby old building that we had been renting, which was nearer my old shared apartment, but dark, dingy and full of draughts that crept in somehow no matter how tightly the windows were shut, as if the walls were asthmatic.

  Our first stop on the tour was a few nights in Calgary, followed by Toronto and Quebec City, before moving down the East Coast of America, where I would be closer to home and able to drop in on Dominik.

  I’d barely seen him for the past ten days. He had been reclusive since I announced the tour, insisting that he was behind on his research and lecturing commitments and spending more and more time at the library. We hadn’t had sex, not since the morning after my concert, and my efforts to point him in that direction had backfired severely.

  One afternoon, when he had expected me to be out of the flat, rehearsing, I had come home early to surprise him after one of his occasional talks. He opened the door to find me in the kitchen, baking an apple pie and wearing a schoolgirl’s outfit, which I had ordered online, complete with bobby socks, tartan miniskirt and suspenders, my long hair pinned into ponytails. I had meant it as a joke, though of course I had hoped that he’d find the idea arousing as well as amusing.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder whether you know me at all,’ he had said, taking one scathing look at me before disappearing into our bedroom and slamming the door behind him.

  I threw the pie away and turned on the kitchen area’s extractor fan to get rid of the smell.

  After that, I stopped trying and just let him sulk, although every night as I slid between the sheets next to him and he turned his back to me, I felt as though we had both been cryogenically frozen, separated by a wall of ice between us that didn’t belong there.

  I wanted to reach out a hand to touch him, to make it better with a warm embrace, but my arms were pinned to my sides as effectively as if they had been plastered there.

  By contrast, Simón was eager to spend more and more time with me, and I wondered whether he engineered the availability of the other musicians so that they always had to rush to leave for another appointment the moment rehearsal finished, leaving the two of us alone together in his basement while I packed away my sheets of music and gathered my things. He wanted to know every detail of the tour, the music planned for each night. I had left all of the organisation to the wings of Fate and my agent, who had every last detail planned with the efficiency of a covert CIA operative, so I didn’t even know the answers to most of Simón’s questions about where I would be staying and for how long.

  I had begun to tire of his attentions. His spicy cologne gave me a headache. The frizz in his hair tempted me to leave a bottle of my hair gel in his bathroom cabinet. Even his vast array of shoes lined up by the front door, which I had once found charming and elegant, now grated on my nerves.

  After each rehearsal, I rushed home, hopeful that Dominik would have forgiven me, would be his old self again, at least for our last few days together, but the loft was empty, and the longer I spent in it alone, the lonelier I became.

  When I couldn’t put it off any longer, I started packing, taking as little as possible with me in an attempt to reassure Dominik that I wouldn’t be away for long. I packed my performance costumes, the long black dress that he had bought for me for my first solo gig, a couple of shorter cocktail dresses for smaller, more intimate venues or those that might be too conservative to cope with a see-through dress.

  On the night before my departure, Dominik was out, working.

  Simón called to wish me good luck, as I was flying out first thing in the morning. I let the phone ring to voicemail and didn’t pick up his message.

  In a last-ditch effort to make things up with Dominik, I laced myself into my black corset, as tight as I could without any assistance, and decorated myself with the night shade of lipstick that he preferred, in the same way that I had for our first night together in the loft, the way that he had painted me when I played for him and his secret audience, painting my nipples and then my labia a vivid shade of red.

  I turned off all the lights in the apartment, other than one spotlight in the ceiling fixed directly over the wooden living-room floor.

  Then I held my violin and my bow in position and waited.

  And waited and waited.

  The clock struck midnight and still he didn’t come.

  Had he been any other man, I would have expected him to arrive drunk, but Dominik didn’t drink, meaning that wherever he was, he knew what time it was and that it was my last night in New York before the tour.

  Was he with another woman? Unlikely, I thought. He would be alone, surrounded by his books probably, drowning out his anger with a flood of words.

  I climbed into bed and closed my eyes, not bothering to unlace the corset or to wash off the lipstick.

  He woke me before dawn, the time when only birds, garbage men and women, and teenagers on their way home from the night before are still up and roaming the city.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ I said sleepily.

  ‘I know.’

  He took hold of the laces at the back of the corset and pulled me up onto my knees. His breathing was heavy, catching in his throat.

  I felt the almost imperceptible current from his arm lifting into the air before his hand came down on my rump with a loud slap, first one side, then the other.

  I jumped in shock, then lowered my chest down further onto the bed, pushing my arse into the air to give him better access, like a dog waiting to be mounted.

  How I had missed this, the heaviness of his hands on my body, which washed all other thoughts out of my head, the chance to show him that there was nothing that I wouldn’t do for him, the delicious expectation of the things that he might ask me to do for him and how much his requests turned me on. It was as if he was surrendering to his lust for me when he got into this sort of mood, allowing his passion to drive his actions despite whatever reservations his brain might hold. That ability that I had to drive him to submit to his desire gave me a heady rush of power, even when I was the one on my knees.

  He stroked me gently, easing the sting, and then nudged my legs apart. ‘Spread your legs.’

  He ran his finger between my lips, wiping the moisture up to my arsehole.

  ‘You missed me, I see.’

  ‘Yes, very much.’

  ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

  I leaned further onto my haunches so that I could balance, with my arms behind my back and hands clasped together in prayer position. I regretted giving up my yoga classes of late, as I hadn’t had time with all the rehearsals. My shoulders ached, but the aching just made me more aroused. I wanted Dominik to take me further than he had before, to wipe away all the discomfort of the last few days with his touch.

  I heard the rope before I felt it, the swish of the length unravelling. It felt rough against my skin, the frayed edges brushing my wrists. He bound my arms tightly together, handcuff style.

  ‘Bring your knees closer to your chest.’

  His voice was quiet, calm, firm, a tone that from previous experience, I knew was a prelude to much rougher treatment.

  He wound the rope round my ankles, tying my legs to my wrists so that I was on all fours in front of him, face down in the covers and completely unable to move.

  Then he raised his hand again, bought it down on my rear with another hard smack and then another, and another and another, until my eyes began to water and time folded in on itself. The stinging blended into another sensation altogether and my initial yelps of surprise and hurt became cries of pleasure.

  For a moment, I felt as though I was a part of his body, that somehow through the act of his palm meeting my flesh we had become conjoined in a way that was sexual but more than sex could ever be, both of us journeying together into unknown parts of our psyches in an act that was
as intimate mentally as it was physically.

  Then I heard the unbuckling of his leather belt, and the soft swish as he pulled the length of leather through the tabs of his trousers, the very slight creak as he folded the two ends together and then the soft current as his makeshift paddle flew through the air and landed on one butt cheek and then the other. It felt remarkably similar to his hand, and soon I could not distinguish between the impact of his skin and the belt.

  Occasionally I felt a brush of cloth against my feet as he leaned against me, still fully clothed, and in the morning I would imagine how we might have looked to a curious neighbour or a fly on the wall. Some might say beautiful, others immoral; others still would call us ridiculous. A tired man in a crumpled suit and a naked girl on her knees and bound in front of him. I would bear the marks of his hand and his belt for the better part of the week, would have a sharp reminder of our last hour in bed together each time I sat down.

  For now, though, I just let my mind swim into the sensation of his hand against my arse, the wetness seeping down my legs a vivid reminder of my body’s response to this strange form of lovemaking that bound the two of us together as tightly as the rope round my ankles.

  He paused for breath, resting his hands gently on my rear cheeks, and leaned forward, squeezing my hands to check that they weren’t going cold, turning blue. I wiggled my fingers to confirm that I was OK, about the only movement that I was capable of at that moment, as the spanking had sent me into a trance.

  He ran his hands over my body, caressing my legs, sliding his fingers inside me again, feeling no doubt the slickness of my lips, the lubrication that he had created; then he dropped to his knees and buried his face between my thighs, nibbling at my lips, fucking me with his tongue.

  I heard the squeak of the drawer of his bedside table opening, a sound that during sex gave me the same thrill as the fizz of a can of cola opening on a hot day. It was a sure promise of something pleasant to come.

  The lube was icy cold against the skin of my arsehole, though warmed quickly as he inserted first one finger and then another. Another man might have commented that I was tight there, but Dominik was ever silent, though his breath grew more and more ragged. I couldn’t hear his heart beating, nor could I see the expression on his face, but I imagined that he was as lost in lust as I was, eyes closed and mouth smiling in satisfaction at the responses that he was eliciting from me.

  He ran his cock up and down the cleft in my arse, the head of it soft and silky, slippery with lubricant, both of the chemical and the natural variety. He rested it against my arsehole and began to press, tentatively, then seemed to change his mind. He bent down hurriedly and untied my feet and ankles, his hard cock banging against my thighs as he did so.

  The blood rushed back into my feet and hands, and I wriggled both, easing the inevitable pins and needles.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said, stroking my limbs, warming the parts of me that had threatened to go cold without the benefit of circulation.

  ‘Yes, please don’t stop.’

  There’s something about anal sex. It’s a sensation that I had experienced only a handful of times, but which always gave me the feeling of being owned, of giving myself to a man entirely.

  Dominik returned his attentions to my opening. I held my breath as he pressed slowly, then harder, going deeper with every push, as I relaxed, opened myself up to him. I grasped the covers in handfuls as he pumped inside me. He had given up his silence now, and his pleasure was audible with each thrust.

  He grasped a handful of my hair and pulled me up, using it like reins to help him push harder as his movements became steadily quicker and less controlled, accelerating to frantic levels until he came inside me, collapsing onto my back, his warm come filling me and dribbling down the inside of my leg.

  He lay inside me until I felt his cock soften, his breath hot against my ear.

  It was daylight in New York.

  I began to shift, moving to get up, clean myself.

  ‘No. Stay,’ he said. ‘I want you to feel me inside you like that.’

  He curled up behind me, spooning, with his hand wrapped over my chest, holding my breast in his hand, until my alarm sounded, time for me to leave, as the limo booked by Susan would arrive at any moment to take me to the airport.

  He was in the kitchen, making me a coffee when I woke to find bruises blooming over my body and the sheets smeared with shades of red, like blood.

  The remains of my night-time lipstick, the colour that I used to make the transition into my evening person, had spread over the bedding, harsher than harsh in the day-time.

  Midnight in Calgary, where the men all seem to wear cowboy hats. My hotel room here could have come straight from a catalogue of hotel rooms from the 1950s. Functional, grey, depressing in its colour scheme. The windows double-glazed so that not a sound from outside could make its way in. A pocket of emptiness and an empty girl standing at its centre.

  Life without Dominik again.

  The imagined marks of his hands across my body, like a road map of our relationship.

  Just as I was leaving New York, on a mad impulse, I had packed the short length of rope into my case.

  I tightened it round my neck as I wandered naked around the desert of the room.

  I lowered my fingers to my midriff and beyond and touched myself, the image of Dominik imprinted on my mind, wishing for him to materialise by my side, take hold of the rope and just pull and tighten it until I came, or fainted, or died.

  New Zealand, Australia, London, New York and now, of all places, Calgary. On the road again.

  8

  Infidelities

  In theory, Dominik had been granted the fellowship so that he could research a possible project, a paper at least but maybe even a book on American expatriate writers and musicians in Paris in the immediate post-World War II years. It was a subject he found interesting and that offered extensive opportunities for genuine scholarship, as it had been pretty much neglected by other academics. However, the more he investigated the theme, the more he was losing interest in it.

  He suspected he might find more research material about the subject in sources in the French capital than New York, and on a few occasions when his mood moved from indifferent to foul, during Summer’s frequent absences in the course of her tour, he even contemplated flying out of Manhattan for a week to investigate this further in France.

  A thought occurred to him, though, and he fished out the paperwork he had been given after the fellowship had been agreed and checked on the specific terms underlying it. He remembered from the ad in Book Forum that it was initially on offer not just for academics and researchers but also to novelists in need of financial assistance to complete an ongoing project. His fellowship had actually been one of a dozen, but he’d only come across the other recipients at the cocktail party that had greeted the beginning of their residence in New York. Two of them – a thin blond guy from Portland, Oregon, and a squat, short-haired, heavily accented Finnish woman – had actually been fiction writers.

  Maybe he could turn all these ideas and facts into a novel. Not only would it be a great challenge, but also something money couldn’t buy. He could invent a handful of new characters and have them mingling with all the real-life protagonists who had been in Paris during the golden years of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Existentialism: Miles Davis and the jazz crowd, Juliette Gréco, Boris Vian and Jean-Paul Sartre. Blend fiction and reality, and inject a dash of racy romance.

  It could work, he reckoned. He had longed to write a novel for some time now, and had often fantasised about getting published.

  This cheered him up no end. He’d been hoping Summer would call him that particular morning. She’d been in Maine, where she had played the previous evening, and often rang him early the following day after she had re-charged her batteries, to let him know how the gig had gone. He had stood by the phone like a teenage fool and she had never called. This was the second time this week th
is had happened. Following the concert in New Hampshire, she hadn’t been in touch for a couple of days. Half of Dominik felt sad and neglected, while the other half dreamed of the punishments he might inflict on her, elements of humiliation they could both get off on. Somehow, though, it felt as if his imagination was drying up.

  After returning to the loft from Summer’s triumphant début at Webster Hall, he had cancelled his assignation with Miranda, pretexting an imaginary out-of-town obligation, somehow sensing the time was not right for an infidelity.

  It’s your fault, Summer, he thought to himself, as he checked out the business card on the back of which he had scribbled Miranda’s number.

  ‘The elusive travelling man of letters, I see,’ she said when he called her.

  ‘None other. Still want to meet up?’

  ‘Would love to,’ Miranda replied.

  He suggested they have early evening drinks at Balthazar on Spring Street, just a few blocks down the road from the loft. With Summer away so much, he’d grown into the habit of going there for a substantial daily breakfast, which then allowed him to avoid any further meals until dinner.

  He’d barely had time to set the phone down on one of the granite tops of the kitchen unit where he usually left it when it rang. Summer, finally? Maybe, at a distance, she had sensed how unsettled he was and guessed he was planning to see someone else. Good or bad timing? he wondered.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello, stranger.’

  Not Summer, but a familiar voice.

  ‘Hi, Lauralynn.’

  ‘I’m in town.’

  ‘Really. Just passing through or here for longer?’

  ‘It depends on quite a few things. Anyway, don’t want to bore you with all that now. Would love to see you, exchange some juicy gossip, hear how you’re getting on in the Big Apple. I’ve been reading about our Miss Summer – seems she’s been making something of a splash, quite the little celebrity. I’m rather jealous and beginning to regret I took up the cello and not the violin when I was offered the choice at only eight years old, but at that ripe old age you just have no idea what is sexy and what isn’t, do you?