Eighty Days Blue (22 page)

‘Did you get involved with her once she came to America?' Dominik asked. Victor considered. If Dominik was asking, it meant he was unaware of it all. He smiled quietly. ‘Of course not. I saw her around; we move in the same circles, after all. It's unavoidable – this little world we're involved in is so small. Almost incestuous, you might say. I knew she was your thing, though . . . Look but don't touch, eh?'

‘My thing?'

‘Your pet, no?'

‘You have a strange way of putting it, Victor.'

‘A pretty one, she is. And a wonderful violin player. Quite the little celebrity now, no?'

‘Yes.'

‘You are together again? Is that why you are in New York?' Victor asked.

‘Together? Not quite,' Dominik lied, ‘but we still see each other.'

‘Wonderful.'

‘Back at your place, when you kindly allowed me to watch her playing . . .' Victor hesitated, no doubt imagining the occasion when Dominik had requested Summer perform naked and blindfolded while a stranger – Victor – watched. Dominik thought of how one thing had led to another and how he'd used her in front of this very man.

‘What?'

‘She has too much pride. As much as she appears to be a slave to her lust, there is something about her – you can see it in her eyes, her posture. She's fighting her own urges, her inner nature.'

‘Is that so?' Nevertheless, Dominik recognised the truth in Victor's words.

‘Like a wild horse,' Victor continued. ‘Some women have to be broken. It's all part of the ritual. They have to accept who they are, deep down, and then you can build them all over again, reassemble the pieces. Except now you have become the one in control.'

‘Hmm . . . I know Summer well,' Dominik remarked dismissively. ‘I don't believe I will require any outside help.'

‘It wasn't a suggestion,' Victor said. ‘Just a remark. Anyway, it's good to see you again. Do you have any plans? Right now? I know a wonderful Ukrainian restaurant on Second Avenue near St Mark's Place. Their pierogi and stuffed cabbage are just like back home. Why don't I take you there? My treat. We must become friends again.'

Dominik looked at Victor and the broad piratical smile spreading across his face, his carefully trimmed grey beard a perfect shape. He realised Victor had something at the back of his mind, but he didn't care. The game could continue, surely.

‘Why not,' he replied.

Summer had visited the loft, taken most of the outfits from her rail in the built-in wardrobe and filled the washing machine, which was still on its final spin and dry cycle when Dominik got home. She had not left a note commenting on his absence or even to say hi.

She had rested in their bed a moment at least, though, as the smell of her perfume still lingered.

He dreamed of her that night.

And of wild horses.

Was it Summer's way of torturing him, punishing him for his tryst with Lauralynn and Miranda?

She couldn't have imagined a better way.

Curious, Dominik looked through Summer's wardrobe again and noted that the corset was no longer there. It had been previously, he knew, while she was on the Canadian leg of her tour. For the East Coast, she had taken it along.

So, he guessed, she would be following his instructions and finding herself another man for a night or two. Wearing that corset for someone else, though, was another thing altogether, a message of betrayal. Like twisting the knife. Damn you, Summer!

They had divided the wardrobe: her garments on the left-hand side, his on the right. His own wardrobe was functional and fairly monochrome – mostly black trousers, a handful of suits, all but one black, a ton of T-shirts, a
couple
of dozen shirts ranging from white to black, and most blue in between, a few dark cashmere sweaters and the obligatory tuxedo for dreary functions. He pulled it off the hanger.

Victor had invited him to a small soirée in Brooklyn that he was organising.

‘A bit formal, my friend,' he had said, ‘but I'm confident you will enjoy the evening.'

The brownstone was five minutes' walk from a stop on the F Line on a leafy street, past a parade of diminutive ethnic restaurants, a towering two-storey suburban building complete with fake colonial wooden porch and rising steps.

Dominik was greeted at the door by a mature woman with her dark hair styled into a chic bob. She was wearing a long, flowing blue evening dress, and every single finger on her hands was weighed down by a heavy ring. A pearl necklace hung from her neck. She was rather beautiful, despite – or perhaps because of – the lines on her skin that betrayed her age.

‘I'm Clarissa,' she introduced herself. ‘You must be Victor's friend.'

‘I am. Delighted to meet you. Is this your house?'

‘It is,' the older woman said. ‘We've lived here for years now. It goes back several generations in the family,' she indicated. Clarissa opened the door wider and showed Dominik in.

‘It looks vast,' he said.

‘There's only two of us living here now,' Clarissa said. ‘A bit of a waste, though we'd never think of moving,' she added.

There was a pleasant smell of food cooking wafting
through
the hall. It seemed to be coming from the basement, where the kitchen must be.

She led Dominik up the stairs to the first floor and into a large lounge bordered by an extended bay of tall windows that looked out on a long, unkempt garden. There were a dozen or so other guests already present, sipping champagne from long-stemmed crystal glasses, mostly couples, chattering softly.

‘Victor not here yet?' Dominik enquired.

‘He and his companions should be here any minute now,' Clarissa informed him. ‘Come,' she said, pointing to a salt and pepper-haired older man standing by the piano in a corner of the room, ‘let me introduce you. This is Edward, my husband.'

Edward was wearing a brown houndstooth waistcoat and a deep-brown dinner jacket. A cummerbund circled his waist. His thin moustache was trimmed neatly like a wartime hero in a 1940s movie, and a diamond shone in his right ear lobe. Quite the dandy, Dominik thought. There was something energetic about the man, even when he stood still.

His grip was firm and confident as they shook hands.

‘Victor has told us all about you,' he said.

‘Has he? In that case you have a distinct advantage over me.'

The front door's buzzer rang and Edward excused himself. He and Clarissa were taking it in turn to go downstairs and greet newcomers.

Dominik walked over to the table and helped himself to a glass of mineral water, then looked out of the window into the garden, where roses grew wild in the borders, shedding petals in the breeze like red, pink and white butterflies. At
regular
intervals the greenery was interrupted by a series of stone slabs, like altars or small tombstones.

For an instant, Dominik's imagination tripped the light fantastic with all sorts of crazy thoughts, inspired by his previous knowledge of Victor and the crowd he ran with.

Indeed, this was the sort of isolated garden in which much could happen, he reckoned, the high wooden fences circumscribing it, shielding it from view with canny perfection.

Just as his thoughts were about to take an even wilder turn, he felt a hand quietly tap his shoulder.

‘Hello, stranger.'

Dominik turned round.

It was Lauralynn, and standing next to her, with a shy grin on her lips, Miranda. Both women wore exquisite evening dresses that bared their shoulders. Statuesque Lauralynn's tanned arms emerged from a cocoon-like second skin of shimmery white material, and she stood, high-heeled, a whole head and a half taller than the American woman, whose outfit was scarlet and altogether looser from the waist downwards. Both women were evidently braless and Dominik could not avoid gazing at the hardness of their nipples straining against the fabric of their dresses.

He caught hold of himself.

‘You've escaped New Haven?'

‘Indeed. And convinced Miranda to join us . . .'

She was about to say something more when Dominik noticed Victor, fully tuxedoed and standing rigidly straight, at their side.

‘Good evening, Dominik. Thank you for coming.'

‘Hello, Victor,' Dominik said. ‘I see you know both these remarkable ladies already.'

‘Lauralynn is a friend of long date,' Victor replied, ‘and Miranda has come along as her special guest and kindly consented to entertain us, haven't you, dear?'

Miranda lowered her eyes.

‘I didn't realise you were acquainted with Miranda,' Victor said.

Of course he did, Dominik knew. It was obvious Lauralynn kept no secrets from him. He was up to his games again. Was this a set-up of some sort?

The women walked across to the table to pick up drinks.

Victor leaned towards Dominik. ‘I think she's Lauralynn's new plaything. Our Lauralynn switches so comfortably from men to women, you know.'

There was a lot more Dominik wanted to ask Victor about the coming evening and its participants, but they were joined by some of the other guests to the dinner party and introductions had to be made and the necessary small talk about who he was and what he was doing in New York. It seemed one of the men was also a trustee of the fund that endowed his fellowship and knew much about him already. Another coincidence? Victor's fixed smile remained as enigmatic as ever as he negotiated all the conversations. A perfect circus ringmaster.

The women returned and joined them. Lauralynn was holding Miranda by the hand.

They were asked to move to the dining room across the landing as dinner was served.

There must have been a professional chef at work in the basement kitchen, as neither of their hosts appeared to be busy with any cooking. An impassive black-liveried butler straight out of P. G. Wodehouse served.

The meal began with coquilles Saint-Jacques, the soft,
sponge-like
scallop bathing in an unctuous mushroom-flavoured béchamel sauce, followed by the lightest-of-light lemon sole, exquisitely filleted and flash-grilled with a dash of butter and parsley. The wines accompanying the meal were on the right side of perfection if one was to believe the others at the table, and again Dominik felt a touch self-conscious of the fact he did not drink.

He sat between Lauralynn and Victor at the round table, with Miranda on Lauralynn's left, and he noticed the blonde young woman's hands regularly delving under the table and playing with an increasingly fidgety Miranda.

The meal ended with a varied selection of soft and pungent European cheeses and strawberries and cream. All simple choices but presented with great finesse.

The two women excused themselves as the coffees were set down and Victor gave them a nod of his head. Across the table, the endowment-fund trustee was quizzing Dominik about the progress of his research and he had to confess that the documents he was investigating in the library holdings were beginning to orientate him away from his initial project and towards a work of fiction.

‘Ah,' his interlocutor said. ‘Novels are always so much truer to life, aren't they?'

‘It would be a new discipline altogether for me,' Dominik replied.

‘I'm sure you'll do a great job.'

‘I hope so, but I haven't reached a final decision yet,' he added.

Those left at the dining table moved back to the lounge.

Lauralynn was already there, sitting on the piano stool, quietly playing a melody he recognised but couldn't put a name or a composer to. Next to her, Miranda sat, now
without
the red dress she had worn earlier and wearing just an opaque camisole that finished at mid-thigh level. She also wore a dog collar, which connected with a loose metal lead to one of Lauralynn's wrists.

‘Ahh . . .' Victor said, leading Dominik to one of a row of chairs that had been laid out across the room, facing the piano area and the two women. The other guests all took their places too.

‘Our evening's entertainment. Lauralynn is going to put the newbie through her paces.'

‘Her paces?' queried Dominik.

‘Nothing very extreme,' Victor said. ‘Not at this stage. Just enough to test her resolve in joining our little group.' Once Dominik had sat himself down, Victor stepped over to the two women and Lauralynn ceased her playing, closed the piano lid and rose gracefully from the stool in all her splendour. Victor set a hand on Miranda's shoulder and indicated to the young woman that she should kneel by the now-vacated stool and drop her head to its seat. Miranda's movements were hesitant, as she realised what was likely to happen, but she slowly obeyed the instruction. Once she was in position, Victor, with a flourish for the audience, took hold of the bottom edge of Miranda's camisole and pulled it up, uncovering the woman's bare backside and upper thighs. Lauralynn pulled on the lead and Miranda was obliged to keep her head straight, staring in the opposite direction as Lauralynn bunched up her hair and tied it with a band so that it no longer obscured anybody's view, unveiling the vulnerable back of Miranda's neck in the process.

Suddenly, Victor placed himself between her legs and pushed them further apart. Miranda was forced to adjust
the
position of her knees on the wooden floor, exposing the dark opening of her anus for all to see.

From the top of the piano Lauralynn picked up a small paddle and handed it to Victor.

He raised it high and with a triumphant wave wacked the white orbs of Miranda's arse.

Her first shriek was one of pain and surprise. How much had she been told in advance about what would happen to her? Surely she must have given her consent. Dominik was not fully acquainted with BDSM practice, save for what he had read about, but from what Lauralynn had told him, it was key that all participants be informed and willing.

By the end of the evening, her arse cheeks were almost as scarlet as the dress she had worn earlier. Following the spanking, Lauralynn helped her up and she stood unsteadily, her running eye make-up a confused mess, instinctively taking hold of the camisole, which was still bunched up above her waist and rolled it down to protect her private parts. She averted her eyes from all those in the audience and was led out of the room.