Eighty Days Yellow (12 page)

All three of them appeared puzzled by the offer, but the monetary rewards visibly overcame their doubts.

The cello player, the blonde, even suggested a rehearsal place he could hire for the occasion, a crypt in a deconsecrated church where the sound resonated just that side of perfect for strings, and which ‘offers total privacy for whatever you have in mind’, she said. As if she had known all along that Dominik’s house was unsuitable for the occasion.

How could she even guess what I have in mind? he wondered, noticing an amused twinkle in her eye.

The music was agreed on and he took their particulars before ending the call. Now all the elements were in place and a date could be set. He picked up his phone.

‘Summer?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Dominik. You will play for me again next week,’ he informed her, advising her of the location and the time. He also mentioned the music she would be performing for him and the fact she would be one of four musicians, the final element in a quartet, and would have the opportunity of two hours’ rehearsal with her fellow musicians before the actual private concert.

‘Two hours is not a long time,’ she pointed out.

‘I know, but it’s a piece the other three already know well, so that will make it a little easier.’

‘OK,’ Summer accepted. Then added, ‘The Bailly will sound divine in a crypt.’

‘I have no doubt it will,’ Dominik said. ‘And . . .’

‘And?’

‘You will perform nude.’

5

A Girl and Her Memories

Dominik had asked me about my first time.

It was odd, I thought later, that I agreed to tell him the story, but playing
The Four Seasons
had put me into a dream, as it always did.

That’s what I blamed it on.

And this is what I told him.

‘I spent my first sexual experiences alone. Masturbating. I began when I was young. Younger than my friends, I think, though I didn’t ever talk about it with anyone. Always felt a little ashamed. I didn’t know what I was doing, really. I didn’t ever come – at least not for a few years.

‘Maybe you noticed when I was playing back there, I reach a certain point in the music where I’m in a sort of trance – I’m off in a world of my own – but as soon as I stop, everything comes flooding back. Playing the violin, you see, has always had a physical effect on me. A release of sorts, but it also seems to heighten sensation.’

I glanced over at Dominik to check his reaction.

He had lowered the driver’s seat down and lain back, relaxed. I did the same, inhaling the scent of his car, a clean, fresh smell, typical in my opinion of BMW drivers. The interior was spotless, personality-free, no hint of a recently consumed snack, gun holster or suspicious package in sight, just a book he had been reading earlier resting on the dashboard. An author I had never heard of.

Dominik didn’t look at me, just stared straight ahead through the windscreen. His expression was that of a man completely comfortable, as if he were on the verge of meditation. Despite the irregularity of the situation, his response, or lack of one, relaxed me. I was sharing secrets that I hadn’t shared with anyone, but the way that he blended into the car like that, it was almost as if I was talking to myself.

I carried on. ‘I played nude sometimes, with the window open, enjoying the cold air on my body. I left the lights on and the curtains open, imagined that the neighbours could see me playing my violin naked. If they could, they never mentioned it.

‘This carried on for a while, and I ended up spending so much time alone that when I was in high school, my mother became concerned that I was getting unbalanced, obsessive, and she tried to get me to join a school sports or a drama team. She wanted me to do something “normal”. We fought over it and eventually she won, though she let me choose the sport.

‘I chose swimming, mainly to irk my mother, as I knew that she really wanted me to do something more sociable, like hockey or netball, but I won that round by arguing that my violin-playing would benefit from stronger arms.’

A small smile crossed Dominik’s face as I shared this detail, but he remained silent, patiently waiting for me to carry on.

‘Swimming, as it turned out, had virtually the same effect on me as violin-playing. I liked the feeling of the water, and the way that time disappeared as I swam one lap after another. I was never very quick, but I could go on for ever. I swam for so long, so easily, that my swimming coach would have to tap me on the shoulder to tell me that the training session was over and I could go home.

‘He was a good-looking guy and had been a professional athlete for our region when he was at school. Gave it up when he stopped winning. Started teaching instead, but still had the body for it. Wore the whole lifeguard-look ensemble – short shorts and T-shirt and a whistle to show it off. I ignored him most of the time. Thought he rated himself a bit much, and it didn’t suit him somehow. As if he was putting the authority on for show. All the other girls fancied him. I don’t know how old he was. Older than me.

‘It was him, in the end. My swimming coach. The first time.’

I looked over at Dominik again. His expression remained impassive, bemused.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘One afternoon, he didn’t stop me. Just let me swim and swim. I broke out of it, after I don’t know how many lengths, because I suddenly noticed it was getting dark and I was the only one in the pool. Everyone else had left already. He said, when I finally got out of the pool, that he wanted to see if I’d carry on swimming until he told me to stop.

‘I picked up my towel and went to the changing rooms, and when I started to dry myself, I found that I was . . . well, I was horny. I’m not sure why, really, what it was, but the feeling was so strong I couldn’t wait until I arrived home. I was touching myself when I saw him looking at me through the changing-room door. Maybe I had forgotten to close it. I hadn’t noticed him push it open.

‘I didn’t stop. I should have, I suppose, but the way he looked at me . . . I carried on. And that was the first time I ever had an orgasm. With him watching.

‘He walked in then, after he saw me come. And when he then got his cock out, I couldn’t stop staring at it.

‘“You haven’t ever seen one of these before, have you?” he said.

‘I replied that I hadn’t.

‘Then he asked if I’d like to feel it inside me, and I said yes.’

I turned to Dominik, checking to see if he wanted me to continue, to tell him more. He snapped out of his reverie almost immediately.

‘Good,’ he said, bringing his seat up to a driving position. ‘That’s all I wanted to know. Perhaps you could tell me more another time.’

‘Sure,’ I said, and pulled the lever to bring my own seat back up again. Perhaps the experience of retelling my story to this man ought to have made me uncomfortable, but it hadn’t. If anything, I felt a little lighter, the weight of past secrets transferred from my mind to Dominik’s.

‘Can I drop you anywhere?’

‘Just the station, please.’

‘No problem.’

He might have the details of my sexual history, but I wasn’t quite ready to show Dominik my front door, and I still wasn’t sure whether he wanted me to do so anyway.

I needn’t have bothered with the attempt to retain any privacy from him. Within a week Dominik had requested my home address, and provided a date and time for me to stay in and sign for a package. I hesitated before I gave him the address. Besides the pizza-delivery guy up the road, he’d be the only man in London with my personal details, and I liked it that way. He had something to post me, though, and I’d only sound churlish, or paranoid, if I refused to tell him where I lived.

The package, as I’d half expected, was the violin Dominik had promised. Based on the quality of the violin that he had provided for the Vivaldi performance, I had guessed he would choose something nice, but I had never imagined that he would offer me an instrument so beautiful. It was a vintage Bailly, the wood a soft yellow, almost caramel, the colour of a jar of manuka honey held to the light. It reminded me of home, of the soft golden tones of the Waihou river when the sun catches the water.

According to the certificates enclosed, the last owner was a Miss Edwina Christiansen. Ever curious about the stories held within my violins, I tried Googling her, but found no clues to her history. Oh well. My imagination would have to do.

The case was brand new, black with a deep-red velvet lining. A little morbid for my tastes, and it didn’t suit the warmth of the Bailly, but Dominik seemed a smart guy and not romantic in the foolish sense of the word, so I supposed that the new case was just a way to disguise the value of the contents.

He had enclosed instructions: that I must acknowledge the arrival of the package, and then spend as much time as possible rehearsing with it, though not in public. And that I was to await his next instruction. Rehearse and wait.

Rehearsing with the Bailly was a joy. She fitted me perfectly, as though my own body had evolved to hold her. I had asked for a leave of absence from the busking gig, and under the circumstances, after the tube brawl, the organisers were very understanding. I played the Bailly every moment of every day, better than I had ever played before, the music pouring from my fingers as though the melodies had been trapped inside me and Dominik’s violin was the key that released them.

Waiting was another matter. I’m patient by nature, and have always preferred endurance sports. However, I wanted to know exactly what I was signing myself up for. Firmly of the belief that life gives no free lunches, I presumed that Dominik would be wanting a return on his investment, and until I understood what the payment terms would be, I decided to think of the violin as a loan rather than a gift. He had suggested an agreement, a contract of mutual satisfaction, not offered to be my sugar daddy. I would have turned him down flat if he had. But still, until I knew what he wanted, I wouldn’t be able to decide whether I wanted to give it to him.

I wasn’t looking for another relationship so soon after Darren. I was hoping for some single time. And Dominik didn’t seem like a man looking for a girlfriend. He was aloof, a loner; he didn’t have that desperate air of someone on the lookout for a partner. I mulled over his initial email contact. A bit of a geek maybe, probably with a large, arty porn collection on his PC, but not someone with a profile on the Guardian Soulmates website.

If he didn’t want to date me, what did he want?

I looked at the violin again, ran my hands over the graceful cut of the neck, guessed that it must be priced in the tens of thousands.

How big a return, and what sort of return, I wondered, would Dominik expect? What would satisfy such a man?

Sex? It was the obvious answer. But not, I thought, the correct answer.

A man who wanted sex would have just invited me to dinner. A wealthy classical music aficionado looking for a beneficiary would have sent me the violin without all the dramatics.

Dominik’s approach had something more to it. He didn’t have the air of a psychopath, but he seemed to be enjoying whatever game it was that he was playing. I wondered if he had a point, an endgame, or if he was just rich and bored.

I could have sent the violin back, of course, and maybe that would have been the proper thing to do. But it wasn’t just the violin that interested me; frankly, I was curious.

What would Dominik do next?

A few days later, my phone rang.

He spoke before I had even had a chance to say hello. Under other circumstances, I might have been annoyed, but I decided to hear him out.

‘Summer?’

‘Yes.’

He advised me, coolly, that I would be playing for him next week, in the afternoon. String Quartet no. 1 by the Czech composer Smetana – fortunately, a piece I liked and was reasonably familiar with, as it had been a favourite of Mr van der Vliet. I would be playing with three members of a quartet who knew the piece very well, as the violinist and viola player had, it appeared, performed it on previous occasions. I need have no concern over my privacy or the discretion of the other musicians involved in such an affair, as they had sworn never to reveal any details of the event.

Which was fortunate, as I would be performing nude.

The other players would be asked to don blindfolds before I disrobed, so my nakedness would be apparent only to Dominik.

As soon as he had said the words, a hot rush spread throughout my body. Again, I supposed I ought to say no. He’d just asked me point-blank to take my clothes off in front of him. But if I refused, I’d never know what it was that he was scheming. And, I thought idly, it would technically be our third date. Considering that I sometimes went home with men on a first date, this wasn’t really any different, except that I had agreed to do so up front.

Or had I?

Dominik hadn’t said that he wanted to fuck me.

Perhaps he just wanted to watch me.

The thought filled me with trepidation, but despite my best efforts to ignore the feeling, I found myself aroused and wet.

No surprise really – I had been so caught up in the loss of my violin, skint and now tied to the Bailly, I hadn’t had a chance to date anyone, and hadn’t had sex since the last time with Darren. Irritating, though, that thoughts of Dominik should have this effect. It put him a step ahead of me in whatever negotiation it was that he had in mind.

Naked, with him watching, I worried that he would know what effect he was having on me. After my revelations in the car to him, that day on Hampstead Heath, I doubted that he would be surprised. I was probably about to provide him with exactly the response that he was hoping for.

If this was to be a battle of wills, then I had given him all the ammunition he needed.

A week later, I made my way to the location that Dominik had hired, this private crypt in Central London. I did not know the place, though I wasn’t surprised to hear of its existence. London is a city full of surprises. He had given me the address during our phone call, but advised me not to scope out the venue in advance, in order to keep the performance fresh. I had considered checking it out anyway, but felt strangely compelled to follow his instructions to the letter. He’d bought the violin, so the recital at least was his gig, after all.