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  Autumn

  The Pleasure Quartet

  Vina Jackson

  1

  The Song of the Missing

  I always knew I was different from other women.

  An eminent psychiatrist has established there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

  When Dominik died, I initially experienced none of these.

  So, exclude me from the ranks of humanity if you will.

  At first, there was only shock. And then all I could do was miss him, miss him and miss him all over again.

  Today was Valentine’s Day. It was the first time I had left the house in a fortnight, and as I shrugged my way into my winter coat and made my way down to the local High Street to pick up some fresh coffee beans and bread from the Tesco Local down the way from the Everyman cinema, I wondered at what kind of skewed logic had made me choose today of all days to venture out of the comfort of the sprawling Hampstead home overlooking the Heath that we had shared together for the past three years.

  I paused and stared into the window display of a stationery store at racks of cheap and cheerful greeting cards and the fat gold cupid that stood alongside them holding his bow string taut and aiming at a bunch of red balloons that floated overhead. ‘Forgotten something, Mr?’ was printed in a calligraphic black font onto a white speech bubble protruding from his heavy-lipped mouth.

  Dominik would have made a joke of it all, particularly the notion that it might be him who had forgotten any romantic occasion rather than me.

  Just two months had passed by since the last day that I had spent with him.

  It was the morning before Christmas and we were lying in bed together, side-by-side. Dominik’s breath was hot against my ear as he pressed his lips to my earlobe. I held my eyes shut tightly and pretended to be still asleep, although I knew that he knew I was awake. The pattern of my breathing was different when I slept. As was his. The sort of thing that came naturally to lovers and couples.

  A sudden current of cool air swept across my back as he lifted the covers and slipped out of the far side of the bed, before turning back again and tucking the duvet up around my shoulders. He smoothed a lock of my hair back from my face as he did so and then he was gone. I stretched out my limbs like a starfish and then curled up into a ball again, as if the smaller I became, the longer I could fight off morning.

  Downstairs, I could hear the hum of the coffee machine as it warmed up, and the bang-bang sound of Dominik knocking the filter against the sink to dislodge the used grounds from the previous brew. He was always careful to wash the machine and wipe down all the parts each time he used it. Getting a coffee machine was one of the concessions that he had made when we moved in together. He had always railed against it, complaining that the sleek silver beasts that squatted on bench tops all over North London were bourgeois and a waste of money, when a teaspoon of instant or a cafetiere did the job just as well. But he had quickly succumbed to my ingrained caffeine habit.

  The deep, rich scent of freshly ground coffee beans wafted into the room and the door squeaked closed. He padded quietly across to the bed, slid my cup onto the bedside dresser and then crawled across me to his side, careful to hold his weight an inch or two above me. He had slipped on a loose pair of cotton pyjama pants and socks to keep the chill off as he braved the journey across our cold wooden floors to the kitchen, and he struggled to pull them off with one hand as he wriggled back into bed. Now naked again, he pulled me into his arms. He brushed my mess of hair behind the nape of my neck and nipped my earlobe. His lips mapped a trail of kisses along the line of my jaw. I nestled against him and murmured a low moan, a sound of sleepy approval.

  His left arm was snaked beneath my throat like a pillow and his right arm hooked over my body. He held my breasts in his open palms and squeezed them gently, as if he was getting to know the shape and weight of them for the very first time. We were like two S’s lying next to each other, the full length of his body tracing a path around mine. My back against his torso, our thighs clamped together, the front of his knees locked into the back of mine, the soles of my feet resting on the top of his. If I could choose only one position for us to lie entwined for the rest of our lives, in the same way that people are asked to name one food or piece of music that they would take to a desert island, then this would probably have been it. Dominik often remarked on the uncanny way that we fitted together so well despite the difference in our height. It was as if our bodies had been carved from the same piece of stone.

  The soft, silky helmet of his cock began to press against the small of my spine as his erection grew, but I kept my eyes closed. Of course, I wanted him inside me. I always did. But I was not a morning person, and invariably, on this morning like every other, my arousal warred with my desire to keep snoozing as I struggled against the arrival of a new day, still too lazy to move or to caress him. I stirred, made a purring noise in the back of my throat and let him continue to stroke my breasts. I wriggled my hips from side to side, arched my back and pushed my arse against him, burying myself into the V shape that his torso and hips made on the bed. That was the sign that I always gave him, to indicate that I was awake enough for sex. He always seemed to want a sign that I wanted him, no matter how often I told him that he could fuck me even if I was asleep, or at least appeared to be. No matter my state of mind, health or the time of day, I was always in the mood for sex. It was only the type of sex that I was in the mood for that changed, depending on my energy levels and temperament.

  His hand dipped down lower and cupped the mound of my mons. By the time he lightly separated my pussy lips with his finger I was moaning softly and I knew that I was wet. He raised his forefinger as if shushing me and ran the moisture that I had left there over my bottom lip so that I could taste the sweet-salt tang of it. Dominik had never stopped insisting how much he loved the taste of me, and he had never stopped trying to prove it, either. His knuckles scraped across my spine as he grasped his cock and began to guide it inside me after all our wriggling had failed to connect us.

  The moment that his cock head broke through the tightness of my entrance always made me gasp. Dominik didn’t have the biggest cock in the world. His was just on the right side of average. Perfect, for me. It was not his size that made me lose my breath. It was the moment that our physical connection became complete. Maybe I was a simple woman, different in some way from other women. It wasn’t that I didn’t love all the other caresses that we shared, or that I didn’t value the intimacy of cuddling him, spooning him, the touches that we exchanged whenever we were together. But I lived and died for the sensation of his cock sliding inside my cunt, and nothing ever felt as good as the moment of his first stroke. We rocked back and forth like that until he came, and then he cradled my body in his arms until he shrank and slipped out of me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to him, stretching my arms over my head and reaching for my coffee. I wasn’t talking about the drink that he had made for me which was now cold and had developed a thin layer of film that broke apart as I sipped. ‘It’s my favourite way to wake up.’

  ‘I know it is,’ he replied, with an infuriating, knowing smile spread across his face. Then it had bugged me, how he knew me so well already. I liked to imagine that I was a closed book. An enigma. A contrary mess of psychological intricacies where the bad me and the mad me hid behind a clever veil of contradictions. But I was none of that to Dominik. From the very first time we had met on that day in St Katherine Docks after he had contacted me following the brawl on the tube when my old vi
olin had been damaged, he had intuitively learned how to press my most secret buttons and bring out the best and worst of me. He had immediately mastered the mixed-up mess that made me who I was. But none of that mattered to Dominik. The way he looked at me made me feel as though I was transparent.

  We had that exact conversation after every time we had morning sex. It was one of our rituals. I hadn’t realised until he was gone how many rituals we had together. How deeply entwined in the fabric of my life he was. I didn’t have a life without Dominik. He was my life. All of the little moments like that, they were my life.

  Why had I ever imagined that anything else mattered?

  I’d agreed to be involved later that afternoon in a small charity event at a church in nearby Highgate. Lauralynn’s string quartet was also performing, and I would be joining them for a single section, one of Paganini’s ‘24 Caprices’. I often played the short Paganini pieces as part of my practice exercises, having been thoroughly schooled in them during the course of my turbulent teens by my music teacher, Mr Van der Vliet, back in New Zealand. They were all technically awkward to master, but then that was the point and we had all rushed through a quick rehearsal the previous weekend.

  Dominik and I had both kept the morning free for some last minute shopping. This was the first year that I would be cooking for him on Christmas Day, as on previous occasions we had always eaten out as we’d been travelling. We had revisited New Orleans where after a late dinner at Tujague’s, off Jackson Square, Dominik had endeavoured to find the secret club where under his instructions I had once danced nude in full public view, still under the spell of the strange primal ties that had brought us together and the influence of the dazzling Russian dancer we watched performing. However, the local where the club had been was now closed, and no one knew where it had moved to. Much later during the course of our sometimes tempestuous relationship he had flown me to Reykjavik, where we had hired an SUV and hunted the Northern Lights over the eerie darkness of the black lava plain by a deserted glacier on the stroke of midnight and his kiss had melted away the sub-zero cold from my lips and inflamed my heart.

  The turkey we had ordered online had been delivered two days before and had now defrosted. Following a recipe book we’d been obliged to buy, as despite the fact that the house was a refuge for thousands of books, none of them pertained to food, I’d prepared a herby stuffing and squeezed it down the bird’s cavity and, dutifully basting it with sugar and further spices, had fitted the succulent animal, just, into the oven where it was now roasting away. It was enormous and I was more nervous at the prospect of cooking it correctly than tackling any new piece of music or confronting one of Dominik’s now occasional, but always welcome, sexual kinks.

  ‘It’s huge,’ I said. ‘And with my luck, will likely end up either dry or raw.’ I was dizzy with apprehension. ‘We’ll have food left over for weeks …’

  All Dominik did was smile back at me and remain silent. His eyes glittered and a sheen of mischief trailed across the pattern of his lips.

  He walked down the store’s central aisle, picking up a bottle there and random boxes of chocolates and premium biscuits, examining them closely before settling on a choice.

  We had friends and acquaintances invited for drinks on Boxing Day and we’d decided to get them some post-Xmas gifts to celebrate the occasion.

  It all felt curiously domestic.

  Which is when I realised that I hadn’t prepped the vegetables. I had planned to do so straight after breakfast, but the dreamy state of our lovemaking had left me aimless and disoriented, despite the fact that we had cut our morning sex session short so we could get the day started. On occasions where we both had time, after spooning led to sleepy sideways sex, he would tip me onto my back, kiss a path between my breasts and down my torso to my mound and then lap at my clitoris until I came. Pleasuring me like this aroused him so much that he was inevitably hard again when he raised his head proudly and began to crawl up my body to kiss me, and that usually led to more sex. It had become a routine, one of a whole palate of sexual regularities that was now a sequence I knew by heart, but it never felt rote. More like learning a string of musical notes – no matter how many times I played a song I loved, I never grew tired of hearing the same notes in the same order.

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I didn’t put the potatoes on. And I have to play at the recital soon …’ I told him. ‘I’d better get back home.’

  He looked up at me, his dark eyes catching the reflection of the shop’s elongated neon lighting strips.

  ‘No problem. I’ll keep on doing the shops. Maybe find a surprise for you? You go, and I’ll be home in an hour or so.’

  I pointed out that I would just have time to ready the vegetables and pick up my instrument and travel to Highgate for the charity do, so there was no need for him to hurry. The oven was on a timer, and I would be back in late afternoon with leisure enough to get everything ready for the dinner we had planned.

  I walked away with a perfunctory wave.

  I didn’t even think of kissing him.

  Fuck.

  The aromatic smell of the turkey roasting slowly in the oven reached me as I opened the front door and made my mouth water. Maybe I would turn out to be a cook after all! I quickly washed, peeled and cut the vegetables and wrapped them in foil. They would go in the oven when I returned. I rushed up to the study, hesitated a brief moment as to which of my violins I would play today and settled on the Bailly. It was an instinctive, irrational decision, seeing I hadn’t played or practised with it much recently.

  I pulled a delicate, lightweight silk dress from the wardrobe, short-sleeved, smooth to the touch, just one from my arsenal of little black dresses for public functions and performances. Almost a uniform. Checked it for stains and slipped it on, then foraged in the drawers for a pair of tights and matching black shoes and ran out of the house, grasping my heavy winter coat under my arms next to the violin case as I entered the right combination on the bicycle lock and pedalled off up the hill towards Jack Straw’s Castle where I would take the Spaniards Inn road towards Highgate past Kenwood House.

  I arrived at the church 15 minutes later, just as a black cab was drawing up outside and Lauralynn stepped out from it, seemingly taller than ever in a sleek grey tailored pinstriped suit, pulling her battered cello case from the carriage onto the pavement before paying the driver.

  ‘How quaint,’ she remarked, as she watched me seeking a railing which I could attach the bike to.

  ‘The advantages of playing a somewhat lighter instrument,’ I replied, winking at her. Despite her past relationship with Dominik, we had become the best of friends since I had begun living with him again in earnest.

  The other members of Lauralynn’s ensemble were already waiting for us inside, and the elderly charity organiser running the show effusively greeted us as we joined them in the narrow gift shop which had been transformed into a rudimentary green room for the performers. The quartet were playing an improvisation on a theme by Philip Glass before my turn came, and I sat down in a rickety chair, with the door open to the nave, so I could listen to them playing in the area that had been cleared for the musicians close to the lectern. The jug of coffee prepared for us was weak and insipid, and a single sip was enough for me and I switched to tap water. The dark, sensuous tone of Lauralynn’s cello skirted around the repetitive melody like a bird in flight, domineering, regal, elegant, masculine in its forcefulness. Her fellow players were highly competent and professional but to me it felt like she was leading them through a merry gavotte, the comforting warmth of her strings gliding across the music like a lion set loose in a jungle of church-like resonance and occasional coughs from the invisible audience.

  There was a smatter of applause and I grabbed hold of my trusty Bailly and stepped into the nave, after the organiser had announced me.

  The audience was a blur of pastel-coloured coats, sw
eaters and scarves, a jumble of faces. I never truly saw the spectators attentively watching me when I played. From the moment the violin settled on my shoulder and I raised my bow, all my normal senses automatically switched off and I was in a world of my own.

  Alone in my body, living for the cascade of notes, the waves of exquisite sound I invoked from my instrument, the pizzicati I plucked out of the silence and ordered into a pattern of beauty.

  It was, as ever, as if the whole world retreated into the distance and I was alone with my emotions, my soul burning with a gentle fire which spread through my body as the tempo increased and I became a servant of the instrument and no longer its player, its mistress.

  The music turned the blood in my veins into arrows of light and pleasure. I tingled, from head to toe, a creature of the senses, wanton, liberated, alive again. The nearest I could come to expressing my emotions fully, just like in the throes of sex and its dark and sometimes contradictory desires when I craved, yearned, begged to become whore, victim, conqueror, lover and all those dangerous undercurrents that were the foundations of my soul that only Dominik had managed to tame. Even when they lay dormant, I knew they were lurking around the corner of my mind, diseased, predatory, waiting for any sign of weakness on my part.

  Ahhhh … the music and Dominik: the harbours of my sanity.

  When I had walked into the nave, it had felt chilly. Now an unseen warmth caressed me, all over, as the leather of the violin’s chin guard softly rubbed against my skin to the rhythm of the Paganini melody and my eyes closed and I allowed myself to wander and get lost inside the meandering and labyrinthine folds of the song until it felt as if it was playing me and not the other way around.

  My mind drifted.

  Tonight, I decided as I unleashed another waterfall of quicksilver notes, I would ask Dominik to take me hard. I wanted to scream, cry out, to find my core again in sweat and tears.