Eighty Days Yellow Read online

  It was at an improvised dungeon in the basement of an imposing redbrick building uptown, just a block off Lexington. She had been asked to report at 8 p.m. and had decided to wear the corset she had worn for the maiding experiment back in London what now seemed like an eternity ago. Wearing the outfit that Dominik had bought for her, she could imagine that it was a party she was attending at his request, it was his will she was following.

  As she fitted herself into it in preparation, Summer marvelled again at the softness of the material. She drew her fingers across it and couldn’t help briefly thinking of him. Why was she finding it so difficult to banish his memory?

  However, the insistent thought was not given the opportunity to linger as her mobile phone vibrated. The limo Victor had sent for her was waiting outside. She slipped on her long, red leather trench coat. It was in no way appropriate for the warm weather, but it covered her up all the way to the ankles, concealing the shocking spectacle of her laced-up corset, her exposed breasts and the black stockings she had been asked to wear, which reached to mid-thigh and bared territories of pale milk skin all the way to her almost invisible thong. She’d noted with some irritation that her pubic hair was beginning to grow again in thin patches and she was a bit messy down there, but she didn’t have the time to rectify the situation.

  Victor was wearing an elegant dinner jacket, as did all his male guests, while the accompanying women proved a visual cocktail of couture dresses in all shades of the pastel rainbow. Her trench coat was taken from her shoulders and Summer felt self-conscious at being the only bare-breasted presence in the large dining room, where the crowd was sipping drinks and smoking. A thick haze of cigarette and cigar smoke lingered in the air.

  ‘Our final arrival,’ Victor proclaimed. Pointing to her, he said, ‘This is Summer. As of today, she will be joining our intimate little group. She comes highly recommended.’

  Recommended by whom? Summer wondered.

  She felt the gaze of the twenty or so strangers landing on her, exploring her, interrogating her. Her nipples hardened.

  ‘Shall we?’ Victor said with a flourish, indicating the door to the basement.

  Summer followed the movement of his hand and walked unsteadily on her high heels towards the opening. She felt a little dizzy now, as the moment approached. This was her first scene since the London orgy that had ended so badly and torn Dominik and her apart.

  A dozen steps brought her down into a large, well-lit basement or cellar, the walls of which were lined with exotic-looking carpets of Arabian provenance. She’d once known what they were called, but the word eluded her as she noted the presence of six other women standing in a circle at the centre of the improvised dungeon. Summer actually counted them.

  Every single one of them was naked from the waist down. No underwear, or even stockings or shoes. Above, they wore an assortment of blouses or shirts or flimsy silk tops with varying degrees of transparency. They all had their hair pinned upwards in the form of a chignon, and their hair colour varied from almost platinum to jet black. She was the only redhead present. Two of the women wore thin velvet chokers round their necks, while the others were adorned by collars, some metallic, another more like a dog collar with a line of metal studs, and yet another a thin leather belt closed by a heavy metal lock.

  Slaves?

  The guests trooped into the dungeon and circled the walls.

  ‘As you see, my dear –’ Victor had silently moved to her side and was whispering in her ear – ‘you are not alone.’

  Summer was about to respond, but he quickly brought a finger to her lips in a demand for silence. It was no longer her role to speak.

  His hand brushed against her flank, affectionately tugging at the tight elastic of her minuscule thong.

  ‘Expose yourself,’ he ordered.

  Summer raised a leg and pulled the thin undergarment down and stepped out of it.

  ‘The rest?’ he continued.

  She caught sight of the other women and how they were bottomless and understood his command. Aware that all eyes in the basement were on her, and attempting to keep her balance and not fall to the ground, Summer rolled down her stockings and kicked off her shoes, Victor offering her no support. The ground was cold under her feet. Stones.

  Now she was as bottomless as the others, just her corset contricting her waist and her breasts uplifted by its delicate but firm engineering, on full display, at attention.

  Looking at the other silent women standing in a circle on similar display, Summer realised how abominably obscene they all were. Nudity was natural, even in public, but this was something more, a travesty of sexual reality, a form of clever humiliation.

  There was a nudge on her shoulder and she was guided towards the exposed women, who parted to fit her into their circumference. She noticed they were all shaven too. Terribly smooth, she reckoned, as if the depilation were permanent. Something they had committed to at some stage, determining their status as slaves, the loss of power. She felt conscious of her own untidiness there.

  Just as this thought crossed her mind, Victor said, ‘You should have been cleaner, Summer. Your cunt is messy. In future you must be totally bare. I will punish you later.’

  Could he read her thoughts?

  Summer’s face reddened and she felt the heat run under the skin of her cheeks.

  Someone struck a match and her heart seized, fearing for a moment that this was the beginning of some rite of pain, but it was just to light a cigarette.

  ‘So, Summer, you join us,’ Victor said, now circling her and threading fingers through the tangle of her hair, allowing his other hand to lie against her buttocks.

  ‘Yes,’ Summer whispered.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ he roared, and his hand landed with fierce strength on her right bum cheek.

  Summer flinched. There was an intake of breath from the audience. One woman’s smile as she observed the scene had all the ugliness of a fairy-tale evil queen. Summer spied another licking her lips. In anticipation?

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly, repressing her reluctance to fall into the role this easily.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You know the rules: you will serve us; you will not ask questions; you will afford us respect. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She knew the routine by now.

  His hand moved to her nipple and squeezed it hard. Summer held her breath to control the pain.

  Victor was now standing behind her, his words drilling into her ear. ‘You are a little slut.’ When she did not respond, she felt the hard slap of his hand against her arse again.

  ‘I am a little slut.’

  ‘I am a little slut what?’ Again the sting of his palm drew a lightning spasm of pain.

  ‘I am a little slut, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Better.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and out of the corner of her eye Summer noticed one of the other slaves smirking. Were they laughing at her?

  Victor continued, ‘You like it that everyone can see your body, slut, don’t you? You like to be seen, to be exposed?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I do,’ she answered.

  ‘You’ll do well, then.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘From this moment on, I own you,’ Victor proclaimed.

  Summer felt like protesting. On one hand, there was something terribly exciting about the idea, but on the other, a core of her personality rebelled.

  For now, though, standing in this dungeon, with her tits and unevenly shaved cunt on full display, the wetness oozing from her centre unwittingly confirming how excited she was, it was only words.

  Summer felt emboldened to face whatever the future held in store.

  11

  A Girl and Her Master

  The first smack was so fierce I knew that the mark of his hand would remain on my rump for hours to come, delineated in pink like a child’s version of an abstract painting.

  I swallowed hard.

  All eyes were on me
, awaiting my reaction, hoping to see me flinch. I just gritted my teeth. I didn’t want them to have the pleasure. Or not yet, at least.

  There was a harshness in Victor’s voice I had not perceived previously, as if his true nature was now rising to the surface. Then, making me shed what little garments I had on but retaining the corset, I finally reached a state of exposure that satisfied him. ‘Sir’ this, ‘Sir’ that, authoritarian, insistent. I obeyed his instruction, though it irked me to do so. The way I should address him. Dominik had never asked me to call him ‘sir’. I had always found the term silly, felt it reduced a situation from risqué to ridiculous. I tried to retain my dignity despite the sheer tawdriness of the situation.

  I stood there, motionless, one of a parade of slaves, all in line like ducks on a shooting range. The slim blonde with small breasts, the olive-skinned brunette with the low-slung centre of gravity, the mousy-haired woman with voluptuous curves and a prominent birthmark on her right thigh, the tall one, the small one, the round one. And me, the redhead with her constrictive corset, the one whose clothing drew even greater attention to her sexuality, nipples hard, cunt moist and expectant.

  ‘Kneel,’ a voice said. This time it wasn’t Victor, who had retreated into the crowd of guests, where he blended seamlessly into the dark-costumed throng of men and women.

  We all kneeled.

  ‘Heads down.’

  The women on either side of me did so, their chins almost scraping the stone floor. If this was total subservience, it didn’t sit well with me. I lowered my head but still kept it at a minimal distance from the ground. I felt a foot against the small of my back, forcing me down and increasing the curve of my spine to bring my arse further upwards in offering.

  ‘That ass looks succulent,’ a woman said. ‘She has such a small waist that it just dominates her landscape.’

  The foot retreated. Dark polished shoes and five-inch heels began circulating round me and the other slaves as the guests navigated between us, judging us, evaluating our wares. From the corner of my eye I saw a suited knee touch the ground next to me; a hand appeared beneath me, weighing my hanging breasts. Another invisible participant slid a finger across my arse crack, dipped into my cunt and tested my wetness, then withdrew and probed the tightness of my anal opening. I clenched, trying to keep him out, but he inched his way in for a moment. I was surprised he had managed to breach me there, albeit briefly, with no form of artificial lubrication. Mind you, the position I was in, with my intimacy on full display, made it easier.

  ‘Not been extensively used here,’ he commented, then slapped my arse playfully before moving on to another exposed body.

  Suddenly, Victor’s breath was in my ear. ‘You like to be shown off, don’t you, Summer?’ he remarked with a note of amusement. ‘It gives you a kick. I can see it from how wet you are already. You can’t hide it. Have you no shame?’

  It was clammy down there and a warm blush no doubt coloured my cheeks as he kept on examining me up close.

  ‘Can she be used?’ someone, a man, asked.

  ‘Not totally,’ Victor remarked. ‘Her mouth only today. I have more interesting things for her in store.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me,’ the other answered.

  ‘She enjoys being displayed, used publically, this one,’ Victor continued. There it was again, the soft shuffle as he dragged his foot along the floor, just a few inches from my nose. He had a very slight limp, which made his gait recognisable. I felt furious, but had no leisure to indulge in my anger. Victor’s hand was under my chin, forcing me to raise my head. He placed me at eye level with the other guest’s trousers, zip open, as the stranger pulled out his cock and presented it to my mouth. A faint smell of urine wafted in my direction and I almost gagged, but Victor’s hand now gripped my shoulders, conveying his will. I parted my lips.

  The stranger’s cock was short and thick. He began his frantic thrusts, holding me by my hair so I had no alternative but to take him whole, in a parody of greed.

  He came quickly, the jet of his come hitting the back of my throat. The man maintained his grip on my head and refused to withdraw until I had, reluctantly, swallowed and cleaned my mouth of his emission. Then he let go. His bitter flavour lingered and I longed to run to a bathroom to scrub his semen from my tongue. At that moment I would have gargled acid to get the taste out of my mouth.

  I quickly glanced around me and noted that all the other hapless slaves were in use, alternately being face-fucked by the male guests or ridden doggy style like pieces of meat, aside from the one who reminded me of a suburban housewife. She was busy going down on one of the female guests whose scarlet silk dress had ridden up all the way to her waist and who emitted little birdlike cries every time the slave’s tongue connected with her clit or wherever her pleasure points were.

  I had no time to consider the situation further, as I was approached by Victor and ordered onto my back after he had laid a thick blanket over the stone floor. With my legs wide open, he advanced towards me, trousers down to his ankles, his respectably sized cock already sheathed. I noted that, unlike Dominik, he had chosen to wear a condom. Was it that he didn’t trust me, my health, or just that Dominik had happened to be irresponsible?

  He pushed himself into me with force and began to fuck me. I realised, suddenly, that though I had chosen to surrender my body to Victor’s will, my mind was still my own, to do with what I wanted. I searched for that place in my head, the door that would take me away from all this mentally, if not physically. Soon, my surroundings faded, the men and women and the slaves shifting into some absent dimension, bodies and grunting sounds and all, and I abandoned my grip on reality and allowed the tides of arousal to sweep over me as I closed my eyes. He quickly satisfied his lust and took a couple of steps back.

  I barely had time to blink before another man’s penis was being presented to my still-recovering mouth. A different shade of pink and brown, a large head, another faint scent, this time of herbal-scented soap. I didn’t look up to see the face it belonged to. Did it matter? I bridged the gap between it and my lips, and tongued its warmth in a semblance of appetite.

  The rest of the evening went by in a blur.

  Men as anonymous as they come. Women with a touch of cruelty in their commands and a sweet sickness rising from their assorted fragrances. I’d quickly disconnected from my thinking self; my mind and body were on automatic pilot.

  The next time I opened my eyes properly and looked around, the earlier crowd had mostly dispersed, the late stragglers flushed or adjusting their clothes. Just us circle of slaves still at the centre of the room, soiled, tired, resigned.

  Someone patted my head as one would a pet.

  ‘Well done, Summer. You certainly show promise.’

  It was Victor.

  His comment surprised me. I knew I had been detached, faraway, mechanical, totally disengaged, just an actress on a set. A porno set at that.

  ‘Come,’ he said, his arm extended in my direction, his hand outstretched towards me to help me up from my unbecoming crouch. He had retrieved my trench coat from the hall where I’d had to leave it on arrival and helped me into it.

  Outside the brownstone, the limo was waiting for us.

  He dropped me off first. The drive downtown took place in silence.

  You become a zombie out of sheer tiredness, mental and physical. Days completing the rehearsals, two performances on average a week, and whenever I was free, Victor would call on me.

  Of course, I could have said no, I should have said no, informed him he was going too far and I was no longer a willing participant in the games he was orchestrating with such deliberate cunning, but I realised that part of me sought further episodes with a morbid sort of curiosity. As if I was testing my own limits. Every encounter was a bridge further down the river, a challenge that my body was drawn to.

  I was losing control.

  Without Dominik to anchor me, I was a sailboat with no engine now, drifting in the
high, unexplored seas, at the mercy of wind and storms. On the prayer of a song, and not one I could play on my violin.

  We had a guest conductor from Venezuela in town for a season of post-romantic works by Russian composers and he was driving us hard. Our initial sound was not to his liking. He wanted more verve and colour in our playing. The string section was affected the most. The predominantly male brass section appeared to be adept at switching their emphasis, but us string creatures found it more awkward, accustomed as we were to a more discreet angle of attack on the music. Many of us also had Eastern European roots and old habits die hard when it comes to adding a touch of added bravura to pieces we already knew so well.

  That afternoon’s rehearsal had been a ragged affair and Simón, the conductor, had been quite critical of our efforts. By the end of the double session, our nerves had been frayed.

  As I walked up West Broadway on my way home, my phone buzzed. It was Chris. He was passing through Manhattan. The band had been booked on a short East Coast tour of minor rock clubs and he was on his way to Boston. It seemed he had attempted to ring me the day before to invite me to join the guest list for a gig on Bleecker Street, but I remembered that I had left my mobile phone uncharged or switched off for several days, absorbed as I was by the Venezuelan’s rehearsals and Victor’s demands.

  ‘We missed you,’ Chris said after we had exchanged warm greetings.

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ I replied. I’d never even played on all the songs when the band performed. A fiddle adds a particular sound to a rock band and if overused, provides too much of a country touch.

  ‘We did,’ Chris replied. ‘You as both a person and a musician.’

  ‘Ah, flattery will get you everywhere.’

  He was only in the city for an evening. We agreed to meet as soon as I’d had the opportunity to shower and change following today’s nervous exertions.