The Pleasure Quartet Read online

  Earlier that evening, when they had dressed together in his Maida Vale flat before going out, he had told her to slip in the stainless steel butt plug with the jewelled end – a small, pretty toy he had gifted her with some weeks back – and he knew that she wore it now and was panty-less beneath her short black dress, the one he had noticed she now made a habit of wearing as a prequel to their particularly rough, wonderfully perverse sex sessions.

  Her eyes were deep glowing pits of bright hazel. He had never been able to quite identify the precise shade. They shimmered across the colour chart, sometimes appearing paler and sometimes darker, the flecks of green tonight more pronounced than the flickering lines of amber or brown. Her pupils dilated in that glazed expression she wore when she was fantasising about what she knew would come later, and her gentle touches and gestures of endearment became more pronounced until the rest of the world receded entirely and she seemed totally oblivious to the diners that sat around them on the shared, hexagonal table as she groped his cock in full public view.

  After they settled the bill, collected their coats and headed back into the crisp night air in the direction of Waterloo station, Noah intended to take Summer’s hand and pull her under the relative privacy of the arches beneath the Hungerford and Golden Jubilee Bridges, press her against the damp wall, lift her dress and press the plug deeper into her arse or perhaps remove it and replace it with his fingers, or get down on his knees and make her come despite the presence of strangers walking by who would surely hear her moans. He was confident now of his ability to both tease and torment her. Had learned all of her quirks and limits and used them to his and her advantage.

  Yet the infinite territory of her sexual landscape continued to intrigue him. He never grew tired of Summer.

  Could not help but love the heart, the body and the soul of this flame-haired woman who had catapulted into his life when he had least expected it.

  Summer did not bother to sling her jacket around her shoulders when she stepped onto the balcony of the small cabin that they were staying in for the night and stared out at the white and black expanse of the arctic ice fields spreading out in all directions around her beneath the inky sky, in which an endless array of bright stars shone their twinkling lanterns.

  She had been unable to sleep, full of excitement and apprehension when she considered the events that the coming days would bring. It felt like the crossing of a final Rubicon, introducing Noah to the Ball. The threads of their relationship were now woven over every part of her life. There was nothing that she kept from him anymore, not in the humdrum of her day-to-day environment or even the far richer tapestry of her inner thoughts, dreams and fantasies.

  Her skin prickled in the frozen air, so cold that every infinitesimal puff of wind cut like a knife’s blade. Summer thrived in the wintry depths of the North as much as she had loved Rio’s humid air. The extremes made her feel alive, fed the opposing dichotomies of her contradictory personality.

  The sliding door squeaked on its rollers. Noah had noticed the absence of her warm body between the covers next to him and woken. He stepped behind her and pressed his torso against her back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and laying his hands over hers where they rested on the verandah’s top rail. The heat of his body burned a sweet flame against her chilled skin.

  ‘Brr . . .’ he remarked. ‘You’re frozen.’

  She burrowed back into the warmth of his welcoming arms.

  His prick hardened against the small of her back and he shifted his weight and slid inside her, revelling in the sultry wetness of her slit, still slick from their earlier fuck.

  She groaned and clung onto the wooden support for balance as he thrust into her, hard. He shuddered and came quickly.

  ‘Thought I’d better make it swift,’ he murmured into her ear, mischievously catching the lobe and licking it gently. ‘We’ll catch our deaths out here. Come back to bed and I’ll lullaby you to sleep with my tongue.’ He took her hand.

  She followed him gladly, this man who knew every inch of her inside and out and had captivated every morsel that was left of her untamed heart.

  They had arrived earlier in the week, and spent three blissful days as tourists, based in Reykjavik, relaxing in the temperate milky waters of the Blue Lagoon, relishing tasting plates of lobster risotto, smoked fish selections and crème caramel made from skyr at Fridrik V, or feasting on shrimp tempura and sashimi at the Fish Market before stumbling back to their hotel on the bay in the dark after sampling too many of the exotic offerings from the cocktail list, and staying up late talking and making love throughout the night as the caffeine in the espresso martinis kept them both awake and terribly alert.

  Summer fell head over heels for the shaggy beasts who carried them over a moonscape of pure soft white when they tried their hands at husky sledding, after first waking in the early hours of the morning to embark on a perilous drive across a volcanic dark mountain road where Noah could not even see two inches clear in front of the windshield but the driver managed to find his path through the falling snow. The sun’s rising rays cast fingers of pale pink over the horizon, and standing behind the musher, rugged up in protective outer gear so thick they could barely move, they had felt as though they were speeding swiftly into a world imagined in a child’s dream. Afterwards she made Noah promise to investigate the possibility of adopting a dog.

  ‘An Alaskan Malamute?’ he teased her.

  ‘A mongrel,’ Summer replied. ‘One that’s all mixed up and needs saving, like me.’ She laughed, and Noah had embraced her and kissed her cheek, once he managed to locate it beneath the layer of her extensive fur-trimmed hood.

  Noah got wind of an impromptu session by Vök, occurring at an underground bar that doubled as a café where they had earlier grimaced over a shared platter of Icelandic delicacies that included strong-smelling saltfiskur – salt fish – and harðfiskur, a dried fish served with butter. Noah had been surprised to find that he liked them both. They returned at midnight to hear the band play and were ushered downstairs and sipped expensive bottled beers while Noah compared the experimental electronica duo’s sensual, dreamy sound to the more upbeat rhythms produced by the Handsomes and mulled over whether their act might work in the UK. Later he planned to follow up with the band’s manager and find out the terms of their current contract. ‘There’s something about melancholy music and cold climates,’ he told Summer, as they found their way back to their hotel in the dark after first taking a detour past Tjörnin, the pond in the centre of town, where Summer ventured slowly out onto the solid, iced-over surface and played at skating in her flat boots.

  On their fourth day they hired a car and took turns driving on the dead-straight flat road to Geysir and Gullfoss. They stopped in Thingvellir to see Lögberg and the world’s oldest parliament and both scoffed at the thought but could not shake the idea that they felt something there, as they stood by the rocky outcrop looking over at the wide plain ahead of them, surrounded by mountains rising in the distance like sleeping giants watching over the land. An indefinable sense of solemnity lingered over the place, the ghost of times past still intact despite the footfall of so many tourists disturbing the peace with their clicking cameras.

  Summer delighted in the improbable rainbows leaping from the towering sheet of falling water at Skógafoss, and Noah stopped the car at Kerið to see the volcanic amphitheatre and its crater lake in the centre, on which Björk had once staged a concert from the safety of a floating raft.

  They finally stopped and spent the night at an isolated chalet in Vik, after first spending the afternoon exploring the moonscape of the black sand beach, listening to the waves crashing over the puzzle stacks and watching the tiny ink-feathered birds that might have been puffins flashing occasional glimpses of white bellies and bright beaks as they swooped over the basalt columns, hexagonal fingers of rock stacked up like a game of dominoes between the gods. ‘Hours fly by like minutes in this no-man’s-land,’ Noah said, breakin
g the companionable silence they shared as the sun set and turned sky and sea into mirror images of glowing blue-black obsidian sheen and Summer thought this lonely ash-sanded coastline might be the most beautiful place she had ever set her eyes upon.

  The nearby restaurants were closed and, too lazy to venture farther, they visited a service station that displayed bottles of motor oil and anti-freeze alongside a small grocery section. Noah selected a couple of large potatoes and a can of tuna from the minimally stocked shelves, pointing out the rack of ancient CDs on the counter and laughing at the cover of a dusty Elton John greatest hits album.

  Summer turned the oven on, dug a roasting tray out from the cupboards and scrubbed the produce while Noah mixed the tinned fish with spring onions and lashings of thick mayonnaise and later stirred in the cooked vegetable’s white flesh and spooned the filling back into the crisp skins. He set each overflowing baked spud onto a plate alongside a handful of limp iceberg lettuce leaves and sprinkled the tops with Cheddar cheese. Conversation was sparse as they shifted into quiet mode, both still awed by the view that stretched out in front of them beyond the glass windows of their log cabin, a blanket of nothingness that made them both feel like insignificant specks in a vast universe.

  Later that night they finally witnessed the theatre show of the Northern Lights in all their splendour as a plethora of multi-coloured streaks collided in the heavens above them, while they reclined in the outdoor hot tub until their toes shrivelled up and avoided the inevitable rush of cold awaiting them when they trod barefoot across the iced-over porch to return to the bedroom.

  ‘I don’t want it to end,’ Summer told Noah.

  ‘There will be plenty more holidays,’ he promised her, and they talked about all the other countries and cities they would visit, leaving ordinary life behind them and travelling to destinations they both already knew and loved or wanted to share with the other, and new places they could explore side by side too.

  She threaded her fingers in his hair and he rested his face in her lap and thought of how he would pleasure her as soon as they got into bed, or better still, right now on the sofa as the clock on the wall ticked a merry meaningless rhythm and the field of snow still visible through the open curtains in front of them never seemed to darken, the moonlight reflecting on the white surface, making the world seem a little brighter.

  Aurelia had arranged for them to leave their hire vehicle in Vik. One of the Network’s drivers, a bearded, brusque man of Viking stature with a deep winter tan and a rich baritone voice, collected them in a sleek black 4WD and they drove for several hours through a wilderness of narrow roads. Barren peaks rose up all around them like the jagged back teeth of a humongous prehistoric animal. Two other attendants, each of them meek-mannered and half the size of the driver, had carried away their baggage which they were assured would be forwarded on and stored at the Ball to be returned to them before their transfer back to Keflavik International airport some days hence. They had each packed a small overnight case containing their outfits – an elegant tuxedo for Noah, who hadn’t been able to face the thought of more traditional fetish wear – and a floor-length gown for Summer with an open back and halter neck, made in midnight-blue silk that flowed over her body like water, highlighting every curve and turning the copper red of her hair into a flame that glowed around her shoulders. She planned to wear it with a pair of small, opal studs in her ears that Noah had bought her to mark the occasion, which looked like miniature globes of the world in her lobes, reflecting every shade racing across her body.

  A helicopter took them on the final leg of the journey. Conversation was impossible as the buzz of the blades was barely muted by the protective headsets the pilot handed to them as they navigated through grey skies in uncertain weather for miles, until the atmosphere seemed to shift around them and an array of tents, vehicles and microscopic people crawling like ants across the vast floor of the isolated valley beneath them came into view.

  Lauralynn and Viggo were waiting at the landing pad for them to disembark.

  ‘Christ, they must be hypothermic,’ Noah remarked, as the chopper came to a standstill and their friends approached.

  Viggo’s lanky form was protected only by a pair of skimpy rubber briefs and a set of tall flat boots that flared out around his bony knees in a cloud of ermine trim.

  Noah averted his eyes to Lauralynn, who looked like a Narnian Winter Witch in a striking latex catsuit and a flowing cape in the same faux fur that decorated Viggo’s legs. Her boots were heeled, transparent, and appeared to be made of solid glass, revealing a row of blood-red painted toenails to match the streak of crimson lipstick that coloured her lips.

  Latex, Summer had told him, tends to heighten whatever temperature surrounds the wearer, so although she was covered from head to toe Noah expected that Lauralynn must be freezing beneath.

  Warm air swept over Noah’s face as he exited the passenger seat and joined Summer in embracing their friends. Despite the season and the sheets of white that dominated the environment around them, the climate was as warm as a spring day.

  He blinked. Overhead, he heard a rush of wind like the beating of enormous wings and looked up to see a group of women, nude apart from winged costumes that made them appear half bird, and apparently borne aloft only by invisible currents. One of them held a much younger man in her arms. They were copulating in mid-air. Noah squinted, scanning the sky for signs of hidden fly wires or some other mechanism that enabled the two to hover and wheel above them unsupported.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he muttered under his breath. His search had revealed nothing but an empty horizon.

  ‘I know,’ Viggo said. ‘I haven’t figured it out either.’

  Noah shrugged. If Viggo, who had been renowned for his dazzling stagecraft during his time as the Holy Criminals front man, couldn’t spot the wizardry responsible for this magic trick, he didn’t have much hope. Not so long ago, Noah would have been shocked, if fascinated, by the spectacle of strangers coupling, but now the sight of others touching or even having sex in front of him seemed absolutely unremarkable.

  Four sleds, which had evolved from black dots like pinpricks in the distance, morphed into shape before them. Aurelia was driving one, pulled by a half-dozen husky dogs. She stood on the footboards with a crop in her hand, barefoot and totally nude besides the blanket of tattoos that Noah saw covered every inch of her body and displayed a veritable kaleidoscope of colours and images, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to other unrecognisable runes and symbols, every kind of animal that might be found in the most exotic zoo, and a number of creatures that he believed were totally mythical but would now not have been surprised to see drop out of the sky directly in front of him.

  ‘Thank god,’ Lauralynn announced. ‘I was worried I couldn’t take another step in these shoes.’

  ‘You didn’t come by air?’ Summer asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘We walked along the mountain trail.’ She pointed to a mighty obsidian crag in the distance. ‘There’s a section of tunnels that lead through the cliff face. And a half-dozen more routes in and out of here besides that, but you’d never spot them without proper guidance.’

  Aurelia’s hired mushers packed the group’s luggage into the sled’s cargo beds and they were carted at speed down towards the main concourse. Noah nearly shouted out as they drew frighteningly close to a formless blot that spread out on the ice field like a Rorschach ink splash on a blank canvas, thinking that they were about to hurtle directly into the path of a jagged rock, but the dogs veered away at the last moment and as they slowed to pass the obstacle he realised that it was nothing more than a jet-black fur coat that had been abandoned in the snow.

  An invisible fog clouded the Ball’s tents and pavilions, thick with the scent of toffee apples, a smell that reminded Noah of childhood fairs at Clapham Common. Multicoloured bells were strung up on gold threads as thin as strands of hair, joining the circle of elaborate canvas structures. The bells tinkled with each fl
uttering breath of wind.

  Aurelia disappeared to attend to her responsibilities as the Ball’s Mistress and Viggo and Lauralynn strode off to explore the circus-like attractions of the daytime entertainment that was on display around them, leaving Noah and Summer to relax, eat and change out of their travelling clothes. They were ushered into a private yurt, a large teepee that contained a bubbling hot tub filled with mineral water that boiled up directly from the ground beneath them.

  ‘How is all this possible?’ he asked her, as he bit into a chocolate éclair as light and fluffy as any he had tasted in a Parisian patisserie. The room contained platters of refreshments; miniature cakes that were no more than a mouthful, cold cuts and cheese, slices of fresh tropical fruit, and towers of panna cotta and jellied berries. A series of jugs had been set up alongside the food and held sweet punch, bitingly sour fresh grapefruit juice, chilled white wine, red wine and champagne.

  An ice-cold plunge pool stood next to the Jacuzzi, and two over-sized fluffy robes were warming on a towel rail within arm’s reach.

  ‘If I knew, I would tell you,’ Summer promised him. ‘But I genuinely don’t have the faintest idea. Aurelia, and the Network, the organisation she works for which oversees all of this, are like the sex and sensuality mafia. They have unlimited resources when it comes to throwing these kinds of parties but I have no clue where it all comes from or how they do it.’

  ‘Nothing for it but to enjoy ourselves then, I suppose,’ he replied, joining her in the warm water. She was gazing at him with that fire he so loved to see in her eyes, submerged up to her waist and resting her elbows on the sides of the tub so that her breasts pointed out of the water, her nipples pink and hard, awaiting his attention.