Eighty Days Red Read online

  ‘To S.

  ‘Yours, always.’

  I wondered if he still thought about me. If he’d just been too unimaginative to pull a story from the ether and been forced to rely on a thinly fictionalised biography in order to get the feminine voice right, or if he just couldn’t get me out of his head, as I couldn’t banish him from mine.

  Oh, Dominik, how is it that you managed to still have a hold on my life, two years and a million miles away?

  I rested my head in my arms and began to cry, tears falling onto the pages and rapidly soaking in until they began to shrivel.

  Thirty minutes later I picked up my phone and dialled.

  Somewhere in Camden Town, a phone rang.

  Chris answered.

  ‘Jeezus, Summer, we don’t speak for ages and then you call twice in a week?’

  ‘I’m coming to London. I’ll be on the next flight.’

  ‘Great,’ he said, audibly perking up. ‘You’ll be just in time for our gig. Maybe I can even talk you on stage again.’

  ‘Just like the good old days?’

  ‘Better,’ he replied. ‘Much better.’

  2 The Simple Art of Procrastination

  ‘So what are your plans for today?’ Lauralynn asked.

  ‘Procrastination, of course,’ Dominik answered.

  ‘No surprise there then …’

  She was sipping from a tall glass of milk, standing up, gathering her stuff, ready to depart the

  house for a day’s rehearsal. Yesterday, she’d left her cello at the rehearsal studio as she often did. It was a bitch to carry across London by public transport, and the building in which she and her fellow musicians in the string quartet practised had 24-hour security.

  Her black leather boots reached all the way up to her knees, the rest of her long legs sheathed by skin-tight jeans disappearing at waist level in the comfortable folds of a shapeless grey sweatshirt. She looked anything but a classical musician and even less of a chamber music expert.

  Dominik couldn’t help finding Lauralynn sexy for all seasons. Some women had it, others didn’t and she had ‘it’ in spades. One who turned heads at the flick of a smile. The fact she preferred women when given the choice just made her more exciting.

  Lauralynn’s tousled blond hair was pinned up to fit into her motorcycle helmet. One of the first things she had done after Dominik had agreed she could stay at his house and she had formed her quartet from the sole remnant of her previous music college formation and a couple of newcomers, had been to treat herself to a new ride. A sleek and shiny second-hand black Suzuki GSXR 750. She’d had to sell the Kawasaki she owned back in Yale before returning to the UK, presumably unable to ship it back. Dominik didn’t know where she got the cash, but Lauralynn never seemed short of money and had a particularly cavalier attitude towards it. He didn’t expect she made that much from the quartet’s irregular performances and the assorted session work she got involved in.

  She blew him a kiss and ran out of the door. The roar of her motorcycle’s powerful engine followed quickly and then faded as the bike raced down the hill.

  Dominik looked down at his plate. His final slice of toast sat there, forlorn.

  He reflected on all the months spent with Lauralynn under his roof. They’d first met when Dominik was arranging a very private performance in an underground crypt – a performance where Summer played her violin entirely naked, accompanied by a blindfolded Lauralynn and the string quartet she was a part of. Lauralynn had then turned up in Manhattan when Summer had been away and had given him a glimpse of other sexual possibilities. She had subsequently come to him following his return to London where they had become sexual partners in crime, and she had helped him banish the ghost of Summer.

  He was alone in the vast house again, left to his own devices.

  It was just him and the blank document on the computer screen. He knew, with a wave of self-loathing, that as the day progressed he would studiously align a thousand words or so there but would in all probability end up deleting most of them by evening.

  Dominik missed his lecturing and teaching. He now thought it could have been a bad mistake to renounce his tenure on the back of the unexpected success of the Paris novel in which the tragic heroine had been so clearly inspired by Summer.

  He had signed a contract for a follow-up book, but he was already several months late and well behind on the schedule he had pinned on his study wall.

  On one hand there was the inevitable pressure of coming up with something that might match the inspired romanticism of Summer’s book, as he now thought of it, but there was also the sad fact he had no proper ideas, and whatever came to mind he quickly dismissed as superficial or uninteresting. He needed a hook. A story. Characters. Surely he couldn’t recycle the emotions that Summer evoked over and over again. If only because it hurt so much.

  Following the break with Summer and his rushed return from New York, he’d completed the first novel in a rush of white heat, pounding away at the keyboard with music blaring around the room: a studied blend of the classical repertoire he had often heard her perform and the French chansons and American jazz of the early 1950s that formed the background to his unfolding story. Now, he even had the luxury of playing some of the former music in recordings that Summer had released in the intervening months as her own career had taken off, but it was of no help. It even had the contrary effect – most days putting him in a blue funk hearing the soaring crystal-clear sounds of the Bailly in full flight which unavoidably evoked the shades of her skin, the dark colour of her nipples and, deep down in the well of his memory, the taste of her sex. Once it had inspired him, now all it could achieve was to deepen his depression, his sorrow.

  He had acquired the CDs she had released, the first of which was a scintillating recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in which he could sense all her passion, her wild, wanton moods, but also her delicate sensitivity. He had read in a gossip column she was now shacked up with Simón Lobo, which had come as no surprise as he was the orchestra conductor on all of her recordings, and she had already been working with him in New York during the few short months Dominik and Summer had lived together in the Manhattan loft. The other CDs covered, respectively, the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn violin concertos, while the final one, which he had only come across in a store window the previous month, was devoted to improvisations on South American native themes, again a far from unexpected connection.

  The CD box for the latter album was sitting open on the far left of his desk, next to a pile of research-related books and folders full of magazine cuttings and assorted notes, most of which he could no longer even decipher as his handwriting was all over the place and hurried. A photograph of Summer was spread across its cover, her face in soft focus and a hint of bare shoulders, the red flames of her hair like a deafening explosion of colour against a snow-white background and the thin black strap of a dress which he couldn’t avoid recognising. The one he had bought her at the street fair on Waverly Place.

  A wry thought passed his mind that in some stores where both books and records were available, some unknown buyer might accidentally purchase both his words and Summer’s music as part of the same transaction, unaware of the ties that had once held them together.

  Dominik sighed heavily, as if for an audience, and knew his mood was unlikely to improve if he played music right now.

  Silence it would have to be.

  The cursor on his screen blinked in and out of existence, taunting him.

  After New York, Lauralynn had made it her job to put Dominik back on the straight and narrow. Without her encouragement, he would probably not have stuck to the task and completed his Paris novel, and would have effortlessly drifted back into his quiet routine of teaching and nostrings-attached seductions when the possibility arose.

  She knew he was attracted to her and lost no opportunity to keep him on the boil sexually with her nonchalant attitude to nudity and sex. It was as if his arousal and interest
was a form of fuel necessary for him to keep churning out the words and reach the end of his manuscript, without feeling sorry for himself and relying too much on memories of his times with Summer, even though the lead female character in his semi-historical book was undeniably based on the red-haired violin player.

  ‘You need distractions, my dear Dominik,’ she had said to him one evening, that playful glint in her green eyes a prelude to mischief.

  ‘Do I now?’ He knew her intentions were good, but part of him still felt as if he was in mourning and it was much too early to go out playing again.

  But Lauralynn would not take no for an answer and convinced him to dress up for the occasion, even jokingly rejecting his choice of patterned casual shirt as distinctly too middleaged, getting him to wear a blue Tommy Hilfiger dress shirt with a button-down collar; something he was often reluctant to do unless the occasion was particularly formal, which he was quite certain this evening was not about to be by a long stretch.

  ‘You won’t regret it,’ Lauralynn had said.

  ‘I’d better not.’

  Lauralynn was a woman with plans, and her tastes were deviant to say the least. He’d once joked she had a little black book full of names and addresses she could call on at a moment’s notice to entertain her, just some like suburban Don Juan. But Lauralynn, with a broad, impish smile, had gleefully responded that this was not the case. She stored all the names and numbers in her mind, she declared.

  ‘All carefully divided into columns,’ Dominik suggested. ‘Subs, slaves, swingers, crossdressers, simple bottoms, switches, and whatever other categories an ignorant soul like me might not even be aware of. No doubt all pretty and sitting in a row, waiting to be picked off and played with?’

  ‘Of course,’ she had triumphantly confirmed. ‘A girl must have a sense of organisation in these troubled times …’

  ‘So what’s on tonight’s menu?’ Dominik had asked her, as they waited for the minicab he had ordered earlier. It was still only late in the afternoon and parking restrictions in town would have made it awkward to drive his BMW into the West End.

  ‘Just wait and see.’ Her perfume swam across his face, a delicate blend of green notes and citrus. Lauralynn had an arsenal of fragrances at her disposal, each a distinctive weapon for different species of prey. When she openly hunted for other women, she went for sweet and musky, dark with aggression. Today’s early evening, more nuanced, touch presaged a different sort of hunt, he guessed.

  The meeting was in the basement bar of a pub on Cambridge Circus in the centre of town. Dominik had never been a pub person. The fact he didn’t drink, purely for reasons of taste, didn’t help, but there was something about pubs, the smells, the unclean, torpid air, that always made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Couldn’t you have arranged another place?’ he’d asked Lauralynn as they descended the wooden stairs.

  ‘It’s where they felt safer to meet,’ she said.

  ‘They?’ he enquired with an arch smile.

  Her grin broadened.

  ‘Just a nice, married couple, probably from the suburbs, so I thought suggesting your club or a posh hotel bar might put them off.’

  ‘A married couple?’

  ‘Nice, no?’

  The basement was only half full and they quickly spotted the man and woman sitting nervously in one corner and, respectively, nursing a beer and an orange juice.

  ‘Where did you come across them?’ Dominik whispered.

  ‘Online, of course. All the best people trawl for sex online, these days.’

  Dominik had, but then that felt like another life now.

  The man, likely in his mid-forties, wore a grey suit and had probably come here straight from his office, while his younger wife, a pale-looking brunette with a fringe, wore her Saturday-night regulation little black dress with just an inch too many of cleavage on display. She looked up, acknowledging Dominik’s presence, a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips, her eyes lighting up, as if reassured he was actually good-looking, having been prepared for rougher fare.

  ‘I like your shirt,’ she said.

  ‘So lovely to see you both,’ Lauralynn exclaimed as she extended her hand to greet their presence. Only the man reciprocated. Dominik followed suit. The man’s grip was weak and damp and the woman just sat there, blushing slightly. The man’s eyes were fixed on Lauralynn who was wearing a white T-shirt through which her hard nipples pressed, standing at attention. Instead of jeans, she had for the occasion changed into a figure-hugging pencil skirt. There was a sense of relief on the man’s face, as if he had been worried that his internet interlocutor might actually have been a guy masquerading as a woman and he now breathed easier seeing that Lauralynn was truly female, and, Dominik guessed, identical to the photo she would have sent him. A nude one, he expected, aware of her developed sense of mischief.

  Dominik assumed that his participation had been prefaced by just a summary description as he didn’t believe Lauralynn stored any images of him, whether dressed or undressed, on her laptop. She had evidently advertised herself as principal bait, and he merely came as extra.

  ‘Likewise,’ the guy said.

  They sat on the wooden bench, facing the couple across the pub table.

  ‘So you’re Kevin,’ Lauralynn said, ‘and you must be Liz?’

  The young woman nodded. Surely not their real names?

  Dominik just smiled at the two of them, hoping his appearance was in accordance with the unique selling points Lauralynn had no doubt promised the couple during their online contacts.

  ‘And you are?’ Kevin asked. ‘You never told me your name in your mails.’

  ‘Ah, are names really that important?’ Lauralynn pointed out, dismissively. ‘Just call us Him and Her, no?’

  ‘Why not,’ Kevin said. ‘Can I get you drinks?’

  Dominik remained silent. He still didn’t know what Lauralynn had arranged with the couple. Were Kevin and Liz novice swingers? He thought so.

  Kevin walked over to the bar to fetch the glasses.

  ‘So what do you do, Liz?’ enquired Lauralynn.

  ‘I’m a secretary.’

  ‘How interesting.’ Lauralynn flashed her a flirtatious smile. ‘So, this is your first time.’

  The young woman nodded, her eyes turning to Dominik.

  ‘His idea or yours?’ Lauralynn continued.

  ‘Hmm … both of us,’ she replied, fidgeting in her seat.

  ‘Come on, really?’

  Liz nodded, but Dominik remained unconvinced.

  The drinks arrived, followed by a moment of uncomfortable silence.

  Lauralynn later told Dominik that this sort of situation was far from uncommon. Many men harboured the fantasy of seeing their wives or girlfriends fucked by another man, either out of deep-seated voyeuristic compulsion or the desire to be humiliated. This was what Kevin had been seeking on the online forum where he and Lauralynn had met. Maybe the fact that Lauralynn, another woman, would be involved and present, acted as reassurance, or perhaps it added an extra degree of humiliation to the scene.

  Dominik was more uncertain as to what was in it for Liz.

  The couple had agreed to get a room at a small hotel in nearby Bloomsbury which they finally repaired to after several further rounds of drinks, Liz having quickly graduated to alcohol. Lauralynn had evidently laid down the rules for the evening to Kevin before agreeing to the meeting, and he had presumably discussed all the details with Liz.

  The set of handcuffs he had stored in the bedside drawer and which he handed over on arrival to Lauralynn were furlined. Pink fur. Lauralynn burst out laughing.

  ‘Where the hell did you get those? An Essex sex shop?’

  His face reddened. He hadn’t expected the humiliation to also be verbal.

  Liz, who had sat herself on a corner of the bed as soon as they had entered the narrow hotel room, kept on throwing enquiring glances at Dominik while studiously avoiding looking at her now somewhat fearful husband. S
he was slightly flushed after one gin and tonic too many, hurriedly gulped down at the pub to shore up her resolve before the action moved to the hotel room.

  Lauralynn threw off her leather jacket and turned to Kevin who was still fixed to the spot.

  ‘So, what are you waiting for?’

  He looked uncertain, unsure of her meaning.

  ‘Take your clothes off. Now!’ she demanded.

  His body was pale and thin. Lauralynn insisted he keep his black mid-ankle-length socks on. Thought it made him look more ridiculous. She ordered him to sit down and fixed the handcuffs to his wrists. She secured him to the room’s lone chair and arranged it so that he faced the bed.

  Liz sat, increasingly restless and nervous. Her knees held tight together, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead as she realised they had reached a point of no return.

  ‘All yours, D,’ Lauralynn said.

  Dominik looked down at Liz.

  ‘Come here,’ he said quietly to the young woman. She rose. She was a whole head shorter than him.

  He cupped her chin and brought his lips to hers. He could still taste the gin on her breath. And smell the shampoo she must have washed her hair with earlier that afternoon. A faint tremor raced through her body as they made contact. She stiffened briefly and then softened as the contact of his mouth relaxed her.

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see a broad smile spreading across Lauralynn’s face as she stood behind the chair on which she had immobilised Kevin and distractedly passed her long fingers through his hair, messing it about. This visibly made him even more uncomfortable as his side parting disappeared and he was reduced to being Lauralynn’s wide-eyed plaything.

  Feeling Liz’s mental resistance melt as their tongues mingled, Dominik slid his hands slowly down her back to her buttocks, assessing the firmness of her skin and her response to his touch. Their mouths briefly parted and she sighed deeply. And closed her eyes.

  Dominik’s left hand searched for the side zip that would loosen her black dress.

  ‘Allow me,’ Lauralynn said, moving around them, leaving the captive husband, his now untidy hair crowning his dismay, a helpless onlooker shackled to the chair.