Eighty Days Amber (6 page)

‘Your body is made for fucking, Luba,’ Chey told me one day as we lay on the silken sheets of the king-size bed. But by then I already knew. All the years of ballet training and my vivid imagination had just been a stepping stone to this point.

But our holiday could not last for ever, and after five days we returned to New York. At the airports I witnessed Chey passing wads of banknotes to sundry officials and we were effortlessly ushered through the VIP channels and never importuned.

I loved New York with a vengeance, but on arriving back,
it felt so dull and grey, albeit not as much as the depressing concrete vistas of Donetsk.

I was driven back to my Brooklyn digs and Chey assured me he would be in touch again. Soon.

He was true to his word and two days later as I completed my shift at the Bleecker Street patisserie and walked out of the door, there he was, standing on the sidewalk waiting for me, dressed in his regulation off-duty uniform of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He took me back to his apartment.

‘I want you again,’ he said.

But it wasn’t long before he had to go away again on business. A few days here, a few days there, each absence longer than the last, with little notice or explanation. And not once did he ask me to accompany him again.

It wasn’t that I was possessive – being brought up as an orphan quickly tames that particular instinct – but after the initial glow of our relationship, I quickly began to resent Chey’s continued absences, the cancelled assignments, the broken promises.

He had, alongside his first gift, given me a wonderful amber brooch in a delicate steel frame, which I now wore daily. He had handed it over to me before the car had dropped me off in Brooklyn after the return trip from the Caribbean. Later he left me a pair of keys to his apartment in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street.

It was in an old brick building, once used as a storage depot, which had been converted into large individual units, and even the bathroom was larger than my modest Brooklyn digs.

The apartment was a symphony of black and white, straight from the imagination of a minimalist designer. Every sleek item of furniture and domestic implement,
especially the well-equipped kitchen, all stainless steel and shiny surfaces, sprang from the pages of a glossy magazine. It looked and felt expensive and, for the first time, it made me wonder where Chey’s income came from. Surely the amber business was not that profitable.

My realism was stronger than the romantic side of me and I knew that whisking me away on a whim to the Dominican Republic must have cost him a fortune. He said I was always welcome, but all too often when I visited impromptu, he appeared to be away.

On one occasion, I had undressed and draped myself naked across the immense bed in which he slept and waited for his arrival, only to doze off and wake with the morning sun on my bare skin, still alone and feeling something of a fool.

Irritated by what I considered a personal rebuff, I took one of his impeccably ironed shirts from his closet, slipped it on, and began an exploration of the apartment. Only to find that past the drawers and cupboards in which he kept his fabulously expensive clothes, suits, shirts, ties, shoes, everything else was locked. Which only made me more curious.

But it was easier to remain blind and enjoy the moment. Whenever we were together, the sex was fantastic and Chey, despite all the things I knew he was keeping back from me, was everything I’d always wanted from a man. Strong, attentive, ironic, decisive.

Then, at the patisserie one day, Jean-Michel’s roving hands lingered a bit too long and we ended up having a flaming row. I had no choice but to leave the job. I had no intention of going, cup in hand, to Chey to ask him for either moral or financial support. A girl has her pride. Not
that it would have done much good as this coincided with his longest absence from Manhattan.

The last time I’d seen him we were in bed and I’d noticed a faint set of bruises across the knuckles of his right hand, and had dismissed it, knowing he would clam up if I even asked, as he had always done when I’d enquired, back in the Caribbean, about the provenance of the parallel scars that ran across his shoulders, and the significance of his cryptic leopard tattoo. I knew that veteran die-hard prisoners in Russian prisons had many tattoos with a varying degree of significance but his was not of the same ilk.

His scars and tattoo increasingly attracted my fascination and, when we made love, I would drag my fingers across them in a forlorn attempt to both map them and draw out their significance. Oh, how I loved to explore his body, the flowing surface of his skin, the rippling muscles concealed beneath the surface, how every piece of him connected with the other and turned him into a perfect machine to make love to me, every nook and cranny adapting to my inner rhythms, the savage movement of his thrusts as he dug deep inside me, the fragrant breeze of his staccato breath as he fucked me, the rigid engine of his buried cock.

Now I could forget all the Russian boys and their lack of subtlety and sophistication. Chey was a man, one who didn’t have to be told how to hold a woman, rein her in, set her loose at the right moment and watch her journey from lust to drained satisfaction.

I loved how his fingers journeyed across my skin, teasing, playing, hurting me even, and taking me to the edge until that magic moment when release finally came. With him I felt like a flower; and I opened myself up for him like never
before. I’d been a cocoon, a larvae, and now I was a butterfly and I soared.

High.

And when I came I would whisper his name.

Chey.

And then fall asleep in his arms, safe, protected, warm and soft, my limbs akimbo, washed by the release of desire.

One morning when I woke up, he was gone. There was just a hastily scribbled note on the kitchen top telling me he had to go away at short notice, didn’t know how long he would be, but assuring me that he loved me to the moon and back. I smiled. It was an expression we’d heard someone on a TV series say and we had both burst out laughing at the same time. It had become a private joke between us ever since, though I was beginning to feel the truth of it.

In the note he suggested I stay on and look after the apartment while he was away. Big deal, I thought, annoyed that he could leave me so easily. To cool my frustration I walked all the way to my job on Bleecker and straight into the fierce argument that led to my losing it.

My savings lasted just three weeks and without a visa getting another job was far from easy. And there was still no sign of Chey. I had no alternative but to relinquish my sublet in Brooklyn and move my few belongings into Chey’s Meatpacking District apartment, somewhat fearful of what his response would be when he found out. But still, six weeks later, there was no sign or word from him and his phone was no longer taking messages even.

One morning I had scraped together some change I found on Chey’s desk and was having a coffee at the nearest Starbucks, gazing ahead at the rusting steel columns of the
High Line and pondering my limited course of action, when someone called out my name.

‘Luba!’

It was Chey’s fat Russian friend, the one who had deliberately spilled the coffee over my blouse. His name was Lev and, when we had been introduced by Chey a few months ago, he had profusely apologised for his earlier behaviour. He was visibly scared of Chey, who held the upper hand in what I assumed was their business relationship. We never spoke together in our native language and Lev had a pronounced East Coast accent.

I greeted him with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, my anger at Chey’s absence colouring my attitude to his acquaintances.

‘So, how are things?’ he asked me.

‘So, so,’ I replied. ‘You wouldn’t know where Chey has decamped to, would you? Or how much longer he will be away?’

‘He never tells me anything,’ he said.

‘Typical.’ I swore under my breath.

Without being asked, he sat himself across from my table. I glanced over at him. His shirt was bursting at the seams, its front buttons screaming in agony as his stomach forced itself forward and was barely contained by the material. How could such a lump of a man be associated with Chey?

He misinterpreted the scorn on my face for sadness.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked me, with a look of concern.

‘Your friend Chey; that’s what’s wrong,’ I replied. ‘One day here, the next day elsewhere, without a single word of warning. It doesn’t make things easy,’ I protested.

I then explained what had happened at the patisserie and
how I’d lost my job and was now in a precarious position. He offered to let me have a few hundred bucks, but I just couldn’t accept them. Not from Lev. He would expect a return payment in one way or another, and that was something I was unwilling to give him. Instead, I brushed off his offer and told him that I had to find a job, and why it wasn’t as easy as it appeared.

A broad, goofy smile illuminated his face.

‘I’m illegal too,’ he declared, as if it was something to be proud of.

‘Congratulations!’ I exclaimed bitterly. ‘I’m proud to be a member of the same club . . .’

‘But Chey, he tells me you are a wonderful dancer. You trained in Russia, didn’t you?’

‘I did. But that was a long time ago now. And I wasn’t that good, not technical enough.’

‘What’s technical about dancing?’

‘I don’t think you’d understand,’ I pointed out, taking a sip of my rapidly cooling coffee.

‘If you wanted to dance again, for a job, you know. I think I could help. Until Chey returns, if you want.’

‘Tell me more,’ I said, although I already suspected it wouldn’t be at the Lincoln Center or with the New York City Ballet.

He explained.

Initially, I was dubious.

‘You sure you have no idea when Chey will be back?’ I enquired, hoping this wasn’t my only option. How could I dance naked for other men when I knew, deep in my heart, that it was only Chey I truly wanted to dance for?

‘No. It’s impossible to know. Business, you see.’

‘Take me, then,’ I said.

The name of the club was the Tender Heart and it stood, all steel shutters, graffiti-laden walls and discoloured pink awning, at the top end of the Bowery, close to Lafayette Street. It had once been a popular rock club during the glory days of punk, I was later told. The walls of the basement area still dripped with several generations of alcoholic sweat and I almost gagged as Lev guided me through the narrow foyer to a recessed area where the offices were.

‘It’s better when the air conditioning is on, from late afternoon when the club opens to the public,’ he pointed out to me. ‘Barry, who runs the place, is always trying to save money so he has it switched off when the joint is closed.’

Barry was a diminutive Brit with an old-fashioned and dubious moustache and thinning hair. During the course of any conversation, he wouldn’t fail to remind you several times every hour that he hailed from Liverpool. But he looked nothing like any of the Beatles.

He sat at a rickety desk that had survived every world war you could think of, facing piles of untidy ledgers. Just a glorified accountant, I assumed, and no hint as to who the club actually belonged to. I briefly suspected Chey, but the place was just too downmarket and lacking in class, I decided, to be associated with him.

Lev had called ahead to warn him of our arrival.

‘So, you’re Chey’s girl?’ He grinned.

‘I’d rather you called me a woman,’ I said. ‘I waited long enough to become one, so I’m rather fond of the title. And I don’t belong to anyone.’

‘And feisty at that,’ he concluded with an amused smirk. He probably thought he looked ironic.

‘Yes, they breed us tough in Russia,’ I said, thickening my accent on purpose.

He looked me over, like a butcher appraising a cut of meat.

‘Our common friend has told you what we do?’

‘He did.’

‘You dance?’

‘I did. Although not the sort of dance you have in mind.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘No.’

Barry gave Lev a glance and the fat Russian acolyte stepped out of the crowded office.

‘Can I see you?’ he then asked.

‘See me?’

‘Your body. Naked. In this sort of job, you understand, it’s what I’d call’ – he searched for the right word – ‘a prerequisite. You see, the customers must have something decent to feast their eyes on.’

‘OK.’ I nodded.

He sat back in his leather armchair and kept on staring at me.

I undressed.

His eyes lingered over every square inch of my skin, moving from part to part, area to area, almost examining me forensically, assessing, judging.

I just stood there facing him, feeling the oppressive heat floating throughout the room, seeping in under the door from where the club’s public areas were, my legs ever so slightly apart, trying to retain a modicum of modesty and elegance as I was being perused.

‘Very nice,’ he finally stated.

I lowered my eyes.

‘Breasts are small, but real, high and firm. That’s good. Dancer’s legs, thin but strong. Turn round,’ he ordered me.

I obeyed.

‘Lovely arse. A true work of art,’ he proclaimed. ‘Turn again,’ he asked me.

Again, he looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on my crotch.

‘That’ll have to go,’ he said.

I looked down at my naked body, perplexed.

‘All that hair,’ he pointed out. ‘Nice colour, matches your head. So rare, real blondes these days. All comes from a bottle. Some of the girls in other of our establishments even colour themselves down there, but it looks so fake, I always feel. Even though some of the punters are taken in by it. But at our location, we’ve always made it a point of honour that the dancers are smooth . . .’

Maybe I still looked puzzled.

‘Shaved,’ he continued.

I confirmed my agreement. It wasn’t something I’d ever done. Back at the dormitory it had not been allowed by the monitors. Later, in St Petersburg at the School, we were required to trim on the sides so no unseemly hair could be seen peering outside of our leotards, even though we always wore thick tights for both practise and performance.