Eighty Days Blue (10 page)

The thought never lasted long, however, as she surrendered to his vigorous embrace.

He was her man. For now. His arms pinned her back on
the
bed the way she liked men to control her sexually, his cock filled her with an imperious form of roughness, and the sounds he made while inside her were just the right mix of affection and animal lust. It was enough. Summer knew she had to live in the moment. Because those special moments never lasted for ever.

‘Tell me, tell me all the things you want to do to me,' she rasped, as another hard thrust turned the fire inside up a notch and she briefly felt dizzy.

‘Oh, so many things, Summer. So many. Bad things, wonderful things, filthy things, dangerous things.' His words emerged slightly haltingly. The weight of his body pressed against her ribs, restricting her breath.

Watching her under him, her eyes firmly closed, her skin so soft and pliant, communing with the flow of her lust, Dominik felt a faint wave of generosity course through his mind, overcoming the tyrannical demands of his cock, now buried deep inside Summer's body. At times like this, he felt he could die happy on the spot, in this hotel room with the night glow of the nearby arch shadowed through the gaps in the drawn blinds.

He looked up, the sight of her face almost too much for an instant, and Bergman and Dietrich enigmatically smiled down at him.

He slowed his pace, almost to a halt, and Summer half opened an eye, querying his change of rhythm. He didn't want to come yet. He wanted this to last for ever, inside her, part of her, feeling the implacable force of her surrender. Of her love?

His fingers roamed with delicate attention across her warm flesh. Beneath them, the sheets were crumpled and humid with sweat. He withdrew briefly from her and
changed
his position, adjusting his stance before penetrating her anew. While her hands moved from his shoulders down across his back, her nails gently scraped against his skin in a parody of massage.

Oh, yes, there were so many things he wanted to do. Not now. One day. With her. He would observe the unease of the initial onset of pain and then the acceptance of the discomfort morphing into pleasure from the metal clamps or clothes pegs he would one day inevitably adorn her dark nipples with. He would gauge the intensity of her breath as his fingers put pressure on her delicate throat and her whole body convulsed wildly under his control. Oh, Dominik, dangerous thoughts, he told himself. He would enjoy breaching her sphincter with toys and then his cock when the time was right, another taboo standing between them still like a landmark . . . Enough, Dominik, enough . . .

His thoughts raced wildly as he continued his thrusts inside her, sensing her own pleasure rise in unison with his, slowing his progress to match hers as best he could, and then felt Summer slipping a finger into his own anal opening . . . FUCK . . . He came instantly and with such violence he was briefly worried that he could have punctured the condom.

Her impulsive gesture had certainly taken him by surprise.

His breathing ragged, he lowered his lips to Summer's and kissed her affectionately, brushing the salt from her brow as he did.

Clearly, he still had a lot to learn about Summer Zahova.

And he would.

The interview with the trustees of the foundation endowing the Public Library fellowship had gone swimmingly that
afternoon
and he was now confident the position was his. He relished the prospect of nine whole months with Summer in Manhattan. He looked down at her naked body, stretched across the bed, open, pale, exposed in all its intimacy. So much time, so many things they could now do.

The formal decision about the fellowship was expected early in January, and if successful, he would be expected to take up the position shortly after Easter.

He was about to say something to her and noticed she had fallen asleep.

Dominik welcomed the sudden silence, a chance to think.

‘I want to display you,' Dominik had warned her.

The Symphonia's Christmas concert was over, which had not proven too excruciating in its excess of jollity after all, and Summer had been asked by Dominik to pack enough clothes for a week. When she had queried where they would be going, all Dominik had said was that the weather was expected to be mild.

‘I don't think a bathing costume will be needed, though,' he had added.

Nevertheless, Dominik was unable to keep their destination a secret for long once they arrived at the airport. La Guardia was a teeming mass of people dashing in all directions, as the holiday season was in full swing. You would have thought most folk would, by Christmas Day, already be at their destination, instead of wandering around terminals like headless chickens, but this wasn't the case. Dominik and Summer, opportunistic leisure travellers with no family reunion in prospect, could sense a feeling of panic and desperation in most of their fellow travellers, darting
looks
at the display boards and grimacing every time an announcement over the tannoy system warned of a delay somewhere on the continent due to bad weather or some other reason.

She would have preferred not knowing where he was taking her, a magical mystery tour, but once they checked in their luggage, there was no escaping the information: their flight (and hopefully their luggage too) was going to New Orleans.

It was a city she had read much about in books and almost felt she knew from the myriad movies in which it had been enshrined, a bit like New York. When she'd first landed in New York, she had discovered that Manhattan and the other boroughs were much more than the sum of their parts, and that between the image and the reality there was a subtle element missing: life and its sounds, smells and colours. And people. She expected New Orleans would prove to be a similar revelation.

Dominik had visited the Crescent City on many previous occasions, but it had been before the destruction Hurricane Katrina had unleashed on New Orleans and he held bittersweet memories of the place. As the cab crawled from intersection to intersection in the French Quarter, attempting to reach their boutique hotel in the pouring rain, the view outside the drawn windows of the vehicle appeared familiar, the lights, the wrought-iron balconies, the terraces hanging with magnolia flowers, the heady blend of music and laughter in the air.

It was only later when they had showered and changed and gone out to enjoy their first meal of the trip that small differences became apparent. Less people, like a film set
cutting
down on crowd extras, notices on many of the bar and restaurant windows and doors for new personnel, oyster chuckers, domestic help.

‘It just doesn't feel like America at all,' Summer remarked, her eyes darting in every direction, trying to find her bearings.

‘I know,' Dominik said. ‘It's quite unique.'

‘I never got the opportunity to visit Europe much – just a long weekend in Paris – but it's not quite European either, is it?' she queried.

She had slipped into a thin white full-length dress with capped sleeves, held in at the waist by a narrow red belt worn with low-heeled sandals. The rain had ceased, and the atmosphere felt close, a touch claustrophobic, pregnant with future storms.

‘Just a blend of diverse influences,' Dominik confirmed. ‘French, Spanish, Creole, colonial English. Many of the early settlers here were Acadians, all the way from Canada, refugees from religious intolerance. It's a curious historical melting pot.'

‘I like it already,' Summer remarked.

‘Pity the weather is so dull today. Not the perfect introduction to the city.'

‘I don't mind.'

‘According to the forecast, we should avoid further rain for the next handful of days,' he said.

‘Good.' Dominik not having informed her of their destination, Summer was worried she hadn't brought a proper set of clothes.

‘Remember the Oyster Bar under Grand Central?' he asked her, with a gentle smile spreading across his lips.

‘Of course,' Summer said. ‘You know how much I love oysters.'

‘This is the right place for them. And crawfish. Shrimp. Gumbo. We'll have an ongoing feast.'

There was a lengthy queue outside the Acme Oyster House on the corner of Iberville and Bourbon, and both of them had skipped breakfast back in New York and turned down the airline food, so spurred on by their appetite, they moved ten minutes down the main road and found a window table at Desire, the oyster bar of the posh Sonesta Hotel.

The elderly waitress brought them their hot bread and butter while they ordered.

‘You'll see,' Dominik said, ‘they serve a sauce that is a blend of ketchup and horseradish with the raw oysters. Initially, I was wary of the prospective culinary delights of tomato ketchup, but the combination works wonders. If you want it even stronger, you can add a further dollop of horseradish. It's fierce but blends beautifully with the taste and consistency of the oyster meat. I also indulge in a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of pepper.' He demonstrated a moment later when the waitress brought a large platter over to their table. He brought the first enormous oyster to his mouth and swallowed it one gulp.

Having watched him closely, Summer followed his example.

Soon the platter was a thing of the past, a battlefield of empty shells dotted against a background of crushed ice.

She'd also added a few drops of powerful Tabasco to her final trio of oysters and her throat felt on fire as she greedily downed her glass of iced water to sooth the burn.

She looked up at Dominik, saw him wiping the corner of
his
mouth with his napkin and devouring her with his eyes. She couldn't help suppressing a smile of her own.

‘If I didn't know better, the way you look at me makes me think you want to eat me too, with the oysters just an hors d'oeuvre. I know they're supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but, remember, I'm already in your bed – there's no longer any need to lure me there,' Summer said in jest.

‘And don't I know that,' Dominik said.

The following days were taken up by the obligatory tourist activities: taking the tram up to the Garden District and a visit to Audubon Park, a couple of riverboat cruises down the Mississippi to survey the swamps and the reluctant-to-show-themselves alligators, the pilgrimage to countless cemeteries and the scattered voodoo museums, coffee and beignets at the open-all-hours Café du Monde on Jackson Square in the middle of the night after leisurely hours of lovemaking in their hotel room, their tired limbs and souls in bad need of recharging, hunting down trinkets in the French Market and more food, glorious food, and aimless walks up and down Bourbon Street listening to the duelling sounds of music rushing from open bar to open bar, a crazy patchwork of jazz, rock, folk, zydeco, soul and every variation of melody.

On the corner of Royal, the shoe-shine kids tap-danced to their hearts' content, and at the intersection of Magazine and Toulouse, a blind musician played the accordion while a string-like hippie girl with a gallery of tattoos down both her arms accompanied him on the violin. She was not a patch on Summer, in talent or looks, but Summer insisted
on
leaving her an exaggerated tip, clearing Dominik of all the useless change in his pockets out of solidarity.

Dominik was visibly restless. He'd been here and done all this before. He could sense his unease growing, as could Summer.

There was a whole day to go before New Year's Eve. Dominik had managed to obtain a much-sought-after booking at Tujague's in the first-floor dining room with access to the balcony, a stone's throw from Jackson Square and the Jax Brewery, where the traditional glittering ball would rise all the way from street level to the roof at the stroke of midnight to bring in the new year. It was one of the hottest tickets in town, which the restaurant usually restricted to local regulars and Rotary Club eminences.

Summer walked out of the bathroom, where she had taken a shower, shrouded in a big, white fluffy towel that barely reached the top of her thighs and revealed a teasing glimpse of her cunt. Sitting reading in bed, Dominik's eyes moved up from his page and fixed on her. Summer looked down and realised how short the towel was. She made an effort to stretch the material but only managed to pull the thick white veil of the towel down and her breasts slipped out. Dominik smiled.

‘Shy?' he remarked.

‘A bit late for that, surely,' she said.

He kept on staring at her, deep in thought, inscrutably pensive.

Summer peered out of the window to check on the weather. The sky was grey, but she knew it would be warm enough to walk around with short sleeves, at least until evening.

‘What do you want me to wear today?' she asked him.

His eyes lit up with undisguised mischief. ‘Nothing.'

Summer dropped the towel altogether, allowing it to fall to the floor. ‘Like this?'

‘Perfect,' Dominik said. He pulled the bed covers from his body, revealing his already semi-hard cock, and began stroking himself.

Summer initiated a movement to approach the bed.

‘No!'

‘You don't want me to help,' she suggested.

‘No. Just stand there. As you are.'

He widened the angle between his legs and kept on caressing his extended penis, the thick trunk gripped in his palm, a stray thumb gliding simultaneously across his purple glans. His balls appeared to grow in size as he played with himself, his eyes locked on her nudity. Summer recalled that first evening at his London house, how he had asked her to masturbate. She shivered.

His breath quickly grew halting.

Summer dropped a hand and brought it to her lower lips, but again he ordered her to remain still. He didn't want her to pleasure herself. She must watch him. In silence.

There was a moment, frozen in time, when the light from the window slat landed on the tip of his straining cock, like a line of fire bisecting the mushroom-shaped extremity, his balls full to bursting, and then the moment passed and Dominik came.