Eighty Days Red (20 page)

The limousine was waiting for them outside, its impassive chauffeur in grey uniform and cap holding the door open for them.
Dominik had been warned by Luba to wear a suit. Fortunately he had packed one on the off chance before leaving London, although he had no tie and had spent most of the time since their meeting in the cafe hunting down a decent one at the Corte Inglés store on Plaza Catalunya.
As the large car left the kerb, its engine purring delicately, Dominik, isolated from the driver by a thick glass partition, asked Luba where they were being taken.
‘I never ask,’ she said and made no effort to elaborate.
The limo soon left the city and followed the highway leading south. They drove for half an hour, a full moon shimmering over the night sea on their left, rushing through a succession of tunnels cut into the hillsides along the way, and then the sight of small fishing villages or resorts dotting the coastline.
Throughout the short journey Luba had remained silent, calmly retreating into a meditative state, deep in concentration, as if already rehearsing her performance, getting into the zone.
Following a road sign indicating Sitges, the car drove off the main road and made its way into and through the small town, steering clear of the narrow alleys of the Gothic quarters and navigating through further hills dotted with large luxury hotels, then crossed the railway line and descended towards a brightly lit marina.
There was a security gate on the approach to the entrance to the restricted area. The driver entered a code on a panel on the dashboard and the gate rose.
The yacht, a monstrous construction of decks stacked over each other, embedded in a tangle of wood and steel like a
matriochka
, was moored at the very end of the large marina, isolated from the other boats, its lights dimmed, its opulent elegance cleverly understated.
A burly security guard checked Luba’s name against a list he held, and waved the couple up onto the lower deck where a crowd of well-dressed people milled around drinking and chatting. He could hear English, French, Spanish, Russian, probably, and a variety of other languages being spoken.
A middleaged woman wearing a dark evening gown noticed Luba’s arrival and signalled to her. Luba suggested Dominik now mingle with the crowd and enjoy himself as she walked away, accompanied by the woman, to a dressing room in preparation for her act.
Dominik headed for the bar, hoping against hope he would not stand out, wearing his inexpensive off-the-peg black suit, in this garden of unabashed wealth. The bald barman handed him a flute of champagne, which Dominik declined, requesting a Perrier or a San Pellegrino instead. Unsurprisingly, the barman had both mineral water varieties. And almost every other beverage under the sun.
He tried to mingle as best he could, although he knew no one there, flitting between groups, nodding, catching the tail end of conversations, often in languages he did not understand. None of the guests seemed to query his presence there, although he felt quite out of place. At least the yacht was moored and not navigating the high seas; Dominik had a propensity for seasickness and would have cut a poor figure had the boat sailed, he knew.
The same woman who had escorted Luba away earlier returned to the deck and began to corral the guests down towards a lower level of the ship. Dominik obediently followed the crowd. They were led to a luxurious salon in which a small stage had been erected, facing rows of fold-up camp chairs and, towards the back of the room, by the wide glass bays that looked out on the waters of the marina on one side and the open sea on the other, a collection of shiny leather divans. On these sat a set of expensively clad spectators, who he assumed were the owners of the boat, the hosts for tonight; Russian oligarchs and their molls from the Slavic look of their features. Male waiters in identical attire circulated between the seats handing out more glasses of champagne to the guests. Dominik found a chair in the furthest corner of the room.
Once everyone was sitting comfortably, the fleeting conversations died down and a visible rush of anticipation raced through the room. The already dim lights of the salon were turned even lower.
Two attendants standing by the stairs carried in a couple of heavy light-boxes which they attached to tripods and switched on. The improvised stage was bathed in harsh light and Dominik, through the buzz of a pair of loudspeakers, recognised the voice, the tape she seemingly always used as part of her number. ‘My Name is Luba …’ and then the gentle strains of the Debussy music as Luba, in her white cotton robe, indolently made her way to the stage and stood, still like a statue, her perfect shape mercilessly counterpointed in the savage glare of the studio-issue spotlights.
He’d already seen her perform that time in New Orleans, but once again could not help but marvel at the grace and solemnity of her movements, slower than slow, teasing, elegant, sensual, every inch of her skin eventually bared and nuder than nude while her face remained so totally impassive, as if lost in thoughts, inhabiting another world altogether, far away from the yacht and the Sitges Aguadolc marina.
Her breasts stood high and firm, undisturbed by the swaying rhythm of her body. As she turned, her smooth mound now in full view of the whole, silent, audience, he saw the small blueinked tattoo of the gun just a nail’s length away from her opening. Intriguing, provocative, like a final way of expressing her allure, dotting the i’s of her left-of-field persona. He realised he should have asked her about the significance, the reason for the tattoo, when he’d had the opportunity. He could feel the men – and women – in the audience holding their breath as Luba continued to contort herself, sinuous, adhering reptile-like to the shimmering, impressionistic flow of the music, every refuge of her intimacy mercilessly displayed, flaunted even.
The final notes of the music dripped note by note through the speakers and Luba slowly reverted to her position as a living statue. But, this time, the lights remained on and a new piece of music began. A tango.
A hot, lascivious, drawn-out melody, piercing the quietness that had settled on the room in the wake of Luba’s dance.
A man stepped onto the dance floor, confronting Luba. He was naked too, and young, probably in his early to mid-twenties. His skin was a burnished gold, almost the colour of a new penny. In another environment it might have looked too much, as if he had spent days lounging on a sunbed, but here the glow gave him a look like a South Seas god, athletic, with strong legs and defined abdominal muscles, his chest rippling with each in and outward breath. His hair was slicked back, highlighting the fierceness and masculine line of his jaw.
His cock, its softness lost amongst the hardness of the rest of his body, began to grow the longer he stood in Luba’s presence, taking in the richness of her nudity as he waited for the next movement in her dance.
Luba opened her eyes. Theatrically fluttered her lashes as if his apparition had been a surprise and not an integral part of the evening’s act. With a sharp turn, the male dancer took hold of her hand and pulled her against him, their naked bodies making contact. With his other hand, he took her chin, his fingers lingering with intent across the soft skin of her neck, and the newly formed statue stood there for an instant, eye to eye, skin to skin, until the tango’s principal melody unfurled and they began dancing together, legs interlaced, bodies coiled together.
Dominik watched the couple slide languorously across the restricted dance floor, wondering how much of this routine had been rehearsed, and where.
Her partner led Luba to the relentless echoes of the music, as she surrendered to gravity and his authoritative embrace, legs and body in perfect extension before her shape was broken time and time again on the altar of his demands. Heat rose inexorably from the room in response to the closeness of the dancers’ bodies and the obscene way Luba was stretched, exposed, moved from side to side by the tanned, muscled, god-like creature whose facial expression never changed, severe, dominant.
Her legs briefly parted at an extreme angle, revealing her, and then he pulled her against him, his cock now as hard as the rest of his body and pressed between their torsos in a tight embrace. It was shocking, but beautiful, Dominik had to admit.
A dance of pure desire, of danger, as Luba appeared to simply relax into her partner and allow him to move her here, there and everywhere according to his will, as if she had abdicated her own. It was impossible to keep one’s eyes away from the glistening sheen now covering the bodies of both Luba and the man, the pornographic vision of the man’s arousal in such close contact with the Russian dancer’s exquisite body. Dominik watched the way his cock brushed against her midriff, the long bridge of her legs impeccably straight, her feet extended like a trained ballerina’s, her head thrown back, rigid, impervious.
The music was raised a notch, the male dancer threw Luba to the floor where she unfurled, spreadeagled in a perfect geometric position, and then he leaned over towards her, took hold of her hand and pulled her back to him, every alignment of their naked bodies a ritual, a ceremony of lust.
Vertical again, she raised her leg until she achieved the perfect angle, and to gasps from the audience the man impaled her in one swift movement, his hard cock plunging straight inside the lips of her offered cunt.
He disappeared inside her to the hilt, leaving the couple now locked together and shuddering to the music. Their dancing movements continued, his embedded cock now leading her as well as his arms as they continued their tango. Not once did he move out of her, Dominik noticed, or did the figures of the dance lose their elegant flow.
In the chairs ahead of him he saw the hands of a woman grip her neighbour’s thigh.
Somehow it didn’t feel as if they were fucking, it was still a dance, a primal dance, a thing of terrible beauty taken to another level, where the inherent grace of their bodies transcended the obscenity of the moment.
Dominik caught his breath. His eyes were drawn to the shimmering surface tension of Luba’s buttocks as she swirled around on the male dancer, his penis now an extension of her spine as if, were he to suddenly withdraw, she would collapse like a rag doll with no means of physical support.
The music began to fade and in parallel the dance slowed to a halt until Luba and the handsome male dancer just stood there, still connected, like statues of flesh, their perfect immobility barely betrayed by the way his chest moved up and down as he regained his composure and the pink flush of arousal spreading between her neck and the valley of her breasts.
You could have heard a pin drop.
On a signal from the older woman who had earlier been orchestrating the event, the sailors on either side now switched off the strong lights.
Dominik took a long, deep gulp of mineral water; he knew that some of tonight’s images would remain carved into the screen at the back of his brain for ever. His mind was prompted by the fiery spectacle of Luba and the dancers’ interlocked genitals to evoke the ardent warmth he always experienced whenever he was inside Summer, the way her body responded to him, the perfection in the way that their desires coincided, their inner darknesses meeting at some invisible crossroads of the soul. He was man enough to realise what a tissue of imperfections they both were, unlike Luba whose serene felicity had something of the uncanny. But they complemented each other. Felt whole together.

The limousine drove them back to their respective hotels in Barcelona. The full Mediterranean moon shone high above the sea as the car raced up the empty coastal highway. ‘That was beautiful,’ Dominik told Luba.
‘It was well paid,’ she replied.
‘I can imagine. Was he your normal … dance partner?’
‘There are several. It depends on the engagements. It’s a somewhat … specialist field of expertise,’ she said.
‘He looked South American but maybe I got that impression because it was a tango. What’s his name?’
‘I don’t know. It never bothers me.’ She turned away, her eyes fixed on the darkness outside.
‘Really?’
‘What’s the point? I make myself available, the male dancer directs, I follow. That’s all.’ She turned back to him. ‘But tell me, Dominik?’
‘What?’
‘You must promise to never put me in one of your books. Yes?’
Dominik hesitated. All through the drive he’d been thinking how to translate the exquisite if transgressive spectacle into words. It was such a temptation.
Luba noted his visible reluctance.
‘Promise me,’ she repeated.
‘OK.’ Dominik acceded to her demand.
An uneasy silence took over as the limo reached the city suburbs and leapfrogged through traffic lights.
‘It’s how I met Viggo,’ Luba said, out of the blue. ‘I was involved in another live sex show. With a different partner. A Ukrainian too, like me. It was in Amsterdam.’
‘And you became … friends?’
‘Yes, Viggo asked me to be with him afterwards. Said he collected beautiful things and I would be the crown in his empire. It’s a silly way to seduce a woman, but he was rich, charismatic, funny and I needed a change from the dancing life.’
‘So you followed him to London?’
‘Yes, he even hired a private jet for the journey back. He likes to spoil me, and of course himself. But he is a good man deep down. And an interesting lover.’
‘Is that how you rate men – by level of interest?’
‘Why not?’ She smiled, playfulness now overtaking the tiredness caused by her recent performance.
‘But you decided to go back to your dancing?’
‘I was getting bored,’ she said. ‘Anyway, who needs a reason? I can do what I want. With Viggo it’s not a marriage, just a friendship of equals. He’s not a jealous man.’ ‘I see,’ Dominik noted. ‘Tell me more about his collections, then?’
Viggo Franck’s pride and joy was the collection of musical instruments he had gathered. He owned two electric guitars that Jimi Hendrix had used, an acoustic Spanish guitar allegedly played by John Lennon, a battered Satchmo trumpet, an actual Paganini violin and an assortment of other rare instruments associated with famous musicians, whether from the classical or the rock field. Not content with such a treasure trove, he also hoarded various Picasso sketches, an original early Warhol, a Hirst, and sundry high-value limited-edition prints. In addition, he also had a full set of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Hemingway first editions, all with dust jackets, some actually signed.
The collection was liberally spread throughout several temperature-regulated rooms in his Belsize Park mansion.
‘Sounds fascinating,’ Dominik remarked. ‘Doesn’t he keep some of the more valuable pieces somewhere else?’
It seemed there was a locked room in the basement which Luba had never visited and that Viggo was also a touch secretive about when it came to its contents. Stated that he only kept his rare vinyl records there, which made little sense. Anyway, neither Luba nor Viggo’s everchanging entourage were interested in that particular portion of his collection.
‘Maybe it’s because the items he keeps there are more fragile?’ Luba speculated.
‘It could be,’ Dominik agreed, not wishing to pursue the subject further for now. They were driving up Diagonal and soon reached the hotel which the oligarchs had booked Luba into. He offered to walk back to his own hotel, which was barely ten minutes away on foot, but Luba insisted on asking the mute chauffeur to drop him off after her. They agreed to chat again in London one day.
Dominik returned to the UK two days later. The first thing he noticed on arriving at his house in Hampstead was Lauralynn’s large Samsonite suitcase parked by the door, alongside a large plastic duty-free bag.
Dominik called out for her but there was no response.
He walked up the stairs to the room she was using and gently rapped on the door in case she was still sleeping this late in the morning.
The room was empty and the bed had visibly not been slept in. There was a mess of clothes scattered across the room and shoes in disarray across the carpeted floor, as if she had been in a rush – not so much to unpack but to gather things up again.
He suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to leave her a note telling her he was going to Barcelona for a short time. Maybe, finding the house empty, she had decided to spend a few days elsewhere, with another friend.
Dominik felt emotionally exhausted. He decided to leave his overnight bag in the hall, sitting fraternally next to Lauralynn’s luggage, and made a beeline for his bedroom, firmly intent on sleeping all his worries away. He’d had to check in at Barcelona airport at six that morning.
Dropping his clothes along the floor in his wake, Dominik wearily collapsed onto the bed, too lazy to pull the covers on to his body, and was soon sound asleep.
He awoke late in the afternoon to the caress of warm breath against the bare skin of his uncovered arse.
‘Hello, stranger …’
He half opened his eyes, wiping the sleep away, turned his head and saw Lauralynn overlooking him, her face a portrait of amusement. Realising he was naked and aroused, he attempted to pull a sheet over himself, which only made her laugh.
‘Oh, Dominik, I’ve seen it all before,’ she said. ‘Why this sudden coyness?’ ‘I suppose so,’ he mumbled.
She wore a black promotional T-shirt for a band he’d never heard of, white jeans and laced leather boots that reached to mid-calf. From his perspective lying on the bed, she seemed even taller than he had ever known her.
‘Welcome back,’ Dominik said, pulling her down so they were sitting companionably side by side on the bed.
‘The same to you. You didn’t say you were going to be away.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘I thought you were in Berlin. So, I went over there, hoping to surprise you.’
‘Berlin?’
‘Yes. I assumed you’d found out Summer was playing there with Chris and his band. It was the final bookmark on your computer history. But you weren’t there. I’d sure make a bad Sherlock, eh?’
‘I was in Barcelona. A promo gig for my publishers there.’
‘Barcelona!’ Lauralynn burst out laughing. ‘And there I go following you to the wrong end of Europe.’
‘How was Berlin?’ Dominik asked.
‘How was Barcelona?’
‘It was interesting,’ he mused.
‘Is that all you’re going to say about it?’
‘Yes.’ A thin smile was spreading across Dominik’s lips as he recalled Luba and the show, the bookstalls along the Ramblas, the roses in full bloom.
‘I met up with Summer,’ Lauralynn said.
‘And?’ He tried to sound uninterested.
‘It was fun …’
‘Fun?’
‘Listen, I like her. A lot.’ She noticed a cloud pass before his eyes. ‘Not in that way,’ she quickly added. ‘Just as a friend, a mate.’
‘OK.’
‘And you’re an idiot, Dominik. A total idiot. Why the hell did you allow her to believe you and me had become an item? You know full well that’s not what we have.’
Dominik paled.
‘I heard she was now shacked up with Viggo Franck. I could sense she still had some feelings for me. Didn’t want her to feel bad about it. I never said we were actually together in that sense,’ he said. ‘Just mentioned that you were living here.’
‘And what did you realistically think she would make of that; the conclusions she would draw? Ah, you’re both complete morons.’
‘Both?’
‘Yes, you two are your own worst enemies. Obstinate, proud, allow me to list the sins …’
‘You told her how it was, between you and me?’
‘Of course I did. Made it very clear to her, something you should have done from the outset when you met up in Brighton. You’re like children, the way you play with your emotions, I swear.’
‘And Viggo?’
‘Come on, don’t you see it? He’s just a stopgap. Does he look like an exclusive sort of guy? Anyway, he’s got that Russian chick, hasn’t he?’
‘Luba.’
‘Is that what she’s called? She’s just another player, I guess. Not the jealous type.’
‘I’ve come across her.’
‘Good for you.’
‘She’s nice,’ he said. ‘I think you’d like her, honestly.’
‘So make an introduction.’
‘I will.’
‘The least you can do to make amends.’
‘What was Summer’s reaction to the news about you and me?’
‘Anger, surprise, relief. I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t what she expected.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘Call her, you fool. Enough playing games. You were made for each other. But now it’s up to you to make it work, find a way.’
Dominik shivered. The bedroom window was half open and outside dusk was falling, the trees on the Heath fluttering in the rising evening breeze.
‘And put something on,’ she said, looking down at him. ‘Or that lovely cock of yours will shrivel down to much less attractive proportions.’