The Pleasure Quartet (7 page)

‘See you later,’ he said to me as they trooped out of the door. His tone suggested that he would make sure that he did.

It was my first Ball as one of the staff, and I did not allow myself to relax until it was almost over. I stayed upstairs to watch the ceremony, and then, relieved that all of my plans had passed without a hitch I headed downstairs to the dungeon.

Aurelia was there with her partner, Andrei. She had changed into a canary-yellow lace slip, low-cut at the front and back, just barely reaching down to the tops of her thighs. With her hair flowing loose and her energy palpable after the earlier ritual, she looked like a sunbeam that had been trapped from the sky and brought to earth. Her quilt of tattoos quivered and shimmered over her body, a plethora of fauna and flora that mysteriously came to life in circumstances like this. I saw the peacock etched on the back of her calf fan open its tail feathers and strut.

Andrei took hold of her each time that she turned. Touching his palm to her waist, grasping her hand, or curling a lock of her hair in between his fingers. He could not bear to be apart from her even for a moment. They had an apparently open relationship, since it was part of Aurelia’s traditional duty as the Mistress of the Ball to take the starring role in a sexual ceremony that occurred each year and required her to fuck the men chosen by the Ball for the purpose, inevitably young, fit bucks – sometimes up to a dozen of them at a time. She certainly didn’t seem to mind. In fact, during and after these occasions she lit up like a firework, as though the sex brought her truly into herself. But I never saw Andrei with anyone else. He stuck faithfully to her side, always. They made a striking couple, his tall, lean body, the broad shoulders and ginger hair a good match for her cooler tones and long, lithe form.

‘Summer,’ she called out, when she spotted me lingering at the door. She lifted her arm into the air along with the scanty fabric that covered her arse, coming narrowly close to flashing me the smooth valley of her genitals. A pair of plain gold bracelets decorated her wrists.

I walked over to them, threading my way carefully through couples who were using the various pieces of BDSM equipment, each of them occupying their own private universe, seeking that elusive high I knew of so well.

She drew me into her arms as I approached and kissed me on each cheek, and then on my lips. Andrei kept his hand on the small of her back as she did so.

‘It was magnificent,’ she said. ‘You did a wonderful job. Truly wonderful. Not a jot out of place.’

If I hadn’t known that she avoided all alcohol and drugs at these events, I would have assumed that she was drunk or high. Her pupils were dilated and her eyes appeared enormous, like great wells of blue that didn’t seem able to focus on anything.

‘Thank you,’ I replied.

‘Not at all . . . I wanted to speak with you. There’s someone who wants to meet you.’

She raised her arm again and gesticulated towards the corner of the room. When her skirt lifted as she raised her hand in the air, her thigh brushed against mine. Her skin was soft and cool. I felt my muscles tense in response, and instinctively looked away, catching Andrei’s eye as I did so. There was both sadness and pride in his expression, as though he was aware of the effect that Aurelia had on others. I knew well enough that the ability to provoke desire in others could be a double-edged sword.

Vincent was threading his way towards us in response to Aurelia’s signal, a large grin spread across his face.

He nodded a greeting to Andrei, kissed Aurelia on the cheek and then turned to me.

‘Hope you don’t mind my tracking you down, water nymph. I didn’t want to leave it to chance this time,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Aurelia interjected, ‘you two have met already?’

‘We bumped into each other earlier,’ I told her, ‘in the dressing rooms.’

‘Good,’ she replied. ‘I was hoping that you would meet.’

She paused, and I waited for her to elucidate.

‘Vincent has certain skills that I think you might enjoy,’ she explained.

‘Darling . . .’ Andrei intervened. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t spring it on her. Might be best to talk it through first, in a different environment.’ He stared pointedly at the scene continuing alongside us, a domme dressed in a shining khaki and black governess’s get-up and caning a man who was bent over in front of her, weeping.

It was Andrei’s tentative attempts at protecting me that encouraged me to throw caution to the wind.

‘I’m game,’ I announced, although I wasn’t at all sure what I might be agreeing to. Vincent’s eyes gleamed, and he pushed up the sleeves of his black silk robe, exposing his thick forearms. He looked like a magician of the dark arts, which I supposed, in a way he was. A tattoo was carved in white ink on the inside of each of his wrists. I squinted to make them out – infinity symbols, like figures of eight lying sideways.

‘I was hoping that you would say that,’ Vincent replied. His head was cocked to one side and he was staring at me, smiling, with a satisfied look in his expression that suggested I had confirmed whatever guesses he had previously made about my character and desires.

Aurelia picked up a flogger from the nearest rack of accoutrements; walnut handled with long, soft hide falls. She turned it over in her hand and swept the leather over the inside of her wrist, learning the whip’s particular feel and peculiarities as a musician might come to grips with a new instrument.

Vincent undressed me, without paying the slightest heed to the ritual of baring my flesh. He simply unzipped the black lace playsuit that I was wearing so that it dropped down to my ankles and then he hunched down, helped me step out of it, and tossed the garment to one side. He unbuckled the towering heels that I had been bravely teetering on all night, and set them aside, gripping my ankles firmly as he did so to assist my balance. When he began to push himself up again, his mouth was only inches from my crotch. How pleasant it would be, I thought, to feel his tongue inside me. Instinctively I threaded my hands through his hair. He took hold of my wrists and pulled himself to his feet.

‘Another time,’ he whispered into my ear. His lips brushed against my ear lobe. My nerve endings began to tingle with excitement. Vincent had a way about him that all of the dominant men I had encountered possessed. An aura of confidence that transcended any wealth, education or other positive qualities he might possess, including his good looks. I had found even short, dumpy dominants that were absolute bastards attractive in the past. There was no rhyme or reason to it. The sense of power that ebbed out of him affected me in a deep, visceral sense. If I allowed myself to be swept away by it then he would have me wrapped around his little finger like another member of his chained harem.

It began and ended with rope.

I noticed, vaguely, that a space had appeared around us. The steady flow of noise in the room emanating from couples and groups engaged in BDSM play had muted to a low rumour of whispers as we became the central focus in the dungeon. Even Andrei had stepped back into the crowd. Aurelia seemed to have grown an extra foot tall. She was terrible in a regal sort of a sense, her limbs taut and her legs spread apart with her weight on her heels, a coil of energy inside her like a red-hot snake ready to strike.

There was a noise above me, and I glanced upwards and saw a panel in the ceiling move back on invisible hinges. A rigger kit appeared; a length of thick black rope attached at the top end to sturdy iron hoops. The trap door and rig was not part of my design, and I had been over each inch of the plans for the dungeon, and signed off on every last whip and paddle. Aurelia must have planned all this.

The rope dropped down and Vincent caught it easily in his palm.

His robe was now untied, revealing the centre length of his torso, his inner thighs and calves and the dangling spectacle of his ball sack. His cock was fully erect and swung as he moved. Aurelia was circling around us, still toying with the flogger she held, waiting for her chance to smack the leather hide against my skin.

Music began to play. The lush tones of Lana del Rey rose up around us. It was a record that Dominik had often listened to, one that I knew he favoured when he was writing a bittersweet scene, something that required a deep layer of melancholy. Sadness began to well up inside me as I remembered the games that we had played together, the elaborate lengths to which Dominik had gone to tease my senses and bring my body, heart, soul and mind right to the edge of reason. Anything else would never be the same, I realised then. Vincent only had access to my body, and perhaps a portion of my mind. Whatever pain or pleasure he and Aurelia could inflict on me would only ever be surface level. To reach the depths, I needed more. I needed love. And that was not something that I could ever get from the Ball, these manifestations of sexuality that crossed and even celebrated every boundary and taboo in existence and yet could not bind people together. Few of the Ball’s guests knew each other outside of these annual or bi-annual festivals. They barely spoke during the events themselves, they just fucked.

I was growing tired of it all.

I wanted something different, something more than sex.

My body was getting by well enough, but without music, and without Dominik, I had nothing and no one to nourish my soul.

The rope pressed against my skin. Soft, at first, but as Vincent expanded his web the bonds became tighter. My breasts had been bound into a corset that squeezed them until they were unnaturally prominent, jutting out from my chest, my nipples hard, pink and proud. My waist and thighs were circled in a harness and my arms pulled behind me, my wrists tied behind my back. He methodically bound my calves to my thighs, with my knees bent and my heels pressed against my buttocks. By the time that he had finished I was tied like a spider’s fly, ready for eating. My mind floated in a state of deep relaxation so it took me a few moments to notice that I was slowly moving, winched up inch by inch on the rig. Several points held me steady; a network of ropes linked to the bonds at my hips, shoulders, and each ankle, splaying my bent legs apart. I was flying, belly down.

I felt the whip, then. Not lashing against my limbs but rather softly caressing the parts of my skin that remained uncovered, from the soles of my feet to the tips of my nipples and down again to my bare cunt. When the rope stopped, fingers took its place. Two sets of hands. Aurelia and Vincent; squeezing, probing. I had begun responding bodily to their ministrations long ago and my pussy was soaking wet. Was she using the whip’s handle to penetrate me? My breath rasped. My throat was dry and I longed for a glass of water. I licked my lips. Something wet was pushed against my mouth and I sucked, greedily. Fingers coated with wine. Then another pair of lips pressed against mine. They were full and firm, the kiss too rough to be Aurelia’s. It was Vincent. I kissed him back.

Another rope was looped over my head and rested around my throat. It began to tighten. I shifted my shoulders, instinctively trying to bring my hands up to protect my neck but I couldn’t, my wrists were secured firmly behind my back. Dominik’s image and voice appeared again in my head. My lingering ghost. He had always teased me about playing so near the edge, but I knew that he was only half teasing. Part of him had worried about me, venturing too close to danger.

‘One day we’ll go too far,’ he’d say.

‘I hope so,’ I’d quip back.

My heart beat faster. I was dizzy. The music roared in my ears and the lyrics blurred, Lana del Rey turned into the rush of the sea on the shore heard through the trumpet of a shell held close to my ear.

I felt myself falling.

A sound escaped my lips. A croak? A scream?

For a few seconds, there was nothing, only the blackness in my mind and the echo of the music playing.

Then I heard Andrei’s voice, cutting through the noise.

‘Bring her down.’ His tone roused me.

He said nothing more. My bonds were removed rapidly and a glass of water pressed to my lips. Someone handed me a bar of chocolate. Aurelia was kneeling on the floor behind me, ready to cover me with a blanket when the ropes were pulled away.

It was nearly morning.

I slept through the day, until we returned again to port. Dreamlessly.

I glanced in the mirror one last time, tried in vain to smooth the fly-away frizz from my drying curls, packed the remaining items back into Aurelia’s beach bag, set my shoulders back, sucked in my stomach and returned to the table.

‘You look exquisite with that on,’ Aurelia murmured, eyeing me with undisguised appetite, the way she did most people, both predatory and with admiration.

Our waitress was already hovering around the table, visibly irritated by our presence, jealous of our appearance maybe. She was almost a carbon copy of the woman in charge of the reservation book, young and pert with a set of breasts that seemed unfeasibly large above her small waist, slim legs and wide hips, dark hair cropped around pointed ears and a face that settled naturally into a scowl.

We quickly ordered. Pork ribs with sweet and sour pineapple for me and marinated tuna served with mashed potatoes for Aurelia. It was not my first visit to Zaza, and I had already sampled nearly all of the cocktail flavours on the menu. I opted for a lime caipirinha.

‘Sugar?’ purred the waitress. ‘Or sweetener?’ Her tone suggested that I should choose the latter.

‘Sugar,’ I replied, and hoped as she walked away that she wouldn’t spit into our drinks.

Aurelia turned and watched her saunter towards the kitchen.

‘Nice arse,’ she observed.

‘Shame the same isn’t true for her personality.’

‘True,’ she shrugged. ‘Most people only need one or the other to get through life, I suppose.’

She may have disliked us, but to her credit, she wasn’t slow with our order. Our drinks arrived in minutes, along with a basket of warm crusty bread and fresh butter, and a bright blue ceramic bowl filled with plump green olives.

Aurelia popped an olive between her lips.

‘Cheers,’ she said, with her mouth still full.