Eighty Days Yellow (9 page)

He extended an arm and briefly shook my hand in a formal fashion. His grip was firm.

‘My name is Dominik. Thank you for coming.’

His hands were warm and solid, larger even than Mark’s from the other night. I reddened at the thought and quickly sat down.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.

‘Flat white, please, if they’ve got it. Or a double espresso,’ I replied, hoping my words would not betray my nervousness.

He moved past me, walking towards the counter, and as he did so, I caught a whiff of him. He did not smell at all of cologne, just a very faint odour of musk, the smell of warm skin. I find something very masculine about an unscented man, skin unadulterated by products and perfumes. He was the sort of man who I imagined might smoke cigars and shave with an old-fashioned razor.

I watched him order our coffees at the counter.

Dominik was moderately tall, about six foot, I guessed, and lean, but not overly muscled. He had the strong arms and back of a swimmer. A very hot guy, despite his cool demeanour. Or maybe because of it. I’d always preferred men who didn’t simper or try too hard to impress me.

He asked the barista very politely for a sugar bowl.

His voice was deep and rich, public-schooled, my favourite kind, but it had an irregular lilt to it, and I wondered if he was, in fact, English. I have a real thing for accents, perhaps a natural result of having come from someplace else. I tried to push the thought out of my head, to not let on that I found him attractive and give him the upper hand.

He was wearing a dark-brown, ribbed, high-collared jumper that looked comfortable and soft to touch, cashmere maybe, a pair of dark denim jeans and recently polished tan leather shoes. Nothing about his dress or manner suggested anything in particular, other than that he seemed pleasant enough and not dangerous. At least, not dangerous in a psychopathic way. Perhaps dangerous in other ways.

I reached into my bag and texted Charlotte to tell her that I hadn’t been chopped into bits yet.

He returned with a tray and I began to stand, to help him unload the cups, but he waved me away, balancing the tray on one hand and sliding a cup of coffee in front of me. As he did so, he leaned a fraction closer than was strictly necessary to offer me sugar, brushing his hand against my arm, his touch lingering almost long enough to necessitate a response from me, of either approval or disapproval, but he removed his hand and I pretended I hadn’t noticed.

I shook my head, no, waited for him to make the obligatory ‘You’re sweet enough’ remark, but he didn’t.

We sat in a strangely comfortable silence as he delicately stirred first one, then another, then another, then yet another cube of sugar into his cup. His fingernails were neatly manicured, though square in shape, so the effect was manly rather than effeminate. He had a slight olive tone to his skin, whether from ethnicity or a recent holiday, I couldn’t tell. He withdrew the teaspoon from his cup very gently and laid it neatly on the saucer, watching his own hand as he did so, as if his gaze could prevent any stray drips from leaking off the spoon and onto the tablecloth. A silver wristwatch sat on his right wrist, the old-fashioned, not the digital, sort. I’ve always found it hard to determine age, especially in men, but I guessed that he was in his forties, probably no older than forty-five unless he looked young for his years.

If he had a violin, it wasn’t anywhere near the table.

He leaned back in his chair. Another moment of silence.

‘So, Summer Zahova.’ He rolled the syllables in his mouth as if tasting them, one by one. I watched his lips. They looked extraordinarily soft, though the set of his mouth was firm. ‘You are probably wondering who I am and what this is all about.’

I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. It was even better than I expected.

‘Good coffee,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he replied. A bemused expression spread over his face.

I waited for him to continue.

‘I would like to replace your violin.’

‘In exchange for what?’ I asked, leaning forward with interest.

He responded by leaning towards me also, his palms now flat on the table, his fingers spread, nearly grazing mine, a gesture that invited me to run my hands inside his. I caught a faint whiff of coffee on his breath, and as I had when Charlotte smeared herself with cinnamon lube, I felt a sudden urge to lean closer and lick him.

‘I would like you to play for me. Vivaldi, maybe?’

He leaned back again, lazily, a slight smile playing on his lips, as if he had noticed my attraction to him and was teasing me for it.

Two could play at this game. I straightened my shoulders again and met his eyes with my own, pretended to be oblivious to the heat rising between us and arranged my features so that I must seem merely lost in thought, considering his bizarre offer as one would any professional contract.

I remembered the last time I had played
The Four Seasons
, the afternoon after the fight with Darren. That was the day someone had deposited the fifty in my case. Probably Dominik, I now figured.

I felt him shift his weight under the table and saw his eyes flash. Satisfaction? Desire? Perhaps I didn’t look as collected as I had hoped.

A hot flush spread across my cheeks as my leg brushed his and I realised that I’d been sitting with my knees spread apart under the table like a man. I hadn’t had sex for over a month now and was almost ready to mount one of the table legs, but he didn’t need to know that.

He continued, ‘Just the once, to begin with, and you shall have your violin. I will decide on the venue, but you will understandably have safety concerns. You should feel free to bring a friend if you so prefer.’

I nodded. I had by no means decided that I would go along with his plan, but I needed to buy some time, to mull it over. The undertones of his suggestion were obvious, and his arrogance irritating, but – despite my best intentions to the contrary – I did find Dominik attractive, and I desperately needed a violin.

‘Well, Summer Zahova, does that mean that you accept?’

‘Yes.’

I would think it over later and decline by email if necessary.

He ordered two more coffees without asking if I wanted one. His assumption annoyed me and I was about to protest, but I did want another and would look a fool if I turned his away and ordered my own on the way out. We sipped them, talked about the weather, briefly discussed the minutiae of our ordinary lives. Not that mine felt ordinary any more, violinless as I was.

‘Do you miss it? The violin?’

I felt a strange and sudden sweep of emotion, as though without a bow and an instrument to release all the sensations held within my body, I might tear apart from the inside out, explode, self-combust.

I remained silent.

‘Well, then, we should make it soon. Next week maybe. I’ll be in touch to confirm the location and will procure the instrument for the occasion, and if all goes to my satisfaction, we can go shopping for a more permanent instrument.’

I agreed, again ignoring the almost disrespectful degree of arrogance in his tone, and, keeping my reservations under wraps for the moment, took my coat from the chair. We walked out of the cafe together until our paths separated and we exchanged polite goodbyes.

‘Summer,’ he called out to me as I walked away.

‘Yes?’ I replied.

‘Wear a black dress.’

4

A Man and His String Quartet

Dominik had always been an attentive reader of spy thrillers and had memorised some of the basics of spycraft from the many books he had eagerly devoured. As a result, he had sat himself in the cafe in an obscured position on the ground floor, in a corner by the stairs where he had a clear view of the door but could not necessarily be seen because of the glare of the outside light. In this instance, though, there was no need for an escape route.

He saw her enter, just a few minutes late and slightly out of breath, and perfunctorily look around the almost deserted cafe where the heavy smell of coffee drifted seductively from wall to wall and the espresso machine chugged away. He noted her missing him in the recessed area behind the stairs, and seeking him out. She then made her way up to the first floor, her tight blue pencil dress stretching across her hips with every ascending step and affording him a clear view up her dress before the darkness between her legs obscured any further exploration. Dominik had always been something of a private voyeur and this involuntary all-too-brief glimpse of her secrets was a delight and an exquisite promise of better things to come.

Without her violin and the hypnotic effect of her music, he could now concentrate on her physical appearance. There was the burning bush of her hair, a waspish waistline, an almost manly allure to her movements. Not quite as tall as he remembered her under the low ceiling of the busy Tube corridor, he noted. She was not a traditional beauty in the fashion-model sense of the word, but she stood out, whether in a crowd or alone, rushing through the cafe or approaching across the docks outside. Yes, she was different, which appealed to him a lot.

He called up her number on his phone and texted her, advising her of his whereabouts, redirecting her. She walked down the stairs, her face ever so slightly flushed from the embarrassment of having missed him first time round.

She now faced him.

‘You’re Summer,’ he said, and introduced himself, inviting her to sit down opposite him.

She did.

A faint whiff of cinnamon reached him. Somehow not the fragrance he expected of her. He would previously have thought that the pallor of her skin would conjugate better with a perfume with a strong green note, dry, discreet, sly. Oh well.

He looked Summer in the eyes. She held his gaze, defiant but curious, firm and just a little amused. She evidently had a strong mind of her own. How interesting this could prove.

The coffees were ordered as they examined each other in silence, observing, judging, weighing, speculating. Like chess players before the battle, they probed for their adversary’s weak spot, the breach through which the opposite number could be broken, invaded.

Dominik rose to fetch the tray on which the barista had placed their espressos while she quickly sent a text to someone, presumably reassuring a friend she was safe and he was no regulation-issue serial killer or championship-standard creep at first glance. Dominik allowed himself a faint smile. It seemed he had passed the initial test. Now the ball was in his court.

He confirmed his proposal, outlining the bare lines of a seemingly straightforward initiative, while all along a more complex plan slowly grew in his mind. Fantasies unrolling, visions coming to life like a Polaroid emerging from a dark mass of clouds. How far could he go? How far would he take her?

Half an hour later, as they parted, a touch of uneasiness still lingering between them for all the things unsaid, Dominik realised he was hard, his erection tenting the front of his jeans as he watched her sashay away across the walkways of St Katharine Docks towards Tower Bridge. She never turned back, but Dominik knew she was aware of his eyes following her.

Ah, this was going to be a worthy challenge . . . Risky and exciting, but . . .

For someone who had spent most of his life in the kingdom of books, Dominik was both a fount of knowledge – however theoretical it might sometimes appear – and a man of action. Back in his university days, he had almost simultaneously spent hour after hour in libraries and then switched with ease to the racetrack and shorts to compete in athletics. He had proven a strong high- and long-jumper, as well as an exceptional middle-distance and cross-country runner, although he was less successful when involved in team sports, as he never quite succeeded in blending in or synching with others. He saw no contradiction in these two distinct sides of his life.

For years his sex life had been both conservative and traditional. He’d never been at too much of a loss for bed partners, even in his younger years, when he’d been prone to idealising some women and falling in love with those he could not get with puzzling regularity. As a lover, he reckoned he was just about average, not wildly imaginative, but tender. Being something of an introvert, he was never truly concerned by how he rated in the eyes of the women he bedded. Sex was just another occupation, a necessary one, but just part of the busy fabric of life, on a par with books, art and food.

Until the day he had met Kathryn.

He had of course read the Marquis de Sade and many of the modern classics of erotica. He consumed pornography (and enjoyed it to recurring ejaculatory climaxes) and knew about BDSM, domination, submission and the palette of perversions on offer, as well as the paraphernalia of the fetish life, but it had never truly intersected with the day-to-day reality of his own life. It was something else, abstract, remote, something others did, indulged in. He observed with intellectual interest, but this other parallel world didn’t call him, beckon for him to participate.

She was also an academic, albeit in a different discipline, and they had met at a conference in the Midlands, a quizzical exchange of glances across the floor during the course of one of his keynote lectures, followed by an uneasy conversation at the crowded evening bar. Back in London, they had become lovers, although she was married and Dominik was at that time in a long-term relationship with someone else.

Most of their carnal encounters took place in daytime hotel rooms or on the carpeted floor of his small office at the college between the happy hour and the last train from Charing Cross to the southern suburbs.

Every minute counted, and the sex was an eye-opener for both Dominik and Kathryn, as if all their previous sexual experiences had been leading to this moment. Hurried, hard, desperate, compulsive like a drug.

Knees rubbing against the thick pale-brown carpet squares, her body beneath him, both panting, on the edge of breathlessness, his erection digging harder and deeper inside Kathryn with every successive thrust, her eyes closed in lustful communion, Dominik had taken a mental pause and frozen the moment in his mind. Storing memories. Wondering whether, one day in the future (how far along?), he would have to resort to evoking this particular image to gratify himself in the loneliness of his solitude.