Mistress of Night and Dawn (34 page)

‘It’s a dying art,’ he replied. ‘Retro, you know. I think it adds something. Digital just isn’t the same . . .’ He had lost the usual ironic tone that usually edged his words and there was a distinct hint of genuine enthusiasm in his voice.

Aurelia raised an eyebrow in surprise. She hadn’t taken him for an artist.

‘What is all this?’ she asked, examining the frayed yellow bindings on some of the books. They were so old that the titles had been worn away and she was too afraid to pick up a volume with her bare fingers in case it melted into dust.

‘Part of the history of the Ball. All the records that have been unearthed over the years.’

‘I thought that there weren’t any? Andrei always said that the Ball’s origins had been lost . . .’

‘Andrei is no supporter of the archives,’ he said bitterly. ‘He believes that the Ball should keep evolving, modernising, moving along with the current of the present . . . That getting stuck in the burden of past traditions will dilute some of the magic, the intuition of the revellers that keeps the Ball alive.’

‘And you don’t agree?’

‘Andrei is correct to an extent. So much of our history has been lost, or was never recorded and what we do have is piecemeal.’ Tristan lifted his hand in a wide arc indicating the sheer expanse of the material that filled the shelves. ‘Some of these books only contain one line of reference to the Ball, and we can’t even be certain that those lines describe the Ball at all and not some other hedonistic event.’

He sighed loudly. ‘It’s been my project since I became Andrei’s second in command to carry on with the task of researching old material, preserving these records and making new ones. I come from a long line of librarians, you know. It’s rumoured that I might even be related to Casanova, who recorded all of his adventures . . . it’s in the blood. He had a son, too, who unearthed much of the information that was thought to be lost.’

Aurelia choked back her surprise. The line of Casanova. What arrogance. She forgot her amusement as another thought dawned on her, the dots all connecting in her mind.

‘You’ve been filming my training.’

‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘Not all of it. But much of it. We wanted to discover how the tattoos appear. When. If there’s any relationship between the way that the Mistress’s marks develop and the tasks that she is given during her training. If that power could be harnessed in some way . . . There are some in the Ball’s hierarchy who believe that a Mistress could be created, tamed, not bred exactly but her responses moulded . . . And you are so beautiful, Aurelia, so beautiful and sometimes so terrible when you are fucking or being fucked. You have no idea. I was never one of your lovers, I regret to say. I was never assigned to you. But I was always caught like a fly in your web, so mesmerised by what I saw through my lens that I couldn’t break my gaze away for even long enough to put my camera down and join you. And you burn so brightly that being in your presence is like being exposed to the fire of the sun. I sometimes feel if I looked at you directly I would be burned to ash. But if you were to name me your consort, Aurelia, then with you I could be like Helios. With your power and my knowledge, we could rule the Ball like nobody ever has before . . .’

He paused before continuing, ‘But I did not bring you here to talk about the future. I brought you here to show you the past. Watch.’

The projector roared into life and flickering images appeared on the wall in front of them. Andrei, half nude and the size of a Titan, blown up to fill the big screen. Bent over in front of him was a beautiful young woman with dark hair flicked delicately behind her ears and cropped into a chic bob, highlighting a pair of full red lips and the sort of cheekbones that would make any cat jealous. Her short denim skirt was bunched around her waist and red welts marked the soft tan skin of her thighs where the elastic of her white cotton panties had dug into her flesh having been hurriedly pulled down to provide access to Andrei’s cock, the length of which was ploughing into her with the sort of uneven and haphazard rhythm that Aurelia recognised as born of passion. There was no ritual here, nor any kind of duty. This was fucking at its most basic.

Aurelia’s eyes landed on the bright-red mark of twin cherries tattooed on the woman’s hip, just above her pubic bone. For a moment her heart stopped. Then she realised the tattoo was a real tattoo, and not a very classy one either, she thought with a hint of bitterness.

Then her attention was caught by movement in the background. Lights. Streamers. A curtain of multicoloured glass beads flying into the wind from the tent of a fortuneteller. They were at the funfair on Hampstead Heath. It was still light, but the sky was showing some signs of clouding over and the wind appeared to be picking up. She and Siv had probably been on the dodgem cars then, minutes before the rain had started and they had sought shelter on the ghost train. Merely an hour later Andrei had pressed his lips against hers and changed her life for ever and here he was, rutting like an animal, with another woman who he had likely only just met. Testing her, Tristan had said, but it certainly didn’t look like a chore. A distinct look of pleasure was carved over Andrei’s face. Had he known who Aurelia was then, or had he been working his way through every pretty girl at the fair?

Aurelia swallowed hard, but she could not bring herself to look away. Her eyes were glued to the vision of their bodies slapping against one another, the cupid’s bow of their lips open in cries of ecstasy, the hard angles of his muscled limbs contrasting with the softness of her flesh in a parody of opposites welded together by mutual attraction.

Tristan interrupted the film and then played another, and another and another. An endless montage of Andrei in his role of Protector making love to every sort of woman that Aurelia could imagine. Young, old, firm, soft, petite, large, beautiful, plain. Eventually she did not pay any attention to their features at all, but simply read the pattern of lust and requited desire that swam across their faces and across his. She’d seen that expression spreading across his features, that particular twist of his lips and the line of his brow drawing together so many times when he had come to her bed and entered her with all the fury of a man possessed in asserting his ownership over her flesh and she had not been able to resist disobeying the Network’s instructions and opening her eyes for just long enough to catch a glimpse of the man she loved as he came inside her.

‘Enough,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve seen enough.’ Even Aurelia was surprised by the steady coldness of her voice.

Tristan switched off the projector, carefully returned the reels of film to their respective cases and orderly position on the racks and then escorted her back through the endless passageways to the elevator. Not a word was exchanged between them until they reached the outside world again and Aurelia immediately raced for the doors that led into the gardens where she breathed a deep sigh of relief at no longer being locked up indoors and waited for the sense of peace that she always found when surrounded by the clean lines of the neatly trimmed hedgerows and the gentle rustling of the leaves on the trees and the soft sound of water rushing over smooth stones to wash over her.

She’d almost forgotten about Tristan when he finally spoke.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You’ll do it? What I suggested? And choose between us?’

‘Yes,’ Aurelia replied. ‘I’ll choose.’

She turned and walked towards her glass-walled bedroom within the pagoda without looking back.

PJ was waiting for her with a warm infusion of rosewater syrup and honey served in a pale-pink teacup, and a plate of sliced mango that had been subtly flavoured with the smallest drizzle of lime and decorated with one of the vivid purple flowers that grew in the far corner of the gardens. PJ had become so devoted to his duties as servant and companion that he had developed an uncanny ability to sense her needs, desires and appetites that bordered on psychic. Often she was not even aware of what it was that she was in the mood for until PJ handed it to her.

Today, though, she did not impart her usual instructions.

‘Fetch Madame Denoux for me please, PJ,’ she requested.

He rushed immediately to do her bidding and returned a short while later accompanied by the dark-haired woman who had overseen the majority of her training.

‘You summoned me, Aurelia? This is most unusual,’ said Madame Denoux, delicately rearranging the folds of yet another long velvet gown. This one was the same pale pink as the rosewater syrup that PJ had prepared. Madame’s dresses all seemed to be cut from the same pattern but Aurelia was certain that she’d never seen her wear the same shade twice. She had as many different coloured velvet gowns as Aurelia had pairs of underwear. ‘Though I must confess that I am curious,’ she added.

The only sign of surprise that appeared on Madame Denoux face as Aurelia summarised the situation and explained her proposal was the barest hint of a smile playing across the usually straight-faced woman’s lips.

Silence stretched out like an eternity between them until finally Madame Denoux spoke.

‘It’s an ancient custom,’ she said, ‘and one that has not, to my knowledge, been invoked in recent times. But you are correct. As Mistress-in-Waiting you may choose a consort, and if you feel, as you say, unable to choose then you are entitled to call upon the selection ritual. I will ask Andrei to return as you have requested and arrange the other necessities.’ She gathered up her skirts and prepared to leave, before turning back at the last moment.

‘Aurelia,’ she said.

‘Yes, Madame?’ Aurelia responded, out of habit more than politeness.

‘Are you sure about this? Once the selection ritual has occurred, it cannot be turned back. You may choose to cast your die, but you will be stuck with however they land. Or whomever they land upon.’

‘I understand.’ Aurelia nodded. ‘And I am sure. It is the only way.’

Sleep evaded her that night and she tossed and turned, seeking the comfort of peaceful dreams that never came. Finally she roused PJ and asked him to give her release through his ability to pleasure her.

‘Yes, Mistress,’ he said in a tone that was full of adoration before gently lowering his head and pressing his lips to Aurelia’s labia. She arched her back and lifted her hips and grasped him by the nape of his neck and pressed the tip of his nose against her cunt and held him there until an orgasm tore through her body and wiped every thought from her mind.

The release was like a drug and she slept through all of the following day. Her attendants arrived in the evening to prepare her for the ceremony that would be held at midnight. It had been deemed important that the future Mistress’s choice should be made as soon as possible, paving the ground for the Inking to be concluded at the next Ball with no further delays.

She meditated as they busied themselves with sponging down her skin and then meticulously washing and drying her long hair and rubbing the usual perfumed oil over the full expanse of her flesh. This time she had requested a darker scent. Something woody, musky, reminiscent of the earth. A fragrance that would remind her that she was grounded and powerful.

When the moment came, she was blindfolded. Aurelia had asked for her vision to be obscured rather than rely upon the strength of will that it took from her to purposefully keep her eyes closed. She wanted to concentrate all of her awareness on her physical sensations without any other distraction.

The first man to take her was Tristan. She recognised him only because he was not Andrei. His breath was laboured with excitement and something else – the frenzied edge that comes from being too close to madness, perhaps – and he gripped her forearms so tightly that his embrace was like the confines of a straitjacket. She had been lying back, relaxed on a pile of soft coverlets and pillows with her legs spread apart waiting for one of her possible consorts to arrive and take her and Tristan had simply grabbed hold of her and flipped her over with a driven passion and thrust his cock inside her with little more warning than the pressure of his hands on her shoulders. He used her body as the anchor that allowed him to pierce her so fiercely that Aurelia thought that he might split her in two.

It was raw and wild, and yet . . . there was something equally feral within Aurelia, a passion that was as close to madness as Tristan’s was and that had been simmering under the surface of her skin awaiting only the permission of a lover who defied convention to set it free. Aurelia screamed her rebellion and as she did so the heat of her markings burned across her flesh with familiar intensity. With an almighty burst of strength she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees with the weight of his body still pressing against her back and she flipped him off and straddled him, pinning his wrists down onto the bedding and then climbing back onto the straight length of his still-hard cock. He responded in kind and they wrestled and rolled like animals across the cushions that had been laid out, until they tumbled onto the damp grass lawn. Every tattoo on Aurelia’s body flamed into life and burned as brightly as the stars in the sky.

Already her inflamed senses were screaming at her to choose him. Choose danger. Choose Tristan. Complicit in the lie that Andrei’s affection and lovemaking were maybe too timid, too traditional, and that the way forward for her mind and body should journey through a road of fire and discord.

At the same time, the Aurelia of old counselled patience, and faithfulness to an earlier dream.

There would be time still to reach a decision.

Time to refresh her soul at the original source that had triggered the world of pleasure inside her.

A bell rang. Low, ponderous. A heavy note that tolled history and tradition. And, Aurelia knew, signalled the end of the first would-be consort’s turn.

Andrei’s touch, when it came, was as cool and soothing as a gentle breeze on a hot summer’s day. He bent down and eased his arms beneath her and lifted her into the air, setting her down onto the coverlet again as if she were made of the most delicate china. He lowered his head to the scratch on her shoulder and pressed his lips softly against it. She inhaled the scent of his skin with each in-breath as if she was absorbing every element of his soul by osmosis. She sighed with pleasure and buried her hands in his hair, pulling him down so that he lay alongside her with his head tucked against her shoulder. They made a pair as easily as any of the birds that frequented the Network’s gardens.