Mistress of Night and Dawn (15 page)

A reverent silence spread across the room, all voices stilling, a supernatural hush, the sound of a hundred breaths held back.

And then, an almighty exhalation.

A trap door had opened at the very centre of the floor of the glass tank and a winding line of naked swimmers, all male, he counted twelve in all, emerged from unknown, hidden depths, like arrows through the water, rising swiftly to the surface before diving again and separating into half a dozen pairs, each now making a beeline towards one of the women fluttering on the outer wall of the water tank like butterflies pinned against its glass walls.

Each man was likewise perfect in body and shape, muscled, defined, sculpted, oozing power and intent as they approached their prey.

‘The rams,’ someone close to Ange whispered in his ear. ‘Aries.’

Ange felt giddy. Something in the sweet wine? He brushed sweat from his forehead and watched, transfixed, as each pairing of men wrapped itself around one of the women in the water and proceeded to impale her from front and back in rapid, rehearsed motion. Until all eighteen bodies were dancing a shameless dance of lust in the water, thrashing wildly and wantonly in place. Yes, a ballet, but a beautiful and uncommon submarine one, bodies in communion, interlinked, joined, married to each other in metronomic motion, a slow, steady swirl of flesh in water, flesh against water. A celebration.

His throat felt dry and painful.

‘Until dawn,’ a cry of liberation, resonating through the chamber, words flying above their heads, the water tank, the Ball.

As reluctant as he was to take his eyes off the spectacle unfolding in the translucent water, Ange couldn’t help but notice men and women in the crowd surrounding him beginning to disrobe, bodies, white, tanned and olive-skinned in all shapes, sizes and ages, proudly revealed, clothing casually dropping to the floor, corsets unhurriedly being unlaced, shirts parting from skin, breeches dropping, shoes being cast aside.

Behind him, someone tugged on his shirt, gently but firmly, as if to assist him.

At the same moment, streams of coloured rope unfurled from somewhere in the heights of cavernous chamber and fell, dangling just inches away from the shimmering surface of the water tank, and out of nowhere, a group of naked aerialists began their descent, each wearing a thin crown of flowers and matching ankle chains in shades of gold, stopping their acrobatic arc just before their feet reached the water. As they did so the conjoined couples circling the periphery of the enormous bowl, each a sublime two-backed beast lost to the throes of pleasure, began a slow drift to the surface where, as if in slow motion, they reached the open arms of the nude acrobats and were taken into the safe harbour of their strong arms and each respective trio ascended to the roof where Ange and the other spectators lost sight of them.

Catching his breath, Ange felt unknown hands fumbling around his waist, undoing his leather belt and with a gentle tug on his cotton trousers pulling them down to the ground and realised he was also now naked, his cock hard as rock as it hadn’t been in ages. In itself a remarkable feat as the pleasures of the flesh were but a distant memory in the ascetic life of a scholar he had been leading for as long as he remembered.

At first, he thought the water tank was now empty as the water swirled in front of him behind the thick glass of the container, like a whirlpool still hungry for the presence of the now departed bodies, but then, in the periphery of his vision, he caught sight of a quicksilver shadow racing inside the water which then unblurred as the new, solitary swimmer slowed and paused.

It was a woman. Either she was the tallest specimen of her kind or the water bowl was distorting her proportions. If the previous maidens had been perfect, then this new apparition was beyond perfection. Her red mane floated upon the water, wave upon wave of fire settling with grace between the interstices of the submarine currents she seductively swam through with a haughty elegance. Her alabaster skin shone as if lit from inside and her limbs extended in all directions like Medusa’s hair.

Her eyes were the colour of deepest coal, dark pits of knowledge paradoxically illuminating the beauty of her face, where cheekbones, lips, eyebrows and mouth formed a balance like no other. Her body was a symphony of equilibrium, long neck conjugating with small, shapely breasts impervious to the water’s currents, standing firm and high on her chest, before the valley of her stomach descended with geometrical precision towards her sex, smooth, like a desirable scar delicately carved into her flesh and outlining the holy of her opening.

A hand gently took hold of his cock. Soft and caring. A woman’s. Not that it would have mattered had it not been as Ange was so transfixed by the vision of the woman in the water. Bodies bunched around him, skin against skin, heat against heat, as if he was no longer a single entity but a mere working part in a massive, heaving organism made of flesh, through which the winds of lust blew.

‘Virgo?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ a nearby voice replied. ‘Aquarius,’ correcting his ignorance. ‘Virgo comes at dawn . . .’

He was still trying to process the information when there was a loud splash in the water at the very top of the giant glass bowl, and a similarly perfect man, brooding with intense power and seemingly carved out of granite emerged from the whirlpool and began swimming towards the red-haired siren.

A wave of shuddering strength raced through the spectators as they bunched up even closer to each other. Had Ange fainted, he knew, he would not have even fallen to the ground and would have been held up by the massed bodies now pressing against him in all directions.

A warm, wet mouth took him in and his whole body nervously trembled as the lips enveloped him and a tongue darted across his sensitive glans. But still he couldn’t look away from the spectacle unfurling in front of his eyes.

‘The bull,’ someone said breathlessly.

The beautiful woman was now at the centre of the bowl, head back, lying back on an invisible bed of emptiness, as she parted her legs open. As she did so, Ange focused on the porcelain pallor of her flat stomach and its one irregularity: a bold black number 1 written on the skin, situated at an equal distance from her navel and the straight, darker line of her cunt.

The swimming bull reached the woman and fitted inside her open thighs with mechanical exactitude. As he did so, her mouth opened wide and a tower of tiny bubbles floated to the surface of the water bowl.

How could they even breathe? Ange wondered distractedly.

The two bodies, now fucking in earnest, buckled and a new ballet began.

Like gladiators fighting, every single movement a poetic and minutely rehearsed concerto of thrust and defence, attack and surrender, acceptance and exacerbated desire.

Somehow the mouth sucking him with infinite skill and appetite worked in coordinated unison with the savage lovemaking he was witnessing, orchestrating the slow but inevitable rise of his desire, the awakening of his body, the battlefield of his aroused senses.

Time stood still.

The couple in the water, sealed in a cocoon of explosive passion, finally shuddered in mutual ecstasy and their joined bodies rolled and jolted as they rocketed to the surface of the bowl in search of air. At the same moment, Ange came. Sighing deeply, his legs almost turning to jelly in shock, he at last looked down to see who had been relieving him in such exquisite fashion, but all he could see was a dark-haired head retreating backwards through a jumble of legs and bodies. He wanted to call her back, but couldn’t summon the right words. He looked around at the bacchanalia still in progress around him and smiled.

Later, he left the chamber and moved through the building.

Each room had been conceived as a different environment. He trampled the grass of a glade, waded through forest and marvelled at the ingenuity and invention of whoever the Ball’s organisers were and also came to the realisation that the absent part of Casanova’s manuscript, if it existed, could only have been about a preceding incarnation of the Ball. Of this he no longer had any doubt.

He witnessed the twins of Gemini and their ritual seduction of the archer of Sagittarius, who was masquerading tonight as a centaur.

He marvelled at the spectacle of the sea-goat of Capricorn wrestling in daring obscenity with the water-bearer of Aquarius.

And in the bedrooms, each one like a remembrance of things past, from carpeted walls of a
Thousand and One Nights
Arabian cavern to the rough-hewn recreation of a prehistoric cave or a silk-laden medieval four-poster bed of delights, he followed the lovemaking of Cancer and countless others, participants and spectators alike in a wondrous series of combinations allying the graceful and the forbidden, until his eyes and senses were properly saturated.

Towards morning, feeling his sexual powers awakening again, his energy regrouping, his blood hot and lustful, Ange wandered into an area empty of crowds and stumbled through a recessed door.

It was a small room, sparsely decorated and furnished. A divan stood at its centre, on which a young woman sat. Liveried attendants stood on either side of her, as if protecting her. She wore a diaphanous robe through which the gentle curves of her body could be glimpsed. She was small but perfectly proportioned, her skin powdered to an approximation of snow, her lips and the evanescent spectacle of her nipples standing out in deep-scarlet painted tones.

As he entered the room, Ange became conscious of his own nudity and visible arousal, and made a rapid gesture to cover himself. But the gentle smile of the woman disarmed him. There was a kindness and maturity in her face that soothed his raging senses within an instant.

He felt he should talk to her, excuse his nudity, the vulgarity of his appearance, but was not given the time. A crowd of Ball officials trouped past, ignoring his presence, and approached the woman on the divan.

‘Dawn has come,’ one of them solemnly proclaimed.

She rose.

Ange’s heartbeat slowed.

Her faint smile changed, although he was unable to decipher how the kindness morphed into lust and desire.

Her two attendants at her side, she walked towards the newcomers, passing Ange without a final glance and followed the officials.

He trailed the newly formed procession.

And he watched as the young woman was first bedded at the stroke of dawn by the man in a lion cloak and saw how her smile so quickly turned to lust and joy.

Ange had somehow completed the whole circle of the signs of the zodiac.

And then witnessed the Inking.

He departed Venice the following day and gave up his search for the missing manuscript. But he would never forget the Ball.

Had it not been located on a busy suburban street corner just off the main thoroughfare and surrounded by ordinary homes, shops and restaurants, the building that loomed over them could have passed for a castle.

‘Not very friendly-looking, is it?’ Siv remarked to Aurelia as the two young women stared up at the monstrous brick walls and even taller towers that stood at each corner of an edifice that was so vast it seemed to cover two whole blocks.

‘No,’ Aurelia agreed. ‘Sort of looks like a cross between a dungeon and a church.’

‘More like a fortress, I’d say,’ Siv replied.

They continued to dawdle at the front entrance, neither of them willing to make the first move to enter. It was still daytime and somehow the final rays of late-afternoon sun made the structure seem even more oppressive, as if the building was better suited to darkness.

Siv hooked her thumb into the belt loop above the pocket of her denim shorts and absent-mindedly began to run her fingertips over the folded edges of the thick white card that Walter, the blind sculptor, had given her by way of invitation to the exhibition. Aurelia glanced at her friend, alerted by the movement of Siv’s hand against her hip, and frowned.

It was now late Saturday afternoon and just a few days had passed since Siv’s brief foray into nude modelling and Aurelia’s discovery of her tattoo.

Aurelia had been preoccupied, of course, with thoughts of the stranger and the mystery of her disappearing and reappearing mark, but as she had already completed her one afternoon of household duties for Edyta that week and had been largely idle the rest of the time, she had plenty of opportunities to observe the subtle changes in Siv’s behaviour that had occurred since she had met Walter.

On the afternoons that Siv spent teaching, she had asked Aurelia to watch her phone like a hawk in case he called to arrange a follow-up session. Aurelia had agreed to do so, but thought that the arrangement was a little over the top: surely he could simply leave a message, and Siv could call him back?

Aurelia had also noticed that Siv had become totally preoccupied by this mysterious exhibition that Walter had invited her to attend. The thick white card, bereft of a date, time, location or any other useful instructions, had been taken out of Siv’s pocket, unfolded and returned so many times that the writing was now barely legible.

Siv had suggested all manner of crazy things to draw more information from the invitation and Aurelia, who knew that her own thoughts and behaviour had been anything but rational lately, had reluctantly gone along with it all, holding the thick card up to an electric light, over a candle flame, even standing on the front porch under a moonbeam, an idea that had occurred to Siv after watching the latest Peter Jackson fantasy movie.

‘Well, it can’t be Elvish, then,’ she complained dismally as the worn black writing continued to simply say ‘Exhibition: by invitation only,’ and the white space surrounding it was entirely free of hieroglyphics, invisible ink or any other clues.

In the end, Siv had responded to Aurelia’s repeated badgering and simply dug out the original advertisement that she had applied to and phoned him.

‘Oh sorry,’ said Walter, at the other end of the line, ‘I forgot to give you directions.’ Siv motioned frantically for a pen and paper and Aurelia groaned and rolled her eyes as she noted down the time of the event and a quite ordinary-sounding address.