Mistress of Night and Dawn (20 page)

Just like the stranger’s had been.

Did all men feel the same? Would it be so simple to drive the stranger from her mind? Her brain went into overdrive, processing the sensation and corresponding thoughts. His kisses became more halting. He moaned as her fingers travelled down his stem and her nails grazed his balls. Aurelia buckled invitingly and Huck collapsed onto her.

‘Fuck me. Now,’ she whispered in the young man’s ear.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, as if hesitant to go all the way so soon.

Aurelia’s lips broke away from his. ‘Yes,’ she groaned.

Still not letting go of his cock, she firmly guided it towards her. She knew she was extremely wet. He was about to breach her when she pulled back, and moved away from him on the bed.

‘Do you have a condom?’ she asked him breathlessly, red-faced with both desire and annoyance at having so easily forgotten such a basic precaution. Something her godparents and teachers had drummed into her until it felt like a broken record. Although she recalled, with a sudden spasm of panic, that the Bristol stranger had not actually appeared to have used protection from the few details she could now clearly remember. Since she had neither given birth nor experienced any health problems since then, she thought it was safe to say she’d got away with it.

Huck leaned over his side of the bed and fished inside the pocket of the slacks he had tidily folded onto a nearby chair and pulled out a blue-ish wrapper.

As he tore it open with his teeth, his lower body and aroused penis still coyly obscured from her view by the sheets, Aurelia felt a pang of regret at the way this was all turning out wrong: no magic, no romance, just the ordinariness of sex. His cock might feel the same in her hand as the stranger’s had, but nothing else did.

Now sheathed, Huck resumed his previous position between her thighs – Aurelia had not moved an inch – dispensing a tender smile by way of excuse in her direction as he entered her, his wet lips nibbling affectionately at her ear.

After a moment’s pause, he began to move inside her. Aurelia lowered her guard and gave in to that exquisite feeling of being filled, even though it felt so different this time, mechanical, and that tingling, indefinable buzz, was not being allowed to rise through her veins.

Huck was whispering terms of endearment, but Aurelia ignored them, concentrating on stirring up forgotten sensations, returning them to life, but she couldn’t prevent herself from being distracted by the tobacco on his breath, the sweat on his back, the way his fringe of hair flopped against her cheek, the monotonous in and out movements of his body against and inside her.

It seemed to go on for ever.

Huck must have noticed her lack of enthusiasm. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘It’s okay,’ Aurelia said.

‘Sure?’ His thrusts slowed.

A flash of images rushed like wildfire in front of her eyes.

‘Harder,’ she said.

‘How?’

She threw her arms to the side. ‘Hold down my wrists, you can be rougher if you want,’ she suggested, memories of the events she had witnessed at the exhibition flooding back.

He gripped her, but there was no conviction in his movements. She was about to ask him to spank her, hurt her even, but hesitated, shocked by the cravings washing over her. She attempted to blank both the invasive memories and the sordid environment of the cheap motel room.

She looked up at Huck and their eyes met.

‘It’s not working,’ Aurelia said, detaching herself from him and rushing to dress.

‘What did I do wrong?’ Huck asked, fumbling for his own clothes, his arousal quickly abating.

‘Nothing.’

‘What did you mean by “harder”?’ he begged her to explain.

‘Nothing,’ she repeated.

A veil of anger now clouded his gaze.

‘I just don’t understand girls like you,’ he said.

‘What do you means by “girls like me”?’

‘Girls who want to be hurt. It’s not the way I was brought up. I thought that—’

‘You thought what?’ Aurelia was slipping her head through the white T-shirt’s narrow collar.

‘Bay Area girls here are often kinky. Somehow I thought that you being a Brit, you wouldn’t . . .’ He looked away.

‘I’m not kinky,’ Aurelia shouted and rushed out of the door, anger getting the better of her.

There were no cabs around and she was obliged to walk back to the ballet school cottage. It took her over an hour and a half and she ended up fighting tears all the way. She knew she was changing inside; it wasn’t just Siv’s departure or the appearance of the strange heart on her body. Something else was happening.

As she reached the corner of her street, she was seized yet again by the unsettling feeling that she was being followed. And not by Huck; she knew she would never see the young man again. She turned her head but the avenue was empty, just autumn leaves dancing in the wind. She wiped the tears from her cheek. There was no need to worry Edyta, but now that she had nearly arrived home she could not face another evening alone and worrying about her friend. She nipped inside and penned a quick note to explain her absence and left it on her bed.

Found Siv
, she wrote.
Staying away. Nothing to worry about. Will be in touch soon
.

She wasn’t sure what it was that made her lie. Perhaps superstition; that if she put the thought in writing it might come true.

A light mist was beginning to fall and at the last moment Aurelia ran back inside and picked up a change of underwear, a fresh T-shirt and her shawl from the hook by the door and pulled it tightly around her shoulders. It was the same shawl that she had worn at the funfair, she realised, with a pang of sadness. How long ago that seemed. And where should she go now?

She wandered down to the diner and stared in the window at the booth seat where she and Siv had once shared a plate of chips and excitedly discussed the origin of her tattoo and Siv’s afternoon of nude modelling. No amount of looking through the glass would be able to bring her friend back, though, she knew that. She had to think. Where could Siv have gone?

Walter.

Instinctively, she knew that her friend had taken off with the blind sculptor. She racked her brain for the umpteenth time for any scrap of information that Siv might have mentioned that would lend a clue to her whereabouts. Siv had met him on the day that she had picked up the forms for the performing arts school, and she had mentioned that his workshop was nearby. But she couldn’t go knocking on all the nearby doors at this hour.

She flagged a passing taxi and instructed the driver to take her back to the imposing venue where the exhibition had been held. It was the only thing that she could think of. Maybe she would get lucky and find a young man on duty at the front desk who would respond to the sight of her still bare legs and give her the information that she was seeking.

The stone building did not seem nearly as imposing or as magical on her third visit. Her initial appreciation of the structure was now tempered by her feeling that the exhibition that had been held here had ultimately resulted in Siv’s disappearance. She was tempted to kick the wall in frustration, but knew that would lead her nowhere but probably leave her with a sore foot, so she contented herself with savagely ringing the buzzer on the front door over and over again.

‘For God’s sake! We’re closed. And I don’t even work here . . .’ hissed a husky female voice into the intercom.

Aurelia had long given up hope that anyone would answer and was so surprised by the response that it took her a moment to gather her thoughts. A dim memory struggled to rise to the surface in her mind.

‘Lauralynn?’ she asked.

‘Yes?’ replied the voice suspiciously.

‘Please let me in,’ Aurelia asked. ‘You worked at the exhibition. You dressed us . . . my name is Aurelia, I was here with a friend and now she’s disappeared and I need to find her urgently. I think she might be with Walter, the sculptor . . .’ The words tumbled out of her mouth haphazardly.

The door swung open.

Lauralynn stood right behind it, with a large carrier bag in each hand. She was no longer wearing latex, and her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail instead of the schoolgirl plaits that she had last been sporting, but, un-costumed, she was just as imposing. In her high heels she was taller even than Aurelia and her legs were longer than she remembered and seemed even shapelier clad in skin-tight denim. She was obviously braless and Aurelia couldn’t help but stare at her breasts, which were covered only by a thin white vest top, through which a pair of nipple rings were clearly visible.

‘You had a problem?’ Lauralynn asked. ‘Or have you forgotten what it was now? You seem rather, err, distracted.’ She grinned from ear to ear, displaying a mischievous white-toothed smile.

Aurelia flushed all the way to her roots.

‘I was at the exhibition . . .’ she stammered. ‘You lent me a dress . . .’

‘Yes, I know who you are,’ Lauralynn replied. ‘You looked great in the dress, too.’

Aurelia didn’t think it was possible to blush any more deeply than she already had, but somehow she managed it.

‘You can have it if you like,’ Lauralynn continued, glancing down at one of the carrier bags that now lay by her side. ‘You’re lucky you caught me. Only reason I’m here. Taking all the costumes and things down to our headquarters in Seattle.’ She looked at her right wrist, though she wore no watch there. ‘You’ll have to be quick, though, my flight leaves soon. I’m on my way to the airport.’

‘My friend Siv,’ Aurelia said. ‘I think she could be with Walter. Do you know how to find him? Or her?’

Lauralynn raised an eyebrow. She seemed amused by this news rather than surprised or worried, which Aurelia supposed was a good thing. At least it was evident that Lauralynn didn’t think running away with Walter was any cause for concern, so the blind sculptor probably wasn’t a psychopath.

‘Run away with Walter, eh?’ Lauralynn mused. ‘He does seem to have a knack for spotting them.’

She seemed to be talking to herself.

‘Spotting them?’ Aurelia asked. ‘Models, do you mean?’

‘Not exactly,’ Lauralynn replied. ‘But I don’t have time to explain now. I can’t take you to Walter. But I can take you to someone who probably knows where he is. You’ll have to come with me, though. Now.’

Lauralynn picked up her carrier bags and began to hurry through the door, barrelling Aurelia out of the way and waving her arm to hail a passing cab.

‘Come on then,’ she yelled pulling open the passenger door and throwing in her bags.

Aurelia leaped into the back seat a moment before the taxi sped away. This caused her skirt to ride all the way up to the tops of her thighs and she self-consciously tried to hitch it down again.

‘No need to be modest on my account,’ Lauralynn murmured. She was far more forward than any man Aurelia had ever flirted with, perhaps with the exception of the stranger, though their limited but intense exchanges could hardly be considered flirting, had in fact been virtually dialogue-free. Briefly Aurelia wondered if Lauralynn’s confidence extended to other areas and immediately she felt a familiar pulse throb.

She had never been with a woman before, nor considered such a possibility with any seriousness. Until now. Aurelia spent the rest of the journey with her mind in a tangle caught halfway between worry for Siv, satisfaction that she finally had a lead and the mental picture of Lauralynn’s breasts squeezed into her T-shirt and the metal loops that so clearly decorated her permanently hard nipples.

Occasionally her mind would drift back to her tattoo and thoughts of the stranger and the memories and fantasies that he always elicited in her. She was certain that somehow the mysterious Walter and Siv’s disappearance had something to do with him, and he was the one that she truly longed for. But it had been so long now without a word from him. She could not spend her life waiting for a man that she had not even seen.

The cab crossed the bridge, driving back to Oakland but before it could reach her suburb, it took a sharp turn and Aurelia found herself disembarking at Oakland airport. Lauralynn swiftly took charge and purchased a ticket for Aurelia. She protested, insisted on paying, but Lauralynn just waved her proffered credit card away.

It was raining in Seattle, and nearly midnight by the time they arrived. Aurelia was freezing cold and bone weary as they picked up Lauralynn’s car, a small Honda Civic, from the Tacoma International car park. She didn’t pay any attention to anything at all as they journeyed along dark, wet highways besides remembering the hypnotic sway of Lauralynn’s hips and arse and marvelling at the way she could seemingly stride along forever in her stiletto heels without exhibiting a moment’s pause or pain in her feet.

‘We’re here,’ Lauralynn whispered breathily against her ear. Aurelia lifted her head. She had fallen asleep on Lauralynn’s shoulder as the blonde had been driving. Lauralynn laid a warm hand on her thigh to gently rouse her. Aurelia felt her heart thudding in her chest. ‘Not far to go now. I called Tristan and told him to put the kettle on. He makes the best hot chocolate. Soon you’ll be warm all the way to your bones.’

Lauralynn and Tristan were sharing a hotel suite, yet they didn’t appear to be lovers. Aurelia watched the two of them busying themselves in the small kitchen and mini-bar area. Domesticity clearly did not come naturally to either of them. Lauralynn had still not removed her high heels, and even in her casual T-shirt and jeans it seemed clear that she was more used to being waited upon than doing the waiting.

As she watched Lauralynn inexpertly tear open a sachet of sugar and spill it over the carpet, she had the distinct impression that this was not Lauralynn’s usual style. She was being wooed. Tristan was far too good-looking to be at home in a kitchen. He was tall and tanned and muscled and moved with a slow languor that suggested he would be more at home lying back on a cushioned litter with slaves attending to his every whim.

‘So you two work together?’ Aurelia asked. She was eager to get to news of Siv in case she fell asleep and Tristan disappeared before she could quiz him.