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The demands, and the constant need for perfection were a strain. No mistake could be done over – once it went to air, the words could never be retrieved.
And I had never talked so much in my life. The calls – the endless phone enquiries from women across Boston who were looking for answers and understanding – were like a constant barrage of artillery fire, each one numbing and lulling the senses so that by the time we signed off for the week I was reeling on the verge of stupor.
I threw down the headphones and craned my neck, tilting my head from side to side to exercise stiff muscles. I caught sight of the clock on the wall. It was just past 4am.
Beyond the walls of the studio I could see Grover stabbing buttons on his keyboard as he shut his monitors down. His expression was clouded, his face crunched up into a scowl. He looked like he was in a hurry to be somewhere else.
“Well?” April sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh. “What did you think of your first week as a radio announcer?”
She looked fresh and alert. I guessed that came with time. For her it wasn’t 4am – it was like early evening because she was accustomed to sleeping through much of the day – a habit I was still struggling to develop.
“I’m beat,” I admitted. “I had no idea I would feel so drained. I thought talking to women about BDSM for a few hours a night sounded like the easiest work I’ve ever done. It isn’t.”
She laughed. “You will get used to it,” she said. “You’ll have to. The show is a fucking hit, Jericho. I’ve seen the numbers – they are going through the roof, and the calls coming into the station keep climbing.”
I nodded. I had been made aware by Nancy Collett that the station was pleased. There were new advertisers joining the show every night.
“I think the sub-club segment has been the game-breaker,” April said shaking her head slowly as though she was at a loss for words. “The way you run those sessions… I believe that’s what is bringing in the new listeners. It’s certainly been an eye-opener for me.”
I shrugged. Each of the sub-club sessions had been a gradual step of progression where I had slowly led listeners a little further along the path of discovering the erotic and emotional thrills of submission and surrender. Each night I had been a little bolder, revealed a little more of the kinds of thrills a submissive might experience. April’s enthusiasm for her modeling role had surprised me, and in the days since we had begun this journey, her inhibitions had melted away like early morning mist. The bond of friendship we had developed had quickly taken on the added layer of intimacy. I had seen her in her most private, secret moments, seen her face twisted with raw passion in the instant of her orgasm – it changed things.
April got out of her chair and reached for her handbag – and then paused as though suddenly struck by a thought.
“Would you like to meet my girlfriend?”
I looked pointedly at the clock. “Now?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Why not?”
“Because it’s 4am…”
April shook her head. “Renata is an artist. She paints through the night. We’ve both adjusted our body clocks to work when it’s dark and sleep during the day. It wouldn’t be a problem… she will be waiting for me, and it would be nice for you to meet her.”
I nodded my head. “Sure,” I said without enthusiasm. All I wanted to do was get back to my apartment and crawl into bed, but the sudden glow of excitement on April’s face suggested this was important to her. “I guess I could visit for a while.”
She clapped like she had just won a prize at the fair, and then her hand dived into her bag. She swept hair from her face, pressed the phone to her ear and chatted excitedly for a few minutes while I stretched and yawned.
It had been a long week… and it still wasn’t over.
Chapter 18.
I followed April in my own car through the fog-thickened streets to her apartment. The roads were quiet, the streetlights haloed in drifting tendrils of mist. The buildings were all dark and silent, so that as we climbed the stairwell to her apartment, I instinctively felt myself creeping lest I wake anyone in the complex who was lucky enough to be asleep.
April fiddled with a jangle of keys and then pushed open the front door. Instantly I was overwhelmed by a clash of scents.
I could smell cooking and I could smell incense – and underpinning it all was the pungent odor of turpentine. April held the door open for me and I went through to a tiny foyer. I could see an open apartment with a narrow hallway. On the far side of the room where I stood was a kitchen area. The unit was small, and sparsely furnished. There were beanbags on the floor, open books littering the coffee table. The floor was polished boards, and I noticed several pairs of shoes neatly lined up inside the doorway. Instinctively I kicked off my boots.
April came in behind me like a mini cyclone, bursting into the room and hurling her handbag carelessly onto a corner chair. She was calling out to her girlfriend as she swept towards the kitchen. There was a stainless steel pot simmering on the stove. April hovered her face over the cooking and inhaled.
“Renata? Where are you, honey? Jericho is here.”
After a few seconds a tall slim woman emerged from a room at the end of the darkened hallway. She had a wad of dirty cloth in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. She was wearing an over-sized man’s shirt and nothing else. The shirt was daubed in a rainbow of smeared paint.
The woman went into the kitchen and smiled lovingly into April’s face. The two women kissed as though they were alone. They were very different people. April’s girlfriend had high cheekbones and Slavic features. Her skin was darker, her hair cropped short and blonde. She was an inch taller than April, her breasts smaller, but her body more athletic.
The women broke their kiss but remained embracing each other. They turned their faces towards me, and the blonde woman ran her eyes over me with disconcerting frankness that could have been interpreted as a silent challenge.
“So, you are the famous Jericho James,” she said. She had an accent, a sharp guttural sound that clipped her words and took the softness from them. Her hands slid from around April’s waist and she propped them on her hips. “Welcome to our home,” the woman said. “I have heard much about you from April.”
Bohemian – that was the best way to describe Renata Koenig. She was German, and had moved to America with her parents when she was a child, but had retained the inflections of her accent while growing up. She was a struggling artist who despised governments, the power of the banks, and anything else that restricted her right to express herself in any way she wanted. She was twenty-six, and at that age she still retained the fervent passion of her ideals.
The two women were an interesting couple. I could see domination and leadership traits in Renata, and I could see the way April acquiesced naturally in the smallest domestic matters. Renata had the qualities to make her a formidable Mistress… if April was willing to submit to her.
Renata lowered herself onto a beanbag in the living room, legs crossed, with no regard at all to her body, or modesty. The over-sized shirt she wore gaped open as she reached for a cigar
ette and then paused before lighting it.
“What kind of book is your life?” she asked. She was staring at me, her expression frank and guileless.
“I beg your pardon?”
She waved the cigarette in the air with a flamboyant flick of her wrist. “It is a straightforward question,” she said. “I wanted to know what kind of book your life would be if it was ever written down.”
I still didn’t understand. April intercepted. She smiled at me. “My life would be a mystery story,” she said, “Because very few people know the real me – know that I am gay.”
Renata’s gaze stayed fixed on my face. “And my life story would be an epic struggle,” she decided with an elegant gesture. “One of those quest books where the heroine fights against evil and injustice.”
I nodded and hung a smile off the corner of my mouth. “Then I guess my life would be an adventure story,” I shrugged my shoulders. “One that doesn’t have a good ending – yet.”
Renata grunted. She reached out for my hands and turned them over. She held me by my wrists and her thumbs drew light tickling circles over my palms. She narrowed her eyes and her gaze became searching. For long seconds she said nothing. April was leaning in towards Renata, her lips slightly parted in fascination.
“You say adventure…” Renata’s accent seemed to thicken and her voice changed tone, “but I sense tragedy here too…”
I tried to cling to the smile but it slipped off my lips. I eased my hands away from her grip. “Your senses are wrong – sorry,” I said.
For long moments there was a bristle of tension in the air. Renata’s stare became speculative. Suddenly she flung my hands away as if she had been electrocuted. There was a flicker of disbelief and shock in her eyes, as if she had seen something that scared her. It lasted only a moment – and then it was gone.
“Renata does psychic readings,” April explained. “She’s very sensitive to the vibrations people give off. Sometimes she gets messages…”
