The voice on the other end of the phone was husky, dark, resonant with a marked Spanish accent.
"Sonja, querido, how are you?"
The performance artist's fine eyebrows lifted in surprise and she sat straighter in the comfortable leather chair.
"Dotti? It's been a while."
A throaty laugh.
"It has, my friend, it has." Sonja heard what sounded like the woman drawing back on a cigarette. "I have a proposition for you – for Canvas."
"Yes?"
'Dotti' laughed again.
"So cautious! You were never this cautious in the beginning."
Sonja chuckled ruefully.
"Experience has made me... circumspect."
"Sí, I understand." Another pause, another drawing back. "But listen, I want to talk to you. Are you busy tonight?"
Sonja hesitated for a moment, torn between unease and genuine curiosity.
"Ah, come on, I will not bite..." Dotti coaxed.
"No, I'm not busy." the artist conceded, then swiftly took the initiative. "Dinner at Feder und Quaste?"
"Make it late."
"11 p.m.?" Sonja grinned. "The sun will be well and truly down by then."
"You are so droll." It came out as a purr and the artist shivered involuntarily. "That will be fine."
"I'll see you then." Sonja rang off, only wondering, once she'd put the phone down, if she should have mentioned to her old acquaintance that the expensive and exclusive restaurant preferred it's patrons to be clothed...
She relaxed back into the chair with a sigh.
"Who was that?" Peter, sitting across from her in a matching chair, looked up from his book.
"Madre Diablo."
The martial arts instructor's eyebrows climbed.
"You know her?"
"A long time ago, yes. We've had no contact for years."
"I'm not surprised – she's a bit... extreme."
Sonja laughed.
"That's one way to describe it, yes."
"So what did she want?" her flatmate prodded.
"She has a proposition for me."
"... and?"
Sonja shrugged.
"And that's all she said. I suspect it will be something to do with a performance of some kind."
Peter frowned.
"Is that wise? Madre has a reputation for debauchery." His face twisted on the word.
"I'm not sure at all, but I'll hear her out." Sonja's expression was thoughtful. "It's been a while since I've felt... stretched as an artist..."
Madre Diablo, accompanied by two demure, leather-clad attendants, swept into the restaurant like an Empress. At almost seven feet tall – not including the thick, gleaming dark and twisted horns growing out of her forehead – she loomed over the wide-eyed maître d'.
"I am expected." The blood-red, ankle-length fur coat slipped from her shoulders to be instantly retrieved by one of her followers before it could hit the floor.
"Yes, Madame – " the man blinked, then swallowed. The creature standing before him was like a nightmare reminder of his tutelage under the ranting priests... "If you will follow me."
Canvas, incognito as plain Sonja, looked up from the menu to stare, repelled yet fascinated at the bizarre spectacle making its way to her table. 'Dotti', as the arrogant and imperious Madre Diablo, commanded everyone's attention as she strode along behind the comparatively invisible maître d'. Sonja remembered a time, long ago, when the young Spanish woman had dabbled with forms of 'anti-religion', a deliberate attempt to needle her staunchly Catholic family. The artist shook her head - when Dorotéa followed an idea she followed it all the way...
Madre Diablo's skin was a gleaming shade of red, a red that brought to mind freshly spilled blood. Her hair was almost the same colour, perhaps a little darker; it flowed up between her horns from a sharp widow's peak, then down over her shoulders in thick, lustrous waves. She wasn't naked – as Sonja had feared – but she might as well have been. Her short bolero jacket was fashioned from clear plastic, revealing temptingly full breasts, with heavy silver rings threaded through erect nipples. It took a moment for Sonja to discern Madre Diablo was wearing something under the clear plastic mini-skirt slung low on her hips, but as it was a thong the exact same shade as her skin it gave the impression of nudity. The woman's legs, though, gave the artist pause. They were digitigrade, like a horse, or a goat, long and oddly elegant, tapering down to thin fetlocks covered in fine, silky black hair. She had cloven hooves, naturally, and they gleamed like polished obsidian.
"Good evening, Sonja," Madre Diable smiled down at the woman, revealing longer than normal eye teeth.
"Madre." The artist nodded politely and indicated the chair opposite. She turned to the maître d' to request extra seats, for Dotti's attendants, but was languidly waved to silence.
"They will kneel."
They did, one to either side of their mistress, each with a hand resting lightly on a scarlet thigh. Sonja glanced at the pair, noting their youthful prettiness, their apparently willing submissiveness. They were both Nordic blondes - one male, one female – with pale blue eyes and ivory skin. The artist got the strongest impression they were siblings...
Madre ordered without looking at the menu – rare steak, red wine – then sat back unsubtly appraising Sonja as she chose her meal. The artist strove to ignore her companion's milky eyes, a corpse's gaze.
"You're doing well for yourself."
"So are you." Sonja half-smiled. "How many clubs do you own now?"
"Four," Madre picked up her wine glass - which had been hastily, discreetly filled by the maître d' himself - wrapping unnaturally long fingers carefully around the delicate vessel. "Plus two restaurants, some noodle-bars, and a string of fetish boutiques over greater Europe."
Sonja chuckled, attempting to hide her unease. Madre was holding her glass to the lips of the kneeling girl, allowing her a sip. The look of naked devotion on the girl's face was disturbingly erotic.
"So?" the artist dragged her eyes back up to the demoness' heart-shaped face: Dorotéa had always been beautiful but now there was an element of eerie fascination. "You have a proposition for me?"
"I do. A collaboration between myself and Canvas." Sharp, white teeth flashed. "What do you think?"
Sonja ran a fingertip around the rim of her glass of spring water.
"What do you have in mind?"
Dorotéa leaned forward.
"An allegory: Light and Dark. A fight between the two."
The artist raised an eyebrow.
"You want the Dark to triumph."
"Of course, though the Light will put up a good fight." She fixed Sonja with an unblinking gaze, and smiled. "It will make the surrender so much sweeter..."
A minute stretched by in silence.
"What happens to Light when the fight is lost?"
Madre's dead eyes gleamed; she smirked and leant back in her chair, lowering a hand to tousle the boy's fair hair.
"Light – you – is taken by Dark and forced to... serve."
Sonja stared at her companion for a moment, then she laughed.
"Sex? Not simulated, I imagine?" still laughing, she shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Why not?" Madre gestured expressively. "You've done similar in previous performances."
"I have not." the denial was edging towards vehement. "I have never fucked on stage, Dotti, and anyway I express sensuality, eroticism, not cheap peep-show titillation."
"Peep-shows have their place." the demoness' smirk widened.
"Not in my work." Sonja shook her head again.
"A pity. I would have liked to dance with you again." Madre shrugged and took another sip of her wine.
"There is another way we could approach this." Sonja said thoughtfully, after a pause.
"Yes?"
The artist nodded.
"Still an allegory, still with Dark and Light – but not a fight... temptation."
Madre smiled slowly.
"I am listening."
Sonja's muddy blue eyes brightened with enthusiasm as she outlined her idea – a dance/performance piece revolving around the struggle between desire and conscience.
Madre angled a dark eyebrow.
"You will want Light to win, of course?" it was scornful.
"Not necessarily," the artist replied in all seriousness, either ignoring or not noticing her companion's tone. "I want them to recognize, and accept, both the Light and Dark within."
Madre's dead eyes narrowed in thought.
"It could work, yes. We could use a third person – "
"As the querant, yes!" Sonja enthused. "There are some very talented newcomers we could audition for the part." She chuckled. "This will be fun, Dotti, it's been a while since I've performed as part of an ensemble."
Madre half-smirked.
"Now, the venue. I thought one of my clubs would suffice."
Sonja frowned.
"Tasogare, perhaps, but not Deprave."
"Why not?" the demoness purred, arching back slightly as one of her attendants, the boy, disappeared beneath the rich-blue tablecloth. Sonja flicked a glance at the nearby tables; there was no reaction from the restaurant's other patrons, either no one had noticed or they were studiously ignoring what was going at this particular table.
"Deprave is..." the artist struggled to express herself, "Tasogare is more suited to a general audience."
"And you are not comfortable in my world." Madre's eyes were hooded, her lips parted, one long-fingered hand tangling in the remaining attendant's hair.
"Frankly, no." Fascinated despite herself, Sonja watched her old acquaintance's arousal peaking, licking her lips in unconscious empathy as the demoness tipped her head back a little and closed her eyes. A shudder passed through the luscious, red body, followed by the tiniest of gasped moans. Madre relaxed, panting lightly.
"You were saying?"
Beneath the table Sonja wriggled, squeezing her thighs together in order to ease the ache in her groin.
"No, I am not comfortable in 'your world', and neither, I imagine, would be a good proportion of our audience".
"That's their problem." Madre refreshed herself with a large gulp of wine before offering the glass to the flushed boy as he emerged to kneel again by her side.
"No. I am not prepared to alienate a potential audience in this way." Sonja was firm. "Tasogare is bizarre enough for everyone except the extreme BDSM crowd."
"Perhaps."
"Not Deprave."
"Oh very well." Madre scowled, paying scant attention to the waiter who'd sidled up to place their meals on the table. "You realise you have completely changed my original concept?"
Sonja's smirk was unrepentant.
"Sorry."
The demoness snorted.
"You have always been headstrong." She carved a small piece off her still-bleeding meat, picked it up between dark, curved nails and fed it to the girl. "But in this case I will allow the changes."
Sonja arched an eyebrow.
"You are too kind."
The women conversed lightly as they ate their meals, skimming over the several years since their last, edgy meeting.
"Why did you change yourself, Dotti?" Sonja was compelled to ask.
"I remade myself," the demoness said simply.
"But why?"
Madre shrugged.
"This is more 'me'."
Sonja shook her head.
"I don't understand."
"Not many do." Madre stroked the boy's hair. "Though it's not a complete transformation. I would love to have wings to match."
Sonja considered this; now she thought about it she didn't recall ever seeing anybody with wings as body modifications.
"Is it not possible?"
"Not yet." Madre sighed. "The amount of extra musculature needed to brace and support the structures would be disfiguring." She half-smirked. "But the research continues. One day, perhaps, I'll be able to fully realize my vision of myself..."
Madre switched her attention to the girl at her side, slipping a red-skinned hand down the front of her black leather jacket, easing the zip down far enough that Sonja could glimpse the tops of the girl's rounded breasts.
"Would you like to borrow her?"
"Pardon?" Sonja blinked.
"My toy," the woman's smile was wicked, "She's very well trained."
"... I'm sure she is."
The artist watched, darkly enthralled, as the girl leaned towards her mistress, a faint flush marring the smooth pallor of her cheeks. The jacket was unzipped another few inches and Madre reached in to lightly pinch and pull prominent, pink nipples. The girl was uncomfortable, struggling for composure, well aware of the now curious or shocked expressions of the other diners who couldn't ignore this but still very obviously finding the stimulation arousing...
Sonja twitched, realising suddenly that Madre was smirking, watching her response to the girl's humiliation.
"Are you certain you wouldn't like to try my original idea?" the demoness' husky voice caressed her. "All those people witnessing as you succumb..."
"No. Thank you." Sonja sipped her water. "We go with my idea or nothing at all."
"Ah, very well." Madre withdrew her hand, leaving the trembling girl to zip up her jacket. "But you cannot deny your... response to the suggestion."
Sonja grinned.
"No, I can't but it's not something I wish to explore."
Madre gestured expansively.
"If you change your mind, please, come and visit Deprave..."
The meal concluded shortly after; Madre stood to leave and it was only then Sonja realised the woman had a tail - long, red and sinuous, ending in a graceful, pointed fluke.
"Can you use that? Move it?" Sonja stared, fascinated.
"Oh yes," Madre smirked and the tail lifted to loop around the kneeling boy's shoulders. "It's not fully prehensile but it's not mere decoration, either."
Sonja chuckled, shaking her head again.
"I really don't understand." The artist glanced at her companion, business like once more. "We can use my space at Reicherhaus to rehearse. Call me and we'll organise a time."
Madre tipped her head in gracious condescension, gathered up her followers and prowled out of the restaurant.
It was late, almost 1 a.m. Sonja stood in the restaurant's foyer and contemplated her options. After witnessing Madre's little display with her 'toys' she was undeniably in the mood for sex but the idea of trawling the clubs for an anonymous partner wasn't appealing. She knew many people who'd still be awake at this time but who of them would be willing to entertain her? The artist grinned and flipped open her mobile phone.
"Dieter?"
"Sonja, liebschen!"
"I'm sorry, mein freund – did I wake you?"
"No no no!" the flamboyant art-dealer reassured her. "It will be hours yet before I'm ready to sleep. How are you?"
Sonja grimaced.
"I need company. Do you have any friends visiting?"
"Not at the moment, liebschen, but I can call Julius? Will he suffice?"
The artist took a deep, shuddering breath, remembering the last time she'd had sex with the body builder.
"Perfect, Dieter, thank you. Strong and silent is just what I need."
"Hard day?"
"No, just a challenging evening."
"Aww, tell Uncle Dieter all about it?"
The German's voice was syrupy with insincere concern and Sonja laughed.
"Not yet, 'Uncle Dieter', but you'll be the first to know if anything comes of it."
"Oh! Something is planned? I am intrigued!"
Sonja laughed again, feeling light with the release of a tension she hadn't been fully aware of.
"All in good time! I promise!"
"Oh all right." She could hear the pout. "But if you don't mind, little one, I will call Franz? For myself?"
"Now how could I object?"
"Danke, liebschen," Dieter gushed, "I will make the calls now. When shall I expect you?"
Sonja glanced up and down the street and frowned – there wasn't a single taxi in sight.
"Twenty minutes? I'll need to order a cab."
"Good good. I will see you then!"
The maître d' was only too happy to oblige in the matter of transport – his brother owned one of the freelance companies - and before long Sonja was on her way to an older, less respectable part of Berlin. Thrumming with anticipation the artist texted a message to her flatmate; she didn't know when she'd be home and she didn't want Peter to worry...
Darkside