Folly (13 page)

‘I enjoyed what we did the last time,'he told me. ‘I really hadn't known what to expect from it.'

‘Why's that?' I asked him. ‘You've clearly had experience with this in the past.'

He shook his head. ‘No.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘I wasn't joking when I said I'd never visited a dominatrix before.' He put his coffee on the table and patted his leg, looking down at Bob the Cat who was perched on the floor and triangulating the distance to his lap. ‘Come on. Up.'

Bob leaped up and Simon's serious expression warmed. ‘He's a beautiful cat,' he said, tickling Bob's whiskers and scratching him at the base of his tail. He didn't flinch as Bob kneaded his leg enthusiastically with his razor claws. Well, I suppose he wouldn't.

‘His name is Bob the Cat, and he's the oldest of my four,' I told him. ‘He's getting on now. He was even bigger when he was in his prime.'

‘What breed is he? He has a spectacular coat.'

I shrugged. ‘Who knows? He's a rescue. I adopted him when he was about four years old. They told me they thought he has Norwegian Forest in him, hence the long hair.'

‘Anyway – sorry, I've just realised I don't know your name.'

First slave to ask. I hesitated only a moment before replying, ‘It's Emma. And by a stroke of good luck, my surname really is Caine.'

He smiled at that while Bob settled down on his lap, purring so loudly the sound reverberated around the room.

‘Anyway, Emma, to return to the subject of domination, I was telling the truth about my lack of experience,' he said. ‘I've never been to a professional before you. All my experience comes from the relationships I've had.'

‘Relationships?' Questions flooded my mind. How had this started?Had he gone looking for that specifically or had he landed in the first one by accident? Whose idea had it been to begin with? Mystified, I wondered how exactly a dom–sub relationship worked, and whether he, like the slave Thandeka had told me about, had been led around on a dog collar and had his eyebrows shaved off. I couldn't imagine Simon submitting to that without a serious battle of wills, but perhaps I was mistaken. What had his everyday life been like? I could only imagine the logistics.

‘Honey, I'm hooome – ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!'

‘Yes, relationships,' Simon said, in a rather guarded tone that made me think even if I asked the questions, I might not get answers.

‘I didn't know if you'd come back after I'd hurt you,' I admitted to him. ‘I'm glad you decided to give me another try.'

‘It was a minor injury. I noticed it for a day or two when I went cycling, but that was all. The dungeon experience was – intriguing. And you made it very erotic. So here I am again.'

‘I found a fault in one of the chains on that whip.'

‘Did you?'

‘Well, I couldn't understand how it could have happened, so I checked it afterwards. I discovered one of the lengths had some links that weren't completely smooth. That's what caused the cut. I've removed that section so it won't happen again.'

‘Ah, but hopefully it won't stop you from dreaming up other creative torments for your willing supplicant.'

‘It certainly won't. In fact, it's spurred me on.'

‘You've set my mind at rest. I was worried you were going to let me off lightly this time.'

‘No chance of that. And if you continue to displease me, remember it will be the work of a moment to damage a few more of those links.'

‘I might have to see how far I can push your boundaries then.' He raised his eyebrows at me and set his empty cup carefully down on the desk.

It was odd, but I somehow had the impression that this conversation was verging on the flirtatious. It wasn't so much what was being said as the way it was starting to make me feel inside. Warm and playful, and ever so slightly out of breath. At any rate, I decided a change of subject was in order. I certainly wouldn't want Simon, or any of my clients, to get the wrong idea about me. It would be embarrassing at best, and dangerous at worst for them to assume I was up for anything more than the sessions they paid for.

‘So you're a cyclist?' I asked.

‘It's my sport of choice. I'm quite obsessive about it actually. I try to get out on the bike for an hour most mornings, and then on weekends I go on longer rides with my club.'

It was odd, but the first thought that came to mind when he said that was the way Mark used to drive past cyclists, always too close and too fast, although he'd never actually knocked any of them over. In fact, the mere sight of a bicycle had been enough to send him into one of his rages, fuming and grumbling about the scourges on two wheels and their – yes,
their
– inconsiderate behaviour on the road.

‘Roads are for cars,' he'd insist, when I yelled at him for driving so recklessly.

‘Well, take care when you're out in our crazy traffic,' I told Simon.

‘I try to be careful,' he said, putting down his empty cup. ‘Except when I'm here with you, of course.'

Time to get down to business, then.

‘Is there anything special you want to do today?'

He hesitated. ‘Actually, there is something I might want to do. Maybe not this time round, but perhaps at some stage in the future.'

Finally, some guidance. Thank the Pope.

‘What's that?'

‘I'm not ready to tell you yet, Emma.' He put Bob the Cat gently down on the floor and then encouraged him outside before glancing at me again, humour sparkling in his deep-blue eyes. ‘But you could always try to beat it out of me, if you like!'

Chapter 16

T
hat evening I made myself a salad, poured a glass of wine, and taking my healthy meal upstairs to eat it by my computer, I broke another of the promises I had made to myself about keeping my distance by Googling the names of the clients I'd had so far.

First of all I typed in the Judge's name.

As far as I could make out from my rather inefficient Internet research, Stephen ‘Judge' Farah was involved in casino ownership. He was part of a consortium that owned not one but two huge entertainment and gaming operations.

Well, well, well.

I didn't know Lowly's real name, since he hadn't revealed it to me and had paid in cash, so just for fun I looked up Mr Mashaba, who turned out to be the operations director for a leading insurance firm, and then I Googled a new client I'd serviced earlier in the week, who was in fact an attorney by trade.

I'd saved Simon's name until last. Typing it in gave me a strange, fluttery feeling in my stomach, as if I'd researched my other clients just to make it seem less obvious to myself that I was curious about him.

And, of course, it was not an easy task to find out what he did because his name was not uncommon. Then my piggybacking Internet connection suddenly slowed down dramatically – possibly the legitimate owner had started downloading a video. At any rate, the only photos I could see were blank frames with little red Xs inside and Google was only offering up information at a glacial pace.

By the time I'd finished my salad, I'd narrowed the possibilities down to three local business-owners. He was either the Simon Nel who ran a
BMW
dealership, which I considered unlikely since he drove a Jaguar, or he was the Simon Nel who headed up a security and guarding corporation, or he was the Simon Nel who was the founder and principal partner of an architectural firm based in Sandton.

What does it matter? I told myself. You're going to see him once a fortnight or once a month for the indefinite future. Which might not be that long, since he hasn't yet enjoyed an orgasm in your dungeon, has he? Erection, yes. Orgasm, no. All you've been doing so far is providing him with an expensive form of frustration. No doubt, he'll soon decide your services are not for him.

In addition, you are pathetic, I continued, warming up a notch in my self-criticism. Are you so starved for any kind of companionship that you're actually starting to develop a rather unprofessional curiosity about somebody from your client pool? A group of men who, while powerful and wealthy, are sexually deviant to the extent that they will pay large sums of money to indulge in decidedly kinky activity?

But still, couldn't dominatrices become friends with their clients and socialise after hours?

Friends, yes, but not
good
friends. Not
very
good friends. Not the Emma Caine definition of friendship, as it currently seemed to be applying to Simon Nel.

Get a grip, I told myself. Get a grip. You're lonely and desperate and now you're starting to get all fluttery after five minutes of pre-session flirtation with a client. Remember, this is the man who ended up on all fours, tied to your chains and begging you to strap the leather halter around his body after you'd whipped him this morning. And he's not ready to tell you what he really wants. Hah. Would you like to guess at what that could be? Piercing his cock? Having more than one woman work on him at once? Giving him a golden shower?

This time I shouted at myself. ‘Emma, you
know
this man is far from normal. Do not let this interest you're developing in him go any further.'

And then, before I could spend any more time staring at Simon's name on the screen and feeling all self-conscious and expectant, despite my harsh warning to myself, I turned off my wi-fi and went to feed the cats.

The next day another gift was delivered to the folly and carried up to the house by Goodness. In contrast to the large bunch of flowers, this delivery was a compact cardboard container which, when I'd opened it and removed the padding, contained a small, square, gift-wrapped box.

There was a card inside. This time, the message was considerably less cryptic. ‘Thank you – S.' The parcel contained a bottle of perfume –Womanity, by Thierry Mugler.

I wondered if he had chosen it because the bottle had a metal ring around its top, attached to the collar below by a short length of chain.

I spritzed some of the fragrance on the inside of my wrists. It smelled floral and citrusy, although after sniffing at it a few minutes later I was rather taken aback to find that it reminded me, in a very pleasant way, of leather.

A well-chosen gift in so many ways, then.

I wondered if Simon was thinking of me wearing the scent. Had he shopped for it personally, or dispatched a pa to do the job? He surely must have selected it himself because of the chain on the bottle. That would have intrigued him. I could imagine him picking up the perfume with his capable-looking fingers, his lean face creasing into a wry smile as he realised just how appropriate a gift it would be.

And thinking of the way he would smile, I felt a frisson of excitement deep in the pit of my stomach.

It wasn't because of Simon himself, of course, I hastened to reassure myself. It was the thought of having had a gift selected for me – and such a sensual, feminine gift as well. It had been a very long time since I'd received an expensive fragrance from an admirer – or a husband, come to think of it.

I was enjoying feeling sexy, at any rate. It wasn't something I'd had the opportunity to do much of in the last year, or rather, if I was going to be brutally honest with myself, for a lot longer than that. In fact, I'd started to believe the insult that Mark had occasionally, in a disgruntled mood, thrown my way – that I was fat, frigid and pushing forty. Quite charming, really, the way with words he'd had when he wanted to hurt. And extremely unfair, too, since the first time he'd said that had been when I was only thirty-bloody-four.

The truth was that sex and stress, as most people probably know, definitely do not go together, and Mark and I had both been stressed in the months before his accident. Looking back, I realised our relationship had been fraying in so many ways. Physically, emotionally, financially.

Now, with a flow of money coming in, my stress levels in that regard were temporarily alleviated. I'd also lost a bit of weight since taking up my new occupation – in fact, if this trend continued I might even be prepared to take off my coat the next time Simon booked in.

But working in the sex industry, and particularly in a side of it that focused on alternative sexual behaviour … well, it got me thinking more often about that rather taboo subject. When I went out shopping I found myself eyeing some of the people I saw, wondering what went on in their heads when they weren't thinking about work, tax returns or picking up the kids. What they got up to behind closed doors. What their most secret fantasies really were, and whether they'd ever shared them with anybody or whether they were deeply suppressed.

As my list of regular clients started to grow I genuinely began to wonder whether there really was any ‘normal' male out there – any man who did not secretly dream of having a woman bend him over and paddle his behind, order him to dress up in frilly garments and humiliate him, or push a slippery vibrator deep inside him and mock him as he gasped and groaned with the pleasure of it.

I discovered that, what with client after client worshipping me, calling me beautiful, referring to me as a goddess – well, words have power, don't they? – I'd started to believe what they were telling me so fervently. I was starting to walk taller, hold my chin higher. I was talking to people in shops, and even flirting every now and then when two years ago I'd have been too ashamed of my fat, frigid self to think anyone would find me interesting.

I never got around to actually doing it, but I did entertain the idea of joining a dating site. Putting up an advert, one that would read: ‘Brunette female, gsoh, enjoys wine, cooking, walking, reading. Seeking normal man for lasting relationship and lots of perfectly ordinary, straightforward love-making. Please, no perversions.'

The thought of having to explain what I was currently doing for a living put me off the idea, though. A normal man, I knew, would most likely run screaming for the hills when he found out what my day job involved. I didn't doubt that because all I had to do was remember how Mark had reacted when I'd told him I'd worked on phone sex lines in my twenties.