Folly (24 page)

Without a stove, I couldn't invite my friends round for dinner, but I could meet them somewhere for a drink. The problem was that although they were ad-agency types who wouldn't be overly shocked at what I was doing, I wasn't sure I could trust them not to gossip about it.

I did find an unexpected listening ear later that afternoon when I drove to Adult Land to drop off the business cards I'd had printed, and to purchase a selection of strap-on dildos in preparation for the Judge's next visit on Friday.

Thandeka was alone in the shop, and she greeted me with genuine warmth before offering me a seat on the bar stool next to the counter.

‘How's business?' she asked cheerfully.

‘It's going well, thanks,' I told her, ‘but I didn't know when I started out that things could get so complicated.' Choosing three of the strap-ons at random from the selection she placed in front of me, I passed them to her to ring up.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Complicated how?' she asked.

It was at that point I discovered that having a trio of large anal penetration devices within nudging distance made it a whole lot easier to have a full and frank conversation about matters sexual.

‘I went too far with a client who requested it, and I don't know where I stand with him now,' I explained, and Thandeka leaned forward, concerned, as I filled her in on more of my story.

In fact, updating her properly, while learning more about her experiences while working at Adult Land, took so long that I had to put my shopping in two black bags and wait outside while she locked up the shop. We resumed the conversation over half a bottle of white wine at a secluded corner table in the pub across the road, where a scattering of people were having after-work drinks while eighties music blared from the loudspeakers.

‘Working in the sex industry can distort things sometimes,' Thandeka sympathised. ‘It makes you question people's motives.' She had to raise her voice for me to hear her over the poignant notes of Foreigner's ‘I Want to Know What Love Is'.

So do I, I thought.

‘Have you had similar experiences?' I asked her.

‘Clients wanting to date me? Yes, of course.'

‘And how do you handle it?'

She chewed her lip briefly before replying. ‘Basically, Emma, men are men. They're going to be right for you or they aren't. And I don't think buying sex toys or having domination sessions makes a difference, except at least you know more about what they're really like.'

‘Simon doesn't see me that way,' I told her, looking down at a watermark on the table's polished wooden surface. ‘He's already said he'll stop his sessions when he meets the right partner.'

Thandeka smiled. ‘You want to be with him, though, don't you? I can see that.'

‘I do, but that would be unworkable and impossible. I can't even let myself entertain the thought.' The Foreigner song ended and
U
2's ‘With or Without You' began. One of my favourite songs, but right then the lyrics just weren't doing it for me. I took a melancholy swallow of wine.

‘From what you've told me …' She made a face. ‘Maybe I shouldn't be saying this.'

‘No, do,' I encouraged her, eager to get an honest perspective on the situation.

‘He sounds a lot more right for you than your husband was. I mean … you stopped working on those sex lines before you even met Mark. How could he have held that against you?'

‘I don't know. I think it was because the image he had of me – the ideal, I suppose – was different from how I am. And for too long he tried to believe his version, not mine.'

‘Well, you need somebody who will appreciate the real you, and who won't blame you for things you can't help, or insult you in horrible ways. Whether that person ends up being Simon or not. It might be that you and Mark were both very dominant people, but …'

Her phone started ringing and, apologising, she answered with a smile, ‘Hey, babes. Yes, I'm running late tonight. I'm having drinks with a girlfriend. Want to join us? We're at the pub across the road from work.' She waited, listened. ‘What? Sorry, say again – it's a bit noisy in here. ok. Will you get pizza when you leave the office, then? My usual, please. Lots of garlic, hey? Love you too.'

I didn't have the chance to ask her whether she'd met ‘babes' at Adult Land or somewhere else because, while she slid her phone back into her bag, she picked up our conversation immediately. ‘As I was saying, you and Mark could both have been very dominant people, which is why you fought so much.' I choked on my last sip of wine when she added, ‘But Emma, you mustn't rule out the possibility that he could simply just have been an arsehole.'

Chapter 27

W
hen Simon arrived the next day, he still seemed preoccupied. I could read his body language from the moment he climbed out of his car, and when he walked inside the folly he gave me only the briefest of nods and offered no physical contact before turning and closing the door behind him.

Not a hug. Not a kiss on the cheek, nor even a handshake. Despite the comforting chat I'd had with Thandeka, affronted did not begin to describe how I was feeling.

‘Emma, it's been a tough couple of weeks, and to be honest, I don't know what I need from you today,' he said, after refusing my terse offer of coffee.

As I sat down opposite him I looked at him more closely, now somewhat concerned. Not only had he turned down the coffee, but he also hadn't engaged me in any customary banter. This was not just Simon in a mood, or having a bad day. It was more than that. Something was definitely wrong.

‘How do you feel?' I asked. ‘If you could tell me how you feel, I can try to make some suggestions.'

Just ask Mistress Caine, unofficial psychotherapist.

‘How do I feel?' He put his elbow on the desk and rested his forehead in his hand, pressing his fingers into his temples as if his head was sore. ‘I feel worried. Stressed. Torn.'

Well, upon hearing that, so did I.

‘I feel as if I need to gain some mental distance from what's bothering me,' he added.

I gave his statement some intense consideration.

‘Simon, it sounds to me as if you're too distracted to participate properly in a dungeon session today. Everyone's different, I know, but if you're like me, it's going to be difficult to get into an erotic mindset when you've got problems gnawing away at your mind.'

Now he gave a half-smile.

‘You're right about that.'

‘Funnily enough, I've also been having rather a tough time over the past fortnight, so I can empathise with you.'

Now he glanced at me, concerned. ‘You have? What's—?'

‘Nothing serious,' I said smoothly but quickly, realising I had slipped up. ‘But as far as your situation goes, how would you feel about some pain?'

‘Pain?' He gave a small nod. ‘I think that's what I might need.'

‘I'm working on the principle that the best way to distract yourself from a headache is to drop something on your foot. Simple but effective.'

If he did have a headache, a good beating might also get rid of it.

‘Right.' He was smiling properly now.

‘Does that sound as if it might help?'

‘It seems like a good strategy.'

‘Let's keep it basic to begin with. I won't ask you to think, imagine, respond or react beyond counting the blows I administer with a whip. Once we've done that, we can reassess, and see if you'd like the session to progress any further.'

‘Right,' he said, getting up from his chair. ‘Let's do it, Mistress.'

Five minutes later, Simon was naked and bent over the gym horse. I stood behind him, holding the short crop with the wide flap. Beside me, my entire complement of whips was lined up. I'd even included the wide leather belt that I had bought the other day.

Pain was what he had agreed to. Pain was what he needed. But even so, as I brought the crop down with stinging force across his buttocks, hearing his soft groan as the blow landed, hearing his whispered ‘One', I felt my eyes prickle with tears.

Even so, I knew couldn't afford to feel sorry for him. Don't get emotional over this, I warned myself. He's not here for your sympathy. He's here for your services. Right now, he needs the punishment you can give him.

Steeling myself, I whacked him with the crop a second time, harder.

‘Two,' he muttered, almost inaudibly.

I hit him again and again. I rained the blows down on him, holding nothing back, offering him no mercy. I had no intention to stop unless he used the safe word. My attentions were not confined to his buttocks. I used, more gently, the belt and the cat-o'-nine-tails on his back and his thighs, leaving great scarlet stripes and smaller bursts of red. I found myself having to be careful when I hit him because it was difficult for me to see where the blows were landing as my vision was so blurred. Every time I heard his gasps, I felt a lump in my own throat.

Although I knew Simon was a man who craved extremes, I couldn't understand how an issue could be so bad that it would require such sustained agony to obtain distance.

I had no idea how long I beat him. But eventually I lowered the belt. I was panting from the effort, my armpits and forehead were running with sweat, my arms ached and my muscles were quivering. His back and thighs were crimson and I knew that, on his buttocks at least, he would have some severe bruising.

I blinked hard and wiped my forearm across my face.

‘Is that enough?' I asked gently.

He didn't answer. He lay, prone, over the horse, immobile. Only his harsh, rapid breathing indicated that he was still conscious.

I looked down at his inflamed skin. I wanted so badly to soothe it. To run cold water over my hands and gently rub my cool palms over the hot, angry marks that I had caused. To apply arnica cream or Traumeel to help with the bruising. I couldn't touch him, though, nor offer any pain relief. Not now. It would be overstepping boundaries.

‘I think that's enough,' I said. I couldn't do any more. I simply could not.

I went and put the whips back in their place and sat down at my desk. I crossed my arms on the table and put my forehead down on them and stayed there until my trembling had stopped.

I was aware of Simon standing up and practically staggering to the bathroom. A little later I heard the shower. I hoped he had it on cold, and that it was going some way towards alleviating his agony.

When I heard the bathroom door open again I struggled into a sitting position.

Moving slowly and carefully, Simon limped over to the desk.

‘Thank you, Emma,' he said.

‘I hope it helped you.'

He let out a shuddery breath and gave a small, rueful smile. ‘There have to be easier ways of gaining some distance. I think it has helped, though. And I appreciate your doing it for me.'

He took my right hand in his and for a moment I thought he was going to offer me a formal handshake as a goodbye. Instead, though, he bent forward and touched his lips to the back of my hand. I felt his kiss, tender and lingering, his mouth warm on my skin, while his fingers wrapped around mine and his thumb pressed into my palm.

He squeezed my hand gently before releasing it and then left, without rebooking.

Watching him go, it felt as if a piece of my heart was being torn away.

The following morning, I was distracted from my angst by the more practical need to satisfy my second best regular client. The Judge was arriving at ten-thirty, and I thought it would be more sensible to have the strap-on already in place so that I did not have to struggle with it while he waited. After all, this was the first time I would be wearing it and I needed to be prepared.

I'd randomly chosen one of the strap-ons from the three I'd bought –I'd left the others up in the house. Now, I removed it from its black bag and then from its box. The large, bright pink, realistically shaped artificial penis hung from a tangle of black leather straps. But what on earth was that knobble thing at the opposite end of the contraption, I wondered, frowning down at the box.

My eyebrows shot up as I read that this was a self-pleasuring plug. Aaaargh. Definitely not something I wanted to experience while pounding away at the Judge's behind. I should have taken more care with my purchases at Adult Land instead of unloading my sorrows to Thandeka, who had clearly been equally distracted while ringing them up.

Luckily for me, the plug appeared to be removable, and after wrestling with it for a minute, I managed to push it out of the plastic-lined aperture, creating a plug-free, client-pleasuring strap-on with a handy fart hole.

I let out a frustrated sigh. Really, this experience was skirting very close to the limits of my tolerance, and I hadn't even put the bloody thing on yet. But I had no other options left to satisfy the Judge. Not when, during our last session, he had ended up begging me to use the largest of the anal plugs on him. Or, rather, begging Judge-style, which was shouting, ‘Go on. Do it, bitch! Lube it up and give it to me. What the hell are you waiting for? Supersize me – I dare you.'

Grasping the shaft of the penis with my left hand, I held it up, glancing down at the full-colour illustration of what looked like Barbie standing behind a bent-over Ken – and then back up at the device itself.

‘This goes between my legs, these go around my thighs and those fasten up to … up to those?' Clinging to the picture in my mind, I undid most of the fastenings and walked over to the gym horse, balancing the penis on top of it while I groped blindly between my legs for the correct strap.

‘The most important thing is that it needs to stay in position,' I muttered to myself, yanking the straps as tight as they would go and wondering who on earth had thought it was a good idea to put the buckles at the back. Presumably, the manufacturers had envisioned a willing partner tightening them.