Folly (6 page)

‘Right. Let's have a look see.' He opened the bag. Carefully, he took out the wedding ring. Examined it closely, and used a jeweller's loupe to study its eighteen-carat hallmark. Then he weighed it on a digital scale and scribbled a few notes on a pad.

The engagement ring took longer; I assumed each of the stones had to be checked in order to make sure they were genuine. I waited, trying not to bite my nails, and resisting the urge to guess what amount I might be offered. The ring hadn't been cheap, that much I knew, because the central diamond was large. One carat, Mark had told me proudly.

Like so many of his decisions, the purchase of the ring had been guided by the need to impress rather than by any actual budgetary sense.

The man behind the counter eventually finished examining my engagement ring. He picked up the box containing the pearl necklace and I saw an expression cross his face – I could only hope that he recognised, and was impressed by, the supplier's logo on the front.

He opened the box, took out the pearls, but to my surprise gave them only the most cursory inspection before turning towards me again.

‘You want to sell these outright or take a cash loan against them?' he asked.

‘A cash loan, please.'

‘You must read through these terms and conditions before filling in the form and signing.' He handed me a printed sheet of paper. ‘And I need to see your id.'

I handed it over.

‘The necklace …' He paused, and once again I saw an expression I couldn't identify cross his face. ‘I can't take that because it has no value. You do know it's fake, right?'

I had wanted so badly to appear poised, cool, unconcerned by my circumstances and above all, far from vulnerable. But that piece of information floored me as effectively as if the chair had been yanked out from under me. It literally robbed me of speech. I stared at him wordlessly for what seemed like a very long time as the shock of what he'd said sunk slowly into my brain.

‘It can't be fake,' I managed eventually, my voice hoarse and pleading, sounding just like the blonde had done. He'd given … that was right. I remembered now. Mark had actually given me a certificate of origin along with the pearls, although where it was now, I had no idea.

‘Costume jewellery,' the man said. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.'

‘But you didn't do any tests …'

‘Didn't need to. Here, take it.' He put the necklace back in the steel tray and pushed it under the sheet of bulletproof glass. ‘Rub the beads gently

against your teeth. Yes, like that. Can you feel they're smooth?'

‘Yes. Perfectly smooth.'

‘Real pearls feel gritty. That's just one of the basic ways to tell the difference. But this is obviously costume. The beads aren't even strung properly, and that clasp is probably made from nickel.'

I could feel my face going crimson. I wanted to get up and bolt outside, slamming the door behind me, running away from the humiliation and the awfulness and the impossibility of what had just happened.

Instead, I sat and watched while he pressed buttons on a calculator and wrote down an amount that I could already see would be too little. I needed more to start up my business.

The pearls. What had happened to them?

There were only three explanations I could think of.

One, Mark had lied to me, which I hoped and prayed was impossible.

Two, Mark had been lied to by the supplier, which since they were reputable, was also unlikely.

Three, at some stage, someone had switched the original necklace for this pretty but worthless string of beads. Now that I thought about it, did I remember the pearls themselves as being slightly smaller? Ever so slightly less symmetrical? And the clasp … had it been a solid-looking, golden, fish-shaped oval? A fish-shaped oval was definitely sounding familiar now that I thought about it. On the other hand, I might simply be imagining what had never existed.

‘Sorry about that,'I said to the pawn shop assistant, trying to claw back what remained of my dignity.

‘It happens,' he said, and now I knew what that expression was.

It was sympathy.

I was not going to cry. I was
not
. Tears would not be useful here; that I had already seen. Instead I breathed in slowly, raised my chin and looked him directly in the eye.

‘I need more than what you're giving me,' I told him. ‘I was expecting some value from the necklace as well.'

‘Even if it had been genuine, I wouldn't have been able to offer you much for it. There's a very limited market for second-hand pearls. Diamonds and gold are easier to sell.'

‘I need this money to get back on my feet. I lost my job in September. Now I'm starting up a business venture that is already looking promising. I'll keep paying the monthly interest on the rings until I can afford to reclaim them. You'll see.'

I was begging, I knew, but I kept my voice strong while I did so, and firmly blinked back the tears that were pricking at the corners of my eyes.

‘Look …' He picked up the engagement ring again, tilted his head sideways, gave it a final considering glance. ‘ok. I'll add ten per cent to my original offer. I can't do more than that.'

‘Thank you,' I said.

I filled in the forms and he counted out the payment in cash. Some banknotes crisp and new, others creased and sad-looking.

‘Good luck,' he said.

I scraped the chair back and got up to leave, taking care not to look too hard at the sweaty-faced man in a wrinkled business suit who was next in the queue.

Chapter 8

T
he now-empty folly reeked of spaniel. Armed with rubber gloves, dusters, a vacuum cleaner, a broom, buckets of soapy water and a scrubbing brush, I set to work cleaning the smelly interior. On my knees and scrubbing the floor, it was bizarre to think that in less than a week's time I'd be watching, whip in hand, while a slave paid top dollar to do what I was doing now. I tried to focus on the positive fact that money would finally be coming in. I didn't want to dwell on the details of how I would be earning it. In fact, now that I was preparing the dungeon, I was beginning to feel more and more terrified about coming face to face with my clients, seeing them naked, exposed, aroused. To be in a room with strangers who were paying me to fulfil their perverted sexual needs. On the other hand, imagining who they were at least helped me to get to grips with my fears.

Lowly had been very softly spoken, and although he hadn't said much, I'd picked up a hint of an accent in his voice that told me he was Indian. I guessed he would have a stressful, high-level, corporate job, something in the financial sector. He'd probably be shy and furtive-looking; somebody who I could easily label as having alternative sexual desires.

As for Simon, after speaking to him, I had no idea where the clues to his personality lay. From the assurance I'd heard in his voice, I was worried that he might prove a challenge to dominate. And why was I finding it so difficult to put a face to his voice?

Then I told myself that it didn't matter what he looked like, since I'd be spending far more time staring at his bum than his face in any case. And as for personality – well, the only given was that the men who hired my services would be sexual deviants, one and all.

Rule number one of my dungeon was going to be that I did not touch my slaves, nor allow them to touch me. I was going to keep my distance. Assuming any bodily contact had to be made for the purposes of punishment, I would wear gloves.

And what would my customers want in terms of punishment? What would satisfy them? Would it end up being closer to filth or finesse?

Squeezing yet another dollop of spaniel-scented water into my bucket, I guessed I would soon find out.

The only extravagance I allowed myself before my dungeon opened was to go and have my hair professionally cut and coloured at the local salon. I needed to make a powerful impression on my clients and to me, straggling ends and root growth screamed ‘poverty' with a capital P.

It turned out to be a good decision, because browsing in the secondhand shop next door after my appointment, I had a really lucky find. Someone had brought in a gym horse for sale; one of those old-fashioned ones made from wooden frames that slotted into each other, with a broad, padded cover of foam and thick plastic on top. Overall, it was in good condition and the plastic, though worn and roughened at the corners, was in one piece. It was an ideal piece of apparatus for slaves to bend over, in relative comfort, while being punished in other, more uncomfortable, ways.

A quick trip to the hardware store opposite, and I was kitted out with sturdy steel handles as well as heavy-duty bolts, hooks and clips. I also bought several metres of thick, strong ropes and lengths of chain – two with the biggest links I could find, and one with the finest. I thought, with a little resourcefulness on my part, the fine chain could be made into a variation of a cat-o'-nine-tails for light yet sensual punishment.

Attaching the equipment was not something I could do myself. I would have to get a handyman in for that. After making a few phone calls, I chose one who was cheap, sounded elderly, and who told me he didn't normally do any work in my area.

His grizzled eyebrows rose when I opened the door to the folly's blackpainted interior. I told him that my children were going to use the place as a gym and adventure centre, and they'd told me exactly what equipment they wanted where. I don't know if he quite believed me, but I hoped the solid presence of the vaulting horse went some way towards backing up my story.

That afternoon I would have to have the conversation I had been dreading.

Goodness was going to have to know what I was doing. There was no way I could keep it from him, because I needed him to play an active role in my business. He would have to assist at the gate, opening and closing it, and while doing so checking out the cars that arrived – any car with more than one occupant would not be a genuine client and would represent a huge security risk. Goodness, like me, would need to keep a panic button on his person and I would need to train him in how and when to use it.

It was difficult to think of anyone in the world whom I'd be more reluctant to explain this to. This was going to be more embarrassing than ordering a pack of extra-small condoms from a deaf pharmacist. But it had to be done, and postponing it wasn't going to make the job any easier.

After the handyman had left, I phoned Goodness and asked him to meet me at the folly later that afternoon when he'd finished up and fed the horses.

I passed the time by working on my dungeon. First, I painted the sides of the gym horse red and left the pieces outside to dry. Next, I climbed the stepladder to finish attaching some of the equipment that I simply hadn't been able to ask the handyman to do.

The chains, for instance. Not even a blithely worded story about a children's adventure area could have reasonably explained their presence, so I'd kept them out of sight and had asked the handyman to attach a heavy bolt – for a swing, I'd told him – to one of the beams, which in turn had been used to anchor a series of four massive metal hooks that even the pirate captain himself would have found oversized.

I looped the top of the chains over these hooks and, climbing down the ladder again, attached their ends to the handles at the bottom of the wall using large carabiners. With that one simple action, it was amazing how the room suddenly looked like a destination for kinky activities. Those silvery links, gleaming dully, stretched against the backdrop of matte black paint –my dungeon looked the part. I could imagine it as a destination that clients would pay to visit.

When the paint was dry I reassembled the vaulting horse and placed it in the centre of the room. It looked magnificent – a crimson focal point that promised hours of painful pleasure and humiliation to those who were soon to bend over its padded back.

The black-painted bookshelves were now home to various other accessories. Candles and matches in case the electricity department decided I was a repeat offender and should be punished myself, the leather halter, bags of bulldog clips, as well as a make-up kit, ladies' underwear, a frilly maid's apron, a pair of stiletto-heeled sandals in size eight, and another in a size ten, a box of tissues and a tube of
KY
jelly.

Another shelf contained cleaning equipment, including surgical spirits and liquid disinfectant as well as disposable antibacterial wipes. I was determined that my dungeon wouldn't disappoint the health and safety inspectors if they were to visit – not in the area of hygiene, at any rate.

A tap on the closed door told me that Goodness had arrived.

I took a deep breath and hoped I'd have the strength to get through this conversation without actually dying of mortification.

He was waiting patiently outside, hands clasped in front of him, the sleeves of his blue overalls rolled back to the elbow.

‘Ah, Goodness,' I said.

He nodded in reply.

Immediately, I felt my cheeks go hot. I had no idea how I was going to effectively explain the ins and outs of my new career to my innocent employee, a gentle man who had never completed his schooling and whose English was rather sketchy.

Despite the language barrier that sometimes caused things to be lost in translation, we had a relationship of mutual respect that stretched back all the way to the day when he had arrived at my gate, young, skinny and shivering in a ragged
T
-shirt and shabby trousers on a breezy winter's day, desperate for a job. Never, ever, since that day I hired him had he betrayed my trust or let me down. I'd just have to hope that he could trust me, and understand my circumstances, when it came to this matter.

‘Goodness,' I began, fixing my eyes firmly on a point somewhere between his face and the freshly weeded and repaired pathway. ‘I don't know if you are aware of this, but since Mark's accident money has been very short.'