Seven Scarlet Tales (26 page)

When she was getting close, she said something else.

She said, ‘The front page of the paper …’

I thought I knew what she was getting at, so I carried on.

‘You’ll be on it,’ I said, still banging away. ‘Like this. On your hands and knees with your well-whipped arse in the air, getting fucked by a man you don’t know. In full colour, for everyone in the world to see.’

This was what did it for her, and she came with her fists stuffed in her mouth, quietly but hard. I’d held on for as long as I could. It was a relief to get it all out.

She had grass stains on her dress, which she was delighted with. She said she wanted to get papped looking like this – shagged out and exhausted. I wasn’t so sure about that. I didn’t really want to find myself in the Daily Mail sidebar of shame, though, thinking about it, banking’s so macho it’d probably make me some kind of hero in the City.

I wanted to hold her and talk to her after, but she just wanted to show herself off in her post-coital state and she made a run for it along the towpath.

I guess I knew what that made me. The plaything of an idle hour. Ah well. I’m not one to complain. If beautiful movie stars want to use me as some kind of stud dom, I suppose I can live with it.

So, yeah, that was my first experience of the kinky side of life. My mind was blown, I don’t mind admitting. The weekend just sort of went on like that, really. By the time I went back to London, I knew seven types of bondage knot and the best place to shove peeled ginger. And that’s how you see me now.

Allyson put down her empty glass.

‘That Peregrine’s a devil,’ she said. ‘My best customer, though. So, are you still in touch with her? Celia Britt?’

Richard shook his head. ‘She’s pretty much permanently in Hollywood these days. We had dinner once, when she was filming in town, but that was a couple of years ago now.’

‘Shame. You’d make a lovely couple.’

‘I’m happy as I am, thanks. Lucy’s quite a find.’

Rob concurred, and Blake looked wistful.

‘Course, we all know your story, Blakey,’ said Allyson, ruffling his hair. ‘You turned up at the Geisha Garden on a stag night and the rest was history.’

‘It’s you we’re all curious about,’ said Rob.

‘Me?’

‘Well, I can only speak for myself but …’

‘Yeah,’ added Richard. ‘How did you get into all this?’

‘Well, I run the club, don’t I?’

‘But how did that come about?’

‘You know me, Rich. I don’t talk about myself. Too much I can’t say or go into.’

‘Woman of mystery.’

‘That’s me.’

‘But were you always aware of your, uh, inclinations?’ Rob wanted to know. ‘Or did it gradually dawn on you?’

‘What, being a domme, you mean? I did it for cash to begin with. Found out pretty quickly that I had a taste for it, though I wasn’t so keen on the men. As you know, I ain’t
that way inclined. I’d always fantasise that the hairy bloke I was whipping was a lovely, soft, round girl. Then I met a few people, in the course of my work and, what with one thing and another, I ended up fronting the club.’

‘A bit of this, a bit of that,’ said Rob with a jokey sparring action. ‘Ducking and diving.’

‘Don’t joke,’ said Allyson, and the atmosphere went from relaxed to guarded in the time it took for her to snap the words out. ‘It’s all very funny for you, posh college boy, slumming it with the likes of me. But I could tell you stories that’d turn that lovely hair of yours white. I’ve seen it all. I wish I hadn’t. But there ain’t nothing I can do about it now.’

‘You run a club,’ said Richard, in an attempt to soothe.

‘Yeah, I run a club. I don’t get my hands dirty. But I know what goes on. Don’t ask me to talk about it.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

Rob grimaced at Richard, who remained tight-lipped.

‘OK, well, it’s getting late anyway,’ said Blake. ‘I might call it a night.’

‘Wonder if Lucy’s still awake,’ said Richard, looking at the ceiling.

‘I hope so,’ said Rob. ‘All this story telling has got me a bit frisky.’

‘TMI,’ drawled Allyson, but she made no move, her hand still closed around her empty glass.

‘No such thing as TMI here this weekend,’ said Blake, watching the other men climb the staircase.

‘I’m going to check on Emma,’ said Allyson, standing up, but before she could follow Richard and Rob, the newly installed landline rang.

‘What the fuck?’

She went to pick it up, and recognised the voice on the line instantly.

‘Why have you switched off your phone?’

‘I haven’t. Reception’s shit down here.’

‘You can’t be out of range, Al. You can’t do that.’

‘What’s up?’

‘You’ve got to get back here. And bring that bitch of yours with you. She’s got some questions to answer.’

‘I don’t understand. What did he actually say?’

Emma couldn’t get comfortable in the driver’s seat, she tried resting most of her weight on one hip, but then the seatbelt was across her neck. Nothing worked. Nothing. worked and she didn’t want to be here, in this car, heading for London and the unknown.

‘He said jack shit,’ muttered Allyson. ‘Just to get our arses down to London.’

‘He specifically wanted me to come?’

‘Yeah. He said, “Bring your bitch.”’

‘He’s still as charming as ever then.’

‘Don’t joke about McKenna. He’s no laughing matter. I can’t think what he wants to see us about. Everything’s been sweet for so long.’

‘Yeah.’ Emma thought about this. Sweetness. The easy life. Why couldn’t it always be that way?

In a police station in London, Poppy Livesey sat on a moulded orange plastic chair drinking tea from a machine.

The man beside her put his hand on her thigh.

‘You’re doing the right thing,’ he said, but he said ‘ze right sing’, because he found the ‘th’ sound difficult to pronounce.

‘You never said anything would happen,’ she said woodenly. ‘You said it was research.’

‘These people aren’t good people. I only got involved for your sake, Poppy. I wanted you away from them. You aren’t made for that life.’

‘How do you know what I’m made for? You’ve used me, that’s all. I was a means to an end. And it was a good job. Good money.’

‘Dirty money.’

‘Easy money. Men like to spank me; I like to be spanked. Where’s the harm in that?’

‘It’s a front for other things, Poppy.’ He said her name oddly, the stress on the second syllable. For some reason, that melted her.

‘You think I didn’t know that? It’s none of my business. I feel bad for Allyson and the girls.’

‘Allyson is a pimp, nothing more. She keeps very bad company.’

‘She’s been good to me.’

‘I can be good to you.’

She turned and stared at Bruno.

‘You’ve sold me out.’

‘But for love.’

‘Love?’

She put down the tea before it spilled and stalked out on to the concourse in front of the police station, needing air, even if was black, exhaust-fumed, central London air.

How could that stupid man claim to love her, after one dodgy hook-up during which he’d used her as a snout? She should slap his stupid, attractive French face.

But somehow she couldn’t. The L word had deactivated her slapping hand.

If he loved her perhaps he’d take her to Paris.

If he loved her perhaps he’d marry her.

If he loved her perhaps she might love him back one day.

But was that good enough? Perhaps. It wasn’t as if she had that much to keep her here. Horrible family, horrible past and she’d already dropped out of her university course. Now she was going to lose her job into the bargain, and then her flat and then …

She turned and walked back to where a disconsolate Bruno slumped in his chair, looking as if he could use three days of solid sleep.

‘I’ve got nothing in my life,’ she said to him. ‘So if you want to love me, then I suppose it’s OK.’

He put out his hand and she took it.

She sat beside him and he held her while they waited for something for happen.

‘I’m going to pull over,’ said Emma as the sign for a motorway service station loomed ahead. ‘Go to the services.’

‘You need a wee?’

‘No. I might have something to tell you, though.’

Allyson gave her the sharpest of looks.

‘You know what this is about?’

‘I don’t know. But there’s something I’ve kept quiet. I was protecting someone. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.’

Emma drove up to the car park and found the most obscure corner space available.

‘Emma,’ Allyson said, taking her cigarettes out of the glove compartment. ‘You’re going to break my heart, aren’t you?’

‘Your heart?’ Emma looked amused at the idea of such a thing existing.

‘I do have one, you know. And it ain’t made of stone. So, what’s this dark and deadly secret, then?’

Emma drew a deep breath.

‘You should have fired Poppy. After that thing with the French cop.’

Allyson lit her cigarette and took a deep drag.

‘You told me you’d sorted it.’

‘I think she may have stayed in touch with him.’

‘Informant?’

‘There was more to it than I told you. There was kind of a romance type of thing between them. I didn’t think he’d let her go just like that, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she’d steer clear. I think I might have been wrong about that.’

She tried to gauge Allyson’s reaction, but none was forthcoming for quite some time.

‘You might be right,’ she said eventually. ‘You think this French bloke has been feeding information to our local plods, ever since?’

‘Yes. And Poppy has been around a lot, hasn’t she? Sort of always nearby when private conversations are going on?’

‘Little bitch.’

‘I suppose he turned her head.’

‘I’ll turn more than her head for her.’

‘Al.’ Emma watched her grind out her cigarette and put her own hand on Allyson’s forearm. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Get us coffees from the caff. We need to think. And I need to clear my head. Too much vino earlier.’

‘Just as well I didn’t have any.’

‘Is it?’

Allyson took another cigarette from the pack, watching as Emma headed up to the dimly lit service area where only the coffee shop was still open at this hour.

She had a way of moving, Emma did, that she’d never seen on another girl. A sort of confidence, almost bravura, and an absolute glorying in her big, swaying bottom. It still made Allyson’s mouth water, even now, even with all that was going on. She always wore tight skirts that clung to her curves, or skinnier-than-skinny jeans. The bouncing balls inside the thin fabric demanded attention.

And she’d never met a girl more avid for spankings. ‘Miss Hungrybum’ had been her nickname for Emma at one time. She never seemed to use it any more though. Why was that? These days it was all ‘love’ and ‘sweetheart’. Or just Emma.

‘You love her, you silly cow. Admit it,’ she muttered to herself, blowing out smoke.

That day Emma had walked into the club, that was a great day.

Allyson was holding an open audition, in the early days of the Geisha Garden. She had no idea what she would get when she advertised, so she was finding the process entertaining, if not particularly helpful. She’d been running it for a month or so. When McKenna had asked her, she’d practically spat out her cig.

‘Spanking club? Are you serious?’

‘Deadly. It’s big, Al. Kink is big. Has to go underground because people are judgemental like that, still.’

‘Yeah, like they’re judgemental about your little sidelines, can’t think why.’

‘Don’t be smart. That’s different. This shouldn’t be illegal. It’s just people enjoying themselves. Come on, you’ve
got clients coming out of your ears. You know how popular this stuff is.’

‘So you want me to whack people’s backsides as, like, some kind of act?’

‘No, it’s not going to be like that. It’s going to be girls getting spanked.’

She sat up. ‘Now you’re talking.’

‘Submissive men can find a domme in the Yellow Pages, pretty much. But it’s not so easy for the men who like to dish it out. Sure there’s Fetlife and all that, but I gather a willing bottom is still pretty hard to find, and there’s all the messaging and trying to impress the sub and meeting up and not fancying each other. It’s a hassle, Al. Plenty of guys don’t have time for that. So, I thought, a nice private club where girls with gorgeous bums are on call whenever. Do you get my drift?’

‘That could work,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘So are you in?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, go on then. But I get to pick the girls.’

‘Carte blanche, Al. Carte fucking blanche.’

She’d scribbled her tastes all over that carte blanche. She’d started up with four attractive, submissive girls she knew from the scene already, but the concept had proved an immediate hit – appropriately enough – and she needed more, a dozen at least.

So there she was, looking at a big group of all kinds, types, shapes and sizes of women. A couple of men had chanced their arm, too, but she’d taken their numbers and said she’d ask the big boss about setting up a gay night or two sometime.

Those who were left were an interesting variety. There were the usual wannabe actresses who showed up for everything. There were a number of emo-looking young
women, pierced and tattooed and looking for a passage through university. There were older women too, and representatives of a galaxy of nationalities. But Allyson wasn’t looking for girls who could dance or sing. She didn’t even care that much about pretty faces.

She needed good bottoms, and that was the bottom line.

‘OK, ladies,’ she said. ‘This might be the weirdest audition or interview or whatever of all time, but I’m only going to ask you to do one thing for me right now. I want you to turn your backs to me and drop your trousers, skirts, whatever you’re wearing. I need a good look at your arses. Do you think you can do that for me?’

There was a great deal of nervous laughing, and chattering, and shrillness, but eventually all of the women – some thirty or so – lined up on the stage and revealed their bottoms.

Any that were too flat or too saggy were sent away. Small was fine, big was fine, but firmness and roundness were nonnegotiable.