Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown (27 page)

"
Lick my boots, slave,
"
commanded a female voice.

"
No, no,
"
George said.
"
You don
'
t understand. I
'
m awfully sorry, I
'
m in the wrong...
"
But far from relieving his predicament, he received another hearty whack.
George didn
'
t like the dungeon at all. He thought he had better change his tack.

"
I would lick your boots, honestly I would, but I can
'
t while you
'
re standing on my neck,
"
he gasped.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"
Gosh, So I am,
"
said the voice.
"
God, I always get it wrong. Look, I
'
m really sorry. When you
'
re on your hands and knees I am supposed to haul you to your feet and handcuff you to the wall. Then I beat you. The boot on the neck bit is supposed to be come later. Honestly, I don
'
t think I
'
ll ever get the hang of it.
"

She began to cry.

"
Please don
'
t cry,
"
said George.
"
Honestly, it
'
s quite all right. My glasses fell off, that
'
s all.
Help me find them, will you?
Ah, there they are.
"

He popped them back on his nose, hauled himself to his feet and turned to confront his attacker, whom he now saw outlined in the ambient light that filtered in from a high barred window. She was a young woman, pretty as a waif in a greetings card, incongruously clad in full leather dominatrix gear. In one gloved hand had she clutched her riding crop like a wand while the other dabbed at her eyes where tears were forming little rivulets of eyeliner that cascaded down her cheeks, pooling on the flagstones at her feet.

"
There, there, it
'
s alright, don
'
t cry, look, I found my specs,
"
said George. He was horrified at somehow being the cause of this young woman
'
s grief.
He wondered briefly about the etiquette of consoling a dominatrix then gave her a little hug anyway.

"
Here, let me get you a seat.
"

The only one he could find came with arm restraints and leg irons, but he hauled it over to where she slumped against a wall and gently helped her into it.

"
I
'
m George,
"
he said when she was comfortably seated.
"
It
'
s okay. I
'
m not a real member. I don
'
t even know what I
'
m doing here. I
'
m in the wrong room, anyway.
Look, I won
'
t tell anyone.
Honestly, you were jolly intimidating. You really were.
If I really were your slave, I
'
d be shaking in my tunic, let me tell you.
Jolly menacing you were.
Here, let me take this.
"
He took the crop from her and hung it on the wall with the rest of the whips and floggers.

As he did so, he had a chance to look around.

"
My goodness,
"
he exclaimed out loud.

If Disney made dungeons, he supposed they would look – and sound –
something like this. From the flagstones beneath his feet to the cobwebs on the ceiling, the room, the dungeon, oozed menace and rank despair from every crevice.
The far wall, furthest from the high barred window, dripped with brackish water oozing over slime. Dotted throughout, displayed like sectionals in a furniture warehouse, every conceivable kind of equipment – and some George, frankly, could not conceive of – gave it the subterranean terror of a mediaeval torture chamber. And the sound system, which he now clearly heard, invoked the cries of tormented souls, the scratching of rodents, the squeak of bats, the crack of whips and the dragging of chains, looping constantly in the background like Muzak in a department store.

George shuddered.
"
My God,
"
he thought,
"
this is this poor girl
'
s work place?
"

"
I
'
m Solace,
"
she said, composing herself and taking a deep breath.
"
Solace Miseria. Mummy, Mistress Divina Miseria, you
'
ve probably heard of her, is the most famous dominatrix in
Europe
. She desperately wants me to follow in her footsteps. Why work for wages, she says, when you can earn thousands of pounds a day beating and humiliating rich men.
I love her dearly and I know she has my best interests at heart, but all I ever wanted was to go to ballet school.
"

The apparent injustice started Solace crying again and George fervently wished he could make her a nice cup of tea. He told her he was a writer and a visit to the Donatien Club was part of his research.

"
Perhaps if you explained to her that you tried it and aren
'
t any good at it,
"
he ventured.
"
Look, if you think it would help, I could talk to her, you know, be a disgruntled customer,
tell her I want my
money back, that I used to work at city hall, and you know, tell her
I could
revoke her business license, that sort of thing.
Maybe if she heard first-hand how hopeless you are she would agree to your going to ballet school.
After all, top dancers are highly paid too.
"

Solace smiled, wiping the last of her tears from the corner of her eyes.

"
Mummy would eat you for lunch,
"
she said.
"
But it
'
s very sweet of you to offer your help. My friend Connie who works here has also been helping me. Man, she
'
s good. Me, when it comes to being a dominatrix, I can dress the part, but inside I
'
m scared spitless, a quivering mess. Not Connie. She
'
s absolutely marvelous at it. She could easily be as good as mum one day, although actually this kind of bothers her. She sometimes wonders if she has a heart, although she really does, she
'
s one of the kindest people I know.
"

Solace looked at her watch.
"
I
'
m sorry, I kind of wrecked your afternoon, didn
'
t I?
"

George shook his head.

"
Look, it
'
s almost 5 pm. I
'
m off shift. Mum takes over in half an hour when the club members start to arrive.
Me and Connie are going for a drink and a bite to eat. You
'
ll like her. Would you like to join us? Please say yes.
"

"
Thank you, that would be very nice,
"
said George.

Connie was up for it too. Any friend of Sol
'
s is a friend of hers, she said, but socializing with members was forbidden.

"
You
'
re here for the Open House, right? You
'
re not a member. Are you thinking of joining?
"

"
I
'
m not sure, yet. I shouldn
'
t think so,
"
said George. He wasn
'
t sure what to say.

"
Well, that
'
s all right then,
"
Connie said.
"
Pleased to meet you.
"

"
George was a bit of an accident,
"
said Solace, hastily.
"
He
'
s researching. He stumbled into the dungeon by mistake.
"

"
I was actually looking for the headmaster
'
s study,|
"
George confirmed, suddenly blushing. Was this too much information?
"

Connie hooted with laughter.

"
Don
'
t tell me. Before you knew what was happening Sol had cuffed you to the wall and….
"

"
It wasn
'
t like that at all. Actually, I got it wrong as usual, and….
"

George leaped to her defense.
"
What happened was I tripped on the flagstones and lost my glasses.
Solace helped me find them. It was all my fault really.
"

Connie gave a friend a little dig in the ribs.

"
I get it. Pretty soon you
'
re having a friendly chat and you
'
re telling him you want to be a ballet dancer,
"
she said.
"
I dunno what I
'
m going to do with you, Sol.
"

"
That
'
s just about it,
"
said George.
"
Except, I wanted to make her a nice cup of tea.
"

They laughed. And the three of them, a girl on each arm, walked to a pub at
Leicester Square
.

"
I know this place,
"
George said.
"
There
'
s an Indian restaurant just around the corner.
Do you girls like Indian?

"
We do, we love Indian, don
'
t we Sol?
"
Connie said.
"
We always say there
'
s nothing like a chicken tika masala after an agonizing day at the office.
"

At this the girls high-fived and laughed, George joining in the merriment.
His day had not been wasted after all and he felt a glow of happiness. He had accomplished little, but what did it matter.
He was going for beer and a curry with two delightful young ladies for company.
He did his little Chaplin jig, the girls responding by hoisting him aloft to the astonishment of passers-by.

Next morning after a good night
'
s sleep and a late breakfast of shredded wheat, George reflected that his research so far had all gone rather splendidly. He made himself a cup of hot chocolate and plumped down on his living room sofa. Although it was barely noon, he felt he was on a roll and was ready to do some research into telephone sex. The classified advertisements offered a range of possibilities and he spread out the paper in front of him. Even so, it was all a bit puzzling. Thumbing through the ads he was clear on the concept but not entirely convinced of its merit.
"
How can you have a sex with someone who is not even in your postal code?
"
he wondered. Only one way to find out, he decided. And that was to make a phone call.

There was one ad in particular that intrigued him.
"
For a good time, call Sadie.
"
George said it out loud. There was a lyricism to it, a cadence. It sounded good.
He remembered seeing a variation of that exact same invitation, with different names of course, scrawled in telephone boxes just about everywhere when he was growing up in the seventies.

"
Well, why not?
"
he thought.
"
Everything is retro these days, so why not retro telephone sex?
"
He drank the last of his hot chocolate and with credit card, notebook and pen at the ready, he dialed Sadie
'
s number.
"
Was he in for a good time?
"
he wondered. Frankly, he didn
'
t know what to expect. He doubted it.