Kinky (13 page)

‘Too many suits. This guy might fit that profile though. He definitely looks artistic. Meaning weird.’

‘Does he?’ I humour him, wanting to get our friendship back on its old footing. ‘What kind of weird?’

‘He looks like someone from the Moscow State Circus or something. And with the best porn tache I’ve ever seen.’

I leap out of my chair and join him at the window, nausea rising in my throat.

‘Where? Let me see.’

‘He’s gone in now. I’ll let you know when he comes out.’

‘So you’re going to stand there all day? What about the Trufax account?’

‘Ah, yeah, forgot about that. Oh, and I’ve seen her before. She goes in there pretty much every day.’

O is wearing a beige trench coat, belted at the waist, and a beret. She looks like a caricature Frenchwoman. The dark glasses, on a day of low November cloud, complete the impression.

‘Do you think she’s one of the hookers?’

‘Could be. That blonde that went in earlier deffo is. High heels, fishnets, the works, at nine fifteen in the morning.’

I thought Trixietots had a day job. What would she be doing there? And is Dimitri with them? And if so, why hasn’t he told me about it?

‘Blonde?’

‘Yeah. Blonde. You’re interested again?’

‘Course I’m interested.’

‘It’s just that you haven’t seemed that bothered lately. Considering how obsessed you used to be with that place. Tell you what, why don’t we go down and stake it out at lunchtime? Like we did that time in the summer.’

‘We didn’t find anything out,’ I remind him, every fibre of my being uneasy.

‘Not that time.’

‘Nah, it’s OK. It’s too cold for hanging around the streets anyway.’

‘Oh! There she is again – the blonde!’

I peer over his shoulder. Trixietots emerges from the black door, swathed in a fake-fur coat, hair swept up and full make-up in place, looking like anything but a sober-suited City worker.

I almost want to close my eyes and pretend I haven’t seen anything.

Especially when Dimitri follows her out.

‘That’s the guy I was telling you about!’

But I can’t reply. All I can do is stare bleakly as he pauses in the covered arch above the door to light a cigarette. Trixietots turns around and says something, laughing. He inclines his head, flirtatiously if you ask me, takes a drag on the cigarette and winks at her. They turn their backs to me and disappear around the corner of the street.

‘Weird-looking guy, right? Who the hell has a moustache like that these days?’

‘I need the loo.’

I spend ten minutes kneeling with my head over the toilet bowl, dizzy, my heart wrenched out of place.

Why? How? Why? How?
The questions keep repeating themselves in a loop while the hard tiles bruise my knees.

Eventually the rushing, roaring sensation subsides and I am able to function, if minimally. I take my phone from my handbag and stare at it, as if I’ve forgotten what it is.

What should I do?

I feel I have to speak to him. Now. I dial his number, trying to work out what I’m going to say and not succeeding overmuch.

It goes to voicemail.

I try again.

Voicemail again. His phone is switched off. He always switches it off for our ‘sessions’.

My head swims with indecision. An impulse forms, quickly, and before I can question it I am heading down the back stairs and out of the building.

I approach Kinky Cupcake from the least visible street corner, scurrying in past the lone morning bouncer, who tilts his head and looks at me with unabashed curiosity. I am hoping that Anton has relinquished his post and is actually getting some work done.

‘Is O in the office?’ I ask breathlessly, signing in.

‘She’s in the dungeon. Checking the equipment. Do you need to see her?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘She won’t be long. Grab a coffee upstairs while you’re waiting.’

‘Cheers, I will.’

But I don’t.

The café is almost empty, just me and the barista and a guy covered in tattoos eating cupcakes in the corner.

I order the coffee and take it to the table nearest the door to the private rooms. It’s a bit of a blind spot, invisible from the bar area, tucked in a corner. I take two sips, wait for the barista to start messing about with his phone then sneak down to the dungeon.

Schoolroom, empty. Medical room, empty. Dungeon …

I push the door and fit my eye to the crack.

I nearly run back upstairs.

O is completely naked, her arms cuffed to a wooden cross, her head thrown back, her spine rubbing against the varnished post in near ecstasy.

After my initial pang, my eye is drawn back to her. She looks so beautiful, so wanton, so desirable. Her legs are slightly parted, exposing her shaved pussy lips and the teeny-tiny tip of her clit, which is pierced, like her nipples. Even when I watched her fucking the other day, she didn’t look this … rapt.

I feel guilty but I can’t stop watching. My forehead nudges the door and it creaks, unexpectedly.

‘Is that you, Mal?’

Her eyes have focused, snap, just like that, and she looks straight at me, expectantly.

I want to run, but my legs have gone. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I gabble, pushing the door. ‘It’s me. I didn’t mean to spy. I just … I wanted to ask you something.’

Her eyes widen and she stares for a silent age. ‘Rosie. Come over here.’

I look back, still contemplating escape, but there’s no point now, so I walk over to her. What can she do to me with her arms strapped to the cross anyway?

‘You can see how I’m fixed,’ she drawls. ‘Mal’ll be here in a minute. He’ll be interested to see you.’

I try to keep my eyes from dropping to her breasts and crotch. I feel a bit like a pervy old man must feel. But she’s so gorgeous, all naked and spread-eagled there.

‘I just wondered,’ I say, feeling ineffably stupid, ‘if you’d seen Dimitri at all this morning.’ I pause. ‘I can’t get hold of him, you see,’ I add helpfully.

‘Ah, Dimitri,’ she says, rolling his name around in her mouth like a fine wine. ‘Isn’t everyone trying to get hold of him?’

She seems to enjoy my anxiety. ‘Are they? Really? Like who?’

‘Oh, just people in general. He’s such an attractive man, isn’t he? Seems tragic to keep him all to yourself. A man like that has so much to offer the community.’

My admiration of her turns to dislike.

‘That’s rather up to him, isn’t it?’ I say tightly. ‘I like this idea that community spirit involves whipping every backside that bares itself to you. Do you think the government would go for that idea? Beats the Big Society, doesn’t it? So to speak.’

She laughs. ‘You’re an interesting girl too, Rosie. To be fair, a lot of the tops have their eyes on you. Including Mal.’

‘Well, I’m not available. Except to Dimitri. Look, do you want me to undo those cuffs?’ O is starting to look uncomfortable.

‘No, it’s fine. Mal won’t thank you for it. I’ve orders to stay like this until he comes back. What you said about only being available to Dimitri though … are you sure he feels that way?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s a free spirit, Rosie. Don’t you see that? He can’t be caged by one person’s jealousy or possessiveness. He needs his space.’

‘You seem to know him very well.’

‘We’ve spoken at length, every time he’s booked a room here. You can’t hang on to a man like that. He’s not for hanging on to. He’s for experiencing and adoring and remembering all your life. But you can’t expect to keep him.’

‘What the hell have you been talking about? You sound like some kind of hippy dippy sixties song lyric.’

‘Let’s just say I’m a good reader of people.’

‘Let’s just say you’re spouting all this crap because you want him for yourself.’

‘I certainly wouldn’t say no. But I wouldn’t try to stifle him either, or keep him from making other people happy.’

‘What about what makes
him
happy? Have you thought about that?’

‘Have you?’

‘Of course … I have.’

She catches the hesitation, a hesitation that comes of seeing him leave the building with Trixietots earlier. Does he want to spread himself around, for love as well as money? Have I just been the practice model, helping him hone his skills for the real deal?

I really didn’t think so. I really thought there was something special between us. But what do I know?

‘He wants to be a pro-dom. Does that sound like a one-woman man to you?’

‘He needs money.’

‘There are so many ways of earning money, my dear. Being a pro-dom isn’t the first one that springs to mind, is it?’

‘Well, it’s something he enjoys and he’s good at it. It doesn’t mean he wants to sleep around. In fact, he’s said loads of times that he wouldn’t have sex with his clients.’

‘He’s said that to
you
.’

‘What, so he’s told you different?’

‘He doesn’t need to. Actions speak louder than words.’

‘What?’ I leap up close to O, stretching on tiptoes so our noses almost touch. It’s an act of aggression, and I wish I could stop myself, but once I’ve done it I can’t seem to step back out of it. ‘What the fuck do you mean by that?’

‘What the fuck do
you
mean by threatening my partner?’ The voice, cold and male, comes from the doorway.

I come to my senses and move back, subdued and close to tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter to Mal as he strides into the room. ‘I didn’t mean to get so worked up.’

‘I suppose this is all about beloved Dimitri, is it?’ he says. He sounds resigned, and a little bit pissed off. ‘O, you know you can’t have him, but it doesn’t stop you from trying, does it?’

A tiny flicker of hope sparks up. I work hard at hanging on to it.

‘She’s obsessed with him,’ he tells me. ‘But he isn’t obsessed with her. When that happens, you have to let it go. You know it, darling, don’t you? But you won’t be told.’ He caresses her under the chin, then takes hold of a nipple and twists it.

I wince in sympathy.

She whimpers, ‘But he’s so pretty. I want him so much.’

‘You can’t have everything. You’re spoiled enough as it is. Have you been telling tales to poor Rosie here? Is that why she got cross with you?’

‘I didn’t tell her anything that wasn’t true.’

She gasps as he smacks the side of her breast, hard. I watch the flesh jiggle and sway.

‘He’s not yours, O. You can’t be his. You’re mine. Repeat it.’

‘I’m yours, master.’

‘That’s right. You forget it too often, pet. I think you need a reminder.’

She smiles at that, a big wonky dirty smile, running her tongue along the top row of her teeth with lascivious glee.

‘Please remind me, master.’

‘I will. And, since Rosie here has been upset by your ridiculous crush, I think she should stay and watch.’

‘If you think so, master.’

‘I do. Is that all right with you, Rosie?’

‘Well, I, er …’

‘Take a seat.’

I still haven’t had a chance to ask about Trixietots, but Mal seems impossible to defy. He is the old-school dom, as opposed to Dimitri’s odd and whimsical version, and he carries his air of authority with him at all times, like a gold-topped cane.

I sit down on the stage and watch while Mal unshackles O from the cross, giving her a moment to stretch her arms and rotate her wrists.

‘I’m going to go for an old favourite, I think,’ he says, going over to the wall and pulling away a piece of furniture that looks like a normal kitchen stool, apart from one thing: the long thick dildo erupting out of the seat like a rocket.

‘Over here, my love,’ says Mal, the words not menacing in themselves, but his tone pure evil.

O looks apprehensive, pouting at Mal as she crosses the floor. ‘You’re really going to make me ride it in front of Rosie?’

‘Have you ever used one of these, Rosie?’ Mal asks me, stroking the mountainous dildo.

‘No.’

‘Dimitri’s missing a trick. Hop on, then.’

The last words are addressed to O, who looks sulkily away from me as she places her feet delicately on the low rungs of the stool, steadying herself with palms flat on the seat. To mount it properly, she has to first kneel above the giant protuberance and lower herself, slowly and with much wincing, down on to it. I watch transfixed as her lips stretch and the latex is slowly swallowed up inside her.

Once it is almost subsumed, she adjusts her legs, painstakingly, standing back on the rungs. This forces her into a position where she has to bend forwards at the waist, hands clasped on the seat in front of her, bottom pushed out.

‘Doesn’t she look nice?’ purrs Mal.

She certainly looks obscene. Mal makes me examine her from every angle, so I see her strained face from the front, her penetrated profile, her wide open bum cheeks from the back.

‘Now, ride. Ride it well. I’m going to use the whip.’

She begins to move herself up and down on the dildo. It looks laborious, her calves shaking and thighs straining with each up-and-down motion.

‘Faster than that.’ Mal selects a wicked-looking flogger and starts lashing it against her bottom. The whoosh and splat are enormously satisfying. O grunts with effort, every facial muscle contracted.

But I don’t want to watch her face. I want to see her arse, jiggling up and down on the thick stalk, changing colour under the lash. I want to see what Dimitri might see.

I can’t deny that it looks incredibly sexy. O’s pert backside seems made for the whip and her slender body looks so fragile yet it must be so strong to keep up the frantic pace Mal seems to require. Her stamina impresses me as she races to the finish, but her criss-crossed rear impresses me even more. The redder and angrier it looks, the more I am turned on until I can hardly bear it, having to scrunch up my fists to keep my fingers away from my skirt hem.

Mal plies his flogger mercilessly, catching the tender spot at the top of O’s thighs until she screams. Oh dear, I think, now he’s gone too far and will have to stop, but then I realise that the scream is not inspired by pain, or only partially so.

O is coming, jolting back and forth, the scream breaking into a series of little whines while the whip falls again and again.