Agony Aunt (5 page)

Harriet was beginning to pant from her efforts, and her arm was getting tired. She realised that he was going to wear her out before he cried stop. And he did. She dropped the strap to the floor after the last blow and stood contemplating her work. The criss-crossing red marks looked painful. He would probably find it uncomfortable to sit down. He would probably remember this beating for a few days to come. That thought gave her some satisfaction, but not enough. She wanted to force him to give some sign that the lashing she had just administered had affected him in some way. She wanted him to feel something as deeply as she had been affected by their earlier coupling. He seemed determined to betray nothing. Harriet, who usually dominated others and won most contests of will, had to concede him a victory on points.

Vexed with herself but trying not to show it, Harriet ordered him to stand up. She took a perverse satisfaction in seeing him rise stiffly, wincing as he straightened up, but she was disappointed again when he said nothing. Indeed, he seemed to have enjoyed the beating, welcoming it as a chance to show her what he was made of. Harriet wondered why she had never noticed his quiet strength before, and it occurred to her that he could easily assume the dominant role if he wanted to. He was obviously restraining himself because he knew she expected it of him and wanted to please her. It was nice to have someone who wanted to please her.

She was uninvolved with most of her other clients, not interested in what they might think of her so long as she gave them what they wanted. Whether or not they liked her was measured by whether they came back for more, and she couldn’t allow herself to worry about their wider emotional needs. There wasn’t enough time for that, although some of her clients – she thought momentarily of Victoria and Helen and Liz – were friends as well. She went even further to give them what they wanted, and she liked talking with them as well. Maybe she was now on the verge of allowing a man into the charmed circle. That would require more thought, she decided, postponing the decision once again. Avoiding a difficult situation – something she usually tackled head-on – gave her an uncomfortable feeling.

The more immediate problem was what to do with Tom while she made up her mind. She didn’t want him to go away and didn’t want to ask him to stay, so she decided to keep him in chains. He didn’t resist as she pulled his arms behind his back and put the handcuffs on his wrists. She locked the leg-irons on him while he stood quietly. She felt better for having gained this breathing space while she decided on her long-term course of action. Tom looked steadily at her in her tight leather outfit as he waited.

But she wasn’t sure what to do with him now, and she felt uncomfortable under his inspection as she struggled to think. This indecision and hesitation was another sign of the turmoil caused by the morning’s frolic – Harriet almost always had a plan to deal with every eventuality, or was quick enough to evolve one on the spur of the moment. Tom’s steady look was disconcerting, forcing her to think on her feet. In the end she could think of nothing better than to take him down to the cellar and lock him in one of the cells. Then she went back upstairs.

The quiet emptiness of the Sunday afternoon stretched before her. She was too agitated to read, and the blandness of the weekend TV programmes offered no distraction.

She was no nearer a solution by bedtime. Creeping down into the basement, she checked on Tom in his cell before going back upstairs to get undressed. She was tired from the exertions of the last 24 hours, and she fell asleep almost at once.

Sleep sometimes brings fresh perspectives, sometimes even solutions, but not this time. Harriet had no wish to face Tom until she had made up her mind about what to do with him, but she knew that sending him away indefinitely, which she had toyed with, was not a solution. It would merely give her time to work out something more permanent. Fiercely independent as she was, Harriet hated to appear indecisive. So she would send away the one person who would know that she was all of these things. The clichés about needing time, space and solitude to work out one’s future had always made Harriet impatient, and she was angry with herself for needing these things herself now. Going down to let Tom out of the cell and to give him her interim decision, she wished things could have remained as they had been for the last eight months.

‘I hope you slept badly after what you did yesterday,’ Harriet said as she opened the door to the cell. But Tom gave the appearance of having slept as well as anyone can in handcuffs and leg-irons, and his glance did not betray any trace of remorse. He moved stiffly, and Harriet guessed the beating she had given him was the cause, but he said nothing about it. She felt her resolve harden in the face of his silent lack of penitence. As she unlocked his chains she spoke brusquely to him.

‘Katrina is expecting you to visit her next weekend. Go see her. I’m going out now, and I’d like you to be gone when I get back. Don’t come back here unless I tell you to.’ The words sounded abrupt and final, but she couldn’t think of any other way to put it. She hoped that he would not see how undecided she was, but she was afraid he already knew. She left him in the cellar and hurried out.

2

Passing Trade

Harriet wasn’t expecting anyone on the Thursday morning, so the knocking at her door was both a surprise and a minor annoyance. She had been rather looking forward to some free time to think about how she would deal with Tom when he got back from Katrina’s. She hoped that things were going well for Katrina’s sake, but for her own sake she hoped Tom had started to worry about his dismissal and would return in an unsettled state. That was the way she liked him to be. It helped her keep the upper hand.

She opened the door and was confronted by a woman of about 20 or 21. Pretty, Harriet thought, without being beautiful. She had a worried look on her face, as if she might be in the wrong place, or was having second thoughts about being there at all. For a moment they looked at one another in silence. Then the young woman spoke.

‘Harriet Jones?’ she asked in what was almost a whisper. She shook herself visibly and repeated the question more plainly, as if she had plucked up her courage.

Harriet nodded. ‘And you are?’

‘Rachel Greenbaum.’ She said nothing more, and the look of uneasiness came over her again.

Harriet thought the woman looked as if she needed some help or direction. She forgot her annoyance at the unexpected interruption. ‘Come in,’ Harriet invited her. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea for us.’ She was accustomed to meeting strangers who pitched up on her doorstep. Some of her clients were regulars, but many were passing trade. With them she never knew whom she might be dealing with, but usually managed to find out a good deal about them over tea – the universal English social solvent – before going ahead.

Hesitantly, the other woman entered the house, looking apprehensively at the interior as if she expected to see everything in lurid red. Harriet assumed she knew something about the business carried on here, otherwise there would be no reason to come with such a worried air. Tea might elicit information. Harriet led her unexpected guest through into the kitchen and indicated a chair at the table.

‘Sit down, Rachel, and you can tell me what I can do for you while the kettle boils. And relax.’ She sat down across from the young woman and studied her in more detail. Black hair, worn rather longer than was fashionable; good strong mouth, with full lips; wide dark eyes. Her clothes suggested restrained good taste. She was Harriet’s own height, which made her somewhat shorter than average, with full breasts and a narrow waist that made the older woman feel a bit envious. Her hips flared out nicely, and her legs were well proportioned. Maybe she would turn into a real beauty but it was hard to tell at the moment, with the worried frown creasing her forehead.

‘I . . . need some help,’ Rachel got out.

That was a familiar opening gambit. Harriet waited for her to continue.

Finally she did, but obliquely. ‘I have come into an unusual inheritance from my grandmother. Actually two things: one psychological – something like a personality trait, I mean – and the other more tangible.’ Rachel indicated the bag she had been carrying.

Harriet was intrigued. Could it contain bundles of banknotes or the old woman’s jewellery? Rachel opened the bag, and Harriet soon saw that it didn’t contain fabulous wealth – not that she had seriously expected it would. Rachel drew out a leather garment which resembled a straitjacket, but one intended to enclose the whole person, not just the trunk and arms as most modern ones did. It looked old, too. It was deeply creased, as if it had been folded away for a long time, but the leather was still pliable. Obviously it had been well cared for by someone over the years.

Rachel rose and held the garment up for Harriet to inspect, looking embarrassed but determined to go on with what she had begun. The straitjacket was made of dark brown leather and even now there were dull highlights as the light struck it. It had laces up the back and a thick collar that obviously buckled around the wearer’s neck once he – no, she, Harriet corrected herself, for there were cups to accommodate a woman’s breasts – was laced into it. There were brass rings sewn to it at the front and sides. The bottom half resembled a tapered sack with an angled part obviously intended to accommodate the wearer’s feet, who would then be enclosed from her neck to her toes. There was a wide belt at the waist and a further series of straps which buckled at the knees and ankles. Another stout brass ring was sewn to the bottom, under the place the wearer’s feet would be when she was in residence, as it were. The long sleeves ended in thumbless mittens, and there were straps sewn to the ends of the sleeves to secure the arms against the body.

Harriet had heard of similar garments. In her role as dominatrix in residence to her friends and others, she had a thorough knowledge of most of the types of restraints, both historical and modern. This was one of the former type. She recognised it as a sleeping restraint intended to keep the wearer from masturbating – ‘touching herself as it had been coyly termed in the age when such garments were more in vogue. The reference to Rachel’s grandmother suggested that it had been hers, which dated it anywhere from the end of the nineteenth to the early part of the twentieth century. Rachel must have had an unusual grandmother – she didn’t think many women would have required one of these. Or maybe Rachel’s great-grandparents had been especially keen to keep their daughter from learning about sex – as was not uncommon then. On closer examination Harriet noticed one other refinement: an extra set of small straps and buckles which could be used to secure the wearer’s fingers into clenched fists, making her hands completely useless for any purpose.

‘You know what this is?’ Rachel asked.

Harriet nodded. ‘It was called a sleeping garment, or sometimes merely a female restraint. Your grandmother’s parents must have been worried about her masturbating. They probably told her that she would drive herself insane if she didn’t leave herself alone. They might have even said that the women in the madhouses had been put there because they couldn’t stop their sexual experiments – though I’d bet they never used that particular term. I’ve read about similar cases.’

‘Exactly,’ Rachel replied. ‘My mother told me the story, which she had been told by
her
mother, of course. I also remember going to visit my grandmother when I was ten years old or so. My grandfather answered the door and said that Nanny was upstairs resting. He invited us – me and my mother – in for a cup of tea. My mother was worried, but he told us it was nothing serious, that they’d come in late after dinner and Nan hadn’t been able to sleep properly.

‘Before we left I had to go to the toilet. As I crossed the landing I peeked into their bedroom and saw Nan all trussed up in this and lying on the bed. She seemed to be asleep, so I didn’t look closer or stay too long. I remember thinking it was a curious way to sleep, and later when I asked my mother about it she got all flustered. She said something about keeping Nan from hurting herself while she slept. I asked her if all older people had to be kept from hurting themselves when sleeping, and if she had ever hurt herself that way. I couldn’t think of how anyone could get hurt just by going to sleep, but my mother shushed me up and changed the subject.

‘Years later, when she finally got around to telling me about sex – with all the usual embarrassed stammers – she told me a little about her mother’s early life. She must have thought of it as a cautionary tale, but instead I imagined myself having to be all bundled up to keep me from “touching myself there”. I told her about what I had seen and asked her if that was why Nan had been strapped into her straitjacket that day. Mum got flustered all over again and changed the subject once more. But I remembered Nan lying there all strapped up and felt a tingle of excitement. It might be nice – exciting and sort of safe and warm and protected at the same time, I thought – to be strapped in like that.’

‘And do you still think so?’ Harriet asked, though by now she thought she could guess the answer.

‘That’s why I’m here,’ Rachel retorted. ‘Can you help me?’

‘Of course I can, if you mean can I truss you up and leave you alone. A lot of the people who come to me ask for that. But is that all you want?’ Seeing Rachel’s questioning look, Harriet continued. ‘Do you want to masturbate and have me walk in and catch you so that I can reprimand you and then insist on putting you into your restraint? Or would you prefer to be put into the restraint with a dildo inside you so that you can amuse yourself? And how long do you have to devote to the game? An hour? Several? Or do you have any other fantasies you’d like to act out? Tell me what you think would please you and I’ll try to do whatever you want.’

Rachel seemed taken aback by Harriet’s matter-of-fact acceptance and the catalogue of things that could be done to her. But she rallied. ‘I think I’d like to see how it feels to be laced into this,’ Rachel said softly, indicating the leather straitjacket she had brought. ‘I’d like to know how it feels to be unable to touch myself or to do anything unaided. And I want to experience the sensation of the leather tight around me, like a second skin.’ Rachel’s voice shook slightly as she said that.