Bound to You (11 page)

‘Beats working in an office all day. And for The Man.’ She gave me another, more effusive smile. It was the smile of a cream-fed cat. I couldn’t decide whether I found her pretty or not. I found her something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

Gina eyed Sapphire suspiciously. I could tell that she didn’t think too much of her. Having seen that I seemed relaxed, she made her excuses and slipped away. But I stayed. I was intrigued.

‘I used to work in the spa industry, you see,’ she explained. ‘In Paris. Serving a lot of very prissy, spoilt women all day long. I’m an excellent service provider so one day I figured there had to be a more lucrative way of making money out of the fact that I enjoy indulging people.’

Service provider. That was an odd way to put it. Weren’t dominatrices usually duped man-haters, or women that had been abused by demonic father figures as little girls?

‘That’s interesting.’ I replied. ‘I thought you had to enjoy beating up men to be a dominatrix.’

‘Oh, well, don’t get me wrong – the beating comes later. I’m not a natural sadist, though. It’s really more about mind games. I mean, I do tie them up, spank them, use CBT on them . . .’

‘CBT?’ I asked. The only CBT I knew was cognitive behavioural therapy, the technique the eating disorder clinic had used to try to get me to believe I wasn’t fat when I weighed less than six stone.

‘Cock and ball torture,’ Sapphire said. ‘Basically, tying pretty ribbons around their private parts. Or clipping on weights. Just makes the area more sensitive.’

‘So you touch them?’

‘Only minimally. Usually not with my hands. With a cane or a crop or something. She glanced down. ‘Or my shoe. And you? What do you do?’ she enquired.

‘Oh, I’m a journalist. Well, I’m trying to be a journalist. I’ve been interning but the magazine I was working for couldn’t pay me so I’m probably going to temp again.’ I could have lied but she’d only ask me what publication I worked for. And besides, you never knew who you were going to meet at one of these parties, and what contacts they might have. It paid to be honest.

‘Where do you temp?’

‘At a hospital. As a medical secretary. It’s an odd use of my degree, but at least it’s helping people.’

She smiled, nodded, lit a cigarette. Then said, ‘You have a great figure, you know.’ She gestured to my chest.

‘Oh, well, no, I don’t.’ I blushed. ‘A decent rack is just one of the perks of not being skinny.’ I could see that she was pretty lean herself, with a small bosom. ‘But I’m comfortable in my own skin,’ I continued. ‘Sex appeal doesn’t have much to do with dress size. I learned that the hard way.’

She stared at me thoughtfully, as if totting something up to herself. But she didn’t ask me any more questions.

‘Nice shoes, too. Not that I ever get to wear open-toes myself these days!’

I was puzzled. I looked again at the acute triangular toes of her patent kitten heels. I’d always had a curious contempt for patent leather ever since my mum had bought me some shiny black sandals as a child. I had refused them because I thought they were too tarty. I must only have been six. How could I have known what tarty was? But I did. Then I went to a party where a classmate of mine was wearing the same sandals and I remember feeling regretfully covetous.

This time my curiosity got the better of me. ‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I’m just so busy. I can’t keep up with the clients, so I’m nearly always dressed for work! And you can’t wear open-toed shoes for my job. I’ve a late booking after this, in fact. He’s picking me up. Here, take my business card. Have a look at my website over the weekend. Do you have a card?’

I shook my head regretfully.

‘What’s your mobile number?’

I reeled it off unthinkingly, then scolded myself. Why hadn’t I asked what she wanted it for? Did she want me to interview her or something? God knows who would take that as a pitch. Domination wasn’t unusual enough to elicit a news story but neither was it acceptable enough for a feature on alternative career women, for example. Sapphire was a sex worker. And who ever wanted a piece about sex workers unless it was a report on punter violence or police miscarriages of justice?

‘I’m going to call you,’ she said. ‘How do you fancy being my vanilla girl?’

‘Your what?’

‘All you have to do is sit there and stare at the clients as I dominate them. Not every session, but two or three times a week, just for an hour. You don’t have to wear anything special and you don’t have to say a word. And I’ll pay you for your time, of course. It’ll be a lot more than your hourly rate at the hospital.’

I hesitated. I felt out of my depth. Christine Keeler aside, I knew virtually nothing about the sex industry, past or present, except that it was something proper feminists were supposed to be very anti. But I needed money and the petite demon in me longed for mischief. I was curious. And above all, I needed a distraction. I couldn’t keep dwelling on the Greek tragedy that had become mine and Christos’s shattered future.

‘Well, that sounds great. I’ll look at your website.’ But I did have one immediate question. ‘What’s in it for them if I’m, er, vanilla?’

‘The thrill of seeing your first-timer’s face react spontaneously to their submission. It’s such a turn-on for them.’

So it was my vanilla-girl virginity they were after. My first time to be faked again and again. Hmm. I wasn’t used to being a faker! But I was a good actress. I wondered how long you could stay vanilla, though.

‘You’re going to be fabulous,’ she told me. ‘I can’t wait!’ And with that she wrapped her red lacquered fingers around my arm, then swept out.

I wandered back over to Gina, who was chatting with the now unleashed Wolf. ‘How was your inquisition with the Mistress?’ Gina joked. ‘Did she try to recruit you to her Dark Arts or something? Jamie says she’s always scouting parties in the hope of finding an assistant.’

‘Gina, I’m a journalist,’ I reminded her.

I reminded myself.

I looked at Sapphire’s website over the weekend, as instructed. It had pictures of Sapphire in queenly pose, shot from the perspective of someone on their knees, and looking as though she could tear a man limb from limb with just her aggressive smile. Sapphire in white jodphurs with a riding crop; Sapphire in an elegant rubber prom dress holding aloft a pair of women’s knickers; Sapphire dressed in a power suit and vertiginous stilettos, brandishing an unfastened collar in her beautifully manicured hands.

On Tuesday, Sapphire called me.

‘Hi, Nichi, how are you? Had a good weekend? Did you manage to take a look at the website? Nothing too terrifying on there, I hope!’

I had perused a list setting out what Sapphire would do: over-the-knee spanking, tie and tease, public humiliation, feminisation, strap-on worship, foot worship, and CBT – the same CBT that she had explained to me at the party. Underneath the list was an ambiguous statement. ‘This is not exhaustive and I am happy to consider your proposal for subservience to me. If you’re lucky, I might even satisfy it.’ There was also a disclaimer. ‘Please note: I do NOT offer intimate body worship, penetrative sex or hard sports. DO NOT ASK FOR THESE SERVICES.’

‘No, nothing too alarming,’ I replied, mirroring her language.

‘Well, like I said, all you have to do is sit there and stare. Now, about the money . . .’

On her website, I had clicked on ‘Rates’. Jesus. This woman earned as much in two hours as I did working a full week at the hospital.

‘Obviously as you’re only my assistant we can’t charge for you the same as for me, but how does a hundred pounds an hour sound to start with? We can always raise it once . . . well, let’s just see if you enjoy it first.’

One hundred pounds an hour? Lord, this sounded too easy to be true. To sit there and stare? I mean, any idiot could get that from me for free on the tube if I was feeling sod-side out, as we say in Yorkshire.

‘So, the client I went to see after the party, well, I was telling him about you. Don’t worry, nothing personal, not your name or occupation or anything like that. He’d love to meet you. Are you free on Thursday?’

Yes, I was free on Thursday. Technically, I was free every day. I was unemployed, after all. But . . . No buts, I told myself. It was one hundred pounds.

‘Yes, I’m free on Thursday.’

‘Oh, that’s great. So his name is Robert and he’d like to take us to lunch, which he’ll pay for, and then back to my office for a session. I’ll be chastising him, all you have to do is watch me. And then you can go home. With one hundred pounds.’

What was there to say, apart from, ‘Sounds great.’

‘Wonderful! Well, I’ll text you the name of the restaurant. It’s some Italian place. As for costume, well, you suit dresses, so just remember to look like an everyday girl. Wear what you’d wear if we were having lunch together. Anyway, I’d better run, my eleven o’clock is here. Oh, and one more thing – think of a new name for yourself. We never use our real names.’

Two nights later and I lay in bed wondering what I was letting myself in for. I had hung up my outfit on the wardrobe. It consisted of a dark flared dress decorated with tiny roses, with sleeves and a high neck, and barely heeled Mary Janes. It didn’t shout sex; it announced sedately that I had more important things on my mind than flaunting my flesh.

I had been through the safety issues with Sapphire on the phone earlier that afternoon. ‘The lady I rent the office from is also an escort. She knows exactly what time I’m meant to be in and what time I’m meant to be out. I text her when I arrive and when I leave, and she comes and checks up on me if she doesn’t hear anything. There’s a water-based fire extinguisher in the room we work in. If anything was ever to go wrong I’d hose them! But it won’t. It never has. There’s nothing to worry about.’

I had so many other concerns and questions, though. Would the client wear shirt and braces? Have halitosis? Call us ‘my dears’? I mean, what exactly were these men’s motivations? Was this just going to be an excuse for them to ogle our young, firm (well, firm-ish) bodies? Or were they after something else altogether? And how would it feel watching someone taunt and tease someone else sexually? Sure, I’d watched porn, but never the domination kind. I knew this was play violence but – was it? Did you have to be a bit unhinged to indulge in it?

I couldn’t answer any of these questions. I would just have to wait and see. Just think of it as acting, I told myself. After all, that’s what I’d wanted to do all the while I was growing up. And if it’s terribly disturbing, you never have to do it again. One for the memoirs. Besides, who knows – it might even turn out to be thrilling. Despite my nerves, I giggled to myself at the thought, before finally sinking into sleep.

‘This is Robert.’

Robert, Robert. My, what a ham of a man you are, Robert, I thought. Robert actually looked like a waxy ham, as he glistened damply beneath his striped polo shirt. Mid-height, receding hairline concealed with a crew cut. He was alarmingly normal.

‘We’ll have one gin and tonic, Robert. And one mineral water. I’m allergic to alcohol,’ she confided in a stage whisper. I hadn’t noticed that at the party but then I’d been too engrossed in our conversation to observe what Sapphire had been drinking. She’d remembered my usual, though. The Ham wove clumsily between the chairs to the bar.

‘So, did you think of a name for yourself?’

‘Yes!’ I said brightly. ‘Athena!’ From one goddess to another, I’d decided. I don’t know why but I thought giving myself a Greek name would somehow enlist Christos as a kind of invisible protector.

Sapphire winced. ‘Hmm, it’s a bit – artificial. I think for a vanilla girl you need something simpler. How about . . .’ Her eyes scanned the room, then she paused and looked right at me. ‘How about Jade? Jade suits you so much better. Draws attention to those gorgeous green eyes!’

Her bleached teeth beamed at me like little pearl-handled knives. The Ham was struggling back from the bar with the drinks. ‘Oh, and quickly, while I remember, I’ve told him you’re a student; most of them love thinking they’re helping out some poor girl who needs the money to study! Just play along with it!’

‘Permission to pass you your drink, Madam?’ the Ham said breathlessly to Sapphire.

Sapphire nodded and held out her hand. ‘Give Mistress Jade hers too, please.’

Mistress Jade! This was hilarious and bizarre. But it did make me feel pleasingly superior.

‘Mistress Sapphire says you’re studying politics, Mistress Jade. I’ve got an MA in political science, myself.’ A thin twang of Tyneside seeped out of one side of the Ham’s mouth.

‘Literature, actually,’ I corrected him with a smile. I looked at Sapphire to check this was OK. She winked back at me.

‘How’s work?’ she asked him. It was an innocuous enough question, but also weirdly personal. Did the clients really want to talk about their everyday strains and stresses like this? Apparently so. Over the course of lunch it transpired that the Ham was a self-made man. Not quite a millionaire, but the CEO of a PR agency, all the same. He had a chip on his shoulder about where he’d come from, and how far he’d come since. It was the most unattractive thing about him.

‘Would you like dessert, Mistress Jade?’ Robert asked.

‘No thank you.’

Sapphire’s head tilted almost imperceptibly.

Uh oh. I wasn’t meant to be polite, was I? It was harder than I thought to be rude and mean. I corrected myself. ‘No.’ My voice tinkled unpleasantly, like the only coin in a charity tin. I was going to need to master coolly scathing the way Sapphire had.

The bill came and was paid.

Sapphire was hardening before my eyes. She flicked her head towards Robert. ‘Go to the bathroom and think about what you’ve done. Mistress Jade and I will wait outside.’

What had he done, I thought? Apart from telling a couple of truly abysmal jokes. Maybe that’s just what she said to all of them.

‘Yes, Madam.’

As he left, Sapphire turned to me. ‘Forget your manners. It’s a turn-off.’

‘God, I know, I’m sorry’.

She shot me a look. We both laughed. ‘Argh, no more sorries!’ I scolded myself. Sapphire was friendly towards me right now but something told me she could ice me out in a second. Correcting myself was better than having her do it.