Going Too Far

Table of Contents

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Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9780753525203

 

Black Lace novels contain sexual fantasies.

In real life, make sure you practise safe sex.

 

First published in 2001 by

Black Lace

Thames Wharf Studios,

Rainville Road, London W6 9HA

Copyright © Laura Hamilton 2001

The right of Laura Hamilton to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typeset by SetSystems Ltd, Saffron Walden, Essex

Printed and bound by Mackays of Chatham
PLC

ISBN 0 352 33657 9

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

‘I suppose it’s all about power,’ I said defiantly, almost condescendingly, as Carlos slipped his hand up and down the wet satin.

He laughed in genuine amusement. ‘Sure it’s about power. But more than that, Bliss. I take part of my pleasure from giving it to you, as well as from seeing you unable to help responding to me.’

‘Why? Do you take pleasure from humiliating me in public?’

‘No, Bliss. You were getting pleasure from that. Weren’t you?’

Of course I was. Don’t we all like that element of danger in misbehaving in public, even if it’s only as a teenager, snogging in your bedroom when your mum might burst in at any minute, or being felt up in the back row of the cinema.

‘If what I’m feeling now isn’t a sign that you’re getting pleasure,’ he said smugly, ‘then I can only assume you’ve wet yourself.’

ON THE EDGE

FIRE AND ICE

I
 don’t like safety nets. Life should be a journey of adventure, not a trip through the maze of savings schemes and endowment policies with a nice pension waiting at the end, giving you the illusion that whatever happens, you’re protected. When I booked my ticket for three months in South America my idea of taking sensible precautions was making an appointment to have my eyelashes dyed and my hair cut to avoid unnecessary grooming while on the road, not to mention the Inca Trail. However, in one of his occasional, guilt-provoked and sometimes unwelcome acts of financial generosity, Dad insisted on paying for me to have what he called a ‘sound insurance policy’.

What I said about safety nets being an illusion: here’s the perfect example. Thanks to Dad I was insured against flight delays, luggage losses, missing money, robbery, sickness, injury, death and disease. The only thing he hadn’t protected me against was something neither of us could have foreseen: the fact that my friend and travelling companion would break her leg ten days before we were due to go.

Rachel put up with my scathing fury for at least five minutes before she put the phone down on me. While I couldn’t blame her – after all, how many times do you want someone to call you a stupid selfish thoughtless cow? –I don’t think it was out of order to express my contempt for her choice of that particular weekend to try out downhill mountain biking in Ingleborough, particularly on the wheelie version of off-piste.

Having done the shouting – at least for now – I turned to practicalities, which meant first of all an anaesthetic in the form of a large lemon vodka from the freezer – special offer at the Co-op – and secondly a trawl through my mental address book. While I could easily have found someone to step in at the last minute for a week in Turkey or Cephalonia, a three-month trip around South America was going to be a problem. The only people I knew who could take three months off work, or who had no work to take three months off, couldn’t afford it.

Maybe an ad in
Time Out
? That seemed like the best bet:

THELMA SEEKS LOUISE! Smart, intelligent designer, F, 30, n/s, suddenly let down due to illness, seeks companion for three-month trip to South America, starting in Peru in ten days’ time, ending in Argentina, including walking, camping, sightseeing, wine drinking. Only solvent, personable fit applicants please, with photo.

I wrote it on the back of an envelope, crossed it out and started again, then crumpled it up and chucked it. This was a three-month trip, not just a few drinks in All Bar One. What if I got a psychopath? Someone who seemed fine in London but turned into a nutter once we were tucked up in the specially purchased lightweight tent in the middle of the Atacama Desert? I’d be better off on my own.

Besides, people never take me seriously at first. Well, how many people do you know called Bliss? My mother, lovely as she is, was a drippy hippy when I was conceived on Plumpton Racecourse though in fairness to her I should point out that at the time there was a pop festival going on rather than a horse race. It could have been worse: she could have named me after one of the bands there. I don’t much fancy Fairport, Sabbath or Purple. Or Plum, after the location. Anyway she’s probably got it wrong about the bands that actually did play; after all it was only months after the end of the 60s, and going by the state of her memory Mum was definitely there.

Dad was – and still is – a Dutchman called Willem van Bon. They’d met two days before and got together in a haze of peace, love and marijuana, and I was conceived under canvas or, as Mum usually claims, in the woods on the edge of the field as Deep Purple closed the concert. I’ve always felt a bit miffed that they didn’t make it the Isle of Wight festival; it’s the one everyone’s heard of. I wonder what difference it might have made to me if I’d been conceived to the strains of Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan rather than Deep Purple.

You might think after Plumpton Mum and Dad would go their separate ways before they even knew I was in the pipeline, but in fact they fell in love and she went to live in Holland with him. She goes misty-eyed when she tells me about how cool it was in Amsterdam, where Dad was a student. Unfortunately laid-back life in the communal house by the canal where they took turns to cook the lentils and buy the dope came to an end once he graduated and moved to Rotterdam, bought a suit and got a job. Within a couple of years, thanks to the Arabs raising oil prices, he was making loads of money in the new business of oil trading, but the suit had been enough for Mum and she’d already taken me back to England to get her head together, leaving me cheated of any memory of the land of my father and fumbling in the dark of the three-day week that was making him rich.

Having rejected the material world of Rotterdam Mum was content with making macramé potholders in a tatty flat in Stoke Newington, not that the tattiness impinged on me. The area was happily multicultural and when I went to school a year later I mixed naturally and joyfully with friends such as Earl and Yasmin and Elvena and Hassan as well as Emma and Susan and Robert. It wasn’t until I went to comprehensive school that I realised that Bliss van Bon was a bit of a strange label to be saddled with.

I digress. The third thing I had to do was phone Kip and bawl him out. He’s my second best friend, occasional fuck and unfortunately the little shit who’d taken Rachel down Ingleborough the hard way.

‘Don’t say a word, Bliss. I’m coming round.’

Then the bastard put the phone down.

I suppose he guessed that I wouldn’t be able to sit fuming for half an hour until he got here and hoped I’d have recovered a bit of my cool in the meantime. He should know me better by now; I’m good at doing angry. To reinforce it I rifled through the guide books, picking out all the places where they suggested you didn’t go alone, where you were likely to get mugged, pickpocketed or even murdered. South America did most emphatically not seem the sort of continent where a girl wanted to be on her own. Kip had some explaining to do. What made him decide to introduce Rachel to mountain biking at this particular moment in her life? I couldn’t even force him into taking her place. Well, I suppose I could try, but after serving years of his apprenticeship in journalism, starting with the
Hackney Gazette
and working his way up through the lifestyle pages of different newspapers and magazines, he’s recently landed a job at
Slice
magazine. Yes, that one, the style bible of the seriously cool and achingly rich. I can’t even afford the magazine, never mind the stuff in it. Unless he could convince his editor that South America was where it was at, cutting-edge-wise, and he needed three months to research it, I was on my own.

The phone rang; Vicki wanted to drop off some stuff at the flat while she had the use of her brother’s car. I had to agree, despite the fact that it would interrupt whatever revenge I was going to exact on Kip, as I wanted to make sure nothing went wrong with our little arrangement. She’s moving in while I’m away, paying the full rent, as she’s just split up with her partner and needs some breathing space. The timing couldn’t have been better. It’s not a great flat, I have to say, but Stratford’s quite convenient and I’ve been too busy trying to learn Spanish and practise my nonexistent camping skills in Epping Forest to want to pack up my stuff and trek over to Mum’s with it. It’s a shame Vicki’s gay otherwise I could enlist her help in some special revenge game, but there you go.

Kip beat her to it. I pulled him through the door and into the sitting room by his tie – didn’t know they were back in fashion – and threw him into the middle of the room, where he landed quite gracefully on the sofa. I hadn’t meant to do that – I had intended him to hit the deck – but, seeing as Kip actually enjoys pain, maybe it was better not to indulge him when I was out to punish him. But sometimes it gets confusing thinking of everything the opposite way round to the norm.