The Contract (Nightlong #1) (17 page)

All of it.

Having seen how swiftly life could be taken away, twelve souls delivered up to heaven just like that, it had become clear to me that documenting everything to do with the here, and the now – basically all matters of life – was of paramount importance.

2010

“YOU’VE GOT SAINT CLAIR NEXT, okay?” Miss Lindy said, my House Madam. I’d heard about Saint Clair, but this was my first time with him… and I wasn’t sure what to expect, except to find him as gorgeous and great smelling as all the other girls had described.

“Okay.” I gulped.

I’d just finished painting a man with lipstick dot to dots and joining the dots with scratch marks… so Saint Clair couldn’t be any worse, right? He’d probably be a walk in the park in comparison.

Half of me wondered why I hadn’t yet run back home to Ireland with my tail between my legs. I could’ve even gone to a northern English city where my salary could pay the rent and still afford me some money for food. There was a dream, though… one of me pursuing life in the big city and actually achieving it. I was still young enough to follow that dream and if playing a naughty schoolgirl would eventually land me that dream, so be it. If eventually the place got me down so much the dream faded, I’d leave and find life elsewhere. It was a big world.

I waited patiently in my little room for him to arrive. It was a bleak room. Black paint peeled off the walls, a lamp sat beside the single bed to light the room and I had made the place look like a teenager’s den with some pop star posters on the walls and all my pink accessories on a little dressing table in the corner. Pink hairbrush, pink comb, nail polishes, make-up set, deodorant and silly girly perfumes.

“Come in,” I said, when there was a knock on the door.

In shuffled a man with his head bowed, a crown of blond hair shadowing his face. He flung his coat over the chair at the dressing table and slammed his butt down on the bed, head in his hands. Was he normally so, offish?

He didn’t shut the door so I shut it for him, trapping us in a small space together.

“I’m Cleo,” I said, but when I spoke, he didn’t look up.

“Call me Saint Clair.”

“All the words? Or just Saint? I’ve always been partial to a bit of Val Kilmer.”

He looked up and bleary green eyes stared back at me. He seemed weary and exhausted, but he was beautiful and I felt a tiny flutter in my heart.

“Saint Clair,” he repeated, in an obnoxious tone.

Did he hate himself? Was the self-given name derisive, or an in-joke?

He seemed as frail as a whelping pup and I dared not break this man, but this was what he was here for. If there was one thing working in clubs had taught me, specifically clubs like this anyway, it was that in times of need we all seek out the dark to wrap ourselves in its cloying embrace. Only people naturally happy in life don’t see the attraction of vacating the comfy confines of their own home to actually venture out to barbaric environs where anything goes. Literally – anything.

“Trixy told me you like pain but it’s not something I really do for my guys,” I said, outlining my services. “Perhaps you could be the naughty teacher, watching through the gap in the door of the girl’s toilets as I do my make-up.”

He nodded briefly and I gestured to the Chinese curtain at the back of the room. He stood and unfolded it, then got behind the wooden drape. Through the slight slits I saw him sat on his knees, peering – perving.

I went to the dressing table and began applying all my make-up. I was always baby-faced when clients showed up. I went through several baby wipes each night. It was a wonder I still had any skin left. Everyone knew I was
of age
… though in many ways, I was still very young. Miss Lindy wouldn’t have me doing anything out of bounds. She implemented strict rules.

Talking of rules, a part of me wanted to break them with this gorgeous man. I wanted to take the sad look out of his eye with a little kiss or a hug. He seemed so lonely. How could someone so beautiful look so alone?

When I finished my face, I looked in the mirror and asked, “How’s that, Mr Saint Clair?”

“Beautiful. If you’d just stay there…”

I heard him shuffling, and feeling frightened, I merely sat at my dressing table and waited.

He barked out a cry and came, having brought himself to orgasm.

This wasn’t in the rules… but I didn’t know what this was.

“Tissues!” he begged.

I grabbed my extra big pack of wet wipes and took them across the room. “These are all I have.”

He snatched them out of my hand as I held them around the corner of the divide and he began cursing as he cleaned himself and the floor up (I imagined). I tried not to look through the slits in the Chinese curtain, afraid to see something disgusting. I’d only had sex once and it’d been while I was drunk, in the toilets of a dirty old man’s pub/club. Lucky me, I’d gotten pregnant on my first go… and the guy’s penis had been unmemorable. Alcohol and the low self-esteem Mum had instilled in me had a lot to answer for.

Saint Clair folded up the Chinese curtain angrily, his hands struggling with the rusty hinges. I leaned over to help him but he flinched and cursed me, “I can bloody do it.”

When he’d folded it away, he looked at me and barked, “Is that it then?”

I slapped him hard and fiercely across the cheek. Who knew where it came from, but he feckin’ well made me mad. I read somewhere that the man who has your anger has control of you, and I understood that already, having only been in the same room as him for mere minutes. I was as cool as a cucumber normally.

We both stood still, shell shocked. He looked at the wall, his eyes wide. His cheek where I’d slapped him burned red.

“Do the other side,” he barked, “so I’m even.”

I was so angry, I did it without thinking, slapping the other side of his face too.

He smiled down at me. “I’ll be back again. Make sure you wear the same outfit.”

***

HE did return for several visits and each time, he did whatever he did behind the screen, always the same. I refused to get angry enough to slap him but sometimes, my tongue ran riot with a few curse words for his standoffish demeanour and I let him know I didn’t like him.

Eventually, I ended up snapping, “What the hell gets you off about me putting garish make-up on?”

I didn’t know why he riled me, but he did. I couldn’t help myself. I never spoke like this to any other guy that came to visit. I cared what it was about me that made him aroused and made him… come. Yes, come. He evidently made himself come while looking at me and of course I was interested to know why.

“It’s not the make-up,” he said, eyes to the floor.

“What, then?”

“I’d rather not say, if it’s alright.”

I frowned. No, it wasn’t alright.

“Well,” I said laughing, scratching the back of my hair, “you come here and don’t ask to lick my boots or anything and then you just… it makes me wonder why you come at all.”

“Why do you come at all? I think that’s a more pressing question,” he said, looking angry too.

“Money.”

He sniffed back a disgusted laugh. “Money?”

“Money.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“What other reason could I have? Hmm. Not all the wrinklies that come here are as good-looking as you.”

“I’m a wrinkly?”

I winked. “You sometimes act like one.”

He grabbed his coat off the back of the dressing table chair and cleared his throat before barking, “You’re impossible.”

He left the room and I whispered to myself, “You’re impossible.”

***

A few weeks later, he finally drummed up the courage to ask me to rub his back, which I did do – because it was easier than listening to him wanking off and me trying to figure out what made him want to wank off! God, he was infuriating.

I straddled his perfect arse in his perfect slacks and rubbed his perfect naked back – hating him!

Literally, couldn’t someone just drive the feckin’ tool off a cliff or something?

“So, there’s no reason you’re here other than to earn money?” He began the conversation.

“None whatsoever.”

“Why does a girl like you need this kind of money?”

“What do you mean,
this kind of money
?”

“Haven’t you looked in the mirror? You could do anything. Why this?”

“I fell into it I suppose,” I confessed, “and honestly, I dunno… I have a boring day job and the contrast between this and it works. It just works for me. Keeps me outta trouble.”

“What’s your story?” he asked, his face mostly head-down in the pillow, arms propping up his head. “You have an accent. Ran away from Catholic seminary or something, did you?”

I laughed. “Funny. Given you’re calling me repressed, I’d say that’s what you are!”

“Hmm, okay… so you didn’t run away from repression. What about, trouble? You ran from trouble.”

Angry, and abrupt, I leapt off his back and shouted, “A teenage pregnancy gone wrong if you must know, and fuck if it’s any of your business, but I came to London to live an exciting life. I was bored and me family were all feckin’ arseholes… treated me like shit.”

He sat up on the bed in just his trousers and socks and I averted my eyes from his muscled body and deltoids that were simply to die for. Seriously, how did he get them that way? So pronounced, while the rest of him was slender in comparison. So defined… and real. He looked strong.

“I have a proposition, but it’ll mean you learning to administer pain. I like pain, remember?”

“What sort of proposition?”

“A business one. Outside of this place.”

“I can’t do that–”

“Seriously, Miss O’Donoghue–”

I stepped forward, eyes wide, a finger pointed at him. “How the fuck do you know me real name?”

He smiled, so smarmily, I was ready to slap him. I really wanted to.

“Go on, let it go, come on,” he encouraged me, and I lashed out and slapped his chest hard.

He let his head snap back and bit his lip. “Oh, I don’t think we’re going to have any problems. What’s your email address?”

“I’ll not betray Miss Lindy. She’s helped me out a lot, you know? I can afford electricity because of her.”

“This is business, Cleo. Don’t be fooled. She’s using you for your looks as much as she’s swindling me for giving me a dominatrix who doesn’t dominate. Don’t you doubt it.”

I folded my arms. “You didn’t have to keep coming back for more. We cater to all types, remember?”

He folded his arms and stared me down. “Email address or you can forget escaping this dosshouse.”

I dropped my voice and whispered, “ciara dot odonoghue at jhlfurniture dot com. Happy?”

“How do you spell your name? You better spell the whole thing, actually,” he said, wanting to check as he input it into his phone.

I spelt it out for him in single letters.

“But your name’s spelt wrong?”

“It’s Irish. It’s correct.” It was sounded out Kee-ra, but written Ciara.

“Now feck off, you’re making me room look untidy.”

He left and once I was sure I was alone, I sat on the bed, burning red with blushes.

I was so in love with him.

***

A few days later I found myself in a Camden coffee shop, surrounded by people slurping cappuccinos and lattes, eating skinny muffins they actually believed might counteract the ten spoonfuls of sugar contained within the coffee in their other hand. A Monday evening, it seemed kosher that he would do his business at the start of the working work, like this. I didn’t know why I’d agreed to meet him… except deep down, I did know, even though he still infuriated me…!

“Take it or leave it,” Dante said as he sat opposite me, waiting impatiently for me to read through the contract for like the fiftieth time.

Now I knew his name, his real name, god I was on fire.

Dante, Dante, Dante…!

He was only rich… with a clothing empire at his feet!

I never knew who he was until then. I knew the name Dante Sinclair as soon as I read it on the contract but people always looked different in real life to how they looked in magazines or newspapers.

Reading through the contract I knew he was crazy alright, and a control freak, but I was crazy enough in love with him to say yes.

“I have one condition, Mr Wrinkly,” I said, smiling with a warning look.

“Let’s hear it.”

God, he was beautiful.

Suit.

Hair.

Oak stink.

That oceanic shampoo of his which turned heads…

He was a disease, one which had desire spreading from the inside of me, out.

I always blushed in his presence and I hated how he made me feel.

“You have to explain about the need to… you know… behind the screen. You have to tell me what made you,
you know
.”

He shook his head, looking angry. However, the relenting look in his eyes told me he was ready to give up that nugget of information so I leaned in when he did.