Thrill Seeker (10 page)

Besides, I’d explored kink online and I knew safewords weren’t compulsory. ‘Edgeplay’ was a concept I’d recently discovered and I’d added it to my mental BDSM dictionary along with other words which had once seemed peculiar in the context of sex, such as ‘scene’, ‘submission’ and ‘play’.

Although the definition seemed hard to pin down, I understood edgeplay to mean scenes where kinky activity takes place on the threshold of the submissive’s fear. Safewords aren’t used since they remove the fear. I was pleased to learn about edgeplay, not least because its existence made me feel less alone in wanting to be taken to the edge of safety, to the zone where my lust could blossom in darkness.

I recalled a word Den had once used in email:
liminal
. I’d had to look it up. Liminal, I learned, referred to times and places which were neither one thing nor the other: the margins and boundaries; the in-between spaces; those unstable moments of change such as the hours of twilight, the greying, glittered suspension between day and night.

That’s where I wanted to be, not secure in a walled fortress but blissing out on submission in the shifting magic of dusk.

Ultimately, my greatest concern was not my welfare but that, in clarifying an arrangement, Den and I might negotiate its heart out by stripping away risk and fear. What would be the point? I wanted to feel this in my veins, in my deepest
shadows. I wanted lust spiked with terror. I wanted to be in his power, my desires ostensibly secondary to his. I wanted to know the truth of my fantasy of being abducted and taken to a place where I would be tested. How far could I go? What would happen to me on the margins of fear? Who would I become? That’s what I wanted. I didn’t want us to arrange to play a nice game by nicely discussed rules.

Potentially dangerous, I know, considering I barely knew him, but that potential thrilled me. I was drawn to the edges. I wanted an adventure with him, with this mysterious man whose face I hadn’t seen. On paper, the risk seemed enormous. He could be anyone, some internet freak intent on hoodwinking me with false photos and lies. But in my gut, I felt he was sincere, experienced, and a key part of the journey I wanted to be on.

On reflection, I think I imported my trust in Baxter Logan – sexual trust, not emotional – into this burgeoning relationship. Baxter screwed me over, big time, but he never let me down in the sack. He would err on the side of excess rather than caution, and I appreciated that. He knew women weren’t porcelain dolls. And although Baxter could take me to the edge of fear, especially when I was first getting to know him; although he could break me and leave me sobbing and lost, afterwards he’d always hold me tight, locking me in protection and comfort.

My phone vibrated again, a quiver in my hand as if it too had a nervous heart. I peered below the meeting table, angling my head, my eyes low. Den again. More words this time: ‘
WATCH YOUR BACK
.’

I almost swung around. Was he here, hiding behind the projection screen? Under the trolley of beverages? I was so flustered, I missed hearing the resolution to the saga of
bollards being illicitly placed in reserved parking bays in Kelhawk Close.

Later, when I was leaving for the day, my colleague Sandra enquired after my weekend plans. On Sandra’s desk was a diorama of soft toys so excessive you could barely make out the angles of her PC. I imagined all the floppy-eared rabbits, teddies in dresses, dangling monkeys and pink hippos clasping their mouths in shock if I told her the truth: ‘Ah, you know, getting abducted by some pervert I met on the interwebz. Yourself?’

I walked across town, heading home without diversions because I didn’t want to confuse him if he was tracking my usual route. Walking across town is like walking into the past. Modern office blocks, newly paved streets and Castlegate, our big, bland shopping plaza, lead to labyrinthine stone streets, pink and gold domes, and in the distance, the huddled, cliff-top ruins of the castle.

Den occupied my every thought. The beat of my feet on the pavement echoed the drumming in my heart and cunt. Ordinarily I’d listen to my iPod, but not today. I needed to stay vigilant. Summer was on the wane, the air carrying a slight drop in temperature and a whiff of damp, crumbly earth.

I figured if Den were going to abduct me in daylight, he’d choose Old Town where the streets are quiet and narrow. But a Friday when people were heading home from work, buying bottles of wine, bunches of flowers, bags of crack and so on, wasn’t ideal.

I considered taking back routes to give him a better chance. I imagined his strong arms around me, one clamped to my mouth, the other hooked around my waist as he tugged me off the main drag. And for the next few hours, though I
might struggle and protest, I’d be his captive, his sex slave, his whore. The prospect thrilled and horrified. I wanted it and I didn’t.

For the first time, another danger presented itself to me: supposing I fell in love with him? I wasn’t looking for love, not by a long shot, but I could accept these things happen when you’re least expecting them. This might start as an exploratory, no-strings-attached encounter and develop into something else, just as my relationship with Baxter had done.

But I was older and wiser now, less permeable to another’s attention. Well, I hoped I was. The trouble is, love and lust are capricious beasts. I couldn’t be completely sure I was invulnerable to the former, and didn’t want to be either. I didn’t want to be hard, to reject love to protect myself from pain. Nor did I want to be soft. My need to stay guarded conflicted with my insistence I should try to be open. No one likes a cynic, apart from fellow cynics, of course.

I kept walking, feeling as if my feet were on a tightrope. Decisions and diversions happen in a moment. I could take a left here, then a right to walk that half-dead street parallel to my usual route. But it didn’t happen. I tried again. Nats, go down that squashed, cabbagey alley behind the market place. But still nothing happened. My mind kept suggesting new routes but my feet were running the show, being practical and sticking to routine, keeping their distance from the fantasies of my head. I thought about Saltbourne’s secret tunnels, dug hundreds of years ago by smugglers bringing in tobacco, sugar, alcohol and silks, and wondered if he might be lurking down there like an underground troll.

I passed a household store, dustpans, buckets and squeegees amassed outside, and heard my name being called.
Natalie, Natalie!

My senses seized up. I turned. A blur of gaudy plastics swept past my eyes. Upside-down brooms and mops loomed like bouquets of huge, alien flowers. Pan scourers rushed past, clouds of pewter on a sky of pavement. Yellow sponges like honeycombs. Feet, trainers, sandals.

‘Watch out!’

‘Sorry, sorry.’

I kept walking, my heart going crazy. I was alone. I’d survived. I’d passed the buckets and brooms, the chemist’s, the kebab shop and was crossing the road to more salubrious streets. It must have been the wind calling me –
Natalie!
– a trick of the air.
Natalie!
As if I were trapped in a murmuring seashell.

I was tempted to stop off at the little Sainsbury’s, a familiar, ordinary place, then I pictured myself on CCTV, a grainy ghost on the TV news in the hunt for a missing woman. Jeez, Nats, such a drama queen! You’re not about to go missing, OK? You’re gearing up for some kinky sex, that’s all. Lots of people do it. Well, maybe not lots. Some.

Either way, I didn’t stop off at Sainsbury’s.

I made it home unscathed. After the adrenaline pump of my journey, I was deflated. Yet, moments after I’d closed the door, kicked off my shoes and stroked Rory behind her silky, black ears, I was relieved to have avoided any drama. The evening ahead was mine. I was tired. I wanted to drink wine, eat good food and watch bad TV. I rarely went running on Friday nights. It was my time to kick back. I used to hang out on FancyFree, shooting the digital breeze, but not any more.

From the basement kitchen, I went into the high-walled garden where a diffuse September light glowed among deep green foliage. I checked the wooden gate to Tanner’s Passage was bolted. In the kitchen, I locked the back door and drew
the gingham curtains. As an extra precaution, I shoved the kitchen table against the back door. I refreshed Rory’s litter tray. We would stay home, both of us safe and sound.

By that point, I was tired rather than excited. I was no longer in the mood for kidnap. I went to the top of the house and worked my way down, closing all curtains, shutting out the daylight and him. If he came snooping, it would look as if I were out for the evening. I would watch TV in the dark.

Downstairs in the kitchen again, I did a final check, turned off the light then tiptoed upstairs with my microwaved meal, ready to clock off and chill out. I felt pleased with myself for being cool and calm. I’d taken charge of the situation: hey, mister, you can abduct me when I’m good and ready, OK?

Only later, when an overly loud TV advert had me frantically turning down the volume, did I realise I hadn’t shut him out at all. I’d shut myself in. I was cowering, hiding away to protect myself from what I craved. For all intents and purposes, he was here with me, a sinister, invisible companion. He was lurking outside the window, in the garden, behind the sofa and in every one of my Den-obsessed brain cells.

It was as if he’d kidnapped me before we’d even started. Or kidnapped my mind.

That night, it took me ages to get to sleep. I counted hundreds of sheep but the slightest noise startled me. When I relaxed, my imagination conjured up scenes of him making me surrender to his power and aggression, or of him seducing me with clever manipulations. He’d wrongfoot me, as Alistair Fitch had done, meaning I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. I’d be free to do anything I fancied, no matter how filthy, and no one could judge or blame me, least of all myself.

Fantasy, pure delicious fantasy.

I brought myself off thinking of Den toying with me. I was standing naked in a room, accepting his touches, a stroke here, a caress there. He kept his distance, watching me all the while, murmuring words that left me weak with desire. He smiled when I begged him to fuck me and he laughed, victorious, when I begged him to stop.

Afterwards, I thought about Stockholm syndrome and wondered again if I might fall in love with my faceless captor. No, impossible. Just some guy on the internet who’d caught my imagination. But as I grew sleepier and logic started to sway, I figured I’d already fallen.

Or at least, I’d fallen in love with a fantasy.

‘Go to The Pepperpot Café on Sea Road between 11.30 and 12. Go via Belmont Gardens and Little Kent Road. Don’t be scared.’

My heart pumped at triple speed. Way to make someone scared: tell them, ‘Don’t be scared.’

But at least I knew the score. No more waiting and wondering. We were on. Either I would meet him in The Pepperpot or he would accost me en route. Both options were grand, and beyond that, well, we’d see.

I had little over an hour to get my act together. Should I pack an overnight bag? No, too much. I flung underwear from drawers onto the futon, surveying my range of lycra and lace. Black boy-shorts with lilac rosettes? Sable and cream cami and knicks set? Or maybe the vampish leopard-print briefs with a mismatching bra to indicate I hadn’t over-thought my lingerie.

I scoured the contents of my wardrobe. Too many clothes but never enough. What does one wear to an abduction? Not jeans or trousers. Too tricky to remove in a fight situation. But that could be a plus. I had to remind myself, I might not
actually like him, nor him me. We might not have chemistry. It might be an awful date-cum-fantasy kidnap that we’d call time on after ten minutes.

In the end, I left the house as if I were heading in to town on an ordinary Saturday. Well, almost. My underwear was fancy and in my handbag were condoms, facial wipes, moisturiser, a travel toothbrush kit and make up. If we were going to have sex, I’d need to freshen up afterwards.

I gave the house a cursory tidy in case we returned to mine. I didn’t know where he lived. Maybe he’d booked a hotel room. If so, I hoped it wasn’t in one of those ghost-of-Jane-Austen B&Bs near Liam’s workshop. Perhaps he had a garage. The thought of being held captive in a garage appealed: slightly squalid and concealed, masculine and implicitly dangerous. People kept dark secrets in garages. No one stumbles across what’s inside unless they’ve actively gone looking for something.

My hands shook as I locked the front door.

I walked quickly, desire weighing in my cunt. The day was unseasonably cool and grey. It made me anxious, as if the weather disapproved and were advising me to stay home. I tried to imagine his face by matching it to his body and what I knew of his personality. Intelligent, confident, worked in the Arts. Either a dancer or a liar. Liked to cultivate an air of mystery. But he wasn’t a jigsaw and all I could conjure up were hazy images of blandly handsome faces, the sort you’d see in magazines. Yet I felt sure I’d recognise him when I saw him.

We were on a journey together. I imagined he would take me to places in my psyche I didn’t know existed, places even Baxter hadn’t probed.

Cutting through Belmont Gardens, a small park of
winding paths and rose beds, my excitement began to race. I felt I had a life I myself might be envious of. Here I was, a young woman with a half-decent job, own home, plenty of friends, and I was striding through a twee little park, full of yearning. Not only that, unbeknown to all who passed by with their tiny dogs and bread for the ducks, I was acting on those longings, following my own paths. I wasn’t going to stay home steeped in shameful, guilty dreams. I was claiming my desires, about to meet a man who would whisk me to a hidden world.

I smiled to myself, glancing around the park as I walked. Was he in the bushes? Behind that old oak? Under the ornamental bridge?

No, not in any of those places. Then I was out of the park, heading along George Street, a soft breeze bringing saltiness to my nostrils. Passing one of the steep roads leading to the front, I glimpsed the steely sea in the distance, strings of bunting above Swan Lake’s pedalos providing a flutter of cheerless colour. Next stop Little Kent Road.