‘I’ve met Trix before, so yes, she was.’
‘Oh, right. You know her from that club?’
‘That’s right.’
He didn’t seem to want to elaborate. I thought they’d probably done something of a kinky sexual nature together, but it didn’t bother me. I knew that anything between them would stay in the past, where it belonged.
‘Dimitri’s quite a character, isn’t he?’
Jasper laughed as he scored the skin of a chicken breast.
‘Yes, I was warned. Great guy, though. I think he’ll be an asset to the project. Maybe I’ll use him for something else sometime. Has he been with your friend long?’
‘Not really. Slightly longer than we’ve been together, that’s all.’
Jasper put his knife down to give me a proper look.
‘That sounds wrong,’ he said. ‘The way you imply we’ve only just met. I mean, objectively, to outside eyes, we have only just met. But do you feel like that?’
‘No,’ I admitted, going over to the sink to wash my hands. ‘Not at all.’
‘Neither do I. To be honest, I have difficulty remembering the time before I met you. It seems incredible that I used to go through my day oblivious to you.’
‘Same here,’ I said, swooning inside.
‘Well.’ He stood behind me at the sink, clasping me around my middle. ‘Now we don’t have to, do we? Never again.’ He kissed my neck just above the collar. ‘Because you are mine.’
‘Rosie admired my collar. I got the feeling she’d like something similar for herself.’
‘Girl’s got good taste,’ said Jasper. ‘In jewellery and in friends.’
‘And in men,’ I said, interested to know Jasper’s reaction to this.
He sucked in a breath.
‘Dangerous ground, love. I thought you were the one who was totally against playing doubles?’
‘I don’t mean I want to shag him. Just that he’s … interesting.’
‘Just you make sure your interest is purely academic,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Is that clear?’
Chapter Five
‘Did we really order this much booze from Ocado?’
Jasper was filling the wine rack while I got the plates ready for lunch. Our guests were in the dining room, testing the first bottle.
He looked up.
‘What? It’s New Year in a couple of days. And we have guests.’
‘You’ve already got a cellar full of wine.’
Jasper barked out a laugh. ‘That’s vintage, love. It’s not for boozy lunches with kinky body doubles.’
‘Ooh, you’re a snob! I had no idea.’
Jasper straightened himself, giving me what I tended to think of as his spanking eye.
‘You’re really loving that dangerous ground today, aren’t you, my dear? I wonder why you don’t build a house on it while you’re at it?’
‘Just calling it as I see it,’ I said, dodging a little way back from him all the same.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ He crooked a finger at me. ‘Over here, missy. Now.’
I darted a quick glance at the kitchen door.
‘Jasper,’ I hissed. ‘We aren’t alone.’
‘I know that.’
His expression was implacable.
I stepped closer, still wary.
‘If I let you get away with things just because there are visitors in the house, what kind of master does that make me?’ he whispered. ‘Bear it in mind, Sarah. The rules stay the same, no matter if the whole bloody royal family comes to stay. Now turn and face the worktop.’
I put my hands on the gleaming surface, my nose almost in the bowl of salad leaves, watching Jasper rummage in a drawer. He brought out a wooden spoon and I made a horrified face at him.
‘You can’t,’ I mouthed.
‘Don’t talk yourself into more trouble,’ he said, completely unruffled. ‘Over that skirt, this won’t make too much noise at all. It’s you they might hear. So make sure you keep it down, eh?’
He patted the seat of my skirt with the rounded side of the spoon and ordered me to stick my bottom out as far as I could.
I consoled myself with the thought that I would be able to hear the dining-room door open if anybody left. Their muffled laughter could be heard quite clearly from where we were.
‘Do you have anything to say to me?’ he asked softly, rubbing the flat part of the spoon around my buttocks.
‘I’m sorry I called you a snob, sir. I’m sure you aren’t one really.’
‘Right. So why did you say it?’
‘Just … it just came out.’
‘So you spoke without thinking?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And is that a good idea?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Quite right. What if I speak without thinking at lunch? What if I’m casually reaching for the mayonnaise and I happen to mention that you might not be sitting too comfortably because you got a good spanking in the kitchen with a wooden spoon just now. How would that make you feel?’
‘Pretty embarrassed, sir.’
‘So I’d better think first, hadn’t I? And you’d better do the same. Yes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Right.’
The first stroke fell. It wasn’t loud, though I’d been dreading a sound that would carry through the echoing, high-ceilinged rooms to the dining table. In fact, it was a muffled thud that wouldn’t be heard beyond the kitchen. That was a relief. The pain wasn’t.
He laid a dozen hard strokes on me and I had to try every trick in the book not to cry out. I bit my tongue, squeezed my toes together, tried breathing in instead of breathing out. In the end, I resorted to picking one of the salad leaves out of the bowl and chewing on it. I wondered if I was the first person to eat salad during a spanking. Perhaps this could be a topic for post-prandial conversation? But no.
Jasper put down the spoon and kissed me.
‘I thought you were going to bury your face in that salad and howl,’ he said. ‘We’d have had to make a fresh one. Your face, though …’ He laughed into my hair and kissed me again. ‘Come on then. What kind of hosts are we, leaving our guests hungry while we kink up the kitchen units? I’ll do the hot plates – you go and take in the bread and salad.’
I wanted to wait for my flush to die down – on my bottom as well as my face – but he was right: it would be rude to keep them waiting.
I would have to enter the room looking exactly like what I was – a girl who had just been spanked. Would they recognise the signs? After all, they were experts. Maybe not Rosie so much, but certainly the other two.
‘Ah, she comes,’ cried Dimitri with a theatrical rattle of his bangles.
The wine bottle, I noted, was already empty. I would ask Jasper to bring another.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ I said, putting down the bread board and salad bowl.
‘Don’t apologise,’ said Trix. ‘We’re having a lovely time. Do you need a hand out there?’
‘Oh, no, everything’s under control,’ I said. Under Jasper’s control, I thought. Everything’s under his control. Including me. ‘I’ll just go and get another bottle.’
‘That’s Dimitri’s fault,’ said Rosie, smiling adoringly at him. ‘He drinks far too quickly.’
‘You complain about me?’ he said playfully, tickling her chin. Jingle jingle.
‘Never,’ she said. ‘But you’re drinking all the wine.’
‘I’ll get more, don’t worry.’ I hurried back into the kitchen as Jasper was loading plates of prosciutto-wrapped, cheese-stuffed chicken breasts on to a tray.
‘Dimitri drinks like a fish,’ I told him. ‘We need more wine. Any preferences?’
‘Bring a couple,’ he said off-handedly. ‘A red and a white. I don’t mind.’
‘Red with chicken?’ I said in mock horror, knowing that Jasper was a stickler for this sort of thing.
‘Oh, I don’t expect my guests to live by m
y rules,’ he said. ‘Only my submissives.’
We exchanged an ‘I could rip your clothes off right here and now’ look, from which it was difficult to retreat. But I managed it somehow.
Back in the dining room, Trix was holding forth on the subject of her previous filming experience, but all conversation stopped while everybody helped themselves to food and drink.
‘So, you were saying, Trix,’ said Jasper, putting the salad tongs back in the bowl, ‘you’re used to being in front of the camera?’
‘That’s right. I haven’t done a mainstream movie, I admit, but I’ve done a lot of spanking porn. The people I work with are friends, and we’re all enthusiasts, so there’s a great atmosphere and I think it makes for a better end result.’
‘I’ll bet it does,’ agreed Jasper. ‘I’d like to see some of your films. Are they available online?’
‘Oh, sure. The website’s called Spanking Dreams. I like it because it caters to all tastes – not just men who want to see tight teenage bums. We do the school fantasies but we do a lot that appeal to women too – you know, spanking pirates in big billowing shirts and all that kind of thing. I loved that one. I think it was my favourite. Dimitri would make a brilliant spanking pirate – I should put you in touch with them.’
‘Ooh, you would,’ agreed Rosie. ‘I could just see that.’
‘Would you mind?’ asked Sarah. ‘If Dimitri did spanking films with other women?’
‘You know, I don’t think I would,’ she said, after a short pause during which Trix smirked as if she knew different.
‘Are you sure?’ said Trix. ‘I thought you were the jealous type.’
‘And I know how wrong I was now,’ she countered, a tad frostily. ‘I trust Dimitri completely.’
‘Hey, it is all good now,’ said Dimitri. ‘All cool. If you will pay me to be a spanking pirate, of course, I will consider it.’
‘So these films are spanking only?’ asked Jasper politely. ‘No further business?’
Trix coloured. ‘Well, there is if all parties are happy to do it. But it’s completely up to the actors involved. Everything is agreed beforehand.’
‘I’m intrigued,’ said Jasper. ‘Is the director anyone I know? Though I must admit I’ve been very peripheral on the Kinky Cupcake scene these past few years, so probably not.’
‘Do you know Persephone Bax?’
‘Oh, I know of her. Yes, we have friends in common.’
‘She’s the motive force behind the outfit. You must take a look at her work, it’s rather beautiful. The highest production values she can afford and such an imagination.’
‘I will. Perhaps a screening after lunch? I’d love to see some of your work. Dimitri, I gather yours has been of a more mainstream nature?’
‘Just bit parts, you know. The foreigner. I have an audition for a theatre company in Hackney next month. I hope that will work out.’
‘And you’re from Moscow? Did you work over there?’
‘Oh, yes, I had lots of work there. I was in hospital, you call them soap, I think. It is a long-running show, very popular. I was in it for three years.’
Jasper laughed and clapped his hands.
‘Really? A hospital soap? What part did you play?’
‘I am the hospital porter, he is a bit of a rebel, you know, a bad boy. I get a lot of fans from it. Women fans.’
‘But you ran away from them, to London?’ I said, fascinated to think of Dimitri being a minor celebrity in his homeland.
‘I always wanted to come to London,’ he said. ‘And besides, I get the sack from the show. Not the sack but, what do you call it …?’
‘You were written out?’ suggested Jasper.
‘Yes, that’s it, my character is murdered by a mental patient who does not take his medication. But really because I was a silly boy and was late for work too many times. Not these days though. I am Mr Dimitri Reliable.’ He waved his hands and bowed his head. He really was rather too adorable. I thought I might have a crush.
‘The same thing happened to me,’ said Jasper, laughing. ‘I was in a hospital soap, but I played a doctor. I ended up getting murdered as well. By a stalker ex-girlfriend. Very dramatic. I wasn’t pushed, though – I wanted to leave, to pursue my career in directing.’
‘That is so cool,’ said Dimitri, grinning hugely. ‘We are both murdered in our hospitals. We are like blood brothers. And, to tell the truth, I also would like to direct one day. I will learn from working with you so much, I am sure.’
‘I think we’re going to have a whale of a time,’ agreed Jasper.
‘A whale of time?’ Dimitri looked confused.
‘It’s just an idiom,’ Rosie whispered. ‘It means a really good time.’
‘Oh, yes, ha, we will be a whale of time,’ said Dimitri, raising his glass as if to make a toast.
‘I can’t get over this house,’ said Trix, looking around her. ‘It’s just stunning. You met Sarah through your shared love of antiques? Is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right. She came to catalogue them for me and we discovered that we had a lot more in common than our eye for a nice bit of Stourbridge glassware.’
I devoted all my attention to slicing off another piece of chicken and getting a good few salad leaves on the fork with it. I had the oddest feeling that all three of our guests were picturing Jasper and me in intimately compromising situations.
‘How did you … find out?’ blurted Rosie. ‘I mean, it’s not something that just comes up in conversation, is it? Did you get together first and the kink bit came later, or …? Sorry if that’s a rude question. Just … the way Dimitri and I got together was so weird, I can’t help wondering how people do it normally.’
There was a beat of silence, then Dimitri said, ‘Rosie,’ and gave her a reproving little tap on the wrist. I felt quite hot and bothered seeing the gesture, knowing how these things work. It was a warning.
‘What?’ she said, flustered.
‘It is a very personal question,’ he said. ‘Maybe they don’t want to say.’
‘No,’ said Jasper. ‘It’s a good question. And I think, given the circumstances in which we’ll all be working together, it’s worth answering.’
Rosie leant forward, all eagerness. ‘That’s great. Thank you. I mean, Dimitri and I don’t mind telling you all about us, do we, Dimitri?’
‘Not at all,’ he said with a lazy smile. ‘Everybody knows it.’
‘It’s such a sweet story,’ confirmed Trix. ‘And I play a part in it. The villain, of course.’
Jasper laughed. ‘Surely not.’
‘Don’t,’ muttered Rosie. ‘I’m still horribly embarrassed about that.’
My food was going cold but I didn’t care; I was too intrigued by the prospect of hearing Dimitri and Rosie’s story of deviant love. I reached for my wineglass and listened, as Rosie cleared her throat and began to explain.
‘You know the club Kinky Cupcake, of course?’ she started.
‘Well, yes, it’s how I got in contact with the three of you,’ said Jasper, ‘but Sarah’s never been. It’s a BDSM club, love, in east London, top secret, very exclusive clientele. Best parties ever.’
‘I work in the building across the street,’ she continued. ‘I thought it was just some old warehouse or something, but I noticed people coming and going a lot, and some of them were very interestingly dressed. So I got a bit obsessed with watching it and trying to guess what went on in there. No chance of finding out, though, because there were door staff and all the windows were completely blacked out. Until one night …’
‘Ooh.’ I couldn’t help myself. I twirled my fork in the lamb’s lettuce without any making it as far as my mouth.
‘I could see a bit of light in one of the windows and obviously I was drawn to it. I went to take a peek and I couldn’t believe what I saw!’
‘You saw me,’ said Trix laconically.
‘Yes, I saw you, dolled up in a St Trinian’s uniform, getting a caning from
some guy in a mortarboard.’
‘And that’s something you don’t see every day,’ said Jasper smiling. ‘And Dimitri was the guy in the mortarboard?’
‘No,’ said Dimitri. ‘It was total coincidence. My first night in London and I was looking for a bar. I walked down the street and saw Rosie and I was with her when she was seeing this thing. I thought, ‘Hello, London, I have found my home now.’ He laughed and drained another glass of red wine.
‘I can’t believe Mal and O were so careless as to leave a blind up,’ remarked Jasper. ‘Very unlike them. They’re terribly careful as a rule.’
‘I don’t know what happened that night,’ said Trix. ‘But I do know that we saw them looking at us, and they saw us looking, and off they skedaddled.’
‘I thought … it was crazy, looking back … but I thought we might be in danger,’ said Rosie. ‘I had no idea what sort of people would be into that kind of thing, but they could have been gangsters for all I knew.’
Trix took up the story. ‘They happened to run to the little pub we like to go to for a post-session drink. I saw them there, got chatting to Dimitri and offered to get him in.’
‘Oh, Trix,’ said Jasper, sucking in a breath. ‘That was a bit indiscreet.’
‘I know,’ she said, shamefaced, ‘but Dimitri … I could see straightaway that he would be an asset to the club.’
I watched Rosie’s face here, and was inclined to think what she obviously did: Trix could see straightaway that Dimitri was very attractive and eminently shaggable. Hmm.
‘So, the short story is, we were curious,’ said Dimitri. ‘And we decide to go for it. Rosie is not so sure, but I persuade her.’
‘You were together by then?’ I said, but Rosie shook her head.
‘No, I was just … well … I was sort of drawn along in Dimitri’s current. It’s easily done. And I was cool with it, completely, until we actually got in and the owners wanted to test us, to make sure we were genuinely into the scene.’
‘Uh oh,’ I said, fascinated. ‘So you’re in a BDSM club with a virtual stranger and you have to pretend you’re both experienced?’
Rosie laughed shrilly. ‘I know! God! It’s like a dream, when I think of it now, but somehow we did it. We got through.’
Her World of Submission Page 6