by Jen Silver
Bea looked at the cane Dani had been idly swishing back and forth. “Does that interest you?”
Dani could only nod, her face flushing at being caught red-handed in the room. Bea had never specifically told her it was out of bounds but she felt guilty all the same.
Instead of berating her, Bea asked, “Giving or receiving?”
Dani’s blush heated up as she whispered, “Receiving.”
Bea took the cane from her and replaced it on the wall with the other tools of her trade. Dani hadn’t been able to disguise her disappointment, but Bea met her pleading gaze calmly, shaking her head and saying, “No. I like our arrangement as it is. But if you think you want this experience, I have a young friend, not much older than you. She’s just starting out and she wants to service women rather than men. I’ve told her there’s more money with men. She’ll be lucky to scrape a living.”
Lisa’s career had made a slow start with Dani being one of her first regular paying clients. For the first ten years, Lisa’s day job had paid the bills and it seemed Bea would be proved right. But by the mid-1980s, Lisa’s reputation had grown to the extent that she could devote herself full-time to satisfying mainly women’s desires.
Thinking about Lisa and Camila’s phone call wasn’t helping her get back to sleep. Dani stumbled out of bed, showered, dressed, made coffee, and sat out in the back garden watching the river come alive in the dawn. The whole weekend had seemed unreal and now this. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have other things to think about. In a few hours’ time, she would be making decisions that affected other people’s livelihoods. She thought of Penny. Perhaps she hadn’t really appreciated before just how loyal Penny was. And Declan and Gary. She was fortunate to have people she could depend on. Gordon really didn’t have a clue. Dani could go it alone with their one corporate client. She had connections he wouldn’t dream of in a million years.
What could she call the new agency? She went inside and spent some time locating her drawing pad from where she’d tidied it on Friday evening. Doodling on a clean page, she quickly discarded her own name; DBS was already registered, after all. But she was bored with initials, a meaningless acronym. She would have to stay away from frivolous names too. In a matter of minutes she discarded Uranus, Creative Hands, Media Mania, The Design Factory, and half a dozen others. She rather liked Amazon, but dismissed it as being too feminist. And she wasn’t going to go down the road of Aardvark or Acme just to make sure the name was first in the Yellow Pages listings. Penny would be good at this, she thought and started to dial her number, then realised it was still only five thirty.
Chapter Twelve
Dani came face-to-face with her solicitor, Annette Harmon, on Tuesday morning, ten minutes before their meeting with Gordon and his brief.
“So is there anything I should know?” Ms Harmon asked, taking out her yellow legal pad.
“You’ll have to ask him. I didn’t see this coming.”
“Have you ever had an affair with him?”
Dani gave her a withering look. “I’m a lesbian. I don’t fuck men.”
“Some lesbians do, so I’ve heard.”
“I don’t.”
“Does he know you’re a lesbian?”
“Yes. As does everyone else who works here.”
“And he accepts that?”
“He’s known me for fifteen years. He even seemed to accept the other thing.”
“What’s the ‘other thing’?” Dani hesitated. “Look, if I’m going to help you, I don’t need any surprises.”
Dani shrugged. “I’m into SM.” She looked into Annette’s eyes to check her reaction. She didn’t flinch or look away. “I like to be beaten,” she added.
“I see. And he knew this too.”
“Yes.” Dani told her about the incident the week before. “Of course, he may be having it off with his secretary, Maria. That would explain his overreaction.”
“Or it could be money. You’ve just landed a big merchandising contract?”
“Yeah. With my ideas.”
“So. I’ll bet on the money over the sex any day.” She looked up and smiled. Dani decided they would get on all right.
“Time to go. Don’t want to keep the bastards waiting.” Dani led the way to the boardroom.
Gordon was fiddling with his cufflinks, as usual. Dani nodded to Stephen Wetherby; they had met at their occasional official board meetings. She introduced Annette before sitting down.
“Look,” Stephen said, “this is really very simple. It’s like a divorce. You started this business together, so just split it down the middle.”
“And what about the kids?” asked Annette.
“We would want an agreement that if Dani goes ahead with her own agency, she wouldn’t take any MBE clients with her.”
“I don’t call that ‘splitting it down the middle’, Mr Wetherby.”
“My client has worked hard to get these clients on board.”
“And my client has provided the work to build the reputation of the agency.”
“Could I point out,” said Dani, “that when I leave, MBE no longer exists? So you’ll just have ME.”
Annette laughed but Stephen didn’t crack a smile. “That’s something else we have to discuss. You still have Saatchi and Saatchi, even though there’s only one.”
“We’re hardly on the same scale. We dissolve the partnership. And I will take whoever wants to come with me.”
Gordon spoke for the first time. “Do you really think Redmond will go with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dani smirked at him. “Because I’m sleeping with the financial director.”
“Be serious, Dani.”
“I am. Look, you’re just a suit. You didn’t come up with the creative ideas for the ad. You didn’t draw the T-shirt designs. Face it, Mac, you’re nothing without me. Suits can be hired on any street corner.”
Gordon looked at Stephen. “I told you it would be a waste of time talking to her.”
Annette spoke. “Actually, I don’t think there is any basis for discussion. I’ve looked at your original agreement. You would have been well advised to go to a solicitor to do it properly back then. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. Dani’s right. She can walk away now with half the profits and take whomever she wants with her. You don’t have a leg to stand on. The best you can do is try to part amicably.”
“Well, I…,” Gordon spluttered. He looked at Stephen for support. “We were just kids, a couple of hippies.”
“I was never a hippie,” said Dani. “And while we’re on the subject of halvesy/halvesy, I’ve asked Ms Harmon to have the books examined. I don’t have to be an accountant to know you’ve spent a lot more of the profits over the years than I have. And the Inland Revenue will no doubt be very interested in some of your little tax dodges.”
Gordon looked like he was going to explode. Stephen placed a hand on his arm. “I suggest we bring this meeting to a close. My client and I have a few things to discuss. We will talk again in a few days.”
“Right,” said Dani. “You know where to find me. I’ll be at work in the studio.” She walked out of the room with Annette following her closely.
“Well played, Dani,” the solicitor said when they were out of earshot of the boardroom. “So I’m looking at the books, am I?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. It just occurred to me, sitting there, that it’s probably worth doing.” She grinned. “He didn’t expect that, did he?”
“No. And he didn’t like the idea of the Inland Revenue taking a look at his activities, either. You do realise though, he may be having second thoughts now of breaking up the partnership. He would be better off leaving his wife.”
“That thought had occurred to me.”
†
When they arrived back in the studio, Dani asked Annette if she would like coffee. The solicitor refused, saying she couldn’t stay long.
“Off the record, Dani, how
did you and Gordon ever get together? You’re like the proverbial chalk and cheese.”
“It was at a folk-music gig in a pub. Nineteen seventy-eight. Gordon was playing guitar and singing some sappy song about parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.”
“I wouldn’t have put you down as a folkie.”
“I’d produced a flyer for the event, and these two guys I knew persuaded me to go, just for a laugh, they said. Gordon and I got talking during an interval while I was waiting at the bar. I know it’s hard to believe now, but he was a cool dude back in the day. At first I thought he was just another dope-head hippie, but he produced a business plan from his guitar case and asked if I wanted to join him setting up an agency. I was only twenty-one and had no idea what I was going to do to make a living, so I said I’d give it a try. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“I would have thought with your talent that you would have had plenty of offers.”
“Yeah. The two guys who invited me to the folk thing had asked me to join them, but they were computer geeks and their plans for world domination didn’t really appeal.”
“‘Scarborough Fair’.”
Dani looked at her. “What?”
“The name of the song with the herbs.” Annette surprised Dani by singing the words. “‘Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Remember me to the one who lives there. For once she was a true love of mine.’”
“That’s the one.”
Annette’s next words surprised her further. “Are you really sleeping with Camila Callaghan?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I could see her being a match for you.”
“It’s early days yet. I don’t know if she’s really into, you know, what I told you before.”
“I can’t say I know her well, but I think she could fit the role perfectly.” Annette snapped her briefcase shut. “I need to go. If Gordon approaches you to discuss anything, just refer him to Wetherby or myself. We will take it from here.”
Dani thanked her for her time and walked her out to Reception. As she made her way back to the studio, she pondered on their conversation. She hoped Annette was right. The middle-of-the-night phone call from Camila had ignited her fantasies. But there was every chance Camila had woken in the morning and dismissed the whole idea as a step too far, a bridge she wasn’t prepared to cross.
†
Camila walked there and back past the dingy shopfront three times, screwing up the nerve to go in. It looked like nothing much from the outside, not what she expected. No lurid posters or flashing neon signs. As it was, she felt like there was a big sign on her back: Camila Callaghan is going into a sex shop!
When she did finally open the door and enter the darkened interior, she was relieved to see no one else there. She stared in awe at the rows of dildos—all shapes, sizes, colours—hanging on one wall. She had almost decided to leave quickly when a figure emerged from behind a beaded curtain at the far side of the room. “Can I help you?”
Camila looked at the speaker, hard to tell in the gloom, but probably the wrong side of fifty, wearing ordinary-looking clothes. No horns.
“Um, I don’t know if you can help me. I’m looking for something a bit more…” She waved her arms around, indicating the merchandise on display. “…adventurous.”
“Ah,” said the woman, giving in to a momentary coughing spasm. “I guess you need to come through here.” She held the beads apart.
Hoping she wasn’t about to be overpowered and sold into the white slave trade, Camila followed the woman through the curtain and found herself in another world. Dani’s world, she thought. The trawl through the SM bulletin boards during the night didn’t quite prepare her for the reality. Having never been in a dungeon, she decided this would probably qualify as a model. Varieties of whips, chains, and masks adorned the walls. She shuddered. But she had come this far and she couldn’t walk out now.
“Do you have any canes?” she asked the woman.
“Yes, of course, dear. We have a good selection here…ash, bamboo, birch, you name it.”
Damn. She hadn’t expected to have a choice. “May I?” she asked, indicating the nearest one. The woman nodded. Camila took the slim implement off the wall and flexed it. She swished it through the air; it sounded lethal. Was this really what Dani wanted?
“Good choice,” said the woman, coughing again. “One of our bestsellers.”
“Okay. I’ll take two.”
She arranged for the canes to be sent to her flat. Then she hurried out, back into the daylight, and her world, leaving the darkness behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
Dani had finished off another piece of work for a client’s brochure. It was after seven and just time for her to get home before Camila landed. A knock on the door startled her. The face that appeared around it was a surprise. She hadn’t seen her brother for months. “Brian! What are you doing here?”
“Thought I better check on you. Missed you last time you visited my place of work.”
“I might have known. Did you know I was there all night?”
“Sure. Thought a night in a cell might do you some good. But when I heard they’d sent two goons to interview you, I thought I’d better get you out before you talked yourself into serious trouble.”
“You’re all heart, bro.” Brian was an inspector in the Met.
He came over to her and surprised her further by giving her a quick hug. “I worry about you.”
“Thanks, but I’m a big girl now.”
“I know. What’s this shit going on with you and Gordon?”
“How do you know about that?”
“People talk. So what’s up?”
“Just a little disagreement over lifestyles.”
“He’s an idiot.” He had wandered over to her drawing table. “You’ve got more talent in your little finger than he will ever have in his whole body.”
“Thanks. But somehow I don’t think you’ve come here to tell me that.”
“No.” He paused and looked at her. “It’s me and June. She’s finally decided she’s had enough. The lot of a policeman’s wife is not a happy one—”
“Hey, I’m sorry, but—”
“I know. You can say, ‘I told you so’. But love is blind.”
She knew he was upset when he talked in clichés. “What about the kids?” Her two nieces were very young, possibly still preschool age. Not that she would know them if she saw them. June hadn’t wanted the girls to have anything to do with their “weird” aunt.
“They hardly know me as it is.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“So is there someone else?”
“Yeah. Some smarmy git with a nine-to-five job.”
Dani looked at her watch. She needed to make a move or Camila would be waiting on the doorstep. Brian caught the movement. “Got a date?”
“Yeah. I need to be going.”
“I can give you a lift.”
“Okay. Great.” She had been thinking she would need to get a taxi.
During the drive he did most of the talking, telling her about a case he was working on. It wasn’t until they were passing Hammersmith that Dani asked, “Where are you staying?”
“Dossing with a mate. Need to sell the house before I can afford to buy anything.”
“I can sub you…if you need cash.”
“It shouldn’t come to that, but thanks.”
Camila was indeed waiting on the doorstep when they arrived at the house. Before Dani could stop him, Brian jumped out of the car and approached her. “Hi, I’m Brian, Dani’s brother.”
“Camila.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He ignored the look Dani was giving him. “She’s kept you a secret.”
“Brian, thanks for the lift, but you can piss off now.”
“Oh, I thought you were going to invite me in for a drink.”
“No.” She put the key in the door.
“Just one.”
&n
bsp; “Camila and I have some catching up to do. See you around.” Ushering Camila inside, she shut the door firmly in her brother’s face.
“Next time it will be two nights,” he yelled through the letterbox.
“Sorry about that,” said Dani, heading straight for the kitchen. “I was planning to get home earlier. He dropped by the office unexpectedly.”
“What did he mean by that…two nights?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a family inside joke.” They were in the kitchen now. Dani opened the fridge. “Oh damn. The maid hasn’t done the shopping.”
“The maid—” Camila suddenly started laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“You are. I really thought you did have a maid.”
Dani grinned at her. “You didn’t?”
“I did.” Camila was holding on to the table, doubled over with laughter.
Dani went over and hugged her. Then they were kissing with a desperate urgency, as if it had been much longer than two nights and days since they last made love. Camila’s stomach rumbled loudly, causing Dani to stop her exploration of Camila’s mouth with her tongue. “When did you last eat?”
“Must have been breakfast time. We worked through lunch and only had time for a mad dash for the plane.”
“Right, so we can get a snack at the Lion or order a takeaway.”
“Takeaway.” Camila didn’t seem to want Dani to let go of her.
“Chinese or Indian?”
“Indian.”
Dani released her to find the menu. Camila went upstairs to shower and change while Dani rang the order through and prepared drinks, a gin and tonic for Camila and a beer for herself.