Liam’s long fingers fluttered around my head, fixing and adjusting. The bridle was a prototype in thin black leather. A broad band across my forehead connected to the main structure of the piece, all neatly fastened at the back of my head. From the band, two straps ran either side of my nose to meet silver rings fitted to cheek straps.
‘Say “ahh”,’ said Liam.
A strap ending in a stainless steel claw ran from each ring towards my mouth. With gentle fingers, Liam pulled my mouth into a rictus by hooking a cold, round-tipped claw inside each cheek. His careful touch reminded me of a dentist’s. ‘You OK?’ He checked the hooks, ensuring I was comfortable.
I nodded, feeling foolish. Memories of Den stretching my smile wide with a similar gag were impossible to repress. But then I’d been thinking about him more or less constantly since he’d released me from the theatre, kidnapping me in reverse by bundling me in the van and taking me home.
In the last ten days, I’d re-read the messages we’d exchanged on FancyFree dozens of times, looking for clues to suggest he was only seeking a single, elaborately constructed encounter at the end of a unnecessarily complex, protracted courtship. Nope. He hadn’t made that clear at all. The only hint I found was in his hotel-room analogy when he’d talked of fantasy roleplay having different rules; and afterwards there’s nothing to deal with, no consequences, life’s as smooth and neat as a freshly made hotel bed.
I’d texted three times and had emailed once but no replies. I’d stopped short of calling him, not wanting to make a fool of myself if he wasn’t interested. Time and again I recalled our first phone conversation in the streets of Saltbourne at night. I’d sat on those old, stone steps and he’d ended our conversation by saying ‘I don’t give a single fuck what you like.’
But he did, I’d told myself. Of course he did. This was part of the game, the roleplay. He was going to use me and that was neat because I liked to feel used, liked to have a man so horny and aggressive he’d fuck me however he wanted. He wasn’t really using me because I got off on that.
But now with this apparent sudden ending, had he genuinely used me? It certainly felt that way. The kiss on my forehead presumably meant nothing, given that he wasn’t returning my messages. What I’d initially believed to be a mutually beneficial relationship had turned out to be distinctly one-sided. Den was calling the shots, and I was potentially responding to him much as I’d done with Alistair Fitch in his starry, blue music studio all those years ago. And hadn’t I vowed, after splitting with Jim, I was going to seek what I wanted? You couldn’t say I hadn’t tried or that hooking up with Den wasn’t a consequence of my efforts. But Den’s attempt to take the reins and deny me a say in the matter seemed an unjust reward.
‘That OK?’ asked Liam.
I nodded, unable to speak.
‘Like I said,’ continued Liam, ‘these photos are just for the client. I’ll blur out your eyes and photoshop your hair. You won’t be recognisable. He just wants to see what the mock-up looks like.’
I nodded again. I’d already agreed to this. I wanted to help Liam’s craft business grow and if some merry pervert with money to burn was asking for photos of a work in progress, then I would gladly offer my head, so to speak.
The only problem so far was that modelling the headgear generated a horribly frustrating horniness, one Liam couldn’t satisfy because D/S simply wasn’t his thing. I could probably ask him to kink it up and act bossy in bed but I wouldn’t ask because it wasn’t him. And even if he were willing, anything we did together could only operate at the level of mild bedroom fun, a roleplay where Liam would need to be a character far removed from who he was. Unlike Baxter and Den, he didn’t have an unshakeable sexual hunger to crush women underfoot, nor did he get off on seeing pretty faces streaked with tears. But he did have one major advantage over the pair of them: he wasn’t a bastard.
I still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Recollections of the theatre ghosted my thoughts like a dream. Every morning, I woke thinking this would be the day Den would contact me and consolidate those memories. And every night I went to sleep knowing it wasn’t. The more days that passed, the more concrete our ending became and the more surreal and remote our encounter. I began to wonder if the kiss in the moonlit street near my house was a fiction I’d invented.
I considered phoning him rather than sticking to more distancing texts and emails. Something, call it blind hope or a gut response, told me this wasn’t over, not by a long shot. If Den had hurt me with his cruel dismissal it was only because he’d trusted me too much, trusted me to understand he didn’t genuinely mean what he’d said. I’d known from an early point he wanted to mess with my mind so it was feasible he was now doing so by pretending to vanish from my life.
But, no. I couldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. His attempts to psychologically destabilise and dominate me were compelling and effective, but this ending was beyond the pale. I wasn’t prepared to get hurt as part of the process of getting my rocks off. I’d been hurt enough in recent years, thanks very much. I wanted a lover, not a manipulative, sexual bully. I wouldn’t get in touch again. I would resist, stay strong.
Liam pulled on a strap, tightening the bonds encasing my head and stretching my gagged smile a fraction wider. The extra tug made me crave Den and Baxter with a rawness that scooped me out and left me despairing of ever meeting my match. Den and Baxter were the only men who’d touched my submissive heart. And they’d both turned out to be self-centred, short-sighted swines who cared next to nothing for me.
Oh, Baxter had claimed to love me. But words without actions are meaningless and he wouldn’t leave his wife for me. They never do, do they? That’s what my friend Amy had said: they never leave their wives. A mistress is forever a mistress. Accept what you were and forget him. Move on. Start afresh.
If it were that easy, I’d have cleared him from my head a long time ago. I’d have erased Den too. I wished I knew more about him. I still didn’t know his surname so couldn’t even seek the dubious solace of Googling him. What I had done, though, was Google derelict theatres, reaching the conclusion I’d been held captive in Saltbourne’s abandoned Hippodrome, just off Bath Road on the seafront. Photos of the theatre’s interior in its heyday confirmed my suspicions. I wanted to take a closer look at the place but, at the same time, I was too nervous to even walk past it. Supposing he was there? Supposing he played kidnap every weekend with women he found online?
Liam aimed his digital camera at the side of my head. ‘Say cheese!’
Unable to speak, I flung out my hand to cuff him playfully across his chest. He laughed and moved behind me, the camera whirring as he captured images of my trussed up head.
‘I think I need to have better adjustments on this strap. And the final version won’t be riveted so no rubbing or snagging for the wearer.’ He touched the cheek piece. ‘Not too tight, is it?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘You OK for me to take some shots of your face? Like I said, I’ll blur you out.’
I nodded, thinking, please do it fast before I start drooling and embarrassing the pair of us. I closed my eyes as he worked, unable to meet his gaze. In the darkness of my mind, I was elsewhere, in silent alliance with strangers who shared my taste for unusual sex.
‘It looks great,’ said Liam. ‘The plan is for this to connect to a thick belt, almost a corset, and that’ll have points for wrist and leg cuffs to be attached to it. The client sees it as a piece of kit that has the potential to grow organically. The idea of the harness is that different kinds of gags can be attached to these cheek-rings. And he wants it all in brown leather and brass. It’s the best commission I’ve had in ages. Brass carabiners are seriously hard to source, though. Still haven’t found any I can afford. And I’ll have to get the hooks made by a metal worker. It’ll need to be food-grade brass, obviously. I just got these stainless steel hooks from a cheapo bit of bondage gear I bought online.’
After what
felt like an eternity, my ordeal was over. Liam loosened the cage and eased it from my head. ‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘I really appreciate it. Do you want to see the photos?’
‘No, thanks. I think they’d give me nightmares.’ I fluffed my hair back into shape. ‘So business is booming, then? Word’s getting out that you’re our local, kink-friendly craftsman?’
Liam grinned and pulled a pouch of tobacco from his combats. ‘Seems to be. Not sure how this guy found out about me. Said he’d heard a rumour someone at Community Crafts was making fetish gear on the side. I was the first he approached. A lucky guess.’
‘Nice one.’ I poked around the detritus on Liam’s workbench while he rolled a joint and told me about a machete blade he’d been re-profiling. We smoked, sitting in the tatty leather and chrome armchairs, chatting lightly.
‘What do you know about the old Hippodrome in town?’ I asked, passing the joint back to Liam.
‘Not much. Been empty for years, hasn’t it?’ Liam drew on the joint. He held the inhalation in his lungs then let smoke curl from his lips. ‘Probably a listed building they can’t knock down. So the owners will let it rot then go, uh, sorry everyone, it’s knackered. Beyond repair. Then they’ll raze it to the ground and sell the plot to property developers.’ He swivelled in the chair so he was reclining sideways, long legs hooked over the chair arm, languid and relaxed.
‘Yeah. I’ve heard it’s stunning on the inside.’
‘I’ll bet it is,’ said Liam. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s been squatted and trashed, though.’
‘I don’t think it has been,’ I said.
‘No?’
‘Well, I’m not sure. I think I must have read about it somewhere. Do you think these places are easy to break into?’
Liam flicked ash onto the cobbles. ‘Depends on the security they’ve got installed.’ He took a deep, thoughtful drag. ‘Can’t imagine they’ll have spent much on it, though. So yeah, if you know the tricks of breaking and entering, it’d be easy enough.’ Smoke drifted from his lips. ‘Why, wanna try it?’
I laughed. ‘You serious?’
‘Sure, why not?’
‘You know about this stuff?’
Liam wriggled in his armchair, reaching out to pass me the joint. ‘I’ve lived in squats. I’ve broken into buildings. I have a crowbar.’
I laughed uncertainly, looking at him, not quite able to process what he’d proposed. I’d only asked about breaking in to try and get a handle on how Den had managed it. Liam’s suggestion took my curiosity in a whole new direction.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. It’ll be a laugh.’
One of the great things about Liam was his competence when it came to manly activities such as fixing stuff, making things with tools and now, breaking into abandoned buildings with a crowbar. I could trust him to lead the way and do it right.
The question was, did I want to return?
‘Be good to take some photos of the place before it gets demolished,’ said Liam.
‘Makes me nervous,’ I said. ‘Will it be dangerous?’
Liam shrugged. ‘Only a bit,’ he said.
I laughed and dragged on the joint, thinking over the idea. I could barely hold the smoke in my lungs. ‘OK, then. You’re on.’
It’s hard to believe Saltbourne was once a coastal resort people actively wanted to visit rather than a town where they accidentally ended up living. Decades ago, Brits would have holidayed here, eating fish and chips on the prom, feeding coins into slot machines and sunning themselves in deckchairs on the shingle beach.
Amusement arcades still line the seafront opposite the fairground but their glitter is dulled, their magic tarnished by the shadowy presence of adult-only establishments where gambling is a grimmer, more serious affair. Our pier fell into disrepair years ago and the once-gaudy displays in souvenir shop windows are leached to pastels by the sun’s rays. The pubs are chain-owned; large, soulless places with identikit chalkboards whose cartoonish fonts advertise Sky Sports and Stella Artois.
I don’t often visit that part of town but when I do I always think it looks like someone else’s memories. Turn off the main drag, and the picture’s even bleaker with boarded up shops and To Let signs reminding anyone tempted to regard Saltbourne as a fun place that it’s a dog-eared seaside town whose glory days are gone.
The Hippodrome on Bath Street serves as one of those reminders. Trying to act casual one midweek evening, Liam and I scanned the domed building from the other side of the street, checking out its security. The road was wide, capable of accommodating far more traffic than was currently gliding along it. At the bottom, the fairy lights of Sea Road gleamed like strings of pearls above the darkness of the beach beyond. The shift of traffic lights through red, amber, green, seemed a waste of colour in the emptiness.
A cheerless expanse of boards sprayed with graffiti blotted out The Hippodrome’s front, a sharp contrast to the dilapidated curves of lavish architecture I knew to be inside. Dirt streaked the peeling pink and gold dome, and the letters P and M were missing from the fascia, making the theatre’s grand name a stark, gap-toothed mouth.
‘Looks quiet enough from here,’ said Liam. ‘Nothing to protect so they’re hardly going to splash out on state-of-the-art security. Theatre’s probably been ransacked, all the wire and lead stripped from it. Probably riddled with asbestos as well. Come on. Let’s go round the back. Find a way in.’
Liam set off towards the road. I grabbed his hand. ‘Liam, I’m not sure about this any more.’
He turned to me, grinning. In the orange hue of a streetlight, the curls peeking out from below his knitted beanie cap were redder than ever, and his eyes shone with boyish excitement. ‘It’ll be amazing, I promise,’ he said, giving my hand a squeeze.
Standing on Bath Road, both of us in dark clothes and thick-soled shoes, me with my hair tied back and a baseball cap in my pocket, made me worry everyone knew what we were plotting. We could have been dressed in stripy tops and carrying swag bags for all the subtlety we lacked.
‘I’m nervous again,’ I said.
‘That’s part of the fun! Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?’
‘She’s in hiding,’ I said. ‘Scared we might get arrested for trespass or vandalism.’
‘I’m not going to take any stupid risks.’ Liam set off towards the road again, tugging on my hand. ‘We might not be able to get in. Might be alarmed. Let’s just take a look, eh? No pressure.’
I relented, infected by his enthusiasm. We hurried across the deserted road, towards the back of the theatre. On a street running parallel to Bath Road, a tall, redbrick wall and a tatty barrier of corrugated steel blocked access to the rear of the building. Liam tapped gently on the metal sheeting, searching high and low for weak spots. I thought back to how I’d arrived with Den. I’d been blindfolded but I’d imagined him parking the van in a private area before guiding me towards an entrance. I remembered how I’d heard gulls and felt a sense of space, correctly surmising we were near the seafront.
Now I’d seen Den’s face, it was impossible to remember that moment as it had been. In recollection, I couldn’t help but see the face behind the mask. But seeing his face and spending time with him still hadn’t given me an insight into who he truly was. And now I couldn’t tell whether he preoccupied me because I found him intriguing or because I wanted him. And if I wanted him, was it because he was a relative blank onto which I could project my own, other desires? Desires that were, perhaps, for Baxter Logan?
‘We don’t want to hang about too much,’ said Liam. ‘Come on, keep walking. I think part of it might extend onto Ship Lane.’
I scurried after him, struggling to keep pace with his long-legged stride as he headed eagerly towards the next step in his plan. Ship Lane was a rickety alleyway and sure enough, part of the theatre’s pale, stucco walls, marred by rust stains and crumbling masonry, were visible at the end of a gap running between a couple of nondescript building
s. A wheelie bin at the foot of the narrow, weed-thick passage suggested a deliberate dead-end, but it was evident this split between buildings was nothing more than an accident arising from urban unplanning. This sliver of an alley was off the map.
We slunk towards the wheelie bin, the passage so narrow we had to go single-file. At ground level, the theatre’s windows were boarded up while those above were a mixture of boards and glassless frames, twiggy shrubs poking through gaps, ivy crawling across the patchy stucco. A fire escape led to a black door, and I could see Liam eyeing it up as a possible entry point. After taking a glance beyond the big bin, I moved several feet away, keeping guard by casting over my shoulder for passersby on Ship Lane.
The trouble was, the fire escape didn’t quite reach the ground. Its lower steps were strangled by ivy, heaped with rubbish and, quite possibly, weren’t even there at all. Watching Liam assess the situation reminded me of why I’d first lusted after him. That resourcefulness and easy, physical confidence got me right in the groin. I loved that he was orchestrating this while I, his partner in crime, stood watch.
My motivations for wanting to break into the theatre were becoming less clear. I couldn’t convince myself there’d be anything new to discover about Den if we did manage to gain entry. But it was thrilling and fun. And on top of that, I liked the idea I could reclaim the space of the theatre if I broke in with Liam, make it an arena over which I had some control. Doing so wouldn’t register on Den’s psyche but could have a positive impact on mine.
‘Psst!’
Liam hissed for my attention, beckoning me towards the wheelie bin. After checking over my shoulder, I went to join him, resting my hand on the small of his back as I listened to his whispers.
‘I reckon we can get in there.’ He indicated a tall slab of corrugated steel blocking a gap between buildings. ‘Looks like it leads to a yard or something. But once we’re in that part, I think there’ll be more entry points.’
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