Two, Mark had been lied to by the supplier, which since they were reputable, was also unlikely.
Three, at some stage, someone had switched the original necklace for this pretty but worthless string of beads. Now that I thought about it, did I remember the pearls themselves as being slightly smaller? Ever so slightly less symmetrical? And the clasp … had it been a solid-looking, golden, fish-shaped oval? A fish-shaped oval was definitely sounding familiar now that I thought about it. On the other hand, I might simply be imagining what had never existed.
‘Sorry about that,’I said to the pawn shop assistant, trying to claw back what remained of my dignity.
‘It happens,’ he said, and now I knew what that expression was.
It was sympathy.
I was not going to cry. I was not. Tears would not be useful here; that I had already seen. Instead I breathed in slowly, raised my chin and looked him directly in the eye.
‘I need more than what you’re giving me,’ I told him. ‘I was expecting some value from the necklace as well.’
‘Even if it had been genuine, I wouldn’t have been able to offer you much for it. There’s a very limited market for second-hand pearls. Diamonds and gold are easier to sell.’
‘I need this money to get back on my feet. I lost my job in September. Now I’m starting up a business venture that is already looking promising. I’ll keep paying the monthly interest on the rings until I can afford to reclaim them. You’ll see.’
I was begging, I knew, but I kept my voice strong while I did so, and firmly blinked back the tears that were pricking at the corners of my eyes.
‘Look …’ He picked up the engagement ring again, tilted his head sideways, gave it a final considering glance. ‘ok. I’ll add ten per cent to my original offer. I can’t do more than that.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
I filled in the forms and he counted out the payment in cash. Some banknotes crisp and new, others creased and sad-looking.
‘Good luck,’ he said.
I scraped the chair back and got up to leave, taking care not to look too hard at the sweaty-faced man in a wrinkled business suit who was next in the queue.
Chapter 8
The now-empty folly reeked of spaniel. Armed with rubber gloves, dusters, a vacuum cleaner, a broom, buckets of soapy water and a scrubbing brush, I set to work cleaning the smelly interior. On my knees and scrubbing the floor, it was bizarre to think that in less than a week’s time I’d be watching, whip in hand, while a slave paid top dollar to do what I was doing now. I tried to focus on the positive fact that money would finally be coming in. I didn’t want to dwell on the details of how I would be earning it. In fact, now that I was preparing the dungeon, I was beginning to feel more and more terrified about coming face to face with my clients, seeing them naked, exposed, aroused. To be in a room with strangers who were paying me to fulfil their perverted sexual needs. On the other hand, imagining who they were at least helped me to get to grips with my fears.
Lowly had been very softly spoken, and although he hadn’t said much, I’d picked up a hint of an accent in his voice that told me he was Indian. I guessed he would have a stressful, high-level, corporate job, something in the financial sector. He’d probably be shy and furtive-looking; somebody who I could easily label as having alternative sexual desires.
As for Simon, after speaking to him, I had no idea where the clues to his personality lay. From the assurance I’d heard in his voice, I was worried that he might prove a challenge to dominate. And why was I finding it so difficult to put a face to his voice?
Then I told myself that it didn’t matter what he looked like, since I’d be spending far more time staring at his bum than his face in any case. And as for personality – well, the only given was that the men who hired my services would be sexual deviants, one and all.
Rule number one of my dungeon was going to be that I did not touch my slaves, nor allow them to touch me. I was going to keep my distance. Assuming any bodily contact had to be made for the purposes of punishment, I would wear gloves.
And what would my customers want in terms of punishment? What would satisfy them? Would it end up being closer to filth or finesse?
Squeezing yet another dollop of spaniel-scented water into my bucket, I guessed I would soon find out.
The only extravagance I allowed myself before my dungeon opened was to go and have my hair professionally cut and coloured at the local salon. I needed to make a powerful impression on my clients and to me, straggling ends and root growth screamed ‘poverty’ with a capital P.
It turned out to be a good decision, because browsing in the secondhand shop next door after my appointment, I had a really lucky find. Someone had brought in a gym horse for sale; one of those old-fashioned ones made from wooden frames that slotted into each other, with a broad, padded cover of foam and thick plastic on top. Overall, it was in good condition and the plastic, though worn and roughened at the corners, was in one piece. It was an ideal piece of apparatus for slaves to bend over, in relative comfort, while being punished in other, more uncomfortable, ways.
A quick trip to the hardware store opposite, and I was kitted out with sturdy steel handles as well as heavy-duty bolts, hooks and clips. I also bought several metres of thick, strong ropes and lengths of chain – two with the biggest links I could find, and one with the finest. I thought, with a little resourcefulness on my part, the fine chain could be made into a variation of a cat-o’-nine-tails for light yet sensual punishment.
Attaching the equipment was not something I could do myself. I would have to get a handyman in for that. After making a few phone calls, I chose one who was cheap, sounded elderly, and who told me he didn’t normally do any work in my area.
His grizzled eyebrows rose when I opened the door to the folly’s blackpainted interior. I told him that my children were going to use the place as a gym and adventure centre, and they’d told me exactly what equipment they wanted where. I don’t know if he quite believed me, but I hoped the solid presence of the vaulting horse went some way towards backing up my story.
That afternoon I would have to have the conversation I had been dreading.
Goodness was going to have to know what I was doing. There was no way I could keep it from him, because I needed him to play an active role in my business. He would have to assist at the gate, opening and closing it, and while doing so checking out the cars that arrived – any car with more than one occupant would not be a genuine client and would represent a huge security risk. Goodness, like me, would need to keep a panic button on his person and I would need to train him in how and when to use it.
It was difficult to think of anyone in the world whom I’d be more reluctant to explain this to. This was going to be more embarrassing than ordering a pack of extra-small condoms from a deaf pharmacist. But it had to be done, and postponing it wasn’t going to make the job any easier.
After the handyman had left, I phoned Goodness and asked him to meet me at the folly later that afternoon when he’d finished up and fed the horses.
I passed the time by working on my dungeon. First, I painted the sides of the gym horse red and left the pieces outside to dry. Next, I climbed the stepladder to finish attaching some of the equipment that I simply hadn’t been able to ask the handyman to do.
The chains, for instance. Not even a blithely worded story about a children’s adventure area could have reasonably explained their presence, so I’d kept them out of sight and had asked the handyman to attach a heavy bolt – for a swing, I’d told him – to one of the beams, which in turn had been used to anchor a series of four massive metal hooks that even the pirate captain himself would have found oversized.
I looped the top of the chains over these hooks and, climbing down the ladder again, attached their ends to the handles at the bottom of the wall using large carabiners. With that one simple action, it was amazing how the room suddenly looked like a destination for kinky activities. Those si
lvery links, gleaming dully, stretched against the backdrop of matte black paint –my dungeon looked the part. I could imagine it as a destination that clients would pay to visit.
When the paint was dry I reassembled the vaulting horse and placed it in the centre of the room. It looked magnificent – a crimson focal point that promised hours of painful pleasure and humiliation to those who were soon to bend over its padded back.
The black-painted bookshelves were now home to various other accessories. Candles and matches in case the electricity department decided I was a repeat offender and should be punished myself, the leather halter, bags of bulldog clips, as well as a make-up kit, ladies’ underwear, a frilly maid’s apron, a pair of stiletto-heeled sandals in size eight, and another in a size ten, a box of tissues and a tube of KY jelly.
Another shelf contained cleaning equipment, including surgical spirits and liquid disinfectant as well as disposable antibacterial wipes. I was determined that my dungeon wouldn’t disappoint the health and safety inspectors if they were to visit – not in the area of hygiene, at any rate.
A tap on the closed door told me that Goodness had arrived.
I took a deep breath and hoped I’d have the strength to get through this conversation without actually dying of mortification.
He was waiting patiently outside, hands clasped in front of him, the sleeves of his blue overalls rolled back to the elbow.
‘Ah, Goodness,’ I said.
He nodded in reply.
Immediately, I felt my cheeks go hot. I had no idea how I was going to effectively explain the ins and outs of my new career to my innocent employee, a gentle man who had never completed his schooling and whose English was rather sketchy.
Despite the language barrier that sometimes caused things to be lost in translation, we had a relationship of mutual respect that stretched back all the way to the day when he had arrived at my gate, young, skinny and shivering in a ragged T-shirt and shabby trousers on a breezy winter’s day, desperate for a job. Never, ever, since that day I hired him had he betrayed my trust or let me down. I’d just have to hope that he could trust me, and understand my circumstances, when it came to this matter.
‘Goodness,’ I began, fixing my eyes firmly on a point somewhere between his face and the freshly weeded and repaired pathway. ‘I don’t know if you are aware of this, but since Mark’s accident money has been very short.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he said quietly. He wasn’t looking at me either but was staring at a point somewhere between my shoes and the folly door, with a set expression on his face, and I realised with a terrible lurch of my stomach that he was waiting for me to tell him I could no longer afford to pay his salary – that he had lost his job.
Goodness was no fool. He’d seen what I’d been going through. He’d even helped me carry some of the furniture to the car, on its way to be sold. Most probably, he’d been expecting, and dreading, this conversation for a long time.
‘Luckily, I have made a plan to earn more money,’ I continued, not wanting to keep him in his misery for a moment longer. ‘I’m going to run a business from this place. You’re going to need to help me with it, though.’
Now he looked at me and I saw on his face the beginnings of hope.
‘We are going to …’ I began, and then started again. ‘Some men like to …’
At this point, I gave up.
‘Come and have a look inside,’ I said, and turned to the folly’s door. I flung it open and at last, thankfully, managed to find the words to explain what this was all about.
‘Some men like to be tied up and whipped,’I told him. ‘That’s why I’ve taken all the whips out of the tack room and brought them here. These men are going to pay me money, and I am going to whip them.’
Goodness stood at the entrance with his feet planted on the doormat and peered inside. Round-eyed, he took in the red-painted horse, the silvery chains and leather straps hanging from the walls, the whips on the shelf, the candles on the bookcase.
‘Hau!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head. ‘Hau!’
‘That’s what I feel as well,’ I told him, ‘but we need to do whatever we can at the moment to earn some income. I’m going to need you to help with security. You will have to let the people in and out, make sure there is only one person in the car, and also press the panic button if anything goes wrong. If you hear me screaming inside.’
He nodded.
‘If you hear me shouting, it is ok,’ I hastened to clarify. ‘Screaming is not.’
‘I understand,’ he said.
He backed out of the folly and moved a few steps away, still shaking his head and muttering to himself.
I went over the protocol with him a few more times and even verbally demonstrated the difference between a shout and a scream.
When I’d finished his doorman training, I felt a huge sense of relief. Goodness, my most loyal and trusted ally, was on board with this, and I knew for sure he would try his hardest to keep me safe and to do his job thoroughly.
I hurried over to the main house to contact the security firm, transfer some money and ensure my account, which I feared was a few months in arrears, was brought firmly back into the black.
Chapter 9
I woke up in the early hours of Thursday morning to find a massive electrical storm raging outside. My bedroom window lit up in eerie bluish-white as lightning flashed, and the almost instantaneous thunderclaps that followed seemed to shake the house.
Hard rain – or more probably hail – was striking the windows. I got up to check that the study window was closed, and, pressing the light switch down without a response, found that the power had gone off.
I fumbled around in the bedside drawer looking for a torch I absolutely knew was there, eventually unearthing it from its hiding place right at the back. Its beam was weak and wavering and I’d have to replace the batteries if I wanted more than five minutes’ use from it.
The study window was indeed open, and rain was blowing inside, splattering onto the documents on the left of my desk and trickling down onto the computer tower below.
I pushed it shut, and returned to bed, shivering in the sudden coldness that the rainstorm had brought, noticing that only Bob the Cat, the oldest and bravest of my felines, remained on the bed. He blinked up at me resentfully, as if blaming me for the change in weather.
I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was too excited and too nervous about what the day was going to bring. I lay awake, alternating periods of trying to persuade myself not to stress with those of becoming at one with my stress and embracing it to the full. Heart racing, adrenaline making my skin prickle, I envisioned every possible worst-case scenario that might happen when Lowly arrived.
If Lowly arrived, which was of course the number one worry.
As the storm abated, one by one, the cats crept back onto the bed, nestling against my legs, a hot, furry, feline invasion. They snuggled closer, glad of the comfort after the thunder, unaware that I was now starting to drip with sweat. Pinned into place, I was unable to do so much as turn over onto my other side without upsetting them.
Eventually, morning came, and dislodging the cats and extracting myself from the furnace of the bedcovers, I leaned across to switch off the beeping alarm.
Problem number one – there was still no power. A cable must have blown down in the storm. This was not a catastrophe, but it meant I’d have to use candles to light my dungeon, and Goodness would have to open and close the gate manually.
A knot of fear twisted hard in my stomach as I wondered whether the panic buttons would still work. Surely a serial killer wouldn’t use the pseudonym Lowly? Or perhaps he would. For a moment the news story swam before my eyes: ‘The psychopath, who entered the premises in the guise of a submissive slave, overpowered the home-owner and chopped her into six separate pieces before consuming her organs …’
With an effort, I banished the thought.
When I was in the folly, I lit the candles. The flicker
ing light against the
dark walls created the perfect ambience. My dungeon looked ready.
Now for myself.
I changed into my outfit in the small bathroom. The first item consisted of a black basque, which, somewhat optimistically, I’d bought in size medium. I would imagine it would be easier to squeeze inside a twelve-inch plumbing pipe than to put the bloody thing on. I broke into a sweat as I struggled with the front fastenings for what seemed like an eternity, my hands shaking with nervousness that I’d break them and then have nothing to wear. Eventually it was on. The straps dug into my shoulders, and although I felt like I’d been sucked into a too-small sausage skin, the garment still did a remarkably poor job of disguising the unwanted roll of fat around my waist.
‘Does this basque make me look fat, slave?’
‘No, Mistress, the ten extra kilos you’re carrying make you look fat.’
I giggled nervously at the imaginary, and unlikely, conversation.
I pulled on a pair of black satin knickers. I was under no circumstances going to go the G-string route. Then came the black stockings. I clipped them into place. My thighs protruded fish belly-white above the stocking tops.
I added a pair of long socks before pulling on the well-polished riding boots. Finally, bending down with some difficulty thanks to the tightness of my damn basque, I fastened up my spurs.
I ran my fingers through my shiny, freshly dyed hair before applying some make-up. Foundation, dark eyeliner, brown eye shadow, and a copper-red lipstick. I took my black suede gloves and placed them on the black-painted wooden desk that Hayley had left behind and which, after Goodness had fixed the broken leg, I’d positioned just inside the doorway.
I picked up the panic button, now attached to a short length of black ribbon, fastened a patent leather belt around my waist, and looped the remote through it on the right-hand side.
Then, going back to the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror and nearly lost my nerve.
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