‘Definitely. I know because I made a note in my diary. I always do that with her, just to amuse myself! Anything else?’
‘Not as far as I know. I’m meeting that new editor this afternoon and then I’ll probably take a manuscript from the slush pile home. That last one Paul recommended I’ve decided to take on, and he thinks this is almost as good. The only problem these days is selling new authors to publishing houses.’
‘If anyone can do it you can,’ Sue assured her.
After she’d gone, Kristina sat thinking about what Sue had said. If it was two weeks since Lucretia had last rung then it was two weeks since she’d seen Jacqueline. After their dinner she’d tried phoning her almost every night, but Jackie wasn’t just out, she’d also turned off her voicemail. All in all she was proving highly elusive to contact, and Kristina was desperate to find out more about the handsome but strange Laurence van Kitson.
On a sudden impulse she picked up her phone and dialled the paper where Jackie worked. She had started there as a junior reporter but was now rapidly becoming one of the leading women journalists of the day with her own weekly column and a growing army of fans who enjoyed her sardonic wit and occasional in-depth interview.
Usually she was out of the office, but this time Kristina was lucky and within minutes Jacqueline was on the other end of the line. Kristina could tell from her muted response that Jackie didn’t really want to talk to her, so she rushed on quickly before her friend could terminate the call.
‘Look, Jackie, I’ve got a few problems with Ben,’ she said, which was at least partly true. ‘I thought perhaps we could meet up and have a chat. I’d really value your opinion, especially as you’ve recently split from William.’
There was a short pause. ‘I’m rather busy at the moment,’ replied Jacqueline cautiously.
‘Aren’t we all! The truth is, I desperately need to hear someone else’s point of view, and you’re the person I trust most,’ said Kristina, despising herself for lacking the courage to come out with the real reason she wanted the meeting but knowing that her instinct was right, and that anyway if she did Jackie would refuse to see her.
‘Okay then,’ conceded her friend. ‘I can’t make it tonight, and Friday’s out too but I suppose tomorrow would be all right.’
‘Great. Shall I come round to your place? We can hardly talk about Ben at mine!’
‘Why not meet for a meal?’ suggested Jacqueline.
‘It’s a bit personal for that,’ protested Kristina. ‘Besides, now that you’re getting so well known we’d never have a moment’s peace.’
‘I’m hardly Kate Middleton!’ Jackie laughed, finally relaxing. ‘Still, you’ve got a point. See you tomorrow then. Let’s say about eight. Must dash now.’
That evening, as Kristina went through a contract with a new publisher with a fine-tooth comb, checking for any hidden clauses that were to the author’s disadvantage, Ben got out the ironing board and started pressing some of his shirts.
‘Can’t that wait?’ asked Kristina abruptly.
He looked at her in surprise. ‘Actually, no it can’t. I’m out of shirts. Why? Did you want to do them yourself?’
‘No, of course not! It’s only that …’
‘Only that what?’ he demanded.
Kristina bit on her bottom lip. She didn’t know how to answer him. There really wasn’t any reason for her to say a word. She’d never been the kind of partner who ironed his shirts or did all his laundry, and normally she wouldn’t have taken any notice of what he was doing. It was simply that without any warning, she’d had a vision of Laurence van Kitson doing his own ironing, and the idea had been so preposterous that it had made her want to laugh. Realising that the idea of him ironing was amusing had made her feel annoyed with Ben for doing it, because Ben ironing wasn’t remotely amusing, and that worried her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days. I feel on edge all the time, as though there’s something wrong but I don’t know what.’
‘Did you want to go to bed?’ asked Ben, his eyes eager.
Kristina knew that the very last thing she wanted to do right then was to go to bed with Ben and have him, as Jackie had said about William, make love to her by numbers. She forced herself to smile. ‘No, honestly I’m fine and I have to get this contract checked. Sorry, Ben; you carry on.’
In the early hours of the morning Kristina awoke from a strange, sensual dream in which someone unknown and faceless had been touching her softly and intimately. She awoke desperate for sexual satisfaction, her lower belly and the soft flesh between her thighs aching with sexual tension and without a second thought she climbed on top of the naked Ben and began to arouse him with her body.
He responded automatically, but it was only when she actually started to lower herself on to his erection that he awoke properly. He groaned with sleepy pleasure and then idly ran his hands down the sides of her body as she rode him until her climax swept over her and she was released from the terrible tension caused by the dream.
‘That was nice,’ he muttered, turning over on his side again. ‘You can do that again any time you like!’
Kristina lay next to him and knew that she wouldn’t do it again, not ever. The physical ache had gone, but she felt empty and hollow instead. She wished that when Ben had woken he’d taken the initiative, thrown her on to her back and plunged into her himself, his hands pinioning her shoulders to the pillow. But that would never happen. Their love-making had never been like that. She’d never before wanted it to be, so how could Ben be expected to know that suddenly she longed for things to change?
The following evening she arrived at Jacqueline’s Kensington town house with two bottles of Chardonnay. Jackie opened the door to her wearing her usual leisure outfit of jogging pants and top, while on her feet she had a pair of huge pig slippers with ears that waved as she walked.
‘Very elegant!’ laughed Kristina. ‘Do you let Laurence see you like this?’
Jackie’s smile faded. ‘No, I don’t. He wouldn’t be at all amused. Come on through. Excuse the mess but my cleaning lady’s deserted me and I can’t find a replacement.’
‘You mean now that William’s gone you haven’t got anyone to tidy up after you!’ laughed Kristina.
Jacqueline gave a wry grin. ‘I guess that is the truth! Here, let me chill that wine for a few minutes, then we can have a good gossip.’
‘You’re leading a busy social life at the moment,’ Kristina remarked. ‘I’ve tried to get you loads of times, but you haven’t even been leaving your voicemail on.’
‘God, haven’t I? I must try and remember that. I can’t afford to screw up my job just because …’
‘Just because what?’ asked Kristina curiously.
‘Nothing,’ said Jackie quickly. ‘Let’s start drinking shall we and you can tell me all your woes.’
As they talked Kristina realised that she was being totally honest with herself as well as with Jacqueline, and for the first time she admitted that Ben was getting on her nerves. ‘He hasn’t changed,’ she concluded after over an hour. ‘I know that, just as I know I’m being totally unreasonable. The fact of the matter is, I’ve changed and I don’t know how to tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’ asked Jackie.
‘That I’d like him to change too I suppose.’
Jackie smiled. ‘But he won’t be able to. That’s like buying a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and asking it to behave like a Rotweiller! Ben’s Ben, he can’t become someone else because your needs have changed. He likes the life he’s got, and he loves you the way you are, or were. He wouldn’t like the changes you want to take place. If Ben were the kind of man who wanted to be in charge he wouldn’t have moved in with you in the first place.’
‘I don’t want a selfish chauvinist,’ said Kristina crossly. ‘I only want him to take control sometimes. I’d like him to take me by surprise, do things differently now and again. Is that too much to ask?’
‘Well, I don’t want someone like Laurence,’ said Kristina firmly. ‘He may be your idea of a fun date but he wouldn’t be mine. There must be a happy medium! I mean, does Laurence do anything for you?’
Jacqueline smiled a strange, secret smile. ‘Yes, lots of things.’
‘Like what?’ demanded Kristina.
‘If I tell you,’ said Jacqueline softly, ‘you must promise not to tell anyone else, ever. Do you promise?’
Kristina frowned. ‘Sure, but I can’t imagine why you’re being so secretive. What you do isn’t illegal is it?’
‘Of course not! But it is meant to be secret. The whole affair is, well, strange. It isn’t like you’d think, you see. It’s a kind of arrangement. A sexual arrangement.’
‘He isn’t a gigolo? You don’t pay him for sex?’ exclaimed Kristina in horror.
Jacqueline refilled their wine glasses and smiled at her friend. ‘Hardly! No, it’s much more difficult to explain than that. I suppose I ought to begin with the bracelet, the one you admired when we had that meal out. You remember?’
‘Yes,’ said Kristina. ‘I thought it had the letter “B” on it, but you said it wasn’t, it was simply a shape.’
‘Yes, but you were right, Kristina, it is a “B”. You see, it’s a bracelet of bondage.’
‘Bondage?’ queried Kristina stupidly. ‘You mean, you’re into being tied up? Is that what Laurence does to you?’
‘You’re shocked aren’t you?’ said Jacqueline, and she smiled. ‘Actually, no, that isn’t what it means, but since you ask Laurence does sometimes tie me up, when he wants to that is. But mostly we do other things.’
‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying,’ said Kristina, annoyed by the look of amused superiority on her friend’s face. ‘Okay, so you’re into bondage, what’s that got to do with the bracelet, or even Laurence? Surely William would have tied you up if that’s what you wanted?’
Jacqueline nodded. ‘Of course he would. William would have done anything I wanted, but Laurence does what he wants. There’s a big difference. Until I joined the society I didn’t even know myself what I really liked, and William would certainly never have been able to assess my needs in the way Laurence does.’
‘But you’re a modern, liberated woman,’ protested Kristina. ‘What’s the point of women’s new-found freedom if you end up getting some blond-haired South African hunk to tie you up and use you for his own pleasure? Don’t you think you’re rather letting the side down?’
‘Listen,’ said Jacqueline, refilling her wine glass. ‘You came here tonight because you wanted someone to hear how you were feeling about Ben, about your sex life really, isn’t that true?’
‘Yes,’ conceded Kristina.
‘Haven’t you ever stopped to think that perhaps because we’re successful career women we’ve trapped ourselves in a life where we’re always in control. Don’t you sometimes long for someone else to make a decision for you?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Right, and so do a lot of other highly qualified, intelligent, high-profile women. This society, the society that I’ve joined, is intended for people like us. The “have-it-all” women who find they haven’t got it all.’
Kristina remembered the article about her in The Publishing News, and the strange unexplained emptiness that often filled her after she and Ben had made love, and kept silent. She suddenly wanted to hear more.
‘When I put on the bracelet,’ continued Jacqueline, ‘I know that for the time I wear it I’m totally subservient to Laurence. He controls everything. That’s why he chose my meal for me when we were out, and why he sent me off to the ladies room. He knew I didn’t need to go, and so did I, but because I’d chosen to wear the bracelet that night I had no choice. And do you know what? It was an incredibly exciting sensation. When I walk into his house and put that bracelet on I feel so aroused, so sensual, that sometimes I think I’ll explode the moment he touches me. Only of course I’m never allowed to.’
‘Not allowed to?’ asked Kristina.
‘No. He controls my pleasure, how much I have and when I’m allowed it. One evening the moment I arrived he told me that I couldn’t have my first climax for another two hours. He played with me, aroused me, stimulated me in ways you could never begin to imagine, but he made sure that he never allowed me to topple over the edge into a climax for the whole of the two hours.’
Kristina felt her cheeks growing hot and her body began to feel tight at the extraordinary story she was hearing. The trouble was, she could imagine the scene only too well. Could almost feel the touch of the South African’s hands on her own skin, and the incredible tension that must have been endured by her friend.
‘What was it like, when you finally did come?’ she whispered.
Jacqueline closed her eyes for a moment, remembering and savouring the moment again. ‘It was like nothing I’d ever imagined possible. I felt as though I was shattering into hundreds of pieces, as though my body would be torn apart by the power of the orgasm. Believe me, Kristina. It was the most wonderful sexual experience of my life.’
‘What if you don’t like what he does to you?’ asked Kristina, her voice trembling.
‘Then I remove the bracelet. Once that’s off the relationship is a normal one. We talk, or make love the way we both choose. Only it hardly ever happens. I mean, I do remove it sometimes but the whole point of these meetings is that I’m wearing the bracelet. Removing it is simply a safety precaution, in case your partner’s choice of game isn’t to your liking.’
‘How do you join?’ asked Kristina in a low voice.
‘It isn’t easy. A member has to put your name forward, and then you have to be approved by the committee. I don’t know who makes up the committee but they turn down far more women than they accept. They have to be sure that they get the right kind of women because the men involved are all highly successful in their fields and they’re very fussy.’
‘You mean there are a lot of men doing this?’
Jacqueline laughed. ‘You didn’t imagine Laurence satisfied all the women did you? Of course there are lots of men. If you get accepted you’re informed and then all your details are fed into a computer. After a time one of the men from the society chooses you and you get an invitation to go along and meet him. Sometimes it’s a phone call or an email, sometimes a written invitation, but the initial meeting usually lasts about an hour. If that goes well you arrange another meeting, but if it doesn’t work out for either of you then you just wait and try the next man who asks to see you.’
‘Why can’t a woman ask to meet a certain man?’ asked Kristina.
Jacqueline sighed. ‘That would ruin the whole thing, Kristina. The entire point of this is that the women who join want, for brief periods in their lives, to be controlled rather than to control. That’s why the women wait to be chosen, it’s a passive role, not an active one. If that doesn’t appeal to you then you wouldn’t be suitable for the society anyway.’
‘How often do you see Laurence?’ asked Kristina, her interest and desire growing the more Jacqueline talked.
Jacqueline looked slightly shamefaced. ‘At first I only used to wear the bracelet for an hour or two a week. Laurence would ring and I’d go round for a couple of hours just one night. At other times when he called I’d say I wasn’t in the mood. But now, when I’m not working, I hardly take it off. I can’t wait for him to call. I crave our time together and when I’m not wearing it I feel lost, bereft.
‘The awful truth is, Kristina, that for women like us, women who spend their working lives taking all the responsibility and making all the decisions, this bracelet is addictive. Just between ourselves, it’s beginning to frighten me. I resent going to work. I hate entertaining men who bore me or going to parties where everyone’s boring and I have to retain the facade of the famous journalist, witty, sexy and sparkling,
for the benefit of everyone there.
‘All I want is to be wearing the bracelet for Laurence. I think about it constantly, and that’s why I’m never in when you call and why I don’t leave my mobile or voicemail on when I’m with him. I want to shut the rest of the world out because the physical pleasure and the incredible sensuality of the whole situation has become my life instead of my safety valve.’
Kristina shivered, not from cold but from fear. Yet the fear was not of what she was hearing, but of the effect it was having on her. She was aroused by the idea of wearing the bracelet, and afraid of what the consequences might be if she took the step of asking Jacqueline to put her name forward as a prospective member of the society.
‘Did you have to get rid of William before you could join?’ she asked, thinking that she couldn’t possibly split from Ben just because of what she’d heard tonight. The idea attracted her, drew her, but there was always the possibility that once involved she might not enjoy it as much as Jacqueline did. She might even realise that Ben was as perfect for her as she’d thought when they first met. She would never allow them to part at this stage, all because of the strange, darkly erotic story told to her by her friend.
‘You never have to do anything, except when you’re wearing the bracelet,’ explained Jacqueline carefully. ‘No one in the society cares about your life outside of the times you’re enjoying the benefits of the bracelet. William and I had to split. Once I knew myself better, understood how I got my deepest sexual satisfaction, there was no point in us staying together, but the choice was mine.’
‘Suppose I like the idea?’ said Kristina slowly. ‘Let’s say I want to join, if only to find out whether it proves as satisfying to me as it does to you. Would you put my name forward?’
‘Yes, of course I would. Mind you, that doesn’t mean you’d be accepted. It probably depends on how far your fame as a literary agent has spread. I think most of the women are business directors, or run their own PR companies, that kind of thing.’
Kristina frowned. ‘That’s a pretty insulting thing to say, Jackie. I am considered to be one of the leading literary agents of the day.’
The Bracelet Page 3