by Becky Bell
'Tonight?'
'You can take a cab and charge it to the company.'
'OK. No problem,' Angela said, though the thought of seeing Paula Divine again filled her with a sense of unease. It had been five days since she'd shown Paula over the house and she could still see the way the woman had looked at her as they'd left.
Josephine handed Angela the envelope. It was addressed to Paula Divine at a flat in Wimbledon. At this time of night, it would take at least an hour to get there in the rush-hour traffic.
'I'd better go now,' she said, glancing at her watch.
'It will be appreciated,' Josephine said, pushing her glasses back up her nose with her forefinger. 'I'll get the solicitors to tell their client you're on the way.'
Angela drew some money from petty cash and caught a taxi right outside the offices. The weather was still unseasonably hot and, as the cab crawled through the suburbs, the interior temperature climbed.
By the time they arrived at the smart modern block of flats overlooking Wimbledon Common, Angela felt hot and sticky. She paid the driver and walked to the entry-phone at the side of the large plate-glass double-doors. The address on the envelope was Flat 35. She rang the bell.
'Yes?'
'Ms Divine. It's Angela Strickland from Slaughter and Roe.'
'Hi. Come on up. Top floor.'
The lock on the double-doors buzzed loudly and Angela pushed one of them open. She saw a small lift on the left-hand side of the large foyer and took it up to the third floor. Flat 35 was at the end of the corridor on the corner of the building.
The door opened before she reached it. Paula Divine stood in the doorway with a bright smile. She was wearing a scarlet silk robe. Her legs were sheathed in glossy black nylon and she was wearing the highest red patent-leather high heels Angela had ever seen. It was an odd combination, Angela thought, under such a casual garment.
'Hi, how nice to see you. It's really kind of you to take all this trouble. Come in.'
'Thank you.'
Angela walked inside. The flat was beautifully decorated, with white walls and a polished ash floor; the hall opened on to a large corner room, with huge windows giving a spectacular view of the common. Modern oil paintings were strategically placed around the walls, mainly representations of the female form; most of them were abstract, but one or two were painted with photo-realism. It was one of the latter that dominated the room, a large nude with opulent breasts, a round stomach, wide fleshy thighs and stubbly black pubic hair, her arm raised rather awkwardly so that her elbow hid most of her face.
'I was just too busy to get up to town today, you see. Can I get you a drink?'
'No. I really ought to get back.'
'I've just opened a bottle of champagne. Please join me.'
'All right. I'd love to.' Angela loved champagne.
'Sit, please.' There were two large sofas upholstered in a harlequin-patterned material in the middle of the room. Between them was a rectangular coffee-table made from burr walnut. There was a silver wine-cooler on the table containing a bottle of Perrier Belle Époque champagne. A single champagne flute stood beside it. 'You don't mind if my maid gets it for us, do you?'
Angela thought that was an extremely odd question. 'No, of course not.'
'Harriet.' Paula sat on the sofa opposite her guest. 'Bring another glass, would you?'
A door opened almost at once and a woman emerged from what was obviously the kitchen. She had an open, rather round face and was wearing a plain black dress with a white lace apron. The dress was a tight fit and revealed a chunky body. Her legs were long and slender, however, and clad in flesh-coloured tights. The woman was wearing black leather high heels, which she seemed uncomfortable with, tottering slightly as she put the champagne flute down on the table.
'Pour the wine,' Paula said, in a tone of voice that was more than a little bullying.
The woman poured the wine into Angela's glass, then topped up Paula's.
'Good. You can go into the other room, now. Wait for me there.'
The woman nodded. She walked across the room to a door in the corner and opened it. Before she closed the door behind her, Angela caught a glimpse of the room beyond. It was painted matt black.
'Cheers,' Paula said, leaning forward to pick up her drink. As she did so, the silk robe fell away from the left thigh and Angela saw the jet-black welt of a stocking, fastened into a ruched satin suspender.
'Cheers,' Angela said. Her famous naivety was disappearing fast. As Paula had not turned a hair at the presence of such a strange room in the property she was buying, Angela could only surmise that she knew full well what it was for. There was nothing particularly strange in that. Sally had known what it was for, too. But now she remembered that Paula had said it would save her time. Clearly Paula had other motives. She had made an offer on the house so quickly precisely because of that room. Paula was in the same profession as the previous owner.
Angela's first reaction was to get the contract signed and get out of there as soon as possible. But she made herself resist it. If she were honest with herself, the idea that not only was there another black room ten feet away from her, but that Paula was actually using it, had provoked a sharp pang of excitement. Curiosity was also playing its part. She sat back on the sofa and gazed at the painting of the nude.
'Do you like it?' Paula asked.
'It's beautiful.' It was. The artist had captured the wonderful, lucent skin-tone of the woman's ample flesh while, at the same time, giving her an almost feline grace. Her body seemed to be in flowing sensual movement, the way her thighs were slightly opened to give the faintest glimpse of her sex suggesting that she was about to entertain a lover. 'Can I ask you something? It's none of my business, really.'
'Of course.' Paula tore open the envelope that Angela had left on the coffee-table and extracted the contents.
'That room at the house?'
'The treatment room?' Paula said, glancing over the contract.
'The black room.'
'Yes. I call it the treatment room, but I know what you mean.'
'Is that why you bought it?'
Paula laughed. 'Yes. No. It was not the only reason, but it was an advantage. I need a bigger place. As you see, I've only got a couple of rooms here. I need to be able to have at least one more bedroom. And a separate entrance.'
'You've got one here, too? A treatment room?'
'Angela... Do you mind if I call you Angela?'
'No.'
'Call me Paula. You must have guessed what I do for a living. I'm hardly dressed like this at seven o'clock in the evening for my own comfort.' She looked down into her lap at her black stockings. 'I'm a specialist, like Wanda was. A dominatrix. Men pay me to be dominated - to be my slave, if you like.'
'Your slave.'
'Don't look so shocked.'
'I'm not. I mean, I don't think I'm shocked. I'm more...' She tried to think of a way to describe what she felt. 'I'm fascinated.' That was the truth. In fact, ever since she had realised the truth about Gregory Wilmott, the idea that a man could get sexual pleasure from such a perverse and seemingly painful process had truly fascinated her. There was also no doubt that it excited her, too.
'Have another glass,' Paula said, leaning forward and topping up both glasses.
'Thanks. So these men come to you and you do what, exactly? I'm sorry - perhaps I shouldn't ask.'
'Ask away. I don't mind. There are a lot of men with big sexual hang-ups. They all get a kick out of being dominated, in some way or another. Some like to be put into bondage and whipped. Others like to do my washing or clean the flat, or wear my clothes, as long as they are completely subservient. Some of them can have normal sex and just use this as a way of spicing it up. Others can't get an erection unless they're being abused. Don't ask me why; I've never tried to understand it. The big difference between Wanda and me is that Wanda was a professional. She acted it out. I don't need to act. I'm a natural, if you like. I need to be domineer
ing to get aroused. Luckily, I discovered men are only too willing to pay for services I would have been happy to provide for nothing. I don't think I'd enjoy just lying there with some man on top of me, humping away. What's the pleasure in that? I prefer something more... imaginative.'
'You enjoy it?' Angela said, trying to keep the astonishment out of her voice.
'Enjoy is a rather weak word. If you want the truth, I love it. There's no greater pleasure to my mind than having two big beefy men crawling around on the floor, obeying your every command. It makes me so randy. And, of course, I can have them satisfy me, any time I choose.'
'Really?'
'I guess that makes me just as kinky as them. Except I'm the one in control.'
'I had no idea. It was only when I saw that room in Number 18... and...'
'Do you want to see for yourself?' Paula said, looking straight into her eyes. It was the same hard, quizzical look she had used outside the house in Park Drive.
'What?'
'If you're fascinated, why don't you come and see for yourself?' Paula got to her feet. 'Come on. They won't bite. Not unless I order them to.' She swigged back her champagne, then put the glass down. 'Or would you rather I just signed the contract and let you go home?'
Angela was surprised at her reaction. She got to her feet without the slightest hesitation; despite the fact that she could feel her heart beating at nineteen to the dozen, she felt remarkably composed and alert. 'All right,' she said calmly.
Paula walked to the door that the maid had disappeared through and waited for Angela to catch up. 'I hope you're not easily shocked.'
The door swung open. Paula ushered Angela inside.
The walls and ceiling of the room were painted black and there was a black linoleum floor. The room was lit by three spotlights on a bar hanging from the ceiling, operated by a dimmer switch. Paula turned the switch bringing the lights up.
There were as many ropes and chains and pulleys hanging from the ceiling as Paula had seen in the Park Drive house. There was a large walnut cupboard in one corner and a small double bed in the other.
In the middle of the floor was a vertical wooden frame, supported on either side by diagonal struts bolted to the floor. At each corner of the frame, and at intervals all down the length of the vertical stanchions, metal rings had been screwed into the stout wood. A naked man was spreadeagled inside the frame, his hands and ankles strapped into stout leather cuffs identical to the ones that Angela had seen in the room at Park Drive. The cuffs were attached to white rope that had been tied to the corner rings of the frame and pulled so tight that the muscles of the man's arms and legs were stretched and taut.
The man had a large circumcised erection, its veins swollen by a leather harness that had been strapped over the base of the shaft and around his balls, lifting and separating them. Hanging from foot-long chain at the base of this harness was a tear-shaped metal weight about the size of a tennis ball.
His body was rather chubby, with a ring of fat sitting at the top of his hips, though his belly was more or less flat. His head was entirely enclosed in a helmet of skin-tight black leather which had no provision for his mouth or ears but had small oval slots for his eyes.
'This is Bill. Say hello to Angela, Bill.'
The helpless man tried to form the word hello but only a muffled sound escaped.
'He has a gag under the helmet. Makes it difficult to talk. I don't want him screaming the place down.' She turned to the man. 'Aren't you the lucky one?' she said. 'She's beautiful, isn't she?'
The man nodded. His eyes stared at Angela with undisguised lust.
Angela simply did not know what to say. She had never been so totally shocked in her whole life. For her, sex had always been straightforward and uncomplicated. She had lost her virginity to a kind and gentle boy, in a wood near her home, on a quiet and starry night. It hadn't been a defining moment, as far as she was concerned; and though she had chosen her lovers carefully since, she couldn't say she had ever experienced the sort of ecstasy that other women talked about and which was frequently featured in films or on television. She had no idea that men were prepared to go to these lengths for sexual pleasure.
'Doesn't it hurt?' she stammered.
Paula laughed. 'Of course it hurts. It's terribly painful. But pain is relative. Pain is a sort of electricity. It lights everything up. Without it, the pleasure would be muted and dull. With it, everything is intensified. Then, at a certain frequency, pain and pleasure turn into the same thing.'
Angela stared at the bound man. He was obviously excited by her presence. She noticed his cock twitch, making the weight that was hanging from it swing back and forth.
'Do you want to see more?' Paula said.
Angela nodded. She felt like Alice having stumbled through the looking glass into a world where nothing made sense.
'Up,' Paula said.
Angela hadn't noticed the maid. She was sitting in the far corner of the room on a little wooden stool. At Paula's command, she got to her feet immediately.
'We need a little lip-service from you,' Paula said.
The maid appeared to know what this meant. She got to her knees in front of the spreadeagled man who, for some reason, began to struggle against his bonds. It sounded as if he were trying to say the word 'no', though all that emerged through the leather helmet was a muffled moan. Harriet opened her mouth and impaled it on his cock, thrusting forward so far that her lips were grazing the man's pubic hair and Angela could see her cheeks bulge.
The bound man tried to twist himself away from her, but he was tied so tightly there was nothing he could do. Harriet sucked hard, then pulled her head back until her lips were pursed around the rim at the base of the man's glans. Angela saw her running her tongue all around it.
'That's enough,' Paula said.
Harriet stopped at once but remained where she was, on her knees.
'They're very obedient, as you see. Harriet is one of my regulars. She's been coming to me for over a year. Haven't you, Harriet?'
'Yes, madam.' Harriet's voice was low and gruff.
'Take your dress off now, Harriet, I want Angela here to have a good look at you.'
'Yes, madam.'
Harriet sprang to her feet, reached behind her back and managed to undo the zip that ran down the length of the dress. She untied the white apron, then pulled the dress off over her shoulders. She was wearing a lacy white bra and white satin slip and a thin, lacy, white suspender belt which was clipped to her flesh-coloured stockings.
'Now the slip.'
Harriet pulled the slip up over her head.
'My God,' Angela breathed. Harriet was a man. He was not wearing panties and he had a large uncircumcised cock which was fully erect. His foreskin had been pulled back and a tight metal ring squeezed down over his glans. A thin short black string from this ring was tied to a leather strap buckled around his thigh, forcing his erection to point downward and thereby not spoiling the line of the dress with a give-away bulge. His pubic hair and all the hair on his legs and arms had been shaved away and the bra was stuffed with flesh-coloured plastic cups.
'He makes a passable woman, don't you think? He's going to have electrolysis on his facial hair, one day soon. It's very painful.'
'He pays you to do this to him?' Angela said.
'He's my slave. Aren't you, Harry?'
'Yes, madam.'
'Is he homosexual?'
Paula laughed lightly again. 'Oh, no. He doesn't like being made to suck cock, do you, Harry? Bill doesn't like it, either. But that's the whole point. They are here to obey. I'm their mistress and I insist they do whatever I tell them. And the more abhorrent it is to them, the more they enjoy it. That's the paradox, you see. That's the whole crux of their obsession. Assume the position, Harriet.'
The man immediately spread his legs apart, bent over and grasped his ankles, tipping his buttocks into the air. Six long stripes decorated his bottom, each a different shade of red, from a light
pink to a deep scarlet.
'Harriet had to be disciplined, earlier.'
'They're whip marks?'
'A riding crop, actually. Now it's Bill's turn.'
Bill immediately began to protest, wriggling against his bonds and trying to say something through the gag.
'You're going to whip him?'
'Unless you'd like to have a go.'
Angela shuddered. But it was not horror that made her react in that way. She had such a vivid memory of the last time she had administered a riding crop that it had created an unexpected pulse of arousal.
Paula hadn't missed the expression in her eyes. 'Try it.'
She went to a rack of whips on the wall by the door and selected a riding crop with a long braided leather handle. Other than the fact that it had a thin tapering end rather than a flat loop of leather, it was identical to the one Angela had used on Gregory, a year ago.
'I don't think I want to,' Angela said hesitantly. But she took the whip from Paula's hand. It seemed to be a natural extension of her arm. 'He really wants this?' she asked.
'Of course. Pain is pleasure.'
Bill nodded his head.
Angela knew she should have put the whip down and walked out of there, but it was too late for that. She walked behind the suspended man and looked at his naked back. He had rather small round buttocks and there was a trace of a previous beating on them, little pink lines crisscrossing his buttocks. Before she had really thought about what she was doing, she raised the whip and slashed it down hard on his white flesh. The noise echoed through the room. The man moaned loudly.
'Very good,' Paula said.
Angela suddenly felt hot. But that was not going to stop her. The feeling of the whip biting into the man's bottom and the sight of his pulpy flesh vibrating had caused a strong pulse of pleasure deep inside her sex. Her clitoris was throbbing, too. Quickly, she stepped back, raised the whip and cut it down again. Her body seemed to vibrate with the impact, just as much as the man's did.