by Vina Jackson
Two of the men were thin and tall like beanpoles, while the third was of medium height, a bit stocky, built like a swimmer with powerful shoulders. They all seemed to be wearing our regulation customer outer wear: black leather jackets, T-shirts and jeans. The swarthier one addressed me, fortunately in English.
‘My friends here would like to have a look at the Gibsons you might have in stock.’ His accent had something of the Scandinavian about it, harmonious but guttural.
‘New instruments or second-hand ones?’ I asked.
‘Both,’ he confirmed after conferring with his friends.
And, seeing me intrigued by the language they were speaking in, he said, ‘They’re from Iceland.’
‘Ah,’ I remarked, my curiosity satisfied.
‘Me too,’ he went on. ‘But I left the island ages ago. Been in England nearly ten years now.’
I nodded.
‘I’m with another band now, but I used to play with these two back home when we were younger. I’m Dagur Sigur-darsson. But you can just call me Dagur.’ He extended his hand and we shook a hello.
‘Lily.’
He had a lovely smile, with pearl-white teeth.
I busied myself with his friends while Dagur wandered around the shop examining our varied stock. One of the Icelandic musicians took an immediate liking to a Dobro and asked me to take it down from the far wall. I’d connected the instrument to a practice amplifier we kept permanently plugged in for tests and demonstrations, and a ripple of melodious notes tinged with country-and-western rhythms rang out through the store.
Ever since I’d been working at the music store I knew there was no need for any kind of salesmanship or words of encouragement. Musicians know their own mind and personal opinions wouldn’t be taken into account. At any rate, the guitar player quickly agreed to acquire the instrument and gave me his credit card while I passed the heavy Dobro to Jonno to reunite it with its case and pack it.
I handed over the till and credit-card receipts to the buyer whom Dagur had rejoined.
‘Anything I might interest you in?’ I brazenly asked Dagur, feeling as if I were on a roll.
‘I’m a drummer,’ he pointed out.
I blushed, though of course I had no way of knowing what instrument he played. The store did not stock percussion. In the world of music, that was a specialist area which other stores catered for.
He theatrically blew me a kiss as he walked out of the door.
‘You didn’t know who he was, did you?’ Jonno said to me. He was smirking from ear to ear.
‘The drummer? Should I?’
‘He’s from the Holy Criminals.’
‘Viggo Franck’s band?’
‘Yeah. That one. Not really my thing, but most girls go crazy for them.’
Not having gone crazy for them seemed to have raised me in Jonno’s estimation.
I shrugged, playing up my nonchalance to impress him, though secretly I was chuffed to have sold a guitar to a bona fide rock star, or his friends at least.
But the thrill of Dagur passed quickly, and I returned to my thoughts of Paris. And Leonard.
A full day of work on my feet in the music shop had left me worn out, so by the time I arrived for my shift at the fetish club I was frazzled, light-headed and jittery from consuming too many energy drinks to push myself through.
I tried not to double up as it was just too exhausting, but I’d had to make some sacrifices in order to keep my dates with Leonard as well as keep my employers happy, and one of those sacrifices was losing sleep having to work for whole days and nights on the hop. I’d started in Denmark Street at ten a.m. and wouldn’t be home from the fetish club until six a.m. the following morning.
The underground club felt surreal at the best of times, but tonight it was practically a dream world. Thursday nights were always quieter than Saturdays and so we tended to get more of the couples who came out purely to make use of the equipment and the anonymity that the club provided. The thud of floggers and the crack of whips on bare skin and the resulting screams really had a way of travelling, so I could easily understand why people came to the club rather than risk waking the neighbours with their unusual nocturnal practices.
Periodically one of the other club workers would take over on the counter to give me a chance to go to the toilet or take a cigarette break if I wished, though I didn’t smoke. Invariably I spent these snatches of time in the play areas, observing the interactions between the club’s guests.
Somehow I could never quite get used to the sight of women being tied up and effectively beaten. Often I thought of Nick and Liana together on the night that I’d accidentally witnessed. Even though I’d been aroused during certain moments, the thought of my friend in pain, particularly at the hand of a man, horrified me. I knew that each interaction was negotiated in painstaking detail and over the course of an entire relationship and that often it was the person on the receiving end of a paddle who had pleaded to be treated that way. There were plenty of dominants who got a release of sorts from having a partner at their beck and call, but also many who inflicted more pain because they were asked to and enjoyed the enthusiastic response of their submissive.
Richard was the club’s only male Dungeon Master, whose job it was to give advice and keep an eye on the patrons and make sure that newcomers were following the rules. He had tried to explain the intricacies of the dynamic between doms and subs to me, and all the variations that I found so fascinating.
‘You don’t need to understand it,’ he said that night, as he watched me watching a man caning a woman’s arse so hard that she jumped and cried out in pain with each strike. ‘So long as you respect everyone’s right to do what they please with their own body.’
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Each to their own. I know that. I just don’t see what they get out of it.’
‘Have you ever had your hair pulled? Or someone slap your butt?’
I mentally ran through my limited catalogue of sexual memories. So many were blurred by the passing of time and often the presence of alcohol. I remembered vaguely that a guy at a house party in my second year of uni had tugged at my hair as he kissed me and had nipped at my lower lip and then slid his hands under my skirt and smacked my arse. We were in the kitchen at the time and he’d been leaning against the refrigerator when I approached to get another bottle of beer and he’d taken me into his arms. When he had pulled on my pony tail and bit my lip, I’d just presumed that he was unskilled and clumsy, but slapping my bum had been the final straw. I’d been thoroughly insulted and had pushed him off and walked away. Who did he think he was? Someone starring in a rap video? Liana had chortled heartily when I’d told her.
‘You need to lighten up,’ she’d said. ‘Objectification can be hot.’
I’d been shocked at the time, but hadn’t given it much thought since. Liana was always trying to get a reaction from me anyway.
At any rate, I had resolved never to attend parties wearing a pony tail again.
Richard brought me back to the present.
‘What do you think about dommes and their male subs and slaves then?’ he quizzed.
He signalled over to She, who looked like something out of a superhero film with her gleaming latex catsuit and towering stilettos. She stood with her back as straight as a broomstick and her dark hair piled on top of her head in a slick bun that made her appear even taller. Her legs were spread slightly apart so that she seemed totally grounded, not crossed at the ankles or teetering precariously in the way that so many women balanced on their high heels. In each of her hands she held a shining silver bracelet studded with diamante jewels that sparkled in the light. Attached to each bracelet was a long chain, and attached to the end of each chain was a man on all fours staring at the floor and clad in just a pair of rubber hot pants with ‘She’s Slave’ printed across their arse cheeks in hot-pink lettering. Mostly She ignored her slaves, but every now and again she would give one of their chains a tug and a smile woul
d pass over her face.
‘That’s different,’ I said firmly.
‘How is it different? Why is it different?’
‘I don’t know. It just is.’
Richard’s questions were beginning to make me feel uncomfortable.
The front desk was dead quiet when I returned to my place behind the counter. I had hoped that we would have a busy patch to distract me from the thoughts crowding into my mind, but it was getting late and past the time that most of our patrons arrived, unless they’d been to a house party or another club beforehand.
I had no moral reservations about women cowering down to men, providing that everyone involved was an adult, fully aware of what they were getting themselves in to, and doing it for enjoyment’s sake, even if I couldn’t relate to the pleasure that they experienced or the mindset that drove them.
I could more easily understand the dynamic between She and her slaves. That seemed to be more like a different sort of government than a sexual game. Like a matriarchal society with She as Cleopatra. And that was a system that I could appreciate. In fact, the feminist in me thought it entirely sensible. Men in power had been screwing things up for centuries.
Leonard sometimes gave me instructions in bed. Or held me in place when I wriggled away from an intense sensation. But he was so gentle, and it always seemed that he could somehow read my mind and was giving me what I wanted rather than forcing me to acquiesce for his own gratification. And more often than not, he looked at me as if I was something to be worshipped. Sometimes so intensely that it made me look away. I didn’t feel that I was worthy of the sort of attention that She received. But I was certainly not a chattel to be used.
I could no sooner imagine Leonard wanting to whip me until I screamed or tie me so that I couldn’t move any more than I could imagine Neil doing it.
A vision of Neil dressed in full leather regalia and looming over me with a riding crop flashed into my mind and I laughed out loud.
‘Maybe it’s time for you to go home,’ piped Sherry, the girl who was helping with cloakroom duty tonight and who had caught me giggling to myself as she popped out for a cigarette. ‘Nearly closing anyway and I’ll cover for you. You look shattered.’
Sherry wasn’t her real name, any more than She was She’s real name. Most of the club’s staff and the guests used pseudonyms or ‘scene names’ to refer to the fetish side of themselves. Partly this was a way to preserve anonymity and avoid any trouble that the unveiling of their private lives might cause, and partly it was a way to step from one persona into another, like putting on a new pair of shoes or changing into a party dress.
When I signed onto the club’s payroll, I had been asked what I wanted to call myself and after little more than a moment’s thought I had decided to stick with Lily. I’d had so much trouble figuring out my own identity that I had no wish to add any more complications to it now. I didn’t want to be fragmented into the good-girl Lily and the bad-girl Lily, pre-tattoo Lily and post-tattoo Lily, Berkshire Lily and London Lily.
Right then I decided that I would just be Lily. The club was one place where I felt that I was truly free to be myself, whatever that was on any given night, and I didn’t want to confuse matters by giving another name to some identity that I felt was the ‘real me’. I wanted to be me all the time. Just plain old Lily.
London was just beginning to stir when I changed out of my latex waistcoat and into plain jeans, a sweatshirt and old trainers for the journey back to Dalston. It was just gone five a.m. and always a strange time of the morning, when half the people on the street had just woken up and the other half were on their way home to bed. The streets were inevitably full of oddballs when I headed home from the fetish club so I walked quickly, my head down, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. I wasn’t particularly afraid. Just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of being harassed. Later the suits would be out in full force, but for now I was surrounded by drunks, tramps and council workers and it was a funny mixture that, combined with the early hour, seemed to bring out the worst in people.
Even the fresh air and brisk though short walk to Farringdon station couldn’t empty my mind of the questions that had flooded it that night. I was worried about Liana. We’d naturally fallen out of touch a little – we lived in different cities now and recently I had been so wrapped up in Leonard.
She was still with Nick as far as I knew, but the last time we spoke it had been clear there was some tension between the two of them and she had hinted in passing that she had been spending more time with a group of people who Nick wasn’t keen on. That was what had worried me.
Not long after I had begun working at the fetish club, I realised that Liana was by nature a sub, or at least had experimented in that area even if she didn’t necessarily see herself as that. We had never discussed it directly, but I felt fairly sure that Nick was her dominant, and once I had got used to the idea and saw the two of them together I had developed an appreciation for him. He was discreet and clearly very affectionate towards her, and she always seemed happy when they were together. For as long as Nick was in the picture I was certain that he would take care of her.
But the thought that the two of them might have fallen out, leaving Liana to her own devices, made me panic.
She was the sort of person who was forever throwing caution to the wind in favour of chasing the next thrill. Liana followed her body where I followed my heart, and she was the type of person that I could imagine might easily take things too far and go down a perilous road.
By far the majority of doms on the scene were perfectly normal individuals who cared a great deal about their play partners, and the majority of submissives were equally well-balanced ordinary people who simply happened to enjoy a different sort of sex than the average, but there were a few folk who hung around the perimeters and were best avoided.
Every section of society has its fair share of extremists. Richard had been the first to warn me of the possible pitfalls to look for if I was supervising the fetish club’s play area or keeping an eye on unsavoury-looking patrons to determine if they needed to be thrown out. Single men in cheap military jackets who stood too close to the play area were the stereotype, but it took all sorts, and it was the manipulative ones who managed to hold up a veneer of respectability that I worried about where Liana was concerned.
She wasn’t stupid, but she was reckless. And she was my dearest friend.
I vowed then that as soon as I was back from this weekend in Paris I would make some time to catch up with her. I would tell her all about Leonard and confess my latest set of secrets, and hope that she still felt close enough to me to return the favour.
Until then, I would forget all about the underground club and the eternal fascination that world held for me. Even the parts of it that I didn’t fully understand yet. And instead I would focus on Leonard.
I hurried home to rest and to pack.
Leonard had a life before me. But it wasn’t one I wanted to hear about. There had been a wife, manifold adventures and much more. And I was jealous of it.
I sought my own adventures. A voice inside was screaming out that I deserved them, lots of them, and somehow this made me feel awkward when my feelings for Leonard took over and all I could do was daydream about an unlikely future together. My heart was his, but my soul was torn.
The room was on the top floor of a small hotel situated between the left bank of the Seine and the Boulevard Saint Germain. Leonard told me later that the famous French singer and dissolute Serge Gainsbourg had lived on the same street just a hundred yards away. You could even see the gated courtyard of his building from our window if you stretched your neck.
The train had been delayed under the Channel Tunnel for half an hour and it was already dark when I reached my destination.
The elderly man on reception looked up from his newspaper and just nodded when I mentioned Leonard’s name. I had texted him when the train had drawn in to the Gare du Nord and he had gi
ven me his room number. I was just carrying an overnight bag with a single change of clothes and toiletries.
Leonard was sitting on the bed reading a paperback, wearing his usual dark slacks and a T-shirt. His smile as he greeted me was full of warmth. He dropped the book as I walked in. The door had been left unlocked.
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lily,’ he said. ‘Bienvenue à Paris.’
‘Hey, Monsieur Leonard. I’m pleased to be here …’ I was about to try to say something witty, albeit not in French, but words failed me. There was a sense of serenity about him, in this small, badly lit room, as he looked up at me.
‘Hungry? Most places wont be serving dinner this late,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure we can find something, a snack maybe. There’s a stall that does nice crêpes near the Odeon Métro.’
‘No need; I had a sandwich on the train, and I have a few apples in my bag.’
He rose and took me in his arms.
It felt odd, being with him here. On other occasions we’d entered rooms together, knowing all too well that we were planning to fuck. All of our previous meetings had been overshadowed by an immediate lust. We had never begun with small talk. But arriving separately like this, there was a sense of anticlimax, of doubt also, as if the whole process we were going through was artificial. I dropped my bag to the ground.
Leonard pulled me closer to him and kissed my cheek, with his tongue lingering lovingly across my minuscule tattoo, as if tasting it. He kept his eyes open, and I forced myself to do the same, although my initial instinct was to close them and surrender to his amorous intentions.
He undid the buttons on my light summer jacket and helped me slip my arms out of it as I held them up to ease his task. I could feel the fleeting touch of his breath caress my face, and tried to kiss him but he took a step back.
‘No,’ he said. ‘First I want to undress you.’
I nodded obediently. He had visibly been rehearsing this moment, established its ritual. And I was willing to oblige. My mind flitted back to thoughts of the club and the conversation I’d had with Richard. But this was different. Even when he told me what to do. We were equals, indulging in mutual pleasure that sometimes varied in its form.