Then he reaches for my hair and pulls it hard, slamming himself all the way back in simultaneously. My endorphins all whoosh together and race around my body, scalp to toes, filling me with wildness.
Halfway through the fuck, a skilled combination of hard and fast and slow and steamy, I realise that I am laughing. I am so stupidly delighted to be here, with Lloyd, in this grim stockroom in Soho, getting banged into the ground that it feels like my life’s high point.
I know it’s just my brain being strange, but I go along with it, let the joy surge and the rhythm guide me, all the way to an orgasm that starts small and builds, up and up and up, until it’s too big for me and it spills out.
I am joyously impaled, happily immobile.
He comes almost immediately – my orgasm seems to have this effect on him a lot of the time – and lets go of my hair, putting his hands on my shoulders then clasping them around my neck. I feel his head drop on to the nape of my neck, resting there. His heartbeat pounds into my back, even through his shirt.
For a blissful moment, only our heavy breathing can be heard.
Then a spell is broken, and Jerome speaks. ‘Well, that’s three out of three,’ he says. ‘I guess you got your prize. Guys, shall we …?’
I’d completely forgotten they were there. They troop out and shut the door on us, leaving us to our recovery.
‘What the fuck’s that aftershave?’
‘Cheap stuff on special offer in Superdrug.’
‘You’re not keeping it.’
‘No.’
We yawn back into trembly pleasurable silence.
‘When did you know it was me?’ he asks just before I nod off in my restraints.
‘When you breathed.’
‘When I breathed? I was under the impression I did that fairly continuously.’
‘No, you dolt. I didn’t hear a thing for ages, then you took this breath, just – the way you do. And I knew.’
‘Really?’ I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘You know me pretty well.’
‘I think we’ve spent enough time in close proximity to be fairly clued up on each other.’
‘Yeah. I’m wondering now if I’d recognise you that way. I think I would.’
‘It was smell as well. Even underneath that terrible aftershave.’
‘Ah, so that cunning plan didn’t work.’
‘Nope. Plus, it was so obviously going to be you anyway. It’s like a classic fairy-tale plot. Three of these shall ye shag, or something. And you’re the handsome prince all rigged out like a malignant goblin.’
He snorts. ‘Thanks. Handsome prince, eh?’
‘I’m not talking literally.’
‘No, I suppose not. Well.’ He raises himself, pulling out of me with slow care, and discards the condom. ‘As far as handsome prince behaviour goes, there’s one thing I haven’t done.’
I hear buttons, belt buckle.
‘What’s that?’
He comes around to face me, crouching so our eyes are level. God, his are so blue. I sometimes forget how blue they are.
‘Kiss the princess,’ he says then fastens his lips to mine.
Corny as fuck, but it makes me feel annoyingly gooey, in amongst the kissing and the tonguing and the breathing in of his more familiar scent, now overpowering the cheap crappy cologne.
‘Who are you calling a princess?’ I croak, once he has kissed me into oblivion.
He just smiles and starts to untie me.
‘I passed that one then?’
‘I suppose you did. What was going on in that pub in Mayfair? That looked spectacular.’
‘I’ll tell you all about it at home. Oh shit!’
‘What?’
I called his flat ‘home’. But I can’t draw his attention to that. ‘I was supposed to be taking photographs tonight.’ I flex my wrists, freed from their bonds.
‘Well, the night’s young.’ He scoots behind me, unstraps my knees. ‘It isn’t eleven yet.’
‘Yeah, but …’
I stand, tentatively. Lloyd catches me when I sway, unsteady on my feet. I miss the drips on my thigh, the unmistakable evidence that Lloyd has been up to no good inside me. I want to do it again, sans condom.
‘But?’ He smoothes my hair, cups my face, kisses me again as if he can’t help it.
‘I’m in the mood now,’ I murmur into his ear. ‘Not for photography. I want to do it in a bed, without a condom, after you’ve removed that fucking awful aftershave with paint stripper if necessary.’
‘Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,’ says Lloyd. Once the last strip of tape has been peeled off, he slaps my bum. ‘Get dressed then.’
Back at his flat, after politely taking our leave of Jerome, Jake, Lincoln and the collected clientele of Tied and Trussed, we shower and then pore over the pictures I’d sent to Lloyd on his phone.
‘I really liked those knickers,’ I sigh, looking at them fluttering in the South Bank breeze, then crumpled inside a sentry box.
‘I’ll get you new ones.’
‘Do you think they’re being used as evidence right now?’ I muse. ‘Military police swabbing them for DNA to find the identity of the Buckingham Palace drive-by knicker-thrower.’
Lloyd chuckles. ‘Yeah. It was an opportunist crime, they’ll say. Is it a one-off or is she a serial offender? They’ll have you down in the barrack dungeons if they ever get hold of you.’
‘Oh God, do you really think so?’
‘Of course. There’ll be an interrogation, but they’ve got you bang to rights, haven’t they? If the knickers fit …’
‘Like a lingerie-based Cinderella.’
‘But there’s no ballroom dancing with Prince Charming. Instead, you’ll be convicted and sentenced.’
‘To?’
He holds my eyes for a second. I watch his pupils skitter from side to side.
‘What do you think you deserve, prisoner at the bar?’
Ah, I know and love this game: crime and punishment, without the crime. Just the fun part.
‘Isn’t it your role to pronounce sentence, Your Honour?’
‘Well, I do believe it is. Wait there while I find my black cap.’
‘Death? That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Hmm, you could be right. I might commute it to three hundred and seventy years of sexual slavery.’
‘Penile servitude?’
‘I wasn’t going to say it …’
‘But you were.’
‘Yeah.’
Chapter Five
My skin looks like silk and my hair isn’t the colour I always think of it as being and I had no idea the gap in my teeth was that prominent.
But none of these things jump out at me half as much as …
‘Look at your eyes, Soph. Look at the way you’re looking at me.’
I can’t think what to say. Instead, I laugh self-consciously. ‘Velociraptor.’
‘No, not that. Well, partly that. But there’s something so …’
‘I need to tone up my arms.’
He puts the photograph on the desk and stares at me across the broad walnut surface. ‘That’s not all you need,’ he mutters, picking up the envelope full of proofs and emptying the rest out.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I pick one up, one of me masturbating, and cringe at myself. ‘What do I need?’
‘A reality check.’ He snatches the snap from my hand and waves it in front of my nose. ‘What are you seeing here, Sophie? I don’t think it’s the same as what I’m seeing.’
‘You really want me to answer that?’ I feel sulky, as if I’m being told off. I slump in my chair and push out my chin.
‘Yes, I do. Tell me what this is a picture of.’
‘Me, wanking.’ I say it aggressively, trying to make it as crude as possible.
‘I need more detail.’
‘Me, reaching my delicate fingers down to my slick intimate folds and manipulating them in order to achieve orgasm.’
‘Forget the ma
sturbation part. Who’s the woman?’
I click my tongue and huff at him. ‘What the fuck, Lloyd? I don’t have time for bloody riddle-me-ree. What do you want from me?’
‘Describe her.’ His voice has got louder and more strident. He’s going to shout at me in a minute. I’m preparing my walking-out-in-a-huff reflex.
‘Describe her? Not as young as she was, not as tall as she’d like to be, flabby arms and thighs plus too much round the middle, hair needs cutting, pulling a really stupid face.’
Lloyd holds my eyes for a moment then turns the picture round to look at it.
‘It’s weird,’ he says after long ruminations. ‘I always thought you were really confident.’
‘Nobody’s really confident though, are they? Everyone puts it on.’
‘I don’t. I really am. I think I’m a pretty stand-up guy. I mean, I acknowledge that I have faults, principally my filthy mind, but I have an outlet for that. No, I mean, I would never describe myself in the terms you just used.’
‘What, you’d say you were a handsome, buff stud, would you?’
‘I think I’m looking pretty good these days, actually. Better than I did when we met. And do you know why that is?’
‘No.’
‘Because I think that’s what you deserve. A man who takes care of himself, who you can look at and think, Give me some of that.’
‘Well, good for you. Thanks for your efforts, and all that. Much appreciated.’
‘I know it is, Sophie. But why are you so down on yourself?’
‘I’m not! I’m just modest and self-effacing, you know, like people are meant to be. I’m not in a black hole of self-loathing or anything like that.’
‘I wish I could be sure of that. I had to trick you into getting these pictures taken. What is it about your own image that frightens you so much?’
‘Lloyd Freud.’ It’s my ‘shut up now’ phrase whenever he gets too close to the bone.
‘Don’t. I’m not messing about. I want to know you, and I don’t feel I really do.’
‘Trust me, you’re better off that way.’
‘Why would I trust someone who won’t let me know them?’
‘So you don’t trust me?’
He shrugs, flips the photograph aside. ‘I do, in many ways. Most ways. I don’t think you’re sneaky or dishonest. But you’re hidden, and there can only be one reason that you hide, and that’s fear. What are you afraid of?’
‘Monsters.’
He smiles against his will. ‘I’m not a monster. Do you think I’m a monster?’
‘Only in a good way.’
‘Speaking of monsters …’ He pushes another photograph towards me, one of the pair of us in the throes, but this one has something else paper-clipped to it. A business card.
‘What’s this?’ I hold it up and read. ‘“Yours For the Night. Sexy, sophisticated brunette, new to escorting, will service your every need. To discuss rates, call –”.’
I put the card down, eyebrows raised. ‘You want to pimp me out?’
‘What are you worth, Sophie? How much should I charge?’
‘You know the answer to that. You know what I used to charge the guys in the hotel bar.’
‘Yeah. Nothing. Is that what you’re worth?’
‘I’m not a commodity. That’s why I didn’t charge.’
‘Well, for this task, you have to commodify yourself. So how much are you going to be worth?’
‘I don’t think I can say. Isn’t it a buyer’s market?’
‘What are you selling?’
‘My cunt.’
‘No, you aren’t. Not for escort work. You’re selling a service to the purchaser’s ego. He wants to be seen with a bright, smart, attractive, sexy woman. That’s what he’s paying for. If he wants cheap meat, he’ll go to a cheap meat rack.’
‘That’s a horrible way of putting it. I haven’t said I’ll do this.’
‘So a fail then?’
‘No.’
‘Right then. Put a value on yourself.’
‘What’s the market rate?’
‘I don’t know. Sky’s the limit. I believe the average for an overnight is around seven hundred pounds.’
‘Go for that then.’ I shrug, not wanting to prolong the conversation.
‘Sophie, are you thinking about this? I want you to really think about it.’
‘I don’t want to really think about it. Just line up the schmuck and I’ll screw him. Task over.’
‘No, that’s not what the task’s about.’
‘It’s about sex, isn’t it? Like they all are. Lead me to the sex and I’ll have it.’
‘You really think sex is always about sex? Just that? The meeting of genitals?’
‘I’m an uncomplicated girl.’
He laughs. ‘That’s the last thing you are, my love. Come on, now. Figures. Name your price. What’s a night with Sophie Martin worth to a man so tragic that he has to pay for female attention?’
‘What do you think? What am I worth to you?’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t you dare.’
‘You can’t answer that?’
‘No, I can’t. And I don’t pay for it. Never have, never would.’
‘Well, look, I’m going for the market average. The seven hundred pounds. Though I can picture the guy asking for his money back. You can get one and half iPhones for that.’
‘I wish I knew that you were joking.’
‘You really want to do this?’
‘Yes. I think it’ll be … enlightening. Look, come around here.’
I wheel my chair round to his side of the desk, where he is firing up a website. I gasp and drop my jaw, as a large photograph of me naked – scanned from one of Sash’s pictures – appears on screen. My face is pixelated, but the body is definitely mine.
‘What the fuck, Lloyd?’ I look around wildly, as if expecting a legion of sex-crazed punters to burst through the office door at any minute.
‘Relax, it isn’t live yet. This is the preview. When you give me the OK, I’ll unleash it on to the World Wide Web and see what happens. Take a look at the site and tell me if you want to make any changes.’
I scan the text, but find it hard to process. I’m reading an advert for myself, essentially, but I don’t really recognise the goods described.
‘“Sophie is a classy, stylish young professional woman, able to hold her own in any social situation. She is well informed on a wide range of conversational topics, holding a university degree and possessing a dry sense of humour. Scratch the smartly suited surface, though, and you will find an uninhibited slave to pleasure.”’ I make a face at Lloyd. ‘Did you write this?’
‘What? I thought it was quite good.’
‘“Sophie’s sensual nature will delight and impress you. You will be back for more.”’
‘I just need to add in the rates.’ Lloyd taps away on the keyboard. ‘Overnights only. I’m not doing any hourlies. Not for this task. It’s important that you do the full escort schtick, including conversation. Though probably the man will just want to talk about himself, if I know my high-end johns, which I do.’
‘How?’
‘That gambling den I used to work in was always full of them.’
‘Right.’ I squint at the screen. ‘Have you airbrushed that picture?’
‘Nope. It’s one hundred per cent Sophie.’
I bite my lip. ‘It’s actually quite nice.’
‘Yes, it is. Isn’t it?’ He turns to me and smiles, as if in pity. ‘I’m almost sorry to give you this task. I think it’s going to be ten times more difficult than any pure sex game would be. But I’m going to have a question for you at the end of it, and I want you to keep it in mind throughout.’
‘What is it?’
‘I charged seven hundred pounds for this. What should I have charged?’
‘Is there a right or wrong answer to it?’
‘Yes. And if you answer wrong, you fail.’
; ***
‘His name’s Conrad.’
Lloyd has cornered me on the third-floor corridor, where I have just emerged from the room of a guest hysterical about the lack of park view from her west-facing window.
‘Conrad? German?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s his name, and he wants you.’
‘Do I want him, though?’
‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He pays for you, he gets you.’
‘So, where, when?’
‘You’re meeting him here, in the bar. He’s a delegate at the Futures for Futures Traders conference.’
‘A banker.’
‘I suppose. Or a gambler. Actually, I have a feeling I might know him from the casino. Anyway, the cocktail bar at seven, then dinner at eight, then …’ He gives me a knowingly grotesque wink.
‘That’s only an hour from now.’
‘I know. Better get ready, eh? He asked for a businesslike look with sexy underwear beneath. High heels, pencil skirt type of thing. Maybe put your hair up.’
‘Did he have any other requests? Besides dress?’
‘He gave me the impression he expected his money’s worth.’
‘Oh. And what’s that? What’s included for seven hundred pounds?’
‘You decide.’ Lloyd’s hand lands on the small of my back. He doesn’t exactly pull me close or hug me, but it’s still a reassurance.
‘I can say no?’
‘Of course you can. But it’ll probably mean a fail, that’s all.’
‘I might not tell you about it.’
‘Conrad will tell me. My agency values feedback and offers partial refunds for clients who give it.’
‘What a great agency.’
‘Yeah, I think so. And I’ll be in the room next door, OK? There’s an interconnecting door. So if you need me …’
‘I won’t need you.’
We knock foreheads, bump noses. It seems like the prelude to a kiss, but at the last moment he ducks to the side and whispers in my ear, ‘One day you might.’
Then the lift pings and he hastens off to the ground floor, leaving me to contemplate my whoredom.
I go to change in Lloyd’s apartment, a suite of rooms behind the ground-floor office. I have plenty of my own clothes and belongings there – I am an almost-resident. I wonder, while I select scant silky stuff from a bedside drawer, why this isn’t enough for Lloyd. What difference would a formal change of status from frequent guest to cohabitee make? How long would it take for one or both of us to get complacent? At the moment we see each other because we want to. If I moved in properly, we would see each other because we had to. Surely living and working together would incur that kind of contempt-breeding familiarity I dread.
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