Bound to You Read online

  I wandered back over to Gina, who was chatting with the now unleashed Wolf. ‘How was your inquisition with the Mistress?’ Gina joked. ‘Did she try to recruit you to her Dark Arts or something? Jamie says she’s always scouting parties in the hope of finding an assistant.’

  ‘Gina, I’m a journalist,’ I reminded her.

  I reminded myself.

  CHAPTER 9

  I looked at Sapphire’s website over the weekend, as instructed. It had pictures of Sapphire in queenly pose, shot from the perspective of someone on their knees, and looking as though she could tear a man limb from limb with just her aggressive smile. Sapphire in white jodphurs with a riding crop; Sapphire in an elegant rubber prom dress holding aloft a pair of women’s knickers; Sapphire dressed in a power suit and vertiginous stilettos, brandishing an unfastened collar in her beautifully manicured hands.

  On Tuesday, Sapphire called me.

  ‘Hi, Nichi, how are you? Had a good weekend? Did you manage to take a look at the website? Nothing too terrifying on there, I hope!’

  I had perused a list setting out what Sapphire would do: over-the-knee spanking, tie and tease, public humiliation, feminisation, strap-on worship, foot worship, and CBT – the same CBT that she had explained to me at the party. Underneath the list was an ambiguous statement. ‘This is not exhaustive and I am happy to consider your proposal for subservience to me. If you’re lucky, I might even satisfy it.’ There was also a disclaimer. ‘Please note: I do NOT offer intimate body worship, penetrative sex or hard sports. DO NOT ASK FOR THESE SERVICES.’

  ‘No, nothing too alarming,’ I replied, mirroring her language.

  ‘Well, like I said, all you have to do is sit there and stare. Now, about the money . . .’

  On her website, I had clicked on ‘Rates’. Jesus. This woman earned as much in two hours as I did working a full week at the hospital.

  ‘Obviously as you’re only my assistant we can’t charge for you the same as for me, but how does a hundred pounds an hour sound to start with? We can always raise it once . . . well, let’s just see if you enjoy it first.’

  One hundred pounds an hour? Lord, this sounded too easy to be true. To sit there and stare? I mean, any idiot could get that from me for free on the tube if I was feeling sod-side out, as we say in Yorkshire.

  ‘So, the client I went to see after the party, well, I was telling him about you. Don’t worry, nothing personal, not your name or occupation or anything like that. He’d love to meet you. Are you free on Thursday?’

  Yes, I was free on Thursday. Technically, I was free every day. I was unemployed, after all. But . . . No buts, I told myself. It was one hundred pounds.

  ‘Yes, I’m free on Thursday.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great. So his name is Robert and he’d like to take us to lunch, which he’ll pay for, and then back to my office for a session. I’ll be chastising him, all you have to do is watch me. And then you can go home. With one hundred pounds.’

  What was there to say, apart from, ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘Wonderful! Well, I’ll text you the name of the restaurant. It’s some Italian place. As for costume, well, you suit dresses, so just remember to look like an everyday girl. Wear what you’d wear if we were having lunch together. Anyway, I’d better run, my eleven o’clock is here. Oh, and one more thing – think of a new name for yourself. We never use our real names.’

  Two nights later and I lay in bed wondering what I was letting myself in for. I had hung up my outfit on the wardrobe. It consisted of a dark flared dress decorated with tiny roses, with sleeves and a high neck, and barely heeled Mary Janes. It didn’t shout sex; it announced sedately that I had more important things on my mind than flaunting my flesh.

  I had been through the safety issues with Sapphire on the phone earlier that afternoon. ‘The lady I rent the office from is also an escort. She knows exactly what time I’m meant to be in and what time I’m meant to be out. I text her when I arrive and when I leave, and she comes and checks up on me if she doesn’t hear anything. There’s a water-based fire extinguisher in the room we work in. If anything was ever to go wrong I’d hose them! But it won’t. It never has. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  I had so many other concerns and questions, though. Would the client wear shirt and braces? Have halitosis? Call us ‘my dears’? I mean, what exactly were these men’s motivations? Was this just going to be an excuse for them to ogle our young, firm (well, firm-ish) bodies? Or were they after something else altogether? And how would it feel watching someone taunt and tease someone else sexually? Sure, I’d watched porn, but never the domination kind. I knew this was play violence but – was it? Did you have to be a bit unhinged to indulge in it?

  I couldn’t answer any of these questions. I would just have to wait and see. Just think of it as acting, I told myself. After all, that’s what I’d wanted to do all the while I was growing up. And if it’s terribly disturbing, you never have to do it again. One for the memoirs. Besides, who knows – it might even turn out to be thrilling. Despite my nerves, I giggled to myself at the thought, before finally sinking into sleep.

  ‘This is Robert.’

  Robert, Robert. My, what a ham of a man you are, Robert, I thought. Robert actually looked like a waxy ham, as he glistened damply beneath his striped polo shirt. Mid-height, receding hairline concealed with a crew cut. He was alarmingly normal.

  ‘We’ll have one gin and tonic, Robert. And one mineral water. I’m allergic to alcohol,’ she confided in a stage whisper. I hadn’t noticed that at the party but then I’d been too engrossed in our conversation to observe what Sapphire had been drinking. She’d remembered my usual, though. The Ham wove clumsily between the chairs to the bar.

  ‘So, did you think of a name for yourself?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said brightly. ‘Athena!’ From one goddess to another, I’d decided. I don’t know why but I thought giving myself a Greek name would somehow enlist Christos as a kind of invisible protector.

  Sapphire winced. ‘Hmm, it’s a bit – artificial. I think for a vanilla girl you need something simpler. How about . . .’ Her eyes scanned the room, then she paused and looked right at me. ‘How about Jade? Jade suits you so much better. Draws attention to those gorgeous green eyes!’

  Her bleached teeth beamed at me like little pearl-handled knives. The Ham was struggling back from the bar with the drinks. ‘Oh, and quickly, while I remember, I’ve told him you’re a student; most of them love thinking they’re helping out some poor girl who needs the money to study! Just play along with it!’

  ‘Permission to pass you your drink, Madam?’ the Ham said breathlessly to Sapphire.

  Sapphire nodded and held out her hand. ‘Give Mistress Jade hers too, please.’

  Mistress Jade! This was hilarious and bizarre. But it did make me feel pleasingly superior.

  ‘Mistress Sapphire says you’re studying politics, Mistress Jade. I’ve got an MA in political science, myself.’ A thin twang of Tyneside seeped out of one side of the Ham’s mouth.

  ‘Literature, actually,’ I corrected him with a smile. I looked at Sapphire to check this was OK. She winked back at me.

  ‘How’s work?’ she asked him. It was an innocuous enough question, but also weirdly personal. Did the clients really want to talk about their everyday strains and stresses like this? Apparently so. Over the course of lunch it transpired that the Ham was a self-made man. Not quite a millionaire, but the CEO of a PR agency, all the same. He had a chip on his shoulder about where he’d come from, and how far he’d come since. It was the most unattractive thing about him.

  ‘Would you like dessert, Mistress Jade?’ Robert asked.

  ‘No thank you.’

  Sapphire’s head tilted almost imperceptibly.

  Uh oh. I wasn’t meant to be polite, was I? It was harder than I thought to be rude and mean. I corrected myself. ‘No.’ My voice tinkled unpleasantly, like the only coin in a charity tin. I was going to need to master coolly scathi
ng the way Sapphire had.

  The bill came and was paid.

  Sapphire was hardening before my eyes. She flicked her head towards Robert. ‘Go to the bathroom and think about what you’ve done. Mistress Jade and I will wait outside.’

  What had he done, I thought? Apart from telling a couple of truly abysmal jokes. Maybe that’s just what she said to all of them.

  ‘Yes, Madam.’

  As he left, Sapphire turned to me. ‘Forget your manners. It’s a turn-off.’

  ‘God, I know, I’m sorry’.

  She shot me a look. We both laughed. ‘Argh, no more sorries!’ I scolded myself. Sapphire was friendly towards me right now but something told me she could ice me out in a second. Correcting myself was better than having her do it.

  ‘So, here’s what’s going to happen now. We’re going to take a cab back to the flat.’

  I glanced down at my phone, double-checking that I’d given Gina the address just in case Sapphire was the one I needed to be afraid of.

  ‘When we get there, he’ll give us the fake leather pants he’s brought for me – he’s a leather fetishist, you see, albeit a tight-fisted one, so they’re Topshop fakes. Then I’ll change in front of him as I verbally humiliate him. All you have to do is sit there and watch. We’ll be done in about forty minutes, I’d say. Feel free to pitch in but there’s no obligation to actually say, and certainly not to do, anything at all.’

  As we waited, I realised that my heart was pounding. The feeling was a cross between being on the way to meet your first boyfriend, and being sent to the headmistress’s office for your first serious school-rules transgression. At once both terribly exciting, and excitingly terrible.

  When the cab arrived, the Ham scuttled towards and then away from the vehicle, an apologetic crab gingerly pincering the door handle. I noticed then how shallow his breathing had become. Sapphire stepped up into the cab, one slim leg after another disappearing into the back. I hesitated, dared for a moment to look directly at him. His eyes were watering. I got in too.

  Inside the cab, the Ham’s language became even more ingratiating. ‘Goddesses, I’ve brought you these.’ Out of his briefcase he brought a handful of high-end fashion magazines. ‘I thought you would like to read them on the way to my punishment.’ He whispered the last word so as to conceal our intentions from the driver. The fact that he was kneeling on the cab floor did ever so slightly give him away.

  Ten minutes later and we had reached the ‘office’. It was a grubby white terraced house split into flats, with no garden and no drive, the kind of non-descript property London is full of. Suddenly I realised I had no idea at all what to expect. Would we be entering a cosy living room? A decadent boudoir? A fully kitted-out dungeon? God, I really had just gone along with this without thinking it through properly, hadn’t I? Gina, at least, knew where I was, but who knew what was actually going to happen once I was on the other side of this door?

  Sapphire’s right hand swept in and out of the pocket of her leather jacket, placed the key deftly in the lock, turning it soundlessly as she touched a red-tipped finger to her lips, urging silence. Did that mean there were other people living in the building?

  The Ham, who had only moments ago been struggling with our bags and the cab fare, was now close behind me, breathing wine-clotted breath into my hair in a fug of paranoia and lust. It urged me across the threshold, and a moment later I was blinking in the plum light cast by a pale white bulb closeted in a red paper lantern. Thick black drapes framed what must be the windows, and there was a faint smell of mildew, uriney jasmine and something else that I couldn’t place.

  On one end of the mantelpiece stood a statue of the many-armed Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali. For some reason, the statue comforted me, gave me faith that this really was a thinking woman’s endeavor, that this wasn’t just about servicing sexist men and their sexual whims.

  Then I started to take in the rest of the room. Mounted next to Kali’s head were crops, whips, canes, flagellators, chains, a horse brush, hairbrushes, and rubber hair-band-like rings. Across the hearth hung smaller straps, some plain leather, some supporting coloured balls, and one with an oversized fake penis projecting from its centre. The strap was as narrow as a neckbrace, and I imagined Sapphire armoured up to the hilt in it.

  In the right-hand corner, attached to the wall, was some kind of strange, X-shaped restraining frame, and what looked like a dirtier version of the horse I’d never quite managed to vault over in school gymnastics, its leather skin split like a lip. Next to it was a bookcase on which was displayed an array of ladies’ shoes. Although limited to black and red, here was footwear for all occupations: PVC stilettos and low-heeled leather courts, policewoman’s lace-ups and embroidered oriental pumps. Slingbacks, kitten heels, brogues, platforms and perspex stripper heels. Even wellingtons. Above them, spare shoelaces suffocated brass hooks.

  ‘So, how do you like my dungeon, Mistress Jade?’ Sapphire asked. She was smiling indulgently, not at me but at the Ham. ‘This is Mistress Jade’s first time at the dungeon, Robert.’ He gave an audible groan. ‘See,’ she laughed. ‘I told you it turns him on.’

  The Ham fell to his knees. ‘Please may I kiss Mistress Jade’s feet, Mistress Sapphire? Please. I just want to show her how grateful I am to her for letting a pathetic, ugly, overweight pig like me be in her presence.’

  Sapphire smirked. ‘No, you may not. Mistress Jade is just here to watch. If you are exceptionally well behaved, I may – I stress MAY – let you kiss mine. But first go to the bathroom and wash. I don’t want your filthy piggy self despoiling my lovely office.’

  He nodded rabidly, and backed away, head hung in prostration.

  When he was safely in the bathroom, Sapphire turned to me. ‘You OK?’ My heart was thumping a little less ferociously now. This was like being part of some surreal university play where the emotions are so overheightened it leaves you wanting to laugh at every glib action.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I replied.

  ‘OK, good. Now, why don’t you sit over there on that throne.’ The ‘throne’ was one of those seventies-style high-backed wicker chairs with a rich damask cover thrown over it, situated at the back of the room. ‘I’m going to walk around him a bit and then sit here while I tease him.’ She gestured to another giant armchair, with a slightly stained seat cover, nearer to the door.

  ‘I know this all seems far more ridiculous than sublime so don’t worry about laughing at him, will you? If you want to laugh, just let it out! The more humiliated he feels, the more it turns him on. And the more he’s turned on, the more likelihood of him coming back.’

  I really couldn’t understand how two women laughing at you could get you off. But I wanted to find out.

  There was a timid knock on the bottom of the door.

  ‘Enter!’ commanded Sapphire.

  Butting the door open with his head, the Ham crawled in on his hands and knees. I giggled involuntarily. He really did look utterly ridiculous. As soon as he saw me laughing he looked into my eyes longingly.

  ‘A-a-a-a!’ Sapphire clapped her hands. ‘Did I say you could look at her? Did I?’

  He hung his head in shame and shivered.

  ‘No, Mistress, you didn’t.’

  ‘No, that’s right, I didn’t.’ Then she softened. ‘Aww, my poor little pig-toy. You’re just so weak when there’s someone else around, aren’t you? You can’t help but show off.’ She cooed at him like he really was a scrabbling animal.

  He looked up at her like she’d just called him the most handsome man on earth. This was bizarre.

  ‘Now, Robert, I want you to crawl to my feet and bring me your tribute.’

  His tribute? What was that? Out of his back pocket, Robert produced a crisp white envelope folded once over, and put it in his mouth. Ah! Our money.

  ‘Now, I want you to present it to me in the way I like.’

  Robert rose up on his knees for a moment and began to undo the buttons at the neck of
his polo shirt, before pulling it up and over his head awkwardly, so as to avoid dropping the envelope clutched between his teeth. Then he fumbled with his belt and struggled with the zip of his jeans, before yanking them down past his rotund white stomach. With his jeans about his knees, I could now see that he was wearing white Calvin Klein briefs. For some reason that made me laugh again.

  Sapphire turned around to face me and smiled gleefully.

  ‘See, she’s laughing at you, Robert. She thinks the sight of you in your try-too-hard underwear is funny. And I—’ she bent down and pushed her face right up before his ‘—happen to agree,’ and let out of peal of nasty laughter, before knocking him sideways with her knee.

  The Ham groaned as if Sapphire had just slid her hand into his briefs.

  ‘Get back into position. But before you do, take these jeans off. And your shoes and socks. And those pathetic pants of yours.’

  The Ham scrambled to free himself of his remaining clothes. I felt embarrassed for him and, for a moment, wondered where to look. But my curiosity drew my eyes back to him.

  He looked right at me again. He still had the envelope in his mouth. As I glanced at his pasty body, I could tell that he saw the look of mild contempt upon my face. I could also tell that he had a violent erection because of it.

  ‘What did I say?’ Sapphire hissed at him. ‘You do NOT look at her. She doesn’t want to see you! And she certainly doesn’t want to see THAT.’ Sapphire pointed at his penis, and swooped down towards him. He cowered in fright, dropping the envelope. Sapphire spun around to face me, shaking her head like a she-lion. She was pretty terrifying.

  ‘I give up,’ she said, still with her back to him and went to sit in her chair. She closed her eyes, thrust her chin and chest up towards the ceiling as she arched back into the chair and kicked one long, slim leg up into it, drawing attention to the crotch of her tight black jeans. Then taking a deep dramatic breath, she opened her eyes again in wide accusation. Her red hair seemed to burn in the purplish light.