In order to get to the Blue Boudoir we had to go up to the very top of the building. This floor had been turned into a kind of gaslit wonderland, with flock wallpaper and portraits of Pre-Raphaelite-looking damsels with bare bottoms everywhere. The Blue Boudoir, at the end of the corridor, carried this theme on, with a four-poster bed standing the middle of velvety sumptuousness.
‘If you want to come down to the café for a drink,’ said Mal, once Joss had deposited our travel bags on the floor, ‘I’ll be down there for the next hour or so. After that, I’m afraid I’ll be rushed off my feet. So much to organise.’
He put a hand to his brow in a theatrical manner and tossed his long, dark hair.
‘If you need anything, just ring for one of our maids,’ he said, before leaving. Not in a cloud of smoke, but there was something of that effect hanging in the air after him.
‘Well,’ I said, looking around me. ‘This is nice. Just like Willingham Hall, but cleaner.’
‘Their maids are very good,’ said Joss, sitting on the side of the bed. ‘They love their work.’
‘Kinky maids, I take it?’
‘The kinkiest. Watch.’ He pulled the plaited cord at the side of the bed and a bell jangled.
Seconds later, a rather portly lady in a tight black PVC maid’s dress so short that a massive pair of frilly knickers and stockings were clearly visible underneath rushed into the room and fell to her knees in front of Joss. Oh, it wasn’t a lady. It was a man, very clean shaven and wearing a blonde bobbed wig under his mob cap.
‘You rang, sir, madam,’ he said, his eyes to the ground.
‘Yes, I did,’ said Joss. ‘Take off my shoes.’
The maid shuffled forwards and took Joss’s left foot in reverent hands. I watched, immobile with fascination, as he bent over it and began to lick the dust from the well-shone leather. It didn’t seem very hygienic, but the maid clearly enjoyed it.
Once every speck of London grime was off and the shoes bright as mirrors, the maid removed them, kissed Joss’s sock-clad toes and then bent right over in a gesture of complete obeisance.
‘Get up,’ said Joss.
The maid scrambled to his feet.
‘Sir, my mistress says I am to ask you for your feedback on my service.’
‘It was good, I suppose,’ said Joss.
‘Thank you, sir. Then she asks that you will show your pleasure by spanking my bottom.’
‘I see.’
‘What if he were displeased?’ I couldn’t help asking. Punishment for good service seemed rather harsh.
‘Then sir could take down my knickers and spank my bare bottom,’ explained the maid. ‘And mistress would punish me too, in front of all the other maids. She won’t accept poor service.’
‘And rightly so,’ said Joss. He hauled himself to his feet, ordered the maid to bend over and delivered four hard smacks to his frilly rump.
‘There. On your way now,’ he said.
The maid curtsied and made a demure exit.
‘I didn’t really want to take my shoes off,’ said Joss with a frown, removing a tissue from the box at the bedside and using it to remove all traces of the maid’s saliva. ‘I was going to take you downstairs for a coffee.’
‘What the hell is a BDSM coffee shop like?’ I wondered aloud.
‘Come with me and you’ll see,’ he said, but before I could move he grabbed my hands and pulled me down on to the bed with him. ‘How are you?’ he asked softly.
‘I’m fine. This is just so interesting. I’ve got a sort of professional versus personal conflict going on in my head. I really want to write about it.’
‘You can’t. Seriously. Absolute no-no.’
‘I know that. I wouldn’t. But it’s just so interesting.’