‘No, I’m not! I like an older man who’s wealthy enough to treat me, all right? No pretending to be a kid. Absolutely none of that.’
‘All right, all right, chill,’ said Katie, laughing. ‘Not my thing either, but horses for courses. Ponygirls for jockeys.’ She winked.
‘So, anyway,’ I continued, ‘would you happen to know this guy? He had a woman with him, kind of mousy-looking, maybe about thirty?’
‘Well, from what you say, it could be a couple of people. Was he a bit overweight?’
‘No, he was in good shape. Good-looking guy for his age, very tall, light-brown hair going silver, kind of stern-faced. I recognised him from somewhere…probably the local paper or something?’
‘Ah, I think I know who you mean,’ said Katie.
Bingo! I put down my giant choc-chip cookie and made sure my ears were fully engaged.
‘The thing is,’ she continued, ‘he’s very cagey about who he’ll play with. He’ll do private parties with trusted friends, or masked balls, but he steers clear of anything too public.’
‘But you know him, right?’
‘Yes, I met him at one of Maria’s dinner parties. We did a scene – multiple subs and doms – but I haven’t had any other kind of contact with him since then.’
‘You don’t think he’d be interested then?’
Katie bit her lip. ‘I don’t know. You’re a bit too new to the scene, I think. He’s quite full on. Might be worth asking Maria, though.’
‘I might do that. What’s his name?’
She gave her lip a proper mauling this time. ‘I don’t think he’d want me to say. Sorry.’
So much for that.
After we said our goodbyes, I found myself taking Maria’s card from my pocket and punching her number into my phone.
‘Maria, hi, it’s Ellie.’
There was a silence.
‘Ellie, from the munch. You showed me around the Valmont dungeon last week.’
‘Ah, yes, of course, darling. I remember it well. How lovely to hear from you.’ She left a question in the air.
‘I just wanted to…uh…I wanted to say thanks for the other day,’ I faltered, trying hard to keep my nerve. ‘And ask you…something.’
‘Ask away,’ she purred.
‘Well, I’ve thought a lot about what I’m looking for,’ I said, ‘and I think, um, well, I saw you with somebody who made me think…’ Shit, this was hard to explain without sounding mad.
‘You mean you and the gorgeous Tom aren’t a match?’ She sounded disappointed in me. ‘Isn’t he perfect for you? I really thought he was.’
So did I, Maria, so did I…
‘It’s early days,’ I said, ‘and Tom says he isn’t looking for something exclusive yet. But I am. And I think I’d like somebody older and more experienced anyway. Someone like this man I saw you with. Someone who could teach me.’
There was a silence.
‘Well, that’s interesting,’ she said eventually. ‘Very interesting. Because I have a contact on the scene who is just now looking for someone new. And he’s particularly keen that they should be inexperienced and young.’
I held my breath. I hadn’t expected this to be so easy – although she could well be talking about somebody else.
‘The man I saw…’