When the maid led her across the lobby, Lydia observed that the lower portion of her bottom, in frilly white knickers, was visible, as were the suspender straps fixed onto black fishnet stockings. Was she part of the evening’s entertainment too? Or was she just a maid, who would be serving drinks with a dash of burlesque style?
The double doors were opened wide and Lydia peered into a beautiful high-ceilinged room, exquisitely furnished and decorated in a 1920s manner. It could accommodate probably fifty guests or more, but the only people in there were a young man wearing only a studded bondage harness, holding up a tray of champagne glasses, and Hackmeyer and Sarah Latimer.
Lydia immediately felt overdressed.
Sarah wore only a black latex corset with a black net tutu skirt that didn’t really cover anything. Her shaved pubis was clearly visible, as was her bottom if she turned around. Thigh high boots laced up to the top completed her outfit. Her bright peroxide hair was set in a fifties movie-star do and she looke
d altogether like a kinky Marilyn Monroe, larger than life and a little bit intimidating.
As for Hackmeyer, he wore a tight black T-shirt and leather pants. His fair hair was combed back from his forehead and he had the style of a Viking biker, albeit a Viking who visited the optician. He was an attractive man, in his way, Lydia realised. His way just wasn’t her way.
The pair of them raised glasses to her and smiled in a manner that somehow didn’t strike a great deal of warmth into Lydia’s heart. And where was Karl-Heinz?
“Lydia!” said Hackmeyer. His tone of familiarity nettled her. The man barely knew her. He dismissed the maid and beckoned Lydia closer.
“Is Karl-Heinz here? Have you heard from him? Is he running late?”
Hackmeyer looked at Sarah and they shared a complicit laugh.
“This is Karl-Heinz von Ritter we’re talking about,” said Hackmeyer, taking a glass from the motionless tray-bearing man and handing it to Lydia. “The phrase ‘running late’ is not in his vocabulary.”
Well, this is true, thought Lydia, reassured.
“So is he here then?”
“Yes, he is just using the bathroom.”
Lydia was aware of a huge release of tension in all her muscles but especially her stomach. She took a sip of the fizz and thanked her hosts.
“I…wasn’t sure what to wear,” she said, glancing at Sarah in her gothic sex fairy get-up.
“You look lovely,” Hackmeyer reassured her.
“Is the dress Prada?” asked Sarah with a falsely sweet smile.
She must know fine well it isn’t, thought Lydia crossly.
“Primark,” she said, deliberately obtuse, because in fact it was from Jigsaw.
Sarah looked at Hackmeyer, who frowned at her. Clearly she’d been ordered to be on her best behaviour.
Lydia began to see how the evening might be less horrible than she was expecting. If the egregious Sarah Latimer had to be polite to her…
Then Karl-Heinz entered through a side door and Lydia was immeasurably relieved to see that he wore his customary sharp dark suit. If he’d turned up in a pair of leather hot pants and a peaked cap she’d have had to turn tail and run.
“Ah, Lydia,” he said. “You are here, after all. And on time.” He smiled his approval and Lydia felt that familiar dynamic of dom and sub creeping into her consciousness.
He came over and linked his arm through hers, taking a glass of champagne for himself.
“Well, I am very impressed with your new place, Julius,” he said. “The bathroom was quite marvellous, all that mosaic, it reminds me of a Roman bath house.”
“Yes, that was the intention,” said Julius. “My uncle, who owns the house, liked to throw some interesting parties on a Roman theme.”
“Really? Roman…parties?”
“Writhing bodies everywhere,” laughed Julius. “I went to a couple. Barely made it out alive.”
In a way, thought Lydia, it was a shame Milan and Hackmeyer were at such loggerheads. They seemed to share a certain taste for sexual excess.