‘I’ll have the barman fetch it for you, sir,’ said the doorman, leaving, apparently with some reluctance.
She saw his hands, folded, pale, no wedding ring, a slight yellowness on the right index finger. Smoker. Neat fingernails.
If he was on holiday, he obviously wasn’t the slobbing-out-in-a-trackie type. He wore smart, crisp cotton trousers and jacket in a mid-beige colour with a white, open-necked shirt.
If she raised her eyes, she’d be able to see his face.
But did she dare raise her eyes?
There was a slightly awkward silence.
‘Hallo,’ said the man with a self-conscious catch, almost a laugh, but not quite. He moved his hands as if he meant to snap his fingers.
Was this permission to look up?
‘Good evening, sir,’ she faltered.
She did it. She looked up.
He was fortyish with kind, tired brown eyes and a sharp-featured, handsome face.
He smiled, a little ruefully, as if he expected Poppy to be judging him for his filthy, perverted tastes.
‘So you are the new girl?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I am your first customer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The tea tray arrived, and Poppy was grateful for the distraction of pouring and tending to her visitor’s tastes.
‘I prefer coffee,’ he confessed. ‘In France we don’t drink so much tea.’
‘You’re French?’
She wasn’t supposed to ask questions of the clients, but it wasn’t really a question, was it? Just a mirroring of his own admission.
He nodded, picking up his tea cup and sniffing at it with some suspicion. He put it back down again.
‘I thought I will try the English vice,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t so English, not really. We French have enjoyed such pleasures from long, long ago.’
‘And the Marquis de Sade was French, after all,’ said Poppy.
‘Of course. And there is also L’Histoire d’O.’
Poppy smiled. She wanted to know more about him now.
But of course, she couldn’t ask.
‘I hope the tea is to your satisfaction,’ she said.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Why do you choose to work here?’
‘I answered an advert on a BDSM website.’
‘So it is your interest? Your fetish? A spanking?’