Especially when Dimitri follows her out.
‘That’s the guy I was telling you about!’
But I can’t reply. All I can do is stare bleakly as he pauses in the covered arch above the door to light a cigarette. Trixietots turns around and says something, laughing. He inclines his head, flirtatiously if you ask me, takes a drag on the cigarette and winks at her. They turn their backs to me and disappear around the corner of the street.
‘Weird-looking guy, right? Who the hell has a moustache like that these days?’
‘I need the loo.’
I spend ten minutes kneeling with my head over the toilet bowl, dizzy, my heart wrenched out of place.
Why? How? Why? How? The questions keep repeating themselves in a loop while the hard tiles bruise my knees.
Eventually the rushing, roaring sensation subsides and I am able to function, if minimally. I take my phone from my handbag and stare at it, as if I’ve forgotten what it is.
What should I do?
I feel I have to speak to him. Now. I dial his number, trying to work out what I’m going to say and not succeeding overmuch.
It goes to voicemail.
I try again.
Voicemail again. His phone is switched off. He always switches it off for our ‘sessions’.
My head swims with indecision. An impulse forms, quickly, and before I can question it I am heading down the back stairs and out of the building.
I approach Kinky Cupcake from the least visible street corner, scurrying in past the lone morning bouncer, who tilts his head and looks at me with unabashed curiosity. I am hoping that Anton has relinquished his post and is actually getting some work done.
‘Is O in the office?’ I ask breathlessly, signing in.
‘She’s in the dungeon. Checking the equipment. Do you need to see her?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘She won’t be long. Grab a coffee upstairs while you’re waiting.’
‘Cheers, I will.’
But I don’t.
The café is almost empty, just me and the barista and a guy covered in tattoos eating cupcakes in the corner.
I order the coffee and take it to the table nearest the door to the private rooms. It’s a bit of a blind spot, invisible from the bar area, tucked in a corner. I take two sips, wait for the barista to start messing about with his phone then sneak down to the dungeon.
Schoolroom, empty. Medical room, empty. Dungeon …
I push the door and fit my eye to the crack.
I nearly run back upstairs.
O is completely naked, her arms cuffed to a wooden cross, her head thrown back, her spine rubbing against the varnished post in near ecstasy.
After my initial pang, my eye is drawn back to her. She looks so beautiful, so wanton, so desirable. Her legs are slightly parted, exposing her shaved pussy lips and the teeny-tiny tip of her clit, which is pierced, like her nipples. Even when I watched her fucking the other day, she didn’t look this … rapt.
I feel guilty but I can’t stop watching. My forehead nudges the door and it creaks, unexpectedly.
‘Is that you, Mal?’