Sinclair quirks an eyebrow at me. I wear black all the time; I’m the monochrome kid. The pair of them fuss and shake heads over endless swathes of fabric before finally settling on a double-layered clingy floaty type thing in teal with silver pattern things subtly printed on the sheeny top dress. Spaghetti straps, drapey neckline, asymmetric hem. I have to admit, it’s pretty. I feel like a different person when I look at myself in the mirror; a person with taste. But of course, the taste is not mine. He stands behind me, leaning over my shoulder, looking into the mirror at me with an expression that leaves me in no doubt that, were we not in a shop, the dress would be in tatters around my ankles by now. He takes my hair and piles it messily on my head, accepting a clip from the helpful manageress, his fingers crawling across my scalp like an army of pleasure-giving spiders. The love bite from this morning glares crimson at me and I have to stop myself glancing anxiously over at the assistant, especially when he presses a finger against it, drawing attention as if it were needed.
“I think a necklace…a pendant of some kind…something simple,” he mutters to the poor woman, who must be feeling increasingly voyeuristic, given that Sinclair is now tracing a finger along the line of my throat down to my collarbone, then resting his hands on my shoulders, pressing his thumbs sensuously into the back of my neck and rotating them. She rummages in a glass cabinet and emerges with a pearl teardrop on a slim silver chain. “Perfect,” avers Sinclair, placing it gently against my skin and fastening the clasp. He rests his lips, almost accidentally, against the portion of my neck it lies upon, just for a feathery second, but long enough to make my head loll heavily to the side with the sudden collapse of my vertebrae. I see the look of veiled interest again in the manageress’ eyes and I feel weak with the potency of the moment. We are a timeless staple of romantic and sexual drama; the older man, the ingenue. The possessor and the possessed. Looking at us in the mirror, I feel a sense of connection with women who have been in my position throughout the ages – maidservants, actresses, village girls, Roman slaves. I am carrying on a well-established tradition, and yet it feels so daring, so new.
“Just shoes, then,” he says, and pretty swiftly I am sorted out with some high-heeled silver strappy numbers. I voice a fear that I may not be able to walk in them.
“You won’t need to walk.”
Right.
He won’t let me hear how much it all comes to, but there can’t be much change from four hundred quid, I’d say, and he isn’t even finished. L
eaving the boutique, we cross the street to Agent Provocateur…oh my, he is going to buy me underwear. He is so brazen! I can’t face this. I tug appealingly on his hand. “Must we?” I falter, pitching up outside a window display of red satin and black lace. “Of course,” he says sternly. “What’s underneath is the most important part of the outfit. If you get the foundations wrong, the whole effect is ruined. Come on.”
He pulls me through the door and I half-bury my face in Sinclair’s jacket sleeve when I see every head swivel towards us. He shrugs me off rather violently and begins browsing the mannequins as if this were perfectly normal.
“May I help?” asks a heavily made-up young woman sweetly, and to my absolute horror/fascination, I see that it is Mags Parker from the Wessex Whisperer. Now I’m going to be the most talked-about woman on campus. Oh well. Only one thing worse, as Oscar Wilde said.
“Yes. I think we need a corset, don’t you, Beth? To go underneath a strappy dress. A nice tight one that laces up the back, if you have such an item, preferably not black in this instance…though perhaps I should get a black one also…”
“Oh, yes, we have several,” Mags assures us, winking at me. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me to the stockroom and choose one, eh, Beth?” Hack alarm! She wants a quote.
Of course, Sinclair tumbles to this straight away; he has had three years of this girl’s journalistic wiles. “As the buyer, I believe I should have some say in the purchase,” he says smoothly, leading me by the elbow to the back room.
Rail upon rail of racy lingerie greets us in this immodest haven; eventually we select a pale blue satin number with ribbons and its cousin in bedroom black. I cannot help but run my fingers over the garments; I have never worn such an item before and it seems far too unforgiving to be comfortable.
“Are you happy with the style, Beth?” he asks me, holding the black number up and frowning at it.
“Mm hmm,” I say awkwardly, not wanting to give anything away to Mags.
“You’ll need to try it on then.”
I look around vaguely for a changing room but there isn’t one.
“Oh, we can do that in here,” says Mags. “You’ll need help with the laces though. I’ll give you a hand.” She looks over at Sinclair, expecting him to leave, but he remains where he is, leaning up against a rack of thongs. After a minute or so of this standoff, she sighs and turns back to me. “You’ll need to undress,” she clarifies.
It’s my turn to look beseechingly at Sinclair, but he merely smiles back. “Do as she says,” he tells me.
In a dream, I lift my black jersey tunic over my head so I am standing in my bra and black footless tights and ballet pumps. I turn away from my audience and unclasp the rather childish flowery bra I am wearing, watching it drop to the floor so I am naked from the waist up. I cross my arms over my breasts, annoyed at the way my nipples perk up from the cold backroom air, and wait for Mags to approach with the corset. I click up the metal snaps as rapidly as I can, though this is not very rapidly – it is very constricting and I have to fiddle with the clasps. Eventually it is on, though, and Mags moves behind me and pulls the laces in so tightly and swiftly that I feel a rush of faintness up to my brain.
“Can’t….breathe…” I wheeze out. Mags looks over to Sinclair, seeking his advice, it seems.
“That’s good. A little tighter would be better, but she needs time to adjust, I suppose.”
I want to protest, but the effort of squeezing the words out from my clamped diaphragm just seems too much to contemplate. I concentrate on establishing a regular breathing pattern and look at myself in the mirror. I look undeniably sex kittenish. My breasts are thrust up and out, my hips flare lasciviously from my cinched-in waist, and I can imagine that Sinclair is admiring the view from the back even more.
“Yes, I’ll take them. Both of them,” he says to Mags. “I just need some accessories – a suspender belt and some stockings. Seamed, I think. Silk, of course.”
“Oh, I’ll go and get some, sir. Er…matching knickers?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” he purrs and I almost drop my head into my hands. Never, ever, ever, even when I had to go to Sinclair’s to swap the essay notes, have I been more mortified in my life. Mags actually giggles with delight as she leaps into the boxes of hosiery like a young gazelle. Having located suitably scandalous stockings and suspenders, she has to help me out of the corset and back into my regulation-student uniform.
“Thank you so much,” she enthuses at the till, packing away the purchases and validating Sinclair’s credit card. “We really value your custom.” She flashes me a bitchy smile and, while my sugar daddy is busy punching numbers into the machine thingy, she takes advantage of his inattention to slip me a card with her mobile number on, winking hugely as she does so. Yeah, right, Mags. Dream on.
“You can’t begin to imagine how embarrassing that was for me,” I complain once we are back on the street. He chuckles and links my arm with his.
“I know a good cure for embarrassment,” he says. “Tea and sandwiches. It works for hunger too.” He leads me into a very unSinclairian tea shop, all frothy net curtains and bone china, and sits us down at a secluded table near the window.
“Why embarrassing?” he asks, having ordered for both of us.