Her head, in a cat mask, was bowed, and she wore no more than a black velvet bow tie, some glittery nipple pasties, a tiny black sequinned thong and very high-heeled shoes.
How she was able to go about in public like this was enough to make my mind reel. All the other submissive women were dressed similarly to me. I was curious to ask our new acquaintance why he had chosen to flout the dress code, but Joss had warned me to speak only when spoken to, and it was probably the wisest course.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said softly.
‘Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? I’m not sure,’ said the man teasingly.
‘Agreeing, of course, sir.’
‘Good.’ He yanked at the leash. ‘Come on, kitty cat. I think I know someone who wants to pet you.’
She followed him on her hands and knees. I watched her pert bottom cheeks wiggle off until she was subsumed by the crowd, then turned back to Joss.
‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ I said.
He pouted.
&nb
sp; ‘You’d look so lovely …’ He drained his glass, replaced it on a tray and snapped to attention, his whole body straightening and stiffening in a trice. ‘And besides – that tone isn’t appropriate here, my dear. We’ll have due deference from now on, or that public spanking will come sooner than I’d planned. Let’s go and be wallflowers for a little while – I think a soupçon of voyeurism will ease you into the scene.’
The room was lined with red plush seats. I made to sit down beside Joss, but he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me roughly on to his lap instead.
Thus ensconced, with my skirts parted behind so that my bare bottom rested on Joss’s immaculate trousers, not that anyone could see, I watched the revelry from a safe distance.
It was early, so people were presumably warming up and partaking of Dutch courage in its bubbly form, but even so, some were further advanced in the game than others. For every three or four little groups of politely conversing masked people, there was a group who had moved on.
The one closest to us consisted of a young man on his knees in leather trousers and nothing else – not even shoes. Another man stood holding the shirt he had just ripped off him, sipping champagne with airy nonchalance, while the kneeling man kissed his jutting leather-bound crotch. Both of them were fit and handsome and I found myself leaning further forwards for a better view. The kneeling man seemed a little frantic, mashing his face into the standing man’s bulge, but the standing man seemed to be enjoying the pretence of ignoring what was going on. Instead, he hailed a woman in the crowd by raising his glass, and she came over to join them.
I couldn’t hear their words, but they seemed to mock the kneeling man. The woman carried a riding crop and with it she tapped the sub’s hands, which were clasped behind his back.
Then she started to thwack it against his leathery bottom while he continued to rub and shake his head against his master’s crotch.
‘Do you like this?’ murmured Joss into my ear. He slid a hand under my skirt and ran his fingers up and down my inner thigh with a maddening lightness of touch. ‘You do, don’t you? I can feel the heat all the way down here.’ He patted the tender skin.
I tensed, feeling that he was going to touch me intimately right here in this room full of strangers. Did I want him to? Or not? I think I did, and that was the most shameful realisation of all.
‘It’s nice,’ I breathed, a little lamely. Nice? Where was my thesaurus when I needed it?
‘Does it turn you on? Hmm?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘I’m glad you admitted that, or I’d have had to check with my own fingers.’ He moved his hand higher.
My breathing grew shallower, my head lighter.
‘You are mine,’ he said, dark and low.
In front of me, the two dominant players conferred and seemed to reach an agreement. The male reached down, grabbed a handful of his sub’s hair and yanked him to his feet. The dazed-looking sub staggered after them, presumably looking for a more appropriate venue to continue the scene.
‘Where are they going?’ I asked.
Joss’s fingers stopped at the very crease of my thigh and pressed down.
‘Any number of places,’ he said. ‘There are private and public dungeons, a school room, a medical room, a huge boudoir full of curtained divans … any of those places. Or maybe they’ll do it in the road.’
I laughed.