e of the hotel’s own.
On it, in Lloyd’s handwriting:
Whip me, hurt me, any way you want me
As long as you want me, it’s all right.
I hold it out to him. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’
‘I booked one of the dungeons at Fetish Fantasy.’
‘We’ve done that before. More than once.’
‘Not this way. As the note implies, I don’t want to be in charge this time.’
‘You never are in charge.’
‘I don’t want to play at being in charge this time,’ he amends. ‘I want you to get your kinky boots on and practise flexing that whip hand.’ He leans forwards in his chair, his pupils skittering from side to side, his lips wet. ‘I want you to hurt me.’
He sounds like he means it. But …
‘When have you ever been interested in pain?’
‘I’m not. I’m dreading it, actually. I’m hoping you’ll be more into the mental domination stuff.’
‘I’m not really into any domination stuff,’ I point out. ‘I’ve only ever been on the receiving end.’
‘Well, that’s what makes it a challenge, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s exciting, you get to wear loads of fucking sexy gear … you don’t look convinced.’
I blink at him, trying to imagine what his face looks in pain. I don’t want to imagine it, though. I really don’t.
‘Come on, Soph. You’d have killed for the chance to do me some serious damage not so long ago. Now’s your chance to let it all out. Show me the red-in-tooth-and-claw Sophie, the take-no-prisoners Sophie, the woman who’s always one hundred per cent in control.’
‘That’s why I like submission,’ I grumble. ‘It’s a holiday from all that.’
‘Well, have a busman’s holiday then. Or am I sensing the delicate aroma of …’ He sniffs the air. ‘Failure.’
‘Fuck off. It’ll be easy enough. Just … I don’t know. Nothing. It’s fine. Let’s do it.’
Lloyd claps his hands with apparent delight. ‘Can’t wait for you to walk all over me in your spike-heeled thigh-high boots,’ he claims.
‘I’m not sure I believe you. But neither can I.’
‘Great. I’ve booked it for midnight. They suggest you get there half an hour beforehand to pick out your costume and select your instruments of torture and terror. I’ll see you there.’
He launches himself out of the chair, kisses me passionately until I almost fall over, then waltzes off to take his lunch break.
I sit myself down in the chair he has vacated and stare at the computer screen, a sea of meaningless figures in rectangular boxes.
It strikes me now as more than a little odd that I’ve never done anything like this before. Call myself a hussy … Yet somehow I’ve always managed to signal my desire to submit rather than dominate before the action has reached its crisis. Nobody has ever asked me to hurt them, though one man once wanted me to tie him up and tease him. That was easy enough, though, just a bit of fun.
This seems much more serious.
***
By eleven thirty I am in the giant fancy-dress wardrobe at Fetish Fantasy, being shown around by its proud mistress, Zuleika.
I have in mind something skintight and shiny, and she obliges by finding the perfect figure-hugging number in wet-look latex. Once she has talcum-powdered and trussed me into it, I peer at myself in the mirrored wall, searching for bulges of unforgiving flesh, but the rubber nips it all in, giving me a catwoman silhouette I think I might wear more often.