Harmony.
I laid my forehead on Leo’s shoulder, eyes stinging, bones melting.
A round of applause rang out from behind me.
‘Excellent. Absolutely excellent. Not perfect, but the potential … Well, shall we say I’m looking forward to the next production?’
I didn’t want to respond. I wasn’t even sure I could move. I lay in this position on top of Leo until he patted my back and shifted, retracting his cock.
‘Are you OK?’ he whispered, kissing me under my ear.
‘Uhhh,’ was all I could manage.
‘I’d say that shrew was well and truly tamed, wouldn’t you, Leo?’
The endorphins tried to hold me back but they didn’t quite succeed.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I snapped, giving him daggers.
‘Don’t fuss,’ he said, laconically. ‘Just my little joke.’
‘I could take offence at that,’ I said.
‘Well, then I withdraw it, because that would never do. I want to see a lot more of this dynamic you seem to have with your colleague here. And you have the best new bottom I’ve discovered in a long time.’
I wasn’t sure I should feel flattered, really, but I did.
Leo and I read the review in bed, two days later.
‘
Winners’ laurels were deservedly bestowed upon the Falstowe Light Opera Company, who managed something of a coup – a production of
Kiss Me, Kate
that offered a fresh and untried approach to the am-dram staple. I hope to see a great deal more
of Caroline Reddish, who directed herself in the dual roles of Miss Vanessi and Katharina. If she happens to be playing opposite her theatrical nemesis, Leo Bradley, then so much the better. This is a pairing made in thespian heaven.
’
‘Thespian heaven, eh?’ I put aside the newspaper and settled down in Leo’s arms, looking up at his big, smiling face.
‘He talks a lot of bull, doesn’t he?’
‘But he’s the great Peregrine Sands. How can you say that?’
‘Do you think he spanks all the people he gives good reviews to?’
‘You know, I think maybe he does. Wouldn’t that be interesting to know?’
The bedside phone rang and I picked it up.
‘Oh, Mr Sands. We were just talking about you. Why, yes, I think drinks at the Geisha Garden would be just lovely. Shall I bring Leo? And Emma can make up a foursome. I look forward to it. Ciao.’
The Geisha Garden owed very little to traditional Japanese culture, and a great deal to the fact that its owner had been offered a job lot of silk, patterned wallpaper and screens, after an ambitious teriyaki restaurant in the area had gone bankrupt.
In the past, it had been one of Soho’s most notorious clip joints, offering a cloudy cider-like beverage it called ‘champagne’ for a hundred pounds a bottle. ‘Offering’ is not perhaps the right phrase. ‘Forcing upon one with menaces’ might be.
When the owner – at least, the man named on the deeds – had been imprisoned, a new ‘owner’ had appeared on the scene. In fact, the premises had not changed hands at all, both landlords being in the pay of the same Mr Big, but as far as the local police were concerned, the slate was clean and a fresh start could be made.
The fresh start had an ersatz flavour of the Kyoto tea gardens, and sold exactly the same cloudy cider-like beverage under the name of ‘sake’.
But there was more to the Geisha Garden than buying a
pretty girl an overpriced drink. In fact, hardly anybody ever bought the sake any more, so no looming toughs in tuxedos had to enforce the purchase. Because now there was a new game in town, and those that liked to play were both welcome and wealthy.
Emma Frayne wasn’t sure exactly how Japanese jasmine-scented joss sticks were – surely they were more an Indian thing? – but she lit a few nonetheless, and left them to smoulder, before heading upstairs to change out of her urban-friendly jeans and plaid shirt combo.
In the small, sweaty room with its plasterboard walls and fly-spotted mirrors, she found three of her fellow employees, all in various stages of undress.
‘Em!’ exclaimed the tallest, a rangy girl in Marks and Sparks matching underwear and nothing else. ‘How did you get on with the drama llama last night?’
‘Mr Sands?’
Emma’s reply was to unbutton her jeans and lower them slowly over her backside, waggling it in her friend’s face. The impressed gasps this won her made her smile through the residual pain.
‘Oh my God, he used the cane! He actually used the cane. Wow. Can I touch them?’
‘Be my guest.’
Emma stood patiently with her back to the room while each of the three women in turn ran their fingertips along the dozen scored welts that crossed her bottom. She hadn’t put knickers on and had wondered about the jeans – her baggiest-arsed, most comfortable pair – but a skirt without knickers seemed out of the question on the windy Northern Line she had to use to get here.
All the same, it was a relief to drop them. It was also a
relief that their boss, Allyson, insisted on neat, square-cut fingernails for all Geisha Girls, otherwise this curious inspection of her cane stripes would have been much worse.
They traced the marks like lines of latitude on a map. The Tropic of Cancer crossed the central swell of her buttocks, the longest of the lines, while the equator sat a couple of inches lower, at the low curve that men liked to grab and squeeze. The Tropic of Capricorn lay stingingly and unforgivingly at the very top of her thighs.
‘Jeez, these must hurt,’ said one of the other girls. ‘I hope nobody ever pays to cane me. I think it would kill me.’
‘Surely you’ve told Allyson you won’t do the cane?’ said Emma, in surprise. ‘It is allowed, you know.’
‘Oh, you know.’ The girl sighed, and retreated to pull on a stocking. ‘I was worried she might not hire me if I started dictating terms. I need this job or I’ll have to drop out.’
‘Yeah, but you like it, right? You applied when you saw the ad on Fetlife? So you’re into all this?’
‘Yes, yes, I am, I’ve done it with boyfriends but …’ The girl’s lower lip trembled, and Emma stepped out of her jeans and put an arm around her.
‘It’s normal to be nervous, your first night,’ she whispered. ‘But you’re perfectly safe. Allyson has cameras in the private booths – she’ll know in a second if a girl’s being pushed past her limits.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. She banned the only bloke who ever tried it on with me, for life. But every single other customer has always respected me and gone no further than I’ve wanted him to. I promise you.’
‘I know. I know you’re right. And I trust Allyson.’
‘There. Come on, get your dress off. I’m really sorry – I
know Al told me when she introduced you, but I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘It’s Poppy.’
‘That’s right! So pretty. The red flower. Could be appropriate.’
They giggled, and Poppy unzipped her shift dress with a little more alacrity. Ridiculously, she’d been nervous of getting naked in front of the other girls.
How pathetic can you get? she thought. You’ve just taken a job that involves baring your bum for paying gentlemen, and you’re scared of something you did countless times in the showers at school. Get a grip, Popster.
Shimmying out of her dress, she listened vaguely to Emma’s colourful account of her painful appointment with Mr Sands.
She learned, as she unclipped her bra, that this was a punishment for divulging his identity to a third party.
She distracted herself, on lowering her knickers, from the fact that her neatly trimmed pubic triangle was visible to all by laughing at the reproduced dialogue – Sands’ wit, Emma’s cheek, all ending with the Geisha Girl in a bent-over posture with her hands clasping her ankles.
‘You know the sound the cane makes when they swish it through the air?’ said Emma insouciantly.
The other two geishas murmured recognition, suddenly sober, not laughing any more.
Poppy’s skin broke into goose pimples. Probably the cold, she thought. Being naked.
She picked up the absurd costume she had been given. No Japanese geisha had ever worn such a thing, she was sure. It might be made of flame-red satin with silver and gold embroidered flowers all over, but it barely skimmed
her thighs. She wrapped it around her body, trying hard to make it cover her generous breasts, but it was a stretch at best.
She attempted to cover her little pants of frustration and effort by disguising them as laughs when Emma’s story headed towards its high climax. She had a way of telling the tale that made it sound like a fun adventure, but Poppy still feared that length of rattan more than she could say.
‘I swear, I thought I’d taken drugs,’ Emma said. ‘My head had left the planet. I was, like, floating. It wasn’t until Drama said, “I will have your attention, young lady”—’
There was a burst of laughter, this being, apparently, a well-known catchphrase of the client in question.
Poppy picked up the wide black sash, modelled on the obi, but far less complicated to put on. No fancy bows to be tied, just a pad of velcro at the back. Looking into the mirror, she frowned at her cleavage, but at least the sash held the gown in place, preventing the threatened nipple-spillage. The hem was still hair-raising though. It would probably raise something completely other than hair when she wore it down in the club.
She would have to be careful with the sleeves, too, which hung heavily from her wrist. There would be endless opportunities to drag them in candle flames or knock glasses from tables with them. Poppy, never the most co-ordinated person, was going to have to keep herself on alert.
Emma, having finished her story, was accepting the tributes of her friends as she changed into her own scandalous version of geisha attire.
‘I can’t believe you said that to him.’
‘He’s got a soft spot for you, or he’d complain to Al.’
‘Oh, Sands wouldn’t say anything,’ said Emma airily. ‘He
wouldn’t ever do anything to threaten his special relationship with my arse.’
‘Did he try anything after? Extras?’
‘Nah, says he’s got a new girlfriend.’
There was a collective ‘ooh’.
Poppy tied the matching red satin scarf around her neck and began to pull on a pair of fishnet hold-ups.
What was she going to do if somebody wanted extras?
A fifth girl popped her head around the door, one of the bartenders.
‘Is Poppy here? Al wants a word.’
‘Oh. Just a minute.’ Poppy squeezed her feet into black, patent-leather, high-heeled Mary Janes and tottered after the messenger.
‘You forgot something.’
She turned back to Emma, who held out her fan.
‘Oh. Yeah. Thanks.’
It was a difficult journey along narrow corridors and up and down rickety stairs, but eventually they found Allyson’s office. The messenger left Poppy there after knocking on the door.
‘Come in.’
Allyson looked just as forbidding as she had during Poppy’s interview. Her dark hair was scraped severely back and she wore a charcoal trouser suit with a wine-coloured shirt underneath. The tough image was probably necessary, Poppy reflected, when you ran a Soho sex club with an entitled clientele, but there was no need to project it at her.
She almost collapsed with relief when Allyson took off her spectacles and smiled.
‘Hi, Poppy, great to see you again,’ she said, waving at
an unoccupied chair. ‘You look fantastic. Our gents will be falling over themselves to be served by you.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ Poppy subsided into the chair, grimacing down at the way her hem rode even higher up her thigh.
‘I just wanted to give you a few words of encouragement before you go out there. Remember, nobody can make you do anything you don’t want. If a gentleman wants to close the screens, make sure you negotiate what you are prepared to let him do first. I know it’s hard, for a shy girl like you to speak plainly about this kind of thing, but you have to ask him if he wants straight spanking, strap or paddle – or all three – before he shuts those doors.’
‘What if he wants the cane?’ she whispered, thinking of Emma, while her mind rebelled against the idea of calmly discussing her forthcoming spanking with a paying stranger. If her mind rebelled, though, her sex did not, feeling quite deliciously wet and squirmy between her thighs at the thought.
‘Novices never take the cane,’ said Allyson. ‘A man who wants to deliver a caning will know to ask for one of our experienced girls. Emma, Lizzie or Frances. Those are the names to give him if he tries it on with you.’
‘OK.’ Surely Emma couldn’t take another caning tonight! Poppy’s eyes bulged at the prospect.
‘Remember,’ Allyson continued, more gently, ‘you must always act your part. Respectful, submissive, meek. Speak when spoken to, laugh at his jokes. You’ll get to know the different customers – because it’s a fetish club, we get a high volume of returning customers and not so many new faces. This is a big advantage. The girls will tell you all about everyone, so mention who you’ve been with afterwards and you’ll get chapter and verse on their little quirks and
idiosyncrasies.’ She smiled at Poppy, who had tensed up again without realising it. ‘You’re going to do very well here, Poppy. You’re exactly the type so many of our gentlemen go for. Shy and sweet, with a gorgeous little figure. Hell, I’d hire you myself.’
Poppy blushed, fit to singe her hairline, and looked everywhere but at her new boss. What a thing to say!
‘Er, thank you,’ she said with a nervous laugh. ‘Don’t mention it. One last thing – extras. I expect the other girls have mentioned this?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Nothing can take place in the club. We aren’t a brothel. But if you want to take your relationship with a customer outside, you’re welcome. I know some of the girls make a bit of money on the side from, well, call a spade a spade, prostitution. That’s up to you. But keep it clean and keep it discreet. OK?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t!’
‘Fine. You’d better go and do your make-up then. Your shift starts soon. Best of luck – I know we’ll be proud of you, Poppy. Ask Emma how to use your fan.’
It was only then that Poppy realised she had been snapping her fan open and shut throughout the conversation. She put it to her lips, which she had pursed in a kind of facial apology, and muttered her thanks before fleeing for the dressing room.