Thrill Seeker (20 page)

Liam put on a gruff voice and wagged a finger at me. ‘Open your mouth, you naughty, naughty girl!’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, OK. You’re right. Stick with polite.’

He put his hands on his hips, puffing out his chest. ‘Are you saying I cannot be a master you would wish to obey?’

I began to feel uncomfortable. ‘Liam,’ I said. ‘Don’t take the piss.’

‘Hey, didn’t mean to.’ He returned to his normal self, a sinewy, copper-haired guy with a laidback attitude. Cupping
the back of my head, he drew me close to print a kiss on my forehead. I pushed aside the memory of Den doing similar.

‘Just having a laugh,’ said Liam. ‘Didn’t mean any offence.’

‘Sure, none taken,’ I replied. ‘And anyway, that was a terrible impression of what I’m into.’

‘It was meant to be.’

‘Fair enough,’ I replied. ‘But … Well, I don’t want to make this into an issue but, you know, plenty of people out there think that what I’m into is ridiculous or wrong. And it just felt …’

‘Yeah, I get it,’ said Liam. ‘Most effective way to negate the power of something. Laugh at it. But I wasn’t laughing, I swear. I have a lot of respect for you. You know that. I didn’t mean – ’

‘It’s fine, honestly,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m overreacting. Just been feeling slightly conflicted about kink recently. I’ll get over myself soon enough. Now stick that … that contraption over my head.’

‘You sure?’

‘Liam,’ I warned. ‘Just get on with it, please. Your model is getting bored. She doesn’t usually get out of bed for less than a tenner.’

Liam grinned and lifted his creation, stepping behind me as he lowered it over my face. The ‘contraption’ was a work in progress, a strappy, leather head-cage reminiscent of a scold’s bridle from medieval times. We were in Liam’s cobble-floored workshop, and I held still, feeling slightly awkward, as he adjusted various straps. The air was steeped in scents of sawdust, leather and tobacco. The pragmatics of Liam’s craft combined with his workmanlike attitude stirred contradictory responses. On the one hand, being fitted with the harness felt reassuringly prosaic yet, opposing that, was
my attraction to the world of secrets and submission where the leather half-mask belonged. The latter felt furtive, my desire concealed and disavowed by our necessary pretence of ordinariness.

Liam’s long fingers fluttered around my head, fixing and adjusting. The bridle was a prototype in thin black leather. A broad band across my forehead connected to the main structure of the piece, all neatly fastened at the back of my head. From the band, two straps ran either side of my nose to meet silver rings fitted to cheek straps.

‘Say “ahh”,’ said Liam.

A strap ending in a stainless steel claw ran from each ring towards my mouth. With gentle fingers, Liam pulled my mouth into a rictus by hooking a cold, round-tipped claw inside each cheek. His careful touch reminded me of a dentist’s. ‘You OK?’ He checked the hooks, ensuring I was comfortable.

I nodded, feeling foolish. Memories of Den stretching my smile wide with a similar gag were impossible to repress. But then I’d been thinking about him more or less constantly since he’d released me from the theatre, kidnapping me in reverse by bundling me in the van and taking me home.

In the last ten days, I’d re-read the messages we’d exchanged on FancyFree dozens of times, looking for clues to suggest he was only seeking a single, elaborately constructed encounter at the end of a unnecessarily complex, protracted courtship. Nope. He hadn’t made that clear at all. The only hint I found was in his hotel-room analogy when he’d talked of fantasy roleplay having different rules; and afterwards there’s nothing to deal with, no consequences, life’s as smooth and neat as a freshly made hotel bed.

I’d texted three times and had emailed once but no replies.
I’d stopped short of calling him, not wanting to make a fool of myself if he wasn’t interested. Time and again I recalled our first phone conversation in the streets of Saltbourne at night. I’d sat on those old, stone steps and he’d ended our conversation by saying ‘I don’t give a single fuck what you like.’

But he did, I’d told myself. Of course he did. This was part of the game, the roleplay. He was going to use me and that was neat because I liked to feel used, liked to have a man so horny and aggressive he’d fuck me however he wanted. He wasn’t really using me because I got off on that.

But now with this apparent sudden ending, had he genuinely used me? It certainly felt that way. The kiss on my forehead presumably meant nothing, given that he wasn’t returning my messages. What I’d initially believed to be a mutually beneficial relationship had turned out to be distinctly one-sided. Den was calling the shots, and I was potentially responding to him much as I’d done with Alistair Fitch in his starry, blue music studio all those years ago. And hadn’t I vowed, after splitting with Jim, I was going to seek what I wanted? You couldn’t say I hadn’t tried or that hooking up with Den wasn’t a consequence of my efforts. But Den’s attempt to take the reins and deny me a say in the matter seemed an unjust reward.

‘That OK?’ asked Liam.

I nodded, unable to speak.

‘Like I said,’ continued Liam, ‘these photos are just for the client. I’ll blur out your eyes and photoshop your hair. You won’t be recognisable. He just wants to see what the mock-up looks like.’

I nodded again. I’d already agreed to this. I wanted to help Liam’s craft business grow and if some merry pervert with
money to burn was asking for photos of a work in progress, then I would gladly offer my head, so to speak.

The only problem so far was that modelling the headgear generated a horribly frustrating horniness, one Liam couldn’t satisfy because D/S simply wasn’t his thing. I could probably ask him to kink it up and act bossy in bed but I wouldn’t ask because it wasn’t him. And even if he were willing, anything we did together could only operate at the level of mild bedroom fun, a roleplay where Liam would need to be a character far removed from who he was. Unlike Baxter and Den, he didn’t have an unshakeable sexual hunger to crush women underfoot, nor did he get off on seeing pretty faces streaked with tears. But he did have one major advantage over the pair of them: he wasn’t a bastard.

I still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Recollections of the theatre ghosted my thoughts like a dream. Every morning, I woke thinking this would be the day Den would contact me and consolidate those memories. And every night I went to sleep knowing it wasn’t. The more days that passed, the more concrete our ending became and the more surreal and remote our encounter. I began to wonder if the kiss in the moonlit street near my house was a fiction I’d invented.

I considered phoning him rather than sticking to more distancing texts and emails. Something, call it blind hope or a gut response, told me this wasn’t over, not by a long shot. If Den had hurt me with his cruel dismissal it was only because he’d trusted me too much, trusted me to understand he didn’t genuinely mean what he’d said. I’d known from an early point he wanted to mess with my mind so it was feasible he was now doing so by pretending to vanish from my life.

But, no. I couldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. His attempts to psychologically destabilise and dominate me were compelling and effective, but this ending was beyond the pale. I wasn’t prepared to get hurt as part of the process of getting my rocks off. I’d been hurt enough in recent years, thanks very much. I wanted a lover, not a manipulative, sexual bully. I wouldn’t get in touch again. I would resist, stay strong.

Liam pulled on a strap, tightening the bonds encasing my head and stretching my gagged smile a fraction wider. The extra tug made me crave Den and Baxter with a rawness that scooped me out and left me despairing of ever meeting my match. Den and Baxter were the only men who’d touched my submissive heart. And they’d both turned out to be self-centred, short-sighted swines who cared next to nothing for me.

Oh, Baxter had claimed to love me. But words without actions are meaningless and he wouldn’t leave his wife for me. They never do, do they? That’s what my friend Amy had said: they never leave their wives. A mistress is forever a mistress. Accept what you were and forget him. Move on. Start afresh.

If it were that easy, I’d have cleared him from my head a long time ago. I’d have erased Den too. I wished I knew more about him. I still didn’t know his surname so couldn’t even seek the dubious solace of Googling him. What I had done, though, was Google derelict theatres, reaching the conclusion I’d been held captive in Saltbourne’s abandoned Hippodrome, just off Bath Road on the seafront. Photos of the theatre’s interior in its heyday confirmed my suspicions. I wanted to take a closer look at the place but, at the same time, I was too nervous to even walk past it. Supposing he
was there? Supposing he played kidnap every weekend with women he found online?

Liam aimed his digital camera at the side of my head. ‘Say cheese!’

Unable to speak, I flung out my hand to cuff him playfully across his chest. He laughed and moved behind me, the camera whirring as he captured images of my trussed up head.

‘I think I need to have better adjustments on this strap. And the final version won’t be riveted so no rubbing or snagging for the wearer.’ He touched the cheek piece. ‘Not too tight, is it?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘You OK for me to take some shots of your face? Like I said, I’ll blur you out.’

I nodded, thinking, please do it fast before I start drooling and embarrassing the pair of us. I closed my eyes as he worked, unable to meet his gaze. In the darkness of my mind, I was elsewhere, in silent alliance with strangers who shared my taste for unusual sex.

‘It looks great,’ said Liam. ‘The plan is for this to connect to a thick belt, almost a corset, and that’ll have points for wrist and leg cuffs to be attached to it. The client sees it as a piece of kit that has the potential to grow organically. The idea of the harness is that different kinds of gags can be attached to these cheek-rings. And he wants it all in brown leather and brass. It’s the best commission I’ve had in ages. Brass carabiners are seriously hard to source, though. Still haven’t found any I can afford. And I’ll have to get the hooks made by a metal worker. It’ll need to be food-grade brass, obviously. I just got these stainless steel hooks from a cheapo bit of bondage gear I bought online.’

After what felt like an eternity, my ordeal was over. Liam loosened the cage and eased it from my head. ‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘I really appreciate it. Do you want to see the photos?’

‘No, thanks. I think they’d give me nightmares.’ I fluffed my hair back into shape. ‘So business is booming, then? Word’s getting out that you’re our local, kink-friendly craftsman?’

Liam grinned and pulled a pouch of tobacco from his combats. ‘Seems to be. Not sure how this guy found out about me. Said he’d heard a rumour someone at Community Crafts was making fetish gear on the side. I was the first he approached. A lucky guess.’

‘Nice one.’ I poked around the detritus on Liam’s workbench while he rolled a joint and told me about a machete blade he’d been re-profiling. We smoked, sitting in the tatty leather and chrome armchairs, chatting lightly.

‘What do you know about the old Hippodrome in town?’ I asked, passing the joint back to Liam.

‘Not much. Been empty for years, hasn’t it?’ Liam drew on the joint. He held the inhalation in his lungs then let smoke curl from his lips. ‘Probably a listed building they can’t knock down. So the owners will let it rot then go, uh, sorry everyone, it’s knackered. Beyond repair. Then they’ll raze it to the ground and sell the plot to property developers.’ He swivelled in the chair so he was reclining sideways, long legs hooked over the chair arm, languid and relaxed.

‘Yeah. I’ve heard it’s stunning on the inside.’

‘I’ll bet it is,’ said Liam. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s been squatted and trashed, though.’

‘I don’t think it has been,’ I said.

‘No?’

‘Well, I’m not sure. I think I must have read about it
somewhere. Do you think these places are easy to break into?’

Liam flicked ash onto the cobbles. ‘Depends on the security they’ve got installed.’ He took a deep, thoughtful drag. ‘Can’t imagine they’ll have spent much on it, though. So yeah, if you know the tricks of breaking and entering, it’d be easy enough.’ Smoke drifted from his lips. ‘Why, wanna try it?’

I laughed. ‘You serious?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘You know about this stuff?’

Liam wriggled in his armchair, reaching out to pass me the joint. ‘I’ve lived in squats. I’ve broken into buildings. I have a crowbar.’

I laughed uncertainly, looking at him, not quite able to process what he’d proposed. I’d only asked about breaking in to try and get a handle on how Den had managed it. Liam’s suggestion took my curiosity in a whole new direction.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. It’ll be a laugh.’

One of the great things about Liam was his competence when it came to manly activities such as fixing stuff, making things with tools and now, breaking into abandoned buildings with a crowbar. I could trust him to lead the way and do it right.

The question was, did I want to return?

‘Be good to take some photos of the place before it gets demolished,’ said Liam.

‘Makes me nervous,’ I said. ‘Will it be dangerous?’

Liam shrugged. ‘Only a bit,’ he said.

I laughed and dragged on the joint, thinking over the idea. I could barely hold the smoke in my lungs. ‘OK, then. You’re on.’

It’s hard to believe Saltbourne was once a coastal resort people actively wanted to visit rather than a town where they accidentally ended up living. Decades ago, Brits would have holidayed here, eating fish and chips on the prom, feeding coins into slot machines and sunning themselves in deckchairs on the shingle beach.

Amusement arcades still line the seafront opposite the fairground but their glitter is dulled, their magic tarnished by the shadowy presence of adult-only establishments where gambling is a grimmer, more serious affair. Our pier fell into disrepair years ago and the once-gaudy displays in souvenir shop windows are leached to pastels by the sun’s rays. The pubs are chain-owned; large, soulless places with identikit chalkboards whose cartoonish fonts advertise Sky Sports and Stella Artois.