*****
Blaine let herself into the viewing room, her porcelain face hidden in shadow. ‘So, what did you think? Do you still assume that Finn’s some poor, disabused ingénue? Admit it, Lilith, you were impressed. Maybe you even allowed yourself to become just a little aroused? Just a little damp between those ascetic, principled thighs?’ She sat down next to me to inspect my work. ‘These really are superb. Now, if you’ll excuse me I think I’ll see if I can persuade Laura to be a touch more adventurous. You can go to bed now if you like – I’d hate to invoke your disapproval after such a rewarding day.’
*****
In the early hours of the morning, I cleaned my bathroom for two hours straight. I raided Henry’s cupboards for cloths and scourers and disinfectant, and scrubbed every surface until I could see my reflection in the marble, and still sleep refused to come.
Finn
‘So, how does it feel to be the one getting fucked now?’ Laura Fenworth, pissed as a rat, slurred into my ear.
I lay tied face-down to the bed frame with the silk scarves she’d wrapped around my wrists and ankles, and was only too glad the question was rhetorical.
‘Take this.’ She held a tiny silver spoon piled high with coke under my nose.
‘No…’ I turned my head away and she made a petulant sound.
‘Blaine said you would.’
I snorted, feeling the acid bite at my sinuses, and kissed goodbye to any decent rest for the next two days. Laura scooped up twice as much powder for herself and took it in one sniff, before checking that I was securely restrained. I sincerely hoped she didn’t expect me to screw her again: even Viagra had its limits.
Cocaine and temazepam began a tug-of-war in my system and my heart began to hammer its way out of my ribcage. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on not freaking out and had a fleeting image of Lilith’s tranquil, ordered bedroom and more than anything I wanted to be back there. Then my focus was nowhere at all, because Laura Fenworth was all over me, and not in a good way.
The woman went berserk. She started with her fists, screaming abuse that I simply stopped hearing, and pounding me on my head and back. I knew what she wanted now: she wanted me to cry out, to beg her to stop, to plead with her just so she could tell me to shut the fuck up and hit me even harder. But the trick was in the timing: if I sang out too soon clients sensed that I was faking – guilty of spoiling that precious ‘real’ experience – and if I left it too long they invariably went too far and I got to spend the next couple of days feeling like I’d been kicked downstairs.
The decision about when to make some noise became void when she bit me. At first I thought she was stopping to kiss me again, which would have been bad enough, but Laura suddenly decided to sink her teeth deep into the soft flesh of my lower lip and I yelped before I had time to check myself. Blood poured unchecked down my chin and onto the pristine linen pillowcase, and that really got her going.
As my cry echoed into the dispassionate night, my client grabbed a leather-handled dog chain from the range of implements that Blaine had thoughtfully arranged on the dresser. I braced myself against the sting of the strap and found myself hollering again as Laura laid into me with the metal-clipped end and my back became a sea of fire.
I lost count of the number of times she hit me. The blows merged into one and she began to moan with exertion instead of pleasure. I didn’t hear the door open, but the amused voice that cut through the pain was all too familiar.
‘I see someone’s been having fun,’ Blaine observed. ‘But I think he’s probably had quite enough for now, haven’t you, Finn darling?’
I didn’t answer: I was too busy remembering how to breathe as Blaine untied me. She ran her fingers efficiently across my shoulders and momentarily felt sick. As I sat up, sweat ran in streams down my spine.
Laura let the dog lead fall to the floor and stared at me in horror. ‘Oh my God,’ she stumbled. ‘I didn’t… I mean, that wasn’t…’
Blaine placed a comforting arm around her shoulder. ‘You know, it never ceases to amaze me just how much aggression we store up in our day-to-day lives. Now, why don’t you help yourself to a brandy then settle down to a good night’s sleep? We can have a chat over breakfast. Say, seven-thirty?’
‘Breakfast?’ Laura frowned, still in shock from getting in touch with her inner nutter. ‘Oh. Of course. I’ll be there.’