Little Boy Blue - страница 42

‘Aren’t you the girl that’s got everything?’ he said, rounding her to face her full on.

‘You better believe it’ was the impish reply.

Smiling, Max walked away, towards the locked cupboards at the back.

‘We have two hours ahead of us, so why don’t you choose your weapon?’

He opened the double doors of the wardrobe to reveal his arsenal of crops, whips, paddles, bats, maces and more. There was nothing he couldn’t provide for his clients, nothing he hadn’t tried.

‘You’re very sweet, but I wonder if we might use a couple of things I’ve brought along with me. I’ve never used them and I might need a little help.’

Without waiting for an answer, she now walked across to the drawstring bag she’d dropped by the door on arrival. Max watched, intrigued, as she drew a series of restraints and a large Zentai suit from within. The tight-fitting suit looked brand new, the spandex glistening in the beams of the ceiling spotlights.

‘I know we’ve only just met, but I’d like us to push things a little tonight. I want Edge Play. Can you stretch to that?’

Normally Max wouldn’t rush to do this on a first meeting, but she seemed to know what she was taking on, so, nodding, he moved forward to pick up the Zentai suit. But, as he did so, she laid a gloved hand on his arm.

‘The thing is, Max,’ she continued in a whisper, ‘I want you to be my bitch tonight. Are you willing to be my bitch?’

Max paused, turning to her. She was attractive and commanding and didn’t seem like a psychopath, but you could never be sure.

‘That’s a bit rich for a first date,’ he said. ‘Maybe when we know each other a little better.’

‘Pity, but have it your own way,’ she replied, putting the suit down. ‘These are troubled times. Everyone’s running scared at the moment, which is why I was willing to pay so much. But, as you say, another time -’

‘How much?’

Paine hated himself for asking, but he couldn’t resist. He hadn’t paid his rent in over three months and lived in daily fear of eviction.

‘Five hundred pounds if you’re a bad boy. A thousand if you’re a very bad boy.’

His client removed a wedge of twenty-pound notes and placed them on the table.

‘What do you say, Max? Can I tempt you?’

Max looked her up and down – there wasn’t much to her – then, shrugging his shoulders, he relented. Walking towards her, he smiled warmly and said:

‘I’m all yours.’

‘You can’t barge in here like this.’

‘I didn’t barge in anywhere, Dennis. I rang the doorbell and your mum let me in.’

The mention of his mother provoked a visible flinch. Dennis was pushing fifty, overweight and underemployed and clearly had mixed feelings about living at the family home. Geraldine Fitzgerald was a slim, punctilious septuagenarian, who could now be heard preparing tea in the kitchen. Helen imagined she would do it the proper way – warming the pot, using leaf tea – and wondered if her domestic regimen was as meticulous and old-fashioned. Did she still ask her adult son to tidy his room?

‘Haven’t you people done enough already?’

‘ “You people”?’

‘We don’t do anything illegal, we don’t do anything wrong. You’ve no right to send spies to our gatherings -’

‘Well, if people don’t talk to us, what can we do?’

Dennis eyeballed her, but said nothing.

‘Everyone in the BDSM community says they are shocked by Jake Elder’s murder,’ Helen told him. ‘Yet nobody has come forward to help us. Which makes me wonder how deep their concern is.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Careful now, Dennis, mother might hear…’

Dennis shot her another venomous look, but said nothing. The sound of clinking crockery drifted in from the kitchen.

‘I think you’re rather more interested in protecting yourself. You can dress it up as suspicion of the police, but I think it’s more about keeping your little secret safe. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that and I have no desire to make your life difficult so -’

‘How did you find me?’ he interrupted.

‘The BrotherHood website. IP address of the site runner is registered to this address. Electoral register has a Geraldine and Dennis Fitzgerald living here. It took one of our data officers less than five minutes to locate you. Hardly a secret society.’