LITMIR.BIZ

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no idea what you’re talking about.’

      ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. Look, I’m only joking. I’m nervous.’

      I was pretty close to vomiting, actually, and after all the pickles I’d consumed this wasn’t an appealing prospect.

      The back stairs were like old friends with whom I’d been unexpectedly reunited and, in just the same way, they brought a lot of memories to the fore as I climbed them behind Joss.

      Chief among them was that first time, treading cautiously on the creaking boards, feeling that I was being allowed inside a sacred inner sanctum. And knowing that, by the time I came down, I would no longer be a virgin.

      Joss had been holding my hand that day, looking down at me from time to time with ardent eyes. Oh, how I missed those ardent eyes.

      He’d asked me at the bedroom door if I was sure. I wasn’t, but I said I was.

      Certainty came when we fell together on the bed, all wrapped up in each other’s heat and scent, kissing as if we’d never get the chance again.

      He was so sweet with me, so gentle and kind. He wasn’t the same person who’d whipped my legs with a bramble, he just couldn’t be.

      I was so stupid, but at least I’d had the excuse of youth.

      What excuse did I have now?

      The upstairs landing was just as I remembered it, but shabbier. Everything had a faded, regretful look. Outside Joss’s bedroom door was a recycling box full of bottles.

      ‘Nice touch,’ I said. ‘Classy.’

      ‘Fuck off,’ he said, quite reflexively and without real malice, then he spun around to face me and said, ‘God, sorry. I don’t mean that. Don’t fuck off. Please.’

      ‘It’s all right,’ I said, with a little grin. ‘I’ll make you pay for it.’

      He smiled back, but nervously.

      ‘I’m sure you will. Anyway – enter the palace of delights.’

      The palace of delights, also known as Joss’s bedroom, had seen better days. The four-poster bed was still splendid and glamorous, but the duvet was on the floor and the antique bedside table overflowed with clutter.

      I picked my way over a discarded dressing gown and slippers, aiming for the window.

      ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said, snatching them up as I negotiated my path. ‘I would have cleared up if I’d thought … well, I wasn’t expecting us to end up here. Not yet.’

      ‘Does he use this room?’ I asked, looking out over the park. ‘You know – your Mystery Man.’

      ‘No. He uses the east wing. Had it all done up to his tastes when he signed the lease.’

      ‘I’d like to take a look.’

      ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

      He was embarrassed. He was smiling too much.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because he’s had a security door put in and, to tell you the truth, I don’t have a key.’

      ‘He’s locked you out of your own house?’

      Joss shrugged.

      ‘It’s only the east wing. I didn’t use it much anyway.’

      ‘No wonder you want him out.’

      Joss said nothing but stood behind me at the window, so that I felt his shadow falling over me. He was close enough for me to smell his aftershave. Too close.

      ‘What if it works, Joss?’ I said. In the distance, a deer streaked through trees.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Your hare-brained scheme. What if it works and I get my scoop and he abandons this place and releases you from the contract? You’re back to square one. You can’t afford this house. You’ll end up at Wragg’s Caravan Park.’

      ‘There are other ways,’ he said. ‘Tourism. Opening up the grounds. There has to be a better way than this. I didn’t realise when I signed up for it quite how –’ he swallowed, ‘– humiliating, yes, humiliating, this was going to be.’

      ‘How are the mighty fallen,’ I said.

      ‘I haven’t reached rock bottom yet,’ he said. He put his fingers very lightly on my arm, just a whisper of a touch but it made me quiver like a bowstring.

      ‘Speaking of bottoms,’ I said, pulling away from him and stepping back, unable to resist an evil smile. ‘Wasn’t there something we were going to do?’

      There was a slightly manic quality to his answering tightening of the lips.

      ‘Let me show you my box of tricks,’ he said, crouching down to pull something out from under the bed.

      It was a battered old suitcase.

      ‘Of course,’ he said, fiddling with the snap locks, ‘my collection has nothing on his. He has everything, the most expensive, the best, the latest. Mine is a bit of a ragbag in comparison. But …’

      He opened it. It didn’t look like a ragbag, it really didn’t.

      My skin prickled and I clamped my thighs together, noticing how my pussy tightened in response.

      He looked up at me and his face crumpled in sympathy.

      ‘Oh, darling,’ he said. ‘You’re pale. Don’t be scared.’

      He put out a hand. I took it and knelt down beside him.

      ‘I’m not scared,’ I lied. Whips and chains were all very good in principle, pretty sexy in the imagination, but when you saw them up close and full-sized it was somehow extremely intimidating.

      ‘Think of them as toys,’ he said, picking up a cat-o’-nine-tails-type affair with a red leather handle. ‘It’s all they are, really. Feel the strands – they’re soft as anything.’

      ‘You’re trying to tell me this wouldn’t hurt?’ I said, running my fingers through them. It was rather pleasurable and they felt lighter than air.

      ‘It depends on how it’s used,’ he said. ‘It can stroke you like a lover or it can sting. A bit of both is usually best, I find.’

      ‘When did you get into all this? You weren’t when …’

      ‘Oh, I was. But I wouldn’t have touched you, Lulu. You were far too sweet and innocent.’

      ‘Is that what you thought? Is that why you ended it? Is it?’

      ‘Perhaps it had a little to do with it.’

      ‘You twat. You had no idea who or what I was. I was just some kind of archetype to you – the naïve little village girl who would adore and worship you.’

      He stared at me.

      ‘You’re still very angry about all that, aren’t you?’

      ‘Damn right I am.’ I took a breath. I was trembling. ‘You had no idea,’ I repeated, working hard to get myself back under control. ‘No fucking idea at all.’

      ‘I know. It’s OK. I know that.’

      ‘Because I would have … for you. For me, too. I would have done all of this, and more. You say you couldn’t have touched me – what you did to me was far worse. Infinitely more painful.’

      He put the flogger into my hand and curled my fingers around the handle.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Take it out on me.’

      Suddenly I really wanted to kiss him. I wanted to offer to forget everything that had gone before

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