LITMIR.BIZ

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dull, mechanical attention I watched them go down their poles and wield their hoses, while in the forefront of my mind phrases like collared submissive and we were good together tormented me like an out-of-control earworm.

      I filed my copy then I went home and Googled ‘dominance and submission’ until the sun went down and my eyelids needed propping up.

      My dreams plaited themselves with my thoughts and I spent the night in a psychic shimmer of shiny black latex and gimp masks and riding crops. They became senselessly entwined, my waking thoughts continuing from my dreams and my dreams seeming more like waking thoughts until the early hours when Joss broke into them. He was with me, beside me, holding my hand, talking in gentle hypnotic tones about how it wouldn’t hurt when he whipped me, how it would feel more like a kiss. The kiss he gave me, so real, so warm, so much what I wanted and needed and couldn’t live without …

      I woke up in a sweat and nearly sobbed out loud when I found that he wasn’t there.

      Mum and Animal were sprawled on the living-room floor, last night’s full ashtrays and empty bottles all around them.

      I stepped over them, went downstairs to the yard and called Joss.

      ‘Lulu,’ he said, sounding sleepy and warm and in bed.

      ‘I’ll do it,’ I told him. ‘But I have conditions.’

      ‘Of course,’ he said, totally alert now. ‘Just name them. Are you free later? We should meet.’

      ‘Lunch?’

      ‘Lunch. The Trout?’

      ‘You’re paying.’

      He sighed. ‘All right.’

      ‘And I don’t necessarily mean for the meal.’

      ‘Woah,’ he said, and I hung up.

      The Trout was a picturesque black-and-white pub on the river, with a mill wheel and a popular garden. Narrowboats and cruisers drifted by while I waited for Joss at one of the white-painted wrought-iron tables with a bottle of Vimto.

      How many of those boating couples were happy? Any of them? All of them?

      They had taken that chance, given their hearts, and now they cut through the waters of life with such ease, leaving only the smallest of ripples in their wake.

      ‘Am I late?’

      He looked mouth-watering in a white linen shirt and trousers in a darker cream shade – perhaps a size bigger than they used to be, but a little extra weight suited him, gave him a more solid presence.

      ‘No, I was early,’ I said, sucking on my straw.

      ‘Oh, God, the ubiquitous Vimto,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get a beer – can I get you anything?’

      ‘No, you’re not,’ I said. ‘You can have a lemonade or a posh fizzy water or something. I won’t talk to you if you drink.’

      He looked tight-lipped and furious for a moment, then he shrugged.

      ‘Whatever you say,’ he said, then he stomped off to the bar.

      Oh, why did I have this awful backwash of emotion for a man who sulked and threw strops?

      His little fit of pique was forgotten, though, by the time he came back with a tall glass of something transparent and carbonated, and two laminated menus.

      ‘Give us a sip,’ I said, reaching for his glass.

      ‘I didn’t put vodka in it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said, but he was lying. He had.

      I emptied it on to the grass while he swiped at it, growling, ‘For fuck’s sake, you’re not my mother,’ under his breath.

      ‘I know,’ I said. ‘My mother was the opposite. “Just have a drink, Luce, lighten up and have a drink.” But I spent more of my teenage years than I care to remember cleaning up her vomit and her spilled cans of cider from the floor of the van. So, y’know.’

      I bit my cheek and looked away.

      He sat down.

      ‘I know,’ he said, all quiet and sympathetic now.

      ‘I’ll get you another,’ I said, and took my empty bottle and his glass back to the bar with me.

      ‘That’s one of my conditions,’ I said, returning with two San Pellegrinos. ‘Sorry, I didn’t ask if you wanted ice and lemon, but you’ve got them.’

      ‘Fine. I’ll pretend it’s gin. What’s one of your conditions?’

      He took a sip of the water and grimaced.

      ‘You don’t drink when you’re with me.’

      ‘Lulu, I don’t need a saviour,’ he said.

      ‘Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not that I care about you. I just hate the company of stinking, slobbering drunks. OK?’

      ‘That hurt,’ he said, bringing out the big-gun puppy-dog eyes.

      I laughed.

      ‘Considering what you’ve got in store for me, that’s a bit rich,’ I remarked.

      His cartoon sad-face turned into a lecherous smirk.

      ‘Mmm, fair point,’ he said, and I wished I could see what he was thinking. Or perhaps I didn’t.

      ‘So, do you agree to my condition?’ I said, hopefully knocking any visions of me locked into a pillory or whatever out of his mind.

      He did the pensive gazing into the river thing for a few moments.

      ‘I can try,’ he said.

      ‘I’m serious. If you drink, no deal.’

      ‘You’re a tough negotiator.’

      ‘You haven’t heard the half of it yet.’

      ‘Oh, God.’

      While at the bar I’d ordered a cheddar ploughman’s for us to share – they were legendarily huge at the Trout – and this arrived with due efficiency.

      Joss buttered his roll and loaded it with cheese and pickle while I continued.

      ‘I spent a lot of time researching all this dominance and submission stuff last night,’ I said. ‘Some of it looked easy, some of it looked terrifying. It’s not something to enter into lightly.’

      ‘No,’ said Joss, swallowing his first bite. ‘I know that. I’m not suggesting that we throw ourselves straight on to the scene. I’d ease you into it – take it slowly.’

      ‘So it would be a while before I got my story?’

      ‘Some journalists spend years setting up their victims.’

      I humphed at ‘victims’, but he was right.

      ‘I’d aim to be on our enigmatic friend’s guest list by Christmas,’ he said.

      ‘Christmas?’

      ‘’Tis the season to be kinky,’ said Joss with that crooked, wolfish smile I remembered so well. Well enough for it to have its traditional effect between my legs.

      ‘OK. A few months isn’t so long, I suppose.’

      ‘I’ll verse you in our ways. I’ll show you how it’s done,’ he said, his voice soaked in seduction.

      ‘I know how it’s done,’ I said, but my bolshy confidence was leaking out of me with every softly spoken word.

      ‘You’ve seen pictures. You’ve read accounts. That’s no preparation at all,’ he said. ‘You need to feel it – to know what it does to your head. There’s nothing like it, Lulu – the rush, the intensity of it.’

      ‘How

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