Scarlet Women - Jessie Keane

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there was a sore spot behind her right ear. She saw semi-darkness and a dim, familiar interior.

      She was in the car. Shit, they’d hit her hard. Her brain was spinning.

      Her car, yeah that was it. Had to get a grip, think straight.

      The black Mark X Jaguar.

      She was lying across the back seat, which smelled of leather and cologne; familiar smells, comforting smells, but alarm bells were ringing in her addled mind. Her guts were clenched with unfocused anxiety.

       Tony?

      Where the fuck was Tony?

      He was usually up there behind the wheel, weaving easily through the London traffic and asking where she wanted to go next, saying okay Boss, sure thing. But he wasn’t there now, so where the hell was he? She was the big car’s only occupant.

      And now it came back to her in a rush. Now she remembered what had happened to Tony. They’d coshed him too. Put him somewhere. But where? Was he all right? Was he dead?

      How long have I been out of it? she wondered, sitting up, wincing as her head thumped sickeningly in protest at the movement.

      Then she remembered Charlie Foster, and Redmond and Orla Delaney. She remembered it all. She’d been knocked out cold, Tony was fuck-knew-where, and now they were going to drive her off in her own damned car to some remote spot, where they would blow her brains out, what little brains she had, because who but a fool would push their luck as far as she had done?

      She thought of Layla. Her little girl, her little star. Had to get out of here because she was all that Layla had; she couldn’t afford to get herself wasted.

      She was reaching for the door when the noise started—a high mechanical whine, deafening in its intensity. Her heart rate picked up to a gallop.

       What the…?

      Suddenly the car lurched, knocking her back against the right-hand door. Then her horrified eyes watched as the left-hand door started to buckle inward. There was a ferocious shriek of tortured metal. With a noise like a gunshot, the glass in the door shattered, showering her with fragments. She ducked down, covering her head momentarily with an upraised arm, then staring with terror as the door just kept coming, buckling inward, metal tearing, screaming, ripping.

      And now the door behind her was coming in too. The noise was beyond bearing, beyond anything she had ever known before. The window imploded, and again she was covered in pieces of glass, felt her cheeks sting with the impact of it, felt warm blood start to ooze from cuts on her face.

      ‘Jesus!’ she screamed in panic, knowing where she was now, knowing what was going to happen to her.

      Then the roof crashed in upon her, folding inward like cardboard. She felt the floor lift and she fell sideways, ending up in the well behind the front seats, nearly gibbering with fear. She was going to die, she knew that now.

      Just make it fast, she thought desperately. Please make it fast.

      She lay there, powerless, and watched the roof coming down towards her.

      Closed her eyes, and waited to die.

       Chapter 1

      SUMMER 1970

       Whack!

      The whip cracked down across the nude buttocks of the man tied to the bed. He moaned but was careful not to scream. He’d had his orders.

      ‘This is a nice place,’ the woman told him, looming over him. She was dressed in a white topless PVC mini-dress and matching high-heeled boots. A white nurse’s cap was perched jauntily on her coal-black hair. Her ample and naked coffeecoloured breasts bounced as she drew back the whip to strike again. ‘Remember that. I don’t want you kickin’ off and yelling the sodding place down, now do I?’

      The client strained to look back at her over his shoulder from his prone position. He said nothing.

       Whack!

      ‘Answer Nursy when she speaks to you,’ trilled the woman.

      ‘No! I won’t scream,’ he panted.

      ‘Good, that’s good. You’ll take your punishment, yes?’

      ‘Yes!’ he groaned as she raised the whip again.

      ‘Right answer.’ The girl grinned and trailed the whip’s leather lightly down between his quivering white buttocks. ‘Now that’s good, now we’re starting to understand one another. Because you’ve been a very bad boy, ain’t that right?’

      ‘That’s right,’ he muttered into the pillow. He was sweating and his eyes were closed.

      The woman watched him, judging her victim. Sure he was sweating, it was a hot night. Damp and clammy and airless—welcome to a summer’s night in England, folks! The windows were closed though. She’d opened them earlier and shut them pretty damned quick; the constant roar of the traffic was an annoying distraction.

      So he was hot. She was pretty fucking hot herself. Rubber might light the man’s candle, but it was a bitch to wear on a humid night. Just for the hell of it, she gave him another swipe with the whip. He gave a faint cry, flinched and strained against his bonds. Hell, anyone would think he wasn’t enjoying this. She sure hoped he was—it was costing him enough, after all.

      Actually it was costing her too, in terms of energy and stamina. After an evening of wining, dining and shagging, she now had to get down to the add-ons, the not-so-little extras that the man tied to the bed required.

      Most men, you did an escort job for them, they expected a bit of straightforward hanky-panky too, and that was cool. This client had more specific needs and he was one of her regulars. Her reputation as a dominatrix was legendary. Her speciality was what this client wanted, and the price had been fair, she had to admit that, and the price was all that mattered.

      Take the money and run, she thought.

      But now she was tired. She wanted to crawl into bed with her man, get some kip if it was possible in this heat. When he closed his eyes again she glanced at her watch. The extra hour he’d paid for was nearly up. Soon she’d be out of here; soon she’d be home.

       Whack!

      Oh, how he writhed. She sort of enjoyed that, to tell the truth, when they writhed. Just a bit. But she’d been doing this S & M gig for so long that it was beginning to bore her. Once the thrill had been in doing it, socking it to the punters. But she was a married lady now, and maybe this was not the sort of thing that a married lady ought to do—not even with her loving husband’s consent, which she’d always had…

      The woman frowned. And maybe, just maybe, this was a thing that a loving husband ought to have a bit of a problem with: how was that for a thought?

      This was something that kept popping into her brain more and more often. Did he love her so much, if he could be so fucking cool about his wife dancing the horizontal tango with strange men and then whipping them into a frenzy, and then coming home to him?

      But the money was good, and money was always tight, and oh how she loved the money. Money to buy Biba dresses and Bill Gibb blouses, boots by the Chelsea Cobbler, waistcoats by Kaffe Fassett, and going to shows and dinners up West: she loved all that shit. So she did things sometimes that didn’t make her proud. Like whipping this punter’s snowy-white arse and wishing she was gone.

      Time to draw their little sesh to a close now. Thank God.

      Tenderly she leaned over and released the leather cords that bound his wrists to the headboard.

      ‘There you go honey, that’s all for tonight,’ she cooed in his ear.

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