Diamond

by Justine Elyot

  ‘I’d be up for it,’ he said.

  ‘Fine, I’ll give you my office number and you can take care of all the calls and texts then.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it.’

  ‘What do you mean, then?’

  ‘Well, all right,’ he said, putting down the scraper and folding his arms with a frown. ‘If you want to know. The other night, when we had our little clash, you didn’t seem too unhappy with how I dealt with it. Right?’

  She looked at her feet in their battered Converse boots. ‘Right,’ she muttered.

  ‘I’d say it came as a relief to you. And maybe even something that’d been missing from your life. Am I reading it wrong?’

  ‘No,’ she said, still focusing on the curls of old wallpaper around her toecaps.

  ‘So perhaps you’d like to get a bit more into it?’

  She looked up.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, not so much the handcuffs and floggers and stuff, unless you’re into that, but the submission thing. You seemed to like giving in to me, like it took a weight off you.’

  ‘That’s how it felt,’ she said, more to herself than him. ‘Like a weight coming off. Not having to be responsible for everything. I never thought I’d want to give up control to anyone but … It’s weird.’

  ‘We’re all a bit weird, duck,’ he said, and she smiled at the local term of endearment. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t make you any less of a power broker in your outside world. But if you want to leave that at the bedroom door, well, why not? I’d be into it. And I think you’d be into it, too.’

  She looked at him wonderingly, taking him in. For all his paint-spotted scruffiness, he looked like a man who could handle her. She’d never really seen that in a man before.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, looking away for a minute. ‘You’re not sure if you can trust me, and I don’t blame you but—’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking that. Which is strange, because I should, shouldn’t I? But it never even occurred to me.’

  His expression made her want to cry.

  He held out his hands.

  ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘I want to give you a hug.’

  She walked into his arms and felt herself enfolded, encompassed, safe. This piece of Bledburn flotsam was so much more than he seemed. On paper, he looked like the worst prospect ever, but when she looked at him, when she touched him, he was everything she wanted.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said into her ear. ‘That means more to me than I can tell you.’

  She raised her chin and met his eye.

  ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I trust you. I believe everything you’ve told me. I know the world’s against you, but it’ll have to be against me, too, because I’m on your side.’

  She stood with her head against his shoulder, his hand in her hair, his cheek on the crown of her head, for a long time. It seemed neither of them wanted to break the embrace.

  ‘So,’ he said finally, unlocking them from their impasse with a pat on her bottom and a kiss on her forehead. ‘What do you want to try first?’

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘In bed. Is there anything you’re curious about? Any little experiments you’d like me to take you through?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, with the dizzy feeling of being surrounded by shelves and shelves of sweetie jars, and no idea what to choose. ‘Aren’t you the expert? With your friends who worked in sex shops and all that?’

  ‘I’ve tried most things,’ he admitted with a cocky little smirk. ‘You’re in safe hands with me, love. And when I say safe, I mean …’

  ‘Hard!’ she exclaimed, thinking back to the spanking.

  They both laughed.

  ‘All right. You want me to take the lead? That seems appropriate.’

  He pondered for a while, tapping his fingers against his lips as he did so, while Jenna tried very hard not to prance about like a cat on hot bricks, desperate to know what was going through his dirty mind.

  ‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘Here’s a mission for you. Get yourself to the sex shop in Trentham. Buy yourself a vibrator and some bondage cuffs – any kind, I don’t mind. Make ’em comfortable. Oh, and a flogger. Nothing fierce, just a suede one.’

  ‘I …’ She stood, staring, too many responses flying about in her mind for one to step forward.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘But can’t I order them? Online?’

  ‘Well, you could, but then they wouldn’t get here till tomorrow earliest, would they?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And besides, I want you to go to the shop. I want you to take those things up to the counter, out and proud, baby.’

  ‘But they’ll all know who I am,’ Jenna wailed. ‘I can’t. I’ll die of embarrassment.’

  ‘Don’t be a div, Jen. Everybody buys sex toys now. Nobody’s going to judge you. Much,’ he said, with a little chuckly cough.

  ‘But have you thought of what the gossip will be, beyond my being a kinky perv? They’ll wonder who I’m doing it with. It could get in the papers, Jay.’

  He shrugged. ‘They aren’t going to see you with me, are they? Not like we’ll get papped going into nightclubs or owt.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said again, after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Listen, Jen. Don’t think of it as a request. Think of it as an order.’

  His voice was hard now, and he took a firm hold of her elbow, leaning down to her. She felt that fatal thrill, the weakness, the flutter.

  ‘What if I refuse?’ she whispered.

  ‘I think you know.’

  Time had slowed, everything around her was blurry and wonderlandish.

  ‘OK. I’ll go now. In these old jeans and vest, with my hair tied back like this and my shades on. There’s an outside chance nobody will recognise me, or look twice.’

  ‘That’s the girl,’ he said, kissing her nose. ‘Do you want me to write you a list?’

  ‘No, I think I can remember. Thanks.’

  She left the room without looking back.

  ‘I’ll finish off in here, then,’ he called after her.

  Yes, she thought. You do that. You’ll finish me off, too.

  She put on her sunglasses and posed in front of the mirror, desperate to be as unrecognisable as possible. On TV, she always had big hair, but she didn’t bother here in Bledburn, so that was one bonus. A different hairstyle was often as good a disguise as any. No make-up, boring clothes, flip-flops. A person would have to look twice and, in a busy street, most people wouldn’t bother.

  In a sex shop, though …

  Oh, God. With any luck, it would be empty. Mid-afternoon on a working weekday had to be a safe-ish time to do this kind of thing. An idea occurred to her. She could pretend she was buying them for a hen party. Yes, that was how she would rationalise it. The stuff wasn’t for her – it was jokey gifts for some bride-to-be. Excellent.

  Thus buoyed up, she made the drive to Trentham in double quick time, parked in one of the little short-stay parks on the fringes of town, where the shop was situated, and hurried through the hinterland of corner pubs and charity shops until she found the unlovely 70s concrete mini-mall she sought.

  It was near-deserted, apart from some mums of small kids, smoking and chatting outside a bakery while their little ones tore into sausage rolls in their buggies. None of them registered her and she passed as quickly as she dared without risking attention for being too quick.

  The sex shop was in the corner unit. Its display was pink and floral, as if pretending to be a fashion boutique, but the only clothes in the window were very brief briefs and lacy basques.

  Luckily, the door stood open, so she was able to flit inside without too much side-eyeing. She went over to an inoffensive display of nightdresses, pretending to take an interest in the flimsy negligees until the sales clerk looked away. It was quiet all right – too quiet. The woman at the till
was clearly bored and would probably watch her like a hawk. She might even ask her if she needed any help. And then the possibility of being recognised loomed large.

  She moved slowly past the nightgowns and into the lingerie. Most of it was quite ordinary; the kind of thing you could get from any department store. As she walked further towards the back of the shop, it began to be made of strange fabrics, like PVC and latex, and holes appeared at inopportune places, like the nipples and crotch.

  She began to fluster. Had Jason been mistaken about this place? She couldn’t see anything in the way of sex toys – the entire floor was given over to clothes, about a fifth of them really racy and the rest quite suitable for giving to your fun aunty at Christmas. Closer to the till, rack upon rack of stockings, fishnet gloves and little fluffy bits and bobs could be acquired. Some books and magazines. A shelf of glittery make-up. Nothing looked remotely like a vibrator.

  She was almost at the back, with the shiny black catsuits and the leather corsets, when she noticed a staircase heading down.

  MORE ITEMS IN BASEMENT read the sign on the wall above.

  Ah.

  Feeling as if she was heading along the Styx into Hades, she took the first few steps down.

  She felt the sales clerk’s gaze boring into her back as she made her descent. At least nothing was said.

  In the basement, she was blessedly alone, and she needed to be because first sight of all that – God, what even was it all – was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat. She had an impression of lots of metal, and a noticeable smell of rubber. Chains and clips and cuffs and collars and … Oh, boy. It was all here, all right.

  Vibrators were right there on her left, easy to find, but such quantities of styles and shapes and sizes and colours and materials that Jenna was sure she’d never be able to pick one.

  She went to study the rows of samples, picking them up, weighing them in her hand, assessing them for potential fit and comfort. Why had Jason just said, ‘a vibrator’? Couldn’t he have been more specific? She was tempted to call him, except that she still had no landline and he had no mobile, so that would be a pointless exercise. Perhaps she’d nip into a phone shop, after this, and get him a cheap Pay As You Go.

  In the meantime, she stared into a wall of flesh-coloured latex, interspersed with purple plastic and black glass and all variations in between. She was frowning at a long, thin number with a curved end, wondering how it worked, when a voice at her ear made her twitch and almost yelp.

  ‘Do you need any help?’

  ‘No, no, really. Fine.’

  ‘It’s just there’s such a lot to choose from these days,’ said the sales clerk sympathetically. ‘I remember when you had your rabbit or your plain plastic whatnot and that was that. But now, well, you’ve got your bullet, your butterfly, your g-spot, your magic wand …’ She enumerated on her fingers.

  ‘Yes, quite,’ said Jenna, trying to disguise her voice with a quantity of coughing.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it. But give me a shout if you need a hand.’

  The offer struck Jenna as hilarious and she couldn’t help giggling, close to hysteria.

  ‘Look,’ she said, pushing her sunglasses back down over her eyes. ‘If I was to say I wanted a very basic model – it’s a joke present for a hen night, you see. I don’t want to spend a fortune.’

  ‘Oh well, you probably want this, then.’

  The sales clerk picked a plain, plastic flesh-coloured number.

  ‘Three speeds, only five pounds.’

  ‘I’ll take it. Thanks.’

  ‘Can I help you with anything else?’

  ‘Oh no, I think I can manage from here.’

  The sales clerk turned to go, then stopped and glanced back at her. Jenna knew that look. The ‘where have I seen you before?’ look.

  She scuttled hurriedly to the back of the room, making it clear that further conversation was not an option.

  Ah. Now here was something else on her list. The flogger. And what a lot of interesting company it had. Hanging on hooks, from ceiling to floor, were a cascade of disciplinary implements, from slender, mean-looking riding whips to sweet little heart-shaped, fur-backed leather paddles. One of those might be nice, actually. She picked it up and stroked the fluff. Another had letters cut out to form the word ‘SLUT’ on the recipient’s skin. Beside them, a scarier range of leather straps in varying lengths and thicknesses made her both shudder and thrill. How would they feel? She weighed one in her palm and found it heavy, but supple. That would hurt a lot.

  At the end, the canes stood menacingly in an umbrella stand, price tags tied around their whippy shafts. The floggers were arranged above them.

  Jason had said she should go for a light one with suede thongs. She found the perfect specimen, with a thick handle and strands of purple suede so whispery soft she couldn’t for the life of her imagining it hurting at all. It felt delicious as she dragged it across her palm, a promise, a caress. She looked forward to experiencing it on another part of her and she closed her eyes to picture Jason in the act of using it.

  What if she bought Jason something to wear? But all the costumes seemed to be for women, unless they were harnesses or gimp masks, which hardly seemed right. She wanted something sleek and form-fitting but manly – not the sort of thing that would make her want to laugh at him. She’d have to look elsewhere for that, though.

  There was something else on the list – what was it? She thought and thought, and then she looked up and saw. Cuffs. All kinds of cuffs. Velcro, metal, leather – what to go for?

  She opted for a kit that described itself as ‘Perfect For Bondage Beginners’, containing a set of black velvet cuffs and an eyemask. It would have to do. She had spent long enough here and expected the sales clerk to burst back through the door, shouting, ‘Oh, now I’ve placed you!’ at any moment.

  She took her goods to the counter, annoyed to find a pair of new customers in, riffling through the racks of frilly knickers and nighties. Luckily, they didn’t bat an eyelid at Jenna’s armful but carried on loudly discussing the disgusting service they’d had in another shop.

  The sales clerk rang it all through without comment but, as she put the items in a bag, she said, ‘Have you seen our hen night extras? These are popular.’

  She pointed to a display behind her, of L-plates and scratchy lace veils and the like.

  Jenna shook her head and snatched her bag.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, handing over her card to pay, realising too late that her old, married name was still on it.

  The sales clerk said, ‘Ooh!’, then stopped short, seeming to understand Jenna’s mood. No further words were spoken, and Jenna made a rapid escape from the shop, the dingy mall and the generally grubby part of town they both inhabited.

  Damn, she thought, taking refuge in the car and putting the brown paper bag of sex toys on the passenger seat. She’s going to tell all her friends I was in today, and what I bought and what I said … Oh God. Don’t panic. It’ll just be an anecdote for them. It won’t make front page news. They’ll have forgotten about it in a month.

  While she worked on calming herself down enough to drive, she took out her phone and found an online men’s clothing store, where she ordered a smart black jacket and trousers for Jason, together with a pack of three crisp, white shirts. If he was going to flog her, he wasn’t going to do it in jeans or, worse still, trackie bottoms. He would have to look the part. A tie? Oh, why not. What about shoes, though?

  She put the phone down, realising she didn’t know his shoe size, and drove off out of town.

  From the ring road around Bledburn, the estate was visible; a nest of red-brick housing, in concentric circles like a child’s ball-in-a-maze game. At the centre, low-rise grey flats, the pub, the mini-market and the youth club. Perhaps she ought to call in on Kayley, give her a progress report about the bloody talent show.

  Not today, though. Tomorrow. She cast her eye over the bag on the passenger seat and bit he
r lip. Whatever was going to happen at home, tonight, came first.

  Clutching her paper bag, she ran up the front steps and let herself into the house. It was quiet, and motes of dust danced around in the late afternoon sunshine.

  ‘Jay?’

  No reply. She put her head into the drawing room and the kitchen – the obvious places – then went up to the bedroom they’d been stripping. The walls were now bare plaster and a great pile of paper scraps lay in the centre. Her eye rested on the little message and then she blinked rapidly, trying to expel it.

  Jason was not here. He must be painting in the attic.

  But the attic was empty too, the great mural paintings surrounding a vacant space.

  Jenna told herself not to panic, to breathe normally, to stop assuming the worst. Descending the attic stairs, she called his name again.

  When no reply came, she ran in and out of every room, her pace increasingly hectic, her hands increasingly shaky. He was nowhere to be found. Finally, just as she was about to drop to the kitchen floor and sob, she noticed that the back door was open.

  She ran out in the wilderness of garden and found him, sitting on the low wall that bordered the kitchen yard, drinking a can of beer, with his shirt off and Bowyer purring at his side.

  ‘Jesus,’ she gasped, holding the lintel of the door for support. ‘Thank fuck. Oh, God. Don’t do that to me again.’

  ‘Do what?’ He squinted at her. She still held the paper bag from the sex shop.

  ‘I thought you … I thought … Gone. Been taken. Or just gone.’

  She doubled over, panting out the remains of her panic.

  ‘Oh, come here, you daft thing,’ he said, crumpling the beer can and throwing it, with deadly accuracy, into an ancient water butt. ‘I’m not going anywhere, am I?’

  She joined him on the wall, subsiding against him, welcoming the reassurance of his arm around her waist, cradling her head on his bare, sun-kissed shoulder.

  ‘If you’d gone,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t know what I’d have done.’

  ‘Looked for me, I hope,’ he said. ‘Hush.’ He kissed her hair, pulling her tighter into him. ‘I only came out to look for Bowyer. He hadn’t eaten all day and I was starting to worry.’