Fast and Loose

by Justine Elyot

  Then there was a gunshot. It must have been a gunshot. It galvanised me almost to my fettered feet. I fell back down with a thud, moaning into my silken gag.

  ‘Ramani! Put that down!’

  The voice was Keane’s.

  ‘I don’t put it down,’ she said, her voice low and shaky. ‘I don’t want to work for you no more. I want to go home.’

  ‘Put the gun down, dear.’ Maria’s voice was soothing. ‘Of course you can go home.’

  ‘When he gives me my passport,’ she said. ‘He takes it from me.’

  ‘Well, how interesting,’ said Tom, panting. ‘Another interesting story from the colourful life of Judd Keane. Shall I call her embassy now, or will you take me to Ella?’

  Then footsteps hurrying into the room, then his shocked face, then his voice again. ‘Oh, my God, Ella, what has he done to you?’

  Before I was even fully freed, I clung to him, hiding in him, letting myself be held and squeezed, safe in his arms at last.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry I’m late.’

  Tom found me in our favourite booth at the Valmont and put his bag down with a clatter of laptop and cables.

  ‘I got you a martini,’ I said, nodding at the glass. ‘A dirty one.’

  ‘My favourite kind.’

  He sat down, his eyes gleaming with wickedness.

  ‘So what kept you?’

  ‘I was at City Hall, covering the announcement about the election for the new leader.’ He sighed with satisfaction. ‘Literally, the best day of my life. And that’s just so far.’ He winked. ‘I think it might be about to get even better.’

  I didn’t rise to the bait. There was time enough for that.

  ‘So you’ve got your job back?’

  ‘Yeah, didn’t even have to ask. I think Carol Fletcher’s going to be a vintage editor.’

  ‘So do I. She bought us all drinks at the pub last night. I’m sold. Do you know what Keane’s up to?’

  ‘I heard he’s going to some Greek island – selling his place here and planning to open a beach bar.’

  ‘The further away the better,’ I said with relief. ‘It doesn’t seem much like justice, though, does it? After everything he did, he gets to live the rest of his life in the sun.’

  ‘You know the legal route would have involved everyone we know in a complicated scandal,’ said Tom wistfully. ‘But what a scandal. Fleet Street would have been all over town. Still, it’s better this way. Everyone gets to keep their little secrets, and no more Keane. Even Haydon gets something out of it – a cushy little number at the media group’s head office. And I heard he got back together with his wife.’

  ‘I guess she’s forgiven him for his dalliance with Mia, then.’ I paused to sip my cocktail. ‘God, I can’t believe I fell for that. I should have known. Anything that dwells so fetishistically on femininity has to be written by a bloke.’

  Tom laughed. ‘You could be right. Anyway, I’m dwelling fetishistically on your femininity right now. Shall we drink up and head downstairs?’

  My heart skipped and pleasurable dread chilled me from head to toe.

  Tom and I had been taking things easy since the big drama – waiting for the healing of his injuries and my post-traumatic stress. Anything kinky had been off limits. It was funny how experiencing real bondage made its fantasy counterpart somewhat less appealing.

  But the spectre of Keane was well and truly banished, now I was picturing him with a sunburned face and a loud shirt, collecting glasses from boozed-up Brits abroad. There were thousands of miles between us. I was safe, and Tom was safe, and we were safest of all when we were together.

  ‘OK,’ I said, getting up to follow him.

  Maria opened the dungeon door about half a minute after we knocked.

  ‘Goodness, I thought you were never coming,’ she said, looking us up and down with her customary sly smile.

  ‘My fault,’ said Tom. ‘First-class reportage can’t be rushed.’

  ‘Late and full of bullshit,’ said Maria. ‘I think you should be the one holding the whip tonight, Ella.’

  ‘Er…’ I said, rather wanting this interview to be over.

  ‘I’m teasing,’ she said, stroking my cheek. ‘I know that doesn’t work for you. Anyway, here are the keys to the kingdom, kiddies, and I wish you joy of it. Just clean up after yourselves before you leave.’

  She handed a bunch of keys to Tom, air-kissed us both and click-clacked off towards Reception.

  He locked the door behind us, took my hand and led me down the stairs.

  ‘I wonder if Louise dropped the stuff off?’

  ‘Stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘I went to Wanton Woman earlier and bought some bits and pieces for tonight. I mean, you can share floggers and collars and whatnot, but certain things need to be personal. If you catch my drift.’

  ‘What certain things?’ I said, although it was more of a yelp.

  ‘Intimate insertables,’ he said after some thought.

  ‘Oh, my God. What the hell have you got planned?’

  ‘Wait and see. Ah, yes!’ He went into the little bar area, where a quantity of brown paper bags waited on the seating. ‘Good old Louise. Right. I’m going to get changed in here. You can take –’ he peered into the bags, selected one and thrust it at me ‘– this and put it on out there.’

  ‘What is it?’ All I could see was tissue-wrapped bundles.

  ‘Do as you’re told and you’ll see,’ he said uncompromisingly.

  I giggled with nerves and backed out of the little side room into the giant mirrored studio. Tom shut the door on me, leaving me and my myriad reflections to prepare.

  I was expecting something lurid and whorish, but I was surprised by what he had chosen when I unwrapped a dress that was undeniably very short but also very pretty. It was white broderie anglaise, more like a nightdress than anything else, and, when I slipped it on and laced up the bodice, I saw in my reflection an old-fashioned milkmaid who’d been in some kind of scything accident and lost most of her skirt. The dress came with some white hold-up stockings, red-ribboned at the top, and a pair of red ballet slippers. I had never worn anything like it, and it was hard to recognise myself in the pale, dark-haired, cutesy-dressed person in the mirror.

  Why would Tom have chosen this style? I couldn’t work it out. The lack of underwear seemed deliberate, so I took off my knickers and stood, waiting, wavering, quivering.

  The question was poised on the tip of my tongue when he opened the door and I began to ask it, but then stopped, winded by the sight of him.

  ‘Why did…ohhhh.’

  He smacked a riding crop on a leather-clad thigh, his eyes flashing. He was the full-bore Dom fantasy – long and lean and all in black, from the silk shirt to the riding boots.

  ‘This works for you?’ he asked, taking a surreptitious glance at himself in the mirrors and smoothing back his already smoothed-back hair.

  ‘Oh, I think so,’ I breathed, trying to keep my legs from buckling. ‘But what’s this?’ I indicated myself.

  ‘Aha,’ he said, holding out a hand.

  I took it and found myself twisted around and wrapped up against him, my back to his front, his arms tight around my middle, my head leaning on his shoulder, while we looked at ourselves in the wall of glass.

  ‘Look at us,’ he whispered, his lips against my ear. ‘Dark and light. Good and evil. Innocence and experience. Don’t you think the contrast makes it hotter?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered back. ‘I could just look at us like this for hours. I want to take a photograph. I’m not sure why you’re calling me innocent, though.’

  He rubbed the riding crop up and down one of my stockinged legs.

  ‘Neither am I,’ he admitted. ‘But I wanted to see you in something that wasn’t black. I wanted you out of your comfort zone, all sweet and helpless and at my mercy.’ His voice was low now and cracking with desire as his hot breath bathed my ear. His fingers closed around
my wrists and I winced reflexively, even though the bruises from Keane’s cuffs had cleared up over a week ago.

  Tom loosened his grasp and tilted my face so that our eyes met properly, not just in reflection. His face, so devilish seconds earlier, was sober and his eyes searching.

  ‘I know what you went through with Keane has changed you,’ he said softly. ‘But I won’t let him take away something you love. Something we both love. I won’t let him ruin submission for you. But I know you might need lots of time, so please tell me if I’m making you uncomfortable. Tell me straightaway. Will you?’

  I nodded, swallowing. I loved him more than I could possibly say, and I wanted to show him how much.

  ‘If this is freaking you out, we can leave any time.’

  ‘It isn’t freaking me out. You don’t freak me out,’ I said.

  He smiled, a little wistfully.

  ‘Not even a tiny bit?’

  I elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘You mean you want to?’

  He shook his head, his sad smile now a broad grin.

  ‘I have to admit, I kind of like playing the big bad man. But not if it reminds you of a certain real-life big bad man.’

  ‘You could never remind me of him.’ I took a breath, wondering if I should say it, then I let it go and spilled the words out regardless. ‘I want you to take control of me now. I want you to do whatever you want to me. I know I can trust you.’

  He made an incoherent noise that I hoped was positive. The way his eyes shone guided me to that conclusion.

  ‘Oh, Foxy,’ he whispered, shutting them for an ineffable moment. ‘What have I done to deserve you?’

  He pressed his mouth to mine; the kiss that followed was warm, then hot, then steam-inducing.

  ‘Plenty,’ I said. ‘What am I going to do to deserve you? What are you going to make me do?’

  ‘OK,’ he said, snapping from starry-eyed to masterful in the time it took him to step back and hold me at arm’s length. ‘Let’s choose equipment. To the cupboard, quick march.’

  I didn’t actually march, but I skipped to the hidden door, eager to show my enthusiasm for what we were doing.

  ‘So then?’ he said, once the doors were concertinaed open and we gazed at the dark and menacing shapes within. ‘Iron Maiden? St Andrew’s Cross?’

  ‘I’m kind of intrigued by that,’ I said, pointing at something that looked like a higher, padded version of a step stool. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Ah, now, if I’m not mistaken, that’s a spanking stool,’ said Tom. ‘And a pretty good choice, as it goes.’ He dragged it forward and brought it into the centre of the studio, where he folded it out.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said, patting the upper step with his riding crop. ‘You wanted to know.’

  ‘I did,’ I said doubtfully, wanting him to give the command so I didn’t have to look as if I bent over of my own volition.

  ‘You do,’ he corrected. He seemed to read the reason for my hesitation, because his next words were ‘And you will. Stop dragging your feet and get up here.’

  Ah, how much easier to obey than to acquiesce.

  I bent my knees to the lower step and laid my stomach across the upper cushion. The high hem of my little white dress was now indecently raised and I knew Tom was looking at it because I could see him in the mirror. The back legs of the stool sheared diagonally down from the top, making it easy for me to lay my arms along their length and curl my fists around them. I had the feeling I was going to need to hang on to something, especially when Tom began tapping the flat end of his crop against my thighs and the exposed part of my bottom.

  ‘If you could see what I can see,’ said Tom greedily.

  ‘I kind of can,’ I said, twisting to look at the relevant portion of mirror.

  ‘Better and better,’ he said. ‘So, are you ready for your punishment?’

  ‘What am I being punished for?’

  ‘Reckless behaviour,’ he said, tapping the crop a little harder, though not hard enough to hurt – just enough to spread a little warmth. ‘Putting yourself at risk. Getting into bad company.’ He gave me a little swat on the lower bum on the word ‘company’, and I knew he was thinking of Keane.

  Who had been the last man to spank me.

  That state of affairs had to end now.

  ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ I said.

  ‘How many?’ asked Tom.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many do you deserve? Strokes, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’re asking me?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I want you to tell me how many strokes I should give you. But I warn you, I won’t necessarily give you that amount. If it’s not enough, I’ll give you more. If it’s too many, I’ll give you less.’

  ‘Fewer.’

  He hit my bottom so hard I yelled.

  ‘You’re a submissive tonight, not a sub-editor,’ he said severely. ‘All corrections will come from me. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I half-giggled, half-whimpered. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Good. So – name your number.’

  ‘Uh – twenty,’ I hazarded, on the basis that twenty more strokes like that would just about take me to my threshold.

  ‘Ah, well called,’ he said. ‘Twenty it is.’

  My faint hope that he might have laughed and said that was a ridiculous overestimate died. I had let myself in for it. But I’d have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t excited. The knots and tangles of my encounter with Keane were about to unravel, putting his memory behind me for good.

  The first stroke loosened something somewhere. It was hard and it hurt, but it was good too, and strangely cleansing. In my mind, I visualised Tom’s riding crop beating the remnants of Keane out of me. In the mirror, I saw it happen.

  Even when I squinted against the pain, I kept my eyes on the reflection of Tom, drinking in his flexing forearm, his white-knuckle grip on the rod, the zeal in his eyes, the determination in his face. He wielded the crop with the grace of a dancer. His movements were precise, and so economical that the pain, when it flared, was surprising in its magnitude. He only had to flick the whip to make me gasp.

  He kept the strokes slowly and evenly paced, waiting for me to regain my breath before laying on another.

  After six, he paused.

  ‘Are you learning your lesson?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He lifted my skirt so that my bottom was fully uncovered.

  ‘Is it a painful lesson?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I repeated.

  ‘Good. There’s plenty more to come.’ He put the flat leather tip of the crop between my thighs and rubbed it slowly back and forth, making me aware of how much juice had gathered there. The leather was slick and cold as it caressed my pussy lips. If he pushed it just a little bit harder, they would open and the crop would touch my clit. But he kept the pressure just below that longed-for level, teasing me for a few moments more.

  I held back the sigh that threatened to betray me when he withdrew it, but he was perfectly well aware of the effect his manipulations had had on me. I watched him raise the leather to his nose and give it a sniff.

  ‘This appears to be wet, Miss Cox,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea why?’

  ‘I…don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Five more for lying.’

  ‘Nooo,’ I protested, but he smacked them down, fast and sharp, before my voice had even died away.

  ‘Do you want to tell me now?’ he demanded, holding the crop against my stinging cheeks.

  ‘Because I…because I’m wet,’ I admitted painfully.

  ‘You’re wet? You’re telling me that getting thrashed excites you…sexually?’

  The hammy way he said it made me huff with laughter.

  ‘Looks like it,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘I may have to be harder on you. Can’t have you enjoying your punishment, can we? Brace yourself.’

  Six more slow and heavy strokes followed and,
as promised, they hurt more than the first half-dozen. The dampness on the crop’s tip made it sting more, and I could see from the mirror that he was using more of his arm. I could also see the stain of red, spreading inexorably across my outthrust rear, contrasting with the white lacy skirts rucked over my hips.

  I held my breath and clung hard to the metal bars, swimming through the sting.

  Twelve down.

  He stopped again and put a hand against my skin.

  ‘Heating up nicely,’ he purred. ‘How about here, though?’

  Again, the crop snaked between my legs and collected a sheen of my own juices. There was more now, it was coated within seconds, but Tom kept sliding it, getting it right up against my clit. I couldn’t help myself; I began to grind on it, shutting my eyes so I didn’t have to see the spectacle I was making of myself in the mirror. I knew what Tom could see, all the same – a bright red bottom swaying and pumping, begging to be brought to a shameful orgasm by the rod of its own correction. The thought was dizzyingly arousing. I felt everything tighten inside me, ready to open for the flood.

  Tom felt it too, and he laid a smart smack right on my pussy, making me yelp and jolt into an upright position, wheeling round to stare at him in shocked dismay.

  He laughed and drew the tip of his crop slowly over my face, smearing my lips with my own outpourings.

  ‘Do you taste nice?’ he teased. ‘Not that I need to ask. I already know.’

  ‘You’re…’ I tailed off. Calling him a bastard might not help.

  ‘What?’ He held my eyes, and I dropped my gaze. He was too good at this.

  ‘Er, you’re not finished,’ I said.

  ‘Quite right. Back down, please. We have eight strokes to go. And I think…’

  I saw him put down the crop and go over to his brown paper bags, which were now ranged in a corner of the studio.

  He came back with a vibrator in his hand.

  ‘You’re just about ready,’ he whispered, holding it against my vagina and twisting it round a little to assess my level of lubrication. It was obviously pretty high, and he pushed it inside, lining up the attached clitoral stimulator between my lips once it was fully seated. It was a fat, sleek number, curved to rest against my G-spot, just like my favourite model at home. I almost came then and there, and he hadn’t even switched it on yet. In the mirror, I saw his palm, flat against my pussy as if he was about to smack it, but he was holding the vibrator firmly against me, making sure I couldn’t dislodge it before turning it to a low pulse and retrieving his crop.