Flipp’s jaw dropped. She had been expecting some tawdry tale of seduction and abandonment, but this took everything several steps further.
“You think he’ll…offer me the same deal?”
“I don’t know if he knows your secret—whatever it is—yet. But when he finds out…He’s just given his submissive to another man. He has a vacancy, Flipp.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
Flipp crumpled the empty chip cone and stuffed it into her bag before clasping cold fingers around Rocky’s jacketed forearms.
“What happened to Loulou?”
“A rich banker type bought her off Cordwainer. Paid top dollar, apparently, because he had ‘trained’ her so well. I think he keeps her as a ponygirl now.”
“A whattygirl?”
“Ponygirl…Oh, never mind. It’s what it sounds like, pretty much. The main point I’m making is, if you want to keep on eating off plates instead of nosebags, you need to get away from Cordwainer.”
“I don’t see how I can. You haven’t got away from him, have you? And you obviously want to.”
“He knows too much about me,” muttered Rocky. “Look, love. Whatever you don’t want him to know—you have to tell me. I need to know the worst. I can’t help you unless I have the full picture. And I want to help you more than anything. I want you out of this mess.”
“Wouldn’t that endanger you, though? If Cordwainer is as dodgy as all that…”
“Leave Cordwainer to me. I can handle him. I need the truth. Don’t worry about telling me. Whatever it is, I’m bound to have done worse.”
She turned around to face him, snug in his arms, but feeling as vulnerable as she had ever done.
“Okay,” she whispered, putting her hands on his shoulders and staring up into his face. It always gave her a rush, the sight of him, his eyes linked to hers, and despite her fear, that quick swooning thrill darted from tip to toe. “I’ll tell you tonight. After work.”
“You mean you’re still doing the overtime?” Rocky’s disapproval made her quake in her Converse, but she held his gaze without flinching.
“I don’t think he knows anything. Yet. I can fend him off, Rocky. Or at least just give him a little bit to go on. I need time to think. I can’t just cut and run.”
“Call in sick, for God’s sake.”
“He’ll smell a rat.”
“He is a rat.”
“I know how to handle rats, babe. Trust me. I’ll be all right.”
“I want to forbid you, Flipp.”
“Well, you can’t. You can’t tell me what to do. Not until tonight.” She winked, trying to be breezy, then her face crumpled. “Oh, don’t look like that. Give me a hug or a kiss or something.”
He blew out, ruffling her hair, and rolled his eyes, then surprised her by ducking down for a long, crushing kiss, transmitting warmth to their chilly bodies. Flipp wished he would go on kissing her forever, nowhere felt so much like home as his arms. But kisses have to end, and his did with a strong hand at the back of her neck, drawing her forehead against his.
“I’m not going to argue with you here,” he said in a low, serious voice. “But I don’t like what you’re going to do, and I want you to know that. I also want you to know that you’re to ring me the moment you get out of there. Take my spare phone—it’s the one I don’t use for Cordwainer’s business. And if it starts to look as if things are getting out of control, I want you to get into the loo and text me straightaway. Will you at least do that for me?”
“I promise.”
He kissed her forehead, grabbing a handful of the back of her hair before releasing her. “Go on, before I change my mind and drag you away on the bike.”
How he tempts me, thought Flipp ruefully, darting back up the pier steps to the light and warmth of the summer. But that temptation would have to be postponed for now.
“This shouldn’t take long,” said Cordwainer, businesslike, clipboard in hand, standing in front of the 3D Motor Racing simulator. Behind his suited form, endless animated Formula One cars sped through chequered flags before crashing spectacularly. “I just need you to list each machine and write a brief comment about its state of repair. If you think it is in need of repair or replacement, underline the comment, please. I’ll be in my office—just come upstairs and knock when you’ve finished.”
There was nothing in his speech or manner to suggest that his intentions were sleazy, Flipp decided. This was simple, face-value overtime, nothing more.
“Understood,” said Flipp with a smile she strove to keep more professional than friendly. “Thanks.”
Cordwainer handed her the clipboard and disappeared upstairs, leaving Flipp entirely alone in the flashing, noisy, empty room. How sinister it seemed without the ranks of acne-cratered youth and the bombastic dads bent on hooking a cheap fluffy toy for their kids. Nobody had hooked the tragic-looking lime-green acrylic duck from its nest of plastic treasure eggs that day and it sat fixing her with a reproachful stare as she went about her business, checking that the mechanism was in working order.
“I know it’s a shit life, mate,” she said, making her pencilled note. “But perhaps somebody nice will take you home tomorrow. We can but hope.”
By the time she had completed her inventory, Flipp had to admit she was more than a little spooked. The jingling of coins, the booming voices, the revving engines all gave the impression of vivid activity, but it was all a trick of electronics. She could imagine everyone in the world dropping dead, yet this warped facsimile of life continuing, sirens blaring into the dead night. On reaching Cordwainer’s office door, she almost believed that the apocalypse had been and gone and left just her, alone with the robots.
So it was a relief, in a strange way, to hear his familiar autocratic tone on the other side. “Enter.”
“I’ve done it,” she said, staying well within easy scarpering distance of the door. She held out the clipboard.
“Thank you. Give it to me, then.” He motioned with his hand, indicating that he expected her to come away from the door and closer to him. Reluctantly she took a few steps in his direction and put the clipboard in his hands. “Any problems?” he asked.
“No, all fine. Well, I’ll get off, then.” She was turning, heading away from his influence, out of the danger zone.
“Have you forgotten, Flipp?” He halted her with a gentle admonition.
“Forgotten?”
“I promised you dinner. I’m a man of my word.”
“Oh…yeah. It’s okay. You don’t have to?”
“I want to. Take a seat.”
“I was going to meet friends?”
“No you weren’t.”
Crouched forward in the chair, knees primed for flight, Flipp looked up sharply. He was calling her a liar, wasn’t he? And in such a way that she couldn’t possibly refute it without starting an argument. Something told her that arguing with Cordwainer was the original definition of time wasting. She braced her hands on her upper legs, looking down at her fingers splayed across the double layer of fishnet and holey nylon tights.
“I don’t know why you think I’m lying,” she said eventually, aiming to keep as much belligerence out of her tone as possible.
“No, neither do I. Why would I think that, Flipp?”
One quick look in the abyss of menace that lay behind his eyes was enough for Flipp. Rocky was right. Cordwainer was dangerous. She really shouldn’t be here. He could make mincemeat of her, and she would have no defence at all. His comment made her wonder instantly if he knew something about her, but she thought on the whole that he was simply assuming she had secrets. Correctly, of course, but he couldn’t know that for sure.
“No idea. Are you unhappy with my work?”
“Not at all.” He picked up the phone from his desk. “So. What’s it to be? Pizza? Chinese?”
“Oh, we’re eating here.”
“Why not? Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Flipp. You wanted me to take you
to dinner, somewhere extravagant, did you? A date?”
“No. Of course not. Just thought…y’know, the Balti House or a pub or somewhere like that…” Somewhere public.
“You aren’t really dressed for a date,” he said contemplatively, looking at her teeny-tiny miniskirt and layers of faded vest tops. “Though I must say, just once, I’d like to see you properly dressed. I imagine you’d scrub up well.”
The cold, familiar knot of panic began to ravel in her stomach. This was bad, very bad. She had to keep her head. “I don’t do posh,” she said. “Not my style.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Chinese, then? What do you like? Chicken chow mein? Beef in black bean sauce?”
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“Of course you are. Vegetable stir-fry then?”
“I don’t really like vegetables, though.”
Cordwainer laughed. “Your skin is peachy now, but that won’t last if you don’t look after yourself.”
Wow, thanks, Nadine Baggott.
“I’ll have mushroom fried rice, if that’s okay.”
“Absolutely. Mushroom fried rice it is.” He dialled a number quickly and gave his order, watching Flipp like a hawk throughout the conversation.
“Champagne?” he asked, opening a small fridge at the back of the room.
“Oh, what are we celebrating?” asked Flipp, bemused, as he took fluted glasses from a low drawer and began to work on the cork.
“Life,” he said obliquely. “Life and fruitful working relationships.” The cork popped and the golden bubbles fizzed and frothed into the glasses. “Can you drink to that?”
“Yeah. Life and, um, fruitful working relationships.”
Cordwainer clinked her glass and returned to his chair on the other side of the desk.
“If you were mine,” said Cordwainer, suddenly and portentously, “I’d do something about your eating habits.”
Flipp was almost frozen with alarm at the first four words of this sentence, but she managed to reply with what she hoped was a distraction. “Do you have daughters, then?”
“Daughters?” he asked, as if not following her line of reasoning. “No.”
“No children?”
“None.”
“By choice?”
“Never mind my family, what about you? Do you have near and dear ones?”
Damn, I’ve just talked myself into deeper trouble.
“No,” she said flatly. “They’re all dead.”
Cordwainer’s eyes widened, his amber eyes on alert. “Really? All of them? How very unfortunate.” Flipp could see he wanted a reaction, so she gave him a grudging shrug and tried to look sad. “You poor thing. You know, it’s a very odd coincidence, but nearly every person who comes to me looking for work is an orphan. Don’t you think that’s strange? I mean, what’s the statistical likelihood of so many young orphans gravitating to me?”
Flipp was expected to reply again, but she simply bit her lip and looked down at those big fishnetty holes.
“Do they see me as a father figure, d’you think? Do you? Do you see me as a father figure?”
“No. Nothing like that. I see you as my employer.”
“You see me as your master?”
Flipp hid her face in her champagne glass, trying hard not to let the stem wobble in her fingers.
“Well, you pay me,” she said, exasperated. “I see you as the person who pays me.”
“Ah, just a cash register. I am wounded.”
There was a knock on the door and he went downstairs to collect the takeaway. During his brief absence, Flipp contemplated many rash courses of action. Could she jump out of a window? Could she hide among the arcade games until he left? Could she lock herself in the loo? Could she feign a heart attack? None of them had the simple elegance she needed from a plan, though, so she was forced to wait until he came back with the foil cartons and thin plastic bags that signified takeaway food.
Dinner plated up and ready to eat, he took two pairs of chopsticks from that well-equipped lower drawer and passed one to Flipp.
“Are you sure?” she said, with a snort of panicky amusement. “Mine’s rice, remember.”
“I think you could manage. Give it a try. Go on. You’re a game girl, aren’t you? I think you are.”
“What makes you think that? What makes you think anything about me? You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Enough? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve seen you. I’ve spoken to you. I’ve seen you deal with customers. And your presentation speaks volumes.”
“My presentation?”
“Little Miss Alternative. Fancies herself as a bit of a rebel, bit of a misfit. Would die if anybody called her conventional or traditional. I think you like to live life on the wild side, don’t you, Flipp? I think you’re an open person. Open-minded and open to new experiences. Am I very wrong?”
“So if you know so much about me,” Flipp said, trying and failing to secure a mushroom in her chopsticks, “what else do you know?”
He sat back, heedless of his beef with water chestnuts, and clasped his hands behind his head. “You tell me.”
“What, read your mind?”
“No, I suppose that’s an unreasonable thing to expect. But tell me about yourself.”
“Not much to tell. My parents died when I was little. I grew up in a children’s home. Left school, couldn’t find work, couldn’t find a decent place to live. Squatted for a bit. Heard that there was seasonal work in Goldsands, so I decided to check it out.”
“Oh, Flipp, you’re a drifter, a dreamer. Such a lonely girl. You needn’t be alone, you know. But I suppose you have a boyfriend?”
“I told you earlier, there’s no one.”
“But there has been? In the past? You aren’t a virgin, I take it.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to ask me that,” she said bravely. “I think that’s known as sexual harassment.”
Cordwainer laughed for a long time. Flipp threw down her chopsticks in defeat and alarm.
“Oh, Flipp, Flipp,” he said. “Sweet little Flipp. Are you going to take me to a tribunal? Are you going to inform your union rep? Or perhaps the police? Somehow, I don’t think so.” And now his face was set and grim, and Flipp knew he was coming to the real bones of the matter, the whole purpose of hiring her. “Suppose I decide to ask you for references? Suppose I ask you for the name of your school and your children’s home so I can ask their opinion of your trustworthiness and intelligence? I’m well within my rights as your employer to demand you give them to me.”
“I…would rather not…Look, I don’t feel well. I think I’m going to be sick. I need to go home.”
“You can’t run away, Flipp. You don’t have anywhere to go. You need this job to pay your rent.”
“I need to get out. Please let me go home.” Flipp was on her feet now, leaping for the door.
“Flipp,” he was saying, all friendly again, all concerned and paternal. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t mean you any harm. I want to take care of you. Let me help you.”
“I have to go,” she almost screamed, bolting down the stairs and towards the side exit of the arcade, mercifully still open for the takeaway man.
“You can’t run,” she heard him shout after her. “You’ll be back. I’ll be waiting for you, Flipp.”
From the pier steps, she called Rocky. It took him a while to pick up and, when he did, there was shouting and loud music in the background.
“Where are you?” they said simultaneously, Rocky getting his repeat question in first.
“I’m on the pier steps. Rocky, I’m sorry, you were right, I should have listened to you.” She couldn’t hold back the tears and had to listen to his voice through her high, hysterical sobs.
“Meet me at the bus shelter by the statue of Queen Victoria. I’ll take you home.”
Home? I have no home.
But she didn’t say it. She ran all the way to t
he end of the pier, past the darkened curves of the roller coaster and the shuttered-up chip and candy-floss booths, towards Rocky, towards the only home she knew.
She crouched down behind a low flowerbed wall, expecting to hear the roar of his engine, but he arrived on foot, running across the quiet road, eerily free of its messy sunburned daytime crowds and chock-a-block touring coaches.
“Flipp?” She peered over her self-created parapet, only reassured by the unmistakable sound of his voice. “Come on. Back to mine. It’s not far.”
He helped her up and hustled her along the seafront as quickly as he could, seemingly desperate not to be seen, keeping to the shadows until they reached the facade of what must once have been a luxury hotel, now converted to flats. The once proud white stone steps were now sticky with spat-out gum and cigarette butts, and the paint on the rails was peeling badly. Rocky ushered Flipp through the door and into a lobby that smelled of stale beer and burned carpet, towards the stairs.
“You live here?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought Cordwainer would have paid you better.” The timer switch that controlled the light ran out before they reached the top of the stairs, and they negotiated the fourth and fifth flights in darkness, the silence broken by distant dance beats and the yells of rowing couples.
“He does,” said Rocky shortly. “I spend as little as I can, though. The bike’s my only luxury. I need to put the rest away.”
“For a rainy day?”
He didn’t answer but led her along the top corridor, past doors that were covered in scratches and windows sealed up with tape, to the flat at the end.
“In,” he said shortly, pushing her over the threshold and switching on the lights. “Sit down.” He indicated a battered leather sofa in the living room cum kitchen area that constituted the largest of the dingy flat’s three rooms, shrugged off his jacket, took two cans of beer from the fridge and threw one over to Flipp. His face, as it had been since he picked her up, remained grimly set throughout.
“So do you believe me now?” he asked, sitting down beside her and opening his can.
“Yes. Yes, okay. I said so, didn’t I?” Flipp looked around at her surroundings, which somehow managed to be simultaneously sparse and chaotic. “Is this where we were going to eat?”
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