His House of Submission (3 page)

‘Aren't you angry with me?' I asked, taking a nerving sip while he seated himself in the opposite wing-backed chair with his own glass.

‘I'm assuming you were led astray,' he said.

‘You're assuming?'

‘Yes. Because that's the interpretation that suits me. So I'm sticking to it.'

I hid my confusion in another sip.

‘You can leave if you really want, of course. But I'd prefer it if you stayed. I went to some considerable lengths to find you, Sarah. Now you're here, I have no intention of letting you go.'

‘What?'

I put the glass on the card table and sat up straight. What could he possibly mean by that? The fire burned at the side of my face and I put my hand up to my cheek, protecting it.

‘The job you applied for wasn't universally advertised, you know. I only had it placed in the university history department magazine I knew you wrote for.'

‘What?' I said again.

I thought back to the advertisement, quite a showy one for my humble little student history-geek mag. I'd presumed it to be just one of many, fired off to every university history department in the country.

‘After I read that article of yours.'

‘You read an article of mine? In
Past Pleasures
?'

This made no sense at all. Why the actual hell would famous arthouse film director Jasper Jay read my obscure little postgraduate pamphlet?

‘Yes. Don't look so shocked.' He laughed. ‘It was forwarded to me by an associate who thought it … up my street. As it were. And it was. It was an amazing article. Superbly researched and lacking the usual prurient or hysterical tone one grows so weary of.'

‘You're talking about … I can't remember what I called it …'

‘“The Old Perversity Shop”. About that collection of Victorian fetish implements they found in Lincoln last year.'

I looked into the fire, wanting to laugh for some reason. This was like a dream, unravelling so quickly and so absurdly.

‘The thing about your article, Sarah,' he said softly, ‘is that it was written with more than academic curiosity. It was written with enthusiasm. With love.'

‘You think so?'

‘I know so. Only somebody close to the subject could have written about it in the way you did. No “ugh, those old-school freaks”. No “isn't this interesting, in a scholarly, abstract kind of way, of course”. You understood the allure of those whips and cuffs. Didn't you?'

I was under the spotlight, on the spot. There was no feasible response to this other than a good deal of squirming and evasive body language.

But something told me that Jasper Jay wasn't a man who would stand for squirming and evasive body language.

‘Didn't you?' he persisted. ‘There's no point trying to deny it. I see it in you.'

‘Do you mean to say that you read my article, placed the advert in the hope that I'd respond and, and …?'

‘Had you hired on the spot? Yes. My agent knew she had to give the job to Sarah Wells. So when Sarah Wells walked into the office … bingo.'

He clicked his fingers and beamed with delight.

My toes were curled right under and I realised that every muscle in my body was held in a state of supreme tautness, as if in preparation for some kind of desperate death-match. Did it mean I was scared? I didn't feel scared. Not exactly.

‘But why?'

‘You've seen my collection. I had hoped to leave it until later in the summer, when you'd finished the more … orthodox … portion of your task and my filming schedule was complete, but it can't be helped, can it? Even my strict timetable can be subject to sudden changes.'

‘Why
did
you come back? I thought you were in France till August.'

‘So did I.' He sighed, sipped his wine. ‘Our leading man disagreed. Ridiculous bastard went and got his leg broken in a jetski accident. Next movie I make, I'm having everyone, cast and crew, living in a barracks and having to apply to me for passes to get out.'

‘Control-freaky.'

He smiled at me again.

‘Yes.'

I appeared to have finished the wine. Christ, that was quick. I needed to sip from the glass, for my hands to have something to do besides shaking.

‘Don't be nervous,' he said. I watched his fingers, long and white, stroke the stem of his glass. ‘Unless you want to be.'

‘I can't help it,' I said, a tad mutinously. ‘This situation isn't covered in Emily Post. I don't know what to say or do, or …'

‘Just say what you feel. Do what you feel.'

‘In that case –' I put the glass down with an overstated flourish ‘– I'm going to bed.'

He shrugged and smiled, watching me make as dignified an exit as I could.

‘Sweet dreams,' he said when I reached the door.

I looked back at him. His face was shadowed, his brow low, the smile a Hollywood-white tease.

I fled.

I turned the key in my door lock and sat down on the bed, catching my breath. Situation out of control. I had to try and slot the different pieces of the night into place, discipline them into making some kind of sense.

One: I shagged Will.

Two: Will showed me Jasper's collection of BDSM gear.

Three: Jasper caught us and fired Will.

Four: It turns out he hired me because I wrote that article.

My mental cataloguing stopped here, unable to proceed.

He hired me because I wrote that article.

Jasper Jay, the film director and winner of the Palme d'Or, had read my silly little piece on Victorian kinksters and hired me on the strength of it.

Why had he gone to those lengths? Weren't there professional evaluators of this kind of thing? Could he not have got somebody from an auction house?

I felt creeped out, as if he had stalked me, which, in a way, he had. Where was the boundary between stalking and headhunting anyway?

What did he really want?

I lay down and let my thoughts drift around my head. The sensible course was clear. Tomorrow I would pack my bags and leave. This was all too weird and potentially disastrous. Shame about the money though and …

Practicalities grew vaguer, blurring away. I still held the razor strop in my hand and its particular heft and texture beguiled me into fantasy. Jasper Jay, in Victorian times, my Victorian husband, with impressive sideburns and a cravat, sharpening his razor on the leather.

Me on the bed, in my bodice and pantalettes, trying to fasten my corset.

‘You should get Jenny to do that for you,' he says, and I watch his hands move as he plies the blade, swipe, swipe, swipe, from the top to the bottom.

‘That's what I meant to tell you, dearest,' I say, and my voice shakes. I'm nervous.

He puts down the razor, one eyebrow raised.

‘My love?'

‘Jenny … and I … that is to say … we had a difference of opinion.'

‘Oh?' I watch his fist close around the strop.

‘It was nothing really but I'm afraid I lost my temper.'

‘Have we not discussed your impetuous humours?' The question is couched so gently, so reasonably, but my heart jumps to my throat.

We have many such discussions. Discussions that don't involve a great deal of actual discussion.

‘I know, dearest. But I'm afraid I lost my head for one moment and I … slapped her.'

He sighs, lowers his head, puts a hand to his brow. He is at the end of his tether, I know, and I have worked so hard on my self-discipline, but we both know that my impulses overpower my will too often.

‘And she has left?' he says in a low voice.

‘I'm afraid she has, dearest.'

‘And she will explain the circumstances to the agency and we shall be on their black list. Another black list.'

I cannot deny it. I fidget with my corset laces, wrapping them round and around my finger.

‘Shall we discuss this now?' I ask in a small voice.

‘Oh, yes, I think the more immediate the consequence, the more beneficial the lesson, don't you?'

‘Yes, dearest.'

He waits for me. I know what I have to do. I remove the corset and take my place at the foot of the bed, gripping the carved wooden footboard for grim life. I hear the little clink of metal as he removes the strop from its hook.

‘Now, my love,' he says, pacing behind me. ‘You know I never get angry with you and I am not angry now. I know, however, that you are angry with yourself, aren't you?'

‘Yes, dearest.'

I tilt my pelvis forward, bend a little at the knees.

‘And in order for you to forgive yourself, the matter must be dealt with so that you can feel refreshed and prepared for a new start. Is that not so?'

‘It is so, dearest. Oh, I am so sorry to disappoint you.'

‘I will admit to some disappointment, Sarah, and some sorrow that we find ourselves once again in this position. Let this punishment be swift and sharp and then all can be forgiven, if not forgotten.'

Not for a few days, at least. Every time I sit.

He steps forward and parts the cloth of my drawers, the split exposing my bottom. His hand is sure and firm. I hear the shush of the strop rubbing against his trousers, dangling from his other hand.

I should not admit to my faults while he is shaving. I must learn to pick a time when that strop is far out of his reach. Perhaps on the way to church on Sundays.

I will pay for my ill-timed confession now. I squeeze shut my eyes and lower my head, trying to relax my neck muscles.

Oh, the sound it makes, the mighty whoosh, the burning crack of impact. It is so heavy and yet so fiendishly flexible. It snaps across my poor posterior, over and again, marking me with shame, making my skin blush.

As my husband whips me, he lectures me on my shortcomings and how they must be overcome. He points out his position in society and at his place of employment and how I must be a credit to him and our home and family. He reminds me of my position, my vow of obedience, my promise of submission.

And the strop catches me in every painful place it can until I scorch beneath its scorpion tongue.

‘Enough,' he says, his voice laden with exertion. ‘I trust that the lesson is well inculcated.'

‘Very well, Sir,' I whisper.

‘Good. Then let us forgive.'

After the discussion, there is always forgiveness. He shows it by placing the strop beneath my breasts and holding it there while he lowers his trousers and underwear and places his manhood between my nether lips.

He bathes it in my dew, noting well how it flows, for he knows how these discussions excite me. He plunges hard into my tight heat, stretching my cunny wide, slapping his thighs up against my sore bottom. But this rough usage is no punishment, oh, no, it melts into the purest pleasure. He holds the strap against my breasts while he thrusts, its well-worn surface rubbing against those tender buds.

He takes me well and thoroughly, until I sob with a presentiment of the flood to follow, and then he puts the strap between my legs and presses it to my pearl and then, oh, yes, oh, my dearest love …

I opened my eyes and then sat up straight. Oh, what the bloody hell was I thinking? The real strop, the antique, possibly worth a shedload of money, was pressed to my clit, all shiny and slick with my juices.

I grabbed a tissue and rubbed it clean, but when I put it to my face and sniffed, my scent and the leather were all mixed in one incredibly sexual cocktail. What if I'd destroyed the delicate balance of the textile? Did I not know better than to masturbate with precious artefacts? History 101, surely. Though I didn't remember seeing it in the textbook.

I put the strop aside and began packing. It seemed my only course.

* * *

‘What's that?'

Jasper at the breakfast table in the cavernous kitchen, laconic, handsome, dangerous.

I put my bags down on the trestle.

‘I think I ought to go.'

‘Why?' He bit into a triangle of toast.

‘Um, because I don't really know what's going on.'

‘And you like to know what's going on, do you, Sarah?'

‘Generally speaking.'

‘You don't like stories?'

‘I don't … follow.'

He patted the chair beside him and for some reason I didn't think twice about going over there and sitting down.

‘Do you or don't you? Like stories?'

‘Well, yes, I do.'

‘Do you always know what's going on in a story?'

‘Sometimes. If it's blatantly signposted, I suppose. More often not.'

‘It's dull, isn't it, when you know the ending.'

‘Not always.' I had an idea what he might be driving at. ‘I can watch film versions of classic novels over and over, even though I know the ending.'

‘That's a different kind of pleasure,' he said.

‘Maybe.'

‘The thing is, Sarah, if you know the ending, you can't explore any other possibilities. If you know what's going on, you can't be surprised. You can't have your breath taken away. You miss all the best bits. Do you see?'