nod, hoping upon hope that this will be accepted.
‘Which of you is the dom and which the sub?’
I blink, understanding neither of these terms.
‘Or are you switches?’
Switches?
‘She likes for me to whip her,’ says Dimitri helpfully, and I kick him rather violently in the ankle, though he seems not to register. ‘Don’t you, Rosie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Tell them,’ he insists. ‘Say the words.’
Oh God, you bastard!
The doorman laughs. ‘I get the picture.’ He hands a blue badge to Dimitri. ‘You’re the dom.’ My badge is red. ‘You’re the sub. Now hold on there a minute and I’ll call up Mal and O. They’re the owners – they’ll want to vet you.’
‘Vet us?’
He nods, the phone already at his ear while he waits for the other end to pick up. ‘Yeah, Mal, I’ve got a couple of newbies here. You got a minute to come and do the necessary? Great. I’ll show them up.’
We follow him up some narrow stairs and through a door that leads to a little waiting room. It would almost be like a dentist’s waiting room, if the magazines didn’t feature cover models in latex and the pictures on the wall were of rotting teeth instead of people tied up with their rude bits on show. The pot plants and the water cooler give an incongruous everyday feel to what I am sure will not be an everyday experience.
‘They won’t be a moment,’ says the doorman. ‘I’ll get back downstairs now, if you don’t mind. Had a bit of an incident earlier with vanillas trying to spy on us – better make sure everything’s clear.’
Once he is gone, I turn to Dimitri. ‘Vanillas? I feel like I’m learning a whole new vocabulary here.’
He squeezes my hand. ‘Think of me. I am learning English too.’
‘I feel a bit nervous. What are they going to do? What’s this vetting?’
He puts an arm around my shoulder. God, it feels nice. I would be happy just to sit there like that for the rest of the evening.
‘Don’t worry. It’s an adventure. Enjoy it.’
That seems to be his philosophy of life, I muse. I snuggle into his side and he rubs his fingers soothingly up and down my upper arm. He smells of so many things – cigarette smoke, wood smoke, mint, something herbal a bit like a joss stick. I breathe him in, inhaling intoxication.
The spell is broken when a door beyond the waiting room opens and a man dressed up as a vampire beckons us in.
I look askance at Dimitri, but he appears to be qualm-free, striding into the office with that snake-hipped swagger I had admired earlier.
Sitting behind a desk is a woman in a very smart 1940s-style skirt suit and a pillbox hat with a veil.
‘Good evening,’ says the vampire, putting out a hand for us to shake. ‘I’m Mal, and this is O. We’re the people behind Kinky Cupcake – we own the lot of you.’ He laughs. ‘You’re new here, I gather, so we need to run through a few things with you. Nothing to worry about – we just have to make sure all new members are genuine deviants, if you like. It’d be a shame if a journalist or somebody unfriendly to our interests slipped through the net and ruined what we’ve got here, don’t you think?’
‘Sure.’ Dimitri nods vigorously. I offer a weak smile.
‘So I’m going to run through the dos and don’ts of the club with you, and then I just need a little demonstration of your dynamic, if you don’t mind. I gather you, sir, are the dom and this lovely lady is your sub, so perhaps you could show us how you like to spank her, or a bit of bondage maybe …’
What? My mouth falls open and I stare at Dimitri, aghast.
‘Ah, don’t be shy now,’ pipes up O in a sexy husky voice. ‘We’ve all seen it a thousand times. You’ll see me whipped by every dom in the place before too long. But I know the first time in front of other people is hard, so please be aware that I sympathise. I envy you too. Gosh, that feeling of being on the edge of a precipice – the exhilaration. I’d give anything to relive that, you lucky thing.’
‘If you’re really not ready, I can get him to spank O instead,’ offers Mal, but I shake my head.
No. If he touches any woman’s bottom, it will be mine.
‘No, no,’ I croak. ‘It’s fine. I’ll do it.’
I’ll do it.
Chapter Two
The first rule of kink club, apparently, is that you don’t talk about kink club. There are other rules too, centring on respect and consent – basic good manners, I guess. You don’t strip people naked and whip them unless they want you to. You take turns. You play nicely.
I find myself watching Mal’s lips as he enunciates. He has blue lipstick on and his false vampire teeth are fascinating to follow. Perhaps they aren’t even false. Perhaps he’s had them filed that way.
I come to with a slight jerk of the neck when O asks us a direct question. What do we do for a living?
‘I’m in advertising,’ I tell her.
‘Oh.’ Not impressed, I gather. ‘And you, Dimitri?’
‘I have plan to be professional dominant person.’
‘You’ve come here looking for work?’ She is taken aback. ‘Well, we do have some members who work on the scene. I’m sure you’d benefit from meeting them. It’s funny, but you really don’t look or dress like the stereotype. I like that though.’
‘I have no leather pants,’ says Dimitri regretfully. ‘Too expensive. But I have other job too. I work in Russia as an actor. I want to improve my English, get into the movies, you know.’
Mal and O are obviously transfixed by this odd foreign fish. I must admit, I’m pretty hooked myself. Is he approaching this ‘dom’ thing as method-acting practice, or is it a genuine predilection? I rather hope I will get to find out.
‘How long have you two been playing together?’ asks Mal suddenly, and I dry up. We are going to be found out and kicked down the stairs by his rather sexy steel-capped boots. Or O’s gorgeous pointy stilettos. Either way.
But Dimitri saves the ball, apparently having presence of mind among his other skills. ‘Not long. Maybe six weeks,’ he says. ‘We are learning. She don’t have kinky lover before, but I do. Lots of kinky lovers for me.’
‘What a wonderful time you will have here,’ says O with a rather flirtatious smile. She fancies him! ‘I think you’re going to be valuable additions to our merry little band.’
‘And now,’ says Mal, leaning back to perch on his vast desk, ‘for your initiation. What do you want to show us?’
Dimitri looks down at me, awaiting my pleasure.
‘Um.’ I can’t hedge, I have to look confident, as if this is something I do all the time. ‘Maybe just a little spanking.’
‘Just a little one?’ He curls his lip and winks at me. I have to catch my breath. ‘OK.’ He takes off his battered leather jacket to reveal heavily tattooed arms. I try not to look too surprised at the colourful display but it’s hard not to stare.
‘Gorgeous work,’ purrs O. ‘I presume you had these done in Russia?’
‘Uh-huh,’ he says, throwing the jacket into the corner of the room with a fluid motion of his sinewy arm. ‘Can