‘Mr Sands?’
Emma’s reply was to unbutton her jeans and lower them slowly over her backside, waggling it in her friend’s face. The impressed gasps this won her made her smile through the residual pain.
‘Oh my God, he used the cane! He actually used the cane. Wow. Can I touch them?’
‘Be my guest.’
Emma stood patiently with her back to the room while each of the three women in turn ran their fingertips along the dozen scored welts that crossed her bottom. She hadn’t put knickers on and had wondered about the jeans – her baggiest-arsed, most comfortable pair – but a skirt without knickers seemed out of the question on the windy Northern Line she had t
o use to get here.
All the same, it was a relief to drop them. It was also a relief that their boss, Allyson, insisted on neat, square-cut fingernails for all Geisha Girls, otherwise this curious inspection of her cane stripes would have been much worse.
They traced the marks like lines of latitude on a map. The Tropic of Cancer crossed the central swell of her buttocks, the longest of the lines, while the equator sat a couple of inches lower, at the low curve that men liked to grab and squeeze. The Tropic of Capricorn lay stingingly and unforgivingly at the very top of her thighs.
‘Jeez, these must hurt,’ said one of the other girls. ‘I hope nobody ever pays to cane me. I think it would kill me.’
‘Surely you’ve told Allyson you won’t do the cane?’ said Emma, in surprise. ‘It is allowed, you know.’
‘Oh, you know.’ The girl sighed, and retreated to pull on a stocking. ‘I was worried she might not hire me if I started dictating terms. I need this job or I’ll have to drop out.’
‘Yeah, but you like it, right? You applied when you saw the ad on Fetlife? So you’re into all this?’
‘Yes, yes, I am, I’ve done it with boyfriends but …’ The girl’s lower lip trembled, and Emma stepped out of her jeans and put an arm around her.
‘It’s normal to be nervous, your first night,’ she whispered. ‘But you’re perfectly safe. Allyson has cameras in the private booths – she’ll know in a second if a girl’s being pushed past her limits.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. She banned the only bloke who ever tried it on with me, for life. But every single other customer has always respected me and gone no further than I’ve wanted him to. I promise you.’
‘I know. I know you’re right. And I trust Allyson.’
‘There. Come on, get your dress off. I’m really sorry – I know Al told me when she introduced you, but I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘It’s Poppy.’
‘That’s right! So pretty. The red flower. Could be appropriate.’
They giggled, and Poppy unzipped her shift dress with a little more alacrity. Ridiculously, she’d been nervous of getting naked in front of the other girls.
How pathetic can you get? she thought. You’ve just taken a job that involves baring your bum for paying gentlemen, and you’re scared of something you did countless times in the showers at school. Get a grip, Popster.
Shimmying out of her dress, she listened vaguely to Emma’s colourful account of her painful appointment with Mr Sands.
She learned, as she unclipped her bra, that this was a punishment for divulging his identity to a third party.
She distracted herself, on lowering her knickers, from the fact that her neatly trimmed pubic triangle was visible to all by laughing at the reproduced dialogue – Sands’ wit, Emma’s cheek, all ending with the Geisha Girl in a bent-over posture with her hands clasping her ankles.
‘You know the sound the cane makes when they swish it through the air?’ said Emma insouciantly.
The other two geishas murmured recognition, suddenly sober, not laughing any more.
Poppy’s skin broke into goose pimples. Probably the cold, she thought. Being naked.
She picked up the absurd costume she had been given. No Japanese geisha had ever worn such a thing, she was sure. It might be made of flame-red satin with silver and gold embroidered flowers all over, but it barely skimmed her thighs. She wrapped it around her body, trying hard to make it cover her generous breasts, but it was a stretch at best.
She attempted to cover her little pants of frustration and effort by disguising them as laughs when Emma’s story headed towards its high climax. She had a way of telling the tale that made it sound like a fun adventure, but Poppy still feared that length of rattan more than she could say.