Allyson couldn’t pay the bill fast enough.
Outside, on the wet street, she took Emma into a side alley where they kissed, menthol and nicotine and soy sauce and chilli, until the rain drove them to seek shelter.
In Allyson’s Soho flat, they spent the night discovering each other, granting pleasure, sometimes pain, using nothing more than their hands and mouths, until the sun came up.
‘I’m your bitch, if you want me,’ said Emma.
Allyson had never heard anything more romantic.
‘I want to own you,’ she said. ‘I’ll rent you to the customers, but at the end of the day you’re mine.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Emma, shutting her eyes in rapture. ‘Rent me out. Pimp me. Use me like your whore. I’m yours.’
It seemed too good to be true and, in those early days, Allyson could never quite shake a fear that it was all an act by a girl on the make.
But, no matter what exalted company she bared her bottom for, she always came back to Allyson, and her heart was open to nobody else.
After getting spanked at the club she’d go up to Allyson’s flat and put on her harness and wait, sometimes for hours, until her mistress was free.
Then there would be such nights, of strap-ons and dildos, of butt plugs and buzzers, and clamps and paddles, of lubricants and gels, and massage oils and everything. Most of all, their two bodies, working together, complementing each other, and inside them, their two hearts, beating in rhythm.
She loved Emma and she was as sure as she could be that Emma loved her. Sometimes she feared that Peregrine would have that oft-mentioned word with one of his friends and her love would be taken from her and put in an altogether brighter spotlight. But Peregrine either lied about it, or failed to convince the directors, and Emma stayed at the club.
Perhaps, if it weren’t for her, Emma would have had her big break.
Perhaps, after all, her love was a selfish one.
And now here they were, parked up outside this tatty service station, contemplating ruin. Allyson knew she would be invited to take the fall for McKenna and the Mr Bigs behind him. She was looking at a good stretch in Holloway, without doubt. And there would be punishment for Emma, too – and not the kind she liked. The kind that would spoil her pretty face and leave her no career alternative but to prostitute herself in one of McKenna’s brothels.
‘OK, Em,’ she said, taking her paper cup of coffee as her lover climbed back into the car. ‘This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to make a call or two from the payphone up by the services. You’re going to take this car, turn it around and go back to the cottage. I’m going to ask Richard if he can help you. They won’t come looking for you, you’re small fry. Richard can get you a place in a different town, a new name, all of that.’
‘What? No. I’m coming with you.’
‘No you ain’t, sweetheart. Not a chance. I’ve got to go and face the music, but I’ll be all right. I’ll be out in a couple of years.’
‘Al, don’t! We don’t even know that it’s this!’
‘We can’t risk it. I can’t let you risk it. You’ve done nothing to deserve trouble. I have.’
‘I should have told you.’ A tear was in the corner of Emma
’s eye. Allyson leant over and kissed it away.
‘You weren’t to know. Now, look, are you going to do as I say?’
‘I can’t let you …’
‘Emma.’ There was a tense silence, broken only by their hiss as they simultaneously burnt their tongues on the blistering coffee. ‘I’m going to call Richard now,’ she said. ‘On the payphone so they can’t trace it. Stay here.’
She couldn’t look at Emma’s face. She walked to the phone, jingling her purse, with her eyes fixed hard on the telecoms company logo. Stay calm. She had to stay calm.
Richard was trying his best to keep the noise down, but the bed was creaky and the cottage so small that he didn’t doubt some of Lucy’s little wails and moans were filtering through the walls and doors to where Emma, Blake and Allyson lay beyond.
This was going to be the noisiest part of all. He put his hands on her shoulders from behind and lifted her from her bent angle, removing her mouth from Rob’s cock, to his fellow dom’s gasped disappointment.
The dismay was to be short-lived, however.
Richard put his hand over Lucy’s mouth and spoke softly into her ear.