‘Gotta go,’ I shout over my shoulder. ‘Urgent business.’
‘I’ve got urgent business myself!’ he shouts back, dismayed.
The last thing I hear as I barrel through the door is his enraged bellow of ‘Pricktease!’
I let the word melt into the evening air and hurry away, across the city again, leaving the strangely bland and antiseptic vibe of Mayfair behind.
I’m more at home in the fleshpots.
Soho is alive in the dark, all neon-lit, boozy and crowded. Tied and Trussed sits between an upmarket Italian restaurant and a clip joint – respectability and criminality on either side. It represents a place between these two extremes, and yet its depraved pleasures might be enjoyed by patrons of both establishments.
The window display is elegant – an elaborate flower fashioned from various lengths of leather and chain, its stem wrapped in ribbon. I admire this for a few moments, then head inside.
Jerome is at the counter. A huge blond Dutchman with a substantial moustache, he is chatting with a gay couple about Shibari rope bondage. He pauses when he sees me and waves me over.
‘Ah, Sophie, you are here.’ He turns to his customers. ‘I will have to put you in Margi’s hands – she is an expert and will be able to help you.’ They wander over to the assistant, Margi, who is putting the finishing touches to a wall display of manacles.
‘Well, Sophie, we have an interesting evening ahead.’
‘Have we?’
‘Yes. Come through to the back room.’
I’ve been in the back room before. Jerome sometimes lets me and Lloyd ‘try before we buy’ in there. Provided he’s allowed to watch.
Bondage furniture lines the walls and box after box of cuffs, chains, cords and straps are piled high in the corners. The overwhelming smell of leather is intoxicating, and Jerome adds to it, in his head-to-toe cowhide.
‘So what’s on the agenda then?’ I ask, remembering to be nervous. ‘Lloyd says you have instructions for me.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Jerome is busy scanning his stock for something. ‘You’ll need to take off your clothes.’
His matter-of-fact tone piques me. He isn’t even looking at me.
‘What for?’
‘No questions.’ He turns and wags a finger at me. ‘You don’t have to, of course. It’s just what Lloyd said.’
I shrug, a bit sulkily, and take my camera cord off. I turn my back to Jerome for the rest, shivering in the unheated air.
Once I am nude, I turn back to him, thrusting my bare breasts towards him as if in challenge. He has located what he was looking for – a set of fur-lined leather cuffs – and he shoots me a lascivious grin.
‘Well, Miss Martin,’ he says, holding them out. ‘You want to put yourself in these?’
‘I suppose.’ I can’t get out of this mindset that I ought to resist Lloyd’s plans for me, even if they are to my taste. Sometimes I hate that he knows me so well. The sense of having nowhere to hide, at least sexually speaking, can be overwhelming.
Jerome lumbers over and fits the cuffs to my wrists, pulling each one tightly into the soft yet demanding embrace of the fur. He buckles them then links them together at the metal loops.
‘Put up your arms,’ he says and I raise them over my head, my bound wrists creating a graceful pinnacle to my sloping arms. Beneath them, my body is naked and vulnerable. There isn’t much I can do to fight off any unwanted advance.
Jerome consults his boxes again, emerging with a long roll of shiny black tape.
‘Now then,’ he says, and begins unwinding it. He sticks one end to my shoulder and commences wrapping it round me. He doesn’t cover my breasts, leaving them exposed and continuing his bondage-bandaging at my ribcage.
‘Does this rip off like a plaster?’ I ask warily, watching as the ribbons of shiny black take over my waist and hips.
‘No, it is not painful,’ he assures me. He cuts the tape off when he reaches my bottom and recommences on my left leg. ‘It is a good seller, this stuff. Easy to apply, easy to take off. Looks really something.’
‘Nice and shiny,’ I comment. Looking down at myself, the gap that exposes my pussy is somehow far ruder than simple nudity. I am signposted for sex, all the major access routes clear. Anything lickable or fingerable is uncovered – the rest hidden from view by line after line of the tape. He arrives finally at my left foot and I’m done. Only my head, breasts, bottom and pubic triangle are left open to view. There can be no doubt as to what my purpose is. I am a collection of erogenous zones, with a face.