He was stunningly attractive now, so heaven knew what he must have been like as a young man. Beautiful, I thought, but in an unearthly kind of way. An angel. My poor mum would have stood no chance.
‘Thank you for joining us,’ he said. I remembered his voice, and especially his accent, not heavy but distinctive. I’d found it sexy at the time.
‘Thank you for inviting us,’ replied Joss politely.
I wondered if I should speak up now, or … The time didn’t seem right. And in front of all these people. No. I would wait until I could speak with him privately.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘When I heard you had a new submissive, I was curious. I wanted to meet her, and to see you with her. I think it will be the highlight of our little party. What is her name?’
I trembled. Was he going to give my full name?
‘Lulu,’ he said.
‘She wears no collar,’ Voronov noted.
‘Not yet.’
‘But she will?’
‘Oh, yes. But she isn’t fully trained yet.’
‘I see. You will have to show us how far you have taken her. But not yet. We will leave it until later. Take a seat.’
He waved at one empty place at the end of the row.
I had to crawl after Joss which, taken together with the training comment, made me feel like a dog. I knelt between his knees, facing out into the room, while he kept a hand on my shoulder. If Voronov had recognised me, he hadn’t said so – but when we had met before I had been wearing a trouser suit, minimal make-up and my hair loose. It was perfectly possible that this unusual context for our meeting had rendered me unrecognisable.
‘Lord Lethbridge is not our only new member tonight,’ proclaimed Voronov. ‘Sasha, you have brought a new submissive with you. Introduce us, please, and Lulu can see what to expect when we put her through her paces.’
Sasha, a short, boxy woman in her mid-thirties with a dark crop of hair, strode out into the middle of the room, her grey skirt suit a little too tight for comfort. You’d think she had come for a sales meeting rather than a kinky night out, were it not for her numerous facial piercings.
‘This is Puss. Here, Puss.’ She clapped her hands to attract another woman, who crawled to her feet. The woman wore a fishnet body stocking with holes at the crotch, buttocks and breasts. She was collared, leashed and gagged with a shiny red rubber ball. The lead dragged behind her as she made her laborious way across the shiny floorboards.
She knelt up on reaching Sasha and waited for the next command.
‘How did you two come to meet?’ asked Voronov.
‘Oh, the usual,’ said Sasha, patting Puss’s head. ‘She joined Kinky Cupcake and begged me for a place in my stable. Begged long and hard. I was always going to take her, but I enjoy the begging, so I kept her on tenterhooks for a full month before I agreed to train her. Made her do all kinds of things to prove her commitment, didn’t I, Puss?’ Sasha loosened the gag.
‘Yes, mistress.’
‘What kind of things?’ Voronov wanted to know.
Sasha spoke in a flat, estuarine accent that seemed at odds with the highly spiced words coming from her mouth. She seemed altogether so ordinary that it made her stories all the more erotic somehow. Tales of sexual humiliation and debauchery as told by a London cabbie.
‘Well, there was one time,’ she began, ‘I made her come into the café with her shirt open and the word “slut” written on her boobs in black felt tip. That was nice, wasn’t it, Puss? And I made her go down to the vaults and offer a blow job to the first man she saw. She did it, no questions asked. Then, the night I took her on in the end, I invited her to a party at my place. She had to serve all the food and drinks, totally naked, then she had to lick everyone out, even the subs. Every last one of us. A good dozen girls, there were. She came through it, let us all spank her as well. I knew I had a good un.’
‘She sounds perfect,’ said Voronov. ‘And she is now fully trained?’
‘Oh, yeah. The business.’
‘Stand her up. Show her.’
‘Nine,’ said Sasha, and I almost got to my feet myself, so strong was my Pavlovian response to these numbers now.
But Joss’s hand kept me still and I watched Puss rise to a graceful inspection position instead.
Sasha made her open her mouth and show her teeth, cup her own breasts and pinch her nipples. This was what I would have to do, if I were truly here as a new submissive. The thought of doing it in front of all these people made me cringe, but I was also excited, for Puss and for the phantasmic me, ordered to abase myself.