Chapter 2
Maddy
Slave Night.
It’s like I’m eight years old again, and Cal’s just said Disneyland or Barbie Dream House.
Let’s just say his two-word elevator pitch has me at hello, because I am sold. Oooh. This sounds so far up my street it’s not even funny.
I sit bolt upright on the sofa and squeeze my thighs together under my short, flirty dress.
‘Slave Night?’ I squeak.
My unintentionally high-pitched enthusiasm gets a laugh from everyone else except, I note, Zach. He frowns and drops his head as if he’s in pain, leaning forward to stroke his gorgeous dog, Norm, who’s as good-natured as Zach is grumpy.
I don’t even know why he comes to these meetings.
Zach. Not Norm. Norm makes the meetings far more fun.
But Zach is the numbers guy, and while he and Cal and Gen and Rafe have all been friends for donkey’s years, he seems to make little effort to hide the fact that he finds the actual workings of Alchemy, and the kinky exploits of its members, uncomfortable if not downright unpalatable.
Well, screw him. Grumpy Zach aside, I’ve definitely found my people here.
Even if they all have twelve or thirteen years on me.
I don’t technically need to work. Both my father and stepfather set up generous-verging-on-insane trust funds which keep me in Balenciaga very nicely, thank you.
But I do have an actual brain somewhere, and I like to exercise it.
To think that, six weeks ago, I was booking flights and expensing astronomical lunches at Nobu for hedge fund twats.
Now I’m sitting in a gorgeous, light-filled, high-ceilinged room whose main feature is a vulva crafted delicately from translucent pink onyx, discussing the educational programme Alchemy’s rolling out on social and the upcoming events programme which, apparently, includes a Slave Night.
Sign. Me. The fuck. Up.
‘Calm down, Mads,’ Callum tells me from a couple of feet away on the same sofa. His grin, however, tells me he loves my response.
Callum and I fucked a few weeks ago. It was one evening when Belle had her Unfurl programme going on.
Before she finally popped her cherry (spoiler alert: to her adoring Rafe), Rafe and Cal dressed up as priests and did all manner of dirty things to her as she played an innocent postulant.
It sounded hot as fuck, and when we saw the guys beforehand in the bar I got myself pretty worked up.
Sure enough, Rafe kicked Cal out so he could get my gorgeous girl on her knees and to himself, and Cal came to find me.
Dog collar and all.
Let’s just say he gave me an amazing seeing-to and I can never look at priests the same way. That said, I suspect we both feel similarly about variety being the spice of life, because neither of us has made a move on each other since then.
Cal’s gorgeous. He still has his rugby player’s build. He’s funny, and dirty, and sexy, and light-hearted. In short, he’s perfect. He’s just a bit… I dunno.
Basic, I suppose.
Like, what you see is what you get.
He’s never going to go all dark and brooding on me, and while I appreciate a sure thing, and I probably wouldn’t say no to him again if I found myself short of options at Alchemy one night, I’m not sure we’ll hook up again unless one of us wanders into a gang bang the other’s enjoying.
We both enjoy sex with strangers too much to go back for seconds.
If anyone’s going to get on board with Slave Night, it’ll be Cal. And if anyone’s going to look like the mere mention of it gives them constipation, it’s Mr Pearl Clutcher in the corner.
Zach.
I mean, I get his general lack of enthusiasm.
Obviously. The guy lost his wife. He’s single parenting.
From what I’ve gleaned through Gen and Rafe and Belle, his circumstances are the stuff of nightmares.
Grieving for your late wife while also trying to parent two little grief-stricken girls and run a household and hold down a full-time job?
It’s unconscionable.
To give credit where it’s due, he wears widowerhood (if that’s an actual word) well.
He doesn’t complain. Doesn’t sigh or moan or make pointed comments.
I’ve noticed that whenever the others bring up his daughters, or his late wife, they do it in a matter-of-fact way.
They deal in practicalities, not pity. Which I suspect is just the way he likes it.
Not only does he not complain or seek out sympathy or do anything except underplay his troubles, he also looks fucking good while he’s being all strong and stoic.
I haven’t seen much of him in the office these past few weeks.
His daughters were on school holidays and I understand he worked from home for the first fortnight after I started before taking them off to Italy with his parents-in-law for two weeks.
The upshot? He’s tanned and bloody gorgeous.
He has the kind of skin that I suspect goes instantly, evenly bronzed with no effort at all, and, from what little I can see of his face and hands and neck and that tantalising triangle of chest beneath the open top collar of his shirt, that’s exactly what it’s done.
I’m sure he could have passed himself off as a local in Italy until he opened his mouth and dropped that perfectly modulated accent that all alumni of the British public school system sport.
His hair, which has got longer over the summer and is a lustrous mop of almost black, has started to curl over the collar of the sky-blue shirt he wears.
The shirt that brings out the startling blue of his eyes.
Black-lashed eyes that right now are on full display as his black-rimmed, even-nerdier-than-Clark-Kent glasses lie on the coffee table in front of him.
Eyes that currently telegraph his utter horror and extreme discomfort at the direction our meeting has taken.
What did I say?
Pearl clutcher.
I’m telling you. Zach French wants to sink through that fancy Italian sofa right now. How they ever got him on board with this place beats me.
‘Shut up.’ I lean sideways so I can swat Cal playfully on the arm. Now we’ve got the fucking part out of the way, he and I have quickly found a pesky-sibling-type dynamic.
‘But seriously, what’s the format?’ I ask, turning towards Gen and twirling a lock of hair between my fingers.
She’s a stunning, glacial-looking Hitchcock blonde who manages to be unexpectedly warm and yet perfectly poised at all times.
I liked her as soon as I met her, though she doesn’t give much away.
I don’t know much about her, and I haven’t worked her out yet despite studying her a tad obsessively these past few weeks.
There’s a definite girl crush happening at my end.
She hangs out quite happily at Alchemy’s gorgeous bar, she seems extremely invested in this whole concept (unlike some other individuals sitting not far from me), and once or twice these past few weeks I’ve even seen her in The Playroom, slipping discreetly through the throngs of naked and semi-clothed bodies in her immaculate cocktail dresses.
But is she there to supervise her patrons’ behaviour or to partake of The Playroom’s vast array of pleasures?
That is the question.
I don’t even know what her kink is. I suspect a lot of people would meet her and instantly dub her a Domme, but somehow I don’t think that’s right. She’s so perfectly in control all the time that I bet she adores letting loose at the stern, skilful hands of some guy.
Hmm. I tap my glossy taupe nails on my notebook as I ponder the conundrum.
The weather’s still very warm—London is, as usual, having a gorgeous September—but I’m firmly in back-to-school mode.
That means a new Moleskin notebook for planning all Alchemy’s tantalising social media posts and a more softly autumnal palette for my clothes and nails.
Not that I’m covering up yet. It’s too hot, and my tan is far too fabulous, for that.
Today’s a case in point. I’m wearing a long, lightweight khaki shirtwaister dress with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone as far down my chest and as far up my beautifully golden thighs as I think is tasteful. (That’s quite far.)
This time of year is fabulous at Alchemy, because the members are all back from partying in whichever Mediterranean playground they’ve spent August in, and now everyone is tanned and lithe and gorgeous and up for being entertained.
Cal, who’s in charge of the club’s promotional calendar, has explained to me that it’s important to kick things off with a bang in September.
People have been fucking all summer and they’re looking for a similarly debauched vibe back in London.
They want to be distracted from the fact that they’re staring down the barrel of four straight months of work heading into Christmas.
September is a big month for new sign-ups, apparently, and they want fun.
Where was I? I got slightly lost there in a rabbit hole of pondering Gen’s proclivities and admiring my thigh-tan and…
Oooh yes.
Slave Night.
Gen smiles mysteriously. God, she’s good. It’s like she has a permanent Mona Lisa TikTok filter on. I wonder, does she practice in the mirror? And I wonder if I could pull off a similar mystique?
Probably not. Like Callum, I suspect I’m kinda what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
Unfortunately.
‘Ask Cal,’ Gen says now. ‘It’s his baby.’
I roll my eyes. Of course it is. ‘Will there be an actual auction?’ I ask hopefully.
He smirks. ‘Bet you’ve already got your sexy little slave-girl outfit all planned out up there, haven’t you?’ he asks, tapping his temple with his forefinger. ‘You’ve gone full Gladiator.’