Chapter 50
She walked through the door wearing a pleated checked mini-skirt, white shirt, red ribbon tied at her neck, blue blazer and white knee-length socks. It was a costume she’d purchased for a Halloween party once – she’d gone as Gogo Yubari, the Japanese assassin from Kill Bill. She shrugged off a large rucksack.
‘Woah, a schoolgirl vibe,’ said Marcus. ‘I like it.’
‘I’ve escaped from my boarding school and I’m after some fun.’
‘You look like a very fuckable doll.’
Marcus looked the same as he always did with his white bathrobe loosely tied over flesh that was tending towards doughiness.
‘You should get a photo,’ she suggested.
‘I should,’ he leered.
She watched as he unlocked his phone, held it up, and heard the fake shutter-click.
‘I knew you’d be back. Again.’
‘You know me better than I know myself,’ she demurred.
‘All that caring shit. It’s a nice little distraction, but there’s no future in it. Oestrogen getting the better of you.’
She put a finger to her mouth and bit the end of it. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘Come here.’
She skipped to his side of the bed. He put his phone on the bedside table and lifted her skirt.
‘You’re wearing knickers. I’m disappointed.’
‘I figured you’d want something to remove with your teeth.’
He smiled a heavy-lidded smile. He was already turned on.
‘What did you say you were studying?’
‘Advanced fucking,’ she purred. ‘It’s a new subject. The curriculum has changed a bit since you were a boy.’
‘Clearly. And how do you think you’re going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been a bit distracted recently. I’ve not been doing as much studying as I should have been.’
‘I could help you cram tonight.’
‘That’s a nice offer.’
‘I’m a nice guy.’
Even in role play, that was a little hard to swallow. But he was a powerful guy, and that was what counted.
He pulled open his dressing gown. The end of his cock glistened, taut and expectant. ‘So what’s the first lesson?’
She reached into her small cross-body bag. ‘These?’ The cuffs he’d bought tinkled as she pulled them out. ‘A little bit of revision before we move onto something new?’
‘Anything to help.’
Marcus had booked his usual room, which featured a gauche metal four poster bed complete with vertical bar headboard. She cuffed his hands directly above his head, then put her bag on the bedside table. The contents spilled from it as it did so.
‘Whoopsie!’ she said.
‘Why don’t you take my dick in that pretty mouth of yours, and lick it like a lollipop?’
‘What if my parents find out I’ve been taking sweets from strangers?’
‘I won’t tell.’
She smiled coquettishly. ‘Okay. I just need to get a picture. For my coursework.’ She grabbed her mobile from the bedside table, then stepped back from the bed.
‘Oh wait! This isn’t my phone. It’s yours. Silly me.’ She didn’t make any moves to swap them back. ‘I must have got mixed up. All that oestrogen. Ovaries, man. Total twats.’ The cutesy voice had gone.
‘Eh?’ said Marcus.
‘I’m saying, women’s bits, huh. Amirite?’
‘I’m not sure what this is, but it’s not working for me.’
His cock was wilting like a carrot left too long in the salad drawer. Simone turned her attention to his phone.
‘And what about all those silly little opinions we have? And those crazy notions of equality.’
‘What are you doing with my phone?’
She’d been tapping away the whole time. It had been almost too easy to get him to unlock it for her. ‘I’m just getting a few numbers.’
‘What for?’ His tone had finally shifted from annoyance to concern.
‘I’m thinking of sending them something.’
‘What something?’
‘The video.’
‘Christ.’ He gazed heavenward. ‘Not that Wolfe shit again. When are you going to get it into your thick skull that nobody cares?’
Where was the nice guy now?
‘Not that video.’ She pointed to her throat. ‘This video.’
‘What the fuck are you going on about?’
‘You’ve seen a hidden camera before, right? You guys use them all the time, don’t you?’ She pointed to the tiny pin at the centre of her bow. ‘Come on, Marcus. Wave.’
He twisted in the cuffs.
‘Oh that’s right, you can’t. Now. Let’s see who might be interested.’ She scrolled through his contacts. ‘Your wife?’
‘Hah!’ he barked. ‘Breaking news. Man has bit on the side. So what? You know what our arrangement is.’
‘That’s a fair point. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll send her number to myself anyway, just in case.’
She emphatically tapped on the screen.
‘Your father-in-law, however? He doesn’t know about your little understanding. Be a hell of a way for it to come out!’
‘Come on, Simone. A joke’s a joke. Let me out of these cuffs.’
An attempt at conciliation. She was clearly on to something.
‘What were your kids’ names again? Max and Elliot? Imagine a video of their dad popping up in their TikToks. The shit they’d get at school would die down eventually. And with a doting father like you on hand, I’m sure they’re resilient, well-rounded kids who can handle some gentle trolling.’
‘Don’t fuck with my kids.’
‘And I wonder if the editor of The Metro might think it was a laugh to run the story. He’d probably go with some gently massaged version of the truth to spice it up a bit. Rival newspaper editor meets schoolgirl for SM sessions.’
‘You’re not a schoolgirl.’
‘I know. But they never see my face. And from what you were saying, it all sounded a lot like I was, didn’t it?’
‘You scheming bitch!’
He twisted some more, trying to get free, but she’d been very careful to tighten the cuffs just the right amount.
‘That’s the biggest compliment you’ve ever paid me.’
The idea had come to her at the flat. She’d been rooting around in a box, looking for the cuffs, when she happened across a picture of her mum. The sight of it made her catch her breath. She’d tried her best to erase all traces of her, removing all photos, possessions and the rare gifts she’d given; forensically clearing the flat like a serial killer might a crime scene. She didn’t want anything remaining that might pin her to the woman.
But she’d missed this one picture. The image was only small, but her mum’s face filled it, her soft bouncing curls almost bursting beyond the boundaries of the frame, her neck disappearing into the pussybow of a striped seersucker blouse. She was beautiful, physically at least, her high cheekbones not needing the accentuation of her unnaturally pink blusher, and her feline pale blue eyes glittering from beneath garish green lids.
The thing that stood out most, though, was the smile on her face. A genuine, heartfelt smile. She couldn’t recall her mum ever being happy, had never considered that there’d been a time when anything other than resentment and hostility coursed through her blackened heart. But here was a sliver of evidence to the contrary. When did it all start going so wrong for her? When did she decide to be the vindictive cow that she became?
And then she was struck by a thought so profound, and yet so obvious, her head reeled. If everything we become is an inevitable consequence of everything that has gone before, perhaps her mum couldn’t help becoming the heartless hollowed-out harridan she’d morphed into. Perhaps something, potentially innocuous but completely beyond her control, had set in motion a series of tiny missteps, which, taken consistently over time, had led her further away from this seemingly happy person someone had once captured on camera.
But the implications were almost too great to bear. Because if she could empathise with Tasha, with Steve, and with Hozan, as she had learned to, if she could see that not everything was as black and white as she had believed, that meant that she had to extend her mum the same courtesy.
The picture became fuzzy and indistinct in her hand.
And what did that mean for her own story? Was she destined to continue to play the part in which she’d typecast herself or did the plot twist of the shelter mean she had no choice but to accept her script had been rewritten without her realising?
She’d reached into her handbag to get a tissue, which is when she’d spotted Hozan’s camera. She’d lifted it to the window, a tiny onyx stone that glinted as the light played off its lens. She’d taken a steadying breath, letting the air fill her lungs, feeling the pressure in her chest build. Then her diaphragm retracted, the spent air rushing out through her nostrils, and with it any doubt she might have had. The answer was obvious. Not really a decision at all, but in fact the natural outcome of everything that had happened to her up to that moment. She would try and do the right thing, which meant trying one last thing.
A litany of expletives poured from Marcus’s flushed, angry face. She went to the mini bar, popped open one of the single-serve bottles of fizz, and slowly and deliberately poured herself a glass. She sat down on the end of the bed, out of kicking range, and nonchalantly took a sip.
‘Get it all out of your system.’
Marcus started calling for help.
‘I slipped the reception staff a little sweetener on the way up, told them it might get a little racy and it was best not to disturb us. And there’s no one either side of us. I checked.’
‘I am not fucking about, Simone,’ he roared. ‘I’ll fucking bury you. You’ll never work in media again.’
‘Ah, thank you. It’s a shitty industry. I’m probably better off out of it.’
‘What do you want?’ Desperation clung to his words now. ‘Do you want me to run the fucking Wolfe story?’
‘I’m not a sadist.’ She pouted. ‘I know you can’t do that. And you were right, I can’t save the world, but I can save the shelter. I want you to advise him to back off.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because it’s an excellent PR story for him. I know all the plans he’s got in the pipeline; I’ve seen the rumblings happening on the web about his dodgy practices. He’s sailing a little close to the wind and, like it or not, the event has raised the shelter’s profile. There’s a lot of attention trained on it. If suddenly he’s involved in its redevelopment … well, why risk putting everything else in the spotlight? Far easier to make it a poster child for all the wonderful support he’s offering local communities. He comes out the good guy.’
It was like a turbo-charged version of the stuff DA were selling him as part of the pitch, but with a far bigger profile than his current CSR programme.
‘Do that,’ she said, ‘and he’ll find it far easier to slip under the radar on future ventures.’
‘You want him to publicly support the shelter?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
Her breezy tone belied her nerves. Even as she spoke the words, she called their credibility into question. It had seemed like a good idea when she hashed it out at home, but now…
‘So are you ready to have a little word, or shall I get to work on your contacts list?’
‘There’s no saying he’ll even go for it.’
‘You’re going to have to be very persuasive then, aren’t you?’
He regarded her with pure malevolence. She almost felt sorry for him. It was an invidious position to put him in, but in the long run it was barely a moment’s discomfort; for the people at Cedar Lodge, it was a potential lifetime.
‘Pass me the phone,’ he said eventually.
‘Nuh-uh. Probably best we go speakerphone. No mention of my being here, obvs.’
Wolfe answered after the third ring. These old people and their habit of using mobiles for making and taking calls; it was adorable! Once the pleasantries were dispensed with – the pleasantries being Wolfe calling her a meddlesome slag when he heard about the event and the fact that a few press outlets had been sniffing around the story – Marcus set to work. She had to give it to him, he was one smooth-talking bastard. By the end of the conversation, he’d convinced Wolfe that it was the property mogul’s idea all along. She hung up the phone. How had it been so easy? Was this how business was done in the upper echelons?
‘Satisfied?’ said Marcus.
‘More satisfied than I’ve ever been in bed with you before.’
‘You bitch.’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘Now are you going to let me go?’
No. She had no intention of releasing him whilst she was still in the vicinity.
‘I’ll send someone up with the keys,’ she told him.
‘At least cover my cock up, for fuck’s sake!’
She examined it for the very last time. It aroused as much desire in her as a bloated albino slug might.
‘No.’
‘You can’t leave me with my dick out. I’m totally defenceless here!’
‘Aww. Are you feeling vulnerable? Exposed? Frustrated someone else is in control? Are you feeling undermined? Exploited? Used? Fearful? That must be awful for you.’
He looked like he wanted to kill her. It was infinitely preferable to him wanting to fuck her. She buttoned up her blazer, gathered her bits up into her small bag, picked up the rucksack, and opened the door.
‘Told you I’d give you a night to remember, though, didn’t I?’
And with that, she winked and left.