скачать книгу бесплатно
And I’m aroused. I don’t want to be. I know that it’s wrong. But it’s happening anyway. I get to my feet, needing to be away from this place. I shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake.
I turn, and see Theo watching me with those dark eyes. God knows what he must think of me. I sink slowly back into my seat. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘For overreacting,’ I tell him, dropping my gaze to the floor. ‘For being such a prude.’
‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for,’ he says. ‘I should probably have found a better way to explain this place to you.’
‘You don’t have to try and make me feel better,’ I reply.
‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘I’m just being honest. I wanted to be open with you about this place. I didn’t want to keep it a secret, have it turn into an issue.’
That makes me wary. I’ve had enough honesty to last me a lifetime. My ex was big on it. ‘So…how does this place of yours work?’ I ask, wanting to steer the conversation away from things I don’t want to talk about, to think about. Needing to make it not about myself, and driven by an inexplicable prurient curiosity, which makes me feel slightly disgusted with myself.
‘We’re a members only club. We don’t advertise, and generally people find us through word of mouth. We vet every application very carefully. Ninety per cent don’t make it.’
I smooth the fabric of my trousers. They’re navy blue, wide legged, and starting to fade, but they hide a lot of sins. ‘I see.’
‘Those who do are added to our database. They submit their fantasies, and we match them with people who have similar interests.’
I stare up at him as he doctors his coffee, adds one, two, three sugars. This is the boy who grew up next door to me. The skinny boy who liked maths and dinosaurs and spent his weekends tramping round the abandoned quarry looking for fossils.
The man staring back at me is not that boy. I’m not sure who he is. And for the first time in weeks, I realise that I’ve stopped thinking about myself. ‘And they pay you for this?’
He nods. ‘Yes, they do.’ He takes a sip of his coffee, and I find myself turning to the one he made for me. It’s milky, sweet, the way I drank it when I was eighteen. I take a sip before I remember that I don’t drink it like that any more, and set it back down. ‘Something wrong?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I lie, not wanting to get into a conversation about how I need to watch my weight.
‘So how did you get into…this?’ I gesture around his office.
‘A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go into business with him.’
‘Oh.’ I’m desperate to ask what sort of friend would set up a business like this, but I bite my tongue.
‘The database is my baby,’ he continues. ‘I designed it, I maintain it.’
‘And the rest?’
‘John takes care of that.’
‘John?’
‘My partner,’ he says. ‘You’ll be able to meet him later. I think you’ll like him. Are you hungry?’
I say yes, only because I don’t want to say no and have him argue. I can’t breathe in here. It’s too hot, too claustrophobic, and I can’t stop myself wondering about what I saw on the screen. I keep glancing at it, even though it’s turned off. ‘Are you supposed to watch people?’ I ask. ‘Isn’t that an invasion of their privacy?’
‘That particular couple asked for a recording of the session,’ Theo says. ‘That means they agreed that John or I could check to make sure everything was working properly.’
‘That doesn’t mean you should have showed it to me!’
‘Are you going to tell anyone?’
‘Well no, but…’
‘Jules,’ Theo says gently. ‘It’s OK. Come on. I can see we’ve got a lot to talk about, and I’m hungry.’ He leads me out of his office, locking the door behind us. We move past more closed doors. Each one has a brass nameplate, with a word cut into it in scrolling letters. ‘I suppose you have a red room of pain somewhere,’ I say, only half joking.
‘We offer that, if it’s what a client wants,’ he says.
‘Do you…’ I falter. I can’t ask.
‘Indulge?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes.’
I can’t think of anything else to say after that, so I follow him in silence as he leads me outside. I blink in the light, feeling a strange sense of confusion. I’m not quite sure where I am, but fortunately Theo does. On the other side of the road is an upmarket organic cafe, the kind that sells exquisite coffee and foraged salads. I find a table and let him order for me.
I pick at my bruschetta and goat’s cheese. Theo watches, but doesn’t comment on it. ‘Tell me about your ex,’ he says.
‘There’s not much to tell,’ I say. ‘We were together, and now we’re not.’
‘Why not?’
‘That’s a pretty personal question.’
‘You phoned me up in the middle of the night,’ he reminds me. ‘This wasn’t some easy, mutual breakup, Jules.’
I break my food into little pieces. ‘We broke up because of me.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I couldn’t be the girlfriend he needed.’
‘I see. So did he end it, or did you?’
‘This time? I did.’
‘There were other times?’
‘A few.’
‘Sounds exhausting.’
I think about that. ‘It was.’
‘So what do you want, Jules? Do you want to get back together with him?’
‘No.’ I don’t let myself think about that. I won’t. I’ve made my decision, and I’m not going to go back on it. ‘It’s over. Permanently.’
‘You don’t sound entirely sure.’
‘It has to be over,’ I tell him. ‘I can’t go back to that. I won’t.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want to eat,’ I say, staring at the food I only played with. ‘Drink lattes with hazelnut syrup. Wear red.’ I look at him, take a moment to find my courage. I didn’t know what drove me to call him. I didn’t know what I was looking for, until I walked through the door of that club and found it. ‘I don’t know who I am any more, Theo, and I need to find out. And I want to have sex,’ I say. ‘Lots and lots of uncomplicated sex. You said that the club lets women explore their fantasies. I want to explore mine.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_9d13e5c4-3150-5c9b-9fe3-64a31ae18c0e)
Theo folds his arms, leans back in his chair. ‘You can’t fix yourself with sex,’ he says.
All the courage I’d pulled together folds in, shrinks, shrivels up inside me and dies. He’s right. Of course I can’t. My inability to fix anything with sex is part of the reason I’m so broken in the first place. ‘You’re right.’ I pick up my paper napkin, fold it in half, smooth the crease. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘That’s the second time you’ve apologised,’ Theo points out.
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s the third.’
This time, I bite my tongue.
‘OK,’ he says, as if he’s come to a decision. ‘This is how it’s going to work.’ He picks up his cup, drains it. ‘I’m going to give you thirty days’ membership of the club.’
‘I thought you said I couldn’t fix myself with sex.’
‘This isn’t about sex,’ he says. ‘This is about you. This is about finding out who you are, what makes you tick. You agree to visit the club at least once a week, starting tonight.’
‘To do what?’
‘Whatever you want,’ he says.
‘Whatever I want,’ I repeat softly.
‘Yes,’ he says, a slight smile catching the corners of his mouth. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘Starting tonight?’
‘Starting tonight.’
I pull in some air, let it out again. ‘The problem is that I don’t know what I want,’ I tell him.
Theo leans forward, props his elbows on the table. ‘That’s why I’m giving you thirty days,’ he says. ‘So that you can find out.’
He takes me back to his flat, then, which is a lovely second-floor apartment in Knightsbridge that tells me the club is either extremely expensive, or extremely successful. I suspect a little of both. He shows me around the plush, comfortable living room with its high ceiling and velvet curtains that graze the floor. Then the kitchen, with its stainless steel appliances and enormous American-style fridge. ‘Help yourself,’ he says, opening the doors and showing me stacks of bottled water and shelf after shelf of green vegetables. On the top shelf is a chocolate fudge cake. I’d like some of that, I think, but old habits die hard, and I keep it to myself.
He shows me to my room, which seems plain at first, until I touch the sheets and realise that the cotton is as soft as silk. And the flowers are fresh, the vase crystal, the mattress deep. There’s an en-suite bathroom with a huge walk-in shower and claw-footed tub.
‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ I tell Theo. ‘I always knew that you would. You aren’t married?’
I know that he’s not. Social media is good for something.
‘No,’ he says, but he doesn’t elaborate. ‘Listen, I’ve got some work to do. Will you be all right on your own for a while?’
‘Of course.’ I nod, look around the room again. What on earth am I doing here? I should be at home. I should be at work. It was a breakup, not the end of the world.
‘Just one thing,’ Theo says. He disappears for a moment, then reappears carrying a glossy black folder and a pen. He sets them both down on top of the oak chest of drawers.
‘What’s that?’
‘A few forms I need you to fill in. It won’t take you long.’
He stands there for a moment longer, as if he’s going to say something, then he leaves, closing the door gently behind him.
I stare at the glossy black folder. I decide to ignore it. I lift my case, which Theo left just inside the door, onto the bed. I unlock it, pull out some of my clothes, then repack them. I don’t even know if I’m going to stay. But I take a shower anyway. The water is heavy and hot and the soaps smell divine, and by the time I’ve finished my skin is flushed, my hair clinging to my neck. I step out of the shower, pull on the bathrobe hanging on the back of the door and examine myself in the mirror.
The woman who looks back at me is pale, with dark circles under her eyes. Her roots need doing. After a moment’s hesitation, I shrug the robe from my shoulders and examine my naked body. It’s not quite as firm as it should be, not quite as toned. If I’d been a better person, if I’d been stronger, I’d have taken care of it. I’d have gone to the gym four times a week like Dave wanted me to. If I’d loved him enough, I’d have sorted myself out.
Those are his words filling my head. I recognise his tone, and the slow creep of anxiety under my skin. I won’t let it control me. I won’t. I pull the robe back on, march through into the bedroom, flip open the glossy black folder. The first few questions are easy. Name, date of birth, eye colour, height, body type. I select average for every box where average applies.
Then I turn to the next page, and that’s where things get more difficult. Interests, it says in swirling italics. Tick all that apply. The list is long, and I don’t know what half of them even are. My heart starts to pound hard and fast in my chest, and I grip the pen tighter, feeling shocked and sad and inadequate. What must it be like, I wonder, to be the sort of woman who can confidently work through this list? Who can say yes, I like spanking and group sex but I’m not interested in latex or breath play?
I flip over to the final page. A single sentence swirls across the top. Tell us about your fantasies.
I don’t have any, I think to myself, but that’s not quite true.
I want to feel pleasure in my own body. I want to get back the woman I was before I became this frightened mouse. I wonder what happened to her, why I let her go. I put pen to paper and start to write. Only a few sentences, but written fast before I lose my nerve. Then I open the door and go in search of Theo.
I find him in the kitchen, sat at the counter with a laptop and more coffee.
‘Here,’ I say, shoving the paper in his direction.
He takes it from me, glances down at it. ‘OK,’ he says. He doesn’t comment on my appearance. ‘I’ll make some calls. Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll wake you later.’
I shut myself in my room, but I can’t sleep. I dress, undress, dress again. None of my clothes feel right. I settle on black trousers and a peach-coloured jumper that makes me feel twenty-eight going on fifty. I’m nervous as hell and I can’t seem to shake it off. But when Theo knocks on the door, I do a good job of pretending to be calm, of hiding my emotions. I’m good at that.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
‘Absolutely,’ I say, as if I’m not a quivering wreck, as if I’m not thinking about running off the second we get outside. The heels of my black suede boots are loud on the floor as we make our way outside and into the waiting taxi. I press my knees tightly together and try not to think about what’s going to happen. I concentrate on the lights outside, on the view of London and not on the aching throb that has started up between my legs and deep in my pussy.
The taxi pulls to a standstill across the road from the club. Theo pays the fare before I can get to my purse, and I make a mental note to pay him back later. I haven’t asked him how much I owe him for the club membership either. I hope he takes Visa. Thirty days unpaid leave from work hasn’t left me with much in the bank.
He gets out of the taxi, and I follow him. The door opens when he rings the bell, and we’re greeted by a smartly dressed man in a three-piece suit. He’s got wavy blond hair and friendly eyes. He’s maybe 5’10, and has a good ten years on Theo.
‘You must be Jules,’ he says. ‘I’m John.’
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I say, so polite, so awkward. So this is the man who owns the other half of the club. Judging by his accent, he’s not English. Australian, I think.
