The Interview

“Whoops, excuse me” she put her hand to her mouth. “That was a smidgeon too loud on the decibel scale. I didn’t mean to go off like that! I’d better be careful, or they’ll be throwing me out for bad behaviour!”

I gently massaged one ear. “No harm done”, I reassured her. “I think the eardrums are still intact. “Nor do I think you need to worry about being thrown out; I suspect that you are one of their best customers. My fault for foolishly saying what I did about the enjoyment being one-sided! I can always vouch for you and tell them it was me that prompted it” I smiled at her, but she waved her hand dismissively at me.

“No need, no need. I’m in no great danger of eviction. None at all, in fact!” She leaned forward, beckoning me to do likewise. “I have a thirty per cent share in the establishment.” She whispered conspiratorially and winked before settling back into her comfortable armchair.

“I’ve always had a fondness for this ageing heap of masonry ever since my first visit now more years back now than I care to or even can remember! When it changed hands for the umpteenth time a few years ago, and I heard an ominous rumour about major changes, possibly even demolition, I had my London solicitor make a few enquiries. The new company was most happy for me to shoulder a significant portion of the essential renovations in return for a degree of ownership.” She waved her hand around the room.  “Essential but alas somewhat soulless, unfortunately now in many areas!”

I nodded. “But still here at least”, I sympathised.

The hand waved again. “Oh, much more than that! They had a damn good architect on the payroll plus a shrewd CEO. Between us, we salvaged this ageing Titanic and set her sailing again and avoided all the icebergs along the way. Well, most of them. We even kept some of the first-class passenger trade, although the bulk these days is definitely of the tourist steerage category arriving via coach, but” the finger wagged as she paused. “Very profitable. Old Victoriana and Edwardian elegance coupled with modern tat. I have no complaints when I see the annual accounts! They even suggested I should have my very own little apartment here, but why on earth should I take up profitable paying space? Heaven’s I’m not even here all that often!” 

She pulled a face at that thought. Losing potential revenue or maybe something else entirely, I wondered? Also, how and if I should steer her back on track to the interview's primary subject matter. I need not have worried, for she made her own course correction without my intervention.

“I wish I could remember what he looked like, but I can’t no matter how hard I cast my mind back and believe me, I have tried since you started interviewing me.  It bothered me all the other night! Young, fit, healthy, American and “she paused and smiled. “Nervous, very nervous. I have a vague memory of a pair of bright blue eyes staring up at me off that frame I had him strapped over. Eyes that grew more nervous and uncertain the longer I gazed down upon him” 

She stopped and shook herself. “Then again, maybe I am just imagining that. I’ve seen frightened eyes like that so many times since that first time. Frightened eyes and on the edge of panic. Eyes that question, uncomprehending eyes, eyes that already show fear, defiant eyes.” She laughed. “I always found the latter category a little annoying, so ensured that they don’t remain defiant for very long!“ 

“Malcolm did not have defiant eyes then?”

She pursed her lips for a second, thinking. “As I have already said, I can not remember, but I doubt if they were. He came to me of his own free will remember and removed all his clothing himself. He did not return to full consciousness to find himself naked, strapped into a leather harness and occupying a stinking stall in my stable, then see me gloating possessively over him from the doorway! I do remember his buttocks”.

I blinked. “Buttocks!”

She nodded and threw a devilish and slightly chilling smile towards me. I got an inkling of why that long-forgotten youth, Malcolm’s eyes, had suddenly turned very nervous. The woman opposite me was so petite, so delicate, so polite and charming in every way that I’d virtually forgotten that she was also a monstrous, evil sadistic woman!

“Buttocks, white buttocks”, this woman who should by all rights have been locked away in a secure asylum for the criminally insane decades ago, replied. “Large white muscular buttocks that quivered so delightfully the moment my hand touched them.” She paused again, her eyes narrowing and growing distant and even gave a sort of shiver or shudder of remembered pleasure.

Another long pause while she was one hundred per cent back in the distant past, and I refrained from interrupting her moment. I was in no hurry, and anyway, it was ultimately in my interest and that of my eventual readers should anything she said ever reach publication. That, of course, was another matter entirely!

The moment went on and on as she sat transfixed, staring into space at a scene that she alone could see. My eyes roved around the simple room, and I realised that my ears did miss the loud ticks from that old clock on the mantlepiece in her usual room. Odd that! I closed my eyes for a second.

A loud clap startled me. She had slapped her hands together and was grinning at me rather mischievously. “Wakey wakey sleepy head.  No napping on the job! Now, where was I?”

I bit my tongue, resisting the urge to point out just who had been the one to switch off but had enough sense to avoid doing so. My host was absolutely charming, but I sensed that she had a prickly side that was perhaps best not arousing. “Buttocks, quivering white buttocks!” I prompted instead.

“Ah yes! The human bottom, such a tempting target to start making ones mark upon I always feel! I’d been a professional dom, both part and full time for what, how long by then? I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. What did matter is that I realised it was my personal and absolute ‘Road to Damascus’ moment regardless of my earlier adventures with Celine. What happened next was all down to me and no one else.”

“Other than Malcolm”, I interjected and immediately received another of the formidable Queen Victoria, ‘we are not amused’ looks in return! Only for a moment before her features relaxed, and she chuckled.

“Oh, that poor dear didn’t count one iota! He might have been the star attraction, but he didn’t even rate a mention on the bill in my mind. They never do! I remember how greedily I eyed that backside of his, so near and so helpless, so vulnerable” she broke off and gave a short laugh. “It's coming back, I think I almost orgasmed on the spot the more I thought about how helpless that bottom of his was, and no, no, it was no longer his bottom exclusively, was it? I now had a share, indeed more than a share if I went ahead with my evil little plan. I would own that tempting target one hundred per cent for a short time. Mine to do with as I wished for the very first time in my life. Mine and mine alone!”

I was amused at the way she revelled in that memory of long ago as if it were only yesterday. Her eyes sparkled, and her tongue roved over her lips in damp anticipation as though of a pleasure to come rather than an event from her almost forgotten past. I also sensed we might be on course for another of those lengthy pauses, so I promptly took steps to head it off.

“I don’t recall you agreeing on a safe word with him before you took him downstairs?”

She shook her head. “I certainly can’t recall doing that either. Then again, I rarely did with first-timers because I never did anything excessive to them. Occasionally you got one clever dick who knew about them and would insist upon having one, and believe me, I’ve heard some pretty unusual ones in my time” that particular wicked laugh came again. “Donald Duck!” she exclaimed and then laughed again at my expression.

I blinked but resisted the bait she’d flicked out if that was her intention.

“I even called him DD, although that wasn’t his real name. I often gave them private little nicknames in my head. He was a banker, rather a fat one, portly would be the more diplomatic way of putting it. Porky Pig might have been a more appropriate moniker! He had three safe words. Micky, Micky Mouse, for if I paused when laying into him, but he felt he could take more. Pluto for when he was approaching his absolute limit followed maybe a half dozen strokes later by shrieks of Donald, Donald Duck!” she finished with a giggle. “It always amused me it sounded so ludicrous given the overall setting!”

“I can believe that”. My mind was considering the improbable scene and struggling a bit. I gave up. “So, no safeword then”, another thought occurred to me. “Suppose you had agreed on one. Would it have made any difference?” Nope, dumb question, I thought from the look I immediately received in return.

“As I have already told you. We could have agreed upon an entire lexicon, and not a single word would have saved him from the beatings he received. A first time for both of us but only one of us was enjoying that limitless experience!”

“So, what do you remember?” 

“Mmmm. I seem to recall it was a deliciously long session. Time always seems so to go so much quicker when you are enjoying yourself, doesn’t it? Yet it still felt a long interlude to me, so I expect it felt like a lifetime to that poor helpless boy. ” I noticed that she used the last few words with no trace of warmth for her victim. 

“I even waited for a little before I started, I now recall. I had all the time in the world to enjoy myself, so why rush the experience eager though I was to begin making those tempting buttock cheeks dance to the tune of my cane and paddle.

“Sweat, that’s another thing I remember now. I overdid it, of course, in my eagerness and inexperience. You’d have thought that after all those ‘willing’ paying bottoms I’d already flogged that I’d have learned a few things. No doubt I had, but I’d never had a bottom like that one to ply my various nasty toys upon” she stopped and wrinkled her nose. “I expect I must have ponged a bit! I always do when I work up a sweat. By the time I called a halt after he’d fainted for whatever the number was! I’d lost count of how many times he’d tried to opt-out of my initiation party, but I’d kept the smelling salts handy. Still do with all newbies. Those buttocks were no longer softly gleaming white in my subdued basement light but had turned into a bloody purple and red mess, and I was running wet with sweat! Not since that first time have, I ever allowed myself to get into that undignified state. I think it was that sweat getting into my eyes coupled with a sudden lack of energy even more than the sight of his destroyed bottom that abruptly returned me to reality!”

“Probably just as well, or you wouldn’t have had anything left for Celine”, I noted. “Plus, it’s not as if you could have put out what remained of him out for the local rubbish bin collection men if you had gone over the top!”

“A point not lost on me back then either. Fortunately, I was never to go that far. I dare say that Celine could have provided some assistance by pointing me toward those who could undertake, no pun intended,  the appropriate disposal service should I have had such a need. I’ve lost a few over the years, old age and melancholy mostly; some just sort of give up and lose the will to live. It's not uncommon, but I’ve never lost one through corrective discipline, unlike one or two people I know. Yes, I sometimes flog purely for my amusement, but one can do that without killing the poor beast. Likewise, one can deliver an object lesson, a severe one if necessary without losing a valuable animal.”

It struck me that this might be an apt point to move the ball a little nearer the goal line and move a little closer to the material that I’d find really fascinating. Malcolm had served his purpose and could perhaps be dispensed with as no doubt he had been. I set my sights on that moment and fired my shot.

“So, you’d crossed what was perhaps the final boundary that day, and no doubt ventured further beyond upon each day that followed. At the risk of disappointing some of my readers, I don’t think we need to cross every T or, more aptly, describe every whip welt delivered in your unrestrained enthusiasm, blow by blow. Tell me about the next stage if you would, please?”.

I hadn’t strictly intended it to sound like a command, but it sort of came out a bit like one despite my best efforts to make it a polite request. It did elicit a rather long hostile glare giving me the distinct feeling that she’d been very much enjoying those long-forgotten reminiscences and wasn’t too happy at my abruptly jarring her out of that pleasant train of nostalgic thought.

I gave her my best smile, which merely disintegrated against a hostile wall, so on inspiration, I reached for the coffee pot to check its content. An act that, as I suspected it might, stirred my courteous hostess immediately down a different route.

“No, don’t bother with that. I’ll get some fresh sent up immediately” she picked up her cell phone, tapped a couple of times and then placed her order when the disembodied voice answered. “Slightly quicker than the age of the bell pull she commentated, putting the phone back down. 

It looked like I was back on safe ground. “Only one journey required,” I said, “rather than one to find out what you wanted and then another to carry it out”.

She smiled. “Or even three! One to respond to the bellpull, one to go make the coffee or whatever ever and a third to bring it to the room.” She laughed. “Well, let us call it two and a half. So, you want me to sell poor Malcolm before I’ve even begun to have my fun!” she scolded.

I shook my head. “What was it again, twelve days or so you had him in your basement cells? I suspect that you’d had plenty of fun before handing him over to Celine. How did that go?”

I’d thought we would go into pause mode again, but a respectful knock at the door brought in a fresh tray of coffee and all the extras, including some tiny cupcakes and a plate of dainty crustless sandwiches. 

“Nibbles”, she announced, helping herself to one as the door closed. “I was beginning to feel a trifle peckish. Please help yourself. Business-wise it's been an excellent year so far, so I think the profits will stand it! Nough do Zeline, oops!” she paused and swallowed a lump of sandwich. “Naughty!”

I laughed and helped myself from the plate, and it was my turn to wag an admonishing finger. “I’ll give you two minutes to top up the tank, as it were. Save getting crumbs sprayed in my direction anyway!” I gave her a sly grin and received a pink tongue stuck out at me by way of a reply.

“It must be a chef thing”, I observed a few minutes later. “I mean, if I butter a couple of slices of bread and shove a filling in between, no matter what, it always seems a bit bland and boring, whereas these sandwiches are delicious with a capital D!”

“I will certainly pass your compliment on to whoever was responsible for our excellent refreshments. Probably, one of the young trainees, I expect” she dabbed at her mouth with a napkin—a cloth one I noticed, not paper. “Now where were we? Ah, back to my sexy and oh so sadistic young French friend”.

I nodded and quietly placed my cup back upon its saucer, then sat back.  Today was going well, and she seemed to have ample time to talk, and there had been no mention as yet of when we should finish for the day. 

“If”, she stressed the word out. “I remember correctly; I called Celine a couple of days after I’d acquired him. I had a couple of numbers, in fact, and you have to remember this was long before we had the convenience of the cell phone if indeed being tethered to such devices is to be considered a convenience!” She frowned at her device before continuing.

“A polite woman with a French accent at the London number told me that madam was away in France at the chateaux. Interesting, I remember thinking, that sounds more than just a contact number, more like I’d just called a residence she had in London. Something she hadn’t bothered to tell me about, of course!”

“This time, it was a deep male voice who answered, and in French, something I ought to have considered, and I had to recall my schoolgirl knowledge of the language rapidly. My efforts failed to impress for that same deep voice interrupted after a couple of hesitant sentences.” For a second, she looked a little indignant, then smiled depreciatingly. 

“The same deep voice speaking perfect English inquired that it had gained the impression I wished to speak with  Madamosille Celine, correct? Put me and my pathetic efforts in my place! That was my introduction to Maurice, the long-term loyal family butler. An absolutely adorable man, the perfect gentleman. His granddaughter works for my niece just as her mother did in Celine's stable”.

“Keeping it in the family”, I muttered, and she flashed me a dubious look before continuing her narrative. I made a mental note to keep my little quips to myself in future. I smiled and nodded, but she was looking out of the window rather than at me as she continued.

“I had to wait nearly five minutes before I heard Celine’s voice distant-sounding as though she was asking a question, and then I heard her voice on the phone. I remember thinking ‘about time’ somewhat impatiently for telephone calls overseas, even just across the channel were very expensive in those days. Only one company back then, the National Post Office and Telephone com…No, not that, the GPO, I think. The General Post Office, that’s what it was called,” she beamed triumphantly. “I’m sure that was it!”

“I can Google it if you like”, I offered, immediately forgetting my resolution of mere moments before, but she took it as a genuine offer, which, to be fair to myself, was how I’d intended it.

“No, not necessary, thank you” she shook her head and smiled. “You’ll have to forgive me. We old folk get excited when we go chasing these long-forgotten little memory nuggets and get quite elated when we actually find one!” she chuckled. “Believe me coming up empty-handed is the usual norm!. Anyway, let us go back to France”.

“I’d heard that male voice speak distantly when I first heard Celine speak, and I’d caught the word English or rather Anglaise, so I was a little surprised when she answered in a stream of French. She seemed out of breath and excited, and it took a few moments before she seemed to realise who was calling. I’d evidently interrupted at an inconvenient moment” she chuckled and paused to refill her coffee cup.

“Very inconvenient. I found out later that she’d accepted delivery of a new ponyboy the night before and so was very busy, and I expect enjoying herself immensely that morning. Anyway, once that initial difficulty had been overcome, and I told her why I was calling, she became very excited, even to the point of forgetting her own English. I heard a few bon bons over the phone, along with several enthusiastic oui oui’s leaking out as I described the unwilling occupant incarcerated in his cell almost exactly under where I sat talking. Me on the sofa in comfort, him wearing his uncomfortable chains laying on a stone floor in his cell and no doubt feeling the effects from his last visit to my playroom!”

She paused and picked up her cell phone while sipping at her coffee. “Maybe I was a trifle harsh on these things. Think how much more convenient it would have been just to have sent her a couple of pictures,” she mused.

“Maybe, possibly risky, though.” 

She nodded. “Quite so. Even in this day and age, one has to be very careful, of course. Perhaps more so because it is so easy to sit in the comfort, but false security of ones own home and press a keyboard button that then results in a great deal of unpleasantness!” 

I grinned. “As many a paedophile and the like has found out to their cost”.

“Horrible people!” she growled.

Given all that she’d told me to date and what I knew about her, I was somewhat surprised at the vehement disgust in her tone. I mean, I was sitting talking to a woman who’d spent the greater part of her life torturing and turning her fellow human beings into mindless dumb animals treated with relentless cruelty and kept in appalling conditions!

“Déjà vu,” she said, noticing my astonished expression. “I think we sailed near this dangerous shoal briefly in an earlier meeting. Of course, such repulsive people exist within my circle, but they are not the most popular nor welcome elsewhere. Fortunately, they are few tolerated, but they tend to form a select little clique within what is already a very exclusive little group of perverts. Let us not try to hide that simple fact! I am what I am.”

There was a long, long silence broken only by the click of cups upon saucers as we both took time out to drink our coffee. I shook my head politely when she offered me a refill, and so she sat back, folded her hands in her lap and began to talk once more.

“Celine suddenly became very business-like, giving me a date and a time plus double checking my address with me. She also gave me the name of a small private bank that I’d never heard of before. I mean, they exist even today, but how many can anyone name. Big chains, yes, but little ones and one-offs, poof! I was to go there and open an account, giving her name and a reference number which she insisted on repeating three times and then demanding I read what I’d written down back to her. I was to open an account with that information. I could use my own name as they were super discrete. As an example of her faith in me, she would transfer my payment even before she’d collected the ‘item’ as she described it”

“Celine certainly seems to have been a very efficient young woman.”

“She gave a rich, throaty chuckle. “Oh, she was that alright. She was one of those people who seem to exist on both ends of the scale simultaneously. At one moment cold, hard, professional and exceptionally efficient in whatever she was focused upon at that moment. Then the next a complete scatterbrain in a most delightful girlish manner. A female Peter-Pan who seemed more child than a young woman at times! I still miss her even though it’s been many years now.” I caught that sad look in her eyes and kept my silence as she, too, fell quiet and thoughtful before sighing deeply.

She shrugged her shoulders regretfully. “Breast cancer, poor lamb,” she said simply but then smiled. “We did have some good years together first. Indeed you would not be here talking to me now if that hadn’t been the case.”

A thought occurred to me, and I tried to put it as gently as I could, for I sensed she was feeling somewhat distressed at that moment. “Did her passing, what I mean was, was that how you became more involved in her main interest. Human ponies, I mean?”

“Oh no,” she shook her head quickly. “No, no. I was already a well-established trainer by the time she passed. I did benefit from the contents of her stable, though.

“So, “ I said slowly. “You said goodbye to Malcolm and ended up in France yourself with your own stables. How long was that transition, and why, if I may ask?”

“Certainly, that why you are here. To ask questions.” She settled deeper into her armchair. “Celine arrive around lunchtime on the day she’d given me accompanied by two burly guys in a very shabby nondescript van. I remember feeling a bit surprised; I’d have thought after dark would have been better. Silly now, I think back. Who would notice or remember such a van making a simple pick up during the day when everyone is out at work whereas when everybody was home in the evening to curtain twitch with curiosity at such a late transaction.”

“Another change between then and now”, I noted. “I had an Amazon delivery a few weeks ago, nine-thirty on a Sunday evening, would you believe! Everything comes via a man with a van. I can’t even remember the last time the local postman delivered a package!”

That made her laugh again. “Well omnipotent as that particular company is in so many areas, I don’t think that they have yet branched out into the delivery or collection of the type of packages I dealt with”

“Given the likely profit margin, it probably won’t be long, though”, I grunted sourly. I’d gone to bed early that night and was dropping off when the driver started trying to break my door down with his damn fist. Shit, didn’t they have doorbells in Poland or whatever part of Eastern Europe he hailed from? 

“Celine”, as I recall “, was more than happy with her purchase” she stopped and suddenly laughed. “I’ve just remembered the look in that boy's eyes when she entered the cell and started giving the once over. It had amused me to tell him just what I intended to do with him once I’d had my wicked way with him. I’d told him that my fun would hurt a lot but not to worry, there would be no long term damage. That would lower his value when I sold him. Oh my, the way he looked when he realised that I was absolutely serious when I told him that last part!”

“I suppose you gave him all the details?”

“Uh hu”, she shook her head. “ I wasn’t sure if that was allowed. No, that was why it was so amusing when it was time to say goodbye. I think the poor lamb thought Celine was going to be his new owner. The girl was a sexy looking young woman, after all. One of those who can look good no matter what they wear and at any time of day no matter what! I won’t say that his eyes lit up with pleasure at the prospect. No doubt the painful havoc my toys had wrought upon his body had shown that the hand of any woman like me was unlikely to offer soft, tender caress’s! I remember Celine looking back at me and silently mouthing, ‘does he know anything’. I shook my head and said, only that I am selling him today. After that, of course, Celine just had to tell the poor dear that she wasn’t the buyer and give him a short precis of the gentleman who was while her helpers got things ready. I thought it rather amusing.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “You are a cruel woman, aren’t you?” I chided softly and partly to myself as much as her.

“Oh my, yes”, she chuckled and added, “We have hardly touched upon my cruelty yet. I was merely at the novice working up stage back then and just passed my first examination. That boy Malcolm was merely my first essay on the subject!”.

“For which you received full marks?”

“Oh my goodness, yes. A certain gentleman was immensely pleased with his new toy! So much so that he paid Celine a substantial bonus which she very kindly paid into my brand-new discrete bank account.”

I noted that she sounded rather smug and pleased with herself as she thought back to that odd transaction so many years ago. I watched her take another sip of coffee, then casually dab at her lips again with that spotless napkin. A gesture, I thought, performed just as casually as she’d consigned a young American man to his horrible fate half a century ago!

“You never followed up? Never found out what happened to him? 

“Why should I” her eyebrows shot up in surprise, then subsided as she stopped what she‘d been about to say and stayed silent for a moment and then laughed. “A fair question, I suppose given that we had been rather intimate In a very special way for the better part of a fortnight”.

“Intimate!”

That provoked a more prolonged burst of teasing laughter. “Oh, no, no-no. Nothing like you imagine. I don’t mean intimate in that sense. I’ll admit I overworked a couple of sex toys laying on my bed after amusing myself with him but never once did I use him directly.” She paused. “I wonder why; I doubt I’d have lowered his value by making use of his mouth and tongue after all the main attraction for his buyer was at the opposite end of his body!  Then again, perhaps not so surprising. I never could see them once captive as any sort of equal or even human!”

“No, how so?” I was interested.

“Well, firstly, let me clear up what I meant by intimate.” She spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “I use that word in the drawn close together sense rather than indulging in any sexual behaviour. I can’t speak for other people, but I often feel a strong bond when in such situations over several days. Just the three of us in our private little world!”

She grinned and held up her hand even as the word ‘three?’ was forming in my lips, and a finger wagged reproachfully, so I subsided into my chair like an obedient, well-trained dog!

“Three in a, well spiritual is not the word I want, I’m not even sure I know the right one if there even is one in this context. Those delightful days together down in my playroom, extra enjoyable for me as it was the very first time I was able to indulge myself without any silly restrictions.  Heck, I could have whipped him to death if I’d wished for at that point; I’d not contacted Celine. Just me, my victim and my painful toys. It's tough to explain if you have not experienced it, experienced that unique atmosphere of terrible anguish, sweat, fear, and love.

Now I was incredulous. “Love!” it was half an exclamation and half a stifled laugh, “love? I repeated along with a noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh.

 “Not in that sense, silly, the romantic one! I always have a sort of fondness for those who suffer under my whip. Not an easy concept to explain.  I find it in some way a kind of bonding experience, albeit a brief one. It sounds silly when I say it like this, I know. My niece always laughs when I try to explain it to her; well, I’ve given up on that now. Pleasure, yes, bonding and love a definite no in her experience! Way too fond of the whip that girl always has been!

“Obviously takes after her aunt”, I observed.

She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a thin smile. “Perhaps, but to return to your question as to if I saw him again. The answer would be a few crossed my path again. Inevitable, I suppose, given the small circle of people I was involved with, even on a global scale. It was only to be expected that from time to time I would run across one of my old stable occupants from time to time”.

“But not Malcolm?”

She shook her head. “No, the last I saw of him was a long rectangular crate being loaded into a van and Celine waving from the passenger window as they drove away into the darkness. I did feel an enormous sense of regret, though”

“Guilty conscience, Second thoughts about the whole business?” I nodded understandingly but was instantly proved entirely wrong as she exploded with another of those short yet excessively loud barks of laughter.

“Heavens no! My only regret was that I no longer had a playmate locked away in my cellar, ready to dance and sing for his supper whenever I wanted. My God, the massive hole his departure left in my life. I’ve never done drugs, as they say, but I can imagine the withdrawal symptoms.”

“Cold Turkey?”

She laughed. “I don’t know about turkey, more like a case of cold ostrich! At least it felt like that for the first few days. Not so much a case of the shakes as the twitches with my fingers desperate to pick up a whip or cane. I had to turn down a half dozen client requests to session; I recall that week. I was still a working girl, don’t forget, but there was no way I could have trusted myself to exercise restraint once I got someone tied down in my playroom!”

I eyed her curiously. She was sitting there rather primly with a slightly regretful smile on her wrinkled face and her blue eyes twinkling, just about everyone’s idea of a petite homey grandmother telling fairy stories to her grandchildren or similar. Yet her story was a very adult and sinister tale of depravity, and she was no innocent Cinderella, much more the Wicked Witch of all four points of the compass combined!

I coughed and apologised before saying. “Working girl! So how long did you continue after you made your first acquisition for Celine? I assume that you made more for her as well?”

“Naturally, I made more.” She frowned slightly in thought. “Celine paid me most handsomely for that boy. I had, it appeared, discovered a very lucrative business”.

I chuckled. “Not to mention those fringe benefits you found so entertaining that accompanied such transactions!”

“Quite so. However, a bit like buses when you are standing in the rain, they didn’t come along all that frequently. My now heightened sadistic desires loosed from all restraints found little red meat upon which to feast, alas. Celine kept in touch naturally, and we met regularly but regrettably suitable candidates to fulfil her little order list were thin on the ground.”

“Perfectly understandable, perhaps.”

“Mmmm, possibly. London was the swinging capital of the world back then or had been. The city was choc-full of beautiful young things almost there for the taking, and I expect; indeed, I know that quite a few were. Given that the three main requirements of virtually every buyer were a) female, b) youth, and c) not masochistic in any way, I was surprised Celine even bothered to contact me in the first place on reflection. My pot-bellied middle-aged, perverted clientele was hardly prime material for filling her order book!”

“Good point”, I acknowledged. “I wonder why she did contact you in the first place?”

“Facilities! Facilities and, to a certain extent, my experience. I won’t say that she provided a permanent fix as it were to my newfound sadistic urges. Still, London was a fertile source of recruitment for those unfortunates destined to meet the demands of her varied customers or who could readily be sold. I found out that a number of those I was to accommodate had simply been acquired on spec, as it were. The right type of material in the wrong place at the wrong time!”

“Accommodated?”

She chuckled. “In a sense. I carried on my own profession of another eighteen months on an on and frequently off basis. I only found one more candidate for Celine in that period, and she whisked him away almost immediately before he’d even begun to get acquainted with my whips!”

“Disappointing!” I remarked.

She shook her head. “ Not in the least. As I said, Celine made use of my secure facilities to house and hold her, her…?”

“Victims”, I offered.

“Victims”, she mused. “As good a term as any, I suppose. Anyway, if you recall, I told you about my soundproof cells a while back. I wasn’t starved of new playmates by any means. That was, in part, why I slowly ran down my main business. There were times when I could not risk using my playroom just in case some punter got over curious, or I made a silly mistake likewise I was becoming bored with, shall we call them, ‘willing victims’. “she paused and giggled. “The real thing was so much more satisfying after all!”

“How many did you accommodate to use your term?”

“No idea” she shook her head vigorously. “ I didn’t keep score nor a diary. “I’d get a brief phone call to ask if I could provide accommodation for X number of nights for a something something year old youth or girl. Sometimes it would be for an older man or woman, but not often. Usually, it would be Celine, other times a man's voice. I never found out if he was one of those quiet, rarely speaking shadowy individuals who either delivered or collected, on a couple of occasions both.”

“All very mysterious!”

“Yes and no. In their own way, they were very open in a highly discrete way if you know what I mean” she laughed. “I never had a problem with them nor the merest hint of one. They would open up one of their special crates or pack one up down in my cellar. If opening, they would carry a comatose body into one of my cells, leaving me to add all the extra restraints for when they awoke from whatever drugs they’d used. That waking moment was always such fun I endeavoured to make sure I never missed it. Only limited CTV and recording equipment back then, and I didn’t have any.”

“So you had access to them as well?”

She pulled a face, nodded and then shook her head. “That’s another yes and no for me. Obviously, I had to look after them and believe me some of them were very traumatised as you can imagine. Heck, I had to deal with more than one hysterical screamer. My job was a mixture of jailer, janitor, nurse and educator!”

“Educator?”

She smiled and nodded. “Oh yes, my favourite part. “Well, there had to be some perks to make up for all that piss, shit and vomit I had to clean up. Plus, they needed to be fed and watered and attending to any minor medical needs. Thus when permitted, I used my toys to educate them, as Celine once put it. Give them a taste of what to expect in their new lives. A little early taster in the matter of obedience and so forth! ‘Soften them up a little for me before I auction them off!’ Those were always my favourites, of course.”

I gave her a whimsical look. “Favourites!”.

“Naturally. I’ve already spoken about my intimate threesomes, haven’t I? Somehow, the two of us and a bucket of breakfast slop instead of a whip wasn’t quite the same. But alas, quite frequently, my ‘guests’ were off-limits so far as any real fun was concerned. Pristine hides and all that for their new owners!” She paused, then chuckled. “Not that it wasn’t also fun simply looking after the poor dears. Just standing outside my cells looking at the terrified little bunnies could be very stimulating!”

“Did you know anything about them or where they were going?”

“Sometimes. Occasionally I knew everything and other times next to nothing.” She stopped and giggled. “I was very wicked; if my toys were not allowed to sully their pristine bodies, no one ever said anything about fucking with their minds. I used to make up all sorts of nasty scenarios and feed them juicy titbits along with their daily slop. It was so funny to witness their reactions to my wicked teasing revelations!” 

My expression had obviously caught her eye, for she looked momentarily abashed but then laughed and said, “Now you don’t need to repeat it. Yes, I am a very cruel woman!”

I shook my head, then changed my mind and nodded. “I think we can agree on that, but it was something else entirely that just occurred to me. I was just curious why Celine should suddenly have decided to favour you so much?  I mean, from what I understand,  she hardly knew you at all, and after all, her business was a highly unusual one, to say the least, and that’s leaving aside the total criminality of such actions!”

She nodded with understanding. “A tiff, a serious one, I suspect!”

“Tiff!”

“Mmm, you were no doubt thinking back to what I told you earlier about Darcia, Celine's elegant friend and part-time bedmate with her collection of exotic pets in her house behind Kings Cross railway station. Why utilise my basement cells when that lady had far better confinement facilities along with experienced resident staff?”

I nodded. “I must admit that thought was the question that sprang into my mind. I know that you said Celine seemed a very perceptive young woman when it came to assessing people but still?”

I watched her put both hands together as though about to pray, but she raised them under her chin instead lifting her head to look toward the ceiling. “Celine did have that knack to read people like an open book. Cover to cover merely by glancing at one single page! I suspect she could have made a fortune in many professions or industries, but then again, why bother! She already had one and probably doubled it every couple of years plus enjoyed herself indulging in so many perverse activities.” The head came down, and she looked at me directly and smiled.

“I believe it was something very simple. A lovers tiff, perhaps. Put that down to a woman’s intuition, if you will.  I never met Darcia again, although I heard her name mentioned a couple of times by others in passing. Never by Celine herself, though. Celine never once mentioned her again, and something warned me that it might be inadvisable to ask, so I never did” she pursed her lips and shrugged. “Her loss, if such it was, very much my gain both financially and as a means of entertainment!”

“So, it would seem.” I looked at my watch. “Thus, you played jailer as it were on and off for what, eighteen months, how many…?”

“No idea. I can’t remember, so don’t bother asking!” she interrupted immediately but then softened her tone. “Oh, I could sit here for an hour or so counting on my fingers and going backwards and forwards in my mind. At least what's left up top after the ravages of geriatric decay! They were in and out and not all that many. A few days for some and weeks for others. Time has probably magnified the memory, but yes, I played that role for a year and a half and stop laughing at me!”

“Sorry”, I apologised. “I assure you that I wasn’t laughing, merely smiling in sympathy.  “A retentive memory has never been one of my strong points. I suffered through my schooldays on that account. Well, that combined with a rather wide lazy streak,” I confessed.

“Apology accepted then in that case. “It was her turn to glance at her watch and frown. “An appropriate moment, and I feel my throat becoming a little hoarse pus a little siesta would be most welcome about now. Back then, my time, my career such as it was, and my residency in London was about to come to an end. Shall we say eleven tomorrow morning, coffee break time, and we will voyage together over the waves of the  English Channel to where my lifelong interest in the captive human-animal was to begin!”

I nodded. “A voyage that I am sure I will enjoy”. 

“We always did in those days”, she muttered. “A touch of sea travel, sea air. Almost everybody used the car ferries.  No cheap airlines and certainly no Channel Tunnel. I do so like the Eurostar service to Paris nowadays, so convenient”.

I was heading for the door but turned back and then realised that I was already gone so far as she was concerned and that she was merely talking to herself. I smiled and quietly exited the room.