Chapter 10. The Sting.
I spent the rest of the week normally. I attended all my lessons at college, and left Steve to his own devices. On Tuesday evening I went over to Maddy’s and we watched the tapes together. Steve’s session was hilarious. Dani had him running about naked just like a puppy for the first fifteen minutes, throwing him a rubber bone to fetch and feeding him some sticky mush from a doggy bowl! Then she brought out the costume. He needed no second bidding to get dressed up, after which she sat on her throne and ordered him to adopt various humiliating poses, clearly for our benefit. Of course, he had no idea he was being filmed. If he had, it’s doubtful he would have let Dani make him up so prettily, or so willingly opened his mouth to accept the ball-gag she buckled on him, or consented to demonstrate, by coyly lifting his dress, just how much he was enjoying the feel of his little latex knickers!
“That is just so amazing, J,” said Maddy incredulously, when we had watched it all. “Can you imagine what would happen if we made that public? He’d die of shame and embarrassment!”
“He would. I think we have him just where we want him.”
“Got any ideas?”
“I’ve got a whole bunch. And Dani suggested some you’re going to love! But there’s plenty of time for that. Shall we watch the second session?”
We watched it twice, and ended up in bed together as a result. I’ll skip the details.
On Thursday Dani called me to say she’d received the first batch of clothes.
“There’s stuff here you could wear socially. Shall we go out somewhere Saturday night? A sort of dummy run?”
“Yes please, Dani!”
“Why don’t you hitch a lift with Madeline Saturday morning? After her session we can all have lunch and you can try some of the stuff on – see what you think. Maddy can come with us if she likes.”
“Okay. I’ll ask her.”
It was arranged Maddy would pick me up Saturday at nine-thirty. But she'd have to leave after lunch, so she wouldn't be able to join us in the evening.
We arrived at nine-fifty. Riccardo let us in. That morning she - I’m sorry, he – was wearing a beautiful old-fashioned maid’s costume, in the traditional black and white, with a long skirt. It looked Victorian, or Edwardian at least. I could see by the way it hung the material was thick and heavy.
“Wow, Riccardo, that’s a beautiful costume. It looks original.”
“It is miss. Madam bought it a sale of the contents of Monksfield Manor. I don’t wear it often. Just on special occasions.”
“Oh. Is today a special occasion?”
“I believe it’s the start of your apprenticeship, miss.”
I felt flattered that Danielle had considered that a “special occasion”.
Riccardo showed us into the lounge and asked us to take a seat on the sofa. Maddy fidgeted nervously with her rings. Almost immediately Dani appeared at the door, in full working regalia, and summoned her. She jumped up and walked quickly over. Dani winked at me while gripping my friend by the wrist.
“Make yourself comfortable, Jacey. There’s television or magazines. Riccardo will get you anything you want.”
Maddy was led away, and I heard the door of the dungeon close softly.
“Coffee, miss?” asked Riccardo.
“Thank you. That would be lovely.”
Riccardo disappeared towards the kitchen. I picked up a magazine. Fetish of course. There were some startling creations pictured. I was quite engrossed when Riccardo returned with a tray of coffee. He placed it on the table, bowed slightly, and withdrew. I sat there flicking through the pages. I guess it had been about ten minutes, when I thought I heard a distant cry. There it was again! And for the next thirty minutes, as if very far away, I could hear muffled shrieks and wails. Eventually the sounds subsided, and nothing more occurred until I heard the dungeon door open, and the murmur of voices. Maddy and Dani reappeared. Dani was back in her everyday clothes.. Maddy’s face was flushed, and she made straight for an armchair and collapsed into it. I noticed there were red marks around her wrists, and her lips looked a bit swollen. Dani had that enigmatic smile on her face again. She called Riccardo and ordered more coffee. Nothing was said. For a while everyone was silent. I mean, there wasn’t much I could say, was there? I couldn’t very well say, “how was it”, or “did you have a nice session”. So I kept my mouth shut. After a minute or two, Maddy let out a long, satisfied sigh, and smiled at Dani. Okay, I thought, looks like that’s going well, then. I think I suffered a slight pang of jealousy, though I not sure to which of them it was directed. Maybe both.
After coffee, Riccardo started preparing lunch. We ate at about two. My friends seemed ravenously hungry, but I was feeling a bit nervous about the evening. Maddy had to leave after lunch. She gave me a kiss and a wink as she departed.
“We’ll catch up tomorrow, J. I hope you have something interesting to report.”
“I’m sure you have.”
That left Dani and I a few hours to discuss our strategy.
“I’m going to dress demurely,” she said. “You’re the bait, so we need to decide what you should wear.”
She led me into a bedroom where she had laid out the first batch of clothes on the bed. I won’t bore you with a catalogue of items. Instead I’ll tell you what we decided on. Starting at the top, a little maroon beret. I’m not that proud of my mousey hair. I need to get it styled if I’m going to take my role seriously. A leather collar, plain black leather, with a buckle at the front, from which dangled a straight silver pendant, like the tip of a spear. No submissive connotations. A maroon bandeau – my breasts are hardly large enough to warrant a bra - under a short, very fine leather jacket. Below the waist there were too many choices. It would have been easy to opt for thigh boots, fishnets, and a little leather skirt, but that would have been too obvious, and perhaps even a little tarty for public wear. So instead we decided on faux leather high-waisted spandex leggings and block heel ankle boots with a row of buckles. Oh, and a pair of fingerless latex gloves to finish the whole thing off. We felt that outfit wouldn’t look out of place, but was sufficiently fetishistic to give the appropriate message to the right sort of guy. I imagined it would have turned Steve into a lump of quivering jelly, anyway.
Dani had made a list of likely bars and clubs we should visit. We really had no idea what would happen, but we didn’t expect to get a bite at the first cast of the line. We stated dressing at six. Dani wore a modest outfit – wine-coloured silk blouse, short grey skirt, black stockings and court shoes – to provide contrast. We did our makeup, red lipstick for her, black lip gloss for me. It was seven by the time we left. We took a cab in case we needed to do some drinking. First stop, Dessie’s, a bar near the centre of town with a fairly diverse clientele. We ordered a couple of non-alcoholic drinks and sat at a window table. It was early, so fairly quiet. After half an hour or so people started to arrive – couples, foursomes, and eventually two groups of blokes – one of office workers in suits, mainly talking business, who sat at an adjacent table, and then half a dozen guys in jeans and T-shirts, of the skilled manual worker type, who sat at the bar and seemed to be talking exclusively money and football Pretty typical boring types, all of them. We carefully made no attempt to attract attention. We maintained our conversation and never once looked around. That would have spoilt the game. But we watched them out of the corner of our eyes. We were noticed, all right, but we got the impression that we were being clocked purely as females. We were fairly sure the fetishistic stuff was wasted on this lot. This impression was confirmed when the one of the office workers came over and asked us if we’d like to join them for a drink, which we did. But Dani got most of the attention. Probably I looked a bit too young for them. They were mainly in their thirties, I would guess. So we left there about eight and spent the rest of the evening touring bars and clubs, where we had plenty of attention but no real bites. I found I fitted in perfectly in the clubs, where my outfit was pretty standard. We decided it wasn’t going to happen that night, so we found a quiet pub in a side street and got ourselves a couple of gins. There weren’t many customers. I noticed a table of three in one corner, two men and a woman. One of the men, a young, fair-haired guy, was clearly playing gooseberry, while the couple were fooling around. He looked bored and a bit irritated. We sat down, I with my back to them, and started sipping our drinks. Suddenly Dani touched my hand.
“What?”
“You may have caught a little fish.”
“Who?”
“That guy with the couple. He keeps looking over here.”
“He’s probably looking at you.”
“No, he’s not. He looking at you. I think he’s noticed your collar. Just turn slightly sideways and let him see your legs. Casually, though.”
“Well?”
“Yes. He staring at you, but trying to pretend he isn’t.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing. Let’s wait and see.”
But the words were hardly out of her mouth when all three of them stood up and made for the door. In a moment, they were gone.
“Shit!” said Danielle. “Useless! Let’s go home.”
But before we could get up the door opened again, and the fair one reappeared. He looked around nervously, then walked straight over to our table. We both looked as casual as we could.
“Er, hi. I hope you don’t mind me asking. My friends have just left, but I was thinking of staying for a last drink. I was wondering…if you ladies would like to join me?”
He was addressing both of us, but looking only at me. I saw Dani suppress a smile, and look at her glass.
“Thank you,” I found myself saying. “Yes, of course, why not?”
“I’m Andrew. What would you like?”
“I’m Jacey. This is Dani. Gin and tonic please.”
“Same for me, thank you,” said Dani.
We sat there with our drinks chatting about nothing in particular for the next fifteen minutes. Andrew seemed unable to keep his eyes off me, or rather, off my outfit.
“They’re unusual gloves,” he hazarded.
“Yes,” I replied, innocently. “Latex. Feel them.”
I put out my hand. His hand was trembling as he touched mine. He gulped visibly.
The pub was about to close. We had to leave. Andrew was looking extremely nervous. I wondered whether he was going to ask if he could see me again. But Dani took the matter into her own hands.
“Andrew, we’re going back to my place for a couple more drinks. If you’re not doing anything, you’re welcome to join us.”
Poor Andrew nearly collapsed with relief.
“Oh. Yes. Thank you. I’d love to. If you… if you don’t mind…”
“Come on then. I’ll ring for a cab.”
The cab arrived and we piled in, the three of us in the back with Andrew sandwiched in the middle. Rather like a prisoner between his gaolers, I thought. Riccardo had been instructed to make himself scarce, so when we got back to Dani’s she let us in through the front door. Andrew looked about him. He seemed dazed.
“Is this all yours? Really? Wow, it’s beautiful.” He’s so cute, I thought. Just what I wanted. Now for phase two of the operation