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CHAPTER 11 : JOE’s EVENING OUT : MARCH
4 Months, 141 Days After Jenny’s Disappearance
I am just back from another trip to Korea. Me and the other boys in the team. There was a lot of work to do and we spent our free time on the town, doing all the usual sorts of things blokes get up to, when they’re far from home. It was not until I got back that I realised that I’d done things I would not have done normally, when Jenny was at home with me
It would have been disloyal. Cheating. I mean, this was not serious Class A debauchery, but we went to a – well several really – topless bars to drink. In fact, I do not think we went to any other sort of bar the whole time we were away. If we were drinking, that’s where we went. There were plenty of other nice places to go but we were high on hard work and we just all piled in, to enjoy the girls and the drink and it was really good fun. A change. An anaesthetic. Well, that’s my excuse.
I wondered afterwards, if the boys had done it for my benefit. Trying to move me along a bit, helping me forget, encouraging me to start over again. I suppose it was … I can’t find the right word … thoughtful, kind, understanding, comradely? A bit of each of those things.
But you can’t paper over the cracks when something like this happens, when your wife vanishes. When you don’t have closure. When you just don’t know what’s happened. It’s just like in engineering. If you see cracks in a large concrete casting, you can’t just pour more concrete in and expect it to be OK, just like that. Cracks usually mean you have a serious problem. So I can’t “just move on”, as though Jenny never happened.
Anniversaries are the worst and birthdays. If was mine last week. I caught myself wondering what she might buy me, where she might have arranged to take me out. Then I remembered, she is not there anymore. It was hers a month ago. I found myself thinking what we might do together. What she might like and then I remembered – there is no Jenny any more.
Our wedding anniversary hurt most. But then we are still married. She might not be there, but it is still the anniversary of the day we did get married. But of course, it’s not the same because there is no one to share with.
Anyway, when I finally returned to Warwick. Our home is dark and cold and so silent. I go in, drop my bag and sit. In the dark. Listening. Hoping I might hear her. But of course, there’s nothing. Well, how could there be? There’s just the buzz of the fridge motor and the central heating pipes clicking as they warmed up.
So I have a whiskey and go to bed. The bed. Our bed. It’s cold now. I have to put Jenny’s pillows down the middle to keep the warmth on my side but in the morning, I find a message from Cathy and George Corbyn inviting me round on Saturday evening.
Now that really is thoughtful, because Saturdays are the worst evenings when you are alone. It shows understanding. Empathy. On Friday you can think about going to the supermarket and doing the washing. On Sunday you can think about going to work on Monday but on Saturday, it’s a sort of oasis between one week and the next. Saturday evening lasts a long time when you are alone. If you go out to eat or if you go out to the pictures, you are still alone. What you are doing, is like taking an aspirin. The pain dulls but it never goes away because you are alone. Everything reminds you that you are alone. Alone. That’s the pain. The pain of being alone.
So I go to George and Cathy’s. Cathy used to work with Jenny, so she knows the background. It was Cathy who went round to the house to see what was matter with Jenny, when I first realised that something was wrong. I suppose you could say that it was Cathy who first found out that Jenny had gone. George and Cathy both work at the University. Cathy is in Psychology and George is a Mathematician.
Cathy is a good cook. Simple but clever. She’s made a pasta bolognaise but instead of mince she’s used diced venison. You can get it from the supermarket. Browned it in butter and simmered in one of the prepared sauces you can buy, she says. I think she is worried about me. What I am eating? Actually the issue is what I should be eating, so I suppose this was partly to give me some ideas. Keeping me in shape for when Jenny gets back. If the day should ever come.
“So how’s things, Joe?” She asks. George leans back and sips his wine. We had a merlot. I suppose it might have been a bit too powerful for the meat but it was really good.
“Well, I’m just back. I guess I’ll have to catch up with washing. Put some food in the cupboards, give the house a clean. It’s amazing how dusty it gets just standing there.”
“Yes, sure, but that’s not what I meant”
“You meant how am I?” I’m like most blokes; not good at talking about myself, but I’m still tired from the trip. Maybe I have had too much to drink and for a man, I’m being uncharacteristically frank and open about how I feel, ‘driving with the brakes off’ as you might say.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not very good, really. When I was away, there was plenty to do and there were the others around and we all had a really good time. For me, this means having a really busy time. Sleep; work; eat; drink; sleep; a whole month of it. So now I’m back I can sleep it off but I don’t sleep very well at home.”
“Hmm?”
“Too many reminders. Look, do you really want to hear this? I mean isn’t it a bit self indulgent?”
“No. You need space to say where you are.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Well, why is being at home bad? Because Jenny is there and she is not there. Every time I see her clothes in the wardrobe or cupboard or smell her perfume, it’s a reminder that she is not there. Like her tooth-brush in the bathroom. Well, the police took that.”
“Took her toothbrush? I knew things were financially tight but didn’t think the police were down to begging second hand tooth brushes,” offers George.
“Well done George, but they were after DNA samples. They are supposed to give it me back but they haven’t and I haven’t asked.”
“Sure, I can see that.”
“You don’t feel you want to dispose of her things then?”
“No, I …. No I’m hoping for … well you know the rest.”
“Yes. You should start saving”
“Saving?”
“Sure. No girl wants to try and doll herself up in clothes a season out of date!”
“You think I should have a word with my bank manager? Arrange an overdraft facility, pending …. pending…” I want to say “pending Jenny coming back” but I just can’t say that bit. Normally I work hard to keep my feelings in control. Like riding your bike fast over cobbles. You have to hold on very tight to stop yourself getting thrown off. But now, I have relaxed. My guard is down. My real feelings are seeping out. “She is always there. It’s like - she is like an unquiet ghost”
“That rings true.”
“Why?”
“Jenny: if she was a ghost, she would have to be an unquiet ghost.”
For some reason I find myself laughing. I don’t laugh much since she went, but this time I do. “Yes,” I say, “that’s exactly right.”
“I’m sorry Joe. We have not had to face anything like this. It must be like bereavement.”
“Yes, it’s like bereavement, but it’s worse. There is no closure. I can’t move on. I can’t leave Jenny in the past, like I would if she had died. I want to stay ready for her, if she comes back. If she wants me again.”
“Wants you?”
“Yes: I keep thinking she has gone because she just got tired of me. You know you can’t have everything in life. Probably not everything in marriage either. There are lots of things we did pretty well together. Comfortable with each other. Trusting. It was easy to trust her. Trust her with my secrets. And me, with hers. Sex was was OK but she was always more adventurous than me – look I’m sorry, I should not be talking to you about this.”
“Yes, you should. You absolutely should. Maybe this is you getting ready for the day she comes back?”
“So what was the sex hang up thing? Don’t feel you have to give us the blow by blow details.”
“No. Er, well I just couldn’t follow her into this BDSM thing. Maybe it was hard wired into her. Always there, just waiting to activate, when circumstances were right.”
“So why couldn’t you support her with it? After all, it’s just a game? Like a new sauce on your food. You don’t have it all the time, but it’s really nice from time to time.”
“Well, I suppose I kept thinking about Mum and Dad. Dad was very overbearing with Mum. As I grew up I began to notice. It always had to be his way. His opinions.”
“Did he …”
“Beat her up?”
“No, well not physically. Maybe emotionally. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just stand up to him. Tell him to let her have her own space. Tell him it was her turn to make the decision about where we went on holiday or something. The older I got, the more it hurt me. He hurt her, he hurt me.”
“That’s often the case in abusive relationships. You don’t have to get beaten up all the time to be in an abusive relationship. Most often it’s emotional bullying. If you have got a rather aggressive personality to start with, aggression and bullying can grow in a relationship like a weed. Weeds are hard to get rid of.”
“Yes, well that sounds very much like the long and short of it. Anyway, when Jenny and I got married, I said to myself that, no matter what, I was not going to behave anything like the way Dad did.”
“So you were going to be strong, reliable, considerate, courteous, patient, gentle, kind?”
“Yes, that’s about the size of it.”
“Look, Joe, I’m sure, in fact I know because Jenny told me: she noticed. She noticed all of those things and she loved you for it. She was not bored with you. And then she started to get a bit wild and you thought if you responded, played the game, you would become your Dad, your Dad inside you, waiting to get out and you would start to hurt Jenny just like your Dad used to hurt your Mum?”
“Yes. I guess that’s it. That, or something like it. I’ve never thought about it so sharply but that’s it.”
“Did you talk about it together?”
“Well, ‘talk’ is not really the right word. I would ask. She would try to explain and I would reply that there was no way I was going to get involved in anything like that.”
“Anything like that? Let me see: ‘that’ coming from you means being a boring, bullying, arrogant, rude, clumsy, sod?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s right.”
“And Jenny hearing you say ‘that’ thinks you mean doing a bit of play acting, a bit of elaborate fore-play which might include a bit of bondage and spanking and then when you have worked her up into a frenzy you make love?”
“Yes, you are right.”
“Did you get the opportunity to talk?”
“Talk?? Well, I guess we were often too tired to talk. Too wrapped up in what we had to do. I suppose there were times when we were not all that close really. I was thinking recently that you can’t have everything. You look at the ‘perfect married couples’ in ads and on the media, the people who have everything: wonderful exciting jobs, fabulous house, great city to live in, fantastic friends, beautiful children, earthquake sex life - it’s a fairy story and yet we believe it! It’s held up to us, to try and persuade us that this is what we should all aspire to, what we can all reach but there’s probably about zero percent of people who ever reached the fulfilment of it. If there is a single thing I wish I could do again, its to take more time to be quiet together, to understand each other, to deliberately choose each other instead of all the other “things” the world wants to force on you.”
“Well done Joe,” says George. “I agree. In fact I agree absolutely. Not just for you and Jenny but for all of us.”
“So what are you going to do now?” asks Cathy. “You have Jenny’s ghost following you around the house, tapping you on the shoulder all the time. As you say: we don’t know what’s around the corner, but if you can’t let her go, you are going to have to get ready for when she comes back.”
“So I need to understand the person she was.”
“Is: the person she is.”
“Is. I’m going to have to find out more about who she really is, and try to figure how I can respond, how I can fit around her. To get ready for her.”
Footnotes.
1. Cathy’s recipe really does work but be careful with the venison, which is quite delicate so be gentle with it.
CHAPTER 12 : A GLACIER THAWS : MARCH
It’s 4 Months -142 Days After Jenny’s Disappearance
After dinner at George and Cathy’s I sleep late. A combination of food and a lot to drink, I expect. That and perhaps too much self revelation.
It’s well after 10 I the morning when I drag myself out of bed and look at myself in the mirror. Who is this man who looking back at me? His face is puffy, and his skin is dull and waxy and his hair is too long and straggly. Lower down, there is the unmistakable sign of a growing gut.
I think about what Cathy said, about getting myself ready, for the time when Jenny comes back. Will she come back? And if she does come back, do I want her to see the man I am looking at now? I’d be a terrible disappointment! So, here and now, I decide I have to start getting myself ready. It’s almost as if doing this, will bring Jenny back to me.
I remember when Jenny returned from Inward Bound, the first time. One of the things she did was to join a local gym. She took it very seriously, running, general fitness, weights. It made a difference surprisingly quickly. I certainly enjoyed the way it made her look! We took out a “couple’s membership” except she went much more often than I did. Now it’s time for me to follow where she has led. That will be a start, at least.
As I walk back out of the showers, after my workout, I notice the guy who was on the treadmill next to me. He had been working with one of the Trainers. Between them, they were trying to figure out the maximum speed he could run, while keeping inside his anaerobic threshold, whatever that is.
As he takes his gym vest off I see he has a large tattoo swirling across his back. It sets me thinking about Jenny’s tattoo. It’s rather like the one she had – I mean the one she has.
“Hi,” I say, “I’m Joseph”
“John,” he replies
“Look I’m sorry in case I should mind my own business, but your tattoo is fantastic.”
“Thanks”, says John. “It took a bit of doing!”
“How’s that?”
“Sore!”
“Oh.”
“I had the outline drawn in one go, but the infill took a while, three or four appointments in fact. A couple of hours was all I could manage.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Yes, but it helps if you like the tattooist and I think they look better if you can be brave enough to be bold with the design idea.”
“Well, I will remember that,” I say and leave him to go for his shower.
In the gym reception later, I have a glass of orange and find myself thinking about John’s tattoo and what he said about having it drawn: “It’s easier if you like the tattooist”
Then I think of Jenny and Jonathan and finally about Ros Buchanan at Ink Inc. In particular, what she had said, on the day I had accompanied Jenny to Ink Inc, before Jenny disappeared. “You should maybe try some of the things Jenny is into. Maybe get a tattoo for yourself.”
At the time I’d dismissed the whole idea but now I’m looking from a different angle. Maybe I should get myself tattooed?
Two weeks later I am standing on the pavement outside Ink Inc, wondering if I am brave enough keep my appointment with Ros Buchanan, or phone to say I could not make it after all? It’s just the initial consultation, I tell myself. I’m not having anything done today. They were quite clear about that. Yes, replies the other half of my brain, but the further you go down this road, the more difficult it will be to stop. For a second or two I am held with indecision when there is a hand on my shoulder. “Hi. It’s Joseph isn’t it?”
I turn round to see Ros Buchanan herself, obviously just arriving for work.
“Hi, Ros. Er, yes it’s me. I was, I mean I didn’t want to be too early”
“Nonsense, come on it and let’s do coffee”
She gently leads me in, or maybe she pushes me off down a slippery slope to goodness knows where?
“C’mon thru to the office and we can talk while I fix coffee”
I follow Ros through the reception and waiting area to their office. There are easy chairs in one part of the room and a desk cum work top along the opposite wall.
There is an I-Mac computer, scanner, printer, discs, lots of books on tattoos and designs and photographs of – well clients I suppose they must be. I scan them quickly to see if there is anyone I recognise. Well, why should there be? But then I see her. She stands with her back to me but her head is turned, looking over her shoulder at me. The face is alight with a smile and one eye is just closed a fraction, winking as if she has been laying in wait for me.
Ros reappears from the adjoining kitchen: here eyes follow mine to the image on the wall.
“Oh, gee I’m so sorry. I forgot. We should have had that photograph down before you came.”
“No, please don’t apologise. I am glad to see her. I am glad when people talk about Jenny because it means that I can talk about her as well. It makes the burden easier to carry …. So you knew?”
“Yeah, we knew. Jonathan heard from Corrine at …”
“Inward Bound”
“Right, Inward Bound, and then almost right after the police showed up. So we found out. Joe, I’m real sorry. Jenny was such a great girl.”
“You are using the past tense. I am hoping she is still a great girl.”
“Look I’m sorry, I’m not doing well just now. Here. Try this. Maybe I’m better with coffee.”
“Ros - please do not feel awkward. It’s one of those ‘elephant in the room’ situations. Everyone knows it’s there but nobody talks about it. But I like to talk about it. So this is where you get your design ideas?”
“Ah, some of them. Mostly this is where we run the business and work on the graphics for tattoos and draw up our designs.”
“Sounds like an advertising office?”
“Yeah, well the days when you just took a transfer from a book are over. I mean, that’s still done and lots of commercial artists will do tattoo design work but we try to ‘roll our own’ where we can. The inspirations can come from anywhere. That’s why it’s called inspiration!”
I laugh and she laughs. The tension which has wound up in the room is gone.
“So what were you thinking of, but first why were you thinking of getting inked?”
“Why?”
“It’s not a question I always ask but this time I thought it might - that’s to say, maybe I should give you the space to say a bit more”
“OK, well when we first met, you told me I should perhaps try to get into the things Jenny was into and I think you are right. So here I am.”
“OK but what sort of thing?”
“Ah, well I’m a complete blank page.”
Ros laughs and I realise what I have said.
“Yes, I am a complete blank – canvas – at the moment, and I’m coming to see what you have done and to hear how you would approach the project.”
“OK, well let me see. There are several styles of tattooing. We can do just about anything but here let me take you through this introduction on the computer ….”
“Well. Let me help there. The thing which non-tattooed people worry about is getting tired of the design and what do you do then? You are stuck with it.”
“Agreed. You have gotta realise that this really is a one-way-street. Tiny tattoos can often be removed but if it’s been an ambitious design or if it’s been very colourful, it’s not coming off, ever.”
“Absolutely, so I was thinking about an abstract design of something … ancient. Something that has stood the test of time.”
“OK, so now I’m thinking Maori or Celtic or maybe Scandinavian. Jenny was half Swedish, right? “
“Right.”
“So have a look at this. There were done by an artist in Copenhagen. He is really into Scandinavian dragons. It would be a good complement to Jenny’s Chinese dragon.”
I gaze at the picture of a naked young woman on the computer screen. Two snake-like dragons winds their way from her ankle, up her leg, across her bum, to end on her back. It’s magnificent! But for me? Would I ever want to have something like that?
“Big huh?”
“ Definitely big!”
“Well, frankly, in my opinion, the very best work is bold; often quite simple, but bold. Be brave, is the motto. But think carefully first. Like I said, we aren’t going to do anything today. I would like to take some shots of your body, though. You will have to get your kit off. Will you be OK with that? I will work up some designs on the computer and I will email them to you. If I have hit home, come in again, and I will draw the actual design on your body and you can go away and live with it and tell me it that’s it and if it is, we can make a start. Are you thinking about piercing too?”
“Piercing?”
“Hmm, Jenny has her nipples ringed.”
Ros has used the present tense. I’m grateful for that and her reminder about Jenny’s nipples makes my prick stir. I start to smile; smile at the memory and smile at Ros’s wonderful up front way of speaking.
Ros continues.” Yeah, I’m gonna hand you over to Emma when I’ve drawn the design on you, next time!”
Next time? Yes, there is going to be a next time.
After coffee, Ros takes me through to her studio. It's very clean and clinical apart from some pictures on the wall opposite the window. They are landscapes, impressionist and pre-raphaelites. They are a big contrast to the pictures she draws herself.
“OK Joe, time to strip!”
Ros is self-assured and positive that I find myself giggling and doing what I am told. It’s a bit like encountering a bossy nurse at the doctor’s.
She photographs me from behind, left and right profile and frontal. It’s only then that I notice what she is wearing: white T shirt, black leather jeans and Doc Martens. The longish curly hair, swept back and tied in a scrunchy, frames her tanned Eurasian face beautifully. She is casual and reassuring but very sexy. I’m glad she is finished because my prick has started to respond!
So here I am sliding down the slippery slope and I am glad to be doing it. Glad to be sliding. It’s something I really want to do and I’m sure Jenny, wherever she is, will want me to do it too.
Footnotes.
1. Ros may be thinking of Erik Rieme; www.tattoo.dk - but you can read his site in English!
CHAPTER 13 : A THREE PIPE PROBLEM : MAY
It’s 6 Months; 202 Days After Jenny’s Disappearance
Detective Chief Inspector Grantby stands at lectern at the front of the room. To his right a computer projector displays a slide show, summarising the essentials of the case, the web of personal relationships, photographs of the missing woman and her associates and a map of Central London annotated with the limited number of things that they knew about her whereabouts on the afternoon she disappeared. It’s the fourth unsolved missing person case he’s reviewed today. It’s not unusual in London, sometimes it seems people come there to disappear.
He opens a folder and turns to the group of police officers variously standing, sitting or perched on desks around the room. “OK,” he says, “Mrs Jennifer McEwan. Just before we begin, let me introduce for those of you who do not know, our colleague from the Warwickshire Force, Detective Inspector Ackroyd who has been in charge of the enquiry in Warwick, where Mrs McEwan lived.”
The uncomfortable shuffling in the room has nothing to do with their visitor and tells him all he needs to know ……
Grantby sits down and Ackroyd takes Grantby’s place at the lectern to address the meeting
He runs through the facts of the case in a laconic style, his midlands accent standing out amongst the Londoners. “The facts are fairly straight forward,” he says. “Mrs McEwan parts company from her husband in Fitzroy Square at 13.45 on Tuesday 10th November 2009. They talk on the phone about five minutes later and sometime after that, she was seen at the west end on New Cavendish Street talking to another woman. Since then we haven’t found anyone that has spoken to or seen her.”
“Her husband says she intended to visit the library at the Royal Society of Medicine but there’s no evidence of her going there. She also had an appointment at The Marylebone Leather Company in Marylebone High Street at 2:30pm, but never arrived. All the locations are in reasonably easy walking distance of Fitzroy Square. Her last contact was a mobile phone call to her husband a few minutes after they had parted, which was cut off abruptly. According to mobile phone records, she was crossing Portland Place, consistent with McEwan walking along New Cavendish Street, where she was sighted speaking to another young woman.”
“Since then her husband, family, friends or colleagues at work have had no further messages from her. No phone calls, letters, texts or emails. Mr McEwan left the country for the Far East later the same day. He was a member of a team of engineers travelling to a project in South East Asia. Mrs McEwan had a return rail ticket to Warwick but she did not appear on the station CCTV recordings at Warwick or Marylebone.”
“Nothing on CCTV around Fitzroy Square, or any of the locations where she had appointments?” asks Grantby.
“Not on CCTV, but two women were seen by a Metropolitan police patrol walking down Cleveland Street shortly after Mrs McEwan left Fitzroy Square. One of the women answers Mrs McEwan’s description but unfortunately we do not have a clear description of the second woman and so we do not know if she is the same woman who spoke to Mrs McEwan in New Cavendish Street.
Akroyd continues. “Various items were missing from her house, suggesting she had returned later and removed them as a preparation for going away, but she wasn’t seen doing so by neighbours, or friends or colleagues.”
Grantby listens as Ackroyd goes on.
“The McEwans are to all appearances a happily married young couple with rewarding jobs and under no particular financial pressures - in short, no debts they could not manage. Her husband was a civil engineer with a job which often took him away for a month or two at a time”
That, as far as Grantby is concerned, can be a problem in a marriage if it goes on too long. His own wife... Well, that’s another matter.
Ackroyd has paused. Grantby looks up.
“There’s nothing to suggest there were any marital difficulties,” Ackroyd says carefully. He has been warned by his London colleagues. He doesn’t want to say anything that might allude to the DCI’s own unhappiness.
“Her job was pretty demanding too. It looks like they had to manage their time together carefully. She worked at home when her husband was back in the country; things like that. No suspicions amongst close friends of serious domestic unhappiness. Absolutely no suspicion of physical or psychological domestic violence: no tearful episodes at the office, no occasions when Mrs McEwan came to work with injuries caused by ‘walking into doors’ or other such nonsense.”
“Tell us about her job?” Grantby asks.
“Mrs McEwan was working towards a PhD and making good progress according to her friends although her boss, Professor Dawney rather damned Mrs McEwan’s efforts with faint praise.” Grantby looks across to the projector screen to refresh his mind. Oh yes, the “bluestocking”. “There’s a personal history there but nothing recent. McEwan’s research was into the psychology of adult play behaviour.” Grantby’s eyebrows go up. Had these academics really nothing better to do with their time?
“The next bit is a bit sensitive. The main focus of the research was aspects of BDSM play. You can imagine the fun that the tabloids would have with that.”
Grantby nodded. Maybe this had the sniff of something that might lead to a motive? He was pleased and surprised too. Ackroyd obviously ran a tight ship in Warwick. It wouldn’t have helped if this had been all over the “News of the World”.
“You’ve decided not to brief the press?”
“That’s right. Frankly we thought the fuss would outweigh the opportunity. And none of us,” he looked around at the group of men and women supporting him, “were keen to waste time fielding the more excitable members of the third estate.”
Ackroyd goes on. “There’s nothing to suggest that she had any other partner. She was not, for example, a member of any BDSM clubs in the West Midlands and had only made regular contact with managerial team at Inward Bound, according to the statements made by interviewees there. Inward Bound is an organization which provides what you might call ‘adventure holidays’ for people into BDSM.”
Ackroyd’s description provokes more chuckles.
“According to Mr McEwan,” Ackroyd pauses to regain the attention of his audience before he reviews the most startling findings of the investigation, “whilst Mrs McEwan was conducting her initial research at Inward Bound, she was arrested by a group of men who claimed to be representing the US Govermnent. Corrine Aimes the CEO at Inward Bound confirmed the story of the arrest and Mrs McEwan’s return after questioning a couple of days later. Mr McEwan claims his wife told him the American agents were mainly interested in someone known to Professor Dawney. Professor Dawney also admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that she had also been arrested and interrogated about a Russian known to her, called Anatoly Kustensky.”
Grantby already knows about the CIA business. The story of her arrest and interrogation by the ‘CIA’, provided by Mr McEwan repeating, he said, what his wife had told him was quite simply astonishing. Grantby hoped at first that it was pure fantasy, but perhaps not entirely …..
“Special Branch were asked to take this further. They received ‘complete and unequivocal denials of any CIA operations in the UK at that time’, they said.”
“So if the CIA are actually being reasonably open on this occasion, what do we think was going on?”
“I think they were being ‘economical with the truth’ and trying to have us believe that questioning someone was not the same as an ‘operation’.”
“An Operation. That’s shooting people is it?” offered Grantby, his joke greeted by sniggers from the rest of his colleagues
“Yes” continued Ackroyd” I’d say that was about it”
“However, Special Branch did turn up a couple of things. When she was younger, Professor Dawney had been involved with the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp so they had a file on her and especially because she had become the companion of a KGB agent who was there keeping an eye on the protesters. The KGB man – Mr Kustensky - is now a very rich and successful businessman and is still in touch with the Professor.
“We think that the CIA probably did have Mrs McEwan in for questioning because they have become more interested in Mr Kustensky once more and wanted to find out as much about him as they could. Perhaps he has significant business interests in the United States now?”
“Bit heavy handed wasn’t it?” Asks Grantby
“Well, it was during the Old Administration. The Americans have changed their tune a bit now, what with the new president and all” adds Ackroyd. He continues, “Anyway, we think it’s actually a red herring for our own investigation.”
Ackroyd ploughs on. “Turning to her personal circumstances, Mrs McEwan had no medical history of physical or psychiatric illness which could explain her disappearance as due to physical collapse of some sort of psychological crisis. There were some inconsistencies concerning the items removed from the McEwan’s home if they had been taken by Mrs McEwan herself and as I said, the girl had a return rail ticket home, but there’s nothing to show her returning to Warwick.
“No calls were made from her phone after the one that was cut off and no money taken from the couple’s account. She had been writing a journal for since last Christmas which was left, but her diary and address book were missing. Her laptop was missing and the hard disc of the desktop computer had been completely erased.”
“That’s a bit odd?”
“Yes. The University’s got a Department of Computer Science. We’re guessing there are plenty of people on campus that could do it.” Grantby leans forward about to ask a question. Ackroyd anticipates. “But there’s no one there that McEwan has had any contact with as far as we can see. Finally, there was no evidence of forced entry to the premises so whoever had paid a visit had a key - which points to Mrs McEwan - or had a copy, which points to someone known to the McEwans, or someone was an expert in getting into and out of buildings undetected, which suggests professional criminals or members of the security services, if we really do want to go down the ‘CIA’ track.”
Grantby narrows his eyes and shakes his head. “And that’s it?” he asks.
DI Ackroyd nods. He was hoping he would have a clearer picture to draw, but he has what he has and there’s no point in trying to make more of it. “Yes, sir, that’s it. Here’s our take on it. Accident of some sort or an acute illness? No. We’ve checked hospitals and none report admitting anyone of Mrs McEwan’s description at the relevant time. She was hard to miss; an attractive woman with a shaven head, a tongue piercing and a large tattoo on her back. Most doctors would spot that, for sure!”
“A lonely girl leaving home? Perhaps. A girl unhappy in work and love? Possibly. Murder? No obvious motive or reason to suspect domestic tensions high enough to precipitate homicide. No massive life insurance policies or substantial beneficiaries of her estate. Murder or abduction in a random attack? No, because items had been removed from the McEwan home suggesting she had left of her own accord. Abduction as part of a people trafficking racket? Unlikely - there’s nothing to support that. Abduction and murder by someone known to her? Possible, but the person responsible would seem to be unknown to her circle of friends and then again, there was no evidence of her being currently involved with anyone else.
“Which leaves two possibilities, both unsatisfactory. First; completely out of character, she left home and all her friends. Second; she has been abducted and the abduction is in some way connected with her research work although we cannot see how her rather peculiar research project could possibly justify an abduction – I mean it’s not as if she was an atom scientist.
“In a nutshell: the most plausible explanation is that she had finally got tired of the conflicting demands of husband and ex-lover (that’s the Professor, by the way) and jumped ship, possibly with the help of an accomplice amongst her friends at University or Inward Bound, who may be the woman seen talking to Mrs McEwan in New Cavendish Street. She’ll either turn up in few months or she’ll keep herself hidden.”
DCI Grantby isn’t sure whether or not to accept Ackroyd’s pragmatic conclusions and he feels a lingering unease. He thinks about the “Risk Classification Decision Making Guide” in the police missing persons investigation guidelines. There are four issues which mark Mrs McEwan’s case out as potentially High Risk. Her disappearance is out of character. The circumstances are different from her normal behaviour pattern. There were no apparent reasons for her to go missing. She apparently did not complete her intentions on the day she was last seen, even though she was within yards of doing so.
In addition, he does not like the tidy way all lines of enquiry have been so neatly closed off. It suggests planning and planning would be consistent with something security services would be responsible for. It’s almost as if someone was “making a point” to someone else, using Mrs McEwan to do it.
McEwan was on her way to keep her appointment at the shop in Marylebone High Street when she met someone else – or someone met her – and that changed her intentions. The answer must be lay with the unknown woman. For a moment, Grantby thinks about the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and how he classified his cases according to the number of pipes of tobacco he had to smoke until he saw the answer, in the evidence in front of him. This was definitely a three pipe problem.
However, Grantby has to be practical and concentrate his resources on investigations which are likely to come to a proper conclusion. He makes his decision, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“Thank you Ackroyd. In the light of your summary, I think we shall have to reduce the level of active investigation until more evidence comes to light and review the case in due course. Any dissenters?” he asks.
It’s Monday. I get a call from Inspector Ackroyd, asking to meet me, to update me on the “progress of enquires.” I am at work. The situation with Jenny and the Police – it’s always going to be difficult so I ask if the Inspector can see me later in the afternoon. Ackroyd suggests a meeting at our home. Our home. That’s Jenny and me.
At 4:45 the door bell rings and when I open the door the very first thing I see is Ackroyd accompanied by a WPC. As soon as I see both of them, it is as though time has stopped. I register the presence of Ackroyd and the WPC. If the Police were planning to arrest me, they would have sent two male officers. If they have sent a man and a woman, it is to break bad news. The moment seems to last hours.
“Please come in – come through to the lounge.”
“Thank you, Mr McEwan. You will remember WPC Evans? Of course you do.” Ackroyd’s voice is soft, modulated to sound gentle. I know before Ackroyd begins that there is absolutely no good news to be had
“ Mr McEwan. The Police like to keep relatives of missing persons up to date with enquires and this is why I - we - have come to see you this afternoon.”
“Yes, I understand. Please carry on.”
Ackroyd clears his throat. “Last Friday I attended a case conference at Scotland Yard in London to review all the evidence we and our colleagues in the Metropolitan Police have gathered about the disappearance of Mrs McEwan. I want you to know that there has been a very energetic enquiry indeed, but so far I am sorry to say, we have failed to locate Mrs McEwan …”
Ackroyd ploughs on, now trying to spread soothing ointment on the raw wound in my mind,
“ … quite often it takes time for the truth of these events to come out into the light of day and your wife’s case will remain open until there is some satisfactory resolution and it will be kept under regular review. Sometimes a fresh look at a case, prompts a new line of enquiry. If new evidence is found, the full investigation may be reactivated but for the present, I’m sorry MrMcEwan but for the present time, we think we have gone as far with the investigation as we can.”
The atmosphere in the room is heavy. The seconds tick by. I feel tears begin to prick at my eyes. What should I say? Is there anything to say? Should I shout at Ackroyd, demand to know why they have come to this conclusion, demand further action. But this is not a film on TV. This is real life. I have no reason to think Ackroyd and his colleagues have not done all they possibly could do, in the circumstances. I clear my throat again. My voice sounds small and it’s almost as if it is someone else speaking, instead of me. I hear myself saying, “Thank you. Yes I thought that you had, er, difficult things to say. I am very grateful for all the trouble you have taken.” As I am speaking I can hear the whisperings of my worst fears. Their opinions snap at my ankles: ‘There, Joe! You knew didn’t you? You knew all the time, didn’t you? Jenny has left you. You were too slow, too dull, too timid to embrace your lovely wife. You did not want her to be the person she was. You wanted her as the person you wanted her to be, not the person she wanted to be. She has left. Left you! Serves you right, Joe McEwan!’
But then my more rational mind replies: ‘But when we last spoke to one another, that’s Jenny and me, there was laughter in her voice. She was laughing because she was pleased. She was pleased to be speaking to me.’
From ever so far away, I can hear Ackroyd again; “so I will keep you in touch with any new developments right away and I’m sure I do not have to remind you to let us have any further information you come across. However trivial it might seem to you …”
.....................................................................................................................
Footnotes.
1. Bluestocking. Rather old fashioned and somewhat patronizing way of referring to female academics.
2. Popular, perhaps less serious and certainly more sensationalist newspapers in the UK. The adjective “tabloid” comes from the technical description of their page size which is 17 by 11 inches.
3. Famous and racy British sunday newspaper
4. Special Branch. Apart of the police force which investigates subversion, terrorism and as necessary, criminal activity of a sensitive nature, for example involving government and politicians. Special Branch also acts as the point of liason between the police force and the security services.
CHAPTER 14 : INWARD BOUND : JULY
8 Months, 263 Days After Jenny’s Disappearance
When I got back from Korea, amongst all the bills and circulars, there was one letter which was different. The envelope was handwritten, in blue ink on warm cream-coloured paper. I opened the letter and read:
“Dear Mr McEwan,
I have just heard the distressing news about Jenny. My colleagues and I want you to know that you are very much in our thoughts and also how shocked we were, when we heard what had happened. When Jenny stayed with us, she was quite simply a delight: great fun and such good company. We are very glad we had the opportunity to meet her and to get to know her. On behalf of all us all, I do hope she is found soon.
With kind regards,
Corinne Aimes”
I spent several minutes reading and re-reading the letter. It was so unexpected, so thoughtful. Those few words ‘When Jenny stayed with us, she was quite simply a delight: great fun and such good company. We are very glad we had the opportunity to meet her and to get to know her’ were a real comfort. I was glad to know she had the same effect on others, as she had on me.
At first, I did not know what to do, but now I have decided to reply. I wonder if I am doing the right thing? After all, this is the woman who runs Inward Bound. Perhaps they are in some way to blame for what has happened? How much of what Jenny wanted was their fault? In spite of these worries, the tone of Corinne Aimes’s letter spurs me on, so I reply:
“Dear Corinne.
Thank you for your thoughtful and unexpected letter and for the kind things you said about Jenny. I am sorry I have taken a while to reply to you. It’s actually a great comfort to be able to talk about her. You might also know that she was exploring a part of her personality which was rather new to me and (as far as I was concerned) very foreign but now I would like to learn more about this aspect of Jenny. I wonder if we could meet you, or perhaps I could even come to visit you? Thanking you once more for taking the trouble to write.
With kind regards,
Joseph McEwan”
When she receives the letter several days later, Corinne pauses to reflect. During her stay at IWB, it became quite clear that Jennifer McEwan was a sexual submissive aching for fulfilment. Joseph McEwan’s letter makes it clear that he was completely at sea with this aspect of his wife’s personality.
“Should I see him?” Corinne ponders, “Still, why not take his statement at face value? Why not try to help him discover more about the girl he married?”
I take a day off from the job and, on a clear bright Friday, set off across the English midlands, heading south east towards Suffolk and Inward Bound.
In England, most major roads point towards London so journeys across the country always take more time than perhaps they ought, if distance were the only issue.
I finally reach Inward Bound just over three hours later. It’s deep in the country; not somewhere many people would pass “by accident”. It nestles in the fold between low hills and is surrounded by deciduous woodland. The sat nav brings me down a country lane with trees on each side up to an old high wall of crumbling bricks, overgrown by ivy.
I pass between two high gate posts but the walls follow the drive on either side forming a recess about twenty yards long. At the end stands another gate with an illuminated call button to one side. I leave the car and press the button:
“Hello: Is that Mr McEwan?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Hello, I’m Corinne. I’ll open the gate for you.”
The inner gate opens and I drive forwards down the winding main drive. I look up and glance in the rear view mirror. I can see that there is a thick hedge planted on the inside of the boundary wall, creating a double barrier. The garden is large. It looks almost rather like a municipal park, with banks of rhododendrons and other large flowering shrubs.
Finally the House comes into view. It’s bigger than I expected and could have been built for a successful Victorian businessman, but there is an oddly ‘institutional’ air about it, too. I park at the front door, alongside a black Jaguar and get out.
As I approach the main door, it opens and a youngish woman, in her thirties I think, comes forward to greet me.
“Mr McEwan? Hello. I’m Corinne Aimes.” She extends a hand.
Her voice is quite soft and reassuring, friendly. Somewhere, there is a trace of Irish in it.
“I’ve organised some tea upstairs. Come on in.”
I follow her into a large reception hall which has an elegant Victorian tiled floor, pale walls and smells of polish.
We seem to be the only people here. I am glad about that; I do not know how I would have coped if I had been confronted by “masters” and “slaves”.
Corinne’s office is on the first floor with a view out onto the garden. We sit round a small table set with a tea pot, milk, biscuits and four cups.
“I have asked Charlotte and Josephine to join us. They’ll be here in a minute or two”
“Ah. I’ve heard those names before,” I say, “from Jenny.”
“Yes, I am sure you would. Nothing bad I hope?”
“Not from Jenny’s point of view. Mine, I’m not sure.” Corinne lets the remark pass. I don’t pursue it. I’m more interested in learning what I came here to discover, than in worrying about what anyone thinks of me. “So how long have you been here?”
“Five years now. We run two businesses; Huntingdon Management Training and Inward Bound.”
“Hmm. The house is interesting ….”
“Yes it is, and we were lucky to get our hands on it. You might remember in the 1990’s that there was a move to get psychiatric patients out of institutions and into ‘the community’ and as a result many of the old ‘asylums’ were sold off.”
“Mental asylums. That always had a sinister ring to it.”
“I agree, but the original idea was very liberal and progressive: to provide a place of peace and safety – after all that’s what ‘asylum’ really means - for people with mental illness. The problem was that it was too easy to just tidy people away and forget about them.”
“And this is …?”
“Yes, this is an old country asylum.”
I chuckle. So have the original lunatics gone and been replaced with modern ones, I wonder? Looking at Corinne, though, that seems unfair and Jenny was nothing other than completely sane. What I actually say is: “Well, that’s funny, because I thought this place had something of the institution about it, but I just could not put my finger on what it was. Now I know.”
Two other women come and join us. Corinne introduces then as Charlotte (the taller one) and Josephine.
“So pleased to meet you at last,” says Charlotte, smiling broadly.
“Yes, continues Josephine: Jenny was such a wonderful client, she was one of the people I hoped we could keep contact with.”
“That’s very generous,” I respond. “Thank you for letting me come and speak with you.”
“So how can we help?” asks Corinne, taking ownership of the conversation.
“Well, I am trying to learn some more about Jenny, and I hope that if she ever comes back, I can be ready for her, I mean I can be a better partner for her. Be more the person I think she wants.”
“You don’t think you were what she was looking for?”
“I thought I was, but since she came here, she has been different.”
“In what way?”
“She has been like herself only much more so and she has been, oh how can I say it? Servile is the wrong word ... er, she was such a “good wife” all the time and it made me feel that I was taking too much from her.”
“So how was she before?”
“Well, she was positive, fun, energetic, unexpected, surprising, sexy but, but conventional? No. Normal? Not quite. A bit of both really.”
“And her Inward Bound experience changed her for the better or worse?”
“Well, neither. She was just different. It was as if the more edgy parts of her personality had grown, as if a two dimensional drawing had become 3-D”
“How did you feel about that?”
“I was frightened of the difference. I just did not know where it was going to end.”
I pause. This is all very emotional. I’m not used to it. I’m not even sure why I am telling these strangers all this personal stuff. The three of them sit quietly, just looking.
Presently, I carry on. There’s something about the three of them that seems to draw me out. “My dad was very traditional. He was a farmer. He worked very hard and seemed always to have such high expectations of my mum. As I grew older I began to notice. Sometimes, I thought he could be quite cruel. Unnecessarily cruel. Always demanding. Never satisfied. I decided that I was never going to be like that with my wife, if I ever got married. Then, when Jenny came home from here, the way she was behaving to me, just reminded me of the way the way Mum was with Dad. How he had beaten her into submission or into the person he wanted. It brought back bad memories. I felt really sad and anxious. I really didn’t want things to be like that, between Jenny and me. Specifically, I don’t want to be like him …..”
“Did you say this to Jenny?” Corinne’s question is delivered quietly. She is obviously concerned, but I think she knows the answer.
I shake my head. “No I kept it to myself. I just hoped that things would get back to what they were before, I suppose.”
“And did they?”
“No. Jenny just got better, at being different. At first I’m ashamed to say I found it all a bit embarrassing. The shaven head. The nose ring. It was just, well, not what you expect.”
“Very sexy though, don’t you think?” asks Josephine.
“Ah, yes, in my dreams they are very wild and sexy things for some people to do.”
“But not for Jenny?”
“Not for my Jenny. It was so up front and blatant.”
“Would you say you were quite shy, yourself?”
“I think so, at least until I know where I am with people.”
“So with Jenny being so – what might it seem like? – brazen? I guess you must have felt even more shy, wondering what people might think of you?”
“Yes, that’s about it. There was all that, as well as the reminder of my parent’s relationship. Actually, I’m ashamed of feeling the way I did.”
“Would it matter if Jenny was enjoying herself?”
“Yes, it would matter very much because I want Jenny to enjoy herself. To be fulfilled. I want her to be able to spread her wings and fly! I don’t want to force her to be the person I want her to be.”
“But you said that when Jenny began to fly - if we stay with that picture - you were .. let’s say dismayed?”
“Yes. I know it’s really a double standard but I guess most of us manage to have some things like that. And anyway, they say you should be careful what you wish for.” Corinne looks sympathetic. “What’s worse though is that I’m heartbroken by the thought that maybe Jenny went away of her own accord. To get away from me. Because I was not what she wanted anymore.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?”
“No, not really.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time I spoke to her was just a few minutes after we had parted. It was on the ‘phone. She was saying she had done something naughty and then the connection broke and … and then there was nothing. Before though, before we were cut off, there was laughter in her voice. I don’t think that’s what you do, if you are talking to your spouse and you are in the middle of running away from them.”
“No. I’m sure you’re right. That’s not what people do. Jenny was a bit naughty when she first came here, did you know?”
“Oh?”
“Yes. At first she told us that she was, if I can quote her, ‘trying to find out if BDSM experience was as good in reality as it was in her imagination.’ That wasn’t really why she came. Or rather it wasn’t all of why she came. Can I ask if this is something you both played with when you were together?”
“Absolutely not. Sorry, that sounded a bit aggressive. No, we didn’t. Well, not till after Jenny came back from here. It had made a deep impression on her. I guess she was even more anxious to get me involved.”
“To get you to share?”
I hadn’t really thought about it like that before but yes, I suppose she did just want me to share. I nod.
“Ah. Did you enjoy it? Were you giving or receiving?”
“Jenny wanted me to be the giver, if that’s the word.”
“Top: that’s the word. Jenny wanted you to be the Top or the Dom. Anyway, it came out that Jenny came here to collect data for her PhD and she had not told us first.”
“I am sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologise. We devised a very suitable punishment for her. Did she tell you?” Corinne chuckles. For the first time I realise that she gets as much fun out of this as, Jenny evidently did.
“I’m not sure. I suppose I didn’t really listen when she was telling me about it all. Frightened at the thought of what I might hear.”
“Yes you have said.”
“Also, I suppose that I thought that this would all be down to the involvement of Angela.”
“Angela?”
“Professor Dawney, Jenny’s boss. Well, I say ‘boss’; it’s a bit more complicated than that. You know that Jenny was doing research? Her PhD project was being supervised by Professor Dawney – Angela. She had Jenny do this project on adult play and stress. I think she thought you were a ‘good laboratory model’. But Angela and Jenny had an affair together before Jenny and I got married and I suppose I have always been a bit suspicious of the Professor. When I got back to the UK and found out what Jenny had been up to, it all sounded like just the sort of thing Angela would do. Trying to manipulate Jenny away from me and back into her own arms.”
“Ah …. and was Jenny still …. interested in Angela?”
“No. Not at all. At least that’s what I thought. What I still think.”
Ah, thinks Corinne. Now this could explain quite a lot. Specifically, it could explain why the Professor tried to cut short Jenny’s time at IWB. Maybe, as Joseph fears, she was trying to get Jenny under her control again and using us to encourage her to become more compliant by the consensual slave training Jenny was receiving? That would make Professor Dawney one devious bitch!
“So why are you here now?” asks Charlotte.
“That’s the $64,000 question. I’ve thought a lot about the answer. Let me tell you something about my job,” I say. “I’m an engineer and I work a lot with large concrete castings. Sometimes we make these on site and sometimes they arrive pre-cast. Either way, you start with an empty mould, pour the concrete in and when it sets, that’s your bridge parapet or bridge pier or whatever. On their own, the moulds just look like empty boxes or rings or whatever, but they contain all the details that the casting has to have. It’s almost like a photographic negative. I suppose that I think of you, of Inward Bound, as the mould that Jenny was trying to pour herself into. I can’t talk to Jenny herself anymore, but I can look at the moulds and I can try to understand the person she was becoming, by looking at the shapes which she was using to build herself.”
“That is the most poetic way I have ever heard anyone talk about concrete!” says Josephine.
Her comment defuses the anxiety I have been feeling. I laugh. She laughs. We all laugh.
Corinne gets up: “Come on Joseph. Let’s show you around; show you how we cast concrete.”
In many ways, I am glad to get out of her office. It seems to draw a line under the rather introspective conversation we had been having. On the other hand, I’m a bit worried about what I’m going to see. It’s a bit like stepping on to a ride at a theme park.
“So this is the upper floor of the original main building. We have room for guests to stay, offices to run the business and one or two rooms for the guests.”
“You mean people like Jenny?”
“No, I mean guests in the conventional sense of the word. I will show you where Jenny stayed, when she was having her adventure, later on. It’s in another part of the house. When they are here for as long as Jenny was, the challenge is keeping them occupied. We like to set exercises for them every day and the trick is to maintain their interest throughout the course, by giving them new challenges each day. We have designed what you might call a syllabus, but for people who come back for more, it’s a constant challenge.”
“People come back for more?”
“They certainly do.”
“Well, that’s a sign you are living up to expectations.”
“We like to think so, but we really want to exceed expectations!”
We tour the dining room, kitchens and go outside to see some more modern buildings containing a gym and even a swimming pool.
“You’ve put a lot of investment into this.”
“Yes, but don’t forget this didn’t happen overnight. We were able to take advantage of various business start up grants and then there is the management training company which has also provided a very steady background income. Also, one of our team is an architect. That gives us very good contacts in the building world, so we’ve spent rather less than we might have done, if we were without the benefit of his inside knowledge. Finally, we were lucky enough to attract some significant investment from another company who were impressed by the way we had developed our niche in the market.”
“I hadn’t realised this was all run on such commercial lines.”
“It’s a business, like any other. We have customers, we employ people we have expenses, we pay taxes. Our cash flow problems are no different from anyone else’s.”
“I can see. Now sorry, I interrupted you. I think you were going to talk about your clients, or whatever it is you call them and anyway I’d like - I think I am now brave enough - to hear what Jenny went through.”
“Of course. One of the first things we do is help the – and yes, we call them the ‘slaves’ – help the slaves get themselves into the right mood. We try to start things off so they realise that this might be a slightly edgy experience. One of the first exercises we do is to give them a opportunity to take simple instructions and obey.”
“OK. Well I guess that’s what they come for, what Jenny came for.”
“I’m afraid Jenny fell at the first fence!”
“How?”
“Well in their joining instructions we asked then all to wear particular clothes, to have their hair crew cut and to have an ear piercing done. It’s all reversible over the time they are with us. Hair grows so they are not going to be short for a long time and if you take the piercing out it will heal without a scar.”
“Sounds like you throw them in at the deep end.”
“Yes, it’s deliberate. As I say, we want them to get in the mood quickly. Anyway, Jenny arrived with the wrong clothes, with no piercing and hair very much on the long side of short.”
“So, then what happened?”
“First, you need to know that she was not the only one who slipped up but anyway, Jenny arrived having already ignored directions even though they were all things that she had consented to.”
“Sounds like Jenny. Very independent.”
“You’re right, but this course teaches you to take and obey orders and accept the punishment if you do not.”
“Oh, I see. So the tongue and nose piercings were punishments for not doing what she was told and shaving her head was because she had not had her hair cut in the way she had been told?”
“Exactly. A bit tough, I will admit but it made the point that we were serious and the slaves have to be serious too. Actually they wouldn’t want it any other way.” We stop outside another room. “Ah, here’s where Ylena teaches.”
“Ylena?”
“Jenny has not mentioned her?”
“Not that I remember. I didn’t really give myself the chance to get that much in the way of details at the time.”
“Well from what you said earlier I can understand why. And she probably thought it might be a bit painful for you just at that moment.”
“Painful: that’s a good word. Beating people up, isn’t that what this is, beneath it all? That’s the thing - one of the things, that makes me very uneasy. I hate to think of Jenny going through that.”
“Well I think you’re wrong,. To me ‘beating up’ sounds uncontrolled and that’s the exact opposite of what goes on here and the punishment games were the ones that Jenny liked best of all.”
“I would hardly think that being whipped, or caned, or whatever you do, could ever be a game?”
“I can see why you’d think that, but look; if you have a really good work out at the gym, you wake up the next day and you might feel quite stiff and sore, right?”
“Yes, sure.”
“So what comes next? Do you resign your gym membership? No! As soon as you are able, you are straight back there and do it all over again, knowing that the exercise class or the session with the weights or whatever will leave you sweating and maybe a bit sore. But you still go on and then come right back for more. Well, what’s the difference between that and someone you trust, or like or even love, giving you a spanking or a whipping of even a caning?”
“Because the feelings you get from spanking or whipping or caning are horrible from beginning to end.”
“No they are not; not if they are done properly. Not if you start slowly. Gently and work carefully on upwards. The crucial thing is the psychological context around how the sensation is delivered. That’s why I say things here are controlled.”
We enter ‘Ylena’s room’. It’s very comfortably furnished, but there is one thing that really stands out. It’s a leather padded gym horse, standing in the middle of the floor. As I look more closely, I can see that it’s not a piece of gymnastic equipment at all. It has been made for someone to lie along its top, bent at the hips with their legs supported lower down, presenting their bum to be beaten. The ‘horse’ has neatly coiled straps, ready to restrain the victim in position. Once strapped on, I don’t think they would have any chance of wriggling free.
I run my hand over where Jenny must have been restrained. Glancing at the wall, I can see various straps, riding crops, canes and even whips all hanging there neatly, waiting. My eyes start to water: why did she do this to herself?
Josephine notices my reaction. She puts a hand on my shoulder. It reminds me of the policewoman when our home was searched. “It’s all right,” I say. “Let’s carry on.”
Charlotte takes up the narrative: “BDSM and submissive / dominant relationships are very much about trust and care. It can’t be exploitative; that just doesn’t work. The sub puts their trust in the Dom and the Dom responds by respecting the trust which has been placed in them by the sub. The Dom has a very real responsibility not to harm the sub, physically or emotionally, but there’s much more than that. It’s the Dom’s job to build up the sub. If you think about the relationship between an athlete and their trainer, you are not far away. The Dom sets challenges. The sub responds and trusts that the outcome will be some kind of affirmation of the relationship; they trust that the Dom has their best interests at heart – it’s like marriage! Dom and subs don’t need to be married, but if they are, then there is already a basis of trust.”
“That seems pretty romanticised to me. What about all the punishments and canings and things like that? That all seems harsh and bleak.”
“Well, often what you would call punishment is meant to be a spur to help the sub. To encourage them to greater efforts and, yes, to make them pay some sort of forfeit if they have not achieved. What the Dom actually does depends mainly on the circumstances. Carelessness or laziness would earn something harsher than if the sub has failed after having made a really good effort. Then the punishment might be designed to encourage and get the sub to try again and to keep trying till they get it right. Punishment does not have to involve pain or even anything particularly kinky, but it does have to underline that the Dom has authority over the sub, even though that authority has been conceded by the sub in the first place.”
“But Jenny did get caned. She told me.”
“Yes she did and she enjoyed every minute of it, believe me. It’s a well- known ingredient of the BDSM cake. If the Dom is careful and skilled, they can gently escalate the physical and psychological experience whilst remaining just at the edge of what the sub can tolerate, and progressively push the boundary back. It’s like playing tennis with a coach. The coach pushes your game to the edge of your abilities bit by bit by bit by bit until you improve. The actual skin stimulation is nice for the sub and rewarding for the Dom because of the trust which has been placed in them and the opportunity they get to work on the sub’s body.”
“OK,” I reply. “I’m getting a strong message about trust and care but with a splash of danger and some unpredictability thrown in. And what you’re saying is nothing happens that the sub doesn’t want to happen.”
“Well, that may be over simplifying it. I’m sure there are some things that subs don’t enjoy at the time but I hope there are never situations in which the sub feels they have been pushed seriously further than they were prepared to go. They do sign off on the range of experiences they are prepared to undergo before the sessions start here and that’s pretty much the case everywhere in responsible BDSM. The whole thing requires the informed consent of all parties.”
“So the sub may not have control but they have at least defined the boundaries within which they give up control.”
“Precisely. Joseph, I think you are beginning to see how things are organised.”
By now we have reached a basement corridor. There is a line of rooms on one side that they look exactly like prison cells to me. The corridor wall formed is from bars and inside each is a bed and shower and not much else.
“Is this … ?”
“Yes,’ replies Charlotte. “This is where Jenny stayed.”
“Oh. It looks tough.”
“Well, yes it’s very different I agree but it’s just a room. It’s where our ‘adventurers’ stay and yes we do lock them in overnight but we keep an eye on them, to make sure they are coping with the experience of having some of their freedoms removed. You can see the CCTV camera? One of the staff is always on duty 24/7 when we have a course running so if there was a fire or if one of the slaves was having a particularly tough time or was taken ill, we would know about it immediately. It is a tough environment and you are to point that out, but it’s necessary if they are to start to learn humility.”
“Humiliation?
“No! Humiliation is breaking someone down. Forcing them to be or to think of themselves as less than they are. Humility is making an honest appraisal of who you are, being prepared to put the interests of other people before your own and doing your best in the circumstances you find yourself – and being content to be there.”
“This sounds almost religious.”
“Yes, it does rather, doesn’t it? Is that awkward for you?”
“No, just unexpected.”
“Life affirming?”
“Yes, life affirming.”
“So what did you do with her, when you found out she was conducting a field expedition for her thesis?”
“Well, we were pretty annoyed. It seemed like a betrayal of trust.”
“And trust is pretty important to you all...”
“Exactly. Anyway, we thought that she should be treated in the same way as any slave that had been found to have taken advantage of their Dom.”
“Some sort of punishment?”
“Yes. I can’t just exactly remember how the scene started out” replies Corinne, “but Jenny ended up filled with a butt plug and a dildo. We had strapped her down so she couldn’t get away from them. Every so often the dildo would vibrate and when she started to wriggle and moan, a microphone would pick up the noise and trigger the butt plug and dildo to give her a mild tingling shock. Took her quite a while to figure out how everything was working and the game kept her nicely occupied for most of the night. It certainly gave her something else to think of besides her studies!
I suppose I should have been appalled on Jenny’s behalf, but I could not help warming to the sexiness of her predicament and feeling somehow that it served her right for not being completely frank with Corinne and her colleagues, right at the beginning. That wasn’t like Jenny though and I wonder if Angela was influential in planning the deception?
“So can you think better of us now? Think better of Jenny?”
“Yes I can – and I want to apologise to Jenny for being so dull when she wanted to play these games and I’m also sorry I was so dismissive and irritated when I thought about you all.”
“It was understandable. But what about you? Are you going to continue your voyage of discovery? Looking for Jenny?”
“Yes. I have to do it but it looks as though it might not be as edgy and unpleasant as I first thought it would be”
“Well, that’s good to hear!” Corinne responds. “Joseph, look it’s getting rather late, if you were planning to drive all the way back to Warwick. It’s a tedious journey at the best of times and you have done it once today already. Do you want to stay the night?”
“Erm, well that’s very kind but I don’t want to put you out.”
“No really. We have some regular rooms for the people who come on the management courses. They are all made up ready. You don’t have to stay down here.”
“Unless you would like to? Just to feel a little bit how Jenny might have felt,” says Josephine and adds, “we wouldn’t lock you in – unless you wanted us to, honest!”
I’m not sure how much of what Josephine is saying should be taken as a joke but Corinne’s offer sounds attractive – at least one of the upstairs rooms does - and it’s been a long day already. “OK, yes. If I go now it is going to be a long haul to get back home so yes, I would like to stay. But I’ll take one of the regular rooms, thanks!”
“Are you handy in the kitchen?”
“Getting better”, I reply
“Let’s go upstairs and fix a meal together,” says Corinne. She continues, “What are you going to do next?”
“I really don’t know. Well, that’s not quite true. I have arranged to get myself tattooed. I think Jenny would like that.”
“Good! I am sure Jenny would like that very much. Who is looking after you?”
“Ros Buchannan at …”
“I know Ros. She will do very well for you. Anything else?”
“I don’t know. This world view, it’s so new – and still very strange.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course. I was hoping you would.”
“I think you should go see Ylena Zhukova. Arrange an appointment just to meet at first. Jenny really enjoyed her sessions with Ylena. I think you will find out more about Jenny if you can put yourself in Ylena’s hands.”
“That sounds like good advice – still, you know what Oscar Wilde said about advice?”
“I think so, but tell me all the same.”
“To give advice is always a bad thing but to give good advice is absolutely fatal!”
We all dissolve into laughter and go in search of our evening meal.
CHAPTER 15 : MARKED MAN : SEPTEMBER
10 Months, 384 Days After Jenny’s Disappearance
I am standing in the office at Ink Inc, looking over Ros Buchannan’s shoulder at an image of me on the computer screen. A complex Celtic pattern swirls up my right leg, across the top of my bum, up my back, over my left shoulder and onto my pec. It sends a spur down towards the crack between my buttocks and another towards my right scapula.
Ros is just as attractively dressed as she was last time. Today she wears a close fitting white tank top which ends in a black leather skirt. My eyes follow it down to see her bare brown legs emerging from beneath the hem. She is wearing some leather flip flop sandals on her bare feet which lets me see a shower of stars coursing around her ankle and up her calf to vanish beneath the skirt. A gold ring surrounds one of her toes.
“So what d’ya think?’
“Astonishing – and huge!”
“Yep; I thought bold is what you need”
“Why?”
“You are being heroic and this is heroic. Nice fit!”
“So take me through the thinking behind this.”
“First, you said you were anxious about tiring of the design. That’s a very real problem for some people, so I have chosen ancient symbols and patterns. These have already stood the test of time. I have chosen to work with Celtic images as these will be a nice complement to Jenny’s Chinese dragon.”
I am pleased she said that. It’s why I’m here, certainly, and I like her assumption that Jenny and I are going to be back together again sometime soon.
“The symbols all have a story to tell. Tattoos always say something. Maybe it’s a souvenir of a place you visited or a rite of passage in your life. It’s also possible to go to a deeper level and use images and symbols to tell a story.” She stops, conscious that she’s evangelising a little. I don’t mind: her enthusiasm is infectious. She smiles and points to the centre of the design. “Let’s start here.”
“That’s a cross?”
“Yes. In the Christian story God sends his Son to rescue his people and the Son is prepared to make any sacrifice in order to succeed and obey his Father, even unto death. You are looking for Jenny to rescue her and will go anywhere and do anything to find her and bring her home?”
“Yes, of course”
“So there you are: The Celtic Cross.”
“Around the cross I have placed the circle of eternity, to show your lifelong commitment to Jenny and your enduring love. You are not able to find her all on your own. You need the help and support of friends, so here is the Bird of Fellowship wrapped around the Cross and the Circle of Eternity. Then there are the last three creatures; the Serpent of Wisdom, the Hound of Faithfulness and the Lion of Courage. I thought you would need each and every one of those virtues and having them drawn on you – whatever the outcome of this, you are making a statement about the sort of person you are and the values you hold.”
I’m impressed. Of course I knew there was a lot of symbolism in these designs but I hadn’t thought it could be made to relevant to me and my situation. “Wow, Ros. That is astonishing. I thought you would just be talking about a design but this, this is an essay!”
“So you would like to take this forward?”
I have no difficulty in agreeing. I’d thought that I might lose my nerve at this point but it’s quite the reverse. Ros’s rationale for the design has made me feel enthusiastic about it; anxious, even, to get on with it.
“Definitely. I would be proud to have something like this.”
“Not too big?”
“Not now!”
“OK this is what we are going to do. I have a preliminary stencil made up. I will lay the design down on you and go over it with a permanent ink marker. That will give you several days to “try it out” before the ink starts to wash off. If you still feel the same, then I’ll make an appointment for you to draw the permanent out line – and that will be permanent. Absolutely permanent. Absolutely no going back from that point, ever.
That’s going to be the toughest session because I will be quite literally laying down the foundation for the whole design. When it comes to the detailing and the in-fill, I will break that up into several individual sessions. After all, I want you to look forward to coming to see me”
“Time scale?”
“Oh, this is going to take twelve to eighteen months. However, by the end of each step you will look ‘finished’. That’s why I do all of the foundation outline in one go. You will need to take a day off for that and you might want to stay in London that night rather than drive back to Warwick or grapple with the trains.”
“OK, Ros. What can I say? Thank you seems inadequate. Inadequate for all the ingenuity and effort you have put into this. I must confess that I’m sacred too, though!”
“Ha! Well, Joseph, it’s a pleasure. Yes, you should be a bit nervous; it’s a big step after all. Let’s go through to my studio. You can get your kit off in there and I will print off the stencils.”
So now I am standing naked in front of this delightful girl who is going to modify my body irrevocably and I am enjoying every moment of the attention I am getting.
Ros returns and sprays my body with some warm water to moisten the skin. She takes each part of the stencil and carefully lays it down, massaging the thin paper so the outline transfers on to my skin. The process takes quite a long time. Ros is exacting. I guess I expected that. I’m quite glad too. The last thing you’d want hear during a tattoo session is, “Whoops!” Finally she draws over the design with a soft tipped ink marker pan. It’s tickly and once more, the physical attention is – encouraging. There has been no-one to “play” with my body since Jenny disappeared and I realise now that it’s one of the things I have missed.
“You did not take the design across my bum?
“Right across your buttocks?”
“Yes, for some reason I thought you might”
“Well, I thought the tattoo would take a more interesting route if I went up and across the top. Besides, I wanted to leave your butt clear for Jenny to give you a good spanking when she gets back, without worrying about doing damage to the tattoo!”
“What about to me?”
“You? – men can take a good spanking or a caning or even better a spanking first to warm up and a caning or whipping after to finish off. It’s good for them. Keeps them in their place!”
“Are you joking?” (Agh! Ros’s banter is starting to make me hard; I’m quite glad I’m laying on my front.)
“Hmmm, maybe - and maybe not.”
Ros’s emphasis on not clearly means she believes what she says!
I have to concentrate hard to keep myself down. She laughs and I laugh too and after that I feel as if (somehow) I have accepted her point. As I lay on her “operating table” I can see through into the office, to the wall with its collection of pictures and drawings, to Jenny who keeps unending watch from her photograph that is still up there with the others. As I catch sight of her image, she seems to smile more broadly and although it is just a trick of my eyes and brain, it makes me feel especially glad, to be where I am and glad to be doing what I am doing.
When she has finished, Ros photographs me again and I get the opportunity to see the design on my skin for the first time as I stand in front of the mirror in her studio. `It now looks even better than it did on the computer image.
“You know, Ros, you should go ahead and tattoo this properly. Right now.”
“Yeah, well, maybe, but first I want this to be right and there might be a point or two you are not happy with. You’re more likely to see that if you have to live with it a while. Also, I can review the photographs, and think again about the way it looks on you, so there could be some modifications needed before we go ahead properly. Second, I have another client in fifteen minutes and finally you have an appointment with Emma! You did remember I said I was going to hand you over to her?”
I had remembered but I hadn’t taken Ros seriously. This is another hurdle. Would Jenny like me pierced? I think so, but it’s still a hurdle for me.
I laugh and say, “Of course, just testing.” Actually I’m not sure if I am. Really, I’m a bit squeamish. But the tide of events is running strongly.
“Emma? Joseph is ready for you,” calls Ros. Emma appears, small, bouncy, elfin. She smiles and says, “Come through …….”
Emma works in another part of the building. She takes me straight through to her – surgery – I suppose you would have to call it.
“So what am I going to do to you?”
“I dunno. I think this might be Ros’s idea more than mine.”
“Really? We don’t have to you know.”
“Yes, I know we don’t have to but, well – you know about Jenny?”
“Yes, I know and you are trying to go where she has been?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“OK, well what about these ?”
Emma has a picture book – it’s full of beautifully drawn sketches of men and women with all manner of body piercings: nipples, clits, labia, penis head, penis fraenum, noses, nasal septums, navel, ears lips, eyebrows. The drawings make them much less “pornographic” than they might have been if Emma showed photographs of clients and the simplicity of the black and white airbrushed drawings somehow increases the sexiness of the pictures.
“So what shall I do for you?” she asks brightly.
I stumble and stammer a reply, “I have never seen ... I mean I never knew you could …”
“Get pierced in so many places?”
“Yes, that’s it. Eww, that looks sore – “
“Ah, the ampallang. Yes can be. Needs me to keep a steady hand! Would you like one?”
“Erm …”
“What about one of these? Just as sexy and has other advantages?”
“How do you mean?” I am looking at a drawing of a prick with a shiny metal ring emerging from the meatus. “I mean, surely that would get in the way when you pee?”
“No, not really. Maybe deflects your aim a couple of degrees. Main advantages are, its simple to do, not too much of a leap of faith for the piercee, heals quite quickly and feels nice for the partner – and they can clip a lead onto the ring and really take charge of you!”
I have a vision of Jenny leading me up to our bedroom, a leather dog’s lead clipped to the ring in my penis head flashes across my mind. But Jenny is supposed to be the submissive, isn’t she and anyway she’d want me to take the dominant role, wouldn’t she?
“Erm,” is all I say, indecision written all over my face.
“Look, Joseph I’d say we should go for the PA.”
“The PA?”
“What you have been looking at. It’s called a Prince Albert because Prince Albert was supposed to have one. Think of all those kids Queen Victoria had. Obviously it had no bad effects, on any natural functions, except to maybe inflame them! It’s also called a TMR, or transmeatal ring, if you want to be “medical” about it.”
“Do you always bully your clients?”
“Always.”
“Ah.” I heave a deep sigh. “OK let’s go for it!”
“Good, but first: medical history form and consent form. You have to read them and fill them in. Whilst you are doing that, just put this on.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s a condom with some anaesthetic gel inside. It will have worked by the time you are through and if you can also squirt some of the gel down inside yourself from this little syringe.”
Emma produces a small syringe with some white cream inside it. There is no needle on the end, and the tiny “spout” on the end easily slips inside my urethra.
“Good. Trousers off. Climb up onto the couch.”
I follow orders and Emma dons a pair of rubber gloves and spreads a sheet of sterile paper drape over the counter next to me. Whilst she is getting ready, I’m conscious of conflicting emotions inside me. I’m nervous about what she is going to do, of course but I’m looking forward to having the ring in me. I’m surprised at myself; that I’m going ahead with it. I’m angry at Jenny for not being there anymore. I’m angry at the idea Jenny might be sitting comfortably in some Italian café somewhere, sipping an espresso. I’m frightened for her, thinking that she might just have been taken and wondering what on earth she is having to endure.
“Take a deep breath …”
Emma’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “What?”
“I said take a deep breath: in, out, in, out, till I tell you to stop.”
I can feel Emma holding my prick, manipulating the head in her fingers. For a moment I can’t figure out what is going on, I have been so wrapped up in thinking about Jenny. Then comes a sore-ish prodding feeling and as I breath out – Agh! Agh! Agh! – pain. Sharp, white, cutting pain but only for a few seconds and probably not even that. Emma’s voice comes again, soft and soothing this time.
“And you are done! That’s the introducer out, and here is the ring going in.” Tenderness again …“And that’s the cannula out and I have just got to insert the ball to close the ring and that’s you! Now I am going to wrap you up inside a rubber glove in case you get any bleeding. Make sure you have plenty to drink and when you need to pee, sit down and just let go. It probably will not even sting but there will be a bit of blood in your urine.”
I realise I am breathing rather fast and rather deeply. Emma puts a hand on my shoulder. “OK?” she says.
“OK” I reply.
“Just sit up when you are ready.”
When I am comfortably sitting up she looks towards me again and asks “What else shall we do?”
“Else?”
“Hm, you know you would look good with a small barbell in your tragus.”
“Tragus?”
“It’s the bit of your ear half way down on the inside. Here - this bit.”
“Oh, but I’m not sure they would be happy with that at the Office.”
“You could have clear balls on either end of the rod, much more difficult to see.”
Bugger the office, I think.
“OK Emma but this is the last.”
“Agreed, for now – here.”
Another form?”
“Consent form again.”
“What about a ‘consent to being bullied’ form?”
“Don’t have those,” she replies and laughs.
“Are you like this with all your clients?”
“Nope – just you! Right, this is it.”
“Ouch!”
There, easy. Oh yes! That will look nice when you wear an all-metal barbell. Now here are your after care instructions. Your PA will be better with a thicker ring but the first piercing needs to heal properly first and then I can stretch you up a bit when Ros is working on you.”
“From what to what?”
“You have a 1.5mm thick ring now. I could go to 2.5mm next time – give it four months or so, and then go to 3mm. Personally I like the thick chunky rings best. I’d like to see you wearing a 4 or even 5mm thick ring but it would take four stretches to get there over twelve months or so.”
“Look, I’ve had just plenty today thank you. Do you do coffee to revive your clients?”
“Not always but because it’s you, yes. Oh and you have to pay …..”
“Yes I thought, paying. Am I paying for more than the tattooing and piercing? Am I paying for Jenny’s disappearance? Would she still be here if I had done this before? Anyway, I am pierced now - and in the realisation of what I have done, I find myself grinning widely and enjoying the endorphin rush it has given me.
Emma returns: “here’s coffee and also Ros’s appointments diary. She can see you exactly one month from now. OK?”
“OK”
I’m feeling pleased with myself. Pleased with my decisions; pleased that I’ve actually done something about them. On the other hand, nothing I have done today, will bring Jenny back any sooner, but at least it feels like I am doing something!
CHAPTER 16 : VANILLA OR RASPBERRY : OCTOBER
11 MONTHS, 355 DAYS AFTER JENNY’S DISAPPEARANCE
“At the roundabout, take the second exit. Continue to follow the road.”
“This can’t be right,” I say to myself. I’m driving along what, at one time, must have the by-pass of a growing town to the north-east of London. Now it’s just a busy road like many others as the town has been absorbed by the steadily expanding suburbs. I’m coming here at Corinne’s suggestion. It was her idea for me to meet Ylena Zhukova and I’ve just realised that I’ve gone past the group of suburban houses ,where I was expecting to find her.
I’m also wondering whether it is really a good idea to be here at all? I’m beginning to wonder if this whole thing is a foolish exercise. If I was the man Jenny wants me to be, shouldn’t I be able to be her Dom all by myself? What would she think, if she knew I was here? Would she be pleased I was trying this, or upset that I couldn’t sort it out for myself? I’ve tried to read more about the BDSM world on some of the sites on the Internet. Some have been helpful and others less so, but at least I understand some of the “technicalities’ better than I did.
“Continue to follow the road.” The sat-nav is implacable. I may think that the meeting place is back behind me but her voice drives me onwards. I wonder if dominatrixes have seen a down turn in trade, since anyone can have a bossy woman in their car, all the time? Or do they record the voices tracks for sat navs in their spare time? I realise that I’m grinning. I’m almost surprised that I can make a joke of things. It’s probably just my anxiety.
“At the roundabout take the first exit and then take the first left.” In spite of the sat-nav’s insistence, I’m becoming increasingly sceptical. This is a trading estate. There’s just a collection of small factory units, warehouses and newly developed low rise office blocks. The road system is a maze but the sat-nav sends me along roads lined by anonymous looking, buildings with lorry cabs or empty trailers parked outside them. There are a few other cars. It’s not busy but it’s not quiet either. “Take the next left. ... You have reached your destination.”
I do as I’m told and I’m pleased to see that, in spite of my suspicions, I may be in the right place after all. There’s a sign on the wall of the single storey building in front of me that has the same symbol that was on the business card Corinne gave me; a pyramid inside a cube, inside a sphere. Beside the symbol it says, “Just Desserts”. The place looks like a small manufacturing unit. It’s freshly painted, white with panels of pale green and pale pink on the blank areas of wall. I go inside.
“Hi, how can I help?” a smiling faced woman asks, as I enter. She sits behind a reception desk in the simply furnished entrance area. There’s a model of the symbol from the business card on her desk on a base with the words “Just Desserts”
“Err, I was looking for Ms Zhukova.” I’m not absolutely certain that I’m where I should be.
“Of course. Do you have an appointment? Ah yes, you’ll be Mr McEwan. I’ll tell her you’re here.”
I nod in acknowledgement. If the truth is known, I’m feeling even less enthusiastic now than I was in the car.
The surroundings don’t strike me as being the dungeon of a professional dominatrix, and Ylena’s appearance, when she arrives a few moments later, is equally unconvincing. She’s an attractive woman but she hardly looks the part, wearing a loose cotton dress in a pale peasant print, bare legs and open strappy sandals. Not what I’m expecting at all. I ought to be reassured, because the whole place is free from all the popular Domme clichés
I’m feeling a bit confused: “I thought this was an ice cream factory,” I say, nodding at the model on the reception desk.
“Yes,” says Ylena. “Most people do. As a matter of fact I import Russian Ice Cream. It’s in demand from the Russian ex-patriate community in the UK” She waves me through to an adjoining room. Ylena’s office is modern, comfortable and you could almost say, cosy. There is a professionally tidy desk to one side sporting a computer, printer and PDA cradle. It puts mine to shame for neatness. There’s a rolodex with index cards and a three drawer filing cabinet.
“Have a seat, please.”
As we both sit down, I get the first sense that perhaps this woman is interested in having the upper hand. Looking across at her desk, Ylena’s chair is upright but the visitor’s chair, the chair I am sitting in, is lower and leans back slightly. Anyone sitting there would feel at a distinct psychological disadvantage – just as I do now.
She suggests we use a small sofa and an easy chair arranged around a coffee table on the far side of the office. A standard lamp throws a soft pool of light down.
Ylena waves me towards the sofa while she settles in the easy chair. It’s an efficient room but it’s a comfortable room too. I feel like it’s a room that encourages conversation and the spilling of confidences. It’s just as well; I haven’t really been looking forward to this discussion.
Even so I decide that I ought to begin the negotiations. “I guess Corinne let you know what this is about,” I say.
“Yes,” Ylena responds. “You must miss your wife terribly.”
I’m surprised by Ylena’s opening remarks because compassion wasn’t what I really expected and it’s nice of her to express concern. “Of course. But I hope she’ll be back one day, and I’m trying to get ready so that when she returns we’ll be able to share whatever it is she wants to share.”
“That’s an ambitious goal. Your wife was, sorry is, a very committed individual. She is determined to live out her fantasies to the full.”
“I thought the slave just had to put up with whatever the mistress wanted,” I say. I don’t really understand how Ylena’s assertions fit in with a sub-dom relationship.
“That’s another common misconception but you can learn a lot about this if you are prepared to open your mind. Now what did you have in mind?” Ylena looks across to me, as her desk as her intercom buzzes. “I’m sorry, excuse me a moment.” She gets up, walks over and presses a button on the intercom.
“Your 2 o’clock appointment has confirmed.” It’s the girl from reception on the other end.
“Fine, Judy. Make room three ready for him when he arrives.” She turns back to me. “I’m sorry about that. I expect clients with longer appointments to confirm twenty four hours ahead but this particular client was unable to confirm until today. You were saying.”
“Err, yes. Well, I’ve thought about this. It’s obvious that Jenny wants me to take a more dominant role; that she’d like me to take the lead in some of her BDSM interests and I suppose I wanted to get some ideas of how I might do that.”
“That’s really what I understood from what Corinne told me,” Ylena says. “Well, for a start, I should arrange an introductory session for you, something like the one I will start this afternoon. That’s probably as good a way as any to begin. This client is pretty much a beginner. I would think something like this would be the right thing for you to get started with.”
I’m a bit taken aback. Firstly, by the suddenness of it all and the matter of fact-ness too. Secondly, it she sounds to be suggesting that I get involved in a domination scene, with one of her other clients. I’m still wondering about how to respond when Judy appears at the door.
“Everything is ready now,” she says.
“Good,” Ylena responds. “Wait there for a moment, will you.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Judy responds and drops to her knees, bowing her head and placing her hands behind her back. I look on bemused by the sudden change of atmosphere from the conventional office, to something much stranger. On the other hand The involvement of the large breasted Judy, will certainly add interest to whatever will happen in ‘number 3’.
Ylena turns back to me. “So, would you like me to make arrangements for you?”
“Err, well,” I begin. Ylena looks steadily at me. She’s obviously had experience of clients who just cannot bring themselves to go ahead with their first session and she can obviously tell that there’s a distinct risk of me doing just that. “Look, I’m sorry. This may be all very straight-forward for you, but it’s pretty new for me and I’ve never been involved in dominating someone else. I am not sure I could go ahead with … with your colleague here or your other client.”
“ Ah, I’m sorry, of course,” Ylena nods. She obviously now understands my confusion. “Don’t worry it would not be at all like that. There’s no question of you being involved in dominating. I’ll take you through the same initial sessions that I do for any of my subs. You’ll just have to do as you’re told.”
“But I do not want to train as sub and I do not feel as though I am one. Jenny wants me to take a dominant role and I would like your advice on how I go about doing that with Jenny”
“Maybe she does and maybe you do but that’s not how it works. You can’t just leap in and it’s almost impossible to take the leading role without knowing what it’s like to be led. It’s how I started and how I have started all of the other dommes I have trained. It’s how I shall start with you, if you want to go through with learning more about this. Otherwise I think we have finished.”
I’m suddenly aware that whatever Ylena is wearing and whatever she may look like, she can certainly make her wishes crystal clear and she is obviously determined that things should be just as she wants. I’m feeling more uneasy than ever though. This isn’t turning out in the way I imagined and I’m not at all sure that I’m ready for what Ylena proposes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I think I’ve wasted your time. I think I’ll just go now.”
“I understand,” says Ylena. She’s not annoyed. Maybe she’s disappointed, but she still sounds sympathetic. “I’m sorry if there was any confusion. Give me a call if you change your mind. I’d like to help make things better for Jenny.”
As Judy is showing me out, I’m thinking of Ylena’s words. Am I really running away from something that would make things better for Jenny? How does that square up with the promises I made to myself? By the time I get back into his car under the direction of my implacable “navigatrix”, I’m feeling that I have let Jenny down. It’s not what I intended.
“ Recalculating,” the sav nav dominatrix says, apparently with some exasperation: “Make a U turn as soon as possible.”
I’m back again at Just Desserts, sitting in the car park. Ylena was understanding when I called her back. It was probably one of the most difficult phone calls I have ever made but I really am determined to do what I can to be ready, ready for Jenny when she comes back and I think that Ylena sensed my commitment.
So here I am, not at all sure what to expect and more nervous than I could have imagined. My mouth is dry and my pulse is up. I’m feeling a strange mixture of trepidation, anticipation and curiosity. I can see now, how people could get hooked on this sensation.
I get out of the car and head in to reception. Judy is there again, sitting behind her desk and looking primly efficient. “Nice to see you back, Joseph,” she says with a genuine welcome in her voice. “I’ll let Ms Zukhova know that you’re here. Can you just read through this and let me know if there are any problems with it?”
She gives me a sheet of paper with the words, “Initial Sessions : Guidance for Visitors” printed on the top. I read it but there aren’t any real surprises.
“Your initial sessions are likely to involve some or all of the following physical activities. If you have any reservations about any of these activities or are suffering from any medical condition that might be exacerbated by them please make us aware. Please indicate your consent to participating in these activities by signing in the space provided below.”
The list that follows includes confinement in enclosed spaces, physical restraint, use of gags and blindfolds and mild physical punishment. An asterisk against the word “mild” is repeated with a note at the foot of the page saying “not severe enough to mark your skin.”
I suppose it’s what I expected. There is no reason to prevent me signing. I sign and date it. I leave a copy on the reception desk.
Judy exclaims, “Oh, thank you, that’s fine,” as she picks it up and reads it through on her return. “Just come on through. Ms Zukhova is in room two.”
Judy show me through into a room that looks a little like the room at Inward Bound, where Ylena and Jenny had their encounter. There’s the same comfortable furniture, the same padded leather horse or bench or whatever you call it. And, of course, there is Ylena. She is sitting in one of the armchairs, looking no more of a dominatrix than she did last time. On this occasion, her outfit is a little more severe; a dark trouser suit and a pale blue silk blouse, but she’s hardly the corset clad, stilt heeled, über-bitch. She is wearing leather gloves though, something that’s slightly out of place in this comfortable room. She doesn’t get up but she does look up as I enter. “Good,” she says, in a quiet but definite tone. “You’re on time. I like that.”
I feel a tingle inside me. That one statement fills me with contradictory responses. I find that I’m pleased to have pleased her but, the same time, I’m resistant to the idea that I have been unwittingly obedient. Her remark also carries an invitation to speculate on what she might have said or done, had I not been on time. I’m surprised by the way in which so many feelings can be conjured up so easily and the way that there is something curiously erotic about it; the combination of perfectly normal conversation and the context of sexual games. I don’t feel a reply is necessary or expected.
“Let me explain a few things,” she continues quietly. “While we are in here, I expect you to respond to my instructions without question and without objection. If, at any time, you wish the session to end simply say ‘Red’. Do you understand?”
“Yes, er, Mistress.” I respond. I suppose that’s appropriate from what I’ve read.
“Good,” she says, “but please use Gaspazha, not Mistress.”
“Gaspazha?” It’s not a word I’ve heard before.
She nods but doesn’t explain. “Now: please undress.”
I had expected this from what I had read but now I have to do it, the order seems sudden and unreasonable. Ylena see my hesitation but says nothing. It’s foolish really, I know she must have given this instruction many times before and seen bodies less attractive than mine and I’ve never worried about stripping off at home or at the gym. Of course it’s the context that makes the difference. That and the fact that Judy is standing watching with ill-disguised interest.
I do as Ylena instructs. She watches with an appraising intensity, as if she’s sizing up my physical condition. Judy is watching too but her gaze is less …professional. Almost against my expectations, I’m finding this arousing as a lengthening and thickening of my now bare prick confirms. Instinctively I drop my hands to cover my embarrassment but that’s not what Ylena wants. She shakes her head and I take my hands away. Judy responds with a beaming smile. I blush. All over. All that does is to make her giggle. Ylena frowns, but it’s at Judy, not me.
“Thank you,” says Ylena. The politeness is unexpected. In fact, the whole scenario is free from any sense of the violence or viciousness that I had imagined, when Jenny first spoke of her encounters. “Now come here and kneel down in front of me.”
It’s easy for me to do as she asks. I feel as though we are both conspirators in the situation.
“I’m going to collar you and cuff your wrists,” she tells me. “The collar is to remind you of your position, to mark you out as my property while you are with me. The cuffs are to restrain you, to remind you that even your freedom of movement, is in my gift.”
She doesn’t ask me, which is not unexpected. She nods to Judy who picks up a tray and brings it across. On the tray are three beautifully crafted leather items, each with a buckle and strap and d-rings. Another nod from Ylena to Judy and she takes the largest one and places it around my neck.
Ylena leans forwards, her face close to mine and her perfume filling my nostrils. She reaches behind my neck, drawing the collar tightly around it. The padded edge of the wide collar fits under my jaw and holds my head in a fixed position, it’s surprisingly restrictive. I don’t resist in any way. She fastens the buckle and turns her attentions to the wrist straps. As she moves back, her scent fades too. I’m intrigued by the intensity with which I’m sensing my surroundings. Everything is happening very slowly it seems and with an exquisite potency that amplifies everything. She takes each of the straps. They too are fitted snugly in place, not restrictive of themselves but powerfully symbolic.
“Please stand and turn around,” Ylena says. I do as she asks. It only seems right. As I stand there passively she draws my arms behind my back and uses some sort of clip to fasten the d-rings on my wrist cuffs together. Instinctively I go to pull my wrists apart but to no effect. Judy wags an admonishing finger at me with a smile.
I feel her hand reach out and cup my naked backside. I tense in response. “Don’t worry, slooga, I won’t hurt you but I do want you to experience what it means to receive. Judy, a paddle and ball, please.”
“Now Joseph, kneel down beside me,” Ylena says. “I have a word for you to learn, ‘slooga’. It means ‘servant’, my servant, my property, one of my belongings, while you are here.”
Judy nods in response to Ylena’s request and goes to a cupboard. She returns with what looks like a broad thick kitchen spatula but its made of leather and a large red rubber ball on a strap. It’s pretty obvious what they are for. Ylena picks up the ball gag, first of all.
“Do we need that, Gazpazha?” I ask.
My question earns a raised eyebrow from Ylena but she decides to indulge me. “That is an interesting question,” she says. “You are obviously a strong man, it will take a lot to make you cry out but that is not my aim, at least not this time. So, we do not ‘need’ it to prevent your cries. I do need to gag you because I wish to deprive you of speech. You have the ability to make the only communication you need, to stop the scene. For my slooga, speech is not often needed. So you wear this for me. Not because it is needed to keep you quiet but to remind you that your speech is not required, not needed.”
She doesn’t ask if I understand. She knows that her words have an incontrovertible logic given the circumstances. She turns towards me and lifts the gag. I turn my head to face her and open my mouth without a word. She smiles and I feel glad inside that I have pleased her.
It’s a peculiar sensation as she pushes the ball in, wedging it behind my teeth, pressing my tongue down and filling my mouth with the taste of the hard rubber. She fastens the strap. It’s not tight but it will stop me pushing the ball out of my mouth. Assuming I wanted to and then I realize that gagged as I am, I will not be able to use my “safe word” so I am now forced to trust Gaspazha to look after me and respect my lack of experience. Whilst I may be prepared to trust her, but it seems there are limits to how far she trusts me to manage my forthcoming experience: She takes a cat’s bell and ties it to thin red tape and then ties the tape to my right index finger. “Instead of your safe word”, she says.
She reaches across me and runs a gloved hand down my chest and stops with it over my nipple. She rubs. The nipple responds. It stiffens and becomes erect – as much as it can. The sensation is pleasant, tickly. A moment later a sharp pinch forces a cry from me. I’m surprised by the strange animal like nature of the noise that I make. She nods. That was why she did it. To let me know what she has done to me, to let me know what I have let her do to me.
Ylena uses a hand on my shoulder to encourage me to turn around and the same hand bends me forward across her lap. Before I couldn’t have imagined letting a woman – or anyone else for that matter – get ready to beat me but now it seems the most natural thing in the world. It’s something we are both going to get something from; she, the satisfaction of my obedience; me, the sense of moving closer to something Jenny found so important.
The first blow with the paddle lands across my buttocks. It’s quite light, little more than the weight of the paddle itself falling on me. There’s more of the same, the interval between each blow lessening steadily until the paddle is rapping against me every second or so. I feel my backside beginning to tingle independently of the blows. While she keeps up the beating with her right hand she uses her left to stroke my back between my restrained arms, running her fingers down to where the cuffs are joined together and up again towards my shoulders.
Ylena pauses. I grunt involuntarily through the gag surprised by the ceasing of the blows. She hasn’t finished though. I feel her lean forward across my back. I hadn’t realised how much I was sweating until I feel the cool silk of her blouse brush against my nakedness. Her move is explained by an increase in the intensity of the blows. They are still not hard but now there is more of her strength behind them. They fall steadily but slowly. I hadn’t realised how precise an art this was, but I am now aware that I am anticipating the next blow in just the same way you might anticipate the next note, in a song that you know. Occasionally she surprises me, varying the weight of the blow or changing where it lands. I realise that the intensity has increased to the point where the blows are now longer just tingling, now they are hurting. Each one sends a spike of pain through my buttocks and though I could, I suppose, break free from her grasp, I do no more than wriggle in her grip.
“Be still,” she admonishes, rewarding my struggles with two heavier blows, one to each buttock, both of which bring muffled cries from behind the gag.
The steady tattoo of blows on my backside continues until I am aware of nothing else but the slap of the leather and the spikes of pain. I realise that I’m not conscious of anything else, of Ylena, of Judy of where I am, of anything. I’m completely lost in the sensations of the beating and for the first time I believe I understand something of what Jenny must have been driven by.
It’s at that moment that Ylena stops. She sits up and places a hand under my chin to indicate I should kneel up. “That will do for now,” she announces: she smiles, “You are released!”
Judy comes forward, unfastens the gag and eases it from my mouth. As the ball is pulled clear, the corners of my mouth tingle from where the strap has cut into them.
“Thank you, Gaspazha,” I say; the formulaic response of a slave to a beating but, in my case, sincerely meant.
Judy releases the clasp that fixed my wrist cuffs together and I realise how unimportant the restraint has been except as a symbol of Ylena’s control. Ylena reaches up to the collar encircling my neck. “I think you understand a little more,” she says.
She’s right: it must be her experience speaking. “Yes,” I say in acknowledgement.
“That is enough for now. Think about what you have experienced. You can come again if you wish. Judy fetch moi slooga’s clothes, please. Perhaps we will meet again.” With that Ylena Zukhova gets to her feet and leaves the room, not waiting for any response from me. Judy looks disappointed as I dress, which is a compliment I suppose. I run my hands across my buttocks. They feel hot and sore but I’m surprised by how little I am concerned by this. I look at my watch. I have been with Ylena for just an hour. It’s only as I am about to leave that I realise that I am still wearing the collar that Ylena had placed around my neck. It almost seems an act of disobedience to remove it. Judy smiles understandingly as she takes it off.
I can still feel its stiff rigidity about my neck as if it was still there, while I am driving home.
“Keep straight on and you will reach your destination,” says my in-car domina.
© Phil Lane & Freddie Clegg 2010
All characters fictitious
No reposting without permission.
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