Game. Justine Elyot

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      He points to a less glamorous envelope, a thin brown one tossed aside to be dealt with once the post with posh watermarks has been opened.

      ‘Dunno, looks like … it isn’t stamped.’ I look sharply up at Lloyd. His face answers my question, a little bit tense, a little bit excited.

      He feigns absorption in his spreadsheet, but I can tell he’s watching me from the corner of his eye. I slide a fingernail under the loosely gummed flap, watching him back.

      A compliment slip flutters out, one of the hotel’s own.

      On it, in Lloyd’s handwriting:

       Whip me, hurt me, any way you want me

      As long as you want me, it’s all right.

      I hold it out to him. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

      ‘I booked one of the dungeons at Fetish Fantasy.’

      ‘We’ve done that before. More than once.’

      ‘Not this way. As the note implies, I don’t want to be in charge this time.’

      ‘You never are in charge.’

      ‘I don’t want to play at being in charge this time,’ he amends. ‘I want you to get your kinky boots on and practise flexing that whip hand.’ He leans forwards in his chair, his pupils skittering from side to side, his lips wet. ‘I want you to hurt me.’

      He sounds like he means it. But …

      ‘When have you ever been interested in pain?’

      ‘I’m not. I’m dreading it, actually. I’m hoping you’ll be more into the mental domination stuff.’

      ‘I’m not really into any domination stuff,’ I point out. ‘I’ve only ever been on the receiving end.’

      ‘Well, that’s what makes it a challenge, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s exciting, you get to wear loads of fucking sexy gear … you don’t look convinced.’

      I blink at him, trying to imagine what his face looks in pain. I don’t want to imagine it, though. I really don’t.

      ‘Come on, Soph. You’d have killed for the chance to do me some serious damage not so long ago. Now’s your chance to let it all out. Show me the red-in-tooth-and-claw Sophie, the take-no-prisoners Sophie, the woman who’s always one hundred per cent in control.’

      ‘That’s why I like submission,’ I grumble. ‘It’s a holiday from all that.’

      ‘Well, have a busman’s holiday then. Or am I sensing the delicate aroma of …’ He sniffs the air. ‘Failure.’

      ‘Fuck off. It’ll be easy enough. Just … I don’t know. Nothing. It’s fine. Let’s do it.’

      Lloyd claps his hands with apparent delight. ‘Can’t wait for you to walk all over me in your spike-heeled thigh-high boots,’ he claims.

      ‘I’m not sure I believe you. But neither can I.’

      ‘Great. I’ve booked it for midnight. They suggest you get there half an hour beforehand to pick out your costume and select your instruments of torture and terror. I’ll see you there.’

      He launches himself out of the chair, kisses me passionately until I almost fall over, then waltzes off to take his lunch break.

      I sit myself down in the chair he has vacated and stare at the computer screen, a sea of meaningless figures in rectangular boxes.

      It strikes me now as more than a little odd that I’ve never done anything like this before. Call myself a hussy … Yet somehow I’ve always managed to signal my desire to submit rather than dominate before the action has reached its crisis. Nobody has ever asked me to hurt them, though one man once wanted me to tie him up and tease him. That was easy enough, though, just a bit of fun.

      This seems much more serious.

      ***

      By eleven thirty I am in the giant fancy-dress wardrobe at Fetish Fantasy, being shown around by its proud mistress, Zuleika.

      I have in mind something skintight and shiny, and she obliges by finding the perfect figure-hugging number in wet-look latex. Once she has talcum-powdered and trussed me into it, I peer at myself in the mirrored wall, searching for bulges of unforgiving flesh, but the rubber nips it all in, giving me a catwoman silhouette I think I might wear more often.

      When I turn around and look over my shoulder at the generous swell of my bottom, I almost purr with satisfaction. Lloyd is going to love that.

      But he’s going to have to be content with looking at it.

      Tonight, he gets nowhere near my arse.

      ‘So, I think we were thinking of killer heels,’ I tell Zuleika, but she is well ahead of me. Already she has picked out the ideal pair, and she sets to work lacing me into them, threading through the hooks and eyes until I am crisscrossed to the thigh and towering on five inches of potential murder weapon. The world looks different from up here.

      Zuleika grins, her eyebrows disappearing into her bright pink fringe. ‘It’s a new view, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘You look down on people.’

      I’ve never been remotely statuesque, but my inner goddess peeks out now from her clamshell-tight hiding place. I can almost see her in the mirror. What else do I need to coax her further?

      ‘How do you want your hair? Some dommes like it in a really tight high plait or ponytail. Or you can have it loose.’

      My hair isn’t really long enough to flow gloriously and luxuriantly and all that jazz, but I’m not sure the high hairline look suits me either.

      ‘Can I just do some kind of hairband?’

      A black sparkly number pushes any errant wisps out of my face. I paint my eyes black and my lips red and grin at myself.

      ‘I have this urge to call everyone “darling” now,’ I tell Zuleika. ‘In a stagey drawl. Oh, daaaaaaarling, do as you’re told, sweetie, or I might have to hurt your lovely little … well, you get the picture.’

      Zuleika narrows her eyes and smiles. ‘You’re missing the critical accessory,’ she says. ‘What’s it to be, Miss Whiplash? Flogger? Riding crop?’

      ‘Both.’

      In the dungeon, I take a good look around, mentally listing the things I might want to use. I need to prepare for this scene, since it’s so foreign to me, and making a rigid plan comforts me and gives me confidence. I like the cuffs that hang from a hook in a ceiling – tick. I like the blindfold, but then he won’t get to see me as a glorious vision in latex, so no tick for that. And a strap-on … hmmm. Now, that could make an interesting finale …

      There is a knock at the dungeon door, an echoing clang that makes my heart thump.

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