The Pleasure Quartet (24 page)

Finally, he stood encased in the black costume from neck to toe. I saw a hood in similar material waiting on the bench, with small circular eyelets and a zip where his mouth would fit. He picked
the hood up and, holding it open carefully, squeezed a few puffs of talc directly inside.

‘Saves spreading it over my face and probably into my eyes,’ he explained.

I nodded, and resolved never to wear such an outfit myself, not that I would be likely to ever require anything in latex. I couldn’t imagine how Gwillam would manage to go to the toilet
during the evening. Hopefully he wouldn’t ask me to assist.

‘Your turn,’ Gwillam intimated, pointing to the long satin ribbon. I was still staring at the instruction sheet, trying to decide which of the various configurations would look good
and actually stay in place all night. I had rummaged all through the bags, but didn’t find any trace of sewing kit or pins. With a nod of the chin, he indicated the panties I was still
wearing. With Matilda still present, although too busy right now seeing to her own adjustments to pay any attention to me, mussing her hair, smoothing her silk tunic, I felt terribly
self-conscious, painfully aware of the cheap nature of my Marks & Spencer cotton briefs and the fact that my body could in no way rival hers for curves and innate elegance.

I quickly slipped off the knickers and stuffed them down inside the carrier bag, and turned, preserving what was left of my modesty from her gaze and possible scrutiny.

‘Let’s puzzle this out,’ Gwillam said, picking up the untidy array of what was supposed to be my costume and holding it up to me. There was a moment of silence as he studied
the instruction diagram with rapt attention, and I heard a swoosh as Matilda left the room, finally leaving us alone, openly wounding us with her indifference.

‘Raise your left arm,’ Gwillam suggested, passing the length of satin over my shoulder, running one extremity over my breasts and frowning in concentration while he repeated the
manoeuver around my other shoulder and breast and attempted to fix it into place without any fastenings. ‘Hmmm,’ he reflected, observing his work. ‘This is worse than architecture
. . .’

It took another few minutes for him to complete his construction of the diminutive costume and dressing me into a state of relative undress. The endless black strap was finally in place,
circling me like an octopus, my whole body crisscrossed with a series of interconnected satin strips, and creating artificial curves that I felt did not belong to me, highlighting every single
imperfection I was aware of. Not that it was much of a costume anyway, as over three quarters of my skin was still bare and on flagrant display. It almost felt worse than being naked, like being
trussed up for a slave auction. At least there was no mirror in the room for me to actually witness the spectacle I would be making of myself.

‘Rather fetching,’ Gwillam remarked as he gazed at me with a faint smile spread across his lips. ‘Now, the boots,’ he said.

They reached to mid-thigh, and fitted me like a glove, their metal-tips burnished and fierce. But the heels were higher than any I had worn before and I would have to walk most carefully with
them to avoid toppling over and appearing even more ridiculous.

‘Good,’ Gwillam appraised me. ‘I think we’re ready.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said.

‘Time to rock ’n’ roll, then . . .’ Taking me by one hand and holding his talced black hood in his other hand, Gwillam opened the door and we followed in Matilda’s
footsteps. I doubted, though, whether I was about to shake my bones or blissfully body sway to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix or the Incredible String Band, let alone Pink Floyd . . .

A warren of rooms opened up on both sides of the lengthy, carpeted corridor.

Had I been expecting an atmosphere reminiscent of the Hellfire Club, all underground grottos, naked stone walls dripping with the accumulated sweat of decades of excess and
flickering torches, I would have been sorely disappointed. The rooms were dimly lit, but the fixtures and decorations were pleasantly anonymous if not even suburban in their plainness. Furniture
straight out of high street displays, imitation art deco lamps and fixtures, brocade curtains, pastel-coloured throws and coverings.

Folk were gathered in small groups, standing about in clusters, talking in low, hushed voices, leisurely sitting on long sofas, deep in conversation, balancing glasses of wine, or moving at
random between the set of available rooms with no particular destination in mind.

Where matters parted from everyday reality was in the way everyone was dressed. If I had thought that Gwillam and I would stand out, I was wrong. We were even unremarkable. My revealing network
of black satin geometric strips was actually modest in comparison with the way some of the other women, and men, were clad. My eyes ran frantically between the gathering’s motley participants
as we strolled along, unable to register all the details without lingering too long on the way. Sumptuous and regal sets of breasts were cupped high, as if held in vices and offered for wanton
display, jewellery-adorned or actually painted, or the inescapable size of the frequent metal-like codpieces fronting the men’s fierce leather garments where there was actually a barrier
protecting their genitalia. Some of the male standers-by had even dispensed with the formality of cock shields or cups, a circle cut into the fabric of their breeches unveiling the jutting of their
cocks and the weighty back curtain of their ballsacks. I tried not to stare. Especially at the rings and small metal bars that sometimes decorated their cocks.

Modesty was not the order of the day, but, paradoxically, most of the people here wore diverse masks, so that few of them actually displayed their features. I was one of the rare open-faced
persons present. I looked around at Gwillam; he had slipped on his black hood, so all I could see were the pinpoints of his eyes and the slash of his thin lips peering between the zip.

‘Quite a party,’ I whispered to Gwillam.

‘A birthday,’ he remarked.

‘Whose?’

‘Just an acquaintance,’ he answered. ‘A male friend.’

A murmur of sounds reached us as we arrived at the end of the corridor and walked into a large conservatory situated towards the back of the house. The light here was even dimmer and it took me
a while to get the lie of the land and pick out what was happening in one corner where some form of activity was taking place. A short man dressed in a Pierrot costume was trailing a whip in his
right hand and demonstrating to another how to wield it properly. The man he was teaching wore an elegant white dinner suit, a shocking-red bow tie like a splash of blood around his throat, and his
face was obscured by a Pulcinella mask topped off by a matching hat. There was something sinister about the cartoon headgear and the contrast with the clean lines of his tailored suit.

As I observed them, my eyes were captivated by the swish of the whip and the way it caressed the dull brown leather of the stool he was practising on. A small crowd observed them, standing in a
circle around the two men.

A flash of recognition drove through my mind, recalling Joan’s tales of whips and punishment, and the way those stories had perversely excited me when I had read them.

Pierrot corrected Pulcinella’s stance and his dark, painted lips smirked with satisfaction.

A buzz of anticipation ran through the small audience.

The circle parted and a tall, stocky man, also clad in dark leather and weighed down by intricate patterns of metal straps, stepped towards us. Arriving by our side, he ignored me, made a
beeline for Gwillam and kissed him smack on the lips. I froze while the kiss endured.

‘Come,’ the stranger said to Gwillam, his hand cupping Gwillam’s latex-sheathed arse with much familiarity. Gwillam nodded.

‘You’ll be okay,’ Gwillam said to me as he began to walk away in the wake of his acquaintance. ‘Enjoy yourself . . . Do whatever pleases you. The word “no”
here always does mean no . . .’ He faded through the crowd, abandoning me to my fate.

I turned back to look at the Pierrot, but he had moved aside, and two women in evanescent silk shifts were sliding a small but sturdy wooden saw-horse across the floor to place it in front of
the white-suited Pulcinella, who was now holding the whip aloft. From the back, the whip-wielding man looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place him. The Punch and Judy hat covered his
hair.

He parted his legs, steadying his position.

One of the women in sheer transparent silk, her breasts hanging heavy behind the material with a glint of sparkling metal teasing her nipples, returned, gently leading a short, fully naked young
woman towards the saw-horse’s frame and delicately arranged her across the padded beam. As they moved, I noted the vulnerable girl was wearing thigh-high boots similar to mine, the dark shine
of the leather a striking contrast to the milky glaze of her pale skin.

My heart tightened.

The girl was now lying on her stomach and the other woman slowly parted her legs as she disposed her, exposing the pinkness of her cunt lips.

And I could not but recognise Iris.

I shuddered. Blood running hot and cold in my veins as I stood rooted to the spot. My initial impulse was to call out to her, but the words froze at the back of my throat and all I heard was a
strangulated groan.

The other spectators pressed behind me and by my sides, all eager for a better view of what was about to unfold. I had no choice but to move indecently closer.

My eyes unavoidably directed their stare towards Iris’s beautiful arse and the visibly wet lips of her sex.

Pulcinella moved between us, raising the whip.

Now I knew who he was: it could only be Thomas.

I was unsure now where to look first: the sheer beauty of Iris’s exposed body, the elegant line of Thomas’s movements as his arm rose and the whip flew or the actual whip itself
– soft in appearance, multi-threaded, seductive, snakelike, so full of promises.

The whip cracked and I jumped.

A hoarse sound rose from Iris’s depths as she seized up. I held my breath, as if wishing to delay the impact of the whip against the delicate surface of her skin. A sigh of satisfaction
ran through the small group of onlookers.

Thomas’s arm rose again. Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught sight of Pierrot, following the angle of rise and descent of the whip, a teacher approving his pupil.

Again, the thin leather threads bounced off the bared skin of Iris’s arse and she trembled imperceptibly, still courageously holding back the sounds inevitably birthing in the back of her
throat.

I wanted to rush to her side, kneel in front of her and hold my hand out, wipe the sweat from her forehead, soothe her discomfort with a kiss, show her that I was with her in spirit and shared
the pain, but I couldn’t budge. I watched as the whip inexorably rose and fell, the angle of its descent ever more perfect as Thomas grew accustomed to handling it, absorbing Pierrot’s
earlier lessons in a trice, even adding variations to its waltz of speed and pain.

Soon, my whole body tightened as I witnessed the tension present in her face, her brow tight with apparent distress as the assault relentlessly continued, but, to my terrible surprise, I also
couldn’t avoid seeing that a faint smile was curling its way across her lips, betraying how the discomfort, the pain was morphing into pleasure as a bevvy of chemical reactions exploded
inside her body and brain.

My anger burst its dams.

It wasn’t so much directed at Thomas, but towards Iris herself, for having allowed such a situation to present itself. But was it truly a surprise? After all, even when with me, Iris had
displayed all the characteristics of submission, or at any rate a certain form of passivity. I recalled all the previous instances of Thomas’s natural sense of domination, even when I had
been present. The way he had conducted the scenario on that initial occasion when they had first made love, albeit with me being present, the quiet orders, the prompts. And I had silently approved.
My cheeks were flushed. My annoyance was also turning to envy, a whole symphony of conflicted feelings long-distance running inside my heart. Thomas had intuited this streak inside her and taken
advantage of it, or at least indulged her – while I had ignored all of the signs that had been right in front of me. Had I ever been capable of raising that enigmatic smile of pleasure across
her lips? Because Thomas certainly could.

I snapped out of my own trance, as Thomas paused, took a deep breath, dropped the whip and stepped towards Iris. Her body was quite limp, spread over the saw-horse. His fingers caressed her
chin, moved to her lips, wiped some involuntary drool away with obvious tenderness. The small crowd surrounding the scene began to disperse.

Thomas kneeled in front of Iris and kissed her.

Tears were running down her cheeks.

The kiss seemed to last forever.

I was rooted to the spot.

Very soon, it was just the three of us left in the room, as the bystanders had moved on to other attractions elsewhere in the house.

Their lips finally parted and the lovers realised they were not alone and both looked up and saw me.

‘Oh . . . Moana,’ Iris whispered.

I was momentarily struck dumb.

She shone.

The pleasure the whip had triggered inside her was like a halo surrounding the pale nakedness of her body, transforming her, electrifying her.

‘If only you knew how it feels,’ she said.

The look in my own eyes must have been murderous. Thomas opened his mouth.

‘It was her idea,’ he defended himself.

‘Oh, was it? And I wonder who suggested it?’ I asked him.

‘I would happily have switched,’ he said. ‘But it’s not in Iris’s nature . . .’

‘Would you really?’ I replied, disbelieving.

‘I would.’

I reached for the whip.

‘Let’s see, then . . .’ I suggested.

I stepped over and helped Iris rise from the saw-horse. I could not avoid my eyes lingering on the red streaks crisscrossing her arse cheeks and my throat tightened. She stumbled, and I held her
up.