Once at university I came home from a night out. I lived in a block of flats near the center of the city, and the taxi dropped me at the end of the road. As I walked up to the door, keys in hand, a man spoke.
“You looking for work, love?”
It took a second to realize what he was asking. “Oh. No.” I wasn’t wearing anything terribly suggestive, just-correction. I was a student, and students coming home from clubs invariably look half-dressed. It was an honest mistake.
But I didn’t scream or run or sneer. “Are you sure?” he asked.
From time to time there were streetwalkers in the area. One weekend I went out early to buy a paper and saw a woman staggering across a main road through the city. She was dressed as for a night out, but it was broad daylight; she looked too young to be a student, too underfed. Another time, sitting with friends in the local, we saw a woman come in to make change from a 20-pound note. The barmen exchanged looks; they clearly knew her.
“I’m sure,” I said, and refrained from adding, but thank you anyway. mardi, le 3 fevrier
The redesigning at home is going well, although I cannot be inspired to write much about soft furnishings. Suffice to say that the previous look (Laura Ashley meets Peter Max in Tahiti, where they decide to go on an acid trip together) is being updated to something vaguely within this century.
A most interesting object was delivered yesterday. The landlady had the furniture made some few years ago by a firm that kept the details on record, and they have been kind enough to supply attractive new cushion covers for the overstuffed monstrosity (I mean the sofa, not the landlady). The new covers were brought up just after lunch, along with detailed instructions on how to put them on and a tool to aid in application.
This tool, it must be said, looks exactly like a paddle.
A very classy paddle indeed. Of the same glowing hardwood as the frame of the sofa itself, with a smooth rounded handle mimicking the turned legs of the furniture. A tapering, broad, flat side, apparently for stuffing the cushions in their new skins.
But it doesn’t look anything like an upholstery aid to me. It is, quite frankly, a well-made and extremely horny paddle. It has a leather thong threaded through the handle, for goodness’ sake. And it matches the furniture.
I looked at the paddle, then at the deliveryman. “Do you want this returned when I’m done?”
“What? No, just keep it or chuck it away. We don’t need it back.”
“Thank you.” A more welcome and unexpected gift I haven’t had in ages. It’s as if Valentine’s Day has come early. mercredi, le 4 fevrier
Client: (setting the dresser mirror on the floor) “I want to watch you watching yourself masturbate.”
Well, this makes a change. “What with?”
“Your hands first. Then a vibe.”
“And then you…?”
“No, I just want to watch.”
He provided a chair and I sat. Wriggled out of my knickers and drew the skirt of my dress around my hips. There it all was, on display, as I’d rarely seen. Yes, I usually do a spot check after waxing and before going out, but this was different. And hand mirrors feature strongly in both work and sex at home, but this was just me, alone, inviolate. Belle from a fly on the wall. And being the self-obsessed creature I am, I was possibly as fascinated as he.
I watched my lips grow fuller, redder, wetter. Much darker than I imagined, almost purple, as I’ve seen the head of a penis do so many times. The aperture itself widened and gasped. I could hear its gentle smacks like a mouth opening and closing as my hand rubbed faster and my hips moved less gently.
The effect was of watching myself on television. I suppose it must have been for him as well-he paid far more attention to the reflection than to me in the chair. I wondered why bother with the expense of paying someone to masturbate when there was no interaction, then realized. He wanted to be the director.
But as I approached the point of no return I would slow down and readjust my position-ostensibly to give him a better look or varied position, but really to keep myself from coming.
It was remarkably difficult to keep from setting off the hair trigger for most of the hour. He sat on a bed, then knelt on the ground, coming closer and closer to the mirror, occasionally making requests regarding the speed and action of the vibe or the location of my free hand-but didn’t touch. When he came, it hit the glass, sliding thickly over my reflected image onto the carpet. jeudi, le 5 fevrier
I came in soggy and grumpy, having been caught in a sudden burst of rain in Ladbroke Grove and without my umbrella. I’d been out to meet a man for a date, and let us just say it hadn’t gone well. There were three missed calls, all from the manager’s mobile. I rang her back. “Hello, sorry I missed you earlier.”
“Not to worry, darling.” The manager, for once, was not listening to horrible hair-rock. “You had a booking.”
“I went to meet someone for lunch and forgot my phone. Anything interesting?”
“This very nice man. He always asks for you.”
“Ah.” This has happened about once a week since I started working. “The French one?”
“He is such a lovely gentleman.”
“Yes, and he always gives less than an hour lead-time on a booking. I can’t get out so quickly.” My house is too far out of Zone 1 for that. “I presume you gave him to one of the other girls?”
“Yes. But he always asks for you, darling.”
“Tell him to give me more notice next time, okay?”
“Mmm.” There was another voice in the background and the manager went oddly quiet, then whispered, “Sorry, have to go! Nice talking to you, goodbye!” She has a boyfriend who doesn’t know what she does for a living. It seems odd to me-but then it’s her job that is illegal in the UK, not mine.
Text from First Date soon after: Torture Garden. What think you?
Well, if he’s trying to keep my interest, he’s certainly doing well. I am so there with bells on. Clamped to my nipples, of course. vendredi, le 6 fevrier
Walking through a tiled corridor to the District Line at Monument yesterday. A busker was there, playing Dylanesque riffs on a guitar and making up lyrics about the people walking past. and I said, my friend, there will be a woman / and she will walk by you / and you will know her by her white suit and pink shoes / there will be a beautiful woman
I couldn’t help but smile, looking down at my shoes. Dusty pink peep-toed courts. Very forties or seventies, depending on how you work them. and my friend, you will know her / you will know this woman by her smile
I kept walking, but laughing the whole way, and looked back to grin at him before turning the corner. samedi, le 7 fevrier
N came round after the gym to help with the cushions. By “help” I mean “sit on them whilst I boil the kettle,” which is helpful in its way, I suppose. Someone has to make the first stain on the upholstery.
(By which I mean nothing ruder than spilled tea. You sick creatures.)
N’s eyes lit on the cushion-squeezer-cum-paddle immediately. When I came back with the steaming mugs, he was already doing a few test whacks on his thigh.
“New piece of kit?” he asked.
“Came with the sofa,” I explained.
“Class.”
One of N’s other exes, the one who broke his heart, has started turning up at the gym intermittently. I notice it’s never a time he’s likely to be there. Sometimes I linger in the locker area, listening in case she talks to anyone. Knowing her current situation would carry a high premium indeed. And if she knows who I am, she hasn’t acknowledged it. I’m not certain whether to tell him yet or not. We were only halfway through the tea before the conversation turned, as it inevitably does, to her.
“I don’t know whether to just call her,” he said. “If she’s seeing someone new, I’ll feel rubbish; if she isn’t, I’ll wonder what the point of us breaking up was.”