‘Never mind the crap. How much is the car?’ Maria fixed him with a withering gaze. The salesman blushed behind his freckles. After she had taken the Saxo for a test drive, she told him he’d take seven hundred Euros less than he’d asked. An hour and a half later, with all the documentation sorted out, Maria drove in the Saxo back to her hotel. She parked in the car park around the corner. The car was perfect: completely anonymous and ideal for surveillance. The paintwork was dark blue but had dulled and there were no dents or trims that would mark it out and Maria removed a colourful sticker from the rear window.
She left the Saxo in the car park and walked to the Karstadt store in Breite Strasse, where she sought out the clothing equivalent of the Citroen: grungy tops and jeans, a knitted hat and a couple of heavier jackets, one with a hood. All the clothes were in muted dark colours. As she ran the cheap clothes through the scanner the assistant at the till cast a surreptitious eye over Maria’s expensive lambswool coat and designer handbag.
‘A present for my niece.’ Maria smiled emptily.
7.
It was as good a hotel as Oliver could pay for in cash without arousing suspicion or undue attention. He had booked in before meeting the amply bottomed escort girl in the nightclub and had used a false identity, as he always did. So when the escort agency telephoned the hotel and asked to speak to Herr Meierhoff, to make sure that he was genuinely a guest there, they were put through to his room. It also meant that there was no embarrassing or conspicuous fumbling with wads of Euros when he brought the escort back. While still in the nightclub, he had passed her an envelope containing cash to the pre-agreed amount. All done calmly, with Oliver’s easy smile never faltering.
Oliver had been his usual chatty, charming self all evening and he could see that his professional companion was a little confused about why a man as attractive and urbane as he was would need to pay for sex. But, there again, he had been quite specific about his requirements. In the taxi, however, Oliver fell silent and watched Cologne slide by, occasionally glancing at his companion and smiling. She had explained that her name was Anastasia, and he had commented on what a beautiful name it was, while thinking to himself that it was probably as genuine as Meierhoff. Oliver’s comparative quiet came from his need to anticipate the fulfilment of his desire. He considered these moments to be the most delectable of all, almost better than the fulfilment itself. It was the perfect combination of a growing, hardening lust and the mouth-watering anticipation of a fine meal, whose aromas had already reached him. He became intensely aware of the pressure of Anastasia’s wonderfully full and firm thigh against his.
He gave the taxi driver a reasonable but not lavish tip. Oliver was doing his best not to be remembered by anyone too clearly. He and Anastasia walked straight past reception and to the lifts, again as inconspicuously as he could manage.
‘We’ll have a little nightcap in the room,’ Oliver explained in the elevator. ‘Anastasia’ smiled at him with contrived mischievousness and placed her hand on his groin.
‘Maybe that should wait for after.’ She closed her fingers around him a little. ‘By the way, if you really like what you get tonight, it’s quite in order for you to give me an extra tip.’
The curtains were still open in his hotel room and the main railway station and the massive profile of the cathedral loomed dark against the night sky. Oliver returned Anastasia’s smile as he closed the hotel room door behind him.
I hope, he thought to himself as he dropped the door’s night-bolt lever, that she doesn’t scream. Like the last one did.
8.
Everybody needs to be someone else sometimes, even if it is only for a couple of hours becoming lost in the flesh of another in an anonymous hotel room. Andrea always held that thought at the front of her mind during the first few moments of meeting a client. She didn’t see herself as a prostitute: she would never allow herself to be sold as just so much meat. She was not, after all, what was normally considered feminine. But not everybody had the same ideal of femininity: the work she got through the agency was for a niche market. After all, she was no ordinary woman and the men who paid to be with her were not looking for ordinary sex. Andrea was well aware that the agency she worked for specialised in the more unusual end of the sex industry and she didn’t like to think about what other tastes they probably catered for. She had always suspected that A la Carte was run by gangsters, but her contact with them was confined to the calls they made to her cellphone and the envelopes she mailed them with their percentage of her fees. She knew they had come looking for her, or someone like her.
The first contact had been in the gym where she had been preparing with a few of the other girls for a local competition. It had been a sleazy-looking man called Nielsen who had made the approach. Nielsen had been dressed like a businessman but had had the thick, thuggish build and face of a gangster. He had spoken to Andrea and another three girls. Andrea had noticed that the girls Nielsen spoke to were the only others with the same amount of muscle mass as Andrea had. Nielsen had at first said the work was photographic modelling. He had been quite specific about the type of modelling and it had not bothered Andrea. She was used to parading in a bikini that strained to contain her heavily muscled body: being gawked at without it didn’t unduly bother her. It was after the second photo session that Nielsen had mentioned that A la Carte ’s main business was providing escorts. Escorts for an especially discerning clientele.
Cologne had been the first German city to levy a tax on prostitutes’ incomes, but A la Carte was less than assiduous when it came to record-keeping. This had meant that Andrea had successfully managed to avoid being registered as a part-time sex worker and therefore was not taxed on her ‘extra’ earnings. The money from the escort work was more than useful, supplementing the income she made from running her cafe; but Andrea knew that she didn’t do it just for the money.
Andrea had been booked for two hours and the agency knew she would phone back to confirm that she had been paid and was safely away from the client. Not that anyone worried seriously about Andrea: it was more than evident that she could easily look after herself. But, she knew, if she were ever to experience difficulties, a couple of heavies were on call.
She always thought of her clients as small men. They probably thought of themselves that way too. It didn’t have to do with height – this client was at least 180 centimetres tall – it had to do with the way they saw themselves. How she saw them. The client was in his forties, thin and pale; his suit was middle-budget, as was the hotel room. He sat on the edge of the bed, his expression a mixture of nervousness and excitement. Andrea did nothing to put him at his ease, which was as it should be. She confirmed his name and demanded the envelope with the money: Andrea always asked for cash. She checked the amount and stuffed the envelope into her bag.
‘Strip,’ she commanded and removed her raincoat, jeans and baggy woollen top. Beneath she was dressed in an assembly of black leather straps and buckles that left her breasts and genitals exposed. As usual she had done a full workout before coming out to her client and her oiled muscles were hard and sleek. The man on the bed gazed at her with an expression of awe. He was now naked and Andrea looked down at his erection with an expression of contempt.
‘Stand,’ she ordered. He obeyed. ‘You can touch me.’
The client ran trembling fingers over her body. Not her breasts or her pudenda, but her arms, her stomach, her thighs. She stood solid, firm and unresponding. The truth was that Andrea enjoyed her work; she enjoyed the feeling of power, of control, that it gave her. She knew that Cologne was full of dominatrixes, but this was something else. Her clients didn’t get off by being ordered around to clean toilets and polish shoes. This was less psychological and more physical. Her clients lusted after her body; wanted to touch her. Sometimes it would end in penetrative sex. Other times, like this, the client had asked for something very particular.