Seven Scarlet Tales by Justine Elyot Read Free Book Online Page B

doorman.
    ‘First day?’
    The man’s voice was foreign, maybe French. Poppy didn’t dare look up at him. She had an idea that she was meant to keep her eyes cast down at all times.
    ‘That’s right. You haven’t been here before?’
    ‘No, I am on holiday here.’ ’Oliday ’ere.
    ‘Perhaps you should try one of the more experienced …’
    ‘No, no, I like this one. Please, some tea.’
    Poppy saw a pair of feet in the regulation black velvet slippers the clients were given, then bending legs in trousers as he came to sit, cross-legged, on the futon opposite her.
    ‘I’ll have the barman fetch it for you, sir,’ said the doorman, leaving, apparently with some reluctance.
    She saw his hands, folded, pale, no wedding ring, a slight yellowness on the right index finger. Smoker. Neat fingernails.
    If he was on holiday, he obviously wasn’t the slobbing-out-in-a-trackie type. He wore smart, crisp cotton trousers and jacket in a mid-beige colour with a white, open-necked shirt.
    If she raised her eyes, she’d be able to see his face.
    But did she dare raise her eyes?
    There was a slightly awkward silence.
    ‘Hallo,’ said the man with a self-conscious catch, almost a laugh, but not quite. He moved his hands as if he meant to snap his fingers.
    Was this permission to look up?
    ‘Good evening, sir,’ she faltered.
    She did it. She looked up.
    He was fortyish with kind, tired brown eyes and a sharp-featured, handsome face.
    He smiled, a little ruefully, as if he expected Poppy to be judging him for his filthy, perverted tastes.
    ‘So you are the new girl?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I am your first customer?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    The tea tray arrived, and Poppy was grateful for the distraction of pouring and tending to her visitor’s tastes.
    ‘I prefer coffee,’ he confessed. ‘In France we don’t drink so much tea.’
    ‘You’re French?’
    She wasn’t supposed to ask questions of the clients, but it wasn’t really a question, was it? Just a mirroring of his own admission.
    He nodded, picking up his tea cup and sniffing at it with some suspicion. He put it back down again.
    ‘I thought I will try the English vice,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t so English, not really. We French have enjoyed such pleasures from long, long ago.’
    ‘And the Marquis de Sade was French, after all,’ said Poppy.
    ‘Of course. And there is also
L’Histoire d’O
.’
    Poppy smiled. She wanted to know more about him now.
    But of course, she couldn’t ask.
    ‘I hope the tea is to your satisfaction,’ she said.
    ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Why do you choose to work here?’
    ‘I answered an advert on a BDSM website.’
    ‘So it is your interest? Your fetish? A spanking?’
    Poppy blushed the deep scarlet of her namesake, and nodded.
    ‘OK. I like that,’ he said. ‘The girls here like their work. This feels better for me.’
    ‘Did you think we might be prisoners?’
    ‘It happens.’ He gazed pensively into his cup. The tea looked revolting, Poppy realised with a pang. It was weak, and the splash of milk made it almost white.
    ‘I suppose it does.’
    Poppy felt that same little chill she’d experienced on entering the building for her interview. Sex work, with all the age-old implications of degradation and human trafficking it brought with it. She’d told this client she was willing, but how could he take her word for it? What kind of man did that make him?
    He had, at least, asked the question.
    ‘So you have done this in your real life? With your lover?’
    ‘I, well, that’s a personal question, but …’
    ‘I’m sorry. Am I being … rude, is that the word?’
    Poppy waved her hand, well out of her depth, and strained her eyes to see where the bouncers were.
    ‘Not rude,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s against the rules for us to talk about ourselves, while we’re in the club. I’m sorry. It’s meant to be for our safety.’
    ‘Meant to be?’
    ‘Well, they turn a blind eye to girls meeting