The Consultants 2a

Part 2a: Chapter 8

Charles woke late with a start. He had been dreaming. Most of what had passed through his mind was the usual kind of dim haze, but one dream was still quite clear though and thoroughly ridiculous; he couldn’t move his legs and was being squeezed like a giant tube of tooth paste. He reached out semi-consciously to turn on the light to see what time it was. His hand felt funny. As a little more consciousness returned he realised that he was still wearing the tightly laced-up rubber dress and long gloves from the night before.

He rolled out of bed and tried to make his way to the bathroom. Still only half awake he forgot the necessity of taking only tiny steps in the hobble skirt of the tight dress and fell all his length on to a pile of the wreckage of the day-before’s outing. Scrambling up he unzipped the dress at its hem and continued his journey at a shuffle, leaving a trail of drips of perspiration on the carpet behind him. Once in the bathroom he peeled off the gloves to reveal a set of fingers that had gone all pruney in the damp.

“No wonder the alarm clock had felt funny when I swatted it,” he thought. With a strange reluctance he finished unzipping the dress and struggled to undo the lacing at the back. Finally he peeled off the stockings and rubber panties, dropping them on the floor.

“I can understand why I dreamt I was being extruded.” He looking at the puddle on the bath room floor that had formed round the clothes and his feet, “I must have lost half a stone sweating inside that lot.”

Charles had a bath, then collected up all the rubber things and dumped them in the water to wash them. Rinsing garments in fresh water he patted them dry and hung them up to air off. Soon the whole of the bedroom was festooned so it seemed that you could not turn any way without colliding with rubber.

Charles shaved, put on some men’s things, trouser and a sweater, hung a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door and went down for breakfast. Though thirsty, he presumed because of all the sweating during the night, he did not feel particularly hungry despite not having a great deal to eat the day before and so contented himself with an orange juice, a coffee and a single slice of toast. As he nibbled his toast he flicked through the newspaper trying to take an interest in world events, but he could not concentrate; all the time his mind kept going back to yesterday and all the things that had happened and how wonderful it had begun to feel.

Then an idea sprang, fully formed, into his head. He had a major appointment that afternoon, but the morning, what was left of it, was free. He would go back to his room and change into yesterday’s things again for a couple of hours to try to re-live the experience.

“I might even venture down to the bar again,” Charles thought with an inner smile.

He went into the bath room again for a second session on the loo, determined not to be caught out this time with an overflowing bladder, shave again as closely as he could, did his teeth and returned to the bedroom with towels and a tub of talcum powder.

Charles spread the towels out on the carpet and assembled the clothing on the bed. He was surprised just how much there was of it, but determined to put on as much as possible of the black outfit from yesterday. The first thing to get on was, obviously, the waspie. That presented problems. When he had taken it off the evening before he had undone the front busk fastenings so it was still partly laced up, but at a sort of compromise. First, it was a struggle getting the studs together at the front. Even the trick of getting the thing closed at one end then using that as a hinge to bring the other studs in line, rather than try to close them all up at once failed. Secondly, once on, it was clearly far too loose! He went back to the bathroom and, bringing one loop of the laces round on each side, hooked them over the inside and outside door handle. Now he could pull back on the laces and, using the bathroom mirrors, see sufficiently behind him to gradually work the sides of the waspie closer together. From time-to-time he stopped for breath then, unhooking the laces to get hold of them, he pulled them up above his head as he had previously found that doing so tended to move flesh up from the waist and so help form the basis of a pseudo-bust. Ten minutes of this and Charles gave up. He had not achieved the sixty-centimetre target set by Amber, but it would have to do for today.

The next item in the pile was the penis corset cum male chastity belt and, butt-bung. Charles drew a breath.

“Shall I, shan’t I,” he vacillated. Without it there might be embarrassing bulges under the tight dress and that would spoil the appearance, even if it were only for his own benefit. It did not take him long to decide that he really did not have any choice but to put them on, he wanted to, anyway! He slid on a sheath and fastened the penis corset tightly round it and his testicles.

Charles was unsure how he was going to get the bung in. He knew from yesterday that it would hurt as the sphincter muscles protested at the passage of its widest part even though he looked forward to the exciting sensations it produced once inside and filling him up. The problem was how to achieve that bliss without the reflex to the pain of insertion getting in the way. The solution was obvious.

Charles returned to the bathroom and applied copious lubricant to the bung and his orifice. Straddling the edge of the bath, one foot in it, one on the floor, and holding the bung upright with its tip touching his anus and its outer edge firmly against the edge of the bath he gritted his teeth and sat down on it with a bump. Gosh, it did hurt for a moment, but the job was done with the long fat rubber bung well and truly inside him. The final task of this phase was to link up the penis corset to the waspie.

Charles threaded the crotch strap through the loop on the end of the butt-bung and, fiddling behind him, found the buckle at the back of the waspie.

“How tight are you going to have it, then Charles,” he murmured to himself. Charles pulled on the strap, “ouch, that’s enough,” he thought. The amount of strap extending out of the buckle was nowhere near as much as Amber had had. Her words, when he had complained that it was too tight came back to him.

“Well, may be,” she had said, “but I want it tighter.” He took up two more holes on the strap and popped in the pad lock before he could change his mind, once more he was Charlotte rather than Charles.

The rubber corslette was hanging in the bathroom; the boobs still filled with water from the day before. Charles checked the filling tube bungs and elastic bands, to make sure that all was leak-proof then wriggled into it. The water-filled boobs felt cold and clammy on his chest, but he knew that they would warm up as time went on.

The nipple rings and foam pads caught his eye. Charles picked them up. The pads he would use, they were good for the bust size needed to fill out the dress, but he gibed at the rings. They had really made his nipples hurt before the end of the day and they were still sore this morning. Charles put the rings back on the bathroom shelf. But they taunted him. They had certainly had an effect, giving a sort of awareness of his chest. Each movement of his arms, whether reaching out for something or just walking or, especially, if bumped in a crowd had sent a little sexual stimulation through his nipples. Charles decided to put them on. Charles folded down the top of the corslette and tried to get the rings on. He was not as sexually aroused as when Amber had done it and also lacked her skill. As a result the first few attempts ended in failure as the rings flipped off and he had to crawl around the bath room floor in his corset, waspie and truss, to find them again.

Eventually he got the knack. Once one ring was in place it was easy to stretch another one wide and snap it on behind the first. Charles opted for three rings on each nipple to give the fifteen or sixteen millimetre extension again, the forth he could not face. He folded back the top of the corslette worked the straps over his shoulders and popped in the foam pads and reached for the stockings, hanging on the towel rail. Immediately he got that tingle in the nipples. Yes, it had been the right decision to put on the rings!

Charles pulled on the long gloves and climbed into the dress and, with a struggle, got it zipped up, locking it at the top, but leaving the hem lock undone while he put his shoes on. Charles first tried the red evening shoes. The colour was a nice contrast to the black of the stockings and dress, but, somehow, did not seem quite right. No, the black ankle boots it had to be, padlocks and all, because they and the straps were an integral part. Charles pushed his feet in and laced them up. It was hard work bending and he had to stop several times to get his breath back. Eventually the job was done. He put the bands round his ankles and snapped the locks shut. Once more he experienced a wonderful contentment as the tight rubber squeezed and caressed him as, it seemed, they melted together.

Getting dressed had taken much longer than he had expected, but having started fairly early he still had a couple of hours before he had to leave for the meeting. Charles placed his laptop computer on the dressing table and set it to display the pictures from the digital camera then settled down in front of the dressing table mirror and tried to reproduce what Amber had done by way of make-up. The first few goes were disastrous, each seeming worse than the last. He wondered about calling Amber’s number to see, whether, if she had not yet set out, she could come round and help, but had said she would be going off early.

Charles almost gave up and abandoned the whole project then, in one final attempt it all seemed to come good. He pulled on the wig and sat back.

“Who is the person in the mirror,” he wondered.

Once more he basked in the experience of being in rubber. Charles strutted up and down the room, practising his sexy hip-swaying walk on the fifteen-centimetre heels, occasionally catching a glimpse of his self in a mirror.

Eventually, he settled down to do a bit of paper work. Sooner than he expected it was 12:30.

“Oh, well, it’s a shame, but you’d better get changed into mufti,” he reluctantly though. Charles went to look for the key for the boots as the first thing to take off.

They were nowhere to be found!

Charles clearly remembered Amber saying that she had put all the keys in the glass ashtray on the corner table. Certainly the other keys, those for the truss and dress were there, but not those for the boots. With a rising sense of panic he searched high and low for them. Had he knocked them on to the floor? He crawled over it on hands-and-knees minutely examining every square millimetre. That produced nothing and only had the effect of making him hot, out of breath and even more panicky. Perhaps Amber had put them in one of the handbags. Charles looked in them; they were not there, either. Had he inadvertently given them to Amber when they parted the night before? He couldn’t remember clearly enough, though he did sneak the thought that, if he had given her the boot keys rather than the one for the lock he had put on her dress, she too would have been in a similar predicament that morning.

Charles tried picking at the locks with a hairpin, hoping that they would miraculously spring open like in storybooks. They didn’t. They were small, but well made. Apart from not really being able to see what he was doing they were quite resistant to his amateur attempts at lock picking. Finally, in desperation, he tried ringing Amber, in case she had taken them home or had she got a spare set.

“She might just have come back early,” he hoped against hope, but she was still out, as she had said she would be. All he got was the Answerphone’s unhelpful message that she was ‘out for a few minutes,’ and, if he left his name and number, she would ‘get back as soon as possible.’ He knew what that meant. She was off on location, for goodness knows how long, and he was stuck in this pair of, putting it mildly, rather extreme boots.

Charles didn’t know what to do. He wondered about trying to cut the boots off, but apart from a reluctance to ruin a perfectly good pair of very expensive boots the only tool he had was a pair of nail scissors. Perhaps he could go out and find a tool shop or perhaps the Hôtel had a resident engineer who could help. But even separated from the foot part, getting the metal reinforced ankle-straps off would be difficult. Moreover, having luxuriated in his rubber for, perhaps, too long, time was running out. Charles really could do with a new contract and the afternoon’s meeting had seemed to offer the best opportunity for a long time.

The new prospective client had suddenly realised that the end of the century was getting inexorably closer and had woken up to the possibility of problems with its old, ‘legacy’ as it is often called, software at the year 2000 when dates recorded using just the last two digits would flip over. They were willing to pay well for help and reassurance that all would be well and that they could celebrate the new millennium with peace of mind.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, inspiration arrived to save him. Charles had never visited them before; all contacts with the firm having been by telephone or through correspondence signed C A Graham. Charles would go to the client as Charlotte in rubber! On the ‘phone they had seemed quite keen to use his services, so at least he should be able to get through the door. Last night, he tried to reassure himself, Amber had said that she thought that, with a bit more coaching he could manage full-time, if he ever wanted to. Maybe she had just said it to be nice to him. He hoped that she was right, though, because now he was going to have to!

*****

The fickle English weather had turned wet. After the warm sunny day before, it was now raining cats and dogs. Clearly he needed a coat. Ideally it should have had a hood to keep his hair, well wig, dry, but all he had with him was a fawn-coloured gabardine Mac in the double-breasted, trench coat style. It had to that or nothing.

“Anyway,” he thought that style is not altogether wrong for women, especially businesswomen whose ranks he was now, attempting to join. He put the coat on and tried to fasten it. It was all together the wrong shape! It was far too small to button round his hydraulic boobs while his waist was too tiny for the belt that hauled through the buckle well past the last eyelet hole. Charles unbuttoned the coat and took it off again, wondering what to do. Just slip it on and knot the belt, of course.

Charles folded the coat around him and tied the belt around the waist, pulling it really tight to accentuate it smallness against the bulges further up. Charles picked up his shoulder bag and brief case and started towards the door.

“Walking seems quite a lot easier today,” he thought, “well, here we go.”

He opened the door and stepped out. As he did so he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror.

“Just a minute,” he murmured to himself, “which way do women’s coats fasten?” He went back into the room and took one of his men’s jackets out of the wardrobe. Standing before a mirror and holding it up in front of him he realised that the coat was indeed wrong. Wishing he had not been quite so enthusiastic at knotting the belt tightly, Charles undid everything and re-wrapped the coat the other way.

“Okay. This time,” he said out loud, and stepped out and turned the ‘Do not disturb’ sign round to ‘Please make up his room’, hoping that he had not left too much about in the room that would be of interest to the chambermaid.

Charles walked down the corridor to the lifts. Half way along a chambermaid came out of a room to collect something from her trolley. Charles bade her “Good morning,” and carried on, amazed and exhilarated that he had lost all the self-consciousness of yesterday. Though to be fair, he did not have Amber calling out in a loud voice to draw attention to his sexy dress.

Charles clicked across the marble foyer in his stilettos and peered out. The heavy rain had slacked to fine drizzle, but had left the pavements wet and puddly. The same doorman was on duty as the day before and naturally, turned to him, as Charlotte.

“Is it a taxi for Knightsbridge again, miss?” he asked.

“No, not today, I’m afraid. It’s business rather than pleasure this time.”

Charles told the doorman the address of his client’s office and waited while a taxi was flagged down for him. He felt he was in a dream. This was not real. It could not be. He put his hand in a coat pocket and surreptitiously tried to pinch himself through the many lays. A taxi arrived.

“Be careful not to slip on the wet pavements in those high heels,” he was advised by the doorman who insisted on helping Charles into the cab.

*****

Charles arrived at the offices in good time and was shown into a reception area that also served as a waiting room. Being wet and becoming hot inside the coat and rubber dress his mind went back to that incident in the Harrogate café the year before.

The receptionist asked him if she could take his coat. Charles untied the belt, as she stood behind him to take it. There was a slight gasp as it slid off his shoulders to reveal the rubber sheath beneath.

His Client was on the ‘phone, he was told, so “Please would she take a seat for a few minutes,” and while she waited, “Would she care for a drink.”

He would have loved one. Charles was hot and felt very much in need of a coffee. He was about to say, “Yes,” when he remembered yesterday’s problems and with reluctance declined the offer.

The waiting room was conventionally decorated, potted plants, a few pictures and a characteristically low, soft leather upholstered, settee for visitors. It may be possible to sit down on one in a lady-like manner while wearing a tight skirt and fifteen-centimetre heels, but he had yet to learn how to do it. Charles flopped, rather than sat, letting out an involuntary squeal as the, butt-bung gave him a poke. The receptionist looked up from her work and gave him a suspicious stare while he tried to compose his legs neatly and tug down his skirt to be as decorous as its tightness, lack of length and the now sticky rubber, would permit.

Charles got out his make-up and redid his face, as best he could, trying to disguise the perspiration with powder. Still he was not called in.

Charles thumbed through some old magazines, but with the wait he was now getting too much on edge and could not find anything of interest.

Why had Amber forgotten to leave the keys? Why had he got himself into this mess in the first place? Why are they taking so long? He was just starting to go round this loop for the hundredth time when a secretary, wearing a short white leather skirt, silky blouse and twelve-centimetre heels came from the inner office and announced, Mr Schofield will see you now.”

“At least I’m not the only one here that a bit dressed-up,” he thought.

Getting up from those low seats was even harder than sitting down. How anyone wearing a skirt can do so without showing her knickers, was to Charles, a mystery. Then, as he struggled to his feet, he noticed for the first time a small video camera mounted in the plinth of the reception desk and pointing at the seating. Charles was ushered through the leather-skirted secretary’s outer office to see the ‘Boss’ as Barry Oswald Schofield seemed to be universally called.

Age about sixty, he sat at a suitably impressive desk that was largely devoid of papers save for a file in which Charles could recognise correspondence he had previously sent. There were a number of distinctly erotic pictures in frames on the wall and a piece of sculpture on the desk that seemed to have come straight out of the Karma Sutra. However, the thing that caught his attention was a large TV monitor on a corner stand, facing the desk. It was showing in close-up the now empty waiting room seat.

“The old bugger wasn’t on the ‘phone at all,” he thought to himself. “He was looking up my skirt all the time. I wonder if he does that to all women who come?”

The Boss’s courtesy was overwhelming. Dismissing his secretary with a glance that followed her shapely bottom out of the door as it returned to the outer office, he held a chair for Charles to sit down.

He hoped that he had not kept ‘Ms Graham’ waiting too long (that was the first time Charles had ever been addressed as a Ms), but he had had one or two urgent matters to see into. “Or look up,” Charles could not help thinking, as the TV monitor again caught his eye.

“Oh, Ms Graham had noticed his art collection.” He was rather proud of it.

“All originals you know. Perhaps Ms Graham would allow me to show them to her?” He held out a hand and Charles, who had only just managed to get his skirt smoothed under him and arrange his feet neatly, found himself up again and being slowly escorted from one picture to the next.

They were for the most part by contemporary artists such as Allen Jones and Hajime, together with photographs by Bob Carlos Clarke. He had bought them all from new and, with the passion of a connoisseur, described them in minute detail to Charles.

The lecture tour lasted well over half-an-hour. Long before it ended Charles was feeling distinctly fidgety. If it had been physically possible, the pictures, amplifying the constant low level sensations emanating from his, butt-bung and clamped nipples, would have caused an erection. As it was it just produced a rising sense of frustration.

At last, they returned to the desk and got down to business. The meeting took over an hour. As soon as the conversation turned to the technicalities Charles forgot completely how he might have looked to the outside world and began to explain exactly how he would tackle the Company’s problems, what facilities would be needed, and the like.

At the end, whatever his proclivities, the client seemed to be convinced about Charles’s technical knowledge and proposals. What was being suggested was exactly what the Company required and they would like to use C A Graham’s services. Most of the work would be at the head office in London, but it would be necessary to visit the other, out-of-town offices and factories. A year’s consultancy, at a fancy fee, was agreed, the starting date to be the following Monday. The Boss pushed his chair back, stood up and extended his hand to the still seated Charles.

“Congratulations, Ms Graham,” he said as Charles shook hands with what he hoped was a suitably light grip, “I look forward to a long and interesting relationship. I am sure that there will be many things of mutual interest,” adding after a moment’s pause, “the art collection, for example.”

The audience was obviously finished and, at the touch of a discretely concealed, button on the desk, the secretary reappeared to escort Charles to the outer office there to retrieve his coat. He could see through the window that the rain has stopped, so put it over his arm, slung his handbag over his shoulder, picked up his brief case and made to leave.

The Boss had followed them out of his office. Indeed Charles could almost feel his eyes glued to him, as he did his high-heel induced sexy walk.

“Just a moment, Ms Graham,” he said. “I insist on personally escorting you out, but first I must get Jenny, here,” indicating his secretary, “to set things in motion for Monday. You will need an office with a desk and ‘phone, I expect.”

Charles nodded his assent.

“And I need to make sure that everybody you may need to contact knows about you.” Charles wondered about the exact meaning that should be ascribed to that word, ‘knows.’ He hoped he wasn’t being paranoid, but the Boss had seemed to lay undue stress on it.

Barry continued to dictate instructions to Jenny, while Charles strolled aimlessly around the office pausing to look at the bland pictures on the wall that gave no hint of the gallery in Barry Schofield’s sanctum sanctorum. It was a marvellous contract to have got and he trying to think of all the technical things that had to be done to complete the job. Suddenly it dawned on him that they were relatively minor matters. Charles had landed this job as Charlotte Graham, rubber vixen, and that was now how he had to live for the next year!

Barry finished his orders and with a wave of his arm indicated that it was time to go. He followed Charles to the door, keeping a step behind, his hand barely resisting the temptation to fondle Charles’s round shiny rubber clad bottom, to the obvious jealousy, but, not necessarily, disapproval of the receptionist.

“And well, just maybe, the dress did have something to do with clinching the deal after all,” Charles decided. Then he remembered the red evening dress and accessories he had left drying in the hôtel bathroom.

“Oh, my,” he thought, “the chambermaid is really going to enjoy that!”

Chapter 9

Charles bade Barry Schofield goodbye, turned and started to walk towards the more main road. Part of his mind was on the lookout for a taxi, but for the most part he was deep in thought about what had to done now and how he was going to be able to do it in the short time available. Charles was brought out of his reveries by a shout.

“Hi, Charlotte, what are you doing here?”

Charles looked round in surprise. Across the road and running towards him, oblivious of the traffic was a tall leather-clad figure. It was Leslie. She reached him, miraculously without causing an accident, and repeated her question. Charles blurted out how he had got himself trapped in the shoes and had decided to risk the interview as Charlotte.

“God, that took some doing,” said Leslie at last when Charles had to pause for breath. “I’m really proud of you. By the way, who is the client?”

Charles told her.

“Barry Schofield,” she mused. I know him slightly, not professionally, but we sometimes bid against each other at auctions. We both have rather similar tastes in décor. But he has the bigger budget,” she added, ruefully. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t really know,” admitted Charles. “I guess that I am still in a state of shock at what I have committed myself to. I’ve got to find somewhere to live in London; staying an hôtel is impractical.”

“Well,” said Leslie, “I have a small flat on the top floor of my house. It’s been vacant for quite a long time so it will be in a bit of a mess. If you would like it you can have it at a good price.”

“That’s kind of you,” murmured Charles as Leslie went on.

“Actually, it would be nice to have someone upstairs who could be called on in an emergency and with whom I could share a secret. As well as that I could help you a lot to carry on in the guise you have now committed yourself to. You’ve now got to live as Charlotte morning, noon and night, you know.”

Charles did a mental gulp at this, as the full consequences of his impulse to do the interview as Charlotte continued to sink in.

“How are you for clothes?” Leslie asked.

“Not very how,” said Charles with a laugh. “I’ve got a few bits and bobs back in the North, but as far as London is concerned it’s just what I’m standing up in, that really belongs to Amber anyway, plus a red evening dress and a black leather skirt that I bought yesterday.”

“Well, you’re not going to get very far on that are you?” laughed Leslie. “And you have rather committed yourself to a standard there in terms of style. You can hardly go back from that dress having used it to get the contract.”

“That’s true,” agreed Charles. “I guess I have got to stick to similarly daring styles in rubber, PVC or, for every day leather or Barry Schofield, at least, will be disappointed.” They laughed together at that shared joke.

“Look,” said Leslie becoming serious again, “it already half-past four, why don’t you come over to my place now. I can do some ringing round to see about getting some things for you and you can look at the flat. Then, if you think it will be all right, you can get your things from the hôtel and move in tomorrow, as long as you don’t mind camping for a day or so. I know where to get the best quality and have things made to measure quickly, that will be important if you are to start work next week. It’s probably too late today, but we could make a quick shopping expedition tomorrow afternoon.”

“You really are too kind,” said Charles, “I mean, are you sure you don’t mind and that it’s all not too much trouble, after all we only met yesterday.”

“Not at all,” replied Leslie. “I’ve already said that I would find it nice to have someone up stairs to call on if needs be. There never has been a real problem, but I’ve felt just that bit uneasy since Gwyneth went back to the family seat. And, in any case, I think it’s going to be fun helping you. That’s what Amber thought too when she borrowed my gold dress. Did it fit her, by the way? ‘Cause I think she’s been eating too many cream teas of late.”

“Well,” replied Charles with a smile, “I thought at the time that it was pretty tight, but now I’ve come to regard that as the norm.”

It seemed to have been agreed. They stood together on the street corner for a few minutes looking for a vacant taxi. Charles suddenly realised that his feet ached. He shifted his weight from one to the other to gain what little relief he could.

“One thing,” he said to Leslie, “if we are going over to your place I noticed yesterday that you had some shoes very like these,” he pointed to his feet.

Leslie nodded.

“In which case,” went on Charles, “do you think that your key will fit these locks? My feet are killing me and I don’t want to have to wear them till Amber returns from location!”

“I think I can fix that for you back at the house. I’ve got hundreds of key of all sorts, something is bound to fit,” Leslie reassured him.

The pair hailed a taxi and made their way to Leslie’s house in an upmarket part of West London.

*****

The house stood in a little tree girt square, one block back from the main thoroughfare on the western edge of Knightsbridge. Built in the 1880’s, in the Queen Anne revival style, it was made of red brick decorated with the then fashionable sunflower motifs. The rain of the morning had washed everything clean and the house seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. It had been in her family from new, having been built for one her great-grandfathers who had made his money in the shipping business. Charles wondered exactly what he had shipped to be able to afford such a house, but decided it would be impolitic to ask at this stage.

“There’s no way I could afford to buy it now,” she explained. “I guess that it would sell for the best part of three million, maybe more. It’s grade II listed which makes doing anything a bit tricky. Mind you, when any of the houses round here do come onto the market they get snapped up by developers who sub-divide them into a myriad of flats. It’s really far too big for me even though I use a lot of it for business. In my great-grandfather’s time they had a load of staff, maids and valets and the like, living in. I think that the little flat on the top floor was meant for the housekeeper or maybe a nanny.”

They got out of the cab and Leslie lead the way up the four steps that rose from pavement level up to the massive black-painted front door. She typed a code into a keypad let discretely onto the doorjamb. There was a faintly audible click and she pushed the door open. With a flourish of the arm Leslie beckoned Charles in.

“Entrez, madam,” she said, “welcome to my humble abode.”

Charles stepped into the entry vestibule and then into the main hall, looking around in amazement. The hall, floored in black and white marble squares, was very tall with a grand staircase rising from the centre of it. The afternoon sun, slanting in through a high window, glinted on the polished mahogany of the woodwork that had a distinctly nautical style, the influence of the grandfather Charles supposed.

Display cabinets were ranged round the hall in two arcs leading to the staircase. In the middle was an empty stand. “It must have had something on it quite recently,” Charles idly thought, noticing a dust-free rectangle on the top. However, before he had time to take it all in, Leslie pushed past and beckoned him to follow her, as she bounded up the stairs.

“Come and have a cuppa and look at the flat then I’ll show you round,” she called over her shoulder.

Charles trudged up the shallow stairs in a dream, holding on to the handrail to steady himself. Was this real he wondered for the nth time? Had he really got himself a lucrative contract that would force him into the rôle of a latex clad vixen for the next year or so? The only bit of him that seemed real were his feet, they hurt!

Leslie was waiting for him at the top. “Are you alright,” she asked, concerned.

“Yes, I think so,” replied Charles, rather out of breath. “I think the enormity of what I have done has just started to come home to me. Plus I think I laced myself too tightly for stair climbing and my feet are killing me. You said you had a key.”

“Yes, I’m sure I have,” she replied. “Come in and sit down.”

Leslie’s lounge into which they had entered was furnished in a contemporary style with soft black leather upholstered settees and easy chairs. These were clustered round a large fire place that looked as though in days of old it would have kept a small coal mine on full production just to fuel it. Now, with central heating, it served as a place to hold a display of silk flowers. Pride of place on one wall was an obviously state-of-the-art audio system and several hundred CDs. Against another wall was a large TV set.

Charles slumped into a chair and Leslie disappeared. A minute or two later she reappeared holding something in her hand. She stopped and looked at Charles. “If you can’t sit down in a more ladylike way than that,” she said sternly, “I’ve a good mind not to unlock your shoes and make you stand in them over night by way of teaching you a lesson.”

Charles looked down at himself, realised that his skirt had ridden up to be level with his crotch and, with a struggle, pulled it down. Leslie unlocked the shoes and with relief Charles pulled them off. For a moment the returning circulation made them hurt even more. As Charles massaged his toes, Leslie went to the drinks’ cabinet.

“How about a little something to celebrate?” she called. “I could kill a gin and tonic.”

“Me too please, and go easy on the tonic” said Charles, struggling up from the low seat and paddling across to her in rubber stockinged feet that squelched slightly at each step now that the accumulated sweat in them could move about. “How odd,” he thought, “not to be in high-heels.

“That’s better,” said Charles as the drink worked its way inside him. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Perhaps it’s your age, dear,” Leslie joked. “Anyway, don’t blame it on my stairs, they were designed for an age when ladies were much more tightly laced. We’ll just have to put you on a diet,” she added giving him a playful poke.

“Leave your drink for a minute and I’ll take you to look at the flat.”

Leslie led Charles out on to the first floor landing again and went to an inconspicuous door that Charles judged to be towards the back of the house. Behind the door, a set of stairs rose steeply to the second floor. Full of energy, Leslie raced up the stairs while Charles found himself once more panting for breath.

“I thought you said the house was designed for an age when ladies were tight-laced,” he gasped to Leslie who was now standing, hands on hips, waiting for him.

“Yes, for the ladies of the house; but not for the servants. For them the maxim seems to have been ‘good girls don’t need to breathe’.”

“Mmm, I’ve heard that somewhere before,” thought Charles as he too reached the top.

Leslie unlocked the door to the flat. It occupied much of the top of the house except for a lumber-room that Leslie explained was full of junk that she had been going to sort out for years. It was now formally separate from the rest of the house with the original servants’ back stairs having been modified to give direct access to the rear mews.

The layout of the accommodation was consistent with Leslie’s theory that it had once been the nursery. It had a large lounge, bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette as well as a small box room, comprehensively shelved out on three sides. Charles wandered round looking at the rooms. It was obviously ideal. It was much bigger than he had expected. The box-room would be great as a study for his computer when working out of the office. The décor, probably left over from when Gwyneth had had the flat, was far too feminine for his normal taste, but he rationalised that was something to which he had to re-adjust.

Leslie left him to it for a few minutes. Then, unable to be patient any longer, asked what he thought of it.

“Brilliant!” said Charles. “It really couldn’t be better, but how much do you want for it.”

Leslie suggested a very modest price.

“Are you sure,” asked Charles expecting to have to pay at least twice as much.

“Well,” explained Leslie, “this is not exactly a normal flat. I can’t just rent it out to anybody. It’s been empty for over a year since Gwyneth moved out. And anyway, as I said earlier, it would be nice to have someone on hand that I could trust if ever there was a problem. Actually, to be honest, the house has seemed a bit empty since she left.”

“Okay, it’s a deal,” said Charles, unconsciously offering his hand to shake on it and being again surprised at Leslie’s firm grip in response.

“One final thing,” said Leslie, as they made their way down again to her lounge, “what would you like to do about the internal link door?

“When Gwyneth was here,” she went on, “it was kept locked, but we both had keys. That way she formally had nothing to do with what might go on in the rest of the house and just came in and out via the mews where you can park your car, by the way. In fact, if we chucked some boxes out you could probably get in the garage alongside mine. As long as you don’t drive a Rolls-Royce.”

“Sounds fine by me,” Charles agreed. “Actually I drive a BMW 740, is that too big?”

“It will be a bit a squeeze with my Jag, but it should be okay,” Leslie responded after a moment’s thought.

Leslie was clearly eager to get on. She was proud of her house, proud of both the conventional and the special bits, and now that Charles had agreed to move in she wanted to show it off to the newcomer.

“If that’s agreed,” said Leslie “there’s not much else to see up here, so how about the grand tour of the rest of the house?”

They descended a level to Leslie’s first floor flat and made a quick inspection, finally returning to the lounge.

“I think,” said Leslie, indicating Charles’s rubber stockinged feet while picking up the pair of ankle boots he had so gratefully kicked off less than an hour before “that you will need to put something on your feet for the rest visit; not all the floors have thick carpets. And you ought to have a look outside at the mews entrance to the top flat,”

Charles’s heart sank. “Do I really have to put the shoes on again?” he grumbled. “I can’t say that I like the idea of clamping myself into them again after what happened today, but I suppose I’ve not much choice as they are the only pair I’ve got.”

“Oh, come on,” retorted Leslie, squatting down and helping him into the first one, “without these,” she held the other up, “you might not have got the Barry Schofield contract and certainly you would never have been able to become Charlotte Graham. And I wouldn’t have a tenant for my spare flat!”

Charles having been re-shod, they made their way, somewhat painfully in Charles’s case, down the grand staircase to the ground floor.

One of the rooms on the ground floor served as Leslie’s ‘consulting room cum office’. The decor made her professional activities obvious. A lot of black: carpet and curtains. Behind a hi-tech desk she had sumptuously black leather upholstered swivel chair. The only other seat for a prospective client was a stainless barstool with a small stainless-steel cycle-saddle top. On the walls were prints of women in exquisitely elegant kinky gear. There was an Alan Jones hat and coat stand by the door; in the centre of the room his glass topped table.

Charles was duly impressed. As he looked around he was conscious for the second time that day of feeling distinctly horny. The collection of erotica did, indeed, in some ways rivalled that of Barry Schofield. Leslie followed Charles’s gaze.

“Most of the collection was brought together by my father and grandfather,” volunteered Leslie. “My grandfather, in particular, was a real connoisseur and patron. He bought a lot of the stuff in the hall, like the Chaiparus and Preiss bronze and ivory pieces of exotic dancers and the girl with the riding crop before they were fashionable. They are priceless originals now; the prototypes from which the mass-produced castings were later made. The same is true of the Art Deco dancing girls holding lamps, as well as their collections and their aesthetic, I guess I must have inherited some of their flare ‘cause I was able to add the Alan Jones pieces at knock down prices when they were out of favour.”

“Well, I see what you mean about the décor competing with Barry Schofield,” Charles observed at length.

“What’s through there?” he added, noticing a door, much smaller than the one leading to the hall, in the wall behind the desk.

“Oh, you find that amusing,” said Leslie with a laugh, “go on, have a look, it’s not locked.” It was a small bathroom, complete with pink vanity unit, toilet and bidet and a shower cubical at the far end. On one wall was a shell-shaped urinal in which stood a bowl of flowering cactus. Leslie stepped up behind Charles.

“The study was used by my ancestors and I couldn’t bring myself to remove shell when I refitted the bathroom. Can’t think what they used it for, can you?” she added innocently, then with a grin. “Too low for washing your hands and too high for feet.”

“Can’t say I’ve seen anything like it recently” said Charles, entering into the joke, “A wine cooler perhaps?”

Leslie was obviously keen to get on with the tour. “This is where I interview prospective clients and do the paperwork,” she explained as they returned to the study proper. “The interesting bit is in the basement. Clients usually arrive at the trades-men’s entrance in the mews. There are also stairs from the hall that go down under the main stair-case, but the fun thing is this, come over here,” she beckoned.

Charles went over to the corner where Leslie was standing. “Now hold on to me,” she ordered. So saying she pressed a button on an infrared remote control that she had picked up from her desk. There was a faint whirring sound and a piece of the floor slowly began to descend.

The sudden movement took Charles’s only marginally stable legs by surprise and Leslie had to prevent him from falling as the study floor swept up past them. Once again Charles was struck by just how strong she was.

The lift completed its decent and Leslie stepped off the platform offering a hand to Charles and inviting him to follow.

“Welcome to my dungeon,” she said.

If Charles had been impressed by what he had seen so far, it had not prepared him for this new revelation. The platform had come to rest at the side of a thickly carpeted dais raised some 60 centimetres above the general height of the cellar floor. The only thing on the dais was an elaborate throne on which Leslie now sat, one leg crossed nonchalantly over the other, laughing at Charles’s astonishment.

“Really,” she said, “I should make you crawl before me or at least kneel. Normally lower mortals are not even allowed on the dais. But what do you think?”

Charles looked about him. Apart for the dais the floor was made of large stone flags. The walls looked as though they were stone though actually, it was artificial, Leslie having had the original brickwork lined for better effect. Spread around the space was a range of classical dungeon ‘toys’. Pillory and stocks, a rack with a most impressive capstan for tightening up the ropes and stretching the victim. Off to the side, he noticed the horse, not the gymnasium style, but with a narrow board with attached straps, in place of a padded top. Vaguely he recalled something like it in a museum exhibit it as being a thing on which a female sat, legs pulled up behind her, her full weight pressing her clitoris searingly into the board.

There were blocks and tackle and fastening rings everywhere. A number of larger pieces of apparatus were pushed against of attached to the walls. Prominent amongst these were two crosses, one X-shaped the other with the classic horizontal cross bar and a device like a large round table inclined at an angle to the horizontal. In the centre of the floor was a mysterious low circular wall with, hanging over it, a pulley and chain suspended from the ceiling. One wall was almost entirely mirror fronted floor-to-ceiling cupboards containing, Charles, as later to find out, clothes for both Leslie and clients to wear, smaller devices for restraint and torment, whips, gags and the rest of the paraphernalia of a dominatrix’s trade.

“Come on, let me show you round,” said Leslie and she slid off her throne and stepped down on to the stone floor. “Be careful where you put your feet,” she advised Charles. “Until you get used to them the slabs can catch you out, especially if you get a heel in a crack.”

Leslie was obviously very pleased with her dungeon and its equipment. The house had had a number of interconnecting basement and cellar rooms. In the old days some had been used by the servants, others had been for storage, notably the tons of coal that had been consumed to keep all the fires burning.

“It’s said,” she observed, that my great-grand father kept a massive fire going night and day in his study because he could never get warm after returning to London from the tropics.”

“I pity the maids having to carry it up all those stairs,” mused Charles.

“Oh, you don’t have to take pity on maids,” retorted Leslie, perhaps with a shade too much enthusiasm, “you need to work them hard to keep ‘em out of mischief.”

“Who does all the house work now, then?” Charles asked.

“I do, or occasionally a client, if that is what they want. You can’t really have an ordinary cleaning lady snooping round in a place like this, can you?

“Next door,” she went on, “I had some of the smaller store rooms converted in to cells, come and look.” She led Charles through a door that opened into a passage. Stairs led off upwards to the right.

“Those are the house stairs,” she explained. “They come out at the back under the grand staircase. That’s the servants’ route. At the far end of the passage is the set of stone steps leading to the mews. Normally, as I said, clients come that way. There’s a pair of doors to the outside that I can control from the throne or from my study. They are arranged like an airlock so that one can be opened only if the other is closed. There’s CCTV outside, in the air-lock bit and in here.” She waved at the unblinking eye of a small camera high upon the ceiling. “The door at the far end is a small changing room where clients can leave their things and freshen up after we have finished.

“And these,” pointing to two heavily studded wooden doors, solid, but for a sliding panel at eye-level, through which the gaoler could look at the inmate, on the left, “are my prison cells.” She selected a key from her châtelaine and inserted it in to the lock of the first door, swinging it open.

Inside the first door was another this time made of vertical, 25mm diameter, steel bars, threaded through flat horizontals. She unlocked this, too, and swung it open to reveal a narrow cell at least 250cm high. The inner walls were white washed and featureless save for a number of steel rings set in a various levels from floor to ceiling with more in the floor and ceiling themselves. The floor was covered with white tiles that ran off to a drain in at corner. A narrow, uncomfortable looking, bench was built into the rear wall.

“I use this for people who just want to be locked up or perhaps be put in chains,” Leslie explained. “If they want they can be fastened to the wall so that they have to remain standing for as long as they are in here, or I can suspend them from the ceiling.

“Usually I turn off the light and then, after a while, turn on the sounds of rats scurrying about on the audio system or perhaps dripping water.”

“And people like that?” asked Charles a little incredulously.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what they do like, some of them,” replied Leslie. “Come and look next door.” Charles left the cell shaking his head.

Externally, the second cell looked like the first, but the difference became plain as soon as the outer door was opened. This time, instead of just having an inner door, there was a complete metal cage suspended from the ceiling and separated from the walls of the cell proper by several centimetres. The heavily constructed top of the cage hung on a separate set of chains. These passed over pulleys then down to a shaft at the side of the cell so that it could be raised or lowered by turning a hand-wheel. At the other side of the cell a second hand-wheel seemed to be attached to some mechanism at the back of the cage.

“It’s a cramp cell,” explained Leslie, anticipating Charles’s question. “You put someone inside and then turn the wheels to lower the top and bring in the back so that they can’t stand up, sit or lie down. All they can do is crouch. It quickly gets dreadfully uncomfortable having to squat on the bars of the floor.”

“It reminds me of the cages they use for battery hens,” said Charles.

“Yes it does,” replied Leslie. “Amber and Gwyneth tried it together once. I managed to pack them into a space not much bigger than for one person. Usually the battery people put three to a cage. How about trying it again and you join them to make the threesome?”

“Not today, thank you very much,” said Charles with a grimace, “and anyway they cut the hens beaks off don’t they so that they can’t peck each other? I don’t think I fancy that.”

“Oh, it could be worse, what they cut off,” said Leslie with a grin. “And it wasn’t actually beaks that they were pecking each other with!”

“Mmm,” pondered Charles.

*****

They returned to the main dungeon room, Leslie again regally seating herself on the throne while leaving Charles standing on the stone floor and finding that he had to look up at her despite his high heels.

“Where did you get all your things from?” he asked, waving a hand in the general direction of the fixed equipment.

“Oh, some were sort of inherited,” she replied, “while others are more or less stock items in the trade.” She crossed one leg elegantly over the other then, swinging her foot, went on more slowing, her voice taking on a pensive tone. “Dad always wanted a son. Actually they had one before me, but it died as a baby, so when I came along, he bought me train sets and Meccano and tools rather than dolls and girl toys. I got pretty adept at designing and making things. That comes in very useful now.“

“I have a nice little workshop in one of the cellar rooms, on the side of the passage opposite the cells. Really big stuff, that I can’t physically handle, I have to get made, but smaller things, like the horse and the pillory, I prefer to do myself; it’s more discrete. How about you Charles, are you into DIY?”

“I used to be pretty good, actually, till computers took over,” he offered.

“Perhaps,” suggested Leslie, “you could devise me some computer controlled gear? I know some clients who would go for that.”

“Actually, a bit ago, I was playing with an idea that you might like. Perhaps I can show it you sometime. But, who are your clients?” asked Charles. “On your card it just says ‘Personal Consultant’.”

“Ah, that would be telling,” replied Leslie, mysteriously. “My service is extremely confidential.”

“Oh, I wasn’t meaning names,” Charles, butted in hurriedly, “just what sort of people and why do they come?”

Leslie relaxed into her throne, her voice taking on a professorial tone as though lecturing to a novice, as indeed she was.

“All manner of people, really,” she said, “though my fees are such that they have to be pretty well heeled to come here and use the facilities, apart from a few really close friends like Amber and Gwyneth that is.

“You must understand none of us, Amber and Gwyneth and me, are in the prostitution and sex-for-a-fee business. Really we are more like psychiatrists, consultants in fact. Usually clients are in pretty stressful jobs that require them to be dominant and make difficult decisions all the time. Occasionally they have had some traumatic personal experience, a marriage breaking up for example, and are looking for catharsis. Coming here and being ordered about or humiliated or immobilised for a bit helps relieve the stress.

“It’s very important to talk to a new client the first time we meet professionally and to work out with them what their particular problems and requirements are. Sometimes that takes more than one session and we may decide together that I can’t, in the end, help them. If we do decide to go ahead we plan a programme of sessions.”

“Your clients have a say in what you do, then?” butted in Charles, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, yes,” replied Leslie. “I’m not interested in quick in and out jobs. We plan ahead for several sessions of increasing intensity, but the client always had the ultimate control.

“What we get up to is pretty marginal, as far as the archaic laws of this land go. As much as possible, I try to stay on the right side, but if anything got out, the gutter press would have a hay-day. So, one crucially important point is that I give a cast iron guarantee of confidentiality with no hidden threat of the possibility of blackmail or drugs or other criminal activities such as you get with some others. That’s something that doesn’t ingratiate me with certain of the competition, at the moment, which is, I confess, one reason why I am keen to have someone else in the house besides myself.”

Charles stood silently for a few moments while this sank in. “Do you have women clients as well as men?” he eventually asked.

“About half-and-half,” she replied. “There are a lot of women executives out there who have just as stressful jobs as the men, often more so as I fear you will find out in the coming weeks, because of male chauvinism. They are in just as much need of strain relief as men. Also, some of them want to try to experience the suffering of women through the ages, as it were, and, for example, be locked into a scold’s bridle and a chastity belt with dildo and, butt-plugs then put into a prison cell for the weekend.

“It also does someone like Amber that is always rushing round on a high, a world of good to be pinned down and made to be still and simmer down for a while. I don’t know what I would do if someone came that wanted to be burnt at the stake, but the ducking stool is easier. That’s one of the things I use the well for,” she pointed across the dungeon with a riding crop that seemed to have materialised form nowhere into her hand.

“It really ought to be outside, so that the sentence can be carried out beneath the embarrassing gaze of the public, but that’s not so easy in central London now-a-days; perhaps I should get Gwyneth to fix something up at the farm? Anyway,” she went on getting up, “enough of theorising, you need to get back to the hôtel and sort you things out. I’ll run you over in the car if you like?”

Charles murmured his thanks.

“Oh, it no sweat. Actually, I was going down to see Gwyneth this evening anyway, so I can make a detour and drop you off. I won’t be back till about eleven tomorrow morning. After all today’s excitement you can have a lie in before bringing your stuff round.”

Charles hesitated, wondering yet again if this was real or just an erotic dream. His reverie was short lived as Leslie gave him a not too gentle swat on his rubber backside with a riding crop kept handily at the side of the throne.

“Come on, move your, butt,” she laughed as Charles jumped in surprise and reached behind him to comfort the spot that had just been hit, “I haven’t got all day, even if you have!”

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09.10.12