Exhibitionist to Swinger: Chapter 15
Proceedings on the flat moved quickly and within ten days of returning from Manchester, Renée’s solicitor rang her to say that they could exchange contracts. I asked my tradesman friend, an old schoolmate, to review the place and price up the work required, and Dave conversed with Renée, giving options and approximate prices.
“Do you know any good builders who could take it on at short notice?” she asked.
“I’ve got a contract ending in two weeks’ time. My colleague Chris and me could do most of it. We work with a good sparky and an excellent plumber, and we could easily do the rest. You’d just need to fit the carpets and buy the sofa. Oh, and choose the kitchen and bathroom suites.” He paused before adding. “And we’d be done ‘fore Christmas.”
“Sounds perfect. The cost?”
“Let me price a few things up.” He gave a rough ballpark figure and promised that Wimbledon Park Construction Services Ltd would send a full itemised quote within twenty-four hours.
The other advancement was a little more unexpected; Miss, the lesbian dominant from the swingers’ club, contacted Renée. The dominatrix was local to Putney, and she ran regular sessions with new dominatrices at a dungeon they had access to. My sweetheart was very excited when the very experienced domme explained the purpose of the call; she wanted a couple of subjects for the wild group of inexperienced would-be dominants, and they had a long discussion over limits and expectations. The fortnightly offer tessellated with her work trips, so she could be free on Thursday nights, and accepted the kind and kinky overture.
I felt a little annoyed because we had tickets for a backstreet comedy performance I wanted to see, but she promised me we would go on a different day and invited me to attend on the proviso I stayed quiet and did nothing. This was for lesbian dommes and my role was to sit in the corner and observe, being present only to reassure the submissive. So I swapped a theatre trip for a front-row seat at the hottest sex show in town.
What guy wouldn’t want to watch a group of horny lesbians devour and dominate their naked girlfriend? The dominatrix teacher encouraged her four students to wear outfits that boosted their feelings of dominance and sexiness; a middle-aged blonde wore dark leather trousers, a young biracial girl had chosen a navy PVC dress and thigh-high boots, a gorgeous fair-haired student had a bright scarlet Latex catsuit and her ebony friend had a similar outfit in charcoal grey and candy red.
I was already erect before they’d picked up a whip or touched Renée, attired in just a thick onyx collar and a white gown.
Miss started by asking the assembled crowd what the first thing they should do in a session; a simple enough query, but one that had answers ranging from “strip the submissive” to “get the toys out.”
She shook her head, scowling a little. “Check your sub. Tell them what you expect. Agree on the safewords. Understand the fantasies, desires, and limits. C’mon gals, safe, sane, consensual. So let’s do that now.” She turned to Renée and addressed my girlfriend. “You OK? Any aches, concerns, pains, anything to avoid?”
Her voice crackled with expectation; her flushed cheeks radiated in the cool light of the playspace as she answered her dominatrix. “No, I’m good. Excited. Nervous. But good.”
“Excellent. We’ll do our house safewords then. Cherry for stop. Orange for go slower. Grape for all is good. Can you repeat that for me?”
“Cherry. Orange. Grape.”
“Good. Good. Now, your kink experience and limits that we’ve discussed. You’re in a straight relationship but bisexual. Dildos and toys are good in both holes. You play safe, and you want to give and receive oral, you love public exposure, forced orgasms, and enjoy submission and humiliation. OK to mild impact play but not big into pain. Fine with restraints, gags, bondage, sensation teasing, but don’t touch piss and scat or permanent markings. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Renée squeaked.
“Want to clarify or change anything?”
“No.”
Miss turned to her group. “So, we’ve established what we can and can’t do. We understand her limits. And I discussed them in advance. I’m not grabbing the whip to give her a hundred of the best, but I could tie her up and play with her. With your boyfriend or girlfriend, you’ll already know this. Communication would have told you. But a new partner you should establish before you start a session. And why do we agree on safewords?”
She discussed safety with Renée and the group, highlighting her core principles and underlining important it was that boundaries were understood by all before a scene. I’d been there for twenty minutes and nothing had happened, other than that I had ogled five dazzlingly hot women dressed in dominating attire.
I didn’t even realise how much the smooth leather, shiny latex and glossy PVC outfits would turn me on. The smell of artificial plastics and fabrics mixed with sweat, debauchery, and a faint whiff of perfume.
The naked Renée looked vulnerable between these towering, confident women. Miss gestured for my sweetheart to kneel, and my girlfriend obeyed immediately, her knees sinking onto the padded mat in the centre of the room, before the domme asked her charges to introduce themselves and establish dominance.
A simple task; the blonde in leather trousers circled her first, taking a scarlet riding crop from the arsenal beside her, tapping the fibreglass shaft of the equestrian equipment against her palm. The leatherette loop traced my partner’s flesh as her heels made slow steps around my girlfriend. “You have such pretty skin,” she murmured, dragging the tip of her weapon down Renée’s spine. Her voice was low and gravelly, with a menacing undertone that oozed sincerity. “I’m going to love marking it today.” The threat was implicit, and Renée shivered.
The next domme, the biracial girl radiated control; her supreme confidence was marked in her gait, her walk, her expression and her grip on the thin cane that slid over my girlfriend’s expectant and trembling flesh. Her hand gripped the back of my partner’s hair, forcing the submissive to look up into the student’s eyes as she spoke, exuding power without raising her tone or voice.
Others lacked that presence; they mistook aggression for authority, and Miss stepped in when the other student yelled, acting out a faux-dominance fantasy that was from pornography and not reality.
It was a slow-paced session; the dominatrix had promised that the inexperienced charges had had a couple of hours of non-practical “tuition” and then would have seven demonstrations and lessons – three with a female subject and four with a male.
The spanking bench turned the temperature of the class up considerably. Each domme took a weapon from the impressive arsenal and Miss went through the safe – and unsafe – places to hit submissives. “You’re not trying to knock ‘em into next week. Or do it so soft that they can’t feel it. Their limits show what they will tolerate and ultimately enjoy. We want them in subspace.”
The blonde in leather trousers was the first to swing, delivering ten sharp smacks to Renée’s upturned buttocks, alternating between cheeks. Each strike left a pink bloom that darkened slightly under the dungeon’s atmospheric low light. Renée gasped, fingers tightening on the bench’s restraints, but her moan was unmistakable. Part pain, part exhilaration.
Then the biracial girl followed, her cane whistling before landing a stinging stripe across the backs of Renée’s thighs. Tattooing scarlet lines onto her flesh, forcing my lover to emit sharp cries after every strike of the long, thin, wooden stick.
I fidgeted as I watched; this felt a lot more intimate that Ben or any of the anonymous men that had plundered her. BDSM plays strongly on the mental as well as the physical, and the five female dommes were drawing my lover into sensations that were intensely personal. In some ways, I shared more of Renée watching her submit to Miss and her group than I had seeing her gangbanged by twenty strangers in Cap D’Agde. More people had ogled her on that beach, or at the yacht party, or in the bukkake contest.
Yet, in this dungeon, she felt more exposed. The bindings laid more of my partner bare as she twisted, feeling the assault on her skin and her body. Whips, canes, crops and paddles kissed her naked flesh, leaving blushed reminders of their presence on her figure. Pain and pleasure; torment and tranquillity.
And I was more aroused. A lot more so. Seeing her so open and vulnerable, powerless and yet spellbound by the magical strikes inflicted upon her. Miss coordinated everything; she whispered into her student’s ears and then they’d do something.act.
The blonde knelt beside Renée and told she’d been a “good girl” and the PVC-clad apprentice ran her fingers over my partner’s assaulted skin, asking her if she was OK and received “grape” muttered in contented response.
But it was not just painful domination; they played with her mind and her exhibitionism. When they fastened her face up on the sling, her cunt available, and slipped a black cloth covering over her head. “This camera is broadcasting live on the Internet. After five orgasms, we’ll tell them the town we’re in. Ten, and they’ll know your first name. Get to twelve, I’m publishing your full name. And after fifteen, we’ll take off the balaclava and make you famous.”
Renée orgasmed almost immediately; the dommes donned face coverings being entering the frame and the blonde domme sank two fingers into her without preamble, twisting her wrist to slide over my partner’s G-Spot in that cruel way my girlfriend adored. The camera’s red light blinked mockingly from the tripod; strangers watched her clench around those fingers, her thighs trembling as the middle-aged apprentice dragged a climax from her easily.
The vibrating butt plug, nipple clamps and eight-inch dildo took her to another level, and the biracial student applying a vibrator to her clit brought a third orgasm in little over five minutes. Renée was a desperate, horny mess. The mental anguish and thoughts of exposure doing almost as much to raise her inability to resist her peaks than the all-out assault on her erogenous zones.
The dommes rotated, each eager to bring her to another climax. Closer to that threshold. And they had an inexhaustible number of toys and techniques succeed. “Five,” Miss cried out, typing on the keyboard of the laptop. “Now, whenever your neighbours go to the supermarket, they’ll wonder which one of the middle-aged blonde-haired sluts in their town got off on being broadcast on the net. Who was it? Could it be you? A few more and everyone’ll know.”
Renée’s sixth orgasm came with a scream; muffled cries into her balaclava as a dildo pounded into her, sliding over her G-spot and stretching her cunt. Her thighs and body, slick with sweat and exhaustion, her hips bucked in her bindings as they forced another peak from her.
“Two hundred and ninety-seven viewers,” Miss added. “I wonder how many of them live locally.” The seventh orgasm ripped through Renée like a delayed earthquake – her body convulsing against the restraints, toes curling against the padded bench as the biracial domme pressed the intensive bullet vibe against her clit in slow, deliberate circles. The dominatrix leaned over the laptop, fingers tapping idly. “Three hundred and twelve now,” she murmured. “The guys here love a kinky lesbian gangbang.”
The teacher gave me a cursory smile and a nod. I wondered if I needed to stop the show to preserve my girlfriend’s anonymity; such a scandal would be catastrophic for her career. But Renée had said she had discussed limits with Miss extensively before stepping foot inside the dungeon, and she trusted the experienced domme, who had almost twenty years of experience in the kinky underworld.
Was this a mind-fuck, or something she would stop before she got to the magical fifteen orgasms?
So many climaxes sounded a lot; Renée was quite hyper-orgasmic, and I’d seen her peak multiple times. Her G-spot was her nemesis, and they’d already worked that out.
The biracial domme crouched low, her lips brushing Renée’s ear through the balaclava’s fabric, whispering as her colleague flicked the vibrating dildo to its highest setting, thrusting the toy deeper. Renée writhed, groaning and squealing; a few minutes later her back arched violently as her hips jerked, straining against the restraints. Miss tapped the laptop screen, where the viewer count ticked upward in real time. “Four hundred and sixty-three,” she announced. “Local IPs flagged in blue. Seventy so far from this country and eleven from our city.”
“Oh, God!” Renée squealed, clamping down on the intruder pressed against the inside of her cunt.
“The way you’re going, we will expose you to the entire world. One more, and we’ll be telling them your first name. You could stop it anytime. Just say that safeword, pet. But you can’t, can you? You love that hundreds of people are wanking off to you right now. And you want everyone to know how much of a filthy, dirty slut you really are.”
I had to stop this; my girlfriend was her own worst enemy. The tenth orgasm smashed into Renée like an asteroid; her thighs trembled violently, toes curling, voice screaming and body jerking as the blonde student’s fingers glided into her dripping cunt, sliding over my partner’s G-spot. Miss’s hand hovered over the laptop keys. “First name,” she purred. “Shall I tell them?”
Renée’s whimper was barely audible under the balaclava, but her tortured, desperate cries were unmistakable. The keyboard clicked. Miss looked at me and gave me a wry smile and a thumbs up before she pressed the Enter key. What had she done?
“Five hundred and ninety-nine perverts are watching this disgusting filth,” she added. “And you have twenty-eight coins in tips. That’s about fifteen quid. Is that worth destroying your reputation over? Can you imagine what your neighbours, colleagues and friends will say when I send them this video?”
The domme leaned back in her chair, watching Renée’s frantic squirming with detached amusement. Her inexperienced sadists worked the professional woman well, with fingers and toys twisted against her cunt and her clit, dragging more ragged moans from my girlfriend’s throat. “Eleven,” Miss announced as my lover’s hips jerked against the restraints. The laptop screen refreshed—local IPs now highlighted in clusters. Too many. “Seven hundred and eighty viewers. Over forty from the city. There’s gonna be a wanking guy within a few minutes of this dungeon.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“And someone’s just tipped fifty euros.” Her heels clacked as she walked to my girlfriend writhing in the sling and knelt down to whisper in her ear. “Fifty euros an hour. That’ll be your hourly rate when we expose you for the tramp that you are. Four more orgasms and we’ll show the world who’s been a slut for them.” She gestured to the side of the dungeon and one of her dommes strapped into a strap-on harness with a meaty dong.
I mumbled. This felt like it had got out of hand. But I also believed I should trust the dominatrix and my partner. Miss’s fingers drummed against the laptop lid, eyes flicking between Renée’s trembling form and the climbing viewer count. “We’re going to fuck your next humiliation out of you,” she announced, watching as the balaclava-clad biracial domme lined up the dildo at the head of my girlfriend’s cunt.
Renée realised and groaned, squirming as the junior buried the dong into her pussy, holding onto her thighs as she pounded the fake prick deep into her. Renée’s body arched violently, her hips bucking against the strap-on’s relentless thrusts. She chased her own climax; she wanted her own exposure and degradation. Horniness overruled her judgement as the student domme adjusted her stance, driving the rubber phallus deeper and faster into my partner.
The laptop’s display flickered with another surge of viewers; local IPs now dotted the map like a spreading rash. “Nine hundred and twenty,” Miss murmured, tapping her nail against the screen. “Someone’s tipped a ton. Guess they love watching you humiliate yourself. Just your safeword between you and a destroyed reputation.”
She looked at me once more; a reassuring glance or check if I would allow her to put a bomb under my girlfriend’s career. My cock was hard, my judgement impaired. But not as bad as my partner, who screamed into her balaclava, shuddering and screaming as she reached another orgasm.
“Twelve,” she cried. Miss’s fingers danced across the keyboard again.
“Cherry,” my girlfriend shrieked, and Miss pressed a button, sending the screen to black. The dommes froze, looking at their teacher, who nodded and rose from her seat, turning the camera against the wall and pressing the power switch on the device.
She peeled away the covering to reveal my girlfriend’s flushed, sweat-slicked face, her pupils blown wide with adrenaline and lingering panic. “Two key lessons here,” Miss said, turning to her apprentices. “A submissive’s trust is precious and essential. It’s the primary currency you have. Break it, and you’re just another predator with a whip. An abuser in shiny latex. I know how much Renée’s reputation means to her, and we discussed it. So when I had to type out her name, I put ‘Rose Graham’. I told the viewers our city was Birmingham, not London. But for all the whips, the paddles, the canes, dildos, vibrators, strap-ons, and more, what shattered her resolve was a mental thing. There was no way that balaclava was coming off with us still broadcasting. But in the moment, that jeopardy was her fantasy, and it was potent. The most powerful sex organ isn’t between your legs, it is between your ears.”
Miss unhooked Renée’s restraints with ease. Her hands helped my girlfriend sit up and get her balance. The middle-aged blonde, now unmasked, gave their submissive a plastic bottle of water. Renée gulped it, her throat working around each swallow as if she’d been stranded in a desert, not a dungeon. “I need to get this butt plug out,” she said, straining to her feet, and then squatting.
“Oh, yeah!” The woman giggled. “I’m always leaving them in subs!”
She dressed, and Miss promised to send her a copy of the video; the dominatrix had broadcast Renée to over a thousand people on the popular webcam site, and we walked home in the frosty evening air, holding hands. And for once, my girlfriend was not in the mood for sex when we settled into bed. She was too mentally drained and physically sore.
But the video became our personal porn film of choice, and seeing it – causing her to reminisce of the feelings, emotions and arousal she had, always put her in the mood for a wild session. Subsequent evenings were sex-filled, and when she showed it to our lodgers, she turned into a greedy bisexual slut.
Ben, meanwhile, had become a close friend and confidante. I regularly screwed his girlfriend, and he received multiple blowjobs and threesomes involving my partner, so we were always likely to have something significant in common. But we spent time together most evenings, playing games on the console, or going to the pub, and I introduced him to my mates when Renée travelled.
My girlfriend encouraged it, as his previous associates had led him into trouble with the police, so he assembled a new group of friends – through me and through his employment. He relaxed a lot more too; becoming our “lodger” or “housemate” as well as “friend” and “sex partner” and more. Ben’s personality blossomed, coming to the fore.
My sweetheart was very much on the “work hard, play hard” mentality and as he naturally looked up to her, he adopted a lot of her disciplined way of life. He woke early, often ran with Renée for an hour, and then had a quick shower before travelling to the office and eating breakfast at his desk. He’d come home, have tea, and then he might spend some time relaxing, before having sex with Poppy – or my girlfriend – and then when the girls retired to bed, we’d have a drink and load the console for a few rounds of a game.
But he was cheeky and effervescent. When I travelled to see my children (and my ex-wife) one Sunday, I received multiple video clips and pictures on the train home from him. My friend – and lodger – had not only fucked Renée in the arse, bareback, but he was with two other men and they’d screwed her too. He felt secure enough to send me evidence of him sodomising my girlfriend, something I still hadn’t done.
There were other things too that pointed towards his increasing comfort. When my lover went away for at least one night – a weekly occurrence – we’d often play with Poppy together. She embraced the role and cherished the attention of being a “greedy girl” and despite being Ben’s partner, she loved it when we spitroasted her, or she gave oral favours as we played computer games. And being summoned to her bedroom one evening when Renée was in Geneva, with her and Ben doing 69, and she detaching her lips from his cock and demanding that I screw her.
Bareback, I slid my erect dick into Ben’s girl as he had his tongue around her clit. He gave her oral as I pounded into her. My buddy continued, unabashed that inches from his face, my prick speared into the bare cunt of his girlfriend. The mattress groaned beneath the weight of three copulating adults. Poppy’s moans were muffled against Ben’s thigh as she worked him with her mouth, eagerly bobbing and deep-throating his quivering shaft.
She understood what she’d orchestrated; the kinkiness of her machinations as her fiery arousal burned hotter than ever. Poppy’s thighs trembled, her cunt clenching rhythmically as Ben’s tongue coaxed her towards a climax. His fingers dug into her hips, anchoring her writhing body as I drove into her, with no condom and no hesitation, just the slick friction of her tightness around me.
And then she came with a muffled scream against Ben’s thigh and I kept thrusting through her convulsions, chasing my release while her cunt twitched and gasped in waves, squeezing and kissing my cock with delicious pulses.
As I drove in harder and faster, feeling her quivering body beneath me, I warned her as I neared the point of no return. “Come in me!” she squealed. The moment Poppy gasped that kinky instruction, something primal snapped in me. I thrusted deep, holding her hips as my orgasm erupted, firing hot pulses into her while Ben’s tongue still worked her clit. Her back arched violently, a second climax ripping through her as she milked me with rhythmic clenches, making me fill her with my seed.
And then my cock softened. I heard Ben groan as he came down her throat, with Poppy milking him dry as my cum oozed from her swollen pussy. Pooling between her silky lips, my viscous goo seeped from her. Drooling between her slit, gravity guiding a large drop towards my friend’s face underneath the crotch of his promiscuous girlfriend.
I made eye contact with Ben, expecting a look of expectation or horror in his expression as Poppy shifted her weight. “You lost, you eat,” she giggled, wiggling her hips, before sitting up and pressing her cream-filled cunt into the face of her boyfriend.
Ben’s muffled laughter vibrated against Poppy’s thighs as she ground herself against him, her giggles punctuated by little gasps when his tongue flicked over her oversensitive clit. I watched, still catching my breath and in shock, as his hands gripped her hips – not to push her away, but to pull her closer to him, swallowing the mess I’d left inside her. Poppy’s palms rested on his torso as he cleaned her. “Good boy.”
She gave me an explanation; they had a wager that he had lost, with him having to eat a creampie from her cunt. Poppy did not specify whose cum it would be, and she seized the kinky opportunity to drive home her victory. Ben, for his part, was not bothered that he’d swallowed my seed from the pussy of his girlfriend. Which is something I would not have done. And an act that Gareth would gleefully enjoy.
But the change in my romance was stark. This time last year, I’d not have countenanced the idea of any sexual contact outside of our union; six months ago, I relented to Renée’s lust for exhibitionism. Then a few weeks after that, she convinced me to try handjobs and massages and blowjobs with others. And finally, I consented to our swinging and exploring. But this was now a fully open relationship. I screwed around, and she fucked other people. While she was seducing Angelica in a Swiss hotel room, I was balls deep in her best friend while the boyfriend gave her oral.
The following evening, Renée’s flight was not due to arrive in Heathrow until 9:30pm, and Ben was at the local college, the first of his lessons for his accountancy course. Poppy came down, wearing just a silk negligee, and put her arms around me as I loaded the dishwasher. “Want some fun?” I asked.
“Ohh, so much,” the nymphomaniac cooed.
“Then get dressed. We’re going out.”
She pouted and moaned a little, but Poppy rarely required anything more than scant encouragement to be coerced to do what I commanded, and we took the train a few stops to Earls Court, and then a few stations down the line to Hammersmith. Dressed in a short skirt and crop top, she complained of the cold, despite her coat, as we walked along the wintry road. Purveyors of vaping accessories, fast food, coffee, alcohol and more were still open, selling their vices to the London crowd, with the dry cleaners, book shop and healthy superstore long since closed for the Friday evening.
The varnished wood at the entrance hall of the Escape Room and the vibrant colours on the wall gave our destination a classy, refined look. I’d booked it a few days before as a surprise, and we were the last game of the day. Abbi introduced herself, a bespectacled girl with coloured hair and green eyeshadow, as our host, and would supervise us from cameras, offering assistance if we needed it.
Poppy and I fucked regularly, but I enjoyed her company. Our connection – as friends and housemates – had to go beyond the carnal, and I’d really loved our hours together in Manchester. And more than that, the blonde nymph is bright. She is much more than an amazing cocksucker with delicious tits, a beautiful body and a slick cunt. She is a great fuck, but an incredible woman.
And we had fifty puzzles to crack inside an hour, and she was clever. Her skills of deduction were quick; she saw patterns before me, and she solved riddles, unlocked clues, and advanced the game rapidly. We had had no help from Abbi, as the pair of us made a great team, scything through the challenges to complete the escape room with a dozen minutes to spare.
But she smiled and laughed. Poppy enjoyed herself by being herself, and after we had the obligatory photograph in the reception, we went for a drink, finding a quiet alcove in a local pub to share a beer and a large cocktail. “Thanks, I liked that!” I said to her. “I enjoy spending time with you. It’s fun. You’re great company.”
Her cheeks rouged, sipping her bright red concoction. “You could have spent time at home with me.” She bit her lip, looking coyly at the large door to the accessible toilet. “In fact, we could …”
“No,” I snapped, a little sharply. “You don’t need to offer me sex constantly!”
“Well, most guys like getting their knob polished!”
It was something that had played in the back of my mind for a while, and I strummed my fingers on the table and took a deep breath. I wanted to talk to her about a delicate matter. “I know you crave sex, Poppy, and I love doing it with you because you are crazy good at it. Your blowjobs are incredible, and I’d never tell her, but your fellatio is better than Renée’s. But you are so much more than a great lay. And I am worried that you can’t see that.” Her face tightened as if I had reached over the drinks and slapped her. “I like you for being you, and so should all your friends.”
“I like you too, but …” She shrugged. “I don’t have that many friends who I haven’t slept with. Ben’s really horny all the time. I am too. You and Renée never turn down a shag, so my life is sexual. And I like it.”
“You like being the centre of attention,” I replied. I said it coldly, but I didn’t mean it with any malice.
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.” I reached for her hands across the table and held them, looking into her eyes. “You’re amazing at wanting people to want you. Nobody can get attention better than you. You would laid in the Vatican. But you are a thousand times more than a playful party girl, and being great in the sack. You are not a dumb blonde, and yet when Renée suggested you change jobs or go to college, you act like it’s beyond you. Do you think I would have escaped from the room on my own? You are so much smarter and cleverer than what you do.”
Poppy’s right hand wriggled out of my grip and her fingers tightened around her cocktail glass. The silence between us stretched for a few seconds as she digested what I said. “It’s just easier,” she muttered. “I’m not disappointed if I can’t fail. I can be the fun one. The easy one. No one expects anything else from me. I don’t let anyone down.” She swirled her drink, watching the ice clink. “You are the first person who’s ever…” The sentence trailed away. “I am just a good-time girl who enjoys life.” I stared at her as she squirmed, and she used the ball of her palm to wipe the tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “God, you’re worse than a fucking therapist.”
“I don’t mean to be. Renée has her new role. Don’t tell her, but I’ve applied for a promotion too. Ben’s flying and he’s doing his qualifications. And whenever we’ve suggested that you look for another job or advance, you change the subject and offer sexual favours. It got me thinking about how you see yourself. And how you think others see you.”
“Renée sees me as a petulant slut with an out-of-control sex drive. Ben sees me as …” Her voice trailed off.
“He considers you to be Little Miss Perfect.” I interrupted, and she shook her head. “I mean it. I drink with him regularly. He hasn’t got a bad word to say about you and he’s always waxing lyrical. He thinks you’re hotter than Satan’s airing cupboard and several suns shine out of your derriere. We all think so highly of you, Poppy. We just want you to be truly happy. And you spend so much time at a workplace you hate, and doing a job that you despise, with people you can’t stand. And then when you get home, you act like your role is to satisfy others and be used every day for sexual favours.”
“I can’t just quit, Tom. I don’t have the money or the energy to get onto classes,” she snapped, gesturing wildly at me with her free hand. “I don’t know what I’d do. And I probably wouldn’t pass even if I did.”
Poppy’s fingers trembled around her glass, and I leaned forward, elbows on the sticky table. “You are wrong. You would succeed. If you put your mind to it. You solved a room full of riddles in under an hour.” She snorted, but her eyes stayed wet. “And money? I’d help you take night classes. Hell, I’ll even pay if you’d just stop believing that the only thing people want you for, and the only thing you’re good for, is quickies in disabled toilets and giving blowjobs to strangers.” Poppy’s breath hitched when I said it; I’d hit a nerve Poppy didn’t know was exposed.
“You’d really do that for me?”
“Yes. And if your classes are on Friday night, then you’d be learning at the same time as Ben. What did you want to do when you left college?”
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” she admitted. “But when I reached eighteen, I just got a job at Webster and Sons and stayed.” She hummed. “Life with Mum was difficult. And I didn’t want to commit for four years of study.”
I checked my watch. “We better make a move. I need to meet Renée’s plane,” I said, downing my drink. We chatted, and I used my phone as I travelled to Heathrow on the Tube, researching options for our friend. A local NHS trust offered several places on a part-time nursing degree course each year; it was a four-year commitment, but her A Level grades met the entry requirements and this was a genuine option for her. It also meant she could continue to earn money from employment while she studied.
But more than that, as we reached the airport and bought a coffee each from the cafe, Poppy seemed excited about her future. And not just gleeful about getting naked and playing with consenting adults.
“We could nip into the disabled bogs,” she suggested when we saw Renée’s flight was twenty minutes late.
“Or we could look to fill in a nursing application form on my phone?”
“If I get a place, I want the mother of all orgies to celebrate.”
“Deal.”
