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ALEXANDER
HARLEY’S TAVERN is a dingy little pub out past the M25 towards Harlow. A nothing place, that’s how it looks. That’s why Claude uses it more often than not as his venue of choice.
I take the Mercedes down into the underground car park, and pull in next to his sparkling BMW. Harley’s Tavern looks like a dive to the casual observer, just another spit and sawdust local showing football on the big screen at the weekends.
I wouldn’t be seen dead here under normal circumstances, but venture upstairs and it’s a whole different story.
I’ve called this meeting. I haven’t seen Claude in months, not since he schmoozed it up at the same charity ball I was at last summer and shot me a few too many overfamiliar glances across the crowd. I generally prefer distance in our business communications, but my requirements are… changing.
He meets me by the entrance to the rear hall, the same slick grin on his face he always wears for business. His handshake is firm and not at all clammy.
“Alexander, it’s been a while. I’ve booked us the bridal suite.” He laughs and slaps my back.
This kind of boys’ club camaraderie normally gets my hackles up, but I need Claude, so I let it lie. Every fucking time.
Need. It’s a fucking disgusting word.
He leads us upstairs and slides his card into the lock. Memories of Candice hammer my senses. Her pretty ass spread wide for me last week, her groans as I opened her up all the way. She stretched so willingly that girl.
But she gave me nothing.
Tense calves. A grimace. Moans that were borderline over-acting.
She gave me fuck all.
They’re always there for the money, and why wouldn’t they be? I’m no fucking idiot, but cash-hungry girls going through the motions are no longer enough.
I want more than a couple of ticked boxes showing their hard limits. I want more than a little slut on her knees pretending she’s loving everything I’m loving.
I want real.
And that’s what I tell Claude in no uncertain terms.
He offers me a whisky and I wave it aside as usual. He pours himself a healthy measure and takes a seat on the leather chaise longue. I pace, back and forth by the four poster, sifting through memories of all the times I’ve been in this room, all the women I’ve paid to tie to its posts and fuck until I’m sated and they’re considerably better off financially.
“The girls like it,” he tells me. “Candice, well, she asks for you, often. I think she’s got a real thing for you.”
“Because I tip,” I snap. “You know it and I know it.”
He shakes his head. “She’s a dirty girl, believe me. She was a star in the test run. She wants it one hundred percent. She wants you one hundred percent.”
“I’ve no doubt she gets her thrills, Claude, but she’s not really exposed. She doesn’t let go. She isn’t…”
His eyes glint like the black obsidian in my collection at home. “Isn’t what, Henley? Isn’t scared? Is that what you want? A girl who’s scared of you? Some little slip of a thing who’ll make you feel like your balls are made of fucking steel?” He takes a sip of whisky. “Is that what you’re after? Power? Real power? I’m sure I can deliver, just tell me how far you want to go.”
I shoot him a glare. “I’m not a total fucking psychopath.”
I hate that he knows me. I hate that he knows what I like. Most of all, I hate the way he judges me without even realising he’s fucking judging me.
He shrugs. “None of my business what gets you off, Henley. You just tell me what you want, I’ll find it.” He sighs. “Why the sudden dissatisfaction? You liked Candice last week, Elena, too. And Kimberly. You told me you liked Kimberly. You gave her two grand in tips last month, she told me.”
I did like Kimberly. Did.
“I’m tired of Kimberly,” I tell him. “Kimberly uses the first chance she gets to take it doggy style and get the kinky shit over with. Kimberly gets off that way, that’s her priority. I gave her two grand in tips last month because she pushed her limits. That’s all. She bolted like a smacked fucking horse afterwards.”
He laughs. “Sure. She’s not hardcore enough. So you want fresh meat. I got it.” He grabs some papers from his briefcase. “For your perusal, off the books. First choice.”
“Like every single thing you do isn’t off the books.” I take them from him, sit myself on the bed to have a look.
Girls. Five of them. Early twenties, pretty, spread pussies, perfectly filthy smiles. Keen.
Perfect.
All of them perfect.
An array of checked boxes under their pictures. Limits, so many limits.
I drop the pile at my side. “None of them.”
“That little Lulabelle is a real treat. She’ll be right up your alley, I promise. I can do you a deal. I’ll call her in this weekend, on the house, try before you buy.”
But I don’t want Lulabelle, with her pouty lips and her perfectly perky tits. She looks like she’d be a squealer. She’d probably break glass.
“What’s wrong with Lulabelle?” Claude asks again. “She’s perfect.”
Exactly. I don’t say that. I don’t want to share any more of my kinks with Claude than absolutely necessary. The slimy cunt already knows enough to turn my stomach.
“I said none of them.”
Claude looks nonplussed. “Sure, well, your father showed interest. I guess I’ll pass her on to him.”
My finger jabs through the air before I can stop it. “Don’t mention my fucking father, Claude. You know the fucking rules.”
He holds his hands up. “Just saying. I’ll pass them on, if you’re sure.”
“And you also just said this selection was just for me, off the books.”
He shrugs. “Me and your old man go back a long way, as you well know.”
It makes me cringe, the whole fucking lot of it. Pandering to this seedy little back-alley business for safety, because my own tried and tested methods of scoring hook-ups landed me in the jaws of Ronald fucking Robertson and his fucking shit stain of a newspaper.
I grit my jaw. Breathe slowly. Calmly.
“Find me what I’m looking for, Claude. Send the others to whoever you want, I have no interest.”
“You get first refusal, you know that…”
I laugh, because it’s like a black comedy, this whole sordid affair. I’m watching my own train wreck unfold, tumbling down my own perverted rabbit hole. “First refusal in an open auction. Sure I do.”
“You know what I mean, Henley. First refusal over some of my other clients…”
Clients.
He means my disgusting excuse of a father and his vile little network of associates. The man who bailed me out with company cash and insisted I use his more secure outlets for my needs.
The one condition: we never cross purchases.
Quite frankly I have no fucking interest in touching any woman my father has been within a five-mile radius of. I’d rather hack my dic
k off with a rusty knife.
I’d rather not be in a five-mile radius of him either for that matter, but I have no such joy keeping the old cunt out of my boardroom.
I wish I didn’t know what the grim old bastard gets up to at all, but the memory is emblazoned in my psyche for all time. The wonders of teenage curiosity. I wish I could bleach the knowledge from my brain. Believe me, I’ve tried. My therapists made these pricey little sexcapades look like small change.
“Get me what I’m looking for, Claude. Something real. Someone with no ticks in the boxes. Someone who’ll fucking fit.”
He laughs. “Sounds to me like you want a girlfriend, Henley, not a hooker. That isn’t my game.”
The idea of a girlfriend is laughable. My heart shrivelled up and died a long time ago.
He stands and holds out his hand. “Leave it with me.”
I shake it without smiling, then offer him back his paperwork. He doesn’t take it.
“Think on them, I have other copies.”
I’m sure he fucking does. “I don’t need to think on them.”
“Humour me, then.” His grin is bright and professional, as though he’s trying to sell me a fucking timeshare.
I fold the papers and slip them into my inside pocket, to humour the sonofabitch.
“I’ll be in touch,” he says.
I don’t say goodbye on my way out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEXANDER
LIFE WASN’T ALWAYS like this for me.
A sugar-coated veneer of normality once held the power to keep my darker impulses at bay.
Once.
Getting married was easy, I just had to pretend to be everything I wasn’t.
Getting divorced was easier, I just had to stop pretending.
I never wanted Claire. I wanted her sister.
We met at a fundraiser for the Para-Olympics. Claire’s sister is a double-amputee swimmer, and one of the most vivacious people I’ve ever met.
She was in an accident. One of those wrong place at the wrong time affairs that dealt her a shitty hand.
She lost both her legs below the knee, chewed up under a Transit van travelling far too fast on a blind bend. People grimace when she tells the story. Give it all the oohs and aahs and you poor, poor soul. But she didn’t want any of that. Didn’t need their sympathy. Just as the pressure in the earth forms mere rock into the most glorious crystals, her accident transformed her into something incredible, someone who came back stronger and all the more beautiful for her adversity.
