Seven Scarlet Tales Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Justine Elyot

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Practical Criticism

  Tea and Ceremony

  Two Tops One Crop

  Prisoner 39

  Perversion Therapy

  One Hot Summer

  It All Comes Down To Love

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A brand new sizzling collection of linked short stories by the highly acclaimed author of the ebook sensation, On Demand.

  They include the actress/director of a new production of Kiss Me Kate discovering the fun of a real life ‘taming’, a sizzling BDSM ménage, an innocent’s first day at a private fetish club and a very kinky encounter with a famous screen star.

  About the Author

  Justine Elyot’s kinky take on erotica has been widely anthologised in Black Lace’s themed collections and in the most popular online sites.

  She lives by the sea.

  Also by Justine Elyot:

  On Demand

  For everyone who understands.

  Practical Criticism

  ‘All right, Miss Vanessi. You asked for it and you’re going to get it.’

  Leo couldn’t fail me now, and he was encouragingly forceful when he grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the bench, stage-right. I’d told him over and over, ‘Do it for real. Don’t hold back. Put your arm into it.’

  At first rehearsals, he’d been reluctant, laughing and abandoning the endeavour halfway through, when he could even be persuaded to lay a hand on me.

  ‘I can’t do this, Callie. It’s not as if you really slap my face or anything in the bit before. It just seems … wrong. Assault, like.’

  ‘It’s not assault if I ask you to do it,’ I said, upright again in the middle of the hall while the rest of the company watched us, agog. ‘I have a reason for this. I think it’ll win us the contest. Trust me.’

  Leo didn’t understand how smacking my bum on stage was going to win us the Amateur All-Comers trophy, and neither did anyone else, but it wasn’t their place to question the actor-director, and so they didn’t.

  ‘God, Petruchio’s such a bastard,’ drawled my Bianca the day Leo finally got his act together and gave me more than a limp-wristed hand-flap on the seat of my jeans.

  ‘We’re not playing this for PC points,’ I reminded her. ‘The whole premise is dodgy as fuck from the outset. Taming a shrew, for God’s sake. And why a shrew, anyway? Shrews are cute.’

  Bianca, whose real name was Louise, laughed.

  ‘I know. They’d make good pets. It’s just hard to feel comfortable with it. Basically, he’s an emotional abuser.’

  I sighed.

  ‘I know. But let’s just concentrate on getting the musical numbers together, shall we? Then we can write a sequel in which Petruchio gets a good kick in the nads.’

  ‘Soprano solo, nice.’

  That was the fourth or fifth rehearsal. Leo had taken hold of me around my waist and bent me over his lap.

  ‘No, that was like a guy stepping up to waltz with his lady love,’ I said. ‘I’m going to fight you. You have to use force.’

  Leo looked as if he might burst into tears.

  ‘I feel like such a twat, though,’ he said.

  ‘Welcome to acting.’

  He huffed and puffed for a bit but his next attempt was so much better.

  I looked at the little row of fingermarks on my upper arm that night in bed and pushed my thumb tip into the bruises. The tiny nag of pain was piquant and sweet, reminding me of the transient glow Leo’s hand had brought to my bottom.

  I brought out again my application details for the competition, with the fulsome foreword by the judge and patron. Peregrine Sands had the sort of face that mocked you, even in repose. Take a look at yourself, you despicable creature, it seemed to say. Don’t insult me with your scrutiny until you can smoke a cigarette as contemptuously as I can.

  ‘Say what you like,’ I whispered to his curling lip. ‘You are going to give me this prize. Because I know about you.’

  The weeks passed, subsumed in rehearsal and publicity and fine-tuning. Leo’s hand got harder and harder, and he learned to leave his liberal conscience in the dressing room.

  When the night of the performance came, Louise and I shared a nip of Dutch courage in front of the lightbulb-mirror, lacing each other’s stays good and tight.

  ‘I couldn’t do what you’re doing,’ she said.

  ‘What? Play this role? Direct this show?’

  ‘No, I mean … that scene.’

  ‘What, the spanking scene?’

  ‘Yes. In front of everyone, on stage. Don’t you find it embarrassing?’

  ‘Not really. It’s acting, isn’t it?’

  I kept my tone brisk and light, and changed the subject immediately afterwards. But secretly her words had given me a between-the-legs thrill. She was embarrassed for me. She, and everyone else, thought that I was being publicly humiliated.

  Well, guess why we’re doing Kiss Me, Kate and not Mary Poppins …

  I stood in the wings watching the first number, ‘Another Op’nin’, Another Show’, trying my level best to work out where Peregrine Sands might be sitting. He was here, wasn’t he? Supposing he was delayed, or ill, and hadn’t turned up? All my careful calculations would come to nothing.

  But I saw him at last, midway through the third row, his suit sharp, his legs crossed, a notebook balanced on his knee. Nothing could be gleaned from his face, which was impassive, but his fingers occasionally tapped at the velvet arm rest, in rhythm with the number.

  He was here. It was going to work. I could stop worrying and throw myself into the performance until, much more quickly than I expected, that scene came up.

  Leo looked good in tights. He had powerful thighs and the kind of full, shapely calves that were so fashionable in eras past. We sparred all over the stage, verbally at first, and then I took my faux-swings at him until he spoke the fateful words. I had been asking for it, and I was going to get it.

  I twirled out of his way but he caught my arm in the exact iron-clamp grip that I’d been goading him towards all these weeks and dragged me across to the bench. When I turned my feet inward, so he had to haul me bodily, he didn’t let up the pressure but played his part with utter conviction. If I got hurt, it was my own fault. I’d told him so often that he’d finally internalised it.

  I let my fists fly and my feet scissor-kick when he yanked me over his lap on the bench. He did everything I’d taught him. He took my wrists in one hand and twisted them into the small of my back. He clamped my ankles between his. He got me helpless and restrained and then he raised his arm and brought his palm down flat and hard on the seat of my skirts.

  I was wearing petticoats so it didn’t hurt particularly, even though he was giving it his all, but the sound was fantastic, echoing out into the auditorium like gunshots. I overacted the outrage and pain, trying to remember what a normal person would do in this situation. I had to work hard to disguise my enjoyment, though.

  While he whaled away on my behind and the safety curtain rolled slowly down, I was feeling the smart, and I couldn’t help looking out towards Peregrine Sands, to see if his expression had broken its stern mould, while I gasped and struggled under Leo’s hand. It hadn’t, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  I probably shouldn’t have looked at him.

  Perhaps that was a mistake.

  The curtain fell and Leo held his hands to his chest and muttered, ‘You OK, Cal?’

  ‘That was bloody brilliant,’ I said, crawling forward
off his lap. ‘The business. Thank you for keeping it real, darling.’

  ‘It’s so weird, though,’ he said, helping me to my feet. ‘I keep worrying that I might get arrested, or something.’

  I tapped his cheek, smiling into his anxious brown eyes.

  ‘You can’t get arrested for acting,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  At the after-party, I longed for Sands to show his face, but he didn’t. I questioned everyone I knew in the audience about his reactions and any remarks he might have made, but apparently he’d sat in silence, spoken to nobody and left as soon as the curtain fell.

  I got a bit drunk and flirted with Leo.

  ‘You’re not one of nature’s doms, then?’ I said.

  ‘One of what?’

  ‘Oh, never mind. What’s this?’

  The theatre manager had appeared at my elbow.

  ‘This was handed in at the stage door for you.’

  It was an envelope. I opened it to find a postcard. The picture on the front was a rather artistically framed shot of a man’s hand closed around the top of a riding crop. On the back, in jagged black ink, was written: ‘You, Ms Reddish, are a very bad girl. Your come-uppance awaits.’

  ‘What’s it say?’ Leo peered over my shoulder, but I had dropped it straight away into my handbag.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just going to the ladies’.’

  I stood against the cubicle wall with my heart pounding.

  Who was it from?

  Every cell of me wanted it to be Peregrine Sands. But the chances were that it was just some perv in the audience who’d come for the spanking scene alone.

  It was a nice picture, but I should disregard it. Kiss Me, Kate was bound to throw up a few oddballs. And I was the oddest of them all, probably.

  I took the postcard from my bag three weeks later at the awards ceremony and perused it under the table while the others necked back champagne and star-spotted.

  We had performed our number from the show, and now we had to sit through all the others, waiting for the results to be announced.

  Peregrine, I understood, did not like to be seen at this event until he stepped forward to confer triumph or disaster, but he had to be somewhere backstage. Perhaps he was watching us all from some spyhole. I adjusted my figure-hugging, sequinned evening gown, just in case.

  I thought about the gamble I had taken and my reasons for doing so.

  I knew about Peregrine Sands.

  I knew because a friend of mine called Emma, a professional actress, had a little sideline when she was ‘resting’.

  ‘It’s not prostitution,’ she told me. ‘It’s just a little bit of role-play.’

  ‘So they don’t get to have sex with you?’

  ‘Well …’ Her eyes shifted off to the left. ‘You can if you want to. But you don’t have to. And if you want to have sex, and the person isn’t paying, then it isn’t prostitution, right?’

  ‘Right. So. Tell me about this place again. The Geisha Garden.’

  ‘We’re not really geishas, obviously. None of us is Japanese. We just kneel on this mat in this Japanesey-looking nightclub, wearing not very much, and pour tea and stuff.’

  ‘For men.’

  ‘Yeah. We just, sort of, serve them. And they can ask us to do anything they like and we have to do it. Like we have to get into different poses, do a little dance or whatever. And, if they can afford it and they fancy it, they can pick one of us to … spank.’

  ‘They pay to spank you?’

  ‘They pay the manager. It’s a hundred quid for five minutes. They can pay extra if they want to use implements.’

  ‘What if it’s too much? Too painful?’

  ‘You can take time out, or ask them to continue with another girl.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘We all want to get chosen for the spanking. Because we get to go off shift as soon as it’s over. If you’re the first girl chosen, in theory you get paid a six-hour rate for twenty minutes’ work. Not bad.’

  ‘But there’s no sex?’

  ‘There’s a strict no-touching rule. Except for the spanking. If they want sex afterwards, they can put a note with their phone number in your stocking top. It’s up to you to call them, and meet up outside the club.’

  ‘Have you ever done that?’

  ‘Now and again.’

  ‘Wow.’

  This had made my imagination click wide open. I wanted to see it for myself, rather badly.

  ‘Do you ever get women customers?’

  ‘Hardly ever. Nearly all men. Quite wealthy men, because it’s expensive and the girls are all gorgeous.’

  ‘And you all serve one man at a time?’

  ‘They get to take a look at us all, see us in action, if you like, when they come in. The punter chooses his favourite for the spanking. If he can afford it. Otherwise, he just pays for drinks until he gets bored or runs out of cash.’

  ‘So is it all businessmen from out of town?’

  ‘Mainly. There are some regular customers. Some are friends of Allyson – the manager. If you swear, cross your heart and hope to die, not to tell a soul, I could give you a couple of names.’

  We started whispering, even though we were alone in my flat.

  ‘Peregrine Sands,’ she said.

  ‘The critic?’

  ‘Yeah, him.’

  This was interesting news. Peregrine Sands, the man for whom the phrase ‘coruscating wit’ seemed to have been invented. The man all those called by the dramatic muse feared and courted in equal measure. The man who could shut your play in a day or power you to your thousandth performance.

  Oh yes. Interesting news indeed.

  ‘And does he … pay?’ I asked, delicately.

  ‘I don’t think he’s ever met any of the girls outside the club. But he likes what goes on inside it. He likes it very much.’

  ‘I guess he’d give it a rave review.’

  ‘Hell, yes, honey, five stars.’

  I had just placed my entry for the competition. Initially, I’d been considering something modish and stark, but now my choice seemed clear. I’d go retro. Spanktastically so.

  Still, there was no guarantee that my cunning plan would pay off. Certain of Peregrine Sands’ switches might be tripped by a good old spanking scene, but I didn’t know that his critical faculties would follow suit, and we had some stiff competition out there.

  I watched the stiff competition parade across the stage in sequence, including Denny and Roger and our guys singing ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’. I had chosen not to perform tonight.

  Finally, the last spangle-clad butt waggled offstage and we all waited, breath bated, for the master of ceremonies to make his grand entrance.

  I could never quite decide whether or not I fancied him. He was attractive in a pale, wasted sort of way. There was a languor about him that I think he affected in order to disguise his venomous core.

  He took to the stage, commanding it without doing anything at all – an enviable talent – and stood at the lectern, waiting for pin-drop hush before launching into a lecture.

  His words of appreciation on the subject of am-dram were pithy and scintillating and I felt quite touched that he didn’t save his best lines for the professionals and give us some of his second-rate stuff.

  A couple of times, he glanced towards me, eyes flashing like silver blades, piercing my abdomen and spreading a pool of warmth inside.

  By the time he made the announcement, I had decided. I did fancy him. Quite a lot. I especially fancied his voice, which was clipped and authoritative, in the manner of a 1950s Movietone News broadcast. It pleased me that people still talked like that. It pleased me even more to imagine him calling me a very bad girl in those tones.

  He didn’t call me a very bad girl, though. He called me a winner.

  We had won.

  The applause caught me by surprise and for a moment I couldn’t stand up, my knees seeming to
have deserted my legs.

  I went up to the stage and stood in his orbit, accepting the statuette and the envelope containing a cheque for ten thousand pounds to put towards our drama club funds. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely and made a silly speech full of names and the word ‘lovely’, but I didn’t once look him full in the face.

  Then I was back at my table and he wasn’t there any more.

  It had worked. My plan had worked. And I supposed that was that.

  Until I looked inside the envelope.

  There was more than a cheque in there.

  There was a postcard, the twin of the one that had been delivered to my dressing room after the performance.

  And in the same handwriting was written a message:

  ‘Come-uppance time, Ms Reddish. If you want my honest critique of your performance, meet me in the prop room in one hour.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Leo tried to peek over my shoulder but I returned the card swiftly to the envelope.

  ‘Nothing, just a compliment slip.’

  ‘You’re blushing. You never blush. What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just flushed with success. That’s all.’

  He laughed and put his big hand on my knee.

  ‘Want to celebrate somewhere more private later?’ he whispered.

  ‘Leo!’

  I was astonished. I had no idea the big lummox of a boy was remotely interested. He was handsome in a fresh-faced farmboy kind of way and a lot of the girls – and some of the boys – were after him, but we had started to assume that he was in the closet.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. That was inappropriate,’ he said, withdrawing his hand as if I’d stung him. ‘Too much champagne. Forget it.’

  ‘Hey, it’s OK,’ I soothed. ‘No harm done. I just didn’t know you cared, that’s all. Thanks. I’m, uh, flattered.’

  ‘God,’ he groaned. ‘Flattered. That’s the ego-killer, right there.’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, don’t sulk. Just dust yourself off like a big boy.’

  ‘You don’t have to patronise me, Callie. I am a grown man.’

  ‘Some might say overgrown.’

  He looked at me with eyes like a hurt cow, then turned back to his champagne glass. Somewhere in the bubbles, the word ‘bitch’ might have been uttered.