Page 172 of Easy
‘Come on, Lou, it’s freezing out here. Let’s go in, yeah?’ She sighs huffily, not enjoying being put on the spot. Flo’s upbringing betrays her, the final word sounding more like yar. She only ever reverts to her social class when under pressure. It’s her armour.
‘No. I can’t go back in.’ Not yet.
‘He’s in there, isn’t he?’ Flo suddenly sounds titillated. Awestruck? ‘My God, only you would bring the sex king to a do like this!’
‘What do you mean?’ I whisper, my hand falling away.
‘Look,’ Flo replies, her gaze sliding to the dark lawn. ‘You must know who he is.’ When I don’t answer, her attention swings back to me. ‘Don’t you?’ she repeats, cautiously.
‘Not really,’ I admit, gooseflesh stippling my skin. ‘I know his name is Daniel. I know where he lives, and I’ve met his son.’ I know I love him, I might well have said, but hold off from doing so. God, I feel so ridiculous.
‘You didn’t Google him?’ I have to bite my lip from admitting I’d barely paid attention to his surname, preferring instead to try talking myself out of being with him for the longest of times.
‘That’s it? That’s really all you know? Good Lord, Louise, why haven’t you asked him about this kind of thing yourself?’
I inhale a deep breath and plunge right in. I tell Flo how, at the beginning, I hadn’t wanted to know his name. Told of my desire to keep it casual, of how I’d resisted the usual enquiries and platitudes in that same vein. Then I tell her that, by the time these things are usually discussed, it didn’t matter. It was already too late. Too late to ask if he hated small dogs or if he was a serial killer, because I was already in love.
‘Oh, God.’ Flo’s exclamation sounds more like a lament. ‘I suppose we’d better get a cab. We can’t do this out here.’
~*~
Back at the flat, Flo pours us both a measure of brandy. A bad sign, I think, as she takes us back to the night it all began.
‘When you left with him, I knew who he was before you went back to his place.’
‘You saw his driving license, you said.’
‘I did, though that’s not the reason I spoke to him. I thought I’d warn him, you know, make sure his intentions were decent. His reputation precedes him, you see,’ Flo carries on. ‘He roughs them up a bit. Well, I hear both he and the girls he usually screws like that sort of thing. Anyway, about the time you climbed into his lap and started kissing him, it was clear you were only going one place. I thought that place was upstairs—that’s where they say he takes them. Girls, I mean. He doesn’t fuck in the club himself.’ I look on, perplexed, as Flo adds, ‘He has an apartment up there, so I’ve heard.’
‘You know him?’ My stomach grips tight; maybe Flo had been invited upstairs at some point? Maybe she knows Dan better than she’s saying.
‘I knowofhim. He’s a bit of a big deal.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’ Anything. Anything at all.
‘That club we were in? It’s his. As well as the private member’s area. The one we couldn’t get into.’
‘Couldn’t we?’
‘It was totes off limits. Think, Lou... when we headed there, what did Luke from accounts say about the place?’ Placing her glass down, Flo picks up her iPad, gliding her index finger across the screen.
‘That it... it was some sort of S and M club?’ Was that what he had said?
‘Well, it’s something like that. I believe those tastes are catered for, too.’
‘What does that even signify? You were there; everything was pretty tame. Did you see anything going on? Because I didn’t.’ At that point in the evening, I’d been underwhelmed and unimpressed. Of course, as the evening had passed in Dan’s company, I couldn’t say the same. I resist doing so now.
‘Where we were, there wasn’t anything going on. Only members get in,’ Flo says again.
‘Get in where?’ I’m really not sure of the point she’s trying to make.
‘The VIP area. Members pay a rather large monthly membership fee, and only they get to use the... facilities. And each other. Possibly. Anyway,’ she says, shaking off her speculation, ‘big money. Very few rules, so I’ve heard. Here.’ Her words come out haltingly as she passes over her iPad.
I’m bewildered. Shocked. Fast follows the clench of betrayal. It’s all there in high definition, the club’s elegantly designed website proving such a place exists, albeit discreetly. Flo’s Google search yields media articles ranging from the broadsheets to online magazines: Daniel Masters. Former property developer and wealthy owner of Mede, and the exclusive members only and—allegedly—anything goes sex club, rumoured to be called The Lion’s Den.
‘This can’t be him.’ Am I in denial? Then Scott’s words began to slot the puzzle pieces into place. ‘He’s not even wealthy,’ I whisper, hanging on to the hope that none of this is true.’ Well off, yeah. But I’ve been to his home. It’s hardly Somerset House.
‘In the borough, it’s in? Darling, he’s minted. Even if it’s a tiny place, that’s prime real estate. And so are the clubs.’
