Formal British Reserve Read online

  Title Page

  Formal British Reserve

  By

  Leigh Clark

  Publisher Information

  Formal British Reserve published in 2012

  by Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright © Leigh Clark 2012

  The right of Leigh Clark to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Formal British Reserve

  The pain was indescribable—imagine a paper cut the size of the Grand Canyon. Now fill it with an ocean of lemon juice. Now flick it with a fingernail the size of a shopping mall parking lot. That’s how much it hurt. I grimaced, giving a ladylike little gasp, but in my head I was just waiting for this to be over. Behind me was the new girl, Alison, with a paddle, and she’d managed to catch the junction of my buttock and my thigh with the edge of it. Fortunately I was wearing the Catwoman PVC body tights and a halter top or I could have been badly marked. Alison was wearing the beige suede lederhosen and a sheer black floppy blouse.

  We were demonstrating some toys for a couple—a new couple was my guess, and I also guessed they wouldn’t be together long, because he was focused entirely on the costumes while she was interested solely in the corporal punishment. That wasn’t going to be a sustainable future in the BDSM world. They were sitting in our ‘couple’ seat—a double-sized leather armchair with a central arm that had a place for a pair of manacles, drinking the average sherry we handed out to people who knew no better, and she, at least, was gazing at the action with all the wonderment of a five-year-old entering Disneyland. Of course, I could only see them intermittently, because it was important to remain in character and that meant closing my eyes in between blows, opening them wide during the actual strikes and fluttering my eyelashes after them. So far this loving but short-term couple had spent over five hundred pounds with us, and they were entitled to a good show, but Alison was going to pay for this, and not in any way that she’d appreciate. I could have accepted an act of inadvertent clumsiness, or a mistake, but she’d done it deliberately—I’d been listening to her breathing, which was the only clue I had as to her intentions, and she’d inhaled sharply before beginning that particular down-stroke. She’d hurt me on purpose, and that wasn’t something I was going to let pass.

  When we swapped places, I swept back my red hair and tied it high on my head with a leather thong. I’d decided to bend Alison over the modular frame—it’s a fantastic chrome tubing device, that you can fold into the smallest cupboard so that it looks like something that you fit to an ironing board, but folds out to become a heavyweight A-shaped flogging frame. The point about it is that it is designed to bend the victim in half, so their head is level with their knees—a strenuous and potentially cramp-inducing position that the new girl wouldn’t be used to. I intended to drag out her part in the proceedings until she was purple in the face and her calves and thighs were screaming in agony. My hamstring was beginning to cramp from the blow she’d struck me, so I took the chance to walk across to the dungeon wall and stroll along it, easing out the muscles in my leg as I browsed the vast range of hand-made striking weapons arrayed on shelves. I chose a small quirt, more of a tawse really, and examined her highly-elevated arse as I swished the implement through the air. I was about to attempt something really difficult, that nobody would see, appreciate or understand. I was going to rosette her.

  Rosetting requires a small and narrow head to the striking implement and space to walk right round the subject. It requires a perfect stillness on the part of the subject—guaranteed in this case by the way I’d totally immobilised Alison—and perfect aim and judgement on the part of the striker. This is what you do… you walk round the subject (we don’t say victim or sub at F.B.R., it’s so uncouth), striking exactly the same centre point every time, but with the outer edge of the stroke landing in a different place–imagine you’re making a clockface, with each hit being a number, and you’ve got the idea. It’s unbelievably painful because ten (or twelve, or fourteen) strokes that land in exactly the same area multiply the smarting exponentially, and it is also very beautiful, because, if you do it right, you end up with a flower, paler pink at the edges, bright crimson or purple at its heart, with ten (or twelve, or fourteen) petals.

  I glanced over at Frank, who was standing at the back of the room, supervising everything that went on, while gift-wrapping the couple’s previous purchases. He would press the panic button if the couple started behaving inappropriately, which only meant trying to join in with the act or attempting to steal things—whatever they did as consenting adults between themselves, as long as they stayed in the vicinity of their seat, was up to them. He would also, supposedly, stop me or Alison, if we overstepped the bounds of entertainment, but he hadn’t spotted her deliberate whack, and he wouldn’t see anything but artistry in what I was about to do.

  The quirt whistled and then sang against my free hand as I tested its weight and striking area. It stung like a bastard and as I positioned myself behind her, I smiled humbly at the couple in front of me and bowed my head as if in prayer. And then I rosetted the new girl, performing the act of brutal elegance, twice, once on each buttock. Of course nobody could see, because the lederhosen were in the way, but when she got home that night she’d look over her shoulder in the mirror at her naked arse and know she’d been worked over by a craftswoman. And she’d know better than to try her games with me again.

  I left Frank to unstrap her while I led the couple upstairs again—him clutching the elegant paper bag that held their purchases, her clutching him and begging in a rather whiny voice for a modular frame like the one I’d demonstrated.

  “We’ll see,” he said to her, then, turning to face me. “That suit—how much?”

  I ran my hands down my hips. “It’s an original design, worn on the set of Catwoman by Halle Berry,” I said, piling on the exclusivity that made F.B.R.’s product range so expensive, and so popular.

  “How much?” he said again, watching my hands and sweating more than he had done during the show. I knew I had him pegged right, he was a leather and rubber fetishist, not a whacker.

  I told him the price and watched his eyes widen, but I knew he’d be back, and he’d ask for me to model the catsuit again, and he’d buy it for her as a surprise or a birthday or anniversary gift, when she’d much rather have the A-frame. I gave them less than a year before they were each shopping alone again.

  I went up to the customer toilets to check on what the new girl had done to me. The toilets were kitted out in 1920s glamour, all art deco mirrors and Egyptian-styled perfume bottles. I loved it. I was peering at the bruise Alison had given me when the female half of the couple appeared, just as I’d guessed she would.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “Need a hand?”

  I passed her the tube of calendula cream I’d brought up with me, and let her rub it gently over my damaged flesh. She knelt behind me, her hands were warm and they moved slowly, widening the arc of their explorations until the tips of her fingers were sliding right round my thigh, di
pping into my cleft with every stroke. I watched in the mirror as her head came to rest gently against my thigh, her breath warming the light dusting of freckles that swept across my thighs and vanished into the coppery redness of my trimmed pubes. Her eyes were closed, her breathing controlled. She made me come without needing any instructions, and then I pulled the catsuit back on and bent her over the back of a velvet-upholstered armchair and smacked her six times, measuring each slap against her gasps until she began to rub and press herself into the velvet and then I put my hands on her buttocks and ground her against the chair until she came. She was wasted on the man who’d found her, that was for sure.

  When I went back downstairs, Alison had vanished. She would probably need some time in the toilets with a tube of pain-relieving cream before she was fit to face customers again.

  “There’s something fishy about that girl,” I said.

  Frank shrugged. He’s not much into girls, or actually, guys. Frank’s particular kink is robots, dolls and automata—living people creep him out, he claims.

  “The boss likes her,” he said.

  And there was the problem. Minty Anstruther, doyenne of titled society, dressage gold medal winner and proprietor of Full British Reserve, liked the new girl, and what Minty liked, the rest of us had to put up with.

  “The boss can make mistakes,” I said.

  “Certainly, look at her third husband!” We shared a smirk at the memory of the Robbie Williams lookalike who’d run off with Minty’s Rolls-Royce and emerald earrings. He hadn’t been very bright. Minty caught up with him by driving the Aston Martin, pulled him out of the Rolls and beat him up before trussing him, taking back the earrings, tossing him in the Aston’s boot and driving to the nearest police station. Minty could look after herself… but could she look after the shop? She wasn’t getting any younger after all.

  “I think she’s going to cause trouble,” I said, pointing to the door through which the new girl had escaped.

  “Sandrine, darling, you’re more than equal to anything she can throw at you,” Frank cooed soothingly, “that’s why Minty made you Shop Manager.” He trotted off to man the dildo counter. I smiled, wishing I shared his confidence. Manager was all very well, but when your boss was used to having things her way, and so were you, disagreements could escalate to all-out war very swiftly.

  I decided to wait until the end of the day, and ring Minty once she’d had her first snifter of the evening and was still looking forward to dinner—that was the most mellow time of day for the boss. I thought I knew her pretty well by now. Not well enough though, as it turned out.

  “I’ve had a complaint about you,” was the first thing Minty said, after her butler had handed her the telephone. “Alison says you beat her to a pulp, because she was putting on a better performance than you.”

  For a second I was dumbstruck. “Alison has your home number?” was all I could think of to say. As far as I knew, none of the rest of the staff did.

  “She’s my godson’s nanny’s daughter’s best friend,” said Minty, which—while it explained nothing—at least made sense. Most of us had got our jobs because we knew somebody who knew Minty. My own father, for example, was her first husband’s golfing partner. It kept our secrets safe, if we were all linked socially. I’d kept quiet too long though, this time.

  “So I think you should consider this as a warning,” Minty said. “A formal warning.”

  I accepted it with as good a grace as I could muster, and put down the phone. Something was really fishy now, in fact I thought I could smell a whole ocean of fishiness, and I was about to be made to walk the plank right into it.

  The next morning I watched Alison like a hawk, or maybe a fish eagle. As far as I could see, she did nothing wrong. At lunchtime I took Frank off to the sushi bar and pumped him for information. He might not like to be touched, and he certainly had some odd ideas about relationships, but not much got past him. He was also in charge of our surveillance system, which was a complicated and necessary safeguard in a premises like ours, because while from the outside F.B.R. looked like a small boutique selling a few bits of leatherwear, once you got inside it was a labyrinth of small rooms on several floors, offering comfort, privacy and—of course—lots of chances for the larcenous-minded to steal our stock. We didn’t have to worry about our regular customers, but new visitors were carefully observed through our CCTV system.

  Frank likes the sushi bar because it’s a revolving one, and he can pretend that the food is made by robots and fed out on a conveyor belt—it supports his fantasy of a world where he’s the only human and everything else is automated. We all have our fantasies, at least if we work for F.B.R. we do.

  “The new girl,” I said.

  “I’m ahead of you,” he said, picking up sushi and moving it to his plate. “I checked the complaint book. There’s nothing I can actually say is her fault … but there’s a few things that have gone wrong in her vicinity.”

  “Such as?” I snaffled something pink and jewel like as it sailed past.

  “We sent out a box of motion lotions to a new customer. They were supposed to be assorted, but each and every one, apparently, was Ultra-Spanish Fly, and this was a customer who’d indicated they had sensitive skin on their order form. We gave them a full refund but I don’t think they’ll be back.”

  “And Alison made up the order?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, she only took it to the post office.’

  “So what else?”

  “Well, this one happened to me. I was demonstrating our glass dildos to a customer, and I asked her to get one out of the cabinet for me. She handed it to me, and I was yakking on about how the glass was dishwasher safe, hygienic, each one was an original, hand-coloured and blah blah, and I looked down and the thing she’d handed me was covered in greasy black fingerprints! The customers didn’t buy anything of course, but I swear that I’d polished every dildo myself that morning, and they were sparkling. And I’ll tell you this—I looked at her hands immediately, assuming it was her who’d messed the thing up, but her fingers were immaculate. I have no idea how it happened.”

  “It’s really weird,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Watch her through the CCTV—keep the camera on her whenever you can.”

  “I’ll do my best, but it won’t work, Sandrine. If she’s smart enough to get you given a warning, she’s smart enough not to get caught on camera.

  I felt myself frowning and straightened out my forehead, nobody likes a scowling woman. “How did you know that?”

  “Minty rang this morning and told everybody. She made me put her on speakerphone.”

  I sighed. No wonder people had been avoiding me all day. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” I said.

  The whole afternoon I tried to pretend nothing was wrong, but the staff knew, and I knew, that the world had changed. I’d been managing the store for three years, it was my life, and now everything was coming apart at the seams.

  Once I’d locked up, and seen everybody well away from the premises, I turned around and let myself back in again. I only allowed myself to do this a couple of times a month, but now I really needed it, and the idea that I might be about to lose my own fantasy meant I needed it more than ever.

  The shop was dimly lit by the streetlights, and I drew the velvet drapes across each window before turning on the lights. I had it all to myself. I ignored the dolls, the dildos, the vibrators, the manacles and all the various objects of passion. Instead I walked through the rooms, letting myself soak in the atmosphere, the fragrances of musk and linseed oil (for wooden paddles), the light gleaming on collars, cuffs and leashes, the soft touch of velvet and the sharpness of spikes, until I reached my goal. I unlocked the glass cabinet and took out the corset.

  It was made in 1876, for a woman with a nineteen and a half inc
h waist. It contains real whalebone, which does give me a bit of a problem, as I’m definitely against animal cruelty, and it was hand-sewn by a pauper seamstress, in a garret probably, by candlelight. I let my street clothes hit the floor and pulled it up over my hips, until it encased my body like … well there’s nothing like it. Nothing compares to the way it feels. I remembered the girl who’d made me come earlier, and imagined her kneeling at my feet now, in a simple housemaid’s dress, her warm hands trembling and her face burning with shame as she did as I ordered. I laced the corset as tight as I could, and then let my fingers follow the path that I’d been imagining, watching myself in the cabinet glass as I spread my legs, my pubes a dark cloud below the ivory cotton of the corset, my fingers appearing and disappearing as I plunged them inside me until I came.

  Then I pulled an antique Japanese robe over the corset and sat down in a William and Mary chair to think. It’s not corsetry that turns me on, or even clothing. It’s nostalgia. Anything that’s older than I am makes me hot, and something very old indeed can make me hot and panting. My fetish is unusual, and expensive, and without F.B.R. I’d be starved of ancient things to feed my needs. And Alison was, for reasons I couldn’t understand, threatening my future. Frank didn’t think we’d catch her at whatever she was doing, and Minty wouldn’t listen to any of my fears—old autocrat that she was, she hated ‘tale-telling’ more than anything. I was on my own.

  Except …

  I put the garments back with care, locked up the shop and went home. There was somebody who could help me, but his price was high, emotionally speaking.

  ***

  The next day I made an excuse to leave the store at lunchtime and rang Les. Les can be difficult. For example you can’t call him before twelve or after seven in case he’s ‘working’, and you never know who’s going to answer the phone.