Hmm? This?
Oh – well, I’m a bit embarrassed you caught me reading it, actually. It’s the autobiography of a professional ‘dominatrix’. You know? One of those tarts that dresses up in leather and smacks men's bottoms. Can you imagine?
Janice lent it to me. I thought it wouldn’t be my thing – well, it isn’t really – but I can’t put it down. It’s amazing some of the things she gets up to.
Sad too, actually. She says one of her oldest clients is married, but he’d never plucked up the courage to tell his wife what he wanted. And it’s weird because she sounds like a real harridan! Apparently, one time he turned up for a ‘session’ and he wanted to cancel the thing she’d planned, because this wife had just been screaming at him after he’d wrapped the car around a tree. And he felt the need to be properly punished or something. Should have just asked her to take the cane to him – she sounds like the sort of woman who’d enjoy it. Do you remember how cross I was that time you crashed the car! You’re lucky I didn’t have a cane handy, now I come to think of it! I'd have given you what for.
And he wants to spend his time serving her as her ‘slave husband’ but of course he can’t say that either, so he just does odd bits of housework and fetches and carries for her and things – serving his mistress in his head you see. (Oh thanks, love – just put it there on the coaster. Sweetener not sugar, right? Great.)
It’s amazing, the freaky stuff that’s out there, isn’t it? People leading these sad, secret hidden lives, and you’d never know. He must have wasted a fortune on this "Lady Nightshade". Maybe it's best if his wife never does find out! She'd probably be furious - wouldn't you? I would. She charges hundreds each time! All that money, just for a sore bottom once in a while.
You know, her ‘dungeon’ is in Ealing? Near the tube station. I mean, she calls it a dungeon but it's a walk-up apartment really. Just like any other house. You probably walk right past it every month, when you go and visit your osteopath.
Can you imagine?