Justine Elyot - Fast And Loose

I blanched a little at that. ‘The extent of my perversions.’ It sounded a bit sinister.

‘So, uh, what is their extent?’ I asked, trying to sound casual while my brain begged him not to mention knives or suffocation.

‘You look scared,’ he noted with a self-conscious chuckle. ‘Don’t worry. Your book takes it a little further than I’d go. I’m pretty much a chapters-one-to-five kind of guy.’

I covered my sigh of relief with a laugh.

‘Right. Chapter six is where it starts getting into the piercing party scene. You wouldn’t go that far?’

‘Well, probably not. Though I never say never.’

‘Pony play? Adult baby?’

He was laughing now. ‘Enough, enough, now. I’ve told you. Chapters one to five. Read it again if you’ve forgotten what they cover.’

But I didn’t need to. I remembered well enough, and the memory made me glow.

‘So. This blog then.’

The change of tone and subject was so abrupt I had to force my mind back to Mia Culpa and her disappearance. She had been all but forgotten in the excitement of shared deviance and all the delightful implications.

‘Oh. Yeah. Well, it’s a BDSM blog. And, like I said, the blogger has disappeared and so has her blog.’

‘Show me.’

I typed in the URL and the mysterious ‘page not found’ message appeared on screen.

‘Not much to show,’ I said. ‘It was here, and then it wasn’t.’

Tom leant over me, peering at the screen as if he expected the generic deletion message to yield him some unique insight.

‘Not much to go on,’ he said.

‘No, but I saved all the posts,’ I told him.

‘Really? Well, come on, then. Let’s see them.’

I opened the folder and left it open without comment.

‘There’s a lot of them,’ he remarked. ‘What do you know about her? Off the top of your head.’

‘She is – or was – a student here. No idea which college or even if it is a college. Could have been the Open University for all I know.’

‘She lives here?’

‘Well, I think so. Some of the places she’s been to are highly recognisable from her descriptions. If you take a look, I think you’ll agree.’

‘What makes you think there’s something dodgy about it? Sex blogs get taken down all the time. People move on in their lives, or the web host deletes them because of complaints. All kinds of reasons.’

‘Her last post was about a trip she was making to some kind of training school for submissives. She was excited about it, and couldn’t wait to update us about what happened. Then she left and never came back. There’s just something…off about it. Why would she do that?’

‘You think something happened to her there?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t think Mia was the type who would just leave us hanging like that. She really enjoyed sharing all these new experiences with her readers. It was like…it was part of the thrill for her.’

‘A bit of an exhibitionist, maybe?’

‘Maybe. It was such a big part of her life. I can’t believe she’d willingly end it like this.’

‘And did she have a Dom?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Not much. Refers to him as “J” and says he works in some kind of respected profession.’

‘Not a journalist, then?’ said Tom, with a twinkle. ‘I guess…doctor, lawyer…oh! University lecturer?’

‘They hooked up through some kind of private chat group, I think.’

‘OK, well, that’s what we’ll try to do, then.’

‘What? You have a plan?’

‘Follow in their footsteps,’ he said briskly. ‘Get on to some of these sites and make profiles and meet some other local kinksters. What? Don’t you think so?’

I was staring at him, I realised. I blinked and looked back at the screen.

‘You want to do this?’ I said, referring both to the investigation of Mia’s disappearance and to the continuation of our mutual interest in her kink.

‘Why not? We’re ideally placed, aren’t we? If anyone can find her, it’s us.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not a detective,’ I said.

‘No, but I think we’d make a good team,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the attention to detail and I’ve got the understanding of people. You’re good at research and I’m good at persuasion. Come on. This could work.’

‘I don’t have the understanding of people?’

He laughed.

‘No, Foxy, you don’t. You never picked up on Tilda and Miles? Seriously?’

I bit my lip. Perhaps he was right. I tended to take people at face value and found it difficult to see anything beyond that. If you gave me something written down, though, I could read it every which way there was.

‘But you think we could work as a detective duo?’

‘Sure, why not?’ he said. ‘Holmes and Watson. Jeeves and Wooster.’

‘Jeeves and Wooster aren’t detectives.’

He clapped his hands. ‘Like I said! Attention to detail. Flanagan and Allen. Porgy and Bess. The Master and Margarita.’

‘Fast and loose,’ I said. ‘A bit like you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Perfect. Fast and Loose. We can have a little brass plaque on your bedroom door. OK, then. Email me over that document, will you? I’d better get going.’

My dismay must have been palpable. He was going? Now?

Apparently so, judging by the purposeful way he embarked on the search for all his discarded garments.

‘Sorry, kid,’ he said. ‘I want to stay. But I’ve got a breakfast meeting and I can’t turn up in a top hat and cravat.’

‘I could set the alarm for…’

He shook his head, buttoning his shirt with fingers that must have smelled of me.

‘I’ve got stuff I need to look at first,’ he said. ‘Bit of business after pleasure. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? In the meantime, come up with a fake profile for some of the kinky social networks. See if you can hook any professional types with a J initial.’

‘All right,’ I said, still feeling somewhat bleak at his sudden withdrawal. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘Tomorrow.’ He shrugged on his coat and grabbed the top hat and cravat. His kiss goodbye was sweet but too fleeting. ‘I promise.’

And away he went.

‘Christ, Ella, you look knackered.’

‘Thanks.’

I gave Tilda a sweet smile and a middle finger. But she was right.

I should’ve slept like the dead, given the thorough workout Tom had put me through, but instead I had lain awake fretting about his sudden departure.

Had it been something I’d said? I’d pulled together every scrap of our interactions from the recesses of my memory to analyse them for possible offence, but nothing seemed to make sense. Had he really only stayed for the Mia mystery? Had that been his whole plan in coming back with me? The sex was incidental. The discovery of our mutual kink was interesting to him, but only in terms of the investigation. He should have known I wouldn’t let him down.

I should have known he would .

‘What’s the limp about?’ Tilda brought over a coffee from the machine and plumped herself down beside me.

She was Tom’s ex. She’d never mentioned it.

I found myself looking at her in a different light, picturing her with Tom.

‘Wrenched my ankle tottering about on high heels last night,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d sprained it, but it seems better this morning. Just a bit of a twist, probably.’

‘Oh, you went out? You didn’t tell me. Where did you go?’

‘Oh, just a bar. With my flatmates,’ I said, feeling sure my evasion hadn’t got past Tilda. She’d notice the colour that was heating my cheeks, for one thing.

‘Just A Bar. Yeah, one of my favourites. Cheap Street, isn’t it?’ she teased.