Crinolines and Leather Ch. 02

The soles of Edward's shoes clicked across the bare wooden floorboards as he surveyed his newly acquired property, unable to keep the smile from tearing at his face. He did not see the large empty space, recently gutted by a fire; did not see the cold walls where evidence of smoke damage clung like a jilted lover. Instead, his vision rose before him, transforming the space into a glittering palace. Spreading his arms wide, he embraced the possibility that the building held. He dragged the heavy mahogany frame of a desk and two chairs into the centre of the room, placed last Friday's copy of the London Times on the table and smoothed the page that contained his cleverly worded advertisement. Checking his pocket watch, he took a deep breath, sat at his desk and prepared himself for his first appointment.

She spilt into the room, ten minutes late, her flyaway hair tumbling from under her hat, which she pulled off unceremoniously and threw onto the desk beside him. Without pausing for a breath, she began to apologise for her tardiness, bombarding him with details of her journey and her subsequent excuses. When she finally stopped talking and raised her eyes to his, he surveyed her critically. She was not unattractive, with pretty wide eyes and a smile that illuminated her face, transforming her plain features into those of radiance.

'Miss Clark?' he asked, hoping that he had caught the correct name from within the confused mess of her monologue. He motioned for her to take a seat opposite him. She threw her frame into the chair carelessly. Edward peered at her from behind the wall of notes which he was quickly rereading, and frowned. 'Don't,' he snapped, 'slouch.'

Her brows flew upwards with surprise and she quickly rearranged her body into a more satisfying pose. Supressing a smirk, Edward make a positive mark against her name.

He flattened his palms against the desk and held her gaze levelly. 'Why do you want to work for me?'

Unable to withstand the heat of his burning pupils as they starred into hers, she dropped her eyes and starred at her hands. He noted with distaste that she had bitten her nails to the skin; that her fingers bled.

'I don't know,' she began, nervously, 'I guess, I just...' Her face broke into that beautiful smile, and he felt his chest contract. 'I've fallen, completely, head-over-heels, for a man, and he desperately wants to marry me but we're both oh-so poor and he has this terribly clever plan about making his fortune in Australia. And he's said it's going to be an awfully exciting adventure, if only he had the money to get there. So I thought that I'd work for you for a few months, earn enough to get married and to travel to Australia and then...' Words failed her, and she merely grinned wildly, prettily, assured of her own genius.

Edward felt his face set into the mould of cynicism. 'And your beloved is happy with this plan; with the idea of you sleeping with other men?'

She flushed, whispered so delicately that Edward had to strain to hear: 'He wouldn't know.' Taking in his dismayed face, she continued. 'I could keep it a secret. It would only be for a little while. And I wouldn't be doing it because I want to; it would be to fund our future-'

He held up his hand to silence her mid-sentence and, as she blinked in confusion, he waved his hand dismissively. 'Thank you for your time but I do not feel that you're the appropriate candidate for this venture. I wish you and your fiancé the best of luck.'

She snorted in anger, turned on her heel and stormed from the room, scattering falling hairpins across the floor as she moved.

The second candidate was a timid girl with thin limbs that jutted from her body at awkward angles. It was almost impossible to determine her age: poverty, malnourishment had stunted her growth so that she had the eerie look of a perpetual child. Her hair hung down her back in a thin, lank mass; her eyes appeared to be too large for her head as she stared at him as if pleading.

When he beckoned her closer, she flinched. It was like looking into a mirror of his former self, and this thought cut Edward deeply. He spoke to her softly, desperate to reassure, fighting the irrational urge to pull her into his arms, to protect her from the external world. She trembled as she spoke to him, refused to meet his gaze and to answer his questions with definite responses.

Finally, she broke and the truth surface to her lips with chest wrenching sobs. 'Please don't make me,' she begged, falling to the floor before him, a mass of weeping rags. Fighting the tears that streaked across her dirty pinched face, she confessed that her father had forced her to apply in a bid to save their family from poverty. Fear made her shrink and, afraid that she would disappear, Edward wrapped a paternal arm around her and guided her from the room to the front door where her father was waiting.

With venom in his voice, he reproached the man; threatening him with untold acts of violence should any harm come to his daughter, before bolting from the scene. As he slammed the door shut behind him, he became aware of the familiar sensation of his body as it cried for blood; that steady, deadly pulse in the base of his throat that screamed for atrocity. His hands shook as he forced himself into a state of composure, desperate to shake the trappings of the past from his skin. Placing his head in his hands, he massaged his temples, waited for the calm to overtake him.

He did not see her enter; rather it seemed that she appeared before him like a spirit. He watched her wordlessly as she moved towards him, marvelling at how the cut of her dress moved as she walked, betraying the sinews of her skin that lay beneath the black silk - a secret ready to be uncovered. Her face was half obscured by a veil of black lace that fell, like a shadow, from the edge of her hat and grazed her features. She sauntered slowly, revelling in the anticipation that her slow steps caused, watching, with her careful dark eyes, as he strained to get a better view of her. She slipped her slim body into the chair opposite him and smoothed her skirt beneath her, before gently removing her hat and brushing tendrils of her hair back into place.

She lifted her eyes to meet Edward's, for the first time, and he reeled. He watched her features as the light lit them, feeling the pull of recognition; certain that he had met her before. She could not be described as a classical beauty but she was striking, with sweeping lashes that framed her wide green eyes, a strong, straight nose and a small but round mouth that held an all knowing smile. She arched her brow as she held his stare, assessing him critically, as a wolf would watch its prey. When she had judged him to be satisfactory, assured herself that she had found a glimmer of honesty in his blue eyes; a degree of sincerity in the blush that gently coloured his face as he stared at her, she slipped her black gloves from her dainty, child-like digits and proffered him her palm.

'Olivia Ayre,' she whispered, looking at him from under her lashes.

'Edward,' he breathed, feeling the pulse that beat beneath her skin.

His perfectly formulated questions, those that he had spent hours perfecting, were dragged from his head by the rapids of his thoughts, as he drank her in. His dry lips moved of their own accord. 'Who are you?'

Her smile was devastating. 'I'm nobody,' she declared softly.

'I doubt that,' he breathed.

She laughed sardonically. 'Would I be here if I wasn't?'

Averting his eyes, he found himself troubled by her honesty. 'Tell me about yourself,' he demanded quietly; his voice coloured by the steely dominance that crept into his command, desperate to learn about the mystical creature before him.

Without answering, she stood and turned from him and slowly, sensually began to unbutton her bodice. Her fingers moved slowly, teasingly. She did not break his gaze and he found himself drawn into the inky blackness of her dilated pupils.

'What are you doing?' he breathed, hypnotized by the way the fabric fell away to reveal the gentle curve of her shoulder; the line of her collarbone.

'Is this, or is it not, a job interview?' she solicited as her shirt slipped from her body.

Numbed by desire, he nodded silently.

'Then,' she murmured, 'I'm persuading you to hire me.'

The black silk curves of her skirt slithered from her hips, grazing the lines of her legs, before pooling on the floor. Freed from the cage of her netting and clothing, she stepped from the shores of her trappings. Temptation personified, she kissed him breathily, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging him from his seat. As he surrendered to his base desires, as he allowed the blaze of immolation to claim him, he poured himself into her, kissing her desperately. She reciprocated wildly before drawing back; denying him tauntingly, leaving him wanting.

His fingers crushed her waist as he pulled her closer, burning with the urge to contain and consume her. She tore at his shirt, indifferent to the destruction that her fingertips wrecked; to the havoc that she, that brilliant and beautiful muse, inspired. Animalistic, her tongue traced a line down his chest, tasting the outline of his beating heart, frantic and wanting, beneath her lips. She kissed the seams of his skin as she unbuttoned his trousers, and felt as he tensed in anticipation, as she lowered her mouth to his erection. Her tongue worked in small, agonising circles, building into a deeper, darker tempo as she drew him into her throat, moaning deliciously; a siren's song that took him to the edge.

There, poised on the brink of orgasm, ready to plummet into the tumult of pleasure, he knotted his fingers in her hair, dragged her to her feet. She tasted of carnality and he revelled in this, lifting her into his arms and placing her upon the desk. His fingers skimmed her body, marvelling in the sighs of pleasure that his touch instigated. He thrust himself into her, groaning at the taught pull of her body, as she pulsated around him, writhing in pleasure. Her eyes drifted shut as her body shuddered and she abandoned herself to ecstasy.

There was a desperation to her movements; a resistance hidden within each gasp that escaped her parted lips - as if she were raging against some dark internal force and the memories that it carried. She had promised herself that she would never sleep with an employer again and hated that she had chosen to derogate herself in such a manner, but it was impossible to regret her decision while Edward continued to move within her, so deeply and deliciously that she was convinced that her sole purpose in life was to experience such exquisite pleasure. She was a mass of sensation as he quickened his pace, driving himself into her, desperately seeking the release that her body, that throbbing, writhing mass, promised. The orgasm tore through him, like an explosion, rendering them both breathless.

Exhausted, he collapsed his head onto her chest, feeling her lungs expand and contract greedily as she drank in the air. Propping himself on his elbows, he assessed her face, gently tucking a stray tendril of hair back into place. A moment of utter silence and contemplation, of perfect satisfaction, passed between them. As he smiled into her eyes and she felt her lips, unconsciously, mirror his, she pulled away from him, sent him reeling. With trembling hands, she dressed herself; her fingers tripping carefully over the buttons and laces of her corsets and skirts as she constructed herself once more. When she was complete, her hands no longer shook. She surveyed him, her head tilted, a pretty smile playing across her face as she watched him, naked and vulnerable.

'Well,' she asked, 'did I impress?'

Edward remained sprawled across his desk, uncomfortable with the cold air that billowed around him without the protection of her body. He didn't like this shift in authority; didn't like that she had turned his gaze back upon him. Reassuring himself of his own masculine power, of his ability to make women subservient, he rearranged himself into a more comfortable position and held her gaze levelly. Although he was naked, his broad shoulders and confident hold afforded him an air of authority and he returned to his position as interviewer with ease.

'Why do you want this job?' he asked.

Her thin shoulders shrugged. 'It's all I know how to do. All I've ever known how to do.' She twisted the ring that sat on her middle finger and admired the pattern of light that the opal and diamond setting threw upon the walls - a pretty distraction from the trauma of the past, a reminder of all she had to lose.

The image of her as a child, small and crying, burnt beneath his eyelids, and he fought to supress the horror of her imagined, tearful face. 'How old were you, the first time?'

'Eighteen,' she responded quickly, her voice devoid of all emotion.

'What happened?'

Silence surrounded her, pressing itself against her body; an oppressive and inescapable power that forced its way into her mouth and lungs, choking her. She was aware of the quiet as she navigated her way through it, slipping onto the desk next to him. Her voice was quiet, halting, as if honesty was a notion that she was unaccustomed to, as if she needed to reacquaint herself with the ideal of truth before she spoke through it. 'I, uh,' she whispered. She faltered; her voice became higher, flippant. 'I was young and in love, and naïve. And I believed all the stories that I was fed, realising too late what poison they were made of.'

He scoffed. 'Very poetic, but you're avoiding the question.'

She smiled at him. 'I'm being enigmatic.'

'I want you to be honest.'

'Why?'

'Because,' he rationalised, 'if we are going to be working together, if you are going to be working for me, I want to know who you are.'

A shadow passed across her face. 'I am not defined by my past.'

'Just shaped by it,' he countered.

Her eyes sparkled at the debate. 'Touché,' she beamed. She took a deep breath, stared at her hands as she spoke. 'Forgive me if I do not give you all the details; some things are too personal, too intimate and too painful. I was young and silly and I wanted so badly to believe him when he promised me the world. He manipulated me into a position where I had nothing but him; he used and abused me and I was powerless to stop him. Prostitution was my only option; the means of my liberation, and I've found that I'm rather good at it.'

'Indeed,' he commented dryly, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

'Why,' she interrogated crisply, 'do you want to open a brothel?'

'I thought I was asking the questions,' he uttered, revelling in her curiosity, her independent spirit.

'If,' she said, mimicking him, 'if we are going to be working together, if I am going to be working for you, I want to know who you are.'

'Touché,' he retaliated. He paused, ran a hand through his hair. 'It's a purely hedonistic venture; I like sex and I like money, and this is the perfect opportunity for me to delight in my two favourite things.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Are you always so harshly honest?'

'Would you believe me if I said I wanted to help you; to create a safe space for you where you cannot be violated or hurt; where you are autonomous and protected?'

'No,' she said softly, 'but I like the thought of such a space.'

He reached for her hand, looked at her sideways. 'As do I.'

He led her round the skeleton of the building, using his hands and his words to add colour to the bare walls and floors, to paint his vision for her. He wanted so desperately to impress her and spoke with childlike abandon, his ideas tripping over each other as they fought to be heard.

He watched as she walked through the empty rooms that would become the bedrooms of the women who worked there; watched as she stepped into the rays of light created by the wide windows, as an actress would step into the spotlight. Her heels sounded like gunshots as she walked across the bare floorboards and she smiled at the sound of her own authority. She reached up with her fingertips, in an attempt to graze the ceiling.

When she found that she was unable to reach far enough, she turned and smiled at him. 'I want this one.'

He eyes her quizzically. 'Why?'

She spoke with precision, as if everything had already been determined. 'The ceiling is the right height for a restraint; there's enough space in here for both a bed and a bench. I can have a large, guilt mirror set on the fall wall, opposite the two. I'll need some artefacts sourcing for me: restraints, crops and such.'

'Why?' he whispered.

'Why do you think?' she snapped.

'Do you enjoy being hurt?'

She shrugged. 'I've been ruined, and I excel at being so. I'm merely exploiting my own talents.' She sighed, stared into the distance as if reaching for a memory both pleasant and painful. 'I learnt to love it,' she murmured, by way of explanation.

'I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with,' he claimed, but as he said it, his treacherous hands were itching to work the leather that would adorn her. He wondered what she would look like with her wrists bound.

He held out his hands. 'May I?' She nodded gently. Her wrists were so delicate that he was able to encase both of them in one of his palms. Tracing his fingers over her porcelain skin, he measured the width of her joints, appraising her as an artist would a masterpiece. It would not do, he thought, to have her caught by thick, ugly bands of leather which would dwarf her tiny frame. Instead, he resolved, he would craft a set of cuffs worthy of her; using fine, ribbon-like strips of the most supple leather to create bonds that would sit upon her wrists like the finest jewellery. He found this notion - the fact that she would be wearing his ties, that she would be his, even as she slept with other men - incredibly erotic.

Her voice cut into his fantasies with the force of a knife. 'I want my own room.'

'Everyone who works here will have their own room,' he stated calmly.

'I don't mean a room to entertain clients,' she said, 'I want a separate room, in which I can relax and sleep and... be alone.'

'You're awfully demanding,' he admonished, grinning.

She refused to return his smile; her eyes were dark and serious. 'With the amount of money that I will make you, I can afford to be.'

He blinked in surprise, shocked by her bluntness. 'And how can you be sure of that?' he asked.

Her eyes sparkled in defiance, as if she was daring him to challenge her statement. 'Because,' she drawled, dragging out the word, 'I am worth it.' She turned on her heel. 'We're going to the tea rooms,' she stated, 'you're going to buy me a drink.' She stalked from the room, leaving him whirling, stumbling to follow her.

She moved through the streets as though she owned them; negotiating the crowds with ease, never diverting her path for them, instead parting them as though they were the Red Sea and she wielded the power of the almighty. Edward watched her; watched the men whose hungry gazes followed her body as it drifted, unchaperoned, across the winding pathways that spread across the London underworld - a nervous system that kept the city's treacherous, depraved heart beating. And, in the centre of this netherworld, she was Persephone.

If, he thought, I can keep her within this eternal winter of my grasp; if I can prevent her head from being turned by the promise of summertime, we can rule Hades together. We can challenge the gods! She carried herself with the regal grace that benefited her position as Queen and this authority, coupled with the overtly sexual roll of her hips as she walked, made her irresistible. She was, he realised, the perfect advertisement. She calculated each movement and executed it with devout precision, using the canvas of the public sphere as her billboard; transforming herself into a coveted commodity. One for which, men would pay any price.