“So what brings you here?”

“It’s been a while,” Jasmine Brooks said, looking very comfortable in the armchair I usually reserved for myself.

“Fifteen years,” I said. “But you’re not here to catch up on old times, are you?”

“Maybe I am, in a manner of speaking.” Jasmine glanced at the newspaper on the table with its lurid headline, “KINKIER THAN FICTION. Queen of raunch-lit nailed in sex club raid.”

“I know you write for a rival news outlet.”

“I’m flattered that you’ve kept up with my career.”

“I haven’t. I did an internet search after you got in touch.”

Jasmine didn’t seem put out. “You think I’m muck raking?”

“I think this is too much of a coincidence.” I also thought that a man couldn’t be too careful.

Jasmine looked as if she was still trying to size me up. I stared back, thinking how much she’d changed. Of course she had. Everyone changes, just not in a predictable fashion. If I’d been the kid at school most likely to end up writing books only fellow experts would want to read, Jasmine had been the kid most likely to end up in a bad place.

That wasn’t the Jasmine Brooks paying me a visit today. This Jasmine Brooks looked like she’d stepped out of a periodical for affluent professionals, all swept-back hair and glaring dentistry. I tried to picture her as she’d been, with her face full of metal, and failed. She nodded at the paper again.

“How do you feel about our former teacher’s scandalous private life?”

“Are you asking as a journalist or as an old…” Oddly I was going to say ‘friend’, but we’d moved in circles united only by their hostility to each other.

Jasmine ploughed on regardless. “I mean you and Rebecca…” She fell silent, letting me fill in the gap.

“I’m not following you.”

Jasmine smirked. “Still loyal? Still her pet?”

“Teacher’s Pet? You’ll have to do better than that. It’s all so much water under the bridge now.”

“Especially now you’re moderately rich and successful.” She paused. “If, hypothetically speaking, I wanted your take on Rebecca, what would you say?”

That was easy. I’d rehearsed it. “That I wouldn’t be where I am without Miss Langton. I may not have ended up a historian, but no-one was better at bringing out the best in her pupils, at helping them maximise their potential. No teacher taught me more than Miss Langton.”

I realised a split second too late that the concluding sentence was dangerous territory, as true as it was. No teacher had taught me more, but no other had asked me to stay behind after class to whisper, “Knickers or no knickers?” and then show me whether I was right or wrong. No other teacher had lent me books like The Regicides and the Puritan Revolution, or The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods, and no other would have invited me in when I went to their home to return the books to ask my advice on which latex dress suited them best, or to instruct me in the use of floggers, restraints and other implements. It was heady stuff for a bookish seventeen year-old.

Thankfully Jasmine seemed oblivious to any of this. “Miss Langton,” she snickered. “You still call her Miss Langton.”

“It’s how I think of her.” It was a mere two years after I left school that Miss Langton gave up teaching to pursue the literary career she’d always dreamt of, under the pen name Rebecca Deveaux – a name better suited to her debonair personality – but I could only ever think of her as Miss Langton.

“If you say so.” Jasmine sniffed. “That’s on the record. What about off the record?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Are you sure?”

I leaned back. “You’re not taking notes,” I observed.

“Should I be?” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, you think I’m miked up?”

I shrugged. If she was taping the conversation, I didn’t want to be recorded voicing that concern.

Jasmine leaned forward and fixed me with feline eyes. “Maybe I just dropped by because I’m a huge fan of your work, Mr Morecock.”

I froze. I’d been prepared for almost anything and everything, but not this. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?” Jasmine grinned; a cat in a dairy if ever I saw one. “Authorship attribution software. Works like a charm.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve lost me.”

Jasmine had a very self-satisfied look on her face now. “I’m sure a lot of people who admire your novels would be shocked to know about your alter ego but I’m a fan. I especially enjoyed ‘Living Doll,’ and that one – what was it called? – about the girl and her boyfriend in the dungeon.”

“Will you excuse me a moment? Call of nature.”

I needed the moment. I wasn’t sure about the ability of software to determine that the author one prestigious journal had called ‘the brightest rising star in the literary world’ was identical to the one who also dabbled in obscure smut, but somehow Jasmine had worked it out. The only tactic I could think of was flat denial.

It soon became apparent that my extracurricular works were the least of my problems. When I emerged from the loo, Jasmine was standing by the bookcase. She was holding a volume in one hand and a set of photos in the other, looking viciously pleased with herself.

“I saw you had a full set of Rebecca’s novels, so I thought I’d have a browse. Look what I found tucked away inside!” She waved the photos at me with a triumphant air before looking down at them. “I imagine Rebecca’s behind the camera, and that one of those cocks Lisa’s wiping her face with is yours, but who’s the third man?”

“Put them back, you little snoop!”

“Is that any way to talk to an admirer?” Jasmine said coolly. She balanced the book on the shelf behind her and brought another picture to the top of the pile. “My, my; who knew the nerd squad had such fun?”

I was across the room in a flash. Jasmine deliberately put her hands behind her back as I came up close.

“Give them back, you thieving cow!”

“Since I’m still here then technically I haven’t stolen them!”

“You know what I mean! Give them back!”

Jasmine stared at me with an evil glint in her eye. “They’re unpublishable, of course, in reputable publications, but that doesn’t mean...”

“You evil…”

“Sticks and stones. But then you know all about sticks, don’t you, Marty?”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Why not, Marty? What are you going to do about it? Cane me?”

I made a grab for the photos. In the process I came up against Jasmine, who stumbled back against the bookcase which shook worryingly. With my full body weight against her, I finally caught her wrists and twisted, the photos falling to the ground.

“I hope you haven’t pocketed any,” I said, taking a step back, beginning to pat her down.

“Hey!” she said. “In some places that counts as assault.”

“So call the police,” I sneered, making sure to check her inside pocket. “But it would be a fine irony considering how you used to collect ASBO’s the way other kids collected Disney merchandise.”

Jasmine wasn’t biting. “Check as much as you like,” she said. “But I draw the line at a full cavity search. Unlike Lisa. But that was Rebecca’s speciality, wasn’t it?”

I stooped to retrieve the photos from the floor; memories of the kind of delights Rebecca obviously hadn’t given up. Before I was back on my feet, Jasmine was on the move, not making her escape as might be expected, but finding my den of iniquity quicker than I could follow.

Cursing myself for not having had the foresight to lock the door in advance, I decided that this might be an opportunity. I could be getting myself into all kinds of trouble, but Jasmine knew too much already. I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

I didn’t bother to check how she’d reacted to the room’s interior. It took but a moment to pull the door shut and lock it. Jasmine didn’t bang on the inside as I thought she might, but then she would probably make herself busy snooping, as would I.

It was her bag I was after, or rather her phone, to see if she’d been covertly recording our conversation. She hadn’t, but there was a sheet of paper at the bottom of her bag – a list of establishments, one or two I recognized as having a clientele with extremely specialized tastes.

Then it struck me, that throwaway line about a cavity search. How did she know? Photos had been taken on very rare occasions, and regrettably never on those occasions when Miss Langton plunged her fist into Lisa’s vagina.

My den of iniquity includes a desk, where I like to write my x-rated tales. Jasmine was sitting at it when I opened the door. She deliberately refused to look up, as if she was absorbed in the draft of a new story I was working on.

“Once a voyeur, always a voyeur, eh?”

That got her attention, but if I had caught her off balance, she wasn’t going to let it show. “Do you do much entertaining in here?” she asked, looking around at the metal frames and hooks that adorned the walls and ceiling, the racks of items only a proud deviant would have in such quantities.

“So how often did you watch us?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Is that how you get your jollies? Vicariously? Is that why you became a journalist?”

Jasmine was on her feet. “I don’t have to listen to this!”

I positioned myself in the doorway, barring her exit. “Why did you come here, Jasmine?”

She looked at me, confidence giving way to something an unscrupulous man could use. “Do you know, I’m not even sure anymore.”

I gave it a few seconds, reading her. Then I said, “Does it excite you? Watching?”

“I still don’t know what you mean.”

I found myself smiling in spite of myself. “There are clubs you can go, you know, where you can watch as much as you like, even if you don’t want to participate.” It struck a nerve, though Jasmine was quick to conceal as much.

“I know. One of those clubs was the downfall of our former teacher, lest you’d forgotten.”

I engineered another pause. “Wouldn’t you rather participate, Jasmine?”

“You’re not making any sense. Can I go now?”

She was becoming easier to read by the second. I flashed her a proper smile. “Who’s stopping you?” I said, all Mr Expansiveness, yet standing my ground. “But it would be a shame if you were to leave now, just as I was thinking of giving you something.”

There was suddenly greed in Jasmine’s eyes. Journalistic hunger, I fancied. “What?” she said.

I waited, wanting to savour the full impact. “A safeword.”

“A what?”

“You do know what a safeword is?”

“Of course I know what a safeword is.”

I was watching her closely. There was shock, surprise, tension all mixed with a spark of the thing I was hoping for. “Aren’t you curious, Jasmine? I thought that was a key personality trait in journalists.”

“It’s a theory.”

“Cabbage.”

“What?”

“Cabbage. It’s your safeword.” I moved as I spoke, positioning myself behind Jasmine.

She gave a smirk. “Cabbage. Really?”

There was nothing to stop her leaving the room now, nothing at all. She only had to put one foot in front of the other. Instead she stayed rooted to the spot. “You know, it’s funny,” I said. “It’s almost as if Miss Langton knew that you were out there. There’s that scene in her first novel.” As I spoke I slowly slid the jacket from Jasmine’s shoulders.

“The virgin at the keyhole? A bit clichéd, I thought. Besides, I wasn’t a virgin.”

“But you did watch.” I brought my hand up and drew a finger across Jasmine’s lips. “How many times?”

“That’s none of your fucking business.”

“Now that’s the Jasmine I remember.”

“Did it make you feel hard? Flogging Lisa after Rebecca tied her up nice and tight?”

I chuckled. “That didn’t come out right, did it, Jasmine?” I pushed myself against her, so she could feel how hard I was as I began to unbutton her blouse. She tensed but didn’t move. “How about you? Was your pussy all wet from watching? Did you want to join in?”

Jasmine smirked, but words were absent as I removed the blouse and stepped back to unclasp her bra. The nature of the situation seemed to come home to her as I removed it. “You need to tell me what your intentions are.”

I resumed my position in front of her. She wasn’t buxom exactly, but there was swelling. I stared straight into her eyes, reading her ambivalence, her fear, her excitement. “You have your safeword, Jasmine.” My finger teased her lips again. “Cabbage, remember? Why don’t you use it?”

She stared back, breathing sharply. I reached round to unzip her skirt.

“Say it!” I challenged. “Cabbage.”

Jasmine was silent. Her skirt fell to the floor.

“Very well. Now that’s settled, why don’t you make yourself comfortable on the bed?”

“Should I think of England?”

I smirked. The bed had a proper metal frame. All beds should allow for the possibility of restraint, that’s my philosophy, and I soon had Jasmine’s limbs tied to the frame; arms stretched, legs spread, naked torso, legs clad in black tights, red knickers underneath, still in her assertive heels.

Jasmine seemed to have lost her tongue, laying there, her eyes fixed on mine as they roamed her. She squirmed slightly when I made my move, climbing onto the bed. I straddled her, keeping a careful watch on her expression as I flicked first one nipple, then the other. I fancied they grew harder? And was that really a soft whimper?

Still keeping my eyes on her, I unzipped, exposing the extent of my intentions. Jasmine’s expression changed. Instead of staring me in the face, she was now staring at my equipment. And she found her tongue. “Are you expecting me to…”

“I don’t expect, Jasmine. I command. And if I want you to suck my cock, you’ll know all about it, make no mistake.”

That did the trick. There was a flicker of something in Jasmine’s eyes that made me even more determined to have as much fun with her as I could. It was also impossible to resist taunting her.

“Sure you don’t want to use the safeword, Jasmine? One word, two syllables. Cabbage. Say it and this all stops.”

The tip of Jasmine’s tongue emerged. For a split second I thought she was going to pull back from the brink, but then she said, “You’re a bastard!”

I gave my cock a few tugs, aiming it at her pointedly. “And you’re going to know all about it.” Spinning round, I grabbed a fist full of nylon and ripped a big hole in her tights. “Fuck toys should never wear these things,” I spat. “Only stockings. Nice knickers, though. Anyone would think you were hoping to get lucky!”

“Those weren’t cheap!” Jasmine exclaimed.

“Nothing but the best,” I observed. “Don’t worry. I’ll reimburse you. I’d seen a spare pair in her bag, but I wasn’t going to let her know that.

I waited, listening for the weight of her breathing. Her knickers really were nice; silky red. I put my hand against them and began kneading her crotch. Again Jasmine seemed to have lost her tongue, but maybe enjoyment was taking over. There were signs.

“You’re nice and wet, I’ll say that for you.” I wasn’t lying. There was moisture seeping into the fabric as I moved my hand. “I’ve got half a mind to write you into a proper novel, not just a kinky fantasy. I’d disguise your identity, of course. Hard-boiled private investigator rather than muck raking journalist, but a ton of filth just the same. What do you think?”

Jasmine snorted. “A novel? What, and ruin your reputation. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Maybe the image change would do me good. Pretending to be a good guy gets exhausting. Why else would I need these moments of light relief?”

“Talk bollocks, yeah?”

I was off the bed in a flash, taking an object from the wall and holding it up for her to see. “You angling for a taste of the cat o’ nine tails by any chance?”

This time Jasmine gasped loudly. There was definitely fear in her eyes.

“No? Then no more backchat. You got it?”

Jasmine nodded, but now that the immediate danger had passed, she was eyeing the flogger with a flicker of inquisitiveness.

“The rules are simple,” I told her. “Backchat means punishment. Anything other than expressions of desire or gratitude count as backchat. If you’re really good and tell me what I want to hear, you’ll be richly rewarded. Got it?”

Jasmine nodded. I moved across the room, sticking a plug in a socket.

“You say you’re a big fan of my work,” I said conversationally. When I turned Jasmine was staring at the object I was now holding with considerable interest.

“Yes.”

“How big?”

Jasmine blinked, then her eyes brightened with mischief. “I get so wet reading your stories, Mr Morecock, that I just have to rub myself really hard.”

There were oceans of sarcasm in her voice, but I was inclined to be charitable. Experience suggested that the wand would cure her attitude and that Jasmine would soon be begging for everything I could ever wish for.