popular at the moment. A hint of goth, a hint of forbidden pleasure. Pain and pleasure, sugar and spice. She spent a lot of money on her lingerie and the photos that she used to update her webpage at least once a month. She probably didn't have to do it so often, but the truth was she enjoyed the ritual of it. The costumery and the perfumes, the candlelight and the moonlight. The black and red satin sheets. The artistry.
It had been a long time since Jennifer Cole had needed the money she made from her services. She had got into it, as most did, from need. But that need had passed. She was selective now too. She didn't work every night and was extremely choosy about her clients. After all, that was the main thrill for her, the power she felt. She didn't feel degraded or used, just the opposite. It was her decision, her choice to make. And it was never something she regretted. She knew about the human body, how it functioned, how it was put together, what parts needed maintenance. Sex was just part of that. And it was fun.
She flicked forward to the last of the images. She was wearing a long fur coat that she had bought on a cruise trip to the Norwegian fjords one year. The real thing, never mind the paint-throwing hypocrites with their leather belts and shoes. It was mink, thick and luxurious. Her hair was piled high on her head with silver threads adorning and confining it. She wore silver boots with high platform soles and heels. The coat was open, her breasts jutting with the pride of the goddess Diana, her sex cupped in the sculptured, rounded vee of a silk thong, and in her right hand a long, silver-handled riding crop.
Her small silver mobile phone rang and she answered it slowly, patting her hair as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her pupils widened as she licked her lips and purred.
'Hello. How may I help you?'
If she'd been a cream cake, she would have eaten herself.
'Angelina. It's me.'
Angelina, her stage name as she liked to think of it, had been taken from an early American feminist hero of hers, Angelina Grimke, and not, as some had assumed, after the famous actress. She looked at the photo of herself holding a crop and thought it must have been an omen of sorts that he should have called just then. 'Hello, bad boy. How have you been?'
There was a pause, then his voice, husky with desire. 'I don't think Santa is going to have me on his nice list this Christmas.'
'You've been naughty?'
The voice on the other end was breathy. 'Ooh, yeah.'
She could hear the need. 'I hope you're not being naughty right now?'
'Not just yet.'
'You want to come and confess to a superior mother?'
'Not today.'
'Oh?'
'I want you to come to me.'
'It's going to cost more.'
'I don't mind paying. Bad men pay for their sins, don't they? Sooner or later we all pay.'
'If they know what's good for them.'
'I know what's good for me.'
Jennifer Cole had only met the man recently. He had visited her a couple of times at her flat in Chalk Farm but she recognised the soft burr in his voice and knew one thing for sure: he was good-looking with kinky tastes. Just her kind of man. She didn't do this to pay the rent, after all.
'Where do you want to meet?'
