‘Is all this rope necessary?’ asked Annette, hands tied above her head, as Madam Fifi wrapped yet more coils around her midriff.
‘It’s vital,’ insisted the crimson-chiffoned pedicurist. ‘You small girls are devious. Tall girls are gallumping things, lacking the foresight to see danger looming. Boys? Boys are too stupid to even think of escape. They blunder around inviting terrible fates upon themselves, then blame everyone else.’
‘Have you had any small girls on your operating table before?’ asked Annette.
‘None.’
‘Tall girls?’
‘Many.’
‘Boys?’ asked Annette.
‘Thousands,’ said Fifi.
‘Then I suppose that’s an argument won, though I’ve never considered myself devious.’
‘Don’t put yourself down, my dear. Devious you are.’
‘Well, thank you.’ Annette remembered her manners.
‘You’re welcome.’ And Fifi continued binding.
Still, Fifi must have known what she was doing. In her time she must have tied dozens of people to dozens of tables and was probably the world’s leading authority on the art. You wouldn’t tell Aleister Crowley how to summon the devil, nor H. P. Lovecraft how to find things lurking in his cellar. Don’t tell Madam Fifi how to bind.
Finally having exhausted her copious rope supply. Fifi gathered the network of cables together and heaved it good and tight, one foot propped against the table for extra leverage. With a trawlerman’s dexterity she knotted the ropes in every conceivable manner, binding Annette to pink table, pink table to pink floor, pink floor to sawn-off elephant legs protruding from pink walls, pink walls to pink ceiling. Finally, she tied the ceiling to Annette.
She removed Annette’s shoes, tossing them aside. Apparently they were of no interest, despite being her best pair.
Leaning close, Fifi inspected the girl’s feet, starting with the big toes, pinching them, one by one, between Cruella DeVille fingertips.
Annette supposed she should be flattered at the interest in her feet. Not everyone shared it, though some did. Gavin the fetishist had, spending long hours by the fireside, talking to them. They never replied.
Sadly, Annette’s feet had been the only part of her that Gavin had been interested in, spending the small hours with one or other in his mouth while their owner nodded off over an ‘improving’ novel. It’s not a happy woman who has less fun than her feet.
Finally, the pedicurist concentrated on the little toes (or. Divine Pinkies, as she knew them), clearly regarding them as the pick of Annette’s bunch. ‘Tell me.’ She manipulated them, engrossed. ‘How long have you had these?’
‘All my life, though – as the human body renews itself every seven years, and I’m twenty-one – I suppose they’re brand new. Not that I remember the moment of their delivery. They must have arrived while I slept, perhaps last Thursday.’
‘Yes. Yes. Thursday is when Jack New Toes makes his spangly sprinkly rounds, delivering new toes to sleeping children everywhere. Excellent. Excellent. New toes. Excellent.’
She took an eyebrow pencil from behind her left ear and, like a butcher marking a slab of meat for carving, drew a line round each Divine Pinky’s base circumference. ‘Just stay here, my pretty,’ she requested, as though Annette would be going anywhere with all that binding. ‘I’ll be right back.’