Chapter Twenty

Georgiana is on a roll now, and I have no alternative but to sit here and listen to her.

“Before I presented myself at Le Château for my interview with Murray, the co-owner who was in charge of hiring and firing the girls, Tammy coached me on what to tell him about myself and my supposed track record as a dominatrix.

“On the day of my interview, I wore my natural blonde hair piled on top of my head, a black corset, seamed black fishnet stockings, and black high heels, and was thoroughly convinced that I looked the epitome of a high-class dominatrix.”

“But I thought you worked at Le Château as a submissive called Pamela?” I can’t help but cut in and say.

“Patience isn’t your strong suit, is it?” she says, and I can’t deny that she’s right.

Then she goes on, “When I got to Le Château and introduced myself to Murray as Countess Suzanne von Stern, he took me into one of the dungeons and said, ‘Get comfortable, Suzanne.’ I looked around the dungeon, couldn’t see any easy chairs, and so gave him a blank look.

“ ‘Get comfortable, Suzanne,’ he said again, and it dawned on me: in Murray’s world, ‘comfortable’ was just another way of saying ‘naked.’

“So I stripped off and, in a scene from a classic S&M fantasy, Murray inspected me from head to foot. I don’t mean he touched me,” she adds hastily. “He was far too professional for that.”

Yeah, so fucking professional that he blackmails his clients, I thought, but didn’t say so out loud.

“So what happened next?”

“I put my clothes back on, not in the least bit embarrassed, because Murray’s inspection of my naked body that day really felt as if it were merely a medical examination conducted by my doctor.

“ ‘So when may I start, Murray?’ I said, confident that I had sailed through the interview and that he had decided to hire me forthwith.

“ ‘How about in an hour, Suzy?’ he said.

“ ‘Countess Suzanne von Stern,’ I reminded him indignantly.

“ ‘Great accent, babe. But you got to forget about Countess Suzanne. Mistresses around here are a dime a dozen. Come work here as Suzy, the Submissive Slut from England, I’ll charge double for you, the tips will roll in, and you’ll make a fortune,’ he said.

“I stared at him, furious that he planned to derail my carefully crafted plans. When I’d first made the momentous decision to throw caution to the wind and work at Le Château I’d dedicated countless hours to fashioning my persona as Countess Suzanne von Stern—with its aura of aristocratic severity, along with a soupçon of class—to suit me. So to me, the concept of Suzy, the Submissive Slut from England, was downright sleazy, and I just couldn’t come to terms with it. So, in the most polite terms possible, I advised Murray to hire someone else to play the part of Suzy, just not me,” she says.

“Then I flounced out of the dungeon without another word. Once in the street, I was confronted by the unpleasant realization that I couldn’t afford another cab. So I trudged toward the subway feeling dispirited and alone, when the call came with the terrible news that was to change my life forever. My little girl, Charlotte, had had a second, almost-fatal seizure. And there was no way in which I could take care of her anymore. There was no alternative for me but to institutionalize her,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I swore to raise the money to send her to the best in the country, no matter what. Which is why, half an hour later, I, Lady Georgiana Lacely, arrived at the distasteful decision to become Suzy, the Submissive Slut from England and make my fortune, as Murray had promised I would.

“Thus it was that took my place in an S&M fantasy parlor lineup along with six other girls, primed to be given the once-over by a client who wanted to select one of us to submit to him that day.

“And then the client went down the line, past Patti, the blonde submissive from Chicago; Justine, the African-American from Crown Heights; and Helga, the brunette from Germany, who whispered to me that she was only doing this to pay the bill for her mother’s cancer surgery.

“Finally, after he inspected Laurie, a tall, willowy blonde, a chorus girl by night who only did sessions at Le Château by day, and whom he asked to turn around for him so he could evaluate her ass, he moved on to me.

“Suzy, the Submissive Slut from England. Perfect,” he said, and ran his eyes over my body while I focused resolutely on my posture and tried to project a sweet and compliant nature, though inside I was a miasma of raging emotions.

“Then he took Murray aside and informed him that he had made his choice. He picked me, Suzy the Slut.”

“How did you feel, Georgiana?” I say.

And she laughs her tinkling laugh.

“Just exhilarated. Of course, when Robert reads my book, the main point I want to convey to him is that Lady Georgiana Lacely only became a professional submissive through sheer necessity, because of my desperation to secure my poor, mentally disabled daughter’s future.

“But to tell you the truth, Miranda, each day at Le Château was more exciting than the last. Every morning, I raced down to Wall Street in a cab, and the closer we got, the wetter I became,” she says.

The thought of ice queen Georgiana getting wet is almost too much for me to countenance. I struggle to keep my cool and remind myself that I need to spin out these interviews so as to give Robert the maximum time to come and find me. So I continue in my guise of ghostwriter, eager to listen to her subject’s story in every intricate detail.

“Tell me about that first session,” I say.

“My first time as a professional submissive and I go in at the deep end, because in retrospect, my first client was probably one of the most sadistic men I ever knew,” she says.

“And?”

“Switch off the tape recorder for a minute,” she says, and I do.

“I don’t want Robert to learn of my virtually unlimited capacity to submit to a variety of men in a professional capacity, or how much I enjoyed every single session, otherwise he might become unutterably disillusioned with me,” she says.

But you blackmailed him! How the hell could you ever disillusion him!

“I understand, Georgiana,” I say, and then move on to the next question: “So what happened to your plan to be a dominatrix?”

“I was still determined to do sessions at Le Château in my role of Countess Suzanne von Stern, but Murray categorically refused to let me, and no matter what, I was unable to budge him,” she says.

“But why did you have to listen to him, Georgiana?”

“Because he was the boss, of course!” she snaps.

“But you could have worked somewhere else!”

“Don’t be so stupid, Miranda. I would never have felt as safe anywhere else. I only felt safe at Le Château because Tammy was there all the time,” she says.

“But I thought that soon after she and Murray founded Le Château together, way back when, she sold her shares in the place to him, stopped working there, and became a freelance dominatrix instead?”

“That’s just the story Murray cooked up for your precious Robert,” she says.

Bitch! Don’t dwell on that, though. Carry on feeding her need to talk, just to give Robert more time . . . time to get here. And time for him to learn the truth. . . .