Love on the Dark Side

Steve leant back in his chair, letting his fingers wind through the phone cord, and stared at the photos of her arrayed before his desk, trying to imagine how she might look now. He’d selected the prints specially, out of hundreds he’d collected, as his personal favourites: Lisette bound with ropes around her arms, midriff and legs, gagged, her eyes staring up at the camera in mute supplication; Lisette and another girl, both in leopard-print bikinis, clawing at each other, their hair wild over their faces, eyes sparkling with feigned rage; and his absolute favourite: Lisette modelling a training corset, an impossibly tight belt around her waist and a choker around her neck, gazing into the camera, eyes suggestively heavy lidded, glossy black hair tumbling down over one shoulder, her full lips parted just a little to show the promise of the dark warm mouth within.

If she’d been in her early twenties then, and all his researches for the fan club indicated that she had been, she’d be in her seventies now, and he shuddered a little at the thought of her wizened frame, so far from the voluptuous figure he’d seen so often, fantasised about so much. Yet still her voice held a husky promise, a hint of something forbidden, something more . . . refined than the young women Steve saw around him today, mincing their stick-insect legs and swinging the ever-present shopping bags, brash and brittle.

‘I’m sure you look just as stunning today,’ he offered, still barely able to believe that he was finally speaking to her. She didn’t seem to be aware of the lengths he’d gone to to get her number; she’d just picked up the phone with a dusky ‘hello?’, and had listened to him rattle off his prepared spiel with hardly any comment, nothing but a whispered ‘oh?’ when he’d revealed, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice, that he was the president of her fan club; nor had she responded as he’d expected and hoped she would, with delight, or at least gratitude, when he’d explained that he’d tracked her down to make sure she received some of the royalties from people who were still making money out of her image. Surely she’d known she was a cult icon, her picture on the covers of countless fanzines, Camden market badges and rockabilly T-shirts?

Most people seemed to assume she was already dead, although he wasn’t about to tell her that. He’d put more effort into finding this number than anything else he’d done in his life, chasing forever-vanishing hints of it, always elusive, always just out of reach, disappearing like the tail of the rabbit down the hole. After what seemed an eternity of dead ends, bad calls and rumours, he’d finally tracked it down to a second-hand magazine dealer in LA, an individual specialising in the fifties cheesecake industry of which Lisette was such an important part. The man had oozed sleaze on the phone, and had only agreed to part with the number – had only acknowledged that it even existed – when Steve had sent him a signed original of one of John Willie’s Gwendoline paintings, a pony-girl image that it broke his heart to lose; but he wasn’t about to miss out on this opportunity.

The first shock had come when he’d finally received the number. It was a UK number, which wasn’t too much of a surprise – she was British, after all, and, even though she’d modelled for some American photographers, he knew she’d returned home after her star had begun to fade in the US. What was surprising was, when he checked the area code, he found that it belonged to a tatty seaside town in the West Country. He could have understood her ending up in one of the fishing villages in Devon or Cornwall, remote retreats with a genuine beauty outside the summer months, when they were swamped by ice-cream-guzzling tourists; but this was further north, not far from Bristol, and while Steve had never been there he’d heard of it and knew it had a reputation for casual violence and drug problems. A dead town, like so many littering the coast.

There was a coquettish tone to the voice that startled him almost as much as the invitation itself. This was what – although he hadn’t dared admit it to himself – he’d hoped she’d ask. The chance to meet her, finally; to be the first, and perhaps only, of the current base of fans, an exclusive treat, and maybe even to see some of her older photos she’d never released. There must be some; surely she’d reward him if he went to visit her?

Steve’s heart was pounding, and he was aware that he’d broken out into a slight sweat, staring at her face in the photo of her wearing the corset. ‘When – when’s good for you?’

Steve would have missed his own wedding to meet her, and as it was he had nothing on for the weekend. ‘I’ll see you then,’ he managed, then stared dumbly at the receiver, as though trying to wring an explanation for the situation he’d suddenly, unexpectedly found himself in from the disconnected tone.

Since his mid-teens, Steve had tried to mould every girl who’d shown an interest in him into the image of Lisette. Some were more amenable than others: a couple of fellow students when he’d been at college, bonding through a shared love of psychotic rock’n’roll and cheap sulphate, had humoured him enough to allow themselves to be tied up in Lisette’s signature poses and outfits, gear that Steve had blown most of his student loans tracking down.

Later girlfriends had tended to be both more involved sexually and more detached emotionally, regarding his obsession with a wry amusement that invariably soured when they realised they could never be, for him, anything more than second-rate copies of an original that had never really existed. Patricia, who’d drawn him in by her evident embarrassment at her voluptuous over-spilling curves, had been the most memorable of these partners, able with judicious application of makeup to pass as a reasonable facsimile of Lisette and throwing herself into the role with a passion that had surprised him.

Shy and prone to blushing in her everyday guise, she’d become a different person entirely when dressed up, demanding to be spanked and fucked hard with the foulest language Steve had heard from anyone, as well as displaying a taste for anal play a million miles away from Lisette’s own tastes, Steve was sure; but even she had tired finally of his inability to acknowledge her as a person in her own right.

He knew his obsession must seem finally like an insult to the girls who were attracted to him, but even approaching his fortieth birthday he couldn’t help himself. And now it hardly seemed to matter: he was going to meet his idol in the flesh.

Steve kicked the wet sand from his leopard-print brothel creepers as he squinted at the corroded street sign. Pier Road. This was it all right. Hunching the shoulders of his black leather jacket against the wind and hugging his bag tightly to his side, part of him wishing he’d worn something more substantial underneath than a Cramps T-shirt, he looked at the house numbers.

One, Two, Three: the numbers ran sequentially down one side of the road, with no houses opposite, just the low sea wall overlooking the bay’s vast expanse of muddy beach. As he walked down the street, he felt a familiar nervous anticipation and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. It’s OK, he reassured himself: he was about to meet Lisette. It was only natural that he should be feeling nervous.

He approached the end of the road, where it swelled out to a broader area before the gates leading on to the town’s second derelict pier, an abandoned hulk he’d noticed as soon as he reached the seafront. He anxiously counted down the houses, staring at the rusty metal numerals on walls and gateposts, the swell of nervous excitement building to fever pitch, until he reached the final house. Number 75.

He looked around, puzzled, checking again to make sure there were no buildings on the other side of the road. He peered at the number again, then at the two before: 73, 74. He took out the scrap of wrinkled paper from his back pocket and checked that he was looking for the right address, spun round and looked at the gates to the pier, then turned back to the house. He was half-tempted to ring on the bell and ask, but his stomach lurched at the idea. Maybe she didn’t want people to know she was living there – he didn’t want to attract undue attention. He moved towards the pier gates. Maybe there were more properties on the other side.

Closer now, he could see loose trestles hanging down, and holes in the roof of the pavilion at its end of the pier, a rotting pile without even the faded grandeur of the town’s candyfloss and slot machine showcase. Maybe it was being renovated, he thought as he peered through the gates: there were building contractor containers immediately outside, although there was little evidence of anything happening on the pier itself. Still, he couldn’t see much, his view obscured by the concrete wall flanking the gates. A great wave of disappointment built up in him. Maybe she’d given him the wrong address deliberately, trying to dishearten him and make him give up the chase. His neck twitched in an involuntary spasm that made him shake his head; no, she wouldn’t have done that, she seemed too kind on the phone.

There were security notices up on the barbed wire of the fence: trespassers would be prosecuted, the area was under surveillance. That was that, then, there would be nothing ahead. He pressed his face to the gate, clasping the cold wire mesh and leaning on it, looking through to the decayed pier, feeling crushed, rotted, as derelict as the greenish planks, slick with mould, only to feel the gate give, and then swing forwards with a yawning shriek.

At first, he was so surprised that he let go, and the gate swung back towards him. He’d assumed it would be locked, and hadn’t even bothered to make sure. But it wasn’t. He pushed it again experimentally, and when it swung away once more he moved in.

His heart leapt when he saw another small line of houses on the far side of the wall. They were wooden, the planks of their walls faded from the combined effects of sun and salt water, but they looked as ruined as the rest of the pier, unlived in, the windows frosted with salt rime, the roofs sagging under the weight of years. The door of the first house looked like it had melded with the frame, and the handle had entirely rusted into position. But the number was still recognisable: 76.

He walked slowly down past the next house, aware that he should watch his step here, convinced he could feel the entire structure rocking beneath him in the wind, but feeling a mixture of exultation and panic as he came to the final house. Number 78. It looked better kept than the others; the door seemed to have been opened recently. He looked up, and thought he saw a movement at the window; but the light reflecting off the water made him unsure.

He looked around, half-expecting guard dogs to run from wherever the vaunted security was based, but there was nothing, only the distant sounds of the wind and the sea and the groan of the planks underfoot. He knocked on the door, and waited for a reply. Still there was nothing, and he stepped back again to peer up. This time he was sure he saw some movement above him, and he returned to the door to knock again, harder. To his surprise, the door creaked open.

Gingerly, testing the ground with his foot, afraid of stepping on a rotting plank and plunging to the beach below or, worse, ending on the seaweed-slimed rocks, he stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was that the salty sea smell was less strong here, just one note in the musty air, and subsumed by something else; the unmistakable smell of perfume. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out a flight of stairs ahead of him, and a corridor leading into darkness to its side.

‘Hello?’ he called out, silently cursing himself for a fool. There could be nothing for him here; at least he hadn’t boasted to anyone else about this errand, but he coloured as he realised that his contact in LA might have tricked him, lured him here, taking one of his most prized possessions into the bargain, and that his humiliation would soon be all over the internet, making him a laughing stock in the community he prized so highly. He turned, his cheeks burning, and was about to step out of the house again when he heard a reply.

Where he’d reddened with anger just moments before, he knew he was pale now, and felt sick. Still, this was what he’d come for and, as he stepped towards the stairs, his shoes crunching on the sand feathered over the wooden floor, some of his former excitement returned.

He climbed the steps slowly, mechanically feeling the camera in his shoulder bag and looking down to see his shoes leaving prints in the dust lying thickly on the stairs. Nobody had come this way for a while, that much was clear. Perhaps there was another exit? No, it was more likely that she was convalescing from a long illness. She was old, she might not be mobile; perhaps she had a helper, someone who came to do her shopping for her, someone who kept her company, told her stories.

Steve pushed the door open and stepped inside. Immediately his apprehension faded, as he found himself in a treasure trove of cheesecake paraphernalia. The room was lit garishly by hoops of naked bulbs around several mirrors, and he stood in the entrance, blinking after emerging from the gloom. His eyes took in the framed photographs on the walls, almost all of Lisette herself; the movie poster that took up the best part of one wall, for Moon’s Milk, a burlesque film she’d starred in, her one Hollywood feature, which Steve knew back to front: he even had the same poster himself at home. And on a clothes rail running along the wall to his left he saw some of the outfits she’d worn in the photo shoots. He’d had no idea such things existed, and he moved forwards to touch them, amazed, when his fingers made contact with the leather, the satin, the silk, that they were in such good condition.

But even as he felt them, the history soaking up through his fingertips and leaving him light headed, he realised he’d already seen her, sitting in front of a mirror and make-up table at the far end of the room. And what he saw he refused to accept.

The figure with the long black hair, sitting in a chair before the mirror, dressed in a laced black corset, a basque and a short skirt, could not be Lisette. She was even wearing stockings and suspenders, for Christ’s sake, that he could see glittering in the light over her crossed legs: in her seventies, and wearing stockings and suspenders, heels too. There was no way this woman was much over thirty. She was gazing at him through the mirror, but he couldn’t look directly at her reflection, trying to tell himself that it was all a joke; he had been tricked. Then he looked into her eyes, and his defences melted. He’d have known that look anywhere: it was her, there was no mistaking it.

Everything about her was exactly the same: her figure, her clothes, her hair. She even wore the same coquettish expression as he had above his desk: his favourite photograph of her. For a second he thought he might be dreaming, then he realised what had happened. It was her daughter – granddaughter, even. It was the only reasonable explanation.

‘It can’t be.’ His voice faltered, then he continued, bolder. ‘But you’ve done a damn fine job of it. I thought I was the leading authority on your mother – or is it your grandmother?’ He eyed her quizzically, but she just returned his gaze, an amused expression on her face. ‘But I suppose you had better access than me. Still, why haven’t you shown yourself until now? You could make a fortune out there, looking like that. You’re her spitting image.’ A sudden rush of ideas occurred to him. ‘I could be your agent.’ And lover, he thought, mentally undressing her.

She smiled at him, and Steve recognised the expression of amused disdain adults use when humouring children; then she turned and sat back down in the chair in front of her dressing table, picked up a hairbrush and began to brush her hair.

‘My glory days are over, Steven. Would you mind –?’ She beckoned to him with the hairbrush, her eyes on his through the mirror, and it took him a second to work out what she wanted.

He stepped up behind her and took the hairbrush from her hand then began to run it through her locks, marvelling at her hair’s glossy smoothness. She seemed flawless; no hairs came out when he pulled the hairbrush away. There was a tightness in his chest.

All the nervous tension Steve had felt in anticipation of this meeting suddenly welled up at this reference to his heroes, and he stiffened in annoyance. So she was going to carry on with this charade, was she? Steve stopped brushing her hair and patted it down, his sudden flare of anger translating into an equally sudden resolve. If she was going to use him as part of her cute game, he could do the same. He’d come too far to leave empty handed.

She turned her head and startled him with a knowing wink. ‘You don’t waste any time, do you? But I love to model, you must know that by now. What did you say on the phone? You’re my biggest fan?’ She laughed again, and for some reason the sound made Steve shiver. ‘So how do you want me?’

More baffled than ever by the rapid change in tone, and not a little flustered by her easy acquiescence, Steve ran the possibilities through his mind. If this was a setup, a joke with him as the fall guy, he’d make damn sure he got as much as he could out of the situation: she had winked at him, after all, with something undeniably lascivious in her expression. If it wasn’t a set-up, and Lisette’s daughter had taken on her mother’s mantle, it was a situation that could make both of them rich, with new photosets, magazine appearances, guest spots at fetish parties . . . Steve’s confidence grew as he realised that, whatever happened, he was sure to leave here a happy man.

He backed away, retrieved his camera from his shoulder bag and asked her to turn her chair around. She did so and instantly struck a pose, crossing her legs, squeezing her shoulders together to enhance her cleavage as she swung to one side and pouted over one shoulder at him.

The banks of wall lights meant he could see everything; even as he froze each moment, he knew these pictures would turn out beautifully. She threw herself into pose after pose, effortlessly repeating sequences he knew by heart but always giving them an extra twist, something new not only for the camera but for him too, he was sure, flashing glimpses of the inviting shadows between her thighs, the satin of her knickers occasionally catching the light, or licking her lips suggestively as she ran her fingers along her thighs or over her basque.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, grinning. ‘It wouldn’t be a proper photo shoot without some bondage, would it? There’s some rope over there.’ She waved to a battered-looking leather trunk under one of the racks of clothes.

Steve walked over, slightly uncomfortably, and bent down to open the trunk. He wasn’t quite able to suppress a gasp of shock as he opened it. There were coils of rope there, as she’d said, of varying lengths and thicknesses; but there were other things too, whips and masks, clamps and knives, and tangles of straps at whose use he couldn’t even guess, and beneath them all the grotesquely modelled veins of a number of oversized rubber cocks.

After gingerly removing a bundle of white ropes, he closed the trunk lid and advanced towards Lisette, his heart racing and his mouth dry. She by contrast looked relaxed, amused by his evident shock, and he felt another wave of discomfort that she – on the verge of being tied up, no less – managed to maintain the upper hand.

He looped a length of rope tightly around her wrists by way of reply, then passed the two ends through the back of the chair. Lisette shifted to one side, smiling curiously at him, as he pulled the ropes up between her legs and bunched her skirt tightly around her thighs.

Steven paused and gazed into her eyes. The mocking tone had gone now, he was pleased to see, replaced by a heavy-lidded excitement. He nodded, and pulled at the back of the skirt so that it rode up, exposing first the tops of her stockings and the soft white skin of her thighs, then her black satin knickers, a darker patch of dampness showing towards the middle. Taking her at her word, he pulled on the ropes until they bit into the knickers, squeezing the pouch of her sex then, as she squirmed and gasped, slipping into the crease, pulling the satin fabric with them and exposing lines of tight black curls to either side.

Spurred by the exposure, he worked quickly, drawing the ropes up over her torso and criss-crossing them across her chest so that her breasts, their curve already enhanced by the basque, were bunched between the shiny white lines. He completed the cross around the back of her neck, then stepped back to survey the job. He’d expected outrage, or some kind of struggle, from her, and she did tug on the ropes, lifting her head and hands back, but only, it seemed, to tighten the ropes cutting into her crotch.

Steve stared at her again, scarcely able to believe her response to his actions, and still half-convinced that cameras were following his every move. Fuck it, if he was being filmed, he’d give them a show to remember.

But nobody came. There was just him and her, and as he gazed into her eyes she licked her lips in provocative response to his suggestion. He needed no further encouragement, and advanced until the crotch of his jeans was level with her face. Far from struggling or begging to be freed, the girl was scissoring her legs back and forth, working the tight rope into the crease of her panties, as she gazed at the bulge between Steve’s legs. The unmistakable aroma of female arousal wafted up to him.

Bunching up her luxuriant hair in one hand, he unzipped himself with the other, letting his cock spring out into her face. ‘All right, you’ve asked for this, whoever you are.’ But the menace in his tone was undone by the sight of her craning her head forwards, evidently desperate for the taste of his cock in her mouth.

Holding her in place with the hand in her hair, he smeared the angry purple bulb of his cockhead over her face, smudging her lipstick and leaving thin trails of spittle from where she’d already managed to lick the shaft. As she enveloped the head with her thick lips, making little squeals of excitement that tightened his balls, her eyes gazing up into his, he was struck by the sudden conviction that this was Lisette, the object of his obsession, sprung as though fully formed from the darkest recesses of his mind. His rational mind told him it was impossible, but as his cock sank into the warm mouth and she began to suck, hollowing her cheeks and running her tongue over the shaft, the rest of him knew this was no fake.

Giving a strangled cry, he wrenched at her basque, tearing the joins and letting the soft white flesh of her breasts spill out, the pink nipples already hard. As he shoved her head up and down on his cock with one hand, he tugged and clawed at her nipples with the other, leaving angry red marks that died slowly on the tender skin, then leant forwards to bite into the giving mounds, all control gone now, as she purred then gasped at his sudden frenzy of passion.

Her legs were moving faster now, pressed tightly together as she squirmed on the seat, pulling the rope deep into her crease. He locked eyes with her as he thrust his cock into her mouth, slowing now to allow her to play her tongue over his engorged glans, slide it over the shaft then hollow her cheeks and shake her head back and forth, clearly relishing the taste.

He pulled away and pushed his balls towards her, and she gave a little mew of excitement before licking enthusiastically at the tight sac. Encouraged by his deep groan as he rubbed the shaft over her cheeks, she sucked at his balls, trying to fit as much of them as possible into her mouth, tonguing them hard and fast, until her legs locked, her body shook, a tremor that seemed to begin in her feet and rise like a wave all the way to her head, and she gazed deep into Steve’s eyes, her mouth momentarily free and gasping as she rocked against her bonds.

The sight tipped Steve over the edge, and he clenched the fingers of one hand hard around her hair while moving the other to caress her neck as she still shuddered from her orgasm, the realisation of his fantasy complete as he stuffed his cock all the way into her mouth, her lips flared around its base, feeling her throat contract under his fingers as she gagged and milked the spunk from his heavy balls, his back arching as he emptied his life into her.

Drained, he released her and stumbled back. Unsteady on his feet, he giggled as an ankle gave under him, barely able to keep his balance. The room went dark and still. As he crumpled to his knees, his vision slowly fading, the figure on the chair before him raised her arms impossibly high behind her head, the grotesque movement matched by a horrible creaking, then lowered them forwards and on to her lap, a sly smile on her spunk-smeared lips.

The sun had gone down by the time Steve awoke. He didn’t know where he was at first, only that his head was splitting. His first thought was that he must have missed the last bus back to Bristol; then he wondered where Lisette was; and then he realised he wasn’t in her room. Not the room he’d been in previously, anyway. A waning moon shining through a cracked cobwebbed window was enough to show him that. No, he seemed to be sitting in some kind of storeroom now, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom he could see what looked like chairs, facing him and extending in rows to either side.

‘Lisette?’ he called out, but the sound was a mere croak. Water, he thought blindly. I must have water. He willed his body to stand, and tottered up, impossibly weak, but his legs gave way beneath him, and as his momentum carried him forwards he reached out in front of him, his mouth open in a silent scream.

As his hands fell on the dry thing in the chair opposite, he heard it make a sound, the dry moan of autumn leaves rustling in the wind, and this time as he flinched back his legs held, enough for him to stumble back into the shaft of moonlight and look at the stringy cobwebs hanging from his hands from where he’d fallen, and the dessicated wrinkled parchment that had been his skin wrapped over the brittle dry bone that had been his arm.