front door, but he didn’t think it was Sadie. The figure was too broad and it seemed to have an odd lumbering gait.
The door opened. Dan was right; it wasn’t Sadie. It was a tall chubby middle-aged man dressed in a pair of black rubber shorts and an upper-body harness. Around his ankles he wore metal shackles connected by eighteen inches of sturdy chain. No doubt that explained his unusual walk, Dan thought. Though he couldn’t have explained why, the sight of the man’s get-up quickened Dan’s heart and made his cock tingle.
‘Good morning, Mr Elliot. Mistress Sadie has instructed me to take you to her dungeon.’
‘OK.’ Dan looked back down the path to the van. ‘I don’t think my colleagues are quite ready, though.’
‘I’ll come back for them, sir. My orders are to take you directly to the mistress.’
Dan stepped into the hall. The man turned and walked towards the back of the house and Dan immediately realised that two round panels had been cut out at the back of his shorts, exposing a circle of pale hairy buttock on each side. His ankle chain clanked as he moved and he was forced to walk in short shuffling steps.
The man opened a door under the stairs and motioned Dan to go through. Inside there was a steep flight of steps. Dan held onto the handrail and walked down carefully and the man followed after him. At the bottom there was a closed door. Dan tried the handle but it appeared to be locked.
‘It’s got an electronic lock . . . let me.’ The man reached forwards and punched a six-digit code into a numerical keypad. Dan heard the lock click open and the man turned the handle. ‘Mistress Sadie is waiting for you in the room at the far end. I’ll go and get your crew.’
Dan stepped through the door. Inside it was dimly lit by wall sconces that mimicked flaming medieval torches. The walls had been painted to resemble stone and the floor had heavy rough flagstones. He could smell something perfumed and exotic, incense probably, or scented oil. He began to walk along the short corridor and was surprised by how loud his feet sounded.
There was a door on either side of the hall, the first was ajar and Dan could see that it was a changing room, like in a sports club with lockers and benches. He opened the other door and saw a basic bathroom, with a sink and separate shower and toilet cubicles and a pile of fluffy towels in a rack.
The door at the end of the corridor was wooden and heavy with black wrought-iron banding and studs, like an ancient door to a church or castle. Dan wouldn’t have been the slightest bit surprised if it creaked like a sound effect from a Hammer horror movie when you opened it. Ever since he’d passed through the electronic door his heart had been beating double time and his mouth had gone dry.
He stood in front of the door, suddenly apprehensive. Barging straight in seemed insensitive and presumptuous but knocking and waiting seemed timid and unmanly. He didn’t want to make the wrong impression before he’d even got to the dungeon. He knocked on the door, rapping it hard with his knuckles in what he hoped was an authoritative fashion and immediately opened it.
‘Come in, Dan. I’ve been waiting for you.’ Sadie got up from her seat and walked towards him. She was wearing a long flowing black dress. He noticed that she’d been sitting on a sort of throne, with a padded red leather seat, carved wooden arms and a high back.
The room’s walls had been painted in the same stone effect as the hall. Here and there, huge iron rings had been set into the wall, reminding Dan of the kind of prison you saw in old movies where the unfortunate starving bearded inmates were shackled by their elevated wrists.
One wall was completely concealed by red velvet curtains. Dan assumed this was where the window must be and he could understand that the ingress of natural light would totally ruin the mood. On the wall opposite the curtains there was a St Andrew’s cross and
Fuyumi Ono
Tailley (MC 6)
Robert Graysmith
Rich Restucci
Chris Fox
James Sallis
John Harris
Robin Jones Gunn
Linda Lael Miller
Nancy Springer