Little Boy Blue

28

‘I haven’t seen your face before.’

The man, dressed from head to toe in black leather, gripped Sanderson’s chin, turning her head this way now that to admire her painted face.

‘I’m new to town.’

‘And what do we call you, new-to-town?’

‘Rose.’

‘A rose with thorns, no doubt. Come this way, I’ll introduce you to the others…’

The burly man led Sanderson down a long corridor. The light sockets hung down from the ceiling without bulbs and only a couple of weak wall lights rescued the pair of them from total darkness. Sanderson was pleased to feel the hard steel of her baton on her flank, as they walked further and further away from the light.

They soon reached another door. Her companion – who’d introduced himself as Dennis – knocked on it and moments later a hatch in the door slid open.

‘Fresh meat,’ Dennis said, a thin grin on his face. Moments later, the door swung open and they hurried inside. Sanderson wondered if her mobile phone would work in here, especially as they now seemed to be heading down to some kind of basement, but she didn’t dare look at her phone. Dennis’s eyes were glued to her.

The Munch convened minutes later. Fifteen committed sado-masochists, hunched round in a circle, enjoying the subversion and secrecy of their gathering. Normally they would have been discussing best erotic practice and comparing case notes, but today there was only one topic of conversation. Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since Jake’s death but it had sent shock waves through the community.

Dennis sat Sanderson next to him, acting as her friend and sponsor, despite having only ‘known’ her for a few minutes. She had contacted him via a website – ‘The BrotherHood’ – and after a few exploratory messages he’d sent her a curt email including an address and time. She’d turned up five minutes early – time enough to check that her backup team was in place – then rang the bell for admission. Dennis had stuck close to her the whole time and Sanderson wondered if he did this to all new members or whether there was something special about her.

‘Bloke I know from Bevois Mount had a similar thing happen to him,’ a guy who appeared to be dressed as a satyr was saying. ‘Took a bloke home he hardly knew. The guy taped him up and robbed him blind.’

‘There was a girl I knew – right vicious little bitch she was,’ added his female neighbour, covered head to toe in PVC, apart from webbing at the crotch. ‘Used to advertise for partners, but as soon as they turned up, her boyfriend and his mates set on them. Beat a couple of people half to death.’

‘One person you don’t want to mess with is my ex,’ said another, to general agreement. ‘You get him on the wrong night, he’d kill you as soon as look at you. If he wasn’t doing a two-stretch, I’d have said this was him.’

‘This is different though, right?’ Sanderson piped up, dismissing all these suggestions out of hand. ‘I think it was a hate crime.’

‘No,’ Dennis countered quickly, ‘if it was a hate crime they’d have been more explicit. They’d be all over social media now talking about poofs, freaks -’

‘What then?’ Sanderson countered.

‘This is someone within the community, someone who’s into Edge Play.’

The thought was clearly not a welcome one and an angry debate now ensued. Sanderson said very little, glad of the cover the argument gave her. She knew Edge Play was at the extreme end of the BDSM spectrum, pushing the supplicant almost to the brink of death by starving them of oxygen, but she knew little more than that and was not keen to be drawn into the discussion.

‘Do you have anyone in mind?’ Sanderson butted in. ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

The comment was directed at Dennis with just enough mischief in her tone to provoke a response.

‘Well, I was at home,’ Dennis replied, pretending to bridle at the insinuation. ‘My mother had had a funny turn, so you can count me out.’

There followed a few minutes’ discussion about the welfare of Dennis’s mother. Sanderson hid her frustration as best she could, waiting for a chance to steer the conversation back to where she needed it to be.

‘Well, I won’t be taking any risks until I know what’s going on,’ she said, as the conversation once more hit a lull.

‘Like the rough stuff, do you, honey?’ chipped in the PVC enthusiast.

‘Not as much as Dennis, here,’ she said leadingly, raising another half-smile from her new friend. ‘Come on, you know the scene. Help a girl out who’s new to town. I don’t want to run into trouble the first time I hit the scene proper.’

Dennis thought about it for a moment, then said:

‘There was one person. Everyone likes to push things a bit, but this one was cruel. Proper messed up, in and out of therapy, drugs, pills, didn’t know if it was Christmas or Tuesday half the time. I’ve only ever been scared once in my life… and that was it.’

‘Who was it?’ Sanderson replied, keeping her voice neutral. ‘Don’t tease us, Dennis.’

He looked straight at her, then at the assembled throng, then back to Sanderson again.

‘I’d love to share, but I’d need to trust you a little better first. And trust has to be earnt, doesn’t it, Rosie?’ he said, as fourteen pairs of eyes turned towards Sanderson. ‘So why don’t you tell us your story?’

‘I show you mine, if you show me yours?’

‘Something like that. And why not start from the very beginning,’ he continued, reclining in his seat. ‘I want to know all about you.’