Underpainting

Underpainting said, what had happened. Clare didn’t have to discuss the ‘tips’.

She didn’t really like the arrangement but felt it was hard not to accept.

It reminded her of the time when she was desperate for cash and worked for an escort agency. She preferred the cosy arrangements she had with her regulars, but the extra cash would be handy, and London was getting expensive.

However, she didn’t feel fully in control of her life and promised herself to get out of it as soon as she could. She never thought herself a prostitute, just someone who offered a personal service, a sort of therapy.

In the ten months since that meeting, she’d only once had to complain to Mr Butter about one man. She’d kicked him out after he’d given her a lovebite, a cocky man who said he was in the music business, wanting services she certainly wasn’t willing to offer. She was a bit worried when she told Frank Butter, but he didn’t mind, in fact he laughed very knowingly, and said that she was right, if he wanted that sort of thing he knew plenty of others who could help, he’d be more careful in future who he sent, and thanked her for the information which may be useful in the future.

Clare went back upstairs, and began tidying her bedroom, which didn’t need much doing, she was a very tidy person. Moishe the one-eyed black cat was asleep on the bed, she shewed him off and reluctantly he left for the warm kitchen. The room smelt of lavender to cover smoke and sweat. She had a round table in one corner covered by a white tablecloth, on which a rose patterned china tea set was set out, her gentlemen often liked to sit and talk over a cup of tea. It was part of her act and it filled time they were paying for.

She had acquired a posh accent at the boarding school her grandparents’ had paid for, very English, and always wore smart clothes, not tarty, and thought she played the part well.

The evening’s client was initially one of Mr Butter’s business acquaintances, but had become a regular. She thought he must be at least seventy and he spoke with a strange accent. She felt a little uneasy because she had decided not to tell Mr Butter everything. He called himself Harry, but she thought that wasn’t his real name. He always brought with him a beautiful soft leather briefcase with the letters CLF embossed. She wondered if he was a politician.

He paid her well, far more than anyone else, so why bother what his name was she thought, and it was always in well-used ten-pound notes in a long blue envelope, which she didn’t open until he’d gone. They didn’t have sex; when he came, he took from his briefcase a black broad old thick leather belt, with a silver buckle shaped like two eagles. He stripped naked and knelt down, and told her to beat him with it, at first, she just slapped him, but he told her to beat him, hard, harder. The last two times he also brought a silver framed photograph, which he put in front of him, of a young man in uniform.

As she beat him he cried out in a language she couldn’t understand. The one 45