Free Eighty Days White by Vina Jackson Page A

morning, when half the people on the street had just woken up and the other half were on their way home to bed. The streets were inevitably full of oddballs when I headed home from the fetish club so I walked quickly, my head down, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. I wasn’t particularly afraid. Just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of being harassed. Later the suits would be out in full force, but for now I was surrounded by drunks, tramps and council workers and it was a funny mixture that, combined with the early hour, seemed to bring out the worst in people.
    Even the fresh air and brisk though short walk to Farringdon station couldn’t empty my mind of the questions that had flooded it that night. I was worried about Liana. We’d naturally fallen out of touch a little – we lived in different cities now and recently I had been so wrapped up in Leonard.
    She was still with Nick as far as I knew, but the last time we spoke it had been clear there was some tension between the two of them and she had hinted in passing that she had been spending more time with a group of people who Nick wasn’t keen on. That was what had worried me.
    Not long after I had begun working at the fetish club, I realised that Liana was by nature a sub, or at least had experimented in that area even if she didn’t necessarily see herself as that. We had never discussed it directly, but I feltfairly sure that Nick was her dominant, and once I had got used to the idea and saw the two of them together I had developed an appreciation for him. He was discreet and clearly very affectionate towards her, and she always seemed happy when they were together. For as long as Nick was in the picture I was certain that he would take care of her.
    But the thought that the two of them might have fallen out, leaving Liana to her own devices, made me panic.
    She was the sort of person who was forever throwing caution to the wind in favour of chasing the next thrill. Liana followed her body where I followed my heart, and she was the type of person that I could imagine might easily take things too far and go down a perilous road.
    By far the majority of doms on the scene were perfectly normal individuals who cared a great deal about their play partners, and the majority of submissives were equally well-balanced ordinary people who simply happened to enjoy a different sort of sex than the average, but there were a few folk who hung around the perimeters and were best avoided.
    Every section of society has its fair share of extremists. Richard had been the first to warn me of the possible pitfalls to look for if I was supervising the fetish club’s play area or keeping an eye on unsavoury-looking patrons to determine if they needed to be thrown out. Single men in cheap military jackets who stood too close to the play area were the stereotype, but it took all sorts, and it was the manipulative ones who managed to hold up a veneer of respectability that I worried about where Liana was concerned.
    She wasn’t stupid, but she was reckless. And she was my dearest friend.
    I vowed then that as soon as I was back from this weekend in Paris I would make some time to catch up with her. I would tell her all about Leonard and confess my latest set of secrets, and hope that she still felt close enough to me to return the favour.
    Until then, I would forget all about the underground club and the eternal fascination that world held for me. Even the parts of it that I didn’t fully understand yet. And instead I would focus on Leonard.
    I hurried home to rest and to pack.
    Leonard had a life before me. But it wasn’t one I wanted to hear about. There had been a wife, manifold adventures and much more. And I was jealous of it.
    I sought my own adventures. A voice inside was screaming out that I deserved them, lots of them, and somehow this made me feel awkward when my feelings for Leonard took over and all I could do was daydream about an unlikely future