New Animal Ella Baxter (best books to read non fiction txt) 📖

way helps me to understand them better. Everyone should do this. Monks. Police. Everyone should measure the good and bad like this. If I wasn’t crying so goddamn hard I would invite Vlad to try it.

‘Hey, how about I do your make-up before I take you in to see Jay,’ she says. She pulls a beauty case out of her rucksack. ‘It will make you feel put together. If I’m a mess inside, it doesn’t matter as long as my make-up is perfect. It’s like a mask, you know?’

‘Yes,’ I say, wiping my face, my head already nodding and my chin jutting forward, waiting for her to begin.

Vlad shakes some foundation onto her fingers and then lightly pats it over my face in a slow and methodical way that I find entrancing.

‘My mum died,’ I say.

‘You’ve already told me.’

She pushes the foundation around the crease of my nose, and when she gets to the edge of my lips, I realise that my mouth is still open, and I snap it closed.

‘I’m sorry that happened,’ Vlad says, blending the concealer with a fluffy brush.

My head is surrounded by the sweet mint of her breath, mixed with the powder of her make-up, as well as the perfume from her wrist. I rest my head against her hand, as the awful feeling that this might end soon fills me right up to the top.

I open my eyes. ‘I feel like I might not be coping.’

‘You’re definitely not,’ she says. ‘And no one expects you to.’

She sweeps her hands over my eyes to close them again and I let her.

‘You don’t have to do anything at all, except feel. That’s your only job at the moment.’

‘I can’t,’ I say, lulled into honesty.

Vlad spritzes my face with a fine mist that smells of freshly cut cucumbers.

‘You will.’

She pulls away, and I open my eyes to check where she’s going.

‘You look really good,’ Vlad says.

‘I feel a bit better.’

‘I’m just going to finish with a light layer of this stuff.’ She holds up a compact with the lovely golden nectarine colour, and brushes it from my cheekbone to the top of my ear.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘My pleasure.’ She starts packing away her make-up. ‘It’s time for your session now.’

I stand, smoothing my dress down and wondering how to thank her.

‘You’ll love this,’ she says, packing away her make-up and heading for the door.

‘Will I see you afterwards?’ I ask. I know I sound clingy, but I’m trying to feel all the emotions, like she said.

‘No,’ Vlad says, ‘I’m busy till late. Just enjoy yourself and I’ll catch you around.’

I let myself feel the discomfort at the distance growing between us as I follow her out of the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Vlad knocks on the door twice and then opens it, smiling. I wait near the entrance until she beckons me forward. ‘I have the beautiful Amelia for you to play with this evening.’

I shuffle in, and Jay looks me up and down.

‘Oh,’ he says after a moment. ‘And what would you be in the mood for, Amelia?’ He looks back to Vlad, as she twirls her hair in his direction.

‘Whatever, really,’ I say.

‘Go easy on her,’ Vlad says. ‘She’s very new and wants to learn.’

‘People don’t realise how nuanced it is, do they, babe?’ he says. ‘Too many dickheads out there beating women up in the name of kink.’

She winks at me before closing the door behind her, and I see a faint look of resignation pass across Jay’s face, which he quickly replaces with a smile. I don’t look like Vlad.

Jay sits cross-legged on a king-sized mattress in the centre of the room. He’s wearing loose harem pants and a long-sleeved shirt with Feminist written in block letters down one arm. The only other furniture in the room is a gymnastic apparatus in the corner and a chest of drawers against one wall. There’s a window to the left with opaque glass, letting the light of the nearby lamppost stream in. This is the room Tanya told me that absolutely anything happens in.

I shift my weight from foot to foot in front of him. I should ask about his previous experience, or what the plan is for this session. I tuck my hair behind my ears. He hasn’t commented on my make-up yet, which is fine. A car horn sounds outside, and I startle a little.

‘Let’s take it all off,’ he says.

I drop my bag on the floor and unzip my dress, letting it fall. I unclip my bra and sweep my underwear down and off. I am feeling that this experience might already be adding quite a bit to the negative column of putting my body in situations where it doesn’t want to be. It’s a trade-off, I tell myself. If we do this, we can hang out with Vlad, and domme again, and the grief might pop and we will be happy.

He holds out one hand. ‘Bring me your panties.’

I scrunch my underwear into a tight ball before walking over and passing them to him. He pushes them into the front pocket of his pants and they sit at his hip in a bulge. I look at it, realising that I will have to ask for them back at some point. The control has already started.

Jay pulls his shirt over his head and I see his torso and arms are covered in tattoos. Finches, hornets, lizards and elephants roam around his body in different shades of black and grey. I perch on the edge of the mattress as he runs both hands through his long hair, plaiting it carefully.

‘You’re going to do what I say,’ he says, securing the end of the plait with a rubber band from his wrist.

I sit up straighter. ‘Maybe I could have a safe word?’

He twists his head from side to side until his neck cracks. ‘I don’t use safe words.’ He smiles. ‘I use intuition.’

I notice he has a small circular scar just down and