'What on earth have you had that done for?' my mother was not at all impressed by my freshly-pierced tongue, when my friend Cindy and I sat down to supper at the kitchen table, and she spotted it when I self-consciously touched it with my forefinger.
'Don't know, Mum,' was my honest answer, but, when we were alone, Cindy said, 'Don't be coy with me, you dirty cow, you just want to give better blow-jobs, don't you?'
I really hadn't thought about that, in truth, and even less what she went on to say: 'It would make for sensational clit-flicking, you know!' I slapped her miniskirted arse, and told her to behave herself. But it did set me to thinking – just a little!
The fact of the matter was that my friend Darren, who wasn't really a boyfriend, but we had sort of hung around together since school, had suggested I get my tongue done, and I just liked the idea – I don't know why.
Just about then, I suppose a couple of days later, a job offer came through. I had been kicking my heels at home for weeks, on the dole, and a decent job, even if it meant finding a flat in the city, was too good to miss. I accepted.
As I packed to leave home for the first time in my eighteen and a bit years, and move to the flat I was going to share with a new workmate, Laura, in West London, I started to get more selective about my clothes than I had ever been before. If I was going to be seen out in London, I thought, I ought to look sophisticated. Then I paused, and smiled to myself. It wasn't that, was it? My tastes had changed – completely.
Shoes were my major preoccupation, I knew. I just couldn't go out in anything that didn't have really high heels – the higher the better, I couldn't explain it, and it drew snorts from my mother whenever she saw me – or, more often, heard me – clicking down the stairs in four inch stilettos. I loved strappy stilettos with metal heels, and if they had platform soles as well – so much the better. I had also taken to wearing a silver anklet, with a dangly bit, which I knew drew attention to my feet, and to painting my toenails bright reds or blues. My long slim legs were not at all bad, I knew, and I was going to make the best of them. I had also taken to wearing very tight, knee-length skirts, the tightest I could buy. I should have liked to have had an occasion to wear an evening gown with a skirt so tight I could scarcely walk.
I ended up throwing out more clothes than I packed, then, suddenly, sat down on my bed and wept. I didn't know what I wanted to do at all.
That evening, Cindy came to see me before I left, and cheered me up a lot, telling me she'd come to see me in London, then she took me on one side, held my hand, and said, 'Look, Diana, what I said about your stud, that was a joke. I know where you're coming from, really. I've seen your taste in shoes change, and it's part of the same thing. You're a pain-slut, aren't you?'
I took offence at that, and started to protest, until she shut me up, 'There's nothing wrong in that,' she said, 'more people than you think are into that sort of thing.'
Before we parted she kissed me, full on the lips, and I let her push her tongue into my mouth, until its tip touched against my stud.
'Mmmm,' she murmured, and held me against her just too long to be decent. I wondered if her comment about 'clit-flicking' had been altogether disinterested.
'Make sure you come down and see me, darling,' I said.
I met Laura when I arrived at my new home, and liked her straight away. She was a petite blonde, with a Scots accent, and was dressed, although it was midday, in silk pyjamas, her long hair tied up in a French knot. I saw straight away that she sported a pierced lower lip, and thought I detected a tongue-stud too. Was it too much to hope that we were of like mind?
'Love the shoes,' she said, when I had introduced myself, and sat down on the sofa. I was, by now, so used to wearing heels that I was surprised when anyone commented, and looked down – I was wearing black patent stiletto sandals, with straps that wound several times around my slender ankles.
'If you're into that sort of gear,' said Laura, without further preamble, 'I'll take you to a shop you'll just love this afternoon – I buy lots of stuff there.'
Without waiting for a reply, she went into her room to get changed, and returned, transformed, by which time I had dumped my gear in the room I had been shown was mine, and freshened up a bit after the journey. I was still wearing the tight grey skirt and silk blouse I had travelled in. Laura appeared, in a tight leather miniskirt and thigh-length, spike-heeled boots. Her top was also leather, laced across her ample cleavage. She wore huge silver hoops in her ears, and now had her long blonde hair loose, falling to her waist. The effect was very Gothic.
'Come on, we'll go and have a pub lunch – I often do on a Saturday,' she said.
The music in the pub she chose precluded much conversation, but everybody seemed to know Laura, and she seemed at home as she guided me around the streets of the trendy quarter where I was going to live.
We walked into a largish shop in a back street, and Laura was immediately grabbed and embraced by a huge, effeminate-looking guy in his fifties, whom she introduced as Mo.
Mo in turn presented us to a young girl, dressed in a long cotton dress, whom he called Fifi. She sat us down on an overstuffed sofa while she finished dealing with another woman in the dim recesses of the store, then she returned, whispered something quickly to Laura, then pulled me to my feet, and twirled me around.
'Hmmm,' she mused, and then went back to Laura, whereupon they had another whispered conversation, before the girl retired to the back of the store.
'What's going on?' I demanded to know, not unreasonably.
'Fifi says she has just the thing for you, and wants to know if you'll be offended,' said Laura.
'Oh?'
'I told her I didn't know, but that you seemed nice,' she smiled.
Fifi came back with a box. 'Come on,' she said, and held out her hand to me.
I followed meekly, and Laura came too. We entered a big dressing-room, with racks of clothes, and mirrors on all the walls. Laura sat down, and Fifi told me to undress. I wriggled out of my skirt and unbuttoned my blouse. I was down to bra and panties.
'Those too,' she said.
'Eh?' I was suddenly unsure of what I was doing here, but obediently unhooked my bra, slipping it off my shoulders, and slid the white cotton panties down over my hips and off. I felt doubly naked, stood there in front of two strangers in this brightly-lit room.
'Now,' said Fifi, and produced a garment the like of which I hadn't seen before from the box. It was a black satin whale-boned corset, which she now offered up to my body, and buttoned up the front. It was designed to incorporate a half-bra, so that my firm young breasts perched on the platform of the garment, my thrusting nipples left free. It was arched in the back so that my buttocks were also free, and had long garter straps which hung down for attaching stockings. I did a twirl around and thought it looked wonderful, but I had a big surprise coming. Laura got to her feet, and at a nod from Fifi, took hold of a string at the rear of the garment, while Fifi grasped another. They heaved for all they were worth, and I felt myself constricted almost beyond belief. I gasped with the pain as my already narrow young waist was restrained and tightened still further.
'Oooh,' I cried, as they tied off the strings of the corset, but I knew then that I should want to wear it many more times, and felt warm juices oozing within me.
'I'll take it,' I said, 'and please put my things in a bag – I'll wear it home.'
Laura and Fifi exchanged looks, and I knew they would accept me into some kind of 'inner circle' at that moment.
