Chapter 1 β Discovery and Exploration
My name is Katharine, or Katie. I'm 26, live in London and work in advertising. What I am about to describe is a tumultuous period of just a few months earlier this year during which my life turned in a completely new direction and an established friendship grew in an unexpected and exciting way.
I own a rather nice apartment next to the river with views across the water to Battersea Park on the other bank. I originally bought the apartment with a former boyfriend. Unfortunately, the relationship didn't last and when he left I had to buy him out of his share of the flat as I didn't want to lose it. With a larger mortgage and a spare bedroom, I thought that a good way to offset the additional cost was to rent out the room and find a flat mate. This is where Jenny came in.
Jenny is a friend of a friend of my sister and heard about my spare room through her. She is a journalist and had just moved back to London after a couple of years in Bristol to start a new job. She needed to find somewhere fast without searching too hard and I needed to find someone quickly to help pay the mortgage. We met one evening after work in a noisy pub in Soho and immediately got on. I offered her the room and she moved in a few days later.
For two or three months nothing unusual happened. We were both busy with our jobs and would often hang out in the evening with a group of friends in a local bar. We also both get invited out on any number of dates, so the evenings when we were actually at home were fairly rare. On those occasions we would often watch TV or a rented DVD together, share a bottle of wine or just talk.
Jenny and I are quiet similar in build - both size 10s - although her boobs are slightly smaller than mine, and she's about an inch taller. Our fashion tastes are also reasonably close and we often borrow one another's clothes to supplement our own already extensive wardrobes. One of my few bones of contention with Jenny is that she sometimes borrows clothes without asking. She is also very untidy. Her room often resembles the scene of a burglary with clothes dumped in piles on the floor; shoes kicked into odd corners and with possessions left in general disarray. These character traits were to lead me in a totally new and unexpected direction.
It was the night before a major advertising awards dinner that was to be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in the West End. Like all aspiring agencies aiming to make an impression in the market, the firm I work for had booked a table. I was scheduled, with a couple of colleagues, to host a number of clients for a gala meal with the hope that my firm might collect an award, or at least drum up some new business from the clients. I would be going straight from the office to the dinner and needed to take my evening wear into work with me the following morning ready to change after work.
Jenny and I had spent the previous Saturday shopping in Knightsbridge and I had bought a fantastic Balenciaga dress from Harvey Nichols - very short, in see-through cream chiffon with long sleeves, a round neck and worn over a dark body. I hadn't worn it out yet but we both agreed that I looked wonderful in it. I had a Fendi bag and a pair of pumps that I had bought on a New York business trip and I was hoping like hell that we would win an award because I knew that I was going to knock 'em dead if I got on the stage in that get up.
Jenny was out so decided to get everything ready and have a relaxing bath and an early night. I wanted to ensure maximum energy for the long evening coming the next day. I went to my wardrobe with my dress bag and found the shoes and handbag where I had left them but no dress. I checked the floor of the wardrobe to see if the hanger had fallen off the rail - no dress. I knew where I had left it and it clearly was not there but I remembered how much Jenny had liked it and started to suspect that she had borrowed it without asking. Feeling angry and vowing to give her a major ticking off when I saw her I walked across the hallway to Jenny's disaster-scene bedroom.
Jenny's room was in its usual state of disarray. A tee-shirt hung from the end of the bed and her exercise gear lay in a crumpled heap like a shed skin where she had peeled the leggings and leotard off as one piece. Her trainers were kicked half under the bed and a large baggy jumper topped a heap of clothes dumped on the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
Inside the wardrobe, the scene was little better. I searched through the rails of clothes but could not find my Balenciaga dress. I started on the junk piled at the bottom of the wardrobe, praying that she hadn't let it get too creased there, but searched with no success. Deciding that she must actually be wearing my new dress, I was closing the doors when I noticed a black travel case pushed to the side of the wardrobe. It was one of those bags with built-in hangers for clothes and a collection of pockets and pouches for small items and shoes. I pulled it out hoping it might contain my dress and laid it on to the bed. I slammed the wardrobe doors making the mirrors rattle.
For its size the bag was very heavy. I pulled the zip round its U-shaped track and was immediately hit by the strange smell coming from inside. On top of the bag's contents as it lay on the bed was a short black dress made from rubber. I removed the rubber dress carefully as it was dusted with talcum powder and placed it on the bed. There were more items beneath and so I slowly examined the bag. Each item was separated from the next by a sheet or two of tissue paper and I separated the layers as I removed the remaining items. Eventually, arrayed on the bed, I had the black dress and a similar blue one, a red skirt and red sleeveless vest, a black leotard-like thing and a black catsuit.
In the pockets of the bag I found, dusted in more powder and rolled or folded in tissue, a black bikini set, three long pairs of rubber gloves, two pairs in black and one in red; and two pairs of stockings, a pair each of red and black. This was quite a collection and quite surprising. Jenny had never mentioned that she had even a single rubber dress and a collection of this size was bordering on the kinky. Jenny obviously had a secret side.