He was pleading when I first heard his voice. Did he really have to do this, he asked as his friends gathered round him. He was laughing, nervously, unconvincingly.
They stood together in a pool of light from the streetlamp high above, the friends circling like scavengers.
As they flocked and parted I caught fleeting glimpses of him through my car window, snapshots of the cruelty that comes at the end of a stag party. The glare reflected off a pair of handcuffs linking his wrists in a closed loop around the post.
It was a warm night, even for late August in southern England, and I had driven down to the waterfront to escape the still air of my flat. I had waited in the car for a moment for some couples to pass, collapsing into each other as my husband and I had once done before the passion withered. I kept the windows down to welcome the breeze, trying not to think of my estranged partner, wherever he was with his other woman.
The stag party were wearing matching T-shirts, though they were about to make an exception. The cuffed man was protesting as a friend cut up the back of his shirt with a pair of scissors. The shouting grew louder, and the group's laughter too, as the ragged shirt fell away and they turned to his trousers and underpants.
He was appealing to them again. The desperation in his voice rose as they began to disperse along the promenade, shouting their farewells and tossing his clothes into the sea.
I kept my watch. The nude man flexed his cuffs, sized up the lamppost, concluding slowly that attempts to free himself without help were hopeless.
The scene gave me a small thrill. I had never seen a man so vulnerable. I wanted to wait to see how he would behave but my heart went out to him.
"Do you want some help?" I called. I opened my door and walked towards him, cocking my head unthreateningly. He was drunk, it was plain, but not shameless. He apologised. It was his stag night, he said.
"You don't say," I said. I gazed at him, wondering how best to proceed.
"Shall I get you some clothes?"
He looked so relieved.
"I'll see what I've got in my car," I said.
I thought that there would be some of my husband's work overalls in the back of the car but he had taken them to his girlfriend's place. There was another option. I poked into the bin liner of clothes I had packed for the charity shop to see if there was anything suitable. I giggled softly.
"Here," I said, striding back to him. "Let me help you on with these before I get someone to get you out of those cuffs."
I told him to lift his ankles while I held out a pair of bikini bottoms for him to step into. His pleading voice came again as I drew them up his legs. He wanted to know if I had anything different.
I replied sarcastically. "Don't you normally wear pink bikinis?"
My husband had called them ridiculous when I had tried them on at home. Mutton dressed as lamb was his cliché of choice, so I never dared to wear them in public. They had a pineapple pattern and ties on each side to fasten into a bow. "They come with a halter top, too," I said teasingly.
Well, he was definitely not wearing that, he said, sounding just like my husband. I didn't like his tone and told him so.
"I think someone in your position might be a little more grateful," I said sharply, surprised at my vehemence. I had been joking about the top but I was not going to be spoken to like that.
He tried to shy away as I looped the halter over his head but his drunken weaving was no match for my persistence. I pulled the back straps together and clipped him in.
His defiance faltered. He began to apologise again.
"That's better," I said. "There's no need to make a fuss. Just a couple more things and we're done."
I asked him where he was staying that night, guessing correctly that it was the budget hotel in the town centre. I offered him a lift as I wrapped a shimmering silver satin skirt around his waist. I fastened the side buttons for him and knotted the sash.
"It would save you a walk through town."
He thanked me, keeping still this time for a black lace blouse, also with a halterneck that fastened with poppers around the back.
He tried again to regain his dignity. He was really grateful for my help, he said, but did I have anything he could wear that was less... he searched for words, realising that it was important not to insult my clothes. I prompted him: "Sexy?"
We smiled at each other. I fancied I caught him glancing at my blouse, silky and silver like his skirt. "I do, back at my flat, but shall we try to get those cuffs off first rather than have you wait here like this while I drive home?"
I told him that I would pop along the street to a bar to find someone who could set him free. The worry returned to his face. "I'll be discreet," I promised.
He was barely alone for five minutes when I returned with some borrowed bobby pins, pleased to find him unmolested. It took a bit of fiddling to manipulate the pins into the locking mechanism but it was only a few more minutes till my damsel in distress was free from his cheap cuffs.
"Hop in, then," I said. I watched his skirted bottom wiggle as he made his way round to the passenger seat, its pleats catching the light as they swished about him. We agreed to try the hotel in the hope, on his part, that he would be able to slip in unnoticed. Even as we approached we could see that a crowd of night owls were settled in the bar next to the lobby. I pulled up so we could look inside. I recognised the T-shirts of his friends.
"Would you rather I took you home for a change first?" I asked.
He nodded meekly. I put my hand reassuringly on his knee. "Don't worry. No one has to see you like this, dressed in your sexy clothes."
I chucked him under his chin. "Only me."
I kept my hand on his knee too long before giving it a squeeze and took him to my flat.
"Ladies first," I said as I ushered him into the shared hallway. I gave him gentle pats on the bottom on the way up the stairs, prompting him to beg me to stop. When we got to my front door he gave a prim little speech. He was very much in love with his fiancée, whom he would be marrying in three weeks, and that although I was an attractive woman he could not betray her trust.
I laughed at that. "Are you telling me you're not that kind of girl? I'm only playing with you, darling. You need to learn to relax."
Once we were through the door I wasted no time in leading him to the bedroom for some "more suitable" clothes. I told him to take off his skirt. He fumbled with the sash, which I had knotted too tightly. "You need someone with fingernails," I said, intervening.
I knelt next to him as I worked the knot. "I know you don't like it, but you do look ever so gorgeous like this. Doesn't it turn you on, just a little?"
