Chapter 10

They were off to champagne country early the next morning. They were booked into a little hotel in Épernay, where a lot of the famous champagne houses were based. But the reason for the early start was they were going to tour lots of the vineyards and champagne houses during the day. Now Ara was the only one of them that had drunk champagne before, at least more than once or twice. Andrew and Suzanne had a couple of glasses at Freya and Jim’s wedding, but it was not something that he had much opinion about. But that day in Epernay turned out to be one of the most expensive of their lives. The three of them went round eight, maybe ten, different vineyards or cellars. And at the end of the day it wasn’t just Ara that liked champagne. All three of them were hooked. And although the Moët & Chandon tour was the most spectacular the highlight of the tour was heading up into the hills outside Épernay and discovering wonderful wines. They didn’t go too crazy that trip, although they did get a case of Moët shipped back to London, but whenever Andrew came over to model Ara and Suzanne always travelled out to Reims or Épernay on the Saturday and bought more champagne. So they didn’t know it at the time but it was the most expensive day trip of their lives.

And it was a fun, flirty, light-hearted day, nibbling baguettes and eating cheese, while drinking lots of lovely champagne before climbing back on the little coach and heading to the next vineyard. It was a relaxed day; exactly what holidays are meant to be. As they had plenty of time between the vineyards it also allowed Andrew to talk to Suzanne and Ara about the plans for the following week. They knew the outline of the plan but he now had the time to explain what was going to happen and where they were going to be. When he had finished it was Ara that summed it up.

“We both know you have this imaginative streak in you, we see it all the time. And we have heard about your creative streak as well. But this is the first time we have seen it for real, rather than heard about it afterwards. This is a photo equivalent of the list that Maggie and Tony showed us. All the shoots that you thought about doing all those years ago. And you have worked through most of them. Now you are going to spend four or five days setting up years of shoots. I don’t really mean this the way it sounds but I am a little jealous.”

“Ara, tomorrow we are going to hopefully shop for furniture that is going to be integral to our lives for decades. The shoots will never be published but it doesn’t mean that I am not going to take endless amounts of pictures of you.”

They were at the back of the little coach and so Andrew was extensively kissed by first Ara and then Suzanne. It was Suzanne that giggled when something crossed her mind.

“You realise that nearly all of Andrew’s creativity is around naked women. Not just Maggie and Ursula, but also when he is modelling for Hermès. Now us as well. What does that say about him?”

The champagne made them all giggly and over the course of the rest of the day they would have sudden fits of the giggles for no apparent reason. Extensive sampling all day meant that after dinner they were asleep pretty quickly. The warm summer’s day and too much wine had them all conked out.

The Thursday morning was when they decided to buy a case of champagne and get it shipped back so the first hour was spent organising that. The start of the journey back to Paris was spent talking about the highlights of the day before and arguing about their favourite wine. They all tended to like very dry champagne which helped in the selection of the wines to send back home. But it was less than 40 miles to Chateau-Thierry from Épernay, so as the signposts appeared on the AutoRoute the conversation changed. The address they were looking for was in the village of Brasles which had been absorbed by the eastward expansion of Chateau-Thierry. The street turned out to be the main road out of the town and as they got closer to the number they both relaxed as they had not gotten lost, while at the same time their nerves started to grow at actually finding the place and having to talk to someone there.

They almost missed the entrance drive, right opposite the town cemetery, but spotted it in time and Andrew drove slowly down the rutted drive to the address for Cirque de L’esprit, Circus of the Mind. It was a small house with a large barn-like structure to the side and behind the house with the River Marne flowing past the end of the garden. They looked at each other in confusion, had they got the address wrong. This looked like an artisan cheesemaker or something, it didn’t look like the premises for a purveyor of bondage equipment. Andrew stopped the car and debated getting out. That decision was taken away from him as what could only be described as a little old lady opened the front door and looked over at them. Well wasn’t this conversation going to be just a joy!

“Should we all go?”

Suzanne who was in the front shook her head.

“Let me. I am not being unkind but you might scare her.”

While it was a bit unkind, she had a point. So Ara and Andrew watched as Suzanne walked over and greeted the old lady. She only could have spoken to her for 90 seconds, maybe two minutes, but the two of them were on tenterhooks to find out what was being said. Suddenly Suzanne turned and gestured for them to come over. They walked over and were introduced to Madame Beaumont.

“My he is a tall one, he looks strong.”

Andrew wasn’t sure what to say to that so went for silent as well as strong.

“Let us go and meet my husband and see if we can help you.”

Help them? This was the right place? Andrew tried to convey those two questions in a look to Suzanne who smiled and nodded. Mind you who the hell knew what question she was answering.

So Cirque de L’esprit, seller of bondage equipment, that they were worried would be owned or run by sleazy men, maybe even gangsters? It turned out that it was an old married couple, Bertrand was 72 and Ambre was 68. When she led them into the workshop and they saw some of the finished products Andrew had to stop. This was through the looking glass crazy. This pair could be their grandparents, and yet they watched as Ambre’s husband put down a brush where he had been applying varnish to a St. Andrew’s Cross. Exactly the kind of thing that they were looking for. Andrew whispered to Ara.

“Is this for real?”

“I know.”

Once the introductions were dealt with Suzanne quickly explained to Ara and Andrew that the three of them were their first walk-up customers. There was no sign anywhere on the property with the name of the company or its purpose. If Andrew had not managed to snag that shipping slip there would be no way to know of the existence of this place. Madame Beaumont had been initially suspicious and not interested in engaging with Suzanne but as usual Suzanne’s open and cheerful nature had won her over. If Andrew had gone over to greet her they would be on their way back to Paris by now. They had been running this little business for about ten years, since Bertrand had retired from the local government. It was a hobby borne out of his woodworking and metalworking skills. He was like Olivia, good with his hands and a natural tinkerer. But why this as a hobby?

“We wanted something for ourselves. The first two pieces were for our own use. It was only after that we realised that there was a demand.”

So imagine your grandmother telling you that Grandpa made his first spanking bench for their own use? And it was said so matter of factly. Neither of them thought it was a big deal, well clearly they didn’t as they had just told three strangers young enough to be their grandchildren. They were there for three hours and the whole time was like that, just things that made them shake their heads in disbelief.

So after 10 minutes of general chitchat they were led over to examples of what he made. And it was amazing. First of all the craftsmanship of the pieces was extremely high, everything seemed robust and top quality. But it quickly went off the deep end again. The 68 year old matron climbed onto not one but two different spanking benches, showing the different heights, angles and positions that you could adopt. Now there were only two ways to deal with this; run out the workshop screaming and spend the rest of your life trying to cleanse the images from your soul; or just go with the flow, and mentally just bypass her age. Now it was helped by the images of Suzanne and Ara trying the same pieces, Andrew could tell that it affected all three of them. They had stumbled upon the perfect place but before they got too carried away he needed to figure out if they could deliver something to Britain.

“It is not easy, but it is not complicated either. I have sent three shipments to Britain in the last seven years. What I do is send it in two separate crates. Come and see.”

Without any of the shelves to kneel and support the person’s weight it was a plain piece of furniture where it wasn’t clear what the purpose of it was. It was like the old vaulting boxes they had used at school. A simple three-dimensional trapezoid. But then Bertrand started to attach all the little padded shelves that supported the knees and elbows and helped support the weight of the person on the bench. Within five minutes it was re-adorned as a spanking bench. It was simple and when Andrew tugged and pulled the individual pieces they were solidly locked in place. Bertrand showed him the hidden button that released the mechanism. It was genius.

So having been caught up in the prosaic suddenly they were back to the weird. Bertrand had Suzanne and then Ara lie on the bench and Andrew would stand behind them holding their hips, as if he was fucking them. Bertrand took measurements so that he could increase the height of the bench to account for Andrew’s height. And then just to complete the surreal nature of the day Suzanne laid back down but with her head at the lower end to check that it would work for deep throating at the same time. The whole thing was like being measured for a made-to-measure suit. Except it was just fucking bizarre.

The cross was easy in comparison. Again the eyelets for cuffing someone to the cross were detachable so it was just a plain cross. And there were different places to attach the eyelets to allow for different heights of models and different kinds of playing. It was tilted at an angle with attachment points so that it could be secured to the wall. Ambre explained that she produced a cover for the cross with religious imagery on it. The shipping container stated it was a St. Andrew’s Cross and if any customs guy opened the crate then that is what he or she would see. A cross with a religious cover on it. Ingenious and sacrilegious at the same time. Excellent.

The third piece they bought was. When they talked about it later in the car none of them could describe it properly. It was a simple wooden frame, but even that wasn’t adequate. The purpose was to bend someone over and restrain them, simple and straightforward. Imagine a solid crate, three feet high, three feet wide and two feet deep. The crate had no panelling it was simply the supports, the wooden skeletal frame. The front edge was padded and the back edge had a six foot pole, studded with eyelets, centred there. The person was bent over the front edge so that their head was down at her knees. Her arms were then cuffed to the pole above their back. There were also eyelets for cuffing their ankles. It was seven pieces of wood but the effect was devastating. When Suzanne tried it her nostrils flared like a horse after a hard gallop. The whole piece just oozed submissiveness. Again Bertrand measured them to ensure the correct height.

They could have spent more time and money there but suddenly it was all done. Before they left Andrew stepped away with Bertrand and talked about options for the bench. When he explained what he wanted Bertrand smiled a very knowing smile.

“Oui, that is easily done. Thank you for the idea, I will offer it as an option on my equipment going forward.”

He shook Andrew’s hand and they returned to the others. Andrew left them a deposit, in cash, of 20% and would get a cheque to them for the balance as soon as he was back in London. Ara and Suzanne had been talking to Ambre while he dealt with Bertrand over the price and shipping details. With many kisses and farewell hugs they were on our way, heading back to Paris. Most of the way out of Chateau-Thierry they just kept giggling, the whole concept of the two of them running a bondage business too crazy for words. Finally they calmed down as he pulled onto the AutoRoute.

“She was amazing and so helpful.”

Andrew presumed Ara meant Ambre.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you get it Andrew. She is 45 years older than me and she still loves to be tied up. She says the last ten years have been better than the previous 40.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Suzanne carried on.

“While you were dealing with Bertrand she asked us about our interest in being tied up and spanked. Now it is not the sort of conversation I was expecting to have, and especially not with someone her age. But Ara is right Andrew. This is not something that we are going to do in our 20s and then ‘come to our senses’. She confessed that she wishes her and Bertrand had been more honest with each other decades earlier. Why do you think that she invited us down to the workshop? She saw something of herself in us. She suppressed what she was feeling, she gave into societal and church programming, and so was happy that we were being true to ourselves. She hardly batted an eye at the whole two women one man threesome we have going.”

Ara tagged in.

“These people waited until close to the end of their lives before accepting who they were, and what they needed. And then doing something about it. When you say the phrase ‘we have a dungeon’ it sounds ridiculous. But Ambre talked about always feeling something was missing in her life, even when she was happily married to Bertrand. So yes admitting we have a dungeon is not going to be something we tell very many people, if any at all, but we all know that it is going to be used every week for the rest of our lives. When I lay on the bench I could hear your words from Tuesday night. I could feel your eyes on my bum thinking about being tied up naked in that position. And when I saw Suzanne lying on it I was completely turned on. I actually took half a step forward to go to her.”

The two of them tried to make out, a losing proposition with one in the front seat and one in the back. As they drove back to Paris Andrew thought about the few hours at the workshop. This was who they were. Three, normal, boring, quiet nerds with an eye-opening sex life. But all their reactions had been real and visceral in the workshop. And Andrew could tell that both Suzanne and Ara were delighted to hear of someone who still had those needs and wants as she approached 70.

When they got back to the hotel they were tired and hungry. They ate dinner in the hotel restaurant before finally heading to their room. When Ara went to the toilet Andrew told Suzanne that it was very naughty of her to try on the strap-on. Her sparkling eyes held lots of promise. Ara padded through from the bathroom but stopped suddenly when she saw Suzanne figuring out the straps and buckling everything into place. Andrew stood behind her as they watched Suzanne fight with the harness. He murmured in her ear.

“You talked about starting towards Suzanne when you saw her. Well I had the same reaction to both of you. You are both so magnificent, although Suzanne is being very naughty tonight. Just as I am going to slake my beastly lusts on her on Saturday after you have warmed her up, so tonight she suggested that she help me slake my lusts on you.”

Andrew kissed Ara’s neck.

“I am going to take you Arabella Lindsay.”

He rarely used her full name. He could see the vein in her neck beating furiously.

“Tonight you are mine, body and soul.”

Andrew spun her round and kissed her with fervour.

“Suzanne, sit up against the headboard like I do.”

His command was obeyed immediately. The dildo rising straight up from her crutch. Ara was not expecting this, it was clear that she thought it was going to be the same scenario that they had done to Suzanne. When she saw Andrew lubing up his condom covered cock her eyes shot fully open. But then they closed immediately and she shivered in anticipation. She shuffled into place before lowering herself straight down on the strap-on. She let Suzanne pull her down and the two of them kissed passionately. She felt Andrew get on the bed, push Suzanne’s legs together so that he could get into position and suddenly the head of his dick was touching her tight little ring. Whatever else she was, it wasn’t afraid. Ara pushed back against him and after momentary resistance he popped into her hot tight arsehole. They both groaned. Suzanne was not moving letting the two of them get settled. It was the oddest sensation to feel the hard plastic right there. As Andrew pushed into Ara everything seemed squeezed, not just tighter because it was that, but his dick and the dildo were invading each other’s space, just the oddest sensation. Andrew was slow but steady and soon he was balls deep in Ara’s delicious arse.