Chapter 2: Acquisitions

"I'm puzzled, Mr. Ross." Corinne Aimes, the founder and owner of two companies, Huntingdon Management Development Limited and Inward Bound, is talking amiably with Larry Ross, a man who claims he can inject a substantial cash investment into her business. They are sitting in the garden of a Cambridgeshire pub. Corinne is drinking white wine. Larry is enjoying a pint of bitter.

"So your business, Clegg Enterprises Group, specialises in recruitment and placement," says Corinne. "Sort of head-hunters?"

Larry nods. Corinne is right, although not in the way she thinks. Larry is impressed by Corinne. She's smartly dressed, dark wavy hair worn short of her shoulders and a dark, almost middle-eastern complexion. Her eyes are fringed with long dark lashes and her features are soft. Although she might be easy to look at, she has obviously got a determined streak when it comes to business negotiation. She's sitting there looking every inch the successful young business woman. She's wearing a sober suit with dark grey jacket and trousers, black ankle boots and a black high-necked blouse. Around her neck she's wearing a heavy silver necklace. It's not obvious at first but looking at the design Larry sees that it's formed from two intertwined keys. It makes a subtle and stylish statement about Corinne's interest in the world of BDSM.

"I guess there is a sort of fit with our main business," Corinne says. "and I suppose I can see why you'd be interested. Recruitment and placement on your side, training and motivation on ours."

"Exactly," Larry responds disingenuously. "The Group Chairman has something of a background in the training and motivation business. He's been looking to invest in those areas. Sees them as a sector that is likely to grow. Building the knowledge economy. Competing on a global scale. That sort of thing. And then, there's your rather unique sideline..."

"I'd have thought that would be enough to put most people off. There's not usually much enthusiasm for companies to get involved with businesses which the general public might see as racy, to say the least."

"Our chairman is a broader minded man than that. And longer sighted. He's interested in looking at leisure markets, too."

"Well Inward Bound certainly falls into that category by my definition. Though I'm not sure if some of my guests right now would think that what they are enjoying was a 'leisure' activity." Corinne toys with her necklace and glances across to her car. "Your interest in that side of the business still seems odd to me."

Larry watches her, wondering for a moment if she has one of her clients in the boot of her Jaguar. He realises that the rather cool and conservative looking Corinne might just have decided to amuse herself by bringing a customer along on this outing. He finds the thought an arousing one but reluctantly drags himself back to the problem at hand. Larry seeks to reassure her. "Let's just say he understands people and he understands how businesses can make money out of dealing with people. If I'm honest, I suspect he's a bit curious about the whole consensual BDSM sexuality thing."

"Well, it's a common enough turn-on, you should tell him. Otherwise this particular business would have no foundation."

Larry thinks wryly, it's not the BDSM thing that's puzzling him, it's the consensual thing. He lets it go. "So, tell me how you set it up; the Inward Bound side, I mean. The corporate training and motivation I think I understand from the papers you sent through."

Corinne sits back. "Well," she says, "I'd just finished my degree in educational psychology. I was finding it hard to get work. I had a few short-term contracts on research projects. Then the Uni set up the science park and there were a whole string of little businesses springing up as the faculty tried to find ways to make their research "relevant" or at least get paid twice for their work. Most of them knew next to nothing about business. Truth be told, neither did I, but the first rule of education is that if you've read one more book than your student you'll be OK, so that was where I managed to set up Huntingdon Management Development."

"But the other side of the business?"

"I was coming to that. When I'd been in my last year at Uni and cash was short, I made a little extra with the odd bit of paid dominance. There are plenty of opportunities for it around a university town. BDSM is the thinking person's sex, after all. And, one of my clients from then turned up as a client for the training business. He teased me a bit about it, which was fair enough I guess; Said that he hoped my courses weren't as painful as my sessions had been; suggested that students would pay more attention if I taught class in a gown and mortar board. That sort of thing. Laugh a minute — you can imagine.

"Anyway, I was at a theme park the following weekend; ... on one of those scary rides that throw you around the sky until you're not sure if you're going to get to the end before your breakfast. And, I thought, why isn't there a theme park for adults? A sort of BDSM Centre Parcs. I looked around in the UK and there are a few places that offer accommodation — bed, breakfast and bondage, that sort of thing. There didn't seem to be anyone trying for anything more ambitious; something that would be a real experience for those taking part. I guess the place that really fascinated me was the Other World Kingdom, but that's in the Czech Republic — I thought there was bound to be an opportunity for something closer to home. Well, it wasn't too difficult to see that I could rework some of our training centre accommodation. I had a few contacts from my Mistress Whiplash days and some of the boys and girls in the legitimate side of the business weren't averse to making some extra money. It sort of took off from there."

"The Other World Kingdom caters mainly for men though doesn't it. Your 'Mistress Whiplash' clients must have been mainly male too, I'm guessing." Corinne nods and gives him a half smile that seems to suggest that if Larry wanted to try that side of things out she wouldn't mind obliging. Larry avoids the thought. The only time he's been tied up by a woman it wasn't at all pleasant. "How come you ended up with something that seems to appeal mainly to women?"

Corinne shrugged. "I'm not sure. We didn't plan it that way. I'd like to pretend it was all part of some grand strategy, but it wasn't. We started off offering a 'kidnap & hostage' experience. You know the sort of thing, the 'victim' agrees to an approximate time and duration, we snatch them, take them to some unknown destination, keep them captive and then eventually release them. Virtually all the takers were women. Either that, or it was boyfriends giving their girlfriends a treat."

"And customers liked it?"

"Oh yes. It's a common fantasy and we did a good job, if I say so myself. Some of the team got quite adept at snatching the customers and bundling them into the back of a van or the boot of a car. Others turned out to be really good at the surly guard part. You wouldn't realise what a level of skill there is in it!"

"I guess you're right." Larry is thinking that some of his colleagues back at the office might well agree with her.

"We built up a range of different offerings and we managed to find a few different places to keep our customers. Somebody had a house with a cellar; someone else knew a derelict farm with some outbuildings. We even used one of the old supply stores at the University for one client. Anyway, word got around. It's like any other business — personal recommendation is the best source of new customers, but it does tend to turn up customers like the ones you already have. Then, one of our clients had a fantasy that involved her being held prisoner for a couple of weeks. One of the 'guards' thought that while she was there, they could put her through a sort of slave training programme. Afterwards, the client asked us to set up something similar for herself and three friends and things grew from that. We don't advertise much. There seems to be a captive market, if you'll pardon the expression."