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laminated menus.
    ‘Give us a sip,’ I said, reaching for his glass.
    ‘I didn’t put vodka in it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said, but he was lying. He had.
    I emptied it on to the grass while he swiped at it, growling, ‘For fuck’s sake, you’re not my mother,’ under his breath.
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘My mother was the opposite. “Just have a drink, Luce, lighten up and have a drink.” But I spent more of my teenage years than I care to remember cleaning up her vomit and her spilled cans of cider from the floor of the van. So, y’know.’
    I bit my cheek and looked away.
    He sat down.
    ‘I know,’ he said, all quiet and sympathetic now.
    ‘I’ll get you another,’ I said, and took my empty bottle and his glass back to the bar with me.
    ‘That’s one of my conditions,’ I said, returning with two San Pellegrinos. ‘Sorry, I didn’t ask if you wanted ice and lemon, but you’ve got them.’
    ‘Fine. I’ll pretend it’s gin. What’s one of your conditions?’
    He took a sip of the water and grimaced.
    ‘You don’t drink when you’re with me.’
    ‘Lulu, I don’t need a saviour,’ he said.
    ‘Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not that I care about you. I just hate the company of stinking, slobbering drunks. OK?’
    ‘That hurt,’ he said, bringing out the big-gun puppy-dog eyes.
    I laughed.
    ‘Considering what you’ve got in store for me, that’s a bit rich,’ I remarked.
    His cartoon sad-face turned into a lecherous smirk.
    ‘Mmm, fair point,’ he said, and I wished I could see what he was thinking. Or perhaps I didn’t.
    ‘So, do you agree to my condition?’ I said, hopefully knocking any visions of me locked into a pillory or whatever out of his mind.
    He did the pensive gazing into the river thing for a few moments.
    ‘I can try,’ he said.
    ‘I’m serious. If you drink, no deal.’
    ‘You’re a tough negotiator.’
    ‘You haven’t heard the half of it yet.’
    ‘Oh, God.’
    While at the bar I’d ordered a cheddar ploughman’s for us to share – they were legendarily huge at the Trout – and this arrived with due efficiency.
    Joss buttered his roll and loaded it with cheese and pickle while I continued.
    ‘I spent a lot of time researching all this dominance and submission stuff last night,’ I said. ‘Some of it looked easy, some of it looked terrifying. It’s not something to enter into lightly.’
    ‘No,’ said Joss, swallowing his first bite. ‘I know that. I’m not suggesting that we throw ourselves straight on to the scene. I’d ease you into it – take it slowly.’
    ‘So it would be a while before I got my story?’
    ‘Some journalists spend years setting up their victims.’
    I humphed at ‘victims’, but he was right.
    ‘I’d aim to be on our enigmatic friend’s guest list by Christmas,’ he said.
    ‘Christmas?’
    ‘’Tis the season to be kinky,’ said Joss with that crooked, wolfish smile I remembered so well. Well enough for it to have its traditional effect between my legs.
    ‘OK. A few months isn’t so long, I suppose.’
    ‘I’ll verse you in our ways. I’ll show you how it’s done,’ he said, his voice soaked in seduction.
    ‘I know how it’s done,’ I said, but my bolshy confidence was leaking out of me with every softly spoken word.
    ‘You’ve seen pictures. You’ve read accounts. That’s no preparation at all,’ he said. ‘You need to feel it – to know what it does to your head. There’s nothing like it, Lulu – the rush, the intensity of it.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    I halved a pickled onion, thinking what an odd conversation this was to be having over a ploughman’s on a sunny day by the river.
    ‘What do you mean, how do I know?’ My question seemed to have thrown him.
    ‘You’ve been a submissive? You know how that feels?’
    ‘No. Obviously I’m talking about it from my side. The dominant side.’
    ‘All right, then that leads us to another of my conditions.’ I crunched on