Everyone in my house is still asleep when I leave. I reach the studio just as the 6 a.m. news headlines begin on the radio. My London-based contractors should be here soon, and I like to be here before they arrive to discuss progress. Brandon tells me I’m micromanaging, but he’s oblivious to the truth that if I don’t control every single aspect of this renovation, there will be no studio. Even with the extra loan I’ve secured, we arethisclose to running out of money. If there are no hiccups, the opening date I’ve set is for the first week of June. My family is counting on me to get this right.
I sit cross-legged on the floor of what will be the larger of the two studios and torture myself about how I’ve financed the studio to date. It’s like a hangnail I can’t stop myself from pulling. I gave up my video work as soon as I discovered I was pregnant with Ingrid and Rupert. Little did we know that, soon after, a recession would hit the country – and Brandon and me – like a slap to the face.
Escalating mortgage and interest rates meant we struggled soon after the kids were born. My full pay was about to reduce to statutory maternity leave within weeks if I didn’t return to work. And many of Brandon’s now cash-strapped personal-training clients viewed him asan expendable luxury and cancelled him. He was making much less money than me, but he had an idea of how he might make more.
‘Join OnlyFans,’ he said. ‘Start taking requests and make more films, only this time, step it up and involve me.’
‘You mean humiliate you on camera? Very funny, you almost had me for a minute.’
‘Why not?’ he pressed.
‘Oh, you’re being serious, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. What’s stopping us?’
‘A hundred different reasons! Like you’re my partner not my client, like I don’t want to humiliate you, and because we have two young children.’
‘And they’re the reason we should seriously consider it. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And what about the future? Your dream to one day leave London, retrain as a yogi and start your own wellness centre?’
‘Yes, but that’s a dream, not a reality.’
‘But it doesn’t have to be. We can change that. Look, you take the lead on most of what we do in the bedroom anyway, so it won’t be that much different being told what to do in front of the lens.’
He was right, I’d taken on a more dominant role, which was another reason why I knew Brandon and I were so well matched, because we’d clicked instantly in the bedroom. Occasionally he’d ask me to tie his wrists to the headboard, pull his hair or maybe give him a light slap around the face or bum. We’d also use my sex toys just as frequently on him as we would me. But we were hardly inFifty Shadesterritory, and I was unsure if I wanted to share our intimacy with the world.
‘There’s a big difference between telling a stranger he’s a worthless piece of shit and hurling abuse at the father of my children,’ I insisted. ‘You’ve seen some of the weird and explicit requests I used to get. How far would you be willing to go?’
‘I’ll represent your subscribers in videos, within reason,’ he replied. ‘Have them send you suggestions. That’s why most men watch porn, isn’t it? They get off by pretending it’s them on-screen with a beautiful woman.’
The following weekend, and with the twins staying the night with Brandon’s sister, we made our first video together, both of our identities hidden behind masks. We drew the line at having full sex on camera. That was going to be kept strictly between ourselves. And each time I felt guilty for what we were doing, I’d remind myself it was for the greater good. For our family’s future.
Within a fortnight, subscriber numbers were double those I’d had on my previous website. And so were our earnings. Soon after, following taxes and fees, we were making enough to pay for our mortgage and childcare and were able to save some too. We kept our content fresh by using different locations, and of course we told no one about our extra money-making venture. But opening my own wellness centre was always at the forefront of my mind. So in what little spare time I had, I began a part-time twelve-month yogi course. Two hundred hours of hard work later, I earned my Level 4 Diploma in teaching yoga.
Meanwhile, on returning to the bank, I was soon promoted to a personal assistant role. The money doubled, I became more involved with the bank, I supported the chief executive officers, I was recognised by clients and was a key face at industry events. Sometimes at functions I’d catch myself chatting to a random billionaire financier and wondering what he might think if he knew how else I earned a living.
But when I crunched the figures, I realised there was still a huge shortfall in what we needed to make our dreams a reality.
Brandon was right. Desperate times did call for desperate measures. And I was going to stop at nothing to get what I wanted.
Chapter 25
Margot
Oh fuck! The bloody cat!I forgot all about it. I wake up with a start at just past 9 a.m. realising that thing has been locked in the garage for the best part of three days. I was going to let it out after a few hours, but I’m easily distracted sometimes and it slipped my mind.
I’m still in my pyjamas when I hurry downstairs from the bedroom and slip into the garage through the side door.
‘Cat Face?’ I whisper in the most pleasantly apologetic voice I can muster, while realising how stupid I must sound. ‘Are you there? I’m really sorry.’ I turn on the lights, expecting her to be feral by now, either hissing or rushing past me at breakneck speed, desperate to escape. But neither happens.
‘Cat Face?’ I repeat, a little louder.
Again, there’s nothing.
Ours is a large double garage, but most of the space is taken up with boxes of crap and gardening detritus. It’s then I see it, a small pile of vomit on the floor by the Peloton. I cup my hand over my mouth and nose and take a closer look. There’s a chunk of something blue in it. It’s the poisoned bait we put in here and up in the attic for the mice. Cat Face must have eaten it. So where thehell is she now? I look everywhere but there’s no trace of her. I do, however, find her blue collar and tag on a shelf.
I can only assume Nicu must have found her and disposed of her body. It was him who scattered the bait about, so he must’ve thought he’d killed her, felt guilty about it and decided to keep it to himself.
In any event: RIP Cat Face. The kids will be devastated.
