was when her blog switched from first to third person. The significance of it wasn’t lost on me. It meant it was serious. Sometimes I could imagine that J was writing it himself. It pulled me in deeper at the same time as it distanced me from her. Gone was the breathless intimacy of her virtual voice in my ear. Now I read about a fully-fledged submissive, giving all agency – even down to the pronoun she used – to her master.
I lived that deviant education by her side. I was there for her first spanking, the first time he tied her up, the first time she put on latex. All those firsts, and I had yet to break my duck.
And now, six months later, she was about to obey J’s command that she take her place at an exclusive ‘training school’ for submissives and the blog had disappeared!
I typed in the address again, hoping for a resurrection, but those foreboding words filled the screen once more.
I had to face it. Mia Culpa was no more.
Of course, I couldn’t just leave it like that.
Over the course of the next two hours, I clicked around between her online friends. A good many of them had posted updates about her sudden disappearance, but not one seemed to be in real-life contact with her. ‘Mia is M.I.A.’ was the upshot, with dozens of commenters lamenting her loss, but none having any news of her.
Many expressed fears for her safety. Did anyone know anything about this Academy? Where was it? Had anyone been there?
Everybody had drawn a blank.
I, at least, had a little bit of knowledge they didn’t, though, because it had become clear to me, over the course of time, that Mia lived in the same city as me – or at least somewhere near it.
I worked it out from little details about local bars and restaurants, or beauty spots, or shops, or even the weather. The bar where she met J – the one with the leather-topped stools – was Rum & Rose Petals. The restaurant where he made her touch herself under the table was Wystan Place. She’d had sex bent over the bonnet of his car at the viewing point on Golbury Hill.
Wherever Mia was, she was likely to be somewhere within a few miles of me.
The thought took me over to the window.
Was The Academy near here too? If she didn’t have to pack a passport, at least it had to be in this country. In fact, if I remembered correctly, J had mentioned that she’d be surprised how close to home it was.
My flat overlooked a church, and as I watched people mill about the porch, I wondered if any of them had been to The Academy. Or knew someone who had. Or had the kind of skills they taught.
Conjecture was useless.
I switched off the computer, got dressed and went to meet Tilda at the Arts Shed for our pre-arranged lunch and film date. Mia had decided, for her own reasons, to pull the plug on her blog. She was entitled to do so. And that was all there was to it.
Of course, my overdeveloped sense of intrigue was never going to let me leave it at that.
When I wasn’t working, or messing about with my fellow subeditors, or trying to avoid Tom Crowley, the disappearance of Mia Culpa impinged on my thoughts with relentless force. I looked at her blog site every evening, and every evening the message was the same. The conspiracy theories on her friends’ blogs blossomed and multiplied, with one poster even suggesting she might have been murdered.
It was possible. Anything was possible.
The prospect of never finding out was too maddening. I knew I had to step away, for the sake of my sanity, but how could I? Especially when I might be in a position – geographically speaking – to investigate.
On a Thursday night, four days after the disappearance, I went back over all her old blog posts, right from the beginning, raking through them for clues.
What a bittersweet blast of nostalgia it provided. Her first post, back in May, reminded me of those times. Up to my eyes in books, preparing for my university Finals. My desk had been littered with Pro-Plus and cue cards. I’d been browsing shops for a dress to wear to the June Ball, drawing a blank until I fetched up at an independent boutique that sold gothic and alternative gowns for special occasions. I gorged on the dark jewel-coloured silks and delicate laces, the corsets and ribbons and daring décolletages and giant black corsages. Then I noticed that they had an underwear section and I clicked straight away. I’d always been a sucker for posh knickers.
A feast of frills and tight lacing met my gaze. When I was earning, I’d come back and buy that bustier, and those cami-knickers, and that suspender belt. I already had fishnet stockings galore, but they were cheapies from the alternative market. I wanted some of these, finespun as cobwebs. They would feel like angels’ breath on my legs. And as for the matching knickers…
But for the time being I had no money and no time to get a job until after the exams. I would have to dream on. All the same, I was tempted to Google the underwear brand to see if anything came up on eBay. It didn’t, but something else did.
Hi, my name’s Mia and I want you all to know that I bought a pair of knickers to die for today.
I want you all to think of me, and picture me wearing them.
Before you can do that, I’ll introduce myself. I’m a twenty-one-year-old student, living in a medium-sized English city, doing all the ordinary student things like studying and going to bars and gigs and clubs with my friends. But there is something my friends don’t know about me. Nobody knows it, and you are going to be the first to hear it.
I’m kinky.
There. It’s out in the open now, although none of you knows me and it feels a little strange to have revealed this dark secret part of myself to anyone and everyone who might click this way.
Of course, with you being the first to know, you’ll guess straightaway that I’ve never explored this side of myself with anyone else. I’ve written stories, hidden deep in password-protected folders, and I’ve drawn pictures that I’ve ripped straight up and thrown in the bin. But I’ve never spoken of it, never bought anything relating to it and certainly never given my vanilla ex-boyfriend any kind of clue that I might want something different.
But you and I are going to find out what it’s all about. I can’t wait, can you?
But first – the knickers.
I finally decided, after weeks of shilly-shallying, to order something from a clothing website I’ve been obsessed with lately. They sell the most beautiful, most shocking, most scandalous underwear and I covet it all, but I’ve never dared buy any for myself.
Until last week, after finishing the bottle of wine that was left in the fridge from a house dinner party. The Dutch courage chose me a pair of the most exquisite little barely-there panties – a scrap of flimsy lace, held together with satin ribbon. They’re a little like boyshorts and a little like French knickers. When I put them on, they don’t quite cover my bum cheeks, and you can see everything through the filmy patterns of grey-black lace. You can see where I’ve shaved myself especially for you – something I’ve never done before, and the Ladyshave was shaking in my hand. Next time I’ll try wax. So I’m bare and smooth
